Beth's Contradictory Brain

Last Day of the Year

All I can say is thank God this year is coming to an end! I've tried to concentrate on the positive stuff that's happened. But between the good things that didn't happen I was really hoping for - a baby and a house, there was just too much bad stuff for my taste. So of course this year is leaving with a couple more hassles for us. I'm trying not to think too much about how Nerdstar's boss is a complete bastard for not letting her take the days off and that she should be here with me. But while she is back at home her truck is having problems. Looks like it's the transmission. Damn. So she's going to get it mostly fixed and trade it in. What a pain in the ass. Funny thing is this is a trend for her. Every Christmas season, or close, she's had major trouble with her car. Two years ago she got hit by a garbage truck and had to get the truck. Last Christmas, the day we were supposed to drive to Dallas to see my parents, all of the oil leaked out because the oil change place messed up. Thankfully they knew it was their mistake and put a new engine in it. Now it's the transmission! I'm just glad it wasn't another more serious car wreck!!

So, 2002 can now bite my ass and say goodbye!! Here's to 2003 being much nicer to us all!!

Vacation

Howdy from "sunny" California, except it's cold and rainy here in Sacramento. That's fine with me though, so much better than hot and sunny!

It seems like forever since I've written anything. Friday when we got home late from dinner the stray dog was not to be found. I'm not convinced she could or would jump over the fence, so I kinda think someone thought she was too loud while we weren't home and let her out. Jerks. So Saturday we were both kinda sad. We went to a really late dinner Saturday night, then were sitting in the car listening to a weird radio show and the stray dog came right up to our fence gate and front door! We let her back in, took her out back and she ate a little and played with Ramen.

We'd had a vet. appointment for her Saturday, but she got lucky and missed that. I'm not sure when Nerdstar is going to be able to schedule another. She says she's not really eating very much, and she's still very very skinny.

Sunday morning I had a 7 am flight out UGH!! At least it was very quiet on the flight because everyone was sleeping. I had a short layover in Vegas. That's really just cruel to give someone a 45 minute layover in Vegas! I was very very tempted to just stay!

It's been nice and relaxing so far here in Sacramento. My friend lives two blocks from the governor's mansion in the old/tourist part of town. Very nice! Her apartment building used to be a hotel. Way cool. Yesterday we walked around for about three hours and I thought I was going to die! Thirty minutes of walking is usually my limit. She had to work today, so I got to sleep a lot and grab some lunch and some chocolates! Tonight we went to see The Two Towers - very very cool! I knew it would be a harder one to make and to watch because events don't really get resolved until the third book.

That's about it for me, I guess boring you is better than not writing!

taxes and gay marriage

I was trying to decide whether to sell some stocks I'm losing money on and use the loses against my taxes. So, I go to the IRS site, print up the tax form, the tax rates and all that good stuff. I get to looking at tax rates, fortunately this year I'm still poor so I'm only at 15%. Then, I look at the specific taxes owed for income levels for single, married, etc. This is where I got pissed. Nerdstar and I have shared a house and bills and everything else a married couple shares for almost four years now. (How long does the average marriage last??) Yet, combined we'll pay $600 more in taxes than a married couple just because it's illegal for us to get married. That's just bullshit!

The answer on the stocks was it would only be a $45 dollar difference in my tax return, so it's not worth the bother of selling. I'll just keep them and hope that in ten or so years they'll go back up!

Post Christmas Sigh

I never really got into the "Christmas spirit" this year it seems. I think it all just felt too rushed. We didn't get to my parents' house until 7 pm Christmas Eve, and then had to drive back to Austin last night because we're both working today.

It was a good Christmas though. Zachary isn't old enough to understand any of it, but he sure was good at unwrapping presents. He didn't get a lot of new toys, but he really liked the ones he got. He got the cutest clothes and a bunch of books. For me it was a dvd Christmas - now I'm just wishing we'd have a couple of days of icy roads to stay home and watch them all. Guess I'm in the wrong part of the country for that.

Being back at work this morning, with only about six people here, I've already heard three stories of bad news. One of my coworker's fifteen year old dogs died this morning. One coworker's mother is becoming more seriously ill by the day, after a year of health problems And one coworker has a malignant tumor in her breast.

It's been the kind of year I'm so very tempted to say wasn't any good. But that's not entirely accurate. And I try to keep in mind that it could always be so much worse. I know those of us who are healthy tend to take for granted just how that one thing is such a big blessing. Life isn't about who's got it the best or who's got it the worst, but I do know it helps to keep in mind the good stuff.

We still have the stray dog. We had left her in the little back yard with food and water hoping she wouldn't escape while we were gone. When we drove up to the duplex last night our neighbor brought her to us. He thought we had left our dog out in the cold without food and water. We explained she was a stray we were trying to help and had left a lot of food, she's just eating as fast as we can feed her. Her and Ramen mostly get along, but they're still doing the territorial fighting. We were going to leave her outside last night, but at midnight they got to barking so we put her back in the bathroom. She was quiet as a mouse all night after that.

It's so hard to know what to do with her. We can't keep her. I'm not sure she's going to be calm enough to give to Nerdstar's grandparents. I hate to take her to the shelter because there's always the chance she'll be put to sleep. I just don't know if we can keep her as long as it would take to find her a home, but I can't just let her back on the streets either. UGH.

So here's a big after Christmas sigh to let it all go.

Strange Day

That the weather started off raining, then went to over 70 and sunshine, then ended up about 45 and raining (crossing fingers there's no severe weather!) is perfectly suited to the strangeness of today.

I took little Zach up to my work to show him off. He walked right up to everyone in their office and sat in their lap to play with their keyboards. Nothing shy about him! I'd ask him to hold my hand while we walked around and he always just put his little hand up in the air for me to hold. Everyone tried to give him stuff, he got out with a little stuffed Santa with a helium balloon tied to it and a slinky. When the Santa is on the floor, the balloon is the same height as his head so he likes to headbutt it - way cute. I remember when I was little I had a huge inflated clown that you could punch and it would right itself - guess I'll have to see if they still make those.

Then we went to see Nerdstar at her work and we all went to lunch.

He fell asleep on the way home from lunch, so nap time was easy.

While he was sleeping I was making sure I could open the trunk of my car. It's currently missing the locking system because it was broken. The key and lock guy was kind enough to show me how to open it with a screw driver (as I'm sure every good thief already knows!). There was a stray dog out that I'd seen earlier today. I stood still and she came right up to me. She is skinny as hell. We have a very small fenced in yard so I showed her back there and she walked right in. I set out a big bowl of food and some water. After a while I went to check on her and Ramen went out there with me. It was quite the hump fest, each alternating who was on top.

We tried putting Ramen's huge crate outside for her because the weather turned so bad, but she was too scared to go in there.

So, at 8:30 tonight, I have little cornish hens in the oven, Nerdstar and Zach finished wrapping Christmas presents, and there's a stray dog in my bathroom not making a sound. I'm just hoping she doesn't poop all over the place overnight. She seems really sweet and friendly but a bit scared. After Christmas we'll put up some "found signs" and such. If no one claims her we'll try to find her a home, or maybe give her to Nerdstar's grandparents. They really liked Ramen and we always think it'd be good for them to have a pet.

Tomorrow we load everything in the car and drive to Dallas to my parents' as soon as Nerdstar can get out of work.

I hope you all are safe and happy this Christmas! I'll be back to work and back to blogging Thursday.

Fun with the kid

Yes, Zachary and I did the road trippin thing Saturday and made it back to Austin safe and sound. We even had about a minute of sing along. He's such a good kid it amazes me. He slept about an hour of the three hour drive, other than that he just kinda hung out. We took him to dinner last night, our waiter carried him all over the small restuarant and Zach was waving at everyone. Normally he won't go to sleep unless he's in his bed. He won't snuggle with his parents or grandparents and fall asleep in their beds. But last night he didn't want in his bed, he wanted to snuggle with Nerdstar and in about ten minutes he fell asleep with her. :-) Today we fed him his cereal and then went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast; he wouldn't even try a donut. Then we took him to the mall to get his picture with Santa. That only took about twenty minutes and thankfully he wasn't scared of Santa. He loves all the Christmas lights and decorations! After the mall, we came by and got Ramen and took them to the dog park. Zach ran around all over the park chasing the dogs and someone was nice and let him throw one of the dog's balls and run and pick it up.

After all that he's now sleeping soundly for his nap! That's the key to babysitting kids - wear them out completely!!

It's nice unwinding from work for a few days, not having anything to do really. Thank God I finished all my Christmas shopping (there wasn't much) early! The mall wasn't too bad today, but more than I'd want to deal with.

Now it's time to bathe the dog and rest up a little before dinner. This is my life, and for now it's good enough!

Happy Friday!

I haven't written about the Trent Lott mess because, well, I don't care much and many other bloggers have said many things better than I could. As always, I think Peggy Noonan has the best look at the whole thing.

I'm so happy it's Friday! I have a ton of work to get thru today. We have a "holiday potluck lunch" today, I'm not too excited about it. In the past we've gone to a fairly nice restaurant about 1 and then taken the rest of the day off. I'm not sure if we're out of here early today or not. I don't think it matters, I'm off at 4 either way, and probably need until then to get everything done that I want to. Self imposed deadlines can be a bitch!

Then I'm off to Dallas to see my parents and pick up my nephew. I'll bring him back to Austin with me tomorrow. Nerdstar and I can't wait to have him here for a few days!!

Because he made me laugh

Lilkes is fantastic today as always! While others are humming carols, trimming trees and picking out gifts for the people they love, Mr. and Mrs. Williams have taken all their Christmas gift money this year -- $1,200 -- and spent it on the attack ad.

(Red and green are Christmas colors. Black and red are the colors of a goth who had an accident slicing a bagel.)

snip

Mrs. Williams admits it can be tough to explain her socio-political point of view to the children of friends.

(It’s tougher to be one of her friends, discover her explaining her socio-political point of view to your children, and fight the impulse to strike her in the head with a six-pound trout.)

go read the whole thing!

kuddos to SBC

I forgot to tell the good news though! Nerdstar called SBC Monday afternoon to start local phone service thru them. They said it would be working by 6 pm today - but it was already working when we got home from work yesterday! YEAH SBC!!

more bad luck

Nerdstar and I have been planning a trip out to Sacremento the week of New Years for about two months now. We have plane tickets and are going to stay with a friend of ours. We both really need to get away, relax, eat some good food, be tourists, and go gambling!!

Unfortunately, despite Nerdstar telling her boss of these plans weeks ago, last week he told her she couldn't have the time off. She's gotten into two arguments about it with him and he's not changing his mind. Yesterday he told her if she took the time off he'd terminate her. Her company has some strange days off policies. They're given five days when they start working there, and then can earn a day every month and a half or so. Unfortunately she used her days off going for job interviews with NSA and DEA. She also had those three weeks of military service. Her boss is saying she's taken too much time. But in the year she's been there she's never called in sick or taken any vacation time. I think he's just being an asshole about the whole thing.

She's going to try talking to HR and has emailed her boss's boss, but I'm not too optimistic. I figure they'll tell her it's his decision to make.

It's bad enough she only has Christmas day off next week, but to fuck up our vacation plans is just evil.

At this point I'm pretty much thinking I'll go ahead and go without her. I haven't had any time off in quite a while and need the break. I'd also be miserable and pissy if I stayed home.

Keep your fingers crossed something works out!!

Boring

At my workplace different people/teams do pretty different tasks. This means that while some people are busting their ass and working over time, others are surfing the internet and chatting all day. Then in two or three months it switches to the other group being busy.

I kinda fall into a group all by myself because I was assigned a hodgepodge of tasks other people used to do and it all got consolidated down to me. I think I've said this is the busy time for me. After each test session score reports go out along with pages of student data that needs to be corrected so the scores can be assigned to the right student. You'd be amazed the number of ways the student/district can screw up the simple part of filling in the name, birthdate etc. on an answer document.

In some ways it's nice that the work i'm doing is on all these pieces of paper - so i can see actual progress - less pages in this stack = work done. but it also means i have all these different piles of things in different stages of "done" and I hate that it looks all cluttered. One of the reasons I get it all done so fast is that I like things to be finished.

So, that's my boring work life for now.

You've got to be kidding

The AT&T technician never showed up this morning. I called right at noon stating he hadn't been there. I think from the comments on the other end they never even scheduled him. BASTARDS!! So naturally I tell them to cancel this account and that I expect to not be billed because I never had service with them. They say there's a $40 charge for the technician coming out and installing service. I inform them once more it was the wrong address. We go back and forth. They over to transfer me to the escalation team, I told her sure, since they did such a great job of fucking it up last time. She said it was illegal for me to speak to her that way, I told her it was illegal to charge for service I never received. At that point she tranferred me to someone else who give me the same song and dance, I ask for her boss, she finally puts me thru to voicemail.

Can you say Better Business Bureau?? I knew you could!!

We now have a call in to SBC to have service with them again.

Monday Morning

Another Monday morning. I feel pretty good though, it was a nice relaxing weekend and I got lots of sleep. Friday night I think we just went to Luby's and watched some tv. Nerdstar had reserve drill this weekend so I had some time to run errands and lounge around. Saturday I pretty much finished buying the last couple of Christmas presents and got everything wrapped.

Saturday night we went to the old apt. and picked up our grill and then went to Central Market to buy groceries. We really need to try to eat at home instead of eating out all the time. I noticed when we got the grill out of the garage that my front tire was getting low on my motorcycle.

Yesterday I went and put air in the motorcycle tire. It was about 60 out, sunny with a cool breeze - actually very nice for riding. I'd love to have a Honda Goldwing or something and really tour around the states, but, I can't lift one off the kickstand to even ride it.

We went to see Frida - it was good. What a crazy life.

Then we came home and grilled some steaks, listened to Dave Matthews "Crash" cd and went to bed early.

This is going to be another busy week at work for me, but it makes the time go faster!

Maybe

Ok, so maybe there is someone out there with worse luck than mine.

AT&T Sucks

I should know better than to try to switch companies for basic services. Several months ago when I tried to switch to Wells Fargo it was a complete disaster. But, AT&T had this wonderful offer for local service in my long distance bill and I thought, what the hell, let's give it a try. So, I switched from SBC who had never caused me any grief, to AT&T. The switch went smoothly enough, but getting the phone moved to the new place has been a complete nightmare!

First they had the duplex unit # wrong. Easy enough mistake to make - and should have been easy enough to fix. So Tuesday when we saw that was the problem, the lady was very nice and said she'd wait a day to send out the tech man to make sure the address was right before he showed up.

Yesterday the tech man called me at work to let me know he was on his way and I went to meet him, this was at 12:15. An hour later when he hadn't shown up I realized he probably had the wrong address still. I tried watching out the window so I could get him to the right place. Then at 1:30 I tried calling the repair # and let them know he'd gone to the wrong place - they said, oh no, it doesn't show that he went and no one was home so just wait. So of course, I waited. Then at 4 I went over to the other address and sure enough, there was a note saying they had come by for repair and to call and reschedule. UGH!! I called AT&T and explained the whole thing again, and after three transfers and 45 minutes on hold the best they could do was assure me the address was now correct and schedule a tech to come out Monday morning. Bastards!! I told them I was not going to sit around and wait all morning, the tech man had better call and let me know when he's on his way and I"ll meet him there.

I hate conglomerates. I mean, if telling a company you will no longer do business with them holds no meaning for them - how can you ever have any leverage with a company? And that's just not right.

So, I won't have internet access over the weekend. That's what really sucks!! I mean, sure, I have plenty to do - shopping, unpacking books, movies, but it's just not the same without the internet!

Great Morning

You know something is weird when your pets wake you up at 3 am, and then at 4 am you decide you might as well watch some tv while you're awake, and then proceed to watch a foreign film, The Lost Son, until 5:30 when you crawl back into bed for an hour nap before having to get ready for work. Um yeah. Nope, I'm not tired at all this morning, nope, can't wait to go home and wait for the phone man so I can take a nap.

Then, on my nice, short drive to work, in the heavy fog, I hear the traffic reporter say, "I-35 southbound is closed due to a wreck involving three semis, but at least they've found a way to get the hogs out of that one truck."

Raining Fish

ATHENS -- A shower of tiny fish rained down on the village of Korona in the mountains of northern Greece late on Tuesday, Greek television reported on Wednesday, attributing the incident to a mini-tornado.

Villagers discovered the unexpected catch on the banks of Lake Doirani, which lies on the Greek border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, following a spell of rough weather, AFP reported.

According to a weather expert at the University of Salonica, in northern Greece, the fish were probably skimmed up from the surface of the lake by a mini-tornado formed during a thunderstorm -- a rare but not unknown phenomenon.

Thursday Hodge Podge

I'm feeling pretty boring the last couple of days, so I've been sparing you the non details.

Another random silly notion in my head: When I bought this ugly old '89 Buick to get me thru last winter it had just about 140K miles on it. For some reason I believe that this car only has X number of miles it will go before just completely falling about and not moving another inch. Because I don't know what X is, I try not to drive it more than I absolutely have to. I'm just very glad it's lasted this long, and hope it makes it thru this winter.

I'd say we're 85% unpacked and it's starting to look and feel more like a home. Today I've got to be home between 1 and 5 because AT&T can't seem to get the phone working. Part of the problem was they had the wrong unit # for our duplex. Maybe I'll get a start on the fifteen boxes of books in the living room that need to find their little homes on the bookshelves.

My comment on cussing led to some great comments over on Acidman's site - just don't spit your coffee all over your screen when you read them!

I guess part of me trying to be polite and non-offensive with this little site is that I know I don't have hundreds of readers, but I have a feeling the ones who do read along are fairly diverse and I don't want to make any one set mad. Besides, it's nice practice for me to play nice! You should hear me rant and rave at the television.

A Must Read

Wrestling With Islam is a fascinating lecture given about Islam and Christianity, discussing their pasts and comparing the two. It's fairly informal - not tough reading - yet very enlightening. I read some similar thoughts a few months ago in an article about the future of the Christian church worldwide. This is definitely a case where I pray for the best, and yet believe we have to prepare for the worst.

You might not know

Something you might not know from reading along is that I cuss like a sailor way too often. For some reason I try not to here in my blog. Maybe I think it seems impolite to cuss here.

Something else is that I can be quite a demanding bitch with Nerdstar. I try not to be, but I just can't help it. Especially when I'm tired and cranky from moving, and stressing over the paying two rents, and trying to make plans for getting everything done and for the holidays, and she just isn't always very helpful or very good at even communicating schedules and possibilities and wishes and anything else. Sigh.

Oh well, at least I'm good at apologizing and explaining why I'm such a bitch and trying to work out solutions.

Almost all moved in

I guess it's a good thing when I get to work on a Monday morning and it feels like a week since I've been here.

Friday night was all about trying to finish up packing. We got about 85% done. Got to bed before 1 am. Saturday we had to get up about 8 and pack some more stuff - mostly dishes. The movers showed up about 10:30 and had everything in the new place by 12:30. I had just enough time to set up the tv, dvd, stereo, vcr stuff before the cable guy showed up! A friend of Nerdstar's came by to help out for a little while and set the computer up for us. So by Saturday night we had entertainment, a bed, and the computer! Unfortunately, the telephone lines aren't working yet, so no internet access. (Yes, we're cheap and still on dial up!)

Saturday evening we went to Cheesecake factory and that made us happy! They haven't even done any advertising in the two or three weeks they've been open and it was a full house! Thankfully it was only about a ten minute wait. mmmmmmm cheesecake - actually we were too full so we took the cheesecakes home and had them for breakfast yesterday. I had enough left that I just had it for breakfast this morning.

Yesterday we had to get up about 8:30 and drive to Dallas to have lunch with my family and pick up Ramen. I think he's glad to be back with us, although it has to be weird since it's a different place. It rained all day yesterday and is still raining. I only wish we had some firewood for the fireplace. Guess we'll pick some up this weekend.

The new place is very very quiet and I love that. It's a little bigger and the pets have their own bedroom - not that they'll use it! There's a window about four feet up on the wall by the bed, so Little Man likes to jump off the window sill onto the bed in the middle of the night while we're sleeping. Nice.

It was also a shorter drive to work for both of us this morning.

We've still got the artwork and about one big box full of random stuff to pack and bring to the new place, but that can wait until tomorrow when it's not raining. By Saturday at the latest we'll have everything in place.

Now it's time to really get into the whole Christmas thing - and then, even better, it's vacation time!! We're headed out to Sacramento for about six days over New Years, it's going to be a lot of much needed fun and relaxing!

Nice View

Wow, this struck me as really cool on this boring Friday afternoon. It's the view from the Sun.

Reading for you

So, since I might not be posting much until Sunday night or Monday morning, please go on over to The Light of Reason and do a bunch of reading. There are so many topics covered so very well.

He's got a great discussion of gay marriage - although most of the comments readers leave make me nauseous! Not being subject to it, I am usually forgetful of the amount of animosity and hate so many heterosexuals feel toward homosexuals. I'm a very live and let live kind of person, life is just much less stressful that way. So I simply can't understand why the hell straight people are so up in arms over gays wanting to marry. First of all, it wouldn't affect them one bit. And second, it would make gay relationships much more stable (I think) if marriage were sanctioned, and it would certainly make finances, kids, health care and everything else so much easier for gays. Again, without any cost to straights.

He's got an entry about the upcoming SCOTUS decision regarding Texas sodomy laws.

This entry about private collections of DNA samples is downright scary!

You get the picture - go read the site! It's a cold, cold weekend so you'll have plenty of time!

So much to do

As you know, this is a busy week for me. I've actually had work to do at work and then going home and packing (and watching a little tv) every night. We're getting closer to done packing, but I think tonight will be a long one. Fortunately, there's nothing good on tv tonight to distract us!

I'm very ready to be in a nice clean place and to have everything in place. The movers show up between 10 and noon tomorrow, then we'll spend a few hours unpacking. There's a brand new Cheesecake Factory in Austin and that's where we're headed tomorrow night - my mouth can't wait!!

Sunday we drive to Dallas to pick Ramen up from my parents' house and drive back.

Gay bars and chat rooms

Miss Fee has a nice little rant about her local gay bar. It got me to thinking about how I've never gotten into the bar scene, not in college, not in my long years of singleness. I'll go on occasion to people watch. Unfortunately, I am totally a white girl when it comes to dancing! Sometimes, I think it'd be fun to be one of those people who can let loose and let go of all their worries and cares on a dance floor, but I'm not. I was never convinced I'd meet a nice girl suitable for a long term relationship if I hung out in bars.

What I did spend a terrible amount of time in was chat rooms. And now I'm wondering if chat rooms really are just bars without the visuals. It seems to be a pretty valid comparison. You can find quickies and one night stands in a chat room (all verbal of course LOL). You can find something longer lasting if you try. People even pretend to be bartenders, djs, and such in chat rooms.

Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake and everyone else already knows chatrooms are the modern day bar.

Bleh

While pondering the whole Christmas scene stuff, and how some people think it needs to be more Christian, and others think it should be totally secular, I had a couple of thoughts of my own. (Imagine that) Some go on and on about how Christmas is just another stolen pagan holiday. So what? Here in America it's always been a Christian holiday. I think it should stay that way. But, if we're all going to insist that Christmas be less Christian, then I say Hanukkah should definitely be less Jewish!

In other news, I'm feeling slightly under the weather and Nerdstar isn't quite all better yet either. I took some Advil Cold and Sinus last night and it kept me wired until about four or five this morning. So, I slept in until 9:30 and came into work late. Thankfully I have a job where that's not a problem!

Back to the grind

Just another Monday at work. I actually have a project to work on, nothing brain draining, but something to do other than surf the net. I bought a cheesy lounge music Christmas cd. I can't believe it's only three weeks until Christmas!

We went at lunch today at got the keys to the duplex. It's going to be a week of packing. I did all the stuff in the bathroom drawers and medicine chest and under the sink last night. Tonight we're doing the closets - Goodwill will be our friend. I'm also going to at least box up all the books that are everywhere but the bookshelves and get them out of the way. Then I can finish packing the videos and dvds in the toy box.

Needless to say, I'll be very happy when it's bedtime Sunday night and we're in our new place and our dog is home and happy!

Now, did the Sopranos suck or what? I swear not only is the writing getting worse, the acting is too. I was really hoping Furio would push Tony into the helicopter, just to really shake things up! We'll see what they do for the big ending.

Ironically enough after my last couple of posts, I found this site today. It was nice to read the writings of a straight Christian woman who is trying very hard to understand gays and their lives and lifestyles and struggling with how Christianity deals with it all. It was a breath of fresh air.

What I Believe

So what is it I do believe? I believe in the God of the Bible, and in Jesus as the son of God and not just another prophet. But just that one sentence is filled with so many things that can be misunderstood, can trigger knee jerk reactions. I also believe there just might be no greater evil than organized religion. Evil being something that keeps people from truly knowing God. So what I've known I need is to get to a place spiritually where I know God for myself and not all the stuff my head has been filled with. I used to think I knew Him, that we talked and He loved me and my life was in His hands. But as I've said, those were also the years of some of my darkest depression. It seems like we're taught that God is love - until you're on His side. Then it all became pop christian psychology and a whole lot of being fixed (free from sin) so that you could be closer to God. It seemed God's love was only unconditional when you were a sinner, not once you became a Christian.

So I'm trying to find that God of grace and unconditional love and peace. Sad thing is I won't find Him in any church - not as long as I'm gay. (I'm not interested in gay churches, but that would be another post.)

And what I'm finding is that I'm scared to death of God. That the only thing I really have drilled into me is not grace but judgement. I'm scared He'll come in and make demands of me I can't meet - that His love won't be unconditional.

One of the themes in the Bible is God taking people thru deserts, stripping them down, isolating them, and then revealing Himself. Maybe that's the process I'm going thru. When I was closer to God I fancied myself somewhat prophetic, or at least I really really wanted to be. I want to be someone who can hear God speak, know His heart and mind. I've had longings to be the person who was able to help other people see God for who He really is.

I don't know. But wouldn't it be nice to have peace instead of anger?