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| Tomatoes I grew in my driveway in MA! |
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| Gorgeous sunset overlooking White Bay, Jost Van Dyke. |
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| Hobiecat sailors on Jost Van Dyke. |
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| More tomatoes I grew! |
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| Cukes, too! |
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| Eggplant, as well! (God I miss those gorgeous countertops!) |
Why are we so hell bent on separating people from people?
What the hell is color anyway? It's all perception.
What I call purple, some call blue. What I call green some call blue or turquoise.
It's all in the label that we give things.
Why do we so desperately feel the need to label things, anyway?
Can't we just go about our business and just BE?
I'm really really really fed up with the overwhelming desire to judge people based on something you probably don't even understand.
Take, for instance, my friends who have transitioned from male to female.
This was not just some rash decision that someone makes and goes about lightly. This is a painful and very complicated decision and process. My one friend - who is now Tiffany - when I first met Tiff, he was a burly biker dude. Hairy and very very manly. And very very sweet. I loved him from the first time I met him.
Over the many years I knew him as a he, it was clear that his appearance didn't match the way he felt inside. He thought, at one point, that he might be gay, but that didn't work either.
After a lot of soul searching, counseling and meeting with doctors, he came to the obvious conclusion that he had been born with external physical identifiers that did not jibe with the internal feelings and desires of a female.
It took a LONG time for him to become Tiffany. Painful electrolysis, hormone therapy, psychological counseling, lots of mean people making ignorant comments during the transition.
Tiffany is now a Mom (she adopted several kids), has an incredible job and is just an all around wonderful human.
When I hear people make fun of people they don't understand or have biases against someone because of the way they dress or what color they are or whatever? It makes my blood boil.
There have been some very cruel things said about Bruce Jenner and the gawking that people are doing during his transition to female. The big show the other night - I refuse to watch such things. He's obviously going through a very big thing in his life and I just wish that people would stop with the ugly jokes and ignorant commentary.
I do not purport to know what Bruce Jenner is going through. But I do know what my friend Tiffany went through and I have two other young friends who identify as female and - to me - it was obvious all along that these "boys" were just basically born with the wrong external body parts. They were always "girls" but through the process of genetics got the X and Y chromosomes when, in fact, internally they are CLEARLY XX.
Something you hear people who have dogs say a lot is that we learn so much from our dogs. They are totally present - they know how to anticipate a good time or a good meal, but mostly they are right there with ya just as life is happening.
They don't care what you're wearing or not wearing, they don't care how you look or what color you are. Most of the time they don't care what gender you are or if you're gay or whatever you may or may not be.
They just care how you treat them and even then, some dogs take terrible abuse and still can muster a wag when they're treated kindly for two minutes.
Kids - same thing for the most part. If you treat them fairly and kindly, they become fair and kind adults (for the most part - there are those sociopath crazy people who need extra special help).
But, blanket statement - if you're good to others, for the MOST part, they will return the favor.
There are nasty people out there for sure, but I really do think that the nastiness comes from either mental illness or being really mistreated somewhere along the way by someone who was supposed to protect and love them.
So, to go on with my theme of Polly Purebread sweetness - I'm just begging people to be nice to each other. You really have no idea what someone else's journey feels like.
Just yesterday I was in the library voting for the mayoral runoff election (Go Berkowicz!) and there was a woman there with a sign on her that said "Sin is Same Sex."
Really? Just how the f*ck do you know?
Most of my friends are gay, bi, lesbian, trans or something else other than "straight" - and I love that term "straight" as most of the heterosexual humans I know are FAR more weird about the boudoir than any other subdivision of people.
You think it's normal that that guy literally sews her hands together and she is getting off on it? Holy schneikies. That, my friends, is some WEIRD stuff. Yeesh.
I know that I appear a certain way to most people. I was blessed with a strong body, pretty face and a generally optimistic attitude. I'm smart, well-traveled, educated and look white white white. What people DON'T realize is that my Momma is married to a black man, that I'm half German and also Italian, English, Irish and who know's what other stuff is in my genetics!
They don't know that my Momma marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and that I was brought up for the first 6 years of my life on the "wrong" side of town in a highly racially divided city. Most of my friends were "black" and I put that in quotes because I didn't see them as any different - they were just my friends.
I lived in an integrated neighborhood and went to an integrated school for kindergarten and half of first grade. I didn't know it was integrated, it was just my school!
Then my Dad got a big opportunity to work for one of the most popular radio stations in the lower peninsula of Michigan, so we moved on up to Traverse City. A lovely lovely city, but OOOOOHHHH so not diverse!! I remember thinking how weird it was that nearly everyone in the whole town was white.
As I've aged I really do take notice of the diversity around me and I relish it. I love that I can walk into a place here in Anchorage and hear any language you can imagine, eat any ethnic food, and see people of all colors married to each other. It's such a transitional place and we're so close to Europe (just hop over the North Pole!), Russia and Asia - it's truly fascinating.
I once asked a person I was related to at the time (ex-husband numero uno) "How would you know who to hate if you were blind?"
She didn't like that too much.
Something that bigots and other sundry assh*les need to keep in mind is that during an emergency or disaster, would you turn down the aid of someone because they weren't the "right" color?
I think not.
Likewise, when there is someone in need who doesn't necessarily look like you, do you just turn your back?
Probably.
That's all I gots for today.
Ciao for now & thanks for reading.
xoxo
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| My Lady and Koty. They certainly look different from each other but they had SO much love for each other. |
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| And these two looked alike and he just tolerated her. She was a bug, but a sweet one! My Sadie and Koty. |
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| My Beebles. I love my little red girl! She's a ball of energy and joy, |
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