Tag: pride

all about me, happenings, hmm interesting, is it just me?, mixed media

more tattoo, tetanus shot pain, and reflections on losing a loved one

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Getting tattooed tonight… not looking forward to the pain, but I am very anxious about getting it done; the design is so cute. I can’t wait. I am worried that it is going to hurt like nobody’s business because of the all over the body pain I have been experiencing since I got a tetanus shot on Monday.

They said that I would be a “little sore”, but it literally feels like someone stabbed me in the arm, and that my arms and legs are in a vice. I just feel extremely uncomfortable in my skin right now. I hope that the pain from that subsides, and I really hope that it doesn’t make the tattoo more painful (which it sometimes can).

Other than that, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot going on with me right now. I am pretty much in limbo zone, trying to get these vaccinations squared away for going back to school. I will be glad when it is finished, and I can find out about my acceptance and all that fun stuff. I have to admit that I am excited about going back to school, but there are two things that are worrying me; I am worried that I won’t do as well as I want to, and I am stressed about the amount of time it is going to take to finish my degree. I just wish I could dedicate 100% of my time to it and knock it out… but we work with what we have, right?

Finally, last night I was watching Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D-List, and it was a pretty sad episode, because her father died, and she was very distraught by his death. At the risk of coming across as somewhat heartless, I found that I couldn’t relate to what she was feeling; even though I felt bad for her, and as a result got upset myself. What most people would have probably felt during the episode would have been about how they would feel (or did feel) with regards to their own father’s death; but again, I didn’t relate. I had nothing. This is not to say that I wouldn’t be sad if my dad did die, but I just didn’t feel anything when the thought crossed my mind. Again, at the risk of coming across as heartless, I really don’t think that his death would affect me that much, mainly because of how distant my parents have become over the past several years. I talk with them maybe once every two months, and it is always me calling them for whatever reason (asking about when I had chicken pox for my vaccinations sheet was the most recent). The distance may or may not be a lack of caring, but at this point, I have stopped trying to fix it, and instead am learning to just deal with it. They are who they are, and if they wanted to be involved in our lives more, they would be.

See, here is where I am coming from: I had an 8 minute conversation with him on Father’s day, 75% of which I have heard every time I have talked to him on the phone in the past couple of years (they are coming to visit in the fall, he misses us, blah blah blah). Now, I am not saying that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, and that I don’t love my father, because there is nothing farther from the truth, but I honestly feel an empty place inside me where these deep feelings for him “should” be. Will that change? Probably not, because I know that he doesn’t “approve” of my “lifestyle”, and he and my mother keep their distance with expert skill. If things could be different, perhaps I would have identified more with Kathy, instead of simply feeling bad for her loss. Perhaps one day, I won’t feel that emptiness, and will fear the death of my own father, but for now, it isn’t something that particularly bothers me, especially because of his continued absence in my life. I remember being little and one of the things I worried about the most was losing my mother or my father, and as time has progressed, those fears have been hushed so significantly, that they simply aren’t there anymore. I have become numb to that fear, and I honestly couldn’t tell you if I would even feel anything at all. It is strange how your relationships can change so dramatically, especially when you have little or no control over those changes.

I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. Nothing to feel bad about, really, I guess I am just reflecting. I am feeling sort of reflective with Pride weekend coming up and all, and the show just triggered this lack of a reaction, really. Just thought getting it out there would make sense.

Totally shifting gears, who all is going to be out and about during Pride? We should be having a tent, so please, stop by and hang out!

is it just me?, venting, well?, wtf?!

when patriotism becomes something else

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Today, when I was driving in to work, I saw a car being towed by a rather large tow truck, and noticed that the tow truck was emblazoned with “patriotic” symbols, such as flags, planes, and other red, white, and blue themed “USA is great”-ness. While I am all for showing your patriotic side, I think that there definitely is a continuum on which people fall with regards to displaying that patriotism; especially we Americans.

I tend to fall on the low end of the continuum, as I don’t have a flag anywhere in my house, on my property, or on my car. I don’t see the need to display the American flag to prove that I am in support of America, our troops, and our freedom. I have no problem with people putting flags, bumper stickers, and those awful “support the troops” ribbons on their cars, houses, and whatever they can find standing still long enough to attach them to; as long as it makes them feel somehow more patriotic for doing so. I do however, think that it is all a bit over board, as I said, I fall on the low end of the continuum, and these people clearly fall more in the middle, with many sitting close to the high end of the continuum.

Now, with that being said, I absolutely despise those people that take the notion of displaying patriotism beyond simply showing support through images of flags, words of support, or even those silly ribbons. (I say silly ribbons, for clarification purposes, because a ribbon on your car saying that you support the troops doesn’t make it any more real, or any more supportive than the rest of us that support them. If you really support them, send them a care package with the money you used to buy that ribbon; it would show more true support.). See, what I didn’t mention when I spoke of the tow truck earlier, was that as I took notice of the patriotic images plastered all over the truck, I started to notice that it went far beyond the simple flag and “we support the troops” display; it had a plane, dropping a bomb, with flumes of smoke and fire, to represent the destruction that we would bring on anyone that fucks with us. Now, in my opinion, that goes beyond patriotism, and clearly turns something that is meant to show that we are proud and supportive of our country and our troops, into something that represents a sadistic mindset where killing and destruction are somehow representative of our support of this country. And I think that is going too far.

If you feel the need to display this form of sadistic extreme “patriotism”, fine, but in my opinion, you have taken something that is supposed to be a positive affirmation of support, and turned it into a sad excuse for you to show your potential for hateful retaliation, under the guise of “support”. If you truly support our country, you don’t have to kill everyone else in the world to do so, so why not focus on the positive? I guess I just can’t understand the need to do that, because I don’t equate patriotism with bombing men, women, and children in the Middle East. We can be proud of who we are, without killing tons of other people in the process, and we can certainly show that we are proud of who we are without representing that pride as a bomb-dropping mural on a tow truck.