Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday - the extra dose of the gays edition

Kaitlin Hunt
By now, most of you have probably heard about this case at least a little bit. An 18 year old girl, Kaitlin Hunt, was charged with lewd and lascivious acts on a minor for having engaged in sex acts with her 15 year old girlfriend. There is a lot of conflicting information online, and until the trial, it will probably be impossible to know for sure what happened and when. It is known that the so-called victim's parents knew of the contact prior to Hunt's 18th birthday, but chose not to contact the authorities until after she turned 18, and that they did so primarily because they disapprove of the homosexual nature of the contact.

I won't speculate on the facts here since they are in dispute, but there are a few issues at hand. First, if all the contact happened prior to Hunt's 18th birthday, it's doubtful that she will be convicted. She has, however, been expelled from school at the request of the victim's parents. Second, the victim has maintained all along that she consented to the acts, but in the eyes of the law in Florida it is irrelevant. Minors under 16 cannot consent to sexual activity under any circumstances. If she was 16, she could have. Third, if there was contact after Hunt turned 18, then it is technically illegal.

Here's where I struggle. The so-called victim's parents seem heavily motivated by their daughter's orientation. I question whether this would even be an issue if Hunt was male. If they would have even called the police. I am quite disturbed by the fact that they intentionally waited until Hunt turned 18 to alert the authorities. It almost morphs them into being an accessory of the crime if they knew the contact was ongoing but elected to wait to call the police until the offender was of age. Where are their actual motivations here then - to "protect" their daughter, or seek vengeance? 

It's entirely possible she's only being charged because of the parents' dislike of homosexuality. It certainly seems that way.

There are "Romeo and Juliet" provisions in Florida state law that will allow the court to forgo the labeling of Hunt as a sex offender if convicted, but they do not make the contact legal.

If the contact was indeed illegal, then it was illegal. Period. Her orientation shouldn't matter. The laws may be overly harsh, but that's neither here nor there. The law is the law.

At the end of the day, this is a case that I will be watching with great interest. I remember being a teenager in love, throwing caution to the wind and having no awareness of whether having sex was legal or not. Had the girlfriend in this case been 16 instead of 15, we wouldn't even be talking about this.

Morality Clauses, Divorce and Texas
Texas doesn't just refuse to allow gays to marry, no sir. Everything is bigger in Texas. It prohibits them from doing many other things. They can't execute many of the legal documents straight people can, and they aren't allowed the same protections when it comes to custody of children.

Two weeks ago, Page Price was given 30 days to move out of her lesbian partner's home after a judge decided to enforce a morality clause in the divorce agreement between her partner Carolyn Compton and her ex-husband.  He brought the enforcement motion before the court.

The morality clause dictates that Compton cannot have anyone she is dating or intimate with in her home after 9pm. Since they aren't allowed to get married under state law, the judge said she has to leave even though they have been living together for almost three years and have a very stable household.

Carolyn cannot marry her girlfriend, but her ex-husband theoretically could if he chose. Texas courts also refuse to acknowledge gay marriages or unions from other states, leaving gay couples no other option in these cases, they are at the mercy of the court.

The court adjudicated by an openly conservative judge in this case.

Mark Carson
Mark was walking through the West Village area of Manhattan, just blocks from the Stonewall Inn, with his partner last weekend when a man walked up to him, called him a faggot and shot him in the head. 

The suspect is in custody, but this crime has rocked one of the most progressive, inclusive neighborhoods in the nation. This is an area where the LGBT community has probably felt the safest the longest, and even still there are violent crimes like this one.

Attacks on the LGBT community in the area have roughly doubled this year.

Biblical marriage = free chicken
Leave it to Chick fil-A. Handing out free food to those male/female couples who attend a Biblical marriage church event.

I wish they would knock this crap off. They make a damn tasty sandwich.

Whatever.

It's a free country. You can preach against the gays, I just won't eat your delicious food. It would have been pretty funny if the gays and the lesbians had descended on the meeting, partnered up and taken the cards though. Am I right???

Stefon is leaving SNL
Bill Hader is leaving the show. I'm so sad. What will I do? I won't know where the hottest club in New York is this season, and I won't have anyone to tell me what a human 8 ball or a human fanny pack is!!!

I will miss him so, but at least he went out spectacularly, wedding Seth Meyers in a beautiful ceremony.

I leave you with this for the week.

I've been told this isn't my fight. I've been told I should stop talking about it. I've been told that I'm wrong, that I've given up on my own hypothetically gay children.

Fuck that noise.

I will fight for equality until I don't have to anymore. If you can't handle that, too damn bad.

No freedom 'til we're equal. Damn right I support it.

Some Tragedies Cannot Be Avoided

A piece of my heart is in Oklahoma this morning. Those I know with family in the area finally received word that everyone was safe, even though they appear to have lost everything.

Over twenty children are still missing, presumed dead, drowned in the water beneath the rubble of the school. Their parents, waiting, hoping, praying for a miracle.

Almost as soon as the tornado hit, people started asking questions. Why the school didn't have a basement, why there wasn't a safe room, why they didn't bus the kids out, why they didn't evacuate.

As though any of those things would have guaranteed their safety.

Most of the kids here drowned. Going lower under ground would not have helped them. Basements are not built in the area because the soil cannot support them. Talking about something that is impossible as though it is does no one any favors.

The sustained winds were over 200mph. A safe room cannot withstand that.

Buses aren't usually stored on school property,and even if they were, who's to say that they'd drive away from danger instead of towards more of it, now outside of a sturdy building and in a metal box that could easily be picked up and thrown by the winds?

They had 16 minutes warning.

On foot, with that many children, they would have been lucky to get half a mile away. The tornado was wider than that. The debris field was even bigger. Being outside would have endangered them more because of flying projectiles.

Some of those teachers used their own bodies as shields to protect the children.

There is quite literally nothing that would have guaranteed safety of everyone in Moore yesterday. These storms are too big, the winds are too fast.

I question why so many people rush to lay blame in situations like this one. Even when there is a clear place to blame, as with school shootings, the quest for blame pushes on.

People want so desperately to have someone to blame because doing so somehow insulates them. If this is someone else's fault, they can do something to stop it. To prevent it. To avoid death, fear and loss.

It's a fallacy.

Horrible, terrible things can happen to anyone. At any time. At the hands of another person, at the hands of mother nature.

It can happen to you. It can happen to me.

There is no way to keep everyone safe all the time.

I've lived through enough natural disasters myself to know that.

Five years ago, tomorrow, I spent time crammed like sardines in a tiny park bathroom with over fifty preschoolers, their parents and siblings while funnel clouds reached down from the sky above us. I knew in that moment that whether we lived or died was out of our hands.

I've never been so scared in my life, more for my children than myself.

I lived less than five miles from the epicenter of the Northridge earthquake when it hit in 1994. The sound was like something I can't even describe. The support beams in our house twisted and warped. The fault line ran down from the hills, through the neighborhood, and directly under our house. We were without utilities for days. My life was possibly saved only because I had just taken heavy items off the shelf on the wall above my bed the weekend before. Had I left them there, I may not be here today.

We were evacuated during the Cedar Fire storm in San Diego in 2003. We thought we ran towards safety, we actually were headed toward more danger and just didn't know it. Smoke, like storms, obscure your view and you can't tell where is safe and where isn't. We'd be driving through smoke and suddenly come up on a fire line with almost no warning.

Living through these experiences has taught me a few things.

- Prepare for what you can.
- Keep emergency supplies on hand, water, shelf stable food, blankets and shoes especially.
- Have at least one radio that doesn't require electricity (we have a hand crank radio and flashlight).
- Practice safety drills.
- Have a family emergency plan.
- Have a clear idea what you would take if evacuated. You should be able to grab it and get out in minutes.

Even then, there is no way to guarantee safety.

I can tell you that when you experience these things, adrenaline kicks in. You will be capable of doing things you never imagined possible. You will be calmer than you think.

Think rationally and prepare, but appreciate the power of nature.  We can't always outrun her.

This is why we can't have nice things...or any of the things for that matter....

A few days ago, I reached down for my purse while I was stopped at a red light. I rifled through it a bit, looking for a piece of gum. My husband had just bought me a couple packages a few days before hand.

I didn't find one. Not a single piece.

When I got home, I went through my purse.  This is what I found.

- my wallet (thank god)
- three inhalers
- three single dose containers of benadryl liquid
- two unwrapped tampons, covered in crumbs
- two tampon wrappers that had been folded like origami
- one tube of chapstick with bite marks in it
- nail clippers
- three pens
- a bottle opener (don't judge)
- two hot wheels cars
- a tiny dinosaur
- three army guys
- two pairs of earrings, neither of which is mine
- fourteen receipts
- four expired coupons
- two completely empty packages of gum

I am, apparently, the keeper of all things. Except the things I would ever want or need, like a fresh unwrapped tampon or chapstick that hasn't been chewed on or a piece of gum.

Then I got to thinking about all the things that I can't have anymore. Forget the nice things, we all know that once you have kids you resign yourself to living in Target clearance rack clothing, vacationing at the local pool and considering anyplace you didn't cook as "going out to eat".  My furniture is all beat to hell, the walls aren't faring better, and don't even ask me about the floors in my house.

It's not just the nice clothes, fancy vacations and lavish dinners that we're missing. It's not just customized "distressed" furniture and stained carpets we have to live with.

It's the fact that I can't ever find any of the things, the totally ordinary things, that should be in my possession. Either I can't buy them, I can't ever find them, or I have to hide them like a ninja.

In no particular order...

* Gum - I like to chew gum, as horrid as a habit as it is, and as bad as it is for someone with a history of TMJ to do. Especially when I've made a run for the border and have onion breath or drank a pot of coffee and smell like a middle school science teacher, I'd like to have a piece on hand to mask my dragon breath.  But no. A package of gum lasts about as long as a can of Pringles in this house, and it doesn't matter where I try to stash it. They.Always.Find.It.

* Tape - I could buy six rolls of tape A DAY and there would never be any in the house. I'm fairly certain that the kids have a sixth sense about tape, and they can smell it when it's in the drawer. Ohhhhh, tape.....what can we tape???

TAPE ALL THE THINGS!!!!!!

Two minutes later, the tape is all gone.

* Pens - I buy pens in bulk. Monthly. I buy pens all the freaking time. We have a pen container on the side of the fridge which is where the pens are supposed to live when no one is using them. The pens? They grow legs and walk away. I NEVER have a pen, I can NEVER find a pen, and I can never find anything to write with that isn't a dull crayon when I'm on the phone and actually need to write something down.

* Scissors - What the hell happens to the scissors??? This is another thing I buy way too many of. I'm convinced there is an office supply troll under the stairs in the basement hoarding all the things. If you're lucky enough to locate a pair of scissors in this house when you need one, odds are the blades will be coated in dried ice pop goo and crusty yogurt from small people using them to open tubes of ooey goodness.

* Drinks - If I have any beverage in a cup with a lid and a straw, somehow the kids believe it belongs to them. My diet cherry cokes are pilfered, stolen, whisked away and sucked down like there are no drinks anywhere else in the free world and there will never be another soda for the rest of eternity. No, go ahead kid. I was totally done with that....and now that you backwashed, it's ALL yours. Have at it.

* Hairbrushes - Considering how rarely my daughters actually brush their hair, one would think that brushes should be easy to find. Not so! There have to be at least 20 hairbrushes in this house, but good luck finding one. You'll have to excuse the rat's nest.

* Girl Scout Cookies - I've hidden them in bathrooms, in the basement, under the kitchen sink, in the freezer, inside of other boxes in the pantry. To no avail. SOMEONE always finds them, and NO ONE ever knows who. Amazing how that works.

* Chocolate Chips - Candy, cookies or any other treat-like-food-items are fairly obvious, and when any of that finds it's way into my life, it quickly vanishes. Chocolate chips, however, were more surprising. More than once I have bought a bag to make cookies, and more than once I've found an empty bag stashed behind a box of crackers in the pantry, random chips rained down on every shelf below. It's your fault I don't make you cookies, you little chocolate thieves.

* Anything you'd actually need in the bathroom - Tampons, pads, ointments, creams, powders...you know....any of that stuff that you would like to be able to keep in the bathroom, but can't because if you do their radar will activate immediately. You'll find all the pads stuck to the wall or an entire box of tampons flushed or the cream and ointment squeezed all over the sink. Oh, and powder....that stuff gets everywhere. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can put that stuff in a sensible place. Noooooo. Plan accordingly. Or waddle. Either way.

* Good leftovers - This one might sound crazy, but just trust me. My children have been well trained to eat leftovers. Too well trained. If there is something good in the fridge, you'd best rise early and hide it.  Now that the oldest is in middle school and the cafeteria has microwaves, everything is fair game. Oh, all the times I have been giddy with anticipation at the idea of having leftover homemade pizza or something else awesome only to realize it was swiped hours earlier by some kid feasting it up at school.

What about you all?  What things can't you have anymore?

My Friends Are Crazy, My Children Are Goats and This Happened

I've written before about the connections I have made with other bloggers online. About how some of the people who understand me the best live inside my computer and I've never actually met them in real life.

I was chatting with one of those people a while back, Lillian from It's a Dome Life. Our conversations always have a way of meandering.

Yeah. That's a word for it.

Meandering.

We talk about everything from the most practical to the most outlandish. We discuss blogging platforms and fan reach and creative ideas. We talk about making pants for squirrels, then red satin lined capes.

No, I'm not kidding.

Anyhow, I was chatting with her a while back and somehow we got onto the topic of kids eating paper. (seriously, don't ask how we got onto the topic, because I honestly can't remember...but that's how our discussions go).

I told her my kids were goats.

Not literally, of course. They are human children, not goat kids.

They all, however, went through goat-like phases where they ate paper. They ripped apart books and magazines and it.all.went.in.their.mouths.

Like goats.

I had forgotten about that stage until my brother brought my niece to the house, and she was firmly in goat stage.

Lilly laughed because somehow Tiny Small must not have gone through goat phase, and the mere suggestion that my kids are goats gave her an idea.

I love when Lilly gets crazy ideas from me, because they turn into something awesome.

She made this.

Didn't I tell you that Lilly is an amazing artist???

She is.

Her collage work is nothing short of stupendousness. (yes, that's a word. I just made it up.)

She painted the backgrounds, found goats (where she found so many goats, I am not sure), then made my kids into the kids I said they were.

I'm the queen bee at the top, logically.

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

Her talent is beyond anything I could comprehend. I can barely draw stick figures, and she inspires me with every piece she creates. The fact that she made this FOR ME makes me want to cry and laugh and hop in my car and drive to her house and hug her.

I hosted a guest post of hers a while back, and you can find it here. Included in that are several of her watercolor pieces.

She is one of the kindest, most talented people I know. You should go check her out, I'm sure that you will love her as much as I do. AND she wears tutus.

Her Blog.

Her Facebook Page.

Her etsy shop.

Parenting: It's Not For Wimps

Originally, the title was "Parenting: It's Not For Pussies".

Yeah, yeah, yeah....I know my title is offensive.

It's also true.

I laugh and laugh and laugh these days when a friend of mine is overwhelmed with potty training, or they're tired because the baby isn't sleeping, or they are struggling to move from two naps to one.

I remember those days. I do. They suck, for sure, especially when you're so tired that you barely make it through each day living on coffee.

I also remember thinking to myself, it'll just be easier after _______ happens, filling in the blank with whatever crappy stage or transition I was contending with at the time.

I know now how wrong I was.

Parenting doesn't get easier.

Sure, the hands on physical involvement part does get easier. Maybe. It's not like you're still wiping an eight year old's butt three times a day or anything. For all the stuff that you get to stop doing, though, there tends to be something else that comes along and takes that place. The emergency runs to school because someone forgot their trumpet. The I need a posterboard for a project today requests. The hey mom, by the way, I signed you up to make tacos for my entire class tomorrow admissions at 10pm the night before.

In addition to all that stuff, you have to deal with other things you never had to when they were little and tiny, when they were confined to playpens and car seats, when you knew exactly where they were at all times and with whom.

Back then they needed you to do everything for them, but you didn't have to worry about friends or bullies or test scores or playdates or sports teams. 

You didn't have to deal with parents who parent completely differently than you do or the children they raise or the inevitable conflicts between the two.

You didn't have to deal with helping kids navigate relationships with teachers or coaches. 

You didn't have to deal with a child who cries for thirty minutes before soccer practice, convinces you that you are ruining her life, only to have her floating in the clouds an hour later because she now loves soccer again.

You didn't have to deal with mean girls, drama queens and habitual intimidators.

You didn't have to deal with giving them tiny pieces of independence, never knowing if they'll be responsible enough with it to keep it.

You didn't have to deal with broken hearts.

You didn't have to deal with social anxiety, with fear, with depression. 

You didn't have to deal with kids who'd been kicked out of their social circles for reasons they can't even understand.

You didn't have to deal with trying to guess which school was going to be the best fit for them.

You didn't have to deal with puberty.

You didn't have to deal with trusting your kids to go out into the world and be the good people you've taught them to be, knowing that you actually have no control over whether they live up to that most of the time.

Last weekend, on Mother's Day no less, I checked my son's grades. 3 D's, all because he had missing assignments.

His mother was not pleased.

This happened a few semesters ago, but only in one class. I didn't call the teacher, I didn't email the teacher. I didn't write him reminder notes. I didn't.

I told him that it was his responsibility to get whatever was missing turned in, and that he had to get it in before grades were final. I told him that there would be consequences if he didn't, and that I was not fixing this for him. He did it, pulled all his grades back up.

At conferences, one of his teachers asked me what had happened. I told her that I forced him to take care of it alone, without my help.

She thanked me, then asked when I was going to teach a class on middle school parenting.

At the beginning of the year, we made a list for him, in order of priority for the activities he wanted to participate in. School first, then trumpet practice, then extra curricular sports he signed up for, then scouts, then guitar, then everything else in the known world.

If he wanted to do the things at the end of the list, he had to do everything before it first. Most of the time, he has. But not always.

He slacked again. I caught him again. His grades are back up now, save the one that the teacher hasn't entered the grades into the system yet.

He worked his ass off this week to do it. He didn't get to do much of the fun stuff he normally would have. There were some tears when I told him that I wasn't discussing his birthday party until after his grades were final. He knows I'll cancel it. He knows he will get that guitar taken away. He knows that he'll lose the video games. He knows I'm not kidding.

He'll be a responsible adult someday if it kills me, but not because I made things easy for him...because I force him to deal with the consequences if he doesn't do what he's supposed to.

Consistency blows. Following through hurts. Forcing them to learn these lessons is hard.

Then again, no one ever said parenting was easy.

I've stopped believing that it's ever going to get easier.