Little Light of Love

I’m not a politician and don’t pretend that I know more about the political arena than the next average joe. From my own soapbox however, logic seems to have little to do with it. Obscene amounts of money are thrown around by various political affiliates in an effort to get you to believe exactly what they believe so that they don’t have to believe what you do. So what I’m about to tell you isn't coming from a political perspective, but one of absolute logic without respect to religion or the political arena.

While listening to someone close to me talk about her day, at one point she stopped to mention the fact that some people close to her had expressed their disgust regarding same-sex relationships. This prompted me to look up some of the latest studies regarding same-sex relationships, particular ones where children are involved. The ability of anyone to take care of and love a child in need is something that I have always believed in, and this is what I learned.

On February 13th, 2013 the American Sociological Association submitted an Amicus Brief, which is a document that is submitted to a court by an individual or group not directly involved in the case, which served two different goals. One was to rebuke known inaccurate research and assertions from a study conducted by Mark Regnerus, and the other was to present and review sound researched backed by well over 100 other social scientists in the field.

Some of the bullet points of the overall brief:

• “...Positive child well being is the product of stability in the relationship between the two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources.”
• “Some of the studies cited by BLAG and the Proposition 8 Proponents show that stability improves child outcomes, they confirm that marriage rights for same-sex couples and the federal recognition of such marriages are likely to improve the well-being of children of same-sex parents by providing enhanced family stability.”
• Social science research confirms that the academic performance of children raised by same-sex parents is indistinguishable from that of children raised by opposite-sex parents.

Every bit of information in the brief is based upon research that was conducted from several different respected studies, one of which is the NLLFS, or the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. Beginning in 1986, this study followed about 80 same-sex lesbian families as their children are raised from birth to adulthood. After the child has reached adulthood they compiled the day and found something interesting.

The children that had grown up with and around lesbian parents were just as capable, sometimes more so, than those raised in a primarily heterosexual household. This information is essentially compounded when you look at another study by the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families. Their interim report of around 500 families, the largest study of it’s kind, found that “children of same-sex couples scored higher than the national average for overall health and family cohesion...”

The Only downside that could possibly be found is that, depending on the community that these couples live in, is the discrimination from said community. To be honest however, once enough same-sex couples have children, it’ll become the norm and what outrage there is will be a thing of the past. I hope that whomever looks over the studies and information that I have pointed out will see that the benefits of allowing same-sex couples to have children far outweighs the potential downfalls, of which there are none.

Old Friends, New Friends, Dead Friends, Bed Friends

if there’s one event that I dread attending more than any other, it’s the good ol’ high school reunion. I just ‘know’ that I’m one of those guys, the one that told everyone he was going to by such and such time I was going to be so amazing and great, only to have done exactly fuck since high school. I spent about a year in a band that didn’t go anywhere because we were all too busy enjoying the music we heard instead of creating the music that we ‘were’. I know, it’s a damned cheese fest, but it’s mine.

Enough with the rambling. So, I was going through my normal routine at work, cleaning up the store in preparation for whoever was coming tomorrow. As I was rounding an aisle, about to start straightening up an endcap that some asshole decided he could destroy, a customer came around at the same time and nearly ran into me with her shopping car. I grinned like I was trained to and bared my crooked teeth and she did the same. As I was giving her the company slogan of; “Can I help you find your stuff?” I remember her.

You know those girls in high school that nerds like us (I’m assuming you are) can’t seem to get close to without completely losing our balls? Yeah well, she wasn't quite there but she was in a clique that was friends with someone from that clique. Anyway, before she could walk off, I continued to grin like an idiot, mostly because I was filled with a mixture of two different emotions; excitement and dread.

“Oh my god” she said, “How are you?” It’s weird, if I was asked that question by anyone else, I’d say great. I have two wonderful future step-children, a family that loves me, and best of all; I’m alive. The difference is that, this is a person that I haven’t spoke to in about ten years. Even when we were in high school I think we may have said a handful of words to each other. I had to come up with something that I had done since then to make me sound like a semi-regular human being. Hmm....Blank.

Literally every moment of my life flashed before my eyes like a man caught on a ledge with no way out. Strangely, when I was in high school I would have lied my way out to make myself sound better than I actually was.

“I’m here....” I said, arms indicating my humble retail store surroundings. Bless her I thought, she just smiled and shrugged her shoulders without making any signals that my career was probably a hell of a lot worse than hers at this point. Reciprocating the question, I asked “What have you been up to since high school?”

“I teach children now.” she said.

“That is just awesome” I say, fully drowning myself in the knowledge that I am a failure in my professional life. I didn’t matter that I was finally trying to get one of my short stories published and, to that effect, actually finishing stories, because I haven’t done it yet, I feel like total shit. We say goodbye and she goes on to leave the headache inducing fluorescent lighting behind her while I continue fixing up that shitty end cap that some shitty customer decided to leave looking like shit.

For the rest of my shift I continued to think about friends and just people that I were friends with in highschool. Would I still be friends with them today? Or would we have changed so much that being friends would be impossible? I know that I’ve done worse than a lot of my peers, but have I done any better? I know that at least one of those bits of that conversation is going to make it into a story a one point or another.

How about that? Ever see anyone that you couldn’t stand in high school that you know you could talk to now with ease? Any friends that are now enemies? Leave me a comment below. Until next time star gazers.

Welcome To The Armada

When I purchased the latest Humble Ebook Bundle, I did it with the intention of grabbing a few titles that I’ve wanted to read but didn’t have the money to pick them all up individually. Being a poor, broke retail employee isn’t everything that they make it look like in the movies; it’s actually worse.

So I’m sitting at my desk, which is actually a bed, and pick one of the books at random to read a few pages and decide on what to read ‘after’ I finish up Anna Karenina. Because I want to look like a smarty pants asshole and finish up some classics that no one else in my small circle of friends have ever touched. My eyes settle on a book that was, to best honest, my last choice.

On the surface, Just a Geek is the perfect book for me. It’s essentially a collection of blog posts that form a narrative from the blog of former Star Trek actor now writer and sometimes comic Wil Wheaton. Personally, he’s always been one of those people that come across as genuinely funny and relatable.  However, I was hesitant because I was afraid that this would be one long book about Star Trek and after finishing the excellent John Skalzi novel Red Shirts, I wanted something more real.

Little did I know that many hours later I would forget about Anna and her scandalous escapades and find myself completely stuck in the completely heartfelt and amusing thoughts of a man that I now admire with a depth that can only be felt by truly connecting one nerd to another.

My life has been anything but perfect, I’ve made some terrible decisions and an equal amount of good ones. I am one of those 26 year old nerdy guys that still lives with his parents. I’m marrying a girl with two sons of her own. The only good I’ve done for myself is recently acquired an associate's degree and plan to continue (not this year however) to earn a Bachelor's in English.

Working retail means that I have to scrimp and save until I find a better job and am better able to help in the support of my soon to be family. It has been an extremely sobering experience to say the least. The way in which Will has gotten into my head and allowed me to think about where I am and how far I still need to go is stupendous. I really cannot recommend it enough, even at full price.

What I hope that you guys get out of this post is that I love to read and talk about what I read, play games and talk about what I’m playing, and write a lot. In the next week or so I might, if I feel comfortable enough, post a scene that I’m working on for a short story and ask for some feedback. I don’t have a particular focus on what I write, as long as I find it interesting.

So, any books that you can recommend? Personally I’m into classic literature, Science Fiction, anything literary, I’ll even read a good mystery or horror if you can give me a reason. Until next time, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.