everyday is day one

this weekend was: catching up on National Geographics, Glee, and loving the New Normal because it’s got Riley from National Treasure and because it’s about feelings; exploring new neighborhoods in the hopes of finding a new apartment; the most delicious sandwich I’ve ever had, and new Pink, DMB, Matchbox Twenty, and a surprising album from Jon McLaughlin; swapping clothes with friends; birthday parties, goodbye parties, and intense games of shuffleboard; more apartments tucked in the hills, coffee and a celebrity, bagels, and the Los Angeles Opera, the Two Foscari, and fancy dresses in ninety degree heat; delicious sandwiches from Grub, and politics, and the Master and everything that Joaquin and Amy and Philip have to teach us; Mario and blogging, and staying up past my bedtime.


 

Personal Energy Meter

I took this personal energy meter test online at NatGeo, and this is how I did:

In the Home: 0.77

Tip: A programmable thermostat can help you easily turn down energy use when you are away or asleep.For ideas on how to reduce your impact at home, visit the Great Energy Challenge Mini Calculators.

On the Road: 5.546

Tip: Use mass transit, ride sharing or a bicycle at least a couple days a week to cut down energy while commuting.For a month-by-month plan to slim down your carbon emissions on the road, in the home, and for everyday living, visit our Energy Diet.

Renewable Energy: 0%

Tip: See if your utility allows you to purchase solar or wind energy for a portion of your electricity use.

In the Air: 1.349

Tip: Consider taking a train instead of a plane for shorter trips.

Apparently, I scored 8 percent lower than the regional average and 23 percent lower than the national average…

How will you do?

This is why you have neighbors you like, carry NatGeo in your purse: alternatively, I love AAA

Once, I was home for a break (summer of ’05, as I recall it) and I was driving the car to Ann Arbor to see some friends. This ended like it usually did: with my trust Volvo breaking down and having to be towed to Corky’s. My mechanic knew me not because he was that good (although he certainly was) but because between our two cars, we seemed to be constantly in his shop.

Anyways, on this particular day, there was something wrong with the car that was going to take all day to fix, and I was left stuck in the waiting area, no book in my purse (which was usually the case, but as this got heavy, and I recently has spent a semester trekking too much crap around the Netherlands and surrounding Europe, I had left my book at home.)

I ended up sitting in that waiting room, calling everyone I knew to chat, until my phone was near death, and reading copies of car magazines from the 1990s. That three hour wait turned me into a firm believer in always carrying reading material on my person.

On Tuesday, when Jeff and I went to vote, I waited outside the polling place, reading National Geographic’s latest magazine on Greenland. Frequently, I find myself random places, waiting for someone or something, reading a bit of NatGeo here, a few pages of my book club book there. Yes, I have an iPhone, but reading the news doesn’t always get me through that tap, tap, tap period of “Where are they? Are they coming? Do I need to call someone?” No, reading something real will always take me away, not caring if they are coming, hoping secretly they are not, so I can keep reading about Greenland or Buddha or the knitting group.

So this morning, when Jeff turned the key and the engine said politely, “No, thank you, I think I’d just as much like to stay off today,” I was prepared. After we were sure it wasn’t just a jump we needed (because we have a neighbor who will at the drop of a hat come out and move her car to help us out, thank you Corelyn for helping us out after I barged into your home at an unreasonable hour) Jeff called AAA. Sure, I was at home. I could have gone upstairs (which I did to check rental car prices) and put makeup on, finished drying my hair, watched a little TV, made some eggs, or generally paced the living room, waiting for the battery guy to show up.

Instead, I plopped myself on the stoop, tried to sit lady-like (“The ONE day the car breaks down, I have to be wearing a DRESS!” I exclaimed to Jeff, after trying to sit comfortably without revealing anything) and read about Greenland. “Did you know that the Inuits traveled to Greenland, migrating northeast? You always hear about people going the other way…” I exclaimed to Jeff. Well, you learn something new every day. So, after the battery guy came, fixed the terminal connection, told us we’d better replace the one we have, and we were on our way to work, I was that much more knowledgeable, and very calm. And, is there a better way to start a work day than late but educated and caffeinated? I think not.

Corelyn’s car pulled up next to ours. Trying to jump it…

The battery guy = amazing. Fixed the terminal in the time it took me to toast and cream cheese a bagel. Fed + car working = perfect day.

Ex-homosexual? What?

I was biking home and I was handed a flyer from a woman wearing a shirt that said “Ex-slave.” I was intrigued. I looked at the flyer after I parked my bike, and it had a picture of a girl with a shirt on that says “Ex-homosexual.” It was a flyer for the Passion for Christ Movement. I was so offended I wanted to blog about it, but then I went to the website to find out more.

Now, nearly 40 minutes later, I am fuming. I watched most of the video on the home page, and it is a bunch of “ex-homosexuals” who are telling people that 1.) Homosexuality is not natural and 2.) You (too!) can be delivered and stop being homosexual.

What? The evidence they use is from the Bible, which like, OK, fine, but they decide multiple times in the video that because science has NOT proven otherwise, homosexuality is wrong.

They are answering common questions of the homosexual community, and one of them is that people are “born” gay. They discuss how CNN did a story which asked the question, “Are you born gay?” and the answer was, “I don’t know for sure…there is no gay gene.” But all they repeated was, “there is no gay gene, there is no gay gene.” Not the line that said, “I don’t know for sure.” I want people to know that I did a quick search, and found this article quickly, which says that scientists are not sure, still. So…nice try, video.

Moving on, the next part of the video assumes they have proven that you decide to be gay, and that you’re not born with it.

Another part of the video said that “our bodies weren’t meant for this and you have HIV and AIDS shooting up through the roof in homosexual communities.” Umm, last time I checked you didn’t get HIV or AIDS from being gay. You got it from someone else that had HIV or AIDS, and you can get it if you’re straight, too.

Later in the video, it mentions that a lesbian couple was raising children, and one of their children, a boy, wore bracelets and pretended to wear earrings. The video claimed this was evidence that children are not to be raised by lesbians in the first place, because they have no male influence. To this I ask:

*What about single parents, moms or dads?

*What about people who have a mom and a dad and grow up to be gay?

Then they go on to talk about how in the story of Sodom and Gomorroah the sin of the cities was homosexuality. Jewish texts dispute this fact, but that’s another rant for another day.

They also mention how National Geographic found the cities, and proved that they were destroyed, and found syphilis and clamidia in the soil. Which are STDs that are found in the gay community. Thus proving that the sin of the city was homosexuality. Oh, but wait…straight people get these, too…shoot…

IN ADDITION, National Geographic clearly states:

Some scholars place the Biblical cities in current-day Iraq, at Mashkin-Shapir; others posit that the cities were buried under the Dead Sea. The remains of these cities have never been found, though some believe the strongest candidates for Sodom and Gomorrah can be found in the archaeological remains of the Early Bronze Age cities of Babe Edh-Dhra and Numeira, to the East of the Dead Sea.

So, they did NOT in fact find the cities, nor did they prove that they were destroyed by God.

These types of “Christians” are the ones who offend me. The ones who — like in this video — compare the “natural” feeling of being gay to the “natural” feelings of murders and rapists. If is so offensive to see six or eight twentysomethings preaching about why they know being gay is wrong. Because they know. They can’t even get their facts straight, let alone know what God means by everything in the Bible they read that has been translated from ancient texts in languages none of them can read, written by men we’re supposed to know and believe were rightous and wrote only the word of God.

It’s a sad day when people who call themselves Christian try to tell others they know what God meant by something that was written down by men who also thought they knew what God meant by something.

I guess all I can do is pray for those people.