Violence Hits Home

Gang Attack in Greenbelt

The person who was attacked was someone I know, and it was in a place that I know very well. It's scary to think that even now I have to consider being careful about where I walk at night.

The last thing I want to do is hide in my home and be scared, that accomplishes nothing. All I would do is give the power to the fucking jackasses like those kids that would attack people for no reason. I refuse to give that power to them, for far too long I had allowed myself to be powerless, and it's time to stand up and take the power back.

Already there has been talk on the Greenbelt listserv about this, and someone made the point that lately the area has had people coming in who clearly are driving from out of town and hanging out in the center. Some are afraid to come to the center when the sun goes down now. There's been talk that this needs to be a wakeup call for the city council and the police that there is a problem going on. I remember a few months ago that there was a discussion about putting cameras in the center, which set off a major debate over their effectiveness at curbing crime, and whether we were willing to be watched. Personally, I don't want to go to the center and be watched by cameras, even if I am not doing anything wrong. I get watched enough at work, why should I be watched like that in my private life. But I digress, my point is that I am sure that debate will be revived and it will get ugly again.

Still, I would rather increase my presence and take back the center, why should it be ruled by thugs, when it should be a place where people feel safe. My GLBT organization goes there regularly to have dinner and hold other events, I've already made the suggestion that we should try to be outside more, especially during this time of year. We'll see if others agree, I hope they do. I certainly don't want to run away and hide anymore.

Edwards 1 - Coulter 0

First and foremost, I do not like Ann Coulter simply because of the things she says. Clearly she is an attention whore, and too many people have taken her words as gold for far too long. So when I heard that Elizabeth Edwards actually had the guts to stand up for her, I listened to the audio and I was impressed with how it went down. Clearly Edwards was calm and articulate, and Coulter clearly had no comeback. The best line? When Edwards asked Coulter to knock off the personal attacks and hate speech and Coulter responded by saying she would stop writing books, to which Edwards responded "If you can't write [books] without [personal attacks/hate speech] then that's fine."

I hope more people stand up to that stupid cunt and her hate speech, enjoy the video of Edwards laying the smackdown.

Adding Some Fun

If there are two things I like, they're movies, and video games. Mike has had a Netflix account for the longest time and it has worked well. The downside was that he had access to the queue, I didn't. However, that has changed tonight because Brian told me about a way to be able to "split" the Netflix queue so that Mike could use part of it, and I could use part of it. So now how it works is that our three DVDs at a time account now has two queues. Mike gets two DVD's at a time, and I get one. One is better than none at this point, and it's better than having to pay for another account. Already I have added a number of movies to my queue, mostly the last ten discs of the anime series Lupin III since I need to catch up on my Lupin watching (and reading as well, I know there's a number of the manga's I do not own...yet). So if you are on Netflix and want to share queue's, I'm at theblackdog at g mail dot com.

My first movie up in the queue? Casablanca. My dad says I should watch that movie, obviously it has staying power as it has been released and re-released many times. I'll give it a shot and see what I think. There's a lot I have to catch up on in my movie and series watching, now to just wait for the movies to arrive. I'm so going to end up getting our account throttled. The one movie that I am most curious to see? Crash. I want to know if all the bitching that people did about it winning the Oscar for Best Picture was justified or not.

As for video games, I decided to get a Gamefly account as well. Their latest marketing strategy is to ask "Who really wants to pay $50-$60 for new video games?" Plus renting can get expensive, especially if you get into the game hardcore and don't want to return it until you beat it. As a Wii owner, I want to be able to try games before I buy them because they are so new, they're not cheap. Besides that, I can still rent Gamecube and GameBoy Advance games as well so I have lots of options to play. I can only get two games at a time, but that's just how it goes. First up will be Mario Party 8 and Cooking Mama for the Wii. I played a bit of Cooking Mama when I was at Six Flags and it's piqued my interest. Mario Party 8 is for when I go to a party in a few weeks and bring said Wii. I am sure there will be some major hilarity as all of us try to play some of the games drunk :-D

Self entertainment, here I come!

Damn Humidity

Seriously, why the hell did I move out to Maryland? Oh yeah, because I was offered a job here.

I like summer, I really do, simply because it's the time of year to be outside. I love going outside as well, especially because the new boyfriend is an outdoors person as well so we share in many activities.

However, I can't stand humidity, and I probably never will be able to. For years I lived in more of a desert climate in New Mexico. You know how they say "It's a dry heat."? There's a lot of truth to that saying, since while it gets damn hot in the Southwestern US, it does not get humid. You sweat, but it goes away immediately. Here you sweat, and it stays, and it stays and it stays. I hate that feeling. I can also tell it's summer because it's meant I've been breaking out a bit on my face. I thought I was past that stage, but I guess not.

There has got to be a way to eliminate this stickiness.

Tensions...

...or why my life feels like an episode of "The Starter Wife" sometimes.

It's been nearly two months since I broke up with Mike, and I get the feeling there are some mutual friends who have problems with the fact that we broke up. I should have expected it of course, but I'm just not happy with the way it's being handled, especially because I have no real way to do or say anything about it that won't cause drama. Even talking about it here has the potential to start a drama-war.

I have noticed that some have become rather quiet towards me. They would regularly talk to me before, but now it almost seems like I have to wave my arms to get their attention, and even then, it can feel a bit tense. Okay, maybe it didn't help for some that I have started bringing a new guy around. However, I wouldn't necessarily bring a guy around my friends unless I felt that everyone involved could get along and at least be on a good level of respect. I'm not the type who is going to bring around a new guy every week, I don't change boyfriends as often as I change the sheets on my bed.

Still, the situation ties in a bit to "The Starter Wife" in that when those wives lose their husbands, suddenly they're cut off from their friends and all their connections that got them into places or the things they wanted. I feel that some are either consciously or unconsciously punishing me over my own breakup by cutting me out of the picture. It's not a good feeling, if only because I have been making an effort to be out with the people I know. I am a social person, I don't deny that, and the last thing I would do is cut someone off just because their relationship changed, so am I wrong for wanting the same sort of respect from the people I know?

This is not easy, but I hope with time that tensions ease and people become comfortable with the fact that I'm not with Mike anymore, I'm moving on because I can't just sit at home and mope, that's not going to do anything to help me.

Introductions

It's hard to believe it, but nearly five years ago I started writing an online journal. At the time I was 19 years old and a second year student majoring in Computer Science at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico. The biggest reason I started writing was because I just wanted to put down what was on my mind and be able to record what I experienced in my life. I was glad I did because it enabled me to get my thoughts out of my mind and down on paper, where I could review later with a different perspective if there was something unresolved. Besides that, other people could view and throw in their own thoughts as well.

So much has changed for me since I first started writing. Obviously I got older and hopefully a bit wiser as well. I came out of the closet, graduated college, moved across the country to work in Washington, DC, helped set up a community group for GLBT folk in Greenbelt, MD where I live, and found religion as well. Besides that, fell in love, fell out of love, learned to enjoy being on my own as well.

Despite all the changes I had made to myself, I continued with my current blogging service (Livejournal), and I found I got bored with it. Add on top of that that I started to get a bit more selective about what I wrote because of the people I knew were reading it, it just stopped being productive for me to write. Don't get me wrong, Livejournal is a nice place to start, but it can get stale after a while, and it's hard to change things without causing drama somewhere. I hate drama, period, and I will avoid it if I can. I also began to feel that I wanted to write and know that people were reading because they found what I was writing interesting, not because they felt obligated to read me because they know who I am.

So, it's time to start anew, and what better than right over here? I get the blogging minus the chance for drama, and only those who are interested in what I have to say will read, and those who don't won't.

To use a phrase I've said a lot over the last few weeks, let's see where it goes.