when people get together for a common, and good purpose, it makes me happy. this is one of those examples. none of us are safe until all of us are safe.
Archive for the ‘lessons’ Category
happy coming out day
October 11th, 2007
today is national coming out day. i almost had forgotten about it, but i got a “happy coming out day” IM this morning from a friend. 
here’s a great quote from the HRC website:
“‘For twenty years, the GLBT community has been coming out and putting an ever-more personal face to issues in our lives, and that is clearly changing hearts and minds,’ said Mark Shields, director of the HRC Coming Out Project. ‘Americans have come to know their GLBT friends and family in a new way in the last 20 years, and those relationships have changed the cultural landscape.’”
also, in honor of coming out day, HRC put a youtube video together, and asked for video responses of ‘coming out’ stories. take a look at those by clicking here.
i encourage everyone to check those out. there’s so much we can learn from other people’s “life story”.. and we learn the most when we meet people that are much different than us. there’s also some great video stories on this website, click here and check those out as well.
media, relationships and lesbians… oh my!
September 2nd, 2007
i was just thinking about how much of our knowledge is formed by the media.
what made me think of this? well for one.. michele is visiting her brother in mississippi (that’s just plain fun to type ) and she was telling me about a conversation with her niece (who’s 9)… and how she knows what a lesbian is because there is an out lesbian on some model show. huh. interesting that this little girl’s source of LGBT individuals is some reality tv show.
and then that got me thinking about all the out lesbians that are in the spotlight right now. there’s pretty many of them, especially compared to years ago when the discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals was much more widely spread (i was about to say “popular”.. but it still seems to be kinda popular with all the states that voted… well.. nevermind. i’m not going to even get into that whole bag of worms. it will just make me too upset.) and what’s even greater about the quantity of lesbians in the limelight… but the QUALITY of them… or i should say the relationships. of course you always have the “bad examples” in the media of broken relationships… but we see that all over the place. its so encouraging to see two very stable, loving, normal and REAL relationships within the “star” community. (well.. three if you want to consider rosie stable.. but while her relationship is stable.. she tends to rub many people the wrong way because she speaks from her heart with such passion. but she’s not so much “in the spotlight” at the moment.. so i’m not counting her and her wife.) in particular i’m talking about ellen and portia… and melissa and tammy etheridge. i’ve been wandering around youtube.com and finding some really great examples of how their relationships are so real and such a good example for ANY relationship…. gay or straight.
i mean.. think about it. what is the subject that graces most “star” magazine covers? ‘so and so broke it off with so and so’ ‘so and so is cheating on so and so with blahbity-blah’ .. i mean.. we see all this junk all over our media… it’s kinda refreshing to see some people who live their lives SMART. people who actually live as a good example.
now flip back to people that i know personally.
yesterday i attended a wedding reception (you may seen a picture of the dancing here on my blog. if not.. scroll down.) it was such an amazing time and was a great celebration of a couple that couldn’t be more perfect for each other. but i left that wedding reception and found myself bitter and angry as i drove home. why? because their marriage has been deemed “not legal” by people who will never know their names. they have been called “not worthy” of laws to protect their future together. and there is no good reason why. none.
in one of my online forum/groups this topic came up recently. and i brought up one of the “arguments” that anti-gay-marriage-people use: ‘the gay people are trying to tear down and destroy marriage’. riiiiight. like.. by having two women be protected under the law with a legal marriage license.. this is going to affect your relationship.. how?!?
a straight married woman posted “The sanctity of my marriage is not dependent upon whether or not two women exchange vows, or two men trade rings. Denying them the ability to act, think, and do as they please gives me nothing, but denies them their very freedom.
Sorry… doesn’t fly with me.”
and it doesn’t fly with me either. it’s like the lyrics in the melissa etheridge song that i posted the other day (again… scroll down and watch that. trust me.. you won’t be sorry ) “it’s funny how you find just what you seek”… and even the Bible talks about that. interesting. eh?
and i leave you with a quote from tammy etheridge that she said in an interview in response to how she always refers to melissa as her wife: “in 80 years its really not gonna matter. our children are going to read history books about how they used to treat the gays. and that’s ok. right now we’re just in the middle of it. and i’m gonna love her until we get through it. and get on the other side. nobody can change that.”
well put. (and ps. tammy has a blog. go check it out… cuz all the cool kids are doing it. hehehe. )
on that note. i’m going to go watch a movie now… Read the rest of this entry »
pet peeve #4
August 14th, 2007
don’t ever hint at me being a “weak” girl and in need of a “man” to carry a medium size box. i know my limits. i’m not afraid to ask for help when i need it. but don’t call someone over to help me out when i know that i can easily carry the object. especially when i could bench press you. thankyouverymuch.
deep thought of the moment
July 13th, 2007
you need two wings to fly. a right and a left wing.
and isn’t it true with everything? if we weren’t fueled by something/someone… if we were never challenged by someone with a different view… if we never met opposition…. would we ever fly?
twitter and pownce
July 6th, 2007
for those of you non-internet nerds… this post will be completely in a foreign language. even i didn’t know about twitter and pownce until fairly recently. but now i’ve become addicted to both. and if you scroll all the way down my blog (at everymoment.org, for all of you reading from my crosspostings elsewhere), you’ll see a cool little “twitter badge” at the bottom of my page. it’s like blogging for ADHD people. you’re limited to a short post, but you can post from pretty much anywhere. (you can download programs for your desktop, update from the web, or via email.. or even text message) and then they add the ‘social networking’ part into things.. and you can keep track of as many other people’s ‘tweets’ via one of the aforementioned medias. pownce is a similar idea… but it’s like twitter on steroids.
someone noted how this “younger generation” always needs to be “plugged in”… and that’s really true.. at least for me. i’m excited now that i have my iphone, that i can check my email or post to my blog anywhere and everywhere… i guess it’s a pretty interesting phenomenon though. before people had to walk to where you were and talk to you… then we had horses bringing written mail to people who were far away… and trains… and this amazing little “box” where you could hear the person in the earpiece… and they could hear you if they had the same device… then those crazy little “telephones” got more popular… smaller… and lost the wires… oh yea.. and add the internet into this mix… and look where we are today. technology really does change how we communicate, learn and live. not good. not bad. just different.
a master souvenir
April 24th, 2007
i was going to scan this in.. but i kept forgetting to do that.. so i just took a picture so i could share this.
this was my ‘thank you’ present from master Chai. this was such an honor to just MEET this man.. let alone get a personalized souvenir from him! seriously.. read his bio and you’ll see what i mean. what an amazing and talented man! he explained in the seminar he was teaching “i’m not that fast anymore”… yet he would throw an undetermined amount of punches in less than a split second. (i tried to count once… but he was too fast for my eye to catch)
anyways… i just wanted to share that. i haven’t been feeling all that great health-wise.. so i’m going to get to bed and try to get some extra sleep.
hi, my name is tracy…
February 18th, 2007
and i’m a youtube addict.
but seriously.. i know i can’t be alone. why do we need tv anymore? between youtube, myspace video and google video… you can find pretty much anything you would ever want on the internet. i even found a whole episode of ‘ellen’.. which i think everyone needs to watch. (it’s broken up into three parts: one, two and three) it really shows how much discrimination is still in the world.. but puts it in a funny way to think about. so go watch that.. i’m gonna go make some pizza. *waves*
bullhorn
October 24th, 2006
there’s something horribly, horribly RIGHT about this video.
“how we love others is how we love God.”
Current Mood: 
pleased
pleasedCurrent Music: none
i love the shepherd express!
October 19th, 2006
everyone (especially everyone in wisconsin) needs to read this article from the shepherd express.
Current Mood: pleased
pleasedCurrent Music: frou frou