Seems Like the Day to Do This

My Beautiful Daughter. Photo credit: Leah Mills

The Supreme Court has legalized gay marriage in all of the United States. There has been rejoicing and mourning, and all manner of commotion, so it seems that since the hornets' nest has been well and truly kicked, I might as well make an announcement: my oldest daughter is bisexual. I found out not too long ago, though I had suspected for about a year. (She was very careful about her pronouns when discussing her dates.)

As anyone who knows me or has been reading my blog for a while knows, I have long held the belief that it's none of my business what people's sexual orientations are. My business is to work on my own sins and to love people. It's a hard job and I'm glad I have a Savior to help me with it.

My daughter's bisexuality is simply one part of her. She is smart, kind, quiet, funny, insightful and good to the core. She is one of the most delightful people in the universe. I thank God every day that she is a part of my family. And I want to be very clear. I will not choose between my God and my daughter. I choose both. I choose to love God and to love my daughter. When it comes to people, I will choose my children over anyone. Period. And the fact that my children are such awesome people makes that choice an easy one.

And though it isn't perfectly in tune with either the marriage equality movement or the marriage-equals-one-man-and-one-woman movement, I am happy that she will be able to marry the person she falls in love with, but I'm worried too. Life is going to be harder for her. People who have never met her will hate her, wish her harm. It's frightening.

There's a whole portion of me that hopes she will fall in love with a man, because her life will be so much easier if she does. She won't have to worry about extended family disowning her or friends deciding to cut her off. She could move anywhere in the world without fear instead of only Western Europe or the West Coast or NYC. I have always been appalled at the violence and prejudice that LGBT people have had to endure, but now I have a face, my beautiful daughter's face, to picture those hate crimes being performed against. And I am more than a little afraid for her.

If I had a magic wand, I would make all the hatred, violence, and fear in the world disappear. Alas, I have no magic wand. All I've got is my love. And I give it fully and freely. I hope you will give yours as well.

Because Won Can Never Overestimate the Use of Good Grammer

I guess it's time to post again since everybody has come and visited now. Except Ray and Elastic who are busy and stressed at the moment. They are excused.

Now, for the rest of you. I give you a visual to please your ever-pendantic minds.
By the way, the comments at Graphjam may amuse some of the Grammar Nazis among us. Certainly made me simile.

Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House...

...with two cats in the yard. And I get to keep them. Hurray! Hurrah! The La household gives an nearly unanimous cheer.

To the ever patient La Man, I love you! The La Kids love you! And just to irritate you, the cats will love you!

This one came with a name—Westley. As you wish...

And we've named this one Edward after The Edward of Twilight fame. (I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of twin puncture marks on my thumb.)
A list for my mom:
Positives

1. They love being touched. (Kid overload occurs, frequently around here.)
2. They are so gentle with the little ones. (A must.)
3. They like outdoors. (Requirement.)
4. Litter box use? Perfect. (Non-negotiable.)
5. And they are young enough to qualify for the super-cheap neuter. (Nice. Very, very nice.)

Negatives:

1. I owe my man a serious concession somewhere down the road.
2. I hate the litter box.

Why, it would appear that the positives outweigh the negatives! Woo-hoo! If I could make my blog do a little happy dance, I would.

Just say no.

This is a story of bad boundaries, bad manners and bad poetry. You may have noticed that I like poetry. Plenty of people have noticed. One of the consequences of people noticing that you like poetry is that they give you their poetry to read. (Do I do that to you? No. I have a deep understanding that amateur poetry causes hives in many people. I have mercy.) I find these requests to be far more painful than the "will you edit [write] my paper for me" requests. Bad prose is one thing, bad poetry is another. I don't like rhymes under the best of circumstances, but bad rhymes inflict migraines.

Once upon a time (while I was pregnant and whatever normally passes for Jami's commonsense had gone bye-bye) a human acquaintance (hereafter referred to as H.A.) begged me to go over this ream of poetry, to "correct the grammar and punctuation." I reluctantly accepted. Really the H.A. is super nice, and it would have been rude of me to decline.

Once I got home, I began to read. They were (God forgive me) crap. Trust me. So...did I hand them back? Did I try to convince the H.A. to take up knitting or golf? No, the H.A. is a nice person who had obviously invested a great deal of self in the poems. I did the only thing a cowardly former English major could do. I avoided confrontation.

Unfortunately, one can only duck into empty classrooms, claim non-existent stomach ills and headaches so many times. Eventually, the H.A. cornered me. Had I read them yet? What did I think? Were they ready? Which one did I like best? When would they be ready? I prevaricated. I'd been busy. I pretended to have had a bout of false labor. (I'm so ashamed.) This went on for months before the nagging finally got to me. I felt bad. I was holding the poems hostage. I needed to keep my commitment, give my opinion, and let them go home.

So I bit the bullet and began making comments. At first, I attempted to fix the poor mutilated words. Wasn't going to happen. I could rewrite them entirely, but that was a horror to which I was unwilling to subject myself. I gave up and plunged the knife in deeply: I told the truth.

After about ten poems, I was forced to write a short piece of marginalia on the fact that the ends of rhyming words are supposed to sound the same. (Action and magazine, while both ending in the "N" sound, do not rhyme. In fact, the more ending sounds that two words have in common the better they rhyme.) It was an insulting thing to tell someone, but I didn't see any evidence that the H.A. understood the principle.

I also informed the H.A. that the sentences in poetry should resemble English. It is unseemly to torque the words to get the rhyme. (The avoidance of orange to rhyme is not a reason to turn your words to slime-or-Orange to rhyme I must avoid, thus my syntax becomes hemorrhoid.)

I tossed in as much "that's a nice image" as I honestly could, just to soften the blow a little. Then under the cover of dark, I bravely doorbell-ditched the packet of doomed poems.

The friendly H.A. did not speak to me for a year. The spouse of the H. A. gave me dark looks. At the end of my year long silent treatment, H. A. cheerfully came up to inform me that one of the poems had won a contest and was being published in an anthology (available for purchase for just $39.99). Shortly thereafter, I was informed that a collection of H.A.'s poetry was being published by Publish America.

So what would you do? Tell your happy human acquaintance the truth? No way, dude. I tried that. It worked out poorly. So I smiled and offered congratulations.

Guess what I have sitting on my shelf right now? Yep. At least the rhyming has improved—be, me. rock, stock, cast, morass—some. Luckily, I visit an older lady who LOVES rhyming poems and have I got a book for her!