Okay… okay! No more whiney posts!

This last week has really been about rolling with the punches… It was crammed full of high drama, sorrow, fights and even a laugh or two!

High Drama:

I am not even going to give air time to the drama that Carolyn and I have navigated this last week! Needless to say, it is amazing the way that negativity flows out – much like a pebble dropped into a pool of still water. This past week I have noticed how negativity is infectious… spreading from one to another.    

Sorrow:

I’m sure everyone knows what the sorrow is about. 

Fights:

As I alluded to in a pervious post, I find myself in more and more meetings advocating – quite vigorously – on behalf of the community. Almost every day I was at some decision-making group or another… After moving through some of the feelings of fear I posted about last week, I found areas to all of this that are quite comfortable. I am grateful that as a teenager I was already heavily involved in Board dynamics on both a local and regional level with Narcotics Anonymous. When I sit in these board meetings, there is a part of me that I discovered feels very at-home using parliamentary procedures and communicating what I know to be true. Part of what I found that is cultivated in these meetings is an open perspective and solid confidence in my abilities. 

Here is a picture of one of the meetings – this is one that I do actually like attending: The Houston City Planning Group…

And here is a picture of Ms. Barbara Joseph. I really like her. Whereas Ray Hill was the original GLTB activist, Ms. Barbara is the original HIV activist… and she is every bit as radical as Ray ever thought of being!

Laughs:

No offence to anyone… but… men, or should I say… SOME men are just… ridiculous. Men are so strange to me. They always have been. Even when I was trying to be one, I never understood it all… especially the obsessed-with-sex thing. 

Yesterday I went to pick up the pizza for the HACS center at Papa Johns. As I walked in, this good-looking Hispanic guy looks at me and stops just short of shooting a wad right there. I pay for the pizza and sit down to wait for it to be done while trying to ignore this guy. As I’m looking out the window, I feel as if I have someone panting down my neck. I glance over and this guy is staring at me as if he were a predator that just spotted his prey. His eyes were full of that dark confidence that growls “You. Will. Be. Mine.” So, I – being the prude that I am – quickly go back to an intense study of the sidewalk outside. After the pizza was ready, I started walking to the door… At which point the guy runs across the room to deftly hold open the door for me… only he pulls the door inside instead of pushing the door open. If fact, he pulls so hard that he loses his balance and almost falls over. At this point the poor guys friend bursts our laughing. All of a sudden all of that machismo leaks out of him like bad gas. He hung is head in apparent defeat and slowly pushed open the door. I smiled at him and said thank you, but at that point I think he felt so small that he couldn’t bring himself to actually say anything to me. 

It was so strange. It was just like watching one of the lizards that live on my porch puff up their neck-sack… or one of those rice-birds that flaps their wings and squawks as they run circles around a female bird. I mean, come on! Men aren’t really THAT bad off… are they? 

Part of me is very jaded and believes that men see only two things in this world: 1.) Potential sex partners, and 2.) things that they do not want to have sex with. Another – less extreme – part of me thinks that not ALLguys are like that… that only perhaps 80 or 90 percent are.