Why Two Blogs?

A reader asked me recently why I choose to have two blogs - this one and my weight-loss blog.  Good question.

The short answer: I'm a Gemini.  We do everything in twos.

The long answer: I'm keeping both because this one is supposed to be more of a commentary-type thing where I address stuff in the news, explore various current affairs, issue forth random ideological musings, and spew my opinion regardless of how popular or warranted it might or might not be.  Sleeve It, on the other hand, is a diary/journal/chronicle of a specific journey.

So far I haven't done a bang-up job of keeping up on the stuff I'd like to write about here, but that's just where my head is right now. I'm overwhelmed.  Sometimes I read the news and get so overloaded with information that I just shut down.  It's hard to decide what to write about when you're simultaneously stewing about gun control, getting angry at the assholes who are making it hard for your gay friends to be married, running imaginary forensics in your head about murdered toddlers, attempting to keep up on sequestration, worrying about the economy at large, and fighting with ign'ant fucks on comment boards about collapsed buildings in India.  My shrink (yeah, I admit it - I'm in therapy, so what?  Aren't most of us?) advised me to cool it with this shit for the time being because I have to focus on my health and well-being, and if I'm constantly worried about other stuff, I won't be 100% for this giant life change about to happen.

And she's totally right.

My dreams of becoming the next Arianna Huffington will have to be shelved for now (not that I was ever that aggressive about pursuing them in the first place).

In the meantime, feel free to follow the other blog to keep up on the happenings in my life as I work toward becoming a not-so-fat prattler.

 

Gay Marriage: Why I Care Enough to Not Care

Many years ago, I stood up in my best friend's commitment ceremony with his partner - another man.  They exchanged vows and rings, received the blessing of an officiant, and threw a hell of a party afterward.  It was like any other wedding, just more tastefully decorated.

This was in Boston in 1993 - long before the issue of gay marriage was even prevalently on the table.  At the time, only a handful of states recognized same-sex unions, and even then it was more a matter of "oh, isn't that cute - these two kids are pretending at marriage!" like one might pat their toddlers on the head for doing the same.  There was no real legal recognition, and the fight to bring it to the federal level was still a quiet buzz.

It always struck me as odd that people would care so much about who marries whom.  Marriage, at its fundamental level, is a union between two people who choose to spend their lives together, and the only people who need to be involved in a marriage are the two people who are married to each other.  Children become a byproduct of that marriage if they choose to bring them into the picture, whether through birth or adoption, but ultimately the only people who should be concerned with who marries are the people exchanging the vows.

People who are crazed at the idea that a man might want to marry a man or a woman might want to take a wife have, in my brazen opinion, little else to worry about in their lives.  For real.  It was not so long ago, remember, that interracial marriage was forbidden.  Today, no one thinks anything of it - or if they do, they're usually wise enough to keep their opinions to themselves.  How long will it take before we as a society accept same-sex marriage as just another lifestyle? 

At this point in my life I have almost as many married gay friends as I do straight ones.  I'm not going to get up on a soapbox and preach the success rate of one versus the other, because I have divorced gay and straight friends, too.  I have bisexual friends and trans friends and cisgendered friends and pansexual friends, some of whom are married to other bi/trans/cis/pan folks.  I have many friends - and my sister - who are married to someone of a race other than their own. None of this bothers me.  Why?  Because (a) it matters nothing to me what color someone is, what gender they are or present as, or who they choose to sleep with, and (b) it's not my marriage.  Simply put: I. Don't. Care.

I care about my family.  I care about my friends.  But unless they're marrying a known serial killer or someone whose face I've seen on the wall at the post office, I couldn't care less about their choice of spouse.  That's between the two of them, and as long as they're happy, I'm satisfied.

Apparently this just makes too much sense for some others to grasp.