Neighbor disturbance.

I go to sleep at odd times, so I woke up last night at 8:40 to urgent calls for "Help" coming from the wall, out of my next door neighbor's apartment. I called 911 and reported it. As soon as I did, the cries stopped.

Just in case I wasn't too craven to help, I got dressed.  The police came by in just a few minutes. They took my neighbor and his female friend downtown. It was odd, because my neighbor lived alone. This was a guest, an old flame. I could tell, by the fight they were having earlier in the day over who brought up other men (she said emphatically she never did, but he always did).

He's a born-again Christian. A family-oriented sort. I had to break it to him once that my entire belief in Jesus was that he might have actually existed. Contrast him with my neighbor beyond the east wall, who only has loud, drunken, gay sex late at night. I can wear ear plugs if I need to sleep, but some of it is very funny, particularly the battle-cries.  I've never felt compelled to call the police about them.

Yes, (I tell my homophobic family) it doesn't matter if it's hetero- or homosexual. A bad relationship is as bad either way. No legislation against gay marriage will make hetero relationships any better. Though it probably won't make them worse.

However, the real drive toward banning gay marriage (aside from the gay-averse motives obvious to everyone but those who have them) is that in the Bible, God punishes nations. If two gays clandestinely marry, then it's their sin. However, if the nation makes it legal, then the whole country is sinning. It's the same with the issue of choice. If a woman has an illegal abortion, then the sin stops with her, her doctor and her sex partner. If the US makes it legal, then America is sinning.

This is why these private issues turn into public ones. Though even here, the person chooses their beliefs due to unconscious motives. If they're believing that God punishes nations, they have an unconscious motive to do so.

A certain fear of permissive sex does affect a person's religious beliefs. I think that some people just fear a libertine environment thinking that underneath, everyone is inclined to molest children and fuck animals. Call it obsessive- compulsive, perhaps. Sex is basic to human behavior, why wouldn't there be OCD behavior around it? The fear that their sexual environment is out of control bothers some people too much.

It disturbs them enough that stories about a God who dominates people's sex lives really resonate with them. Blind, unconscious fear is no reason to make people suffer or deny them happiness. Our society needs more sexual freedom.




 

Thanksgiving

For an atheist, Thanksgiving is an odd time. For one thing, who are we being "thankful" too? I guess I can think of people I am thankful too. But thinking of fortunate events, or the lack of misfortune during the year, the feeling about that expresses happiness or relief rather than thanks.

The Pilgrims, of course, had someone they could be thankful to. Squanto, the Native American who had earlier been abducted to Europe in slavery, whose village had died off from diseases, but who chose to save the settlers who would have died without his help. That's rare a form of heroism and compassion that needs to be celebrated when it happens.

Being an atheist means, however, does come with a certain principles: one is, if someone gives you a day off with pay, take it. I don't care what they call it. Take it. The other is, never miss an excuse to party and celebrate, no matter what the bullshit behind it is.  Life should include fun, and even in the midst of recalling misery, you still have that need.

I'm severely out of step with my family when it comes to Thanksgiving, but not because of the principle. As you can see, I can reinterpret the holiday to my liking, or even come up with an alternate that just happens to correspond. (Thankwansi anyone?)

Remember first, I've never been married. I don't have children. So, my family includes my dad, my siblings, and their children. I realized in October how little I have in common with them. For my dad and siblings, I've just realize how little I have in common with them. Their Catholic, extremely so. I'm atheist. I'm socially liberal, they're socially very conservative. So, in politics and religion, they're not interested in hearing my side. Besides that, they're not interested in anything I'm interested in. They never ask me what's going on, engage me in conversation. They're not interested in my writing, they won't read it, and that tells me something.

Then I asked myself: when was the last time they gave any emotional support? My first sister helped me when my life collapsed. She set me up in my parent's house. So, yes, she helped me materially. But that was material support without emotional support. In fact, it was under extreme emotional tension between us. I am thankful to her, though.

They've all given me help materially when I needed it. For that I'm thankful. I've paid it back. I bailed Dad's house out of foreclosure.


The nephews and nieces, I wish I had more contact with them, but we've mostly drifted apart despite my wishes.

And, of course, because I'm the opposed to them religiously, socially and politically, that means I'm more or less, disdained, or at least, ostracized. The message is unconscious, and I've always had that feeling from them.

When Mom was alive, I had a different sort of tension with her, and I'll treat that in another post. But I never had a reconciliation with her. I waited for the conversation that never came.

I don't want to wait like that with them. There's no point in going to a place where I'm going to be bored with people who send every unconscious message, and few conscious ones, that I'm not welcome; people who consider my interests to be frivolous and wastes of their time. This hurts, especially when they're supposed to be my closest ties. It drains me and depresses me.

So, I hung away this Thanksgiving. I stayed in, read and wrote. I was happy. I didn't even miss the turkey. I do okay with my own food.

Since this was so successful, I'm going to do the same Christmas, New Year's, and in fact, every week. If I had been well enough thirty years ago, I would have done it then. In fact, I tried, but wasn't able to make any connections outside of the family. But that's the subject of a different post, too.

No, definitely not my family. Not pilgrims either.

Words fail me.

It's hard for me to sum up my life this last month in just a few representative paragraphs. I've been writing as much as I can, as always. I haven't been reading or studying style as much as I should.

I finished Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond, or the current draft of it, and I've decided to redraft it for several reasons. Foremost, is to teach myself more about writing, learn how to shape the best book I can out of it. The fact is, today's publishing industry leaves little room for error for authors, so I better have things together when I submit my first commercial work because the way it is today, if your first book doesn't sell, publishers are not going to want to touch you again. There was a time when you were "allowed to fail." You were given three books to begin to turn a profit. That's no longer the case. With the Internet, every publisher, and in fact, the general public, can see how well your book is selling, or how badly it's not selling.

I've had days of depression days of anxiety this last month as I haven't seen in a year. I've felt desires, and longings. I've felt disillusioned with old ties, realizing how little I've gotten out of them, and I've felt loneliness.

I've been seeking out new connections. I'm impatient. I feel left out of life right now.

Yes, sometimes your life's narrative just doesn't come together as a story. It just keeps is shapeless randomness no matter how you think of it. When that happens, how can you ever choose what's most important to write?

Novel is complete! (or this draft is)

I completed the epilogue to my hybrid fan fiction novel last night: Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond. This means after three years I'm finally done!

Or I would be if I would leave it. Now it's time to generate the final draft.

Election Over

I would have felt mortified if Romney had won, and/or if Claire McCaskill hadn't beaten Todd Akin. The latter would have been a disgrace to my state. After two years of election coverage, it's finally.

This is a worse defeat than it first looks. Only gerrymandering kept Repubs from losing the House. Republicans know this. Moreover, some of the most hardline conservatives either went down (Allen West) or made it by the skin of their teeth (Michele Bachmann). The survivors are going to be less audacious.

Conservatives like to make the excuse that Romney was a weak candidate. And which of their other candidates was stronger? They had a large sample of Conservative leadership on display early this year. What they showed me was modern Conservatism produces people who are either dishonest, insane, thieving or two or more of the above. I can't imagine Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain running a campaign that came within ten points and two hundred electoral votes of President Obama. The embarrassment is they spent four years smearing the guy-- this is supposed to be Hitler--  and they couldn't beat him. They still couldn't beat "Hitler."

Republican leadership is not going to get better, because these are the children of Reagan. One generation raised under Conservative auspices and propaganda that isolated them from the real world. It's given the GOP the likes of George W. Bush and Rick Perry, plus a constituency that pretends that there's nothing wrong with those guys.

For the billionaires, like the Koch Brothers, who donated, um, invested millions in PAC money, you can't blame. You can't blame a piece of shit if it still smells after you've dressed it up. He was the best candidate you could get, and sadly, that was the best campaign he could have run for your cause. With Citizens United removing donation limits, they thought they had it all figured out. They some media companies. They redistributed some wealth. Another election like this and those companies might just build a fiberoptic system so that our Internet isn't third world anymore. They might think twice about campaign donations now. They might just come to the conclusion that it's cheaper to be taxed instead.

The election might be over, but the whining has started. From Rush Limbaugh, to Ann Coulter to Carl Rove. They all can't believe all the smear tactics didn't take. They can't believe that people would rather worry about being buried under medical bills for bad luck. No, this is called letting the government do its job, as it does with medicine in every other country in the civilized world.
 
And they're all shocked. Didn't you guys read polls? They did but you didn't believe them. They preferred the Intelligent-Design approach to interpreting polls. Catch up with the times. Polls have become extremely good in the last few decades. When most are pointing the same direction, you can count on the election going that way.

I would have felt guilty if the Dems had lost, though, because this time I didn't volunteer. I needed my time. Still do. Maybe 2014, but let's give it about 20 months before the campaigning starts.

Oh, anybody notice that Puerta Rico voted for statehood? Here's the US flag with PR as the 51st star:

Yeah!

Election? What Election?

I've said almost nothing about politics here, and have made almost no statements about this very important election. That's mainly because whenever I try to write on the topic, I always find a knowledge gap. I might know the general science behind issues like Global Warming. I might know the science and have a strong opinion on reproductive rights, but I have almost no knowledge of the office-holders or candidates. Nor could I trace their actions to results and consequences in the real world. About economics, there are too many gaps in my knowledge to argue my opinions effectively. However, I will declare this: conservative economics cannot be right. I can only declare that, I can't support it or argue it effectively, yet. I'm ashamed of this.

Of course, I'm dependent on absorbing information.  I don't read enough about politics because I'm just not fast enough at reading. Fiction is my profession, and I'm well-advised to fill my reading time with it. Perhaps my reading speed is set to improve as my writing speed has because my Attention Deficit Disorder has finally been adequately treated.

However, it only gets better practice, and that takes time. I wasn't able to ramp it up before this election.

It's one thing to declare my opinion, it's another thing to then back it up with information. I have enough information to guide myself voting, but I don't enough to where I feel secure in urging other people what to vote for.

So, I've taken a pass writing about this election, even though it's so important. If you're a progressive, please vote. I'm saying that from the best information I can feed myself, so far.

The most important election of their lives, so far.

Writing faster.

I have got a better process for writing now, and I'm finishing the epilogue of my fan fiction novel, Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond. I think I might make record time for the chapter.

I tried to defy the stereotypes and cliches both in werewolf stories and with female characters. It's a fantasy story, but the girls in this, whether from GS or from my imagination, originate in the real world. I didn't avoid their sexuality or appearance, but I think I avoided sexualizing them. There are some male characters, but the female characters drive the plot, and human or semi-beast, they do some remarkable things. It has many characters, and a lot of them are flawed but have a moment of heroism.

Spooky Neighborhood Houses

I spent Halloween watching favorite movies, Ginger Snaps and Ginger Snaps: Unleashed. (More about them later, I'm promising.)

As always, I run late on things, so I put my Halloween tribute blog, but every good horror movie has that afterthought, the scene where the supposedly dead monster comes back to life for another attack. Try to see this entry the same way.

I do live in the coolest neighborhood. There are some really creepy, almost mansion-type houses within walking distance of where I live. This first one isn't too creepy yet, because it's so well kept:

Actually, Lucifer lives here.

If they just neglected it a little, that place could get so creepy within a few years. I'm surprised they didn't decorate it for Halloween, but apparently they're sense of property value won't allow it. Think they're voting for Romney?

Well, the people in this house definitely are, (as shown by the Romney sign) even if their house can creep you out:

The great-grandparents are buried in front yard.

I mean, look at that place! It's got the wall, the fence, the gate (which I bet even creaks.) It's old, brooding, just unkempt enough, it rises three tall stories between autumn colored trees under a gray sky. And I hate to think what enraged spirit is looking down at me from that third story window.

I got brave enough to foolishly draw closer (last spring) like any good Lovecraft character:

Warning: Impalement Danger. Do not let children climb on fence.

 What makes this even more remarkable, this house has a twin, on the same estate, behind the same wall, just down the street. This one is even vacant:

Once owned by a cross-dresser with mother-issues.

 However, this last takes the prize. There is no way you could look at this and not be awed and creeped out:

That chill you feel is just the blood curdling in your veins.

And it gets better as you look toward the side, and see the old servants' quarters where every family who ever lived there are entombed underneath:

"Winthrop, father's tired. Please accompany him back to his vault."

All told, it's a lot of fun with just a very short work. I really do live in the perfect neighborhood, for me, a horror writer. I was just a little late for Halloween with this one, but, I'll build on it next year.