A few things to go over... I'll start with the more depressing so I can leave off on a high note.

Well, I've been out to much of my family for several months now. The only one I can see ever actually accepting me is my dad. With my mother... any time the subject of Silven or the baby comes up I get an icy cold vibe from her. My guess as to why: she's attending a pentecostal church. There is no room in a good pentecostal family for a gay son, much less a gay son's boyfriend and his son - and its pretty clear that's how she intends to view it. My son is not her grandson in her eyes so far as I can tell. I'll warn you now this entry will involve more than a hint of bitterness on my part. I will get over that bitterness though. They can play the part of Ice Queen from here on out it will not change what I feel for Silven, or the warmth in my heart when I see Alexander, our baby. Their frozen hearts will only repel me from them.

I keep trying to talk to my grandma. She ends each conversation with something she has to do. Thinking about this I've come to a realization tonight. My grandmother's presence in my life has been consistent: one or two weeks out of the year when she would visit us or we would visit her. In this way she is more a part of my family than my other grandparents (not including my father's father, may he RIP); however, it seems that this was or is the extent of her wish to be involved in my life. I have tried over and over again to talk to her. She will talk for a little while, then come up with a reason to stop. She has to go to bed (really... adults can choose to stay up late once in a while, especially during an important conversation), or she has to go to the store, or she's arranging for her "friend" Jim to come over (Jim has been her 'friend' since as long as I can remember, would not surprise me at all if they had a ****buddy relationship going on, which would embarrass the hell out of her good christian image... especially after two failed marriages... and she dares say we gays are somehow stealing marriage from "them" the good christians). The point is, I her grandson am not particularly important and I her gay grandson am just going through a phase that if she just pretends isn't real will go away.

Fine. She can keep playing the fool. She can keep pretending she doesn't hear what I'm saying when i talk to her over the phone. She can pretend she didn't get the pictures I send her via instant messenger when I have the log of transmission right in front of me. She can go ahead and pretend that gay Ash does not exist for all I care at this point. Its her loss. It hurts me to say that, it hurts me to realize that this woman who claims she loves me actually loves a pretend me that isn't who I am, and it hurts me to have to face the probable course I will have to take of likewise pretending she isn't my grandmother.

I say I have to take this course because if I keep spending my energy, keep laying my heart open to be ripped up, I won't be able to keep my sanity. I can't and I won't let myself keep getting hurt by her.

I fear I will also have to take this approach to dealing with my mom and for that matter, many of those I've called family over the years. My mom wants to be my mom... but its pretty clear she doesn't want to accept that I love Silven and the baby... or maybe not. There's still hope for her, I think, but one of the biggest enemies of that hope is the church. A good pentecostal woman does not encourage their gay son to be gay.

Church... its never a good thing with my mom. She starts out by thinking if she goes there she'll be able to fill some void in her heart. She'll go and feel better for a time, then she'll get depressed at what a horrible person she/her family is. With regard to me specifically... its no secret that christians don't have the most open hearts when it comes to gays. I can only hope she quits going to that place and starts thinking to herself instead of letting preachers think for her. She recently attended a baptist service which worried me even more. Baptists don't exactly have a good reputation when it comes to accepting gays. Well, apparently she didn't care for the service because the preacher was babbling on about how evolution really is a religion or some nonsense like that. I honestly hope she quits looking to any church for "guidance" and just examines the facts instead. But hey, I'm a fan of using reasoning to deal with morality rather than abandoning oneself to the concept of an all-powerful all-correct being handing one a book with all the answers in it.

Yeah... I'm less than appreciative of religion. I'd rather evaluate religious texts as I would any philosophical essay than pretend the books are divine. They're not. People wrote them. Other people copied them. More people translated them. Every step of the way PEOPLE made decisions about what went into them. People are not infallible (and lets please not get into rather or not god is fallible when his very existence is questionable). The amount of pain caused to families by religion, the amount of violence wrought upon this world by religion is, frankly, disgusting. Would the world be better without religion: hell yes. Note I'm not talking about spirituality. Can meditating or praying help one to reach some internal peace? - absolutely. When I speak of religion though, I speak of dogma and the overriding urge by many religions to force their morality on others. Enough of that subject though. There are enough essays on this already.

What I'm going to end up doing, with respect to my family, is a combination of what my dad and his sister did. I'm going to move away. I'm going to take after my father by working hard to be successful in whatever carreer I choose to go with, and do everything I can to help raise our child, Alex, and maybe another child some day. I will take after my aunt in this regard: those members of my family who don't accept me - let them rot. I will still regularly contact my dad and talk with him. I will talk to my mom or grandmother or the others if they call me but will not bend over backwards to try to get them to accept me nor go out of my way to contact them when all it does is reillustrate that they don't want to be a part of my life. I have my own life to deal with and if they don't want to be a part of it because I'm too gay for their christian beliefs to handle then fine. I wish them the best in whatever lives they choose to lead rather I'm welcome in them or not.

In other news.... i'm so sick of my roommates right now its ridiculous. Three of them have been smoking weed all semester - in the apartment - and I'm sick of smelling the stuff and sick of wondering what's going to happen when they get caught and my name is on the lease if I don't turn them in. I told them to get rid of the stuff, and they're already smoking it again. They've also stolen from me. I left two cases of water at the apartment before I left for PA, both of them were gone when I got back and the ***holes left the empty case under my bed.... after stealing my hangars (which I've since taken back). Today I got some take out and put it in the fridge, not two hours later i go back and the top of the box has been ripped off and my sandwhich has been eaten. You know what? f**K them. My tolerance for their shit is gone. My patience will hold out... just long enough for them to do the ultimate stupid thing (again) and all go into one of the rooms and start smoking the weed. When they do I will contact the RA, she will have them arrested, and that will be the end of that.

Is it a little cutthroat on my part? Maybe. But you know what? You don't do stuff to annoy someone who has that kind of power and you damned sure don't leave him stranded at the airport when you said you were going to pick him up! What was their excuse? Too high. Another room mate told me that was a lie and he was just being a jackass.

Well congratulations jackass, you've arranged for your own damned deportation. Did I mention one of them is here from Brazil on a student Visa?

My roomates are disgusting. The bathrooms are beyond redemption, nasty beyond belief. There was an inch wide shitring in the toilet (until I cleaned it) and the sink looked like it belonged in an abandoned gas station rather than an appartment with five people. The mirror is covered in some nasty film I don't want to even guess at. The shower? the floor is so disgusting you have to put your sandals on before you step out of it or you're likely to pick up bioweapon grade bacteria before you get back to your room. The Kitchen? I don't use it because I have a meal plan. Good thing to because I sure as hell am not cleaning that smelly disaster. The refrigerator? -Likewise the probable nesting ground of bioweapon grade bacteria. Absolutely, unforgivably disgusting. Did I mention they drip? When they pee, the last couple drops or so drip on the floor. Guess whats never been cleaned up?

Yuck.

I know I said I was going to leave off on a high note, and I was going to talk about a couple of very nice things, but I'm worked up already about the bad stuff so I'll save the good for another blog entry.