I saw this the other day and thought it pretty much captured how I feel about how some of my straight friends see being gay especially since Trump came back into office. 

One friend, in particular, just doesn’t get it so I shut up and don’t talk about it, but when I first came out to her, she said she was there for me no matter what. 

Now I realize there was something she didn’t say that was also part of her acceptance, meaning as long as I don’t talk about it at all, ever, she’s “ok with who I am.”

She regularly goes to Chick-fil-A and when she brings the food back she plops it right down in front of me and says sorry very sarcastically before she picks it back up and walks away. A long time ago I stopped explaining to her that Chick-fil-A still quietly gives to anti-gay causes so I’m not sure why says anything.

I’m too tired to fight battles anymore. But I will say I’d rather friends have said to me they don’t accept me and be honest than say they do but show otherwise with microaggressions.

Usually, my cat sleeps next to me at night and I hug him like a teddy bear (but a bit less tightly than you would a stuffed animal) and it is so comforting. The past week or so, though, he has taken to firmly, almost heavily, settling on my legs and it's like he's trying to center me or something and telling me he's got things covered. He is such a special feline friend. 

 

All of Us Strangers is absolutely draining and part of me is sorry I watched it and another part knows it's good that I did.

A 2023 British romantic fantasy film directed by Andrew Haigh, the story follows a lonely screenwriter named Adam (played by Andrew Scott) who lives a secluded life in London. One night, he meets his mysterious neighbor Harry (played by Paul Mescal), and they develop an intimate relationship.

As Adam revisits his childhood home, he encounters his deceased parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) as they were just before they died in a car accident when he was twelve. The film explores themes of love, loss, and reconciliation as Adam navigates his relationships with Harry and his parents.

I cannot relate to Adam's relationship with his parents (I wonder, after watching it more than once, if he is idealizing it and that it really didn't happen that way, that he gave more happiness to his childhood than was actually there).

There is so much to say about it, but for now it's hard to vocalize it all.

 More relevant than ever😔💔

(Or at least it feels that way lately)

Lyrics

Oh-oh, yeah
Mmm
To-do-do, oh-oh

These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much but we'll take our chances
'Cause God's stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned His back and all God's children
Crept out the back door

And it's hard to love
There's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above
Say it's much, too much, too late
Well, maybe we should all be praying for time

To-do-do, oh-oh
Mmm, whoa-whoa, yeah

These are the days of the empty hand
Oh, you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year
This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here

So you scream from behind your door
Say what's mine is mine and not yours
I may have too much but I'll take my chances
'Cause God's stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can't come back 'cause he has no children
To come back for?

It's hard to love
There's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above
Say it's much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time

To-do-do
Oh-oh, yeah

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: George Michael

Praying for Time lyrics © Robobuild Limited

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the first 20 seasons of the original “Law & Order” landed on Hulu. To my knowledge, they have never been streaming before. L&O is probably one of my favorite comfort shows after “I love Lucy” and “Golden Girls.”

Because I had never seen the first three seasons before I started at the beginning and I’m very struck by just how amazing Paul Sorvino is in the second and part of the third season.

A writer from https://www.slashfilm.com captures it perfectly:

What makes Cerreta great is his gentle strength and quiet confidence. When he speaks, he commands attention — all without raising his voice. The senior officer could be intimidating in one scene and warmly compassionate in the next; the latter was especially true when talking to female victims of assault — there was a kindness in his voice that was firm but empathetic. Cerreta threaded that needle arguably better than any other detective on "Law & Order" — Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach, who died in 2004) being a close second, but even he was oftentimes prickly with victims. 

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/941109/paul-sorvinos-short-law-order-stint-still-left-a-mark/

I wish Paul Sorvino had been on the show longer. I find his presence so comforting. It turns out he left because he didn't feel the role allowed him to express himself as an artist and because of his interest in pursuing opera, which is really kind of neat.

 

I just wanted to elaborate a little more on internalized homophobia. I asked AI to define it. Not everything that follows below* is what I have experienced. In a world where being queer was more accepted and less demonized (and to a less important extent, where I was pretty and dateable), I would be almost weightless in my soul.

But we don't live in that kind of world (especially now!) and I am not a candidate for Ms. Right For Me, so I do find myself self-hating and self-doubting my innocence and right to exist. And I worry a lot about all the other people out there who are going through challenges and heartache and feeling like they may have to completely disappear or shut down just to survive, both figuratively and literally.

Internalized homophobia is when someone internalizes negative beliefs and feelings about LGBTQ+ people, and applies those beliefs to themselves. It can cause people to feel discomfort or disapproval with their own same-sex attractions, or even reject their sexual orientation

Causes 

Internalized homophobia can be caused by society's negative perceptions, intolerance, and stigma toward LGBTQ+ people.

• It can also be caused by the assumption that everyone is or should be heterosexual.

Effects

Internalized homophobia can lead to self-hatred, mental and physical health issues, and problems with intimacy. 
It can also cause people to isolate themselves from queer people, or to bully and discriminate against openly gay people. 

Signs 

Feeling discomfort or disapproval with same-sex attractions
Punishing oneself for having queer thoughts and feelings
Avoiding gay/queer peers or colleagues
Defending or excusing homophobia

My fears for the next four years for anyone who is not a straight white man are growing stronger each day.

I swore that I would not write or obsess about Trump again, but the past few days have made it so very difficult not to do so. He has hit the ground running with his extreme agenda and executive orders that are so alarming I cannot think clearly enough to convey what I want to say. 

I've always had some amount of internalized homophobia (though rarely outward) but it has been especially activated the past few days and never have I been this afraid to live in this country. The days of feeling fairly safe that I had ten years ago are completely gone now.

But for a moment yesterday I was comforted by these words Reverend Maryann Budde spoke before Trump:

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.”

In an interview later she said: “I wanted to counter, as gently as I could, with a reminder of their humanity and their place in our wider community.And I was speaking to the president because I felt that he has this moment now where he feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to do. And I wanted to say, you know, there is room for mercy. There‘s room for a broader compassion. We don’t need to portray with a broad cloth in the harshest of terms, some of the most vulnerable people in our society who are in fact our neighbors, our friends, our children, our friends, children and so forth."

Trump went on a tirade about Rev. Buddes, calling for a public apology from her. Imagine finding fault with and getting angry with someone who is only asking for compassion for everyone. And this is only his first week.

 

I'm reading Carrie again for the first time in 40 years so I'm not surprised I don't remember a lot of it, besides iconic imagery that is most likely more from the film. I think what most gets to me is the cruelty Carrie faces from everyone in her life. I just don't remember the level of intensity of it, heartbreaking and monstrous, which makes me wonder if I only imagined I read it before. Stephen King's books came into my life probably way sooner than they should have (I was only 10 when I first read one of his books) but horror seemed perfectly suited for middle and high school years at the time.

Rest in peace, David Lynch. You transformed so many tv and movie fans' lives, in ways that never could have been imagined.

On April 8 it will be 35 years since Twin Peaks debuted on ABC Television. I remember the night it aired well. It was a Sunday and I was home from college and intrigued by an ad in that week’s issue of TV Guide. At nine o’clock that evening, very few people could say they knew what was about to unfold and Twin Peak’s future destiny as one of the most influential programs of its time.

I became obsessed from the moment Laura Palmer’s body washed up on shore. Totally. Obsessed. I wanted to buy The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, but instead settled for sneaking reads at the News Center in Ellicott City’s Chatham Mall, because I was too afraid to buy it and bring it home with me.(Over the years I did end up buying it and it is every bit as nightmarish as you would think it would be).

Twin Peaks stood out for so many different reasons: its extremely quirky characters and haunting music, its compelling mystery and tragic central figure, often unseen, but still always there.

Many viewers found that Twin Peaks held deeper, more haunting themes beyond its central mystery. The show demands that its audience not only acknowledge the existence of sexual violence, but also face the unsettling truth that our culture, in many ways, tolerates and even permits violence against women.

One of the most poignant moments that underscores this theme occurs at Laura's funeral. Bobby Briggs, in a heart-wrenching outburst, blames the entire town for her tragic death. With raw emotion, he exclaims, "Everybody knew she was in trouble, but we didn’t do anything. All you good people. You want to know who killed Laura? You did! We all did."

Sheryl Lee, who portrayed Laura Palmer, echoed this sentiment in her reflections. She wondered aloud why no one in the community recognized Laura’s desperation. “Why didn’t anyone do anything to help? There were signs everywhere. There were symptoms of how much pain this girl was in. And the other thing is, how many men were involved in her destruction?”

I was trying to find the right search words to see if other people experience their dreams the way I do and discovered this thread on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dreams/comments/13x1duc/do_your_dreams_take_place_in_a_consistent/

And Google's AI Overview brought up this, though I would not use the word "recurring" so much for my dreams:

Recurring Themes:

People often experience recurring dreams with consistent elements, which could be interpreted as a link to a specific parallel reality where certain situations repeatedly play out.

I do have the kind of recurring dreams that are considered textbook (i.e. haven't gone to class all semester, teeth fall out), but I also have dreams that pick up from the previous night's or contain the same places. 

For instance, there is a thriving mall that is often in my dreams and I saw it so vividly the first time that I mapped it out the next morning and saved it so I could compare it to the dreams that followed over the next days and weeks.

My dream life is often far more vivid and exciting than my waking, real life, but it is so extreme and so vibrant that it scares me more than anything else.

Even the bookstore and record store I frequent in my dreams scare me (the mall looks like it could be from the 1980s, but it looks nothing like the mall near me that I have been going to for more than 40 years).

In the bookstore I am often handed (aggressively, I might add) scores of romance novels (often Harlequins) when I am not asking for them and in the record store I am often finding "new" Carpenters albums, which might sound neat on paper, but is exhausting and sad.

My family history is often even more distorted from my real family history, but is chronological from dream to dream. My coworkers appear a lot as well.

Someone I terribly wronged (good intentions or not) decades ago shows up, too, but unlike with what happened in real life, she always seems glad to see me and we are friends. Those are some of my best dreams, but are somehow worse than my most frightening ones, because those good dreams are so far from the truth it's heartbreaking.

 It's my seventh day of not drinking and so far I'm doing well. I was averaging two glasses of wine pretty much every night since March of 2020, with the exceptions of when I had Covid and when I had surgery last year and was on painkillers. (And also when I could not get out to buy any wine during either of those times).

I thought I would miss wine more than I do, miss the buzz and the ability to sleep two or three hours in a row, dead to the world.

Maybe I do miss it some, but I can't afford to miss it. The Surgeon General's warning about alcohol causing cancer scared me. Of course, I never kidded myself that drinking as much wine as I was could be good, but I supposed I had my head in the clouds or chose to be purposely ignorant about it all.

Other alarming factors include how much weight I've gained since I began drinking and how much my acid reflux worsened and how I had nightmares even stronger than my pre-drinking ones. 

Two things are helping me stay on track: chamomile tea and (more importantly) my cat. I discovered that if I tell my cat each morning before I leave for work that I will not go the liquor store, I don't go to the liquor store. And being a certifiable homebody, once I'm at home I stay there and resist the urge to use an alcohol delivery service.

It may sound silly that I do this. After all, my cat has no clue what I'm saying nor what wine is nor the damage that it causes. But if there is one being in this whole world I have never lied to, that being is my cat. He is also who I am responsible for and whom I want to be there for as long as humanly possible.

There's a very good chance I'm lying when I say "maybe" I do miss wine. I know I miss it: I miss how it numbs my pain about the world and about difficult family situations and how it mellows out some of my horrible edges. But I can't afford to miss it and I won't miss it.

I just won't.