So I found myself talking to a cat earlier tonight...as if he might actually answer me. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. A good thing because this cat has such soulful eyes and he actually seemed to be listening for once (I've seen him around several times outside where I work) and there is something about attentive eyes (whether they are human or animal) that can make a person pour her heart out. The bad thing, obviously, is my half expecting the cat to answer.

I talk to God out loud, too, but only when I am by myself and at home, but neither the cat nor God (no disrespect to God, I mean that, sincerely) can answer me directly. In the cat's eyes, though, I swear I see something deeper than just a creature who wants his dinner and in God's silence (I am not sure how He would feel about me even if He did talk out loud) I still try and find hope.

I lost my faith for a long time when I was really hating myself for being gay. I mistook really rabid Conservative Christians for all Christians and somehow I took my silent anger out on God. I don't know (really, how can I ever know for sure?) how God feels about gays and lesbians, especially how He feels about us as individuals, as actual people who feel and live and love just like anyone else does.

All I know for sure is that I only started feeling a little less angry, a little less hurt and in pain when I realized I cannot go through life without feeling there is more to this world than the hate and today's crass pop culture and people who look right past you if you aren't pretty enough or "cool" or whatever enough. I find my peace in a hungry cat's eyes and in the hope that there is a God who won't hate me or send me to Hell because of who I happen to love.

I have to believe in something higher, something better, because there are so many times I just don't believe in me.

Just a mishmash of things related to why books are sometimes better for the soul than other people are...I like the below link except for #12 which I think completely misses the point of Beauty and The Beast (unless they are joking):

 http://thoughtcatalog.com/nico-lang/2013/10/31-signs-you-like-books-more-than-you-like-people/

There are times when I really do think it is better to just stick with books and care about people from afar, where you cannot possibly bother them and your heart is safer. I love people, I really do, but as soon as I actually interact with them, especially ones I really like, I seem to mess things up.

Insomnia continues to be a constant companion and yet it leaves me unable to really do anything completely worthwhile. You can only reorganize your pantry so many times and you cannot vacuum or move furniture around in the middle of the night. I am too exhausted to really read anything with good focus or to watch tv or movies that are "new"to me...so I go with reruns and dvds I have seen a million times before. Right now my best friends are "Fringe," "Frasier" and "Golden Girls."

Last night I watched a "Frasier" I must have seen dozens of times before, but this time I took it to heart more than I remember having done in the past. The episode (titled: "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back") is from the first season and though Lilith tells Frasier she wants to get back together (that doesn't exactly go according to plan and mayhem soon ensues) at the heart of this episode is how she is so lonely, which she tells Frasier in one of her character's most vulnerable scenes ever. She is so non-Lilith (in other words, not wearing her usual tough and icy exterior), the moment is very touching and Frasier (non-pompous and genuinely consoling) reassures her that even if she never meets anyone, she will handle whatever comes her way because of who and how she is.

I felt like that moment leaped off the screen and into the part of me that needed to hear something like that. And I wish people said things like that in real life. It is not cold at all, but a refreshing truth and far, far better than some well-meaning person (who really has no way of seeing the future) telling you your day will come and that 'right person' is right around that corner you will turn someday.

Maybe that day won't come and maybe I won't meet someone and life might not be the way I wanted it to be, but it will be okay. Though Lilith is often the butt of Martin, Daphne and Nile's jokes (or fear), I really think she is seen in a positive light most of the time: a tough and strong woman who does sometimes show her fragile side and lives to tell about it.

I made a decision the other day that isn't life-altering, but yet, somehow, really is (for me) in a way. I made it in a moment of strong emotion and careful decision, and even now I am not regretting it. It will remove me somewhat from a situation I have been slipping in over and over, a situation both hopeless and heartbreaking. And I will be sad for a while at missing what I will be missing, but I also am glad that I am capable of doing what needs to be done when I feel I cannot trust how I react sometimes.

I found some articles on making decisions (some of which cover logically versus emotionally):

http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/emotion_decision.htm

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/one-among-many/201006/reason-and-emotion-note-plato-darwin-and-damasio

http://blog.iqmatrix.com/effective-decisions

I can never get back the respect of the person whose opinion has changed of me and that makes me, incredibly sad...especially when I think of the first day we met and how she couldn't possibly have known yet what an idiot I was going to turn out to be. But it is only what I deserve, especially considering everything that has happened.

Meanwhile, I am doing my very best to keep my feelings and thoughts to myself and hoping that even though I cannot change what has happened, even if this person never wants anything ever to do with me again, I will do my very best from now on to separate my heart from my mouth.

The Unlikely Hero Of Room 13 B is just so amazing! I haven't finished it yet, but I feel very confident it will remain amazing! :)

KIRKUS REVIEW

What would it feel like to wake up normal? It’s a question most people would never have cause to ask—and the one 14-year-old Adam Spencer Ross longs to have answered.

Life is already complicated enough for Adam, but when Robyn Plummer joins the Young Adult OCD Support Group in room 13B, Adam falls fast and hard. Having long assumed the role of protector to those he loves, Adam immediately knows that he must do everything he can to save her. The trouble is, Robyn isn’t the one who needs saving. Adam’s desperate need to protect everyone he loves—his broken mother, a younger half brother with OCD tendencies, and the entire motley crew of Room 13B—nearly costs him everything. Adam’s first-person account of his struggle to cope with the debilitating symptoms of OCD while navigating the complexities of everyday teen life is achingly authentic. Much like Adam, readers will have to remind themselves to breathe as he performs his ever worsening OCD rituals. Yet Toten does a masterful job bringing Adam to life without ever allowing him to become a one-dimensional poster boy for a teen suffering from mental illness.


Readers be warned: Like Augustus Waters before him, Adam Spencer Ross will renew your faith in real-life superheroes and shatter your heart in equal measure. (Fiction. 12 & up)