This...

This is one of the reasons I have stuck with Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson, which can be a bit draggy (emotionally and plot-wise) and disjointed (purposely so and to great effect) at some points, but is ultimately one of the best things (and also one of the few books to have held my interest in a while) I have read recently. The writing is always good, even if it takes a good thirty or so pages before it gets going in a way that makes you want to keep reading...

Some mornings are harder than others...and some mornings you will look for peace or something to hold on to in the weirdest of places. I have not had much patience, time or even interest to read the Sunday papers lately, but I was straightening my unread ones from yesterday so that maybe I can read them when I get home from work tonight and the New York Times Style Magazine, sometimes just called T, fell out and onto the floor and when I picked it up it had opened to this page. Both the image and the words really jumped out at me:

 

I had never heard of Candy Darling before, but found more about her here:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Darling

 

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.