felt the need to share this

Freak solidarity, y'all.

One of Many Reasons Why My Grandma is a Boss

I was camping with my grandparents this week and my grandma asked me about school. So I told her about the two extracurriculars I want to be in next year, Spectrum Club (aka Gay-Straight Alliance) and youth group. Why is this significant?

Later, she referred to our earlier conversation and asked if I was gay. I told her truthfully that I wasn't, and that straight people can join GSAs too (most of them don't, but still...). Grandma, like the wonderfully wonderful woman she is, was cool with it and even a little proud. The only thing she was worried about was people harassing me for supporting homosexuality so openly like that, but she's proud of me for standing up for human rights and sticking to my beliefs no matter what anyone else thinks. She was happy when I told her about this blog, too (I had to explain what a 'blog' was, but after that she started smiling). I'm going to teach her how to use the Internet so she can read it.

Think about this for a moment. My grandmother is seventy-two years old, a devout Irish Catholic, and a middle-class Republican (I think, I've never asked) in a country where homosexuality is a big controversy, a state where the government still refuses to believe that love is love. It was a really stupid assumption and totally hypocritical of me, but I really thought she'd have a negative reaction to my joining a GSA and the possibility of my being a lesbian.

So ignorant of me, especially considering the fact that I'm also a devout Irish American Catholic in a state where gay marriage is currently illegal. But I write a freaking LGBT pride blog, for crying out loud. That really goes to show how possible it is to defy stereotypes, how we are more than the labels people apply to us.

But it really gave me a lot of hope for humanity, I guess...not to be sappy. After all, if someone like my grandma, someone that most people would never expect to even be okay with homosexuality, can be proud of her granddaughter for joining a gay-straight alliance, what does that say about the rest of the world and its ability to love others and embrace change? My grandma totally schooled me in the art of defying stereotypes, and that makes me really happy.

Yes, things look bleak sometimes, but we are headed toward a brighter, more loving, and more accepting future.

How to Play Kings and Queens

This is a fortunetelling game, an old youth group tradition that didn't get passed down very well and that I only recently learned.

1. Decide whose fortune is going to be told.
2. Pick out the kings, the queens, or two of each (whatever the person is into) and put them face-up, side by side, on a flat surface. Hold the rest of the deck face-down in your hand.
3. Pick out four people, any four people.* It's funnier if they're actually in the room, but celebrities are also awesome for this. Each suit (clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds) represents one person.
4. Ask a single question (e.g. Which one will give her/him/them/xir/kir/hir/etc. foot rubs? Which one will make the monthly CVS run? Which one will hog the TV for their favorite show every night?)
5. After this question, deal out four cards and place each one in front of the Kings and Queens.
6. Repeat steps #5 and #6. Continue this until there are four cards left in the deck, set aside.
7. Pick up each pile, one at a time, and announce how many there are of each suit in the pile.

CLUBS: represent how much they will beat the person (this actually leads to a lot of friendly BDSM jokes, ironically. I have no idea why it represents that, but I didn't invent the game)

HEARTS: represent how much they will love them.

SPADES: represent how good they will be in bed (or, as we like to euphemism 'cause we're a church group, how good they are at tennis)

DIAMONDS: represent how rich they will be.

The higher the value, the more of this the potential future soul mate will have.

*No, you do not have to be attracted to the person. Once, Christina had her fortune told, and she put me and Ellen Degeneres as two of her potential soul mates - and she's asexual.

I know I'm not explaining this very well, but it's easier to have an experienced player show you. Ah well, have fun anyway!

Camping Trip

Some of you may have been wondering where I've been the last few days. The answer? I was camping with my youth group. Here are the highlights:

1. I learned this awesome fortunetelling game called Kings and Queens that 'predicts' who you're going to end up with and how they'll treat you. I'll teach you how to play in the next post.
2. I came up with this awesome idea for a screenplay that's basically a fantasy version of youth group. It's currently entitled Matthew, simply because the word 'Matthew' was on the cover of my notebook when I got it.
3. My canoe flipped over once, and now I have a very interesting scar on my right arm from the incident. However, I had fun so it's all good.
4. We kind of made friends with this random group of kids whom we met at the pavilion. They sang along when we started belting out Fall Out Boy.
5. Christina dominated when we all spent an afternoon at a nearby arcade. She won a stuffed mouse in the claw machine and named it Louis, two bouncy balls in a game called Copy Cat, and a large tube of colored sugar. She is, by the way, very prone to sugar highs.
6. I came up with an idea that I'm entitling Pride with Prose, which is essentially where LGBTQIA+ youth and their allies conspire to write literature promoting queer pride, anywhere and everywhere possible, and publish it to spread the word...and the acceptance, hopefully. I'd appreciate it if everyone could mention this to their friends and family, to help get the word out. Anyone is welcome to participate.

And that, friends, sums up the reason I've been AWOL for the last five days.

Fun Things I Found on the Internet

I've noticed that most of my posts here are about more serious topics - bullying, Day of Silence, that kind of thing. And while that stuff is still completely important, we all need to laugh sometimes. So...

The World's Funniest Fanfiction Author

Funny Quotes

Lizard Owns News Guy

Has this made you smile? Good, my mission is accomplished.

Some Fanfictions

Here are some fabulousness, oddness, and other items of interest from Fanfiction.net. Hope you enjoy them!

American Dragon: Jake Long

California Dragon: Angela Serafini

What They Don't Know

Subjection

Of Sphinx Hair and Reality

Monster

Once Upon a Time

Theory of Magic

Wake Me Up

Danny Phantom

Bittersweet

Unexpected Abuse

Lab Rat

Lab Rats

A Brother's Back

Dog with a Blog

Book Club

The Broken Trilogy


Please note that just because I like a certain fanfiction doesn't mean I like the fandom it's written about. (*cough Dog with a Blog cough cough*) It just means the writer of that story has totally owned the fandom writers for the canon in the quality department.

A Random Poem

Hey. It's like 10:30 at night, but I just felt the need to write this.

The Outcasts

I am the outcast. The socially awkward girl, the fat girl, the girl who never talks. But what you don't know is that I have trust issues because my mother has abused me ever since my father died. She's a drug addict, and when she's high, I'm an easy victim. So I took comfort in food. But the thing is, the food just disappeared - and left me this way. And I will never be able to forget, because I have autism and that means that any bad memory I have, any snide comment a bully makes or any sting of my mother's slaps, sticks with me forever. And then I realized I was a lesbian - but my best friend just keeps making homophobic comments and...and I'm not willing to be anyone's punching bag. I'm not willing to hide who I am. I'm coming out, and screw anyone who doesn't approve. I'm  terrified every day.

I am the outcast. I am the skinny guy, the guy who always wears dirty clothes and has greasy hair, the guy who sits in stony silence. But what you don't know is that my father walked out years ago, and ever since we're barely surviving. We can't afford to pay the water bill, to pay the electric bill, to buy food - s**t, we're almost homeless. And it doesn't help that my parents were poor to begin with. My mom is convinced that God is going to help us, but I'm running out of anything to believe in. Why would God leave us like this? My escape is drugs, drugs and music. Loud enough to block out the comments of the stupid f*****g yuppies around me. But pretty soon the high fades and I'm left with nothing. Then this random chick sat next to me in science class. Couldn't be any more different than me, but I feel like I can tell her anything, like she'll listen even if she can't possibly relate. It helps, venting to her.  I'm  terrified every day.

I am the outcast. I am the friendless girl, the scared girl, the girl whose voice nobody understands. But what you don't know is that I just moved from Mexico, so my English isn't the greatest, and I have a really thick accent. To make things worse, I'm "special needs," and for some ridiculous reason everyone thinks that means "stupid." Without even getting to know me. It's so different here, so fast fast fast and frightening. I've tried to make friends, but it's like people hate anyone different. They all look at me and snicker, or fix their pale faces into expressions of pity until I want to rip their eyes out. It's so infuriating; don't they understand that I have my pride? Then someone walked up to me and smiled, asked a question. A genuine question, like she really wanted to get to know me. Not like she felt sorry for me or was planning to laugh with her friends about it later. And now she's my best friend. It doesn't change the snickers and vicious whispers, the little insipid giggles that I wish didn't have the power to make me cry myself to sleep. I'm terrified every day.

They are the outcasts. They are the freaks. The kids who hang on the fringes of life, the kids you ignore. They are the outcasts. She is the autistic, overweight lesbian who writes beautiful poetry that no one will ever read, but all anyone sees is her body. He is the guy whose life is falling down around him and still manages to be the most selfless, caring person you will meet. She is the frightened girl with the voice only one person can decipher, but she has amazing courage and loyalty. They are the outcasts, the amazing people you may never know if you don't try. They're terrified every day.And the thing is - they're real people. They are real outcasts, people who have faded into the background, people you might know. 

They are the outcasts. But they don't have to be. No one does. So go, be that kid who listens to the frightened girl, be the girl who is that guy's only escape from the stress and poverty of his life, be the person that encourages that lesbian to come out and cheers her on the whole way. Be the person who changes their lives. Because no one should be terrified every day.

_________________________________________________________________________________

They actually are. I based them off of real people I've been extremely lucky to get to know.

Sorry the poem isn't that good - it's late at night and I'm tired but can't sleep. I kind of have to try, though. So goodnight.