A very Proud Halloween, and religious sadness (but mostly rambling)

Last weekend was Atlanta Gay Pride, and I had the opportunity to go. It was an absolute blast. Ally went as an organization event, and we stayed at the home church of one of the members and former officers. We arrived Saturday evening and got settled in, then everyone else went out to party a bit. I had some very interesting reading, was very tired, and had the suspicion -confirmed- that the security system might not be generous enough to let them in if they got back after midnight, so I stayed at the church. We all went to church there (Saint Mark's United Methodist) Sunday morning and then watched the parade. The route leads right in front of the church, so we got seats on the curb facing the church and had an excellent view of the parade.

Although I had a full battery when it started, my camera died right before the end of the march, so I missed a few good shots, including a man who'd painted himself into a rainbow and donned a suit of bubble wrap--JUST a suit of bubble wrap. I did get a picture on a friend's camera, though.

After the parade we went down to the park and walked the booths for a bit before heading back to school. All around, pride was amazing, hilarious, inspiring, and kind of sad in some ways. St. Mark's was very welcoming and open, had rainbows all over the chapel and had a speaker from the Human Rights Campaign. Even though the woman whose church it was had told us it was a welcoming and accepting church, I felt anxious before the service over wearing my "gay tag," a rainbow dog tag on a chain.

I am a gay/bisexual, trans-spectrum human being, predominately identifying as a female. I am a Christian. I feel that God loves me, and He/She will always love me and I should strive to live as morally straight a life as possible. Jesus said,

³⁰And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (with your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment.

^{³¹The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)}

And I try. And I often fail, because I am human, and I am a fallen creature. But He/She loves me anyway. Knowing that, I get little love from The Church. I felt honest surprise -joy, elation, relief, giddiness, a real sense of rightness, but also surprise- when the actions and words of everyone I heard in that church actually matched the professed acceptance. That church made me happy, but my surprise makes me that much more aware of how far I feel I have been pushed or have willingly retracted myself from the established church.

I loved church as a child, and still do to some extent. Though not by any stretch of the imagination a singer, my most earnest form of worship has always been through music. Whenever I have attended a church without a good music program, I have felt that my communion with God has been stifled or limited in some way. While I am not currently attending regularly, I make a point in my personal worship to listen and sing songs that seem to have a deeper spirituality. It helps.

{{This is where the pictures are supposed to be, but We are Experiencing Technical Difficulties. My camera would let me look at the pics, then it gave me generic icon images, then it died, so we'll see how generous it's feeling after a recharge and a stern talking to.}}

You'll just have to make do with pictures of protesters from another march/ pride/ something. I found this on Pundit Kitchen and it made me happy.

see more Political Pictures

This post was a lot more rambling than I intended, and didn't focus on what I'd originally planned on posting, but I've been meaning to do a post or two on religion (Cameron got a bug in my ear for that), so here you go. Deal with it, oh three people who read my blog.

~Brill

Yes; I do, in fact, exist

I know, I know, it's been forever, but it's been one hell of a BUSY forever.

FLAG, in cooperation with the Theatre club, are putting on a Lip Sync show on the 22nd, and as I am now (at least in name) VP I am very invested in this production. And a very last-minute production it's turning out to be. Urg, if this gets done again next year, a) we will advertise earlier than TWO WEEKS before the show, b) we will start planning a hell of a lot earlier than about a month before, and c) we will not hold it in the last bleeding month of school! [/rant]

On a happier note, I went to Le Batard's college this evening to see their theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing. It was marvelous, hilarious, and as far as I remember from reading it early on in the semester in Shakespeare class, quite true to the text (with the exception of a slight dash of modern music and some men with twirlers...but they definitely added to it, IMHO).

I've picked out my classes for next semester (Fall '08) and will register on the 30th. I really, really, REALLY hope I can get into all of my art classes, especially the art history class. (It will cover a major requirement AND a separate Gen Ed requirement because it's a 'Non-Anglophone, Non-Western European' course. They have some SERIOUSLY odd Gen Ed requ.'s). Monkey and I get our numbers for the 'room lottery' this Monday. Honestly, I've had the system for room choice explained to me a few times, a few different ways, and it still doesn't make complete sense. I know enough to know that, as rising sophomores, we're screwed as far as getting our desired dorm. Or second choice. Or possibly third choice.

My philosophy for school work is "Don' worra boudit." This mainly pertains to my never-sufficiently-damned Econ and the Great Depression class, and somewhat to Shakespeare. Both have relatively intense papers due in, oh, 2 weeks I think. I only have one of the due dates burned so thoroughly into my corneas that it haunts my dreams while I try to sleep. Oh, and the final project for health class: "Create your own fitness program. Creatively." i.e. like a magazine, apparently.
Ignore the dull, repetitive thud-thump, it's only the sound of my brain bouncing against my skull as it pounds the wall of insomnia.
On a very slightly related note: While attempting to keep up with the economics prof in the foremost of the above listed classes, I found an exception to the grammar rule: 'i' before 'e' except after 'c,' or when sounding as 'ay' as in 'neighbor' or 'weigh.' The word: Efficiency. (although I suppose 'efficient' also fits the mould). This is what I remember most from practically all of 80 minutes of class. If it didn't also include history, I'd be screwed.

Monkey is hungry. Not an astounding, thought provoking statement, I know, but apparently the only sustenance sufficient for her is my thigh muscle. At least that's what she tells me. I make sarcastic references to 1800s Oregon Trail history and try not to fall asleep before she does.

It's 12:40 A.M. I need sleeeeeeeeeeep, especially if I am to attend church tomorrow. I truly, adamantly wish that the Unitarian Universalist Church was closer (were closer?) to the school so that I could walk there instead of to the nearby PC-USA. Even if they do feed us at the later. I want actual emotion in a service! If I wanted pseudo-wakefulness, I'd've stayed in bed and listened to the Prairie Home Companion on NPR. Even the old hymns they sing are not particularly good.
*le sigh*

Bon Nuit,
~Brill, who just realized her tag list is insanely long

(currently listening to the medley of Panic! at the Disco, Art Garfunkle, and C.W. McCall stuck in my head. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants the slow, colorful, winding path to insanity)

Snips and Snippets

--I'm writing in the late night/early A.M. hours again, so in the event that I remember tomorrow, I'll have to revisit here and correct any egregious misspellings, sentence fragments, or dangling conversations.
Maybe musical allusions as well.

--One of the few things on my mind recently includes my hair, both literally and figuratively. It annoys me. However, it is by and large long anough to donate now, so very, very soon I will have spikeable-length hair again! (I have been a bit lax with the maintainance of regular trimmings, so the ends are a bit spare). A friend from class recently mentioned to me a barbershop in the area run by a lesbian and a gay man, and offered to take me there when i griped about my hair. I may go there, but from some of what she said I think it was one of the many barbershops not directly affiliated with Locks of Love, and if I am in charge of sending in my hair, I will graduate with that stuff still in a bag somewhere. Also, one of Monkey's "Big Sisters" (upperclassmen mentors) mentioned that if I get it cut at some places to donate, the cut is free. I am in college. I have no job. Free is GOOD.

--A local Presbyterian church offers free lunches after the late service to college students. I went with 4 friends last Sunday, including Monkey. It's been a while since I was in a Pres. service, but their Modus Operandi differed wildly from the church in which I was raised, and I don't think the differences were entirely PC/USA vs. PCA based. We, as far as I know, are going again Sunday.

--Mum is coming down tomorrow (today, by now) to see a cello concert at my college. She pays more attn. to some of the things at my school than do I. I look forward to seeing my Mum.


I had something else I wanted to say, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it is. My brain must be going in my old age...No, wait, that's just the ADD.

Au Revoir, mes amis,
~The Brilliant Procrastinator

(Oh, yes...I remember now.......
--In an astounding leap of boredom and procrastination, I spent a few hours this past week painting small, intricate patterns/images/scenes onto my fingernails with acrylic paint, with a protective coat of clear-coat over them. This is a matter of routine for me; whenever I am either utterly bored to the point of distraction (and will be for a few hours) AND/OR I have rather a lot of homework, typically of the reading/writing variety, I do the nail painting thing. I have yet to do my toenails in such a way, especially since I don't wear the one pair of open-toe shoes I (reluctantly) own. I foresee such an endeavor only in the event of an extreme power outage.)