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

Art First

I am an artist. I do things like stop in the middle of the sidewalk to stare at the spaces between tree branches. Yesterday I spent three hours in the early morning printing my lithograph with my professor for Print I, and, as I am a messy person, needed a bath after classes ended. In the shower I noticed that my arm had 2 intersecting lines of ink that had smudged in a very interesting way. Thinking it was a noteworthy design that I could probably recreate to good effect in a monotype, I automatically washed everything but that area so I could reference it later.

Then realized what I'd done, and nearly hurt myself laughing.

I am an artist, and I think the fumes are getting to me.

A brief note

I scooted my chair forward and heard a clink. I checked the floor around my desk and lo and behold there were coins on the floor! I am now 56 cents richer. Go me.

Enh...and stuff

Long time no blog, and all that. School hit me upside the watch like a ton of bricks, and what little time I have left is devoted to an intensive study of Lolcats. A flash-thru of my last few weeks:

--We've had midterms, and I have mostly Bs, though there's a possibility that I have an A in Women Studies and either an A- or B+ in French III, depending on what grades went in and how they were weighted.

--I like Printmaking. I feel as if I should do some kind of penance for uttering such blasphemy, but I like it. Mainly the monotypes, but the lithograph was its own brand of fun, even if I didn't sleep any time near the turn-in date. I want to take Print II next year. (Still feels blasphemous, mostly because the teacher is a taskmaster of epic proportions. Interesting, but assignment overload.)

--I have lots of work to do in Ceramics in the next 5 weeks. Most of a dinnerware set for two, a sculptural series involving the tree forms I've been developing for a few years, and a "choice series." A doodle carving I did on a pot out of frustration ended up pretty good, and Mr. Sir suggested working that theme into my set. I have started carving the cups, and already know that I'm going to have to let the other pieces I want to carve dry to bone dry before doing much if not all of the carving. It is too difficult to remove carving refuse on even a moderately damp pot, whereas I can simply blow it off of the dried pieces as I did on the sketch pot. Whee for process development!

--We have had advisement for the next 2 terms (January and Spring). I will have 6 classes and a lab, 17 hours, and somehow only one class M/F. This still confuses me, and I'm the one who did the schedule.

--The good news (is it good? idk) is that after this year, I will have only one more requirement that is not a studio class or is not directly related to my senior show/year (e.g. Senior Seminar classes), and that class is yoga. I finally got into a science class, though I'll be doing half my 4th Ceramics course as a sort-of independent study- leaving Ceramics half way thru to go to Astronomy, then coming back during free time to complete the 3-hour class time.

--In non-school related news, I'm going to Atlanta Pride for Halloween! Our magnificent, excellent, and never-sufficiently-praised Ally secretary got us free lodging, some meals, and possibly gas money. I love her.

--It was before BS/LS week when last I blogged, so I shall say this: I have awesome littles! The week was a bitch, and if I had it to do over again I would do some things different (like getting sick. Not very, but wouldn't do that again), but the awesome, amazing gals I now have as Little Sisters made it SO worth it.

--I spent the first half of Fall break at Cameron and Dream Weaver's house. We went to Pagan Pride in Clemson on Saturday and froze nigh to death, but it was very fun overall. I got to learn about a new (to me) clay body from another vendor. She uses paper fibers mixed into her clay, and it gives the clay an airiness that shocked me the first time I picked a piece up. And the second time. And the next. I really need to look into this for future reference. Getting to visit with Cameron and Dream Weaver was wonderful, as was communing with cats (though not having one bite my neck).

--Da visited yesterday. It was a good visit, tho not very long. He was on his way home from a business meeting, and stopped in. It was very good to see him. He was the happiest I've seen him in months.

--I get songs in my sleep. Usually I can't remember them by the time I wake up, but some days I remember some. Today, I actually managed to recall or reconstruct 2 verses. It's things like this that make my morning. I just wish I knew enough music to write down the tunes.

Brain wants to go do something else now, so au revoir.

~Brill

Geeking out here, move along, move along

A few months ago (in a longer and meandering post) I wrote on here that I had finished a trilogy of novels by S.M. Stirling: Dies the Fire, The Protector's War, and A Meeting at Corvallis. I expressed annoyance with the ending of the third book. Or rather, a desire to inflict physical damage upon the author for ending such an interesting series on such a precipice, if he had to at all.
As with much of my life, I forgot the minute details of my own writing, and remembered those of others'.
Yesterday I received a message from Cameron, my friend who had introduced me to the series originally, saying that I had a comment here from Stirling. Of course I got the message at the beginning of a 3 hour long Drawing class, so it was harder than usual to hold still. I checked the post, and recalled my vehement wish to inflict harm. I was more than slightly embarrassed.
However, he did not seem offended, and I was informed of another book in the series, to my great joy.

Mr. Stirling, if you read this, I couldn't find your blog to post this on, but I wanted to say that you are am amazing author. Dies the Fire was so fascinating that it had my brain going too fast to sleep for days. Keep up the good work.

Happy, embarrassed geek.
~Brill

The Awesome Suite-Mates of Namelessness are no longer afflicted by such a terrible crutch. With their consultation they have become... ZombE-hoff and The Brit.
Two freakin' awesome people.

And now to eat food I shouldn't.
~Brill

Kitteh and school

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

This is Smudge. I swear, this looks quite a bit like her, and never have I seen as psychotic, fractious kitten. Every night around 9 or 10 she turns from regular ADHD kitteh into PSYCHO SHARP AND POINTY STALKER-HUNTER OF DOOOOOOM! and attacks our poor, defenseless chairs, blinds, dust bunnies, legs, you name it.
I love her.

I am back at school now. I am all moved in except for my loft; Dad fell and pulled his back while making it, and it is not yet complete. He will bring it up once he's recovered and finished it. I'm sleeping on a twin-size spring mattress. I haven't had either of those features in a bed since freshmen year, and it's difficult to adjust my mental perimeters to the size. I was losing covers and pillows all night.
Classes start tomorrow. I registered for 6 classes, three of which are studio classes (including the ominous Printmaking of Death and Sleep Deprivation (though only the first word is listed in the course catalog). It struck me as I reviewed my class schedule that I am crazy. No way in hell could I possibly keep up with the projects in my art classes and still complete the assignments for 3 other classes. (I'm also taking French for the first time in 4 years this semester. Is there a god/saint of students, because I'm gonna need it?) So, in the interest of seeing my suite/roommates at some point before fall break, I elected to drop one of my courses. The only non-major, non-Gen Ed course I was enrolled in was an Art History elective that would go towards a minor in AH if I chose to declare it. I got the Drop/Add form and filled out as much as I could, but I need Mr. Sir's signature. His class is my first tomorrow, followed (at a leisurely pace) by my Religion class, and then the scheduled time of the class to be dropped. I have enough time between my first and second class to drop my third class. Guh.

I get a Little this year! happyhappyjoyjoy. As a junior I get to adopt a freshman in the mentoring program here known as Big Sister/Little Sister. We chose Littles through a long, weird lottery process (not The Lottery, but bad enough in it's own right), then anonymously shower them with gifts, hints, and clues meant to confuse our identities for one week until we're revealed in a ceremony. I loved Big Sis/Little Sis my freshmen year, and I am so excited to be on the "giving and confusing" end this time around. Monkey and I have been shopping for Littles gifts since our freshman year. Awesome Suite-mates of Namelessness (I really need to fix that, don't I?) are in the same group of Bigs that we are, and we fully intend to us this to maximize the confusion. Mwahahahaha....er...you hear nothing!
AWA is 3 weeks from this weekend, right before BS/LS starts. I may get no sleep for a week or more getting ready for the two events and keeping up with classes, but I'm still hyperactively excited.
Woot!

~Brill