Eartha Kitt - Black Cat

Like a kid jumping in water puddles, days like this just tickle me.

When I was a superstitious kid, it never sat well with me when folk would say that black cats crossing one’s path were bad luck. At some point I adopted the knee-jerk response, “not for black people!” I eventually reinterpreted every superstition to my benefit, Friday the 13th included. So, today’s my lucky day!

Kudos to my partner’s good lesbian friends who are getting married today. LOL. Excellent.

Overall a great time with some pleasant surprises and promising new associations. The Reason Rally embodied everything I enjoy about Washington, DC. Being the pulse of the nation’s political heartbeat, it’s where everyone gathers to express her political conscious and conscience. I’m pleased to report that we thoroughly enjoyed the full experience, to include the following:

1. abandoned comfort zone to immerse self in crowds and rain for the good secular cause of rationality and critical thought

2. handled my one confrontation with a religious person without cursing

3. got friendly with other attendees including some Atheists in Foxholes, Jesus (who was very apologetic of his “99 Problems but This [Westboro] Bitch Ain’t One” sign, and the “Eat Pussy Like a Woman” poster carrier.

4. ran into old friends at the Greydon Square After Party we didn’t know were skeptics (!)

Somebody said: “I have been trying for months to get over my ex. I have been out on dates, I have deleted pictures of us together; just about everything. But I still find myself deep in thought of the times we spent together and it hurts like hell. I know time heals all, but I need to heal now.”

Too bad we can’t heal on command, right? There’s no quick-fix to a broken heart. You have to sit with the pain, disappointment, and confusion. While you shouldn’t be defined by this period in your life, it is a good time to learn about yourself, to develop some insight into why you made the decisions you’ve made, and just grow up a little bit more. And while you are doing that (honoring your grief, that is), here are some coping strategies you might employ. Some of these are borrowed, some remembered, and some invented.

1. Give yourself a designated period to mourn and settle into the grief. So, you got the blues. It’s uncomfortable. Own it. Embrace it. Of course, you’ll progress at your own pace, but establishing grief parameters helps you maintain perspective. And it’s less about holding yourself to a deadline, and more about giving yourself the space to be out of sorts.
2. Block all your ex’s numbers and e-mail addresses. You won’t feel angst-ridden if she attempts to contact you, neither will you feel dejected if she doesn’t, because you simply won’t know.
3. Write some bad love poetry; the kind that rhymes. Bonus points if you make the cuss words rhyme.
4. Lean on your friends. Host a pajama party or ask them to host one for you. Rent the Color Purple and have a sistah cry-in.
5. If you don’t have friends join a support group and participate. Participate is the operative word here. Helping others talk through their problems puts your own in perspective. You’re not alone, unless you want to be.
6. Do something you never did or avoided doing because your ex didn’t like it.
7. Activities, activities, activities! Play tennis with somebody who’s better at it than you. Serve the balls HARD. Hit the club in your skinny outfit. You know the one I’m talking about. Since you’ve been depressed you can probably fit it now. Go with a trusted friend who won’t let you go home with the first guy/gal who asks you to dance. Hit the gym and try a new machine. You’ll have to focus to keep from falling off. Or you can master a machine like this sistah here
And even if you just go to the dressing room and cry into a towel you can still say you went to the gym.
8. Create an “I Will Survive” running playlist and then go running. I started mine with Freddie Jackson’s version of Good Morning, Heartache (much respect to Billie Holiday, but Jackson put the stank on it; especially the last two lines). I’ll Beat that Bitch with a Bat was some place in the middle (and particularly satisfying, ‘cause grief ain’t politically correct). You might end it with something like Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger.
9. Draft a long closure letter, and work hard to include a paragraph forgiving him and forgiving yourself. If you must mail it, have a good friend edit out the cray-cray parts and then do so.
10. See a therapist. Take the unedited version of your closure letter to your therapist for reflection and help. He’ll be able to tell you whether you need medication or whether you just need to allow yourself time to grieve. Mind you, this doesn’t have to turn into a long-term proposition. The onset of an emotional crisis is a good time to connect with an objective professional, and when you’re through it, you move on.

With empathy,

Miki

Whitney Houston (1963 - 2012)

I’m just one of many fans who felt a kinship to the beautiful and gifted, yet fragile Whitney Houston. Her music inspired me at every life milestone. From the vocal marathons of the Greatest Love of All and I Will Always Love You, to her inspirational and unrivaled version of the national anthem, Ms. Houston’s musical style was poised, intuitive, and brilliantly punctuated. I was disturbed by revelations of a troubled personal life, but it humanized her, in my eyes, and I’d always rooted for her; and hoped she would recover and triumph. I’m so sad we lost her too soon.

To the annoyance of those who believe people are born gay, former Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon is doubling down on her position that she chose to be gay.

In the New York Times interview that is the subject of the controversy she stated,

“Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

True, there is no conclusive evidence (yet) that one’s sexual orientation is more nature than nurture. And I agree that even if some people choose to be gay, makes no difference with respect to marriage equality and other gay rights initiatives. I also know what it’s like to be highly offended at having one’s heterosexual relationships discounted as insignificant or imposed by an “oppressive” heteronormative society. Most insulting is the idea, as Nixon articulates, that I was so out of touch with myself that I didn’t realize I was gay. I will admit to having been goaded, to the point of vulgarity, to correct this point.

Bisexuality, by definition, affords me the choice of both genders, but I did not choose to be bisexual. For as long as I’ve been sexually self-aware, I’ve enjoyed an attraction to both genders, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be romantically unaffected by one or the other. For this reason, I would invite Nixon to consider that she feels like she has a choice because she is, in fact, bisexual…

…as she has admitted here, to the Daily Beast.

Kevin Sessums: You’ve been very vocal and political about marriage equality and helped lead the successful fight for it in New York. So congratulations on your own marriage. But before you met and fell in love over seven years ago now with Christine—who, through a sperm donor, gave birth to your son Max Ellington almost a year ago—you were in a 15-year relationship with Danny Mozes, whom you first met in high school. You had two children with him—Samantha, who is now 15, and Charles Ezekiel, who is 9. You’ve been quoted as saying about these two relationships in your life: “In terms of sexual orientation, I don’t really feel I’ve changed … I’ve been with men all my life and I’d never fallen in love with a woman. But when I did, it didn’t seem so strange. I’m just a woman in love with another woman.” I’m a bit confused. Were you a lesbian in a heterosexual relationship? Or are you now a heterosexual in a lesbian relationship? That quote seemed like you were fudging a bit.

Cynthia Nixon: It’s so not fudging. It’s so not. I think for gay people who feel 100 percent gay, it doesn’t make any sense. And for straight people who feel 100 percent straight, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t pull out the “bisexual” word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals.

KS: But it is the “B” in LGBT.

CN: I know. But we get no respect.

KS: You just said “we,” so you must self-identify as one.

CN: I just don’t like to pull out that word. But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met Christine and I fell in love and lust with her. I am completely the same person and I was not walking around in some kind of fog. I just responded to the people in front of me the way I truly felt.

So, Nixon is bisexual. Therefore declaring she “chose” to be gay is both obfuscating and superflous. While her bisexuality affords her a choice between men and women, it does not necessarily follow that she chose to be bisexual. And just because she doesn’t like to “pull out that word” doesn’t make it any less applicable.

**********UPDATE**********

In an interview with the Advocate, Nixon revised her previous comments to clarify that her bisexality is not a choice, although she has chosen to be in a gay relationship.

That’s all she had to say in the first damn place. I declare.

Christopher Hitchens (courtesy Vanity Fair)

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.” – Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

Yesterday Christopher Hitchens, prolific writer and atheist champion, died at age 62 from esophageal cancer related complications.

On my journey to atheism, his books were, I quickly learned, required reading, and I’m grateful I discovered them at a time I was ready to receive philosophical religious criticism. My favorite, “god is not Great,” made me feel both validated and vindicated as I read with simultaneous dismay and relief substantiated truth I’d long suspected, but had been too afraid to wholly accept. Mr. Hitchens emboldened me to explore my doubts and suspicions, and embrace my skepticism as the next step in building my critical thinking skills.

Of course I shouldn’t post this here without a hat tip to his having revealed his bisexual proclivities. He writes in his memoir, “Hitch-22,” on his dalliances with a male, prep school classmate, ““[w]ere poems exchanged? Were there white-hot and snatched kisses? Did we sometimes pine for the holidays to end, so that (unlike everybody else) we actually yearned to be back at school? Yes, yes, and yes.” And in an interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times:

What did you mean to suggest by including the detail about your long-ago flings with two men who became part of Margaret Thatcher’s administration?

(Hitchens) There are still people who want to criminalize homosexuality one way or another, and I thought it might be useful if more heterosexual men admitted that they are a little bit gay, as is everyone, and that homosexuality is a form of love and not just sex.

Not everyone is “a little bit gay,” as you say. Do you think your basic sexual confusion underlies your political confusions?

(Hitchens) No, I wouldn’t call it confusion. I’d call it a punctuated consistency. I argue in the book that my principles were the same throughout.

He was the most honest author I’ve ever read, even with respect to his own shortcomings and vulnerabilities. Fierce intellectual and passionate advocate for reason, I’m convinced he meant everything he said. And this is a big deal to me, living in two-faced Washington, DC. I encourage everyone of every religious persuasion to read his works for the sake of equal time, if nothing else. He may come off as abrasive and obnoxious in video sound bites and literary excerpts, however, a more comprehensive review of Hitchens’ writings and debates will reveal a constant undercurrent of self-scrutiny, dry humor, and irony.

I’m missing this man.

Miki

I’m with the commenter who suggested the US grant asylum to Nigerian homosexuals.

Miki

Source: CBS News, by the Associated Press

LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigeria’s Senate voted Tuesday to criminalize gay marriage, gay advocacy groups and same-sex public displays of affection, the latest legislation targeting a minority already facing discrimination in Africa’s most populous nation.

The bill, now much more wide-ranging than its initial draft, must be passed by Nigeria’s House of Representatives and signed by President Goodluck Jonathan before becoming law. However, public opinion and lawmakers’ calls Tuesday for even harsher penalties show the widespread support for the measure in the deeply religious nation.

“Such elements in society should be killed,” said Sen. Baba-Ahmed Yusuf Datti of the opposition party Congress for Progressive Change, drawing some murmurs of support from the gallery.

Gay sex has been banned in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people, since colonial rule by the British. Gays and lesbians face open discrimination and abuse in a country divided by Christians and Muslims who almost uniformly oppose homosexuality. In the areas in Nigeria’s north where Islamic Shariah law has been enforced for about a decade, gays and lesbians can face death by stoning.

Under the proposed law, couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. That’s an increase over the bill’s initial penalties, which lawmakers proposed during a debate Tuesday televised live from the National Assembly in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

Other additions to the bill include making it illegal to register gay clubs or organizations, as well as criminalizing the “public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly.” Those who violate those laws would face 10-year imprisonment as well.

The increased penalties immediately drew criticism from human rights observers.

“The bill will expand Nigeria’s already draconian punishments for consensual same-sex conduct and set a precedent that would threaten all Nigerians’ rights to privacy, equality, free expression, association and to be free from discrimination,” said Erwin van der Borght, the director of Amnesty International’s Africa program.

Yet across the African continent, many countries already have made homosexuality punishable by jail sentences. Ugandan legislators introduced a bill that would impose the death penalty for some gays and lesbians, though it has not been passed into law two years later. Even in South Africa, the one country where gays can marry, lesbians have been brutally attacked and murdered.

Nigeria’s proposed law has drawn the interest of European Union countries, some of which already offer Nigeria’s sexual minorities asylum based on gender identity. The British government recently threatened to cut aid to African countries that violate the rights of gay and lesbian citizens. However, British aid remains quite small in oil-rich Nigeria, one of the top crude suppliers to the U.S.

A spokesman for the British High Commission in Nigeria declined to comment Tuesday, saying officials wanted to study the new version of the bill first.

The bill also could target human rights and HIV-prevention programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Nigeria, which has the world’s third-largest population of people living with HIV and AIDS. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman declined to comment.

International opinion didn’t seem to trouble lawmakers, who at times laughed at each other during the debate. One senator worried the bill would hinder the tradition of Nigeria’s Igbo ethnic group in the southeast to have infertile wives “marry” other women to carry their husbands’ children. Another said gays suffer from a “mental illness.”

Senate President David Mark at one point started laughing when a senator proposed 40-year prison sentences for gay couples who marry.

“Forty years, that is just too much,” he said. “He won’t come out alive now.”

Before the vote, Mark did acknowledge the nation likely would face criticism. However, the lawmaker said Nigeria would not bow to international pressure on any legislation.

“Anybody can write to us, but our values are our values,” Mark said. “If there is any country that does not want to give us aid or assistance, just because we hold on very firmly to our values, that country can (keep) their assistance. No country has a right to interfere in the way we make our own laws.”

In a 2005 exclusive interview with ESPN The Magazine, three-time Olympic gold medalist and WNBA MVP Sheryl Swoopes announced that she was gay and in a long-term relationship with Alisa Scott, former assistant coach for Swoopes’ original WNBA team, the Houston Comets.

A few days later, in an interview with Outsports News the divorced (from a man) mother of one expressly denied being bisexual, insisted that she was not born gay, and characterized her same-gender loving relationship as a “choice.”

In July of this year, ESPN reported that Ms. Swoopes is now engaged to a man (Chris Unclesho). From her Facebook page, this appears to have happened on or about March 25, 2011. Ms. Swoopes went from being the married, pregnant, heterosexual face of the WNBA, to celebrity lesbian spokeswoman for Olivia Cruises, back to what, exactly, she’s (wisely) declined to say.

Now that we’ve tracked Ms. Swoopes’ journey back and forth along the sexual orientation continuum, please know that I do not post this to “claim” Ms. Swoopes as bisexual, especially in light of her express declarations otherwise. Her sexuality, whatever that may be at this point, is hers to confirm or deny, if at all. Clearly, however, a little more self-examination is in order, because anyone who truly believes she chose to be straight or chose to be homosexual is probably neither.

An annoyed commenter wrote at AfterEllen.com:

“I know I’m going to get bashed for saying this but lesbian-identified bisexuals are seriously damaging the lesbian community. Before anyone accuses me of being biphobic, that isn’t the case, I just wish bisexuals would label themselves accurately or not label themselves at all, calling yourself a lesbian when you’re not only reinforces the myth that lesbians can be “turned”, which is really frustrating to those of us who genuinely are lesbians and have the validity of our sexual orientation constantly questioned by people.”

I agree, to the extent that I understand her frustration in not being taken seriously. It’s worth noting, however, that many bisexuals reject the bisexual label for the same reason, to be taken seriously; so as not to appear flaky, to bolster their credibility in the lesbian community. Ironically enough, if they would embrace the label in the first place they’d appear decidedly less flaky when they gender-hop. Others avoid the bisexual label and adopt straight or lesbian out of misguided deference to their current partners. And, of course, there are individuals who prematurely believe what they say they are at the time they say it, without the requisite self-reflection. Finally, one can’t discount the benefit of life experience. After all, I’ve known many self-identified lesbians who find themselves, at a certain age, in satisfying sexual relationships with men. I’ve also known more than a few heterosexual-identified women who now enjoy long-term sexual relationships with other women. I’m sure Ms. Swoopes has her reasons for having been both the former and the latter.

Contrary to pop culture opinion, sexuality labels are effective. That is, they’re effective enough. The sexual identity “bisexual” is a perfectly useful and accurate term if applied correctly, with personal integrity and intellectual honesty. In other words, it ain’t that complicated. “Bisexual” is the best way to describe “sexual orientation fluidity,” and a great way to help others understand who you are and what they might expect of you. And if one is inclined to “impulse shop” for a label, “bisexual” is probably the safest selection as you work the gay circuit. I should also add that “questioning” one’s sexual orientation is a perfectly acceptable state of being.

Miki