I’ve lured her to the dark side. My spouse Helen, whom some of you know from our “She Got Me Pregnant” vlogs, has started blogging.
It all began when she launched a side business, Affine Financial Services, to do tax preparation and financial planning. She started putting up regular tips on her Web site, decided it was fun, and began her descent down the slippery slope into full-scale bloggerdom.
Starting today, she’s also going to be a contributing writer for Queercents, a personal finance group blog for the LGBT community. It’s definitely a site you should check out, if you haven’t already.
Helen’s focus for Queercents will be on financial planning for queers, our families, and friends, as well as advice to people starting small businesses. Her own site is for a more general audience, with plenty that both LGBT and non-LGBT folks may find useful.
Her first post for Queercents is Marriage Penalty: same-sex couples still ahead at tax time.
Go show her some love, leave a few comments, and welcome her to the blogosphere. (It’s also our 16th anniversary this week, and I figure nothing says “I love you” like driving traffic to her posts.)

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This is the development of my story. Yesterday she asked me out again and at last I gave in. We were 4 persons, me, her, her husband and their best man. After a while the music went louder so we could speak privately. She told me that they are not going to divorce, it’s better that this case went on like this, but she also told me that she preferred to be with me, but due to the circumstances she decided to marry him, although her heart was (is) mine. She was touching my hands all the time “accidentally”.
What can I say now? I’m thinking if she’s going to keep in touch and continue to call/text me, or if she was pressing me so much just to learn my news (if I’m involved with someone else, but I made it clear that I’m not the kind of a person who gets involved so easily since I’m still very sore) and to tell me that she’s not going to divorce but she prefers me to him. Maybe time will show.
What do you think? Thank you for your support!

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Wow! I just stumbled on an Austrian blog that features some of the most offensive racist images I've ever seen.
The blog is called dasbiber and unfortunately my German isn't good enough to allow me to translate the article accurately. But, it seems to about xenophobia and antisemitism exhibited by young people in Vienna. Perhaps a Blender who speaks German can provide some clarification. Using my limited language skills, I am able to figure out that the article points out various stereotypes — Jews are greedy, Filipinos are vain, blacks deal drugs, etc.
What totally baffles me are the photos that they've used to illustrate the article. I don't understand why they would actually create and photograph racist costumes like these.
The photos are a good example of how racism in other countries compares to what we see here in the United States. I know that the Austrians don’t view blackface the same way we do. While smearing dark make up on a white model is very offensive here, it is a pretty common practice in Europe. However, the big black dildo that the model is holding is inappropriate just about everywhere on the planet.
The article ends, “Geh nie mit einem Österreicher in den Keller.”
I think that translates to “Never go into a cellar with an Austrian.” I don't really understand what that means. Perhaps it is a reference to the two cases involving Austrian men who held women as captive sex slaves in their cellars. I'm not sure. Are Austrians stereotyped as people who kill in cellars? If that’s the point they’re trying to make, I don’t think it works.

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“I get by with a little help from my friends.” The Beatles were musical geniuses who gave voice to a generation. Unbeknownst to them, they also speak to the “married on facebook” level of companionship I have reached with my plethora of sports bras. My beautiful, worn in, lycra sports bra is never far from my side, or my chest.
It might very well be that us lesbians usually are veterans of some sport or another, and have our orthopedic surgeons on speed dial. You never know when a random gaggle of girl loving girls could break out into a softball match or dodgeball game, and we all know how lesbians love to be prepared.
As an outdoorsy type myself, It seems like I grew up and always wore sports bras more often than most of my peers (and I know this probably because my eyes wandered in the locker room more often than most of my friends, too). I just felt a sense of security when my breasts were kept at bay, and I didn’t have to fear one of them popping out to say hello during badminton 5th period. Like many other not so femme ladies, I was unfortunately blessed with a well endowed chest, so sports bras are my lifeline when it comes to dressing in my typical lesbionic baggy tee and blazer combo outfit. My girls stay put and I can dress in guys’ clothes without the unwelcomed bunching that wearing an underwire bra can often create.
I know all the self-proclaimed femmes out there will agree when I say that there is nothing sexier than gazing at a woman donning a sports bra and some boxer briefs (maybe Sarah Shahi, but that’s about it). It is a lesbians’ ability to turn something as nondescript as an Adidas sports bra covered in dirt from a rugby match into a piece of erotic apparel, that makes me proud to be a dyke. For those technologically inclined ladies out there, let me introduce you to your next best friend, the Support Bra from Gracie’s Gear , which lets you listen to Melissa Ferrick while engaging in an overly-competitive athletic activity (can’t get much gayer than that).

image courtesy of Gracie’s GearSo ladies, I implore you to rethink that old sports bra in the bottom of your drawer from your glory days playing shortstop in high school. The role of the sports bra is evolving…and underwire is soooo last year anyway.

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  First of all, there have always been gays and lesbians who have served their country patriotically, both in war and peace, in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
  In the days of conscripted service, these men and women served during a time when not one societal structure supported them. My father, a heterosexual career commanding officer, protected his gay pilots during his thirty years in service. Maybe, he knew that his eldest son was gay.
 At the age of 17, when 21 was majority, I had my first “affair” with a butterbar of 21 in his BOQ on base. I can remember how my first shared orgasm must have broken the sound barrier.
 My early years assured me of three opposing realities. I was gay. I wanted to be a priest in ECUSA, and I wanted to serve my country as a chaplain.
 Well, I have been “out” since 1967. I was ordained to the priesthood in 1972, and the episcopate in 1988. I served my country as a chaplain with the retirement rank of lieutenant colonel. (1972-97).
 True, like African Americans before me, I proudly served a nation who provided me with inferior rights, and treated me with disrespect and with threatened dishonorable discharge for being whom I was.
My presence, rather than absence, however, was many times in my career, a way to salvage careers of lesbian and gay soldiers by working within the system, and sometimes tweeking the arc of justice. I was not averse to using some homophobic NCO or officer's hypocrisy against him to save one of my own. “Brats” or military dependents know how to maneuver the system….our diapers are khacki.
I was active when President Clinton was elected and promised an Executive Order allowing open service to lesbians and gays. I remember how he bent to the will of both homophobic Dixiecrat Democrats and the Republicans and signed DADT. Moreover, the Congress removed the right of the President to change this policy by mere Executive Order. In anticipation of the change, many LGB openly “outed” themselves to their own loss of career.
In 1996, when he signed DOMA to win a second term, everyone knew that blue-dog pragmatic ConservaDems are as untrustworthy as Republican theocratic homophobes.
Since that time, thousands of men and women have been discharged from service - officers - both commissioned and warrant , NCO's and enlisted - many careerists with necessary skills in the wars that the two Bushes have initiated, and the two continued by President Obama.
When I heard that Obama was going to ” kick the can…..and our arses…down the road….I thought about the advice he has accepted from Clinton, and is willing to throw us under the bus for his own political goal….the ultimate goal…..a second term from 2013 to 2017.
There are two groups of LGB soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen…regular, reserve, or national guard - who support the efforts of our patriots in the Armed Forces. You can google them easily.
Please excuse me for the inability to cut and paste highlights from the two organizations. There are also websites dedicated to the many nations, either with civil marriage or national/federal partnership rights, who also allow men and women to serve openly in their Armed Forces.
The irony is that British and Canadian troops serve in Afghanistan and Dutch and Belgian and German and Spanish troops serve in NATO, and still the only nation with ZERO rights is the United States of America.
On Rachel Maddow's programme, a “Forrest Gump” moment occurred when a West Point graduate admitted he was gay, and the audio went inexplicably silent. THE KNIGHTS OUT are Pointer women and men grads who have come out, despite the UCMJ regulations they have broken with dire consequences.
Many of us have made our voices known to federal legislators, and to Pentagon officials relating to our specific MOS. Today, there are retired general and flagship officers who have “come out”. The highest ranks are two stars at the moment.
Since this is Pam's Blend….let me state the obvious……there are more LESBIAN WOMEN who patriotically serve their nation than men. There are more West Point women graduates out than men. This is noteworthy since women have only been allowed at West Point for a few decades.
It is time for all LGBT patriotic Americans, their families and friends, to write to their US senators and congresspersons, and force President Obama to sign the end of DADT.  Today's military is totally voluntary.
It takes a very kind of patriotism to serve a nation voluntarily when to do so puts you in harms way in more ways than one……war theatre…dishonorable discharge…..physical harm or murder.
If he wants to kick our arse as well as the issue down the road….then let us kick his arse and the issue right back at him…….NOW.
 
 
 
 

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Today is the Transgender Day of Visibility. While I’m not trans myself, and can’t presume to speak for the trans experience, I’ve covered a few trans-related items as they relate to parenting and kids. Here’s a quick roundup in honor of the day:

This American Life On Transgender Children: The NPR show did a great piece in February profiling two eight-year-old transgender children. The segment starts about 29 minutes into the show.
Trans Parent, Gay Son: Pride Across the Generations is an interview I did with Marti Abernathey of Transadvocate.
The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals, by Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper, is a great resource for parents and educators. The Kids of Trans Resource Guide, by Monica Canfield-Lenfest of the COLAGE Kids of Trans program, looks from the flip side. Here’s my review of both.
10,000 Dresses, by Marcus Ewert, is a delightful new picture book with a transgender protagonist. It’s just been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. My review and author interview is here.
Another great read, and a previous Lambda winner is Transparent, Cris Beam’s gripping book on homeless transgender teens. I did a small post on it about a year ago.

I’ll also make this a thread on gender roles and kids. As a parent, what do you find most noticeable about your children’s gender identity or expression? Is it what you would have expected before you had kids? What are your fears/concerns/inspirations as regards their gender identity and expression? Do you think L, G, B, and T parents each have different concerns? Do they also have different concerns than non-LGBT parents?

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My tongue does not speak your language, and my mind doesn’t necessarily harmonies with your ideas or views, but downright my heart does stream along with your hearts towards Love.
I have a confession, a secret that I’ve concealed for so many years, and today I’m scared that it might fade and die within me before I give it the chance to see the light of revealing, just for once, even if that once might be the last…
It’s a story of love. It’s a story of …her
And her name was “Princess”, and she was the princess of my life, right from the first glance…
She was simple like the Sun, always there, every day…And me? I was in a dark empty room called… “me”, a room where there were no windows ,no doors to open or to see through…no access and no exit, and still, I have no idea till today, how she , in a very smooth, tender way, managed to get through and reach out to me!
What was that secret scheme, or that magical spell she had? I don’t know…
I never approached her circle, never could, not because she wouldn’t see me but simply because she was far away, so far away. Or that’s what I thought….
I was an absent existing soul to every person around me, just kept on hiding from the vivid live of my fellows , flowing with the secret lines and curves I’ve used to create in my scraps’ book , minding myself, and minding nothing, except……minding her…and only her
Did she know when she was looking around and noticing with a royal courtesy all those who adored her company, that she was the one that I could only see…
And did she know or heard my heart beats following her steps through those empty streets, lonely streets, we walked every morning …
And did she know that I waited in the corners, hided in the corners of the rooms, just to watch over her, and share her concealed loneliness amongst the crowds…
And did she know that she turned my one mono color of life into an unlimited, so richly colorful palette of feelings…did she? And did she? And did she????
Yes she did…Because I dared to reach out my hands to the heart of the Sun, to touch it, knowing somewhere in my mind that it might burn me till I vanish, but did I fear the flame? Did I care the risk?…Never
What to vanish in her dazzling desert’s color eyes?
What to vanish in her secrets’ lands?
What to vanish in her warm embrace?
And she did embrace me, and she accepted to enter my open vague heart, and she accepted to call my anonymous name, and she accepted to appreciate my insignificant existence,…and she cared…
I escorted her like her odor, like a shadow, like the endless stretched sky, always with her even if we were not together…She, holding my heart in her hand, and me? Just holding my whole life…
But there, right behind us, was walking Fate, Sneaking Fate, bearing in his mysterious chest a desire to steal, and a plan to devastate a young free dream…
And so he did…at the end…………at the beginning…
But I’m still breathing.
We walked in the sun, not thinking of the rain, but the rain was falling and pouring on the roads we took… and washing away the steps we left behind…
We didn’t know…Still amazed, still overwhelmed…we didn’t know…
And she was gone. Around her leaving steps my roses were fading slowly and my winter was beginning, rushing his storms into my heart…… I didn’t know…
I never took her for granted, right from the first word .Never took her for granted…I held her in my heart like we hold water in our palms, so cautious not to drop..A drop…
Yet, Fate was stronger than my clinging tide fingers; separate them in a moment…
And she slipped away…
But I’m still breathing.
Time has no conscience…He can erase all the names, all the faces, all the memories,…He can replace lovers ,substitute places and lives within a blink of an eye…
Conscience is only for the lonely heart of a lover that will always hold the agony of “WHY” …
But I’m still breathing.
I remember ,once, while we were walking in an old road, she paused and asked me with that sweet smiling on her lips ” why did you picked me up amongst all those girls that were around you?” then she looked deeply into my eyes, and in a sad tone of confession she revealed “ I’m just a drop in a sea”…
I felt her words cutting through me, my heart quivered in my chest and my lips spoke” YOU ARE The Sea, I’ve drowned in you, and yet only then I knew how to breathe”.
I watched her walking away…towards the Sun…and they both set…leaving me upon an empty horizon…
It’s been more than nineteen years since she has been gone…The Sun has rosin millions of times on this world… but never had my Sun……….
I wonder, just wonder, does she know that I’m still breathing?!…
That nothing is coming in …and everything is going out?…
And I wonder, just wonder, does she deserve all this?
ps.sorry i couldn’t SHORTEN a life time story in less than four Word docs.Similar Posts:

Butterfly Belly
For What It Is: A Poem
A story
Living Room

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A

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Yo,
This is quite simple; I’m madly in love with my Chinese writing and reading teacher!
I’m doing a 4 year course at a uni in England, but now I’m on my 2 year abroad in china, as an exchange student at this Chinese university. When I came back from Chinese new years break we had changed classes, and I got this horrible strict teacher for DUXIE (reading and writing) but after a couple of days I got to accept her, and more than that. After a week (St. Patricks Day) I told a good friend about my little crush on hour teacher, she obviously thought it was really funny. She knows I’m bi, but you know. THE TEACHER + She’s Chinese!! I don’t know, but a lot of westerners don’t find Chinese people very attractive, I do though
Anyway, day by day I got to terms with my interests for this teacher, and I told more and more people on my course, because of course, I just cant stop thinking and talking about her.
Last week, she was away, cause of her grandfather being sick. (Yeah, I did send her a text asking how, much my class was missing her, and if she was ok. yeah she told me her grandfather was sick and that she had to go home.) So anyway, now this week she’s back again, and today I went to her extra help class (and for your information, NOONE goes!) so yeah I was going , pretending to be like this total nerd. And just trying to think of any question to ask her, just so we could talk, and after the Koreans left, we finally had a little chat. It was VERY nice, and she is so sweet/ like the way she was trying to pronounce my friends names (I asked to her to give them Chinese names because they’re coming here to visit)
Oh yeah, I think she’s about somewhere in her late 20s but I’m not sure, sometimes it can be hard to place Chinese people. But she’s so hot, and very like powerful… and a great teacher… total respect!!
I’ve been thinking to invite the whole class for a class party, because every class does that, except mine for my classmates are lame, but I still think its worth it because then I might be able to talk a bit with the duxie teacher!
I’m finishing this uni in Beijing this June anyway, and I’m staying in Beijing till august, so I know its illegal to get with your teacher, but I’m not actually a university student in this uni, more like an exchange student. Oh btw. I have no idea id she likes girls or not, but she’s not extremely feminine or anything. But you know, could be both. I really don’t know. !
Possible to get any help here (and btw, everything we say is in Chinese, so I’m really trying here).
It’s fucking hard to deal with… and yeah, I’ve texted her like a couple of times just to ask her for homework and all kinda shit just to text. You think she might know im obsesssed?
xoxo

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(Proudly cross-posted at OC Progressive and C4O Democrats)

Right after the last election, I was devastated. I thought we had won, but instead I lost my fundamental rights and felt like garbage. I didn’t know what do to next.

So what did this po’ lil’ queer kid do to start recovering what H8 stole away? I joined the impact. I put love into action. I didn’t let homophobes like Rick Warren take my hope away. I looked back, then started thinking ahead. And lately, I’ve been waiting for our day of justice.

So what now? It’s time to move on. It’s time to start kicking some radical right ass and secure equality for all once and for all!

As we’ve talked about before, there’s no way to really know how the California Supreme Court will rule in the Prop H8 lawsuits. They may issue a verdict we don’t like, or they may issue a verdict that immediately reinstates marriage equality in the nation’s most populous state. But either way, we must prepare for something else historic. We must prepare for the campaign afterward to secure our civil rights.

No matter what the court decides, we will likely see reaction to the ruling lead to action at the ballot box. Either the radical right will further try to erode LGBT rights and/or we will work for an initiative to secure marriage equality in California for good. So in order to prepare for the inevitable continuing campaign, we must ensure we build the strongest campaign possible. And no, I don’t just mean raising money or putting up media ads. While we do need both, the inept and failed No on H8 campaign proved that those weren’t enough to win.

We must knock doors. We must make calls. We must talk to our neighbors. We must register voters. We must reach out in our community and build those personal connections necessary to make a real impact and change people’s hearts and minds.

This is why I’ve been so impressed by Courage Campaign. They get it. They realize how important grassroots community action is, so they’re willing to help build local networks statewide like the one I’m working on in my hometown, Orange County. Without them, I don’t know how I’d be able to prepare for our upcoming community outreach walks in Irvine on April 4 and Dana Point on April 18. Without their help in finding other local activists to help me do all this organizing, I don’t know how I could have done this all on my own.

So if you’re in California, please consider joining Courage Campaign. Give of your time if you can. Give of your money if you can. If you care about our civil rights, just give what you can and join our movement for equality.

And if you’re not in California, you can still help us out here. But more importantly, go find your local LGBT activist network and join them. We need to see progress in all 50 states to build our way up to a nationwide tipping point for equality.

We’re so close. I’m so fired up. I still have my hope, and no court or fundie wingnut can take it away from me.

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