Back when sexual orientation was a bigger deal, before the US Supreme Court recognized the rights to same-sex sex and same-sex marriage, one of the bigoted claims against gays and lesbians was that we were trying to recruit children into our "diseased" lifestyle ( Read more... )

just thinking about how crowded and stressful their lives must have been, with seven children, trying to raise all of us, make a living, get along with each other -- my parents didn't always get along with each other --

their lives were so much more compressed than mine ever was, what the hell, who signs up for raising seven children, seven, ( Read more... )

The past couple mornings I turned on the heat when I got out of bed, because I didn't want to add the irritant of cold & dry air to my infected airways. But then by late afternoon I had to switch to the AC instead as the warm sun streamed into the house -- we have big windows ( Read more... )

Whereas I not only pay a lot of attention to the news (I call myself a "news junkie"), I also read and listen to a lot of history; over the weekend my visiting friend told me, "I don't pay attention to the news, it's too depressing. If I need to hear about something, my husband will tell me." T's partner B has also deliberately reduced his news ( Read more... )

In general, before the 20th Century, about one half of humans died before they reached adulthood, and about one quarter of humans died before they reached 5 years old ( Read more... )

all my childhood years in schools, school rooms, so much of my life,

getting separated from my best friend/crush, in Biology, I was distracting him,

seated across the classroom now,

I think I was openly gay before I was openly gay, every other person knew I was gay,

I was distracted,

Just for a sanity check I read some Wikipedia articles on child discipline and found that I'm not at all outside the mainstream of expert thinking on this stuff. In particular how I used the word "discipline" to cover a wide range of teaching, correcting, and punishing behavior, and how "time out" is an acceptable and mainstream form of discipline ( Read more... )

Being careful makes me tired. For many years, my mouth was so careful it didn’t say anything anyone might disagree with, that might lead to some conflict. Avoiding conflict outside led to conflict inside; I couldn’t even talk to myself in a way that didn’t create conflict. Instead, I let my consciousness drift out of my body where I didn’t have to ( Read more... )

I don't remember his name anymore. Brad? Probably not Brad, but that's the name that pops into my head. Brad. Maybe he was Brad ( Read more... )

but what if part of why I turned out gay, in addition to enjoying watching my father and grandfather take a piss, watching their huge cocks with my little-boy eyes, what if part of why I turned out gay was because my older sisters physically and emotionally abused me, creating a pattern in my young mind in which girls were horrible ( Read more... )