The Stresses of the 2010 Day of Silence

Today was Day of Silence.

For those of you who don't know, Day of Silence is a nationally recognized holiday that is a protest (of sorts) against discrimination and bullying of the LGBT community. The silence represents those who can't speak out and say that they are gay, because of fear.

I had a surprising amount of trouble this past week, trying to decide whether or not to participate. It isn't as if I wasn't sure if I liked the cause; of course I'm going to support any sort of protest against bullying or discrimination. But I didn't know what I would be doing by staying silent for the day.

I've been participating in Day of Silence for the last 3 years, since 8th grade, which was when I first found out about it. I guess part of the reason I hesitated this year was I wondered what are we really doing by staying silent? Just showing our support? Well, everyone already knows how supportive I am. I help run the GSA at my school. I advertise any sort of human rights rally that's going on. So if everyone already knows I'm supportive, what am I doing being silent?

So I was on the fence about the whole thing. I think a lot of it is I've been inspired to change the world and inspire others so much recently and I've been doing so much GSA stuff lately that I'm kind of "GSA-ed out," as Steeley put it. And I feel like being silent isn't enough. Sure, you show your support but in our school, most of the kids were silent and it was really cool to see how quiet the hallways and the cafeteria were. But is that all we can do? Show our support? I feel like we should be out there, holding protests and blocking the doors to congress and getting arrested for doing what's right. Like the hippies did in the good ol' 60s.

That's the version that makes me sound like a good person. Although still true, it really wasn't the main reason I was having such trouble deciding what my actions for today were going to be and it's definitely not why I was racking myself with guilt. The bottom line is, I wanted to be lazy. I found that I was asking myself "Do I have to be silent? Do I have to put in that effort?"

I felt like a horrible person because it was starting to sound like I was too lazy to fight for what I believed in. But there really wasn't much of a fight so it should be that much easier, right? Apparently not.

Yesterday I decided I was going to be silent because it was easier than feeling bad about talking when all my friends would be silent. This morning I wasn't sure any more. As I got ready for school (in rainbow colors. If I want to talk, I might as well show my support by wearing rainbow), I went over and over in my head why I should or shouldn't speak today. If I wanted to talk, why shouldn't I? Why should I do what all my friends are doing? On the opposite side it was expected of me to be silent today. I should support the causes I believe in, right?

So I was all stressed and guilty and unsure of what to do as I left the house for school. I got on the bus and saw Emma wave to me. I sat down next to her, and instantly knew what I wanted to do. I don't know if it was me, or Emma's influence or what but I suddenly knew what I wanted to do today as I helped her put duct tape in an 'X' across her mouth.

I was silent all day. I didn't slip up once.

My Perfect Little Nerd

I love my boyfriend. He makes me so very happy. I mean, how many people do you know are going to lie to you through their teeth, talk to your friends behind your back, and misuse your trust so they can surprise you the next day by being at your house before you get home from school?

He did that before we took the photo you see above. He lost practically all of his dignity and he was excited to do it. He was proud to put on a bra and dress for me, so we could take pictures together. He was ecstatic and couldn't wait until they were on facebook, so he could show his friends and family how cute we were. I mean, how sweet is that?

I literally cannot be sad when he's in my head. I had a math test today, one that I was in no way prepared for. While I racked my brain for the formula used to find the missing side of a vector, my mind wandered a little. I was wondering what my dear sweet boyfriend was doing, and if he was in precalc at that time, suffering as I was. I realized the oddest thing. My lips were spread out more and my cheeks had contracted. I was smiling where seconds before my life was abysmal. That's what he does to me, he makes me smile.

This last weekend we were walking on his side of town, in SE Portland, and we saw the oddest tree. It was absolutely covered in colorful strands of yarn. Whoever had done it had thrown spools of the stuff up in the air, over the branches, ran around the tree, letting it unravel and cover the trunk. It was crazy. I couldn't think of any explanation for it and I was so curious as to why anyone would do such a thing. So he gave me an explanation. He told me that the people in the house behind the tree were "chosen ones." They had to make a sacrifice to the gnome that ruled over Ladd's Addition (the neighborhood we were in at the time). The sacrifices weren't anything like ritualistic killings of goats or cats or anything like that. They were decorations. Every question I asked after that, he had an answer for, no matter how ridiculous or sensible. "what's the gnome's name?" "Ladd, of course." "Does he realize how small Ladd's Addition is?" "Well gnomes are much smaller than people. He's about a fourth your size, so for every step you take, he has to take four. So Ladd's Addition is four times as big in his perspective." It went on and on and I kept expecting him to laugh at me and say that's enough and we'd go home. But he didn't. He kept it all up, even when I took us totally off of our path to hunt for the gnome briefly. He even let me talk to a cat to find out that Ladd was on vacation. It was great. We're going gnome-hunting this summer.

I love my boyfriend. He's my sweet, confident, ridiculous, trustworthy, silly, encouraging, sexy, amazing, pretty, perfect, indescribable, little, Nerd. Everyone should have one.

Inspire Me (In Both Deep & Not-So-Deep Ways)

So it all started last weekend at Beaverton's Annual GSA Retreat. It was held conveniently at my school. We had a bunch of food, not enough people, and some really cool speakers. Although all of them were awesome, one of them really hit home with me, and her name was Nicole. She was transgendered.

Like all the other speakers, she simply told her story. She talked about growing up in a small town, raised by a Catholic family, and how she has 11 brothers and sisters. She talked about growing up envying the girls for being able to wear adorable dresses when she couldn't. She talked about always trying to hide her weird self. She grew up, met a wonderful woman in college, got married and had kids. This weird part of her never went away and she would still have to duck into the bathroom every now and then for some time in a skirt. One day her eldest son found some certain pictures of her times in bathrooms on a computer they had. He cried, showed his mother, she cried, got his father [Nicole], and they talked about it. They told him it was all going to be okay. And it was for awhile. Her wife knew and was okay with it. And her son too. It took some tears and getting used to, but they didn't disown her or anything. The problem with her wife was, she gave her blessing, but she didn't want to see it. Well one day she convinced her wife to come upstairs and see her in a dress. They were both so scared. The first thing her wife said? "You're beautiful." Just like that. I almost cried because it was so perfect. It was the last thing she expected but the thing she would wanted to most hear and it was just so perfect. My boyfriend does that sometimes and I want to just die with happiness because he is so perfect.

That wasn't the only time I wanted to cry, either. Further in her story she was going out with some friends of hers all dressed up and she gets a call from her wife. She says this: "I'm telling the kids today. We have to separate." It was so heartbreaking because they seemed so in love. They were so in love. She goes on to tell her story about how she came out at work all dressed up and the ordeals of that. She was so amazing, and so brave. I wish you would all go meet her.

The next inspirational speaker I met was at the 2010 Nike Youth Forum (otherwise known informally as Nike Day) this last Thursday. His name was Kevin Carroll and he too, simply told his story. His entire job is just going around, telling his story and inspiring people. He kept talking about this little red rubber ball that he played with and chased and that was his passion. The Red Rubber Ball quickly became a metaphor for your passion, and he kept preaching to chase it. He's written books on Red Rubber Balls, and he gave one to each of us, and some of us were lucky enough to get actual Red Rubber Balls that he also gave out. Mine is on my bookshelf. Kevin does some amazing work as a speaker. http://kevincarrollkatalyst.com/

The other inspiration I wanted to talk about was just all the sites I visited today from one little link that my sister emailed me. Ruffles and Stuff ( http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/ ) is just this girl who likes ruffles and likes sewing and created a blog out of her creations and even has some kickass tutorials. From there, I saw countless ideas from her and others that I fell in love with.

Like the Love Note Journal
http://ryleehitchner.blogspot.com/2010/02/bits-of-my-handmade-present.html

Or this girl who used fishnets in a classy necklace
http://getcraftin.blogspot.com/2010/02/stockings-and-pearls-equals-fabulous.html

A really quirky button bouquet
http://artisticcreationswithtrudy.blogspot.com/2010/01/button-flower-bouquets.html

A flowery Bracelet
http://therubberpunkin.blogspot.com/2009/12/fabric-flower-bracelet.html

I am always losing my pencils
http://noodleheads.blogspot.com/2009/12/tutorial-zakka-inspired-pencil-pouch.html

An Adorable shirt
http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/2009/10/t-shirt-makeover-and-more.html

Go write with a crayon. You forgot how much you missed them.
http://www.oopsicraftmypants.net/2009/12/shaped-crayons.html

But do you see? There are so many amazing people out there with such fantastical ideas! They're everywhere and we never really see them until we hear them tell their story, or post a cool link, or share their project. People are so intuitively creative and original, it's amazing.

Inspiration

So I've completely revamped this blog. I haven't posted to it in forever and I've tried making another one or another one I guess so I wouldn't have the past that's in this one, in my other ones. They were a fresh start. I could've deleted these, and had my 14-15 year old ramblings lost to the internet forever, but that definitely didn't feel right either.

On the other blogs I tried to be less whiney, or get more readers, or focus it more towards one specific thing. None of these worked.

And so I come back here, because wordpress was too hard to format, LJ was too social, and thousands of other reasons.

So I'm revamping the old blog for no new purpose other than to create. I have come to the conclusion (after jumping from link to link on other blogs for the past three hours) that I don't create enough. I've been incredibly inspired lately, and I should definitely not let it die off. I'll probably make a separate post for what specifically has inspired me, just so this one isn't too long.

I've missed this.