Monday, July 31, 2006

Me time

Mom left today for Lafayette Indianna. My brother's getting married on Saturday and she went early to help out and finalize rehearsal dinner plans (it's hard to look after stuff like that long distance). I fly out Thursday. It's my first time flying so I'm a little nervous. I'm not scared to fly I just don't know what to expect and I'll be by myself. I tend to get tunnel vision when I'm in new places with large crowds so I end up missing signs and stuff (and I want to move to Toronto?). Leave it to me to have my first flight be an international one. Might as well learn how to do everything at once. I have to go through Montreal and switch terminals and go through customs in Toronto on my way to Indianapolis. Oh well. I'm sure everything will be fine. I'm not an optimist, just naive.

For now I have the house to myself during the day while my older brother's at work. Usually mom's home getting after me to do something constructive so now I have the week to watch TV and read blogs.

That's all for today. I really need to get this move to Toronto started before Fall hopefully. I need to get a job and start getting on with my life. I'm starting to get cabin fever.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

And now for some politics...

I mentioned a couple days ago that I was going to post about something political but needed to do more research. On Friday Dave posted some links to posts that other bloggers had written on gay marriage. I found them both to be very thought provoking and educational. As someone who is only recently coming out to himself (it’s always been there I’m just accepting it now which seems to be a common theme from what I’ve read) and gradually discovering more of what’s going on around me in “gaydom”, these articles made me realize that there’s a lot more going on politically in this area than I’m aware of. The media leads you to believe that the battles have been fought and won and there’s just this one last hurdle of gay marriage. Wow, were my eyes opened. If I lived in the states I could lose my job just because I’m gay? Whoa! I immediately thought “Could this happen to me in Canada?”

Well we have had several laws passed in recent years that are favourable to gay rights but that was under the Liberal government. Now that we have a Conservative government will things change? People are worried because Prime Minister Harper has said he would allow a free vote on same sex-marriage in the House. I think he’s just playing politics because he knows the vote wouldn’t pass with a minority government. The Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc Quebecois all support same sex-marriage so they would easily defeat the government on this issue. Because it’s not a budgetary issue it is not considered a confidence motion so the government wouldn’t fall and Harper can still tell his far right wing supporters that he tried.

We interrupt this posting for an important news bulletin….

While typing this I noticed an article on Yahoo news about the crowd booing a Conservative minister at the opening of the Out Games in Montreal. Personally I don’t agree with this. I think the old saying “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar” has a lot of truth to it. We should be in dialogue with people and educating them and listening to their concerns and addressing them. I know there are the religious fanatics that will never listen but there are also some that just get caught up in the rhetoric and if we listen to what they have to say after we help them get past the rhetoric I’m sure they would come around. I don’t think we should be pushing them to accept that gay is ok. Let’s start with agreeing to disagree and that our being married won’t affect them and that we’re not trying to tear apart their churches. I really see this as more of a religious issue and separation of church and state.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming…

Even if the Conservative government were to pass legislation defining marriage as between a man and a woman I don’t think it would be constitutional in Canada. Section 15 of the charter of rights and freedoms states that: Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

The closest I could find in the U.S. constitution was in Amendment XIV Section 1. where it says “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.

Section 15 has several factors that I believe have brought about gay rights legislation in Canada. First is the phrase “equal protection and equal benefit”. So even if one could win the argument that gays don’t need to be able to marry to be protected by the law they couldn’t say that we have equal benefit. Secondly the phrase “in particular” has been interpreted by the courts to mean that the list of characteristics protected by section 15 is not exhaustive. Wikipedia describes this better here. So while individuals were unsuccessful in convincing the courts that pot smoking was a personal characteristic, they were successful in having homosexuality ruled a personal characteristic and so now Canada has same-sex marriage. In order to overturn this the government would have to use Section 1 of the charter “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” and I’m not sure how it would be demonstrably justified to prevent certain citizens from marrying based on their choice of partner.

Anyways, this has turned out to be quite a long post. I’m not sure how disjointed it is but at least I learned some new stuff. I’m also more glad now that I’m Canadian (not that I wasn’t before).

Saturday, July 29, 2006

I'm an Uncle!!! (agian)

Mom woke me up at 5:00 this morning to say that my sister was in labour so I drove into town to stay with my 19 month old nephew while his mom and dad headed to the hospital around 6:00. So I spent the morning learning about signs from Blue's Clues and my nephew said "backpack" as clear as day when he saw Dora's backpack (yum yum yum deliciosa). It's kind of funny because I get Mamoo and his toys are all either aball or ahda. Mom called around 10:30 to say it was all over. My 2nd nephew was born around 9:30 after less than ten minutes of pushing. My sister did it so fast the epidural didn't even have time to kick in. She's a trouper though. Maybe it's the combination of our tough Irish blood from my Dad's side and our stoic mennonite background from my Mom's side.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Hollywood Conspiracies


I was going to post about something political but I think I need to do more research first so that I at least sound somewhat intelligent and not just another windbag.

So instead of a windbag I’ll be an airhead for a minute. I know teen flicks are supposed to be lame but I usually like them. It’s nice to dream about an ideal world where everyone’s attractive, drives a sports car that their parents bought for them, and everyone learns a valuable life lesson and makes up with everybody by the end. As long as you go in with the understanding that it’s not supposed to be realistic you can just sit back and enjoy the eye candy. There’s usually something for everybody so if you happen to be with people who may not be aware of your particular preferences they can just assume that your drooling because of the leading man’s female counter parts and everyone goes home happy. You can also usually add to your collection of witty sayings or corny jokes. Carbon and Oxygen walk into a pub and they see gold standing at the bar and they yell “eh you, get out a here”. It’s funny cause Au is the chemical symbol for gold…..

Umm yeah. So N E ways….. moving on...

So my friend "A" and I went to see John Tucker Must Die tonight (hence the topic for this post and the pics). The title character, John Tucker, is played by the very hot Jesse Metcalfe. He just has this je ne sais quoi about him. That smile, those eyes. Yummy. Of course everyone expects the main character to be attractive. I think Hollywood must be trying to depress everybody though because John Tucker’s younger brother is supposed to be less attractive and not as popular and they go and cast somebody like Penn Badgley. If he’s not hot then I guess that would make me pimple puss or something. Is it just me or is the not-so-hot guy just as hot as the hot guy? It’s a toss up for me. Do I have to choose?

Thursday, July 27, 2006

On snobbery and acceptance

I am a snob. There I said it. They say that admitting it is the first step. I try not to be but for some reason I think that I’m better than everyone else. I know it’s not true though. You wouldn’t have to look far to find someone who is better than me in most things. I was never the top of my class (near the top but not the top), never the most athletic (I’m ok but far from the best), and artistically I’m only so so as well. You could say I don’t really excel or suck at anything. I’m just an all around average guy. Even though I acknowledge my mediocrity, for some reason I still look at people and assume that I’m better than them. I know in my head that it’s not true but somehow it’s become my default setting and I need to remind myself that I’m not better just different. I also know that we tend to project our traits on other people so because I see myself as snobby I assume that other people will be too. That’s why I was a little worried making my blogroll because in my head I hear these people saying “Who’s this punk and what does he think he’s doing linking to my site?”

Because I think like this, it was really cool to see world renowned blogger Darin leave a comment welcoming me to the blogosphere. I feel like there should be an award or something for being the first commenter on my site but unfortunately I am an unemployed recent college graduate still living in his parents’ house (sad I know but I’m working on it). I really enjoy Darin’s blog All Preparation and No H. It’s fun and light-hearted for the most part and because he’s an ESTP he sees things the way I do. Of course as an ISTP I’m happy to sit at home and read about his adventures instead of going out and having my own.

I found Darin’s blog through Scotty’s blog The Other Side of Straight. I like this blog because it gives me hope. The dynamic between Scotty and Joel is really great which gives me hope that someday somewhere I might find that too. Also Scotty has a similar religious background and the way his parents have come around gives me hope as well. I’m going through some of what he’s been through with more ahead I’m sure, so reading about how someone else dealt with it and that things are working out is really encouraging.

Another blog I found through Scotty’s is Fresh N Tasty. Donnie always has something to entertain or ponder and if he doesn’t he’s kind enough to leave a little something for his readers until he returns. There’s something about listening to Donnie’s podcasts. I can picture myself curled up next to him while he sips his Fresca and shares what’s on his mind. I’m not sure how compatible we would actually be in real life but I am a good listener and I enjoy having my head rubbed so if our paths ever cross in the “real world” I probably wouldn’t turn him down if he invited me under his covers and wanted to tell me about his day. For now though, I'll just have to settle for listening to him over the internet.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

What's in a name?

I'm not a very decisive person so it's a wonder I've managed to come up with a name for this blog. I started with something else, a title that my friend uses to describe me, but I changed my mind 'cause I'm not sure if it might come up in a web search and I'm not ready for people in my personal life to read this. Not that I will be writing a lot here. I'm not a huge fan of writing but I might stick up the occasional post. We shall see. One of my main reasons for finally doing this is I really enjoy reading blogs and I couldn't find a tool that tracks updates to blogs that wasn't part of a blog so I thought I'd give it a try.

So, to the name. My friend often refers to me as a *mainstream nonconformist*. I agree with her within the context of our lives. Neither of us up to this point has had much of a life outside of church. Our church is very conservative. Organ and piano only for music, hymns only for congregational singing, no hand held mics, ladies wear dresses, men wear shirts and ties if not a suit, etc... The reason I say within the context of our lives is because my nonconformity consists of wearing loud ties and questioning whether or not our deacons are actually a board of elders (for some reason Baptists seem to take pride in the fact that they have deacons and not elders when deacons in the NT were responsible for the poor and widows not governing the church like our “deacons” do). The mainstream part comes into play because while my tie may be loud, I’m still wearing a tie. Anyways, because of this my friend usually gets me a birthday or Christmas card along this theme. When I was going through boxes the other day I came across one of these cards. It had lady bugs all over the front and off to one side was a single blue one. Inside it said to my colourful friend. So that’s me, the blue bug in a sea of red.

I guess I’ve been doubting the nonconformist part lately because I’ve been exploring more outside of my circle. I’m realizing that I’m not as unique as I thought I was. It’s kind of like going from Junior High to High School. My life is pretty mainstream compared to so many of the lives I’ve been reading about on the blogs of other gay men. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah I’m gay (a major influence on my nonconformist tendencies I think). At the same time I’m not really a mainstream gay either. I don’t get the whole Cher thing and I’m sure there’s a ton of other gay icons that I’m supposed to know about. I ‘m also not so much into the wild rampant sex thing, I don’t like alcohol or drugs, and drag queens make me uncomfortable. So I guess I can still be a mainstream nonconformist after all.