Mutación Memetic Parte Cuatro: ...And I'm It

So I've been tagged for a meme by the fabulously random Mich over at
Who Is Mich? whose blog you should totally check out.

Now let's see...

1. Were you named after anyone?
Both of my names came from my parents. My first name is the english version of my dad's whereas Kendall has a funny story behind it. My mom was still slightly loopy from the meds and she didn't know what she wanted my middle name to be. The nurse came in and called her "Kendall" by mistake (her name and mine are only 3 letters different) and she liked it.

Nineteen years later, I'm in the mall with a friend and we hear someone calling my name. We're looking around trying to figure out who it is when I hear "Mommy!" and a little blond girl comes running up to the woman calling my name. Cue mass amounts of ribbing.

2. Do you still have your tonsils?
Nope, had them removed when I was four or five. I don't remember if it hurt or not but I remember lots of ice cream.

3. Would you bungee jump?
I'm a wee bit of a thrill seeker so most definitely. It's where I would bungee from that's the question.

4. What is your favorite cereal?
To those who didn't read my Shit List, I'll reiterate. I absolutely loathe cereal and were I consigned to Hell one of my punishments would be having to eat it every morning. With milk. *shudder* I seriously can barely stand to see people eat it myself.

Sadly, this doesn't stop me from craving a dry bowl of cheerios every blue moon. A craving I do everything in my power to ignore.

5. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
For my tennis shoes, yes. My church boots and flip flops don't have laces.

6. What is your favorite ice cream?
Strawberry shortcake flavour from Ben & Jerry's

7. What is the first thing you notice about people?
Their sense of humour, eyes, and voice

8. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
My at-times abysmal self-confidence. Distant second is my slight eating disorder (not sure if that is actually what is wrong with me or not.)

9. What was the last thing you ate?
A bagel before class on Friday

10. What are you listening to right now?
"For Good" from Wicked. Original Broadway Cast for the win.

11. Last movie you watched?
On my own, it was "The Green Mile". With someone else, it was "Forrest Gump" with Eva and Daybreak. Hmm, lot of Tom Hanks love this week.

12. What did you dream about last night?
It was a nightmare that I could not wake up from. Think Dawn of the Dead zombies (super strong and fast) with Hills Have Eyes tendencies and motivations (Papa Hades). Now put them in a crowded mall. Yeah, I was freaked.

13. What book are you reading?
I finished New Moon last night and next on my To Read list is A Lion Among Men, the third book in the Wicked series.

14. Summer or winter?
Summer...few clothes, barefoot, beautiful weather, water

Winter...birthday, Christmas, beautiful scenery, cold

Hmm, I can't decide.

15. Do you have any special talents?

Soy bilingüe. I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue. I can do and hold a hanstand, working on being able to hold it one-handed. I am a great cook. I could probably hold a conversation using nothing but movie quotes. I seem to be able to make even the most serious or depressed person smile and laugh.

Now I tag...

Katie @ I Know This Much Is True

Diane @ Diane's Addled Ramblings

Lady X (yes I gave you a nickname) @ I'll Just Keep On Ramblin'

Emily @ e-leet

Summer @ Blogfully Yours

The Pursuit Of Happiness

“Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.” - Anonymous

On Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at approximately 11:00 PM EST Barack Obama was declared President-Elect and many in the nation exploded into jubilation. After months of wondering if this country, only 40 years removed from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, would elect a biracial man as her president, it felt like we had come far. It seemed as if America was more united than she had been since that nation-changing Tuesday morning seven years ago.

I personally was on what could easily be referred to as an election high for almost the next 24 hours. Nothing could bring me down.

You'd think I'd have learned by now that fate is determined to prove I am her bitch. Yet my stubborn ass just keeps trying her. Obviously, I have a masochistic streak and enjoy learning my life lessons from the School of Hard Knocks.

Ask and ye shall receive.

I am speaking of course about California's Proposition 8. I had been on my way home from class when I get a call from Ruth telling me the results.

My heart dropped somewhere in the vicinity of my left shoe and a great deal of the optimism I had been feeling turned into inarticulate anger. I remember having to count backwards in Spanish just so I would not let loose a stream of profanity in public.

Hearing my own congregation speak on how we should support the passing of Prop 8 actually made me leave during Mass. I could not sit there and listen to Father Oaks, someone I have come to respect and trust, say that it was not an attack on the homosexual community but a defense of marriage. Nor could I hear the rationale that marriage was always intended to be one man and one woman.

Oh really? So I'm just imagining the stories of Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon? All of whom had multiple wives and yet are touted as men we should aspire to be similar to. I despise hypocrisy so please do not waste my time using it to strengthen your argument.

Furthermore, where exactly in the Bible does it condemn same-sex marriage? I've looked extensively and have yet to uncover a single verse that expressly condemns a loving, monogamous relationship between two people of the same gender. In fact, look up the story of the relationship between Daniel, David, and Ruth as an example.

As for Prop 8 not being an attack on the homosexual community, that is akin to claiming Jim Crow and the Apartheid were not attacks against those of colour but merely to protect the stability of the nation. Then some have the nerve to claim that gay couples are still afforded all kinds of rights. Even some moderates say that civil unions should be enough.

Does the phrase "separate yet equal" mean anything these days?

In four states, it is expressly prohibited for lesbians and gays to adopt children and even in the states where it is allowed, there is a myriad of rules and prohibitions that make this very difficult.

Imagine that your wife has just died. You are sick with grief and the worry that your adopted child will be taken away by the state. Then have that same child die in a car crash barely two weeks from her fifteenth birthday. Now nearly a near later, you are pregnant with twins and seriously considering marrying your girlfriend. And every day, you feel ill worrying what might happen to those children should something happen to you. This is Mami's life.

I was asked why I care so much about Prop 8 when I myself am straight. You want to get personal, fine, we'll go personal.

Growing up, I learned fairly early in my childhood that I could not depend on my parents. My mom had too much work to do and my dad...well, he couldn't really be bothered to care. As horrible as it sounds, I was fairly convinced that family was largely useless. I thought marriage was something only the older generation (like my great-grandparents) could make work.

You say you want to protect the children?

As far as I am concerned I was raised by Rose and Mami. They have always done whatever they could for me. They took an interest in my life and my happiness. I will never forget me calling them my family for the first time and the crying, smiling mass of limbs we were on their pool deck that night years ago. They were the only people under the age of 70 who wanted to protect me.

I was overcome with emotion when I saw that they had long thought to legally adopt me. Those papers were proof that someone somewhere wanted me as their child, something I had long doubted. I am proud to call them my moms and would have been prouder to still to have that recognized by the state.

Were it not for them, I would see marriage as a crock of shit. So how can it be that they and those like them are destroying the institution?

I don't understand.

It's a strange parallel when just shortly after my parents had their first birthdays, anti-miscegenation laws were rendered to be no longer in effect. These laws had been held to protect the sanctitiy of race. Now four decades later, we worry about the sanctitiy of marriage.

Daybreak, with all the innocence and clear-sight of a child, has said it best when she said, "no one can tell Auntie Imogen (who is her godmother) that she can't get married. She should have a happily ever after too!"

Sweetheart, truer words were never spoken.

So it is that I must temper my excitement in the wake of President-Elect Obama's win. We have come so very far in our short history.

This is true.

However, the passing of Proposition 8 also shows that we have so very far to go.

I will not give up hope though.

Los Gemelos Nuevos deserve to have their family acknowledged and supported.

Imogen and Ruth deserve to have the right to get married should they choose.

For that to happen, we must acknowledge and stand by the fact that marriage is a right, not a priveledge.

In 1967, then Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the decision of the Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia:

"The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."

If not now, then when?

Wednesday Workshop: Shit List

So it's Wednesday again, which means Wednesday Writing Workshop.

4.) 10 of my absolute worst pet peeves...

In no particular order, things that disgust and/or piss me off....












...those who don't get how true this is.

Welcome President Barack Obama

Yeah this is pretty much the epitome of happiness. Congratulations President Obama! I toast you and the American people sir.

Tonight I am more proud of my country than I have ever been in my 20 years on this Earth. To all those in Grant Park tonight, enjoy yourselves and be sure to take lots of pictures. I need to live vicariously through you.

You are witnessing history in the making.

To those who did not vote for President Obama, I ask that you can put it aside and let us work together to be a better America for all her people. I ask that you allow him to earn your trust. This is our land, both democrat and republican. And we are stronger together than we are divided.

As for myself?

I go to bed with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Ah, why the Hell not.

Mutación Memetic Parte Tres: Blogschmear Mish Mash

This is from the hilarious ExMi.

1. Drop Dead Sugar Daddy

2. Your Beard Talks Smack

3. Attack of the Golden Ubermilf

4. Tales of Wit, Tits, and the Drunken Housewife

5. Mind Your Vagina Damnit

6. It's Like I'm Having A Gay Adventure Everyday


Sadly I'm not very creative today, I could only come up with six. Now I must be heading back to work for a few hours. Enjoy the rest of your day folks!

For those of you expecting an election day post, look below. : )

"Yes We Can."

Dear Senator Obama,

Before anything else, I offer my condolences to you and your family for the loss of your grandmother. From what I know she was proud of the man you became which is all we can really hope for.

On this the eve of election day, I can imagine you are being swamped by mail from everyone spanning adoring fans to vitriolic critics. I doubt you will even read this yourself but that will not stop my sending it. I want to get these words out there. I need to.

Tomorrow the majority of Americans will hit the polls and vote, deciding which candidate they believe will best lead this country in the next four years. Which is a wonderful thing. Every single citizen capable of voting should do so. Suffrage is not only a right; it is a responsibility. So no matter which candidate a person votes for, I am happy they are doing their duty. When I was 14, my Civics teacher said a sentence that has stayed with me to this day. "If you don't vote, don't complain."

I remember watching the Democratic Presidential Debates last July and thinking either Senator Clinton, Senator Edwards, or yourself would be the presidential nominee.

Sadly, I must recognize that this presidential election has brought out the worst in many of us on both sides. I may be voting for you but I do not see why that makes so many of your supporters defame and demonize Republican voters.

I can respect John McCain. I may disagree with him incredibly but I believe that he has what he sees as America's best interests at heart. I admire the fact that he and his wife took in a 3 month old girl from Bangladesh. Along with his service record and rather affable personality. I see no reason to hate Senator McCain and I do not really see that changing.

I have heard you called a racist, a socialist, a terrorist, even the Anti Christ. I've heard McCain voters referred to as racists, idiots, rednecks, and all manner of nastiness.

Sir, I believe with all my heart that you can truly take us into the new century. I want to see the wounds in our foreign standing healed. I want the title of American to be something to be proud of again. I want to be proud of my country and secure in the knowledge that the head of my government has my best interests in mind.

No matter what the outcome, I thank you. You have become the embodiment of change to a tired and angry people. So win or lose, I believe what you have done will resonate through the generations regardless.

There are so many issues that concern me, it is enough to make my pulse race and head feel light and full of cotton. I stress as I wonder if decades down the road, I will be able to have social security as a fallback. I look at nations like Great Britain and wonder why we cannot have nationalized health care as well. I feel the anger well up in my stomach when I look at my friends and know that should they want a family, it will be an uphill battle from the start because they are both women. I hear people look at peace in the Middle East as lost cause and know in my heart of hearts that it will take time and successful diplomacy. I despise the helplessness I feel when I watch the shame on the face of one of my students because her family can't afford new clothes. I look forward to the day when we are not reliant on gas and where alternative energy sources are considered more than just a pipe dream.

I look forward to a country where people of all ages, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, educational backgrounds, and abilities are fully included and participating in society. A country where each and every one of its citizens is supported, accepted, and valued.

Tomorrow our world will change. Just what it will change into it has yet to be decided at the moment. Soon we will know who the next President of the United States will be. Many months of travel and sacrifice and tears and pain will tomorrow be vindicated.

In 2016, I want to be able to look back on 8 years of peace, equality, and prosperity. As someone who is increasingly thinking like a father, I want to be able to afford to both send my daughter to school and make sure she has health care. I want her to grow up to be very proud of her country and how it really is a land of hope for all people.

So on the eve of this historic election, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for standing up. Thank you for speaking out. Thank you for believing we deserve better and convincing us of the same. Thank you for sacrificing time with your family to campaign for what you believe in. Thank you for giving us hope. Thank you for giving me faith in politicians for the first time. Thank you for being who you are and having the willingness to share that with us all.

Respectfully,

Kendall A.

Memetic Mutation Parte Dos

I got tagged to do a photo meme by my friend J over at Little Miss Optimist

Because I'm a bit slow, she gave me the rules very simply. Open up the picture files on your computer, choose the 4th folder, and then the 4th picture. Because I'm not quite stupid enough to post a picture of me drinking a Heineken, I changed my rules. I went to my 5th folder and opened the 5th picture.


This is Eva (with all the bleach washed out) sleeping on my couch with her laptop halfway laying on top of her. I think I had just gotten Daybreak tucked into my bed when I go back into the living room and find this. My poor little nursing student was all tuckered out.

I tag Diane, Cayman's Girl, Dee, Tiff, Mindy, and anyone else who would like to do this.