sethgray

"...it IS better to be feared, than loved."

--Iracebeth of Crims

Be careful, flisters, the Queen of Hearts is on the prowl. OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!

So, I've been having this interest in make-up recently. I don't really know where it came from, but lately it seems like something I'd like to try. Especially eyeliner. Part of that last is just that I think guys in eyeliner (the dubiously coined "guyliner") is just plain hot, so there's that. Not that it would look especially hot on me, but I guess you never know until you try.

And then there's the matter of acne. Since it doesn't seem inclined to leave me be any time soon I might as well start experimenting with concealer and what-not. *shrugs* I dunno. Maybe I'll even catalog my attempts on LJ. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

Watch one inept gay guy put goop on his face! Fun for the whole family! Hee, I could start a journal and call it man-up.

Okay, that's quite enough rambling for one evening.

EDIT: manupproject Well there it is. Don't know that I'll do anything with it, but eh.

So, as I mentioned, I finished my first book yesterday. Unfortunately I cannot tell anyone in my family about it. Why's that do you ask? Simply because it has gay content in it and I'm not out to most of them. Ah, I can hear you say, but isn't the solution to that problem easy?

No. No it is not. I know the closet is self-defeating, I know that it's hurting more than just me, that there's this huge chunk of my life that I can't ever share with them. I know that, really. But the thing is? I'm not all that upset about it. Oh sure, I'm frustrated and mad at myself, but not enough to rock the boat. The status quo may be flawed, but it's working for me right now.

But of my problem is, I'm not a big risk taker. I'm not coming out to my parents until I'm absolutely sure I have a place to say if things go south, just in case. Not that I expect them to take it badly, but it's just too much of a biggie to worry about. Can't be homeless, after all. The closet is a lot more complicated than the gay party line says it is. It's not about shame, it's not about self-flagellation, and while there is some fear involved, it's not really about that, either. For me, it's about caution, and having all my ducks in a row.

Maybe they'd be cool with it, maybe they wouldn't care...but what if they did care? It's just too much to think about, to process. My fragile human mind can only handle so many what-ifs at a time. Better to let this one happen as it happens, I think. At least for now.

I just filed a complaint with the LJ Help people about a series of ads running on my page. I don't know if anyone else has seen them, but over the past week there has been an advertisement for a Christian recruitment DVD. As an atheist, I find it annoying. As a gay man, I find it offensive.

The text reads something to the effect of: "The message that has changed the world hasn't changed."

If that isn't blatant propaganda I don't know what is.

Now, I went and tried to mess with my ad settings myself before I went to the LJ request people. But it kept showing up and I get madder and madder every time I see it. I don't have anything against the majority of Christians, or Christianity in general. But I am NOT a Christian, and I don't want their material running on my website. Especially not material that is intended to sway people in favor of Christianity. There are quite enough of them in world already, go advertise on one of their pages. Leave my little atheistic corner of the web alone. It's almost impossible to find a completely secular, religion-free place in the world. That's part of the appeal of this blog. It's supposed to be my blog, where I can feel at ease and let my thoughts go where they please.

These ads don't put me at ease, they actively earn my ire. It would be like a black person logging on to find white supremacist ads running. Not to say that the ad was inflammatory or hostile in content, but the institution responsible for running the ad is actively responsible for trampling on my civil rights. So when nothing I could do would remove the ad, suffice it to say that I was Not Pleased.

None of the ad options mention that they might have religious content when you click, and it's mandatory that you have at least five options checked. I've fiddled with the settings and the ad won't go away. I'm just tired of it.

It's like missionaries coming to your door step. At least in real life you can shut the door, or turn your music up so you can't hear them knocking. Unfortunately there is no such thing online. Can't we have an internet version of a peep hole?

EDITED TO ADD: Photographic evidence. As soon as I posted this, guess what was running at the top of the page? -_-



ETA 2: Oh, and now my request has been made invisible. Imagine that.

Twitter is working! YAAAAY!

I'm probably going to change this theme tomorrow. It's already starting to bug me. Not to mention it doesn't feel like me at all.

I came across a link the other day to a series of stories about a female-to-male transsexual who liked men. I don't know why, but that whole concept blew my mind. A gay male transsexual. It was one of those things that hadn't quite occurred to me before. Is it because of some lingering threads of my formerly religious brainwashing? I mean, a transsexual is one who is born in the wrong body. So to make things "right" he/she transforms to the other sex's body. It's an effort to put things the way they should be. Do I still retain so much backlogged religion that I parse "the way things should be" as automatically girl-on-boy?

It's a depressing thought, and I'm afraid of what truth it might contain. Religion is a culture, and like all culture it makes up parts of you no matter how much you might want otherwise. I say things like "there is no right, only what we like" all the time, but there are still little secret parts of me that don't quite believe it. Will it always be that way?

I severely hope not. But how does one completely wash the unwanted aspects of a "former" culture away? One can't. Even by immersing oneself in a new culture, there will still be those perceptions and defaults that remain of the former.