What did Ryan do when he had to take a shower this morning, but found to his dismay that his recently-homebound roommate had taken the shower curtain and rings, leaving only the curtain liner behind? Did Ryan become angry? Did Ryan curse, shout, and pout? NO! Ryan used his brain to solve the problem. (Gee, Ryan's so smart!)

Figure 1:

Need help? Here's a closer shot:

Yes. Unbent paper clips are holding the shower liner up. And if I do say so myself, they work better than the c-rings my roommate had; those things were always falling off.

Incidentally, there was no water on the floor when I finished with my shower, either.

Just call me MacGyver.

I know this blog was to be dedicated to my LASIK surgery (which went well, by the way), but something else has intruded into my life at this time - a very scary mother. Here, I present a series of conversations with someone named "Trevor".

At this point, everything started getting weird..

I asked how old Trevor was because he seemed very immature to me, and almost immediately afterward, I was sent the nasty letter by his mother before I ever had a chance to work with anything and leave Trevor better than I found him. This is why it bothers me when people leap to conclusions about me: rarely does anyone ever know exactly what motives I have at any given time. Let the public be my judge.

For those of you who wonder what I am like when I am having a serious discussion with like-minded individuals, here is an example. The current topic is gay marriage, a subject very near and dear to me. Read up on it and tell me what you think.

IIDB.org, by the way, is the discussion board for the Internet Infidels, a nontheistic organization which seeks to inform the public about nontheistic issues. If you like them enough, why not visit the Internet Infidels main site?

Well, this Friday I'll be getting something done that I have wanted done a long time. Too bad it's considered elective surgery.

I will be having LASIK done on my eyes. So the next picture I take will be sans lenses. Yay!

It's only costing me $2800, too, which is real cheap. But that's because I actually have quite healthy eyes and I don't have much deformity of the cornea (the part they have to cut away at with the laser). There was a $50 reservation fee (it's part of the total), but I had to ask John to pay for it. Now I feel like such an ass. At least it gets refunded on Friday, but that's not excuse either.

Sorry, John. I love you!

This letter was written by Sharon Underwood, mother of a gay teen, to the Valley News in White River Junction, Vermont. The original letter was entitled "I've Had Enough of Your Anti-Gay Venom." Interestingly enough, you can't find the original letter on the Valley News website anymore. Strange...

"Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities
that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?"

Those of you who know anything about my life can see the disturbing similarities between what this letter says and how my time throughout school was spent. I sure hope this letter gets to more people that need it.

John and I will be getting handfasted in August on our one-year anniversary! Yay! I found a keeper!

By the way - a handfasting, if you don't already know, can be considered a "trial marriage" where for a set period of time (usually a year and a day), a couple behaves as if married. At the end of a handfasting, the couple can jointly decide whether to part, remain married, or to undergo another handfasting. That's for all you people out there saying, "wow, that was fast!"

The perfect stillness of the canvas
is marred
by the errant stroke of the brush
a fleck of color
nature's wish gone awry.

An imperfect text
for it tells not the truth
a mispelled word
a mark of punctuation.
misplaced.

Form and substance,
light and dark
shadow and contrast
Perfection.

The broken nose
the missing tooth
the scar
like the stroke of a brush
paint the canvas of my body
with the beautiful story of my past.

You vomit to be perfect
You starve to be beautiful
You eat to be nicer to others
Or perhaps alcohol is your vice.

These are beautiful, too -
Although you would argue with me.

For the perception of beauty
Lies in the imperfection
Of our lives.