Shhh

I have a secret. I'm pretty sure my mom knows what it is. And my dad suspects it, but he wouldn't want to hear it from me. My conservative uncle and aunt would probably throw a fit if they knew. Yeah, my whole conservative Republican family would probably disown me if word got out.

Any guesses?

Yep, I voted for Obama.

I tend to think of myself as a moderate. I like to try to see things from both sides, to try to figure out who would be the best choice, and not because I'm blindly following one ideology or another. After much deliberation, I settled on Obama. Plus, being a moderate, my ideal situation is to have the power switch between the parties. Too long with one party being in power tips the scale too far, at least that's the way I see it currently. The Republicans have had their time. Now I want to see what a Democrat president will do with the country. And if the result is disappointing . . . well, then there's always 2012.

Election time has crept up on me. I wanted to go into this feeling super-informed. I wanted to have read both Obama and McCain's books and researched all the propositions. What can I say, I feel guilty when I vote uninformed. Well, I didn't have time to read the books, but I did read up quite a bit on the propositions thanks to a nifty site I found called ballotpedia.org. Basically like wikipedia, except for ballot initiatives. Not just California, either. It has summaries of the propositions, arguments for and against, lists of supporters and opponents, and links to info sites. If only all propositions were one sentence long. That's the good thing about 8, I guess. Short and to the point.

Kind of scary how topics that absolutely bored me before are now fascinating me. Like politics. And history. I feel like a lot of subjects are forced on us at an age where a lot of us are too young and/or immature to appreciate them. I seem to have a thirst for knowledge, I think I've been out of school too long. And yet look what I've done, prolonged the gap before grad school. At least this will give me time to try to learn about a broad range of subjects before my life becomes consumed by one specific one.

And now the ramble ends. Good night.

Hanging in there

The impulses to blog are few and far between these days. So much easier to just try to ignore things. Thanks for the comments, good to know I can disappear off the face of the earth and come back and people are still around :-)

So, I talked to my mom about it again. Way more awkward this time. To the point where I even regretted bringing it up. Now, I'm still not comfortable AT ALL with talking about sexuality issues with people I know. The therapist was one thing, and that was hard enough. So, when I brought it up again with my mom I was talking about it in very vague terms (eg, "So, about the issues I'm going through, that I talked to you about before . . .). So it was a bit unpleasant when she asked me straight up, "Have there been guys that you've been physically attracted to?" I know that's an easy enough question, but it was just so forward and unexpected. I turned into a stuttering fool, muttering something about how my attractions to guys and girls are different. Which is true. She also made it clear that she herself is uncomfortable talking about these things, and she encouraged me to see another counselor, perhaps one that specializes in these things. Maybe that's a possibility, but I just don't know. I don't really feel like throwing money at something that may or may not be all that helpful.

This weekend I went down to San Diego to chill with some friends I hadn't seen in a while. I love feeling like I'm part of a group. Don't really get that too much anymore. Too many of my friends are not friends with each other, either because they don't know each other, or sometimes because they don't like each other. I've always been the kind of person who is able to hang out and get along with different groups of friends, but have never really been a central member of any one group. I should pursue new avenues of meeting people.

While I was down there I also entertained my friends with my guitar playing, and got some compliments, including of the "I had no idea you were that good!" variety. Felt nice. I certainly love to play. One of the greatest forms of stress relief. Any music fans out there who have thought about picking up an instrument, I cannot encourage it enough. You don't have to have rock star intentions. It's great just to be able to play casually. Anyone play anything?

Till next time.