And This Has All Been Said Before

You know the flip side of all the methods o' communication we have these days? There's always a way for someone to contact you. I blocked or deleted BP from my main methods of communication long ago, but I swear to you she has a way of knowing when I've downloaded a new app or something because she popped up again on Father's Day. I didn't engage, I'm smarter than that now, but she kept on sending messages down the line. And I felt sad. Because she seems to be stuck in the same place she always was. For a long time I was angry with her, very angry, but now I don't feel anything towards her. However, I'm always a little saddened when I see someone not growing. The last communication between us during our official relationship was a long email I sent her detailing things from my end, and it included the passage, "If you're so incredibly unhappy with the way things are and the state of your life, as you claimed a few weeks back, then change it. Because if you don't, you'll just remain in that unhappiness for the rest of your life.". I said this for many reasons. The first being that BP told me about dozens of plans she had to do this thing or that one, but she never did any of them in the end. She told me she hated managing someone else's career and dreams and would never do it again, then proceeded to take two jobs doing exactly that. And on the last occasion where we spoke, she was overseas doing that very same job and telling me about how unhappy she was and how she wanted to change her life. That exchange was months ago. And now she comes with the exact same ish. That's what's sad to me.
A large part of the end of this particular relationship was BP's habit of getting immersed in work to the detriment of all else in her life. I don't honestly think she knew what to do if she wasn't hustling 24/7 and working to make someone else's dreams come true. When she was unemployed, drinking, going out and shopping were how she passed the time and eventually it bored her (not to mention, racked up a ton of debt). She's never really grasped that you can be great at your job and still balance a personal life. Early in our relationship, she made a comment about how part of my appeal was that I never wanted anything from her and I didn't care what her previous job had been, or that she was in between jobs when we met. But I think that appeal only lasted so long for her and was eventually twisted in her mind to me not wanting to be with someone who worked when, in reality, I just didn't want to be with someone who put blinders on when they went to work. Despite my lack of any reply to her messages, she sent another one yesterday saying letting this go to hell was her biggest regret because, "It was real, and I got distracted with things that will not last". It was nice to finally hear her say something that was true, but I still had no comment. She continued on to say part of her wants to just chuck the career ish and be a housewife and that she really wants to fully commit to someone and focus on her personal life. These are the same things I've heard over and over again. I so badly wanted to ask what was different about this time versus all the other times, but I didn't. Somehow, she read my mind because she offered up, "I know you're thinking you've heard all this before, and you're right. I've been overseas for six weeks but I'll be back soon for a full eight weeks and I will definitely make changes". Well great, I hope she does. But if this is some sort of plot to try and woo me back, it's far from effective. The funny thing about people is that they're bound to get wise eventually when you fuck them over every time they open up to you. I have no interest in revisiting that part of my life, or that relationship.
Having been able to look at all this BP stuff with a brand new set of eyes, eyes that long ago ditched the wool that had been pulled over them, I've realized some things. First, I don't believe BP to be as bad a person as some of my friends do. I understand their view, and I get that some of those views come from how she treated me, but I don't see her as the devil by any means. I feel like BP's life has never been her own and the contempt and confusion she has about that manifests itself in some ugly ways, like always going for self-preservation and just being plain mean when she sees no other way out of things. I can recall the beginning of our time together and remember that person I was really into as funny, smart and quite charming. We could've become really good friends had things gone in another direction and I'd not experienced that flip side of her personality, which I think probably only comes out when in a relationship. Do I feel the need to become friends with her? Not at all, that's not a friendship that is possible or that would add to my life in any way. But the possibility of it was there all those years ago. Second, I think BP's fixation with me has everything to do with her not wanting to put in the effort and time to find someone else. She had her longterm on/off ex and then me and that pretty much makes up her serious dating history. I can relate to not wanting to start over, no one does, but sometimes the past is just too much to overcome, as is the case here. I've often thought she'd probably end up with that other ex as they seem cut from the same workaholic cloth, but perhaps he's dating someone else and is not an option. She knows I'm single so she believes the possibility of an "us" exists. If I thought replying to her messages would bring any kind of closure or clarity, I would tell her that this is not going to happen. We can't be friends, and we probably shouldn't even really be acquaintances. Whatever chance there was for any of that has long since passed and she needs to move on and find something else. I'm not inclined to believe she will change anything in her life, though I do hope I am wrong because I feel like she really does want the things she speaks of. But it's one thing to want them and another thing to make them happen. I'm sure she'd think I was being preachy about change, and that it's ridiculous that I, the mortal enemy of change, would be singing its praises but when it's necessary, you gotta do it. I've changed so much since we started dating, to when things got nasty, to when it ended and up until now. I could never go back to that routine, and I've recently realized I can't be with someone who isn't growing and learning everyday. What's the point of living if we're not doing that?
I do hope she finds whatever it is she wants and is looking for, be it career success or contentment in her personal life. I did care for her deeply at one time and, despite all we went through, I still wish her the best. But if I had a penny for every time she told me she was going to radically alter her work life so that it didn't negatively impact her personal life, I could retire right now. The odd thing is I know she is capable of being a good partner even while working, there were two or three times where she made a real effort to do so and things were so much more chilled between us. But she just doesn't choose to be that way all the time, and that's when trouble starts. As an eternal optimist, I stuck it out for a long ass time, hoping change would come. But one person can't change a relationship all by themselves, both parties have to commit to trying to do ish. I hope she at least took that lesson from our time together and that it helps her down the line.

Here I Come To Save The Daaaaay!

So...this happened...

G: So what are you gonna do?
Me: I don't know. Sleep on her and make a decision tomorrow.
Me: *It. Sleep on it lol
G: LOL. God I wish I had your life. Responsible-ish parent by day, manwhore by night.
Me: LOL. I'm livin' the dream, G. That makes me sound like a superhero. And my Batsignal is a flashlight shining through a colored condom.
G: LMAO.

==========

My teenager finished the school year with a 4.0. #Winning

Me: And hey, I have one smart kid, so there's that.
W: Huzzah!
Me: I'm gonna get one of those annoying, "My child is an honor student" bumper stickers and put it on the ass of all my jeans.
W: LOL. Attention whore.
Me: lol I may not get the chance again!

==========

Who can work Mariah Carey into a conversation about a cookie/brownie hybrid thing that is as close to Jesus as I'll ever come? That's right, we can.

Me: I'm gonna do a music video devoted to that cookie thing. Me sitting on a pier in a tube top, watching it and I sings to it, I sings, "Oh, when you walk by e'ery niiiight, lookin' sweet and lookin' fiiine, my inner fatty comes aliiiiiive".
Me: Oh cookie, I'm so into you, brownie if you only knew, all the dirty things in my miiiind.
Friend: LOL. Please do.

==========

That one time I gave advice...

Me: I'm gonna tell you what you told me when I needed to make some decisions. If this chick is treating you badly and doesn't want to listen to the truth, you gotta decide if you should pick up your marbles and go home.
Her: From her texts, she is fixing to chuck my marbles at me.
Me: lol Well then preserve your dignity and push her down the slide face first, then run away.
Her: LOL. I fuckin' love you.

Deep Blue Sea

Me: LOL I'm watching a show on the Bermuda triangle and they're talking about various underwater caverns on the island. The voice over says, "Dean's blue hole is the biggest and deepest of them all".
Me: LOL AND..."Over the last several years, Dean's blue hole has claimed several lives".
Friend: LMAO
Me: "As Tom dives down into Dean's blue hole, it suddenly widens out".
Me: Jesus, I'm gonna have an asthma attack
Friend: LOL this is awesome
Me: Stupid Dean, wreaking havoc with his big, deep, blue hole!
Friend: lol I'm jealous

Thank you so much, NatGeo.

Started From The Bottom...And Didn't Really Make It Much Farther

Oh, how I love days that begin with such promise and then quickly go downhill. I had to be up early this morning and my internal clock decided I should get up a full hour before I needed to, which wasn't too terrible. I only got like five hours of sleep, which is my minimum for being able to function like a human being, but I still started the day in a good mood. The problem with getting up mofo early is that your body thinks it's later in the day than it actually is, so at 10 this morning I felt like it was 1 in the afternoon. I took the opportunity to rest a bit since I'm still recovering from my ear issues, and that killed time until dinner with the family. Dinner was great, but after dinner I got some annoying news on the work front. Once I got home I decided to try one more time to replace my iPod battery since it'd gotten to a point where it only holds a charge for about 45 minutes. I tried doing this awhile back but couldn't get the damn metal case to open so I abandoned ship. And I should've left it there, but noooo, I had to try again like an idiot. In doing so, one of the tools I was using to pry it open slipped and damaged the screen, leaving a giant burn mark across it. So that was cool. If you know me, you know my iPod be like air yo. I only got an 80gb Classic late last year, literally a month before they went off the market altogether and the ones left became mofo expensive. Yes, my phone plays music and has all my music on it thanks to an SD card, but it's just not the same. I had been all kindsa careful with the iPod because I knew it was irreplaceable. The upside of this is that I can now have the battery replaced by a professional (at four times the cost of doing it myself, which I could do with the old version of the iPod, but I digress) while the screen is replaced, and it's not going to cost an arm and a leg. The downside is that I broke it to begin with, and that it'll probably be a week or so before I get it back. In the meantime, I'm using a 4gb iPod Nano that holds about five minutes worth of songs and has a shaky battery life itself (don't know what's wrong with its battery, it charges fine sometimes and other times it doesn't seem to recognize it's connected to a charger). But it's better than nothing. And here's some irony. I replaced my old 30gb iPod because the headphone jack went out and I needed more space anyway, but I kept the old one just in case with the intention of fixing it in case I ever needed a backup. And then it became one of those, "Oh yeah, I should do that" kinda things that you never get around to, and then iPod's went away and all the parts for them either shot up in price or were also discontinued. It would've been five bucks to buy that part for the last year that I've been meaning to do it, now it's fifteen. Lesson learned, yo. To top off my interesting day, I'm now having some kind of allergic reaction to I don't know what and I have hives all over my arm and it itches like crazy. *sigh* Life is funny, kids. But it is never not entertaining. I hope the week flies by and my beloved Titanic (that's my iPod's name, don't hate) is syncing again very soon.

Identify Yo'self

Me: The Starbucks barista gave me attitude #RacialProfiling.
G: lol She's Mexican so it's less racial profiling and more, "You never called after the sex, bastard". Me: Uh no. She could totally tell I identify as black and she just jelly *adjusts imaginary weave*
G: LOL. That's just special.

After I relayed this convo to another friend:

Her: LOL You would screw some random barista, you black whore.
Me: LMAO. I love you with all of my black whore heart.
Her: lol I love you too, Boomshiqua.

Life Finds A Way...The Same Way...Everytime

*sigh* I am...slightly disappointed. I went back through my tweets and realized that I've been waiting on "Jurassic World" for no less than eight months. It was November of last year when I saw the first trailer and got all kindsa excited for it. The posters were awesome. The trailers were good, although I felt they gave away a lot more than they should've. It wasn't until last week when my mom made a comment about how it would suck if the movie...well, sucked, given all the hype surrounding it. Man, do I hate when she's right. And she was sorta right here. I don't think it was terrible by any means, it was more just meh. It was almost a carbon copy of the first one, just with a fully operational park. Both movies had siblings working together to survive, both movies had an overly ambitious park owner, both movies had people who weren't crazy about kids charged with taking care of kids. I loved the shots of the park and seeing what the original dude's vision eventually turned into, the tie ins with the first movie, anything involving the Mosasaur, and the end where the original T-Rex basically inherited the island, but that was about it for me. I wanted to see more of the park and the attractions (we don't see or even know of the aviary until ish goes down and the birds are freed?), and I wanted to see more of the dinosaurs in general, not just the dinosaurs eating people. The plot was meh, but I didn't expect a great plot anyway. So yeah, I have that kinda letdown feeling. I'll probably watch it again at some point and maybe it'll grow on me a bit, but it definitely won't ever be as good as the original in my eyes.
While most of the people I know thought the movie to be meh, a few absolutely hated in, my mom being one of those people. She didn't like that it was a copy of the first one in so many ways, but her bigger issue is that she didn't like seeing all that was done to the animals in captivity. I didn't care for the latter either (that scene with the dying dinosaur nearly killed me yo), but the one thing the movie did do was perfectly show what would happen if such a park were ever to come into existence. It would be full of corporate sponsors and chain restaurants and shops and how much more money can we make if we invent something new. That's the world we live in now. And the moral of the story is, once again, you cannot control nature or evolution. We're not meant to control those things. Dinosaurs and man have never co-existed for a reason and bringing one back to live alongside the other would only have negative consequences, which the JP characters never seemed to learn. Did ya'll see the size of that I-Rex? It was frickin' MASSIVE. Just its foot was the size of an SUV. You can't contain something that big. Even if it wasn't genetically altered, you have no way of knowing what its behavior will be as nearly everything we know about how real dinosaurs lived is conjecture. That's the moral of both movies, but I think this one could've taken a different approach to getting us from point A to point B. Tell an original story, not a rehash of everything that happened the first time around. Rumor has it there may be more sequels to this movie. I don't know how that's possible given the ending here, and I hope they don't make anymore if they're just going to give us the same stuff all over again. The first sequel sucked, the third one was okay, but at least they changed up the stories.
From a film nerd point of view, here is the problem when you attempt to make any kind of sequel to a blockbuster movie - you can never top it. In theory, though rarely in practice, sequels are supposed to expand upon the original film and best it. It'd be hard enough to do that with a movie that did well, but to do that with something that was a game changer like "Jurassic Park" is virtually impossible. That movie was the first time we saw realistic dinosaurs in a movie, and they look as good 22 years later in HD as they did in 1994 on film. How do you top that? Obviously, you don't. Yeah, it's nifty to see a fully realized theme park with dinosaurs, but then what? Oh, you destroy it when a dinosaur gets loose? That's original. I don't know why, but I expected a bit more oomph and cleverness to JW, perhaps because it's been in development for over a decade. And yet it's the same old story. The irony being that while the people in JW were jaded by the existence of dinosaurs to the point where they needed a new hybrid to pique their interest, some of us were so impressed by the first movie that it'd take something super original to make us love a new installment.

Liberate Your Sons And Daughters

I don't watch Fox News (EVER), so I didn't see the Duggar interview that aired this evening and set Twitter on fire. I did, however, read the cliffnotes and have some thoughts.

~ Josh Duggar is 27-years-old, a father of almost four and a husband. Why the hell is he not the one on TV talking about what happened in his youth and doing the apology tour? It's not like he has a job to take up his time anymore since he was fired (sorry, "resigned") from his post as king of the hatemongers in Washington. Just because these things happened in his youth does not mean he gets a pass on speaking about them now that they've come to light in adulthood. Man up, do what's best for your own young family and talk about why you did it, whether you believe your parents failed you in not getting you help sooner and why you felt fine about going in on gays and everyone else who is a supposed "deviant" when you knew what you'd done in the past. And furthermore, tell us how you'd handle it if one of your sons did something like that to their sisters. Would you cover it up just like mom and dad? Probably.

~ Earlier today, news broke that the parents failed even more spectacularly than we originally thought. Allegedly, the son came to them after the first molestation incident and they did not punish him. He came to them after a second incident took place and, again, they did not punish him. It was only after the third incident of molestation, which happened with his then-5-year-old sister, that they "punished" him by sending him to do manual labor at a friend's house. What does that tell the older victims? That their incidents did not matter? That it wasn't truly wrong until he went after a much younger child? How awful. I still firmly believe anyone who has as many incidents as this person did, and with at least one victim who was that young has serious issues that go beyond "youth sins," as many of the Duggar supporters claim this to be. But it's also not like the parents did any of the kids any favors by not taking this ish seriously. By not punishing him after the first incident, they created a culture of, "Well, it's not that big of a deal" and did not do all they could to prevent future abuse. The parents are firmly to blame for every incident that occurred after that first one. Molestation is extremely disturbing, and clearly the son was disturbed by having done it since he confessed. You don't know that he won't do it again, and it's bad enough he did it once, you should've gotten him help right then and prevented the rest of the girls from being touched.

~ They seem to think that the abuse wasn't really all that bad since the girls were all asleep when it happened and supposedly didn't even know anything had happened until mom and dad told them. And yet, and yet, two of the girls also did an interview with Fox News and referred to themselves as victims. While technically true, I have a feeling that mom and dad didn't encourage the use of the word, 'victim' until this story broke two weeks ago. I'm sure there was plenty of forgive and forget and, "Well, it's your fault that you tempted him" going on up until this point. Both one of the girls and the parents actually said, 'it wasn't rape or anything', as if that makes it all better. The scale of sexual assault is wide and not just a case of either under the clothes molestation or actual rape. The definition of sexual assault is, "The sexual exploitation, forcible penetration, or an act of sexual contact on the body of another person, male or female, without his or her consent.". If someone is asleep, they obviously cannot consent. If someone is 5-years-old, they obviously cannot consent. And that youngest victim is what sticks in my craw about this family trying to play it off as no big deal. "He was curious about girls" was another phrase uttered, but when you touch a child who is that much younger than you, it is more than just curiosity.

~ For those not familiar with some of the Duggars beliefs, they are of the mind that people should wait until marriage to have sex. Even more extreme, their children are not allowed to hold hands, hug, kiss or be alone with anyone of the opposite sex that they may be "courting". They can hold hands once they're engaged, but everything else has to wait until after the wedding. My question is how can you tell who a person really is or what kind of person they are when you've only ever been around other people. We're all well behaved when we're around others. Also, this "religion" preaches that women are less than men, they are not to work outside the house and they are not to use any form of birth control so they can bear as many children as possible. So...don't do nothin' until you're married and then do it all the damn time so you have crazy amounts of kids. This has to have an awful effect on the psyche of these kids. They're growing up in such a sexually repressed environment, they can't even access the internet on their own until they're adults, that it's not super surprising something like this happened. Kids are curious, they're going to get to an age where they're curious about sex and how you talk to them about it (or don't) shapes their views on it for the rest of their lives. If you teach that it is something sinful and only for baby making, that's how they will view it going forward. Healthy sexuality is so important and at 14, the oldest son should've already had 'the talk'.

~ When all of this took place, I believe the Duggars already had a big family that included 14 children. They now have nineteen and tried for a twentieth. Here's a question - if you have fourteen kids and roughly half of them are involved in molestation, then why would you continue to have children? Clearly you're not paying enough attention to what's going on under your own roof already. The answer isn't to keep having kids. I understand birth control is supposedly against their religion and all, but part of being a parent is knowing when to say 'enough'.

~ The parents claim that they acted on the molestation by banning some games and setting new ground rules for all of the children, like no more hide and seek and boys and girls couldn't be alone together. So you punish all of the children, except the one who is actually doing the molesting. I must have missed that chapter in parenting class.

~ During the interview, the parents firmly planted their flag in the corner of their eldest child, the one who committed the crimes against his sisters. As if that weren't enough, they referred to him by name just about every time they spoke of him, yet referred to the rest of the children, including the victims, as, "the other ones". They love Josh and they "love the other ones too". Seriously, they said that. Why would ANYONE want to be associated with their parents if they, A) Do nothing about molestation that was clearly more than a one time mistake, and B) Can't even be bothered to refer to you by name as they defend the person who violated you on national television. The answer? Brainwashing, my friends. These kids are trained to always put on a happy face and act like everything is fine. It's not surprising to me that two of the victims spoke out themselves, I'm sure the parents goaded them into it for the good of the brand. There were only five girls in the family at the time this all happened, and four of them were molested so we all pretty much know who the other two are. One is not old enough to "court", but the other one is and I reckon those two not speaking have to do with the fact that they've not yet been auctioned off to the right religious crazy and any mention that they may be "damaged" could harm their chances. And that's sickening. This whole situation has brought to light just how sheltered and fucked over by their parents this kids have been. Raising children is not supposed to be about having your own little army of clones who think, act and believe the way you do. There's this thing called free will that we all, in theory, have and should be able to use whenever we feel like it. But these kids have never, and likely will never, have that. They are to become exactly the kind of people their parents want them to be, and nothing more. What parent wants their child to go from their house to the house of a husband/wife, without living any other kind of life or having any experiences that take them outside their comfort zone?

~ Hypocrisy. That's the biggest issue a lot of people have with this whole situation. Yes, it's awful that girls were molested by their brother, and it's awful that a 14-year-old went to his parents as he struggled with an apparent compulsion to violate others and his parents did nothing to stop the behavior. But this would not be as big of a story if not for the misguided, hateful ish this family has used their reality platform to promote the last decade or so. Gay marriage is a sin. Being gay is a sin (so much so that the mother got a gay crew member fired from the show). Transgender folks are pedophiles who will come for your kids. And all the while, they all knew there was a, presumably straight, male child molester in their midst. How do you reconcile in your brain that it's worse for a man to lay with another man than it is for your teenage son to fondle your 5-year-old daughter? That is seriously fucked up.

~ Why have a reality show when you know this is in your family history? Well, there are plenty of families on TV with reality shows who have something unsavory in their past, every family does. But it's probably not of this magnitude. The Duggar's answer to that question is that they were under the impression the juvenile record was sealed and would never come to light and thus had no qualms about being on reality TV. The irony there is that if they'd actually taken action when things happened, the son would likely have gotten therapy and no jail time and then the record would've actually been sealed. But because this was purely allegations and interviews, it is not protected, even if the perp was a minor. So I don't really buy this, "We did all we could" victim mentality the parents have taken. You did not. If I found out my child was hurting anybody else in such a serious way, and especially my other kids, that ish would be handled by law enforcement all the way. And that would be the case even if jail time were a possibility. By not doing that, they essentially condoned the behavior and that's why he kept doing it. I firmly believe a large part of the reason why they did not turn him in immediately is because they knew counseling with someone outside of their church would be a requirement of any punishment he might receive. And Fonz forbid someone who hasn't been bathed in the Kool-Aid try to rehabilitate your misguided, sex offender son.

~ The last thing that struck me is the family trying to minimize everything by claiming the girls are being more victimized by all of this coming to light than they were during the actual molestation. That's...well, crap. I'm sure it is quite stressful for this to have come to light, but I'd bet it's not as bad as hearing your parents tell you that your brother felt you up repeatedly in your sleep (if that's what actually happened). But telling us they're being victimized all over again is simply a ploy to remove people's attention from their lack of parenting and the fact that the perpetrator is not man enough to speak out for himself.

Will TLC keep the Duggars on the air? I'd put my money on, 'Yes'. The show will change in some way when it returns, but I'm sure all the people who believe this to be a minor offense by a young kid will still tune in. And it is sickening and shocking how many people believe this to have been a minor incident. I don't have any desire to socialize with people who think a 5-year-old child being fondled is no big deal. For the sake of his children, I hope Josh Duggar truly is a changed human being. But...we'll never know for sure, will we?

Born This Way

I did not watch the Bruce Jenner interview last month, I loathe all thinks related to the K machine, but like everyone else on earth I heard the cliffnotes and have been following the story of his transition. I think it's quite brave for someone of his age to make the decision to officially change their gender, and especially someone in such a public position who gained fame as a professional athlete. Men's professional sports are known to be all kindsa homophobic, so it's a big deal for someone who used to be "one of the boys" to take such a huge step. Also, most folks of that age would try to live that kind of life in secret, or throw their hands up and say, "Ah well" about having missed the opportunity to transition in their youth. So major props to Jenner for charging ahead. I started this blog a few weeks ago after having read an article criticizing the transition (more on that later), but never got around to completing it. Today, Bruce Jenner officially unveiled his true self on the cover of Vanity Fair in the form of Caitlyn Jenner, the name he will go by from here on out. A friend of mine made a spot on comment about how Caitlyn is already handling her business in a classier manner than any of the born women in her family. Isn't that sad? But I digress. I have mad respect for anyone who chooses to live their own life, in whatever form they feel they should, regardless of what others may think. It's odd to think that views on things like homosexuality have come so far (and yet, not changed at all in some ways), but transgender individuals still face a lot of bias. Hopefully Caitlyn sharing her story will make it easier for those who feel they were born in the wrong body to accept their true selves and live the way they want to.
I've seen a few specials on transgender people and what strikes me is there is rarely anyone on these shows who second guesses their decision to transition. Obviously it's not all sunshine and rainbows and I imagine the hormone injections and surgeries wreak havoc on your body and your psyche. But I don't think I've ever been as sure of anything as these folks seem to be about the fact that they were born in the wrong bodies. Even kids who feel that way (not the ones playing dress up but actual transgender kids) have this calm about them, as if they're at peace with having come to terms with who they really are. I think that's amazing. But it's come to my attention that not everyone sees this as an achievement, or even as a real thing. The article I mentioned earlier came out a few days after the Jenner interview and was absolutely vile in how it went about trying to get its point across. The ultimate goal, I think, was to say that being transgender isn't a real thing, but the author decided to go in on Jenner with a scathing attack about how he was nothing more than a mildly famous, mentally ill man who shouldn't be allowed an interview to talk about his made up affliction. The author asked how he was supposed to explain all of this to his young son, what do you say to a kid who's asking why a man is becoming a woman? In the end, he decided to go with the mentally ill explanation, thus doing his son a huge disservice. That kid will take that explanation to heart and apply it to all transgender individuals and that will only breed more hate amongst those who think that way. Caitlyn Jenner isn't mentally ill, (though the rest of her family seem to be). She's someone who made the best decision for herself and is likely to inspire others to do the same. As the father of a 7-year-old, I know how difficult it can be to explain things like this to a child who isn't fully capable of understanding it. And maybe that's why the author of that article couldn't find the way to do it, because he clearly doesn't comprehend it himself. It's easier for a lot of people to close themselves off to learning about other cultures and ways of life and lifestyles. People convince themselves that gays and transgender people and liberated women weren't around in "simpler times" way back when, and this is all just society losing its religion and luring folks to the dark side. None of these things are new, they've all been around forever. But they're being liberated from the shadows now that people have more freedom to live the way they want to live. If you're a believer in that whole god created the world thing, then how do you reconcile that with all of these so-called sinners running around? He created them too, you know. And I hear he doesn't make mistakes. Or maybe he does and they're the close-minded folks who sit back in judgement of the rest of us in His name, whereas the open-minded were an improvement upon the original plans. I wish Caitlyn the best of luck in her new life and hope it helps tone down the hate towards others in her position.