Beastmomma

It is the first of December which means several things. The first is that National Novel Writing Month is over. The second is that it is World Aids day. The third is that I had a good bonding experience with my therapist. Well, the last of these is more of an everyday story, but I thought that it was worth sharing.

There has been press about the AIDS epidemic, particularly by the Bush Administration talking about all that they do to combat AIDS in Africa. It is frustrating to me because there has been effort and funding towards prevention, but not as much has been allocated toward treatment. There is still a social stigma. I have been wondering lately where compassion is in “compassionate conservative.” With the hard core religious right smacking down judgment and touting individual responsibility, kindness towards your neighbor has been lost. There seems to be a trend towards rushing to judgment instead of staying in compassion. When I was in MD, I saw the movie “Rent.” When compared to the play which I say and enjoyed, I thought that the plot was easier to follow in the movie even though I missed some of the songs. The relationships between the characters, especially the romantic relationship between Angel and his partner are very tender. The frustration and fights that occur between the friends is pretty realistic. However, the song “Without You” and the scene montage that goes with it are particularly moving. If you are not touched or at least cannot understand that gay people have romantic connections that are deep and real, then… well… YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE. If you believe that people get HIV/AIDS from “bad” behavior or that God is punishing folks by giving them disease, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE also. The number of all types of diseases continues to increase, HIV, cancer, diabetes, other sexually transmitted diseases. The need for people to be treated with tenderness when they have diseases regardless of how they got them has never been greater. The opportunity to be a hero by standing of for those who are discriminated against or oppressed is now. On World AIDS day and every day, let us all strive to be the person who exudes goodness.

About a month ago, I decided that I was going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Well my time got eaten away by health issues, political fellowship weekends, law school applications, and general exhaustion. Yesterday I tried to make a last effort and managed to get up only to 6,000 words. Maybe someday I will become a novel writing, but for now I am still just me.

Yesterday morning when I saw my therapist I was explaining my feelings during the doctor’s appointment and I told her about my encounter with *Sunday*. When I got to the part about the Simpsons, I was impressed that she remembered the episode. Then without reading my entries here or knowing that I had sent out some personal e-mails to folks to say that I was afraid she made a brilliant extrapolation. In that episode, she told me that Smithers and Mr. Burns both thought that they were going to die. Since I immediately made that association, that was the only window we had as to how afraid I was… even though I was only going in for a blood test, I was still afraid enough to make association in my mind that I needed to tell *Sunday* I love him because I thought something bad might happen. << At that point, I believed even more firmly that starting therapy was the right decision.