The Whole Gay Thing

Lyrics of the Day:

"I wanna sing one for all the dreamers

I'm singing this one for the sparks
Here's one for the friction makers
We are the bleeding hearts
Don't care whoever you are
We rise and fall together
Our hearts still beat below
You can't stand by forever
You're a kid with a bullet soul

Are you ready to go? 

Are you ready to go?"

"Bullet Soul"

-Switchfoot

Hi guys. I have something to mull over here. 

I was at my best friend's birthday party today, and he invited some people I'd never met. He said they were really nice, just kinda shy, and because of my outgoing and non-shy personality, he asked me to talk to them or something. My friend group all know each other really well and aren't shy with each other at all, so it can be kinda awkward if you haven't known them for as long as I have. (It's only been a year and a half or so since I moved here and met them, I'm not some expert, but I do know them all decently well.) So I sat down and smiled and talked nicely with my friend the birthday boy and the two new people, until the topic of the bi kid came up.

The boy new kid leans over and says. "I wanna tell you guys something." We lean in and he tells us about how this kid came out to his lunch table as being bi after the topic somehow came up at lunch. The guys at the table asked him if he was gay, he said no. They asked him if he was bi. After a brief pause, he looked straight at the guy telling the story and said yeah. This kid had been questioning the new guy about who he liked the other day, and so the new kid just got freaked out, stood up and left the table. The new girl agreed that that was just too weird and gross. I was not happy. 

As he was telling this story, my friend said my face just got darker and darker, like I was about to murder this guy. I didn't, don't worry, I just stood up very angrily and walked away really fast. My friend knows me better than anyone else, though, so he followed me as I threw on my shoes and ran out his front door to cool off. We sat on his step and he knows all about my parents and stuff, so he tried to get me to calm down. I couldn't believe that guy was such an asshole. You pressure somebody to tell you if they're gay/bi and then when you don't like the answer, get up and leave, perhaps crushing that kid's feelings and sending the message that being gay is disgusting? Why would you do that to someone?!

My friend is constantly forcing me to cool off. For those of you who don't know, my temper's as fiery as my red hair (an unfortunate coincidence, but I still like my hair) and when I don't like something, I'm not afraid to tell you. It took a lot to bite my tongue and keep from going off on that kid. And I guess then I realized to my friend that I will never win. There are just too many bigots and homophobes out there for me to fight, plus even if kids do respect and like gay people, they still say, "that's so gay." It's like saying "that's so black." Not so funny when you're poking at race, huh? 

I know I can't change the world, and trying to do the right thing and crusading to change people's minds is utterly exhausting. Sometimes, it just honestly feels like I'm the only pro-gay-but-not-gay person in the whole entire world, or at least I'm the only one trying to enact change. I don't know if I can do it day in and day out. I want to change the world, and I'm fighting a battle I can't win. I'm never going to change everyone's mind. I can't even change my own mother's, who won't let me watch Glee because a guy kissed another guy on that show. According to her, it's a sin, and I can't say or do anything to make her waver on her stance, let alone change her entire way of thinking. If I can't change her mind, what impact could I possibly have on anyone else? It's a lost cause. WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER?!?!? 

But then I think about all my gay friends; the theater geek who won't come out in his tiny town for fear of a beating, the Girl Scout Program Aide who was practically disowned by her mom after changing her facebook orientation to gay/lesbian, the badass who's not afraid to kiss her girlfriend in the hallways, and I remember why I'm hellbent on winning this stupid uphill battle. It's for them. So that one day, being gay can be just as normal as being black. We're on our way. We just need that little extra push, aka me. And I will fight this stupid, harebrained, one woman uphill battle until it is.

My impact is minimal. I know that. But I'm not gonna stop. 

Love, forever and always, 

Sarah Snarky

The Truth Behind Romeo and Juliet

Every shiny toy
That at first brings you joy
Will always start to croy and annoy

Every camera every phone
All the music that you own
Won't change the fact you're all alone (All alone! )

Every piece of land
every city that you plan
will crumble into tiny grains of sand

Every thing you find that at first gives you shine
always turns into the same old crime (Same old crime! )

"Sick of You"

-Cake

Hello, friends. You want to hear about my day? Well, I'll tell you then, in my undying effort to give people who don't exist what they don't really care about. 

In my Honors English class today, we started Romeo and Juliet. You can imagine how well I took that. I bit my tongue, in one of those rare instances where I think before I speak, and listened to what my teacher had to say before completely murdering the play, because this guy's not a complete and total doofus, unlike a few other teachers I have. (And, well, he promised I could help rip this play to shreds.) Anyway, we read the first scene, along with the No Fear Shakespeare modern day translation (yeah, it's right there.)

Act 1, Scene 1

	Original Text	Modern Text
	Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY of the house of Capulet, with swords and bucklers	SAMPSON and GREGORY, servants of the Capulet family, enter carrying swords and small shields.
	SAMPSON Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.	SAMPSON Gregory, I swear, we can’t let them humiliate us. We won’t take their garbage.
	GREGORY No, for then we should be colliers.	GREGORY (teasing SAMPSON) No, because then we’d be garbagemen.
	SAMPSON I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw.	SAMPSON What I mean is, if they make us angry we’ll pull out our swords.
	GREGORY Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.	GREGORY Maybe you should focus on pulling yourself out of trouble, Sampson.
5	SAMPSON I strike quickly, being moved.	SAMPSON I hit hard when I’m angry.
	GREGORY But thou art not quickly moved to strike.	GREGORY But it’s hard to make you angry.
	SAMPSON A dog of the house of Montague moves me.	SAMPSON One of those dogs from the Montague house can make me angry.
	GREGORY To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand. Therefore if thou art moved thou runn’st away.	GREGORY Angry enough to run away. You won’t stand and fight.
10	SAMPSON A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.	SAMPSON A dog from that house will make me angry enough to take a stand. If I pass one of them on the street, I’ll take the side closer to the wall and let him walk in the gutter.

Act 1, Scene 1, Page 2

	Original Text	Modern Text
	GREGORY That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.	GREGORY That means you’re the weak one, because weaklings get pushed up against the wall.
	SAMPSON 'Tis true, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.	SAMPSON You’re right. That’s why girls get pushed up against walls—they’re weak. So what I’ll do is push the Montague men into the street and the Montague women up against the wall.
	GREGORY The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.	GREGORY The fight is between our masters, and we men who work for them.
	SAMPSON 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids. I will cut off their heads.	SAMPSON It’s all the same. I’ll be a harsh master to them. After I fight the men, I’ll be nice to the women—I’ll cut off their heads.
	GREGORY The heads of the maids?	GREGORY Cut off their heads? You mean theirmaidenheads?
	SAMPSON Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads. Take it in what sense thou wilt.	SAMPSON Cut off their heads, take their maidenheads—whatever. Take my remark in whichever sense you like.
25	GREGORY They must take it in sense that feel it.	GREGORY The women you rape are the ones who’ll have to “sense” it.
	SAMPSON Me they shall feel while I am able to stand, and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.	SAMPSON They’ll feel me as long as I can keep an erection. Everybody knows I’m a nice piece of flesh.
	GREGORY 'Tis well thou art not fish. If thou hadst, thou hadst been poor-john.	GREGORY It’s a good thing you’re not a piece of fish. You’redried and shriveled like salted fish.
	Enter ABRAM and another SERVINGMAN	ABRAM and another servant of the Montagues enter.
	Draw thy tool! Here comes of the house of Montagues.	Pull out your tool now. These guys are from the house of Montague.
30	SAMPSON My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee.	SAMPSON I have my naked sword out. Fight, I’ll back you up.

Yes, it means exactly what you think it means. Now imagine reading it in a room full of freshman. Yes, there were plenty of giggles (I was not exempt from it, I admit) but at least I got to burn a friend-ish of mine with the awesome insult Gregory has in the second to last line up there. ^^ This certain person ignores my existence for months until I show up in his English class one day. He still ignores my existence, don't get me wrong, just having to read a scene with him has made him ignoring me a little harder.  

But think about it; Shakespeare opens this play about "true love" between a 14 year old girl and an 18 year old guy with talking about rape and sex with men right before a huge sword fight. What's old Willie insinuating? That maybe love isn't all it's cracked up to be? Maybe, just maybe, Shakespeare's saying that love is dirty, lustful, violent and crude, just like the opening of the play. And dang, is he right. Think about it. How often do marriages last in the US, not to mention other countries? It's lust, right, not this fabled "love" that's said to exist sometimes. I don't know. I just don't buy into this whole concept of looking across a room, spotting a girl and suddenly being ready to marry her. You don't know someone well enough after three days to be ready to marry them for the rest of your life. That's crazy, right? (Just a side note, Gerard Way and Lyn-Z got married after knowing each other for three weeks and haven't split yet...) I think that's what Shakespeare was going for too; that whole concept of if you think you're in love with a girl after three days, you're wrong. In the beginning, Romeo's in love with some other girl who shot him down. But the second he sees Juliet, suddenly it's all better. And now he's dead, if that says anything, along with the 14 year old girl who followed that moron.

Maybe there's more to this play than I think...

Love Always,

Sarah Snarky

Go Away, Packers Fans! (GO STEELERS)

I don't even want to hear it. If you're gonna make fun of them (and me for supporting them) I just won't talk to you. I refuse. 


For those of you boneheads who have no idea what's happening right now because you a. didn't watch the Bears' game yesterday or b. live in a country like shmernahermanergen-istan and don't/can't watch football American style, here's what happened. My beloved team, the Chicago Bears, were beat out of the NFC title game by the disgusting, wimpy, Brett Favre-worshiping, cheese-eating, Lambeau-leaping Green Bay Packers. Every Bears' fan's worst nightmare. I shudder to think that those morons are going to the SUPERBOWL and not a team that actually deserves to go. Okay, the Bears don't exactly make that cut either, but nobody expected us to be there, and to go out like that, to lose the NFC DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP to the fucking GREEN BAY PACKERS was too painful to take. We left Wisconsin during halftime, thank you very much. I was scared my dad was gonna get punched in the face, with all his big talk of beating down the Packers in a spectacular fashion. Losing was bad enough, though. *sighs* Oh well. Lovie's contract is up after next year, so we can boot him, Mike Martz and all those other doofuses on the coaching staff who gave us what they did yesterday. Jay Cutler and the offense that weren't even there yesterday? They can stay, even though they barely even played yesterday, because they have talent, they just need the leadership. Matt Forte needs the fucking ball. Did he touch it a lot yesterday? Yes. Should he get it more often? YES. And which one of the geniuses upstairs put Tod Collins in at 2nd string quarterback when he's about 100 in football years, can't throw and they expect him to start throwing 20-yard bombs the second he gets in? COME ON. 


Okay, I'm done ranting about them for now. Let's talk about the Hawks. For what little of the game I saw, it looked like we did well, they just got a couple of lucky shots in on us. Okay, whatever, so they won, big deal. We beat 'em when it counted, and on their home ice too. I hope they do well this year. Unrealistically, I'd like to have a dynasty team in Chicago, which is very possible, but not this year. We need an enforcer like Dustin Byflugien was who can actually play (sorry Big John Scott, you just don't cut it) along with our first-liners to start producing like they used to. If we can't depend on them to come through for us, who can we depend on? We also should be unifying as a team. right now, we're still a fairly new team that just needs to learn how to read each other and play together. They're lightyears away from where they were, but could still take it farther. 


All right. I wash my hands of Chicago sports. And I desperately hope the Steelers win the Super Bowl. 


Moving on to a more interesting topic, like music, I found this book in my new Honors English teacher's library called Our Band Could be Your Life. I'm not far into it, but apparently it's about the underground indie-punk scene from 1981-1991 when Nevermind was released. If you don't know who released Nevermind, you should do a google search and then slap yourself. Oh yeah. That little band nobody's ever heard off. Dumbass. Anyway, this book goes through a bunch of those looming underground names like Black Flag, The Minutemen and Minor Threat that my generation's all heard of but never really heard. I'm learning some of the dark, headbanging, fast, loud and violent legacy of some of these bands that I never knew before, and it's pretty damn cool. The music part comes later, when I have time to YouTube-search them. 


Also, school is going so well, I'm actually starting to enjoy it. Weird, right? I'll explain more later, seeing as I am tired and crave sleep NOW! Maybe I'll even post tomorrow. I spoil you imaginary people friend things so, don't I? Okay, well, goodbye, good luck, and don't die until you hear from me next. :-D


Love always, 
Sarah Snarky

The Worst Time to be in Wisconsin

Lyrics of the Day:


"Bear down, Chicago Bears, 
Make every play, clear the way to victory;
Bear down, Chicago Bears,

Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation, 

With your T-formation.
Bear down, Chicago Bears, 

And let them know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois, 

Chicago Bears, bear down." 

"Bear Down Chicago Bears"

-Al Hoffman

THE BEARS ARE PLAYING THE PACKERS FOR THE SUPER BOWL!!!!

That's right, you don't get a greeting, I'm just diving straight into the huge news. I am currently up at the Kalahari in the Wisconsin Dells, egging on Packers fans left and right. I've never had so much fun in my life. Plus, this place is awesome, even without the harassable cheeseheads. It's MASSIVE. No, seriously. MASSIVE. 


The Hawks play tomorrow too. It's another grudge match - we're playing the Filthadelphia - I'm sorry, Philadelphia - Flyers. Yep, that's right, the morons we beat in the Stanley Cup on their own home ice are coming back for more. We'll beat 'em I hope, because they're exactly like we were a year ago. So we'll see how that goes. 


Well, i'm gonna get back to having fun, so bye!


Love always,
Sarah Snarky

Green Hair and Movin' Out

The situation is out of my hands,
I have the crossbones,
In the cross hairs,
(come in and get me)
The situation is out of my hands,
I got a new prayer,
For a new plan,
(come in and get me.)

"We've Got a Situation Here"
-The Damned Things


Hi. 


That's the best y'all are gonna get right now. I'm in a pissy mood right now. Why, you innocent imaginary friends ask, why are you in such a pissy mood? Well, I'll tell you. "In song form?" You ask hopefully. No. I will state it boringly. 


Two nights ago, around five in the morning, my stepdad and his friends were singing drunkenly at the top of their lungs loud enough to wake me up. I'm not a heavy sleeper, and neither is my mom, so it was to be expected. Shortie slept through it, but that's not the point. Anyway, my mom tells them to shut up nicely(ish) before getting so mad she drops enough f-bombs to blow a whole in the continent the size of the Untied States National Debt and throws my stepdad's phone down the stairs. Yep, that's right, down the stairs. His phone. At five in the morning. Needless to say, the next day wasn't too pleasant. My mom decided we were leaving. We packed up the car of stuff we would need and moved into a temporary housing unit not far from my school. So now I'm cooped up in this hotel room type thing with nothing to do but blog about how insanely bored I am to you imaginary morons (I say it lovingly.) So there's that. 


But yes, you read correctly, a few weeks ago, I dyed my hair partially green with the help of my mother. It looked awesome until it washed out. Oh well. I'll do it again later. *sighs heavily*


I'd give you the full sports report, but I still have stuff to do, so I have to leave you with my sorry life update. Oh wait! I'll give you the link for the music vid to that song ^^ up there. It's really funny. Check it out.


We've Got a Situation Here Music Vid

Well, that's about it. Adios. 


Love always (even when I'm crabby)
Sarah Snarky

I'm With the Band

Oh, she said
"Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it"

She said, "Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it."

"Any Way You Want It"

-Journey

As you know, I am a stupid teenager. And what do stupid teenagers like to do? Stupid things! 

Well, imaginary friends (except for that one follower person...) my marching band went to London to participate in the 2011 London New Year's Day Parade. I wanted to watch it! So what do I do? I pull an all-nighter to stay up until 5:30 in the flipping morning to watch the dang parade live. I told you, I do stupid things. Of course, my wonderful friends didn't perform until about 9:15 am central time, so I was just like "Ugh, I want to SLEEP!!!" as all these really cool marching bands perform. then I saw the banner that hangs in our band room at my high school being carried by people I saw daily and I suddenly wasn't tired anymore. They nailed their routine, though, which is awesome for them, and I almost am kinda sorta ish excited to go back to school because I 1.) want to hear all about London and 2.) want to show off my newly partially Manic Panic green hair. That's right, I'm dyeing hair partially green (well, my stepsister is doing it for me, but you get the point.) So yeah, there's that. I tried two days ago, but that didn't work, so we're bleaching it first this time and then doing take two. I'm excited. 

Anyway, HOLY CRAP THE BEARS ARE 11-4. I know, right?! Un-friggen-belivable. They play the evil Packers tomorrow, so let's wish them luck. I'd rather we lost every game after this rather than lose to the Packers. We beat them once, and we'll do it again. The Hawks, however, are a different story. We got Hoss and Kaner back, thank God, but now we lost our captain Jonathan Toews to an upper body injury thanks to a totally bogus hit, which took him out and ended our 4-game winning streak. I get that he's a HUGE part of the team - I mean, he IS the captain - but one-man teams never win championships. The other guys, especially Kaner and Hoss need to step up and score goals. All season, our first line hasn't been performing as they should. That needs to end right now. If we can't depend on them to come through and make big opportunities, then we're not going to do well this season and beyond. STEP UP!

In other Hawks news, I went to the Hawks blood drive on Wednesday and, while I am still too young to give blood, I did get to meet Jack Skille, #20, and have him sign my neck. (For those of you who don't know, that's my "thing," to have famous people such as Sick Puppies or various Blackhawks hockey players sign the right side of my neck. Every time I've met sick Puppies, they've signed my neck.) After I met him and while waiting for my dad and his girlfriend to finish giving blood, I met a really interesting person sitting on a gurney-type-thing near me. she liked the Hawks too, and we started talking about meeting famous people, and our "things." She knew of Sick Puppies, so it was easier to explain the whole neck-signing thing. This person's thing was to get a picture with that star. Of her licking their face. Yeah, that was an interesting conversation. She told me about meeting the lead singer of the band Cobra Starship, Gabe Saporta (I don't particularly like that band, but whatever) and having this conversation with him:

"Hey, can I get a picture with you..." 

"Yeah sure, no problem-"

"Of me licking your face?" 

"Who's got the camera? Take it out, right now."

Yep, that's a classy guy. But no, apparently he does work with PETA, and is a vegetarian, so I'll give him props. I can't really criticize when it comes to class, either. 

But yes, I'm getting ready to head back to school, i.e. my two weeks of slacking off on stuff that's due Monday are officially over. I have to do it eventually. *sighs* To the Batcave! 

Gotta run, but I still love ya,

Sarah Snarky