Why you should follow @edenland!

Last year, or at the start of this year, Em Rusciano did a follow Friday.
I'm not sure if she "follow Friday'd" Eden, but somehow I got to her page.
I flicked through thinking "alright, give me a reason to follow you".
She'd had a hard day, somebody had said something rude to her & she was upset. I thought to myself "bad day. Blah, blah. Who doesn't have those? What else have you got?" (I was obviously in a particularly arrogant-arsehole mood that day).

Then I stumbled upon something about her being an ex drug addict. I paused. Kept scrolling & started reading the things other women were saying to her. I was overcome by the amount of women encouraging her & the beautiful things they were saying. I was in a shoe shop with my mum pretending to give my opinion on shoes but really reading these women's tweets, completely fixated.

If there is one thing I know for sure, it's that if one woman has that much support from other women, she's awesomesauce. So I followed 'er.

I saw her tweets here & there over a few months & laughed & thought she was quite funny. Gradually I decided she was badass in a kind & genuine way & I liked her. I know that I like everyone, so technically it's not hard to win me over BUT...

THEN. I started reading her posts about Jim & I think sometimes I honestly felt like I was in the hospital with her, holding her hand & sending "it'll be ok" vibes to her mum. It's impossible not to connect to her writing. It's impossible not to feel what she's saying & impossible not to read her words as if they're being said to you. Honestly her writing is AMAHZING.

So... The point of this post, duhh, I'm getting to it...

I do not say that people "inspire me", because unless I'm joking it'd be a big fat lie. I like people a lot for what they do & what they say & who they are... But it never inspires change in me.

Until... BumBumBaahhhh Eden. I swear every time I read an Eden post I feel like there's a coded message in there for me, saying "be better dickwad, love Eden".
She isn't braggy & she isn't pushy & I'm 100% sure she thinks she's only one quarter the amount of amazing that she actually is, but how she lives her life makes you want to be a little bit more daring, a little bit smarter, a little bit more kind & have a bit more love for this world & yourself. Or at least that's what she makes me want.

I don't know what exactly she'll inspire me to do, but when I know, you'll know.

Follow her immediately & be a bit more brave, bare & batshit crazy!

Love, Brando.

PM Gillard: our Campari gelato

Recently at a wedding we were served, with our dessert, a Campari gelato.
It was one of the most disgusting things I can remember ever putting in my mouth and this is coming from a girl who licked her salt lamp.
Even though the first member of the family to try it said it was disgusting, all of us gave it a chance. We all screwed our faces up, whinged relentlessly, and grasped our wine glasses as quickly as possible to wash it down. However what we all did was try it again. Mashing whipped cream onto the spoon with it, putting it on our mud cake, eating it quicker than the first time.

The gelato had left a bad taste in our mouths yet we persevered eating it hoping for a different outcome, because it looked so yummy & icy & pink on its initial presentation.
I couldn't think of a better analogy to describe my relationship with Julia Gillard.

I was happy with Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister & I would've been happy with him being Prime Minister for the next 185 years if it had have been up to me. I felt like if we were ever going to break a leader down enough to get marriage equality, it would be him.
However... through my tears and protests Julia became his successor and though I didn't like the circumstances I had high hopes for her. Not just because she is female but because she is an ATHEIST!

Surely a woman who is atheist will not deny gay Australians' rights? She wouldn't defend long standing traditions and defend those who use the bible as an argument for keeping marriage between a man and a woman? WOULD SHE?

Yeah, no, guys she does believe in preserving the tradition of marriage. Sorry! She did the traditional thing of getting engaged, to a man, can't you too? It's kind of been "tradition" in Australia to have male Prime Ministers but she didn't seem to oppose updating that one. I just don't understand how ANY leader can continue to reserve heterosexual people more rights than homosexual people.

However knowing her stance, I every now and then, throw my hands up in the air (like I just don't care) and think "that's it, I'm done with her. If she won't do the one thing I want her to do, we're through".
Then slowly over a few weeks logic tells me that I'm a big sooky baby and that there are probably other things that she's done that I should be happy about. Even if she's left a bad taste in my mouth previously (it's all my will power not to make an oral sex joke there... honestly).

Today, I'm cranky with her. I keep going back to trying my hardest to like her because deep down I have this ridiculous faith that she WILL do the RIGHT thing.
Everytime she doesn't it is more disappointing.

And don't get me wrong, I know it's ridiculous to tell a PM & religion to stop being archaic so that we may enter into an archaic institution, but my family really really want me to have a big wedding & I really really want the same right to marry a man or a woman. So that Charlotte Dawson & I may wed ;) (juuuust kidding).

Either way, I'll keep giving her a chance & hope that she'll do something to better my future happiness and the happiness of a bigillion queers (not Helbo) long after she's gone.

And seriously don't try Campari gelato. Eeeuch!

Can't breathe

I’m getting that suffocating feeling again. The one where it feels like the more I try to escape her and this hold she has over me, the closer my friends get to her & drag her closer to me.

The more I try to bucket out the water that’s rising to my neck, the more holes they poke in my boat.
The more I feel ok with myself & the past, the more her name pops up on my Facebook, stories of her spew from my friends mouths’, her face appears everywhere.

In my mind, in my dreams, in my nightmares. I can’t escape her.
So instead I withdraw, thinking that she will get picked over me. The awkwardness between us will mean less invites for me, more people saying “why won’t she just get over it already?” more embarrassing moments of trying to be invisible when she’s around because I’m so terrified she might look at me, or talk to me & I might forget everything for a moment. I might forget that I won’t be ok if I allow myself to love her again as wholly & deeply as I did.

Or worse… what if I look her in the eye & I can tell that she doesn’t remember a thing we had together. She doesn’t see my pain. She doesn’t care. That would be far worse that seeing spite. Nobody ever wants to be forgotten.

Brando.

A beautiful quote from the West Wing...

Jed Bartlett: "I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination."

Jenna Jacobson: "I don't say homosexuality is an abomination Mr. President. The Bible does."

Jed Bartlett "Yes, it does. Leviticus..."

Jenna Jacobson: "18:22"

Jed Bartlett: "Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7....what would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff..insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it ok to call the police? Here's one that's really important, because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7; if they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins play football? Can Notre Dame? Can Westpoint? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from 2 different threads? Think about those questions, would you?"

What a perfect response to those who say that homosexuality goes against the bible. It saddens me that people can't see how out dated that response is.

When they came for us...

"First they put away the dealers,
keep our kids safe and off the street.
Then they put away the prostitutes,
keep married men cloistered at home.
Then they shooed away the bums,
then they beat and bashed the queers,
turned away asylum-seekers,
fed us suspicions and fears.
We didn't raise our voice,
we didn't make a fuss.
It's funny there was no one left,
to notice when they came for us." - NOFX

Technology Overload. Why am I so easily persuaded?

Today, I thought since I'm on holidays, I would tidy up my affairs. Now I know usually "tidy up affairs" means get your finances in order & draw up a will, but I'm 20, I have nothing to offer anyone, so I have recoined the phrase to mean "clean out all of your e-mails, import all e-mails & contacts to one e-mail, delete all of the internet accounts you don't use".
I thought this would be a fairly easy task, one that would take, perhaps a day. I soon realised I have a fairly GIGANTIC-RIDICULOUS-OUT-OF-CONTROL addiction to signing up to every internet site offered to me.

 I have: Facebook, two Hotmails, a Gmail, two Twitters, a Blogspot, Tumblr, Google, Piczo, Photobucket, Bingbox, Flixster, Music Jesus, IMVU, Myspace, Slide.com, Netlog, Bebo, Blognow, Picnik, Disney rewards, Neopets, Badoo, Virb, Zingfu, Tagged, Mego, Friendster, Meez, Myzoo, Glogster, deviantART.

Oh my sweet sweet lord. How did I let this happen? I've spent all day going into these sites, looking through them, taking off what I need and trying to delete them... but then I got to Virb.

Oh my oh my, virb is a pretty little website. So... naturally I changed it all and set it out as another "one tiny but loud voice" blog. God knows what I'll use it for... but hey! It's there if I need it.

The Amazing Adele