First Day Out

Hello All.

Today I was my first day out of the apartment since Friday. As you can see from the picture above, I went to my friend Cindy's house (As I do, on Tuesdays). Her garden has been doing very well. Here I'm posed in front of her black plum tomato plant that I've been very excited about, and luckily is doing the best of all her tomato plants. I've been rather shocked by all the financial calamity I've tumbled into (mostly by my own stupidity, and somewhat by mere misfortune), so have barricaded myself in my apartment for the past few days. Luckily, I made it to Cindy's and back without dieing.

I would love to tell you more about my dreams last night, but they were truly lame. One involved me being worried about clearing a space in my room for my yoga practice. My room was so messy that a large conical tan-furred mole had burrowed it's way into my clothing basket. Another involved Cindy's eldest daughter asking me if I wanted to make cookies with her and her mother. I woke up to find my yoga area clear as usual and preformed a sufficient amount of my practice (keep in mind I've been in trauma-mode for the past week). I surfed the web a bit to read more about the atrocities being carried out towards my fellow sexual minorities in the Middle East. I've been preoccupied with accounts of the treatment of gay Iraqi's and Iranians (though certainly know it doesn't stop in these geographical locations).

I have no money, I don't know how to help these people, but I think the LGBT "community" in privileged America should be doing more. I'm now considering trying to learn at least a usable amount of Farsi or Arabic over my time of unemployment (I do have a Master's in English, so I'm assuming I have some sort of language "knack"), to see if there isn't a way I can get involved with helping these people. I don't understand the Gay community in America, if there are other sexual minorities being lashed, stoned to death, and hung in other countries, why aren't we sneaking them into our own country, hiding them in our living places, so they can make a life for themselves.

As citizens of America, it's not our fault our government doesn't immediately give these oppressed sexual minorities a safe refuge. It's our duty to take the higher moral ground and provide these people with a network of refuge in our country. I don't care if it's underground and illegal, but these oppressed LGBT people deserve to live, and to be free. We have plenty of illegal migrant workers and that's unofficially "OK" with our government and society as a whole, so why shouldn't it be de facto "OK" to harbor and protect gay Iranians, or transgendered Iraqi's (etc) in our homes and places of business. I truly doubt these people are going to turn around and destroy America, I think they'd be elated to be able to live somewhere where they could not live in fear for being found out as a sexual minority.

I feel plenty marginalized as it is in America, so I can't imagine how it must be for people like me in countries with even less sensitivity to the LGBT minority.

Thank you for reading,

Marc