So, I haven't blogged all year, but I have to write this one post at least. I just re-watched 'Bobby,' a movie all young people should be strapped in their chairs and forced to watch, at least if they're of voting age. The words at the end are the most important thing to me, especially in light of tomorrow's election.

I have to think Bobby Kennedy would be proud of this country that we've at least gotten to this point where a black man just might be president.

I wasn't alive when Kennedy ran for president, so I didn't have the chance to live when young people cared enough to march in the streets about the things that mattered. Most of those young people weren't old enough to vote, because you had to be 21 back then. I also didn't have to face the prospect of going to Vietnam to die for some cause that never really existed, kind of like the one in Iraq.

But I sent my ballot in as soon as I could this year (we have vote-by-mail in Oregon). And I hope to hell that anyone who just happens to read this does the same. Because what's worse than living with the Bush Doctrine (read about it, Sarah) is living with apathy. There's no excuse for it.

Go vote.

Too depressing. I can't possibly try to assess the lack of progress the world's made in the past year yet. I still have 24 hours to go.

So all these policy changes at LJ had absolutely nothing to do with the recent purchase by a Russian company. Absolutely nothing. I repeat, absolutely nothing.

Got it?

I was 15 years old when I came out. My parents did not support me in any way when it came to understanding myself or dealing with the homophobic attitudes in the small town I grew up in. In fact, my ex-cop dad would just as soon never have to look at me again, which he pretty much hasn't in six or seven years.

At 15 I was reading stuff about what it's like to be gay, if I could find it -- what it feels like to fuck another guy or be fucked by one. I wasn't ready to actually do anything. I wanted to read about it. Did I read slash fanfic? I really didn't know where to get my hands on it, because this was before it was all over places like LJ. I found some gay novels at the bookstore, and I hid them in my room.

I realize this country arbitrarily determines who has the maturity to read certain things or see certain images, from a legal standpoint. The MPAA, for instance, decides what movies you can see. And according to television executives and media watchdog groups, for a long time nobody was really mature enough to watch gay themed programming. Until the Logo Channel and 'Queer As Folk,' we couldn't even see two guys kissing on TV, much less pretending to have sex. Gays on TV never really fucked, they just acted funny.

The examples I had of what my life was going to be like were few and far between. And although that's changed a bit since I was 15, it seems like there are people who would like to change it back. And now LJ is doing the same damn thing. If you're not at least 14, you can't read this post. And if I end up getting flagged by enough bitches, you won't be able to read any of my shit until you're 18. And no doubt that will end up happening to *all* my slash fanfic.

Yes, I'm a writer of slash fanfic. No, I do not advocate slash fanfic as a way for gays to learn about being gay. Generally it's not realistic enough for that. But I try to keep it as realistic as I can. I've had some great feedback from women (who mostly write and read slash) saying they have shared my stuff with their relatives who are gay and need something to read. I've even had at least one woman send me a detailed email explaining what it feels like for *her* as a chick to get it in the ass, and how much it conforms with the stuff I've written for a male character.

(Now writing that in this entry means it can get flagged and censored from anyone under the age of 18.)

Do we realize that the suicide rate for teenagers is higher than ever? Less than every two hours a young person kills himself (and they're three to one male). It's the third highest reason for death of young people, while it's the 11th for older people. And statistics show that 33% of gay youth will attempt suicide! A gay kid is FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT SUICIDE THAN A STRAIGHT KID!

Being a kid often sucks. You don't realize that soon enough you'll be able to control your own destiny if you can just hang in there long enough, that the feelings of angst that often accompany the teenage years will eventually pass. Sometimes you figure the only control you have over your life is to end it.

LJ has several communities where kids coming out can talk to each other and get advice from older people. Is there potential for abuse here? Sure. There's potential for abuse anywhere on this fucking planet and all over the internet. But this is not MySpace! This is a completely different platform full of thousands of very thinking people, both over and under 18 years of age.

Am I saying that more kids will kill themselves because they can't automatically read what they want or join the communities that interest them at LiveJournal? Of course not. I'm just saying we're making it just a tiny bit harder for kids to relate to the adult world and to work out their issues through journaling by limiting their access and/or censoring content.

When all these journals and communities go ADULT and/or EXPLICIT, we will have given the young people who come to LJ another reason to think they either have to lie about their age or forget about having access to the thoughts and feelings of people who might actually be able to give them insight and hope about their futures, gay or straight. And, NO, not all parents are doing that. And if you really think the parents in this country should be the final arbiters of what a 15-year-old reads or sees or writes about, you probably are not intellectually developed enough to be reading the censored stuff yourself.

ETA: And how ridiculous is it that all a kid needs to do is gack the URL, log out and then use the URL to view the journal from his or her browser? This proves one thing: LiveJournal's massive database will then have no record of that user visiting the offending journal, and thus no responsibility for that visit from a legal standpoint. Folks, this censorship is about a corporate entity protecting its ass. Don't believe for a second it's anything else.

Have you read your December newsletter from our friends theljstaff?

If you want to deck your halls with boughs of holly, or just hand out lumps of coal, we've got what you need to keep your LJ merry and bright.

First we read about extra user pics for gifts of paid time. Nice holiday touch.

Next we see new holiday themes. We can dress up our journals for whatever holiday we celebrate!

Next we've got nice new virtual gifts, like a Festivus pole and Frank dressed as Rudolf. Not only can we buy all this stuff for our friends, but the gift shop's been redesigned to make it easier and more efficient. Wow, that's kewl.

Oh, and by the way, let's not forget to mention that we're now being invited to stop whatever we're writing and try to imagine whether it might be offensive to someone or inappropriate for children to read, and if it just might be, we'd better start censoring ourselves so that all our entries will disappear behind a labeled cut that will supposedly discourage the wrong people from accidentally seeing or reading something worse than what they see on TV or in school or in the newspaper or in the subway. OR ELSE!

And, even better, we can now start narc-ing on all our friends and enemies by flagging all the crap in their LJs that offends our sensitive souls!

Merry fucking Christmas.

I can't help myself.

I have to fuck around a little here at LJ. I'm probably just poking a stick into a nest of rattle snakes, but I can't help myself. Sometimes the idiocy of LJ and some of its users are just too much.

If I'm going to be around this crazy-assed place, I have to find a way to cope. So sue me. Let me just warn some of my close friends here at LJ not to be alarmed.

When Charlie and Marilyn got their permanent LJs, they decided to transfer their paid time to me. So, I need to make some cool icons (it's been years), write some fanfic, and do some posting.

I guess I'll revisit my John Smith Tudor story.

HBO is now showing the full length version of Alexander, and the description is: "Oliver Stone's majestic epic, which boasts a top-notch cast." What a difference a few years make! Funny that Rhys Meyers is now bigger than Colin in many ways (and even did his own stint in rehab this year).

So, Jim and Bri have inspired me to write. I've decided to do what former LJ user petarpan was constantly trying to get me to do, write more John Smith from The New World, only I'm setting him in the Tudor world of Henry 8.

It's all good. With fanfic you can do what you want within reason, and actually the guy fits well in this world. He can be the inspiration behind Henry's concentration on his Royal Navy. And in the meantime he can fuck the king's brains out.

Sounds like a plan.

(Hey, Lance is at the show, watching Joey! Cool.)

So, it's 2007, and will anything in the world change much in the next 12 months?

Did we hold out hope for 2006? Here we are, 12 months later, and we're still at war, gas prices are climbing back toward $3.00 a gallon here in Oregon and our celebrity-obsessed culture is more concerned with whether Britney's wearing panties than whether people's human rights are being violated right here in our own country. So, the electorate seemed to care back in November, but will it really make a difference? It sounds like no matter who's in power, we won't be leaving Iraq for a long time to come.

Yeah, we all need to escape and we have the right to play and party. I do it all the time. And maybe it's not good for you to be cynical.

But I can't help it.

A couple days ago a man considered a horrible Criminal against Humanity was executed and buried. We'll be hearing about him and reading about him for years to come, but his life on the planet has been ended. And no doubt he was guilty of too many crimes to even count.

But this other man sits comfortably on vaca right now where he couldn't even bother to attend the funeral of someone we're all told we should honor and respect. This guy is responsible for invasion, for terror, for thousands of deaths of both military personnel and civilians. And he'll never stand before a tribunal for his crimes. History will be his only judge.

I'm glad to see 2007 begin. But I doubt much will change.

Hope all my flisters are having a great holiday. I haven't been around that much, but you're in my thoughts.

(And for all you fanfic fans out there, hope Santa fills your stockings with slash!)

Go voters! It's your birthday.

Let's drink some Barcardi!

'Nuff said.

So, the new movie on Bobby Kennedy is previewing tonight here in Portland, but I didn't get tickets. And MM is home sick, so she didn't get any.

If you know me very well, you know RFK is one of my Life Icons.

And on Election Day here in the U.S., I can't help thinking of him. I always wonder how things might have changed in this country if he hadn't died. Maybe nothing would have changed. Or maybe everything. Maybe his own family wouldn't have ended up going so awry out of anger and despair. Maybe Ted wouldn't have had so much pressure. Maybe Bobby's kids wouldn't have been so screwed up.

Maybe.

I hope this country has a little sense this year, faced with a ridiculous war, gas prices we never could have dreamed of even a few years ago, and more and more idiot evangelist leaders and politicians having to admit their 'sins.'

I wish I had more hope. But after nearly two administrations of Bush and his cohorts, I've pretty much given up on the basic intelligence or humanity of the American people. Last election it was all about stopping gay marriage. And who gave a damn how many of our soldiers died in Iraq or how many out-and-out lies we knew we were being told.

Mistress Marilyn continually reminds me that having the Demos take over the House or the Senate isn't all that meaningful. After all, the Demos had control of the Senate when Clarence Thomas was confirmed as a Supreme Court judge, the single most powerful act a president can perform.

Still---

Anyway, I did my part. I voted. I have always voted in major elections since I turned 18, and I hope I always perform this important responsibility. If you can't bother to vote, why live here? I firmly believe non-voters should be charged higher taxes or something along those lines. It's infuriating to me that so many people my age and younger don't bother to be informed enough to make a choice (regardless of what that choice is). The argument that "it doesn't affect me" is just bullshit. It affects everything -- our taxes, our wages, our benefits, our rights, our Moral Conscience, not to mention the safety of our soldiers.

(And anybody who thinks the Saddam Hussein verdict wasn't timed to happen before the election is just naive.)

So, in other important news, Britney filed for divorce from the unfortunately procreative K-Fed. Any bets on whether Britney voted?

It's been raining nonstop for days, and it's supposed to continue raining for weeks. Amazing how it can go from a relatively normal place to this wet, depressing prison. Don't know if I can take it. I need to go somewhere for the winter, and what's stopping me?

I miss too many people around here (LJ, that is). What the hell happened to them? What happened to me, for that matter. I miss the fanfic.

So, now Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Houser) is gay. Seems like somebody comes out every week or so.

Good dirt being posted on the spying list. Jesus, people are pathetic.

And, once again, it's time to vote. Wonder what will come of it this time.

Just spent the last 45 minutes clearing out all the shit in my email. I get so much spam now ("sweeter tasting sperm"??!!), it maxes out my box within a week, then I start bouncing. (It's so nice to have all those 'fans' out there who have screwed me over with their viruses and shit. You know who you are.)

I've had to go on no messages for most of my Yahoo Groups now, since I don't have a regular connection now and I only get on line when I'm mooching (which I'm really good at).

Anyway, it may have been months since I posted at LJ, but I'm still alive. I'm bummed that winter's on the way, and I may just pack up and move to a warmer climate for a few months. Anything could happen. But in the meantime, I'm just hanging, working and living. Same shit, different day.

So, I just forced myself to clean out my email and once again had to reactivate my Yahoo email. I get so much spam now that it clogs my free email constantly. And I'm too cheap to pay for my email, much less my LJ.

I slept on the couch at Charlie and MM's, then got up and helped MM water the flowers this morning. They stayed up most of the night working on mood themes (which are very cool), but I was able to post my Hart's War fic at the Colin slash lists and reply to actual feedback I got on my American Outlaws fic (!!!!!).

I think I'll get a sponsored journal or pay for a couple months so I can use the Rafa mood theme. I gotta have that one!

I haven't seen much of these guys lately, what with all the tennis and shit. (It was one thing to watch it. It's another entirely now that they're playing all the time. There's tennis on TV right this minute, and seemingly every minute.) Anyway, MM's vacation comes up pretty soon, so maybe we can do a few things. I tried to get them to go to Snakes on a Plane Thursday night, but MM was too beat.

Wtf with this JonBenet Ramsey stalker/killer/freak?! Is this the real thing or just a big waste of time?

We're having great summer weather, hot and dry. I love it.

So Lance went from wearing a banana suit on national TV to finally admitting he's gay?!

(And why did these things have to happen only a couple months apart . . .)

Maybe it's finally time to get over what a complete tool Lance was about the damn astronaut thing.

I guess the thing that impresses me the most in all this is that Joey Fatone is a decent guy and a real friend to Lance. Glad Lance has good pals the way I have since I came out.

How the hell many of you sockpuppets think you can get away with all these excuses for not having access to the internet . . . your computer crashed, you're traveling, your computer crashed, you've taken a new job and you can't use the computer at work, your computer crashed, your husband has discovered your LJ and you have to cool it, your computer crashed. It just goes on and on.

You've been too sick to post. You've been too depressed to post. You've been too busy to post.

Yeah, right. You've been too busy working on other sockpuppets in other fandoms to post -- let's get that straight.

In reality there are only about a hundred fans out there with dozens of sockpuppets each. And some of them have all the time in the world and have hundreds. I'm getting overwhelmed by the whole thing, even while I remain fascinated. I can't believe how fucking GOOD at this a few of you are.

(And on a totally unrelated subject, what the hell is this "restore from saved draft" that seems to remember my last post. Since when does LJ remember anything you posted or were about to post?)

Yes! I finished my 'Hart's War' fanfic -- nearly 17,000 words of the damn thing! (I owe a huge thanks to Charlie and Marilyn, as usual, and to Nik nk_seashore for doing the final edit and for making the banner.)

So for the past hour I've been breaking it into parts and loading it into my fanfic journal. And now I wish I hadn't broken it into five parts. I'm thinking I'd rather have it be two parts, my optimum length for a story. I just can't decide.

So for now I'm leaving it as is and just not putting it up anywhere. When I get ready I'll post it at the rare slash community and the Colin Farrell fanfic community.

It turned out better than expected, and the best thing about it is I showed myself I could be dedicated and disciplined about writing a story.

Now I'm ready to work on my John Smith fantasy about him getting it on with Jared the Nature Boy. That will be much easier and more fun, no doubt. But I did download a shitload of Smiths' journals a couple weeks ago so I could get the flavor of his writing.

ETA: Guess I should put in a frigging link to "Tommy's Peace"!

So, I started out to write maybe a 2500-word 'Hart's War' fic. Even though I started researching the damn thing around three years ago, I figured just getting it written would be good enough, getting some sex in there, some lovey-dovey shit maybe, some flavor of WWII.

And the next thing I know, I have the Mistress partnering with me on a bunch of research, and I'm writing and writing and wanting to write even more. It's more than 7500 words already.

Then I'm doing something really unbelievable. I'm actually OUTLINING the damn story like it's something really important, like MM does with shit like her elves story or one of her mpregs.

Jesus.

Anyway, I'm still enjoying writing the thing. I just did a few revisions, moving some stuff around, making stuff happen on days consistent with the action in the movie. I just have no idea where all this ambition came from. It's completely out of character.

(At least I'm still lazy about writing in LJ!)

Sure, I'm more happy each and every day that I'm not into Harry Potter fandom. Because I spent about a half hour trying to read a chapter or two of the whole Msscribe manifesto, wondering what the hell it's all about. And then I was pissed for wasting even a moment of my life, as it is, to read and wonder.

What is it with fans? I used to think the really insane ones were into the popslash, boyband stuff. But I now realize the teenie wars were innocent and harmless compared to the total b.s. that exists in places like HP and *shudder* ViggoOrli and other places I won't bother to name.

Life is too goddamn short for this shit.

I'm not sure I even describe myself as a "fan" anymore.

But, in the meantime, I've recovered from Pride weekend and I'm doing very well on my 'Hart's War' fic. I may even finish it this week. And now I'm suddenly regretting the story is set in canon HW (the trial and its aftermath) and not more alternate reality so it could be a series.

On the other hand, since I've only finished one 'series' in my relatively brief six-year fanfic career, it's just as well.