I know quite a few of those reading this blog are effected by this: Congress is quietly trying to pass the draft again. The ages are 18-26, and they are specifically including women--which is the only amusing thing about the whole load of bullsh*t, in a vaguely gallows humor way.
BTW, I'm smackdab in the middle of the ages, my health is not so poor as to make me a bad choice, and I'm good with computers. Europe is sounding real nice right now. Maybe Mexico.
I should have realised how bad the rabbits would be when I saw the breed was Angora.
It tells me something, TNH, that the first words you wrote were The kid was twelve. And for all the comments on bullying and teasing, has anyone else here come close to suiciding because of it? I have only noticed one mention of personal bullying... and not near the problems I had. Have. I am not saying it still happens in my life, merely that that teasing--such a small word for such a heinous act--reverberates in my life today.
I was eleven, had been teased for various reasons--mainly because I would react and cry--since kindergarten. Sixth grade, and a classic sign of "crying for attenting"--my grades dropped. I wasn't turning math homework, teacher knew I knew the stuff as I aced the quizzes, and my parents watched me do the homework. It simply wasn't going from my home to my school. No one noticed. And any time I asked the school to help me in any capacity I was told to simply ignore the teasing. And if this seems a little dry to anyone reading this, sorry, I tend to do that when trying to refrain from extensive cursing.
I was fighting with my mother at home, her work was causing her stress, and as eldest kid, I was a very viable target. And there was problems in the family--a first cousin got pregnant, and Mom did not find out from the cousin's mom (her middle sister), but from the youngest sister. Stress meet target. That boy hung himself. And all I can think is, he's brave. Hanging, unless you're heavy enough to snap your own neck--at 63 pounds he wasn't--you suffocate to death. I was going to use my Dad's handgun that I had found, plus the bullets that he kept, correctly, in a separate place. When you're hurting like Daniel and I were, you don't want anymore pain, but you want it to end.
I never did shoot myself, I'm not exactly sure why. We were studying the Holocaust in Sunday School that year (I'm Jewish), maybe the suffering I was reading sunk in, along with the will to survive. I promised myself I would review my life at my 13th birthday, and decide again whether I wanted to go on. If yes, decide again at 16. Then 18. I still have my 21st birthday to get through in a little more than six months.
They never will punish those kids. I know from experience. The only punishment any of the kids I was teased by got was from my own tears and words and hurt. I wrote a poem in high school, some ten quatrains long that I got permission to read to my English class, which wouldn't you know, held some of earliest teasers. It was me, in that narrative poem I read to them, about the pain, and I looked in their eyes as I read it. And I made sure they understood it was me and that the bullies were them. And by that time they were old enough to understand the shit they put me through. See, to me, the greatest punishment would be for those kids to understand exactly the extent of their crime against Daniel. As young as they are, it isn't going to happen now. And without Daniel, it may never happen. I barely got through to some of the boys who teased me; few people who haven't undergone this understand to what depths it hurts you.
Worst thing of mine and Daniel's situation is no one takes notice until it is too late. Daniel's dead. Me, my own parents didn't realize how bad it had gotten until I screamed it in a fight two years later. People, don't keep silent, and think that the kids are handling it fine; when I was with my folks, I was a normal kid, but I hurt for six years before making my stance, if only my mind, that they weren't going to hurt me anymore.
If I sound bitter, I'm sorry. If I sound fanatical on the subject, I have reason to be.
Found a report of "Why Do Gay Men Live In San Francisco"; granted, I intentionally went looking for this, as the (Lexington, Kentucky) Herald-Leader had an article Sunday over the fact Lexington has become a hot-spot for gay couples. The article went looking for the reasons why certain cities were more gay concentrated, but I haven't had time to really read it. The truly interesting part is three tables at the back, that list cities by concentration of gay/lesbian households. Lexington, KY, is third for gays in cities of populations between 200,000 and 700,000.
Personally, I think it's related to the fact Lexington is also a hotspot for the national Wiccan community, but hey, I don't think most people knew that either.
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