Tragic's Wake

The streets were lined with love, three and four deep in some spots. That is huge for Saint John and I’m so glad to have been a part of it all. I stood my ground on King Street because I wanted to catch the best photos and I surely did! I yelled to my friends that I’d jump on the tail end when it got to me and we’d all march to the BBQ and show together and that is exactly what I did. My daughters had friends in the very end of the parade, they were marching in memory of a beautiful and promising local girl who’d died in a fire earlier this year so we fell in line with them and we waved our flags, shouted happily at supporters and it was grand. The after show was beautiful as well. People of all ages lazing in the sun in the little park at Parade end, we listened to live music and we watched some wonderful drag artists, we ate juicy burgers and we hugged and enjoyed the sun. There was a dark cloud though, later.

Someone (who was involved with my family on a seriously peripheral level) took exception to my daughter bringing her two year old son to the parade and though I wanted to just ignore the hateful creature, I couldn’t let my daughter be so viciously attacked on such a wonderful and love filled day.  The argument took place on my daughter’s facebook profile, she had posted a status that said “Home from the parade, had a great time. The baby waved his flag and screamed the whole time”  This cruel woman said some really vulgar crap about how it was gross and she supposed my daughter had a tit in her mouth and pubic hair in her teeth, etc. There were a few other comments, then she said the boy would grow up to be “that way” and I really and truly lost it. I’ll share with you here what I said over a stretch of half a dozen comments, this first was to let them know I was watching and to try not to start a huge drama:

I had a great time S* and I’m glad my grandson did too. It was a fabulous day and I’m proud of my family. Ignore hateful comments and harassment. You’re above that garbage. I love you baby, always.

At which point the woman started to insult me personally as well as my daughter and the crap she was spewing looked much like some kinda crazed zealot pamphlet of misinformation, so I replied:

Hmmm.. People in glass houses and all that, right? Listen, the only danger that child is in happens to be from bigoted people with dirty minds and filthy mouths harassing his mother for being perfectly normal. If you haven’t noticed: this is Canada, one of the last truly free countries on this planet and there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with Gay. Good As You and from the filth and hate you’re spewing, I’d hazard that perhaps its actually better. I teach my children love and equality. This is the 21st century, the only ones wrong, deviant and immoral here are the backwards deviants who know nothing but hate and anyone offended by this: well, if the shoe fits, eh?

She made some other nasty comments about my parenting and my overall character, I’d post them but she deleted and ran shortly after and I wasn’t home to save her end of the “discussion” but then I said:

If you’d like for me to report you for hate speech and harassment then be my guest, keep on commenting. You know nothing of MY family and you seem to have very little control over your own. Carry on ma’am, the law is on my side.

Several other friends and family members stepped in at that point to defend my daughter but there was still one vicious girl who barely even made any sense but she angered me anew, at this point the comments take up Sunday afternoon and I’m back down to earth and starting to think clearly again. This new girl says:

its not approiate really for a child to be there exspecially so wrong.. he will learn that when he grows up …

and I really wanted to clarify exactly what her issue was so I said:

Its inappropriate why? Because you think Gay is wrong? Because you believe the crazies who say it’s all about sex and has nothing to do with love and equality? Because you think there was blatant kink and perversion running rampant? Because you’re afraid or insecure and simply cannot confront it? Why? Why was it wrong? Gay people don’t have children? Children of Gay families don’t deserve the same picnics and festivals that children of hetero families enjoy? If you replace the word Gay with black and you go read a history book then you’ll see that your argument strongly resembles the attitudes of people who believed that blacks were “less than” those same people who wanted to keep blacks segregated and those people refused to grant blacks any rights and tried to strip them of the minimal rights they already had.. Who is inappropriate, the mother who wants her child to learn tolerance, inclusiveness and equality? Or the insecure bigots who would take away a child and it’s families rights just because they’re afraid of anything that isn’t their way?

But all I got was this:

if that msg was to me.. i certainley dont think gay is wrong at all!!!!!!!!!! i think taking a 2 year old to a gay prade is just not approiate.!!!!!

And yes, I fully confess to boiling over here:

The entire day was set up for the families of the community to share in the same fun and festivities that all families should be able to participate in without fear. You say you’re not bothered by Gay but your words actually say something far different. So it’s ok to be Gay but not to show pride in how far we’ve come? Your rights as a heterosexual have never been in question, they’ve never been under fire. You’ve never risked losing a job or being denied equal care and rights because of the person you love, if you’ve ever had to defend your civil rights as a human being then you would understand why we celebrate our advances and why we stand up to say we’re not going to let it go, we’re not going to hide any more, we are not going away. We have a right to be proud of how far we’ve come and we have a right to share that with our families. I’d recommend reading up a bit about the struggles in the LGBT community and I’d especially recommend researching civil rights in general. It’s not all black & white, it’s not all about you and your beliefs. It’s about an entire segment of society being ignored, abused, bullied and shoved aside because people like you think we can do whatever we want but we really should hide it back in the closet because it’s so distasteful to you. Let me tell you something–straights necking and holding hands in public may be distasteful to me but I’m not going to segregate them because of it so you have no right to segregate or abase us for carrying a damn flag and having a freakin’ BBQ..

She gives me the standard closeted bigot’s argument:

some of my friend are gay .. if i had a problem with it i would very clearly tell u i have a problem with gay people but i dont !!!! im not sitting here writting a huge ass comment becuase u seem to think i know how i feel .. WHAT IVE BEN SAYING IF YOU CAN READ.. IS I HAVE NO FUCKING PROBLEM WITH GAY PEOPLE!! I DONT EVEN HAVE A PROBLEM THAT THE 2 YEAR WENT TO A GAY PRADE… I THINK ITS INAPPRIOATE !!!!!!!

At this point I’d mostly given up, I was actually in the mood to troll my way through her ignorance:

Its spelled ‘inappropriate’ just for the record. And you DO seem to have a problem, that is what the term “inappropriate” actually means. I hope I never see you with any children at any type of family day events, it seems that in your world family is inappropriate.P.S if you could take the time to either learn to spell or perhaps install a decent spell-check in your browser, perhaps I could read your ignorant comments properly with the correct amount of spite and vindictiveness inherent.. Carry on ma’am, and have a fabulous day!

But she just wasn’t getting a clue:

lol if i was rude i would be saying .. gay people have no fucking rights!!!!! thank you very much.. your cleary a dumb bitch if you cant understand what im saying .. what i fucking said for the hundreth time cause u didnt get it threw your thick skull the first time.. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH GAY PEOPLE!!! I THINK ITS INAPROIATE THAT A 2 YEAR OLD WENT TO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!!!!!!!! ITS FOR PEOPLE THAT ARE OLDER … NOT BABYS NOT KIDS NOT TODDLERS.. BUT FOR ADULTS OR TEENAERS  MAYBE IT WAS A COMMUNITY EVENT AND IT WAS A FUN TIME.. BUT TAKE YOUR KIDS TO THE PARK OR A FAIR OR SOMETHING .. !!!!!!!

At which point I completely dismissed her:

I think you’re a reprehensible parent because you’re resorting to vulgarity in a discussion with a stranger on a public forum such as facebook. It is possible to discuss something without masking your inadequacy with foul language and nonsensical punctuation. To each their own though, I would never dream of removing your inherent right to be an idiot. Goodbye now!

The rest was just amusing:

Her: and i would never drea of removing your ingerent right to be a dumb bitch.. goodbye to you

Me: *dream *inherent

…and then she was finally gone. A few other friends commented with more support and love, many good points that shot the bullies down even further and it truly ended. Two of the bullies cut and run, blocked and deleted, and the third has argued her pseudo Christian “morals” with me before and so she knows better than to try that little adventure again

To close: I have another very strong post coming up regarding my take from it all but that’s not for today. This post needs to close with love, joy, support and PRIDE and that’s what I have for you below, enjoy the pics my friends and have a blessed day!

Romney is a bit less crazy than Perry I suppose, but Ril Amurrikans™ (the ‘Free guns with your Starbucks’ lobby, mind you) won’t vote for the Magic Underpants Mormon™ (-aka- Mittens) so with that line of thought it’ll be enough to overcome the taint of  Nutbag Texas Cowboys™ (Oh say can YOU see?) thus they’ll eventually toss the oh-so-passionate evangelist Perry into the ring against that Godless Moooslem™ Obama and y’all wanna hope that battle lands right side or the whole damn world is doomed.

I mean seriously, even if you don’t think Obama has done anything at all (and you’d have to be fucking bent to truly think that, the info is out there) all the same, do you want to see a wild preacher cowboy running an entire country with the farthest of the far right standing behind him with their torches and pitchforks at the ready? You think they’re only gunning for Gays and minorities? Think again.

They’re coming for you, brother. And your barber, and your dog. Probably even me come to think of it, sure I’m in another country but borders ain’t never stopped those kind of zealots.. You know it and I know it. As it is, my economy is gonna suffer for the “compromise” they claim. FreeDoom for Everyman™ and that’s how they roll. Just wait for it…

No such luck, the alcoholic handyman got preoccupied with god only knows what and the landlord tried to back out of spending the money on the damn shower kit. Eventually we pestered him enough that he unceremoniously dropped the kit off and expected me to damned well install it on MY dime and time.. Screw that! It sat here for months and I kept telling him it wasn’t going to happen but he dragged ass and finally I called him this week and explained again that I had my surgery, I was out, home, and i need that damn shower ASAP. I told him that four surgeons were backing me and if I don’t get the shower then I gotta hand in my notice and find a new place to live..  Long story short; he gave in and he’s in the bathroom beating the shit out of the walls as we speak..

So he’s sloooooow as frozen poop going uphill, he’s putting in the tiny wall piece that was needed today, I’m expecting the ten minute drop-in kit to be installed and finished by sometime in May.. One little thing: can I come shower at your place for a while? I doubt I can even use my archaic tub until this bullshit is over. At least I won though, right? *sigh* did I? Really? At what cost?  I don’t even… I just don’t.

Because I found this behavior quite odd (to say the least) I slowed my pace until I came to a stop directly in front of them. Both of the delightful darlings gaped at me for a moment and then one uttered something to the effect of “omigaaawd but I thought you died DIED on the weekend and but you’re here and omigawd OMIGAWD what happened? Wow..” blinking a few times I said “Maybe you should tell me, actually..” and the tale came tumbling out. The word on the street today, possibly yesterday too, was that I’d passed into the great beyond either sometime late Sunday night or during the wee hours of the morning on Monday. Apparently there was no word as to exactly how this tragedy came about. I’m not sure if my bowels finally ruptured, if I overdosed on something or if some divine nemesis finally descended from the heavens to take supreme vengeance and finally rid the world of my vile unsightly presence..  I also didn’t find out where the services will be held or when. Pity, I hear they serve free coffee at those sorts of soirees and I’d truly not want to miss out on something like that, to pay my respects, ya know?

I laughed, loudly and probably rudely, I really don’t care. It was bloody hilarious. I assured them both that I was indeed still a member of the living gene pool and I disentangled from their weirdness to continue my journey onward to my bank and to my darling husband’s store. While waiting for him to have a free moment, I strolled out to the second floor rail in the mall and had a bit of a look around. A man I know well was sidled up at his usual spot watching the pretty young girls giggling below. He glanced my way a second, did a bit of a physical stuttering double take, raised an eyebrow and smiled tentatively. I returned the smile, turned on my heel and headed back into the store. A short while later I ran up to my favourite coffee shop to grab a sugary fatty latte and on my way back down I passed him once again in the mirror hall. He grinned broadly this time and said “So I guess you’ve heard, eh?” I laughed and said “Oh yes, yes indeed, I did.” we both laughed loudly again, shaking our heads and continued in our respective directions..

Now. The mystery? I think it roots back to several little things. A bit over a week ago, a nefarious and reprehensible ex of mine started the rumour that I was dying. Absolutely and utterly dying, oh hee hee ha ha, yay the bitch is finally dying! I shrugged it off and didn’t really put much thought into it. Then the facebook add requests started coming in. People I haven’t spoken to (or cared to speak to) in seven, eight years and more. People I absolutely cannot stand. I actually killed off one of my accounts and changed my name on another. I culled the remaining pesky locals in a single sweep and blocked them so they wouldn’t even see my existence. I kept family and extended family on the account with the new name and I got on with ignoring the turds.  It was approximately forty eight hours after this mass social cull that this ridiculous tale of my untimely demise came to be.

I’m laughing at this whole idiot fiasco tonight. I’m thinking that perhaps I should have worn a hoodie uptown earlier and just left them to believe their little faerie tales. I wish I’d had some advance warning as to the story in the first place, it could have been the most fun I’ve had in years.. I’m hoping the story survives for some or perhaps gets revived when I disappear from sight for recovery after my surgery. I think it might make for some crazy fun the coming summer, don’t you?

I’m only left with one serious question and I need your help, dear readers, to understand and deal with this horribly perplexing dilemma. What on earth does one wear to one’s own funeral especially when the one in question has absolutely not passed on at all?