10-30-06 @ 10:04 pm EST

Yesterday was mainly a stay-in day, I believe, though we did leave early for dinner at Shannon's parents' house. They live on a sort of farm, as when we arrived, we found two dogs, numerous cats (I saw at least five or six), chickens, a guinea fowl, and a dwarf goat. The two dogs, both female Labs and one of them a puppy, were very friendly, the puppy being the most hyperactive animal I have ever seen. One of the kittens, a little calico with a mutilated tail named Tiny (the kitten, not the tail), was the friendliest cat I have ever met; I picked her up as soon as I passed her and expected her to struggle and try to get loose as most wandering cats do, but she purred right from the start, and later on in the evening when I sat down with her she kept butting her head against mine and flopping over on me and playing with my fingers. I threatened to kidnap her and smuggle her back to Michigan, she was so adorable, though I know Coz wouldn't be happy. The two dogs, as I waited in the living room/den, engaged in a dogfight that must have lasted like twenty minutes and ranged all over the room. I didn't take pictures as they would have come out blurry, but it was just as good as any competitions on TV.

Dinner was stew (Shannon's mother made a veggie stew and a non-veggie stew, the latter just for Shannon and me, as we hate veggies), cornbread (it was the first cornbread I've ever had that didn't taste annoyingly sweet), and red velvet cake, for Eric's birthday, which was today (Oct. 30). The evening went relatively well, at least until the women started discussing things after dinner. For some reason the conversation turned toward gay rights and such, and it started getting ugly. Everyone reading this knows how I feel about gay rights so it was all I could do just to keep my mouth shut through what I started to hear. >_< Shannon I disagreed with but she seems pretty liberal and her comments were tolerable; I just don't agree with them. Ma, from what I know, doesn't give a rip one way or the other about gay rights, even though she believes gays are weird; but she kept going along with the comments and agreeing with them because that's just the way she is. Shannon's mother, on the other hand, started to REALLY piss me off. When she at last mentioned how Blue Cross was extending coverage to gay couples and said, "We--were--li-vid," I got up and abruptly left the room, but nobody noticed. The conversation continued a bit and then I returned, fully intending to ask Ma if we could go. I knew it would be rude, but I wanted to make a point too. I stood there and fumed silently while the conversation continued (Ma agreeing with it all the way), until finally Shannon said it looked like I was tired and wanted to go home. When the others asked what was wrong, I said, "This conversation is upsetting me." That's the most stressful and anxiety-producing thing I've ever had to say to anyone...and I said it.

Everyone at the table--Ma, Shannon, Shannon's mom--immediately apologized. "I'm sorry," Shannon's mom said. "We're upset too, but for a different reason." Oh, yeah...because extending tolerance and love is so upsetting when it comes to those NASTY gays, isn't it? Shannon's family is strict Christians, so I fully understand their stand on things--but I'll never understand why homosexuality is targeted above almost all else. If she's so LI-VID about Blue Cross extending rights to gay couples, I wonder, does she feel LI-VID that they extend coverage to non-Christians? Because at least from what I know of Christian belief, both groups--non-Christians and gays--are living in sin and aren't seeking to change their ways, so therefore, aren't they equally sinful? Why are gays seen as so much more horrific and so much less deserving of rights than other so-called sinners of equal caliber?

No, I didn't launch into a tirade; saying that I was upset was as much as I said. I just wanted to make my mind known, not make a scene, and let them know how un-Christian they were being by gossiping so spitefully about some sinners, because I thought we were ALL sinners. Even if they believe gays are so wrong, is it truly the Christian way to be LI-VID when they get rights that help them improve their lives and contribute to society and be happier people? Even if they're sinners, even if they're "unrepentant," I thought Christianity was all about loving your enemies, and loving your neighbors, no matter who or what they are. I'm not seeing a lot of that in most Christians, it seems.

Besides, Blue Cross isn't a religious organization, is it? Why can't these people be happy that they won't allow gay marriages and gay rights in their churches, and just leave state matters alone? They want the state to not interfere in church matters so badly, but it's so much to ask that it be the same the other way around? One can't have it both ways.

*deepbreath* Well, that ended that part of the conversation. I felt bad that I'd made THEM feel bad, but it was my right to state that I was getting uncomfortable, and I'm sticking to it. When they tried returning to normal conversation, I went along with it, to show that I tried to keep no hard feelings (even though the incident still sits poorly with me, it's obvious--when people make a bad impression it's hard to break), just that I took issue with that one matter and not everything else. I'm glad though that Eric and Rayne weren't present at the time; I would have preferred that Shannon not have been there either. Like I said, I don't agree with a lot of her beliefs, but at least she's not obnoxious about them.

Double besides...gossiping is against what the Bible says, too.

Anyway, Ma told me to tell Shannon's parents thanks for the dinner on the way out. I wonder if that was her angry way of trying to "make amends" for me ruining the conversation. :/ Later on at night I came in on her playing solitaire and she was being pretty quiet, like she was giving me the cold shoulder only without giving me the cold shoulder--she was aloof, I should say. When I asked her flat out if she was mad at me, she said, "I don't want to talk about it right now." *sigh* Which is her way of saying, "Yes, I'm mad, but just like always we'll sweep it under the carpet and not resolve it." I said, "If they have the right to state their minds on something, then I have the same right. They apologized, they're over it, I'm over it, that's the end." No, I'm not OVER it, but I'm just tired of sitting and keeping my mouth shut while people say things I find terribly hurtful! Ma apparently got over it, as it hasn't come up again and she seems back to her old self, but I know why she was upset. She hates creating a scene and rocking the boat. But this is what I find most hurtful about the evening in total. Ma would have preferred that I keep my mouth shut and not speak up for what I believe in, just for the sake of keeping the evening pleasant. But she and so many other people have been stressing that I need to speak up for myself and have more self-confidence. Stating to a diehard Christian that I disagree with her comments and that they were upsetting me is the most terrifying thing I've ever done! In front of FAMILY, no less! And...it just pissed Ma off? She would rather that I sit around and let people insult my own beliefs and hurt my feelings, and not speak up, just to keep the peace, rather than take a stand? I know where she's coming from, but you'd think she could be a little proud of me for finally daring to do something so terrifying. I feel hurt that she was just angry that I'd possibly upset OTHER people who were already upsetting ME. How come my feelings are of so little consequence? How come I'm expected to stand up for myself, but only when it's most convenient for others? :( That's the biggest step I've taken for myself out of anything I've been doing in the past several months and she just found it irritating.

Wish I could bother explaining it to her, but she'd just see it as trying to drag it out yet more, and would get pissed off again. I can't ever seem to win with these things. -_-

Well, that sat like a stone in my stomach for the rest of the night, and still does, though that's not to say that everything was ruined from then on. That just soured me toward Shannon's mother. She's a nice lady otherwise, but I do wish she could learn to show some more of the Christian spirit as I myself understood it once. I wish a lot more people could learn that. Just because you believe in something doesn't mean you have to be so hateful about it. I'd never sit at someone's table and rant about what awful things that Christians do...

Notice how when I said I was upset, nobody bothered to ask WHY? They just assumed they knew why, or else didn't care to really find out how I felt. Interesting.

WELL...I tried a few more drawings after getting home. I think I've finally settled on a design for Tooth (the first one didn't work out), and tried Moon Wolf, though again they're starting to look alike! >_< Oh, I forgot. Before the dinnertime incident at Shannon's parents' house, Shannon had asked to see my drawings and I'd reluctantly handed them over. She, Shannon's mom, and Shannon's dad, I believe (he's a silent brooding type like Dad), looked them over, Shannon and Shannon's mom saying they really liked them. That was okay, though I always feel terribly self-conscious about family looking at my work. -_- Anyway, the past two nights previous I'd had a great deal of trouble getting to sleep--it wasn't for lack of tiredness, for I was really tired, but I felt like fidgeting like there was no tomorrow! The first of these two nights, I kept shuddering to try to snap myself out of the creepy-crawly feeling--I can't even adequately describe it, it was like I wanted to climb the walls--and finally had to switch positions a few times just to get to sleep. The second night it wasn't quite as bad, but it still took quite a while. Last night I was fixing to do it again but I just went to sleep in an alternate position straight off and managed to drop off in time. Still no idea what caused that. :/ It sure was irritating though.

The time change confused me a little at first, but not for long.

I forgot to mention again how yesterday as Ma and I sat in the porch swing, I heard a little splintering of wood, then the thing collapsed on my side sending us tumbling to the porch. We were both okay, and Eric insisted he wasn't upset, but that made me feel rather guilty to make him interrupt his stick carving just to fix his swing. -_-

Today I awoke and saw the orange streetlight glowing outside and at first thought it was the sun, showing really hazy through the clouds. We'd planned to go to Rock City when Eric got home, but he decided to skip work as he had a carving class tonight and we went early. Sorry that I'll be glossing over an entire day's worth at Rock City. :P It was much as I remembered it, but at least this time I'll have the pictures to back it up!! (We never did develop most of the photos from 2000.) I think I took over 500 of them. x_x Uploading them now, though I'll probably have to do it in batches. At this rate I'm going to have a hundred different Georgia albums!! I do hope the card/chip holds out until the end of the trip. _-_ I'm a mere moment or so away from starting Georgia album number FOUR. *gurg* Anyway...the pictures should speak for themselves, whenever I finish with them. Rock City is basically a big tourist trap similar to Mackinac Island except composed primarily of geologic formations, which one wanders through on a set trail. It's rather pretty (yes, I took the swinging wooden bridge again this time, everybody applaud the acrophobe), but terribly cheesy at times, what with the almost ever-present ambient music blaring from not-concealed loudspeakers, and the dreadfully tacky gnome and fairytale display for the kiddies toward the end. Of course Rayne enjoyed the end, but as for me, egh...I started taking pictures of each fairytale display but there were so damn many I just gave up. Could have done without those, thank you very much. Could also have done without the ambient music and the not-concealed loudspeakers ruining much of the scenery! But I do hope most of my photos turned out okay. I had the flash turned off most of the time, so I'm afraid a lot might be blurry. :(

We had to pass through the gift shop on the return and Rayne really wanted a little toy doggy in a purse that said ROCK CITY in glaring letters, but Eric and Shannon didn't have the money. I picked it up and paid for it myself and presented it to her when she and the other two came out of a fudge shop. She's probably totally forgotten its existence by now o_o but at least when she got it she was quite happy. "Expect to hear 'Thank you' at least fifty more times today," Eric said as we got in the car. "And you're going to be her new best friend." Unfortunately, she seems to have lost a little gemstone bracelet that Eric and Shannon got her earlier in the trip. She also got to "pan for gemstones" (you pour a little pre-purchased bag of dirt with tumbled semiprecious stones hidden within it into a...panning thing...whatever...and sift out the soil in the water), which she found quite amusing.

Anyway, the drive back took longer than usual due to a strangely big number of delays, after which Eric promptly went to his carving class. I came in here to upload my buttload of pictures and then just ate dinner, and here I am uploading again. By the time I post this I might not still be uploading, as I tend to write these ahead of posting time, but you catch my drift. Cripes, even for cable these pictures are going to take a LONG time.