my ex-mother-in-law and my cousin.

my ex-mil is the tiniest meekest most submissive old fashion mexican woman that i’ve ever known; more so than my own grandmothers; but she recognized that her son was different (gay) when he was a toddler and she warned everyone that she knew that if they had a problem with her son, then they had a problem with her and to air their grievances now so she can know whom to cut out of her and her son’s life. (that’s a big deal for traditionalist mexicans like her family).

growing up, i winced a lot when i saw my aunts, uncles and cousins bully and beat the tar out of my cousin to “toughen the sissy out of him” and “beat the sugar out of his blood” because he was so flamboyantly gay. decades later; those same people fell upon extraordinarily hard times and my cousin took them all in. by doing so: he literally gave the same people who abused him so much that he had to ran away at 14 years old to protect himself from them and then turned around to give them a roof over their heads and food on the table for them when they asked.

i aspire to be both people; it think that they’re the best examples of humanity that i’ve seen with my own eyes.

Sam Reich, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Hank Green to name a few. Also Kyle Gass both for what he said in Australia, but then for deleting his public apology shortly after posting it.

Writers, in general. So many wonderful stories and each story is deeply human.

I love inventors and creative engineers. They are huge parts of the reason that makes the world go round and without them, we wouldn’t have ever made it as far through the ages as we have.

The singer Neko Case, the drag queen Vanjie (she just makes me insanely happy), the artist Alex Katz (96 and still painting!), my very sweet church friends including all the children who pile onto me like puppies because I spoil them rotten, my aunt some of my extremely wonderful patients who I would give a kidney to if they needed it, my Livejournal friends who I’ve never actually met, the writer Jonathan Carroll, and the singer Nick Cave.