"Preacher Primary is next week not in New Hampshire but in Orlando

Read this and worry. Republicans are seeking the evangelical votes. Yes, the Republicans' first primary is in Orlando at the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters. GOP presidential candidates will be there to try to generate a buzz that will translate into evangelical airtime - and support in the "base" in 2008

Sisters..

I just read a book "She, Myself, and I" by Whitney Kastel. Oh, I came across it at the nearby library when I was on Jury Duty several weeks ago on 1/29/07.

The story was an easy read and quit interesting. The story was written in the first person told by three different persons, sisters, each with their own chapters. A different way; one that I have never read before. Usually, in the first person the same person tells the whole story throughout the book. In this one each of the three sisters their say.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that the sisters were close like very good friends. I never had that. There was animosity in my family between siblings. I guess we reflects our parents. My half-sister never lived with me. She lived in town; I lived in the country on the farm.. so isolated.

I've never had close sisters. I think that if I did, I would be more comfortable and easier to be around friends and make friends. I do okay but I never had that comfortable feeling that I could just pick up the phone and call. I never felt that comfortable around my siblings or family. And in later years I got the feeling that they only called when they wanted something.

The whole thing was very weird and awkward..that was my experience with these people. I never felt close. I never shed a tear when my father or both sets of grandparents died. I haven't seen my mother, siblings or any relatives in over two years and could care less.

I cried when my dog died. I'll cry terribly if something would happen to my ex. She is my family. I can talk to her. I feel comfortable with her. I feel comfortable with my friends.

It's so wonderful to have those people out of my life. So, I guess that says a lot! I am a warm hearted kind person with a good heart and a rotten past.

I was abused, so abused in so many ways. I was stuck with those people out there.. alone with only my daydreams to sustain me. I daydreamed someone loved me. Usually, my object of affection was a TV or movie star or a sweet, cute, kind hearted person at school who looked out for me and was sweet to me. It made my heart ache. The loneliness.

I am a lesbian and had to live the straight life which severity added to my pain. Oh my god! Now that I have had so wonderful lovemaking with a woman I know now what I missed all those years.. until I was 57 years old and was with a 35 year old. Two years later today, I am the most passionate lover. I have a wonderful lover now. We have a very special relationship.

I finally came out when I was about 40. I hooked up with my ex for 15 years. I did and do love her. We had a wonderful relationship and then I retired in 2003. I guess I had time to think? I don't know. But through the years things changed. We never had sex and we slept separately. We are still close friends and I'm glad. Because I know with her I will get an honest answer and she has my back and I hers. I trust her.

When I was a kid I had crushes on girls. I never had a crush on a boy. When I became a teenage boys asked me out. I was flattered of course. But, there was no emotional connection. Oh, I was sexual and a woman is aroused by stimulation. But, I wasn't into him. So, I cheated my way through life. I wasn't really there in the relationship. I was with him but in love with her. My closes way to her was through him and double dating. She had no clue that I had a crush on her. This my friends was my life until I was forty years old.

I can't think back and feel cheated. I gave that feeling up. You see not long ago I had a crush on a 26 year old. She is with a young woman. I got over the crush. She is my friend and I get a big kick out of her; out of both of them.

I'm in a better place. After our split, I wanted to hang with younger people because they were active and liked to do the things I like to do and I wanted to do those things and I did and they were magical. Like go to the bar and dance and drink. It was magical! Like beat in half marathons. Magical! Like dance the swing with the best of them.. and I did. It was magical! And I made love to a 35 year old. It was drop dead gone to heaven magical! Making love to a woman...oh my god! Super magical!

I can't feel sorry for myself about all the wonderful young women I never got to love because I had to live the straight life. Well, I loved them, I just couldn't express my love physically.

So, I feel life is a journey. I know now to that we get what we want. I wanted all those magical moments and I got them. But, it wasn't until I wished for them and truly believe I could make them happen.

If only I would have known that wonderful message as a kid. And the message, "The Secret" is that we have the power to create our own realities. The church doesn't want us to know this. The church, any church, any religion, is nothing more than a group of authoritarian, supremacist, totalitarian, Communists manipulators who want nothing more than to be worshiped leaders and speak as if they were god herself. Frankly, I think, and I know this will shock you, but, I think the idea of a superior being is made up. I know! I know! everyone around the world believes in a god, a higher power. But, when you think of it when the so called "bible" was written, many religions spun off of others. Remember the Christian crusades..how they KILLED people who wouldn't believe or wouldn't join their religion. Look in Ireland how the Catholics and Protestants are still fighting...over who is the one true religion.

Why is there all this fighting and killing in the name of god and in the name of religion. Why do they hide behind "god"? They are such hypocrites!

If there truly was a god, she would not have written in prejudices, and homophobia. The religious say we are sinners. Well, something has to be broken (you) so they (priests etc) can fix you. It's all a scam. The biggest scam of a lifetime. And people are so gullible that it's pathetic!

I think people just do not want to think for themselves. They would rather follow a leader.

Anxiety

I was born into a unbalanced, disleveled, hostile, adverse, antagonistic household. Fear and uncertainty was ever present. I was scared most of the time. Afraid I would be abandoned. And I was abandoned in a sense. Little did I know then what words to use to describe how I felt; but, I guess I felt lonely, scared and insecure. Unloved! Even if I had the words to describe my childhood environment, I had no one to talk to about it. No one!

My mother lived a life of anxiety and was always complaining and fretting about everything and I took those feelings into myself and carried them into my adulthood. So, I too worried about everything and was scared. When most people merely took events and projects in stride I antagonized with every thought and moment.

I was mostly alone and scare as a kid and as an adult. I guess there were good things that my childhood taught me. I learned not to trust or depend on others and I learned to love myself. I learned to be self-sufficent and not depend on anyone. But, maybe that is not a good thing?

To compound matters I had affections for other girls and women. I searched for the love I never received as a toddler. By my first birthday, I was too big to hold. There were no hugs, squeezes and kisses from either parent. My father was extremely distance and either laughed at me or was yelling. He always preached, as did my brother. Yes, they preached, corrected, controlled, dominated, punched, pushed, kicked, smacked and ridiculed. My mother never saying a word in my defense. In fact, I got the feeling by seeing the slight smirk, that she actually, enjoyed it.

I was alone, with them, out in the country. All summer long never seeing my friends from school. I saw my cousins once in a while but there was something wrong with that family too I guess because my mother complained all the time about them.

What was left? I lived in daysdreams and pretended someone loved me and she was very warm, tender, loving and giving. She would hold me, kiss my head, squeeze me tight, and I loved her so much. Oh, she might have been a movie star, TV star, or an older girl at school who was once kind to me.

Our childhoods stack and shape our adult lives. It's the foundation from which we have to grow from in one way or another. I entered this world mostly in a state of neutral. I do believe that subconsciously (our spirit) that we do bring things with us from past lives such as common sense or the lack of it. But, other than that we are in nuetral just hungry sponges wanting only to love and be loved and to learn.

I know I brought some idealistics with me because I knew even as a toddler that my mother was pushing me away, was cold. And that my father sat back and added to my grief by laughing at my pain. Or maybe he was happy she pushed me away too.

Apparently, signs of affection were signs of weakness according to my family. But, being a lesbian, I learned to hide my feelings from other women. It was taboo to be in love with another women according to our social standards and customs at the time. An abomination, an evil force according to the church and therefore by all society; but not according to nature! I have always loved women and girls as a child. My heart aches because I believed that I was alone in feeling this way. I had no roll models and no one to talk to. I truly hide my feelings until I was in my forties and more lesbians were visible. Although the obvious ones were butch and unlike myself and that even confused me more. But, I knew my days as living as a hetersexual were over completely even if it meant that I was asexual for the rest of my life. No more men! I just didn't connect with them. I couldn't give back emotionally or sexually. I only took from them. It was cold and my heart ached ..for her. But, when I was finally with a woman, I thought I died and went to heaven. I was home!

Now, today, I am very sexual with a woman. It's like I can't get enough. Just the nearness of her body lying there next to me drives me hot with desire to make love to her. I never felt that way with a man. I never wanted to kiss a man all over. With her, I can't get enough. So sad because I finally found this reality in my 58th year.

If I think about it, it makes me very sad that I had to wait so long to fine my niche. Especially when I see my friends who are young couples together so in love! It makes my heart ache with envy. I still don't have that.. only the sex. Some day! I have left that dream up to the universe. I put my request out there and now it's up to the universe to set up my future with a loving, tender, sweet, wonderful woman who is available to me in full and shares my lifestyle, loves, passions and tenderness and who looks like Helen Mirron with blond hair.