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zoo December 27, 2008

Posted by relsdork in christian, church, nature.
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So a couple of weeks ago, the 20/30s group from CCSM went to the San Francisco Zoo.
It was a lot of fun. Steve, one of our ministers, thought the zoo idea was kind of hokey, I think. Hello, the zoo was awesome, though. Apparently some retarded people gave the SF zoo bad reviews online. The SF zoo isn’t the most amazing zoo ever, but it’s still pretty awesome.
I brought my roommate with me. She’s always a nice addition :)
We also brought a couple of our other friends. Norm, who obeys zoo rules quite well:
And Cody, who is a Jew:
My church likes Jews because we need them for the rapture. JUST KIDDING. My church doesn’t embrace rapture theology. Because it’s not biblical. And also because it’s ridiculous.
Anyway, the zoo was super fun. Here are some of the more awesome animals:
Tigers are awesome because they are fierce. I don’t mean fierce like Sasha Fierce, because let’s be real– that’s not fierce at all. This tiger hella wanted to eat us. That is fucking fierce. There is nothing fierce about singing pop music in spandex.
This is a speckled bear. Speckled bears are some of the cutest darn animals EVER. I am going to get one as a pet. Flo says as long as I keep it in my room, it’s go. Haha.
This is a polar bear. It was next to other polar bears that are that shade of white one expects when thinking “polar bear.” Jenn told Steve that polar bears get progressively darker as they age, which he actually bought. Silly Steven.
Silly Steven indeed.
So, ladies and gentlemen, that is Steve, the Minister of Programming and Outreach at my congregation. He’s slightly insane, but he’s pretty awesome.
My favorite part of the zoo is the penguins, of course. We arrived at the penguin exhibit shortly after they were fed, which was slightly lame because a) we didn’t get to see them getting fed and b) they were lazier, having been fed. So they weren’t jumping around in the water and making a bunch of noises, like they often times are. They were still adorable.
One of the cool things about the SF Zoo is that they have peacocks that run around the grounds. They roam and chill and eat food out of childrens’ hands. We also saw a few baby peacocks running around after their mommies. It was kind of adorable. Seeing little kids interact with those birds was kind of awesome.
Florence and I took a picture on these stone lions. I think it’s kind of awesome. Flo said I should take the back lion. “Seriously?” I asked. That rock was a little high up for a shorty like myself. “It’s because you climb trees,” she said. She was right. I got up no problemo.

Florence and I are a pretty cool pair. She even hugs me in photographs where everyone else is standing normally, so that we actually do like the lesbian life partners we joke about being.


The SF zoo also houses 2 grizzly bears. For those of you foreigners (and by foreigners I mean people out-of-state who might not know about California and Californians who don’t know about California), California’s state flag has a grizzly on it. Unfortunately, the population of grizzly bears in California has been completely wiped out. The SF zoo recently obtained these beautiful animals. They are the only 2 living in our state.


This is a gorilla. He made of of the pimpest poses I have ever seen. They looked all savage sitting there, staring at us as. “Whatever, I could take a gorilla,” I said, jokingly. To my surprise, a couple of my friends agreed. Do I really seem that vicious? No.


The giraffes are also cool. It’s funny to see them bend down to drink water. It seems like such a project.


My friends take some pretty cool pictures. Florence and Cody look like they are too cool for school. It’s like they planned it or something (they didn’t).

Florence and I also took this ridiculous picture. “Christmas cards!” she exclaimed afterward. I hope she’s not serious.

Also, anteaters are pretty bomb. Steve said if he were God, he would have given anteaters peacock tails, because then they’d really look cool. Oh, Steve, that is why you are not God. Those poor anteaters would have such cold bums.


We also got to see the otters mating. I don’t have a picture of that.

All in all, super awesome day, added into what was a super awesome week-and-a-half of awesomeness.

i have decided that pretty is a lie December 18, 2008

Posted by relsdork in God, christian, church, nature, politics, religion, struggle.
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Being back in San Francisco is hard. I go back and forth between being depressed and motivated. I miss the Lower Nine constantly. Everything here seems meaningless. Each day in NOLA, I was doing something to make this world better. Today, I’m working on accounting work for my boss. It’s depressing relative to the work I was doing in LA.

I went shopping the other day. Walking through the grocery store, I smiled at people like I was still in LA. Some people looked at me funny, but those smiles landed me in a random conversation with a woman in the parking lot. So I think I’m going to keep acting like I’m in the south, because maybe I’ll get to talk to elderly women in parking lots.

I’m going to let time pass like it does in the South. It matters more how much heart I can put into things than how quickly I can get things done. I’m thinking that school should be part time. Or maybe I’ll take a semester off to do more volunteer work during school time and save money so I don’t have to charge as much of my life. Maybe I won’t have health insurance, but I’m starting to find that everything works itself out. As long as I’m not valuing the wrong things in Life, I’ll have what I need.

Last week, I ate normally. I ate peanut butter and jelly. I ate lots of carbs. And I didn’t feel bad about it. My tummy was bigger than normal and I didn’t care. Last week I was dirty and chubby and maybe even stinky and I didn’t care. I was beautiful last week. I met some gorgeous people last week, none of whom were wearing makeup or nice clothes, and most of whom were in tattered, dirty, second hand clothing. I guess I’ll see how things progress as I spend more time at home, but I think my eating disorder is on its way out of town.

And I hope I keep saying “y’all.” As of now, it’s still in my vocabulary.

“backstage” at the pride parade June 30, 2008

Posted by relsdork in christian, church, gay rights, religion.
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So this morning I participated in the SF Pride Parade… AWESOME!!!!!

My morning started with a walk to the train station… it took me less time than I anticipated, so in my boredom at the train station, I started taking pictures…. I was pretty giddy for the parade.

Our church was wearing red, since that’s our thang, but I made sure to put on the only rainbow thing I had, a belt… oh high school and my days of pop-punk.Caltrain was freaking packed. When the train doors opened, I just stood there for a second, like, “what am I supposed to do?” The seats were all full, the isles were full, and even the space in front of the doors was full. I had to stand on the steps! This got me so pumped!Holla, pride parade! And I have decided that I definitely need to make a rainbow scarf.

I met up with other congregants at the BART station in Millbrae and we took BART to Embarcadero, where we got off into the prideoliciousness. So here are some pictures of “backstage” at pride, since we were actually in the parade. How much does CCSM rock? I took home one of these signs. Florence, I hope you know that I expect to post one of these in our window!!!
Sorry, there will be no pictures of naked men. Or women. Or those that fall in between.

People doing their makeup: Does anyone else think that cross is awesome? I mean, not as if I’ve never seen a rainbow cross before, but when the float got started, amazing! People dancing around in colored robes and singing. Love it!
  Kinda fun.

And yes, finally, marriage equality! These look like Chihuly! And BTW, who is coming with me to the de Young to see the exhibit before September 23rd?

We decided that next year, we need to have balloons. And maybe music? Like, hello, let’s get the freaking choir out here! We also need to make shirts! Chelsea and I thought it would be cool to have a day before hand where we painted shirts. Next year, we need to be so much more awesome. We were brainstorming ideas after we got there.


The Episcopalians holding mass. How powerful.

We should definitely hold a mini-service at Pride. Like, we might not do a full-fledged sermon, but today was so spiritual. How much would it have been enhanced by holding hands and praying?

I am kind of jealous that some of these men look better in dresses than me. See? He is way hotter in that dress than I would be.

I love this!!! Some of the stuff was a little obscure… like, a paint company? But hey, if you’re supporting pride, I kinda don’t care who you are.

And yes, I was a Hillary girl, but I am now rocking the Obama stickers. We are going to ROCK 2008!!!!!!! Nothing can get one jazzed about hope like this year’s pride parade. Seriously, what a huge year this will be. Gay rights and TAKING BACK THE WHITE HOUSE! Are you ready??? Because I am, let me tell you!
Here’s Tomiko, Judy’s service dog. She was all dressed up, too!!! In this picture, she was resting. She was such a trooper! After I had my turn holding the banner for our group, I rocked one of these babies :D

This bad boy’s going in my window in my new apartment for sure. If Flo gets to fill the balcony with cigarette butts, I get to fill it with politics. Ha.
What a fantastic day! What an amazing world we live in, an amazing city San Francisco is, and an amazing church I have. I cannot be brought down today.

One of my favorite moments? My cousin screaming at me from the crowd! Woo!

Ya know, sometimes I love that I am such a sap. I loved today. People in the crowd were amazing. It was so powerful to be standing up there, making a statement that we are supportive… and to see all of the faces in the crowd so happy, so grateful. This is Christianity! Love, support, joy, community. This is God. Christianity is not just conservative Evangelicalism. There are churches out there that will not only not condemn you for your sexuality, but celebrate it with you. We believe that diversity is a blessing, that love is beautiful. This world needs more love and less divisive hatred. This world needs more justice, more marching, more yelling, more smiles, more support. Today was beautiful. Beautiful.

Seriously, what a hopeful day. I feel so positive and amazing. This is a huge year. VOTE NO on the marriage ban! How can our country be contemplating taking this joy away from people? This is a matter of human integrity, not of how profitable certain unions are to our governement. Yes, it is an issue of family… and it’s an issue of not presuming that your family is somehow elite. Everyone deserves to have a loving family, a loving marriage, and a loving community.
And San Francisco??? I am SO excited to live in the Sunset! And then Berkeley? Uh, yeah! I mean, I dunno, I might want to live in the midwest or something ultimately so that I can have a forest (for real). Who knows where life will go? But for right now? This is going to be awesome.
SEE YOU IN CHURCH!!! haha, inside joke

Also, check out the cool freebie I got!