Chicago

Well i went off to chicago and it was i must admit a blast, luckily the weather was much warmer and so beautiful. The weather in kansas on the way up there was crazy though. The girls mother that i was taking up there was pretty worried we would get stuck there. Not such luck though although we did have quite the switch around with hotels and the like. Not to mention I had to mod the whole trip because the first girl I was going to take got sick with mono and strep. So obviously she couldn't go but expedia was super cool and comped me for her ticket. The flight was easy no difficulties on taking off but when we landed apparently another flight had caught on fire or something so we couldn't leave out plane for an hr. i did get a book finished then though, Neil Gaimans Interworld. Its a fantastic read and i recommend it :D. We get there and find out that the hotel i got is way out in the boonies. By the boonies i mean on the complete opposite side of the city in the suburbs High north when the concert was in the deep south.

Well Had to change up hotels once again expedia helped me out there with still alot of confusion it wasn't until we got to the second hotel that we were trying to book that a really cool hotel manager sat us down explained a lot of Chicago to us and booked us in the merchant market. Now we hoped the trains and took off towards the merchant mart and it was a good long ways away so thank good for cheap public transfer in chicago cause cabs are expensive. But we eventually made it to the merchant mart in the heart of downtown chicago and tooled around in the shops and stores. Found a book store that was going out of business and made sure to pick up ever Neil Gaiman book they had and I didn't not to mention a Micheal Crighton book that they found at his place after his death fully complete. excited to read that. Finally made it to our hotel which was i admit more expensive but wow was it amazing. They had a sky bar that I ended up spending most of my time at over the trip.

Checked into our room had two marvelously big beds, just a very pretty room and we relaxed. i really wanted to check out the sky bar and Meredith said she needed to get ready to i took off to sit and relax with a martini in a sky bar. First of in a really expensive bar martinis are very expensive and had it not been for a random girl asking me to take part in a free very old scotch tasting i would have felt I spent too much there. After the martini I ordered Japanese beers and Guinness. Their Guinness was an elixar of the gods though soooooo good. So I sat there looking out over a beautiful city and reading my second book. Odd and the frost giants. It's a very short book and I polished it off that evening. Meredith came down and we grabbed a cab to go see eddie izzard Who was just as funny as he always is. I laughed until my face hurt from smiling. And I got to sit on the floor where Micheal Jordan had become a legend. Eddie's skit was very british and I'm used to that I have lived with a brit and watch alot of britsh tv. When I showed my roomate later he couldn't catch half the jokes. But in the moment they were very spot on. Very Izzard. Took a bus and a train back after the show because the cabs were charging rediculous amount of money to get out of the bad part of chicago went back to the sky bar and ordered a deep dish pizza to be delivered. After filling our bellies we decided to hit the hay and look forward to our adventours tommorrow.

After sleeping in we got up and took a trip over to the Chicago institute of art really made me wonder about getting into art school again. But i picked up an application fro my brothers who i believe will do great things in the world of art. Then we took off into the city to check out all the sites. While chicago was beautiful that day nothing in downtown was open. It was really weird all the shops were closed down and had signs saying only open on the weekdays. Lesson learned for the next trip i take out this way. So without any shops to duck into we ate at a subway. Then took the trains back to the Airport where my tickets were once again changed for an earlier flight. I swear i made a ridiculous amount of changes to my itinerary. Made it back to KC alright and then back to Manhattan. Not bad weather to worry about or nothing. When I got back i immediately picked cherry up and went to a party. Bad idea i had already worked a ton that week and topping that off with a long distance trip and severe lack of sleep i was not the life of the party to say the least. Luckily I crashed hard that night and didn't wake up till late the next day ready to go to work again. returning to normal life and well thus the story goes.

So angry i could spit

I am a Christian, I believe in a good and loving god, but I find it really hard to be around other Christians more often than not because there is a lot of hate in those circles. When I went to MCC as a christian college i had hoped to be readily accepted but I was not. not by the general student pop they all separated in to high school circles of preps, jocks, super holy kids, and rebellious kids. There I was with a few friends but not really any cement friends to call my own in fact a rarely talk to any of my student peers from MCC. It wasn't until i ran into a local group of wiccans and pagans that i felt truly accepted. They accepted me as a christian with my beliefs and didn't judge me. Just loved me for who I was something I rarely see christian groups do. I think it has to do with all these rules Christians put forth . Sure there are rules for all kinds of things but some of those rules have to be followed or you are ostracized. For instance no sex before marriage but I know almost all my christian friends had sex before I did in fact they would fool around at church events. So i guess that must have been ok so long as you can keep it a secret. In fact its come down to secret keeping more than anything if you did something bad and feel guilty you can't talk to other Christians about it because you will be judged by your peers. It's this type of reactionism that drove me away from the church. Back in the day my GF was living with me and no as gods my witness we did not have sex but because she was living with me and i didn't hide that fact my church took my scholarship away. My family stood by me and i think them for that and view them as true Christians able to accept me for whom i am and love me without judging. My mother and father have been most instrumental in raising me to love others no matter who they are or what they have done.

I don't lie anymore, i don't see the point and I hate secrets, I will keep a secret but as for my life I will tell you the truth if you ask me. this has been at times both convenient because people know i don't lie and very inconvenient for other people who thought something we did together was confidential. lol Oh its gotten me into a few fixes. Altogether though its been wonderful. Now i haven't had to face the ugly head of the obsessively hateful christian right in a while and that's saying something because of the siding with the right politically and i firmly believe that churches should stay out of politics. So because i respect and love my dad i try and stop myself from ranting about the FAR right. But recently i found out about something so disastrously evil that it made my skin crawl. Three evangelists went to Uganda to speak out against being gay. WHY!?! what happened to the word of Christ's love. What happened to God salvation. Why are they spreading messages of hate and fear mongering. Due to these threes interference in Uganda a bill was proposed to execute any person who was found to be gay. Women and men there had already been overly abused for it but now they were to be executed. All because of some hateful propaganda spread by followers of "god" This is not what it means to be Christians and it is not our right to judge other and especially to dispose the assumed will of our lord on them. Some of my best and dearest friends are gay in fact one is looking to go to Africa in the peace core. Could you imagine how i would feel if he was executed for his sexual orientation because of what these three instigated. it turns my stomach to see the hate that boils away in the hearts of Christians everywhere for gays. God loves them too. The verses these groups use to support their claims to biblical hatred come from the old testament which were laws imposed by the leaders of the time to coral the misdeeds of the people and were then put null n void when Christ came. Gave use the true rule to live by. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Would you like it if gays were in the majority and forced laws not allowing heterosexuals to get married, or went about attempting to kill people just because they loved the opposite sex. Think about it from the opposite side of the table here folks. This is wrong and we as Christians are not called to HATE, but to love and accept and allow God to be the final say in these matters and if he indeed finds them unholy well then it's on him because I will continue to love my friends no matter their sexual preference, race, or religion. That's what i am called to do by my creator. Hate is just to much work and way to hard to get rid of. Remember back to that story of how my church kicked me to the curb. Well that was one of the first times i felt hate for someone else and I held onto that hatred for many years. It wasn't until i let it go that i was able to forgive and forget. PS gay marriage wont ruin the sanctity of marriage that's ridiculous, its a love act where two people are commeting to each other for life. sigh... sometimes i hurt for people victimized by others who rationalize things with God's approval.