Couple of new links added. I changed the Tamara and Allie link from "T and A" (which is apparently their "official" blog name) to the longer version because I didn't like the way the short link looked on the sidebar. Hope nobody minds. I also added Retroactive Continuity and ireneQ to the list. Woo.

Took the Yankee or Dixie? quiz a couple of days ago (I think Val linked it in her blog a while back), which deals with your speaking accent or something. My results? "63% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!" Well, whatever; there's another window I can close now.

My favorite article from The Onion: Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race Of Skeleton People. Boogedy-boogedy. 🙂

So we've been hearing a lot about the Christian and Jewish takes on the subject, but for anyone interested in what Buddhism has to say about homosexuality, give BuddhaNet Magazine's "Homosexuality and Theravada Buddhism" a read.

The links are out of the way; now let's chat.

My sister is supposed to be coming here this weekend, and I really wish I had somewhere to go so I wouldn't be here for it.

Let me explain: my sister is one of a handful of people on this planet whom I truly consider to be my enemies. Not just people I don't like, mind you -- real enemies. Blood enemies. People who've proven to you time and time again that they're thoroughly despicable and will not change, because they take delight in being thoroughly despicable and are constantly praised and encouraged in their pursuits.

My sister was one of the popular kids back in high school. She was one of the "pretty" ones, one of the ones everybody knew, and one of the ones who went out of her way to be especially nasty to people she didn't like. Now that she's in college, she talks about how much she likes to start trouble and provoke fights. Apparently there was some incident that resulted in her posting a really nasty message about someone on her webpage, and after the person sent her a not too kind AIM message about it she printed the thing out, forwarded it to the police, and had the guy taken to court about it. Not because she was actually frightened or thought the guy was a threat, mind you -- just to be nasty and try to get the guy in trouble -- though I'm sure she told the police some sob story about how terrified she was.

What makes me so sure? A couple of months ago my sister was here for the winter break and we got into an argument of sorts. The beginning of it was silly, really. She'd said something earlier about playing video games again in a bit, but she was off doing something else, and the PS2 she'd been using is mine (paid for it in cash with my own money) -- and she'd used it more in the two weeks she'd been there than I had in the past couple of months -- so I fired up a game and was having a go when she came down and started shrieking at me, calling me all manner of names and refusing to move from in front of the television (so I couldn't see what I was doing to play). I should also mention that I wasn't sitting very far from the television, so she was literally standing over me and screaming down into my face. So this went on for quite a while and I don't fancy this kind of thing.

At length, I said, "Kristen, get out of the way."

She replied, "Or you'll WHAT? Huh? Huh? You want to hurt me? Huh?"

I said, "Look, Kristen, I care about you. So no, I'm not going to hurt you. You have nothing to fear from me."

She shouted, "Yeah, 'cause you know if you even touch me I'll call the cops and have your ass arrested!!!!"

I stood up, poked her four times on the shoulder, and sat back down.

And she said, "HA HA HA!!!" and marched over and dialed 9-1-1. Then she dropped to her knees and started wailing into the phone. Now, the conversation I've recorded thus far may not have been verbatim -- it's damned close, of course, but allowances for my memory -- but these are among the exact words she said to the operator: "he just won't stop hitting me" and "I'm really scared..." And then after she hung up the phone she marched right back over into my face and proceeded to gloat and laugh about having called the police until they arrived.

When the doorbell rang, she shouted, "Yeah, the cops are here! Get the door, ASSHOLE!!!" and ran out of the room and up the stairs.

So naturally I went and let the two officers in. When we passed by the staircase, there was my sister, crouched at the top of them, huddled behind the banister and sobbing. She shouted down to the police that I'd attempted to kill her -- and had tried to do so multiple times in the past -- which is of course bullshit on all counts. One of the officers went up to talk to her; the other stayed to hear my take on the situation.

I don't know exactly what she told the other officer, but I told the one who talked to me pretty much what I've written here. To be quite honest, he was pretty pleasant -- most of my encounters with police have been somewhat relaxing, actually -- and after having been shouted at for however long my sister had been at it (I'd say at least twenty minutes, and I'd bet on longer) I was glad for the rational conversation. And I offered to go down to the station with them, sign paperwork, whatever -- but he said that wouldn't be necessary. He didn't even ask for my name.

Before the officers left, the one who had spoken to my sister voiced his concern about leaving us alone, considering the gravity of the situation -- and again I offered to go with them to the station to remove the difficulty -- but he too said that wouldn't be necessary. He merely advised my sister to go to her room and stay there, and to call again if I tried to break in and harm her. Then he and his pleasant partner left.

Not two seconds after they were gone my sister was back screaming in my face, gloating about how she'd gotten me in trouble with the police, saying that that's what happens when you mess with her, and shouting at length about how much she hates me.

Some people hate cops, but I don't -- I think that they're necessary to keep the peace and protect the people, and I really respect what they do. So I don't like it when they have to deal with false alarms -- someone else might really need the help/intervention -- and I really don't like it when they're called out of spite. In the midst of her screaming after they left, she said that she called the police "because I pissed her off" -- though she refused to admit it to my mother, and instead told my mother she was genuinely scared. (For the record, my mother actually lauded her for calling the police, since "men are dangerous" and she'd seen her own sister badly beaten by both her brother and her sister's ex-husband before. So naturally that must have been the present situation as well. If you've read some of my other posts, maybe you're noticing a pattern with my mother's logic.) So calling the police when you know damned well there's no need to -- on me, at that -- is probably the quickest way to get yourself onto my very short list of blood enemies. Doesn't mean you can't be forgiven, doesn't even mean I'll never trust you -- in fact, it means that I do trust you. I trust you to be thoroughly despicable and to take pleasure in it. I trust you to stay exactly as you are -- or to get worse. And I definitely do not want to be anywhere near someone like that.

So no, I don't like my sister, but it's much more than that. And I really wish I had somewhere to go for the duration of time that she's here.

Oh, and she's bringing her stupid little yip-dog too -- I think my mother's going to take care of it for her while she goes to Florida for Spring Break -- so if it destroys any of my things (and I fully expect it to; I haven't seen the dog yet, but I don't expect its character to be much different from that of its owner) it'll just be adding injury to irrevocable injury.

I am not looking forward to this weekend.