Lesley Seacrist's Online Portfolio

Rethinking Abuse
The shocking reality of domestic violence in the LGBT community
by Lesley Seacrist, staff writer
March 21, 2006 10:08 AM

Holly Robinson stands in the corner, rubbing away the mascara-saturated tears streaming down her face. She looks at her girlfriend who lies a couple feet away, bent over with her back leaning against the refrigerator. After bouts of chaotic cursing, bottles breaking, and bodies colliding, the only sounds remaining are heavy breaths and sniffling cries. All Robinson wants is a clean house and a clear
conscience, but instead her girlfriend gives her bruises and insults. When she pushed her, Robinson didn’t expect her to lash back with her fists…

There are fixed misconceptions about intimate partner abuse, one being that it occurs only between dominant men and subservient women. Under-researched and kept quiet in marginalized communities, lesbian intimate partner violence is ignored by the larger public, even though it is as prevalent as heterosexual abuse. Multiple variables contribute to the absence of awareness, such as the lack of public services, the fear of being “outed,” and the gender constructions that define women to be docile.

The difference between Robinson’s situation and most heterosexual altercations is the likelihood of abuse turning into an all out fight between equally matched partners. Robinson thought that there was no reason not to fight back– she and her partner were the same size.

The Community United Against Violence (CUAV) in San Francisco has multiple services, including counseling, legal advise, and emergency assistance for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQQ) community facing violence. They also helped the National Coalition of Anti-Violence compile the 2003 domestic violence annual report that found 388 cases of LGBT partner abuse in San Francisco (an increase of 8.4 percent from 2002.)

“The issue that gravely affects us is that we expect that there are just several more cases that never seek help from CUAV,” said Andy Ywong, the Director of Development and Communication.

A nationwide study is being conducted to revise the Danger Assessment-2, a survey that is used by social workers and law enforcement to assist women in determining the level of abuse in their lesbian relationships. Researchers are seeking 200 women who are or were in an abusive relationship with another woman. For more information, please contact Emily Gardner toll free at 877-897-7741 or emilyg@bradleyangle.org.

Murder?
How I escaped not feeling guilty about hunting in liberal San Francisco.
by Lesley Seacrist, staff writer
April 18, 2006 1:58 AM

As I grab a pinch of tobacco from the Drumm pouch, I tell a friend how much I would love to go quail hunting. We had just finished a class discussion about Cheney’s hunting accident. He turns his head. His jaw lowers and, with a blank face, he asks if I am serious. The utter disappointment in his eyes tells me to proceed gingerly. I lick the paper and roll the tobacco into a cigarette. I gesture with a nod that I am serious, light the tip of my roll-up and begin to tell him about my family’s sportsman traditions. With the same slack-jawed expression, he coldly informs me that I am a murderer.

I came to San Francisco from San Jose well aware that I was walking into a liberal commune; voted one of the most vegetarian-friendly cities by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. However, just because I’m a hunter, I am also called a murderer? Literally speaking, he is dead on (pun intended). But he loaded that word with a lot more gunpowder than there is in a shotgun shell. People have become so quick to judge based on their own lifestyles and too self-righteous to take the time to understand why people choose to hunt, so content to paint the red-circled target on my forehead.

Hunters love nature and most respect it. I might be as bold to say they love it more than a cold can of beer– and that’s a lot of love. We recognize that without the ponds, water and ducks that frolic with the north wind, our sport is dead. There is a strong mystical bond with the outdoors that rages like a river in the veins of hunters. It’s that excited look in their eye the night before the opening day of duck season. It’s blowing a duck call in the bathroom. It’s remaining in the duck blind, long after shoot time is over, to watch the sunset silhouette hundreds of decoys on the pond.

I accompanied my father and brother to the Duck Club near Los Banos every weekend before I left for college. The club consisted of about 13 trailers facing each other with a pebbled-dirt road running through the middle. At 6 a.m., motors would rev up, dogs would jump up on the back seat and headlights would bounce up and down out towards the foggy marsh duck ponds surrounding the entire property.

I looked so majestic with my forest green waders up to my chest, my oversized Shadow-Grass camo Gortex jacket, and 20-gage Benelli shotgun perched across my shoulders. My father and I would walk about a half-mile before arriving at duck blind 41. We would sit on cement cylinders in the middle of the pond among the cattails and toolies dancing in the wind. We would scour the dark sky for hours waiting for ducks to fly by. Sometimes we would shoot the limit (seven) and sometimes we came back to the cabin empty handed with only eggs to eat.

If people would just take the square, white piece of soy out of their mouths and get off their 10-speed Schwinn high horse, they might open up their minds, like their pores after Wednesday night Birkham Yoga class. However, that might be as likely as a hippie on Haight pulling a comb through her hair.

My classmate wanted to paint my story with a murderous scarlet hue. Instead, I choose to take the same can of paint to argue my conviction. Hunters are doing more to protect the environment than most people think.

“There are no other better conservationists than hunters,” says Bob McLandess, president of the California Waterfowl Association. “We make sure we aren’t overusing its resources.”

The CWA won conservationist of the year from the Wildlife Western Section, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization. Supported by private contributions, government grants and fundraising game dinners, its mission is to foremost ensure that the environment will thrive. The CWA seeks to protect the open land from current societal pressures to lay concrete over every inch of dirt.

Strict regulations mandated by the California Department of Fish and Game encourages hunters to respect the nature surrounding them. I remember the game wardens sneaking through the Duck Club with their white pick-up trucks in search of hunters without licenses and illegal bird counts. Even though most of the men in the club didn’t like the warden, they would shoot the shit about hunting politics for hours and invite him to stay for a barbeque.

“Seasons and legal methods of take ensure that California’s hunter success rate will never be high enough to adversely impact wildlife populations,” said Lorna Bernard, information officer for the California Department of Fish and Game.

The object of hunting isn’t solely to kill as many animals as possible. It’s a misconception that the sport is for satisfying power hungry camouflaged egos. Hunting is a complex relationship with nature that involves a lot of give and take. It’s almost as if hunters take the environment out on romantic dates, flirt under the moonlight, whisper words of commitment, and then the environment is kinda expected to put out.

Instead of pointing the quivering murderous finger at me for my hunting traditions, we should consider the other actual murderously horrid methods of killing animals, like the mass production of meat byproducts or the clothing industries that cage and harvest animals inhumanely in an assembly line–degrading the animal to just capital and not a living creature in the ecosystem.

I have learned from hunting to respect animals and the environment that we both live in and no one with a picket sign or hypocritical granola (mind you it does go well on top of yogurt) agenda is going to disprove that. Learn something from me and think for a couple moments (the precious Boca Burger can wait) about the role of hunters on this earth before deciding that I should be smeared with red paint for believing something else.

The Joy When Joan becomes John
A Pre and Post Look At The Transistioning of FtM Relationships
by Lesley Seacrist staff writer
October 3, 2006 10:49 AM

Cory hands Ben a brown paper bag while he sits on the bathroom toilet hyperventilating. Ben is ready for a freak-out, and feels entitled considering what Cory, his girlfriend, just told him. He plays it all back in his head. He thinks about Greece. He thinks about when he finally decided to transition. He remembers a couple days ago, sitting Cory down to tell her about his decision to take testosterone. He dwells over what she just said– over dinner she told him that she could not promise her love when he began to alter his sex. He stands up from the toilet seat and leaves her house.

Ben Lunine had the important conversation that many female-to-male (FtM) transgender partners have with their significant others. The question of is if the other partner can continue to commit after the intake of hormones as the female body slowly becomes male. The gender issue is more complex than most intimate topics of conversation, and what it means to sexually transition during a relationship with a significant other varies with each couple. Nevertheless, gender is becoming more fluid and changing with each passing generation, making unconventional bonds like trans-relationships more visable.

Ben Lunine and Cory Wechsler met on a December day while riding BART. They didn’t expect the conversation to flow so easily and fun. Before exiting the train in San Francisco to take a law exam, Ben gave Cory his card with his number. However, during that time in 2003, Ben’s business card was different than the card he gives his clients today. The centered black print listed a female name.

“We both lived in the East Bay and did lots of hiking, watching movies, making dinner and just being together,” says Cory. “And when he started exploring his gender, then we went to a lot of queer clubs.”

Ben couldn’t rap his mind around being a transgender at the time they first began to date. He viewed gender as having more than two options, but knew few FtM’s to understand that identity.

“Then I heard genderqueer,” says Ben in his downtown Attorney’s law office. “It was an opening and it felt comfortable. I asked people not to use pronouns for six months.”

However, Ben’s quest for the perfect gender didn’t end there and he soon coined himself as a “genderqueer drop-out.” With more trans-visibility and FtM friends, Ben decided to come out as a male-indentified trans-person.

“It was much easier when I came out as genderqueer,” says Ben, dressed in nice black slacks and shinny black dress shoes behind a white Mac desktop. “It didn’t mean that I was going to change my body.”

But Ben did have plans to change his body. He put off transitioning for a couple of months to prioritize the relationship, when he noticed that coming out changed the relationship between him and Cory.

“I think a lot of people prolong not transitioning because they are afraid of losing their support system; their jobs, their friends and their partners,” said Koen Baum, who is a licensed family therapist and Senior Gender Specialist. “There is a lot of potential gain, but I think the fear of the potential loss and also the reality of potential loss– and that prolongs taking hormones.”

For many transgender guys, transitioning is a big decision and the repercussions of it loop in their mind like a broken record. For Ben his girlfriend’s hesitation led him to put off hormones until he visited Greece in search of Socrates and one of the famous philosophers quotes began to repeat in his mind.

“An unexamined life is not worth living,” quoted Ben. “And there I was 6,000 miles away from home and I realized that I do identify as a guy.”

When Ben returned to the Bay Area, he would sit Cory down and tell his girlfriend of a year and a half that he was going to begin transitioning to a more masculine body with chest surgery and testosterone. And a couple days later, she would sit Ben down and tell him that she could not promise to commit.

“At some point early when he was genderqueer, I thought that this was not the end of it and that he was going to take T (testosterone),” says 32-year-old Cory. “However I fell for this person and that didn’t surprise me. There were parts of him that were attractive and I definitely realized that my spectrum leaned towards the more androgynous to genderqueer. There were some dynamics that worked and some that didn’t.”

Cory opted to continue dating Ben through the process of his transitioning, but she felt that it was a lot to ask of her to go through the process.

Ben’s transition was quick. Chest surgery required him to lay low for a couple of weeks but testosterone took to his body well and he went through “the good, the bad and the ugly” stages relatively fast.

“I would tell people that I was trans and they wouldn’t believe me,” said Ben, spooning a bowl of clam chowder in a downtown bistro.

“He got so much denser and hairier,” says Cory. “There were parts of it that I liked. Our sexual relationship was fascinating, everything was cracked open for exploring experiences with no boundaries–gender got to play out under the sheets.”

Even though the sex was fun and exciting, Cory had a hard time with her own transition to aspects of the relationship. She was challenged by the fear of the unknown, unsure of what the testosterone was going to do to her partner. She also felt a loss of community and missed being in a lesbian relationship. This transition of identity is a struggle for many trans-relationships, when their queer identity gets mistaken for a heterosexual one.

In addition, there are a lot of identity politics that circulate through queer communities as a whole. Sometimes, lesbian identified partners fear a vanishing of their community, since they no longer fit into the neat mold.

“Like the lesbian community if you are in it,” says Baum. “You feel like family and then your life takes a different turn, like you fall in love with someone who is transitioning and that community feels threatened, like you are going to the enemy and becoming mainstream.”

Another trans-couple, Aimee Hodgekiss and Gabe Scelta, hadn’t really given much thought to the identity question as they mildly argued if Hodgekiss would care if she was mistaken as straight again.

“I think you might have a harder time than you think,” says Gabe, explaining to his girlfriend the realities of when he does transition. “People are going to treat you like how you treat straight girls.”

Aimee sits on a lime green floral couch in a Mission District cafe and reveals a bit of discontent over an aspect she hasn’t thought about much. Her three-month relationship with Gabe has been nothing but fun and love filled. They both laughed over being “a Lexington Bar success story.”

Aimee identifies as queer and already has a desire for transmen.

“They are the best of both worlds,” she says sipping on her cup of Yerba Mate. “I love the attitude and the dress, besides tits have never been the thing for me, I am an ass person.”

Gabe admires Aimee’s beauty, intelligence, and temperament. He also thinks she has a great ass.

“I think we complement each other,” he says embracing her hand while she nods with agreement.

Gabe wants to have chest surgery as soon as possible, but is without the proper funds. He only wants to transition partially and only temporarily take testosterone. He doesn’t want to be seen as a straight dude and enjoys being a transman with an emphasis on being androgynous.

They continue to joke on the couch together, poking fun that Aimee is a trans-red-head and how she started the bottle (hair-dye) when she was sixteen.

“There are some that don’t even know what I am,” Aimee pulls her fingers through her short, curly reddish brown hair.

However, Gabe is concerned for passing as a heterosexual and explains how it is a bigger issue for the femme when a lot of their identity comes from who is standing next to them.

“I really don’t see it being a big deal,” Aimee interjects. “I don’t think my identity has anything to do with you–I am just going to be me and I am proud to be with you, baby.”

“The females [partner] have their own invisible transition to be recognized,” says Kim Hraca, a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) at a private practice in Berkeley. “And the couple is going through it at different places with different experiences.”

Hraca is working with Max Fuentes Fuhrmann Ph.D. on a couple’s retreat in Southern California scheduled for February 2007. Trans-identified men and their partners are expected to increase communication, deepen intimacy, enrich the relationship and hear about how others handle similar situations. “We will address the unique issues that arise for couples who have questioned gender as well as universal themes that come to all couples is relationships,” she says.

“We felt like there isn’t enough resources for that community,” says Hraca who specializes in working with people who have different gender and sexual identities. “There isn’t enough depth about going through a relationship after transitioning.”

Cory could relate to what Hraca described as invisible transition. She felt that Ben’s transition was central to their relationship and that time couldn’t handle other issues that came up–so much energy was put in that she stopped imagining the future.

“Parts of me closed,” Cory says. “I lost my voice.”

“Transitioning is a very self-absorbed process,” Hraca says. “One partner is excited about what is going on in their body and the other partner is grieving about the losses. For some couples they don’t carry and sometimes they absolutely carry through.”

Even though Ben and Cory’s relationship ended, they are still loving friends and take great value in the time they shared. Both have moved on with other relationships, but will never forget their own.

Aimee and Gabe have yet to go through the process, yet they both feel confident that despite how much T can throw off a relationship, their strong personalities will illustrate how being with the best people during such a rough period is what matters.

“I’m seeing relationships survive transitioning more than not,” says Hraca. “Now there is an attitude that it can survive and if the relationship has the strength and foundation, it actually gains more honesty and depth.”

“I feel really honored to do that with Ben,” Cory explains. “I grew so much with our process and feel so blessed that we got through the hardest parts to try again and let us be in each others lives. I feel at peace and it was just what it was.”

The couples retreat is scheduled February 23-25, 2007. For more information contact Kim Hraca at (510) 601-1859.

Your Guide to Sex After 60
Book Review detailing Boomers Bedside Manners
by Lesley Seacrist staff writer
October 19, 2006 5:19 PM

Go ahead, have the best sex of your life, no matter what your age, ability, or what electrical device you have to rub against. Grab sex with both hands and say, even though I have low hormone levels, my partner is impotent, and I can no longer spread my legs like a book; you are mine sex and I’m not letting you go.

A beautiful idea for all, but attaining that mentality isn’t all that simple. There are obstacles for everyone, especially those over 60 years old. Better than I Ever Expected-Straight talk about sex over sixty, by Joan Price says that although the problems of older folks are different from those of a younger age, most of them have solutions that could improve sex life more than can ever be imagined.

With her trusty sidekick husband Robert Rice, Price combats the myths of dead bed and offers advice from medical situations like lack of natural moisture or erection dysfunction to comprising time to schedule in sex that usually takes longer. The book is a positive testimony from Price’s love life and snips of advice or truth from “sexually seasoned women.

For those who don’t have a sex trainer on the night stand, the book offers ideas that will make you feel sexy, confident, and turn over to tap your partner on the shoulder to tell them it’s go time. For those who think that senior citizens don’t make whoopee, or those who think it’s past their time for that kind of recreational activity, this book tells you to think again and get hip to the realities of sex.

“We’re staking out new territory here,” writes Price in her introduction. “Now that I had passed midlife, sex was different, to be sure, but wildly satisfying. Why didn’t anyone tell me this would and could happen? Why weren’t we talking about it? Why weren’t we writing about it?”

Well, she does all the above and really tackles the issues of sex and aging. However, to be more critical, the chances of most 60-plus people relating to Price, a dance instructor, fitness professional and overall bundle of energy, is slim (speaking figuratively.)

But, however true this may be the problem doesn’t lie with Price assuming everyone is able to keep up with normal sex practices, it is the poor health situation Americans are in today, especially after the past midlife age. The book illustrates a possible sex life that everyone can achieve if the health, companionship and desire are worked hard for.

Another criticism that is hard to overlook is that even though the book is 266 pages of resources and positives words about changing the common notion of sex and aging, the book fell short visually. Of, course you can’t judge a book by its cover, but there is something wrong when the preacher is disguised with 20-something thighs. Even though the furniture catches the age demographics of those reading, the legs skip back some four decades. Why couldn’t they just stay true to the message?

No matter, the message was a helpful one for both 60-plus and those younger who will one day be older. The youth culture needs to know how to improve their own sex life when they notice the unpleasantries and benefits of maturing. Instead of “throwing in the towel” the attitude should be one of how to use it to tie your partner to the bedpost.

Better Than I Ever Expected- Straight talk about sex after sixty, by Joan Price is available through bookstores and online booksellers. You can also learn other tips from Price’s personal blog at www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com

Bleed the Color of Dodgers Blue Hate
San Francisco Giants fans believe being a Dodgers fan is a vice
by Lesley Seacrist, staff writer
October 29, 2006 6:36 PM

The announcer declares the next up to bat. The last name spurs on a myriad of scattered boos, which gather into an over arching holler of discontent. Once the crowd settles down with their peanuts and nachos, a curly-haired woman stands up from the lower deck and begins screaming with anger, “We didn’t even like you when you were on the Giants, Kent!” Dodger fans nearby pay no attention. Kent hits a single, and the blue fans pop up, giving high fives to total strangers with grunts and figurative chest butts. An older Giants fan sitting a row lower snickers to his wife about how there are too many Dodgers fans these days.

In San Francisco, it is a vice to be a Dodger fan. Ask any body from either side — its validated by slanderous remarks of pure un-sportsman-like hate. The competitive loathing stems back to New York when the Giants and Dodgers began their rivalry in the Polo Grounds stadium. It continued when they both jumped over to the West Coast. From pennant running, to this year’s knock out of the race for the National League West division, if you are a Dodgers fan, you are despised in orange and black territory.

On a warm game day, Cory Adams will wear his orange T-shirt with the Giants logo printed across the chest, black Dickies pants, boxers and a black beanie with the Giants the SF logo facing front. On a cold game day he wears practically the same clothes, but he adds a grey Giants embroidered sweatshirt and orange puffy vest.

“Yeah, Man, I bleed orange and black,” Adams says in a hyper-masculine serious tone. “I fucking hate the Dodgers! I’ve been a Giants fan all of my life, and since I have been a kid, there has been a rivalry.”

Like many die-hard Giants fans, when the topic of baseball comes up, a rapid stream of players last names, RBI stats and how many bases were occupied pour out of their mouths like foreign jargon similar to the tugging of the ear, whipping of the brow and tapping on the chest sign language the coach gives to the batter. But the language that is clear is the hatred when the topic of the Dodgers makes it’s way to the plate.

“Dodger fans and the Dodgers team are air-headed celebrity types who know nothing about baseball and are there only to be seen,” says Patrick J. Gallagher, President of San Francisco Giants Enterprises in an email interview describing the assigned stereotypes to the team. “Dodgers are Hollywood, plastic, fake, shallow. [While] Giants are loyal, tough, and hardworking.”

The list of the possible reasons Giants fans want to punch Dodgers fans in the face are limitless. However, a few universal reasons seem to flare up in every fan’s passionate soul long after the bottom of the ninth the question of who has the best home turf.

When the Giants battled the Dodgers in New York, it was a feud of the upper class New York Giants against the rough and tumble Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodger fans were mostly lower-income immigrants who felt the Giants fans from Manhattan were flaunting their privilege. Actually the name Dodgers was a derogatory term that the Manhattanites gave to Brooklynites because they thought they were trolley dodgers, assuming they were unable to pay the fare.

Not to mention the low blow delivered by Bobby Thomson, that still puts red in a seasoned Dodger’s face.

According to Gallagher and any Giants fan it was one of the most prolific baseball moments. In 1951 when the Giants came from 15 games back in mid-August to knock the front-running Dodgers out of first place in the last game of the season at the Polo Grounds. Thomson’s “shot heard round the world” walk off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Giants the National League Pennant.

In 1957, the New York Giants decided to move the franchise across the country, due to a deteriorating Polo Grounds stadium. But the rivalry over grounds didn’t change a bit when they moved to San Francisco. Instead of a duel over the Hudson River, it was a battle over good ol’ Cali.

“They [Dodgers] play in a homogenized, sterile, good weather, stadium, where fans arrive in the 3rd inning and leave in the 7th,”to beat the traffic,” says Gallagher. “Verses having the guts, fortitude and determination to follow the Giants at cold-windy Candlestick Park…not for wimps. AT&T Park now gives us a better ballpark than the Dodgers, though.”

Aside from the Dodger bashing, because theyre SoCal “shallow,” further rivalry embroils when SoCal mixes with NorCal, either up in San Francisco or in L.A. sometimes in the most violent of ways.

In 1938, a Dodger’s fan named Robert Joyce shot and killed two patrons at a bar when they wouldn’t partake in his smack talking about the Giants. In September of 2003, a Giants fan was shot and killed in the Dodgers stadium parking lot by a Dodger’s fan after the game. And don’t forget the regretful incident of 1965 when Dodgers catcher Johnny Roseboro said something that infuriated Giants pitcher Juan Marichal to the point that he turned and hit Roseboro with his bat.

Even though these illustrate the darker side of the rivalry, lighter moments persist to keep fans and casual enthusiasts hooked. Tommy Lasorda blowing kisses to the fans while walking through the tunnel at Candlestick, while thousands of Giants fans boo. Jeff Kent talking trash about the Giants while in the freshly pressed Dodgers uniform. Jackie Robinson retiring from the Dodgers instead of wearing Giants’ colors.

Like Robinson, Carlo Delgatillo is a Dodgers fan, but when he moved up North, he still wanted to watch baseball even though the telecast didn’t show Dodgers games. He became a die-hard Oakland Athletics fan, because it was impossible for him to be a Giant’s fan.

Last season Delgatillo went all out and wore the Dodger blue wig with a Dodger helmet. He also had a plastic mega phone, so his rants and raves were even louder bouncing throughout AT&T Park.

“I despise the Giants,” Delgatillo says, who lives in San Francisco, but is from Los Angeles. “The whole vibe at the Giants stadium whenever they are playing the Dodgers. There is this electricity and passion that you cannot get anywhere else.”

It seems like there is always that one Dodgers fan in San Francisco who is friends with a group of Giant fans and they get teased and tormented about bleeding Dodger blue and eating Dodger Dogs.

“They keep on saying you’re rooting for the wrong team,” says Delgatillo, referring to his friends from Northern California. “They take off my hat. It’s hard to say stuff back because I am in San Francisco. I just deal with it until the Dodgers win.”

“Dodgers have had more success (some at the expense of the Giants) over the West Coast years–or at least it seems like it,” says Gallagher. “Even during a disappointing season, if the Giants can at least beat the Dodgers–all is not lost. The Giants have yet to win a World Championship in SF, [but the] Dodgers have won five World Series since being in L.A.”ouch!”

Although Dodgers fans are loathed and looked down upon in San Francisco, an underlying respect is bestowed for the loyalty and love of the game.

“The Dodgers are just like Giants fans,” says Adams. “But they are always wrong.”

Non Smoking?
Some Smokers Just Will Never Learn, Some Learn From others.
by Lesley Seacrist staff writer
October 29, 2006 8:26 PM

My feet slide on the loose gravel, as my butt lands on the slightly damp blacktop. I unwrap the plastic case and toss the trash into a close bush. My friend, Maria, to the right pulls out a Bic lighter from her hoody pocket and lights the cigarette dangling from my mouth. I take a long drag and begin to tell my six-lesbians-in-a-hot-tub story. Ten minutes later, I light another of my Parliament Lights. Eighty minutes later, the pack of 20 was just loose flakes of tobacco.

The truth is even when I was smoking like a sailor, I was a horrible smoker. It affected me in all the unsexy ways. My four years of smoking was filled with chronic allergies and major congestion, I thought the heaving and wheezing was a satisfactory sacrifice of my health. Add coughing and spitting up yellow crap every 10 minutes and getting sick every month.

I admit smoking was fun, relaxing, and just right with a couple of Anchor Steams. God, there was something to say sitting on a splintery back patio picnic table with a Camel between my two fingers, telling a story with eccentric hand motions. However, the day my mother, who has never smoked one cigarette in her life, a real goodie too shoes, told me she had breast cancer, I realized that I would never want to tell my own children that I could have prevented my own cancer. I haven’t smoked in five months.

“Tobacco is the second major cause of preventable death in the world. Tobacco kills more than AIDS, legal drugs, illegal drugs, road accidents, murder, and suicide combined,” say the American Lung Association. “It is currently responsible for approximately 5 million deaths each year. If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2030.”

Before I stopped, I ranted like all the other pack-a-days. I cursed those who made me walk 20 feet away from the over hang when it was raining, became pissed when courtesy coughs drifted into ear-shot, and couldn’t understand why the hell they wanted to control what I was doing to my own body.

The guy to the right of me is probably going to rant and rave just like I had, waving his lit tip up in the air, kicking and screaming his own right to freedom to inhale the lovely smoke of centuries of “I don’t give a damn.”

The truth is pal, that your hardcore attitude is the same one that is continuing this American tradition of self-destruction. We never let the fat girl get away with another piece of cake without layers of judgment, why is the skinny white boy allowed to buy five dollars worth of years of health problems? Because it is his choice, his body, and his health insurance (maybe), right? I am not against all forms of population control, when it is between consenting adults.

Unfortunately, Crassholes choice isn’t only inhaled by him, seeping through his blood stream and piling up as black layers in his lungs.

This smoker’s choice places 40 tons of nicotine, 355 tons of soot and ash, 1,900 tons of carbon monoxide in California’s air each year. I know there are other contributing factors: cars exhaust, factory exhaust, and all the political lies drifting up like a black plume. There is no denying that multiple factors dirty the air, but it can’t be an argument for something that contributes to 400 additional lung cancer deaths a year in nonsmokers, 3,600 deadly heart attacks and 31,000 asthma attacks in children, according to California’s Clean Air Project.

But here is the real kicker for me. For the first time, the California Air Resource Board in 2006 concluded that women exposed to secondhand smoke have up to a 68 percent greater risk of breast cancer, what am I going to say to my kids now?

And for you Walter babes, Philip Morris has been targeting the GLBT community in magazines and bars since 92′. Fifty-nine percent of GLBT youth use tobacco, while only 35 percent of non-GLBT youth do. So don’t try to say that your rights are being taken away now. The Man had you pinned down and gagged way before you started.