The GirlAlive Blog

“You look like you could be from Proctor”

In 2000 I went to Russia on a missionary trip with my church at the time, City Calvary Chapel (from Seattle). I was sick through most of the trip because of undiagnosed chronic stomach problems. Because of that, I was left in Moscow for several days while the rest of my group went on to Ryazan.

A few days later I joined the group in Ryazan and a man walked up to me and said, “You look like you could be from Proctor.” That man was Loren Harrison. He was from Duluth and had been told that a girl from Proctor (a suburb of Duluth) was part of our group from Seattle. He was kind and generous and in every way an example of a great Christian man. I found out that he went to the same church in Duluth as my parents, but didn’t really know them (it was a large church).

When I went back to Duluth for Christmas later that year I was able to introduce my parents to Loren, and also meet Loren’s wife and kids. My parents became fast friends with Loren and his family. In the intervening years, he has done missionary work all over Africa.

Loren suffered from a ruptured brain aneurysm earlier this week. He was airlifted to a hospital with skilled neurosurgeons in Minneapolis, but in spite of their best efforts, he never regained consciousness and passed away yesterday. He was 50 years old.

Loren loved helping people and did missionary work all over the world. He never saw an “us” and “them”, but understood that there are only different faces of “us”. Please pray for his family and friends as we are all struggling with losing someone so suddenly and so young. The world is a worse place with Loren no longer in it.

Plans and the absence thereof.

I haven’t been posting here. That is pretty obvious. I’ve been spending a lot of time reblogging stuff on Tumblr and sending out half-assed tweets, but I’ve mostly been laying low.

There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, I just don’t feel very witty or entertaining lately. I feel like anything I write here is going to be a disappointment after spending so long not writing here. And then it compounds the longer I fail to write.

I’m going to be flat-out honest about another reason I’m not posting here. Back in 2008 I left my job with the NHS under not very good circumstances. I had said some things about my job here that offended people. I also said things here that were in no way related to my job — in some cases written as much as 4 or 5 years before I even worked for the NHS — that was used against me in a complaint from my (now former) co-workers. So I am understandably wary about being honest on the internet. But enough time has passed now that I can be honest and mention that when I left that job, the boss basically threatened me and said that if I ever wrote anything negative about anyone working at the NHS again, she’d make sure I never got hired by anyone ever again.

So what has happened here lately? I got hired by a non-profit organization back in January, for a 6 month contract working in clinical trials. I worked those 6 months, and now I’m unemployed again, though I am working a few days this week at my old office as a consultant, to help them with a bit of a backlog.

During my time working there, we lost two of our guinea pigs. Elvis died from unknown causes. He lost weight and then eventually died. After he died, Fudge was distraught. He stopped eating and wasted away, dying about a month after Elvis. Apparently, Fudge didn’t know that it was time to eat if Elvis wasn’t there squeaking about it.

We are down to two pets. Spike is getting old. He’s nearly 6 years old, which is pretty ancient for a guinea pig. He never squeaks at dinner time. He hardly squeaks at all, so it’s been very quiet here. He’s developed an impacted anal gland, so husband has the unenviable job of cleaning out a smelly guinea pig ass every so often.

We still have our hamster Luna. She’s a terrible hamster. She bites and tries to escape and seems to be furious most of the time. I’ve never seen so much hate packed into such a tiny fluffy package. We can’t take her out and play with her because she has a taste for flesh. She doesn’t just bite because she is trying to figure out what your finger is. She bites because she knows it is your finger, and she hates you. We can’t even put her in a rolly ball thing because she can escape from them. Before we had Luna, I didn’t know that hamsters could hiss and growl.

At the moment, I’ve been working on writing more. Not here, obviously. But I’ve been working on a few fiction and non-fiction books that I’d like to write. So I’ve been writing about 1000 words a day, you just don’t get to read it. So far, we’ve been okay financially because I knew my last job was temporary, so I saved up a lot.

The plan is to move to the US sometime next year. Here’s the problem: I’m used to having a lot of paid vacation time, and basically unlimited sick leave, and free healthcare and a pretty good retirement plan. I’ve gotten spoiled living in Europe. I’ve gotten used to being treated like a human being, which is not really encouraged by American corporations. So I’ve looked around at jobs in America that have benefits comparable to those in Europe. So far the only job I’ve found is in Congress. So I might have to run for office when I go back to the US, because politicians are the only people in America who get the same benefits as average people in Europe.

Ambivalent

Most people think that “Ambivalent” means that you don’t care. What it actually means is that you have very strong opinions pulling you in opposite directions.

My plan right now is that my husband and I will move back to the US next spring. But I don’t want to. But I desperately want to.

American politics terrify me. American health care is appalling. But all of my family and friends live there.

I thought maybe if we just got a better house in Edinburgh. I looked at house listings. And I cried. The houses here are just so tiny and crowded and ugly.

If I stay in the UK I can’t have kids. I don’t have any working ovaries, so we have to either adopt or find a surrogate. I have no friends or family in the UK, so I can’t really get a surrogate here. And if I adopt a kid in the UK, there’s no guarantee I’d ever be able to move back to the US because that kid might not be eligible for a greencard in the US. Plus, I may not be eligible to adopt here because I’m fat.

So I don’t like the political system in the US. I don’t like the health care system in the US. I hate the weather in all the regions where my family lives. But if I want a house I don’t hate and if I ever want kids, I have to move there.

I wish I could just move to Canada. But we can barely afford immigration costs for my husband to move to the US. We really can’t afford for both of us to be immigrants.

So I’m torn, I’m confused, and I have no easy answers.

Explaining gay rights to Christians

I haven’t posted here in a while because I’ve been hanging around more on Tumblr and Twitter since I’ve been busy with work. For all of you who have completely dropped the ball by not following me on Tumblr, here’s a recent post from there, in honor of Gay Pride month. (I may post here more after my job is done next month.)

I was raised a fairly strict Baptist. I am still a Christian. So I understand why so many Christians are against gay rights. (I happen to disagree.) I also know that most non-Christians are arguing with them wrong.

The first, and often only, scripture passage that most non-Christians know about homosexuality from the Bible is in Leviticus, and it is easily shot down with the argument that “Leviticus bans tattoos, certain haircuts and mixed fiber clothing, and you don’t follow any of those.”

The problem with that argument is that it shows a basic misunderstanding of Christian doctrine. Christians do not follow the law of the Old Testament in Leviticus. Those laws were abolished by Jesus, and the only ones that stand are the ones that are repeated in the New Testament.

You need to stop arguing with Leviticus and start arguing with the New Testament books of I Timothy and Corinthians, where the writers speak out against a sin that has been translated in some Bibles as “homosexuals” but was, in the original Greek, arsenokoitai meaning ”for them that defile themselves with mankind”.

That word is the key to understanding why I call myself a Christian, and I still believe in gay rights. The translation of that word is extremely unclear. It may be referring to pedophiles, or rent boys, or pimps. But it almost certainly does not refer to a consensual, loving relationship between adults of the same gender.

For that matter, even the word “sodomy” from the Bible should not be applied to gay sex. If you read the story of Sodom, the people they accused of what was called sodomy were not gay people. They were violent rapists that wanted to rape the men only after they had been told they couldn’t rape the women.

I do not personally believe that the Bible forbids a loving consensual relationship between people of the same sex. It forbids rape and prostitution, whether straight or gay. But it says nothing that leaves me believing that my gay friends are any worse sinners than any of the rest of us.

Nervous

I don’t think I mentioned it here, but I got a job. It’s only a six month contract, but that’s six months of a paycheck and a job that sounds genuinely interesting. It’s a lot like my last job, but with a bit more responsibility. So I get to use my brain a bit more. I’m looking forward to it, and I’m very nervous. I start on Monday.

Starting a new job is always a bit like the first day of school. Will everyone hate me? Will they make fun of my lunch? Will I have any friends there? So that’s a bit of stress.

My other stress is that my hair is continuing to fall out. My endocrinologist recommended a drug to try to help, and now I have to convince my regular doctor to prescribe it. But if that works, it’ll be months or years down the line. So I have to figure out the best strategy for managing the lack of hair with the new job. Do I go with the obviously fake wigs (which make my head sweat) or some kind of hat (which always seems weird indoors) or the ever-popular head scarf (which is the most comfortable option, but makes me look like a hippie cancer patient). I’ve even considered bleaching my hair platinum blonde, since the hair loss would be less obvious if my hair wasn’t dark brown.

I have no answers. I guess to start I’ll go with a wig. Since that’s what I wore for the job interview. But in the long run, anyone have any ideas for the lack of hair on my head?

A Quick Holiday Message From Me.