[This is a story I came across on the College Media Network. I've had people ask me what it's like to be a Pagan. Well, read this story. We all have these kinds of stories to tell. - Claire]

When 17-year-old Shaun Derusha informed his mother that he would be unable to return to Purvis High School until she met with his principal, Denise DeSadier thought he was joking.

She had received neither letter nor phone call indicating any sort of misbehavior from her son. Such would have been the “proper” procedure for any institution purveying the attainment of education, but DeSadier agreed to have a conference with the involved administrators at her son’s school in hopes of reinstating her son’s place.

Her son explained to her that he had no idea what was going on, that he’d been called out of one of his classes by the administrators and a security guard to have his backpack rummaged through and personal questions about particular parts of his lifestyle fired at him. He failed to realize how serious the situation was until he found himself suspended under the suspicion that he’d threatened the life of some of the students by way of demon possession.

“It was believed that he planned on summoning demons to attack select students at the high school,” his mother told me.

DeSadier left the conference feeling her son had been severely wronged due to the fact that he and their family are practicing witches. A more formal name for their religion is Eclectic Paganism. It is hardly surprising that in a Bible-belt town with less than 3,000 people would frown upon such a lifestyle.

The family is no stranger to ostracization and the “cold shoulder” when people find out their religion.

“When people found out that we were practicing witches, they took it very very negatively,” DeSadier responded when asked how her family fit into this small town. “We are not part of their community. If only people would realize that there is no demon-summoning within our religion, there is no devil worship”

DeSadier felt as though Derusha had not been given his “due process” when these accusations had been made and when the school would not allow her to review the witness statements under the grounds of protecting the privacy of the three students involved.

Principal Ace Bryant of Purvis High School informed me that he was unable to disclose any information about the situation at all, but he did assure me that any disciplinary action taken against students that will leave some sort of mark on their permanent record were all investigated thoroughly and fairly. The online handbook of Purvis High School forbids intolerance of inequality, harassment or conduct that would make any student uncomfortable. If there was a problem that a student was too afraid to venture towards the principal’s office with, he or she could use AnComm’s online reporting tool, Talk About It, that is designed to bridge this communication gap by allowing students to anonymously report issues and engage in safe dialogue with school personnel.

Either way, the damage to Shaun’s record is done, as he was profiled in a way that would make words such as “Columbine” and “VTech” come to mind.

After taking an evaluation meant to grade his mental stability, Derusha was allowed back into school. When asked why the family hasn’t pursued some sort of appeal or lawyer for that matter, DeSadier responded that her son is a very mature thinker.

“Shaun just wants to graduate and move on in life. He won’t move because he feels that then they [discriminators, instigators, and those who are very close-minded] win. And he won’t give them that satisfaction.”

How strange it is to lie there in my bed, listening to a stranger breathe in the darkness. Every move she makes sends electric panic coursing through my veins. I was weak. Selfish. Needy. I knew when we met at the bookstore that we would end up here. I knew when we were eating dinner how the evening would end. Every bite of food was laced with innuendo. Every sip of wine passed parted lips as eyes gazed across the rim of the glass. We both knew what we wanted and hungered for. By the time we wound up sitting on my front porch, kissing and giving a good show to my Fundamentalist neighbors, we were already breathing deep of one another. I knew what she would taste like long before I helped her take off her clothes. There was never a question about where she would sleep tonight.

Okay, now that I’ve waxed poetic, why am I sitting in the living room writing this? I would much rather slip my arms around her waist, breathe her sweaty musk, and snuggle up against her warm, naked body. So why am I sitting here?

Sometimes you get so used to the silence that a rustle of cloth is like a grater being pulled across cabbage. The soft, wet smack as she licks her lips in her sleep is like someone moving a hand through a bucket of water. Her quiet breathing is like the ragged bellows on a forge. I love each and ever sound. But between is the Silence. Only in the silence can I hear Claire. If the silence goes away, will Claire go away, too? Will I become some robotic thing that exists in the backwash of the sounds of her being?

I’m afraid to fall asleep because I’m afraid I’ll wake her. I’ll move. Or fart. Or start talking in foreign languages. I might wake up screaming from another horrific dream, to find her sitting there wide-eyed, staring at me and glimpsing the full measure of my maniacal disposition at last. Maybe if I stay awake she’ll still be there in the morning. We can have a quiet, uncomfortable breakfast together before she slips off back into her normal life and the waiting arms of the boyfriend she forgot to mention (who’ll never know of the night she slept with the seductive witch).

Maybe that’s why her breathing is keeping me awake. It reminds me of the normal life she must have, far away from the darker shades of mainstream consciousness. Tomorrow as she sits at her desk in some office, if someone gets close enough to her, they might hear the same rhythmic breathing that I did. They will hear her; alive, vibrant and real. They will barely notice, rushing along on busy schedules. And unlike me, they will not be haunted by the defining reality of willingly setting aside their own sense of being and normality for the savored few moments of lying in the dark, listening to her reality swarm around the room in the guise of steady breathing.

I can’t sleep because I don’t want to sleep. I want to listen to her breathe. In the morning when she’s awake and the memory of impulsive experimentation is fading, she’ll realize, like so many others, that there’s a disturbing glint in my eye. So tonight is all I have. Maybe her breathing seems so loud to me because it’s framed by the silence of my reality. Mine is displaced by hers, and it frightens me. Even as I savor it.

Well, now that I’ve sat for awhile in the familiar silence of the living room, I’ve grown sleepy again. I’ll risk a return to the bedroom. And if her breathing is too sweet a sound for me to bear, I’ll find ways to coerce her into making other noises. I’m sure I’m creative enough to entice her into staying up all night. I am nothing if not skilled in the fine art of distraction and redirection. If nothing else, doing something other than just lying in the dark will drown out the breathing for awhile. And if I’m lucky, we might drown out the silence, too.

I’ve never been one to identify too closely with male gender roles. Sure, I’m bi-sexual, and toy around with the “lesbian” label, but to me I’ve never felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body. I’m a woman who likes being a woman. I just happen to like girls. The point is, I’ve never been compelled to dress like a man just to reject the social bias of certain gender roles. Sure, I don’t wear slinky dresses or put on much make-up, but neither do I get crew cuts and dress like a male businessman.

But I know people who do.  I know people who feel strongly the need to dress the exact opposite from the way they feel society wants them to. It’s all about thumbing your nose at expectations. Not to say that it is for all. Some gay women simply don’t feel like women; breasts and vaginas be damned. It’s a very individual thing. Every gay person handles her on his own self image in the most comfortable way for them. So I’ve never had a problem with those women who dress like men. It’s who they are and, more importantly, reflects who they want to be.

So… when I read a story about a girl in Mississippi who has been told by school officials that she has to dress a certain way to be included in the school yearbook, it breaks my heart. Partly for the girl herself, but partly because I realize how very far we have to go in this country before gays are treated as equal human beings. And don’t begin to give me this crap about how gays have the same rights as everybody else. That’s like a white cracker in the 60′s telling a black person that racism doesn’t exist. Unless that white cracker had used separate water fountains, sat in the balconies of movie theaters, or eaten in the kitchen at restaurants, it’s quite likely they never honestly experienced any form of racism (because it wasn’t directed at white crackers). What might seem to you like a fair and equitable system doesn’t seem that way when you’re on the other side of the glass looking in.

The girl I’m talking about is 17-year-old Ceara Sturgis: a straight-A student, a goalie on the soccer team, a trumpet player in the school band, who is active in Students Against Destructive Decisions. But despite being an exemplary student, Sturgis created a stink when she decided to pose for her senior photo in a tuxedo (rather than the drape customary for girls). Needless to say, school officials went off the deep end. Sturgis received a letter from the school in August stating that only boys could wear tuxedos and have since refused to include the photo in the school yearbook.

How wrong is that? Ceara Sturgis is going to be excluded from the school yearbook because she won’t dress girly for the camera? Gay students should not be punished because their sense of self doesn’t match the requirements of their prejudiced teachers. School is a formative time for all young people. No student deserves to be singled out because of their sexual orientation. It’s bad enough the abuse she must get from some students because she identifies herself as gay. Now the school is going to support that abuse by denying Sturgis the same rights as the other students? All because of her sexual orientation? And don’t give me that crap about how rules are rules. If your childrens’ high schools required that all boys take their senior photos wearing pink tutus, you’d feel very different about it.

My heart goes out to Ceara Sturgis. I’ve been where she’s at. Most gays have experienced this sort of discrimination, in one way or another. We’re constantly reminded that we’re second class citizens. As long as we dress and act like everyone expects us to, no one objects to our existence – in theory. But when we do that, we’re all made to feel like we’re living a lie. And I, for one, am very tired of living my life like I’m far behind enemy lines.

For once I’ve actually finished up with work before the sun went down. What does that say about my life, that anything less than a fourteen hour day makes me feel like a worthless slacker? It doesn’t matter that the project is finished and I can breathe. Somehow if there aren’t a dozen other details waiting in the queue, I feel like calamity will fall upon my head at any moment. Sometimes I think that I’ve been paddling upstream against the current for so long that when there’s nothing there trying to sweep me away, I suspect that it’s only because I’ve fought my way in the calm headwaters before the very gates of Hell.

I suppose I could have put that less melodramatically by saying simply that leisure time creeps me out. I always suspect there will be a bill on the other side of it.

So… what am I doing with my free time? I’m sitting on the couch eating Chinese take-out and searching through the endless terrain of media possibilities. To paraphrase a song, “I’ve got 1,000 channels of shit on the TV to choose from”. And I’m wondering where I go from here. I’m restless already, and it’s only Monday evening. What do I do with myself for the rest of the week? I won’t be able to start on the next project until I get the client’s server security codes next Monday.

It’s strange to look back on my life now, and where I was a year ago. Or better yet, two years ago, when I was in a different frame of mind, having visions and hallucinations, missing time and struggling just to get through each day, forgetting where I was sometimes. Or even who I was. If not for the hospital reports and the testimony of friends, I might not even know what I did in 2007. If not for friends, I wouldn’t know how I came to have the ever-so-stylish scars on my wrists.

They told me I could fix myself by keeping busy. Boy, did I ever take that one to heart. I’ve worked myself nearly to death since then. And except for a string of brief relationships last year and the occasional anonymous sex, I’ve stayed busy enough to keep the voices and images at bay and build up a small fortune in my bank account. Is that what I’m afraid of? Am I afraid that if I stop and catch my breath I’ll start falling apart again? More importantly, if that’s what I’m afraid of, what if I’m right?

A week off frightens me. The next project should be wrapped up by the end of October. Then I have nothing else scheduled for the rest of the year. If a week frightens me so much, what about having two whole months off? I don’t have another commission until January. Will I still be sane by 2010? Isn’t that really what I’m afraid of? If I don’t have 101 things on my plate to burn off every last joule of creative energy so that I’m too tired to dream, might I be afraid of winding up on the couch again with me feet tucked under me, watching the shadows move across the ceiling like wisps of smoke, whispering my name? Could I really wind up there again?

I suppose I’m wondering if it has to be work. Isn’t there something I can do besides mind-numbing computer programming to push back against the dark and scary places? Well, besides seducing identity confused college girls into anonymous sex? Couldn’t I take up painting or basket weaving? Maybe I could teach a class on avoiding the real issues. That would be fun, and perversely satisfying. I could live by avoiding dealing with my issues by occupying my free time teaching others the same. Giving back to the community and all.

Maybe I’m just afraid of being left alone in this big old house with Claire, who I know is mad as a hatter. She’s nice enough. She’s cute. She’s fuckable. But it’s hard to miss that mad glint in her eye. Am I the only one that creeps out?

I’m continually asked by well meaning people if I’ve forgotten about this web site or my MySpace page. The honest answer is that I most certainly have not. The truth of the matter is that I’m buried in responsibility and rarely have time to check my e-mail, much less write posts for my web site. It rather disturbs me, anyway, that there are people out there who miss reading my posts. Don’t you have better things to do?

Well, I’m catching a brief breather on a Sunday, and so I thought I’d toss off something here so that the minions won’t be so unhappy. The life of a goddess is taxing, to say the least, but I suppose I should try to be kinder to those who worship me. Um… happy blessings upon you all, and all that.

We’re about to finish the huge project that I’ve been working on. I imagine after that’s done I’m taking a long break. Usually that means I’ll sit around in my underwear, eating ice cream or drinking plum wine, and check my e-mail compulsively every 15 minutes until it’s time to get back to work. Or, who knows? I might actually leave the house. It’s actually terrible that I found a supermarket that delivers groceries. Between that, ordering my booze online, and Chinese and pizza delivery, I’ve become quite the hermit. How did that happen?

I was suppose to back off from this online obsession and go have a real life. But all I’ve really done is work my fingers to the bone. Hopefully that will change soon. Especially now that I’ve been having the most bizarre and horrible dreams. I think when you reach a point that you’re not sure if you’re having dreams or visions, it’s probably time for a vacation. I’ll have to get with my travel agent.

In the meantime, to those who continually ask if the Goddess Claire is still alive, she most certainly is. I promise I will come down from the mountain soon so that you may bask in my gracious glory.

Of course, upon writing that, I’ve had to wonder if there is anyone left reading my web site who actually knows that I’m joking.

I stopped work at 8pm tonight. Is it wrong that I feel guilty for only putting in 12 hours today? Part of me wishes I’d never taken on this project. But the greedy part keeps pointing out that the money is so good. Greed is good. Sleep is for the weak. I’ll rest when I’m dead. I have a list of other quaint sayings around here somewhere, but I’m too tired to look for it. Trust me. Words of wisdom.

I’m curled up on the couch, getting ready to catch up on my back episodes of Nurse Jackie. Thank the Goddess for Showtime on Demand. How could I ever feed my addictions without the wonders of modern technology? At this point I’m only eight episodes behind. That’ll take, what, a couple of hours to catch up? With appropriate amounts of plum wine, I should be snug in bed by ten o’clock. Oh, wait. Sleep is for the weak. I’m trying to believe that. No. Better yet, I’m trying to live it. Or I will. Just maybe not tonight.

Tomorrow the minions will return. I’ll go back to being the coding goddess with an immense intellect, typing with white knuckles and praying that we can get the core routine to play nice with the ancillary programs, knowing in my heart that somehow we’ll get this monster completed ahead of schedule so that the Goddess Claire will receive her fat bonus. I used to think it would be nice to have minions. Now I realize that they only bring me more to do. And they need, like, food and water and stuff. And besides, these are not the kind of minions I was talking about. Mine were supposed to be pretty, soft, and mostly naked, willing to bring me libations and worship, fulfilling my every wish and need.

It’s just my luck to wind up with the wrong kinda of minions. Next time I’ll be more careful when I fill out the work order.

Okay. Enough of this. I’m going to watch some TV and go to bed. Since I scared off Sam (again – and she was doing so well with her Claire anatomy studies) by talking in my sleep (geez, one comment about cutting a carotid artery), there’s no real point in rushing off to those cold sheets. Okay, so that’s melodramatic. The reality isn’t so bad. A little television. Some plum wine to get the blood flowing. A quick, cheap date with the shower massage. And it’s off to sleep like a baby for Claire.

“You mean like witchcraft and casting spells and all that?” the old lady asked me with a slightly incredulous grin teasing up the corners of her thin lips.

I nodded. “Pagan. Witch. Whatever you want to call it,” I replied. “Yes.”

She rolled her eyes, looked to the lady beside her and shook her head. “Bah,” she snarled. “I don’t believe in witches. Haven’t since I was a child.”

I grinned, having heard this comment so many times in my life. “That’s alright, ma’am,” I told her. “I completely understand. Myself, I’ve never believed in Christians.”

Hello, my wee little monkeys. Did you think I’d forgotten about you? No, dearies. Mother Claire has been lurking in the shadows, working on all sorts of diabolical and nefarious plans. But she’s never forgotten about you.

As for the lady whose image I’ve included in this post, she’s here for no particular reason except that I keep finding myself drawn to the image, wondering if it’s real or if the image was Photoshop’d. It’s hard to tell these days. Personally, I find it hard to believe that a girl this beautiful would get a full body suit, but I’m intrigued to enough to volunteer to give her a full, up close inspection. Let’s determine once and for all if those images continue underneath her bikini. I volunteer to do this only for your peace of mind, of course. I’ll write up a full report and get back to you.

I inted to resume posting here. I’ve written a lot in my journals, but I haven’t posted anything. Quite frankly, I’d started attracting some unwanted attention from some people who made me very uncomfortable. It’s taken some time for my usual stubborness to kick in, and for my defiance to come into full bloom. So, I have no idea what I’ll be doing here, but I’m not going to hide in my work anymore.

An old friend knocked on my door tonight. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since Christmas, when we both made some terrible mistakes (mostly at my urging). To my shame and deep regret, I put my needs ahead of his. I took what I needed from him at a time when all he wanted was a friend and someone to listen, and never once thought about the repercussions. Well, actually, I did think about the repercussions. I just didn’t care. And while it might have been better if we’d drank some plum wine and watched a movie and maybe talked, instead we wound up taking out our frustrations and urges upon one another, and we both have physical and mental scars from it.

Why am I writing this? Mostly because he showed up on my doorstep, when I never expected to hear from him again. I betrayed everything that we both thought our friendship was all about. And I did it by crossing a line that should never have been crossed. Now we don’t even know how to look at one another. And yet there he was, standing on my doorstep, staring at his feet, and asking me if I was alright. He was worried about me because I hadn’t posted to my blog since February 4th, and none of our common friends had heard from me.

He wouldn’t come in, but simply accepted my assurances that I’m okay. Part of me wanted to tell him that I’ve been dating someone, and I’ve been spending most of my free time at her place. Part of me wanted to tell him that I’ve lost interest in blogging about my every little pain and regret. Part of me wanted to grab him and ask him if there was any way I could have my Big Brother back, because I’ve missed his hovering presence and implied protection. Instead, we felt our way clumsily through a few canned phrases, never getting much beyond “How’ve you been?” and “How’s the family?” and “Still working at…”

It’s funny, actually, that I’m sitting here, writing this, because it’s not at all what I’d intended to write. All I was going to do was make an update, since apparently some people notice when I disappear. But instead of talking about my new girl and my recent efforts to actually have a life, I’ve talked about him. Maybe I feel like I owe him that much, at least. I’ll never offer my apologies. We both know that. But I can offer my regret. If he reads this, I hope that can be enough.

Holy crap, it’s cold tonight. The thermometer on the porch says it’s 4 degrees outside. I tarried there long enough to read the temperature and look at the snow for a bit. Of course, in true Claire fashion it didn’t occur to me to put on shoes and 20 pounds of clothes before I went out there. Now I’m huddled in front of the computer with some hot cocoa, trying to warm up again. I can vouch for the 4 degrees.

They’re calling for a winter storm advisory here, lasting until midnight tonight. Being Asheville, I’ll take that with a grain of salt. It’s cold, and there’s already some snow on the ground, but come on. The forecasters are so bad around here that if they say it’s going to be a sunny day I take an umbrella with me if I’m going out. So if they’re calling for a lot of snow, we probably won’t get much.

It’s probably a good thing I just stocked the pantry. I imagine as soon as the sun comes up the soccer moms will be rushing to the grocery store to stock up on Twinkies so her grubs won’t go hungry if the lights go out. No, thanks.

Fuck this. I’m going to jump in bed, and I’m taking all the blankets with me. Ya’ll’re on your own.