My little friend Billy

and I won the costume contest!

I wish I could take credit for this

Dear Red States... 

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,Washington, 
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.


We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California. 





To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. 
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share. Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. 
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. 




We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. 




Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say 
that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazies believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. 

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico. 
Peace out, 





Blue States

Referendum 74

Dear family and friends and potential strangers, 

I am writing this email because I want to get married and people in Washington State have the opportunity to fill in a little circle on their ballet to allow that to happen (perhaps you don't live in Washington but I am guessing and hoping that gay marriage will be on the ballet in every state soon enough). 

I have spent hours upon hours phone banking and knocking on doors throughout the state asking people to approve Referendum 74 - a Referendum that will allow me to get married - and before each outing I sit through a training. Every time I have been asked to write a letter to family, friends and everyone else that I know that explains why its so important to me that Referendum 74 is approved. I have put it off - my story is personal and I didn't think I wanted to share it - until I got my ballet in the mail. I started imagining  people I know casting their vote without knowing the importance of this issue to me. 

I want to have the opportunity to get married. I deserve the opportunity. I deserve it because I'm a human. I have a heart. I have the capacity to love. I love kids - and want to have them! And I was taught from a young age by word and example that getting married would bring a lot of love and happiness and commitment to my life.

I grew up in a very religious family. I grew up Mormon in Salt Lake City. And I absolutely love the way I grew up! I grew up going to church and developing a close relationship with God. I loved God and I loved life. But then I grew to hate God. And life. And myself.

I was in middle school when I realized I was different. I didn't know how or why I was different. I just was. Although people viewed me as a really outgoing and confident kid, I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin. I tried and tried and prayed and prayed to feel normal. I made deals with God that I would be nicer and that I would participate in more church functions if he would make me feel normal. He didn't. He didn't because I was perfect just the way I was. But I didn't know that then. 

Fast forward to college. I finally knew (or maybe finally accepted) what it was about me that was different. I was attracted to women. Depression, deep dark depression came at the same time the acceptance of my gayness did. How could I be gay? How could I be that much of a disappointment to my family? How could I do that to the church? How could I do that to GOD? and How could God do that to me? Darkness, even on the brightest days, consumed me. Suicide was contemplated and naively attempted. 

It got especially bad when friends started calling me with news of their engagements (that happens at a relatively young age for Mormons). I thought that I would never be able to call my friends or family and let them know that I had decided to spend the rest of my life with someone... and worse, that I would never get to say the words, 'I'm having a baby.' And even if I did find someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, nobody would be happy for me. How could they? I was taught that if I ever had a relationship, it would be an abomination! 

Fast forward again - about 7 years to a new and improved and mostly happy Chelsea. I now live in Seattle, Washington. I moved because I needed to be in a place where people accepted me. I needed to be in a place where it was okay and celebrated to be me. It might sound silly but Seattle taught me to love myself.  I am now a contributing citizen to society and am successful and giddy because life is awesome - in the very essence of the word. I have made friends here, most that are gay - and collectively they have similarities that remind me of my straight friends from home. They want to be loved. They want to be successful. They want to have the ability to live the life they have always dreamed of living. Marriage, or the possibility of it, is a part of that dream.

The more I write the more I realize I want to write. On a human level, there are so many reasons gays should be able to get married. Most obvious, we are human beings. I am a human! 

I have been in love before - more than once actually. But I've only been in love once with someone that I wanted to marry. The love I had for her was the kind of love that changes you forever. The kind of love that makes the world more beautiful and amazing and fun. I wanted kids with her. I wanted to travel the world with her. I wanted her to be next to me when I lost my parents. I wanted to be next to her when all the good and all the bad things happened in my life - because with her everything was better. I wanted to marry her but what did that even mean? We couldn't legally get married. What would we teach our kids? How would our kids be treated in school - when society taught them and their friends that being gay is weird and gross? Those thoughts, combined with a lot of other similar thoughts, put a wedge in our relationship. That wedge eventually caused us to break up.

Let me translate - I let the perceived thoughts of society and the perceived thoughts of other people put a wedge in my relationship! And all of those perceptions were rooted from the fact that marriage isn't legal.

Washington has the opportunity to help teach the rest of the country that being gay is okay. We have the opportunity to teach the kids that feel different that they are beautiful and wonderful. And perfect. Because they are. Washington has the opportunity to make my dreams come true - and the dreams of a lot of my friends come true. Washington has the opportunity to make a stand. A stand for love and a stand for equality!

On a religious stance, this is what I know about God. God loves me. He made me. I am His child. My life is a gift - not a mistake - and getting married and having a family will help me reach the potential I know is inside of me. Marriage and family is an expression of the gratitude I have towards God and the life and love He has given me. 

Please approve Referendum 74. And please encourage your friends and family too as well.

Thank you, 

Chelsea Nelson

Being human

I feel good. And relieved. And excited. My life is so bright and, believe it or not, things are getting brighter.

Forgiving myself is hard. Letting go of mistakes and guilt and shame is hard. Forgiving other people, for me, is simple.

But I'm learning. And it feels so good.

Part of being human is making mistakes. And sometimes our mistakes hurt the people we care about. Sometimes they hurt those people a lot. Sometimes our mistakes end relationships. Sometimes our mistakes make it hard for us to recognize who we are looking at in the mirror.

I have made some of those mistakes - the kind that hurt other people and the kind that hurt the relationship I have with myself.

But I am a human.

Learning is also being human. And I am learning. I am learning a lot.

I am learning that happiness/sadness/guilt/shame comes within my own self and that the things in my life are simply an expression of that happiness/sadness/guilt/shame. Nobody or nothing can make me feel anything. I can't make anyone else feel anything either. I can only be a expression. Whatever anyone else has or feels has nothing to do with me considering or despite my mistakes.

The only thing life has given me is life itself. I can make it what I want. It's hard to make it what I want when I'm buried by guilt and shame. So, because of that, I am so thankful that I am learning to let go and forgive myself for mistakes I have made. Life is a beautiful thing. People are the most beautiful of all.

Doing my part

Washington is the most beautiful place

Dirty 30

Tripped is booked. Im going to Mexico for my 30th bday with a handful of my favorite peeps.

And... I swear, I'll be in the best shape up to this point of my life when the plane lands. I got 6 months!

Bamalamarama!