my wife has a cow

having just discovered another gem!
Gertrude Stein!

Have it as having having it as happening, happening to have it has happening, having to have it as happening. Happening and have it as happening and having to have it happen as happening, and my wife has a cow as now, my wife having a cow as now, my wife having a cow as now and having a cow as now and having a cow and having a cow now, my wife has a cow and now.

goodness....giRaffe is head-over-heels in love with Gertrude Stein!

giRaffe loves peeking into the minds of those with amazing intellect...

Anyone who hasn't discovered Ursula Le Guin,
get yourself out there and discover her now!
Seriously!
Like NOW!

giRaffe's God...

giRaffe is in a very serious relationship.
With her God.
And her God is fair and just and LOVING.
He includes every person. And EVERY person means EVERY person.
Not just the holy, not just the saints.
In fact, if giRaffe may be so bold to believe, He loves sinners just a wee bit more, because it is precisely for the sake of all us sinners, that He sent his only begotten Son to pay for our sins on the cross.
And sins means ALL sins. Big fat sins which make us wheeze with terror and shame, and tiny little sins which we sometimes just sweep under the carpet, they are all sins.
But He does not care if they are big fat sins or tiny little sins, because He came down from Heaven, specifically to carry ALL our sins.

And none of us who call upon Him are ever rejected.
Never ever.
As long as we call upon Him, we are guaranteed His loving hands.

So never ever, for a single second, believe it when someone tells you, you've done too great a wrong; you're unworthy; God won't save you.
Never ever, for a single second, believe that there are people who can fall outside of God's grace unless they themselves refuse to accept it.
Never ever, for a single second, believe that God will discriminate against anyone, any group of people.

How long more will the prejudices continue, how long more will the bigotry last, how much more intolerances are there going to be by the self-righteous using the name of God?

STOP! giRaffe says.
STOP NOW!
If you are prejudiced, if you are a bigot, go ahead, giRaffe has no power or right to stop you.
But never ever take the Name of giRaffe's God and use it for your own bigotry, that's all giRaffe is saying.
Never take the Name of giRaffe's God to cover up your own self-righteousness or your own idea of moralism.

Because giRaffe's God is all loving, all gracious.
And there is absolutely no room for discrimination or hatred.
And if you encounter anyone who says that their god is one who hates sinners, who hates you if you are not able to fulfill certain expectations, who hates you because you belong to a certain race, or sexual orientation, or does a certain job, or have a certain bad habit, remember,
that is not giRaffe's God.

Because giRaffe's God is
LOVE, and
GRACE.

at the age of 25...

In the days of yore, when a eight-year-old giRaffe was not yet the enlightened feminist she became, she thought that everything she enjoyed about life will end by the time she was perhaps 25.

You see, giRaffe did not have anyone who knew better to tell her, not everything that people around her believes in is the holy truth.

Just a word of warning before a giRaffe carries on, this is going to be an extremely feminist, but extremely truthful post too. And if you are going to be offended, then giRaffe suggests you leave now.

Still here? Alright, giRaffe shall ramble on now.

She was taught that girls are weaker and somehow less than boys.
She was taught that you cannot scream and shout and run and jump like a boy if you were a girl because that would be un-ladylike.
She was taught that girls will never be good in math.
She was taught that when girls grew up, they had to get married and have children, and be a good housewife and do the housework, and take care of the house.
She was taught that women have to yield to their husbands, because, well, because it was so.
She was taught a-plenty.

So a giRaffe thought, since most women will have to get married by 25, and have children and take care of their house if they do not wish to become old maids, that probably what she can enjoy about life, is going to end by the time she was 25.
And even though giRaffe was only a eight-year-old giRaffe, 25 seemed like a way too short amount of time for her to do what she wants before her life ends.

You see, giRaffe was taught that girls are weaker and somehow less than boys, but she beat up boys plenty of times, and she could climb better, dare more and think faster than many other boys.

She was taught that you cannot scream and shout and run and jump like a boy if you were a girl because that would be un-ladylike, but giRaffe cannot stand the thought of having to bottle things inside her and pretend to be the sweet and demure giRaffe which she never was. And anyway she could jump further and run faster than many boys who were her playmates.

She was taught that girls will never be good in math or science. But she tops her class in math and the whole school in science every year. Actually, she tops her class every single year and was usually first or second, among her entire year. And she has her report book to prove it if anyone has any doubts.

She was taught that when girls grew up, they had to get married and have children, and be a good housewife and do the housework, and take care of the house, but dammit, giRaffe doesn't care to have children, nor does she want to take care of the house. Anyway, who gave the ordinance that women will have to stay at home and do all the boring stuff while men have all the fun?

She was taught that women have to yield to their husbands, because, well, because it was so and to hell with that.

For a while, at least until a giRaffe was ten or elevenish, giRaffe didn't know that she could question these holy ordinances. She thought the lives of everyone around her were the holy truth, and well, giRaffe has never seen anyone daring to question the truth. And so whatever giRaffe wanted to question, were unsavorily swallowed down.

But you see, a giRaffe wasn't born to be so mild and accepting. And so as she grew, she had to start questioning. And she looked around. In places no one thought children should see. She saw things that the adults around her did not even dream of looking. And she questioned and questioned.

giRaffe didn't want her life to end by the time she was 25. giRaffe was a relatively intelligent child, and she enjoyed the games she played, she enjoyed the friends she had, she did well in school, she had her fair share of falls and beatings and scoldings, but they were what everyone else had. giRaffe's family may not be the perfect one you see on television, giRaffe might have to worry about certain problems even in her very young life, but still, amidst all that, giRaffe does enjoy living. And she really did not want her life to end at 25.

Well, fast forward giRaffe's life 2 decades down.

Even if giRaffe has not learnt any other things worthwhile in the interim, at least she has learnt this.

giRaffe has as much right as anyone else to do the things she likes.

giRaffe has as much right as anyone else to dream the dreams she believes in.

giRaffe has as much right as anyone else to achieve the things she wants to achieve.

giRaffe has as much right as anyone else to love the loves she loves.

giRaffe has as much right as anyone else to live the life she wants.

Never ever let anyone make you think that you are less than what you are.

giRaffe has seen it.

All these things, way too subtle, but they add up. Man, they add up to something very debilitating.

Small things.

Like girls should wear pink and frills and skirts and make-up to look pretty.

Like dismissive remarks of female drivers (sometimes by females themselves)!

Like geeky looking females who can change a light-bulb are a turn-off. (Why, giRaffe would rather spend her life with a geeky looking female who can change a light-bulb and has something inside her brain, than with a clod who can only think about getting girls to bed but is too slow to even string a coherent sentence together.)

And a zillion more such things, which if you do not think about it, seem so small and insignificant.

But precisely because one doesn't notice them, they slowly but surely insinuate into the subconscious.

It's not to say women cannot put make-up and wear dresses. On the contrary! If a woman loves it, go ahead! There is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty in make-up and dresses, or being a bad driver for that matter.
The trouble is, many have become unable to see the difference between a single woman as an individual who loves pink and frills and barbie dolls from the whole group called females in the world.
There is nothing wrong with an individual female loving pink and frills and barbie dolls, but there is something seriously wrong in lumping the whole category of human beings known as females into a homogeneous whole.

How much potential have we killed in this world because people think that they have to be like everyone else?
How much have we lost because people are led to believe they are less than what they can be?

How much more are we going to destroy?

giRaffe is grateful for a mind that never stopped questioning.

And giRaffe is grateful for that love of reading she was introduced to.

Because it was her reading voraciously, everything single thing she could get her hand on, ever since she was a tiny giRaffe, that opened her mind to so many things she could never even imagine, had she just stayed rooted to what she could see around her.

And giRaffe didn't get married by 25, nor is she going to have children, or become a housewife. (PHEW!)

And giRaffe is going to enjoy living, doing things she believes in, living with passion, loving with all the love she can give, feeling with all the feelings she can have, be it warm and fuzzy ones or painful ones, she is not going to shortchange herself of any single bit of it.

Live free all my loved ones!

All of you out there!

Oh man.....giRaffe DID IT!

now she is trembling...

and giRaffe pressed SEND

help....

grant giRaffe wisdom

A 45 word message, took a giRaffe a month to compose.
And she hasn't pressed the "send" button yet.

danger

self-righteousness is a most dangerous thing in the absence of love and compassion.
heck, it is dangerous no matter what.

kaputt

giRaffe thinks she kaputted her blog....
why does the html no longer follows what giRaffe asks him to do????

how?

Should giRaffe?
Or shouldn't giRaffe?

inconsequential, but yet so consequential revelation

Revelation giRaffe achieved while drifting off to sleep last night:
Bach is to music, as Shakespeare is to English literature!

Centuries have passed, and both their creations are still applicable to the world today.
And centuries will pass, and their legacy will still live on.

And here's to Bach!
Cheers!

out of the ordinary

And so it seems,
that the thing a giRaffe fears most,
is not pain, or anguish, or sadness, or loneliness,
but being ordinary.

That is something giRaffe cannot live her life being.
Ordinary.
Mere existence.
Just like the next person in the crowd.

Maybe being that will cause her less pain.
Less torment.
Maybe being ordinary will make her life a lot easier.

But giRaffe is not looking for a easy life.
But a fulfilling one.
One that is true to herself.
One that doesn't simply say,
because others are so,
so giRaffe has to be.

giRaffe has a fear of falling into ordinariness.
Of losing herself.

She hopes she never will.

very random things in a giRaffe's life right now

• so blogger is going to be no more and google blogs is the new thing.
• and earl grey tea is a very romantic drink.
• and giRaffe is not sure whether to get the 50mm F1.4 or the 50mm F1.8 lens.
• and this sunday morning is something giRaffe is looking forward to and she hopes her expectations won't be dashed as usual.
• and the advice giRaffe had been looking for, is still not forthcoming.
• but a giRaffe went ahead and made her own decision anyway.
• and she sincerely hopes it is the correct one.
• no, this is not the decision you think giRaffe is talking about.
• and out out out....oh, but not out yet.
• and things from this side of giRaffe's life,
• looks quite beautiful.

to live, love, dream

And so a dozen years later,
a giRaffe has decided.

No more tying down of a giRaffe,
into what she is not.

No more hiding,
no more pretending.

No more things pulling a giRaffe back,
giRaffe is looking right into the face,
of her tomorrows.

Be they full of pain and struggles,
or sweetness and joy,
giRaffe shall face them on.

He took giRaffe, drew her out, helped her grow.
That was undeniable.
But giRaffe continued growing, bursting through the seams.
He refused to move on.
He pulled her back.
giRaffe thought she should stay back.
She stayed.
For a long time.

But now it is no longer whether a giRaffe is staying back or not.
It is no longer a moving forward, it is a regression.
giRaffe felt it time to cut the string.
Yes, the time is now.

If giRaffe cannot pull him onwards,
perhaps the time comes for giRaffe to move away.
Perhaps giRaffe is the one pulling him backwards?

Yes, that is probably much better.
Much much better.

And there is something,
about a giRaffe,
which he might never accept.

Something a giRaffe is coming to terms with.
She did not accept it either, before.
But now,
it seems the time,
to accept.
To be.
This is giRaffe.
There is nothing to hide.

So come,
it's time,
for us,
to move our separate ways.
To look for the life we want.

To live, love and dream.

the ending

the end of it,
the beginning.
it all comes and goes in a circle.
when she has reached the lowest point,
she has to come up.
and up is where a giRaffe is going.
up and out and onward now.