Category: My Childhood

Stories of my childhood. The good, the bad and the fucked up.

Since when did saying “Happy Holidays” become offensive?

On By Michel McDonaldIn Atheism, Christmas, My Childhood, Religion, SpiritualityLeave a comment

Christmas 2007-1

I have been saying “Happy Holidays” my entire life.  There have always been cards sold in stores that say “Happy Holidays” and nobody was ever offended before.  Now all of a sudden saying “Happy Holidays” seems to be more offensive because people believe there is a war on Christmas and that Atheists are trying to remove “Christ” from Christmas, so if I don’t say “Merry Christmas”, but say “Happy Holidays” instead, then I am part of the problem and get lectured by some religious person who is very upset.

This is how I see it.  I have friends who celebrate Hanukkah and friends who celebrate Christmas.  I also have friends and family who celebrate Christmas, but not specifically for religious reasons because they are Atheists.  So why can’t I say “Happy Holidays” to them without someone yelling at me for not saying “Merry Christmas”?  I wouldn’t say “Merry Christmas” to my Jewish friends and I wouldn’t say “Happy Hanukkah” to my Christian friends.  Happy Holidays is a happy medium.  It’s a way of saying, well, Happy Holidays lol.  It’s just words, so why is it so upsetting?  I don’t understand.

I am an Atheist and I have celebrated Christmas since I was a baby.  I wasn’t always an Atheist, I was baptized when I was a baby and I considered myself to be a Christian when I was growing up.  My parents took us to church when we were very young, and I have memories of that, but then they stopped and there is a very funny story of why.

My mother and step father went to my mother’s church which happened to be the Mormon church.  The first time he ever went there with her, they asked him to stand up and say his name.  He was afraid to say his own last name out of fear of her getting kicked out of the church because they were living together, but they weren’t married.  They knew her last name was McDonald, so he used her last name without really thinking it through.  The problem with that was, his first name was Ronald.  He was so beyond embarrassed when people laughed at him for proudly proclaiming to be Ronald McDonald that we never went to church again as a family.

I went with neighbors to the Salvation Army church when I was in the 6th and 7th grade.  I even went to the Salvation Army band camp the summer before I was in the 7th grade.  When we lived in Reseda when I was in the 9th grade we rejoined the Mormon Church because they helped us with food bank, but I don’t recall going to church every Sunday, but I do remember going to teen functions, one specific function stands out, it was a dance for the teenagers.

Anyway, I was very religious up until I came out of the closet at 17, well, I was pushed out, then kicked out.  People started quoting the bible to let me know I was going to hell for being gay and over the course of a year or two, I became an Atheist.  But I never stopped celebrating Christmas because I enjoy decorating the Christmas tree and looking at the lights and having a stocking hung by the fireplace.  I enjoy all of the Christmas movies and I love it when my favorite shows have a Christmas episode.

Just because I am an atheist and do not celebrate Christmas for “Christ” doesn’t mean I want Christ to be removed from Christmas.  I honestly don’t care what it’s called, I just want to have a happy holiday without being told that I am a part of the war on Christmas just because I am not religious.

So Happy Holidays to you all.  Deal with me saying Happy Holidays because it’s just words.  If me saying Happy Holidays offends you, get over it!

BTW, the cat in the picture above is our late cat Shanaynay.  She passed away in 2009.

I’m Drugged up with Adrenaline

On By Michel McDonaldIn My ChildhoodLeave a comment

It all started out with looking at my AOL buddy list then double clicking a name and saying hi to Chips cousins girlfriend.

We get in this conversation about her girlfriend being in the hospital which turns into me talking about my childhood lol.  I focused the conversation from her girlfriend in the hospital to my childhood trauma lol.

The more we talk about it, the more adrenaline pumps into my body and I start getting angry and then the testosterone starts pumping in and next thing you know, I’m wide awake at 2:30am.

I finally took an ambien which won’t work without food so I had a banana but I have a feeling I’m gonna need some toast.  Ok so I don’t need it, I’m craving it lol.

Why is it that when talking about my childhood my body starts to go through something else?  Most people would cry about it and get over it and it’s done.  But me, I don’t cry, I want to punch someone and since it’s not my style I want to punch something.  But since punching things also isn’t my style (I’m too cheap to damage things I have to replace) then the next best thing is to start growling and just being pissed off lol.

As I’m back in time in my head I’m yelling IN MY HEAD at people who are talking trash to me and I’m punching them in the face lol.  I guess it’s better and less illegal to punch a memory in your mind lol.

This would be a great time to start writing about what happened but I’d rather keep writing in chronological order when I write my book so I’ll wait.  Those memories aren’t gonna go away so I can put them in the back of the closet for a while until I get to them and then watch out lol.

Anyway, off to bed when I get food in me and the ambien kicks in.  Relaxing helps calm me down long enough to go to sleep because it stops my brain from working overtime lol.

Twitter Is So Junior High

On By Michel McDonaldIn My Childhood, TwitterLeave a comment

When I was a teenager in Junior high school I was targeted by the bullies for a daily beat down. I don’t know what made me the target, I didn’t act effeminate but I was accused of being gay and beat up for it. These kids who beat me up didn’t even know me. They never met me, they never talked to me, they didn’t know one thing about me yet they beat me up for being gay.

Keep in mind I was in the closet and had a girlfriend as my cover (who I met years later in a gay bar, turns out she was a big lesbian using me as much as I used her).

I was threatened every single day that I would get beat up after school so every day I ran home from school. We were only 2 blocks from the school anyway so I didn’t run very far but that is the reason my calves are so big to this day.

One day I was walking to gym class and I was running a bit late, there weren’t any people behind me, I was at the tail end of the crowd going to the gym. This kid came out of nowhere, ran up to me, kicked me as hard as he could in the nuts then ran away. I didn’t know who he was and I never saw him again. There I lay on the ground in the most pain I had ever been in my entire life. I was in so much pain I couldn’t see, I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t think. I lay there on my side on the concrete with my hands on my crotch. Nobody there to help me, no witness.

Someone found me and took me to the nurses office and for some f’d up reason I got detention.

Ok, I had to tell you that so I can tell you this. Yesterday, someone I follow on Twitter tweeted this:

“If you want someone to unfollow this Saturday, @markdavidson is a good candidate. Can’t believe someone can deal with him #unfollowsaturday”

Well, without knowing who the guy is, I retweeted that. Now, don’t you think that what I did was exactly what those kids in junior high school did to me? I don’t know Mark Davidson yet I ran up to him and kicked him in the nuts without so much as a hello, nice to meet you. I never read any of his tweets, I never read his blog, I just rt’d that without even thinking.

I sent him a @ mention last night after he retweeted my retweet telling him I was sorry. I woke up this morning and looked at my tweets and remembered that he told me to read his microblog for a few days and I’ll understand why this person tweeted that in the first place. Well, it’s not necessary for me to do that. I had no right getting in the middle.

So I guess this is my public apology to him. Here I am on my quest for equality and here I am the hypocrite and for that I apologize.  This is certainly a lesson for me that I will never forget.

My Funny Childhood Phrases

On By Michel McDonaldIn My ChildhoodLeave a comment

When I was growing up my parents and aunt said the funniest things to us kids. Like for example, when someone farted they would call it “stepping on a frog”. Have you ever heard anyone refer to it as that? The reason they said that was because back in the 70′s the word fart was a bad word. It was such a bad word that we would get slapped (or in my case beat) if we said it. So the nicest way of saying it was stepping on a frog.

Every night when we went to bed, my mother would tell us “Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, if they bite, bite them back.”

When I was in my late 20′s I said that to a friend of ours who lived right on the beach in Malibu just before she went to bed and I got a tongue lashing from it. ”HOW DARE YOU” and that wasn’t from the friend, that was from Darrin. How dare I accuse her of having bed bugs, she’s rich, she lives in a beach house in Malibu. How dare I even suggest that she has any bugs in her house.

It’s funny how despite my best intentions, something from my childhood isn’t quite accepted by anyone other than my family members.

And yes, that is me on the right, the girl on the left is my older sister. I don’t remember the occasion that picture was taken but I think it was when we lived on Holtby Road here in Bakersfield which is oddly enough on my exercise bike route. I pass that house every time I ride my bike to the bike trail.