Read this, it's so good and sad and full of grace.

It's funny that Chris told me to read that story.

Cullen and I had been talking about The Island of Doctor Moreu (sp?) and I had told him about a book or a story I'd read where the doctor was doing the opposite. Taking women and feeding them drugs like Thalidamide to produce deformed children that he tried to turn into animals. The Thalidamide babies were meant to be seals.

I told Cullen about how when I was growing up there were children who had the classic flipper like hands, looking as though they had no arms and how I first learned that most everyone did not want to look at these children. They were different, they were scary, they were not what the average person wanted to see, to acknowledge that terrible things happened to the most innocent of us, the fetus with nobody to protect it except a mother who may or may not have known about potential side effects.

I was the one to smile at people who seemed to be different, the odd ones out, the kids who were neglected and abused, the kids in wheelchairs, the kids who were in braces. I was too shy to talk to them. All I had to offer was a smile.

Now I have more. I say hello, I talk to them. I talk to everyone who wants to talk to me. If that happens to be a small kid who's missing an arm or a man who's carrying a sign against rice pudding or just someone who's lost and lonely, I'll talk and more important I'll listen.

Does it help anyone? I don't know. I just know that it never seems to hurt them.

I saw a man at Renn Fair a few years ago who'd been burned quite badly. He was burnt on his head and his chest and his one arm was mostly burnt away. He wore a wife beater and shorts and he carried a beer on his half burn arm and he walked with such confidence and happiness I could only turn and watch him until he was out of sight. For those moments where I could see him I loved him with all my heart and I was so proud of him for wearing clothes that showed his scars, for holding his arm for all to see, for not hiding, for being proud of who he was and taking joy in who he was.

I wish all of us could have that. I have it often, I have so many scars, few from burns, mostly from other things.

I've been wondering if I have what it takes to do a nude/orgy scene for A Dirty Shame and now as I think of that man I never got to know, I think yes, I can show myself and all my scars with as much pride as anyone.

To paraphrase Adam Duritz yet again, I hope that everybody can find a little pride and me, I'll just sign off my computer and dream of a world where we all love ourselves and each other and revel in who we are.