So at least three nights running

I have come home, gone to sleep (sometimes as early as 6:30 pm, like I did today), slept for several hours, got up for a bit, and then struggled to get up in the morning. It's like I'm exhausted, even though I'm not really doing anything that should make it that way. My blood sugar is not unduly high (for me). I'm just curling up and going to bed. Than indicates an emotional reason to me, and that might be the case, but I won't go into it here. But I am sorry I've just been basically coming home, collapsing, and not doing much in the way of blogging.'

Let me say that I was incredibly happy to see the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) struck down, and that marriages can resume among gay couples in California. Plus the court dismissed some cases today, which were favourable to gays. I have two dear friends who have to been together for over fifteen years. I would love to see them get married. I recognise that Kentucky will no doubt be dragging its feet to join the ranks of states that will allow this; but I have faith it will happen.

Even now I seem very groggy and just out of it. I think I'll check my blood sugar, take my long-acting insulin, and head back to bed, even though it means getting nothing done tonight. Oh, and I'll run the dishwasher, which I loaded this morning before the Terminix guy came to do the apartment. I can at least say I got something done, then. :)

I like this op-ed piece

Courting Cowardice

As the arguments unfurled in Tuesday’s case on same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court justices sounded more and more cranky.

Things were moving too fast for them.

How could the nine, cloistered behind velvety rose curtains, marble pillars and archaic customs, possibly assess the potential effects of gay marriage? They’re not psychics, after all.

“Same-sex marriage is very new,” Justice Samuel Alito whinged, noting that “it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing.” If the standard is that marriage always has to be “a good thing,” would heterosexuals pass?

“But you want us to step in and render a decision,” Alito continued, “based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cellphones or the Internet? I mean, we do not have the ability to see the future.”

With all due respect to the justices, please get your act together. With the cases before you yesterday and today, you have the opportunity to both make history and bring the US legal system into the 21st century regarding marriage equality. The arguments against it are ludicrous. The arguments for waiting sound very similar to those who weren't ready for biracial marriage, or desegregation, etc., etc. We rely on the federal government to protect and advocate for our civil rights. Please do so, with courage.

A life of courage, and perhaps breaking new ground

NY plaintiff: Gay benefits 'bigger than marriage'

In 1963, she met Spyer at a Greenwich Village restaurant known for its friendly attitude toward lesbians. Though they arrived with others, Spyer and Windsor were almost inseparable on the dance floor that night and by evening's end, Windsor had danced a hole in her stockings.

The dancing marathons continued sporadically over the next two years, usually when Spyer and Windsor met by chance at parties and usually to the frustration of their dates.

It was not until the spring of 1965 that they got together. Windsor suggested they date for a year and consider engagement for another year if that went well.

And, as she said in an affidavit in her court case, Windsor told Spyer: "`And if it still feels this goofy joyous, I'd like us to spend the rest of our lives together.' And we did."

The engagement stretched for 40 years.

Spyer, worried an engagement ring would unintentionally reveal Windsor's sexual orientation to her IBM colleagues, gave her a circular diamond brooch she wears to this day.

"Our choice not to wear traditional engagement rings was just one of many ways in which Thea and I had to mold our lives to make our relationship invisible," Windsor said in her affidavit.

"We both faced pressures not only in the workplace and in society at large, but also from family and friends," she added. "Like countless other same-sex couples, we engaged in a constant struggle to balance our love for one another and our desire to live openly and with dignity, on the one hand, with our fear of disapproval and discrimination from others on the other."

Edith Windsor, 83, did finally get to marry her love, Thea Clara Spyer, in Canada because they were afraid New York would not approve same-sex marriage within their lifetimes. Spyer died in 2009, less than two years after their marriage. Now Windsor has a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court looking at the Defense of Marriage Act and how it discriminates against same-sex spouses by denying the use of the marital deduction on the deceased spouse's estate. That could be a ground-breaking case and ruling. But I was interested in the love story, too, that these women had, despite obstacles and health issues. I sincerely hope her case has a wonderful outcome, but regardless I think she's a wonderful model for those who came after her. I hope she lives to see this to fruition.