Now to veer off in another direction:

I�m starting to get really irritated with the whole Hilary Duff craze lately. She�s just a 15-year-old girl, like any other. She�s not particularly attractive (not that a 15 year old girl should be), I don�t see excessive talent in her, and I know that she�s famous as a matter of luck and stage parenting. There�s a huge billboard of her on the road I have to take to get home from wherever I go saying that one should drink milk. First off, I think that the whole milk moustache is a really retarded idea. Second, it really highlights this girl�s big, honking schnoz; not a good look. Third, this is Wisconsin, people, land of all that is dairy. They don�t call it America�s Dairyland for nothing. Christ, it�s on our fucking license plates! You can�t throw a rock around here without hitting a cow and an aversion to cheese is punishable by death. Somehow, I don�t think we need to be told to drink our milk.

Also, I don�t understand people who seem to really thrive on chaos. I�m talking the girls who only go after men who are married, seriously committed, or otherwise entangled. I know that it stems from their own sense of self-loathing, just as Andy�s superhero complex does, but why the need to destroy everything? Can�t someone just realize they are fucked the hell up and make some sort of personal peace with that? I know a girl who is only slightly older than I am, but at 23 she�s married, has three kids, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a master (some strange BDSM arrangement), and a roommate. Why get married if you�re going to fuck around with other people? Where�s the commitment there? It�s as if you are saying, �I will be with you for the rest of my life, but during that time, I�m going to spread them for anyone who asks and you can�t do anything about it.� Marriage isn�t for everyone, but you commit your life and body to one other person, not to every Tom, Dick, and Sheila who waltzes in. If you can�t be faithful, even if your spouse is aware of what is going on and has consented, don�t get married! I�m not saying that marriage has to be for life. Love can bloom and it can wilt and die over time and no one can know for certain what will happen, but don�t fuck other people while married. It�s simple.

Yes, I�ve entertained thoughts of stepping out, but the thought of what it would do to my relationship has always been enough to ground me, to make me see what I have and what I am always ultimately unwilling to risk. No, I�m not married, but I am legally bound to Luke, just a tiny step away from being married, and I take my commitment very seriously. Committing oneself is no small thing. It changes things and makes it difficult to cater to the flight instinct when you�re in a bind, but it brings along a host of other things as well. Where else can you get unconditional support, a warm body to curl up to at night, a true confidant, and love beyond reason all in the same place? Unless you�ve got one hell of a best friend, nowhere.

People are social animals, but fucking people as a social activity takes it far further than I am willing to go. Sure, I�m liberal and open-minded, but I do have morals. Nobody told me what to think or feel growing up. I instead learned to think about how it would feel to be the person being screwed over. No one ever instructed me that porn was a bad thing, because it�s not, so long as you are single and need a little something to help you along. When you have someone in the next room who is willing to get as down and as dirty as you could possibly imagine, why turn to porn when you could have what�s on those pages in the flesh? No, there aren�t breasts so big they need to be transported by wheelbarrow, stripper pumps, and peroxided hair, but there is someone who will respond to your arousal instead of sneering back at you in that plastic, I�m-getting-paid-for-this way and someone who will make you feel better than a sticky in the end sheet of paper.

I was never really told that adultery is a bad thing. Yeah, I sat there in church as a young thing and knew the Commandments, but I never knew the havoc that it could wreak until it tore my family (even though it was pretty fucked up and I was happier when it was disbanded) limb from limb. There�s not much like being woken in the middle of the night after returning from a six week stay in your grandparents� utopian lifestyle to the sounds of screaming upstairs and cop cars pulling up outside, being yelled at to go back to bed, even though they know that sleep is no longer an option.

Yes, I knew that hitting people was wrong, but it didn�t ring clear until I found myself being batted around like a shuttlecock for neglecting to vacuum the floor or for playing with a friend. I didn�t know what it meant until I was given my first and only black eye at the age of 12 for sleeping through dinner. I wore sunglasses in the darkest of rooms to hide it and when asked why I had bruising even outside the rims of my glasses, I said I hit my head on the car door. I stayed with a friend until the bruises healed and then went to stay with my grandparents, hoping they�d never know what had taken place. I didn�t know how terrible it felt until I watched my brother howl and hold his head after the phone had been smashed against the wall, a large chunk ricocheting and hitting him to cause instant, raised bruising. I didn�t realize it until I hit someone myself, in uncontrollable anger, and watched their face contort into shock and pain and mistrust, wondering how such a gentle soul could turn into such a monster. I know how bad it is because I�ve both received and given, though I�ve never given what I got and never will.

I know that anger is a powerful force, as are lust and greed. I know that they can all bring good things, but more often than not, good is far from thought. I know that anger lives in me and what I have to do to keep it at bay, to keep that monster from sharpening its talons and gnashing its teeth and I know that I will not always be strong enough to keep it chained. I do know that it doesn�t feel good, knowing that. I know that I will do my damnedest to never lay a hand on someone, even if they have wronged me beyond forgiveness. Only if my life is in danger may I resort to the primal, the thing that lives inside for life or death situations only. And God help me, but I will use that if ever my life or the lives of those I hold dearest are ever threatened. I am fiercely protective of my body and of those that I love. As has been said in my defense before, �you fuck with them, you fuck with me, and that�s not something you want to do.�