You decide.

I was asked recently if I believed people were gay by choice or by birth.

Now I know a whole bunch of gay people, but it's the first time anyone's ever asked me that. Equally remarkable to me is that I've never thought about the difference.

And I still haven't.
I answered immediately, almost instinctively, that the difference doesn't matter.

Take talent for instance.

When we say someone is talented, we mean they are gifted - from birth - with an exceptional mastery of something. Music. Math. Drawing. Writing.
But since no gene has been found for talent, we look to the environment. Good schools, a dad who sang in the shower, crayons always at hand, and so on.

I believe people say talent is a gift when they want to feel special. After all, if you can take voice lessons or attend a writing workshop and still match someone genuinely 'talented', then being talented isn't a unique quality.

I think people who believe being gay is a product of say, not having your dad hug you enough, subconsciously want it to be a reversible, preventable thing. For similar reasons, when they find it can't be changed, they say it's something you're born with. And in the end, that's the chief motivation for the distinction.

I say we are our own tipping point.
I say we are our own x-factor.
I think people harp too much on how people start out instead of how they are now.

If you decided to take up a photography course and people liked your pictures, is it your training or is it a gift? Isn't choosing to be really good the same as being talented?

A buddy of mine once said "I might be the world's greatest fighter pilot. But I ain't never gonna know. Cos I'm not interested in flying."

Freud was right.

1. Tree
2. Beach
3. Hamster
4. On
5. Off
6. Sister
7. Sword
8. Smoke
9. Fire
10. Soil
11. Wave
12. Scale
    
13. Bus
14. Taxi
15. Pocahontas
16. Earn
17. Down
18. Brown
19. Leather
20. Button

All these words appear in a single issue of Time magazine.
At about 3am, unable to sleep, I keyed them into Limewire (for the uninitiated, it's a file-sharing program which you can download, well, anything).

The only words that didn't return a slew of porno files were 'Scale' and 'Brown.'

This worries me.

Follow the instructions. But be prepared to improvise.

This was originally a reply to Jay who asked about my piss-on-a-stick-am-I-knocked-up-or-what experience.
It was so long, I decided to make it an entry.

Dear Jay

The correct way is - shockingly - described on the pack of the pregnancy test strip. The strips actually fairly long so you get to stain the chemically-treated end with your tinkle. If your piss has gonadotrophins (which signal the onset of pregnancy), then you might be pregnant.

That last bit is important, cos that's what I used.
'Might be.'
(I had to soften the blow. The bitch was in hysterics).

My friend met a guy at a party, and after going out with him for about 15 minutes decided that he was worth a jump. Or five.

Cut to me the next day getting a call from what seemed to be a goose getting strangled. I get into my car, drive over and discover that my friend quite literally, doesn't want to have Colin's baby (he looked like a Colin).

I go buy a pregnancy kit, looking for all the world like the bastard who knocked her up (pharmacists can be really smug and judgemental) and drive back to her apartment.

I tell her how to do it.
She tells me she can't.
I describe - verbatim - the instructions.
She tells me she can't.
I offer to show her and start un-buckling my jeans.
She becomes an expert.

Long story short, she's not pregnant.
I told her unless she's got an allergy to latex, she might want to try condoms.
I offer to show her how those work too.

She laughs, hugs me and tells me I'm sweet and funny.
I felt like crying.
If I weren't so chickenshit, I'dve slashed my wrists to end the pain.

Things that shouldn't happen. But do.

1. Traffic lights going on the blink.
2. Sex with goats.
3. People making home porn videos.
4. People stealing your home-made porn video.
5. People complaining about their home-made porn being stolen.
6. Fast food companies using disclaimers with their professionally styled and shot products that say 'For illustration purposes only.'
7. People saying "Till death do us part" and then signing a pre-nup the size of a telephone book.
8. Catwoman the movie.
9. Santa Claus being constantly depicted as a decrepit old white dude. North Pole. Eskimos. Bjork. Hullo?
   
10. Battery-operated vaginas.
11. Parents burying their children.