words, words, words
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If I begin to detail myself here, will you understand?
P. I am me
Q. I don't always know exactly who that is
R. I am Quaker
S. I like words and playing with them
T. I like genmaicha tea
U. I like the word napkin more than most others
V. I spend time walking my neighborhood
W. I cook rice often
X. I sleep well most every night
Y. I eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables
Z. I munch, sleep, write, create, cook, bike, watch, walk, listen, hope, learn, drink, live, breathe, touch, know, question, taste, copy, read, stare, carry, talk, dance, finger, try.
raisin@gmail.com
albums:
Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
Erasure: I Say, I Say, I Say
Depeche Mode: Black Celebration
The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
David Bowie: Hunky Dory
George Michael: Listen without Prejudice
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
songs:
Wild is the Wind: Nina Simone
Come Undone: Duran Duran
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Rachmaninov
My Funny Valentine: Chet Baker
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: The Flaming Lips
This Must Be the Place: The Talking Heads
Hyperballad: Bjork
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Sunday, December 28, 2003
I am not one of them. and mostly never wanted to be one of them. one of those fabulous people who attract and reflect drama in their lives, who wear each other's fashions, who look so cute. i always wanted to be different, and i succeeded, so much that i sometimes have felt a bit of an outcast. well, it was my doing, so i can't complain. I took many hard routes in my life, and i look with jealousy at others' lives which seem so easy and fruitful. i have learned much i know, and i am about fifty years old, although not quite thirty. which is why i so rarely get along well with people. i am a hundred contradictions, and too many just stare in awe. i like that, i am more of an individual than most anyone i know. but i am scared at times, to be so different. i know that we are all the same, essentially, have the same spirit, the same blood through our veins. but it's hard to accept and love the differences, too. i can't change now, can't mold into one of them. i'm just too weird, even when i'm trying to be normal. i'll be proud of that, when i am actually fifty, although i will still wonder what it would have been like to have gone to a real college, to have just existed. our choices are both positive and negative. although we choose one thing, we deny another, we cannot do them all. but believe me, i have done a lot, and my life is more interesting than i can sometimes handle.
soul searching at the end of the year. and man, what a year. who am i again?
6:21 PM
Twenty-five thousand? I can't get my mind around that many deaths. that's everyone i've ever known in my life, dead, burried in the rubble of an ancient city. How does a city, a country, lose twenty-five thousand people and maintain anything? Although, Iran apparently had their largest earthquake in 1990, which killed 50,000 people. i don't understand. i can't comprehend that loss. i can't.
10:39 AM
Saturday, December 27, 2003
time to stop feeling so dramatic. my life is awfully good. Christmas is over, thankfully, and it went really well. i'm having music overload - iTunes Music Store is a good thing. What's struck me since i wrote that last entry is that I might actually learn to need people again, and admit that I need them. I have needed them all along and been very well supported, but i refused to acknowledge it or accept it. i have many friends right now who are supportive and wonderful, and it's about time i step out of myself and recognize their friendship. It means a lot to me, and I'm so glad to have it. i want more and more, and that's ok. friendship is worth wanting more of.
There's no doubt that i'm still working through large changes in my life, and that in itself is stressful. it's difficult to simply trust what's going on around me, and understand that I'll do well. forgive me for being so dramatic and pretending people don't love me. even my family, of whom i have complained so much this month, love me, in their own difficult way. I don't like the way they love, but i'm positive they are trying. I am trying as well, to love them and yet to stand up for myself, for the first time in my life. Another difficult change. But I can do this.
See, I never make new year's resolutions. I make resolutions and changes all the time, and I figure if I don't make them when I see a problem, then making them at new year's isn't going to help. and right now, it's time to give up this self-pity. you'd think I were still in the Air Force; you'd think I'm blind and friendless, but mostly you'd think I were not recognizing the great strides I've made in my life this past year, these past years. when I take some perspective, see my life when i was 16, how i was bound to my parents, the incredible influence they and their pseudo-Christianity had over me, and then see what changes I have made, largely on my own, without some older mentor to guide me, I have come so incredibly far it boggles my mind. Who would have thought that I, who had never confronted my mother or talked to her about any serious issue that bothered me, would have three different conversations with her in one year about being gay and about leaving the air force? Who would have thought that after growing up under the mores of Oral Roberts and his university, that i would be a happy Quaker, would instead of throwing out all religion becauase of the incredible strictness that I adhered to growing up, find a new path that I could believe strongly in? This is good, and I have to accept it as good, recognize it, and remember how hard I've worked for it.
8:13 AM
Monday, December 22, 2003
why do i need so much? why don't i love myself as much as i know i should? why do i need validation from my parents and from other people, for most everything i do? i suppose i'm human, full of contradictions, containing multitudes of needs, feelings, plaintive soulful sounds. i'm not one to wish i were someone else, but i certainly wish that i were better than i am. of course, it seems everyone else has plenty of their own problems, too, but i want to be better than my problems. i want to stand above them and laugh, say, you're not even big enough for me to stub my toe on. if i could see my life from someone else's point of view, i would probably like myself a lot better. or maybe i'd see my faults more glaringly. maybe both, learning to accept myself like i'm learning to accept others, no matter how much vision they give me. it's all right, i tell myself, it's allright. because there isn't anybody else to tell me, no significant other to whisper don't worry baby in my head, no longtime best friend to stay up all night and talk to me. if i fall? i know some people who will try to catch me, but can they hold me up? i'm heavy, and they don't know me well. i've moved too much, left friends behind, lost the means to touch them.
count your blessings he tells me, that other side of me that knows pity isn't worth the time it takes to think it. and so i count them, and i could keep on counting them until i fell asleep laughing. my life is rich and full. time will fill up the memories between me and my current friends, most new within the past six to eight months. man cannot live on bread alone. this time i can't say i don't need them. i may never have admitted that before, not in my whole life, thought i could live without anybody, and i did, unless you differentiate between existing and living. but i've tasted what i've been missing, and i need it. so maybe in uncovering this need while not quite yet knowing how to fill it, i've opened myself to more hurt, just for a short while, until i find what it is i need. but i have to know that i need, before i can reach for it.
4:29 PM
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Thomas Friedman's NYT Op-Ed column describes the new american isolationist. We have not retreated from the world like some would have had us do in the past, but, "The cops are now in charge — not the diplomats. The only Americans foreigners will meet will be those wearing U.S. Army uniforms and body armor." This is especially true after next year when we start fingerprinting everyone who wants to get a visa to visit us.
We're a nation of frightened, powerful people. i don't know what the answer is, but we can't block the world out, face it only with a gun.
8:56 AM
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Speaking for god is dangerous business. you can say what you think god wants you to do, you can try to glorify god with your own life, but doing things in his name is a hubris akin to raping Lot's guests in Sodom. some rival Episcopals are claiming they know the will of God, that they understand how he thinks. '"The Episcopal Church, in approving same-sex blessings and the consecration of the new bishop of New Hampshire, is saying God approves of this. God doesn't approve of this and that's a huge lie," Duncan said.' people have always been willing to do this, to elevate themselves and assume what they want is what god wants, claiming false legitimacy for their views.
i hate being associated with such Christians. I have struggled against this my whole life, grew up in the middle of large churches, my family interwoven into their decisions. it's the reason my brother refuses to go to church, its the reason so many people hate the word Christian, because it conjures up images of people who act like they know they are right and you are wrong. false prophets have always been popular. few people understand how to love God, and i'm only scratching at the surface of it, hoping that i can at least put myself on the right path, even if i never reach any sort of understanding of who or what he is, whether he's the bread i consume, the sun in the sky, the warmth inside me, the loneliness on a warm night, the one i talk to ceaselessly, the music i hear running through my head, the tempter who begs me to have fun, or just some distant star, watching us, or even ignoring us. he's big enough to be all of those things, to be the universe itself, and all of us, just living inside of him, our earth a microscopic bug in his belly, helping to digest the food he eats.
1:27 PM
I can play Dionne Warwick again! see, i had her set to wake me up on my ipod, even on mornings when i didn't have the speakers plugged in, she still played, racking up the play count on her songs. So, when i checked the 25 most played list on iTunes, she dominated the list, about 15 of the spots. gasp! i thought i couldn't play her until others caught up. but, it wasn't that hard, i just removed her from the library, and re-placed her, so that the play count went back to 0. yippee! sing, Dionne, sing!
now how's that for an inconsequential post? i've been so heavy lately, i know.
11:37 AM
Sunday, December 14, 2003
An actual letter I am sending to my grandparents in response to their Christmas card:
Thank you for your Christmas card, and your prayers for me. I trust that God understands our prayers better than we do and interprets them accoording to our best intentions. I too, pray for you, that you would love as Christ did, with compassion and kindness, and without condemnation.
I know you pray for me to fall in love with a woman instead of with a man, but I know the love I have shared with men is a part of the love God has for all of us. I listen to the spirit often and constantly ask for guidance and support; I have grown so much in my relationship with God and better understand his desires for my life. I feel him all around me, in the beautiful snow that fell yesterday, in the community of the Quaker meeting I attend, in the many blessings of my life, and always inside me, loving and healing me.
You have hurt me for many years, and I don't understand why you carry such condemnation with you. i am stronger now, and have been afraid of you for too long. I don't seek your approval or your advice because I would not trust it. Your love has been shallow and only given when you agree with my life; I have walked on my tiptoes to not offend you. I am tired of that, and must live my own life, and make my family from those with whom i share a truer love. I hope in the future we can better learn to love each other, as Christ demanded. i suspect you do love me, though you have allowed your bias against my sexuality to disfigure such love.
Let us both pray for peace this Christmas, and the increase of love around the world, for all people.
11:33 AM
Thursday, December 11, 2003
a quote on our Army's intentions in Iraq:
Salon.com: "''With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them,' said [Lt. Col. Nathan] Sassaman, [commander of First Battalion, Eighth Infantry, part of the Fourth Infantry Division].'"
yes, we all know that fear + violence = help.
10:23 AM
i put down my rat, Susie, tonight. She had a large tumor and wasn't moving much. I think it was best, and a friend of mine did the work of relieving her. i dont' know what to feel about it, just a loss. a small loss, yes. i won't exaggerate and say she was my favorite pet ever, or that she meant so much to me. but, well, the fact that i had to put her to sleep is the worst, that she didn't just die on her own, because it was her time, but that i had to step in and make a decision to take her life. i don't doubt that I made a wrong decision, but just regret having to make it. maybe you don't realize, but rats are intelligent enough to have a personality, and she was quite different from my last one, who i got along with a lot better. susie was reclusive, as i often am, a little scared to be touched. i recognize that i could have held her more often, and she might have been different, but i imagine she still would have developed the tumor. well, death is never pretty, even if it's something small. i'll miss her, her fuzzy body, her whiskers, her thrill over food cuttings i gave her, her licking my finger, just her being there in my apartment, waiting for me.
12:10 AM
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
I finished another notebook this week, filled up the last page with my words. I've filled up five or six now, but this most recent (the picture on the right side of the blog is of this notebook), was the largest. more than that, I finished the notebook the fastest i've ever finished a notebook, just over a year, not counting the two months i left it in storage while i travelled around and used a different book. I've had a lot to say this past year, especially since I kept this weblog also, double writing, i've probably written more in the past year than in several years combined. does this mean anything, that I should pursue writing as a career, that i should collect words i've written and try to publish them, or just that it's a strong part of my life, one i'm very proud of? i don't know that yet, but i know that writing has been my therapy, a way to explain myself to myself, all the troubles of growing up, of seeing the world differently than it used to be, of conflicting emotions. Writing has been something to do, and as boredom is the enemy, a faithful partner in self-entertainment.
I didn't anticipate this. i've kept fitful notebooks in the past, a journal i wrote in while visiting Australia at ten, a small black book i kept while in college, documenting my struggle with christianity and the academy, even the mostly sexual journal i kept to keep track of my coming out stories. It wasn't until I bought a beautiful blue leather-bound book in new orleans that I started writing ideas, leaving the stories behind, but instead trying to document the contents of my mind. i wanted to write more often than i had something to say, and i know it helped me to think, to examine my motives, my ideas, my questions. soon, when i had bought a second notebook, the writing became a friend of mine, something to do when i wanted to go sit in a cofeeshop. i probably would have rather talked to a friend, but i had no friends, only unavailable acquaintances. once again, for the third time in my life, i hid in myself, not sure how to meeet the world.
who am i now? i've asked myself that at almost every turn in my life. i thought it was because i was changing, ultimately, a different person all the time. but i'm not so different, i'm just a bit wider; i have a bit more perspective on myself and my life, and my mind has grown to understand the world and myself in it. by all rights, i should have spent years in therapy with someone asking me questions. but i'm not sure i trust such professionals, and am sure i don't want to spend the money. so i'm happy to have found something else, quite by accident, that would let me question myself, that would force me to open up, and to examine hidden parts.
paper and ink, with thoughts enough to fill the rest of my life.
11:53 AM
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Angels in America premiered tonight, and I won't stop thinking about it for a while. its characters are too real, too honest to simply fade away. they live in my head, repeating their lines, mixing their lives with mine, forcing me to re-evaluate my life based on their revelations. I grew up, not mormon like Joe, but fundamentalist, in that every law ever passed is a law in my own mind, a wall restricting what i will do, think, and desire. some of that is in the past, and i have successfully broken many laws, but some still haunt me. simple ones and difficult ones, like being late or speaking up about my feelings, make my heart thump in fear. I've been unlearning so much of my life since I turned 19, and though i have come so far, so far that i hardly remember the boy I was, I am not nearly as far as I would like to be. I try so hard to be good, can't imagine doing anything else with my life, but my awareness of good has changed so fundamentally that i have grasped at whatever i could reach, have lived in fear that i might be horrible. I made myself sick with the fear when it all started, in college, breaking out into hives repeatedly, scared and nervous, and alone.
i can't tell you all this, i can't just say what frightened me then, what still frightens me now. i don't have that kind of trust. i haven't gotten through all this, don't expect i ever will, but will have to constantly reevaluate my situation, try to see myself as well as i can, try not to be the monster inside, try to help more people than i hurt.
The second half of Angels in America will air next Sunday. I can only hope its revelations are just as poignant, its fears so raw and honest, that it will be another part of that mirror, to help us see ourselves, who we really are, and maybe who we might be.
11:49 PM
Friday, December 05, 2003
Christmas letter to family, second installation:
I miss you though, and I love you. My memories are vague of good times when i was younger, but I miss those times nonetheless. I was blind then, to a lot of things, and i didn't mind. I won't go back to that, and i don't know how to face all of you with my new vision. i wish i had more strength to love you though. Christmas is difficult now, without a family to back me up, to go to to celebrate the day. I know, I have made a few makeshift families along the way, and they have been wonderful for me. I still hope for the future though, that some day we can spend holidays together, and I won't close my eyes and close my mouth to be around you. I don't want to live my life just to irk you, to insist i am different and better. I want to live my life and not be ashamed of it when I am around you, to love you whether you disapprove or not. christmas was about sharing time and love together then. I don't know what it is about now, and i find myself hesitant to give out the love I should, afraid it will hurt me again. but I still hope i can do it, hope i can be so loving as to forgive the wrongs you have done me, to overlook our differences, and hope you can forgive me for wanting revenge against you, of thinking that I am better than you, of not being myself at all times, not giving you the benefit of the doubt, and letting you grow into it. merry Christmas, and hope for next year.
11:13 PM
Thursday, December 04, 2003
if i were a sarcastic man: a Christmas letter to my oh so conservative family:
This year has been one of the better years for me, in terms of accomplishments and victories, making new friends, and growing in my spirit.
It started with a hearing to prove my conscientious objection to the air force, trying to get closer to what Jesus intended, instead of running for God, shopping for God, killing for God, all that wallowing in self-righteousness.
I was pretty alone during the next few months, with my parents hardly talking to me and my grandmother sending me letters about how wrongheaded me and my peaceful ideas were. Thank goodness for my friend's cock who kept visiting to make me feel better.
Then I met this incredible guy through one of those gay personals sites where you show off your chest and lure guys in by sex promises. he turned out to be bigger than i had dreamed and even stood with me as i spoke out against the recent Iraq crusade, that holiest of holies, prounouncing our God is bigger than yours is.
Strangely enough, after sitting out and protesting against this war of personal vengeance, I received my discharge papers and left the air force while they consistently prayed for God to be on their side, somehow forgetting that God loves everyone and not just them.
But what a coming out I had! Out of the air force, fully out of the closet, celebrating and glorifying God with every last drop of me. I was on a radio show and featured in a gay newspaper, all about my air force objection and my homosexuality, my two favorite parts of myself. Even though my boyfriend broke up with me, i found many people to hang out with, as if i were a new man again, freshly gay.
Since then, I've been working for a gay-owned business, writing up anti-war editorials, and even writing news summaries for a gay and lesbian news website. it's all been so fantastic, as if someone's smiling on me. Maybe it's all the hard work, or even just the waiting, patiently, for my time. I'm so glad I can share all this with you. I hope your year has been even better than mine!
1:35 PM
Monday, December 01, 2003
i like to keep the peace. i love my quiet shoes that make no sounds as i walk. I close my door without noise, to make sure nobody notices, although there is nobody to notice. i love, while jogging, surprising people by running past them without a sound, like some wind that suddenly picked up. i keep my voice low, to make sure i don't make too much impact. I used to hide from my dad that way, wake up early saturday morning, open the cabinets to get the cereal out, closing it slowly and carefully to not wake him up, so i could watch cartoons softly before he came out and changed the channel, made fun of me for watching cartoons. the more unobtrusive i was, the easier life became. I learned i could do all sorts of stuff if i stayed quiet and acted naturally. As much noise as i have made in the last year, with speaking and writing, I am still wary of my voice, my ability to impact people around me. it's so tempting to hide, keep my secrets to myself, as if i am just a cloud drifting by. i have to reconcile this though, learn that i might be better with a bit more noise, or perhaps realize that the sounds i might make are not necessarily noise, but perhaps music.
12:12 AM
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Snow flurried down yesterday, a good marker for the first day of the Christmas season. Trees are hanging onto their dead leaves while the wind tries to knock them off. I have trouble remembering summer now, as if my memories are tied by temperature; i can only remember when last it was cold. This is my first free winter, i keep thinking, though, what do I mean by free? I know it means I can do crazy things like grow my hair out and paint my nails, but it doesn't mean i can do anything i want. it's almost a responsibility, a demand that I do exciting, creative things, and don't just waste it sitting alone at home. and i have been, with my painting and writing, and creating costumes, i feel more fun than i have since high school.
The snow didn't stick, didn't even make a mark on us. I don't need it like I used to, when i would sit in colorado staring at the falling snow watching it cover my wounds, for ten, twenty minutes, just staring into it, allowing myself to drift away into that beautiful whiteness. the snow healed, and i needed so much healing. Now it's winter again, and I am excited for the snow, what little will come here, though I don't need it. i'm no longer just a shirt underneath the heavy iron of a military life. I can keep my wrinkles if i choose, decorate them, love them as a part of me. Still, winter always helps.
11:36 AM
Monday, November 24, 2003
hip hop is the new folk music. the genius about folk music is that the best music comes from people sitting around you. the music is simple, easy, and can be sung by anyone. it's a people-friendly music, homegrown, everywhere music. the more i listen to hip hop music, on cds and the radio, i notice it's the same idea. people sing it as their own, the disc jockeys rap their intros, they affect a voice, a persona that can hold their own against the stars. hip hop is for anyone who wants to try it. movies have even portrayed it, people rapping back at each other in competitions, spitting as it were, involving themselves in the music because it means something to them, and they want to make it themselves. I love the energy of it, the excitement that we're all part of hip hop, if we choose to be.
of course, i look at myself and feel i'm so far from being a part of hip hop that it's laughable. and yet, i love it, respect it for more than what it seems. just like any genre, you have to really search to find the good stuff, but it's definitely out there, people like the Roots, Q-Tip, Blackalicious, Cody ChestnuTT. and also like folk music, the artists draw on the past, they assimilate old songs into their own, making the ideas new again, pressing against social issues, acknowleding their forefathers. i can't wait to see what ten more years will bring.
1:39 PM
Some friends of mine were caught in this Miami protest. Major news hasn't seemed to bother with it, so this is a link to the Taipei Times. Thank goodness for the internet, or we'd never hear about police riots, even if they happen in our own country. Here and here are two firsthand accounts of the riots. I don't know how much to trust anyone - the demonstrators all seem to report that they were no danger to anyone, although one firsthand account does admit that there were some people looking for a confrontation with the police. I know the few protests I've been in on, the police acted like we were all the enemy. They actively corralled and prodded us, honking and grimacing. nothing illegal, but the police obviously did not enjoy our free speech.
For these and other reasons, I have an extremely bad opinion of most policemen. Their arrogance doesn't help the perception. You shouldn't have to go to a protest thinking that you might well got shot with rubber bullets or sprayed with pepper, no matter what you do, even if you obey the police. Somehow I think when the police show up in riot gear, with guns pointed at protestors, the police want to use their power, whether or not it's necessary. i saw the same problem in the air force, that because we had the power to destroy countries, people wanted us to use it. it's just too easy. Most who aren't a part of protesting thinks its the protestors fault - well, if you didn't go irking off the policemen, you wouldn't have been in this situation. I'd rather stand up for my right to protest than for the right of policemen to bully.
11:43 AM
Saturday, November 22, 2003
I alluded to another project going on in my life earlier, and it's starting this week. I'm awfully excited to be doing some posting for Queerday.com. They should write up a short bio introducing me soon. Queerday has been my favorite gay and lesbian news website for about a year now, since I found out about it. it's wonderful to be a part of it. read up!
8:48 AM
Friday, November 21, 2003
We must help people see the truth to the gay marriage fight, that it's about civil rights, and nothing else. Interestingly, Newsday makes the perfect comparison, saying, "But there's another civil rights analogy that the court's 180-day deferral invokes, whether or not the justices realized or intended it. Look at a calendar, and count off 180 days from Nov. 18: the first same-sex marriage licenses in American history can be issued on May 17, 2004 - the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. That's quite an appropriate coincidence, isn't it?"
We all know that separate is not equal, that creating something like civil unions will never work. Our own American history proves that.
Slate gives a decent overview of why conservative religious people are opposed to gay marriage or homosexuality in general. I can only argue for Christianity, since that is what I know. The Old Testament often discusses a state of being cut off, of people not able to bear children, of the nation of Israel even, being cut off from its progeny, its reward or future. The state of being cut off was dirty, like eating pork, the Israelites cast out those who were cut off, as if they were a plague that might infect them. Homosexuals are part of that group of being cut off because we do not reproduce but simply die when our time ends. But there are many prophecies about the barren, about the time when those who could not bear, would be given a legacy anyway. Christ fulfilled those prophecies when he, cut off himself having never married, gave up his own life to create a way to reach God. All of us have access to God because of this sacrifice, whether we are gentile or jew, gay or straight, pregnant or barren. Many people miss this point because it somehow feels good to alienate small groups of people, as if it makes your prize that much better if it's not shared by all. The Jews wanted to originally deny Jesus from the Gentiles, which is why Paul had to argue so vehemently that the salvation was for everyone. the legacy of Jesus is for all of us.
Or we could just argue the declaration of independence which says that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If gay marriage does not exemplify liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I don't know what does.
12:01 PM
Thursday, November 20, 2003
I'm scared, i'll admit. the fight that's begun over gay marriage reminds me of how many people hate our ideas, if not us. I was aware of their hatred, but their voices are gaining in power and confidence. And our friends? Almost every major Democrat stands against us. Thank you to Carol Moseley Braun though, for calling it how it is, that people's fear of gay marriage is the same fear against interracial marriage. This is what always happens when a fight starts, people pick sides, and the vehemence grows. It happened to me a year ago when I stood up to claim conscientious objection. Certain people screamed their vituperance at me, and certain people whispered their support. But that first period, where emotions gain momentum, hurts the most.
I hope the future holds good things for us; i hope people will see this fight as a civil rights fight and not an issue of backwards morality. I hope more of us stand up to fight this one.
12:12 PM
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
I am excited about the new possibilities of gay marriage, much as i see it out of reach for myself. but of course, i also dread the coming fight over it. But we have to stand up for ourselves, don't we? well, i can't even say there's a majority of gay people I know who want marriage, who will even stand up for their right to marry. Strangely, it seems, in order to win any respect, we have to stand up for this one, or be shoved back twenty years. I like th idea of gay marriage, no doubt, but if gays can't even be open and teach high school in most states, what's the point? maybe we have other issues to fight. or maybe we can start with this one, stand behind this one point and make all the others fall in our direction, too. I'm not sure we're that strong, but this eats at me, all the people joining together in hate against us, calling themselves Christians. No followers of Christ would be so motivated by hate.
I'd still prefer to focus my energy on the people we're killing in Iraq. Sure, I can't marry the person I want to, but at least I'm alive. Can't say the same for many many Iraqi's.
10:43 AM
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
When the press has asked Bush about the planned protests as he arrives in Britain, he has given the same answer as the many other times protestors have greeted him around the world, that he's happy to be in a democratic place which allows protests. It's a good answer, no doubt, trying to focus on what he claims to be doing in Iraq with all this killing. However, while protests are certainly a healthy part of a democracy, what Bush doesn't mention is another part of a democracy, voting. If, as it seems in Britain, the majority of voters disagree with the war in Iraq and yet, the government has still gone along with it, where's the precious democracy? Just how precious is the democracy when the majority does not win?
We can circle around this argument though, and question the benefit of a majority always winning. Certainly, our founding fathers were afraid of total majority rule, which is why we have a representative democracy and not a total democracy, and why, i suspect, the electoral college still exists. If an election in 1800 had been so close that the popular vote overruled the electoral vote, which way would the founders have perferred the decision to fall? Were the members of the electoral college to vote their own consciences and preferences or were they to simply abide by the will of the people and present a somewhat distorted view of majority rule?
I certainly know the majority of Americans would not prefer marriage rights to be extended to same-sex couples, and yet, that's exactly what i would argue needs to be done, with or without majority rule. How far does democracy go, and how do the courts assess the view of the constitution against the views of the people?
These aren't easy questions, and weren't meant to be. But that's what America is all about, consistently redifining our rules and constitutions to reflect the people and the new understanding of laws, so that no tyranny can last for long, so that no one group consistently exerts power over others. But this needs constant work, dialogue, and thought, which most Americans refuse to do. Our democracy does not so much rely on our legislators and presidents to do the right thing but on the extent of regular americans to be aware of the world around them and to conscientiously make decisions. would the schools taught more of this and less of mathematics and athletics.
5:00 PM
Friday, November 14, 2003
Thank goodness, some interesting good news to report. Canada must be a wonderful country. Thanks Monsieur Chretien, for leading the way. Maybe we can elect a leader more like you in our country.
and while i'm at it, let's talk well about Dick Clark, too. Not many people can be so accepting of the people around them, so non-judgemental, and so warm. i can't say i've ever so much liked him, and yet, it's amazing that he hasn't done the whole I'm old, i hate you young people thing like so many others. talk about democracy, he's respected the majority opinion forever.
11:51 AM
Thursday, November 13, 2003
I have recently begun posting sporadically for a local website, St. Louis Instead of War Coalition. All of the stuff I've written for them is here in my blog, so it's nothing new to those of you who read this, but it's exciting for me to have even a slightly larger audience, and to say, hey, my stuff is getting out there. I've also tried out for another website, but i'll let you know more about that if i get the opportunity.
I'm also happy to see Alabama Chief Justice [Roy Moore] Removed From Office. Although I agree the Ten Commandments do carry reflections within our own legal system, so does the code of Hammurabbi and other ancient texts. Setting up an enormous monument to such a religious text hardly defines the separation of church and state.
12:46 PM
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
i didn't write much about what this week means to me. I've had a hard time expressing much opinion because what happened was a year ago, and i'd like to keep it there. however, some repetition is good to have, and I don't want to forget. The day before veterans' day, last year, i spoke at a peace rally here in town. I've said all this before, though. I feel a totally different person now, more outspoken, more confident, and definitely a civilian. more than anything, I feel more myself, i stood up for what I believed in, put myself at risk, and acccomplished my goal. And yes, I was brave and I was strong. But thank goodness that was a year ago, and not just a few days past.
2:15 PM
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Veterans' Day. to all veterans, though i don't presume any of them will read this. I respect your willingness to give so much of yourself to those around you. I mourn those of you we have lost, those who are still missing or still captured. Although i don't respect your methods, I know you meant well, that most of you were thinking more about your loved ones, your lovers, nephews, and mothers than you were about the thrill of killing someone else. I know you think war is necessary, that there is nothing else to do, though so few other methods have even been tried. so that is my challenge, to both myself and to you, to find other ways to settle problems, like we have within our own country, where duelling is illegal and most people go to the courts or the police before they pull out their weapons. Take your energy and willingness to sacrifice and devote it to furthering peace around the world, so fewer of you will actually lose their lives, so fewer of all of us, in all countries, will lose ours. We are all veterans of a world war, fighting going on all around us, between criminals and policemen, mothers and fathers, soldiers and soldiers, people against themselves. I hope we can mourn the loss of each other and prevent all the future's disasters.
7:38 PM
Saturday, November 08, 2003
Thanks, Jessica. You are brave and honest to tell us the military's fliming of your release was a set-up for their benefit. Not many people would shun the hero-light they tried to thrust on you. I am impressed that you would not bow to the military's wishes. Shame on the military who tried to use you, but you have claimed your own truth and let them be known as the users they have always been. what courage! All Americans will benefit from your honesty.
11:14 PM
Thursday, November 06, 2003
"On his second night in Iraq, one month ago, Sergeant Pogany, 32, saw an Iraqi cut in half by a machine gun. The sight disturbed him so much, he said, he threw up and shook for hours. His head pounded and his chest hurt."
This is war that the president doesn't talk about. This is war that our history books don't talk about. War can not be glorified. I cannot think of any reason which would justify the brutal death of this man. But even more atrocious are people who would criminalize the natural reaction of horror this sergeant had upon seeing half of a man blown apart. Do you think the sergeant will ever forget that? Do you think he doesn't wake up in the middle of the night with the image in his head?
don't you ever forget either. This is our america, one that punishes people for having compassion on others, one that promotes such carnage as noble battle. this is why I left the Air Force.
12:11 PM
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
i've been mixing music lately. actually, i'm bouncing right now to the music i'm putting together for a friend of mine. no wonder music runs my life, it controls my body like the knob on a radio. hard to type when i'm moving like this. thank goodness most people work during the day and i can blast my music in my apt. this is so exciting, what song's coming next? oh, i know, i put them together, but i don't have that good of a memory, and the anticipation is such a turn-on. oh yeah, this is right. see? no, you can't hear can you? oh, you wish you could. this is movement to share.
10:47 AM
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Soldiers have the closest sight to war. They don't read the paper to find out what the enemy might be doing; they see it from their tents, marching in front of them and sneaking behind them. Most of them have an incredible faith in their leaders, in the job they are doing, and in the abilities of the other soldiers around them. A group with positive morale can withstand the harshest conditions, keep each other motivated to wake up each day. Disasters occur though when the soldiers look around them to find desperation. Desperation in the enemy who is willing to kill himself for a small tactical gain, desperation in the soldiers around them who no longer want to live.
The Pentagon recently admitted troop suicide is triple the normal rate, and are investigating another dozen possible suicides. One soldier in particular was not shy about his death; he killed himself immediately after talking to friends or family back in the US, in front of the line waiting to use the telephone.
Bush says troop morale is good. Suicide, although far too common in a peacetime , rips morale in half, reminds people how difficult their situation is, disassembles trust in those around you, shakes every confidence soldiers have in their fight. When the army is sending mental health professionals to Iraq to examine the increasing problem, morale is nowhere near good. When soldiers hear their leader proclaiming the lie that their morale is good, it lowers morale even more, forces them to realize the distance between them and their leaders and question the judgement of the men who put them in their position.
I remember a suicide attempt on my base in Sacramento. it's amazing how many people it effects. it's not just the people who knew the guy, it's everyone on base who finds out, which is mostly everyone. who knows why, the guy could have had family troubles, an affair out of hand, fiscal problems, anything, but it shakes you up, makes you wonder what people are thinking around you, makes you reliaze how much stress is on the people you work with. to think of that kind of an experience in an already stressful war environment, what can that do to people? what do we say to the twenty-year old man's parents, the man who killed himself in front of the telephone line? how do we tell them that he didnt' want to handle the situation we put him in? I want to put my own spin on this of course, i want to say I know why he did it. but i don't, even if i can imagine that so much around him threatened him to the point that his only friend was his weapon. why do we give the most horrible jobs to the youngest, the ones that handle it the worst? why are we willing to lose these people, even if they are willing to lose themselves?
8:35 PM
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Rare that an active duty military man can realize that excessive violence often returns more violence. Israel's Army Chief of Staff has recently revealed such an opinion in the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians. Newsday.com - Sharon, Army at Odds on Palestinians. Three years of fighting is a long enough time for military leaders to see the effects of their destruction, to see that people strangely don't give up, even in the face of unsurmountable odds, that perhaps, there might be a better way than the most violent method. It's hard to see that, especially when your society teaches that violence is the only way to solve major conflicts. Occasionally, people rise above the threat of never-ending violence and realize humans are capable of more.
2:23 PM
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
how nice of you, president bush, to blame the mission accomplished banner on the sailors. if you hadn't liked it then, why didn't you say something? i'm sure the devoted sailors would have done anything you liked. now you punish them for just being there, kind man that you are.
11:47 AM
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Defence Sectretary Rumsfield recently announced a new war, this time a “war on ideas”. Certainly, controlling information has been a staple of wartime, whether securing our own secrets or trying to influence the minds of others, war leaders have always sought to have control. The more interconnected our world becomes, the less governments are able to control ideas, which benefits people in the longterm by exposing government lies. In this case, we can’t help question Secretary Rumsfield motives in his blatant attempt to convince people their ideas are wrong. Many Americans and people worldwide already distrust him because of his comments in the past, based on the examples he has shown us. Will we target everyone who already has their own opinion of the American dream, attempt to step off of our very shaky grounds for this war and convince them that we are always right, that we play this fight fairly? From reading commentaries around the world and from seeing thousands of people demonstrating in Australia and the Philippines against our President when he visits, I know people dislike us, average everyday people who are looking at the evidence themselves. Evidence like the detainment of people at Guantanamo Bay, evidence like the way we ridicule our allies, evidence like the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, evidence they can see right through. I wonder how much damage America will do to itself as we try to convince other people that our judgement is morally surperior to theirs, if we start a war on their ideas? If what the world has already heard from the mouths of our leaders are known to be lies, how can a new American government agency expect to speak and be heard? If they don’t laugh in derision, they will suspect us of something more sinister, of actually expecting to be able to control their collective minds. In an already distrustful world, in a world that has increasing control of their own information, trying to spread slanted disinformation makes a mockery of our ideals.
1:30 PM
Thursday, October 23, 2003
It feels strange to watch our president mocked and rallied against in other countries. People shouldn't care so much about our president, should they? if America didn't try to run the world, if our influence wasn't felt in most every corner, people wouldn't care as much. Of course, our president's popularity overseas doesn't mean a whole lot. As much as I agree with them and support their demonstrations, i wouldn't change my vote over it, were Bush doing things that i supported. I do feel some responsbility as it is though. Bush is my president, and the system that my country runs under pushed him to his current position, whether you want to call it an election or something else. So it's up to me and other Americans to remove him from that office. The Australians and Phillipinos and other people of the world are in a bad fix. The president that has angered them so, is not the one they have any say over. in another way of looking at our predicament, we are lucky, that at least we get the chance next year, to change our collective American mind and move in a different direction.
12:20 PM
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
A week ago, Dan Savage was in town for a book reading. remembering his tighty whity fetish, i decided to wear a pair while I went to hear him. and well, take along a magic marker and have him sign them. see?  he signed my underwear! now, i'm the coolest person I know.
10:52 AM
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
I have about twenty pages I wrote during my sophomore year of college, the first time i began to write about my life and my thoughts. I was falling then, unable to hold onto my fundamentalist faith in Christianity, and unsure where to go as i lost my strength and then my will to hold on. i fell from my parents, too, as I began to distrust what they had told me and were still telling me. usually, people turn from their parents and their religion to new things, friends, new ways to have fun, anything to fill that void. I had never been lonelier than I was that year, being made fun of for being too weird by most of the cadets around me, being just too different from them to relate and unable to leave the campus to make any other friends. Even the dream of the Air Force Academy fell apart as i began to see through the system, the cruelty it promoted, and the cadets it produced, hoping I wouldnt' become one of them, too. Of course, I also had the highest course load I would carry during college, 21 hours a semester for two semesters in a row, full of engineering courses that barely made sense to me, a reader and a thinker. Plus, I had the realizations that i was attracted to men around me and my repulsion from myself for those desires. I don't know how i made it.
Those twenty pages don't say much of this; i was too scared to let it out. My troubles had to force their way out, physically at first. I started going grey that year, at nineteen, and i broke out in hives as spring came around, every time i got slightly heated, just from walking around, the stress coming out as itchy red bumps all over me. I was burning, all the dead wood inside me lit by the sparks of stress. my skin, my brain, my soul, on fire. i remember walking upstairs sometime near april, beginning to panic and tighten up, knowing that i would soon heat up and itch. I don't know how or why, but that day i started breathing, and let a tiny bit go. I was still burning, like Voltaire digging through his soul unsure if he would ever be able to stop the descent. I guess it had to burn, I had so much trash in me after nineteen years of accepting everything i was told.
It's been a long time since then, and every year I have learned better how to breathe. but man, i'm glad i'm not nineteen anymore.
1:10 AM
Sunday, October 19, 2003
twisting, twisting, twisting in the wind. between different stories i'm trying to write. i'm learning that i have to write about twenty pages on a subject before i understand it enough to write about it. a friend of mine told me that he was impressed with the consistency between what i wrote here, what i tell him in conversation, and what i write in my notebooks. i am glad he said that, but i don't think he realized the work that it took me to become that consistent, and how the only way to stay that consistent, is to hide all the contradictions in my life. sometimes i just repeat myself, and so i appear consistent. i question though, whether i couldn't be spending my life in better ways, more doing than just thinking and writing. i used to spend a lot of time training for triathlons, being outside and such. i don't think i should return to that, but i wonder what else i might be doing with my time other than reflecting over every bit of memory i have. then again, what if i have some voice in this that others don't, that others will be refreshed by? then it's all worth it, and i don't have to redirect my life. i can't tell. not yet at least.
1:38 PM
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Maureen Dowd writes a column today about the curse Bush has tried to lay on us, the fairy tale he wants us to live in. More interesting and disturbing though is a quote she uses: " On Monday, Representative George Nethercutt Jr., a Republican from Washington State who visited Iraq, chimed in to help the White House: 'The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.'"
This is why I left the military, because our world sees news and creation of news as more important than the lives lost in the process. Not only is he not concerned about our own soldiers' lives, but fails to mention the Iraqis who are still dying because of our occupation. If this Representative's comments would come along as an official statement with every announcement to families and loved ones of each soldier who died, I think support for the Iraqi occupation would dwindle quickly.
It shocks me though; i don't hardly know how to speak to it. Would this Representative be so callous if it had been his son yesterday or last week who had died and barely been reported on the news? Can he not see that these soldiers have been duped the worst of all? Sure, the whole country has been taken on a ride by the White House, but the soldiers, they're the ones paying for it, with everything they have. yes, if they hadn't volunteered, they wouldn't be there in the first place, so that means they wanted to die, right? No. if they are anything like i was at 17, I wanted to give to my country, wanted to serve the people around me, wanted to be a part, to do my duty, to be something more than self-serving. I had no idea what I was doing, and neither do most of the people in the military. They blindly trust those who lead them, and while it may be not their smartest move, to see their trust dying with them because of lies and ill-conceived notions of the world both angers and exhausts me. to see their death flippantly cast off as if it were nothing is an incomprehensible horror.
10:38 AM
Monday, October 13, 2003
Propaganda usually comes from loud voices, and therefore easier to detect. Presidents, senators, and other politicians often use it to their advantage and discredit. But at least ten city newspapers have recently receivedDubious Letters From GIs In Iraq. These letters are signed by soldiers in Iraq and sent back to their hometowns as editorials. They are made to look like an honest grassroots attempt to increase the public's awareness of the Iraq situation. The deception is layered as neither the contents nor the source are true. Every day, it seems, someone is pulling more wool over America's eyes, clouded as they already are. Someone is working very hard to convince us of something that we would otherwise not believe. It must be our job then, to work just as hard to find the truth for ourselves, and share it.
4:38 PM
Sunday, October 12, 2003
I'm tired today, and i can't blame it on lack of sleep, not after the 10 hours i had last night and good sleep the night before as well. i'm tired from taking care of my mother this past week in tulsa, and worrying about her since i left on thursday. i'm tired of the pain in our relationship, the things we can and can't talk about, the hurt i'm still feeling from the words she said to me in the past few years, how she thinks i will kill myself like my uncle did because he tried to live a gay life, how she told me i was lying about my conviction for conscientious objection. i'm trying, so hard, to let it go, to forgive her, but i am not strong enough yet, not when i can't write about it without crying. i'm hoping that the good seeds i planted this week, taking care of her when her husband neglected to stop by during her surgery, will help turn her good will toward me, but i know i have to do such things without such hope for compensation, do them just for her, because she is my mother and because i love her. all this has exhausted me. it seems the love i'm trying to give her is caught in all of my pain and can't quite get through yet. but i fear, too, that her coldness will stop any love i give to her, and she won't see. This kind of work takes time though; seeds don't grow when planted. They have to be watered and cared for; and even then, i can't cause them to grow.
12:30 PM
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Mary Poppins, who are you? Are you a fairy tale riding your umbrella down to the children who need you most? Are you a teacher and an inventor, inspiring us to see more than we otherwise might? Or are you a side of each of us, that part that says laugh a little louder, dream a little more, and love all you can?
silly to wonder about Mary, isn't it? It's a silly movie, full of somewhat annoying songs about chimneys and terrible dance numbers. and yet, it's also a subtle explanation of how we might live, giving what we have instead of hording it away, finding fun in every possible job, and not being afraid of those who tell us not to be happy.
or maybe i dont know anything about that. but i know it made me laugh a whole lot more than i expected, and that's always a good thing. and it makes me wonder what sort of lessons we give to our children, and when we start giving them other lessons. when do we tell them to stop believing all those wonderful fairy tales and tell them they have to buy their way in the world, they have to accumulate all the money and possessions they can or else they lose the game? well, i guess i'll just have to teach them myself, won't i?
4:40 PM
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Thanks, Reichen. As much as I am jealous of you for having other gay friends and lovers at the Academy, since I never had even one, I am glad to hear your story. I've had too many people tell me, oh, i heard being gay in the military was no big deal now, people accept it and stuff. No. It still hurts, all the time, all kinds of people. the solitude and the silence can be unbearable.
Still, times are changing. I've heard from people i knew back on the base, that word has circulated about my homosexuality. Everyone seems interested in it, and I guess few people are upset about it. I don't care much, don't know anybody on the base anymore (yes, even after only six months). shouldn't they change the policy then? seems like many people would accept it better now than ten years ago. but then, would they? there's something when it's hidden, when nobody's open about it. As for now, gay sex is still a crime under the military code. I suppose this is why I make it clear to most everyone i meet that i'm gay, and that i'm comfortable with it. i want to hear myself say it, i want to shake people sometimes and force them to be more aware of the people around them, what effect their conversation might have on them. I'm tired of being silent.
2:22 PM
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Several friends of mine have been interested in how I've managed to keep religion as a part of my life, when so many others have thrown it away, and when it's pressured me into so many things when i was young. i feel my religion wouldnt' let go of me, instead of me continuing to search after it. i mean, maybe the old proverb is right, that if you teach a child the way he should go, he won't divert from it later in life. i tried to let it all go for a few years when I was coming out, but i couldn't. I put it aside for some time, unable to reach agreement between homosexuality and christianty. It didn't disappear though; i was interested both intellectually and spiritually, so i kept finding it everywhere; not because i went to church often, although i did off and on, even when I was somewhat trying to ignore things, but because a search for God has always been a part of my life. I have always felt too much truth in christianity, no matter how buried it's been underneath hypocrisy. I never followed the people, not even the pastors. My parents were good enough to teach me that religion was my own, that the Bible held secrets for me other people might never be able to teach me. they must have expected me to find exactly what they did, but of course, that didn't work out. Still, they rooted my faith in an intellectual search for God, no matter how much they might claim that intellectualism and God were incompatible. When my brother and I had to write papers on theology and prepare interesting bible studies, we learned to think critically and interpretively about the Bible. When my mother, who co-hosts a radio show in Oklahoma, interviewed me about being at the Air Force Academy, her co-host asked me at the end of the show, what was the best lesson or example my parents taught me while growing up. I answered that my parents had taught me to learn the Bible, to remember verses, and to understand it for myself.
So when i was struggling with God after college, I tried to observe and learn more. I picked up one of my now favorite short story collections called God: Stories which reminded me that thoughts about God can be about both faith in him and about his absence, can foster faith and can trouble faith. But i learned mostly that my thoughts on God were valid, not something i should walk away from but something I should explore because they were a part of me and my psychology. Reading that book started my excitement about God again, remembering that God was not all about condemnation but about exploration of our world, of ourselves, of the part of God that is in us. From there, I steadily recaptured my faith and improved my understanding, of who I was as a homosexual and as a Christian, of who i was as a person, as someone committed to living rightly and improving myself.
Can I say this? I couldn't sleep one night, was upset in my head, upset in my stomach, had to walk around. I walked outside for at least an hour, trying to calm my stomach, trying to figure out what was going on. I walked all over my neighborhood at 3am and 4am, wandering the streets. at some point, i realized i had to listen. I hate to say that God talked to me, because I didn't hear anything with my ears. instead, i just knew something, something new that I wouldn't have thought of myself, knew it, like it was written inside me by the churning of my stomach, in letters i could feel, like the work of Kafka's machine in "The Penal Colony." It was simple, that i had to talk to my closest friend about religion, that i couldn't keep it from him anymore, as if it had to be a divide between us. Once i accepted that message, my stomach stopped, I felt relieved, as if I had passed a kidney stone. I told my friend the next day, embarrassed, but sure that I had to. I still don't know what effect it had on him. However, I know what it did to me, as if it were a test, can you handle this easy task? I could say it was preparation for later. When I encountered the Quaker message later that year, here in St Louis, that everyone has a part of God in them and that we have to listen to that part in us to find direction, I understood exactly because I had already felt it, rather involuntarily. And when I began to question my role in the military and consider conscientious objection, I listened and waited for such a feeling, for words written inside me. it took around a year, of thinking, listening, and waiting, and even some avoiding. But when I felt the answer inside me, I trusted it, because of all the years I have spent searching for God, because of all the years i have spent searching for myself, and realizing that searching for God is searching for myself, as I am a part of God. This isn't just religion. this is philosophy, psychology, personal experience, existentialism, and a desire for growth and improvement.
12:46 PM
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Many people have given me a hard time for the music i listen to, wondering why i don't listen to what everyone else does, wondering how i find different music or why i bother (remember, i have the skewed perspective of being around unimaginative air force people for nine years). I usually flaunt my music preferences to highlight my differences, but there have been too many times when others' comments plain hurt. but so what, i still love the music. What's wonderful though is when you connect to unusual people through music that you both like. An older black man, a doctor, comes to sit at my cafe several times a week. he never tips, and usually sits there around an hour or so, enjoying his croissant and the newspaper. He's always nice and has one of those great voices you know would be a great public reader. When he mentioned a week or so ago that he is retired now and gets to sit around doing very little and loves it, I said, oh, like the Fats Waller song, it's loafin' time! The song has one of my favorite lyrics in it: "I just love this lazy way of living / doing nothin' ain't no sin / If it is I hope that I'm forgiven / cuz I've got nothing to do and all day to do it in." He looked at me, shocked, how does a young guy like you know Fats Waller? ha! i just do! so every time he comes in now, we chat about old jazz and blues and other wonderful stuff. Apparently, he brought in a few tapes of Lionel Hampton and such for me, but I wasn't around so didnt' leave them. an older retired well-to-do black man bringing tapes for me to listen to! I saw him today and as i turned around to grab something for him, i heard the chink of a few coins going in the tip jar. of course, his friendliness is worth more than the tip, but it's so nice to be appreciated for something that so many other people discount or criticize. and wonderful to find connections between yourself and complete strangers.
8:59 PM
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
October, thank heavens. the air is cool and the sun is warm. I can finally justify wearing a long sleeve shirt outside. Perphaps the weather drives me too much, but i love these days. This just feels right.
I'm sending off poetry today to a local literary journal, the Delmar. Don't know what might happen, but i'm both excited and nonchalant. If they like it, I'll be excited. If they don't, I'll be nonchalant. Two of the poems I've already shared in front of groups, at poetry readings, and people there welcomed them, so I hope others will also. I'm not exactly sure of my motivations here. Yes it would be wonderful to see my name listed as a poet in a journal, no matter how small. I have never considered myself a poet though. Certainly a writer, but poetry comes out of me with difficulty. i have to pull and push and strain. I suppose any good thing does, though, right? The rest of this commentary is the looseness of my head whereas poetry is taking a large chunk of it, molding it into shape, condensing it, and presenting it as a piece of power instead of a loose flowing stream. Both are nice, but the poetry should last longer.
May my pink and black nails which match my pink and black outfit bless the pages with good luck as they go.
3:29 PM
Monday, September 29, 2003
I learned to play Go yesterday, down at the Commonspace for the first time. It's a strategy game that's simultaneously simple and complex. I felt stupid again, or just boggled with so many possibilities. but i loved the friendliness of the small group who plays there on Sunday afternoons. They were perfectly willing to teach me, give me hints, let me play with their pieces, etc., happy that a newcomer was trying it out. I've been meaning to stop by there for months, since i found out about it, but when two people began playing go at the cafe i work at, I decided I would try the next day. It's nice to learn something new, even if you feel incompetent. As much as i love to teach, it's good to get practice at learning, too, something completely new and frustratingly difficult. There at the cafe, i ran into a social justice group who meet once a month after reading a book on the subject. can i fill my life with one more thing? I think perhaps I would be accomplishing more if i worked at social justice while volunteering to help people in my community instead of reading and talking about it. but again, all the options both excite and frustrate me. I can't do them all, no matter how hard I try. especially when my sleep and my cooking is so important to me. I have lists and lists of things to do, important things, fun things, hectic things. Nobody can say I'm not living, but i just don't want to be gasping for air underneath a ton of life.
3:58 PM
Friday, September 26, 2003
so, i'm reading your blog, and i'm wondering. what do you want to see on your blog? you asked us what kind of stuff we expect or want out of it, but what the difference do we matter? this is your blog, you write it how you like it! i figured most bloggers were out there to enjoy themselves, but from reading several others recently, it looks like they're working for a public. i guess that's thrilling and all, but not when you're trying to do self-analysis. i can't say much, few people read my blog. but honestly, i don't write it for them. i love keeping it, i love talking about my life, and explaining myself to myself. i do it in public because the more i put it on my blog, the more i'm able to do it in real life. once i'm able to tell everyone around me all these crazy thoughts that i hide, that i've repressed for years because of my parents and all my air force compatriots, then maybe i'll give up the blog. for now, it's practice to become better in real life. i can't tell you the times i've thought while talking to friends, oh, i shouldn't say that to them, i don't trust them that much. but wait, i've said that in my blog, so it's out there. go on, tell them; they're worth it, and it's good for you. and i love it. i love sharing my life with people and losing my fear of sharing myself.
7:49 PM
Thursday, September 25, 2003
I am so glad this [Israelis refuse to carry out airstrikes] is happening. When people used to taking orders refuse to drop bombs on civilians, their courage rises higher than the smoke of war. I know the feeling of being part of an unthinking system; i know how difficult it is to think and to walk against that system. These men deserve our thanks, for respecting poeple's right to live, no matter how dangerous those people may appear to be.
1:59 PM
I woke up this morning, not knowing if my friend and first love, Joshua, was still there, not after the conversation we had last night, him desperate and hurt beyond reason, me, lost in how i could help. I didn't have my senses with me Josh. i want to tell you again that i love you, that i know i hurt you in the past, and may still be hurting you. i don't understand how you could have forgiven me, but i have so much respect for your ability to do just that. i know you may not be listening any more, but i miss you. how many times have we called each other this summer and told each other stories we didn't trust with anyone else? if you've walked away from me this time, i won't let my loss disrupt my love. You have meant too much for me; you started a hope in me that refuses to die, a hope that other people exist who have the same passion for life that I have, who not only recogognize it in me, but encourage it in me, unlike the so many people who have laughed at me for it. but stay with us, we need you as much as you need us. you have sight beyond our comprehension, love and forgiveness that has taught me how much is possible. so much of me is better because I was with you for a time. and I know that you and i will continue to learn from each other.
and now that I know you are better, i want to see you even more, just to thank you for your love and your life.
12:49 PM
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
songs in my head recently: Dionne Warwick's Anyone who had a heart, Natalie Merchant's Whose side are you on?, the Magnetic Fields' 100,000 fireflies, Emmylou Harris' Wrecking Ball, the Beach Boys' Cabinessence, and Fats Waller's Loafin' Time.
11:15 PM
Monday, September 22, 2003
one year ago today. one year ago tomorrow. how do you measure a year, i've heard asked before. last year, today, i felt compelled to conscientiously object to the air force and leave, before my time was up. it wasn't a decision I wanted to make; i had dragged my feet for eight months. it wasn't a path i wanted to take. i would have let someone else do it, had it been possible. but that's why i use the word compelled, compelled by that something inside me, that i listen to during a Quaker meeting, try to understand and try to make more a part of me, that still, small voice. one year ago tomorrow, i made my first entry into this weblog. although i had been keeping another form of an online diary, nobody was able to read it, so i copied the pages to this new space. but the first entry, is there at the bottom of that first page, about the decision i had made the day before, still shocked at what i was about to do.
what has this year been to me? the most immense inner trouble i have seen, and yet the most rewarding year as well. i had few friends the beginning of that year, some had drifted away, some were too far away to help, and some simply were not available. but i found new ones, and leaned on them in ways i never thought possible, crying while they held me, not able to stand up on my own anymore. i found a voice i never realized i had; i found strength and confidence i always wanted to have. i found reason, to stand up, to change my life, to face something else. i am someone different today, reborn as it were, once more, and am still remaking myself from who i was into who i will be. one year ago.
and this weblog, full of the words i used to describe my situation. although, i have been writing for years in my notebooks and still have plenty of ink there, i was able to use this page for others to see what was going on inside, again, my first time to allow others to see who i am. i am less afraid now, less afraid of someone peering into me, all these things i have left open. i don't know how you see me, because of all the sight you now have, but that doesn't so much matter. i am grateful for the sight this page has given me as well.
i measure my year in the words i spoke and wrote, the people who have loved me, the growth between then and now.
11:11 AM
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Last night, my friends Jeff and Rob and I talked with a lovely stranger, a European lady whose name I don't remember, about normality and commonness. it seems to be an american ideal for people to seek normality and shun their individuality, to ridicule intellectualism. I know from my parents, this was true because their concept of christianity did not allow for intellectuals; too much thinking leads you away from God. I've since found that religion and thought fit just as well as philosophy and thought, as if they are one and the same. But what I still struggle with is how to be intellectual without being snobbish. How to appreciate difficult art without frowning on those who can't yet see it. I think partly, education is the answer, that when I am in a situation where I feel I understand the art or the concept better than those around me, i need to be willing and able to explain it, for their benefit, the difference between raising them up to my level and me seeking the lowest common denominator like many of us did in high school in our response to peer pressure. What I don't want to lose though, is the appreciation of what is average and common. That is, learning to enjoy and appreciate good wine while still enjoying a coke when you're in the mood. I reproach myself with music far too often, forcing myself to listen to independent music with a guitar and feeling that somehow fun electronic music is never as artistic or thought provoking. Liking something that is easy to like is not a crime, and although it shouldn't stop you from learning to like something else that may not be so easy, you shouldn't look down on what is easy to like, just because it doesn't challenge you as much. I suppose this argument is why I love Andy Warhol, because he took things that were common and normal and tried to elevate them to art, forcing us to look at them in a different way, perhaps stripping them of their normality. Or was he responding to the lowest common denominator as well, using these objects because he knew people would understand them?
I can't answer my own questions; i've struggled with this since i can remember, being challenged by my brother to read high literature, instead of the Hardy Boys. I appreciate that challenge, but it's given me another challenge, to question my intentions, to give myself enough time to learn many things I don't know while still be able to enjoy what I already have, not looking down on what I have because it is not new or especially challenging. or perhaps, find a way to be challenged by what I already know, by approaching it in a different manner.
12:30 PM
Saturday, September 20, 2003
home, with a dsl connection. with a new job, with a new telephone number. is there anything about me that has remained stable? yes, plenty. but in cyberworld, i'm quite different. i have work to do. and a whole internet full of distractions.
7:49 AM
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
I received an invitaton recently, from my high school's football booster club, to attend a ten year reunion next month. A week earlier, I dreamed of being in football practice and flirting with some male stranger in front of the coach, not caring about what he thought. for the first time, my subconscious was not afraid of this man, who has always haunted, frightened, and angered me more than any other person. the two events together have made me consider actually attending the reunion, especially if i am in town for my mother's surgery. but, every time i see myself walking to the stadium, or sitting in the stands watching the game, or talking to my old teammates, i get nervous and frightened, just like i used to get before practices and games, dreading every minute spent. my feelings about football are too complex to explain here; i have spent ten years ignoring and then trying to face my fears from the five years i spent playing, from the lies my father told me to get me to play, from the way that i berated myself for not liking a sport that was contradictory to every part of my personality but so normal as to seem necessary for every able young oklahoman boy.
To go back, is it revisiting and reopening old wounds, or is it an attempt to heal myself? these wounds have played me for a fool. i thought that harboring them would give me power over my father some day, that i could throw them back in his face so he finally knew how much he had hurt me. but instead, i haven't gotten over how much he hurt me and know i can never explain to him the consequences of his actions, how much i tried to please him, how much i hurt myself in the process. so in trying to let go of this angst, do i keep to the situations that give me peace, or do i walk back in the scene of my torture? how much strength do i have? can i be the person i am every day, when i am back there, with all the memories swimming around me? there's so much to think about. i might just make a decision and deal with it, not stress over whether to do it or not but how, and if not, how else do i overcome my fear?
4:18 PM
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
You took off your shirt for me, hard chest, muscled symmetry, smiling to have my attention. I removed mine, same stuff again. Under clothes lies flesh; under flesh, ? I too often forget to read in our moving picture world. Might as well enjoy another night. Maybe tomorrow, I'll see your soft depth between the lust in my eyes.
1:39 PM
Monday, September 15, 2003
I'm living in my new place now, all my stuff fit to a different shape, like liquid poured from one glass to another one. of course, this glass is smaller, and i had to do something with the overflow. it's nice though, finally sleeping in my own bed after two months of travel, after many different beds of friends and family. i have my music back, i have my cooking pots back, and many ideas brewing in my mind. i'm visiting the old places i used to frequent, coffee shops, my quaker meetinghouse, bars, parks, and all those buildings i love. i'm riding my bike around town, getting to know different avenues, streets that end in strange places, sidewalks that get too bumpy. funny how september always seems the start of things, even now that i'm no longer in school.
2:51 PM
Monday, September 08, 2003
10 bands singers you've been listening to a lot lately
1. Dionne Warwick
2. The Magnetic Fields
3. Nina Simone
4. Roberta Flack
5. Smashing Pumpkins
6. Underworld
7. can't even get this far - i've been collecting so much new music lately, i barely have time to listen to it before i find something new at the library.
9 things you look forward to
1. cooking in my new apartment with my wonderful pots
2. seeing how my relationship develops with my mother
3. putting more music on my ipod
4. cycling regularly
5. what my hair will look like in two, three months
6. eating breakfast
7. staying in one spot for a while
8. winter
9. dreaming more and more
8 things you like to wear
1. leather pants
2. nail polish
3. my blue-green shirt
4. boots
5. a speedo
6. purple in my hair
7. my goodwill shirts
8. my sunglasses
7 things that annoy you
1. summertime excessive heat
2. people who run red lights
3. myself for driving too aggressively
4. the impersonality of driving everywhere
5. stains that won't come out of my clothes, especially one of my favorite blue shirts
6. the first twenty minutes after waking
7. my heart pounding for no apparent reason
6 things you say most days
1. i dunno, i'm tired.
5 things you do everyday
1. sing
2. eat lots of food
3. drink lots of water
4. think about sleeping
5. wish that st louis were colder
4 people you'd like to spend more time with
1. Emily
2. my brother
3. i can't bring myself to say it.
4. several new guys i met this summer
3 movies you could watch over and over again
1. Harvey
2. Batman
3. The Scarlet Pimpenel
2 of your favorite songs at the moment
1. Walk On By
2. Anyone who had a heart
1 person you could spend the rest of your life with
1. how can i tell? does it have to be just one? that's too limiting. i think i'll opt for all of my friends and some lovers.
12:26 AM
oh, i move into a new place tomorrow. new walls to surround me, a new route to walk, closer to the park i love with the great cycling route around it, the coffee shop i love, and closer to many people i know. much rejoicing.
12:01 AM
Sunday, September 07, 2003
If Christianity is true at all, if we are to follow any part of it, then it must exist on the premise of service, and not on the claim of righteousness. We don't remember Jesus for what he didn't do, i.e., have sex, get drunk, grab power, etc., but for what he did, which is largely healing the sick and teaching a better sense of who God is. His life was in service to us, every part of it, and he told us that the way to serve God is to serve those around us. The verses, you fed me when I was poor, you clothed me when I was naked, you visited me in prison; when you do these things for others, you are doing them for me, illustrate this direction. You cannot run for God or lose weight for God, or even build a church for God; to serve him you must serve people around you. While asking what Jesus might do in your situation might help decide small scenarios, our lives can be more easily determined by looking to serve Jesus in those around us. Each person is another way to serve him and must be treated with respect and love, not someone to judge or preach to. i learned this vaguely from my years in fundamentalist churches but rarely saw the truth in action. most so-called Christians I know spend their lives denying themselves or others the pleasure in living.
So while I am refocusing my life, I have to use this principle, that whether I earn money by it or volunteer my time, I must spend large portions of my life serving other people. Strangely enough, I thought that becoming an Air Force officer was doing just that. So this is nothing new; I have simply realized a better way to serve people, and perhaps I am less assuming and more honest about what other people need from me. Perhaps I can be more humble and more aware about who I am if I am not focusing my life on msyelf. The question is whether I can honestly put these thoughts into action, whether they are simply what I think i should do, or rather, a way of life.
11:09 PM
Saturday, September 06, 2003
I have loved Bjork for a long long time, starting with a few songs on a tape my brother gave me, mixed with fifteen other artists i didn't know. I remember staring at the album cover of Debut in high school, not knowing what to make of the picture, whether i would like her music or not. But when I bought Post in college, I fell in love with the way she manipulates words and sounds into art. Post is still my favorite album, full of lyrics that have moved me in many different directions, have spurred me on while biking up large Colorado hills, have engaged debates between friends, have encouraged a mental orgasm i once shared with an english major friend of mine, the two of us practically drunk on words and ideas and images in our heads. I have walked around at 4:30 in the morning, unable to sleep, while no one else is about, and the only company i have is the street lights, singing Hyperballad like it would save my life, imagining what my body would sound like, slamming against those rocks.
I've been embarrassed though, like i am with a lot of my favorite music, to admit that i really like it. As if somehow, because bjork moves me, i don't want to tell anyone about it, because she uses electronic beats, other people won't consider her a serious artist, because i'm a nincompoop who sometimes won't stand up for himself. But it wasn't until Vespertine when Bjork held my hand and walked me through what i couldn't handle alone. I bought it in 2001, not long after its release, which is unusual for me. I often wait for a while before I notice new albums. But i needed her that winter, the coldest of my life, when I was desperately alone and couldn't handle the fear in my mind, was teetering on the edge of bridges in my neighborhood, wondering what it would be like if i jumped off. and so i played vespertine nearly every night, never taking it out of my cd player for at least a month after i bought it. i can't listen to the album now, without remembering that pain, without remembering how it soothed the loneliness, made the darkness beautiful instead of deadly. now it's an old friend, one to play and remember how i healed myself, with the help of others.
5:25 PM
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
New Orleans always holds charm for me, the shuttered windows, the varying colors of the houses, the roofs piled on top of each other reaching towards the sky, the shock of the downtown buildings looking from the smallness of Bourbon street, the trees and birds of Audobon park, the sweaty sultry, drinkable atmosphere, the attitude of the people, that everyday should be effortlessly fun. it's a beautiful city that seems to make its beauty out of its ugliness. the houses are old, but they have such feeling to them, you want to hold their hand as they walk across the street to another decade. the streets in the French Quarter pile up with so much trash, but look at the grins on the people walking around, take a new person with you and watch him gawk at the neon and the craziness. Everyone is sweaty and hot and dirty, but that just increases the vibrancy, the sexuality, all the pheremones dancing around your nose. I've loved New Orleans for five years, when I first visited labor day weekend of 1998, soon after graduating college, after coming out. I had moved down to Biloxi for three months of training and decided to visit New Orleans with some friends, but driving a separate car so i could hang out that night. I looked up the gay district in a Waldenbooks tourist guide, and ran into Southern Decadence by chance. Smaller back then, but just as lively. I met so many men the next few months, visiting almost every weekend, loving the gay atmosphere I had never had, loving the dance floor and the shirts off, loving Royal street where i could walk for endless days, in and out of the glittery ancient stores. Las Vegas tries to be New Orleans, tries to have that gilded charm, the always fun-atmosphere, but if you take any layer off, you see right through to the thin air behind it. In New Orleans, behind every layer of gold paint there's hard wood, a story of the former owner, tenant, french peasant. the stuff the makes up our world, that's been there for centuries; the gold is just make-up to take this elderly bride and keep her beautiful, recognizing that it isn't only youth who has beauty but the richness of a well-lived life, the woven story fabric of many many people. Each time I visit, I'm more a part of that story, see into it a step deeper, feel more a part of it, as if I too am old and have stories upon stories to tell, of what i have seen and done in this sultry city.
2:30 PM
this may be the best news I've heard since I received my discharge papers from the Air Force. Finally, people are beginning to see through the lies of our president. slim shady vs dubya: "in a recent poll that asked about truthfulness, rapper Eminem scored higher than President Bush. According to a global marketing agency, Euro RSCG Worldwide, 53 percent of American adults aged 35-44 believe that Eminem's lyrics contain 'more truth' than Bush's speeches. (62 percent in the 18-24 age group agreed.) It turns out that we may need to do a better job of protecting our kids from our President's gangsta'"
11:11 AM
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
i've been concentrating on music so much lately, i seem to have too many new songs to listen to. which of course is call for a road trip where you're forced to listen to music in a contained area. the music is great, but there are times when you have to slow down and actually pay attention to the music you just added to your collection instead of running out to get the new new new! addictive, isn't it? like all good things. new stuff i've gathered: the tindersticks, tom Ze, natalie merchant's Motherland, de la soul, herbert, pulp, robbie williams, joan baez, stan getz, the beta band, Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg, more Don Lennon, the Kronos quartet, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. none of it is particularly new, but i'm like that, usually finding music several years after it came out, too difficult to find them all right away. so much fun, must move my head around to fit all the new songs.
10:36 PM
oh, friendster is bad, friendster is bad. all these things i should be doing, all these words i should be writing. but no, i'm looking at so many handsome guys. so many.
2:33 PM
Monday, August 25, 2003
I know, this sounds atrocious, people praying over a little boy until he dies. I know, it seems absurd that people would believe that the boy's autism could be demons, that the people would have to pray to God to deliver the boy and cast out the spirits. It is absurd, just as much as trying to relieve your problems by drinking yourself until you puke or using drugs to get out of your daily life. every once in a while, someone dies from the absurdity, a guy in his car hit by a drunk driver, an ecstasy dancer who drinks herself to death. I remember praying over people who were sick, I remember the idea of casting out demons, of people passing out during church services. I grew up in a Pentacostal world, the charismatic movement my family was very much a part of. I'm not sure what to think of it now. I know the great problems the fundamentalist church provides, but I also know the great temptation, that if you follow these rules, everything (everything) will be allright. You can let snakes bite you and you won't die; you can drink unhealthy water and not get sick. Think of it, an answer to all your problems, if you'll just believe. all you're surrendering is the heartache of trying to figure things out for yourself. If everyone's doing it around you, how much easier is it to hope in it?
I'm sure these churchgoers had no intention of killing the little boy. I'm sure some of them honestly believed the boy had demons in him. Maybe he did. if we call the disease of autism by the name of demon, isn't it the same problem? call it religious fantacism or call it semantics, the people just wanted to help the boy. They were misguided, they worked too hard, pressed their hopes on him too much, hoping the extra pressure might actually relieve him. It didn't work this time; they suffocated him in their desire to heal him.
I remember wanting to believe, too, wanting it all to be right, so easily understood. I also remember fearing those who were different, thinking evil of those who didn't agree, feeling like an outsider at school, and sometimes in church where the kids often didn't quite stomach it all but just played along to not stick out. Faith doesn't quite work that way. true faith isn't so easy, isn't so obvious.
I don't know though. the little boy loses his life from their overzealousness. they may just explain it away, say God took the boy back, claim no culpability for his death. It's hard to admit that the faith you have built your life around killed a helpless boy. I dont' know if I want to gather pity and understanding for them or teach them a lesson. I think, instead, I'll learn the lesson for myself. don't take good ideas so far that they kill someone. Pray and hope for the healing of people, but don't try to force the disease out of them; drink, but be careful of how much you consume, aware of what you could do under the influence. Live, but dont' live in such a way that it endangers the lives of others. Claim responsibility for your actions.
11:11 PM
I've added rob's silliness site to my links, just so you know.
i think i'm looking for a job now. i'm not quite sure. i do have a resume though, which is a good start. i'm also looking for an apartment. basically, i need a whole new life. except, i already have friends, which is a good place to be.
otherwise, my task mode has taken over my thinking mode. i don't like myself too well when i'm in this state, but i can't seem to get anything done while thinking. well, except for thinking. and playing, and all those wonderful parts of life. so i guess i'll focus on my tasks for a little while, just until i settle a few and then get back to my thinking. boy, these library chairs are comfy.
4:35 PM
Thursday, August 21, 2003
People die every day. We know that, always have. You see it in the news, some people get to see it in their streets. Sometimes they're people you know, most of the time, strangers you don't know how to care about. So why do we care? often, we don't. we don't know how to process the information, can't start our emotions for everything that dies, it's too much a part of life. i remember when i didn't care at all, never thought about caring, even if it was the guy in my squadron, the guy who had borrowed my car and left a small dent in the front reflector. sure, i drove up to denver for the ceremony his family couldn't attend because they lived in Pakistan. i wanted to feel for him, but couldn't. I suppose then I wasn't even feeling for myself. 2001 changed my emotional awareness. I fell in love with an incredible man, a man that could meet every crazy idea with his own, spinning around outside the Getty museum because I grabbed him and pulled, him making me sing in his car because he didn't have a radio, me jumping in a shopping cart in San Diego and him pushing me down the street. I couldn't hold onto the love i had for him; it seemed to escape me, escape my understanding, and even though I reached for it, it was too high, and maybe I didn't want to jump quite that high. and then i woke up that morning and watched the twin towers falling down, falling down like a repetitive nursery rhyme that makes no sense in our heads, all those people running from it, towards us it seemed, as we watched through the camera. and having had love, to the point that i was jumping up and down in love, so excited for our futute together, i couldn't have my usual apathy at all the death around me in september. i couldn't help but think of the firemen rushing in the building to save who they could and having the ceilings collapse on top of them. how i wished i had been one of them, someone who wouldn't wake up september 12th and face the mad world, who wouldn't wake up september 11th, 2002 and face the angry angry americans. but i wasn't a fireman, and although i toyed with suicide, planned a jump off of my favorite bridge in time to hit a semi to make sure i died and didn't just lose a leg, although I looked up at the sky hoping an airplane would fall on me, too, nothing happened, and i had to deal with all the crazy emotion, the lost love, the death everywhere, and all those petty feelings, the loneliness of being in a new town, working the midnight shift, having my pet bird scream at me every time i came home.
so, with all that behind me, death weighs a bit more on me, whether it's the most recent american soldier to die in iraq, the journalist shot by american soldiers, or tomorrow's victim of any number of diseases. But still, what do i do with it? do i turn it off again, pretend I don't notice? do i start tearing up even at movies when you see people killing other people, enjoying the death around them? or do i just get angry, at everything around me, live the cynic's life of bitterness and rejection? i do it all, i suppose, walk away from news stories complaining about how hot it is outside, squirm in my seat during action movies watching the massive death counts, knowing that people will misunderstand my tears if i actually cry whilethe bad guy dies (is anyone that bad that we can't cry at his or her death?), and i often just get angry, think that hating our president will solve our problems, that he's all to blame, even though he's only a tiny reason for all that death out there, that it's none of our faults in a way, and yet all of our responsibility to fix it. even random strangers at bars argue with my respect for all people, tell me that war is necessary and good, that we have to stand up for ourselves with our deadly weapons. i can't even get the words out half the time, can't tell you face to face why it hurts so much to hear about death, because i don't know how to stand behind my emotions, don't know what words to use to justify them, wish i could just say, this is the way i feel. i prefer to feel as much compassion as i can, to try to love everyone i see, even though i do a miserable job at it, even though i find myself acting so aggressively while driving, as if i have the right to everything over the rest of the world until i look at myself and ask why? why can't you treat them with respect, why can't you respect your own feelings enough so that you can look everyone in the eye and tell them how you feel? i've believed in our society for too long, one that creates packs of trading cards to celebrate the death-hunt of iraqis we hate this month, one that spits on emotions, calls them weak and womanly, something no man should ever exhibit. and yet, i'm proud of my tears, proud that i actually do care, that i miss the people i love, that i miss the people that i thought loved me at one time but now can't stand who i have become, proud that I even try to fight the war machinery. it isn't much, and i can do more. i suppose that's the only answer, to work towards goals that will reduce people's suffering, reduce the anger against others that causes so much death. it doesn't seem enough, but it's more than i'm doing now, more than I've ever done.
3:43 PM
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