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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Thursday, June 17, 2004
My defensive line coach, KJ, took me aside during a water break once, to try and find out what was going on. He was probably the coach I liked the best, and the one i spent the most time with. He knew I was reluctant to play hard and wanted to know why. I told him it had to do with me being Christian. I couldn't fully explain, but it was kind of him to want to find out why. i always felt he genuinely cared. he said i should talk to others on the team who were also Christian, to see how they dealt with it. He said it shouldn't be a problem. After that many years of football, I figured he was right. i figured that all my attempts at being loving were foolish, that it was me who had the problem. But I still couldn't do it. I couldn't hit like i was supposed to, i couldn't get myself angry and want to beat on other guys.
My mother, too, tried to get me to play harder. She wanted me to get tough and angry, she wanted me to pretend the other team were attacking her. The metaphor was lost on me - they weren't attacking her, so why worry? I'm not sure I would have fought them anyway. I had so eradicated my anger, that I didn't know how to be angry. The temper I had against my brother had practically died, and I was happy for that. I had taught myself on a deep level that violence wasn't an option. Except now, I was trying to teach myself that controlled violence was ok. Most of me didn't buy it, and I never had the commitment to that work like I did to control my temper. But the alternate sides of me yelled at each other often, mocked, derided, implored, questioned, and shot arrows at each other. every day.
Some of these memories remind me of other guys talking about realizing they were gay, trying to be like the other guys, and not being able to, etc. I of course, had ideas that I was gay in high school, but I hardly wrestled with it. I suppose I could only handle one huge struggle at a time and could dismiss the lesser one. Perhaps if I had been surrounded by guys I was attracted to, I would have felt differently. I never saw high school guys as attractive, still don't - as i said, i was much bigger than most guys, and they weren't interesting. The football guys were either very heavy or skinny, short, underdeveloped. I rarely noticed them. Had I been attracted to them, too, I'm not sure if I could have handled the combination.
The best parts of fall though, were the two hours after the Friday night game. I would meet up with friends of mine and go hang out at a pizza place or something. just sit around, talk, laugh, realizing that I didn't have to deal with football until Sunday afternoon. i always had a few sore spots, but i didn't much care. it was never the pain that bothered me. We would never talk about the game, and I could just relax.
1:21 PM
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