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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Tuesday, July 27, 2004
you have to work to find the good stuff. whether it's cheese or music, the best never lies around in wait. it hides in corners of libraries, behind the flour in the cabinet, in the way back of your mind. It's always been this way, as much as we look to the past as having all the things we loved. only some stores had the rare Transformers, only some beaches had warm water washing on them. I don't know if most people don't care about this or if they are just too tired to look anymore. it takes work. and it's easy to call the seekers haughty, because they know what they're looking for, because they're not willing to accept imitation. and of course, we can't be so picky about everything. we have to realize that onions pretty much taste the same no matter where you buy them, and it's just not worth the cost to dig them out of the ground yourself. and yet, we also have to know how to find, when we need it, the good stuff. We have to take the time to read the unabridged version, watch the director's cut, find the elusive deep orange paint. and sometimes it's worthwhile to wait for the right person, to tell all your stories, to show him your favorite haunts, the view from Grand Basin or from the Mississippi St bridge.
Life is pain, we all know that. but if you pay attention, you'll find more good stuff than you expected.
5:39 PM
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
I think I'm finally a man. I just successfully changed the battery in my car. yep, unhooked it, bought a new one, recycled the old one, put the new one in, and the car started. wow, i've fulfilled a gender stereotype. now i just have to learn how to grill something.
2:32 PM
Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the first lunar landing, a website is carrying digital pictures of the astronauts and their antics on the moon (as weel as lots of pre-moon pictures) The Project Apollo Archive
I've always loved this story, the seven missions to the moon. I did my first research project on it for my dad during the one year I homeschooled. The pictures make it more real than anything though. These are good images and contain a lot of memories for me, all the studying and thinking i did that year. It was a lonely year spent mostly at home, but the moon kept me company.
11:15 AM
Monday, July 12, 2004
In light of the alarming idea of the government postponing or delaying the elections
in November, I think we all need to freak out.
If the Republicans can get this one through, if they convince voters that terrorrists will attack us if we vote, i don't even know, how can democracy survive that?
Says the BBC:
"No US presidential election has ever been postponed.
Abraham Lincoln was urged by some aides to suspend the election of 1864 - during the US Civil War - but despite the expectation that he would lose, he refused.
'The election is a necessity,' Lincoln said. 'We cannot have a free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forgo, or postpone, a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered us.'"
2:50 PM
Thursday, July 08, 2004
I'm learning a lot. I'm learning that my football story isn't as incredible as I think it was, and yet, because it does speak to more people than i would have expected, telling it is more powerful than i realized. I'm realizing that my dad may have been more wrong and misguided than mean and cruel. I'm learning that I can remember more than I expected. I'm realizing that we're all somewhat rotten. i knew that though. My attempt to fix that problem in high school was to simply avoid people. They couldn't hurt me and I couldn't hurt them. I'm learning that isn't life, it's closer to death. Even now, my strategy of avoiding my dad isn't working. He's around, and I have to talk to him; in fact, he has to talk to me. and maybe if i thought less about myself and more about others, I might realize that he's intimidated of me as a gay man that might infect him. I'm realizing that being jealous of other people's parents doesn't make me feel any better about my own, whereas trying to make my family better does help.
I'm learning that you can't get what you want. You can work for what you want, and you might get it, but you can't be assured of it. so at some point, you have to begin liking what you have. not to give up what you want, but to learn how to be happy now. maybe you'll learn that what you want isn't so important, not compared to what you have. maybe you'll learn that what you want is incrediby important, and it's worth the effort to work for it. coincidence is a blessing, and finding friends at the coffee shop is as wonderful as planning to meet up with someone there.
So I was naive in high school and my dad took advantage of it. And yet, he took advantage of me in order to help me achieve my goal of getting into the Academy. Unfortunately, I had told him that it wasn't worth playing football just to get in, and he took that side anyway. He still lied to me, still tried to make my life something that he wanted to live. But maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. What he did to my brother and my cousin who lived with us was worse, and so I suspect that he is naturally a villain. But, what if he's not? what if he's just a self-serving idiot?
Can I forgive him? How much blame do i take on myself for trusting him for so long, for not realizing how much he was lying to me? I blame him for upsetting the balance in my faith, and yet, that would have fallen apart eventually. of course, I hate that argument, that someone is blameless because the other person was too naive. Is naivete a willing blindness or a blissful angelic existence? Dante put parents who loved their children too much in Limbo, the circle right above Hell, where they weren't tortured, and yet, they were still being punished. Did my dad love me so much he wanted to make sure I got what I want, or did he act in his own self-interest, his parents having stopped him from playing football, wanting to have a son on the Air Force Academy football team? Was it a bit of both?
Father's Day came and went recently. This is the first year I didn't call my dad to wish him a happy day. Nor did I send a gift, though I had bought something for him. My brother hasn't wished my dad a happy father's day since he left high school.
I don't know. I'm reluctant to blame, reluctant to point my fingers. I grew up in a world that was harshly colored, where something is something, masturbation is sin, marriage is good, parents and leaders are good and ought to be obeyed. I can't agree with that. I don't want to say something is something anymore, that my dad is just a villain, that all leadership is wrong. I'd rather say that everything is everything. My dad is vile and friendly, funny and dastardly, wrong and weak, calloused and gives great neck massages. He used to sing with me on the ski lifts in Colorado, take me to the National History Museum, take us to plays in London. Even when he made me work out and I hated it, he would buy me milk shakes and compliment me before i went to school on how handsome i was. he is my inspiration when I race up a hill on my bike, and nobody beats me on a hill because he taught me to always race up them. he dragged me across Oklahoma on a seven day biking trip, on a tandem with him, and although I only sort of liked it, I love talking about that huge ride we did, how many miles we put in in a week, how good of an athlete I am because of him.
I love him. I hate parts of him, hate some of the things he did to me, the way he still is devious and has been so cruel about coming out. He was wrong to do what he did, and yet I still hope he did it because he sincerely loved me and wanted the best for me. He was short-sighted and self-serving. He's a human being. I don't want to be around him. I don't want to talk with him about this yet. i don't trust him. But I still have a lot of love for him, and I just don't know what to do with it.
2:02 PM
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Miss Kittin is really good. Her first solo album, I Com, is fun and very cool. I'm enjoying it perhaps even more than The Gift of Gab's first solo album, 4th Dimensional Rocketship Going UP, which is awfully good itself. Of course, neither are as good as finishing the football story. I still have to write some kind of a conclusion, roll in some understanding of it. I'm still contemplating how it affected me, how it continues to affect me, and how to get over that affectation. I guess I've been doing that since the story had its last chapter ten years ago this month.
But not right now. Today, since it's past midnight here, is my birthday. And i'm gonna work very hard to have fun. or at least not be sad. I've got two great new cd's, two great new bouncy balls - large size, one pink and one orange and yellow - some turkey burgers to eat for lunch during my long bike ride I've planned along the mississippi river.
so here's to a good birthday, and hopefully a great twenty-eighth year.
12:23 AM
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