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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Saturday, September 25, 2004
all politics all the time. that's me. I'm working for the Russ Carnahan campaign now, and it looks like i'll be doing that most every second until the election. not like i've got a whole lot going on elsewhere. here's some good news, too: The New York Times > Both Parties See a Big Increase in New Voters. yes, both parties are pushing non-voters to register, but it's clear from the article that the Democrats are winning that game. hopefully it will turn out the same way in the election.
Time to quit the library - can't help the kiddoes with their homework anymore, gotta help a good man get into the U.S. House of Representatives. I'll miss the kids. strangely, after only two weeks, i think a few might miss me, too. especially the girl who got me to help her with the pre-calc work - i've been having dreams of quadratic equations! gasp.
i was looking for direction right? i may have bit off more than i can chew. but i've always had strong jaws.
1:00 PM
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
I haven't written because i'm overwhelmed with what to write. There's so much news out there that seems important to me, but if the regular american public doesn't see it, does it matter? I'm increasingly frustrated with reading more and more news that makes me powerfully agitated but won't get mainstream play.
And then I've been traveling a lot this month, and planning to move to Washington DC. I'm looking hard for a job out there, while still applying for a job with the Russ Carnahan campaign (hopefully he will take over Gephardt's seat in Congress). I've got plenty to say, and I'm having trouble deciding what I should say, how much i should tell. I used to concentrate on my own opinions of the world, but i'm realizing that doesn't matter as much any more. You have to spend time developing your thoughts and opinions, but once they're developed, you have to do something with them, or they're pointless. I don't want to continue shouting without being heard. So i'm trying to figure out how to be heard, what I want to speak about, what I'm qualified to have a voice over.
How much can I say? what are the opportunities and consequences of my actions? If i tell you secrets, will it just be one more part of me that's open, or will it help me get to a next step?
1:06 PM
Sunday, September 12, 2004
i can't understand politics. I can hardly read the news any longer - it's full of implications i don't understand. Full of facts that should be detrimental to the Bush campaign but somehow aren't. it's full of intelligence nobody wants to act upon. maybe nobody's reading it anymore. it's not as if I've ever had a grasp on how other people behave. I've always watched my peers with surprise at how they act, with motivations completely different from mine. At least it seems that way, even if it can't be that way. i can't be all that different, even if it makes me happy to think I am. even if it makes me lonely to think I am. Who knows though. maybe there's something entirely different going on. something I can't see.
10:52 AM
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Talking to a friend of mine last week, we discussed the length of my hair, which often comes up because it's so different from who i was and so different from most other people around me. I know a decent number of guys who have long hair, so I didn't think it would be a big deal. I've been surprised at how alarming it is to most people. Since there are plenty of other guys out there, i figured it couldn't be a big deal. It is. Comments from strangers about how they prefer my hair when it was shorter, people telling me I haven't found a job because of my hair, my Mother, of course. My friend said I was brave to grow my hair out, to wear it in pigtails, to be me in general. i don't think much about me being brave but about other people being cruel. I figure I'm just being myself, which always surprises people. I've always tried to be that way, to some extent or another. What's dawning on me lately is how much grief i've taken over it.
The one legacy I carry from the Air Force is the constant mockery of who I am. I hoped desperately that would end when I left. It hasn't. It has lessened though, even if it's tough for me to see it. I'm more sensitive now to the taunts than I've been possibly ever. Maybe because i expected them to disappear, maybe because I've just reached a point that I can't take it any longer. not even the light-hearted teasing. Some people would say the years of ridicule should have made me tougher, that i can take it easier now. Strangely, they've made me weaker. I used to be able to handle it. people teased me in high school, but i didn't care then. I had lots of friends who liked me regardless, I had parents who backed me up, and I had a physique that nobody would mess with. I flaunted my strangeness because it bothered people. I used it as a weapon against them instead of letting it hurt me. The Air Force changed that. My friends were fewer, and I was constantly surround by the animosity. Of course, i would occasionally receive incredibly nice comments, this guy Sven called my room a haven once and I swooned. But the bad outweighed the good. Learning i was gay gave me fresh reasons to stop flaunting my weirdness - eventually, i figured, someone would connect the two, and i would suffer real consequences.
Becoming a C.O. challenged people further. I hid that from almost everyone I knew at the time, scared of what they would think. unfortunately, when i did tell them, they proved to me that I was right to hide it from them. My brother told me for the first time during his recent visit that he was proud of me for being a C.O. The impression I had when I told him about what was going on was that I was being stupid, should have just waited to get out. He couldn't figure out why i was doing it. I guess he missed the part where I was about to be deployed and wasn't likely to get out on time. Other friends I might have expected to support me have hardly said a word about it, have never even bothered to have a conversation with me about it. One friend did try to take up the slack and helped me out so much. But he and I found some friendship troubles when I began dating someone who, in retrospect, was the worst possible choice I could have made. That cost me a lot.
i was gonna have a big pity party, but I just realized how badly I dissed a friend of mine for an ungrateful lover. i was leading up so nicely to this great quote about guys who manage to hold onto their selves but end up scarred in the process. maybe it would be more apt to say that they end up scarring other people in their inability to handle the pain. ugh.
quick soap-opera story: a guy who has a partner starts visiting me from out of town regularly, doing work projects over the computer from my place. I needed someone to take care of me because i was desperately lonely - he, well, i don't know, maybe he loved me, maybe he was unhappy with his partner, maybe he was just wonderful enough to take care of me. as soon as someone i saw as better looking came along, I started dating him (I'll call him M) and told the first guy (I'll call him A) all about it, expecting him to be happy for me, since he after all, has a partner. Thngs get too serious with M, A starts distancing himself from me. I get upset about it, feeling wronged. A doesn't bother to call me back for two weeks after I finally get out of the Air Force, and I feel cheated. It takes me a year and a half to realize M was basically a gorgeous loser and A an incredible friend.
hmmph. the joy of seeing through your own dirty secrets.
11:58 AM
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
DC is really great. i could fall in love with it easily. the beautiful buildings, weird mix of houses, great trees everywhere, and tons of public spaces full of people. i felt like i belonged for the first time in a while - everyone was reading, whether on the metro, in the park, even walking along the street. tons of people, average people like me, were biking around, to get to work, for fun, for exercise, whatever. people dressed interestingly and boringly, there were cool shops and ethnic restaurants everywhere, and mostly a city full of randomness, you didn't know what the next street was going to look like, who would live there, etc. it seems so perfect, so unlike St Louis, Sacramento, Colorado Springs, and Tulsa - my past geography.
i know i'm missing out on a great opportunity to move to Minneapolis, but you have to make choices, and right now, I think DC is the best choice for me. If only for the people who at least seem somewhat like me. St Louis has been great, but I have explored so much of it alone, as if nobody in the city knew of the greatness we have. My favorite neighborhood here doesn't have one park bench, and though I have many times sat on the grass, on a stone fence, on the sidewalk, i've been the only one there, enjoying the air, been stared at by those who don't seem to understand the joy of being in a public space.
so i'm looking for jobs there, maybe a non-profit, some kind of low-level management job, maybe in a hospital. I don't know, but I hope i'm reaching in the right direction and I'll find something soon enough.
3:05 PM
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
i'm flying today to the district of columbia, for a visit, for a look, for a romp, for a possible move later this year. job-hunting has unfortunately taken over my life, but i'm hoping for more prospects outside of st louis. and of course, that sweet man who happens to live in the district is a fine motivator. and oh what a sweet man he is.
11:35 AM
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