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, 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
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