my mother watches hgtv with a regularity usually associated with the breeding habits of rabbits.
it doesn't do much for me, but I do take note sometimes. today's topic, then: the world and the crazy homosexual. to say that the majoritive perception bothers me is an understatement, but let me clarify with an example. there's one show in particular, design star, that features a wily homo who exemplifies the stereotype. mannerisms and voice, for one, but that's not something I hold anyone accountable for; you can't change how you sound. no, rather: he buddy-buddies up to the woman he doesn't like, offers to help her and praises her design, and then turns to the camera and lambastes her. he brings inarticulacy to an art form, and his entire descriptionary vocabulary consists of the words "fab" and "fierce."
let's say I was myself - no perceptual or ideological changes (throw away the heisenberg uncertainty principle for a moment) - only straight. what would I think of the gay male, given the (albeit limited, compared to most people) exposure I've had to pop culture? to design star and the like, and sitcoms like will & grace, and movies where the gay best friend is caricatured to judge and have no independent thought? in other words, what is the gay male to a population brought up on sex and the city and fashion magazines? I would wager that we/they are nothing more than accessories, something that culture informs women that they should obtain and use, much like an extra large purse or a floofy little dog. it's a dehumanization of the other; simply because majoritive society has accepted that, yes, gay exists doesn't mean that any credibility is granted to gay individuals. instead, we/they are presented as static characters who pass superficial judgments on everyone and covet the latest glossy covers and, if things such as queer as folk enter the picture, fuck the brains out of each other while getting high. it's not only a dangerous perception for the heteronormative population, it's damaging to gay individuals as well because it's a sort of back-reclamation: because society tells us/them "this is what we expect of you," that's all that gets striven for. where are the out gay men in senior residency or attending physician positions in health care? where are the out gay men in the high business world? where are the out gay men in any of the world's political arenas? where are the out gay men in science, in everything from mythbusters to the NASA labs? where are they? they're waiting in the backrooms of bars, snorting god knows what and lapping like dogs after britney spears and tyra banks because that's all that both the heteronormative and homonormative majorities have established as acceptable for the out gay male.
there's no world changing going on here. change happens, and there are a few who are well-regarded, for whom gay is simply an adjective, not the adjective. david sedaris. george takei. but, really, there aren't many.
hmph. this is going to change.

in recent news

melyssa and I picked up a hitchhiker who was profoundly drunk and very giggly last night. it was extra great, because we passed her once whilst she thumbed at us, decided that a skinny college-student-type probably wouldn't kill us, turned around, drove past her the other way, flipped another bitch, and picked her up. as I said then, now she thinks we're the ones trying to get her. I think we were pretty non-gonna-slaughter-you, and she smelled pretty alcoholly, so neither party was in much shape to do much damage to the other. we can, however, add it to the checklist of life achievements: picked up a hitchhiker, check. yeah!

we also spent a great deal of time (a couple of hours) in the square yesterday morning. it reminded me of several things - that I do like being around people, mostly (I've started to think this isolation is making me agoraphobic), and that I don't like being in prescott. both of those I knew, but kinda in a shimmery, blown-bubble kind of way. I got to eat at wildflower. sweet. also went to the dentist, which is not so sweet. the dentista people are nice, to be fair, but the actual dentist is somewhere along the lines of mind-numbing in his protracted conversations, and the hygienist is a perky breeder. I remember this from last time, too, but she alludes time and again to the whole marriage-kids thing after college. I get mine back: I make not-so-subtle digs at sorostitues (thank you, kyle) and such, which I think she was in a past (college) life.

'twas my brother's birthday. 15. we bought him rock band, which is TEH FUN. no joke. by god, maybe I sing badly, but if I do I'm going to sing badly and BE SCORED. and for some reason the game seems to think I don't sing badly. career change, here I come.*
(*joke. but it is a fun game.)

by my angry homeridden plaidclad hairy numb ass, I'm sick of this. that's it, not frustrated. sick of:
waking up in the middle of the night because I'm so sexually frustrated I can't sleep.
not talking to anyone in my household.
sounding depressed and weepy when I try. I do NOT affect this. it's annoying. I can be laughing with melyssa on the phone one minute, and bim bam boom someone asks me something and I'm depressed-sounding.
no social life. melyssa's great, stephen's house is okay, but enough of this. how long has it been? a month?
lying. I'm tired of lying. I wish I could just say, look parents I'm doing porn live with it.
I also want to make good money doing it.
I wish people were back. I wish jenna wasn't being reeducated. I wish alex was back. I wish I was making another movie. I wish melyssa was more able to do things. I wish for lauren, kyle, kat. sunny-kristin. antioch. man, I wish I could spend a day, a week, a month with jeremy.
I wish I had money. there, I said it. I hate it, I hate that the world runs on it, but I hate even more that I'm dead without it. dead. in the water, in the earth, worms crawling through my intestines and eating the shit there. take your pick. pick 'em all. hold on.

in non-depressed news, I had a great time with kyle tonight, I really enjoyed "the road," and I'm writing in a new style at a good clip. that makes me happy.

haven't really talked to my dad since the day of irritation. this is, in many ways, an improvement - it's somewhere between the silent treatment and the amount of interest I was looking for/gauging anyway, so not really bad there. in fact, the problem of boredom really isn't - I'm not bored, just frustrated without any friends. like I've tried to explain, I'm reading a lot, writing better than I have before, but the problem is that I have no choice but to be passive versus active. I can't really experience anything new to write about ... but the happy there is that I have enough stored (and yet to be understood) that I'm good for now. just, you know, frustrated.

I'll have money in early july, because I *do* have a job. let's just say it's adult entertainment, video-related, and really not something I'd like to go into any depth with with friends other than to say "I work in porn." no, I don't have some big alter ego or double life. I'm just ... you know, doing it as a summer job. or something. plus, it's prescott, so it's mostly (all) alone. um, yeah, that's all.

speaking of such things, my family is leaving to go to mexico for my brother's birthday in late july (something like the 23 or 24th through the 28th or 29th), so take this as an open invitation to carpool up or down during that time and come keep me company in my large and empty house. check with me on dates, though. but, seriously, come. play. drink. save me from myself.

I don't really have much to complain about this time. I'm relatively happy, if also relatively stagnatory. oooh, I remember something good! I get to take jane woodman's graduate fiction class next term! that's exciting, that is.

mmm, okay, one last tangent. I love melyssa and would (maybe literally?) die without her here. I like stephen, too, and if it wasn't for going to his house, I'd probably go spare, since I can't really go to melyssa's, either. the problem is, they had to get into another relationship-thing where sex is happening and I am, quite plainly, an awkward third wheel since melyssa and I are best friends now and stephen has told me he wanted to fool around with me, too. and they're having sex. did I mention that? melyssa feels just as awkward about it as I do, I think (and she tells me), but at the same time, I'm not the one boning the guy, right?

and so it goes.

complain rant complain here we go again

shouted down my dad last night in a restaurant for what I wrote in last time's journal. still won't talk to him. got reamed later for not respecting him because they've done so much monetarily for me (paraphrase). translation = we don't get you anymore, and instead of trying, we'll buy you off. I've heard of this, but it (1) saddens (2) disappoints (3) makes me angry. damn it all.

continuing the trend of what my family thinks of me, when I (nonchalantly) asked my brother if I gave him a dollar, if he would go an entire day without playing warcraft. he returned with if he gave me a dollar, would I stop writing for a week. so, says I, that's not a comparison, warcraft is a game, a hobby. followed by an insulting exchange in which I discovered that my brothers, at least, find what I do to be a complete waste of time.

familial support. isn't it strawberries and cream?

I'm frustrated. sexually. emotionally. monetarily. intellectually. to varying degrees, but nutshelled - adverb anything, and I'm probably frustrated in its field. which isn't to say I'm not happy, or that I'm not moving forward, only that I'm frustrated. see, I wouldn't zoom forward to the end of summer or anything, because I feel it's more interesting to live through it. still, there's no denying the frustration.

frustration point uno - what I choose versus what I do, in my parents' eyes. well, moreso my dad's. what I mean: whenever he talks to me, or asks me anything, it's invariably about one of two things: the job I've made up, or the apartment I don't have for next term. he knows I don't have anywhere to live, but the job thing is annoying me. that'll be another whole journal, but for now, let's re-cap: he has never, in living memory, asked about my writing or how that's going or what I'm doing. the only interest he takes in that is the monetary aspect of theoretical grad school, which I suppose is something, albeit a frustrating something. since we had the gay talk many months ago, he's never asked if I'm seeing or dating or sleeping with anyone (okay, the last is excusable, since I probably wouldn't want him to anyway). this is another source of frustration, the least of which is based in the fact that I'm fairly certain I'm seen as a layabout who doesn't do anything useful. then, I tried incorporating those aspects of my life of which he never asks, and I realized, of course! to him, I am an asexual layabout. harsher than his real view, I'm sure, but still a source of frustration. my mom doesn't really get it, either, but I think that's more because she's given up on most everything besides getting through the day, seeing those (*urk*) babies on her job, and finishing the day's sudoku. in a way, my parents *are* good role models: I don't want to end up like them.
my family, as a whole, is even more frustrating. my brothers, when dom isn't working, do exactly two things (seems to be a recurring summer number here): play world of warcraft, and play ping pong. oh, and they eat. honestly, though, they alternate between those two (three) activities from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. dom does work, but when he comes home, it's time to eat, play warcraft, and then play ping pong. no chance of change. isn't this how the stepfords started?

I suspect this summer that this, in the main, will become a journal of frustrations. there are some happy things, though. for example:

about two weeks (a week and a half? whatever) ago, I "got with" this guy (man) (dude) I'd been interested in for a while, and had (have) talked with since september. it was ... great. I mean, really, best, ever. I wrote a bunch about it, including three poems. I've been workshopping those poems, and I included melyssa in the last batch because, as a person who doesn't write poetry, I thought she'd look at the content rather than the craft, which is what I was hoping for. and lo, she said:
"TONY! Those were gorgeous, I knew you liked him but I had no idea it was that intense."
followed by
"I loved seeing them but I wouldn't send them to him, 'cause it might be kind of creeperish."
too late. I've used him as part of my workshop board on most everything else this year, so why not those? besides, I didn't know they were that intense, either. but now I look at them, and I think, "desire poetry." "infatuation poetry." "obsession poetry." "love poetry." I don't usually get what I'm going for, but in this case, I wasn't going for anything, just for harnessing the emotions that the whole thing caused. so, what? is that love? I certainly like this guy, a lot, but I've learned (am learning) not to project any aspirations onto him. he's a city kid, he's more a cynic than I am, he's leaving around the same time I am, he goes to a different school 100+ miles from both my flag-school and prescott-home, so so so what? but here's the kicker: I know these things, and still I want to try. but try for what? see, that's the problem: I feel like I've learned/been told/have assimilated that there has to be some kind of GOAL. I have to try and groom him (and myself) for boyfriendship or a lifelong committment or whatnot. but why? why can't I just get to know him? I *want* to get to know him, more than I already do. I'd like to see him (which isn't particularly feasible anyway, more than a couple times a month, anyway), talk to him on the phone, discuss any- and everything.
but, if melyssa's intimation is right, and the poems do something to change his mind about me, then that's just foolish. because, really, there isn't a person I would give up writing for, and I know that. hemingway's the one, I think (maybe frost?), who said that if you write well in whatever genre, you're going to lose friends over it, because you have to write them (at least their tics, their idiosyncracies, their whatevers) to make it believable.
so. do I regret talking to him, at whatever time? no. seeing him? no. writing the poems, and letting him see them? no. if I regret anything, it's only that ... no, I guess it's not anything. I would regret not talking/spending time with him again, but I can't regret something that hasn't happened yet, and even if it doesn't, I experienced it, saw what it influenced me for, and would go for doing it again. there are worse things than that, definitely.

I'm coming to think it's better to be gullible.
think about it:
if you call out everything someone says-
'o you don't really like me'
'o you couldn't have done that'
'o you're not that talented'
what reason do they have to tell the truth,
and if they do, what reason do I have to believe it?
but if there's not disbelief, perhaps to gullible,
and even if it's not true, you can just answer
'I believed you'
and unless you're dealing with some hardened ass
or a pathological liar or something
I think it'll do something.
'I believed you.'
and not funny. true.
try.

I remember having all kinds of good thoughts. the having, not the thought. the journalness of the thought, but not its content. and writing this doesn't seem the same.

my dad confirmed it: he wants me to do medical rather than english (in all its esotericity). or, as he put it, "it's not too late to change and do emergency medicine." nice. I mean, maybe it took finding a non-writing interest I expressed actual attraction to to make him say how he really felt. of course, my mum's been against it from the start, but she's only just come around to tell me, "you need to write, and you need to teach, so you need to do this." I'm not sure how much of this is vicarious living, but there it is.

so I'm tooling along on the great grad school search.
I click on a faculty page of a uni that shall remain nameless.
(but is affiliated with the 'och.)
it won't load.
the message it gives me? verbatim?
"too many pages."
meaning is really in everything.