it's the wobblyness that's killing me.

see, 'cause I've been thinking about home v home v home (whatever that means). it is nice to have money and to not have to pay for meals or laundry or blah, blah, blah, but none of those are the reasons that I've stayed here for a week. I miss my friends like crazy, I miss going out and such, but it's the living situation that's stayed me.

it's easy to say I hate chris, amber, alex. I've said it before, I'm saying it now, I'll say it again (probably). but, really, I would like to be more decisive. around them, I'm not. if I really hated them, I would stop buying into (and re-selling) the bullshit and just letting it slide by when alex is "dana" and "she," or when I pretend to care about chris's inane problems with clubs and work. the inherent wobblyness, though, is in the daily conversation - if I'm talking about rent with chris, or with chris and alex, I can't refer to either of them by a pronoun, and I can only refer to chris by a proper name.

part of me says it's good practice for life, for dealing with inevitable people who I have to hide my opinions from. another part of me says, fuck that with a fucking splintered fucking pitchfork.

...actually, that part of me says "fuck" a whole lot, now that I think about it.

it's difficult to think about, because I'm not sure what to do. I'm going to make graduation cards that equal pleas for money and send them to relatives and random rich folks, because I need some cash monies. I have enough to pay rent and have enough left over for christmas presents (I think), but definitely not enough for another two months' rent. thus, I have to be out of my place by the end of december. not a problem, as I always planned it that way, and I don't have a lack of options as far as friends and places go. the mechanics, though? that's what has me confused. the evolving plan right now includes staying at home for a bit over new years and recollecting myself, but then what do I do with my bed and desk? I don't know. maybe a storage unit, but then how do I get it there?

I have a feeling this is minutiae, and I'm obsessing over it so I don't have to think about other things. speaking of those other things, I gave up on both brown and toronto because I couldn't make the deadlines. I sent out my transcript requests today for all the schools with due dates in january, and I added three more schools to the list.

I want to go to grad school so I can have a couple of years off to write, without having to do think about serious. how do I explain that in my letter of interest?

also, I'm switching my journal over soon. look at my profile for the new one.

lordy, lordy, look who's sick of all the how-dee-do.
yep, that'd be me.

seriously. everyone's facebook status. the yahoo load page. the facebook load page. google ("find out where to vote today with google maps!"). yeesh. everything demands your vote, pops up a poll where you can confirm that you voted, asks for your help in rallying for X candidate (though I did see one for cthulhu, which made me laugh).... enough. it's my right, it's my privilege, and ultimately, it's my choice. apparently, change is only worth something if it's brought about through demands and coercion. (I don't think I really think that, I'm just in a cantankerous mood.) so, anyway, yes. I'll turn on the TV, have the results as background noise, but history's a tide. at least, I think so. it's said you can turn it, but I dunno - even the panama canal answers to lunar forces. man, and then I fall right into analogy. okay, waking up fully now. asterisk and later.

you know what's strange? I don't remember ever filling out an NAU application

tired, reasonlessly. still the AM, which is something I've not enjoyed for a few days. woke this morning full of potential. the day's important. important to record that realization, even if it comes to nothing. but what's nothing? I conjured driving to another city, but that's not necessarily earthquaking. finishing a story, seeing a carter or a ben, finding the phd programs. the world's wide.

also. I don't think "boys or stupid" (fill in "boys" with x term - gay men, women, lesbians, men, whatever) does justice to anyone. no group is inherently stupid (this led to a rift with mum this summer when she was unilaterally bashing republicans). individuals inform trends, which in turn transform into the charts our current mathematical epistemology has filled our heads with. everything is a trend. plato writing socrates didn't believe this, but I argued that by today, he's not right anymore. maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. is it any wonder we spend millions trying to understand the weather?

approaching the middle of october, and I can see how my own 'ships have shifted or sailed. as recorded before, my friends are win incarnate. I miss lauren, though, most of all. strange, because I miss both melyssa and jenna, but I feel the loss of lauren most deeply. it manifests itself through not wanting to speak to her and acknowledge the loss (which I'm trying to overcome). but with kyle, lauren and melyssa form a triumvir that I want to want to succeed, if for no other reason than my own selfish desire to see it done.

I remember why living with alex is bad, and I want to record it here for my future eyes: it's abuse, plain and simple. not physical, but. example: yesterday, I go downstairs to have lunch and find my unopened box of crackers open and two of its sleeves missing. of course it's alex, so I head up to his room and knock on his door. no answer, but I know he's in there ("sick or depressed," according to chris. "bullshit," according to me.) so I knock again. a sleepy what? from inside, so I say wake up. he does, I walk in. doesn't even try to hide it: there on the floor are my empty cracker sleeves, with only the crumbs left. he's eaten something like six dozen crackers since I had breakfast three hours before. there's not much to be said but I still ask did you eat my crackers? or something like it. he says he did, throws (literally throws) two wadded-up dollars at me, and finishes the exchange with with no one ever takes me to the fucking grocery store which I follow with what am I, your parent? but this is the danger, see, because not only does he not claim any negative responsibility for this - in his mind, he's done nothing wrong - but he blames me for it. because I haven't taken him to the grocery store, he's perfectly reasonable in his eating of my food, because I'm the one who's erred. my dad used to be very, very good at this kind of psychic manipulation, and while I know alex does this all the time, he does it in various ways - getting rides out of me, having me proofread his documents - that leave me forgetting the last and falling for it again. no more. this abuse ends.

also. might skewer him. emergency thorocotomy gone wrong. be warned and stay tuned.

random myspace additions. they happen. redrawn cliché: death, taxes, and random myspace additions. I normally ignore them, but the one I received today had to pinnacle the pedantry. read for yourself:
(an unknown gay male from minnesota. his "about me")

Hello bitch's my name is Doug, I Live in Minnesota, and have my whole life. I like to hangout my friends. I don't do drugs or get drunk i dont think u need to be high or drunk to have fun. I love to go to the gay 90s to watch the drag show i love it so much i wish i could do drag sometime lol. Also i enjoy going to movies, bowling, going up north to Breezy Point witch is close to Brainerd, and of course shopping duh what gay guy doesnt like shopping. Oh yeah if you have a proplem with me being gay then thats your proplem not mine that your closed minded and have your head up your ass and are prejustice. My thought on world is I think its a evil cruel place it hurts people are prejustice against people for all different excuses and it will never end and i hate the world sorry if think thats weird but thats how i feel



excuse me. I need to go lose my faith in the human race again.

this is the best craigslist ad I have ever seen. EVER. EVAR!!!!!!

ad:

Arch-Nemesis Wanted - (Flagstaff)

---

Reply to: pers-836150240@craigslist.org ^[?]
Date: 2008-09-10, 9:08PM MST

I am in need of an arch-nemesis to help me reach my full potential. Motivation has been hard to come by lately, so Im looking for someone inherently inspiring and evil. My arch-nemesis should desire to hurt people since I am in health care. Also, you should be atleast a little overweight, have no problem mainting a long term relationship with a below average girl and have an above average if not brilliant IQ. Strong chess player and or cape wearer is a plus.

• Location: Flagstaff
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

if I tagged, would this be ideological? perception-based? grounded in epistemology? I dunno. anyway:

the gay barbeque tonight. a small group, spearheaded by ryan, and filled out with two other men besides me. interesting, because we were all not the gay-on-the-sleeve types. one of them came in later than the rest of us, and I immediately perceived him as highly attractive. as the night went on, he established himself as an arrogant, morally vapid blowhard, and so by the end of the night, he was very much less attractive. I don't mean that I found him less attractive because I had more to go on that physical perceptions, I mean that I actually found him less physically attractive. because I'd learned something about his personality, he was actually uglier to my eyes than he had been when I met him.

this is highly highly highly strange to me. also cool, don't get me wrong. says a bit about who I find attractive, though.

I don't think I've played fuck with the grad school process yet. I think I'm on the right track. inherent problem: my thoughts, my limitations. but! when I've spoken to brooke, to dr. gruber, to dan and even to the anderson, they seem to think my thoughts are on the right track. far apart from having letters of recommendation (which'll be nice, don't read me incorrectly), what's warm now is the simply fact that they thought well enough of me that they'll help me out and recommend me for such. they believe in me. that's a powerful feeling.

then there's the friend factor. this term would be unbearable were it not for such. without riding too long on the "my friends are TEH BEST EVAR!!1!" (which they are), let me just say that were it not for the things we do, the discussions we have, our seriousness, our fun, I wouldn't really have a reason to try for such. the grad class is great, but even compared to what I talk to carter, ben, kat about, it's simplistic, skimmy, topoffed only.

wow. I abandon this thing for a while, and then what? positivity, naysayers.

in less happy news, apparently US troops are being deployed domestically. 'course, it's done without pomp, circumstance, or trumpets, so I doubt anyone will hear or care. I'm disconcerted. reinforced: nobody answers to the electorate.

roller bladers outside my window. I'd like roller bladers. also, an attractive man lives across the street, which leads me to:

two weeks ago (three, perhaps), I went to a gay party which turned into another gay party which turned into spin the bottle, which turned into an STD waiting to happen. and lo, strep throat is an STD. I was out for a week, as far as purpose and intent go. the inner conclusion is that it was a dumb, dumb thing to participate in, and the libido needs to be shot in its kneecaps. an entry of several weeks ago says libido is dead, which (I think) was a lie then and certainly is now. there are more important things, that's all. not that I don't continue to look/hope/smile ingratiatingly (another lie?), but gay men? the depths they express, at least in this place, is analogous to a dried-up puddle. the sad thing is that I know now that they're capable of more, but they've created what's more-or-less a self-fulfilling prophecy. carter says that they don't what to do about me, and I'm glad: if they did, I wouldn't be doing my job. they need to understand that there are worlds outside of their bubble, worlds they can't control or assimilate and, more than that, operate on a dimensionally-shifted ideological place. not to pedestal myself (heh, though 'twouldn't be the first time), but I don't give a flying donut fuck about what they wear, or how much it costs, or how much time they spend in the gym. the ironic thing is that I'm reaching the ripening point in which I am attractive for the writing, and it's a dangerous step. heady. it falls under the same category of attraction based on pure physicality: this is what I do, what I am. put it all together, but if you like me based on my writings or my esoteric physicality, you might as well like me for how many green thumbtacks I own. in fact, that might be a better reason, since I chose to buy the thumbtacks.

that was longer than I intened. the summary is as follows: caution and risk are inherent in all things. and everyone's afraid of something.

I'm enjoying the tunes of coheed and cambria, and symphonic rock. queens of the stone age, supertramp, the killers, lostprophets. way to introduce, rockband.

I'm to a barbeque in several minutes. another tomorrow, with some kind of group of reactionary gays. as I told ryan, it's going to end up creating the exact thing that exists already, except on a smaller scale. then again, maybe not? either way, it should be minorly amusing.

the problem with jumping is that then you want to fly

went and spoke to brooke this afternoon. she's brooke, so she's positive, but she's done this whole applying to mfa business and she has the inside, rejected-by-all scoop. it was a kick in the complacency, sure, and I'm moving along now. still, I think I have the skills to beat them all. that's strange, because I'm usually trying to measure myself up and make like I could be the best. here, I feel like the best. I can't explain it, and I can't get rid of it either, but I'm ready to win. I know it'll be a long term in terms of working for it, but I have it. I can't shake that feeling.

I want to kill alex. if I do, someone please bail me out. fo sho: this kid has yet to change, except for the semi-annual "I'm too mainstream and now I need to be jewish/mexican/filipino/transgendered." I told melyssa over the summer that if I never saw alex again, I wouldn't necessarily regret that. I'm smarter than I give myself credit for.

I swear this term will be made up of more than bitching about alex and working on the novel / grad stuff.

I wonder where the anderson is, and if she'd write me a letter of recommendation. brooke says I need the best titles I can get, and she pretty much runs the poetry classes at nau, so I could do worse. she seemed to have some faith in me, anyway. I'd have to have backups, though, 'cause I'm not sure I'd ever hear from her again.

it's amusing: when I get writing and spinning (re-spinning) scenes, I feel like I've done a lot. "hey, yeah, I went to the hospital and broke up with my boyfriend today. no, wait...."

one more bitch-at-alex: he accused me this afternoon of not doing anything, ever, of just sitting in the room and ... whatever. I don't know. jerking off. fuck if I couldn't have punched his chubby fucktarded face. I try to let few things get to me, but the implication that I'm not doing anything when I'm writing gets to me. I mean, the root of the problem is that I know it's true - it's oscar wilde who said that, deep down, no one needs writing or books or any of it. but I chose this, I'm good at it, and if you want to fight me over it, put your fucking fists up if you're going to say I don't do anything.

my heart's been fast. I feel like I'm closed to something. proofs:

negative libido. now that I can, I don't want to. derivation, I believe, of "boyfriend DNE label." if I'm opining that gay is reprehensible as a label, who am I to want a significant (or unsignificant, as preceding cases suggest) just because?

I hate nau. it's safe. two years is the longest commitment I've made to anyone or anything, ever, except for my writing, and that hasn't reached the point where I'm able to separate it from me and send it out on its own. I'll have to. that'll be hard a day. two years, huh? it's time to move on. maybe I like being seen as cavalier. maybe I knew that once I could choose, I'd fly.

how much of me is intellectual snobbery? I dropped a literature class because I didn't agree with the way he taught or presented it. how much of my problem was him, and how much was the education system? do I just want to be a teacher to ride cowboy over the fuck-ups and the non-cares? do I just want to yell at them because, really, no one else cares.

aly and I spoke of the brodawgs and the sorostitutes yesterday, and I couldn't verbalize my point. I have it now: there's nothing wrong with a perception if its the world. these idiots have never been anywhere but here. the vapids in the lit class never got raked by isabella winkler. how many would choose what I've chosen? who even remembers the power to say that things are bad and that they should be better?

driving to the house last night, I thought of a hundred of me and wondered, if all 100 had shipped off to uni ari in august 2005, where we'd all be now, three years later. uni ari? antioch? prescott? here? somewhere else? the scariest thought is that this was the only course, and we all ended up here. I don't regret the choices (isn't that a refrain). what scares me is that I'm afraid that inside me somewhere, if we'd all ended up here, it would mean that the foresight ability and future-planning is too far buried, and that doesn't say much for this grad school plan.

the graduations circumstances of kyle and sunny-kristin frighten me.

I found the four of diamonds on an empty shelf four days ago. sometimes I wish the world were a dream and I could figure things out with books and portents.

I'm scared a lot of the time. but, more than that, I'm angry.

You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.
Jawaharlal Nehru

one of the all-around girls is doing her floor routine to the theme from "pirates of the caribbean."

I think it may be one of the chinese girls?

I can be as cynical and trendily deconstructionist as I want, but hearing the national anthem at the olympics still gives me the shivers.

the liberal studies program has no spirit.

I made this choice not because I wanted the easy way out or wanted to take fewer classes. I truly believe that these classes fulfill the ideal goal of whatever blah blah blah, and if they are to be discounted simply because they don't match the departmental prefixes and numbering system, I submit this as reprehensible. the liberal studies program is designed to round students, to prepare them for the "outside world," and yet it refuses to accept courses that do not fit exactly into NAU's system block? now, why? because it is easier. because it is easier to create a system with a stated goal of improving students' minds and lives, and then forgetting that goal in the bureaucracy. more than once, I've been asked if I believe I'm "special," if I deserve "special attention." yes! of course I am! aren't you? isn't every student? when did the liberal studies banner become nothing more than a cover sheet for a Fordesque assembly line? if the position of the liberal studies program and board is that any class that doesn't come from NAU and doesn't fit into its system is flawed, lesser, or not worth bothering with, then I contend that it is the program itself which is failing, and whose worth should be seriously reconsidered.
what bothers me most about this whole fiasco is the implication that I've made some kind of mistake. that, by not coming to NAU as a freshman, and by trying to transfer credits in from different schools, I'm somehow doing the wrong thing. I'm being difficult in trying to question the program, difficult in trying to petition my classes for acceptance. why can't I just take NAU's classes? I'll say it again: the goal of the liberal studies program, as laid out by the program itself, is to prepare students to be rounded, creative, and several other lofty adjectives that never happen. yet, when a student comes along who takes the time to read those guidelines, to look at the forgotten spirit and think that, just maybe, it's not a bad idea and his classes fill those requirements, that's the one who's punished.
now, if you disagree with me, why don't you ask yourself, what truly prepares a student for outer worldlyness - taking classes merely to fill slots in a required schedule, or attending other institutions to take classes and have experiences completely outside the province of programmed imagination?



who's being helped here? that's my question. by forcing me to drop cross-departmental classes, by forcing me to take something other than indigenous astronomy and medical sociology - two classes that are both higher division and very, very different than my concentration of creative writing - I now have to take classes designed to fill a slot. is that all that the liberal arts program has becoming, slot-filling? what is its goal? where has it been lost?
perhaps I'm biased. the school I had to leave didn't have such a program; classes were taken at the students' leisure, since the adminstation and staff knew that if (1) their instructors were good (2) the classes were quality and (3) the students were interested, horizons would be expanded. maybe that wouldn't work everywhere. maybe the fault of the whole thing is the structured educational system, which decries THIS CLASS, THIS CLASS! here and nothing else.
but I contend that when a student is genuinely trying to expand his or her boundaries with classes far outside his or her area of study; when that student has already experienced classes on every topic imaginable, in every discipline offered; when that student has classes from other institutions that couldn't even be duplicated at the current university; and when all of that is ignored simply to make things easier, to make an existing class fit an existing class for an existing student, it isn't only the student that suffers. the class itself suffers, because it could be filled with students who genuinely want the knowledge. the instructor suffers, because he or she is forced to teach a class to students who aren't genuinely interested in the subject. the school itself suffers, because when slot-filling becomes the norm rather than inquiry and exploration, then learning has stopped and mass-feeding has begun. the portents are here, and the scenarios are falling already. I implore you, don't ignore the benefits of true aesthetic and humanistic inquiry in order to fill a slot with the spiritless title stamped on its box.



let's compare syllabi!
hum 101, semester total:
The course grade is determined on the basis of a mirrored set of interpretive questions taken at the beginning and end of the semester (10 points total), five short-answer discussion questions (10 points total), two online, small-group threaded discussions (10 points total), two response papers based on assigned texts (10 points each), a 1600 word term paper (long session only) counting 25 points, and a final examination (25 points). The course grade is based on a standard curve, 100 total points. There is one and only one make-up assignment (5 points).

so, that's a total of two short papers and one longer one for the ENTIRE SEMESTER. two discussions, for the ENTIRE SEMESTER.





let's look at two weeks' worth of work in dance.

read excerpts from african rhythm, african sensibility by john chernoff (p 34-37, 50 &51, 144-151) and chapter one in "gimme the kneebone bent: music and dance in africa" from stepping on the blues by jacqui malone. select five quotes from readings and respond to them. view the video black dance in america in class and discuss. (one week)

read about any three choreographers in african american genius in modern dance and prepare a paper discussing them and why you chose them. view the videos rainbow round my shoulders and new worlds, new forms in class and discuss. (one week)

two field trips - one, to see the dayton contemporary dance company, and two, to see akram kahn at ohio state. respond to each experience in two-three pages, discussing the intent of the choreographer - communications of the dance, integration of costume, music, and lighting with the vision. also discuss the kind of movement used and your response to each dance. (mid-week)


in two weeks and one unit (african dance), the load of both work and critical thought has surpassed the semester total of work for the NAU class.

everyone running for public office in the lovely town of prescott, arizona has some kind of terminal degree. for half, it's a high school diploma. for the other half, it's an esoteric bachelor's (which, as the almost-holder of an esoteric bachelor's, I can scoff at). one has a doctorate (what are you doing here get out while you still can!).

the new, improved me will not cast judgments. the new, improved me will only state facts, and let the jury of silent readers decide.

no. that's a lie.

I told melyssa and my brother these same facts yesterday whilst riding back from tattooing my brother up. he put it well: "this is a great town."

any sentence containing the words "sucks," "blows," or "cockgoblins" would, I feel, be redundant here.

and that's my politicism for the day.


in other news, we're still trying to rent a house for next term. we've a showing on the eighteenth for a two-story three-bedroom deal that's 1400 a month. a "townhome," if that makes any difference. sounds nice. looks nice. other shoe, where are you? (but I shouldn't think like this. face value. that's the way to go, yeah. face value!)

every so often I'll dream epics: a long period of time, a lot of characters, a run-through plot. a book-dream, kind of. I had one of those last night, in which I received a very complete blow-by-blow narration of the relationship I'm going to have with a man I semi-know up at NAU next term. it was ... strange. I mean,
*I understand compensation dreams.
*I understand wish dreams.
*I understand when my subconscious randomly pick people who mean a specific thing and cast them in my dreams.
blow-by-blow epics freak me out. this guy is probably going to be getting some big time fisheye when I see him again. alternately, I may just ask him out off the get-go and save time. (probably not the latter. I is a wuss.)

an ending note: pineapple express today with melyssa. quite excite all right?

begin where o where?

why do both "blogspot.com" and "blogger.com" redirect you to the same place? perchance they used to be separate? seems greedy to me, no matter the cure.

the best part of my summer ended one week ago. it featured hot tubs, alcohol, latent staph infections, downtown, going out to dinner, "stepbrothers," and good friends. social seclusion sucks as much from both sides, fyi.

aside. my dad came into the room of requirement today whilst I was video gaming with one of my brother's friends and told dom and I that we had to vacuum the house or we couldn't go out that evening. I laughed audibly.

as a public service, I'm trying to obtain a house (with alex) that can serve as the new aly's room for the coming term. yes, yes, it was kyle's too, but it was aly's first.

you know how some songs have power? "sound(s} of silence" is one for me, definitely thanks to its frontrunning "the listening project" at antioch. I used to not be able to listen to it, either, but now I listen to it (probably) too much.

mr. jeffrey eugenides brings up an interesting point in "middlesex" about defining moments - things that you carry for the rest of your life because it was like one of those lightning flashes that shows you every damn things in the night (bad analogy. sorry). continuing with that, you don't really realize at first what you're looking at; it has to go dark again before you can really assimilate it. well, long interlude finished, that was antioch for me. godfuckingdamn do I miss that place sometimes.

jenna's done in the utah woods. now, she's in a group home in oregon, along with the rest of her cult inductees. this is sadsadsad beyond belief. oh, and she's on the necessary myspace again. I could have dealt with not talking to her for a year, even if she came back a completely changed person. I don't know if I can deal with watching the myspace chronicle of the change taking place. I just fucking hope to the fucking universe that she survives this "you are wrong" bullshit.

my dad tried to cut my hair. I have a bald patch over my ear. otherwise, it doesn't look horrible.

evidently "feroc" (fer-oesh) is the new "fab." as much as I like the evolving english language, can we please have a gay coinage that isn't an obvious shortening of a word? please? this is just reinforcing the stereotype that gay men are dummies.

after watching "across the universe" with melyssa and lauren (and post-"mamma mia!"), I started wondering about another contemporary band musical. I would support 1) R.E.M. 2)the police 3) fleetwood mac 4) eurhythmics 5) green day. the b-52s would likely kick ass as well. anyone wanna help me make a movie?

from last year's trip to mexico, when we took my non-aunt aunt polly with us (she's a photographer {pertinent characterization}), we have several quality photos that my mom framed this weekend. my parents, looking happy and parent-like, smiling and holding each other. one each of my brothers on their dirtbikes, jumping. me, far away, on a rock at the edge of the ocean. it should be noted that I look like a chubber from that far away.... conclude what you will. I have.

man, I sound like an angsty sonuvvabitch. I am, actually. now that alex's back, now that it's august, I want to get out of here. the thing is, I'm at the point (and maybe have been for a while) where the benefits of home (mainly, not paying for anything) are overshadowed by the benefits of living somewhere else. home. note the usage. literary fiction in everyday life is an issue that faces us today, motherfuckers.

a last note: the youngest one starts his sophomore year tomorrow. I'm old. also antsy. also cabin feverish.

I have:

1) a bottle of melyssa's unopened vodka in my closet.

2) a bit less than a half a tank of gas in my car.

3) no dad or middle brother through next tuesday.

4) about thirty dollars in my bank account, total.

5) a Real Porn Name.

6) a healthy contempt for my parents.

7) a new group of songs on my iTunes, including radiohead's "creep," which is pretty awesome. also worth noting is that the version used in rock band is edited so they say "very special" instead of "fucking special" at various points in the song. hypocrites.

8) an invitation to go camping with the man I still like. I cannot, thanks to items (2) and (4).

9) a dance party mix, compiled by me and melyssa, ready to be played when my parents go to mexico for all my awesome peeps who are coming to stay & dance (right?)

10) a grandmother I love dearly but who has also decided that she's going to come stay while my parents are in mexico and must be dissuaded.

11) zero apartments for next term. help?

12) four half-hour scripts for my new series. ah, high school. (think an american "degrassi." it's pretty awesome.)

13) returned friends from abroad.

14) a canker sore.

15) several overdue library books, including two by david sedaris, a short work by dennis cooper, and a book of richard siken's poetry.

16) two drumsticks currently propping up my head as I lay on my bed and write this. don't try and picture it.

17) three pairs of broken sunglasses, and none that work.

18) gotten over seeing myself naked and engaging in various acts, thanks to editing my own porn.

19) always wanted to fly.

20) now finished this list.

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.)