Bar Experiments- Night 1

I have never been to a bar alone. I always go with friends or am going to meet someone there. Going to lesbian bars alone is especially scary for me because that means that my goal is supposed to be to meet a woman, but, with lesbains, I have a really REALLY hard time telling when it is just two chicks hanging out and when they are a couple. (Ok, sometimes it is really obvious, but, especially in groups, it is very difficult if the women are not all over each other.) But, as I'm feeling more confident, and my three closest friends have been pushing me to get my ass out there and flirt and dance and meet women, and I'm getting a weekend off from hospital duty, I decided to go out to the lesbian bar here all by my lonesome. I even wore one of my new dresses. And I thought I'd file a preliminary report before I went to bed.

First of all, I have to say I looked really hot in my new dress. I got there early, for bar time, 10 pm. Ordered a drink on the patio, walked inside, checking everything out. They were still doing karaoke, so I picked a spot at the bar where I could see the performer and drank my drink. I looked around and watched people. A woman who must be a regular sat down next to me, ordered her drink, and talked to the bartender. We got into a conversation and, though she might be a little old for me and not someone I would have approached, it was nice to talk to someone. Then, this man came up to me while his partner was paying their bill and told me how amazing I looked in my dress. He commented on all the different aspects of how great I looked in it, said that he had been watching me the whole time he and his partner were eating from across the bar, which was really flattering, but I wished some woman had said it to me instead of some (drunk?) gay man. Then, he told the woman sitting next to me that she was really lucky!!! She definately blushed at that. She had to leave soon after that because she works early on Saturdays. But she asked me if I wanted to meet her back there Sunday to play washers. I said ok and she gave me her card and told me to call her. Score!

The rest of the night was not quite so sucessful. I went out to the floor to dance, as karaoke was over by then, and, during the first song that I was out there, this very pretty, slim blonde came out and danced kinda toward me, but never got real close, though we made eye contact. When I walked by her later, she looked at me and smiled and said hey, but she was with this man and I couldn't really tell what was going on there and she was very pretty, so I didn't have the courage to talk to her. There was a kinda andro chick who had caught my eye when I first got there and was just playing on one of those video screen game thingies, so I tried talking to her. Turns out her girlfriend is a barback there and so she just hangs out when she has the time. Then, after some water, I went back out to dance. Mostly, I danced by myself, but there was this really cute middle-of-the-road lesbian chick that had also caught my eye earlier dancing with her gay male friend, so I decided to try to dance with them. They were facing each other, so I came up behind her. She seemed cool with it but at the end of that song, they left the dance floor. :( Oh well. At least I tried. So, then I danced some more and decided to come home, since I should get up early to help my family a little before taking Saturday away from official family duty.

Tomorrow, I plan to lay outside in the sun and read, then go catch a movie or two, then go back out to the bar. I'll let you know how that goes. But I'm still pretty baffled as to how chicks just meet at a bar and go home together. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that I get to dance WITH some chick(s) tomorrow night.

Stop This Train....

When I'm at home, living my day-to-day life in my parents' house, with my basement cave of a room, I often take days off from the world. The only person I'm absolutely required to talk to is my mother, just enough to say that I'm ok but that I need time. Until today, I never realized how precious and valuable that is.

This morning, I was supposed to be up early, well, early for me anyway, 9am, so that I could take the morning shift at the hospital with my grandfather, so that my grandma could take my usual afternoon/evening shift and I could hang out with Sir. Though I got to sleep at a decent hour, I couldn't manage to haul my ass out of bed on time. Or even late. Obviously, this didn't make my grandmother too happy. I've been here, doing hospital duty with my grandmother for over two weeks now, without any real days off. And somedays there are great, some are just ok, and some are horrible. I realize that my grandmother doesn't get to take days off from this, or at least she won't. But today I realized how much I wish I could just be back at my home in my cave, where my actions in the world stop. I know the world doesn't stop, but I can take myself out of it for a day. But I can't do that here. It's real life and it is EVERY SINGLE DAY and it's hard. I don't want to not be here helping and I don't think I need some special fucking award for taking care of my family. But it isn't easy or fun or what I thought it would be.

I remember a post on one of the feminist blogs that I read regularly about how females are always expected to be the caretakers of older family members, especially when they don't have a husband and children, despite the job situations and locations of other members, both male and female, in the family. Whenever there has been a serious illness with my grandfather or with my uncle this summer, I always assumed that if someone was going to have to stay with them and take care of them, it would be me, since I was unmarried, without kids, could put off school, and without a career job. Thankfully, that was never required before. But, when faced in this situation with my grandmother's unspoken desire for me to stay here with her, I just couldn't do it. (Thankfully, my mom said that she wouldn't allow me to do it anyway.) I just realized how hard I've worked to finally get comfortable, to get a job at school in my field, to get back into school and like it, and I know I won't give that up. At least not when there are a good deal of other options.

I also realized today that sometimes being "someone's something" can be more of a burden than something that just adds to who you are. (And bear with me, because I haven't found a very good metaphor to explain this though I'm trying really hard.) I used to think that there was this large infinite cloud of who I was and being "my mom's daughter" or "Sir's girlfriend" (when I was that) just added more to my cloud. Now I'm thinking that maybe the real me is a bright sun in a cloudless sky but being "my grandparents' granddaughter" and "my mom's daughter" and "D's neice" are clouds that cover me up, obscuring me, even to myself. Recently, I've been able to JUST BE AVA when I'm with Mon Parrain and Miss Kee and I work hard to JUST BE AVA when I'm with Sir, but those about the only times that I feel like I can just be me, not somebody's someone. I called my mom and asked her if it got any better. She said you just learn to juggle the hats better. I really wonder if guys feel like this or if it is different for guys. Mom said that she doesn't think guys feel it at all, though Sir says they do, that from the moment they have a wife and kids until the time they retire, they are...mmm, maybe it is different for guys. Because I think Sir meant that men feel chained to their jobs, that they are their employment or career, especially when they have a wife and kids. But that isn't what I meant. Part of it is that I'm a "barista" (when I was) but it is also belonging to all these other people, being obligated to them and responsible for them. Maybe that is why I have such a hard time just letting my fiction characters act as they would, why I tend to protect them from their worst impulses. I just don't know.

Here is a song that I thought was pretty appropriate and a link a live performance of it.

Stop This Train- John Mayer
Though, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?
Don't know how else to say it

Don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in awhile, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing

Stop this trainI wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I will never stop this train
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CxFIxqyA0Ck

Vices

I've always liked my vices and, while I have, fortunately, never had the opportunity to indulge in any and every vice I've ever wanted to try, I have tried to try those that were available to me. But I've always tried to balance out my vices and bad habits with other things. For example, I don't think that my family much minded my eccentric teenage interests and my serious boyfriends because I was also a straight A student who held down a job too. As I got older and dyed my hair different colors, got multiple piercings and tatooes, came out, etc, my family was pretty accepting because I wasn't getting into any kind of trouble. (Not that any of those things listed above are vices, just showing how I tried to balance it out.) I currently live under my parents' roof (though I'm staying with my grandparents helping them this summer) and it is pretty easy because they don't mind when I indulge in my vices, as long as I do so quietly. They know I drink, sometimes smoke (though never in their house), go out to the bar, and have sex. My other biggest vice is eating, which I'm trying to work on curbing but I'm a sucker for good food, and even not-so-good food that my body has gotten used to--mostly fast food.

But, even without ever having succumb to the extreme debauchery and over-indulgence of most people I know, at 25, I'm suffering the physical consequences of my vices. About four years ago, I developed horrible acid reflux, probably from gaining weight, which has now morphed into a condition where combinations of stress, greasy food, smoking, and/or drinking will cause me to feel like my ribs are about 3 sizes too small. It's painful and, if I didn't know what it was because of my mom's experience with similar feelings, I would think was a heart attack. While I started actively working on getting healthier and loosing weight in October of last year, the first "episode" did not occur until Christmas Day, after two days of rich, heavy, greasy foods, alcohol, and chocolate. Between then and June, I'd probably had four more episodes, usually because of some combination of poor eating and alcohol and stress. I've also discovered that my stomach does not like red wine and that I can't eat movie theater popcorn without spending massive amounts of time in the bathroom afterwards, which really sucks because I LOVE movie theater popcorn, especially at AMC where they let you put your own massive amounts of butter and salt on it.

But I was hoping that while i was here taking care of my grandparents, I would be able to indulge a little bit to take some of the edge off the current situation. No such luck. In the two weeks I've been here, I've had four episodes. I'm sure stress played a role in all of them. The first one happened the day after I got here, on Friday. I had eaten a large Jack in the Box combo and a chocolate shake the night before, so I shouldn't have been surprised when that came back to bite me in the ass. Then, I got a bladder infection from a combination of messing around with someone knew (my body has to adjust to new people), having to hold it when I had to pee for hours, and drinking too much alcohol without enough water later for the better part of 4 days. This was about Wednesday morning. My next chest episode occured after a large lunch at IHOP, which left me just as quickly as I ate it, followed by a too-large Mexican dinner and a margarita that night. This was Thursday. Things went ok for a few days. I ate only things I made at home for myself. I drank nothing but water and cranberry juice. Then, things went crazy at the hospital and my Grandma was very upset and I'd just wolfed down a Arby's combo and a Mt Dew, so I had another attack. This was Monday. Last night, on my way home from the hospital, I decided to have a couple of cigarettes on my way home. Within ten minutes, I was having another episode.

Ok, so I can't eat fast food (or even anything I haven't made at home pretty much). I can't drink alcohol. I can't smoke. And my sex life was going really great and being my primary way to blow off steam, but it is largely up in the air right now.

So, what vices do I have left??? If you want to comment, let me know what your vices are. Maybe I'll pick up a bad habit from you.

Mon Parrain

I try to blog semi-pseudonymously, so I prefer to give those close to me pseudonyms so that it is easier to write about them without having to use their names. Sir already had his pseudonym, a nickname stemming from the fact that flirty waitresses always call his friends "honey" and "suger", but they call him "Sir." Most exes get ex-[first letter of first name], but that will eventually get confusing to myself and my readers as I rack up exes.

I currently have a...person in my life, who's exact relationship to me is rather vague at this point, though our interactions are far from vague. I was going to let him chose his own psuedonym, but, as he is a busy man with a great deal on his plate right now, I used his initials to chose for him a nickname that is French. The first part was easy. First letter, first name=M. Just use the French word MON, meaning "my" for a masculine subject. Then I went through French words that start with P and found PARRAIN=godfather or sponsor. I thought that fitting for our current relationship, no matter what direction it turns in the near future. I hope he appreciates it.

Quick Note on "Waitress"

In the movie Waitress, the main character Jenna's abusive controlling husband Earl drives a dark blue Dodge Dynasty. As soon as I saw that car in the movie, I realized why he was probably a jerk. Because there are only FIVE presets on the stereo and no SEEK buttons. That's right. You can only preset it for FIVE stations and then you have to turn the dial each individual .2 spaces to go up or down to any other stations. This is especially annoying when you are not in your home listening area and you don't know where any of the stations are. So I can almost understand why he was in such a bad mood all the time in that car.

*While I'm here, I'm driving my grandmother's burgandy Dodge Dynasty, while she gets to drive the leather interiored brand new Kia, which did smell like new car, until she started smoking a pack of cigarettes each way up and back from the hospital. But that car will get up and go! Oh well.*

Oh My Goddess, I Feel So Butch Today!

Today I...

• Put together my grandma's new bed (which she had originally called her nephew-in-law and his son-in-law to do)
  
• Filled up my grandma's car (and was the first one to figure out how to make the gas door work properly)
  
• Broke down the box the bed came in with the world's oldest box cutter
  

Ok, so it doesn't sound like much, but, with my grandma who doesn't really like for me to do anything at all masculine, it's a big deal. When I bought her a new answering machine, she asked my new "friend" to put it in. So I feel very butch and in charge and competent right now.

Testing

I read recently on someone's myspace blog about one of the ways in which they "test" potential romantic interests. It basically involved texting them, asking what they were doing on a day when the blogger was free and then observing a) how long it took them to answer back and b) if they jumped at the opportunity to hang out, if they didn't have anything else planned prior. And I understand doing this. It is a simple way to get some idea of another person's interest in you and how high or low of a priority you might be to them at this point.

I however find I get tested in an opposite fashion by people who are interested in me. I might be paranoid and think everyone is doing this just because I know of one previous interest who tested me this way, but I obviously don't think so. I feel like I am tested on how long I can leave someone alone for. My interest knows that I am interested and has shown my that they are interested. I think they want to test how long I can trust the interest they have shown in me before I need it confirmed again. This might be something particular to straight men, as I've never really gotten to pursue anything with a stud/butch woman. But it seems to me that their attitude is that everyone should assume that everything stays the same, feelings, emotions, desires, in that period of time where there is no contact. If something were to change, then contact would be immediately resumed for them to tell you that, or for you to tell them that. In my experience, all these men have stressed how UNLIKE other men they are, so thus you should trust them when they say how they feel about you and you should trust them that when they are away or incommunicado (with no real explanation beforehand) they aren't just avoiding you because they don't like you anymore like other guys might do. And it's been my experience that they still do feel the same way about you when they come back/are once again in communication with you as before. Except that if you bug them during this unspecified, unannounced, trial by fire that you aren't aware is going on, they will make judgements about how clingy you are. And you might be clingy. You might be insecure. Or you might just want to not drag out something that they might be ending by not contacting you when it could just be over and done with and you could be out trolling the bars for your next hookup. (Ok, so it is probably the first two options, clinginess and insecurity, in my case, but there is always the possibility that it is the third...) No matter how long I try to hold out, I always seem to fail.

As for me, my tests are pretty typical girl/femme tests. Because an ex I had spoiled me, I really really love it when someone opens my car door. (It doesn't hurt if they lean in and kiss me before closing it either.) I also like spontaneous visits, just because you were in the area and knew I'd be someone where (or you weren't in the area but knew I'd be there and had the time.) I also love phone calls when I wasn't expecting to talk to you because I knew you had another thing going, but you called because you knew I'd had a hard day.

*Funny thing in that paragraph up there...I started with a general someone, with someone I don't know, and somehow I got into "you" as if there was a "you" I was talking about....Hmmm*

I wonder how other people "test". Feel free to comment on this.

Tuesday Night at the Movies

(I really should be in bed....but I wanted to blog about my night and the movies I saw first. I might have even more to say about these movies later when I'm not so tired and time-crunched.)

Today was a REALLY good day at the hospital for my grandfather and I checked my bank account only to find that I had more money than I thought, so I decided to take myself out to two movies after I left the hospital today. The local 18-plex is right on the way home as well, so I had lots to choose from.

The first movie I saw was Spiderman 3. I was thoroughly unimpressed. There was some pretty good fight scenes, but I've noticed lately in action movies that the fight scenes seem to me to be going so fast that I can't really take in all that is going on. Maybe I'm getting too old. My biggest problem was that there were way too many storylines all going on at once for me to really get passionate about any of them. Then there is Tobey Macguire's eyes. I'd never noticed how big and kinda buggy they are. It annoyed the crap out of me the whole movie. Topher Grace is 100x cuter and more charismatic, though I thought it was kinda unChristian of his character to pray for God to kill Peter Parker.

*Paragraph contains spoilers***Of course, this movie did bring up some questions that I had never really thought about when watching movies, especially superhero movies. A few years ago, the animated film The Incredibles brought to light the financial havoc that can be result from supervillians and superheroes fighting. Thus, I always wonder now who is going to clean up the messes that these fights leave and what effect these fights have on the everyday people living around the fight area. But this movie made me think of the emotional havoc that happens to these characters. Because these people have superpowers, the actions and reprucussions are magnified. Also, villians and heroes always seem to have some personal connection to each other. When Harry gets his memory back and decides to go after Spiderman again for killing his dad, the original Green Goblin, he breaks into the apartment of Mary Jane, the chick he just kissed and has loved all his life, and throws her into the wall by grabbing her by the neck. Then Black Spiderman and Harry have a knockdown, dragout fight after Parker realizes Harry has been manipulating him. How then can Parker go back to Harry, all buddy buddy, trying to get his help to save Mary Jane? How can they both forget that they almost killed each other? As Harry lays dying, both MJ and Parker act like he's their bestfriend again. Have they forgotten all the assaults??? Maybe this only bothers me.

The second movie I went to see was Waitress. Though it was made as just a small indie, it has gotten a much wider release, I would like to think all on its own merits, but I'm sure it hasn't hurt the movie that there is a tragic story surrounding the murder last November of the writer/director of the movie Adrienne Shelley (who also has a role in the film). No matter why it has gotten this larger release, I'm glad it has. It is an amazing, funny, bittersweet, smart, simple film with superb acting by Keri Russell and Matt Fillion. Andy Griffith was amazing in it as well and reminded me of my grandpa in some ways. Shelley wrote the movie after having her first child, a daughter. She was very afraid that having a child would ruin her artistic abilities, but instead found that having the child broadened and deepened her experience and her art. Obviously, since I'm not all about having children anytime soon and don't know if I'll ever birth any children, I took away a different lesson than the "wonderful baby changes life for the great" message. I really enjoyed the relationship that Jenna had with her doctor. It starts out as an affair. She is drawn to him because he is the opposite of her husband. He is drawn to her because of her beauty and sadness and pies. But then they become really good friends as well as lovers. The movie shows Jenna talking to him on the phone a good deal and she says that it is a long conversation about her life and how it feels to feel so trapped and be poor and be a woman stuck. She says that he is the first bestfriend that she has ever had. Though their relationship can't and doesn't last, it shows the transformative power of having people in your life showing/telling you that you are special while also just allowing you to be yourself, not making you be someone else or hoping you'll be someone else. The ways that the doctor describes Jenna is echoed in the way that Andy Griffith describes her, what he sees in her as a much older man who's lived his full life and sees in her so much more than she sees in herself. Because of my own experiences recently, this resonated the strongest with me. These relationships don't have to last forever to change us and transform how we see ourselves. But I also refuse to believe that I have to have a baby for that transformation to be complete.

Damn, It's Been a Good Day

My uncle is out of surgery with the best possible outcome. They got all the tumor, didn't have to cut any of his muscle tissue, and he won't have to do chemo or radiation.

My grandfather, who was very weak and dehydrated and probably fighting an infection two days ago, is very lucid and active, overall much better. We will still have some hard months with the rehab, trying to reconnect all the things in his brain that were discombobulated by the bleed, but he's doing much better now than two days ago.

In the course of fieling calls at my grandmother's house today, I talked to my other uncle, who I don't think I've talked to in years. It was good hearing his voice and good to hear that he is proud of me.

I GOT THE JOB!!!! I had applied and interviewed for a job at school and I got the phone call today telling me that I got it.

I got to hang out with my new friend and had a WONDERFUL AMAZING time.

It's been a good day. Thank the goddess for small favors.

Ringtones

I have a new "friend" and I want to buy a special ringtone for this person. But this got me to thinking about how many people actually know what ringtone their friend/relative/significant other has assigned to them. It's not like they are around to hear the phone ringing their ringtone, or why would they be calling in the first place? I had a co-worker who assigned Coheed and Cambria's "The Suffering" to her girlfriend. (The title alone should tell you it isn't the song to assign to your SO.) And, to those who don't know, the lyrics on the ringtone are, "(Boy) Listen well, will you marry me?/ (Girl) Not now boy/ (Boy) And are you well in your suffering?/ (Girl) You've been/ (Boy) The most gracious of hosts/ You may be invited girl but you're not coming in." The girl later told me that her girlfriend really like Coheed and Cambria and that song and that, also, the girl had never really paid that much attention to the lyrics. In fact, she always focused more on the music of a song than the lyrics.

So, to you, my intrepid readers, what would you want your ringtone to be on the phones of your friends and on your lover's phone?

I will answer as soon as I figure it out myself and I'll, of course, share what I pick for my new "friend".

When you can't walk...

"When you can't walk, you crawl, and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you." - Firefly

As anyone who reads my blog knows, life is kinda crazy right now for me and my family. But tonight I was thinking of this quote from the TV show Firefly and how appropo it was for our current situation. It seems like even those of us who are doing the carrying have those there to carry us as well. Thank the goddess.

The Trouble With Edge Play by Anna Bergman

I really hope the author doesn't mind me totally ripping off her work, but I read this amazing poem in Other Magazine and I had to share it with all those friends of mine out there who either know what she is writing about or who, like me, really wish they did.

The Trouble with Edge Play
is falling off the edge so
I wake up determined
to polish the silver, handwash
my lace things and go
to a twelve step meeting if I can only decide
which one Endorphin Addicts United?
Tranny Chasers Anonymous?
Tapestry of High Stimulus Junkies that want too much
and think what they give up
might get it?

The trouble with edge play being
born with an edge that I can't take off--
and I got a weakness
for the mean ones with rough hands and ripped
hearts and I got a prediliction
to go anywhere that I haven't before
so I wind up shivering just
before dawn on the front steps
of a house there is no way
I would wait for a cab inside-writing 100 times
on that internal chalkboard I will not think with my pussy,
I will not think with my pussy, I will not
wind up as the star of the lesbian remake
of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" but somehow the gender fucked
fucked with my head, somehow my ability
to be the femme who wants you how you are, makes you
hard and wet, makes the straight guys jealous
somehow that ability
to be the femme you can be act and do
whatever you want with
made me the graduation gift hot wheels
ran into the ground and crashed
by September- and I tell myself the trouble with edge play
is big dogs bite, matches
burn if you play with them
and if you entice people
to act how they want they will
and I get fucked by your friends on a fooz ball table
you're the stud
and I'm the whore not the good kind either
and if I bring oyu hot chocolate in bed wearing
fluffy mules and a teddy
you're gonna think I should
shut up when you tell me to
if I want to see how much of a girl I can be for you
you'll want to seee how much of a dick you can be
for you and

I might haunt shopping malls searching
for do it yourself chastity belt kits
but there's always another
Marlon Brando type
and I've got an appetite
that utterly eclipses my size
The trouble with edge play--

I wake up thinking- take me back to the 50s
no make that 40s, the clothes flatter me more
I'll abide by an arbitrary code of conduct
if other people have to also
I want a scrapbook of corsages
and an acknowledged
double standard I want it above the belt
only like i could convince anyone
that was true

and I start plotting
to carjack a suburban matron
I won't hurt you I just want to trade lives...
I'll take Justin
to clarinet lessons and Ashley
to ballet, she can try to balance of this edge I keep falling off
she can take this sex life that's greatest value comes
from amusing my friends, I'll frost
my hair and go to Pilates after
a triple chai latter at Starbucks I'll be
a housewife for real and promise not to
live out any fantasies with pool boys
and electricians This is the
rock bottom bargaining phase
of a trophy girl gone chipped and dusty Turn down
my thermostat Blunt my edge Make me want
simple Make me want less Make me want
anything other than staying here looking down
where I can't see the end of it wanting to fly.

Romeo and Juliet-Indigo Girls

Someone told me today that if my life were a movie, this would be the song that played when I first saw them in the flesh, or at least the first verse. Let's hope that it is just the first verse and that the time really is right.

A love struck romeo
Sings the streets a serenade
Now hes laying everybody low
Hes got a love song that he made
He finds a streetlight
And he steps out of the shade
And says something like
You and me, babe, how about it?

Juliet says hey, its romeo!
You nearly give me a heart attack!
Yeah well, hes underneath the window
Now shes singing hey-la, my boyfriends back
You shouldnt come around here
Singing up at people like that
Ah anyway, whatcha gonna do about it?
Juliet
The dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded into my heart
And I forget, I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong
Julie
We both come up on different streets
And they both were streets of shame
You know theyre both dirty both mean
Yes and the dreams were the same
And I dreamed your dream for you
And now your dream is real
So tell me honey
Now how can you look at me
As if I was just another one of your deals
Now you can fall for chains of silver
And you can fall for chains of gold
You know you fall for pretty strangers
And the promises they hold
Well you promised me everything
And then you promised me thick and thin
Now you just turn away and say
Romeo, I think I used to have a scene with him.
Ah juliet
When we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above
Gonna love you till I die
Theres a place for us
I you know this song
Now when you gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong
Julie
But I cant do the talks like they talk on my tv screen
I cant do a love song not the way you song them to me
I cant do everything but I would do anything for you
Oh no I cant do anything except be in love with you
Yeah now and all I do is miss you
And the way it used to be you know
And all I do is keep the beat
I keep bad, bad company
And all I do is kiss you
Through the bars of a rhyme
When julie Id do the stars with you
Anytime
Ah juliet
When we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above
Im gonna love you till I die
Theres a place for us
I know you know the movie song
One day were gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong
JulieJulieJulie
Now this love struck romeo
He sings the streets a serenade
Now hes laying everybody low
Hes got a love song he made
He finds a convenient streetlight
And hell step out of the shade
And hell say something like
You and me, babe, how bout it?

Songs about me...

I was asked today by someone what music would be playing when we first met, if their life was a movie. The first song was my first instinct, but I thought it might be a little too much. Though all I could think of was this scene from a Veronica Mars episode where she sings this in karaoke and is totally hot doing it. The other songs are the ones I finally submitted.

One Way or Another-Blondie
One way or another I'm gonna find ya
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha
One way or another I'm gonna win ya
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha
One way or another I'm gonna see ya
I'm gonna meetcha meetcha meetcha meetcha
One day, maybe next week
I'm gonna meetcha, I'm gonna meetcha, I'll meetcha

I will drive past your house
And if the lights are all down
I'll see who's around

One way or another I'm gonna find ya
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha
One way or another I'm gonna win ya
I'll getcha, I'll getcha
One way or another I'm gonna see ya
I'm gonna meetcha meetcha meetcha meetcha
One day, maybe next week
I'm gonna meetcha, I'll meetcha

And if the lights are all out
I'll follow your bus downtown
See who's hanging out

One way or another I'm gonna lose ya
I'm gonna give you the slip, a slip of the lip or another
I'm gonna lose ya, I'm gonna trick ya, I'll trick ya
One way or another I'm gonna lose ya
I'm gonna trick ya trick ya trick ya trick ya
One way or another I'm gonna lose ya
I'm gonna give you the slip

I'll walk down the mall
Stand over by the wall
Where I can see it all
Find out who ya call
Lead you to the supermarket checkout
Some specials and rat food, get lost in the crowd

One way or another I'm gonna getcha, I'll getcha,
I'll getcha getcha getcha getcha(Where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
One way or another I'm gonna getcha, I'll getcha,
I'll getcha getcha getcha getcha(Where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
One way or another I'm gonna getcha, I'll getcha,
I'll getcha getcha getcha getcha(Where I can see it all, find out who ya call)

Joyful Girl- Ani DiFranco
i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it's the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
i do it just because i want to
because I want to

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

and i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know that there's no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
and when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know

i do it for the joy it brings...

Falling for the First Time- Barenaked Ladies
I'm so cool, too bad I'm a loser
I'm so smart, too bad I can't get anything figured out
I'm so brave, too bad I'm a baby
I'm so fly, that's probably why it
Feels just like I'm falling for the first time

I'm so green, it's really amazing
I'm so clean, too bad I can't get all the dirt off of me.
I'm so sane, it's driving me crazy
It's so strange, I can't believe it
Feels just like I'm falling for the first time

Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost
Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost
What if I lost my direction? What if I lost sense of time?
What if I nursed this infection?
Maybe the worst is behind
It feels just like I'm falling for the first time
It feels just like I'm falling for the first time

I'm so chill, no wonder it's freezing
I'm so still, I just can't keep my fingers out of anything
I'm so thrilled to finally be failing
I'm so done, turn me over cause it
Feels just like I'm falling for the first time

Anything plain can be lovely, anything loved can be lost
Maybe I lost my direction, what if our love is the cost?
Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost
Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost
What if I lost my direction? What if I lost sense of time?
What if I nursed this infection? Maybe the worst is behind

Promise-Eve 6
Sleeping through the evening
Singing dreams inside my head
Im heading out
Ive got some ends who say they care
And they just might
Run away with youIf things dont go as planned
Plannin big could be a gamble
Ive already rolled the dice

I spit and stutter stuff and clutter
Worries in my worried corner
Maladjusted
Just untrusted
Rusted
Sometimes brilliant trusted thoughts
Think ill stay for a while
Im intrigued and im
Red as a newborn white as a corpse

I promise not to try not to f*** with your mind
I promise not to mind if you go your way and I go mine
I promise not to lie if Im looking you straight in the eye
I promise not to lie and not to let you down

I am elated
I am all smiled and dated
In my man bites dog town
With a spanish name
I am my own bone
I am two toned
Red as a newborn white as a corpse

I promise not to try not to f*** with your mind
I promise not to mind if you go your way and I go mine
I promise not to lie if Im looking you straight in the eye
I promise not to try not to let you down
Girl let me down
Slow

Why do you gotta keep the fan on high when its cold outside?
Just wanna let you know Im still a fan get it
Everybody wants charm in a smile and a promise
Promise not to try___________

I promise not to try not to f*** with your mind
I promise not to mind if you go your way and I go mine
I promise not to lie if Im looking you straight in the eye
I promise not to try not to not to leave____________(promise not to try)
Not to leave(promise not to try)
Not to not to leave-yay(promise not to try)
I wont leave
I wont leave

Casting

One of the biggest movie premieres at the recent Cannes film festival was that of A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie. It is based on the book (and true-life story) of Mariane Pearl, the wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, who was pregnant at the time of his kidnapping in Afghanistan. I have to say that I think this is an amazing story and the movie looks like it is amazing and really highlights all of Mariane Pearl's efforts to find her husband.

But something has been really bothering me since they announced that Angelina Jolie would star in this movie as Mariane Pearl. It is quite obvious to me that Mariane Pearl is not caucasian. She is a bi-racial woman. I have heard several times that Mariane Pearl personally chose Angelina Jolie to play her and that the two families have grown very close. But, despite Mariane Pearl's preferance that she be played by Angelina Jolie in this movie adaptation, I find it somewhat disturbing that a black woman or a bi-racial woman was not chosen to fill this role. While large strides have been made in the past few decades to cast more people of color in movies and television, there is no doubt in my mind that minorities are not represented (and especially not accurately represented) in popular media in the same percentages as they appear in our country. This is why I feel like, more than ever, popular culture should, when trying to recreate a part of a real person of color's life, cast people of the same color.

In many ways this argument taps into another area in which I disagree with Hollywood casting: the casting of LGBT roles. As gay and lesbian roles go, there is a double edged sword here. Many actors/actresses do not want to come out of the closet because they feel they will forever be known as that gay actor/lesbian actress and that they may only be offered gay/lesbian roles in the future. So there are very few openly gay/lesbian actors/actresses. This in turn leads, many times, to big studios casting straight actors/actresses to these roles in big pictures that they hope to make loads of money on. They want well-known, big name actors/actresses to fill these roles, hoping that their names alone will bring in a significant amount of viewers. But if there are no well-known, big name gay actors/lesbian actresses, they tend not to cast an actor/actress who is openly gay or lesbian. It's a catch-22 for gay actors/lesbian actresses.

What bothers me just as much is the way that most transgendered characters are cast. I don't think I've ever seen a transgendered person cast in a transgender role. Never. For movies about MTF transgendered people, usually they cast people who are biologically female, like Felicity Huffman in Transamerica. This is especially true the more mainstream the movie or tv show is supposed to be. When a bio male is cast in the role, it is usually to bring attention to the fact that the character can't pass as female, and is thus not really sucessfully transitioning into a female. Here I'm thinking of To Wong Foo, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Hedwig. On the other hand, I can think of very few movies about FTM transgendered people, though they almost always cast bio females who are able to sucessfully pass in the movie, which seems to be to be a little bit better, but they still never cast transgendered people.

While I know that Hollywood casting is based on financial concerns surrounding how much money that actor/actress can bring in as well as their acting ability, their ability to accurately portray that character/person, I really wish that casting was truer to a character's ethnic background and/or gender expression.

Sob

I'm driving home tonight from a foreign film, art house double feature, full moon shining bright against a clear black sky. And I can't stop sobbing. I've been waiting for this cry for almost two days now. Two of the men I love the most in this world are sick. Not flu-sick, but really sick. In hospitals hundreds of miles apart and hundreds of miles away from me. I'm stuck babysitting the dog. And my bestfriend, another one of the men I love the most, might be moving to the other side of the country, settling into an affordable trailer park and buying a bar. I have no job right now, though a big job interview next week. Everything is up in the air, but nothing seems to really be changing. So, of course, the sobbing is par for the course right now.

But I still want to take a picture of this beautiful moon, even if it is with my crappy camera phone. (God, how I really really want a great digital camera!) And I spend five minutes after I park looking for the stray wolf-looking dog that I saw wondering a few blocks away from my house on my drive in, in the complete dark, even though my own dog is probably dancing at the door with his legs crossed. No matter how bad it gets, I'm still me. And it isn't really that bad.

Diaries

Diaries
I leave my diaries
scattered all over the house
in plain sight,
on coffee tables,
next to my purse,
on top of the stack of books on my bedside table.
Confident
That no one would be interested in reading them.

I can't pass up reading something someone else has written. Perhaps fortunately, I've never been in a situation where someone I was dating kept a journal or a diary (or at least I never knew of them having one). I don't really think I could have kept myself from reading it, no matter how wrong I may know that is. I have snuck peaks at my mom's journal and she must have figured it out because, when I went back to really read it, it was gone and I've never seen it since. When looking for a pen & paper in my uncle's desk, I found a notebook of erotica he wrote. I wanted to put it away, but I read for quite a while.

This is why I'm amazed that no one has really read my diaries/journals. Well, I don't think they've read any of them and I assume that, if most people who could have read them had read any of them, I'd have heard quite a few choice words. But I can't write words without somehow feeling that they'll be read by someone other than me- I mean, I don't use short hand or purposely bad grammar.

I think this is why I keep my blogs. I'm just taking my personal journals and allowing the whole world to read them, anonymously. Though I'm still not please with how few people read it, but oh well.

This is why I have started to wonder if I'm not more cut out to be a personal essayist, rather than a fiction or poetry writer. I have this need to bare myself to someone, anyone, the world. But I'm not sure I feel the need to cloak all that in the story of fiction or the lyricism of poetry. Maybe this whole personal essayist thing is just a a result of my generation's (and the one before that's) self-absorbtion and total inability to think about anything other than ourselves.

I keep thinking about something my fiction prof last semester said in reviewing my final portfolio. He said that I tend to protect my characters too much, that I need to let them just live their lives and have challenges while I simply record what happens. Maybe I'm my ultimate character in my writings, the character I really wish I could shepard away from all the bad shit, though I can't really seem to do that.

I don't think I'm too picky or hard to please. I just want to date someone who is slightly interesting and interested in me. I have lots of interests and life stories that I can talk about and I'm sure everyone else does too. But I can't carry the conversation myself! I need some help here girls!

I guess I'm just frustrated. I know there are probably dozens of gay/bi women my age here in the metro area who are looking for a nice woman who will treat them with respect and try to get to know them on a first date and see if they have chemistry together. This is all I really want myself, though I can't seem to find it anywhere. Maybe I expect too much conversation, linguistic back & forth, on a first date but I think that is what a first date is for. I've also recently decried the lack of chemistry I've had with the women (and men) I've met recently but a lack of chemistry is not something I or my date can fix. It is just there or it isn't. Neither of us can really do anything to help chemistry. But we can do something about conversation! Please, I'm really trying on my level. I know that I'm never going to have everything, or most things, in common with my dates, but I'll try to keep a conversation going. I know that most of my interests will probably not interest you on the surface, so I try to tell you why I like things, what is interesting on a fundamental level, tell you a funny story about it, or do something to make it not totally boring for you. I would think that most people would do the same. For example: If you like sports, I'd love to hear a funny story or stat, or why you like a certain sport over another. If you like reality TV, tell me why, what interests you about it, its strengths or flaws, why you watch Real World and not American Idol. I can appreciate you sharing why you like something I don't like. When I ask you about something, I'd like more than just a few word answer. For example, if I ask you about your family, don't just say, "They're cool." That tells me nothing!!!

Ok, look, here it is ladies. I'd love to have a long-term relationship but, first, I'd like to find women I can have at least a second date with. I expect I'll have to get to know quite a few women before I find that LTR and that's ok, but you have to give me something to work with. I'll try to do the same.

Not 9 to 5...or just lazy?

I can do office work. I can have, have had in the past, 9 to 5 jobs. Well, not really 9 to 5 jobs, but jobs with Regular People's Hours (RPH)= 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday, going into work between 7am and 9 am and leaving after 8.5 hours with a 30 minute lunch break. Even now I could probably get a RPH job in a cushy office somewhere, and take a night class or two a semester until I finish up. I could pay back my parents fully and start paying down my student loans. I could even get my own place. By the time I graduated, I could even be debt free. There was a time when this was even my plan. But working RPH Oct 2005-Jan 2006 demonstrated to me that this probably wasn't an option for me. Basically, I hated it.

As a side note, when I quite the last RPH job I had, there were lots of crazy depression and personal issues going on and I shut down my whole life for a few months. Because of this, I can't really say if I could have stuck with the last job, if it world have gotten better, if the money would have balanced it out, if I could have balanced that job and a class or two.

What I do know is that I was miserable those months that I worked RPH. While working at the video store I had crazy hours, often closing the store and getting home at 1am, and I had frustrating customer issues, it was more than bearable, mostly enjoyable, until the end and that was only because of the shitty management. When I left and started working temp offic jobs, I was introduced to new levels of boredom and unbearableness. I had worked over six months doing third shift data entry, which was boring and tiring but I could do homework and read novels. I also did temp office work one summer but it was only for the summer, not long-term. But this longterm temp work, the third placement being quite permanent, was hell. Though my jobs were neither physically or mentally taxing, I got home completely wiped out. My mom and I were trying to exercise together at night, in order to be in better health and sleep better at night, etc, but we rarely did it more than once or twice a week. Any real life stuff had to be done after work or on the weekend. I never had energy either of those times. I slept most of the weekend away. I finally understodd why my parents came home to "veg" in front of the TV, not really engaging in what they were watching like I did when I watched and followed a TV show passionately, why they didn't engage in politics or read magazines or want to watch movies that they "had to think about". Sir has been complaining for years about how his parents' blankly sit in front of the TV at the end of the day, because, in his opinion, it is such a waste of time and brain power, but I finally understood after working this job. And though I'd get home before anyone else, I loathed the idea of having to come home at the end of the day to learn how to cook food I didn't particularly like because it was what my parents (read my step-dad) like. He and I had two cooking lessons together. The second and last ended in me telling him to cook it himself because I obviously couldn't do it right, after which I locked myself, crying, into the bathroom for two hours. I think I'd have gladly paid for fast-food or delivery or even a real restaurant meal on nights when I was supposed to cook rather than having to learn how to cook for my parents after working all day.

The job itself was mindless, monotonous and boring. My co-workers weren't great. Where I was working only added to the crappiness. In most office environments, there are windows, even if you don't get to work near them. Also, you can go outside during breaks. The last assignment I had was in a cave used to store documents. Yes, A CAVE. It took five minutes by car to get to our area of the cave. It was almost impossible to get out on breaks and quite tedious to go out for lunch. But, as this was winter, I never saw daylight unless I went out during the day.

After my mind adjusted to the work, the imaginative part of it went off on its own while the other part did the data entry. We weren't really allowed paper or notebooks at our workstations, lest we steal someone's confidential information. I squarreled away a pen and a small notebook in my pant's pocket to jot down notes for poems and story ideas. We also couldn't keep our purses or the book that we kept to read on breaks at our workstations, which was fine except when a computer system breakdown or error left us all sitting there with nothing to do for hours on end. This usually happened at least once a week.

Ok, so that job especially sucked. And I've known a few people who've worked at cell phone company call centers which really really sucked. And I have a good friend who works sales and customer service for a credit card company. She doesn't LOVE it and it sucks when her sales are down and she's under pressure, but it's just ok. But what's really been plaguing me lately, after this latest job, which I did really like, went south, is whether or not I'm severely flawed because of my dissatisfation with these jobs, the way I mess them up, the way I don't seem to be able to just stick it out like others do? I know Sir isn't happy with the RPH he works. I know my mom can't wait to just retire. But they do it everyday. Just like most people do. I'm starting to worder if I'm not just lazy.

Last Tuesday I went to a poetry reading. My poetry teacher from last semester was there. I know she doesn't teach full-time, but I'd never gotten to ask her what else she did until last Tuesday. She said she writes grant proposals freelance from her home and teaches a class or two a semester. This allows her time to write and submit her own work, to have a meditiation practice, and to raise her kids. She said she just wasn't a 9 to 5-er, though she could do it if she needed to, had done it before whne she had to. I wonder if I'm going to be able to find an equalibrium between just being lazy and not being a 9 to 5-er.

First Semester Back Grades

I finally got around to looking up my grades for this past semester. (I've been kinda too busy with my intersession class lately to do much else.) And, for my first semester back in two years,

I got.....drumroll please.......

All As!!!!!

(Ok, so there was one A-, but I missed that class way more than I should have and I'm just happy not to have failed! My prof was amazingly understanding and I did all my work like a pro because I really loved the class.)

It's weird because this is the first semester that I've really told myself that I don't care if I get all As or not. It's been kinda a mantra when I start stressing about something not being perfect. I don't have to get all As, I don't have to get all As, I don't have to get all As, I don't have to get all As. I've been trying to focus on just learning as much as I can and really getting something from the class because I'm there to learn first and foremost. And, while I'm also there to get a degree and not take these classes over again, I do not have to have all As in these classes to get a degree. And I actually think this semester has been my most enjoyable semester so far. Though it is still cool to have gotten all As to match what I learned.

Conservatives and the French

Today after class, I was running errands for my family, listening to Rush Limbaugh (I know, I know, that was my first mistake, right?). A female caller, responding to something another called said about the French Presidential election effecting the US Pres Election in 2008, said that the election shows that 85% (don't know where she got this number since I think the guy won with only 54% of the vote, out of 84% turnout) that 85% of the French people didn't want to vote any more socialists into office and that didn't surprise her because most of the people in France, especially those living in the countryside, are basically decent people. (I should note, as a disclaimer, that I'm not absolutely sure this is what she said and that I'm not taking this from any transcripts, just what I remember hearing. I am probably wrong. I usually am. Maybe she was just saying that 85% of people voted and most of those were decent people who didn't want socialism and thus voted for the other guy.) Either way, I think she seems to be saying that no decent people could be for socialism and that the people in the country are both definately decent and against socialism, as opposed to those who live in the cities and the suburbs, many of whom might not be decent and might want socialism. Mmmmm....

Today was my first day of my intersession film class- Radical Changes Since 1945. It's three hours a day, five days a week for three weeks at the art house theater in Westport. Yea! Three weeks of non-stop films. And I get out early in the afternoon so I have the rest of the day to run errands and do whatever, unlike if I didn't have to be up for this class, in which case I'd be sleeping all day. But, to my point. our first reading was the introduction to Esslin's 1969 book Theater of the Absurd. When discussing why artists from all over the globe (meaning from all over European countries and America) came to Paris to work on their art, he writes that Paris isn't a French center for art but an international center for art, and that it is a magnet for people seeking the freedom to like an unconformist life and produce their art in an environment where they wouldn't have to be looking over their shoulder all the time to judge what their neighbors might think of them.

Is there something wrong with me that I appreciate the second description of France much more than the turn away from "socialism" that all the American conservatives are hoping will happen with this new president as expressed by the first paragraph?

I Cheated Myself Just Like I Knew I Would

I just can't seem to get it right for too long at a time.

Amy Winehouse-You Know I’m No Good
Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard
Your rolled up sleeves and your skull t-shirt
You say why did you do it with him today?
And sniff me out like I was tanqueray

Cause you're my fella, my guy
Hand me your stella and fly
By the time I'm out the door
You tear me down like roger moore

I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was troubled
You know that I'm no good

Upstairs in bed, with my ex boy
He's in the place, but I cant get joy
Thinking of you in the final throws,
this is when my buzzer goes

Run out to meet your chicks and bitter
You say when we're married cause youre not bitter
There'll be none of him no more
I cried for you on the kitchen floor

I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was trouble
You know that I'm no good

Sweet reunion, jamaica and spain
We're like how we were again
I'm in the tub you're on the seat
Lick your lips as I soak my feet
Then you notice lickle carpet burn
My stomach drops and my guts churn
You shrug and it's the worst
To truly stuck the knife in first

I cheated myself like I knew I would
I told ya I was trouble,
you know that I'm no good

I cheated myself, like I knew I would
I told ya I was trouble,
yeah ya know that I'm no good

Guns

So, I really should be continuing to work on the revisions I have to do on my work this semester before I can turn in my portfolio, but I've been sitting here in the computer lab for over three hours now and I need a mental break from stuff I have to do.

On my way here to school, I was thinking about guns. In addition to the VT massacre a few weeks ago, there was a shooting in the metro area in which I live yesterday at a mall (really a strip mall with a Target and a Starbucks). I suppose I'm really writing this because I don't really have an opinion on guns and that confuses me. More like, I have too many conflicting opinions on guns and gun control to really have AN OPINION. (I really like having AN OPINION on a topic and getting to argue that with everyone I know.)

On the one hand, I'm what is commonly referred to as a damned dirty hippy in the blogosphere- in that I would really like it if we could live in a world where no one needed guns, except those people who liked to hunt their own food or hunted food for others. While I live in a house with guns and pass by our ornate gun cabinet everyday, I rarely, if ever, think about the fact that there are guns in my house. They aren't mine and I'm kinda scared to touch them, much less use one of them. When I lived in St Louis and they passed their Conceal Carry Law, I was relieved when I saw the "No Guns" sticker on the window of the concert venue I was about to enter. On an unconscious level, it bothers me to think that the person typing on the computer next to mine or the person next to me in line at the grocery store could be carrying a loaded weapon. I'm sure a part of this is that, with the exception of police officers, I always associate guns with criminals.

But then there is the other hand. On that hand lies all the arguments that seem perfectly reasonable for people to own and carry weapons, all the arguments that I have no real evidence to dispute, except for this little nagging in my gut. "The "No Gun" signs are like neon signs telling criminals that they can commit robbery and assault without immediate consequence because there is no one on the premises with a weapon to stop them." "The VT massacre could have been stopped with fewer deaths if those students were allowed to carry guns on their persons." "It is perfectly reasonable for a person to be able to defend themselves with a weapon if they are in danger and the kinds of people who would go through the training and process to get a conceal carry permit are not the type of people you have to worry about using their weapons offensively (any more than they might be if they couldn't get conceal carry permits)." I don't really have an answer to any of these arguments and, even if I did, I'm not sure that I would want to make them, as I like the idea of a free people having the liberty to arm and defend themselves.

Feel free to let me know what you think.

Enough rambling for awhile. Now I must get back to my papers. Ah, finals. I did not miss you.

Black Poets Collective

Tonight I went to the Writer's Place to see/hear some poets from the Black Poets Collective perform their work. It was amazing. White it shouldn't be, it is still amazing to me how much hearing the work of others can inspire you to continue to create your own, to believe that you may be able to touch people or make people think as these people have just done to you with their work. I think it is often lost on me all the time and effort and artistry that goes in to things I read on a page because I've been reading books all my life, but it is reinforced whenever I hear someone perform their work. On the other hand, attending these performances by "everyday people", people who may be published but do not get to create their art as their livelihood, demystifies it and makes me feel like I actually might be able to do what they are doing. That the things I am making can do the same thing as their works. That I can "sell-out" and get that day job but still produce meaningful art, as long as I continue to produce. I owe all those who I've witness perform a debt of gratitude that I could never repay, but I also hope to accrue more of that debt by seeing more people perform their work, both to support them and to boost up myself.

The Crazy One

Right now I'm very confused about work. While I never want to say that I am without blame, because I never am, I'm pretty on the fence as to whether it is my problem or their problem. Mostly, whether I should stay in this situation, because it is a good job and the problem is mine and one of perception, or leave because I truly don't think that anything will change. There is always the possibility that things will change, but I'm not really putting much faith in that anymore, especially where job situations are concerned. But after my conversation about the incidence yesterday with The Powers That Be, I'm reminded of a Ben Folds song, in which he sings, "She liked to push me and talk me back down/ Til I believed I was the crazy one/ And, in a way, I guess I was." I just wish I could feel more certain that is the case and not that I'm just an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed bitch.

Things that are NOT ok

It is not ok to not have my paycheck on time.

It is not ok to call me during my shift when I should be helping customers to talk to me about that. My first job is to help our customers, not make sure you feel ok.

It is not ok to try to bully me into saying it is ok that you are not going to have my paycheck to me on time.

It is not ok to point out to my past behavior to justify your current bad behavior. If this was the only time something like this (not this specifically) had happened, I'm sure I would be more understanding. Also, if you had wanted to fire me because of those instances, you would have had every reason to and you would not be out of line to have pointed out that those things were not ok. But I will not say that something is ok when it is never ok in any professional working environment anywhere, just because you bring up my past bad behavior.

It is not ok to call the work phone line and then my cell phone from two different numbers just to ask a small question. I would pick up the store phone if I did not have customers. Do you want me to tell our customers, "I'm sorry. I can't help you and/or run your credit card/loyalty card because my boss thinks it is more important for me to answer her question than it is to serve you."? If you leave a message on the answering machine with your question or need, I will call you back as soon as I am finished with our customers.

These are things that are not ok.

I'm Going to See Incubus!!!!!!!

I'm so excited! I just got Incubus tickets for $10 cheaper than regular through the local radio station's presale. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get thru on the internet but I did, pretty quickly actually. And my BFF is coming into town to go with me. So, despite all the other weird, bad, hard things going on in my life, I'm really looking forward to July 20th.

Cool Upcoming Events

******* The Black Poets Collective will do a Riverfront Special, Saturday, April 28th, 8:00 pm at The Writers Place (not at 2:00 pm at listed in KC Star, Sunday A&E section)
The Black Poets Collective is group of African American artists and poets dedicated to social change and advancement for all people. The Collective has staged and sponsored numerous spoken-word events including featured readings and open mic sessions at The Blue Room at the American Jazz Museum, the Paseo Academy, and the Lansing State Prison. Members of Black Poets Collective are veterans of various competitions and poetry slams.


*******Thurs May 3rd- Showing of a movie called Troost.
TROOST: A Film About the Racial Division of Kansas City
For decades, Troost Avenue has been knows as the racial dividing line of Kansas City. In 2006, Brian Bustos and Sam Sullivant, both undergraduates at UMKC, decided to make a film retelling just a few of the many stories that they believe contributed to the dysfunction in their city. Through music and film, the two have found a way to revive lost stories of Kansas City’s past and retell them to their generation.During the research for video, the two students drove up and down Troost Ave., interviewing people, trying to capture the heartbeat of the street. They were surprised to find, amongst empty window shops, vacated buildings, and shattered dreams, a small, diverse group of leaders strategizing to transform Troost Ave. from a line of division to a place of gathering andcreativity. TROOST is a film about a city’s painful past and thecitizens who are determined to heal it.
May 3, 7pm, Creative Minds Theater, 31st & Troost. For more info, contact Brian at 816.509.8548.

*********LGBT Community Picnic
We Are Family . . .Join us!Unity in the Community!
Please join us Saturday, May 12th, 12 noon at Swope Park-Shelter Three for our community's first ever LGBT Community Wide Picnic. Over 50 organizations, churches, schools and businesses will be participating, and WE WANT YOU to join us on this special day.

The LGCC will be providing hot dogs, chips and bottled water. Every organization (or group of friends) should coordinate bringing your own choice of other dishes (and if you want to bring enough to share with others, that would be great).

The day is very casual, family-friendly. We'll have some games and activities going on for anyone who wants to participate, but bring your own fun, there's plenty of room for frisbees, croquet, badmittten and kites.

This is a great way for everyone in our community to come together for a fun event, share it with friends, meet some new people, and be proud of what KC's LGBT community is all about.

We are needing a rough head count, so please RSVP by May 1 to Mitch Levine at http://us.f551.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=rsvp@lgcckc.org.

Looking forward to seeing you there!
Where & When Swope Park
Shelter 3
(located near the Band Pavilion)Saturday, May 12,2007
12:00 noon.

Mental Illness

I have to admit that I am overly sensitive when people talk about things that reflect me. But I had to write about the issues that have been annoying me in regards to how mental illness has been discussed in the wake of the VT shootings.

This is a paragraph from a report by ABC news about the killer within a few days of the shootings.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3048108&page=2

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant
use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of
such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out
prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained
through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the
sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

If I had just read this article myself, I might have just seen that paragraph as saying that there were no records that the shooter had taken any antidepressants. But it also says something more, which several bloggers I read have pointed out. This means that the government has a database which shows what medications we have taken and are taken. What if you are a politician that the government in power doesn't like and you are taking antidepressants? Don't you think that, even in this day and age, if the press got a hold of that information, in could seriously hurt your chances of election? Or if you have HIV or AIDS? Of if you've ever gotten an STD and had to be treated with antibiotics? We have doctor/patient privelege, but it seems that privacy does not extend to our prescription records.

What really got under my skin is the way that several (usually conservative) commentators have said that Virginia should repeal a state law, the result of a VA Supreme Court decision, that makes it illegal for universities to kick a student out because they are mentally ill. The court decision happened after a VA university kicked a student out after it was revealed that he was suicidal and thus "a danger to himself or others." I even heard Tucker Carlson ask his guest, who is an author of a book on university mental health care, why we shouldn't assume that a suicidal person is also homicidal. Once again, I have to say that I might be too sensitive about this because I suffer from depression and, when not on the proper medication, am suicidal. But I was never homicidal, never wanted to hurt anyone but myself, in an attempt to end the pain. I would hate to think of what my life would be like if I knew I could never go back to school because I had been suicidal at one point and was still being treated for depression. Also, I can't imagine how I wold have reacted if the schools that I went to kicked me out when I was suicidal. I think that would have just added to the awful state I was already in. I have no doubt that the VT shooter was incredibly ill, but he is nowhere near the "norm" of what mental illnes looks like, as if you could say there is a norm at all. As pointed out in this post on Feministe http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/04/23/virgnia-tech-and-mental-illness/ ,
the broad term "mental illness" can be applied to anything from severe schizophrenia to minor depression. Most people seeking treatment for a mental illness are "average", " regular" people. I don't think we should be stigmatizing them any more than they already are.

You Find Out Who Your Friends Are

I've liked this song from the first time I heard it, but I started thinking about posting it during the beginning of this week because, when I heard it Monday on my way to work, I started thinking about how this is the kind of friend, relative, person I want to be for those I care about. I guess I've always kinda felt like that, though, in ways are that are less selfless than that sounds. I've always felt like people can hang out and have fun with lots of people, but I always felt like they might hold me in higher esteem if they are calling on me when they are in trouble, because they view me as loyal, trustworthy, strong, or whatever it is that is best suited to their particular trouble. (Sometimes, though, what they really see me as is a sucker, but that is probably another story.) I've been lucky to have amazing role models in my family (and, in a few cases, in friends as well) to demonstrate how to do that and how to try to make it about what that other person needs instead of about how I'm doing or that I'm doing something. For as long as I can remember, my uncle was always like that for his friends, always there to help someone, even if their situation was not dire, but just because they needed help of a sort that he could give. I hope that he has friends like that now and that I can be one of them.

Find Out Who Your Friends Are-Tracy Lawrence
Run your car off the side of the road
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere
Get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back
Need a floor need a couch need a bus fare

This is where the rubber meets the road
This is where the cream is gonna rise
This is what you really didn't know
This is where the truth don't lie

{Chorus}
You find out who you're friends are
Somebody's gonna drop everything
Run out and crank up their car
Hit the gas get there fast
Never stop to think 'what's in it for me' or 'it's way too far'
They just show on up with their big old heart
You find out who you're friends are

Everybody wants to slap your back, wants to shake your hand
when you're up on top of that mountain
But let one of those rocks give way then
you slide back down look up and see who's around then

This ain't where the road comes to an end
This ain't where the bandwagon stops
This is just one of those times when
A lot of folks jump off

{Chorus}
You find out who you're friends are
Somebody's gonna drop everything
Run out and crank up their car
Hit the gas get there fast
Never stop to think 'what's in it for me' or 'it's way too far'
They just show on up with their big old heart
You find out who you're friends are

When the water's high
When the weather's not so fair
When the well runs dry
Who's gonna be there

{Chorus}
You find out who you're friends are
Somebody's gonna drop everything
Run out and crank up their car
Hit the gas get there fast
Never stop to think 'what's in it for me' or 'it's way too far'
They just show on up with their big old heart
You find out who you're friends are

Race

Several things recently have got me thinking about race. And generally about racism, sexism, homophobia, all those forms of bigotry and hatred out there, especially in those instances when it is just dismissed out of hand or ignored, seen as the norm for society anyway. Because of a friend I've made recently, I've also had an opportunity to discuss these issues and hear her views, which often open my mind to new lines of thought, to the (often unconscious) reasons behind using certain derogatory words, phrases, or imagery.

So, I suppose the issue I'm dealing with right now is what do to about all this. What can I do to make any difference in this big world? There are obvious answers, such as getting involved in organizations. But my rhetoric class is often driving me to ask if any of these things are enough without dismantling the larger systems that support these things. I guess I'm just wrestling with how ineffectual I feel.

Please please PLEASE leave a comment about what you think.

Dig by Incubus

This is such a great song and I'm really digging it these days so I thought I'd share it. Also, I found this website that had both the lyrics and the video. Super-cool.
http://www.lyricspy.com/168888/Incubus_lyrics/Dig_lyrics.html

Dig-Incubus
We all have a weakness
But some of ours are easy to identify.
Look me in the eye
And ask for forgiveness;
we'll make a pact to never speak that word again.
Yes, you are my friend.
We all have something that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.

So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.
If I turn into another dig me up from under
what is covering the better part of me.
Sing this song
remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.

We all have a sickness
that cleverly attaches and multiplies
No matter how we try.
We all have someone that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.

So when sickness turns my ego up
I know you'll act as a clever medicine.
If I turn into another dig me up
from under what is covering
The better part of me.
Sing this song!
Remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.
Oh! each other when everything else is gone

Amazing Blog Post about Race and Whiteness

http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2007/03/the_white_lens_iv_the_white_idea.html

I just really thought this was an amazing post about the idea of "whiteness" as a construct of absence and how this affects the thought process of people of color and mixed people of color. I guess this just really feeds my current interest into minority studies.

Civil Rights

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=E3D7A88114B9D44B121C2D9ABD3AC051?diaryId=878

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=E3D7A88114B9D44B121C2D9ABD3AC051?diaryId=884
These are really great posts about the convergence of the fight for LGBT civil rights and African-American civil rights in the United States, which were prompted by financial advise guru Suze Orman's revelation that she and her long-time partner are very worried about what will happen to their money when one of them dies and the assertion that (gay) marriage is a civil right that gays should enjoy as straight couples do because of these concerns. I really love this quote as well and wanted to post it on my blog because I think it describes how I feel about it all. Or how I think I feel, as everything is kinda jumbled up right now.

Of course, there's a bigger issue here than money. I've heard it expressed before by Leonard Pitt.
"I know also that some folks are touchy about anything seeming to equate the black civil rights movement with the gay one. And no, gay people were not kidnapped from Gay Land and sold into slavery, nor lynched by the thousands. On the other hand, they do know something about housing discrimination, they do know job discrimination, they do know murder for the sin of existence, they do know the denial of civil rights and they do know what it is like to be used as scapegoat and bogeyman by demagogues and political opportunists.

They know enough of what I know that I can't ignore it. See, I have yet to learn how to segregate my moral concerns. It seems to me if I abhor intolerance, discrimination and hatred when they affect people who look like me, I must also abhor them when they affect people who do not. For that matter, I must abhor them even when they benefit me. Otherwise, what I claim as moral authority is really just self-interest in disguise.

I believe in moral coherence. And Rule No. 1 is, you cannot assert your own humanity, then turn right around and deny someone else's. "

Writer's block isn't the right phrase, but it's the first thing that comes to mind

Two of my classes this semester are creative writing classes, poetry and fiction. My other English course requires small papers every week or two. It's not that I lack something to say. (I rarely have nothing to say.) Yet whenever I am supposed to write for any of these classes, I feel like I am at a loss. I think I"m afraid that, if I open it up, I'll never stop. That if I allow myself to start writing what I feel, what I think, I'll never run out. I won't do anything but write, pouring myself onto the paper. Not working or going to school. Not eating or drinking or caring for myself. And no edits or re-writes because I never stop writing the first draft. I can't hand-write as fast as my thoughts. And I don't want to spend my life chained to a computer, nott that my typing can keep up with my thoughts either, but it is closer.

Tomorrow's reading for my rhetoric class is a piece (from 1975) about how women should claim their own writing and their own bodies. But there is a fear in that for me that stills my pen until the thought vanishes or is just a shadow of its original glory. Should I just put off the other things I'm supposed to be doing just to record, develop, lay bare my thoughts and ideas? The practical has to enter into it eventually. Plus, I'm not sure how to give my inner workings life, especially in regards to my fiction writing, to transform what goes on in my head into more than just a journal. It's easier in poetry, but perhaps not as satisfying. And how can I create "need-based" modernist fiction, as I've been intructed to for this class, while also using a "feminine voice," as is suggested by the author of that piece? Are the two anti-thetical?

Arguing with Sir

Blue=Body of e-mail from Sir

Instead of being mad today, I did some wikipedia research. I know it's not a definitive source but it's close enough for government work. I discovered that my problem with Feminism is that I believe it is a "gateway philosophy" for Misandry. I support the Feminist view that women should have equal opportunities as men and I'm in favor of causes and work toward that end. From my perspective, it is inherent in this philosophy that women should also have equal responsibilities and accountability as men, and I believe that there is where the philosophies diverge. This disconnect can be discussed at another time, but those are my findings as of today. Misandry is my enemy, especially when it masquarades under the banner of feminism. One quick remark about the whole topic of mixed messages from women, do you really think it was any different before feminism? Don't you think guys trying to romance women still had to use trial and error to figure out what the specific woman they were dating wanted? I think you'd have to go back to the days of arranged marriages to find a time when men didn't have to worry about running the woman off by doing the wrong thing. But once they were married, they still had to live with each other every day and mixed messages existed there. And guys send mixed messages too, just not the same one.

I also wanted to say that your argument last night was a perfect example of the "inferrence" I was speaking of. Instead of arguing the points and having a dialog about the topic at hand, you managed to insult me and my opinions, say that I support rape, and then blamed me for not listening for years on end. First of all, I think that you were, if not insulting, then at least making a pointed jab at me, when you blamed "the liberal media and feminism" for communications between men and women. You are always telling me that I should be able to infer from past reactions how a person will react. Whether or not you think I should react the way I did, you know from past experience that heeping all of the blame on feminism and the "liberal" media would make me feel personally insulted. I know there is no way you support rape, but, the way you were positioning yourself, it seemed to me that you were only allowing for women "to be asking for it" or for women never to want sex and/or never want to get the attention of a man with her appearance. I was not trying to insult you and your opinions, nor did I want to discuss our interpersonal relationship inthe beginning. But I saw a mental pattern that you have and that you stick to, which I do not see as helping you, propelling you forward, being fulfilling for you, or working to make you a better person. I was trying to use the opportunity to point out that maybe it is the structure of your thinking that is holding you back, limiting you, not only in this but in life. Though it obviously didn't come across, I also tried to point out that this isn't just ideas that are hurting you but ideas that are hurting the whole society. I feel like I've been trying to do this for several months, especially as I see all of your hope and alive-ness fade away into sheer cynicism and disappointment. But you never seem to take anything I say on these topics into consideration. I tried to point part of this out in my letter to you, but you chose to ignore that in favor of only discussing IF I wanted to continue our friendship, not discussing the things beyond K that have caused our freindship to be even more dysfunctional as of late. If you want to discuss our interpersonal relationship, don't mask it in a philosophical discussion because I will ALWAYS be blamed for "not listening."While I'm trying to defend a position, you're busy using that position against me in a personal manner. The ways in which you support your positions, with your interpretations with your personal unfair treatment, that I believe has clouded your judgements about everything in life, are based on a view of the world that is hurting you, though you will never admit it, and, frankly, hurting me. My "careful crafting" of a conversation is my way of trying to stay on task against personal attacks. If you cannot have a philosophical debate and exchange of ideas without dragging personal feelings into it and slandering me personally, it's better that we avoid such conversation. Then what would our friendship be? You can get all that other stuff from everyone else. Attacking me personally is definately not the best way to convince me to change my mind about something. Why? It's always how you act towards me? Hanging up on me after warning me not to hang up on you probably isn't the best way to change my mind either. Your behavior last night was unacceptable, especially considering the day.When I am ready to speak to you again, I will let you know. What about my feelings about when I may or may not want to talk to you?

At this point, I'm so torn about whether I even want to keep this friendship. There is a bigger problem that K. That was just a more immediate concern that helped us avoid the bigger issues. You are in a bad place. Not as bad as some of the places I've been, but, then again, the worse it is, the more incentive you have to dig out of it. It seems obvious to me that the way you deal with the world is not working, or at least not working to make you a better person, a more fulfilled person, etc. When you were trying to ground yourself in Eastern thought and your moral ideals, you could almost see that life could be more than ordinary, even if it was only internally extra-ordinary. That is completely gone now. And I want so much to help you see that it is still out there, but you only see attacks and slander and insults. Or what I say is so pedestrian that you dismiss it out of hand. On my end, I feel strong contradictions in our relationship. On one end, I feel like orthodoxy always comes at too high a price, especially yours. I feel like you have such high expectations that no one will ever meet them, especially me, and that you are always keeping score. Now, you might not kick me out of the game for too many fouls, but you just won't play me for the rest of the season. On the other hand, I know I am doing good, but I almost feel like I can only do this good without you in my life. All the good things I had done over the last year, I did when you weren't around. I haven't been depressed or cried or wanted to cut or wanted to die, except in relationship to you and our dealings with each other. Last night, I spent a half hour scratching my forearms until they were red and raw. I can deal with most things, even the more stressful work and school and illness all at once, but I can't deal with you in a constructive way. "Nobody said it was easy. Nobody said it would be so hard." I wish I could go back to the start. I just don't know what to do.

Barenaked Ladies- Call and Answer

For Sir and K

Call and Answer
I think its getting to the point
Where I can be myself again
I think its getting to the point
Where we have almost made amends
I think its the getting to the point
That is the hardest part.

And if you call, I will answer
And if you fall, Ill pick you up
And if you court this disaster
Ill point you home

You think I only think about you
When were both in the same room
You think Im only here to witness
The remains of love exhumed
You think were here to play
A game of who loves more than whom

And if you call, I will answer
And if you fall, Ill pick you up
And if you court this disaster
Ill point you home

You think its only fair to do whats
Best for you and you alone
You think its only fair to do the same
To me when youre not home
I think its time to make this something that is
More than only fair

So if you call, I will answer
And if you fall, Ill pick you up
And if you court this disaster
Ill point you home.

But Im warning you, dont ever do
Those crazy, messed up things that you do
If you ever do
I promise you
Ill be the first to crucify you
Now its time to prove that youve come back
Here to rebuild.

To Sir 1/27/07

Today, on my way to class, I saw the moon, white against a cloudless blue noon sky. I've always loved seeing the moon in the middle of the day, beautiful where it doesn't belong. I think you might be the only one who knows that about me. I remember seeing the moon about the front of my old university as I walked down the main drive. I seem to remember always smiling, thoughs of you never far away when I saw that magical sight. I think I felt like that was some amazing gift you gave me, just being able to be in a place like that. When I threw it away, I think I was sorriest that I disappointed you, squandering the opportunity you'd given me. On the other hand, I feel like I have some hope of succeeding at this school this time around because I feel like I need to and I feel like I"m in the same boat as everyone else, trying to create my own opportunities and just get ahead alittle. But it's mine, all mine, whether I succeed or fail, and fuck everyone else.

Thursday I bought the latest Snow Patrol album. Track #6 makes me cry. I guess I imagine it is how you feel about me. "You could be happy, I hope you are. You made me happier than I'd been by far... Do the things that you always wanted to. Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do. More than anything I want to see you go, Take a glorious bite out of the whole world." Unfortunately, I can't seem to sum up how I feel about you so well.

I've never wanted to not want you in my life, but I do. You saved me when I thought I could not be redeemed, but I can't adhere to your orthodoxy. I never could. (I"m not sure you can either, though.) I always wanted to believe, but faith has always exacted too high a price. But my god abandoned me long before I abandoned him.

And yet I live with your ghost everyday. Though I'm not sure if it's the ghost of you or the ghost of my image of you. Either way, it still remains. A voice in my head that is more than just an extension of my conscience but also the color commentator for my day-to-day. The opposition to every weakly-supported argument I concoct. The arms that hold me when I'm out of control. The hand that calms me, stroking my hair until I feel I can rest.

I have a new lover, of a sort, now. Our peculiar relationship forces me to re-examine my beliefs and prejudices, my fears and desires. My experiences have refuted many of your carefully crafted hypothesises. When each experience with my lover ends, I feel free and unencumbered in a way I've never known before. But I have little desire to share my every truimph with this new lover as I still do with you. I don't need to know their mind as I still yearn to know yours. I do not ache in the pit of my stomach for their companionship, for a favorable smile from their lips.

I am sorry.

I'm Gonna Find Another You-John Mayer

To Sir, with Love

I'm Gonna Find Another you-John Mayer
It's really over,
you made your stand
You got me crying, as was your plan
But when my loneliness is through,
I'm gonna find another you

You take your sweaters
You take your time
You might have your reasons
but you will never have my rhymes
I'm gonna sing my way away from blue
I'm gonna find another you

When I was your lover
No one else would do
If I'm forced to find another,
I hope she looks like you
Yeah and she's nicer too

So go on baby
Make your little get away
My pride will keep me company
And you just gave yours all away
Now I'm gonna dress myself for two
Once for me and once for someone new
I'm gonna do somethings you wouldn't let me do
Oh I'm gonna find another you