and we both of us knew how the end always ends

I thought you knew me. I am nothing but sentimentality. I am sentimental at the expense of reality. All I believe in is idealism.

That's why it all hurts so much.

My new favorite blog*

Can I just say? Brilliant. Good job, Friend. I love your musings; they amuse me to no end, but they're also provocative and clever.

Thank you for sharing them with us.


*Just don't write about politics, okay? (Just kidding. Sort of.)

But he doesn't look a thing like Jesus

I have a crush, but I didn't realize it until this morning when I was driving home from school. There's a man in my life that I think about all the time, and in whose company I feel insecure, silly, and like he would never even think to look my way (which in my world means I like him), but I would never ever date him.

Remember a few posts ago, where I wrote about working my first night shift at the AIDS hospice, and there was another volunteer there who prayed with the dying man? He's a big 'ole Christian, in divinity school, wants to go to Seminary, is crushingly unhip and unfashionable, and I don't even find him attractive, but what I do find attractive is his inner peace.

His smile warms me and makes me feel calm, and just being in his presence (I've worked with him several times now) soothes me in some unexplainable way. I trust him. I don't even know him, but I feel like I could tell him anything in the world, and he would never judge me, even on the inside. He seems so content. Maybe I'm confusing jealousy with attraction.

It's such a nice contrast to see someone so genuinely humbled and made whole by their faith, as opposed to what you normally see in the way of evangelicals, who seem only to be made more insecure, angry and hate-filled by their faith. I think maybe this is proof that God isn't real; how could he work so differently in different people? Were he real, and were these people's faiths legitimate (all of which would die to say that it is), why would it manifest itself so differently? Does it depend on how you come to it?

Maybe this man I'm sort of infatuated with has led a long, miserable, awful life and only coming to faith made it bearable for him. Maybe his radiating of peace and tranquility is all an act, and he hates his sexuality, and that's what guided him towards the seminary, so that he could use that as a buffer to not have to live it.

I don't know. All I know is that I've started working every Tuesday night because that's the night that he works, and I always get excited about seeing him.

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted

For years I've been familiar with author E. Lynn Harris, but I always thought he was a woman who wrote cheap and corny romance novels for other young, lonely, black women.

But I was in Half-Price Books recently and came across a memoir whose title caught my eye, which also happens to be the title of this entry. (For those of you who know me at all know that I absolutely love memoirs; they're my favorite thing to read.) So I flipped through it and read the sleeve, and it turns out that not only is E. Lynn Harris a man, and a gay man, but that he grew up in Arkansas (Little Rock), attended school at the University of Arkansas, and now lives in Fayetteville and teaches! So that, combined with the title, made me buy it without hesitation.

I finished it last night, and while his writing is a bit saccharine and sentimental, even for my sappy-ass taste, I was moved to tears by the end of the book. He grew up in a much different era than I did, not only gay, but black, in Northwest Arkansas (which, really, must have been terrifying, even if he didn't consciously know it), but I found myself relating to so much of what he went through, in terms of coming to terms with himself, his homosexuality, and his existential crises at feeling burned-out, used up, and bitter by his late 20's. (Hmmm....)

He didn't turn to writing until his early 30's, urged on by a wonderful friend who was dying of cancer (in his late 20's, three of his best friends died of AIDS, almost back-to-back; it was the 80's), and he had to self-publish his first book, but the rest is history.

The book ends on an incredibly upbeat note, and he even finds a man for himself that wants to stick around. His depression still comes and goes, but after spending most of his 20's suicidal, depressed, and with his face in a bottle, he learns how to live a life of dignity, openness, and optimism. It's very inspiring.

So, I can't wait to start reading his novels, though I'm not sure how much I'll actually enjoy them. And I also want to start stalking him and find him by Christmas! :)

But not before I read this book,, which I started last night and is already so good I can't wait to finish it.

Well, holy shit

New Jersey legalizes gay marriage today. Sort of.

All seven justices agreed that the state’s Constitution demands full legal rights for same-sex partners. But its ruling, 4 to 3, revealed a split in how to proceed. The majority said that lawmakers, not the court, should decide whether to call those arrangements a marriage, a civil union or something else. The three dissenters went further, asserting that gay couples, like their heterosexual counterparts, must be allowed to wed.

Cindy Meneghin, right, and her girlfriend, Maureen Kilian, along with their daughter, Sarah. One of 7 couples who sued the state in 2002 for the right to marry.

If only cameras had never been invented

Halloween, how I love you.

Funny how he's the one that gets married, but he sends me a present!

But I love Matt Kane!!!!

Today I received my very own, hand-crafted, Six Feet Under-inspired jug-type thing. I love it. It's beautiful.

Thank you! And happy wedding. So sorry I missed it.

Isn't it beautiful?

Just take my word for it

Never drink 20 ounces of a peanut butter/protein smoothie right before you go to the gym. Especially if you haven't been to the gym in about 2 weeks. Oy.

Do you know my name, do you even care?

It's not very often that something comes along and instantly transports you back to a much more innocent and less self-conscious time in your life, when you really thought stardom was a given, and the world would soon be yours, if only you could get out of your little dead-end town.

Well, this morning, I was reminded of that time in mine and my oldest friend's life (as in, the friend I've had the longest), and our shared missed destiny.

Where do dead dreams go?

Happy Friday, everyone.

How's that whole Jesus' love thing workin out for ya?

As I was leaving my house this evening, I was slowly coming around the somewhat sharp, blind curve just north of my block, when a little red pickup came flying around the curve, pretty much right in the middle of the road, and came within about an inch of smashing into me.

I jerked my car to the right, nearly hitting the curb, to prevent being plowed into, and laid on my horn. I threw my hands up in the air at the driver and mouthed "What the hell are you doing?" you know, just to let them know that they seriously need to slow down.

So what does the driver do but furiously flip me off and yell "Fuck you!" out the window. As if I was the one who did the wrong thing.

These kinds of encounters always make me feel a little personally attacked, and as I sat there a moment, I looked up at the truck in my rear-view mirror and noticed that it had one of those little Jesus fish symbols with a large cross through it affixed to the back, along with some bumper sticker that said Jesus on it real big, and some other writing, but I couldn't make out what it said.

Nice.

"New, unexplored political gutters into which they can wallow."

Holy. Shit.

Very long, but so worth watching. I wonder if Keith Olbermann ever worries about starting his car or opening his mail.

I don't think anyone could have said this better. It's absolutely rage-inducing, but comforting to know that it was broadcasted to millions of Americans.

Dilemma

In which our Young Hero wonders about not only the weirdness, but also appropriateness, of asking out a co-worker for a drink or 12, when our Young Hero is quite uncertain of said co-worker's sexual orientation.

There have been only two (very) brief encounters, but both were giggly and could possibly be described as flirty. Our Young Hero, however, got absolutely no gay vibe whatsoever. Though there was a giggly, maybe flirty vibe. By the way, it's not this guy.

I don't know: is that weird? He sure is hot. And giggly. And has an amazing butt.

Filling the bottomless void of my soul

I've never been a "sugar person." I've always been much more of a "salt person." I like my occasional dessert, and sometimes I get the hankering for some ice cream (especially in the winter, for some reason), but I've never liked candy, I can only eat chocolate in small amounts, and usually I just don't like sweet stuff.

Well let me tell you, since I quit smoking I've only craved a cigarette maybe twice, and it quickly passed, but I've been a sugar fiend like nobody's business. Sodas every day? Check. Milkshakes? Check. Ice cream smoothies? Check. The little chocolate squares right by the registers at Central Market? Check. The boxes of 6 peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies made by the bakery? Check. Pre-made cookie dough, eating half of it, then baking some cookies, and eating like, 6 of them in one sitting? Check. Putting sugar on my oatmeal in the morning, which I haven't done since junior high? Check. Adding sugar to iced coffee? Check. Coming home at night and drinking gigantic glasses of chocolate milk, sometimes two? Check.

And I'm sure I could think of some more. It's appallingly disgusting. It really started kicking in after about a week of not smoking, and I begrudgingly gave in for a few days. But now it just feels out of control. I've pretty much cut myself off, and tried my damnedest to supplement my cravings with fruit or yogurt, and mostly it works, but it still just....gets you.

I haven't really been drinking much, either, but I've increased my beer intake again in hopes that that will kill the sugar cravings.

It's always something with me. I'm just a bottomless pit of need.

Foley

I've been debating for a short time about whether or not to comment on this whole Foley scandal, but now that 2 inevitable things have happened, I feel the need to post. The first being Foley announcing his alcoholism and molestation as a child. Boo hoo! I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for people with emotional problems, addictions, and traumatic childhoods, but to start using those things as defenses in a situation like this is irrelevant, misguided and cheap.

But come on, take some god damn responsibility. Real responsibility.

I'm tempted to feel a little sorry for the guy, honestly. Only someone with a deeply imbedded shame about who they are would do these kinds of things, and go so fucking far out of their way to present themselves as the complete opposite kind of person, and even enact bills and laws to more severely punish people for doing things that they do. It's really sad and it's sick, and I'm glad the man is getting treatment, but obviously he knew he had these issues, and has apparently been preying on teenagers for at least 11 years now. Why did it take him getting "outed" to finally seek help? Was getting outed his "rock bottom?" I'm tempted to say no, since it seems he probably would still be doing the same predatory things, and keeping on keeping on had he not finally been busted. So I can firmly say, "Fuck you, Mark Foley!" There are lots of people out there who have substance abuse problems and were molested or abused as children, or who suffer from intense shame about who they are, and what their desires are, that don't wreck other people's lives. And shame on everybody for sitting on this. It makes me wanna fucking throw up. To me, this is almost the same as gay bashers using the gay panic defense, which seems to be pretty in vogue these days.

Which brings me to my next point, which is that I've actually been very impressed with how little the mainstream media has jumped on the whole gay aspect of this, but of course the pathetic, small-minded conservatives have now started their typical hateful harping. Check out some of those quotes. They're pretty priceless. Or this enlightening article from a Christian newspaper blaming the GOP party for "flirting" with pro-homosexual policies, when there is clearly a "predatory component to male homosexuality." Um, what about the fact that at least 2 out of 3 male congressman are probably fucking their female pages? I'm just saying.

I know it's ridiculous to get mad about this, and of course the conservatives are going to do everything in their power to distance themselves from this, but still, I just can't believe that these are the people running our country.

And to top it all off, Dennis Hastert needs to be hung from a tree by his dick. What a fucking smug, shady idiot. It's fascinating to me how quickly politicians can spin this shit to make it have absolutely nothing, but nothing, to do with the real issue at hand. I'm not saying that only Republicans do this, but they sure have been good at it lately.

It also seems to me that perhaps it's not the Democrats, but the Republicans, who are the ones with really convenient timing. Sacrificing one for the sake of the Coach, eh boys?

And last, but not least, this ad that ran in a NY bar zine is by far the tackiest and most irresponsible ad I've seen in awhile:
Nice.

I need to get off the internet today.

Not quite metrosexual

The straight man's guide to dating other men.

Mildly entertaining.

New Horizons

In addition to having inexplicably become excited about statistics, I have now decided, in all seriousness, to embark upon the world of cooking.

I hate cooking. I'm terrible at cooking. Which is the main reason I hate doing it. But the other day, someone told me about a carrot soup that they make that sounded delicious, so today I decided to try to make it.

While searching for a good recipe, I came across another recipe for cold blueberry and yogurt soup, to be used primarily as a dessert. So I decided to make them both.

The blueberry concoction has turned out nicely, I think; it's chilling at the moment. And the carrots, onions and spinach for the soup are simmering and getting mushy. About to be pulverized; I can't wait.

I also purchased a nice little piece of salmon to eat with the soup. And some Lone Star. And it's actually fun. I'm starting out simple, and hoping to gradually become more and more culinarily (is that a word?) skilled.

Here's a picture of my boiling soup (pre-mashing):
Taken with my computer, while holding my computer upside-down over the soup. Talented photographer, eh?

A little poop came out

Oh my god, I hope this is for real. That's hilarious.

I spend way too much time on Craigslist.