I Love Books

So, I totally stole this from someone that reads Collier's blog, and he tagged her, so now I'm doing it, even though no one tagged me. I'm not going to tag anyone either, because there are too many people I know who have blogs, so I think everyone who reads this, who also has their own, should do it.

Book that:

Changed my life?
The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, MD. My grandma bought it for me when I was 17. Or 18. Little did she know that it would kick-start my interest in psychology and (inadvertently) lead me to where I am today. Also, I learned a lot.


I've read more than once?
There are lots, but my favorite books are:
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (3 times)
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (2 times)
The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (all the way through at least twice, and skimmed countless other times)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (2 times)
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (2 times)
The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis (3 times)
and some random others:
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (2 times, abridged and unabridged)
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (countless times in junior high!)


I'd want on a desert island?
Something about survival, but past that, probably Selected Stories by Andre Dubus.


Made me laugh?
Eighty-Sixed by David Feinberg. It's about AIDS. And hilarious. I know; but it's true.

Made me cry?
Honestly, I don't know that a book has ever made me cry, but some of them have made me incredibly sad and just look up from the page and stare at the wall for ages, comprehending their brevity of wisdom and pain. Three of those top ones are:
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (This, really, is my favorite book of all time.)
Another Country by James Baldwin (He, really, is my favorite author of all time.)
We the Living by Ayn Rand.


I wish had been written?
Well, a couple of weeks ago I finally found the book I've been searching for for years. It wasn't written until 2005. Hmph. If I hadn't found it, I would have written it eventually, but it's called The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the pain of growing up gay in a straight man's world by Alan Downs, PH.D.
Yeah, it's got a hokey title, but it's amazing, and incredibly smart. And I can think of a few people who should probably read it. Come to think of it, I cried reading this book. So I amend my answer to the last question, but I'm not going to actually change it.


I wish had never been written?
I think everything has its place, and it would be incredibly snobby of me to say something along the lines of anything by John Grisham or whatnot, so I'll go with one book that I know has been the scapegoat for horrific suffering in the world and that is The Elders of Zion, by whatever asshole that wrote it.

I'm currently reading?
I'm really schizophrenic when it comes to books, and I'll often pick something up, read part of it, then go to something else, read that, then come back to the first book, and so on and so on. I'll often also have several books going at once, so right now, what's lying next to my bed:
My Dark Places by James Ellroy, which I'm devouring at the moment.
In September the Light Changes, the Stories of Andrew Holleran, by, duh, Andrew Holleran.
One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate by Tom Segev.
The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin
The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway.


I've been meaning to read?
Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I've started this book, like, 3 times.

Free bags of blow, anyone?

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a big fan of trolling for porn on the internet. I just find it depressing, gross and boring, and much prefer to have the real thing, especially if he cuddles and cooks me eggs and bacon in the morning.

However, whenever I do get that little itch, there's pretty much only one site I ever check out, which is Sean Cody. He pretty consistently delivers the goods, from high production values, to pretty much always having cute boys.

He does, however, have this really schlocky concept, which is that all the dudes are straight, and just "fooling around," or have been curious, but never done anything with a guy, or were raised in some bat-shit crazy religious household and they're rebelling, like, big-time! All of which is to say that I found a totally hilarious (but short) essay online today from another Sean Cody fan deconstructing the intros, and interpreting what they really mean. If you're not already familiar with how hokey they are, it might not be so funny to you. Money quote:

For those of you unfamiliar with Sean Cody's brilliant shtick, he tries to pass off his models as innocent straight boys picked off a California beach. Is anybody really buying this crap? I'm certainly not. Yet I still read every bio because I get a kick out of his retarded prose and the latest straight-guy-in-peril dilemma. Oh no, Patrick's girlfriend is withholding sex! He's gotta pound some dude's ass to unwind.

Then he gets on to the actual sentence-by-sentence deconstructing, which is really funny. And probably not far off from the truth. The essay is totally SFW, by the way. No pics or nothin'. Just some good ole-fashioned bitchiness.

Also, changing the subject slightly, if anyone's interested, the new issue of Rolling Stone, with X-tina on the cover, has an AMAZING interview with Kurt Vonnegut. Dude, that guy is off the chain! I remember reading one of his books when I was 18 (probably Slaughterhouse Five, but I sadly don't remember), and enjoying it, but it never really whetting my appetite for more. I'm starting to reconsider my ambivalence.

He basically talks the whole time about how as a race, we're completely doomed, there's no reversing it now, and no amount of environmental awareness or goodwill can save us now. He also threatens to sue the cigarette companies for their products not killing him yet, and calls Dubya a "phony Christian." I think my favorite quote of the whole article is this one:

"Humans are a mistake. We have destroyed our entire planet over transportation-whoopee. The Bush administration says it's conducting a war against drugs? Then let them bust the oil lobby. Talk about an awful, destructive substance. You pump this gas stuff into your car and you can zoom a hundred miles an hour, kill pets and shatter the atmosphere to smithereens...Life," he says, "is no way to treat an animal."

MyDeathSpace

When I talked to my mom yesterday, she told me that one of my high school teacher's sons was killed in a boating accident on Friday. It's really sad, not just because he's her son, obviously, but her only son, he was very young, and she was divorced, and raised him alone, and they had a really great relationship. And she taught us how to make jell-o shots in 11th grade health class.

For some reason, I was thinking her son was someone else, someone I had known in high school. So I did a google search on him this morning, and not only realized that I didn't, in fact, know her son (he's 7 years younger than me), but I also found this. Which he's on. Jason Mooney.

I find this so fucking creepy and in poor taste, like it's almost mocking them or something. Or it just feels very cold and detached, with the little fucking drawing of the skull on top, right above the 19-year-old girl who got beaten to death by her boyfriend. Lovely.

One more reason for me to hate MySpace.

"Where I come from we kill you."

Joel, over at The Search for Love in Manhattan has a really intense and terrifying story on his blog today about an "incident" on a downtown train yesterday afternoon, where he accidentally jostled a man on a very crowded train, and had it nearly turn into a serious gay-bashing incident. It's incredible to me that something like this could happen on a crowded train, in Manhattan, of all places, and that it could get taken so far. Even having grown up in Arkansas, and frequently being in situations where I felt very threatened, there was only one time where anything ever really went down in public, in front of a lot of people, that had me really scared, and also wondering what the fuck was wrong with everybody else that no one was saying anything.

One night in Fayetteville, when I was in college, me and two male friends went to Waffle House, and sat down, and were just being our normal selves, whatever. It was a weekend night, and the place was packed, but for some reason, the redneck fuckhead sitting at the booth behind ours took great offense at our mere presence as soon as we walked in. He started complaining very loudly to his girlfriend or wife or whatever, about how he was trying to eat his breakfast and he had to sit there and watch "three faggots sit there and play with each other's dicks right in front of me." We knew he was talking about us, but we had no idea what he was talking about, so we thought it was sort of funny, and tried to ignore him. His complaining grew increasingly louder, and one of my friends decided he wanted to leave, but I refused. Finally the man slammed down his silverware on his table and walked over to ours and started screaming at us about being dirty fucking faggots, and playing with each other's dicks in public, and how wanted to vomit, etc etc. You could have heard a mouse run across the floor in that place; I'm not kidding. Everyone stopped what they were doing, even the waitresses just stood there and stared at this man, and us, sitting there silently and humiliated. The man then went and sat back down, and I kid you not, his female companion said, "What is wrong with you? You've been so grumpy lately."

Needless to say, my friends and I up and high-tailed it out of there with our tails between our legs. There were several boys from one of my classes in there too, just a couple of booths down from us. I can't remember a time in my life where I'd been that humiliated, either before that or since then. And angry. The helplessness, and shame, and fear, and embarrassment you feel in a situation like that is unbelievable. Maybe other people would have handled it differently, but we were three skinny little punky-looking 18-year-old boys who'd never been in any kind of fight in our whole lives. And no one said a word to us in our defense, even to apologize. Of course the man wasn't removed, and as we walked out, past the silent, staring faces, not even a waitress or manager approached us to apologize or call the police on our behalf.

I really like to think that if something like that were to happen to me now, I would handle it much differently, and not be so paralyzed, to stand up for myself in some way. Though Joel, in his story, did retaliate in his own way, and later only regretted not standing up for himself in a way that didn't "confirm these two men's prejudices," in a situation like that, you rarely think rationally. I'm glad he did something, and didn't let these two wackos think that they can just get away with that shit, though ultimately, as I'm sure Joel learned, it probably would have been best to have just ignored them.

All of which brings me to a really great book I read last week that I've been wanting to write a bit about, but this entry is already so long, I guess it'll have to wait. But it all applies. Glad you're okay, Joel.

Even my heart was smart enough to stay behind

Sometimes a Missed Connection can be so sweet. God, I'm such a sappy romantic. But anyone who mentions going to war, drinking away their sorrow, and listening to George Strait is okay in my book. Even if their grammar is bad. And they blatantly drink and drive.

Practice Makes Perfect

I feel really weird about this blog now because of this. It's very flattering, I guess, that people thought enough of my entry in the first place to mention it, but that also means someone out there is reading it, and that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. When I first started this blog, it was just for me, but seeing as how I can't ever keep any of my own god damn secrets (though I'm getting better about it), of course I told people. But even then, it was only intended for my friends, and people who knew me. I've revealed a LOT of myself on here, and perhaps a little about other people that might have crossed some boundaries, and I guess I always knew there was the risk that people would read it, but I never actually thought they would. Maybe it's nothing, and maybe the only two people that have read it are the ones that left the comments (thank you, by the way. Seriously.), but it makes me feel a little territorial, and a little creeped out, I guess. I have no one to blame, since I'm posting all of my (well, a lot of) thoughts and feelings on the internet. *Sigh* So I'm thinking that perhaps I should just pull back a little bit and not be quite so open about so many things on this here blog. But it seems that's what people like about it. Or not? I don't know. It's a dilemma.

Anyway, I went out with Jody tonight to meet up with some of her friends at Sidebar to watch Project Runway, which was fun. I've only seen the show twice, the first time being this past weekend in Dallas with Mandy. I'd already picked my favorite contestant, and he was the one that got booted off tonight. So sad. His designs are pretty tragic, but I just liked him a lot. He was really funny and just sort of cavalier about all of it. I've been spending a lot of time with Jody lately, and she's really fun. I'm so glad we've been able to become friends again. She started a Tuesday night writers workshop thing that I've been going to which I enjoy a lot. Next Tuesday we're workshopping one of my stories, so that should be interesting. It's been good for me. My creative brain has been so fucking dead at the wheel lately, so it's refreshing to have homework, and exercises to do, and kind of get that part of me back in action. It's like going to the gym for my brain. Which, admittedly, since getting back from Mexico, has pretty much just sat on its proverbial couch, eating Chee-tos and reading Us Weekly.

Anyway, the main reason I went out tonight is because I've just been such a homebody lately, and on Monday I decided that I was going to make myself leave the house for at least an hour every day, just to keep myself from slitting my wrists, and so at the very least, I'll have to get dressed. "Going out" still kind of scares me. Like, going to bars, with the intention of meeting up with people I don't really know (in this case, Jody's friends), and their friends, and just hanging out. I still have so much armor up, but a life of solitude is no life, so I'm coming out of my exile, bit by bit. (I mean, it's not like I never go out and hang out with people, but I guess I mean going out with people I don't know that well, with the intention of possibly meeting other people, instead of just sitting with my friends that I've known for years, and putting up my blinders to all else.) It doesn't make me as nervous as it did a few months ago, or depressed, so that's good. Most of the time, though, I just feel like I've seen and done it all. I wish it was possible to meet people and make new friends and go to parties and all that without ever actually leaving your house. Or at the very least, your very sheltered, cozy, friendly, comfort zone. So, as I told Jody tonight, I need to start going out more, so I need to start practicing. Which is what I was doing tonight. And why going out to Sidebar tonight to watch Project Runway is practicing instead of actually just going out, I don't know. But in my mind, it was. Life is so hard. It really sucks sometimes.

Mandy's Music Challenge

Mandy posted this list "challenge" on her blog, and considering how much free time I have these days, and how long it's been since I posted anything, I'll attempt to fulfill it. (I'll also put in a disclaimer that "favorite" is a very strong word.) (Disclaimer 2: I haven't paid much attention to music in the past couple of years, and have become scarily un-hip; not that I was incredibly hip before....)


* What's a great late night song? The entire Walkie-Talkie album by Air.

* Name 5-10 wistful/bittersweet songs: I May Hate Myself in the Morning (But I'm Gonna Love You Tonight)/Lee Anne Womack
The Dance/Garth Brooks,
Angel of the Morning/Juice Newton,
Late Night Maudlin Street/Morrissey,
Hey That's no Way to say Goodbye/Leonard Cohen,
Mammoth Cave/Holopaw,
Moon River/Henry Mancini,
Everytime/Britney Spears (shut up, it's a really sad song!),
Jonathan David/Belle & Sebastian,
Doll Parts/Hole,
One More Hour/Sleater Kinney (is that 11 songs?)

* The 4 Best Songs Ever Written: Yeah right.

* 3 Current Favorite Songs: The Adventure/Angels & Airwaves, Samson/Regina Spektor, Move Along/All-American Rejects

* Classic Early Evening Drinking Music: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road/Elton John (any of that old Elton John stuff)

* 3 All Time Faves That Never Get Old To You: Billie Jean/Michael Jackson, Happy Together/The Turtles, Can't Take My Eyes off of You/Frankie Valli

* Song You Want (or did) To Play At Your Wedding: Let it Be Me/Willie Nelson

* 4 Records You Really Dug from 2005: Extraordinary Machine/Fiona Apple, Plans/Death Cab for Cutie, There's More Where That Came From/Lee Ann Womack, Confessions on a Dancefloor/Madonna

* Favorite Records From This Year So Far: Dixie Chicks, Regina Spektor, Angels & Airwaves

* Good Angry Songs: Violet/Hole, I'm Waking Up to Us/Belle & Sebastian, Anything by Kelly Clarkson, the entirety of the Dear You record by Jawbreaker

* One of Your Favorite Lyrics: Time provides the rope/But love will tie the slipknot/And I will be the chair you kick away.

* 5 Cover Songs Arguably Better Than the Original: It's My Life/No Doubt, Hazy Shade of Winter/The Bangles, The Bluest Eyes in Texas/Nina Persson, Hurt/Johnny Cash

* Great Dance Song You Maybe Never Realized Was a Great Dance Song Back in the Day:

* Good Albums To Workout To: pop-punk crap

* Good Album to Clean The House To: Easy/Kelly Willis

* Good Dining Music: Anything classical

* Good Album To Have Sex To: Depends what kind of sex you're having! I've been doing it with country music on lately. Mid-tempo stuff.

* A Good Album To Put You In the Mood (that is NOT Sade, Marvin Gaye or Barry White): Again, depends what kind of sex you wanna have.

* Good Album To Sleep To: The last 3 songs of Disintegration by the Cure.

* 5 Good Rock Songs That You Can Dance To: Since U Been Gone/Kelly C., Welcome to the Jungle/Guns 'N Roses, Roots Radical/Rancid,

* Song That Is Too Damn Sad: I See a Darkness/Bonnie Prince Billy

* Great Love Song: Amarillo by Morning/George Strait (It's a love song about life)

* An Album Full of Tenderness: New Skin for the Old Ceremony/Leonard Cohen

* Song To An Ex That Isn't Meanspirited: A Fire I Can't Put Out/George Strait

* Song To An Ex That Is Kinda Meanspirited: Fireman/Jawbreaker

Wow, I just realized both of those songs have to do with fire; that totally wasn't intentional.

* Song to Listen to While in The Country Looking at Stars: Slowdive is good for that. In a really generic way.

* Song to lose your Mind to:

* Song To Cry In Your Pillow to: Good Woman/Cat Power. Also, When You were Mine/Dixie Chicks.

* Songs That Make You Feel Amped and Inspired: Intravenous/Catherine Wheel

* Great Semi-Obscure B-side: You Never Wash up After Yourself/Radiohead, on the "My Iron Lung" E.P.

* Song That Makes You Miss Your Mom: Anything by Mozart

* That's Baby Makin' Music (No, Really): Gross. Why does "baby makin" sound so dirty? Milkshake/Kelis.

* Criminally Underrated Band That Didn't Get Attention and Then Broke Up:

* Best Fuck You I Am a Teenager in Pain Song: Head Like a Hole/Nine Inch Nails

* Feel No Shame: Great Current Pop Songs: Stars are Blind/Paris Hilton, SOS/Rihanna

* Album No One Would Expect You To Love: Anything I put here is probably going to make me look naive. But I'll say Stripped/Christina Aguilera.

* Album No One Would Expect You To Dislike: the last Sleater Kinney, which I didn't dislike, I just wasn't interested.

* Album No One Would Expect You To Really Know: Summerteeth/Wilco

* Emo Album You Actually Like: Anything by Jets to Brazil

* Good, But Overrated Cause Of Indie Revisionism: I have no idea what this means.

* 5 Desert Island Discs off the top of your head (30 sec clock): Disintegration/the Cure, Little Earthquakes/Tori Amos, The Singles 1992-2003/No Doubt, 50 Number 1's/George Strait, Different Class/Pulp

Hmmm.... that's kind of a lame list. but it was off the top of my head.

* 3 Contemporary Artists That Were Your Faves 10 Years Ago: Moby, Courtney Love, Pet Shop Boys

* Music That Makes You Feel Sophisticated: Shostakovich

* Fave Electronic Record You Own: Risotto/Fluke (I think this is the only electronic record I currently own, unless I'm misinterpreting what "electronic" means)

* Fave Hip-Hop Record You Own: Honest to God, I don't think I own a single hip-hop record.

* Hip-Hop Song You Know All the Lyrics Too: I don't know. Shoop?

* Random Album You Loved In High School But Are Afraid To Admit It: I'm not afraid to admit anything. I loved Body Mind Soul by Debbie Gibson. I thought it was sexy. and anything by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. I thought it freaked people out.

* Album You May Have Listened To More In Highschool than Any Other Album: Automatic for the People/REM. Or Little Earthquakes. That would be a toss-up.

* If You Could Enter A Wrestling Ring to a Song It Would Be: Bloodclot/Rancid

* Album To Clear A Room With: Speaking of Rancid, that Transplants record.

Wonders

I just did a Google search on myself, which I do periodically, to see if anything new has popped up, and sure enough, I found something very interesting this time that I'd never seen before. Apparently, my short film, black-eyed, is in some kind of archive in a library in London, as a resource on domestic violence awareness.

That's weird, but also weirdly flattering. I wonder how it even got there.

Uppy-Downy Action

Finally, Cristiano Ronaldo can be mine!

No one asked for my opinion, but that's why I have my own blog

After we saw The Village two summers ago, Joe suggested that a new word should come into use in the English lexicon, which was "Shyamalaned," (past tense of Shyamalan) meaning to have been taken advantage of, and made a fool. As in, "Hey man, you just got totally Shyamalaned. That sucks."

After I saw Signs I kind of felt like I'd been raped and had hot beer poured in my face, then really liked The Village, up until its crushingly disappointing and stupid twist ending. I just got back from seeing Lady in the Water with my mom, and by the time the eagle flies in at the end, I wanted nothing more than for it to pick up Shyamalan himself (in perhaps the most unabashed egotistical self-casting since Woody Allen actually somehow managed to convince people that a 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway would even give him the time of day, much less be sexually attracted to him, in Manhattan; gross) and tear him limb from limb while we all got to sit and cheer him on.

What a fucking phony and cry-baby. Get over yourself, Mr. Shyamalan, and stop worrying so much about critics picking on you and try to make a decent movie, you fucking schlub. I know you have talent, and you have boatloads of creativity, so I don't understand why you feel the need to subject all the rest of us to your little hissy-fit with a 100 million dollar budget, or however much you wasted on this pile of fucking garbage you call a movie.

You spend so much time building up this elaborate plot about narfs, and scrunts, and grass monsters, and people finding their true callings in life, but ultimately, your movie is flat, your metaphors completely meaningless, and you have nothing to say about anything. So forgive me if I fly into a fucking livid rage for feeling so emotionally manipulated when Paul Giamatti starts crying about his dead family, and it's revealed that.... Oh hell, who cares. What does any of it this convoluted, arrogant, overblown crap mean??? Nothing, ultimately, I'm afraid. You can speak of wars and strife, and sadness and carnage, and represent the world's innocence in a naked Hollywood starlet all you want, but I'm not buying your gibberish Mr. Night. Not for a minute.

You seem to think that you were put on this Earth to change things, to illuminate humanity's ability to see the good in all that exists, but you offer nothing. The only reason Lady in the Water is so confusing and drawn-out, and dumb, and just plain boring, I feel, is to try to take away from the fact that it's meaningless and you want everybody to think you're some deep, profound philsopher. Well, call me when anything you say makes any kind of sense or has any reason whatsoever. In the meantime, please stop wasting my time and maybe tune down the self-importance a notch or two. Maybe, eventually, someone besides me will get sick of being Shyamalaned.

Photo Booth Fun with the Fam

We actually took about 800 pictures. We had a lot of fun. I've also got a bunch of digital pictures from my dad from the trip, but they're all gigantic and as far as I can tell, my computer has no image-editing software. So, if I can ever figure out how to size them down, maybe I'll post them.

On the DL

Guess who made the Dean's List at St. Edwards this past semester? I'll give you a hint: Me!!!

On the subject of fear

I had a dream last night where I was standing on the beach, completely alone, probably around dusk, and I was holding a baby. I had it pulled close to my chest, and all I could feel was this completely overwhelming, consuming love for this child that I was holding, but I didn't seem to have any kind of intellectual attachment to it. I have no idea whose it was, and even in the dream, I don't think it was mine, but I wanted more than anything to just stand and hold this baby.

I was completely clothed, but the waves were lapping at my legs and I started getting really nervous, as I knew the high tide was coming in. I just stood there, for what seemed like hours, staring at the horizon as the water got deeper and deeper and deeper, but I didn't move. I wasn't stuck in the sand, I don't think; I just didn't have the desire to move. I was scared for the baby, and didn't want it to drown, but moving away from the water seemed like too much effort, even to save the baby, so I just continued to stand there as the water rose. I woke up before either of us drowned, and when I did wake up, I wasn't scared, but instead had this very strange sensation of resignation. Like, "Wow, it's too bad I didn't make any effort to move to keep the baby, and me, from drowning, but that's the way things are."

I don't think it takes a genius to figure out what any of this means.

The Land of White Sand

Tomorrow I board a plane for 5 days in Destin, Florida with the fam. I'm very excited. I can't wait to play with my nephew in the ocean. According to my brother, Cade (the nephew) is very insistent upon someone being buried in the sand. My brother has no idea where Cade even got this notion, but he must have seen it somewhere.

God, I'm becoming one of those people I hate. Anyway, it'll be fun. See ya'll bitches later.

Ex-boyfriends in Heaven

A poem by Gwen Hart, sent to me by Stacy. I love it.

Ex-boyfriends in Heaven

Ex-boyfriends never go to hell,
no matter how many times
you suggest it. No, they ascend straight
to heaven, where they speak French,
wear matching socks, and always,
always arrive on time, with a full
tank of gas and a bottle of wine.
They never curse your cat
or your mother, never call you up
drunk doing Arnold Schwarzenegger
impressions, never say Hey Rita
if your name is Tammy,
never say Hey Tammy
if your name is Joan.
They're better trained than dogs
and they smell better, too, better
than Twinkies or camellias, better
than anything on earth. Once
in a while, they take a holiday,
drive their Porsches down
through the clouds
in one long line and ring
the doorbell in your dreams,
offering tender apologies, tender
chicken cutlets, tender love.
But before you take one sack
of groceries, before your lips
graze a clean-shaven jaw,
before you let one polished
Oxford loafer through your door,
remember that as soon as they cross
the threshold, the truth will slip
in behind them: ex-boyfriends only
exist this way in heaven, or
whatever you want to call it,
their new lives without you.

Ain't no angel gonna greet me

The director of Doug's House, the AIDS hospice where I've been working, just called to tell me that the patient I've been caring for the last couple of weeks passed away this morning. I'll call him B. He was 35, and even up to the end, retained a sense of humor about it all, teasing the nurses and while watching the Dukes of Hazzard on television, talked about how stupid it was.

The director expressed her gratitude toward me, told me that B. liked me, and that I had a gentle spirit with him. Maybe they say that to all the volunteers.

B. was sort of a tough cookie. He's been on the brink of death for at least 3 weeks now, and should, theoretically, have been in a comatose state. But the way it was explained to me was that he had so much anxiety coursing through him, that it was literally keeping his body going. While I was taking care of him, he would want to watch television, but would start to doze off, and decide he wanted to lay on the couch. So I'd go through the motions of getting him out of his wheelchair, lift him onto the couch and help him get comfortable. Then about 5 minutes later he would decide he wanted to go to his bedroom and lie down in his bed. So I'd help him up, get him into the wheelchair, wheel him into his bedroom, get him back out of the wheelchair, and comfortable on his bed. At about which time he'd decide he needed to use the bathroom. So I'd help him to the bathroom, then back to his bedroom, back onto the bed, for about 10 minutes of sleep. When he would then wake up, and want to go back to the living room, and the whole cycle would start all over again. And I'm not exaggerating.

Being in that environment on a fairly regular basis certainly puts things in your own life in perspective. Which is one reason I selfishly chose to do this. I want to do good things for mankind, and I do genuinely care about these people, but it's also a good way to keep your own pain and suffering in check. Most of these people (aside from dying in a long, drawn-out and excrutiating manner that not only steals your physical faculties but your mental ones as well) have lost everything. Not a single one of the people I've taken care of there (all 3 of which are now dead) had more than maybe 2 visitors, tops, that ever came to see them. And it was never parents or friends or long-term lovers. It was a sister, a cousin, maybe one child out of the 3 that still spoke to them. And tellingly, the visitors are always females, never men. The last day that I sat with B., he was waiting all afternoon for some cousin to show up, and when I left at 5, she still hadn't arrived, even after calling for directions almost 3 hours prior to that. Maybe she came that night, I don't know.

I don't know if it's just the facing down of death that scares people away, or if it's AIDS in particular that people are afraid of. Like, by being in the same room, or touching someone that has it, they're going to catch it. Maybe they're just afraid of catching death in general. Maybe they can't stand to see the people they love wasting away to nothing before they do. Maybe in their eyes, the person is already dead. It makes me really fucking angry to even be writing this. In the specter of death you realize how fucking cowardly and selfish most people are. Which I guess is ultimately why we all die alone. Like the Death Cab song says, "Love is watching someone die/ who's gonna watch you die?" It's true. It's painful on both a personal and spiritual level. It's hard for me to watch these people suffer and die, and I really feel it, and I don't even know them, not really. I didn't know them before, as functional, independent people who had jobs and friends, and lovers and apartments and pets, and interests and who told jokes and went to parties and traveled and everything else that people do.

I had a shift with B. scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I knew that since I'm leaving town on Friday it was probably going to be the last time I saw him. He'd grown on me already and I was looking forward to seeing him one last time. He was incredibly sweet.

Self-portraits are my new favorite pasttime

Now I know why people who have money, but don't really have to do any actual work, go insane.

States I've visited

I'm kind of a weird sucker for this stuff. Plus I love maps.



create your own visited states map! (and maybe give me a job....)

Photo Booth

My new computer takes pictures!!!

About 20 minutes ago

The gays are taking over Arkansas!!

After last month's landmark decision in Arkansas to overturn their ban on gays and lesbians adopting foster children (of course, the fact that it's landmark is depressing), now comes another article from the NYT about non-typical gay vacation destinations that highlights Eureka Springs.

The gist of the article is that not everyone has to go to places like Fire Island, Provincetown and Key West, and that they're somewhat out of reach to a lot of people, both geographically and economically. So obviously, particularly in the Midwest, those resourceful gays are creating new havens in less obvious places. The part about Eureka Springs:

Another, more nascent magnet for gay Midwesterners can be found in the Ozarks region of Arkansas, in Eureka Springs. “We have three Pride weekends a year, and those attract crowds,” said Tracey Saunders, 38, owner of the Veranda Inn, one of a handful of gay-owned accommodations in Eureka. Though the region is known for religious piety, the town is a pocket of diversity and acceptance.

Growing up in Northwest Arkansas, you can't avoid knowing that Eureka Springs is somewhat of a liberal haven in a very conservative state (too bad it's so tiny), but most people think it's just full of weirdos, like hippies and witches (of the Wiccan variety). But now that I'm older, I can much more appreciate what Eureka Springs brings to the state, and the small bit of charm, variety and liberalism it offers.

You came in with the breeze

It's a sad story, really, of wasted opportunity and squandered chances. Which, I guess, are one and the same. According to some philosophers, maybe I let the moment slip by because it's not really what I want, even though I think it is. But it's not; I'm not ready, not in a real way, to let anybody back in. It's too scary, it's too intimidating, and no, I'm just not ready. It makes me sad, but I guess it's some sort of solace for me to know myself enough to know that I let that very cute boy slip through my fingers on purpose.

I was having drinks with I'm No Phenomenon last night at the San Jose when he walked in with three women. Clearly not with any of them, and multiple times he craned his neck, quite unnaturally, to look at me, sitting almost behind him. Phenomenon backed me up on this; I was not imagining it. We made eye contact three times; I smiled at him once and he got nervous. Phenomenon tried to convince me to just give him my number already; he was clearly begging for it.

I wrote it on our receipt with trembling fingers and we started to leave, but as we passed by his table I paused then exited stage left, quickly. Once outside, Phenomenon started scolding me, trying to convince me he would be impressed, I looked good, I had nothing to be afraid of. She said, "Go back in through the bar; that way it just looks like you went to the bathroom."

Fine.

I can do this.

What is there to be so afraid of...?

I start to enter back through the bar, when suddenly, there are he and his friends, coming my way, opening the opposite door from the outside bar. We look at each other, I freeze, then suddenly turn and bolt back out the way I came in.

Very graceful.

And not at all obvious.

Jesus Christ.

Phenomenon can't help but laugh as they walk by us, and I try to act natural as he looks at me again as he leaves, me having just made a total ass of myself.

I'm 29-years-old.

Why am I acting like a 16-year-old girl? And being so obvious about it?

She hugs me goodbye as the boy walks out onto the street - of course going the same direction I'm going. So despite his seeing Phenomenon leaving me in the bar, yelling "Call me!" behind her as she goes, I stand and wait, so as to not have to walk directly behind them all the way up to Guero's where I'm parked.

On the way to my car, he turns and looks behind him not once, but twice, at me, about 20 feet behind, trying to play it cool.

But so not cool.

So I'm telling myself I did it all on purpose. Who needs it.

I hate sharing my bed. You know, I like to sprawl all the way across it.

Time is crying out tonight for me to leave this town

Unfortunately, my going to Mexico did little to satiate my yearning for adventure and something different; it only piqued it. I'm happy to be back in some ways, but in other ways I feel even more stunted than before. I know a lot of it just has to do with the fact that I currently have waaaaay too much free time on my hands right now, and I feel very aimless. I'm already looking forward to school starting again, because I really enjoy it, and at least when I'm in school I feel like I'm doing something productive and really working towards something real. Interestingly enough, though, and this is something I was working on with my therapist when I quit going to him, is why I feel like I need that outside something to make me feel valuable, and why I can't find the wherewithall or motivation within myself. I'm certainly not immune, however, to our culture's fast-food ideals, and I'm already anxious to be done with school and to be moving on to something else; like grad school, which, in my mind right now, is really what I'm working towards, and really looking forward to. (And I already have my Top 3 grad schools picked out, even though it's going to be at least another 2 years, probably, before I get there.) Patience is a virtue I desperately need to acquire and embrace and to understand. Good things come to those who wait, they say, and I guess I feel like I've wasted so much time in my life, even though that "wasted time" got me to where I need to be, and many great things came out of it (like my wonderful friends, and some fantastic memories and good times). So I know it wasn't truly wasted, but I still can't help feeling that everyone else is light years ahead of me in the Life department. But ultimately, I know I'm doing what I need to be doing, and it's all going to work out in the end, and for me to have the things that I want to have, I'm going to have keep working very hard, not just on my exterior life, but on my inner life as well. Sometimes, though, it just seems like such a daunting challenge that I'm not up to, and every ounce of my being is fighting against it and wants to remain stunted, and where I am, and just keep waiting for someone to come along and rescue me and magically solve all of my problems for me. I wish someone had told me when I was young that growing up was going to be this difficult and had better prepared me for it. But there again, I'm wanting someone else to be the Magic Man.

So, on that note, I mistakenly thought the other day that season 3 of Nip/Tuck had already been released on DVD, and I got very excited to rent them all and sit and watch the whole season in a few days, but it doesn't actually come out until August 29th, which is one day after I start school. Which sucks. I really wanted that to be my summer TV project.

Season 4 starts on TV the week after that, and I wanted to have season 3 done, so I could actually watch season 4 as it happened, but I guess it's not meant to be. But it's just as well, because I'm really bad about keeping up with TV shows as they're unfolding, and besides, watching them on DVD means there are no stinky commercials.

Nip/Tuck fits into my current Miami obsession, however, which is another reason I was excited to watch season 3. I've always gone through phases in my life of being obsessed with certain American cities for whatever reason, usually because of literature, and right now it happens to be Miami. In junior and high school, it was New York, just because it's New York, and when you're growing up in a tiny town in Arkansas, and all you do is dream about getting out and escaping and having this completely glamorous, exciting life, New York just seems like the obvious choice when you don't know any better.

Then in college I started devouring Bret Easton Ellis novels, and became totally obsessed with Los Angeles, and this lasted for years. (Although his favorite novel of mine, The Rules of Attraction, actually takes place in New England, and not Los Angeles; go figure.) I'm still totally fascinated by that city, and its cultural and ecological implications. I used to really crave the fast pace, and "glamour," and the sort of inherent danger that underlies everything about that city. It all just seemed so sinister and cloaked in conspiracies and intrigue. That sounds incredibly boring and silly to me now, but at one time, I loved the drama of it. The real drama.

Anyway, then I eventually moved on to Pittsburgh, for which I have Michael Chabon to blame. So I went there, did that, and I'm over it. Now it's Miami. Part of it is because I've been reading a Joan Didion book called Miami, a collection of essays mostly about the Cuban life and politics there, and how Miami is pretty much the only truly Latin American city in the United States. The Cuban population and the Anglo population seem to live there in an understood non-acknowledgement and prejudice, even though they both influence each other's lives completely (and at least at the time of the book, the mid-80's, the Cuban population there was almost 60%!). It seems like a really interesting place, and if you want intrigue, drama and danger, there you go. In the 80's, the crime and drugs were so rampant that security (like personal body guards, private alarm systems, and weapons themselves) became pretty much the number one economy, and it was about as close to a police state as any American city probably ever has been or will be again. I don't think it's so bad anymore, and I don't think the politics are what they were anymore, either, but I'm not really sure.

Whenever I decide to take another vacation by myself (which I'm really itching to do again), I think Miami is where I will head. Maybe I should have been an anthropologist. Cities fascinate me. Their histories, their politics, the way cities all develop a unique personality, generally stemming from how they began, or their geographic properties (which are often one and the same), how they grow and mutate and create reputations for themselves. And until I can actually get back down to Mexico, or South America, which I'm also already dying to do, maybe Miami will suffice. Which also means, of course, that I'm dying to see the new Michael Mann Miami Vice movie. I hope he captures Miami the way I feel he captured Los Angeles in Collateral. That's the main thing I loved about that movie, was the city's presence. Directors who can absolutely bring you into a city and portray the city as a real character and make you feel like that movie couldn't possibly happen anywhere but where it did, I think are true artists and I really respect and admire that.

Little Earthquakes

Every now and then I'll be reading a book or a story, and I'll come across a quote that literally makes me stop what I'm doing to look up and just ponder what it is I've just read, that hits me with such a fierce and knowing wisdom, that seems both so simple and also like such a complex truth that I'm a little dumbfounded for a moment. It's moments like these that really make me cherish literature and realize that sometimes it's not always the big picture, but the small details that really make up life.

Below are two such quotes that I've read recently that I want to share:

If I had been twenty years older, perhaps, I could have explained that nothing is quite as bad as that, that at the end of what is called "the sexual life" the only love which has lasted is the love that has accepted everything, every disappointment, every failure and every betrayal, which has accepted even the sad fact that in the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship.
-Graham Greene

I hold his hands. We're here, right here, as the future closes up around us. Something will happen next. Something always does. We live with unspeakable losses, and most of us carry on. We find new lovers, change jobs, move to another state. We continue to know animal pleasures; we eat and have sex, buy new clothes. Hardly anyone is destroyed, I mean truly annihilated, by loss. We're designed for endurance.
-Michael Cunningham

I'm back

With mixed feelings. I'm happy to be home (and thrilled that it's been raining all day!), but I already miss Mexico. I can't wait to go back.

Kurt and Meredith picked me up from the bus stop at 7 this morning, and we had breakfast, then I came back to my new home, which I've been setting up all day. I took about a 5-hour nap this afternoon, but I'm thinking of going back to bed soon. I only slept about 2 hours on the bus, and the whole previous week, I'd been sleeping badly, so I guess I've got a lot of catching up to do. My bed felt so wonderful during my nap today. I love it.

I'm on my waaa-aaa-aay, home sweeeeet hoooooooome.

See ya'll soon!!

My new career path (and obsession!)

Where do I apply to get this job???

And a picture just for fun....

Maybe I should call the ACLU.

This afternoon, Jaisen and I went to the mall to go shopping at this Spanish store called ZARA that Jaisen totally loves, but there are only, like, 3 of in the U.S. or something.

So I'm sitting there waiting on Jaisen while he tries on every goddamn piece of clothing in the entire store, and the sales guy starts totally chatting me up.

He was super cute and spoke very good english, and wanted to know everything about me, and actually wanted to hang out with me tonight, and was all asking me where I would be going, and at what time and for how long, etc. etc. I was quite flattered, and actually sort of looking forward to the prospect of possibly hanging out with him, even though I leave in 2 days (!!). So then he asks me how old I am, and when I tell him 29, he starts laughing, and tells me he can't hang out with me because I'm too old. I ask how old he is, and he says 19. Then he tells me I should tell people I'm no older than 21, because they would believe me, and that no one will hang out with me if I tell them I'm 29. And he's serious. Then he's all, "Sorry, man, I can't do it. You're just too old." and he goes back to folding clothes. And he's still giggling.

I hope his car catches on fire on the way home, and his whole body is horribly disfigured and he has to go through life with a burned-off face.



Then on the way home we decide to stop for dinner since we were at the mall for, like, 6 days, and Jaisen tells me a story about being on the elevator with one of the Baylor assholes last week. Apparently Baylor was just looking at Jaisen and then said, "You look nice today. Is your roommate rubbing off on you?"

Jaisen said he didn't really know what the guy was implying, so he just sort of shrugged, and then Baylor asked, "Do you let him watch you get dressed?"

How fucking weird and creepy is that???

Jaisen told me he said that he refused to answer such idiotic questions. And these questions came from the one that I recently found out wants to be a therapist. That really hurts my feelings. Apparently he used to want to be a doctor, but he drinks too much and his grades are too bad. So he's settling for psychiatry.

Mexico lindo y querido

One of the students from St. Edwards, as her volunteer job while she's been here, has been giving tours at the absolutely gorgeous history museum here in Monterrey. We went there on our second day here, and just sort of walked through it ourselves, but today we went had Estella give us a guided tour of the place. I was very impressed. She's in the Master's program at St. Eds, in Liberal Arts or something I think, but with an emphasis on history. She really knew her stuff, and I feel like I really learned a lot. The Aztecs and Mayans both are fascinating cultures I really want to learn more about. Even though the Mayans, when they captured people in battle, would often skin them alive and place their bodies (still alive, but skinless) on the steps to the temple for people to step on. They didn't live very long, obviously, but yeesh. What a way to go.

When we got back, I went with some people to the La Michoacana ice cream stand on the corner just off campus and bought my usual liquido, which is basically a smoothie, with fresh fruit, yogurt, and ice. It's magnificent, and only $1.50. On the way back, we ran into our professor on the street who bought us each a rose from a vendor.

Even though I've had my fill of many Americans here, and I'm totally over my class, I'll be very sad to leave. I was filled with an overwhelming nostalgia this evening walking back, drinking my liquido and carrying my rose, and hanging out with my new friends here. I'll miss just hanging out, always finding someplace new to go, and things to learn. Talking to someone new almost every day (most of which have really been incredible; I don't mean to give you the wrong idea about the people here). We also had our last St. Eds class tonight, where we had to go around and tell a little about any perceptions we've had changed, what our true feelings about Mexico are, or have been. I will miss it. I can't wait to come back, to explore more of interior Mexico, to keep learning the language, the customs, traditions, to keep meeting amazing and generous and helpful people. I started fantasizing today about meeting some nice Mexican boy with deep roots here, with whom I could return again and again. I know that sounds corny, but I was. And I'd love it.

I will miss Mexico.

A John Waters movie?

This story, about a gang of drug-addicted, transvestite thieves terrorizing trendy shops on New Orleans' Magazine Street, was too weird to pass up.

It's gotten so bad that the storeowners have created their own "watchdog" system to alert each other when any one of them sees the gang coming.

Robyn Lewis, owner of Dark Charm fashion and accessories for women, represents the first line of defense for the Magazine Street shop owners. She is the first to see them come strutting in their pumps down St. Andrew Street, the bewigged pack of thieves who have plagued the Lower Garden District since May.

Like an SOS flare, Lewis grabs her emergency phone list and starts calling.

“They’re coming,” she warns Eric Ogle a salesman at Vegas, a block down Magazine Street. Ogle, who was terrorized by the brazen crew two months earlier, alerts neighboring Winky’s where manager Kendra Bonga braces for the onslaught.

Soon every shop owner in the 2000 block of Magazine Street has been alerted.

Sarah Celino at Trashy Diva eyes the door, ready to flip the lock at the first sight of the ringleader’s pink jumpsuit and fluorescent red wig.

The shopowners have complained to the police, but obviously the NOPD has more important things to worry about at this point. However, it's not all as funny as it might seem. Aside from a lot of lost merchandise, they sometimes get violent.

The transvestites, Ogle said, appear to be drug-addicted and fearless in their lust for designer shoes, jackets and jewelry.

“The city’s not functioning the way it was and I’m sure a lot of them were getting some kind of government aid, which they probably aren’t getting any more so they’re incredibly desperate,” Ogle said.

And sometimes violent.

When Lewis co-owned Trashy Diva, they attacked one of her partners in the French Quarter location, throwing her to the ground and tossing a heavy mannequin on top of her.

“They’re kind of confused because they think they’re women so they don’t mind hitting women, but they’re dudes. If you get hit by one it’s like getting hit by a dude. ...

(via Towleroad)

No Jungian analysis required

This afternoon, while "accidentally" falling asleep for 2 hours while I was supposed to be doing homework, I had a very strange dream. I dreamt I was at some crazy movie theater that was also a restaurant, and had screens on every wall, so that no matter how or where you sat at your table, you'd have a good view of a screen. I was there alone, and I was watching some new edition of a Friday the 13th movie. It opened with a young, female character in some kind of mental hospital, whose face was permanently stained yellow, stemming from the fact that the only thing she would eat was pages out of magazines, and somehow, the pigment from the ink had stained her skin, but it was a bright yellow. She was also missing a nose, and had very stringy hair, presumably from not getting any nutrition. But she was sweet and had a gentle demeanor, and smiled a lot, even though she didn't talk. You could tell straight away that Jason was going to be stalking the inhabitants of said hospital, and that this Bright Young Thing was going to be the thankless heroine.

Anyway, at some point I left my table to go do something, I can't remember what, and got lost in the darkness. When I got back to whatever table I thought I was sitting at, there were a bunch of really obnoxious jocks sitting there, and I started freaking out because I had also had my professor's laptop with me, and they claimed they didn't have it, even though I knew they did, but what could I do?

When I woke up I was starving, so I walked outside and got 2 hot dogs wrapped in bacon from the street vendor. And they were delicious. I do love Mexico.

I've had my professor's laptop in my room almost this entire time, since mine died; he was nice enough to let me use it. On the downside, it means I haven't been able to look at any porn for 5 weeks. But on the plus side, I haven't been able to look at any porn for 5 weeks. Which is fine. I'm privy to a Naked Man Show at least twice daily in my dorm room.

Apparently there's a big rave on Friday night in San Pedro, which is the super-duper rich part of town. Not that that means anything; I'm sure it'll still be super-sleazy, but we're all planning on having it be our last big blow-out before we all leave. Especially since every bar is closed the entire weekend for the election on Sunday. I'm not sure what closing the bars has to do with presidential elections, but that's how they do things here. I haven't been to a rave in, like, at least 9 years. Hmmm....

Manos Limpias

I hate to say it, but I'm kind of over it all. Maybe it's just because there's only a week left, and now I'm getting anxious to get home, and if I actually had another 3 months or something, I'd feel differently, but that's not the case. After the initial honeymoon phase, I've decided that at least half the people here are total fucking retards and have no standards for anything. I sit outside and talk to people and can actually feel my brain being affected with atrophy. Mine and Jaisen's new favorite game to play in our room is to sit and talk about how dumb everybody is. At least he's fine and I still get along with him. We're getting along fabulously in fact, and dare I say, I'm going to miss him.

Anyway, Parking (the club last night) was really fun, and we ran into some other people there from school (not total fucking retards)that also just happened to randomly go there last night, so that was cool. The music was painfully loud, but good, and Pepe (the weird, but nice, Spanish guy, and yes, his name is actually Pepe) bought a bottle of tequila and kept feeding me shots. After the third one, the bass was actually starting to make my stomach quiver, and the lights being totally frantic and trippy, I got a little disoriented. It was a very strange sensation. Jaisen kept telling me to "hook it up" with somebody all night. He volunteered to "take one for the team" and sleep on a couch in the TV lounge if I brought somebody home, but there was no one brought home. Deneise also kept encouraging me to "go dance with somebody, have a good time!" Do I really seem that pathetic? Methinks not, but we all had fun. And I danced a lot.

This afternoon a bunch of us went downtown to see the Felipe Calderon. He's the conservative party's presidential candidate. I was so not in the mood to go, but we sort of had to. Our professor gave us a big lecture about how this was such an historic event, and we had to go. We got there at 6:30, and by 9, the fucker still hadn't shown up, and if I had to listen to his aides, or whatever, try to fire up the crowd and start yet another chant for one more fucking minute, I was gonna kill somebody. So I quietly slipped out and took a cab back home. It's not like I was gonna understand anything he was saying anyway. It was an interesting crowd, though. A lot more kids and families it seemed like than at the Obrador rally. Which could have also had to do with the fact that it was a Saturday and not a weekday. There were also quite a few older people, and as my professor noted, "everybody here is about 4 shades lighter than at the Obrador rally." Subtle shifts in skin tones seem to be a big deal here, and what a lot of racism is based around. I guess we all have to hate somebody, so if we're all the same race, we'll figure out something to be wrong with everybody else. So, there you go. Obrador had better t-shirts and flags too.

I am so exhausted. I had a really hard time going to sleep last night despite being totally dead on my feet. Hopefully I'll get a good night's sleep tonight. And this time next week I'll be on a bus home.

Oh, and my goose, or duck, or whatever she is, had her little goosey babies this week. They're cutest little, tiniest, fluffiest, yellowest things you ever saw. 4 of them have already died, but the others seem to be doing all right. And the other baby duckies born a few weeks ago are getting so big already! They just grow up so fast.

Stars & Bars

One of the big things we've been doing in our St. Eds "class" is our teacher has been teaching us traditional mariachi songs. In Spanish, of course. We're not so great, but he plays guitar, and we have lyric sheets and we practice singing. It's fun. So today we put our vocal cords (chords?) to good use and went and serenaded the old ladies that run the Conchi's taco stand right outside our dorm. They're very sweet ladies, and our professor calls the owner his mother. Which is cute. So today we went to sing 3 songs to them that we've been practicing, and they loved it. They sang along with us, and afterwards they gave us all strawberry ice cream.

I love this taco stand. For some reason I didn't really start eating there until last week, but now I eat lunch there almost every day. You can get a huge plate of chicken fajitas, with vegetables, guacamole and refried beans for $3.50. It's a total bargain, and you get a lot of food.

It looks like now I'm going to be coming back the night of the 2nd, and arriving back in Austin on Sunday morning, the 3rd. I'll be glad to be back by the 4th of July to have a BBQ and watch fireworks. It'll be a good welcome back. I have very mixed feelings about it. My time here has flown by, and it seems like only a week or so ago that I arrived. I'm glad it's that way, though, and not the other way around. I'll be so happy to have my own bed back, and all of my stuff, and to be able to see my friends that I've missed desperately, and I've missed my kitty cat. But I'll also be sad to leave this place. Monterrey is not horribly exciting, but it's grown on me in an endearing way, and I'm really going to miss some of the people. Luckily the people I'll miss the most go to St. Edwards, so I'll be able to see them again. And hopefully frequently. If nothing else, I've gained a couple of really great new friends out of this experience.

So, in honor of it being my last weekend, a big group of us are going out, and I'm actually going to go with them. Deneise got a scoop on some apparently really hot gay club downtown called Parking that's supposed to be cool. They have 3 different areas: one for techno music, one for pop music, and a rooftop "chill out lounge." So that might be fun. We're gonna go check it out. And luckily Jaisen's going, so if I want to bow out early, I'm sure he won't take much convincing to share a cab back with me. I'll let you know how it goes.

The only thing left here in Monterrey that I really want to do is go to the Planetarium. I'm going to do that either Saturday or Sunday night with my professor and whoever else wants to go. I love planetariums and got really excited when I found out Monterrey had one. Then I need to pick up a few souveneirs, and I'm off.

Chipinque

Last night my class went to Chipinque National Park, on the north side of the Sierras, just south of the city. The park was very nice and we had dinner up there in the hotel, which was a bit overpriced, and not amazing food (as one would expect), but it got my belly full and I was happy.

The road getting up there was amazing, and the views of the mountains and city were absolutely stunning. Not to mention, it felt about 20 degrees cooler up there than in the city, so that was also quite a welcome respite. Here are some pictures, which will never do it justice, but here they are anyway.





Terry, my professor, on the trampoline.

2 more wretched pictures of me (but I'm posting them anyway)

Top: Jacque, Sandra, Marie (one of the McAllen girls). Bottom: Me, Deneise, Charles.

At the Hamburger stand that's constantly playing Billy Joel. The guy sitting to my left is Jaisen.

Wal-Mart's unexpected benefits

I don't think I've ever been more proud of my little area of the country before now. Today the New York Times has a really great story about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the religious makeup of Northwest Arkansas, specifically on the number of Jews arriving in the area, the opening of a new synagogue in Bentonville, and Bentonville's actual embracing of that diversity rather than fighting it.

Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).

Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America, but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville, where the migration of executives from cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by Hindus, Muslims and Jews.

And then there's this segment, with a quote from a guy who is actually my mom's boss, and one of her friends:

Christians throughout Benton County are slowly learning the complexities of Jewish life. Gary Compton, the superintendent of schools in Bentonville and a member of a Methodist church in town, has learned not to schedule PTA meetings the night before Jewish holidays, which begin at sundown, and has encouraged the high school choir to incorporate Jewish songs into a largely Christian lineup.

"We need to get better at some things," he said. "You just don't go from being noninclusive to being inclusive overnight."

It doesn't seem like a big deal to a lot of people, I'm sure, but after spending 19 years of my life in this area of the country, and feeling like I was drowning for about 15 of those years, reading articles like this is actually really exciting.

Cat Pooping

Ya'll, seriously, I haven't laughed this hard in I don't know how long. Especially just sitting all by myself. Seriously. Watch it.

Or maybe it's just me. But the ending almost made me fall out of my chair.

(via You Can't Make It Up.)

AMLO

Obrador in Monterrey yesterday.

A bunch of us went down to a Lopez Obrador rally in the Macroplaza yesterday afternoon. If you recall, Obrador is the very leftist mayor of Mexico City who is currently running for president of Mexico. His main competitor is the Vicente Fox protege Felipe Calderon, who is the conservative. I'm certainly no scholar of Mexican politics, but since arriving here in Mexico, it's been interesting to try to learn as much about it as possible. The election is July 2nd, and the two candidates are pretty much neck in neck at the moment.

Monterrey is very conservative, and Obrador won't take it. In fact, for a city of almost 4 million, the turnout yesterday was pretty small. The picture above looks very crowded, but it's a little deceiving. But the supporters that were there were quite enthusiastic, and the proceedings were lively and exciting. Again, I didn't really understand most of the speech, but it was greeted with desperate enthusiasm, frequently being interrupted by the crowd chanting "OB-RA-DOR! OB-RA-DOR!", waving flags and banners, pumping their fists in the air, and shaking noisemakers. It was hot as blazes yesterday and we had to stand in the direct sun for over 3 hours. The crowd was intense (since we got up close to get good photos and I was shooting video) but polite. AFterwards, however, I had a horrible headache, I was dehydrated, and I don't think my feet have ever been so sore. But I'm very glad I went.

Since Obrador is liberal, and wants to give pensions to retired people and the disabled, raise minimum wage, and subsidize several industries, he's not so popular among Mexico's wealthy (hence his non-popularity in Monterrey, the richest city in Mexico). If you look closely at the picture, you can also see a bunch of flags with the letters PT on them, which is the Socialist party of Mexico, who is one of Obrador's biggest supporters.

In doing some research this morning, I came across this article talking specifically about the Tec (the school where I am right now), and why so many of its privileged kids are supporting Obrador for president. They basically chalk it up to a matter of economics, and figure that if the economy of Mexico is strengthened, and people stop leaving the country in such great numbers, then on a whole, that's better for everybody. That's a grossly simplified way of explaining it, but that's essentially it.

Nearly 40 percent of the student audience supported AMLO, surpassing the percentage that kept him atop national polls for a year. That's hard to reckon. Tec de Monterrey is no liberal arts school, where students concoct touchy-feely theories and consider utopian scenarios. It's a technological institute, where students think in nuts and bolts -- and computer chips -- and bet their futures on a Mexico that is practical, modern and internationally competitive.

Voting for AMLO, the candidate of an alliance of left-leaning minor parties whose campaign platform of 50 promises includes eliminating tax breaks for the wealthy, implementing universal old-age pensions, reversing privatization of the oil industry and renegotiating provisions of NAFTA, would not seem to best serve the personal interests of these students. "To me, voting for AMLO is a question of patriotism," said Aline Jara, 19, an information-systems marketing major, when she arrived at the podium. "I ask myself if I really love my country, my people, or if I only care about myself."

That seems to me a message a lot of American conservatives could also take to heart.

When we were returning from the rally yesterday, my professor, me, and another St. Eds student got on the elevator to go upstairs. My professor was carrying a giant PRD flag, the other student and I had AMLO t-shirts they were giving away for free. A Mexican student from here at the TEC also got on with us and was eyeing us suspiciously as we were going up.

"Where have you been?" he asked us.

"We went down the Obrador rally in the Macroplaza this afternoon," my professor answered enthusiastically, smiling, his round cheeks sunburned.

The student narrowed his eyes slightly and the most minute smirk appeared on his face.

"You support Obrador?" he asked.

My professor smiled again.

"Well," he said, "we just want to go see everybody. Get the education. Calderon is speaking on Saturday and we're going to go see him too."

The student nodded, unconvinced, and he continued to look at my professor susupiciously. Finally he shook his head ever so subtlely and looked away. We reached our floor.

The new Becks?

It's funny that someone actually made this. But of course I watched it. So hot. Especially with blood running down his face.

Going Down

About 5 'o clock yesterday afternoon, the power in our dorm went out, just as I had gotten onto the elevator. Right inbetween the 5th and 6th floors, as I was riding along smoothly, the whole elevator suddenly jerked violently, so hard that it actually knocked me over, and all the lights went out. Then nothing.

My first thought was thought it had fallen, but of course I realized after about 1 second that that wasn't the case. So I picked myself up and found the alarm button, which had a very light ring of light around it, and began pushing it. The sound was awful and annoying even me, so I stopped and considered what to do next.

I tried to pry the interior doors open, but they would only open about an inch and a half, but enough to let in a shaft of light from the exterior doors, and to comfort me that I wouldn't run out of oxygen if I was stuck in there for hours.

Next, of course, I tried to pry open the exterior doors, but of course they wouldn't budge, but I could hear people outside, on the 6th floor. I could discern from their talking that all the power had gone out, so I started banging on the exterior doors until I got someone's attention. It was a very nice girl from Arizona named Shannon, and she went and got a guard.

"¿Hablas español bien?" he shouts at me through the door.
"No," I reply. "Lo siento."

We all laugh. So we find a translator who says that the guard has called the elevator man to come open it up for me, but he won't be here for about 15 minutes. Fine. I can wait 15 minutes. Honestly, at this point, my greatest concern was what I was going to do if I had to go to the bathroom. I'd just eaten 7 tacos and drank a soda. Yeah, I know, gross.

In the meantime, Shannon, and gradually, more and more of her friends, come to the door to talk to me through it and keep me company while I wait. Then, from 2 floors up, my professor starts hollering down the elevator shaft at me. About 40 minutes has gone by, the elevator man has finally arrived, but they can't get onto the 6th floor from the stairwell, because the door is locked to keep the boys out, and no one has a fucking key. You've gotta be kidding me. Aside from being stupid, isn't that like, the biggest fire hazard ever? And they can't find anyone who has a key???

My professor tells me to hold tight, they're working on it. Another few minutes go by, and he yells back down at me again that the elevator man is going to be jumping on top of the elevator and it's going to rock, so don't panic. Eh?

All this time, all I can think about is the Six Feet Under episode where all the people are trapped in the elevator, and they pry the door open and start crawling out, but just as one man is crawling through the narrow little space, the electricity comes back on, the elevator starts moving again, and it chops him in half. I don't want to get chopped in half.

To make a long story short, the elevator man basically manually inches me up until I'm level with the 6th floor (well at least there will be no crawling or getting chopped in half), with some kind of contraption inside the elevator shaft that you have to have a key to use. So now I'm level with the 6th floor, but there's still the matter of no one being able to get the stairwell door open to come in and unlock the elevator doors, which is also something only the elevator man can do. Great.

Eventually, someone gets a key to the 6th floor door, and the elevator man comes and opens up the elevator, and I'm greeted by about 12 girls all standing around the elevator applauding. Suddenly I'm a hero for being stuck in an elevator for an hour.

I can move, move, move any mountain

I ended up getting to the mountain about 8 am. The cab driver there totally ripped me off, but there wasn't much I could do about it, as we had agreed upon the price before he took me. Unfortunately, however, having no idea how far or near it actually was, I had no way to tell if he was overcharging me. I suspected he was, once I got there, but paid him our agreed upon price. On the way back home I didn't get a price beforehand and just let the meter run, to test my theory, and the ride back was less than half the price of the ride there. So I was right. I'm learning a thing or two here about how things work.

But the mountain was amazing. I lucked out by having an incredibly hazy, breezy, overcast morning, which didn't do much for the views of the city, but did a lot for not having a scorching Mexican sun beating down on me the whole time.

I got about halfway up in just over an hour, actually, and stopped to rest on a huge concrete structure left over from when they tried to build a lift up the side of the mountain about 20 years ago. Apparently it was engineered very poorly, didn't work so well, and a few people even died on it somehow, so it was abandoned. That's where most people stop, and there were even a couple of vendors up there selling food. How in God's name they get their shit up there, I have no clue. There's really no way up except to climb, so I'm guessing it must be incredibly lucrative for them to go through that. So I rested for about 30 minutes, ate some fruit, drank a bunch of water, and took some pictures of some pollution. I considered going back at that point, but I really wanted to push myself. My legs were burning and felt like jelly, and now, about 2 hours after the fact, the muscles in my butt are fucking killing me, as are my thighs. And my legs still feel like rubber bands.

But I pressed on. I passed a huge, tin crucifix that had been constructed by somebody or other, and it was absolutely one of the most garish things I've ever seen. I should have snapped a picture of it, but I didn't. I kept climbing, and the terrain deceptively starts to even out a bit. I stopped by the side to pee in the trees. And then I turned a corner, and behold, I hadn't seen anything yet. There's a huge radio tower on the top of the mountain that's pretty much the pinnacle, and that's where I wanted to go, but after I turned that corner, the path suddenly inclined about another 10 or 15 degrees, and I threw in the towel. The mountain kicked my ass. I theoretically could have kept going, for a brief bit, but the thought of having to walk all the way back down is what eventually stopped me. Had there been a helicopter waiting to whisk me back to my dorm room at the top, I totally would have kept on. But there wasn't, and it's good that I saved some energy, because the steep incline, and the slippery rocks, were hell on the descent. I actually busted my ass a couple of times, and turned my ankle slightly once, but no real damage was done, aside from a bruised ego.

Anyway, I arrived back safely, took a very long, very hot shower (I swear, I've never sweat so much in my entire life; I was absolutely drenched, and it wasn't even hot or sunny), made some breakfast (my second one of the day), and tried to rest a bit. When I told my professor where I got, he said that was farther than anybody's gotten in the last 3 years. So I was satisfied with that.

I have a feeling I'm going to sleep very well tonight.

It doesn't matter if you're black or white

I swear to God, the more people I get to know, the more I cherish my friends and am thankful for them. I don't know what I did to deserve such an extraordinary adopted family, but I must have been very, very good in my past life.

Why does everyone always have to end up being such a fucking disappointment? Why do so many people view the world through such a prism of stereotypes and ignorance? And worse, so many people are so willing to admit that they see things in such a black and white way because it "makes things a lot easier." Is this just a product of age? Does this hark back to my post about wisdom and growing older? I know that at some level, in order to solidify your own opinions about things, you have to take some things at face value and accept them as you see them, and not as they actually are, but hopefully it's something most people grow out of. And some people never do. And some people only get worse about it as they grow older.

I'm in a really bad mood tonight. And I'm exhausted and for the first time since I got here, I want to come home. I just need to go to bed.

Tomorrow I'm going to climb this mountain at 7 am by myself. We'll see how far I get.

Der Cerro de la Silla, what do you have in store for me?

Adelante

In relation to Meredith's blog entry the other day, I have another question to sort of add to it.

If, as she says, the search for relief from your suffering is ultimately what relieves it, and not, so to speak, a specific cure, can the same thing be said for wisdom? If there is no cure for your suffering and hopelessness, except to search for the cure, then is it also the ultimate in wisdom to finally admit that you know nothing? Can it be that the older you get, and supposedly the smarter you get, that ultimately you have to face up to the fact that you're a complete idiot? That you know nothing? That the black & white rules you lived by in your youth are now completely meaningless to you?

Is wisdom actually the subtraction of knowledge? Or pseudo-knowledge? The young think they know it all. They think they've got it all figured out. Maybe no one over the age of 22 should be allowed to be put into any position of importance whatsoever. Maybe the older we get, if we're truly honest with ourselves, the less we actually know. But we can only admit this because we know it to be true, which is its own sort of wisdom. So really, the accumulation of wisdom through age is really just an acknowledgement that life and people are just too complex and confounding to comprehend or decipher in any meaningful way.

We impart meaning to things because we have to. It is simply too painful to admit that maybe, just maybe, that relationship you were in that lasted for a year, or 2 years, or 8 years, and ultimately ended, in the end, meant absolutely nothing. For example. We can sit back and say, "Well, I certainly learned a lot from that," but what if what you learned isn't helpful? What if what you learned about yourself, or about the other person, or about people in general (is an "understanding" of collective behavior wisdom, or just a smoke-screen to keep from having to admit that people are just idiots and cowards?), is just terrifying and hopeless? What if what you learned is that when you fall in love you hate the person that you become? Does that mean your heart should close up shop because it's hopeless, or does it mean that you just fall for the wrong people, or does it mean you just haven't discovered exactly what it is yet that's compatible with that whiny, clingy, insecure, subserviant but demanding and terrified child inside of you?

Great. So you have to suffer through tortorous relationship after tortorous relationship just to figure that out, and the person who will supposedly fit with those pieces of you eventually (or not) comes along, and that person then renders all previous relationships totally meaningless. Yes? No?

If the giving up of hope is what leads to contentment, is the giving up on any kind of true wisdom what also leads to enlightenment? Is the giving up of any expectations what brings you happiness? What the hell is happiness? Beats the shit out of me. Does it just mean you don't want things to change? Does it mean you don't feel like throwing yourself in front of a bus every day? Does it mean that you feel ecstatic joy every minute of the day? I guess Happiness, like Love, is too abstract to have a satisfiable definition. Do you just know it when you feel it?

I feel like once I finally decided to stop trying to figure it all out is when I achieved some sort of peace. When I finally decided to throw up my hands and say, "To hell with it, I'm done, I can no longer analyze, critique, or take apart this or that or whatever," is when I finally could let it go. Which came first? The letting go or the resignation?

I just drank about six glasses of incredibly cheap vodka in my friend Greg's room with him and Princeton. We listened to Harry Nilson and a bunch of other shit. I put on a Mexican wrestling mask and took off my shirt and ran around the room growling and howling while Greg took pictures. It was pretty funny.

I need to study but instead I'm going to sleep.

2 Totally Random Pictures

Deneise and me in the wagon last weekend. This was after most of it, but before the second flat tire and the bonfire. Nevertheless, we were fairly appalled that anyone would take a picture of us.
My goose, with her eggs. Incidentally, there are now 10 more little tiny, yellow, fuzzy ducklings that I visit in the mornings. They like to run in a circle and cheep a lot. I love them.

Holy shit! (Literally)

This is soooo worth 5 minutes of your day. And from Fox News, no less.

It's Fred Phelps' daughter being interviewed and the news anchor completely loses it. Awesome.

(via Towleroad)