Maybe Brett Cajun was right…

I’m a bit excited to go and get my eyes checked tomorrow. More than anything I’m hoping that it will make reading my estate tax textbook less painful. Jesus that thing sucks.

Also, as those of you may know who read JR’s blog, we’ve started working out. I know it should have happened long ago. Hell, it shouldn’t have to be something that happens, it should be something that just is. I’m feeling much better about it now because personally I have no desire to turn into a perfectly sculpted body that sells ideas and products because it is unattainable and you have to have it, but I’m just enjoying going in and exercising. Part of my motivation is also that I’ve been listening to the b*talk podcast, and they all seem to have sleep apnea. Then on the bearpodcast, the topic of diabetes comes up all of the time. These are two ailments that I would rather avoid, along with a host of other increased risks that come from carrying too much weight. I admit that I might miss my belly. It has a round comforting sense to me at present.

I think if I just end up looking like this I will be happy.

Beyond that I noticed recently that I’ve been placed in the category of Personal Blogs over at Best Gay Blogs. And this makes me very happy. I try and keep this blog personal and relational to the roll on the right. Maybe that’s just where they put the bitch and moan queens who for the most part don’t post hot pics. Oh well, that’s not for me, and I was happy about it. And I’m not going to overanalyze myself out of it.

Vision Problems

This past week has been a big shift for me. Granted, I’m used to going to school (what else do I seem to have done with my life?), but somehow this year so far has really been draining me. Perhaps it is the fact that I have to do more reading now than I ever have before. And I think I need glasses. Well, the last time we were at Wal*Mart (curses on you JR for making me go to that abominable place), I stopped by a quick eye check station, and after the brief check it was suggested that there is next to no chance that I don’t need glasses. Not that this is such a huge problem. First of all, I’m not a huge fan of my facial proportions, but unlike Darin I don’t seem to carry facial accessories well. Somehow, hats and glasses just don’t look good on me in my opinion. This is all of next to no concern to me. The fact of the matter is that I’m just being lazy about setting up the appointment. I actually think that maybe reading would be quite a bit easier if I did see properly (whatever that means).

There is something unusual about the begining of this school year: I don’t feel like I’m one of the smarter people in my classes. All of my life in school, I always felt like I had an edge over other people in the class. I was probably just delusional and conceited. Anyway, now at this “more prestigious” institution, I feel like I’m the one who just doesn’t get things quickly, and I’m the stupid one asking the professor to explain again (the same person I would have rolled my eyes at in years previous). I guess what goes around comes around, and frankly, I’m shelling out enough money that bitches can roll their eyes all they want. Nonetheless, it is something I think I base my esteem on too much. I have these strange conflicting ideas in my head. One side says, “Kalvin, you’re brilliant, but you’re lazy and an underachiever.” The other side says, “Kalvin, you’re obviously a little slow, not that this is a bad thing, but you’re lazy, so you won’t succeed, and you’re stupid for thinking you are intelligent.” I haven’t decided which side I want to win.

My therapist always said that it was my scrupulosity. And maybe it is. However, if it weren’t for that, I don’t know if I would ever get anything done. Or perhaps conversely, it is the negative force that keeps me from getting things done.

Sigh.

So I’m retarded…

I love this following video. It makes me pee my pants. I know, I’ll write something decent soon. I’m just feeling drained by school. SORRY!

First Day of Class

I have been dreading today. It will most likely be the start of the last year of my education. The real world looms!

Over the summer, I’ve mostly been doing things that require zero brain power. I know, I should have found better employment, but it just didn’t happen, which scares me for the future. Other than that, it was actually nice to be back. After I got out of my last class I felt less like a zombie than I have been as of late. Even though taxation of corporations may not sound thrilling, it was interesting nonetheless. What I really can’t wait for is my critical race theory class.

I’m a little scared, and a little overwhelmed. I’m also a little pissed at the bookstore. They listed the books for a class that included a supplement, a textbook and another supplement (I’m being vague I know, but who knows who’s reading this!?!?). I get to class, and it turns out that I only need the photocopied supplement. While I’m happy to return the books and get some $150 odd dollars back, I’m still annoyed, and I really hope I don’t have to endure any horrendous lines.

Maybe I’m not meant to be a janitor like I fantasize all the time about after all…

It’s all about meme

Meme #1 per Dan Turning 40

1. One book you have read more than once:
The book of mormon. I hate to admit it, but I have probably read this book more times than any other book. And look where it has got me.

2. One book you would want on a desert island:
The complete In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I’ve only read the first volume, and I really should finish it up, but I think this is the sort of time I would need.

3. One book that made you laugh:
Montaigne: Essays. Okay, so it’s not so much a book, but it was kind of before novels existed. He’s very dry, and he has some really thoughtful things to say–especially on smells and cannibalism.

4. One book that made you cry:
Books don’t usually make me cry. I did cry while reading the book of mormon once. I was terribly depressed at the time, and I was only speaking german, and I felt incredibly isolated. Reading the book of mormon was some of the only english I had. In any case, it was some passage about jesus having all the pain that every human being has suffered (kind of like he experienced each individual life in seriatim and its pains), and that thought broke me down because I was so terribly miserable and would have been so happy to just die at that moment, and I thought of one person going through that, but so many billion times over.

5. One book you wish you had written:
None. I am my own.

6. One book you wish had never been written:
I don’t know about this one. Probably whatever was the guide for the spanish inquisition or something like that, but then I think the ideas would have popped up some other way anyhow. Oh well, guess I’m not a fan of censorship.

7. One book you are currently reading:
Sadly nothing. I used to listen to books on tape before podcasts, and I read a lot before professional school. Unfortunately, the book on tape selection in SF sucks ass, but I’m going to start something soon.

8. One book you have been meaning to read:
Borrowed Time by Paul Monette. I want to have a better understanding of the ravages of AIDS, not to mope in sorrow, but to understand what my gay brothers and sisters went through. I don’t feel like I appreciate it enough, and I want to learn more.

9. One Book That Changed Your Life:
The Plague by Albert Camus. I’ve already written about this. I’ll just clip and paste, so you don’t have to follow the link.

“What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest-heath, integrity, purity (if you like)-is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.” When I read this book, I realized that I was not a mormon. So, maybe this is a really evil book (I don’t so much believe in good and evil) but it is nonetheless a book that has indelibly shaped my life. The amazing part of this book is the hope and joy that are seen through the eyes of existentialism.

“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.”

My other favorite part of the book is when this doctor watches a man’s son die in agony of the plague. After the child has died, the father comes to the doctor and asks him if his son suffered. The doctor replies, “I couldn’t really say.” On one level, the doctor doesn’t really know, and he can’t know. But another current in the book, about being a saint and constantly analyzing oneself might also show that he was being considerate while not being dishonest.

10. Now Tag 5 bloggers:
I think almost everyone has done this post, and I’m not going to. Ha ha, but feel free to if you want.

Meme #2 per JR

Ten Reasons I Should Have Known I was Gay Growing Up.

1. I was obsessed with Strawberry Shortcake. My brother’s loved to make fun of me for this one. I also really wanted to be good friends with Huckleberry Pie. I wasn’t so in love with Strawberry as I was with him.

2. At some point I remember desperately wanting a Barbie. I harassed my mother enough that I eventually got it as an “un-birthday” present.

3. I hated sports, and I was terrible at them.

4. I always wanted to look at other guys in the locker room. I was also always afraid I would get hard during and often did in the locker rooms as a little boy. I used to love and go sit in the steam room at gyms or the hot tubs and see the naked men around. I wouldn’t let myself look at them, but it was always exciting for me. I especially liked the guy who did situps naked in the steam room when I was a kid. Actually, I was semi-obsessed with steam rooms and hot tubs and guys being naked, and I would look up these things in the dictionary and encyclopedia, and it would get me all excited.

5. I loved playing the piano. I would play and play from the time I was four years old. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t have money for lessons much when I was young, so I had to wait until after my father had passed to get serious lessons (nevermind that there was plenty of money for football equipment and every other sport under the sun. Bastard.)

6. Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea were two of my most favorite movies growing up. I used to watch them and feel like I was a kindred spirit with Anne.

7. I used to idolize boys all the time. My mother even learned their names, and finally told me that she didn’t care what Michael did or how he wore his hair or his clothes.

8. I loved to cook with my mother, and my mother and I were almost inseparable.

9. I always had one really close guy friend to the exclusion of all others. I had a best friend that I would see almost every day, and we were always best pals, and none of them ever had girl crushes or friends.

10. I would go to my friends houses (these best friends) and spend at least half of the time talking with their mothers.

Not as exciting as JR’s I suppose, and yes I had my fair share of sex play as a kid, but I knew I had feelings for boys it seems like forever. But I always knew it wasn’t allowed. I used to think it would be okay to masturbate if I would try and think about girls. I so I would try and think about a guy and girl having sex to make my masturbation okay (which didn’t work in assuaging my guilt), but I thought god wouldn’t think it was as bad.

Entrance/Exit

I’ve been thinking about the number of blogs that have closed down lately, and it’s made me question what I blog for, and why I blog, and what I enjoy in blogs. In some ways, I feel like I want to reduce the amount of time that I spend blogging. Darin talks about blogs as being something where you get in, say your peace, and get out. To me this conjures up a sense of suction in the blogosphere, which I think there is, and maybe a sense of danger. Truly there is risk: risk of being discovered by those who one might rather not have reading one’s blog, risk of alienation, risk of addiction, risk of delusion. However, I don’t view it as some dangerous minefield where I wish to place my monument only to disappear.

I don’t mean this to say that I disrespect other people’s decisions to stop. Not at all. However, I merely mean to say that this is not the way I feel about it. Many thanks to Adam and Atari, and I hope they will still say in touch. And now I have to change this because I just realized Atari didn’t really quit.

I’d like to mention two of the blogs that I enjoy the most. Both of these blogs are very personal and somehow speak to me on an aesthetic sense as well. I feel so naive when I read them, and I look up to their maturity. I find myself placing haphazard bitchings in comparison to the soulful outpourings that I see in other places, and I don’t mean this to be self-effacing, even though to a certain extent it is.

Partially, I just want to say thanks to Daniel and to Scott for their willingness to share and the effort and care that is reflected in their writings.

I also want to distance myself from treating my blog like a myspace account. I personally don’t care as I’ve said if people don’t think I’m real, and the blogs I read are the same to me. Whether these are real people (whatever that means) does not change how the words have affected me as I think that reality is sometimes captured better in fantasy not to say that the two are distinct or not the same.

What do you all think? And I’d love to hear what pulls people back to the new post screen over and over. I know there are simple explanations, and you don’t necessarily have to say, but I think it’s good to keep asking. Many questions, I believe, are more important in themselves than the answers behind them.

Perhaps this is a bit pretentious, but that’s what my warns about reading this blog. I feel a bit naive and ashamed of my post, but perhaps these are the ones that are most important to put out there.

Thanks

These pictures are probably not recognizable to any readers of this blog. I would surprised if they were. On the left is Samuel Barber, and on the right is Gino Carlo Menotti. Samuel Barber is most well-known for Adagio For Strings which is perhaps most commonly known from the movie platoon. The link from this song comes from album “Celebrate the American Spirit” on i-tunes. How patriotic? Menotti is popular for creating an opera for television that was tremendously popular at the time called Amahl and the Night Visitors. I sang this song when I was a sophomore in high school with my choir.

Why do I bring up these two men? Perhaps it’s somewhat obvious, but they were lovers and partners. In a time when McCarthy was raging with homophobia, these men were out-of-the-closet homosexuals. I find it ironic that many of the creators of so-called patriotic Americana (present examples, not to mention Aaron Copeland and many more) were gay. Perhaps it’s the same irony that evangelical christian dances frequently blast the Villiage People’s YMCA.

I’m having difficulty with how our culture can simultaneously abhor and nearly revere its queer citizens. And why did I never know these men were gay? Because it was unimportant? I don’t believe so.

Also, I wanted to say thanks to all of the kind thoughts and suggestions on the SSRI post as they were very considerate.

"I’ve got some news for you."

This was the message left for me on my voice mailbox while I was at work. This message was from my younger brother, and I already knew without even calling him that the “news” was of his upcoming marriage to the girl with the personality of a cardboard box so for as I can tell.

Apparently now that they have known each other since May, and “really get along well”, they’re ready for marriage. Oh but wait, she hasn’t even told her parents yet, and my brother is waiting to officially propose until he’s asked for her father’s consent; nevermind the fact that he told me that he’s never even spoken with her father or met her family.

I am so ready to not go to this wedding. It might be one thing if my family was even indifferent to the idea of marriage equality, but they are actively opposed as they have let me know. Seeing as they don’t believe in my even having the OPTION, I have no desire to “celebrate” this “ceremony” which I couldn’t actually attend anyway because it’s a secret (as Morons say, “sacred, not secret” which is true because all you have to do is go online to find out about it) temple ceremony for adult tithe paying members who don’t sympathize with any individuals who espouse views contrary to church teachings. Fascist, anyone?

PLUS! Mormon weddings are boring as hell. Well, it must be worse than hell because I’m sure hell can’t be that boring. There’s usually next to no dancing, a 2.5 hour receiving line, hundreds of people who mostly know the parents and even then just barely, bad food cooked by other members of the congregation all held in the church gymnasium.

As of this moment, I’m so not going to that wedding.

(Below is a picture from one of those thrilling mormon weddings)

Beautiful, sexy death

“The Gay Men’s Chorus posed to illustrate the impact of AIDS. Those dressed in black, with their backs turned, represent those who had died. Today, all their backs would be turned because the obituary list is now 47 names longer than the chorus roster. For each man singing these days, more than one chorus member has died of AIDS.”

I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some time. I’ve always felt that there was a connection in my mind between sex/death/beauty. I often think of that feeling of longing that I have when I see great art or hear great music or read great literature. This feeling makes me want to pull myself somehow out of my own skin and coast along another plane of existence.

The Golden Gate Bridge is also a symbol of beauty. It is a symbol of death as well. Nearly every two weeks someone jumps from this bridge. In some ways it seems a very romantic way to die. I’ve fantasized about it many times myself. I would want to do it at night so I could see the city in the distance. Or the lights of the bridge fade in the distance.

Now I come to the more controversial issue. I have really been enjoying much of the work of Paul Morris. He is a pornographer who heads up Treasure Island media and the production company does almost solely bareback films. Honestly, the barebacking is not what I find most fascinating about these films, but it is a part of it. Mr. Morris is emailed by people who want to be in his films, and he for the most part sees himself as being more of a documentary filmmaker.

Oddly enough, I think he says some things on the subject better than I could. He’s not stupid, so maybe he’s just downright evil, or maybe not. Personally, I am happy about the new resurgence of bareback films. I believe that gay men are becoming so inured with talk of “safer sex” that they simply view it as taboo and want to behave like unruly children. In my opinion, it helps me reinforce the idea that every time I choose to have sex with a condom, I am choosing to protect my health.

The other day I was listening to a podcast where the two participants were going on and on about how stupid gay men were for having sex without condoms, and how they were going to die painful deaths…while they joked intermittently about smoking and how much they enjoyed it. It was completely unfathomable to them why someone would engage in anal sex without condoms when the participant should know the dire consequences of such an act. Perhaps this is all just a smoldering irony.

I’ll provide two links for further reading that are articles from Paul Morris. I was surprised that they are not light reading, and actually, I was happy to have some queer theory background. It may not be easy, but I think they are pieces that are important to our community as we continue to have a dialogue about ourselves.

No Limits: Necessary Danger in Gay Male Porn (Presented at the 1998 World Pornography Conference, LA and at the UCSF InSite Discussion on Barebacking)

This other article includes a discussion between HIV-prevention advocates, Paul Morris and Robert Kirch (the founder of Titan Media).