ab initio
I posted a Bio. Y'know, cuz my life is an open book. Well, an open book in a plain brown wrapper. With some of the pages stuck together.
« September 2003 | Main | November 2003 »
October 30, 2003
October 29, 2003
Ghosts of a Good Thing
There are times where the dead come back.
In the movies, on TV...and in life. If your screenplay sucks, they come back, over-used, as nothing more than a plot device. If your life sucks, they come back, over-wrought, as something approaching a horror.
But if your touch is light, your approach is unassailable, and your wherewithal is sufficient, the Ghosts are miraculous. Miraculous and comforting at the same time.
Last night I was watching an old episode of The West Wing, the one where Mrs. Landingham died, and later, in a fantasy dialog with the President, returns just after a door under repair is thrown open during a storm. A familiar shudder ran wind-sprints up and down my spine: this always happens when the dead show up in the story. I used to think that it had something to do with Time, where it's time-crossed lovers/friends who are forced or kept apart. I realized last night it has more to do with the long-gone being restored.
Like when Sheridan shows up years later, sitting on the bench next to Delenn to watch a sunrise. Or when Dot shows up on La Grande Jatte to guide George. Even when Rick shows up and converses with Adam—and I wrote that! My own imagination produced such a shudder, as if I am catching myself in a mirror looking elsewhere before I realize that I'm actually not faster than light. As if there are rooms in my mind that remain secret, even now, to my larger self.
It's the surprise of it, perhaps, the unexpected familiarity of the already-so-familiar. In those few moments when the surprise occupies the senses, the physical seems a chimera, nothing but a set of limits we have accepted because we accept Euclid's points-lines-planes.
The moments of the surprise, where we lose our anchors, the universe also loses its moorings, goes adrift, unstuck, abstract, and Everything is possible and Nothing doesn't exist.
And I think it's those kinds of moments that happen so often with Sam. We spend the lion's share of days apart, being subject to belief in physical distance. Every time I see him in person, I have that moment where that objective reality thing fails and it's just Right. But again, it takes only a few moments to be completely familiar again with someone I'm already so familiar with. It's the leaving that sucks, the imposed separation from the familiar, the restoration of belief in physical geography.
When Sam shows up, or I show up at Sam's, it feels like those moments when something comes back alive, when it becomes palpable instead of ethereal. And when we're together, all lines are blurred. Physical contact dissolves physical barriers, and interplay of emotion and thought manifests bodily reactions. Time can be suspended with a touch, and space can be obviated with a glance.
The otherworldliness of it is akin to seeing those Ghosts, to believing the inaccessible is available and to knowing you can produce the context to make it all happen. Anyone can do it.
Reality is an abstraction, after all. And it's our abilities to generalize reality that allows us to change it to suit our own purposes.
So next time such Ghosts show up at your door, for heaven's sake, invite them in for coffee.
October 25, 2003
Action : Hero :: Party : Las Vegas
You have to admire people who can decide on something and follow through, scary stuff and all.
You have to respect when people put themselves in the path of happy, because miserable travels that same road.
And you have to encourage people for whom fear or static inertia prevent the chance to be admired, the chance to be respected, because those kinds of heroics are good for the soul, the spirit and the body.
Aphoristic clap-trap aside, I'm headed off to Las Vegas to meet up with Sam, and with Reggie and Erin. My liver is hating me already. Other parts of me can't wait to.....get there.
Back on Monday! Have a great weekend. I'm going to.
October 21, 2003
Hands down...
The streets were wet
and the gate was locked so I jumped it,
and let you in.
And you stood at the door with your hands on my waist
and you kissed me like you meant it.
And I knew that you meant it,
that you meant it,
that you meant it,
and I knew,
that you meant it,
that you meant it.
-- excerpt from Hands Down, by Dashboard Confessional
You won't be able to get at that link at all unless you have a Mac or you've downloaded iTunes for Windows, but it takes you right to the song on iTMS so you can hear a sample of it for free.
Go download iTunes. You know you want to. Think of it as a bit of amelioration for the horrible decision you made years ago to invest in Windows. You'll feel better. Then you'll want a Mac.
So what's all this about? Well, those of you who know me should know that I am the happiest I have been in a very long time. Perhaps ever. Ok, EVER. Period. Lots of big changes going on, moves being made, geographical and professional and domestic. All good. All great, in fact.
That said, I am one seriously emo (back in the day, we just called it music) bitch at the moment; and iTMS is my iNabler.
Breathe in for luck,
breathe in so deep,
this air is blessed,
you share with me.
This night is wild,
so calm and dull,
these hearts they race,
from self control.
-- more from Hands Down, by Dashboard Confessional
Happy....it suits.
October 19, 2003
Beer:30, all weekend long
This weekend could have easily been measured in beers. I was out Friday at “Church”, then ended up at the newly-reopened Detour, where there were a ton of hotties that I hadn't ever seen before. I guess I'm in a specific social pattern, seeing the same folks in the same places. This is comforting, don't get me wrong, but I was pleasantly surprised to be in my own City, in the same old neighborhood and yet see all these other people who I didn't know but who were obviously San Franciscans. It was kinda cool.
Saturday, ended up going to the Lone Star with Troy, and sharing a cab with a wacky loon of a guy. A gay man in San Francisco who's irony-impaired. Whooduh thunk it? Did run into my friend Rex...and John. And San Francisco newcomer, Robby. Lots o' beers, several cabs. I left Troy to go have fun with some of his 'buddies'. I'm sure there was some cello-playing involved.
Today, Rich, Troy and I, and some other folks headed up to a spectacular house in Sausalito (anyone remember “Sausalito Summer Nights”? A dumb-ass pop song in the 70s). More beers, lots of 'bears' in them there woods. And we know from Yogi and Boo Boo that bears usually don't wear clothing. Though, cockrings seemed to be popular.
We hung out in the Castro after we got back from the bear-b-q, and I think I saw him when we were at Daddy's havin' a.....wait for it....beer.
I had a great time this weekend. I enjoy the fuck out of Troy's company, and RichM's, of course. Still, I found myself wishing every day, every party, every beer, that Sam was here.
October 17, 2003
Microsoft's Gall
A while back, Microsoft decided to kill further development of Internet Explorer for the Mac. Good riddance, I say, but it was the reasoning they gave for it that astounded me. With a straight, but-we're-a-benevolent-monoply way, they claimed that they couldn't keep up with Apple's own Safari browser because Apple had the unfair advantage of owning the APIs and the OS. How those PR folks sleep at night is completely beyond me.
Then, today, the day after Apple launched the iTunes Music Store for Windows, the digital media guy at Miscreantsoft Microsoft claims that the iTunes experience will clearly piss off many Windows users because they're used to “choice”, and because superior usability will win in the end. -cough- -cough-
I wonder if they had to edit out the giggles and the ahem's from the man. Clearly Microsoft is simply pissed off that Apple deigned to ignore WindowsMedia format in iTunes and in the iPod. Now Windows users have a choice in which format of music to buy and have a choice in not using WindowsMedia with its draconian DRM scheme. That's really what's at stake here and the man is just whining, stewing in his own bilious juices.
Yes, seeing iTunes running on Windows XP was a bit jarring, sort of like Jesus showing up on the paid tour of Hell without warning Satan first. But it's there, and its usability is on par with the Mac version, save for the nasty Windows fonts and the crap idea of putting menus inside an application's window.
Oh, as a beautiful aside, the Microsoft man's namephreakish name? “Fester.”
October 15, 2003
Shining Moon, Stubborn Moon
We often speak in terms of the Past, or at least in terms of the Goodness or the Badness of Living-In, Dwelling-On or Baggage-Contained-Within the Past.
The Being-Judgy part is always aimed at the Past. The Present is just a point in time, never standing still long enough to be noticed, so that's disqualified. But the Future just hangs out there, out in front of us. It's a fixed point, already determined and we are only working or plodding towards that. So why do we take such a hands-off approach to it?
We never assign a rich pageantry to the future, only to the past. You never hear anyone saying someone is blessed with a wealth of future, nor do we think that having more future than someone else can qualify you as an authority on anything. Maybe it's a natural consequence of attaining more and more past and then parlaying that otherwise-useless past into a basis for authority or even wisdom. That's only choice left for those folks who are increasingly invested in their own pasts. And we're all accumulators in that sense.
But what if there were wisdom to be respected simply because someone is future-heavy, because they're lacking past? It's a point of view that reeks of the Possible. It's a posture that favors the future, because there's not enough past to be of any help. It's an attitude that dares to make leaps forward instead of trips backward. Trust, Faith and Hope all depend on that Fixed Future. Suspicion, Religion and Doubt all depend on people depending too heavily on the past.
It's ironic, then, that all the best fiction, all the best entertainment, is so future-minded. The Protagonist depends on nothing but the existence of the future. That it will be there when he's done with his story or at least his task. Nay-sayers, antagonists....those are the ones who are sure that the Protagonist will fail simply because everyone else in the past has failed. But a Protagonist never loses his own sense of the future.
My sense of the future was the most significant casualty to my Self when my former partner, Allen, got sick and then, well...got dead. In the two years we were together, my sense of the future became more and more attenuated, first manifested as a shying-away from discussing annual events (next Christmas, next Summer, my 32nd birthday, etc.). That progressed to segments of a year, then months. When I simply lost the ability to consider events beyond the month ahead, I became very good friends with the Moon.
Sister Moon up in the sky was the most dependable, most-depended-on thing in the entire world. And that went on for month after month after month. Her leaving was as comforting to me as her full face, because I knew she would always be back. That I would always be back, but I could not count on Allen to be back as well. He could not give me that reassurance.
In Allen's final weeks, I had to say goodbye even to Moon. The regularity of her visits made no sense to me because by then the future had become no more than a week out. Then a day. Then an hour. Then the next 15 minutes, waiting to push a button on the home pump to give extra morphine, shepherding what was left of him to his own future. A future that no longer included me. A future I couldn't comprehend.
My sense of my future was long in recovering. He died over eight years ago, and only in the last few days have I fully restored it. It wasn't a linear, gradual process, at least not all of it. In the beginning, after the end, there was no future and only the present. That sort of zombie mode where you are functional, but have almost no sense of self, no tangibility. Then one day, Moon was back.
I have been able to consider futures more distant than what is covered in a single Lunar cycle, but not much more than that, until very recently. And mind you, during this time I was in a couple of relationships, one very bad one and one pretty good one.
But in these latter days, with Sam, it's quite different. One day I casually said, “Next summer I'll take you up to Guerneville with me, and to NX5 the year after that.”
One day, early on as far as these relationship things go, I was told we'd be together for a long, long time. I was told that I would be happier than I've ever been, that it would be the best thing that ever happened to me. And do you know what? It's all coming true, these things said by someone with a lot more future and a lot less past than I have.
So I can talk in terms of the years ahead and it feels good to be back with my eye on that distant apex of a fixed future. It feels good to be the Protagonist again. It's where I've always belonged.
October 14, 2003
Effortless & Difficult.
I'm sitting here, up very late; Sam was laying on the floor near the sofa and fell asleep. I wouldn't still be awake except I'm trying to rescue some damaged CDs for Sam before he leaves very early in the morning. And as you might have guessed, that's what this entry is all about.
I'm sure that tomorrow, or the next day or the next, I'll write about the evening spent with bunches of folks at the Metro, with Sam, but in the chilly quiet of my house right now, with the warmth of listening to the easy breathing of his sleep, I want the whole world to change just so we can stay the same, just like this. Just like this weekend. Is that too much to ask?
In this moment, I have finally discovered something about San Francisco that I do not like: it's not near enough to Tucson. That's an odd thing to say, and I'm sure that no one, including Sam, wishes it, but I do. Because then I wouldn't have nights like this. Because then I wouldn't have mornings like I'm about to have in 5 or 6 hours from now. Because then my sense of home would be constant.
I see the familiar look in my eyes in the pictures that Sam takes of me. I notice something I haven't seen there in a long time. That's the sense of home I'm talking about. Sam says he takes the best pictures of me, but really, I'm just looking at him and that's what he's seeing. As in the new picture of me to the left (linked here as well, just to keep this entry complete). I'm squinting, yes, but in my own mind, I'm more me in that picture than I have seen in a very long time. Sam doesn't take the best pictures of me, he makes them.
The Being-With is effortless. The Being-Apart, well...geography is hateful.
October 13, 2003
Sam Francisco Stories [3]
After last night, they actually should call it Sam Francisco. Seriously. Or at least they should rename SOMA. Give him a statue or something. No, a trough. Yeah, that's it. I think he might be kinda insane. I'm kidding...strike the 'kinda'. Not a long trip to drive him crazy for real. Wouldn't even have to pack a lunch.
Like I have room to talk. Yep, we're full up on crazy this weekend at Piggy House. And it feels damn good.
Tonight will be more of a social night. A lot of the friends that have been out of town are getting back today, and we're all meeting up at the Metro. A bunch of the folks that Sam's met already will be there, and you should, too.
Speaking of friends he's already met, it's been a kind of cool side-effect of this weekend that I've gotten to be so much better friends with Troy. Or maybe I just realized that we had already become pretty good friends. And I noticed yet again that all my friends are physically beautiful (yeah, Troy is handsome as fuck). It makes me wonder if I'm really just that shallow. Oooh, note to self: bring camera tonight.
Metro Monday Reminder
Just a reminder that Sam and I will be hangin' out at the Metro Bar (16th & Market) starting at about 7:30 tonight for those of you who want to stop by and say haaaaayyyyy...
So get your asses down there....or else...(ok, I didn't buy that, either). Seriously, I hope y'all can make it....it'll make me happy in the pants.
October 12, 2003
Sam Francisco Stories [2]
Last night we got a dressed up (lil bit, lil bit). Ok, we wore shirts with collars and buttons. We went out to North Beach and ate at my favorite restaurant on the planet, Caffe Sport (there's an accent in there somewhere, but I can't be bothered looking up the HTML for it. oh well). Which, in hindsight, was probably not the best choice, seeing that Sam doesn't eat seafood or mushrooms, and seeing that all the food there, amazingly delicious as it is, is just a vehicle for garlic.
Speaking of hindsight, we ended up at the Loading Dock last night. This was after having walked around North Beach for a while, then spending a few very cold minutes looking out at San Francisco from atop Twin Peaks. It was a strange feeling, being at the Loading Dock, because I had never been there before. I've lived in San Francisco for over 10 years, and still hadn't been there. And I was there with Sam, so honestly, it felt like we were visiting another city entirely. But we ran into my friends Bruce & Raf, and Geoff, the sissy decorator, and later, one of my best friends in the whole world, Steve.
Sam had a nice necklace on, but for some reason, buttoned up his shirt too far to see it. So maybe that part of the 1970s is dead, but I assure you, lots of what made the 70s the 70s is alive and well in dark corners and dark rooms in San Francisco. Praise Jebus!
We did stop at the Lone Star afterwards so that one of Sam's big groupies could meet him. It was interesting to see Sam bask in it. The boy's got it goin' on.
What a fuckin' great time. I could live this weekend forever.
October 10, 2003
Happy Sam Francisco Day
Sam arrives today and I'm not yet done Sam-proofing the house. But then again, what would I know about Sam-proofing anything? He's got me. All of me.
(Awwwwwwww...)
October 09, 2003
Prop 54 and Gay Republicans
Proposition 54: Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin Initiative (CRECNO)
Qualified for the October 7th, 2003 ballot.
Prohibition Against Classifying by Race by State and Other Public Entities
Section 32 is added to Article I of the California Constitution as follows:
Sec. 32
(a) The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment.
[...]
There's more to Prop 54, of course, but subsection (a) captures the gist of it, I think. Anyhow, it failed. So why am I talking about it? Well, because in commenting on comments made about my stupid-voters screed, I realized a common thread in republicans, gay republicans and Prop. 54: unilateral disarmament.
Bear with me for a moment. I came to understand, just after commenting on the benighted worldview of gay republicans what I find so reprehensible about them. It's not the self-loathing that must attend such an affiliation. It's not the I-got-mine-you-go-get-yours greed implied by their fiscal-conservatism-at-the-expense-of-social-progress or even the blatant hypocrisy in that political stance. Instead, look at the difference in the reasons that conservatives and liberals each agreed that Prop. 54 was a bad idea.
Conservatives basically had their knee-jerk reaction to government “intruding” on their personal conduct. Ironic, then, that the Republican party has allowed itself to be suborned by groups like Focus on the Fear Family.
Liberal opposition can best be summed up by something Camejo (a Green Party candidate in the Recall and the only person to make any bold sense in the debate) said:
“It's a radical measure that would make it
harder to fight disease and hate crime.
Prop 54 would make it easier for the
police to hide racial profiling. Prop 54
would make it harder to fight racism in
the school system.”
What he's saying here is that not only are race problems not over and we still need to pay attention to where prejudice still occurs in our society and government, but also that it's just plain dumb to think that socio-political equality implies biological sameness. It don't.
This is the part that made me realize what is so inexhaustibly tedious about gay republicans: they want exactly this. They want to erase the gayness, expunge it from all records, so there's no documentation. They expect that fairness will rule employers, corporations, government agencies, society and enlightenment will just magically arrive like a beatitude.
I take that back. They don't care for enlightenment, they really would rather not talk about it at all. They aren't proud of themselves for bucking the social stigma and being strong enough to be themselves. No, they came out of the comforting closet into the harsh and cold light, and now they want back in the womb. Erase it all. “Being gay isn't who I am,” they'll protest. But being gay is a big part of that, for anyone, just as being heterosexual is fundamental to straight folks. Entertainment, clubbing, barhopping, dating, marriage, couplehood, family, household, socializing, friendships...they all stem from the fundamental relationships we form with others, both romantically and platonically, gay or straight. We are shaped just as much by lack of pressure as by pressures on us from the outside.
It's this crazy idea that by not only disarming one's self completely but also making the possession of defense tools illegal, that the Bushes and Schwarzeneggers and Robertsons and Falwells and Limbaughs and Leona Helmsleys of the world will open their eyes one sunny morning, bluebirds descending with diaphanous wraps, and suddenly get that being gay is just swell.
What color is the sky in that world, honestly? All I know is that it ain't pink.
October 08, 2003
Never Underestimate...
Today's Chron headline read: SCHWARZENEGGER LEADS VOTER REVOLT. And my first thought was, yes, the voters are quite revolting. Only kidding, it's the recall laws that are repellant: it took less than 900,000 signatures, and only $1.7M of someone's personal money to set all this in motion.
Arnold never would have won a regular election where there would have been many months of scrutinizing. He's a spoiler, nothing more: a spokesperson of his was quoted last night: “California voted for someone who will stand up against small vocal groups with their own social agendas.” Now, who do you suppose he meant by that? Focus on the Family? Operation Rescue? Independent filmmakers?
I found myself often wondering what Arnold would be like if he won, when he finally was forced off-script by the demands of the real world. Now I have my answer: he's going to avoid the real world and stick to invective, fear and finger-pointing. To paraphrase Aaron Sorkin, “He's only interested in two things: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it.”
But like it or not, he's our governor now. More people voted for him that voted against the recall. In the twisted unreality of the context of the California recall, that's some kind of mandate, isn't it? I think it's our duty to keep him real, make him go off-script and see what he can do. And if he succeeds, we'll acknowledge it. And when he fails, we'll remind those who voted for him.
People don't vote because they're too lazy to get out there to their polling site. People don't vote because thinking is required beforehand.
A Landmark of Sorts
I started this blog on June 6 of this year, with this entry, though the counter wasn't added to my page until June 12.
Today, at 4:47pm Pacific Time, I had my 10,000th page-hit. Though I don't know who that visitor was, I do know the following: S/he was on a Windows XP machine, visiting my pages with IE 6, from the Eastern USA Timezone, from the domain att.net.
The page viewed by this10,000th visitor? RE: SAM
So, this is pretty fucking cool. Writing a blog is definitely one of the best things I've done for myself. It's a well-suited outlet for creative expression (your mileage may vary :) and, as it turns out, it's an extraordinary gateway to meeting incredibly talented and intelligent and lovely people, including my boyfriend, Sam.
I'm grateful that anyone bothers to read my stuff. Come hell or high water, I expect to be around for a long, long time.
October 07, 2003
I'm Listing Again...
From the is-it-too-much-to-ask category:
- to | too | two
- there | they're | their
- your | you're
- than | then
- #$%^@#$! turn-signals, people!
Ok, maybe I've taken too many decongestants and gotten too little sleep.
So shoot me. Please.
October 06, 2003
Monday. Metro. Margueritas. Mocktails.
When: Monday, October 13. 7:30pm - whenever
Where: The Metro Bar
What: Informal gathering
Who: [hello, my name is] Sam is going to be visiting from Tucson.
Why: A chance for my friends and fellow bloggers to meet Sam.
So, most of my friends are unfortunately, coincidentally going to be out of town for most of the weekend when Sam is here. I decided to arrange this on Monday night so that they might have the chance to meet him before he goes back to Tucson on Tuesday morning.
Many of you fellow bloggers know his blog already, and since the Tonga Room bloggerfest was such a great time, I thought I'd let you all know about it as well.
I really hope y'all can make it.
October 03, 2003
You're My Home
When you look into my eyes
And you see the crazy gypsy in my soul
It always comes as a surprise
When I feel my withered roots begin to grow.
Well, I never had a place that I could call my very own
But that's alright my love,
'Cause you're my home.
When you touch my weary head
And you tell me ev'rything will be all right.
You say use my body for your bed
And my love will keep you warm throughout the night.
Well I'll never be a stranger
And I'll never be alone
Wherever we're together that's my home.
Home could be the Pennsylvania Turnpike
Indiana's early morning dew
High up in the hills of California
Home is just another word for you.
If I travel all my life
And I never get stop and settle down
Long as I have you by my side
There's a roof above and good walls all around.
You're my castle, you're my cabin and my instant pleasure dome.
I need you in my house 'cause you're my home.
October 02, 2003
Trickster Mythology
I always get a little bit more crazed that usual (shut up, Sam), when I'm reading pretty much anything Umberto Eco writes. And for Foucault's Pendulum that goes double. In the course of re-absorbing the Diabolicals, et al, the Rosicrucians, hermeneutic Hermetics, I was reminded of yet another book that made me crazy (no, no, no, no, lil bit), Trickster Makes This World, by Lewis Hyde. It talks about trickster figures in mythology, including Hermes, Prometheus, Coyote and Raven.
I pulled out the book, setting it nearby, ready for the moment I finish reading the Eco book. It's likely the most significant book I have read, insofar as impacting my worldview goes. I remember buying it at a new & used bookstore on Church St here in San Francisco. I remember it was an impulse turn into the store, and I remember specifically deciding to apply an orthogonal function (geek) to book-buying, to perhaps introduce me to topics I would never have set out to buy.
I grabbed books based on the colors on their covers. I chose Trickster for the red, out of at least a half-dozen chromatically-named Fairy books, I chose The Orange Fairy Book. I also chose a green one, but its name escapes me at the moment.
So here's where the crazy comes in. And mind you, it's the type of crazy that I was suffering from when I was knee-deep in writing the novel (see A Strong Sense of Place in the left column of this page). It's that syncretic-crazy, where you see connections in EVERYTHING.
Nothing stands apart, and even the most mundane facts, when place next to other completely mundane facts, suddenly come alive with prophetic or mystic meaning. That's what I experienced this morning when I read this.
So Amazon must love me by now, and soon my site will be turning up on all the Templars' Google searches.
And if a coyote shows up at my door, I'll know that he's a Rosicrucian.
You say, I say.
- Herpes:: Simplex
- Freddy:: the Plumber
- October:: U2
- Hunting:: Fishing
- MSN:: yuck
- 36:: Templars
- Hotel:: New Hampshire
- Travesty:: of Justice
- Health:: Care
- Conditions:: Snow
Play it yourself, too.