"Such drama," you will say.
"This is over the top and excessive," you will think.
The logic of depression and the emotions that it produces may seem incredible and ridiculous, especially if articulated in a public forum.
But these thoughts, these feelings, were very real to me. No matter how much they may not have made sense to you. They barely make sense to me, if it is possible that they make sense at all.
So please. Abandon judgement for a moment and find understanding in admitting that you can not grasp the pain and ache I have gone through. I wish I could make sense of it. For you. For myself. But the logic of depression is immuse to reason.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
It's Over
Feeling better. Or at least less paralyzed. Maybe even nihilistic now.
There is nothing I can do about it. There is no way to escape. Might as well keep going.
Don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Push it down so far into the depths that it becomes buried and forgotten.
There is nothing I can do about it. There is no way to escape. Might as well keep going.
Don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Push it down so far into the depths that it becomes buried and forgotten.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Don't Cry in Public Part Two
Not only do expressions of sadness and despair undo themselves in a public forum, but they are discredited as either being foolish or transient.
"Why do you feel so sad? There is so much to be happy about!" they say.
"Come off it! Soon you will figure things out and it will all be ok. This is just a stage you have to pass through." they say.
Sadness and despair have no place in this world.
I am sad. I have no place in this world.
"Why do you feel so sad? There is so much to be happy about!" they say.
"Come off it! Soon you will figure things out and it will all be ok. This is just a stage you have to pass through." they say.
Sadness and despair have no place in this world.
I am sad. I have no place in this world.
Feeding my friends cat, student loan debt that would be left for my parents to pay, furniture left for my room mates to dispose of, the shifts at work I'm scheduled for, might as well finish my Undergrad, wouldn't want to emotionally destroy my parents, my new room mates would have to find someone else to sublet the room I agreed to sublet, the people whom are excited about the short movie I decided to organize would be disappointed, the cost of a flight for my parents to come here and deal with the mess, people who care about me would be sad, someone would have to close my Rogers account and cancel my cell phone.
I think that's all.
I think that's all.
Don't Cry In Public
Sadness is not permissible in public.
Writing about personal sadness and despair in a public forum undoes itself: If I truly feel as inadequate as I do, if I truly feel that I have no pride nor dignity left, if I truly feel as mediocre as I do, how can I expect anyone to read what I write and to care about it?
And so, in a final act of sadness and despair of such a degree that it has become saturated in selfish, over indulgent, self loathing, I concede that I can not expect you to care, nor even to continue reading these words.
The sadness I feel sits like a Sisyphean boulder that I couldn't care to push an inch more weighing down on my crushed and hollowed being. With no pride nor dignity and a numbing self loathing, I can not bring my self to express myself even in the social privacy of my most intimate relations with friends and family. The only thing I can think to do to ease the pressure of the incredible weight pulling me down and down is to cry out as the quasi-anonymous Bedroom Prince alone from the privacy of his bedroom into the vast virtual abyss of cyber space .
Writing about personal sadness and despair in a public forum undoes itself: If I truly feel as inadequate as I do, if I truly feel that I have no pride nor dignity left, if I truly feel as mediocre as I do, how can I expect anyone to read what I write and to care about it?
And so, in a final act of sadness and despair of such a degree that it has become saturated in selfish, over indulgent, self loathing, I concede that I can not expect you to care, nor even to continue reading these words.
The sadness I feel sits like a Sisyphean boulder that I couldn't care to push an inch more weighing down on my crushed and hollowed being. With no pride nor dignity and a numbing self loathing, I can not bring my self to express myself even in the social privacy of my most intimate relations with friends and family. The only thing I can think to do to ease the pressure of the incredible weight pulling me down and down is to cry out as the quasi-anonymous Bedroom Prince alone from the privacy of his bedroom into the vast virtual abyss of cyber space .
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Saturday, April 05, 2008
What do I want to see?
Struggling to choose a film at the local video rental place exacerbates the problem. Comedy? Tragedy? Hollywood? Foreign? Something I've seen before? Or something new? I never seem to know what I want.
from "The Last Kiss"
Stop talking about love. Every asshole in the world says he loves somebody. It means nothing. It still doesn't mean anything. What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you say you love, that's what matters. It's the only thing that counts.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Future Tense
No Pride. No Dignity. No Success. No Prospects.
Is this what they call freedom?
I woud rather have the constraints of a promising future, then be left with the freedom of having nothing at all.
Is this what they call freedom?
I woud rather have the constraints of a promising future, then be left with the freedom of having nothing at all.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Snare of Preparation
There is never time for learning.
There is never time for life.
Only time to exhibit a remarkable ability to achieve greatness in all our endeavours.
There is never time for life.
Only time to exhibit a remarkable ability to achieve greatness in all our endeavours.
Woe Is Me
Why settle for anything less than the best?
I have dreamed too big. I have wanted what is beyond me.
There was never a guarantee. I was foolish to hope. Now I feel the harsh stings of failure.
Maybe I could have succeeded if I had aimed at a more attainable goal...
Why should I accept mediocrity as a worthy attainable goal?
I have dreamed too big. I have wanted what is beyond me.
There was never a guarantee. I was foolish to hope. Now I feel the harsh stings of failure.
Maybe I could have succeeded if I had aimed at a more attainable goal...
Why should I accept mediocrity as a worthy attainable goal?
Saturday, March 22, 2008
A Scene In Time
Go.
I am running, almost out of breath. Don't want to miss my flight. Running. Keep running.
Out of breath.
Stop.
I read the screen listing arrivals, departures. Gone.
I missed my departure.
No where to go. Now where to go? Now. Here.
"Stephen! Stephen!". I hear a voice from across the airport. My lover.
I cringe. Exhale.
"Stephen."
I turn to see a bright face. The face of my lover happy not to have missed me: Happy to see me before I go.
"Stephen! Happy Birthday!"
"It was yesterday," I say with an echo of empty disappointment.
The way regret reflected in his sad eyes.
I shake my head. "No. I don't love you anymore."
Now there is nothing left.
A force hits his lover in the back of the knees, knocking him back, into the air. His lover is flying. "I am flying", his lover thinks to himself in the instant before he makes the discovery of an inevitable result of his flight. "This is going to hurt."
There is a crash. Something is broken.
He still has nothing left but to go.
I am running, almost out of breath. Don't want to miss my flight. Running. Keep running.
Out of breath.
Stop.
I read the screen listing arrivals, departures. Gone.
I missed my departure.
No where to go. Now where to go? Now. Here.
"Stephen! Stephen!". I hear a voice from across the airport. My lover.
I cringe. Exhale.
"Stephen."
I turn to see a bright face. The face of my lover happy not to have missed me: Happy to see me before I go.
"Stephen! Happy Birthday!"
"It was yesterday," I say with an echo of empty disappointment.
The way regret reflected in his sad eyes.
I shake my head. "No. I don't love you anymore."
Now there is nothing left.
A force hits his lover in the back of the knees, knocking him back, into the air. His lover is flying. "I am flying", his lover thinks to himself in the instant before he makes the discovery of an inevitable result of his flight. "This is going to hurt."
There is a crash. Something is broken.
He still has nothing left but to go.
Friday, March 21, 2008
I Feel. You Feel.
You feel things, often beyond your control. Why would we choose sadness if we could choose to feel happy? (I Don't Do Sadness - Or I wouldn't if I could choose not to...) To feel is inevitable: The beauty of an integral experience of being human.
I feel things, often extreme things. Such extreme feelings loose their potency quickly. In retrospect, extreme feelings seem irrational and unreasonably silly. But those feelings were true. Those feelings were provoked by real circumstance. Those feelings were not drama. Or at least not for me.
So I must claim ownership over what I feel. I will not be ashamed, no matter how irrational or unreasonably silly. I will not be ashamed, I will claim ownership and responsibility, but how can I deal with extreme feelings? Is it enough just to let time pass?
I feel things, often extreme things. Such extreme feelings loose their potency quickly. In retrospect, extreme feelings seem irrational and unreasonably silly. But those feelings were true. Those feelings were provoked by real circumstance. Those feelings were not drama. Or at least not for me.
So I must claim ownership over what I feel. I will not be ashamed, no matter how irrational or unreasonably silly. I will not be ashamed, I will claim ownership and responsibility, but how can I deal with extreme feelings? Is it enough just to let time pass?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Worst
I want to go to Grad school. I really do.
The worst is to have only one chance left.
So I got into the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Sounds good? No. Not that good. I got in. They "recommend" me to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts at their institution. But I can't afford to go.
The worst is to get in and not be able to afford to go.
The worst is to doubt your achievement because they can't provide funding, like universities do for other programs.
I got rejected. A lot. From Standford, Duke, Berkeley, Brown, and Northwestern. Rejection is never easy. Another university says that my application is not complete. Not the same as the other rejections, but still a rejection. So only one chance left. That's the worst. Especially when the other option is just not possible. To be accepted but not be able to enroll. That's the worst.
The worst is to know that an eager audience will find satisfaction in my failure.
The worst is to fail in public.
You will say that it is fate I am forced to stay in Toronto (I don't know if I can afford to be here even). You will say that it was just bad luck and I should try again next year. You will shower me with flattery to brighten my spirits. Your words do not change the fact I fail.
The worst is to feel, in the depths of who you are, that you will not be able to endure this failure.
So I wait. With only the smallest glimmer of foolish hope for that one chance left. Waiting for the predicted final failure. A failure that stings like the cruelest of tragic fates: Not a complete failure, I did get into NYU after all, but rather a failure at the mercy of circumstance of my life and my condition; not merely a failure of lack lustre grades, test scores, recommendation letters and other application materials, but a failure born of my poverty as well as my academics and intellectual achievement. No matter what kind of failure it is, complete or partial (Can there really be a difference?), it is failure nonetheless.
My only salvation is the smallest glimmer of foolish hope.
The worst is being a fool.
The worst is failure.
The worst is to have only one chance left.
So I got into the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Sounds good? No. Not that good. I got in. They "recommend" me to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts at their institution. But I can't afford to go.
The worst is to get in and not be able to afford to go.
The worst is to doubt your achievement because they can't provide funding, like universities do for other programs.
I got rejected. A lot. From Standford, Duke, Berkeley, Brown, and Northwestern. Rejection is never easy. Another university says that my application is not complete. Not the same as the other rejections, but still a rejection. So only one chance left. That's the worst. Especially when the other option is just not possible. To be accepted but not be able to enroll. That's the worst.
The worst is to know that an eager audience will find satisfaction in my failure.
The worst is to fail in public.
You will say that it is fate I am forced to stay in Toronto (I don't know if I can afford to be here even). You will say that it was just bad luck and I should try again next year. You will shower me with flattery to brighten my spirits. Your words do not change the fact I fail.
The worst is to feel, in the depths of who you are, that you will not be able to endure this failure.
So I wait. With only the smallest glimmer of foolish hope for that one chance left. Waiting for the predicted final failure. A failure that stings like the cruelest of tragic fates: Not a complete failure, I did get into NYU after all, but rather a failure at the mercy of circumstance of my life and my condition; not merely a failure of lack lustre grades, test scores, recommendation letters and other application materials, but a failure born of my poverty as well as my academics and intellectual achievement. No matter what kind of failure it is, complete or partial (Can there really be a difference?), it is failure nonetheless.
My only salvation is the smallest glimmer of foolish hope.
The worst is being a fool.
The worst is failure.
Enough
It is inadequate to be good. You must be good enough.
It is inadequate to be smart. You must be smart enough.
It is inadequate to be attractive. You much be attractive enough.
It is inadequate to be interesting. You must be interesting enough.
It is inadequate to be sensitive. You must be sensitive enough.
It is inadequate to be talented. You must be talented enough.
It is inadequate to be engaging. You must be engaging enough.
It doesn't matter what I am. I just have to be enough.
It is inadequate to be smart. You must be smart enough.
It is inadequate to be attractive. You much be attractive enough.
It is inadequate to be interesting. You must be interesting enough.
It is inadequate to be sensitive. You must be sensitive enough.
It is inadequate to be talented. You must be talented enough.
It is inadequate to be engaging. You must be engaging enough.
It doesn't matter what I am. I just have to be enough.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Fictional Truths
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense"
We all write our own stories to explain to ourselves who we are, what we are, and what happens in our own lives.
We all write our own stories to explain to ourselves who we are, what we are, and what happens in our own lives.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
I. I. I. I. I.
He has nothing to hold on to. He is cold and poor and uncertain. And happy. At least for now...
Holding a fork in his freezing hand, stabbing romaine lettuce of a Caesar salad he stole from work, he speeds down the dark street. He has no time to enjoy the comforts of sitting and eating at a table.
His room mate hates him. His room mate has told him so. Casually, without much thought, accomplishing the menial tasks of living a student life in an urban apartment, he has found a way, unknowingly, to offend. Trying to navigate his way through minor (and not so minor) transgressions, trying to 'talk it out' (though he may not be as good at communicating as he would like to think), trying to adapt to new living mates (if he only knew what they were thinking!), has proved itself to be much more complicated than previously thought. He wants something positive to experience within the walls of his home. He doesn't always get what he wants.
He was dumped. He has found new lovers. He has learned he can not trust what's old and familiar. He knows he can not trust what is new and unknown. He has someone to hold, but no one to hold on to.
Change happens. Tragedy and hope are always found when the inevitability of change is embraced. People (friends, lovers, room mates) come and go. So does he. Will he move to New York City? Or Chicago? Or Texas? Or to the far too familiar home he finds in his parents basement? And what awaits him at these potential destinations? What next?
He has nothing to hold to. He is cold and poor. And happy. He sees beyond the incidental disappointments to the hope of something fulfilling, satisfying, and positive ahead of him.
The world is always new again.
Holding a fork in his freezing hand, stabbing romaine lettuce of a Caesar salad he stole from work, he speeds down the dark street. He has no time to enjoy the comforts of sitting and eating at a table.
His room mate hates him. His room mate has told him so. Casually, without much thought, accomplishing the menial tasks of living a student life in an urban apartment, he has found a way, unknowingly, to offend. Trying to navigate his way through minor (and not so minor) transgressions, trying to 'talk it out' (though he may not be as good at communicating as he would like to think), trying to adapt to new living mates (if he only knew what they were thinking!), has proved itself to be much more complicated than previously thought. He wants something positive to experience within the walls of his home. He doesn't always get what he wants.
He was dumped. He has found new lovers. He has learned he can not trust what's old and familiar. He knows he can not trust what is new and unknown. He has someone to hold, but no one to hold on to.
Change happens. Tragedy and hope are always found when the inevitability of change is embraced. People (friends, lovers, room mates) come and go. So does he. Will he move to New York City? Or Chicago? Or Texas? Or to the far too familiar home he finds in his parents basement? And what awaits him at these potential destinations? What next?
He has nothing to hold to. He is cold and poor. And happy. He sees beyond the incidental disappointments to the hope of something fulfilling, satisfying, and positive ahead of him.
The world is always new again.
The Blog Paradox
I want to express myself through this anonymous online forum.
I don't want to bore the reader.
I want to access the human, the universal (if that's even possible), through my own experience.
I don't want to seem self indulgent.
I want the freedom to express myself without fear of judgement.
I know so many are far too happy and eager to express negative and frankly mean criticisms of my blog and my person.
Does it have to be one or the other?
Isn't there a way to negotiate these opposing forces?
I don't want to bore the reader.
I want to access the human, the universal (if that's even possible), through my own experience.
I don't want to seem self indulgent.
I want the freedom to express myself without fear of judgement.
I know so many are far too happy and eager to express negative and frankly mean criticisms of my blog and my person.
Does it have to be one or the other?
Isn't there a way to negotiate these opposing forces?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
You.
If only I could tell you what I think I of you. I am sure you would smile and blush. How could you not smile and blush? If you only knew what I think of you... I wish I could tell you.
But.
I can't.
But.
I can't.
Not Enough Sunlight
Maybe it's because I didn't have coffee yet today... Maybe it's because I didn't have sex last night... Maybe it's because I didn't shower till noon... Maybe it's because I lack vitamin D because there is less hours of sunlight during the months of January and February... Maybe it's because I lack vitamins I am not even aware I am lacking... Maybe it's because when I look at you I feel compelled to find joy by holding your hand... Maybe it's because its cold out... Maybe it's because I haven't talked to my mother in over a week... Maybe it's because I'm poor... Maybe it's because it is a month since Christmas (which means another eleven months to do)... Maybe it's because deep down I really don't like Christmas... Maybe it's because I find most men I see today very attractive... Maybe it's because I'm stressed... Maybe it's because I have no reason to be stressed... Maybe it's because I'm tired... Maybe it's because I sleep too much... Maybe there's no reason to feel this way... Maybe there are too many reasons to feel this way...
There is no word for the nothing I feel. Indifference is inadequate. Blase is too descriptive. I can not think of any representation form in language to tell you how I feel.
Maybe that's the problem to begin with...
In an effort to get to understand this despair (even that word is misleading - I am not sad per se, but not happy neither), I fear the untold secrets of my subconscious. There are infinite possibilities that determine how and why I feel and think the way I do: The mingling of the psychological, biological, sexual, and social are too complex to de-code. Discovering how and why I feel and think the way I do may not provide the solution, but rather, add to the problem. What if the secrets of my subconscious reveal a shallow, insecure, petty self?
What if, the catalyst for my thoughts and feelings, my entire being, is less than admirable?
I fear self-understanding. My subconscious is a black mysterious place without limits or boundaries. If I dare venture into this unknown, I would feel so lost and alone.
But I do feel lost and alone... I fear the extremities of being lost and alone. Who knows what depths of loneliness are hidden in my subconscious?
So, where does this rumination leave me?
In the dark...
I'm scared of the dark.
But I can't help thinking that I'd be happier with the light on.
There is no word for the nothing I feel. Indifference is inadequate. Blase is too descriptive. I can not think of any representation form in language to tell you how I feel.
Maybe that's the problem to begin with...
In an effort to get to understand this despair (even that word is misleading - I am not sad per se, but not happy neither), I fear the untold secrets of my subconscious. There are infinite possibilities that determine how and why I feel and think the way I do: The mingling of the psychological, biological, sexual, and social are too complex to de-code. Discovering how and why I feel and think the way I do may not provide the solution, but rather, add to the problem. What if the secrets of my subconscious reveal a shallow, insecure, petty self?
What if, the catalyst for my thoughts and feelings, my entire being, is less than admirable?
I fear self-understanding. My subconscious is a black mysterious place without limits or boundaries. If I dare venture into this unknown, I would feel so lost and alone.
But I do feel lost and alone... I fear the extremities of being lost and alone. Who knows what depths of loneliness are hidden in my subconscious?
So, where does this rumination leave me?
In the dark...
I'm scared of the dark.
But I can't help thinking that I'd be happier with the light on.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Left Behind
I miss you. You are missing. I wish I was with you.
Things seem so simple sitting in your living room. Or drinking a pint at a local pub. Or listening to music driving down Albert St. in your dad's car.
I wish I could go back.
Things seem so much easier...
In retrospect
Things seem so simple sitting in your living room. Or drinking a pint at a local pub. Or listening to music driving down Albert St. in your dad's car.
I wish I could go back.
Things seem so much easier...
In retrospect
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
See Me See You
To see and be seen dominates my thinking. You see? I see.
To see provides access to who and what we are.
To see provides access to who and what we are.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
It's Not About You
"It's not about them. It's about me," he tells me.
I have always followed the rule that in order to engagessexual activity with a person one must find that person sexually attractive. I thought everyone followed that rule. Apparently not.
"So... Were they hot?" I ask.
"Not really," he casually replies.
"How can you have sex with someone who you find less than attractive," I inquire.
"It's not about them. It's about me," he tells me.
What does this say about me?
If he is my boyfriend (and he is), and if we have sex (which we do), then it is possible that he finds me less than attractive. I could be anybody. I can be any body.
I am many things. I am heart. I am soul. I mind. I am body.
But am I just any body?
Does he love me? Yes. There is no doubt.
Does he desire me? Maybe... This is where doubt begins.
I am many things. I am heart. I am soul. I mind. I am body.
But am I just any body?
Does he love me? Yes. There is no doubt.
Does he desire me? Maybe... This is where doubt begins.
Male Gaze
There is something about him. At first glance, you inevitably miss it. You have to take a closer look.
His being exists on the border between natural disposition and keen talent. A subtle crossing of the legs, hands resting on the small of the back, a slight inflection of the voice...
Is it performance? Or is it just the way he is?
Is there a difference?
He traverses, he transgresses, he transcends sexuality. Neither homo nor hetero. Both gay and straight. Never and always bisexual. His sexual appeal appeals to all. He is desire incarnate. He is adored without ever being conscious of adoration.
There is nothing between us. Only my gaze. My gaze constructs a man. My gaze imagines a person. My gaze,God-like, moulds a being from the clay of nothingingness.
Gazing is pleasure. Gazing is thrilling. Gazing is sex.
I am subject. You are object.
I am a voyeur.
His being exists on the border between natural disposition and keen talent. A subtle crossing of the legs, hands resting on the small of the back, a slight inflection of the voice...
Is it performance? Or is it just the way he is?
Is there a difference?
He traverses, he transgresses, he transcends sexuality. Neither homo nor hetero. Both gay and straight. Never and always bisexual. His sexual appeal appeals to all. He is desire incarnate. He is adored without ever being conscious of adoration.
There is nothing between us. Only my gaze. My gaze constructs a man. My gaze imagines a person. My gaze,God-like, moulds a being from the clay of nothingingness.
Gazing is pleasure. Gazing is thrilling. Gazing is sex.
I am subject. You are object.
I am a voyeur.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Resolve and Achieve
This New Year, I resolve to be
1) more active
2) more sensitive
3) academically rigourous
In this New Year, I hope to
1) Graduate University with High Distinction
2) Get into Graduate school
3) Travel (to Pittsburgh, New York, Berlin, Prague, and Rome)
I will resolve.
I will achieve.
1) more active
2) more sensitive
3) academically rigourous
In this New Year, I hope to
1) Graduate University with High Distinction
2) Get into Graduate school
3) Travel (to Pittsburgh, New York, Berlin, Prague, and Rome)
I will resolve.
I will achieve.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Photo-Representation
I never look good in photographs. This provides a real problem.
Do I really look like how I am represented in a photo?
What is the discrepancy between reality and how that reality is represented in a photo?
The photograph was thought to destroy painting as a mode of representation. The photograph is able to accurately represent reality with more precision and detail than a human hand ever could. If this is indeed true, what does that say about me? Am I really as awkward and odd as most (almost every) photograph makes me out to be.? Maybe I would've been more attractive if I lived in an age when a painting was the most common mode of visual representation...
Every possible way to see oneself, either through a mirror, a photograph, or video (a moving photograph), is representation. I will never be able to know what I look like. I will only know what representations of me look like. But what if these representations of me, especially the photograph as representation, are identical to the real thing... What if I am what the photograph shows me?
Do I really look like that?
I hope not.
Do I really look like how I am represented in a photo?
What is the discrepancy between reality and how that reality is represented in a photo?
The photograph was thought to destroy painting as a mode of representation. The photograph is able to accurately represent reality with more precision and detail than a human hand ever could. If this is indeed true, what does that say about me? Am I really as awkward and odd as most (almost every) photograph makes me out to be.? Maybe I would've been more attractive if I lived in an age when a painting was the most common mode of visual representation...
Every possible way to see oneself, either through a mirror, a photograph, or video (a moving photograph), is representation. I will never be able to know what I look like. I will only know what representations of me look like. But what if these representations of me, especially the photograph as representation, are identical to the real thing... What if I am what the photograph shows me?
Do I really look like that?
I hope not.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
onLInES
His message:
hey sexy im 19 years old from brampton im a swimmer with a hott 9 inch dick
His profile:
i live in brampton i have an 11 inch dick that needs sex,
No grammar. Bad spelling.
Nothing is true in cyberspace.
hey sexy im 19 years old from brampton im a swimmer with a hott 9 inch dick
His profile:
i live in brampton i have an 11 inch dick that needs sex,
No grammar. Bad spelling.
Nothing is true in cyberspace.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Masses
They all knew their lines. They all knew their parts.
Stand up. Bow Head. "Lord hear our prayers!" Sing (Know the words. Know the tune) Sit down. Cross Yourself. Stand up. Shakes hands. Sing. Sit down. Stand Up. Cross Yourself. "Lord hear our prayers!" Sit down. Stand up. Bow Head. Silence. Say the Lords Prayer. Sit down. Stand up. Sing. Eat Christ. Drink Christ. Sit down. Stand up. "Lord hear our prayers!" Sit down. Repeat.
It is rare for me to appear in such a performance so absolutely unrehearsed.
I want to Catholic Mass today (even though I'm not Catholic, nor a church going man). I didn't know the first of January was a Holy Day of Obligation (Isn't everyday a day of obligation when you're Catholic?). "Ponder. Treasure the gifts of God," the Priest told the meagre congregation who gathered at St Thomas Moore Chapel early this bitter cold Tuesday morning (Should I treasure the biting cold of a prairie winter - at least it brings beautiful hoar frost). Ponder. Treasure. No matter the context, these are words of wisdom appropos to the first day of a new year.
Stand up. Bow Head. "Lord hear our prayers!" Sing (Know the words. Know the tune) Sit down. Cross Yourself. Stand up. Shakes hands. Sing. Sit down. Stand Up. Cross Yourself. "Lord hear our prayers!" Sit down. Stand up. Bow Head. Silence. Say the Lords Prayer. Sit down. Stand up. Sing. Eat Christ. Drink Christ. Sit down. Stand up. "Lord hear our prayers!" Sit down. Repeat.
It is rare for me to appear in such a performance so absolutely unrehearsed.
I want to Catholic Mass today (even though I'm not Catholic, nor a church going man). I didn't know the first of January was a Holy Day of Obligation (Isn't everyday a day of obligation when you're Catholic?). "Ponder. Treasure the gifts of God," the Priest told the meagre congregation who gathered at St Thomas Moore Chapel early this bitter cold Tuesday morning (Should I treasure the biting cold of a prairie winter - at least it brings beautiful hoar frost). Ponder. Treasure. No matter the context, these are words of wisdom appropos to the first day of a new year.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
When There's Nothing Left to be Done...
At my hometown gay bar...
A seemingly straight guy with a goatee and a straw hat with a beer logo on its face motions me to join him at his table. Despite the warning from my over-weight pet store employee acquaintance, I join him anyway.
"Do you drive?"
"I do."
We're interrupted. It's the rotund homo in his 'Pet-Smart' uniform.
"Don't do what he asks you. Or you're gonna suffer," he says.
"Do you in anyway do drugs?"
"I don't really..."
"Ok. Thanks. You're pretty cute, by the way".
The seemingly straight dude heads back to his possible girlfriend sitting across the bar.
If I had agreed to this drug run, what would have Mr. Pet Shop done to me. Made me "suffer"?
What the Hell does that mean?
When there is nothing to do, you make your own fun. Either that, or you make your own drama.
A seemingly straight guy with a goatee and a straw hat with a beer logo on its face motions me to join him at his table. Despite the warning from my over-weight pet store employee acquaintance, I join him anyway.
"Do you drive?"
"I do."
We're interrupted. It's the rotund homo in his 'Pet-Smart' uniform.
"Don't do what he asks you. Or you're gonna suffer," he says.
"Do you in anyway do drugs?"
"I don't really..."
"Ok. Thanks. You're pretty cute, by the way".
The seemingly straight dude heads back to his possible girlfriend sitting across the bar.
If I had agreed to this drug run, what would have Mr. Pet Shop done to me. Made me "suffer"?
What the Hell does that mean?
When there is nothing to do, you make your own fun. Either that, or you make your own drama.
Home Town Bar
It's Friday night. I can count the number of people in the bar on two hands. If I had come with friends we would have increased the number of patrons present by half. But I am alone. The bar still seems empty.
A rotund drunk thirty-something homo, still in his red 'Pet-smart' uniform, approaches me at the bar. "Let me introduce you to my friends," he slurs. "You look alone and shy. And I want to make sure you have a fun night." I am alone with nothing or no one better. I join him and his friends at their table.
Her name is Jamie and she is a lesbian. It is only stereotypical she is an accountant for C.A.A. She is friendly and non-threatening so I strike up a conversation. We are interrupted by a powerful forty-something prairie lesbian (short hair, dyed auburn, leather jacket and cowboy boots with striking maroon lipstick). "I really like the decorations", Dani mentions motioning to the Dollar-store "HAPPY NEW YEARS" signage and the meager spattering of balloons clumsily taped to the ceiling. "It really makes a difference", the power lesbian concurs. Their friendly demeanor makes up for their lack lustre decorating skills.
Only three people are grooving on the dance floor. Sean is one of them; a member of my rotund friend's circle of companions. He is a faggy bottom; you know the type. His shirt is undone to reveal a tight flat muscled stomach. He wears lip balms marketed toward women. No matter how awkward or inappropriate it is, he is bending over like an MTV booty dancer despite how there are obviously no cameras filming his small twinky ass. Though I would never be as outrageous as he is, we are not that different. I want to be the object of attention and affection and admiration as much as he does. I am just not as brave as he.
Here I am. Alone at the bar on a Friday night with only a fat petstore employee, tragically unstylish lesbians, and an attentioning seeking faggot for company. This is the gay bar in the city where I grew up. Am I home?
A rotund drunk thirty-something homo, still in his red 'Pet-smart' uniform, approaches me at the bar. "Let me introduce you to my friends," he slurs. "You look alone and shy. And I want to make sure you have a fun night." I am alone with nothing or no one better. I join him and his friends at their table.
Her name is Jamie and she is a lesbian. It is only stereotypical she is an accountant for C.A.A. She is friendly and non-threatening so I strike up a conversation. We are interrupted by a powerful forty-something prairie lesbian (short hair, dyed auburn, leather jacket and cowboy boots with striking maroon lipstick). "I really like the decorations", Dani mentions motioning to the Dollar-store "HAPPY NEW YEARS" signage and the meager spattering of balloons clumsily taped to the ceiling. "It really makes a difference", the power lesbian concurs. Their friendly demeanor makes up for their lack lustre decorating skills.
Only three people are grooving on the dance floor. Sean is one of them; a member of my rotund friend's circle of companions. He is a faggy bottom; you know the type. His shirt is undone to reveal a tight flat muscled stomach. He wears lip balms marketed toward women. No matter how awkward or inappropriate it is, he is bending over like an MTV booty dancer despite how there are obviously no cameras filming his small twinky ass. Though I would never be as outrageous as he is, we are not that different. I want to be the object of attention and affection and admiration as much as he does. I am just not as brave as he.
Here I am. Alone at the bar on a Friday night with only a fat petstore employee, tragically unstylish lesbians, and an attentioning seeking faggot for company. This is the gay bar in the city where I grew up. Am I home?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The Plague of Social Existence
There are always more than two people present in any relationship. Be it friends, family, lovers, or even casual acquaintances, directly or indirectly we infect each other. What exists between you and your mom, or you and your room mate, or you and your best bud, or you and your boyfriend does not remain resistant to the myriad of relationships you are exposed to with everyone else in your life. What exists between you and your mom, is not immune to what you share with your boyfriend. Your casual conversation with your room mate is not quarantined from your drunken banter with your best bud.
We are contagious.
It is foolish to think that you're a singular organism that maintains isolated relationships with another isolated singular living organism.
We are all symbiotic.
We are not insusceptible to the actions of those around us. Like it or not we infect each others existence.
We are contagious.
It is foolish to think that you're a singular organism that maintains isolated relationships with another isolated singular living organism.
We are all symbiotic.
We are not insusceptible to the actions of those around us. Like it or not we infect each others existence.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Don't Unassume Anything
He tells me I am "attractive in that unassuming way." What exactly does that mean? The first thought that comes to mind is that I would rather have people assume that I am attractive, rather than unassume I am. Phrasing this jargon of beauty in it's opposite still leaves me unsure of what exactly it means. I am left feeling like what was intended to be a compliment has subtly exposed a complicated judgement of my physical appearance. Added to what has inadvertently become a complicated instance of superficial judgement is the fact that the one man who has expressed this opinion is my lover. Five words have opened up Pandoras box of the discourse of beauty.
I suppose that being "attractive in that unassuming way" can be read as "You aren't ever going to be a model, but that doesn't mean you're ugly." Or even, if I was feeling more positive than I am, it can be read as "You aren't ever going to be a model, but I still find you hot." If that is the case then, why can't I be a model? Why can't I be 'model hot'? If my lover still finds me 'hot", then why wouldn't he concede that I could be a model. Are we so influenced by the media that we on one hand buy into their model of beauty (represented in their beautiful models), and on the other hand, have an opinion of beauty that is constructed by our autonomous ideals of tastes and desires?
I believe that we are socialized to divide our objects of desire into those who would have social currency in beauty, and those who we believe we are one of few people who find beautiful. If this is indeed the case, then how am I supposed to feel about being a member of the latter group? Furthermore, how am I suppose to feel about the fact that, though my lover does find me attractive, he apparently believes (or assumes) that I am not am object of desire for many others. Maybe that is where this phrasology originates: somone people are attractive enough that it is assumed that the general population would also find them attractive. But according to my lover, I am not one of those people.
Through all this rhetoric that does not seem to point to any conclusion but instead merely opening up a discourse about the socio-cultural construction of beauty, I will end with three concessions:
I wish I felt attractive (I don't at present because I am sick. I think I usually do though)
I want to be beautiful/physically attractive/hot/model hot/sexy/cute/handsome/etc...
I do not want to be "attractive in that unassuming way": Rather, I would like to be "attractive in that assuming way".
I suppose that being "attractive in that unassuming way" can be read as "You aren't ever going to be a model, but that doesn't mean you're ugly." Or even, if I was feeling more positive than I am, it can be read as "You aren't ever going to be a model, but I still find you hot." If that is the case then, why can't I be a model? Why can't I be 'model hot'? If my lover still finds me 'hot", then why wouldn't he concede that I could be a model. Are we so influenced by the media that we on one hand buy into their model of beauty (represented in their beautiful models), and on the other hand, have an opinion of beauty that is constructed by our autonomous ideals of tastes and desires?
I believe that we are socialized to divide our objects of desire into those who would have social currency in beauty, and those who we believe we are one of few people who find beautiful. If this is indeed the case, then how am I supposed to feel about being a member of the latter group? Furthermore, how am I suppose to feel about the fact that, though my lover does find me attractive, he apparently believes (or assumes) that I am not am object of desire for many others. Maybe that is where this phrasology originates: somone people are attractive enough that it is assumed that the general population would also find them attractive. But according to my lover, I am not one of those people.
Through all this rhetoric that does not seem to point to any conclusion but instead merely opening up a discourse about the socio-cultural construction of beauty, I will end with three concessions:
I wish I felt attractive (I don't at present because I am sick. I think I usually do though)
I want to be beautiful/physically attractive/hot/model hot/sexy/cute/handsome/etc...
I do not want to be "attractive in that unassuming way": Rather, I would like to be "attractive in that assuming way".
Friday, September 21, 2007
A Failure at Capitalism
I have money to spend. So I have been shopping. There are always so many things to buy. There are always so many things you can convince yourself you need. With some disposable cash in your pocket it seems that there are infinite possibilities. Shopping soon kills these infinite possiblities. Five minutes in any store soon proves how limited my resources are.
There are so many things I want. There are so many things I want to convince myself I need. But I can't. I am forced to be selective. I have to carefully choose the items that I want inspire my act of self-persuasion. Do I want a new bag or new shoes? I really don't need either, but I want to need both. No matter what, I will ultimately end up not getting what I want, and only buying what I need.
Shopping isn't fun. Shopping only shows me how much I don't have and can't afford to buy.
I have money to spend. But never enough. I hate shopping.
There are so many things I want. There are so many things I want to convince myself I need. But I can't. I am forced to be selective. I have to carefully choose the items that I want inspire my act of self-persuasion. Do I want a new bag or new shoes? I really don't need either, but I want to need both. No matter what, I will ultimately end up not getting what I want, and only buying what I need.
Shopping isn't fun. Shopping only shows me how much I don't have and can't afford to buy.
I have money to spend. But never enough. I hate shopping.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Progress
I could never go back.
But somewhere else instead.
I owe everything and nothing to all of you.
But somewhere else instead.
I owe everything and nothing to all of you.
Currency Concerto
Music is the social capital of the hip, young, & beautiful. As with all forms of capital, I live below the ledger-line of poverty.
Airport Security
The wheelchair sits casually folded off to the side, merely placed as to be not in anyones way. The bridge to the aircraft slopes downward. Something inside me yearns to calmly unfold the wheelchair, sit down, and, like a cheap ride at the fair, roll down the bridge to the entrance of the aircraft, then, just as casually as I had unfolded the wheelchair, stand up, fold the wheelchair, and set it off to the side, as to not be in anyones way.
Something inside me yearns to take a wild ride on a wheelchair; a triumphant entrance to my domestic flight from Regina Saskatchewan to Edmonton Alberta.
Something inside me places on foot in front of the other, without any conscious effort, guiding these thoughts free floating in the comfort and safety of my mind, to seat 11a, on flight 215.
Something inside me yearns to take a wild ride on a wheelchair; a triumphant entrance to my domestic flight from Regina Saskatchewan to Edmonton Alberta.
Something inside me places on foot in front of the other, without any conscious effort, guiding these thoughts free floating in the comfort and safety of my mind, to seat 11a, on flight 215.
Monday, September 03, 2007
I Know Where I Belong
I know where I belong. And it isn't here. I no longer belong in this place. This place I once called home.
It has been ten days since I left Toronto. Ten days of meeting old friends for drinks and living in my parents basement. I know these faces, I know these walls, almost better than I know anything else. Or at least I know them in memory.
We are different now. Things have changed as things do. We still share a bond, something special that is a part of my present because it is entrenched in my past. Yet the past is past, and I've grown so much since when we went separate ways.
The love is still in my memory, still in my heart...
I am different now. I know where I come from now that I have left. But I have left. I no longer belong here. I belong in Toronto.
I belong home.
It has been ten days since I left Toronto. Ten days of meeting old friends for drinks and living in my parents basement. I know these faces, I know these walls, almost better than I know anything else. Or at least I know them in memory.
We are different now. Things have changed as things do. We still share a bond, something special that is a part of my present because it is entrenched in my past. Yet the past is past, and I've grown so much since when we went separate ways.
The love is still in my memory, still in my heart...
I am different now. I know where I come from now that I have left. But I have left. I no longer belong here. I belong in Toronto.
I belong home.
Godzilla and Ballet
"You have to think of golf like ballet; graceful and smooth. You can't just come at the ball and hit it like you're Godzilla".
He wants me to love golf as much as he does. So he tries to appeal to my taste.
This is how my father thinks. This is how my father loves.
He wants me to love golf as much as he does. So he tries to appeal to my taste.
This is how my father thinks. This is how my father loves.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Anti-Blog
There are things that I can not tell you. I have secrets.
Even in these words as I read/write them.
The world binds me to secrecy.
Even in these words as I read/write them.
The world binds me to secrecy.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Fortune's Fool
Life has been good to me. Almost too good of late.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"It sucks to be me. It sucks to me be."
- from "Avenue Q"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Last week I booked and shot a commercial for Ikea. To be an actor and do what an actor does instead of just auditioning over and over and over again without any success. Sure, it was a ten second spot, without much character development nor plot, but it was still in front of a camera, it was still a challenge, it was still acting. Now I am an actor because I act. I no longer feel ashamed calling myself something that I am not by virtue of the fact I did not do what is necessary part of that which I call myself. More than being able to be justified in calling myself an actor, I am happier to have acted. Hopefully I will land another commercial soon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Fringe festival happens every July in Toronto. This year, I decided I would buy a five play pass to force myself to watch some shows. I saw a show that happened in a pool on a raft, one about the foils of workings, another about Betrayal (called Betrayal), one about what it means to be a man, and another musical that featured the Cabaret music and Burlesque. My favorite moment in recent memory, was the feeling of anxious, happy anticipation as the lights go down before the curtain goes up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The City of Toronto holds a festival in both the summer and winter in which restaurants offer their haute cuisine for very reasonable prix fixe prices. My dear friend and I went for lunch the other afternoon. He had the mixed greens, Pork Tenderloin, and I had the Gazpaucho, and Chicken crepe in Djion jus. We shared a carafe of wine, glasses of champagne, and Chocolate torte. All for under fifty dollars. Good food. Good friends. Good time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"What a wonderful feeling! I'm happy again. Just singing, singing in the rain"
- from "Singing in the Rain"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I love musicals. Even when life isn't good, they still find some reason for music. No matter what it is that is keeping them down, it's still living, and they still feel so alive they have no other option to let go and sing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It didn't go well, but who knows. You never know with these things, it's a real crap shoot. With auditions for commercials, you can't let them get to you, you just got to keep moving on. So off I went, for the rest of my day. I walked to the exit. Shit. It's raining. I decide to brave it. It is only a block to the transit shelter. A little water didn't hurt anybody. I put my headphones in my ears and I turn on the music. I open the door and step out. I can't stay where I am.
It's wet. It's raining harder than I thought. But it's warm. It's almost nice. No. It is nice. I thought, it's rain, and being wet from the rain isn't nice, but that's not true. And my music. It moves me. So I move. No one is on the street so there is plenty of room to dance. So I dance. The rain is refreshing. Dancing on the street is liberating.
Keep going. Move forward. Even if it's raining. You may enjoy it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Each time you smile, it will only last awhile."
- from "Avenue Q"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel that it is only a matter of time before I become fortune's fool. My life is so good as of late. I have so much to look forward.
Deep down, some how, I think something has to go wrong. It can't be good like this for much longer. Life doesn't work that way.
But even when it rains, even when something doesn't go your way, just keep singing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"It sucks to be me. It sucks to me be."
- from "Avenue Q"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Last week I booked and shot a commercial for Ikea. To be an actor and do what an actor does instead of just auditioning over and over and over again without any success. Sure, it was a ten second spot, without much character development nor plot, but it was still in front of a camera, it was still a challenge, it was still acting. Now I am an actor because I act. I no longer feel ashamed calling myself something that I am not by virtue of the fact I did not do what is necessary part of that which I call myself. More than being able to be justified in calling myself an actor, I am happier to have acted. Hopefully I will land another commercial soon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Fringe festival happens every July in Toronto. This year, I decided I would buy a five play pass to force myself to watch some shows. I saw a show that happened in a pool on a raft, one about the foils of workings, another about Betrayal (called Betrayal), one about what it means to be a man, and another musical that featured the Cabaret music and Burlesque. My favorite moment in recent memory, was the feeling of anxious, happy anticipation as the lights go down before the curtain goes up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The City of Toronto holds a festival in both the summer and winter in which restaurants offer their haute cuisine for very reasonable prix fixe prices. My dear friend and I went for lunch the other afternoon. He had the mixed greens, Pork Tenderloin, and I had the Gazpaucho, and Chicken crepe in Djion jus. We shared a carafe of wine, glasses of champagne, and Chocolate torte. All for under fifty dollars. Good food. Good friends. Good time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"What a wonderful feeling! I'm happy again. Just singing, singing in the rain"
- from "Singing in the Rain"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I love musicals. Even when life isn't good, they still find some reason for music. No matter what it is that is keeping them down, it's still living, and they still feel so alive they have no other option to let go and sing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It didn't go well, but who knows. You never know with these things, it's a real crap shoot. With auditions for commercials, you can't let them get to you, you just got to keep moving on. So off I went, for the rest of my day. I walked to the exit. Shit. It's raining. I decide to brave it. It is only a block to the transit shelter. A little water didn't hurt anybody. I put my headphones in my ears and I turn on the music. I open the door and step out. I can't stay where I am.
It's wet. It's raining harder than I thought. But it's warm. It's almost nice. No. It is nice. I thought, it's rain, and being wet from the rain isn't nice, but that's not true. And my music. It moves me. So I move. No one is on the street so there is plenty of room to dance. So I dance. The rain is refreshing. Dancing on the street is liberating.
Keep going. Move forward. Even if it's raining. You may enjoy it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Each time you smile, it will only last awhile."
- from "Avenue Q"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel that it is only a matter of time before I become fortune's fool. My life is so good as of late. I have so much to look forward.
Deep down, some how, I think something has to go wrong. It can't be good like this for much longer. Life doesn't work that way.
But even when it rains, even when something doesn't go your way, just keep singing.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
If I had a million dollars...
He is middle aged without children nor spouse. He lives in a boarding house and has very little privacy. He has an unspecified illness and lives off of disability insurance. He recently won the largest single jackpot in Canadian History. He does not have much going for him. His life will undoubtably drastically change.
I want to win the lottery. I'm not going to lie. I would like not to have to worry about paying rent and my phone bill. I would like to not have to order the cheapier options off the menu because I can't afford the really expensive stuff. I would like to have the luxury of shopping without having to look at the price tag. It would be lovely if I could travel, if I had the time. But that's the thing, even if I won the lottery, I wouldn't have the time.
Money can't buy you everything.
So unlike the most recent winner of the 6/49, my life would not necessarily change all that drastically. Having more money wouldn't make me smarter or a better academic. Winning the lottery wouldn't make me more talented or a better singer/actor/dancer. Being the richest man in the world wouldn't make me more creative or a better artist. In fact, being wealthy may hinder my artistic process. Sure, maybe I could afford more time to study by quitting my job, or afford singing and dancing lessons to help my career as a performer, but that doesn't guarentee success. Having money to afford the time or the classes to improve myself still relies on me as a person primarily: just paying for the classes, or having the time for studying will not insure improvement. So, I must conclude that, even if I won the lottery, I would still be doing everything I can do to get into grad school and would still be practicing before every audition. What matters most in life, what is important to me, money will never be able to purchase.
Money can change a life, but it can't buy you skills, smarts, or talent.
That doesn't mean that I don't want to win the lottery.
I have my ticket in my pocket.
I want to win the lottery. I'm not going to lie. I would like not to have to worry about paying rent and my phone bill. I would like to not have to order the cheapier options off the menu because I can't afford the really expensive stuff. I would like to have the luxury of shopping without having to look at the price tag. It would be lovely if I could travel, if I had the time. But that's the thing, even if I won the lottery, I wouldn't have the time.
Money can't buy you everything.
So unlike the most recent winner of the 6/49, my life would not necessarily change all that drastically. Having more money wouldn't make me smarter or a better academic. Winning the lottery wouldn't make me more talented or a better singer/actor/dancer. Being the richest man in the world wouldn't make me more creative or a better artist. In fact, being wealthy may hinder my artistic process. Sure, maybe I could afford more time to study by quitting my job, or afford singing and dancing lessons to help my career as a performer, but that doesn't guarentee success. Having money to afford the time or the classes to improve myself still relies on me as a person primarily: just paying for the classes, or having the time for studying will not insure improvement. So, I must conclude that, even if I won the lottery, I would still be doing everything I can do to get into grad school and would still be practicing before every audition. What matters most in life, what is important to me, money will never be able to purchase.
Money can change a life, but it can't buy you skills, smarts, or talent.
That doesn't mean that I don't want to win the lottery.
I have my ticket in my pocket.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Beauty and Desire Has No Gender
No matter what you pronoun you use, they are beautiful.
Sitting on the subway, I watched as the young -person- got onto the train. They were at least six feet tall. Well muscled. They had alabaster smooth skin. Deep big eyes. A ball cap circled their head. A white tank top, covered in black grease stains, held tightly to their torso, accentuating either developed pectoral muscles or small breasts, I couldn't tell which. The tank top revealed toned muscled biceps though. From their hips draped a pair of cargo pants, highlighting a small but round ass. A hammer hung from their belt loop, almost seeming stereotypical. I stared as they stood. Just stood. But with an air of confidence to the point of machissmo, maybe even arrogance. He was definitely masculine.
It took a moment of staring for me to entertain the idea that this beautiful body maybe a she, not a he. If I see a body that inspires desire, I immediately assume it must be male. This was an exception. Then it occurred to me that this person maybe transgendered, in between being a he and she. What parts did they have?
I was definitely attracted to this body, but could I have sex with that body if that body had a vagina? Still enamoured with this beauty in the underground, I easily convinced myself that I could indeed have sex with them, even if they are a woman. They were definitely masculine enough, and apparently, that's what matters. At least to me.
I was definitely attracted to this body, but would I be attracted to their personality? How much would their gender influence my perception of who they are as a person? Maybe it isn't the female body that I don't sexually desire, but the female personality, if there is such a thing.
Is it cultural or biological?
No matter if it is cultural or biological. That body, the body on the subway, was beautiful.
It still haunts me.
Sitting on the subway, I watched as the young -person- got onto the train. They were at least six feet tall. Well muscled. They had alabaster smooth skin. Deep big eyes. A ball cap circled their head. A white tank top, covered in black grease stains, held tightly to their torso, accentuating either developed pectoral muscles or small breasts, I couldn't tell which. The tank top revealed toned muscled biceps though. From their hips draped a pair of cargo pants, highlighting a small but round ass. A hammer hung from their belt loop, almost seeming stereotypical. I stared as they stood. Just stood. But with an air of confidence to the point of machissmo, maybe even arrogance. He was definitely masculine.
It took a moment of staring for me to entertain the idea that this beautiful body maybe a she, not a he. If I see a body that inspires desire, I immediately assume it must be male. This was an exception. Then it occurred to me that this person maybe transgendered, in between being a he and she. What parts did they have?
I was definitely attracted to this body, but could I have sex with that body if that body had a vagina? Still enamoured with this beauty in the underground, I easily convinced myself that I could indeed have sex with them, even if they are a woman. They were definitely masculine enough, and apparently, that's what matters. At least to me.
I was definitely attracted to this body, but would I be attracted to their personality? How much would their gender influence my perception of who they are as a person? Maybe it isn't the female body that I don't sexually desire, but the female personality, if there is such a thing.
Is it cultural or biological?
No matter if it is cultural or biological. That body, the body on the subway, was beautiful.
It still haunts me.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
The Perils of Writing OR That's Not What I Meant
Even though the words of my latest blog, "Not Corporately Recognized", were my own. Even though I apparently clearly laid out certain circumstances of my own life accurately through language. Even though I shared my disappointment with not having my relationship recognized by a corporation, that last blog didn't seem to communicate what I really met.
Of course there is a special bond between mother and son, one that I hope will never be disrupted between my mother and I, and one I hope I will never disrupt between anyone and their mother. I just wanted to note how, in our uber capitalist and consumer world, corporate recognition matters along with other more personal forms of relationship recognition, such as committments and acts of affection.
Yet, no one who has responded to my blog seemed to have interpreted it that way. I thought it was clear: I didn't finish the post with a comment about his mother, but about my (non-existent) presence on his corporate phone account. Yet, that was not enough to communicate the intended meaning.
Do you get what I'm trying to say here? If you don't, just call me, and we can get together and I can explain it to you in person. It's easier that way.
So, I hope that I have been succesfull in communicating the meaning of this blog to you. That meaning being that it is difficult to communicate meaning through the written word, because the written word is open to interpretation.
Of course there is a special bond between mother and son, one that I hope will never be disrupted between my mother and I, and one I hope I will never disrupt between anyone and their mother. I just wanted to note how, in our uber capitalist and consumer world, corporate recognition matters along with other more personal forms of relationship recognition, such as committments and acts of affection.
Yet, no one who has responded to my blog seemed to have interpreted it that way. I thought it was clear: I didn't finish the post with a comment about his mother, but about my (non-existent) presence on his corporate phone account. Yet, that was not enough to communicate the intended meaning.
Do you get what I'm trying to say here? If you don't, just call me, and we can get together and I can explain it to you in person. It's easier that way.
So, I hope that I have been succesfull in communicating the meaning of this blog to you. That meaning being that it is difficult to communicate meaning through the written word, because the written word is open to interpretation.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Not Corporately Recognized
He's back. He has been out of the country for almost two years and he is finally back.
Home. To stay.
So he has to get a new cell phone. The weird thing about getting a new cell phone is you have to give the Corporate company that is selling you your mobile service a different phone number just in case you decide to stop paying your bill and they shut off your service and they need to hunt you down for their money.
So he's back. He's back so he can be with me. He's back for other reasons but mostly so he can be with me. Yet, when giving the Corporate company an alternate phone number he gives them his mothers phone number and not mine. But I thought he was back to be with me! He is not here so he can be with his mother!
So, unofficially, through word and deed only, but not financially or legally documented, he is back. For me. Not for his mother.
Maybe according to facebook we are in a relationship. But according to Telus, I am nobody to him.
Home. To stay.
So he has to get a new cell phone. The weird thing about getting a new cell phone is you have to give the Corporate company that is selling you your mobile service a different phone number just in case you decide to stop paying your bill and they shut off your service and they need to hunt you down for their money.
So he's back. He's back so he can be with me. He's back for other reasons but mostly so he can be with me. Yet, when giving the Corporate company an alternate phone number he gives them his mothers phone number and not mine. But I thought he was back to be with me! He is not here so he can be with his mother!
So, unofficially, through word and deed only, but not financially or legally documented, he is back. For me. Not for his mother.
Maybe according to facebook we are in a relationship. But according to Telus, I am nobody to him.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
I Left You But Never Went Anywhere At All
I have been away. That's not to say that I have not been where I usually am. I have not been on vacation or out of the country on business. I just have not been blogging. And for you, my readers, that means I have been away. In the abstract and non-phenomological terms of cyber space, I have been away.
But here I am. Writing to you. For you. To me. For myself. I am back.
Changed but the same. Different.
It has not been that I am without ideas. Ideas are the source, the point of departure, for all creative activity. I can think of in this moment many times in which I have been out and about living my life and an idea struck me. I have just been lazy. I have just been lazy and cowardly. I just have not put these ideas out there in cyber space. What good is an idea it is not shared?
So I have mustered the energy and the time to make time and energy to share my ideas with you, my dearest blogger friends. I have been neglecting you and I don't want to be that guy. You are important to me, both in your blogger cyberspace manifestations of your unique personalities, and you as people, as friends. So I reach out through non-spatial cyberspace with an idea to touch the lives and hearts of my online friends. I reach out with one single idea.
To be friends. To reach out. To share. To say something. Anything.
It is not the content. It is not the thought that counts either. It is the action that means the world. Or in this case, it is the action that means all of cyber space.
But here I am. Writing to you. For you. To me. For myself. I am back.
Changed but the same. Different.
It has not been that I am without ideas. Ideas are the source, the point of departure, for all creative activity. I can think of in this moment many times in which I have been out and about living my life and an idea struck me. I have just been lazy. I have just been lazy and cowardly. I just have not put these ideas out there in cyber space. What good is an idea it is not shared?
So I have mustered the energy and the time to make time and energy to share my ideas with you, my dearest blogger friends. I have been neglecting you and I don't want to be that guy. You are important to me, both in your blogger cyberspace manifestations of your unique personalities, and you as people, as friends. So I reach out through non-spatial cyberspace with an idea to touch the lives and hearts of my online friends. I reach out with one single idea.
To be friends. To reach out. To share. To say something. Anything.
It is not the content. It is not the thought that counts either. It is the action that means the world. Or in this case, it is the action that means all of cyber space.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Irreplaceable
I am in an open relationship. My boyfriend and I agreed that we both have needs, sexual needs, we will want satisfied. And seeing as the distance between us prevents us from being able to satsify each others needs, we are free to find temporary replacements.
---------------------------------------------------
This replacement was sexy I guess. Physically not the hottest man I have ever seen, but there was something about him I couldn't seem to put into words. He is in med school for psychiatry. That in itself sparked my interest. I have always been reluctant to see a shrink, but this time the circumstances are different.
We agreed to meet at the club. Meeting at a crowded social space is always a good idea. If we don't click, we can go on our way and find someone else to fuck that evening. I think I am pretty set on fooling around with the psychiatrist though. I won't need to go on the prowl for another lover. It is time to see my shrink.
---------------------------------------------------
"You've slept with him as well?", I ask Jacob.
"Your writer fuck buddy is the same guy as my writer fuck buddy?", Jacob asks back. We are putting together the pieces. We shouldn't be surprised. The gay world is small. It is statistically probable my friends and I will have fucked the same people.
"I guess so."
"I guess he's find someone else to fool around with since I have cut him loose. Ouch. It stings to be so quickly replaced."
---------------------------------------------------
The line to the club is long. Jacob and I thought we arrived early, but it will be one a.m. before we get in and check our coats and make our way to the dance floor. I am getting anxious. I am excited to have my first session with my shrink.
Who happens to meet us in line? Our writer fuck buddy. The guy that both Jacob and I have fooled around with. The writer fuck buddy blushes when he figures out that we all know that we all have, in different permutations, all had sex with each other. The gay world is small.
----------------------------------------------------
We finally get into the club, check our coats, and get to the dance floor.
The writer fuck buddy and Jacob are hitting it off. Again. Ouch. It stings to be so quickly replaced. Again. In front of your own eyes.
I go on my hunt for my psychiatrist. He is what I came for anyway.
There he is. His lips are locked with a boy who looks eerily similar to me. It is 1:15. I am too late. He has found another lover. Ouch. It stings to be replaced with someone who is your younger, cuter, gayer doppelganger.
---------------------------------------------------
Weeks later. At another club on another Saturday night. Nothing seems to change. Everything seems to stay the same. Only slightly altered.
I have seen him before. He is that boy from my poli sci class. Cute. Quiet. Academic. The type of university boy I could have a last fling with before the return of my boyfriend. Just the type of guy I am looking for. We smile. We flirt. This is going well.
Who else do I find at the club? My shrink. Or the shrink that was to be but never happened. I have to decide. I can't pass up my shrink again. This is my chance. I was too late before. Better late than never I always say. We smile. We flirt. This is going well.
----------------------------------------------------
I am about to leave the club. My academic cutie runs up to me before I can leave. The shrink is waiting outside. I can't stay any longer. I don't want to be too late this time and have the shrink leave me again.
The academic cuties asks if he can give me his number. "Sure" I say. I won't call him. I am about to have my first of many sessiosn with my shrink. But it's nice to say that you got someone's number. I quickly jot his number into my phone and run out to meet my shrink.
------------------------------------------------------
The psychiatrist is beige in the most boring possible way. His apartment is beige. Decorated in that false style that is IKEA chic. His sense of humour is beige. His life or going to Med School and getting drunk at a gay bar on the weekend is beige. Worst of all, the sex is beige.
He is uncaring. He is insensitive. We don't kiss. He does not hold me. He barely touches me, which is a feat in the act of having sex.
HE invited me back to his place. If HE didn't want me, why did he ask if I wanted to see his new beige IKEA patio furniture?
He comes. I don't. He rolls over and curls up into a private little ball and passes out.
I lay on my back. Why did I think that I was missing out? Why did I think that this shrink was hot? There is something about him I can't put into words, but that something isn't a good thing.
--------------------------------------------------------
I love my boyfriend. I can get off masturbating. Why do I figure I need another body around when I need to come?
A replacement is just that. A replacement. Not the original. Not what I really want. Just a substitution. A inadequate similarity. An unsatisfying temporary solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. A replacement is just that. Not the real thing.
But a boy gets lonely...
Should I call my academic cutie?
--------------------------------------------------------
a la gauche, a la gauche.
Toute des chose tu a dans un boite a la gauche.....
---------------------------------------------------
This replacement was sexy I guess. Physically not the hottest man I have ever seen, but there was something about him I couldn't seem to put into words. He is in med school for psychiatry. That in itself sparked my interest. I have always been reluctant to see a shrink, but this time the circumstances are different.
We agreed to meet at the club. Meeting at a crowded social space is always a good idea. If we don't click, we can go on our way and find someone else to fuck that evening. I think I am pretty set on fooling around with the psychiatrist though. I won't need to go on the prowl for another lover. It is time to see my shrink.
---------------------------------------------------
"You've slept with him as well?", I ask Jacob.
"Your writer fuck buddy is the same guy as my writer fuck buddy?", Jacob asks back. We are putting together the pieces. We shouldn't be surprised. The gay world is small. It is statistically probable my friends and I will have fucked the same people.
"I guess so."
"I guess he's find someone else to fool around with since I have cut him loose. Ouch. It stings to be so quickly replaced."
---------------------------------------------------
The line to the club is long. Jacob and I thought we arrived early, but it will be one a.m. before we get in and check our coats and make our way to the dance floor. I am getting anxious. I am excited to have my first session with my shrink.
Who happens to meet us in line? Our writer fuck buddy. The guy that both Jacob and I have fooled around with. The writer fuck buddy blushes when he figures out that we all know that we all have, in different permutations, all had sex with each other. The gay world is small.
----------------------------------------------------
We finally get into the club, check our coats, and get to the dance floor.
The writer fuck buddy and Jacob are hitting it off. Again. Ouch. It stings to be so quickly replaced. Again. In front of your own eyes.
I go on my hunt for my psychiatrist. He is what I came for anyway.
There he is. His lips are locked with a boy who looks eerily similar to me. It is 1:15. I am too late. He has found another lover. Ouch. It stings to be replaced with someone who is your younger, cuter, gayer doppelganger.
---------------------------------------------------
Weeks later. At another club on another Saturday night. Nothing seems to change. Everything seems to stay the same. Only slightly altered.
I have seen him before. He is that boy from my poli sci class. Cute. Quiet. Academic. The type of university boy I could have a last fling with before the return of my boyfriend. Just the type of guy I am looking for. We smile. We flirt. This is going well.
Who else do I find at the club? My shrink. Or the shrink that was to be but never happened. I have to decide. I can't pass up my shrink again. This is my chance. I was too late before. Better late than never I always say. We smile. We flirt. This is going well.
----------------------------------------------------
I am about to leave the club. My academic cutie runs up to me before I can leave. The shrink is waiting outside. I can't stay any longer. I don't want to be too late this time and have the shrink leave me again.
The academic cuties asks if he can give me his number. "Sure" I say. I won't call him. I am about to have my first of many sessiosn with my shrink. But it's nice to say that you got someone's number. I quickly jot his number into my phone and run out to meet my shrink.
------------------------------------------------------
The psychiatrist is beige in the most boring possible way. His apartment is beige. Decorated in that false style that is IKEA chic. His sense of humour is beige. His life or going to Med School and getting drunk at a gay bar on the weekend is beige. Worst of all, the sex is beige.
He is uncaring. He is insensitive. We don't kiss. He does not hold me. He barely touches me, which is a feat in the act of having sex.
HE invited me back to his place. If HE didn't want me, why did he ask if I wanted to see his new beige IKEA patio furniture?
He comes. I don't. He rolls over and curls up into a private little ball and passes out.
I lay on my back. Why did I think that I was missing out? Why did I think that this shrink was hot? There is something about him I can't put into words, but that something isn't a good thing.
--------------------------------------------------------
I love my boyfriend. I can get off masturbating. Why do I figure I need another body around when I need to come?
A replacement is just that. A replacement. Not the original. Not what I really want. Just a substitution. A inadequate similarity. An unsatisfying temporary solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. A replacement is just that. Not the real thing.
But a boy gets lonely...
Should I call my academic cutie?
--------------------------------------------------------
a la gauche, a la gauche.
Toute des chose tu a dans un boite a la gauche.....
Saturday, March 03, 2007
On Beauty, Desire, and The Effects of Time
He has large vibrant green eyes. He is tall with broad shoulders and olive skin. Curly hair tumbles off his head, seeming as if it might fall to the grown but floats magically framing his face. Two days of stubble highlights his strong jaw line (I wonder what he looks like when shaven...). His clothes both hide and hint at his lean muscled frame underneath. Though seeming effortless, his muscled frame, that of Adonis of Greek myth, is a product of hours at the gym.
He is 21 or 22... all I know is that he is younger than I.
He is young. He is beautiful. He will get older.
-------------------------------------------------
"Do I attract you? Do I repluse you? With my queasy smile.
Am I too flirty? Am I too dirty? Do you like what I like?
I can be wholesome, I can be loathsome, I'm just a little bit shy.
Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me without making me try?"
-from Grace Kelly by Mika
-------------------------------------------------
"Beauty fades", he tells me.
I look at him. He is beautiful.
"Beauty does not fade. Beauty changes." I reply.
--------------------------------------------------
I have a crush on Mika. He is a British pop star. I have never met him. I am obsessively in love with his music.
I think he is beautiful.
-----------------------------------------------
The body is inescapable: it is necessary for existence. We are our bodies. Yet to rise above that superficiality of surfaces that permeates dominant cultural idea(ls) of love, the body must mean nothing. What matters is not their eyes, teeth, biceps, fingers, breasts, or cock but who they are.
Lest we forget that they would not be "who they are" without the body we so desperately try,
but fail, to ignore.
------------------------------------------------
"Now take a look at a boy like me.
Who's never stood on his own two feet.
Now I'm blue as I can be.
Love come and got me down"
- from Lollipop by Mika
----------------------------------------------
The world changes. People change. What people want changes.
We are slaves to the fear of change. We would rather that things stay the same, for fear that instead of getting better that they will get worse.
Though beauty does change, and desire may fail us, beauty is never lost.
Beauty changes, but never fades away.
------------------------------------------------
With time his perfect olive skin will show natural signs of aging. The curly hair that tumbles from his head may fall out and thin. His shoulders will droop from the pressure of years. To say that he will shrink would be inaccurate, but he will not seem as attractively tall. He may not find the time to continue going to the gym five times a week and his leaned muscled frame will become a memory for fantasies.
Yes, he will change over time.
Those who found his boyish youth attractive will move onto a new generation of young men to fawn over. New men will fall for his more handsome manly features. There will be those who do not find him attractive until they have known him for an hour, a week, a month, a year, a decade. There will be those, blinded by his ever changing physical body, find him unattractive after knowing him for an hour, a week, a month, a year, a decade.
This is life. Tick tock tick tock. Time happens.
Yes, he will change over time.
But his large vibrant green eyes will be the same forever.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
A Natural Low
I feel bad. I think I am depressed. There is that feeling in my stomach, heavy, like a stone pulling me down.
They say that it is most common for people to get depressed in February. It's the middle of winter. People don't get out as much. There is statistically less sunlight. People do not get sufficient Vitamin E. That makes them depressed.
I am wary of medicine's tendency to make every physical, emotional, or mental ache pathological. There is medication for everything. Attention Deficit Disorder is a perfect example: this drug is given to children who are hyper-active, limited concentration, and the need to constantly be in motion. Those "symptoms" don't seem pathological to me. Those "symptoms" describe what it is like to be a child. Aren't children supposed to be full of energy and verve?
So here I sit. Depressed. Blogging. Trying to figure out what is the cause of this feeling, this stone in my stomach, that is making me sad. Maybe it is just natural. No one seems to question the pathology of feeling good, why should we treat feeling bad any different? I doubt that this feeling will last forever. I have felt this way before and it pasted with time. Just like the times I am, for no apparent reason, feeling really good passed with time. Maybe it isn't pathological, maybe feeling low is a natural and healthy part of being alive.
Or maybe I just haven't got enough Vitamin E...
They say that it is most common for people to get depressed in February. It's the middle of winter. People don't get out as much. There is statistically less sunlight. People do not get sufficient Vitamin E. That makes them depressed.
I am wary of medicine's tendency to make every physical, emotional, or mental ache pathological. There is medication for everything. Attention Deficit Disorder is a perfect example: this drug is given to children who are hyper-active, limited concentration, and the need to constantly be in motion. Those "symptoms" don't seem pathological to me. Those "symptoms" describe what it is like to be a child. Aren't children supposed to be full of energy and verve?
So here I sit. Depressed. Blogging. Trying to figure out what is the cause of this feeling, this stone in my stomach, that is making me sad. Maybe it is just natural. No one seems to question the pathology of feeling good, why should we treat feeling bad any different? I doubt that this feeling will last forever. I have felt this way before and it pasted with time. Just like the times I am, for no apparent reason, feeling really good passed with time. Maybe it isn't pathological, maybe feeling low is a natural and healthy part of being alive.
Or maybe I just haven't got enough Vitamin E...
Friday, February 02, 2007
Putting It Together
I steal. Bits of choreography. I watch music videos, reality tv dance competitions, Broadway shows and I steal. Maybe that's too harsh. I borrow.
"Do you feel like less of an artist when you steal," he asks me. He isn't afraid to be critical. He loves me.
I work at a pizza place. At this independent delivery joint we serve pasta and sandwhiches and salads as well. My boss has always maintained that we do not "cook". We are not "chefs". We assemble. We compile different ingredients on a bed of spinach or arugula, or spelt crusts, or whole wheat wraps. We mix and match different flavours to wow the taste buds and satisfy the appetite. I feel I have a similar approach to art.
The novelist does not make up new words. All language is learned by borrowing, or should I say "stealing", words that we hear as children. The novelist, the poet even, makes their art by mixing and matching different words to wow the read and satisfy their ned for literature.
The musician uses an instrument used by thousands of people for many many years. They play notes and chords that are a part of an established repetoire. The ballet dancer has set positions that have been establish for centuries. My art is no different.
If then all creative works are built upon "stolen" pieces. What is creativity?
Creativity is not the pieces, but the manner in which they are put together.
Creativity is not the what, but the how.
"Do you feel like less of an artist when you steal," he asks me. He isn't afraid to be critical. He loves me.
I work at a pizza place. At this independent delivery joint we serve pasta and sandwhiches and salads as well. My boss has always maintained that we do not "cook". We are not "chefs". We assemble. We compile different ingredients on a bed of spinach or arugula, or spelt crusts, or whole wheat wraps. We mix and match different flavours to wow the taste buds and satisfy the appetite. I feel I have a similar approach to art.
The novelist does not make up new words. All language is learned by borrowing, or should I say "stealing", words that we hear as children. The novelist, the poet even, makes their art by mixing and matching different words to wow the read and satisfy their ned for literature.
The musician uses an instrument used by thousands of people for many many years. They play notes and chords that are a part of an established repetoire. The ballet dancer has set positions that have been establish for centuries. My art is no different.
If then all creative works are built upon "stolen" pieces. What is creativity?
Creativity is not the pieces, but the manner in which they are put together.
Creativity is not the what, but the how.
Friday, January 26, 2007
This Is An Outlet of Expression
There is no reason for me to write this. I find no need.
Over the past months I have been privileged with other means of artistic expression. My thoughts manifest themselves in the world through other outlets.
Is it not the medium that matters, but the act? The act of art? The act of creating?
Is the medium merely the craft? The craft being an act that requires a certain skill set to accomplish. I am competent at the craft of writing - the craft of sequencing words in order to communicate thoughts and ideas. I am also competent at the craft of theatre - the craft of telling a story through dialogue, movement, music, sets, and costumes upon a stage. Is art that which exceeds craft? Is art the act of expression, regardless of the medium?
Yet this lonely Friday night the only company I have is words. No theatre. No dance. And I don't know how to paint.
There is no need for me to write this. Other outlets of expression await me tomorrow. The day after. If I am patient...
The honest truth is that I am not patient. So I write.
There is a need for this. I have found it.
Over the past months I have been privileged with other means of artistic expression. My thoughts manifest themselves in the world through other outlets.
Is it not the medium that matters, but the act? The act of art? The act of creating?
Is the medium merely the craft? The craft being an act that requires a certain skill set to accomplish. I am competent at the craft of writing - the craft of sequencing words in order to communicate thoughts and ideas. I am also competent at the craft of theatre - the craft of telling a story through dialogue, movement, music, sets, and costumes upon a stage. Is art that which exceeds craft? Is art the act of expression, regardless of the medium?
Yet this lonely Friday night the only company I have is words. No theatre. No dance. And I don't know how to paint.
There is no need for me to write this. Other outlets of expression await me tomorrow. The day after. If I am patient...
The honest truth is that I am not patient. So I write.
There is a need for this. I have found it.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Franco-clone
Advertising does not escape the multicultural paradigm that rules this country.
The commercial I shot today was shot in both french and english. The four principle actors had francophone doubles (or maybe we were there anglophone doubles...), while the rest of the actors were silent and need not speak french nor english.
My francophone double and I shared a jacket. Between takes we handed a green H and M fall coat back and forth.
It was odd to look upon my Francophone advertising double.
By the end of the day, I grew to despise him.
He was MY double. I was not HIS double.
He would not out perform me in this thirty second advertisement.
The commercial I shot today was shot in both french and english. The four principle actors had francophone doubles (or maybe we were there anglophone doubles...), while the rest of the actors were silent and need not speak french nor english.
My francophone double and I shared a jacket. Between takes we handed a green H and M fall coat back and forth.
It was odd to look upon my Francophone advertising double.
By the end of the day, I grew to despise him.
He was MY double. I was not HIS double.
He would not out perform me in this thirty second advertisement.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
My Coded Closet
I am trying on many different jackets. Each one slightly similar to the one before, maybe just a different shade of a non-descript grey-green. They have crafted this ensemble with careful attention. Nothing "too much". It must look "real" or "natural". They are aiming for "Canadian", but not "too much" to seem stereotypical, but not too subtle to seem ambigiuous. These clothes in this carefully chosen combination are masculine, but young, stylish, but not chic or trendy, striking, but not offensive. The blue jeans are not too blue. The sweat shirt is new, but not too crisp. They have yet to chose the jacket.
I have been cast in a commercial. Wardobe for these things is very particular.
After selecting several options (pretty much leaving them at the place where they started), I change back into my own clothes. I sit and wait for them to let me know that I have nothing else to try on.
"Is that what you wore here today," the director asks me.
"Yes," I answer.
"I like that. It looks more real," he muses. "Try this jacket with what you wore in."
I try the jacket on. They agree this should be another option.
"When you come in to shoot on Monday, bring these clothes with you. We might want to use them."
Am I masculine, but young, stylish, but not chic or trendy, striking, but not offensive?
Or are these just the clothes that I wear?
I live in a coded world. Advertising has permeated every pore of this urban existence. Even, without me knowing it, my own closet.
I have been cast in a commercial. Wardobe for these things is very particular.
After selecting several options (pretty much leaving them at the place where they started), I change back into my own clothes. I sit and wait for them to let me know that I have nothing else to try on.
"Is that what you wore here today," the director asks me.
"Yes," I answer.
"I like that. It looks more real," he muses. "Try this jacket with what you wore in."
I try the jacket on. They agree this should be another option.
"When you come in to shoot on Monday, bring these clothes with you. We might want to use them."
Am I masculine, but young, stylish, but not chic or trendy, striking, but not offensive?
Or are these just the clothes that I wear?
I live in a coded world. Advertising has permeated every pore of this urban existence. Even, without me knowing it, my own closet.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
BAH
I feel bad. I feel awful.
_________________
Justice is holding a grudge. Forgiveness is letting go of them.
_________________
Justice is holding a grudge. Forgiveness is letting go of them.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Pathology of Love
Is is not human to want to be wanted? Love is commonly listed as a need for humanity along with food and shelter. The Beatles even claim that "Love is all you need." Love is beautiful and should be freely shared. Desire, on the other hand, is sinful and forced into privacy. Desire seems to complicate ideas of love and its necessary role in human life. Desire can exist legitimately in society only accompanied by the guise of love. Love has two feet to stand on. Desire, if not held in love's embrace, seems to be lying ready on its back.
The worst possible scenario is one that involves an unequal exchange of affection: a lover loves and desires their lovee, but the lovee does not or can not match that love (if they love at all) and/or the lovee does not or can not match that desire or the lovee is only interested in being loved and desired with no interest in reciprocity. Is love and desire as economic as described above?
Do love and desire only function if their is equality of exchange?
I want to be wanted. I desire to be desired. I love to be loved. Yet, without adhering to the economy of love, my wants and desires seem unnecessarily complicated. It is not that I do not respect or enjoy the company I find myself in with my random romances. I am eager to acquaint myself with others and explore the complexity of their individual humanity - get to know them, their minds and bodies, their way of life, their social behaviour etc... But I do not find it necessary, in this process of acquainting and exploring, to reciprocally love or want them in return. (Desire is integral in order to pursue sexual intimacy, which is always a requirement in my romantic relationships.) Yet, under the hegemony of this economy of love, I am forced to consider if my need to be needed is not a human need, but something pathological. Am I psychologically or emotionally abnormal to need to be needed? Or is this only deemed abnormal by a society that is ruled by marriage and monogamy? Can not I, as a healthy and responsible human being, be wanted and desired and loved by another, even if I do not reciprocate the same feelings with the same passion and intensity? Is there not other people whom enjoy wanting and desiring and loving just as I enjoy being wanted and desired and loved? Is it pathological to continually be involved in economically unequal romantic relationships?
Maybe I have little interest in wanting or loving these persons, because I know I have someone whom I want and desire; unfortunately this person can not at present offer me the company that I need, so I look elsewhere for actual physical companionship. Maybe, as a homosexual, I refuse to live in the cage of monogamy established by the tyranny of Christian marriage... Maybe I am willing to express the plurality and fractured nature of human existence through my love life...
Maybe this IS really a psychological and emotional pathology...
Here I am. It takes two to tango, but my dancing partner isn't around to twirl me about the dance floor. So I am looking for other partners who'll dance with me for a short while. I don't want to dance with any one person too long. I want to take advantage of my opportunity to dance briefly with everyone who is willing to dance with me. Yet, if everyone is looking for a partner for life and I am just looking to dance for a song or two, am I, until that happy day when my beloved and I will be re-united, destined to being dancing with myself?
The worst possible scenario is one that involves an unequal exchange of affection: a lover loves and desires their lovee, but the lovee does not or can not match that love (if they love at all) and/or the lovee does not or can not match that desire or the lovee is only interested in being loved and desired with no interest in reciprocity. Is love and desire as economic as described above?
Do love and desire only function if their is equality of exchange?
I want to be wanted. I desire to be desired. I love to be loved. Yet, without adhering to the economy of love, my wants and desires seem unnecessarily complicated. It is not that I do not respect or enjoy the company I find myself in with my random romances. I am eager to acquaint myself with others and explore the complexity of their individual humanity - get to know them, their minds and bodies, their way of life, their social behaviour etc... But I do not find it necessary, in this process of acquainting and exploring, to reciprocally love or want them in return. (Desire is integral in order to pursue sexual intimacy, which is always a requirement in my romantic relationships.) Yet, under the hegemony of this economy of love, I am forced to consider if my need to be needed is not a human need, but something pathological. Am I psychologically or emotionally abnormal to need to be needed? Or is this only deemed abnormal by a society that is ruled by marriage and monogamy? Can not I, as a healthy and responsible human being, be wanted and desired and loved by another, even if I do not reciprocate the same feelings with the same passion and intensity? Is there not other people whom enjoy wanting and desiring and loving just as I enjoy being wanted and desired and loved? Is it pathological to continually be involved in economically unequal romantic relationships?
Maybe I have little interest in wanting or loving these persons, because I know I have someone whom I want and desire; unfortunately this person can not at present offer me the company that I need, so I look elsewhere for actual physical companionship. Maybe, as a homosexual, I refuse to live in the cage of monogamy established by the tyranny of Christian marriage... Maybe I am willing to express the plurality and fractured nature of human existence through my love life...
Maybe this IS really a psychological and emotional pathology...
Here I am. It takes two to tango, but my dancing partner isn't around to twirl me about the dance floor. So I am looking for other partners who'll dance with me for a short while. I don't want to dance with any one person too long. I want to take advantage of my opportunity to dance briefly with everyone who is willing to dance with me. Yet, if everyone is looking for a partner for life and I am just looking to dance for a song or two, am I, until that happy day when my beloved and I will be re-united, destined to being dancing with myself?
Monday, December 11, 2006
Dancing With Myself Or A Rose By Any Other Name...
I am dating myself. I am not dating myself in the ways of Skinny Rabbit (I am not that egotistical - Skinny Rabbit, you know you indulge in your egotistical ego! Yet here I am, singing a song of myself). I am dating someone with whom I share a name. That is not to say that I am dating another BedroomPrince. Bedroomprince is merely one of my many multifarious identities. The name I speak of refers to the non-virtual, "real life" version of BedroomPrince. From this adventure in dating identical autonyms, the multiplicity of the identity of human beings begins to appear with indefinite clarity.
For the purposes of this mere post, and in order to keep BedroomPrince's non-virtual "real life" title anonymous, I will take on the alias Sigmund. As of this weekend, Sigmund is dating Sigmund.
I should first describe the events of the evening in which I, Sigmund, met dear Sigmund. It was the Saturday following the last week of term, filled with multiple essays and papers to be written on a variety of, seemingly disparate, but ultimately related subjects. I had found myself with nothing to study nor read, and no particular errands to run. Online I found a dear friend, whom I had shared a number of intimate moments with, just as bored as I. This friend just happened to be named Sigmund as well (this is another Sigmund, not the Sigmund I am currently dating). Like most Saturday nights, I was particularly randy, and so I invited Sigmund over to watch movies, with the hope of us getting it on, as we are want to do. Sigmund arrives: we watch one movie in the living room, then watch another in my bedroom when my room mates arrive at home, and then, because of an upset stomach, he leaves. I still haven't gotten my rocks off, which takes me to the local chat room where I begin my hunt. After signing in, I almost immediately receive a message: it is Sigmund (the one in which I am currently dating). I know Sigmund from a long, long time ago. When I was a child of twelve years of age, I was in a musical play in my hometown (All the World's a Stage and Men and Women merely players!), and dearest Sigmund, as cute now as he was when I first fell for him, was the pianist accompanying me. Since that first moment of attraction, I have seen him at many seemingly random events throughout my life; once he played a concerto with our hometown's symphony orchestra, later I saw him on the street of the city I currently live in, then two weeks ago I saw him at the bar, and tonight, he is messaging me online. I couldn't be happier. I finally get to live out my childhood fantasies and kiss my first crush. That Saturday night at midnight, we meet for drinks, make our way back to his place for some more wine after last call, and the next morning I awoke next to him (I got to live out much more than my mere childhood fantasy. I didn't have those thoughts when I was twelve - not yet anyways). And now, after a night of watching the latest Woody Allen movie (Woody Allen seems to play the same role in every movie he directs), I am back in my apartment relating this all to you.
Despite how smitten I am with Sigmund, I am constantly forced to try to reconcile how we are the same person, we are both Sigmund, but so very different defined by the myriad of our subtle, and not so subtle, complexities. A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if it smells different, we give it another name, don't we? Yes, I am Sigmund, but with so many people on this planet who share my name, my name doesn't seem sufficient in defining who I am. Yet if someone asked me who I was, who I am, the answer I would give would be my name. I have always felt that I connect, on some mystical level, with my own name. But here I am, writing not as Sigmund, but as BedroomPrince, readily accepting that one name is inadequate in defining who I am. Who am I? I am Sigmund. I am BedroomPrince. I am many things (I contain multitudes.) Sigmund refers to me, just like the letters c-h-a-i-r refer to a chair. Yet Sigmund refers to so many more identities than just my own. Language fails us once again.
So yes, I many ways I am dating myself. Sigmund is dating Sigmund. I am dating Sigmund. Sigmund is dating BedroomPrince. BedroomPrince is dating S------. I am sure if I desired to name all my multifarious identities, this list could go on forever. But not everything needs to be ruled by the tyranny of language.
What's in a name?
So much, but at the same time, nothing at all.
For the purposes of this mere post, and in order to keep BedroomPrince's non-virtual "real life" title anonymous, I will take on the alias Sigmund. As of this weekend, Sigmund is dating Sigmund.
I should first describe the events of the evening in which I, Sigmund, met dear Sigmund. It was the Saturday following the last week of term, filled with multiple essays and papers to be written on a variety of, seemingly disparate, but ultimately related subjects. I had found myself with nothing to study nor read, and no particular errands to run. Online I found a dear friend, whom I had shared a number of intimate moments with, just as bored as I. This friend just happened to be named Sigmund as well (this is another Sigmund, not the Sigmund I am currently dating). Like most Saturday nights, I was particularly randy, and so I invited Sigmund over to watch movies, with the hope of us getting it on, as we are want to do. Sigmund arrives: we watch one movie in the living room, then watch another in my bedroom when my room mates arrive at home, and then, because of an upset stomach, he leaves. I still haven't gotten my rocks off, which takes me to the local chat room where I begin my hunt. After signing in, I almost immediately receive a message: it is Sigmund (the one in which I am currently dating). I know Sigmund from a long, long time ago. When I was a child of twelve years of age, I was in a musical play in my hometown (All the World's a Stage and Men and Women merely players!), and dearest Sigmund, as cute now as he was when I first fell for him, was the pianist accompanying me. Since that first moment of attraction, I have seen him at many seemingly random events throughout my life; once he played a concerto with our hometown's symphony orchestra, later I saw him on the street of the city I currently live in, then two weeks ago I saw him at the bar, and tonight, he is messaging me online. I couldn't be happier. I finally get to live out my childhood fantasies and kiss my first crush. That Saturday night at midnight, we meet for drinks, make our way back to his place for some more wine after last call, and the next morning I awoke next to him (I got to live out much more than my mere childhood fantasy. I didn't have those thoughts when I was twelve - not yet anyways). And now, after a night of watching the latest Woody Allen movie (Woody Allen seems to play the same role in every movie he directs), I am back in my apartment relating this all to you.
Despite how smitten I am with Sigmund, I am constantly forced to try to reconcile how we are the same person, we are both Sigmund, but so very different defined by the myriad of our subtle, and not so subtle, complexities. A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if it smells different, we give it another name, don't we? Yes, I am Sigmund, but with so many people on this planet who share my name, my name doesn't seem sufficient in defining who I am. Yet if someone asked me who I was, who I am, the answer I would give would be my name. I have always felt that I connect, on some mystical level, with my own name. But here I am, writing not as Sigmund, but as BedroomPrince, readily accepting that one name is inadequate in defining who I am. Who am I? I am Sigmund. I am BedroomPrince. I am many things (I contain multitudes.) Sigmund refers to me, just like the letters c-h-a-i-r refer to a chair. Yet Sigmund refers to so many more identities than just my own. Language fails us once again.
So yes, I many ways I am dating myself. Sigmund is dating Sigmund. I am dating Sigmund. Sigmund is dating BedroomPrince. BedroomPrince is dating S------. I am sure if I desired to name all my multifarious identities, this list could go on forever. But not everything needs to be ruled by the tyranny of language.
What's in a name?
So much, but at the same time, nothing at all.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Beauty Is Not Freedom
There is something ineffably beautiful about the tyranny of the ballet aesthetic.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Brad from Thailand at Work
Me - Oh Brad! Thanks so much for taking my shift. You make me so happy I could go down on you.
Brad - What does "go down on you" mean?
Me - Give oral sex.
Brad - oh. Then what is go up on you.
Me - Nothing.
Brad - What does "go down on you" mean?
Me - Give oral sex.
Brad - oh. Then what is go up on you.
Me - Nothing.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
Fragments Unrelated
I have cut caffeine out of my diet. Since I have cut caffeine out of my diet, I have been consuming much more Musical Theatre; I listen to Original Cast Recordings constantly. I have also been crying a lot lately as well. This does not bode well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new Manager at MacDonalds is very beautiful. Deep blue eyes, full lips, high defined cheek bones, a strong masculine jaw line, broad shoulders and a slim waist.
Beauty within the MacDonlads corporation seems to be a Paradox.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The people I hate will most likely be successful for the exact reasons why I hate them. This is why there is no justice in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Something always takes the place of missing pieces.
That does not mean that this puzzle is complete.
I can't make out the image the myriad of pieces attempt to show me.
Nothing is clear.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new Manager at MacDonalds is very beautiful. Deep blue eyes, full lips, high defined cheek bones, a strong masculine jaw line, broad shoulders and a slim waist.
Beauty within the MacDonlads corporation seems to be a Paradox.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The people I hate will most likely be successful for the exact reasons why I hate them. This is why there is no justice in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Something always takes the place of missing pieces.
That does not mean that this puzzle is complete.
I can't make out the image the myriad of pieces attempt to show me.
Nothing is clear.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Crying at Lunch Time
There are tears in my Campbell's Mushroom Soup.
I added Rosemary too. It's better that way.
I added Rosemary too. It's better that way.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
You Don't Really Like Beethoven
Grey's Anatomy, Crime and Punishment, a university class in Music Appreciation, following the NHL, and even some sexual relations. The list goes on I'm sure.
The list above refers to television I watch, books I've read, things I have learned, and even people I have slept with in order to increase my social capital.
Social Capital: that which gives an individual leverage in social interaction; outlets to create rapport through common interests or experiences; stories or anecdotes that are amusing, shocking, and/or outrageous in order to capture the attention of others in a given social situation.
I would argue, as I am sure it has been argued before, that most of what we do is motivated, either consciously or subconsciously, by the desire to increase one's social capital. The problem that follows is trying to distinguish what the value of these pursuits is beyond their social capital. Do I actually like Grey's Anatomy, or do I merely watch it and so my room mate and I have something to obsess over?
Most fear acknowledging that their love of Beethoven, at least where their love originated, is a product of wanting to seem cultural and artistic in the eyes of friends and colleagues. Admitting the universal motivating force of social capital makes one seem dishonest or insincere. If social capital does motivate all our pursuits, we are only hypocritical if we do not acknowledge it's influence. It is only dishonest if we DON'T concede to the influence of social capital.
It may seem cynical. It may take all the fun out of classical music and the literature of the canon. It may cause doubt and second guessing. But even this Blog is a product of paying with social capital.
The list above refers to television I watch, books I've read, things I have learned, and even people I have slept with in order to increase my social capital.
Social Capital: that which gives an individual leverage in social interaction; outlets to create rapport through common interests or experiences; stories or anecdotes that are amusing, shocking, and/or outrageous in order to capture the attention of others in a given social situation.
I would argue, as I am sure it has been argued before, that most of what we do is motivated, either consciously or subconsciously, by the desire to increase one's social capital. The problem that follows is trying to distinguish what the value of these pursuits is beyond their social capital. Do I actually like Grey's Anatomy, or do I merely watch it and so my room mate and I have something to obsess over?
Most fear acknowledging that their love of Beethoven, at least where their love originated, is a product of wanting to seem cultural and artistic in the eyes of friends and colleagues. Admitting the universal motivating force of social capital makes one seem dishonest or insincere. If social capital does motivate all our pursuits, we are only hypocritical if we do not acknowledge it's influence. It is only dishonest if we DON'T concede to the influence of social capital.
It may seem cynical. It may take all the fun out of classical music and the literature of the canon. It may cause doubt and second guessing. But even this Blog is a product of paying with social capital.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Gay is Culture
"Do you even like Britney Spears?," he asks.
"She is annoying most of the time. Except when I am drunk on the dance floor."
"She is my guilty pleasure," he replies.
He is my dental hygenist. I see him about twice a year in which most of the time his hands are poking at the teeth inside my mouth. Conversation rarely occurrs.
"I wish I had tickets to Barbara Streisand. God I love her!" I gush.
"I have never been a big fan. I mean, she is a great vocalist, but she is just not my style. I am more of a Madonna fan."
This is what always happens. I sit in the dentist's chair and he comments on whatever is on the tv. He prefers MuchMusic or MTV. In the moments his hands are not in mouth, I response to his pop music commentary.
"I went to see Madonna in New York." he tells me.
"Wasn't that during New York City Pride?" I ask.
"It was the week before I think. I can't remember."
I know very little about this man. The relationship between dental hygenist and patient remains elusive. Yet, his hands are in my mouth.
"Do you ever go to DanceCamp at Fly Nightclub?" he asks.
"I am more of Buddies man myself."
I know very little about this man. Yet, I know he is gay. I do not know if he sleeps with men. I assume he does, but that does not mean it is a fact. What I do know is that he loves Madonna, has a critical opinion of Babs, is aware of Pride, and frequents gay nightclubs. These facts do not tell the sexual preference of my dental hygenist. It is possible that many men whom engage sexually with women loves Madonna, has a critical opinion of Babs, is aware of Pride, and frequents gay nightclubs. What I do know is that my dental hygenist is gay. Not gay sexually, but gay culturally.
In an age of fluid sexuality, the homosexual is dead. Men who sleep with men at one moment are fucking and marrying women the next. But no matter who they are fucking at any given time, if they liked Madonna before they probably still do today.
Gay is not sex.
Gay is culture.
"She is annoying most of the time. Except when I am drunk on the dance floor."
"She is my guilty pleasure," he replies.
He is my dental hygenist. I see him about twice a year in which most of the time his hands are poking at the teeth inside my mouth. Conversation rarely occurrs.
"I wish I had tickets to Barbara Streisand. God I love her!" I gush.
"I have never been a big fan. I mean, she is a great vocalist, but she is just not my style. I am more of a Madonna fan."
This is what always happens. I sit in the dentist's chair and he comments on whatever is on the tv. He prefers MuchMusic or MTV. In the moments his hands are not in mouth, I response to his pop music commentary.
"I went to see Madonna in New York." he tells me.
"Wasn't that during New York City Pride?" I ask.
"It was the week before I think. I can't remember."
I know very little about this man. The relationship between dental hygenist and patient remains elusive. Yet, his hands are in my mouth.
"Do you ever go to DanceCamp at Fly Nightclub?" he asks.
"I am more of Buddies man myself."
I know very little about this man. Yet, I know he is gay. I do not know if he sleeps with men. I assume he does, but that does not mean it is a fact. What I do know is that he loves Madonna, has a critical opinion of Babs, is aware of Pride, and frequents gay nightclubs. These facts do not tell the sexual preference of my dental hygenist. It is possible that many men whom engage sexually with women loves Madonna, has a critical opinion of Babs, is aware of Pride, and frequents gay nightclubs. What I do know is that my dental hygenist is gay. Not gay sexually, but gay culturally.
In an age of fluid sexuality, the homosexual is dead. Men who sleep with men at one moment are fucking and marrying women the next. But no matter who they are fucking at any given time, if they liked Madonna before they probably still do today.
Gay is not sex.
Gay is culture.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Professor: Mind And Body
I have always found him attracted. That is to say since I first saw him at the first day of classes two weeks ago. Not that it matters when I first found him attracted, what matters is that I found him and continue to find him attractive. Today, I notice he has a new haircut.
Professors are very particular creatures. Their purpose and appeal, for the most part, is cerebral. Their identity, from the perspective of the student, is a product of their intellect. They are academic animals. Being such cerebral creatures, it is an odd experience to confront the professor as a physical being.
He walked into class with a new haircut. He is not just an intellectual academic mind. He is more than "professor". He has hair and toe nails and blisters and is susceptible to the common cold and will have crows feet at the corner of his eyes in years to come and will show many other symptoms of being a living body. He is not just "professor". He is human being.
He is my professor. I have always found him attractive. Even with the new haircut.
Professors are very particular creatures. Their purpose and appeal, for the most part, is cerebral. Their identity, from the perspective of the student, is a product of their intellect. They are academic animals. Being such cerebral creatures, it is an odd experience to confront the professor as a physical being.
He walked into class with a new haircut. He is not just an intellectual academic mind. He is more than "professor". He has hair and toe nails and blisters and is susceptible to the common cold and will have crows feet at the corner of his eyes in years to come and will show many other symptoms of being a living body. He is not just "professor". He is human being.
He is my professor. I have always found him attractive. Even with the new haircut.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Desire-less
I have no desire for desire. I only want company. Company like the stuff of Hollywood romances. McDreamy-You make me want to be a better man-Sleepless in Seattle-A writer in Paris, the city of love company. I do not have time for a relationship. Commitment takes work and I have other more pressing issues.
So here I sit.
Alone.
Blogging.
Your virtual online company is not adequate.
So here I sit.
Alone.
Blogging.
Your virtual online company is not adequate.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
The Only Option
This will challenge every part of who I am.
This will challenge me emotionally, intellectually, physically, creatively and spiritually.
Survival is the only option.
This will challenge me emotionally, intellectually, physically, creatively and spiritually.
Survival is the only option.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Saturday Night
He tells me that we have to meet, seeing as he has failed to come to either of my parties. And seeing as he has no other gay friends, he wants to take advantage of my company and go to the strippers. I say "Why not!?! It is not something I would choose for myself and that makes it an adventure!" Off we go. The strippers are not sexy nor erotic. The atmosphere is old and depressing. We do not stay long (I have to meet another friend and he has to fly to NYC the following day).
We walk south to the subway station. We turn to go down the new stairs to the Subway at the North West corner of a civic Square. We turn to see a large man pulling at the purse of a young woman. She is pleading with him to stop and then turns to us and asks for us to call for help. He is stunned and freezes, and I run up to the top of the stairs and start to yell for Help!. The gentleman now decides he'd like to "discuss" the issue of this woman's purse with me. He approaches. I run into a group of 30-something adults standing under an awning (it is raining) to let them know what is happening. I ask them for their sanctuary (it is unlikely he will create violence amidst witnesses in which three are grown men). The attacker does come right into the centre of the group of adults where I am standing and pretends to be acquainted with me, trying to pull me out of the group in order to discuss the situation regarding the woman's purse. The adults are stunned and frozen, but luckily I hold my ground and he eventually runs to a bike gets on and pedals off. (You see - I am hardly a "man" in the eyes of the world around me).
My friend finally finds me and, being shocked, I decide to jump into the safety of a cab. My friend hands me an aromatherapy spray: "Here. Smell this. It will calm you down." I do. And it does. My friend sets his scarf on my lap. "That's for you. It's worth a grand. A client gave it to me." I now have a haute couture scarf (My friend works in the fashion industry) that is worth ten times more than any other piece of clothing I own. The scarf is long and flamboyant - it is definately not me. I am going to try to return it to him, but if he does not accept, I will give it you.
You would like it. It gave me no comfort, but maybe it will bring you happiness.
We walk south to the subway station. We turn to go down the new stairs to the Subway at the North West corner of a civic Square. We turn to see a large man pulling at the purse of a young woman. She is pleading with him to stop and then turns to us and asks for us to call for help. He is stunned and freezes, and I run up to the top of the stairs and start to yell for Help!. The gentleman now decides he'd like to "discuss" the issue of this woman's purse with me. He approaches. I run into a group of 30-something adults standing under an awning (it is raining) to let them know what is happening. I ask them for their sanctuary (it is unlikely he will create violence amidst witnesses in which three are grown men). The attacker does come right into the centre of the group of adults where I am standing and pretends to be acquainted with me, trying to pull me out of the group in order to discuss the situation regarding the woman's purse. The adults are stunned and frozen, but luckily I hold my ground and he eventually runs to a bike gets on and pedals off. (You see - I am hardly a "man" in the eyes of the world around me).
My friend finally finds me and, being shocked, I decide to jump into the safety of a cab. My friend hands me an aromatherapy spray: "Here. Smell this. It will calm you down." I do. And it does. My friend sets his scarf on my lap. "That's for you. It's worth a grand. A client gave it to me." I now have a haute couture scarf (My friend works in the fashion industry) that is worth ten times more than any other piece of clothing I own. The scarf is long and flamboyant - it is definately not me. I am going to try to return it to him, but if he does not accept, I will give it you.
You would like it. It gave me no comfort, but maybe it will bring you happiness.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Virtual Machinations
We are cyborgs. In an age of cell phones, realtiy television, and the internet, we have become organisms that rely on technology in order to hear, to feel, to connect. I am fortunate enough to not require an electronic device to regulate the rhythm of my heart, nor an auditory system that aids my sense of hearing, but, like any other person who find themselves in the computer age, I not only require, but embrace technology as a means of connection. And so, with my binary coded arm, I reach out to those I love.
Today, I regained my internet capabilities. With my virtual limbs, I ache to touch you. Let me feel your combination of zeros and ones. After a two week hiatus, two weeks of feeling paralysed, I am back online.
I am whole again.
Today, I regained my internet capabilities. With my virtual limbs, I ache to touch you. Let me feel your combination of zeros and ones. After a two week hiatus, two weeks of feeling paralysed, I am back online.
I am whole again.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
All Or Nothing At All
It is a logical truth that there is both too much and nothing at all to say at this present junction.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Redemption
"I dare you to!" she whispers to me. Being "dared to" confess is unusual motivation to seek redemption, but this is my last day in Paris, and how often does one frequent Notre Dame?
"Look! It says you can confess in English." she whispers again. Despite the hushed din of the swarm of tourists circling the church, her voice is remarkably, and eerily, clear. It seems like God is making this far too convenient - here I am in Notre Dame, a devout Catholic is rising from the seat in the Confessional, the Priest speaks English...
"Why not?"
The "confessional" is an enclosed alcove of the Cathedral cordoned off by a glass wall with a glass door in the center.
I indicate to the Priest that I am prefer to speak English. His English is bad he says, and so if I am able to, he would rather do this in French. Doing it in French would just add to the cultural experience of it all, so I agree.
"Je suis homosexual", I begin.
He understands he says. He then tells me that, unless I have a vocation (it was hard to understand this concept in French at first) in which I must remain celebate, then it is not sinful to love another man, but I must be faithful to one man only. "Does that mean I should marry?" I ask. He tells me that marriage is a sacrament and to marry another man is a sin. He implores me to find love and to be faithful. He then blesses me and sets me free, back into the circling mass of tourists touring the medieval Cathedral.
I am surprised by what I have been told in confession. I have been told that the church and God accept me for who I am, and that there is some discrepancy between the official word of the church and the practicing word of the church. Do not believe everything you hear, but believe everything you experience.
I leave Notre Dame feeling surprised, enlightened, content, and, to be honest, a little bit divine.
I have been redeemed. And so has the Catholic church.
"Look! It says you can confess in English." she whispers again. Despite the hushed din of the swarm of tourists circling the church, her voice is remarkably, and eerily, clear. It seems like God is making this far too convenient - here I am in Notre Dame, a devout Catholic is rising from the seat in the Confessional, the Priest speaks English...
"Why not?"
The "confessional" is an enclosed alcove of the Cathedral cordoned off by a glass wall with a glass door in the center.
I indicate to the Priest that I am prefer to speak English. His English is bad he says, and so if I am able to, he would rather do this in French. Doing it in French would just add to the cultural experience of it all, so I agree.
"Je suis homosexual", I begin.
He understands he says. He then tells me that, unless I have a vocation (it was hard to understand this concept in French at first) in which I must remain celebate, then it is not sinful to love another man, but I must be faithful to one man only. "Does that mean I should marry?" I ask. He tells me that marriage is a sacrament and to marry another man is a sin. He implores me to find love and to be faithful. He then blesses me and sets me free, back into the circling mass of tourists touring the medieval Cathedral.
I am surprised by what I have been told in confession. I have been told that the church and God accept me for who I am, and that there is some discrepancy between the official word of the church and the practicing word of the church. Do not believe everything you hear, but believe everything you experience.
I leave Notre Dame feeling surprised, enlightened, content, and, to be honest, a little bit divine.
I have been redeemed. And so has the Catholic church.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
The European Experience # 101
The Prologue Or Epilogue. Depending on How You Read It...
So it is done. Countless journeys on planes, trains, and buses; countless days wandering foreign streets; countless hours in musuems and parks; counteless nights in bars and clubs; countless mornings in hostels and homes with friends and lovers; countless dollars on food and accomodation and transportation has produced 1001 photographs. These snapshots of the places and people I have seen will be printed off and lie orderly upon sticky sheets protected by transparent vellum and bound in a leather album.
The product of the European Experience is this: a possession.
And what do I possess? I possess a photo album.
But no.
There is something more.
There is something more personal and honest... More true and beautiful...
Yet this possession is something that only exists when shared. It's existence is based on an act of community. An act that connects people together in a shared experience. Not my experience in Europe, but an experience that is shared in the moment of the act of sharing. (My "European Experience" is in the past and can not be reclaimed). My European Experience is a solitary one in some respects (I travelled alone), but my European Experience has produced something that is communal.
What is the product of my European Experience?
What is this possession?
What do the 101 entries of my "European Experience" blog add up to?
Let me tell you a story...
So it is done. Countless journeys on planes, trains, and buses; countless days wandering foreign streets; countless hours in musuems and parks; counteless nights in bars and clubs; countless mornings in hostels and homes with friends and lovers; countless dollars on food and accomodation and transportation has produced 1001 photographs. These snapshots of the places and people I have seen will be printed off and lie orderly upon sticky sheets protected by transparent vellum and bound in a leather album.
The product of the European Experience is this: a possession.
And what do I possess? I possess a photo album.
But no.
There is something more.
There is something more personal and honest... More true and beautiful...
Yet this possession is something that only exists when shared. It's existence is based on an act of community. An act that connects people together in a shared experience. Not my experience in Europe, but an experience that is shared in the moment of the act of sharing. (My "European Experience" is in the past and can not be reclaimed). My European Experience is a solitary one in some respects (I travelled alone), but my European Experience has produced something that is communal.
What is the product of my European Experience?
What is this possession?
What do the 101 entries of my "European Experience" blog add up to?
Let me tell you a story...
The European Experience # 100
The Facts
- 10 weeks - 78 days
- 1001 Photos - 101 Blog Entries
- 5 Flights - 4 Train Trips - 5 Coach Trips
- 8 Cities - 5 Countries
- 4 Hostels - 5 Homes - 4 Sets of Keys
- 27 Museums/ Galleries - 13 Palaces/Chateaux
- 12 Parks - 16 Churches
- 110 Acquaintances Made (approx) - 24 Phone Numbers
- 1 Notebook
The Itinerary and Highlights
England
London May 16th to May 26th
- Tate Modern - National Gallery (Whistlers Grandmother)
- National Portrait Gallery - V & A Museum (Modernism Expo)
- St. Paul's Cathedral - Westminster Abbey
- Buckingham Palace - Big Ben
- Hayfever (starring Judi Dench) - Billy Eliot the Musical
- Sunday in the Park with George - Titus @ Shakespeare's Globe
- Harrods - G.A.Y.
- Royal Ballet 75th Anniversay Gala Rehearsal
Brighton May 26th to May 30th
- Royal Pavillion - Brighton Beach and Pier
London May 30th to June 1st
- Heaven - Ghetto
- Regent's Park - Hyde Park
Spain
Barcelona June 1st to June 5th
Gaudi Architecture
- Sagrada Familia - Casa Batlo
- Parc Guel
- Picasso Museum - Andy Warhol Expo
- Mies Van der Rohe Pavillion
- The Beach and the Mediterraenean
Madrid June 5th to June 7th
- The Prado
(including both Velaquez's and Picasso's Las Meninas)
- Reina Sofia Museum
(including Guernica, The Great Masturbator, and Before Awakening)
- Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
( Sisley, Degas, Monet, and other Great Impressionists)
Holland
Amsterdam June 7th to June 14th
- Van Gogh Musuem - Stedlyk Musuem
- The Canals - Red Light District
- Biking
Belgium
Antwerp June 14th to June 16th
- Chocolate - Beer
France
Paris June 16th to June 19th
- Musee D'Orsay - Eiffel Tower
- Notre Dame - Centre Pompidou
Angers June 19th to June 31st
- Francoise Morrellet and the Musee des Beaux Arts
- Musee David D'Angers - Cointreau Tour
- Chateaus - Golf
Paris June 31st to July 29th
- Louvre - Musee D'Orangerie
- Paris Opera - Musee Rodin
- St Chappelle - St Sulplice
- La Madeline - Sacre Coeur
- St Eustache - St Germain des Pres
- Cemetery Pere La Chaise - Cemetery Montparnasse
- Musee Picasso - Musee d'Art Modern
- Luxembourg Gardens - Tuileries
- Champs Elysees - Champs du Mars
- Arc de Triomphe - La Marais
- Tennis
- France beats Brazil in the World Cup
England
London June 29th to August 1st
- Soho Pride - Abbey Road
- Tate Britain - Goodenough College
- National Gallery: Rebels and Martyrs Expo
(Schiele, Van Gough, Courbet, Picasso, etc...)
- 10 weeks - 78 days
- 1001 Photos - 101 Blog Entries
- 5 Flights - 4 Train Trips - 5 Coach Trips
- 8 Cities - 5 Countries
- 4 Hostels - 5 Homes - 4 Sets of Keys
- 27 Museums/ Galleries - 13 Palaces/Chateaux
- 12 Parks - 16 Churches
- 110 Acquaintances Made (approx) - 24 Phone Numbers
- 1 Notebook
The Itinerary and Highlights
England
London May 16th to May 26th
- Tate Modern - National Gallery (Whistlers Grandmother)
- National Portrait Gallery - V & A Museum (Modernism Expo)
- St. Paul's Cathedral - Westminster Abbey
- Buckingham Palace - Big Ben
- Hayfever (starring Judi Dench) - Billy Eliot the Musical
- Sunday in the Park with George - Titus @ Shakespeare's Globe
- Harrods - G.A.Y.
- Royal Ballet 75th Anniversay Gala Rehearsal
Brighton May 26th to May 30th
- Royal Pavillion - Brighton Beach and Pier
London May 30th to June 1st
- Heaven - Ghetto
- Regent's Park - Hyde Park
Spain
Barcelona June 1st to June 5th
Gaudi Architecture
- Sagrada Familia - Casa Batlo
- Parc Guel
- Picasso Museum - Andy Warhol Expo
- Mies Van der Rohe Pavillion
- The Beach and the Mediterraenean
Madrid June 5th to June 7th
- The Prado
(including both Velaquez's and Picasso's Las Meninas)
- Reina Sofia Museum
(including Guernica, The Great Masturbator, and Before Awakening)
- Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
( Sisley, Degas, Monet, and other Great Impressionists)
Holland
Amsterdam June 7th to June 14th
- Van Gogh Musuem - Stedlyk Musuem
- The Canals - Red Light District
- Biking
Belgium
Antwerp June 14th to June 16th
- Chocolate - Beer
France
Paris June 16th to June 19th
- Musee D'Orsay - Eiffel Tower
- Notre Dame - Centre Pompidou
Angers June 19th to June 31st
- Francoise Morrellet and the Musee des Beaux Arts
- Musee David D'Angers - Cointreau Tour
- Chateaus - Golf
Paris June 31st to July 29th
- Louvre - Musee D'Orangerie
- Paris Opera - Musee Rodin
- St Chappelle - St Sulplice
- La Madeline - Sacre Coeur
- St Eustache - St Germain des Pres
- Cemetery Pere La Chaise - Cemetery Montparnasse
- Musee Picasso - Musee d'Art Modern
- Luxembourg Gardens - Tuileries
- Champs Elysees - Champs du Mars
- Arc de Triomphe - La Marais
- Tennis
- France beats Brazil in the World Cup
England
London June 29th to August 1st
- Soho Pride - Abbey Road
- Tate Britain - Goodenough College
- National Gallery: Rebels and Martyrs Expo
(Schiele, Van Gough, Courbet, Picasso, etc...)
The European Experience # 99
I have accomplished everything, and so much more, that I set out to do on this adventure.
And now...
I am coming home.
And now...
I am coming home.
The European Experience # 98
The writer has invited me for a "dirty Berlin weekend in his dirty Berlin flat" where "we will do dirty things." I wonder if Rick gets invited to Berlin with these intentions. I hope not. Rick is the writer's boyfriend.
I hope Rick is never invited to Berlin. I hope that I have inspired such divine desire, such lingering lust, such love in my writer that Rick and the "love" he shows is insufficient, inadequate, and ultimately unpleasureable. I hope that I have touched my writer so deeply in his heart and soul that he ends his foolish love affair with Rick bcause he can not live without me and must drown me in his love and affection. I hope that, no matter what I can have what I want and I can and will be happy. I am selfish, uncaring, and insensitive.
True love, or at least this love, is not moral.
I hope Rick is never invited to Berlin. I hope that I have inspired such divine desire, such lingering lust, such love in my writer that Rick and the "love" he shows is insufficient, inadequate, and ultimately unpleasureable. I hope that I have touched my writer so deeply in his heart and soul that he ends his foolish love affair with Rick bcause he can not live without me and must drown me in his love and affection. I hope that, no matter what I can have what I want and I can and will be happy. I am selfish, uncaring, and insensitive.
True love, or at least this love, is not moral.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
The European Experience # 97
The myths of Greece, Rome, and Egypt informed all aspects of their great civilization from religion, to art, to science and agriculture, to all aspects of domestic, political, social, and creative life. Europe, is influenced and inspired by these great ancient civilizations. The artchitecture, art, and science of these great civilizations have been the motivating force behind the most admirable achievements of this place. The most recent 'great' human achievements of the past century, such as nuclear power, the automobile, and the computer, only seem to succeed in causing harm to this earth or humanity itself, through violence or alienation. The truly great and beautiful achievements in humanity's recent history seem to be born from the Renaissance in Europe. The renaissance was in essence the re-birth of the ideas and practices of these ancient civilizations. How can ideas and practices of a virtually extinct ancient civilization be able to lead humanity's in its greatest endeavours? Has all our great innovations of the reason past merely be leading us to our self-destructive doom? Was civilization perfected over two thousand years ago? Is progress the motivating force of our time? Has this progress been ineffective in producing new and innovative human achievements that have a positive impact on humanity? Is progress merely a myth?
Examining the fruits of humanity's progressive innovation in recent history, one can draw undeniably negative conclusions. Progress has brought us great advances in technology, but this technology is being used as weapons of war, tools that destory the environment, products that harm the human body, and modes of communication that alienated us from one another. If we can imagine a world without these double-edged innovations, we are left with a world, inspired by the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, that was re-born during the Renaissance.
No matter if our current ideal of progress, mired in greedy capitalism, is failing at making the world a better place without getting its hands bloody, humanity is caught in the inevitable passing of time. We will never truly know if these great ancient societies were the pinnacle of human civilization: We can never go back. A return to the ideals of these ancient civilizations would not help us escape the influence of all that has happened in the past two thousand years or so. Progress may be a myth, but because the clock is ticking and always will be, it is a myth we must believe in. And unlike the myths of ancient civilization, maybe this myth will reveal itself to be true.
Examining the fruits of humanity's progressive innovation in recent history, one can draw undeniably negative conclusions. Progress has brought us great advances in technology, but this technology is being used as weapons of war, tools that destory the environment, products that harm the human body, and modes of communication that alienated us from one another. If we can imagine a world without these double-edged innovations, we are left with a world, inspired by the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, that was re-born during the Renaissance.
No matter if our current ideal of progress, mired in greedy capitalism, is failing at making the world a better place without getting its hands bloody, humanity is caught in the inevitable passing of time. We will never truly know if these great ancient societies were the pinnacle of human civilization: We can never go back. A return to the ideals of these ancient civilizations would not help us escape the influence of all that has happened in the past two thousand years or so. Progress may be a myth, but because the clock is ticking and always will be, it is a myth we must believe in. And unlike the myths of ancient civilization, maybe this myth will reveal itself to be true.
Monday, July 24, 2006
The European Experience # 96
You do it to yourself. Or at least I do it to myself.
My love affair with the writer has come to it's expected end.
This could be love, but I don't know what love is. Instead of capturing 'love' to put it in the straight jacket of 'definition' in order to ever-so conveniently place it between 'like' and 'lust' in the dictionary, I would rather do as the poets do and drown in possibilities of the word's manifest presence in this wide wide world. If this is love, it is not the love of marriage or commitment, but the love that lives and dies within the metaphorical life span of a gasp for breath: quick, short, intense, and a necessary act of life.
It is not an external force that exists in this wide wide world that, upon coming across the shimmer in the corner of an eye in a night club or the warmth of lips curled into a smile from across a class room, shakes a person to their core. It is a product of an inner ineffable need. It is an innate idea born in the darkest, most hidden recesses of a soul with no reason or logic to substantiate it's existence: It is a product of the imagination. "Every kind of love, or at least my kind of love, is an imaginary love to start with..." (Some may argue for Darwin or Freud, but science and psychotherapy only aim to kill the beautiful mysteries of life such as the 'true' nature of love.) Mr. Humbert Humbert, the world's greatest lover (and being so he, of course, is a work of art) enveloped himself in a completely selfish love affair. Our greatest romantic hero loves the perfection of the idea of his Lolita but not the flawed, but human Dolores Haze herself. Mr. Humbert Humbert a puts it aptly: "mirage and reality merge in love". He loves the imagined idea of Lolita as he sees her in the real and present Dolores. Such is the case with all 'true love'; it is a need that gives birth to an idea that we project onto an unknowing victim. Yes, some random stranger that smiles at you as you saunter past a cafe in some European capital may inspire love. But, as this wide wide world has the power to inspire, it is a need within which arouses the artist to create something beautiful. The creative construction of a lover is an art.
My love affair with the writer has come to it's expected end.
Did I tell the writer how I felt? How I "love" him? Of course not! Saying the word would destory the poetry of my reality. And love, or at least this love, is utterly self-indulgent and selfish. It matters not if our feelings are reciprocal, only that they are requited. And even if he did not shower me with his affection, I would still revel in the existence of my imagined love, which reveals its mysterious to me, manifest in this wide wide world.
I am sad to completely understand the true nature of our temporary tryst.
But, alas, I have done this to myself.
And though such experiences can never be reproduced,
I would do this to myself over and over again and again.
My love affair with the writer has come to it's expected end.
This could be love, but I don't know what love is. Instead of capturing 'love' to put it in the straight jacket of 'definition' in order to ever-so conveniently place it between 'like' and 'lust' in the dictionary, I would rather do as the poets do and drown in possibilities of the word's manifest presence in this wide wide world. If this is love, it is not the love of marriage or commitment, but the love that lives and dies within the metaphorical life span of a gasp for breath: quick, short, intense, and a necessary act of life.
It is not an external force that exists in this wide wide world that, upon coming across the shimmer in the corner of an eye in a night club or the warmth of lips curled into a smile from across a class room, shakes a person to their core. It is a product of an inner ineffable need. It is an innate idea born in the darkest, most hidden recesses of a soul with no reason or logic to substantiate it's existence: It is a product of the imagination. "Every kind of love, or at least my kind of love, is an imaginary love to start with..." (Some may argue for Darwin or Freud, but science and psychotherapy only aim to kill the beautiful mysteries of life such as the 'true' nature of love.) Mr. Humbert Humbert, the world's greatest lover (and being so he, of course, is a work of art) enveloped himself in a completely selfish love affair. Our greatest romantic hero loves the perfection of the idea of his Lolita but not the flawed, but human Dolores Haze herself. Mr. Humbert Humbert a puts it aptly: "mirage and reality merge in love". He loves the imagined idea of Lolita as he sees her in the real and present Dolores. Such is the case with all 'true love'; it is a need that gives birth to an idea that we project onto an unknowing victim. Yes, some random stranger that smiles at you as you saunter past a cafe in some European capital may inspire love. But, as this wide wide world has the power to inspire, it is a need within which arouses the artist to create something beautiful. The creative construction of a lover is an art.
My love affair with the writer has come to it's expected end.
Did I tell the writer how I felt? How I "love" him? Of course not! Saying the word would destory the poetry of my reality. And love, or at least this love, is utterly self-indulgent and selfish. It matters not if our feelings are reciprocal, only that they are requited. And even if he did not shower me with his affection, I would still revel in the existence of my imagined love, which reveals its mysterious to me, manifest in this wide wide world.
I am sad to completely understand the true nature of our temporary tryst.
But, alas, I have done this to myself.
And though such experiences can never be reproduced,
I would do this to myself over and over again and again.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The European Experience # 95
"Sorrow, betrayal, jealousy, and hate are what we think will kill our love, but it is Hope that kills it in the end," he quotes from a short story he has read. (I am paraphrasing of course. It is not the words, but the idea, that cuts me to my core.) I am not sure why this has come up in our conversation. In my amorous euphoria, the details of my dream like experience is his overwhelingly intoxicating presence are hard to conjure. Yet, this quote from an obscure short story only a writer could have ever read seems apropos to describe my current fast-and-hard love-lorn once-in-a-life-time experience. Maybe these words have that universal power that applies to all moments of life...
"Hope is what kills it in the end." It would be foolish to hope for more than what is offered: He must return to Berlin, and I must return to Canada. He has a life with a boyfriend and a career, and dreams and goals he must pursue, and I have a life with friends and family, and dreams and goals, I know I must return to. It is foolish to hope for anything more than the next breath.
I shouldn't aim for anyone to bend their life in order to merge it with my own. To hope for that is selfish. To hope for that is not an act of love. I can not hope for the future, I can only hope for the present. And if that present includes a breath shared between us as our lips meet in a kiss, I shall treasure that moment for what it is in the present, and refrain from projecting an impossible future upon the simple beauty of such a loving act. All I should hope for is my next breath, and with that, I only hope for life.
"Hope is what kills it in the end." It would be foolish to hope for more than what is offered: He must return to Berlin, and I must return to Canada. He has a life with a boyfriend and a career, and dreams and goals he must pursue, and I have a life with friends and family, and dreams and goals, I know I must return to. It is foolish to hope for anything more than the next breath.
I shouldn't aim for anyone to bend their life in order to merge it with my own. To hope for that is selfish. To hope for that is not an act of love. I can not hope for the future, I can only hope for the present. And if that present includes a breath shared between us as our lips meet in a kiss, I shall treasure that moment for what it is in the present, and refrain from projecting an impossible future upon the simple beauty of such a loving act. All I should hope for is my next breath, and with that, I only hope for life.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
The European Experience # 94
My hands are frozen above the key board. I can not write this story because it isn't a story at all. He was sitting at a cafe eating lunch. I walked by him and our eyes connected. I smile. He smile back. I sat down for a beer. We continue looking, and smiling back and forth. I order another beer. He gets up to leave. I get up to leave. We meet in the street. We go to buy cigarettes, return to the cafe for another drink, get up and go for a walk along the river, and we end up gratuitously making out on a riverside bench. That's the story. Nothing new.
He is new: He is something I have never experienced before. Dark, and masculine, with olive skin and soft penetrating eyes. He is a published writer (a book of short stories) and is an associate editor of an Art Lit magazine in Montreal. He speaks French. He has had articles published by the CBC, NOW, Maisonneuve, and The Toronto Star. He currently lives in Berlin: he received a grant from the government of Quebec to finish a novel. He loves Woody Allen movies (we both love "Bullets Over Broadway" the best). He has interviewed Margaret Atwood and tells me she is a cunt (She does look like a Cuntish woman, doesn't she?) He loves "The Hours" (as I do) and knows about the directing career of Stephen Daldry (an Artist who's career I would die for). He knows and loves Elaine Stritch: He saw her one woman show, and Bea Arthur's one woman show, in the same week while he was living in New York City getting a Masters in Creative Writing. He is applying to be a professor at a university here (A erotic professor fantasy is just as hot as a sexy T.A. fantasy) He has an incredible body: just enough defined and tone muscle, just enough dark hair on his manly chest, a round small ass, and soft kissable lips. He knows how to kiss my neck and run his fingers across my back. He is an incredible kisser. He makes me want to do dirty things. He is going to call later tonight and we are going to go out dancing.
I can not stop smiling. I can barely catch my breath. I feel like I am going to vomit. The thought that my experience here, including my experience with this man, is transient and far too temporary makes me want to cry. I exist both between and simultaneously in the world of amorous Eurphoria and love-lorn despair.
My fingers froze over the key board with good reason. I have written nothing. None of this adequately captures this man, nor the way he makes me feel. I fell fast and hard. To say I am living the Romantic Cliche European Love affair is true but insufficient in expressing this experience. You know mere facts, and not even all of the facts that I could tell you. I could go on and on about the weather near the river, or the dirt that covered the white toes of his black Converse runners, or recite our conversation regarding Shakespeare and the theatre, but there is little point.
This is something... Something... This is. And, damn, does it feel good.
He is new: He is something I have never experienced before. Dark, and masculine, with olive skin and soft penetrating eyes. He is a published writer (a book of short stories) and is an associate editor of an Art Lit magazine in Montreal. He speaks French. He has had articles published by the CBC, NOW, Maisonneuve, and The Toronto Star. He currently lives in Berlin: he received a grant from the government of Quebec to finish a novel. He loves Woody Allen movies (we both love "Bullets Over Broadway" the best). He has interviewed Margaret Atwood and tells me she is a cunt (She does look like a Cuntish woman, doesn't she?) He loves "The Hours" (as I do) and knows about the directing career of Stephen Daldry (an Artist who's career I would die for). He knows and loves Elaine Stritch: He saw her one woman show, and Bea Arthur's one woman show, in the same week while he was living in New York City getting a Masters in Creative Writing. He is applying to be a professor at a university here (A erotic professor fantasy is just as hot as a sexy T.A. fantasy) He has an incredible body: just enough defined and tone muscle, just enough dark hair on his manly chest, a round small ass, and soft kissable lips. He knows how to kiss my neck and run his fingers across my back. He is an incredible kisser. He makes me want to do dirty things. He is going to call later tonight and we are going to go out dancing.
I can not stop smiling. I can barely catch my breath. I feel like I am going to vomit. The thought that my experience here, including my experience with this man, is transient and far too temporary makes me want to cry. I exist both between and simultaneously in the world of amorous Eurphoria and love-lorn despair.
My fingers froze over the key board with good reason. I have written nothing. None of this adequately captures this man, nor the way he makes me feel. I fell fast and hard. To say I am living the Romantic Cliche European Love affair is true but insufficient in expressing this experience. You know mere facts, and not even all of the facts that I could tell you. I could go on and on about the weather near the river, or the dirt that covered the white toes of his black Converse runners, or recite our conversation regarding Shakespeare and the theatre, but there is little point.
This is something... Something... This is. And, damn, does it feel good.
Friday, July 21, 2006
The European Experience # 93
Here I feel I can hardly understand the language.
Ignorance doesn't breed bliss.
Ignorance breeds suspicion.
Ignorance doesn't breed bliss.
Ignorance breeds suspicion.
The European Experience # 92
Some Museums are Graveyards.
Some Graveyards are Museums.
The dead are History.
History is dead.
Some Graveyards are Museums.
The dead are History.
History is dead.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
The European Experience # 91
This is a place of memories.
Not Memories of a Grand Historical Past, but my own memories.
All those horrid embarassing memories of the follies of my adolescent.
All those depressing memories of the mistakes of moments of stupidity.
All those ghosts of people and projects I have left behind.
"The Good Ole Days Weren't Always That Good, and Tomorrow Isn't As Bad As It Semms."
Not Memories of a Grand Historical Past, but my own memories.
All those horrid embarassing memories of the follies of my adolescent.
All those depressing memories of the mistakes of moments of stupidity.
All those ghosts of people and projects I have left behind.
"The Good Ole Days Weren't Always That Good, and Tomorrow Isn't As Bad As It Semms."
The European Experience # 90
I am sad.
In Europe...
So I played Moonlight Sonata on the Antique Piano in the Salon.
Oh! How Romantic am I?
Oh! How Melodramatic am I?
In Europe...
So I played Moonlight Sonata on the Antique Piano in the Salon.
Oh! How Romantic am I?
Oh! How Melodramatic am I?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)