Category: Uncategorized

Must Give Us Pause

So, I had a couple of stop-and-think-about-it moments today.

The first was with someone who works in a different group from me. I really don’t know him, but I was carrying my new cell phone back from the post office (yay new cell phone, yay lower phone bills), and we got on the subject of accidental dialing, (new phone is a flip up, old phone was not). And he said something about accidentally dialing my mother while making out with my girlfriend. I found it amusing on two levels, and I was laughing, and I thought that not so long ago, I would have felt compelled to inform him that girlfriends weren’t likely for me, but this time it didn’t really matter to me. As a point of ettiquette, not sure quite what “the right thing” to do there is, but I don’t regard it as terribly important.

Shortly after this, as I was walking to grab lunch, I heard the annual “X person died, at age Y in year Z, at concentration camp A” litany. I did some quick math, and figured that by now, the people she listed while I was walking past would be 70-odd years old, those that didn’t die in some other way. I’m not saying that this wasn’t important, and hasn’t had important consequences down the line, but will we continue to mourn untimely deaths when the individuals would have died years ago anyway? What about centuries?

When we harbor the memory of a wrong done to us personally, it’s called keeping a grudge. In light of the recent events in the middle east, well, collective keeping of grudges doesn’t strike me as a solution to our ills.

Transcontinental Biking and my mother

I told my mom about my biking plans, which I shall hereafter refer to as mistake #1.

She is so not about this sort of thing. The first thing she says is “oh, just like Uncle [redacted]” (who had a schitzophrenic break), she then goes on to tell me that it’s not safe, and even though I’m going with a friend (and I said nothing of the sort to her) it’s not safe. She doesn’t provide any sort of backing for it being “not safe”.

Yet strangely, this was the first time in years that I ended a phone call to my mother by telling her I loved her. She was expressing her concern for me in a paranoid sorta way. And for once I felt I was getting equal treatment with my sisters =) And for the first time in years, (on her next phone call) she skipped the “I love you”. It’s weird, but a little more comfortable.

Physical Affection

Back in the old days of my undergraduate career, as some of you know, I was an active brother in Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed, dry, service fraternity, without a house (we drew in a pretty interesting crowd). It provided what was probably my, and many others’, first real sense of belonging. I was told, and shown, regularly, “We like you, we don’t care if you’re gay.” Partially this was through, affectionate, but decidedly unromantic touch.

My active status in APhiO didn’t even last for a full semester after I initiated, but I still count some of the people I met through it as very dear friends. And I often miss that contact, the touch that doesn’t demand or request, that isn’t sexual, the touch that simply offers affection. It’s a need that I’ve tried to fill through my love/sex life, but it’s not the same. It’s unfortunately rare in my life.

“Bedazzled” Review

I rented this movie expecting it to be lame. I wasn’t horribly disappointed. The characters are 2 dimensional stereotypes, at best, the acting is kinda enh, barring the female love interest, who does a good job with some crappy lines. The plot and dialogue are generally uninspired. It does have a happy, feel good ending, and a yin-yangish, but generally childish view of evil. Not much in the way of eye candy.

2 out of 5 stars. Rent it if you’re bored, single, there’s nothing on tv, and all your friends are out of town (fit my situation perfectly =)

Up too early, go to church?

That’s what I get for sleeping on the office floor I guess. For once I appreciate daylight savings time in the spring.

I’m thinking of going to church for once (it’s a sunday morning, what else am I going to do? Research on my paper? Not likely =) Of course, I’m thinking of a unitarian universalist church (not too many religious groups have an enthusiastic welcome for their gay vegan atheist bretheren). Sadly for today, but happily in general, their services don’t start until 11am.

They do have a 9:45am discussion group, apparently this week’s topic is an international criminal court. Maybe I’ll go to that.

Next week (when I’ll be in Chicago for the CGMC show) is about the ethics of eating (that would have been very interesting, oh well). UUU (unattached unitarian universalists) is meeting on friday, when I’m on the train to chicago, and next sunday is also when Interweave, the church’s gblt{etc} group meets. Similarly for next month, all this fun stuff is happening when I’ll be out of town for Josh’s graduation =)

I guess that there are worse things than having a life =)

Freaking weird dream

I can’t really remember much of it, but I do remember that in it I was taking a group shower in one of the bathrooms in my parents place, with three of the characters from Queer as Folk (the American version), Mike, Brian, and someone else I can’t remember right off. It wasn’t sexual, it was just sort of camradely. Then, as everyone was collecting their towels, and comments were zinging back and forth, I looked back in the shower, and it was in a pretty disgusting state. Then I woke up.

I guess that’s what I get for a) talking about polyamory with a friend, b) making a cameo at a UPitt gay dance thingy c) then chatting on gay.com so late that I don’t feel like either biking home or waiting for a bus in the cold and d) taking a few hours of shuteye on the office floor.

So now I’m going to go home and drop off my rent check and sleep some more. Later =)