Surreptitious Opinionation

Hung out with and . A locational dance was involved. Introduced them to . Mostly this is just a post so they can all find one another’s lj’s. But it was a great deal of fun. Thanks, guys.

Massage school and/or volunteer suicide hotline operator.

Heh. Spent some time researching both. I doubt either will ever amount to much.

Southwest: Chicago – Oakland, Aug 23, Oakland – Austin, Aug 30

Tuesday, August 23 – CHICAGO-MIDWAY(MDW) to OAKLAND CA(OAK)
Depart CHICAGO-MIDWAY(MDW) at 02:00PM and
Arrive in OAKLAND CA(OAK) at 04:30PM

Tuesday, August 30 – OAKLAND CA(OAK) to PHOENIX AZ(PHX)
Depart OAKLAND CA(OAK) at 12:25PM and
Arrive in PHOENIX AZ(PHX) at 02:20PM
Tuesday, August 30 – PHOENIX AZ(PHX) to AUSTIN TX(AUS)
Depart PHOENIX AZ(PHX) at 03:10PM and
Arrive in AUSTIN TX(AUS) at 07:20PM

United: Austin – Chicago, Sep 5
Austin (AUS) Sep 05 11:44 am Chicago (ORD) Sep 05 2:25 pm
Chicago (ORD) Sep 05 4:00 pm Minneapolis (MSP) Sep 05 5:34 pm

After a long surprise phone conversation I hit the chicago diner with . We chatted about all sorts of things. I think one of the two biggest topics of conversation were Simon, my ex roommate and her ex, who refuses to read her livejournal because “then I’d have to read Stephen’s and I’d never get anything done.” Talk of Simon and our (Simon’s and my) oakland roommates, and other berkeley personages was sprinkled throughout the conversation. Much more densely packed was the other major topic, a conversation about gender, sex, and sexuality, though sexuality was only discussed briefly. This was apparently her big paper for her bachelor’s. It talks about making babies as an economic activity. We tried to determine the essential and comparable elements of ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ v ‘masculinity’ and ‘feminity’. I think I was the one to point out that even with a penis cut off, a male would still be capable of reproducing (thank you, piers anthony), and that the gonads are comparable organs of reproductive necessity, but that the uterus forms a distinct, and uniquely female requirement for reproduction. (vaginas don’t qualify as necessary thanks to the possibility of C-section, though that does bring up the issue of implantation, but we didn’t discuss the implantation point).

Her thesis was that sex was essentially binary, intersex births notwithstanding, and that gender is a continuum of identity, or, rather, two separate continuums, in which a femme guy and a femme girl cannot have the same gender. They can share more in common than a butch guy and femme girl, but the self-identity gap is unbridgeable. No matter how femme a guy you are, you won’t have a period. No matter how butch the girl, you will never know that special joy of getting your nuts accidentally kneed by the person you’re sleeping with (pointing no fingers, okay, well, maybe one at myself. It was an accident, I swear.) It was fascinating. We discussed how transgender is a gender thing, but transsexualism is different in that one is trying to adjust sex, but managing only to adjust the external appearance of such. We do not yet have the capability to implant a uterus and functional gonads.

So, there’s the sex as reproduction, sex as pleasure, sex as expression of emotion, sex as development of emotion, and alot of other aspects. Nothing really mindblowing, but taken together, a very different way to examine the world.

As we were walking around after dinner, we ran across someone I knew. Someone who recognized me. His name is Evan. When I saw him, he was looking at his feet while walking towards me. I was pretty sure he’d spotted me first, and decided he didn’t want to acknowledge my existence. He looked up, I got a glimpse of his face. I said ‘hi’ as we passed, he said ‘hi’ and didn’t break stride or turn his head towards me while walking past, though I slowed down and turned to face him. Ouch. Hello? What did I do to piss him off?

I met Evan via gay.com in my last few months in chicago in 2001. We got along well. He is, by typical standards, pretty attractive. By my standards, he’s fucking hot. Sadly, he does not have a reciprocal opinion. That’s fine, he’s still fun to talk to. I once told him I thought if only we’d had more time he could have been my best friend in chicago. Yeah, I used the “best friend” phrase, I must have been smitten. Oh well.

I moved away, and we instantly dropped contact. No biggy. Forget about his existence til april when I’m coming out to chicago for whatever. Drop him a line. He has no time to meet, ah well. Run into him at the Cruizabou on that trip. Heh. He’s there with a guy, exchange a few words, no problem. Get the sense he doesn’t want to see me. Enh, no biggy. Well, today, in another, clearly accidental contact, I run into him on the street. And he wants to pretend I don’t exist. Because I’m a bitch like that, I deny him the luxury. It was a new guy he was walking with this time. Don’t know what his damage is. I know I shouldn’t care. I probably wouldn’t if I weren’t attracted to him. Or if he’d been worthless to talk to. *shrug*. This is so not worthy of my time, attention, or interest.

I cry stupidity on the part of livejournal. I can’t markup a phone post transcription, just put straight text in. Boring. I can’t obliquely reveal who the someone who asked for me to make another phone post would be. I can’t link you to the proper subset of my local friends that I mentioned: , . I can’t provide you with maps of the areas I’m thinking of looking for housing in for both chicago, and san francisco. I repeat. Lame. The rest are easily googled. If you have questions, ask. =)

• Monday evening: dinner w/ Joe, ,
• Tuesday evening: burbs gaming w/ , Mike, Mike, Zach, and John, followed by a trip to yuppy bar by and . I’m finding the company, or at least some of it, enjoyable. The gaming experience… A little less than inspiring. Less with the killing, more with the talking. =)
• Wednesday evening: recovery from tue’s sleep dep? I thought I did something else, but maybe not… Chat and LJ
• Thursday evening: downtown with , , and the visiting with general park outing, running into a former cmu person at the wireless coffee shop I dropped by, and eating italian. Then home and directly to bed.
• Friday evening: finally get a gym membership (for a month). Discover I’m up to my lifetime peak weight of 166. (Maybe I weighed more at the height of my high school swim team activity, but I don’t think so). strolling exploration of lincoln ave, mostly catch up on lj. Find other ways to relax.

An additional amusing incident from friday. It comes from using one’s gym bag as a grocery bag. As this guy was filling it up with food he says “I just touched your underwear” and immediately walks away. The cashier and I chuckle at that. It turns out that he touched the clean (unworn) pair of underwear in my bag. I feel no guilt for traumatizing the poor lad, but it does remind me to bring a plastic bag for such things next time.

40 hours/week is inhumane. =)

This was a comment I left in response to ‘s post. I ventured off topic. He was originally discussing evaluating the Iranian execution of teenage homos from a modern American cultural framepoint and the sensationalization of the single incident (not unlike, oh, say, Matthew Shepherd, but in this case more the rule and less the exception), and I wandered down a topical trail about cultural imperialism and Iraq:

Given my typically american appalling lack of historical knowledge, the Middle East more or less stopped existing between the crusades and World War I. A few hours before I’d read your post, while bored at work, I’d actually been researching what was going on in the middle east in the years between desert storm and shock and awe when I stumbled across something that started with the formation of Iraq in the early 1900’s under british colonialism. That still leaves a very large gap.

I agree. I don’t think we can turn them into us at all. And that’s not what I want. I also don’t recall proposing bunnies & rainbows. =) I propose conversion via a combination of education, food, healthcare, work, and most importantly, contact with the rest of the world all served with a religious and social neutrality. The two keys in that are education and work. From that the food, healthcare, and contact with the outside world would pretty much become self-sustaining. Obviously, that can’t be done in territories where most are hostile to us, nor can it sensibly be done in a country that’s tearing itself apart (see also, Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis packed together under one roof). But we could fund aid programs carried out by more liberal Muslims or any other group they are unlikely to bomb on sight.

As for lacking the luxury of time, I’m afraid that we have no choice. You don’t change people’s hearts and minds overnight. No matter how quickly you can get a fax from the Appalachian Mountains to the Fertile Crescent, the human time frame is less amenable to speed ups. Unless, of course, you want to slaughter the majority, and separate the rest, that is, forcibly disassemble the culture with an ongoing campaign of genocide. Color me not in favor. We’d start learning what international disapproval really means, even in the absense of disapproval we couldn’t afford it, and it’s simply completely wrong.

I agree with Pat Buchanan (and thanks to whichever livejournaler posted this where I could find it). This “stay until we fix things” idea is bullshit. Our presence there is inherently destabilizing.

That’s not to say that I think packing our bags tonight and leaving tomorrow with no further planning is a good idea. That would be a disaster. Saying “we fucked up and we can’t fix it, can somebody please help” might be a start (expect that from Bush about the same time I grow wings and fly). Maybe do a little nation deconstructing so that the kurds have their own state, the sunnis theirs, and the shiites theirs. I’m no expert on middle eastern affairs, and I don’t pretend to be. I’m throwing out my best guesses.

They love me. =) It was more of a 2/3 than 1/2 internship review.

We’ll see how much love they have to spread around when the time comes.

I have run my desire for SF by the office manager, my supervisor, (who were both supportive and encouraging, while sad at the prospect of not having me … if they have the slots available) and the SF people (who didn’t get back to me quickly). =)

Woo! =)

My roommate this summer is Mitch. He’s a medical basketcase. Well, not really, but he’s definitely had more medical unhappiness than most. Type 1 diabetic at 6 months. Born with cataracts (removed). Multiple surgeries for glaucoma. A detached retina. Corneal ulcers. Cornea replacement surgery (he now has to use eyedrops every two hours for the rest of his waking life to avoid tissue rejection issues). So, it’s pretty unsurprising that ‘stoic’ is part of how I think of him. But not a stuffy kind of stoic. More “roll with the punches” than stoic, really. And he’s laid back and gregarious. It’s actually working out pretty well as a roommate situation.

I’m not sure if he took my stated expectation that he wouldn’t want to see Latter Days as a challenge or what, but he sat through it. And enjoyed it. He wasn’t even offended by the ‘blowjob for the straight guy’ scene. =)

When asked to provide a one word description of me, his choice was “fruity”. He then qualified this by saying “but not in a gay way”. Though today he laughed at the idea that his parents wouldn’t be able to tell I was a homo by talking with me. =) *shrug*