weekend

So, the much delayed report of the rest of my weekend.

Saturday morning, I got up early and joined the swim team. Saw a few people I recognized, noticed several other absent. I’ve noticed that when I finish swimming, I often feel a little cranky and dissatisfied. Contrasted with energized after aerobics machines, pleasantly sore after lifting, ZOOM (with joint pain) after gymnastics, and tired as hell after a multi-hour bike ride. *shrug*

Then off to the blind faith cafe. Alas, Kirsten’s friend never got back to me. Based on the adjustment of my earlier chicago plans, maybe he decided I was a flake. Or he could have been really busy, just lost interest, who knows? So, I ate alone, and that’s okay. Not sure the food was worth going out of my way, but so it goes.

Out to the suburbs to hang with and . I had the pleasure of ‘s company the night before. They dropped me off at the gigantic traffic morass that was the “Dear Friends” concert of music from final fantasy by whatever-his-name-was from. The music was good, and the occasional addition of graphical bits from the games added something. I didn’t find it worth the $60, really, but so it goes. I’m not a huge fan of orchestral music. The house was packed (seated 4,400). I was looking for costumes and didn’t see _any_ until on the way out I saw someone in a clearly homemade outfit that I think was supposed to be Sephiroth, but it’s hard to say really. Still, 1/4,400 does not constitute a trend. =)

Afterwards, I was hanging out with my ex-roommate, Stephen. It went pretty well. Then back to mpls in the morning. It was a fairly full day.

Maybe I was too critical: sex and clothes

Completing today’s massively sex-themed posting spree,

The last (and only) time I’ve gotten naked with someone since my diagnosis, I was extraordinarily sensitive towards, and uncomfortable with, any flesh of his getting anywhere near my crack. A reverse jockstrap, or finally making use of the fly on one of my pairs of underwear has a new appeal. =)

Republican Journalist also Male Escort: so the fuck what?

You all know I don’t much like the current administration. But the current assault on Jeff Gannon for being a former escort, and have no doubt, that’s what it is, is so stupid. Prostitution was clearly forbidden in judeochristian whatevers. Gay male temple prostitution received special attention. I, for one, would like to see that particular prejudice put down. More than I want to see one of a multitude of Bush sycophants publicly embarrassed.

Just as porn star is just a job, so is escort. Both have sex for money (subtle legal distinctions aside). I don’t think this ought to disqualify one from the public trust or a future career.

If his journalistic integrity is less than stellar, attack that. No, it won’t sell so well, it won’t produce an enormous volume of tittilating browsing. But at least it’ll push in a better direction. Not that I’ll be heeded.

horrors that don’t horrify

Infanticide and child molestation. I remember listening to CNN in the airport yesterday, when they described the recent band instructor who’s been accused of molesting his charges. Much like the Michael Jackson charges, some part of me just sighs and wonders why the hell this is on the news. I mean, I know why, it’s scary, it’s sex, and it deals with kids. I can’t imagine anything more engaging to the human hindbrain, particularly the American hindbrain. But I’m not horrified by it.

I was sexually assaulted by strangers a few times as a kid. I was also accused of rape by a kid I’d spent months fooling around with. He was a couple years younger than me. He started it, but I verbally pushed him to keep doing it. There was never any penetration, never any orgasm, never even masturbation. All this before I entered high school, some of it well before.

Am I just inured to the whole thing? I was pretty messed up by it; I’d like to think I’m much better now. I am scared to touch kids, particularly babies, just for fear of how it might look to someone. Anyone. And I want to adopt, or maybe bring someone bearing some of my genes, into the world. Heh. There’s a fucked up combination. Either way, I’d prefer a girl, just to make the sexual angle a nonissue for me.

[Then again, a couple weeks ago at a swim team brunch, one of my hosts’ very young adopted daughters announced she was going to give me a backrub. This created a small panic response in me. I could feel the blood draining from my face, I immediately turned my chair back to the wall, mumbled something like “no thank you”, and I tried to think of something that would put this determined young lady off her intended course of action without me losing it and responding way more vehemently than the circumstances warranted. I didn’t come up with anything. (in retrospect “No, don’t!” followed up with a potential grabbing of hands away from me might well have been appropriate). Fortunately, one of her dads told her (with firm parental gentleness) to leave me alone, and she complied. On the plus side, I’ve confirmed for myself that I’m not a pedophile, on the minus side, I should have handled it more gracefully.]

Maybe my indifference to it is the first stage of my involuntary icy-numb-shutting-down response. That may be the one time my brain stops its gyrations. I really don’t like it. It feels like some part of my brain gets trapped in a Liar-esque loop: Can’t take action, that would hurt. Can’t refrain from action, that would hurt.

Not a pretty situation. I guess I still have some work to do on that front.

In chicago!

Yay, I’m here. =)

Thursdays are always my long day, and tacking a plane trip on to it does nothing to make it shorter. Starting off with godawful early gymanstics, staying seated for most of the day, and carrying lots of heavy bags around when not seated, sitting on a plane which (again) sits on the runway for inordinately long span of time, then sleeping on a couch has left me a little sore, but still glad to be here.

Stayed up late talking with my wonderful host . Sadly, that may be the longest span of time that I get to see him this trip, but we shall see. =)

Also unexpectedly ran into Seth, whom I haven’t seen in years, on the L. He was getting off a stop before mine, I was checking out the station signs and there was the uncertain eyes meeting, so I took a longer walk than necessary, but had the opportunity to get ribbed by him about my housing instability. I would still be very amused to introduce him to Seth Kingman (friend from cmu, and long time minneapolis resident). I can’t help but dread the abuse by wit I would suffer were the two ever to meet, but it would be terribly entertaining. =)

Today I will continue to lounge for a bit, post several entries I’ve been meaning to get around to, grab some food at the Blind Faith Cafe, then head down to downtown to use the library’s wireless and hang out with Ellen (of Simon) when she gets free. Then more Joel time. And tomorrow I’ll probably go swimming with the smelts, hang out with and who sadly won’t be joining me for the concert later in the evening, go to the concert, come back here and get ready to go back to minneapolis.

Brief, but enjoyable. And it’s so much warmer here. Why, I bet it’s barely below freezing outside. =)

pretty v attractive

Of late, I’ve been forcibly reminded that while I have a very broad aesthetic taste in men, it doesn’t coincide neatly with who I want to mess around with. And there are alot of older (less than 10 years, usually) guys that I think look great. But when it comes to making out, my interest rapidly wanes. With a few noteworthy exceptions. I think that alot of it is a maladaptive response. By which I mean, I have a reflex to jump someone’s bones, or go along with jumping their bones, if I think they look good. This reflex has served me ill on many occasions.

Talking with a certain friend of mine in California less than a year ago, I’d said that I wondered if we were used to responding to certain situations differently. In that case I was talking about stress. He’s a very athletic, outdoorsy, fellow, and, when wanting stimulation, and perhaps when under stress, he goes out and does athletic stuff, and may occasionally engage in risky rockclimbing behavior. That’s a theory, it’s not intended so much as a description of him, as a theoretical model for contrast. I have often taken the bonobo strategy: using sex as the preferred palliative for nearly all forms of distress. Which clearly creates problems all its own.

Feige had a lecture on a theme which she often repeated in my presence: “Yeah, he’s pretty. But there are also pretty paintings. I don’t want to fuck the paintings.” (something about me seems to encourage that sort of repetition of theme, see also ‘s frequent comments on my “goal oriented” nature).

What does one do with aesthetically pleasing, but sexually unappealing people? (A very distinct class from the sexually appealing, but sexually unavailable people, though I can’t help seeng some bizarre connection). Enh, just food for thought.

Porn and the objectification of {wo}men

posted a link to a recent feminist’s view of the porn industry from the inside. I don’t know much about the straight porn industry, but she paints a pretty grizzly picture of nasty treatment of women in many of the products. I’ll even bite that some gay porn is exploitative (though it was interesting to see Shannon (my ex roommate, and, like the author of the linked to piece, an asian female) avoid the question when I asked her how gay porn played into her theory of porn being at its fundamental base the exploitation of women by men).

I generally believe that no one is forced to do porn (or, rather, those few that are have a very valid legal basis for action), and even that not liking one’s job isn’t a good reason to declare that job off limits, because people are free to quit. Some standards for workplace safety ought to apply, certainly. And things like sexual harrassment should still be treated the same as any other job. In short, I guess, my take is, it’s work. Treat it like a job, because that’s what it is.

I dream of Condi

I woke up from a dream in which I stepped out of a big building, into an open space between more big buildings, on a clear day.

It was a group of administration mucketymucks. I ended up grilling Condoleeza Rice trying to understand how she saw the world and thought the policies she was party to were helping. Lots of pointed questions. And each time she answered with a smiling “Well, don’t you realize x, y, z” sort of answer, in a tone that got progressively more impersonally annoyed as it went along, as if she were coming to realize that my parents had “ruined” me, and I was “unsalvageable”.

Dreams are interesting things. =)