[Been rather emotional the past few days...]

Been rather emotional the past few days. I even cried for awhile the other day. I bought a new album, Elton John's Greatest Hits, and the songs touched me a strange way. Here's what it is: they got me thinking about all the hard times that all the homosexuals that have come before me have gone through...all the oppression and such. And I was thinking about how much harder is was back then, in the 70's, than it is now for homo types such as myself. For some reason this made me cry. I guess I was sort of romanticizing what it must have been like back then. The ideas I had in my head were rather poingnant and sentimental. I think it's really sad how much in-fighting there is within the gay community, how much everyone seems to hate everyone else. Especially "flamers": everyone seems to hate them. But it was brave, outspoken flamers who started the gay rights movement, and we all owe alot to them. It's also sad how alot of guys who were a part of all that are still around today, but get very little respect, because they're old, and considered unattractive. Since then I've been feeling a strong affection for those things that are considered to be characteristically "gay", but which are frequently looked down upon, like show tunes, gender bending, drag, etc.

One time I went to go see a documentary about the oldest living lesbian in the world. She was 100 and some odd years old. This was about 6 years ago maybe, so she's most likely dead right now. But she was really active and involved in the gay scence, remarkably open about it, especially for the times that she lived through, like the 30's and 40's. As a special treat, after the documentary was over they actually got the woman on the phone (an old black woman. she was), and sort of set up a speaker phone through the PA system, so we could ask her questions and she would respond. Well, most of the people, when they asked their questions, she couldn't understand a word they said, so the woman who was presenting the thing had to repeat the question. Well, I asked my own question. I forget exactly what I said, but it was something like "I'm really impressed that you were able to be so out of the closet back then. That couldn't have been easy. You were way more out of the closet than I could have been. How did you do that? Like, how did you keep yourself safe and things like that?" Well, the presenter started to relay my confused and jumbled question (much more confused and jumbled than how I paraphrased it above), back to the old lesbian, but she interrupted, saying, "no, no, I heard him." And then she told me her secret, that allowed her to do such amazing things, and to be so brave: "You have to love and respect yourself, and you have to respect other people."

That was it. I felt a little at a loss then; she didn't really answer my question, I thought. But I've often reflected on her advice during times when I felt like my sexual oreintation was coming into focus, or causing problem with the people around me, or causing doubt within myself about my own worthiness and such. It was, to me, really quite powerful, that advice. I don't know how to describe it, but I've always found it quite comforting. Actually, thinking about it now, I feel like crying again (I'm in a public place though, so I'll control myself).

This country seems to be swinging back to the right-wing conservatives, and they're bringing in the gay issue, to rally support against us, so as to tie their facist movement together more solidly, with bonds of mutual hate. I hope, that when life becomes hard for me, and the government and social atmosphere becomes more and more against me and my kind, that I'll have people around, brave homosexual men and woman, who have been there before, and can help me through it.

I've been up all night, reading long-winded victorian era novels, which I am begining to really enjoy. But, as usual when I've been up all night, all alone, with my head in a book, I've been getting ideas that seem really profound, but which are actually quite obvious and commonplace.

Here is the idea I had last night: The body is the only possesion that is truly yours. It is the only thing, which, as long as you are here on earth, cannot be taken away from you. Everything else can either be stolen, sold, given away or lost, but not the body. As long as you are alive, it is yours. Therefore it is the most personal of all objects, the one which most connects you to the earth, and the one object that one can truly be said to be a part of.

Perhaps this is why sexual abuse is so traumatic, or any kind of physical abuse, for that matter. It violates that which you are most connected to on the earth, that which you most relate to, that which most clearly represents your sense of security in the world. If one is led, through abuse and physical dominance, to feel as though they cannot trust their body, or that their body is not really theirs to control and enjoy, then that, more than any other kind of physical insecurity, will lead one to distrust themselves, to distrust life, and to not feel in control of themselves on the most personal, psychological level. My body is me, and if I cannot control that, then I have no control whatsoever.

It makes me sad when people are led to feel that enjoying their body is bad, or unwholesome in some way. The body is the one thing you have the complete right to do whatever you want with! It's nobody's business how you chose to use it and explore it. Perhaps this is why so many religions have focused on controling and repressing people's enjoyment of their bodies. If they feel as though they don't have the right to do as they wish with their bodies, then they will feel as though they don't have the right to think as they wish, or feel as they wish, or whatever.

I guess this might seem strange to some people, because I'm talking about the body as though it were a possession, and not something completely connected to the soul and the spirit. I think the fact that many people feel absolutely disconnected to their bodies is a good sign that the body is not actually completely one with the soul.

Speaking of weird sexual repression in religion: http://www.jesusoftheweek.com/jesii/319/index.html (so I haven't figured out how to make clever links yet; bite me).

Ferret Man: Unavailable

I'm so annoyingly sad right now. I met the perfect guy...and he's straight, of course. I'm very angry. I'm angry at straight guys who don't let you know that they're straight when you first meet them, so that you start getting crushes on them that have no hope of any future attached to them. I mean, when you tell someone that you're gay, they're supposed to let you know what they are right afterwards, right? right? I mean, come on, just lay your cards on the table, so that we all know what's what and what's possible. I'm very annoyed.

He was so perfect though: he was just a little butch, but not stupid and neurotic about it like most straight guys are; he was a little bit fem, but not flaming by any standard, but just...sensitive and receptive. And he was the perfect height...just a little bit shorter than I...and he had lots of facial hair, but practically no head hair (he's balding). He's poor, but not ghetto, so...hanging out with him was nice...like, I felt like we were on the same page concerning alot of things. And it just felt nice too, to not feel like someone was judging you, or, even if they liked you personally, that they don't t generally like people of your kind, i. e. poor people. It's very upsetting to me, but I seem to know a lot of middle class people from middle class families, and they don't even realize it, but they tend to use the word "poor" as an insult, like during a tirade of insults against someone that they don't like, they'll throw the word "poor" in there somewhere, not as the main insult, but as a supporting thing, like "they're fat, rude, mean, and POOR. That really bugs me. It would be nice to be with someone who's from the same socioeconomic background as myself, who would just understand that being poor is a-ok, and could not even be possibly considered an insult in any situation.

I seem to have lost touch with my roots, and I'm not sure who I am anymore. Consequently, I end up being with guys that don't really feel like family, or like people that I can ever actually be completely comfortable around. I guess that's my curse: to always be an outsider to a certain extent. For one short minute I didn't feel like an outsider with this guy tonight (Ferret Man, I'll call him), but in fact I am an outsider, 'cause he's straight, and I'm gay, and there will always be some kind of wall between us, no matter how opened minded each of us is...

Deserts

I'm so...annoyed at everything today. The world can really just bite me...like, hard.

It's most likely because I'm taking a break from smoking for awhile. What's that? What's that I hear you say? "I'm so happy that you're quitting smoking"? I AIN'T QUITTIN' SMOKIN', I'M JUST TAKIN' A BREAK. Allright? So don't be gettin' no funny ideas.

Actually, now that I don't have any school work that I have to do, I feel quite strange. I want to take a week off and go to...ARIZONA! I've had it on my mind today alot, and I would really like to go there. Sigh...It's so dry and warm there.... So...stark and empty...big and impersonal...warm, yet not friendly. I liked it there, in my own way, and I would really like to go back sometime. Sigh...if only I were rich...or just better organized. If I left today I would get there by sunday night (like, if I took a greyhound, which would be all that I could afford at this last minute)...well, why waste my time dreaming about it; I don't have the time and I don't have the money...and actually there's not really anything that I want to do there. OH! I KNOW! I'll rent a car and drive down there. That would rock! But really, I'd need, like, more than a week to make such a long journey worthwhile. But that would be so cool, 'cause then I could stop in Utah as well, which is a pretty neat lookin' state, like, rock-wise. And I could also stop in...NEVADA! One of the most depressing states in the union. Yeah...it's time to go to the desert....oh well. Maybe I'll be able to go in either august or december....a long, long time from now...

Still no dreams, somehow. I wonder what's up with that....

Good Morning

I'm having a...great (!!!) day today. My tax money came back today, direct deposit. I went to the cash machine today around 5 am, all worried that I'd be overdrawn, and when I got my receipt, the balance was way more than it should have been. I was very sleepy, so I just stared at it for a minute, totally unsure what to think. I was like, "what's wrong with the picture?" Nothing! Nothing is wrong. I just got my money back. I am so happy.

I am so happy. Its called "too much caffeine and not enough sleep." I just took a midterm for my East Asian History class, and it went surprisingly well, seeing as I barely studied at all. I bet I get at least a B-, which would make my overall grade about a B+

I had an ephiphany this morning, as one is wont to do when one has had too much caffeine and too little sleep. I was all stressed out, and feeling miserable about the future, and so I decided to take a little nap, just for a half-an-hour, just so I'd be all fresh and rested for my exam. When I woke up, I felt...very much at peace. I realized that the most important thing for me to do now and for the rest of my life is to love myself and to love other people. It made taking my test much easier.

I've had this ephiphany before, and I actually always am a least a little bit semi-conscious of the idea at some level all the time, simply because I've had this same ephiphany soooo many times before. What I forget, however, is the actual ramifications of this concept; like, me thinking that if I don't pass a test with flying colors then I'm inhuman slime does not fall under the category of "loving myself." It's nice when I remember that loving myself means feeling good about myself, and doing what's healthy for myself. Too often "loving myself" seems to get corrupted into, "I would love myself, if I were not such a lazy slob", or, "If I pass this test then I get to love myself."

Well, off to take a nap, and then get up and finish the paper that's due in five hours...(I love myself, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself....)

I'm so worried about my east asian history fianl tomarrow...I'm not prepared at all...I hate finals, because for some reason I always...like...my motivation just totally leaves me, and I just don't seem to care anymore about it. It always seems to happen. Maybe if I were more organized I wouldn't get this feeling, but it seems like there's so much to do during the last two weeks of class, that by the time the final comes along I'm already exhausted, and I can't seem to justify focusing on studying instead of sleeping and relaxing.

No dreams, no dreams...I have "important" stuff to think about...can't waste time on remembering dreams...

E. M. Forster is really amusing

E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel is such a pleasureable read. He says the most amusing things. For example, here he is talking about a character of Jane Austin's:

What is Lady Bertram's reaction [to her daughters being a bit slutish]? The sentence describing it is significant: "Lady Bertram did not think deeply, but, guided by Sir Thomas, she thought justly on all important points, and she saw therefore in all its enormity, what had happened, and neither endeavoured herself, nor required Fanny to advise her, to think little of guilt and infamy." These are stong words, and they used to worry me because I thought Jane Austen's moral sense was getting out of hand.

Stong words indeed! I think that the idea of anyone becoming genuinely worried about whether Jane Austen's moral sense was getting out of hand is simply one of the most amusing things I have ever heard.

Over the past few days I've been feeling more delusional than I have been for quite awhile.

It's an unfortunate set-back, but not one that is insurmountable.

Peaceful: No Dreams

Strange: I've been sleeping sooo much over the past two or three days, yet I don't remember a single dream. I think this is because a few days ago I had...some sort of emotional crisis, where I realized just how desperately inadequate I feel about my ability to succeed academecally, and how stressed out I feel. I almost cried, actually. It felt bad at the time, but overall it was positive: I've relaxed a lot since then, because a big part of my little breakdown was the realization that I couldn't live like this anymore, and that I needed to worry about my well-being first and my academics second. And so I have been doing just that, resting and making sure I stay calm an, and my academic work actually seems to be improving as a result.

But no dreams. I believe that this is because I finally dealt with a lot of my shit on the conscious level, and so, for now at least, there are no pressing issues that need to be worked out on the subconscious level, and hence my subconscious is now focused mainly on basic maintenance fuctions, such as cementing memories or forming connections between pieces of information, none of which are really striking or forceful enough to make my conscious mind take any notice.

There's too many places to cruise on campus. Just when I get used to avoiding one, another one pops up, right under my nose.

Here's how it works. At first all the guys that go to a cruisy restroom are all young college guys. Then the old guys from off campus start coming 'round. This scares off the young guys, who quietly go somewhere else. So the cruisy places multiply. It's easy for me to resist the temptation to go to the places where it's only older guys: I've had so many of them, and the excitement is just not that strong any more. But when I come across one that's all younger guys, well, I haven't had a lot of them, and the temptation is harder to resist.

It's all very distressing.

I really must come to a clearer understanding of what an isolated house in the woods symbolizes to me, seeing as so many of my dreams lately have featured one. Let's see...if I came across one in reality, how would it make me feel, or what would it make me think of? Bad things can happen to you when you're alone in the woods, all isolated and such. On the other hand, there's no one to bother you, and you don't need to please nobody for nothin', so you can really let yourself go, and come to understand yourself, really delve deep into your emotions, without fear that your anger or tweakiness is gonna freak other people out.

My father was always really fond of going up to woods, and would often isolate himself at one of his parent's cabins. I don't see why I would see this as negative though: this was actually when my father was nicest and most human, and I have a number of pleasant memories associated with being with him up there. I think my fear has more to do with isolation, and with having nothing to distract me from seeing what's really going on inside of me. Yes, I see, the house in the woods represents my fear of coming face-to-face with all the creepy, fucked-up shit that goes on inside of me, which I spend the majority of my time running away from in one way or another.

Oh, I'm being so negative today. I'm actually quite pleased with my life....overall.

Destruction Orgy

I am so tired right now. But I feel good. I feel...bouncy and fuzzy. It's nice. Komeda makes me so happy...

No dreams of course: I didn't sleep for even a minute last night. But I slept for most of the day yesterday, and all I had were nightmares. One of the most intense was one in which there was a family living in a motel in the woods (I did not make a personal appearance in this one, so it was one of the "deeper level" ones), and...they were all disappearing one by one. The story became clearer as the dream went as (as my dreams often do), and it seems that some sort of non-human organization was taking over their minds, and making them kill other family members, and then take off into the woods to join the other people who had been taken over, who were forming a sort of chaos militia, committed to the sole goal of bringing pain and destruction to the human race. I didn't understand why, until night fell, and then the pleasure took over, the mass orgy of sexual decadance that took all the horror and pain of what they were doing away. One of the participants in the orgy was a snake, who flicked his soft red tounge into our mouths (I guess I was in the dream at this point, but only vaguely).

The family, which consisted of only two members at the end, was wondering where everyone else had gone, especially the daughter, who was the first to disappear, and had been all but forgotten in the chaos. A flashback insued: a young girl in a white dress, pictured in sepia tones, appeared in the daughter's room, and said "you must burn him," meaning the daughter's pet monkey. And so the daughter did: she took the monkey out back, burned him to ashes, then ground the ashes fine in a pencil sharpener. At this piont she was fully under the control of the creatures that conjured the image of the little girl, and so, as she was told to do, she killed her little brother, not much more than a toddler. I saw through her eyes: she barely saw anything, just flashes of images, sketchy and chaotic, as she killed her brother, and then left to join the people in the woods.

Well, I'm not completely sure about all of this, but the fact that the people were rewarded with escapist sex makes it clear that this has something to do my sex addiction. Is there something about me that I feel is horrible, perhaps the way I treat people, or the way I think about them, which has sex as a payoff, and so makes it all worth it? I do often have very disturbing fantasies which I am deeply ashamed of, which I know are wrong, and which I really want to stop having, but which I continue to make happen because I know that they'll get me off when gentler, more loving fantasies won't do. Why is it so important for me to get off? I suppose that's the big question. I think that I really became convinced that it was time to seriously stop my acting out when I began acting out my more violent fantasies in reality; never against anyone's will, but it disturbed me anyway. I don't see why I need sex so badly that I would hurt someone to get it, or even just imagine hurting someone in order to attain mastrabatory release.

The image of the snake seemed to conjure ideas of Adam and Eve, which is odd, seeing as I so totally not Christian. It is interesting that for the most part I was not in the dream, but then I showed up when the sex came in. Does this indicate that I really don't feel in control of myself, of my violent emotions, and that I use sex to attempt to bring back identity and peaceful order to my life? Stange contraction: I fantasize about violence to escape my violent feelings. It is true that every time I try to get fully sober (not just partially sober as I am now), the feelings that come up are very strong anger, usually in response to feelings of insecurity and helplessness.

I woke up for an hour, scared beyond my level of tolerance, and listened to some folks on NPR read their stories aloud: David Sedaris read one about drowning a rat, and being afraid of zombies, which was oddly comforting. After I fell asleep the dream continued, but in a more benign form. It seemed like a Stephen King novel, taking place in Colorado. There was still an attack on the human race, but it was less psychological, and more physical. There was snow everywhere. It was almost pleasant, especially compared to the first dream.

Heh. That was a really long entry. Like I said, I'm tired. Oh, and I haven't had sex with anyone for two weeks, for which I am very grateful.

Video Booths

I dreamed that I went to an adult bookstore. I went into the basement where all the video booths are. I knew that I shouldn't have done that, because as much as I was pretending to myself that I was just going to jerk-off privately, I knew that in reality I was looking for someone to mess around with, and indeed that was exactly what I started off trying to do: I went from booth to booth, seeing if any of the doors were unlocked, and if there were any guys waiting to get it on with someone (a common practice in real adult bookstores). I opened one door, and in the booth were a man and a woman, both fully clothed, and an eleven year old girl, naked, whom the woman looked to be molesting. I was totally shocked and disgusted, but at the same time I was happy that I had caught someone in the act of doing this, because I could turn them into the authorities and get it to stop. I immediately went to the woman who was monitering the booths (who in reality is my apartment manager), and told her what I had seen.

"I can't do anything about it" she said. "Look, they were just coming from a funeral, and the little girl needed to change, so they stopped in the booth for some privacy, that's all."

Again, i was shocked. "I saw them, they were molesting that little girl. And anyway, why didn't they just change in the car or something? Why bring her here?" But she wasn't listening, she still kept saying "there's nothing I can do about it." I spent the rest of the dream trying to convince other people who worked there, like the higher-ups, that this was a problem and that something needed to be done about it. I eventually did convince someone, but I don't know what came of it. At one point I doubted if I had seen correctly: I only glimpsed them for a second, and it was possible that the girl was just changing clothes. I dismissed that thought as ridiculous though. I spent alot of time crying in this dream, because this girl was being totally abused and traumatized by her parents and nobody gave a damn (the parents looked nothing like my parents, by the way. They actually looked alot like how I imagine the parents of my ex-boyfriend [the suburban pot-head] looking).

This is the closest I've ever come to having a dream about having sex with a child. I am thankful for that.

The fact that the parents used the excuse that they were coming home a funeral and needed to change seems intrigueing. I think I know what it means, in fact, but it's a little too personal to share online, even for me. (don't worry, I wasn't personally sexually abused as a child).

Review of Old Posts

I've been reading over my old posts, like, from when I first started this blog in November. The quality of them is very different compared to what I've been doing lately, or at least I perceive them to be so. I seem much more...distressed in my earlier entries than I feel now. I think that it's because I'm going to school now, and so I don't really have time to freak out like I used to. Also, I've had to write so many papers lately, and so I've gotten used to the idea that my personal opinions are of little value if not backed up by facts. Consequently, my personal writing reflects this, and I find myself talking more about what happened and less about my subjective interpretation of it. Or so it seems.

I'm blogging so much today. I don't want to do my school work.

I am overwhelmed right now with sexual thoughts that violate my sense of morality and ethics. To continue with them feels horrible: I am leading myself into a vision of the world that will isolate me from society. To quit them is torture: they are my only source of stability and well-being, and if they are taken away the only thing left is pain. I don't know what to do.

Fiction Writing

Last night I dreamed that I went to Chicago and enrolled in the introduction to fiction writing class that they offer here at OSU. I was very happy, and excited about learning and writing.

I've decided to sign up for the class in reality, but unfortunately it's all filled. I'm on the waitlist now, but I doubt if I'll get in. I hope I don't get in: I have enough to do next quarter, and I'm not really interested in giving anything up to make room for a new class. Writing will be funner in the summertime, I'm sure.

I got a wicked headache today.

The Flood

A woman was sitting in her house, while a gigantic flood was raging outside. She was so thirsty, she hadn't touched water in so long, but if she opened her windows to the flood then her house would get destroyed and she might die. No matter: the flood was so strong that it broke through anyway. She expected it to come through the ceiling or the windows, but totally inexplicably it came through the floor. The house was destroyed, and she grabbed onto some debris to hopefully survive.

Houses in my dreams, three entries running. Houses are said to be symbols of the self. For me they are symbols of the self as it is constructed, at least in part consciously. I keep my sense of identity intact by smoking cigarettes, for one, but mostly through sexual stimulation. Without those things my hold on who I am breaks down, and I'm a victim to the uncontrolable flood of emotion, which I'm never really escaping, but only keeping at bay. I never really learned to deal with my emotions in a healthy way, and I constucted my "secure" identity by using external things, like drugs, food, cigarettes, sex. This is not a supportable system. If I get rid of these things, then I will be like a teenager again, going through the same process of figuring out who I am and how to interpret and react to what goes on inside of me. I remember that as a teenager I was constantly dreaming about oceans.

Well, at least my life isn't boring.

I just found out that there will probably be only morning hours available for me at work next quarter. I'm not too pleased about that.

Oh, and I've been thinking about my father alot lately, partially as a result of my dream of him a few days ago. He was a real jerk. I'm pretty angry at him.

Minneapolis dream

I dreamed last night that I went back to Minneapolis. I was riding my bike somtimes, but usually walking around, in the none-too-exciting area just east of my mother's house. I enjoyed being back there, but I didn't really feel like it was my home anymore, and it seemed like everywhere I went there was someone trying to rip me off or get me to do destructive things.

There was some sort of underground bookstore there, with local comics and hard to find porn. One of the comics was by a boyfriend/girlfriend team (he draws, she writes) that were friends of mine. In waking reality they really did do a comic book that was actually almost decent, and in the dream I was very excited to see that they had done another one, which was much improved over their real one. The story was about a young suburban girl who had gone to visit someone in the woods for a few days (much like the setting of the dream I had about my father the other day), and she was quite homesick. If she slept in the house something bad might happen to her, so some little kids set up a mattress for her outside of the house under a barren tree. Something bad happened to her anyway: John Travolta came over to posses her and turn her into him. She resisted, and avoided becoming Mr. Travolta, but did end up becoming a man (still keeping at least part of her personality), a bearish homsexual no less, and found herself a nice blond guy to settle down with. They took a plane home and lived happily ever after.

The main dream and the comic book have one thing in common: someone far away from their place of comfort, where bad things could happen to you. The woodsy scene...am I feeling...outside of society in some way? I don't know. Actually, this dream does not really seem to speak to me so clearly, and I'm surprised that I remembered so much of it, 'casue there's actually alot of little details that I'm not writing down here. I have no idea where John Travolta came from.

I got a paper back from my history TA. I got a B-. I really don't like him. Today he was insulting catholics and police officers in class. He has such a one-sided view of things. I'm not necessarily a big fan of police officers (or so much catholics either), but they're still human, and alot more complicated than he gives them credit for. And no, I'm not just bitter about the grade; he's been annoying the hell out of me since day one.