thoughts from a post-it

If my internet starts working again today, I'll post this blog.

I'm writing it on one of those sticky notes you can put on your computer. I don't like word documents; they feel too much like homework. This morning I woke up thinking about him again. It's been a month now, and it was his birthday on Thursday. Wednesday was a good day, though. I felt good, independent, happy. Today, I feel kind of blaze, tired, lost. It isn't enough to know that each day gets easier; it's a lie we tell ourselves to get through the one we're in. When do we stop telling lies and start looking at truths? What are the truths though? No one has the same truth; it's all a complicated web of intersubjectivity. In the betweens is where truth lives, which is why we can never find it, never feel it, never taste it. Why do crazy people like me, then, constantly try to find it? What's the use? What difference does it really make to know the truth rather than looking at the consequences? I guess I'd like to think in truth lies knowledge, the knowledge of why that escapes all understanding.

I used to think I could make myself into an optimist, a person who looks happily on things, someone with a positive outlook on the future, on the present, and on the past. This was just a lie I told myself. I still dream, I still live in that dream world but I can separate it from reality. I am a walking contradiction. I suppose most people are. The more people I know the less I want to know them.

Head cold in December

It's warm underneath all my layers. I cover up my body so you can't see my face. It doesn't make sense and everyone can actually see it but I continue to do so. When I was little and ashamed of my body, I would wear heavy clothes, double extra larges and baggy jeans. Now I wear double extra smalls and jeans that my junk hardly fits in. What happened to me in the 10 years?

I was informed yesterday that I think too much. I think too much about time, about age, about life, about what I want. I should just think about something else, he says. I cannot describe the impossibility of that order. I can't think about something else. I can't not think. I think too much, all the time, every day, overanalyze. Don't other people do the same thing? How do they survive? How do they not fall into circles of ideas, of paradigms. I slip into the romanticism of ideologies because I can understand them, I can know them. I suppose I live in the theoretical when I'm depressed; I'm not sure if that's what I am right now. It's been worse; much worse. This isn't just about him. If it were, I could be ok. It's just a lot of things. A lot of nonsense that I can't site Said or Foucault about. Maybe I should learn how to do such a thing. Apply theory to my life isntead of everyone elses.

No thanks, too much work. I hate sitting in class and not having anything to do. We're lighting pieces and I did mine on Friday. Just sitting here blogging. And my scarf is making me so warm. I'm jumping out now. I'll be back later today. This thing is gonna get real full real fast.

shit

I want to be a hermit.

I want to curl up and stop feeling. My heart is done, it's reached its limit. I'm starting to want to close everything down, making everyone far away. Too many people have ripped it out. I've ripped it out. I'm so dramatic right now it makes me ache. I shouldn't write when I'm like this but I have no one to talk to, I cannot tell you this. I cannot tell him this. I cannot tell anyone. Slowly eating away at me. I feel my eyes start to close and see his face.

ramblings

Here we go.

So not well-documented so much. I haven't written in a while.

I saw Wicked last night downtown. Every time I see a Broadway caliber musical, I rethink my decision to give it up. I was always given parts, at least in the chorus, and I seem not to have much for prospects in the dance community at least as of yet. Voice lessons anyone? I should find a sugar daddy to fund me. For real, life is too fucking expensive. My dignity is less important than my career. haha. jk? Not quite sure anymore. What does it matter anyway? If i don't believe in heaven or hell what should it matter, right? I don't know.

Maybe I should write in here more. Maybe I should stop just sitting around and do something with my life. Although, I'd argue I am...just wtf am I doing though? Trying like hell to graduate so I can start a dance company and work at the wonderful Target Corporation I suppose would be my ideal job. Or Best Buy. Both very gay friendly, not just tolerant.

Well that's all for today, kids. I've grown up without realizing it. 24 here. I started writing blogs when I was 18. 6 years later, I'm no different. It's all an illusion. Wiser? maybe. More independent? perhaps. More mature? never. Now I'm just living alone, with a cat, able to drink, make my own decisions. I'm still that boy though. The one who was afraid to be who he was.

A little thing called love

In an instant I find myself searching for that thing which I've never been able to grasp. It's neither the first nor the last time I'll feel this way for you, and I continue to believe that my love for you will not end in a mere moment. Glimpses of perfection muddled by perpendicular bisectors refracting bliss.

I believe it was first through Moulin Rouge where I encountered this phrase. "Love is a many-splendored thing". I've had this certain fascination with love lately for which I can't quite find the reasoning. Where is the origin of love? What does it come from? If you know me, you know I don't believe in God, so I'm not going to buy that God gives us love. Modern perceptions of love can of course be shaped and formed by such idealizations as fairty tales with happy endings and even more recently, Disney films. While these cultural phenomena have not surprisingly shaped the romantic comedies of the present, they do not perhaps depict the origin of this thing called love.

Who really knows where it comes from? What can really be said about it's physiological as well as psychological effects on each and every one of us? Why is it that we feel a certain change when we find "the one"? I'm not sure I really believe in anything called love, but I am certain that I have most definitely felt the overwhelming effects. Perhpas my graduate research could be on the performativity of love or some nonsense like that. It's not nonsense really, but it seems so interesting to me.

sex and the city pre-game

Tonight is the big Sex and the City movie preview. I'm not sure if I could be any more excited. I'll be wearing some shiny silver skinny pants and a black mini t with the sex and the city logo on it. I will look absolutely ridiculous, and I should probably be wearing a big belt as well. I'm refusing to read any reviews until after I see the movie. I want no spoilers... I really would like to be genuinely surprised by the end of the movie. Will she end up marrying Big? I'm not really sure if that would be the perfect ending. Phillip has come up with the idea that perhaps they don't get married, but stay together. The end of the book has the two breaking up with Big marrying someone else. The book, though, is quite different and really only covers about 1 season of the 6 something season television series which has increasingly complicated their relationship. I'm just set and waiting. The fashion is going to be amazing, the men are going to be undoubtably gorgeous, chris noth is a dream man, just like all of Carrie's men.

In other news, I went tanning yesterday at Lifetime. Basically, I'm sort of like a tomato right now; I look really ridiculous, and it was really hard to sleep last night. I don't think I got more than 4 hours. I do love Lifetime, though. I recently upgraded to a Gold membership so I can access more exclusive clubs...ooooooooh. haha. The gym that's closest to my apartment is a gold gym and it's in the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. It's huge, full of everything anyone would ever need to work out, and best of all, it's never completely crowded like at the rec center at the University of Minnesota.

I think the last thing I'll talk about today is the end of my mini-vacation. I start my 8-4:30ish job on Monday with a week of orientation and UHP training. I learn almost everything there is to know about the University and advising policies and practices along with all the colleges, activities, scholarships, services, etc. Since I'm a returning peer, I get to help out with the training. I'll be doing the sample role play, which I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do because we're changing the way we advise now. So, I'll be an experienced improviser more like.

Ok, I have to get showered and ready for the day...my last half day for a while.

Brent

marrowly offensve

I can't quite figure out why I'm awake at 7:19 on a Wednesday morning when I don't have to work. I have this stupid little theory about myself that when I have something to wake up for I cannot get out of bed, but the instant I have time to sleep in, I wake up early and can't fall back asleep. I'm still pretty tired, but lying in bed trying to fall asleep doesn't seem very appealing. The Today show will have to keep me company while I thrust out my slowly developing thoughts.

I know I write about this all the time, but I'm really getting tired of how heterosexist this stupid country, and really most of the world is. In the last week of school at the U, a bone marrow donor clinic which came testing for possible donors parked itself outside the dance building. I was asked several times to sign up before I decided to go up and ask a few questions. I asked what kind of questions were asked of donors, and they said they only ask about medications being taken. When I said I'd think about it, they handed me a brochure with more information. On this brochure, on the very front page, was a section devoted to those at risk for HIV/AIDS. This question, apparently is asked. Maybe the numbers have changed in the questioning. Have you had homosexual sex in the last 4 years? (males only). There was the question. Yet, I found several of my friends, who I knew to be gay taking the test...some claiming virginity as the reason, but why subscribe to something so blatantly homophobic? The numbers have been changing people...HIV/AIDS is not just a gay disease. Even old people in Floriday get it. As I wrote before, the legislation surrounding blood, and apparently bone marrow, need to change to reflect the actual data. I KNOW I'm HIV negative because I get tested. Come on, let's be less prejudice, ok?

Props to California, though. It's not the world, but gay marriage is one step in the right (or left) direction.

Ciao

summer of fun

So it's almost the technical beginning of summer. My parents always said summer doesn't start until after Memorial Day, and I'm beginning to believe that's true for Minnesota this year. The weather has been less than satisfactory, at least when I've been able to venture outdoors. Granted, I've spent much of my time inside working at honors, express, or at the dance building. Yes, Summer 08, for me, is going to be the summer of endless work. I'll be working about 40 hours a week as a peer advisor at University Honors Program at the U. I'll be working near 15 hours a week at Express as a fashion expert this weekend. I'll be doing about 5 hours a week at my internship with Ananya Dance Theatre, and I'll be taking two summer courses through the U, Principles of Nutrition, an online course, as well as Modern Fiction, where I'll be reading mostly high-school level books.

If there's anything I can cut it's Express, but in some way I really don't want to. I love the people I work with and the discount I get on the clothes, and sometimes I even like what I'm doing. Most of the time, though I just hate heading to Rosedale in the middle of a weekend outing. Mostly, though, I'll just need time to myself to relax, to really let my brain and body cool down a bit. I haven't decided one hundred percent what I'm going to do, but I have to know soon. Maybe I'll try a week of it all and see how it feels. Mostly, I think it'll feel like hell...hopefully I will be wrong.

Lastly, I am in search of an apartment. A single-bedroomed apartment for my own in a little uptown neighborhood would be nice. I just need room for my little queen-sized bed, a my big tv, and a desk. And maybe lots of wine. If anyone has any leads on where I could live, it would be greatly appreciated. I'd really prefer to live alone, mostly because I've never done it before. I think it'll be a good experience, and hopefully Jeff, Phillip, Elizabeth, Aaron, or whoever will be over most of the time so I can have some company and never get too bored or lonely. I'd consider living with my friend Jake, but he's being a douche...just kidding.

Anyway, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson is on, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate.

Ciao

a gay fairytale

Tonight I finished my marathon, 4 month run of Sex and the City. In January I bought the series, hoping to watch it from beginning to end before the big movie comes out. My best friend Jeff and I began watching the episodes in late January, hoping to get a season done per weekend, while taking some weekends off. The story of single woman in New York who write a column about sex in her endless search for love is the premise of the show. She and her 3 best friends are successful, beautiful women who are all searching.

Perhaps it's the writing of a generalized character, the fact that I wish my life were a movie, or maybe just crazy coincidence, but I began to notice so many crazy parallels between myself and the character Carrie Bradshaw. My computer crashed the week hers did. She got a pink cell phone, and I carry a pink cellphone. She has a Mr Big, and I apparently do too. Looking through my life as a single gay male in Minneapolis, who is working on becoming a writer (a different kind of writer, of course) but one who is enthralled by fashion, lives beyond his means, and who has a man who is incredibly hard to read and will never fall out of love with.

I really can't say that I can spoil the end of the series for anyone, but I would like to call into question the possibility of my gay fairytale. When will it happen for me? Will I too have a russian, a berger, and my eventual Mr Big sweeping me off my feet in Paris? The one thing I do know is that for people like me and Carrie Bradshaw, the possibilities and fantasies contain more romance than any number of karats on a necklace.

I couldn't help but wonder...

Leaving the U this morning to come home from class I began to think about my place in the queer community, my gender, my privelage, my erasing, my assimilation. We move in such a visual world that is is impossible for us not to see the differences between us. Why is it then, that so many people believe that they know no gay people? Statistically speaking, there is most likely at least one gay person for every nine in the world, a statistic which is slightly problematic as it refers to sexual practice instead of sexual identity. How, then do "invisiblize" these bodies from our consciousness? What is it that gay people themselves use as gaydar? Why can't heterosexuals see this as well? Is there something in the unconscious erasing of sexuality that is taught to us when we are younger that erases these qualities for some and intesifies them for others? I couldn't help but wonder if queerness really can be seen in the body and how people attempt to erase it or ignore it.

I decided to conduct my own social experiment while getting off the city bus while on my way home from class one day. I was wearing purple skinny jeans, a rainbow hat, a houndstooth scarf, big white sunglasses...really, the excess which I would define as queer, was readily visible and seen. Walking to my next bus stop to catch my transfer, a group of "thug"ish men walked by and one said mockingly "nice pants." I smiled coquettishly, replying "Thanks." I shifted my plans, deciding to take a walk down Nicollet mall, the center of Minneapolis downtown and the heart of the business world, performing my sexuality loud and proud.

What I found as I walked was neither alarming nor new, at least not to a gay man who's dealt with these glares since 5th grade. My posture was pristine, my strides long and confident, no one could stop me. I decided to walk four blocks on the streets, where I received a good amount of attention. People would stare, smile, laugh, snicker, get on their cell phones. Several people even talked to their friends about me, as if I couldn't hear them, but my presence was acknowledged.

When I decided to move up to the skyways, the downtown traffic network for business, corporation types where I was noticeably erased. It was as if I wasn't there. The few looks I did get were quickly averted, looking at the ground as they walked by. Even the other men and women who I would've identified as queer and would've normally made eye contact with would erase me and fail to make a connection. What made these people so different than those on the streets? How was I so easily erased and invisiblized?

This idea of invisibility is key to the histories of those who have been ignored, erased, and pushed to the streets. Whose history do we read in the books? That of the middle class, skyway-business types or that of the queer man walking through them? Bodies do not just slip through the cracks, falling off the historical map, they are pushed into them, writing them out of their own histories.