mystery man

So I found out from a friend of a friend that a friend of a friend three hours away is equally fed up with the gay community at large. Fantastic. Who is he? Pictures are stolen (willingly offered) from facebook and exchanged through the friend tree and what do you know? We are both cute. Stories are then exchanged through that friend tree. Turns out we are equally hysterical (Martha Stewart is indeed a classy, frosty bitch and I love her for it.) Loose plans are made for a "chance meeting" in January. I, for one, start falling for the mere idea of someone who is cute, funny, and intelligent enough to know that the world isn't about him and him alone. That itself is probably a bad idea but in a world that seems to be falling down around us, what else can you hope for but ideas? There is a new development, however. Apparently this mystery man found my blog through that friend of a friend and has been raptly reading my musings. I will not, however, be boxed up and shipped via FedEx to Minneapolis. I have a car and gas money and that seems a far more comfortable way to travel. (Insert winking emoticon.) Listen mystery man. You are tots cute too. Get your facebook back, or at least stalk around enough to find my email. I did, but I lost my nerve. (Is there an emoticon for nervous shame?)

you go girl

It seems weird to title a post about feminism with "girl" but it's a queer saying along the lines of greeting a friend with "Hey girl, hey!" so I am sticking with it. Consider it inter-marginalized-group lingo.

When I applied to graduate school, my personal statement articulated that I am gay. Coming out to a graduate admissions panel made my ultra-liberal undergraduate advisor pause, get up from her desk, and run next door to talk to her partner Nick. Was it okay? Should I not bring that side of myself up in such a situation? Thankfully, Nick's expert advice (which, in the end, correlated with Dr. Capo's gut instinct) was that it wasn't necessarily a bad decision as long as it was in the right context, aka I wasn't using it to get a pity vote for admission. Had I been told to take it out, I wouldn't have. You see, according to my personal statement for my M.A. program, a critical literacy autobiography (for Dr. Blakely's Theory and Research in Composition course), and an autobiographical essay and analysis (for Dr. Post's American Autobiography course), recognizing I am gay was a critical turning point in my academic career. I wasn't lying. It was a part of the culminating moment when I turned away from my future as an Architect, when I turned away from the prospect of a high-paying job, when I turned away from a childhood dream. When I came out I did it because I knew the world wasn't fair but I also knew I wasn't about to accept it. Coming out, in a way, led me to study literature, to study who gets it and who doesn't get it and why, to study what it is like to be disenfranchised, to study how these systems of oppression are created and sustained.

Tonight, however, I watched A League of Their Own for the first time in years and I had a memory, or multiple memories that aren't really memories; I had a feeling. I remember watching that movie with my mom and my sister. I remember the night my mom took me to see First Wives Club. I remember growing up with a definite sense that whatever men could do, women could do it and do it better because, damn-it, you just can't keep a good fighter down.

Until tonight I had never really considered who planted the original seed of social justice in my head. It certainly wasn't mass media. The same people who, up until Philadelphia, refused to portray gay people in a positive light are running around behind the scenes supporting cultural hegemony for the (imaginary) man / woman binary. (Did you know that scientists have identified at least five biological sexes? Seems to me like this whole man paired with woman by the grace of God and biology is *tisk, tisk* a societal construction.) It certainly wasn't the church. A woman's place is serving her husband? Well that's a bunch of bull shit if you ask me. Not that marriage is inherently bad but if men can't hold their own then they might as well just nominate themselves for a Darwin Award and watch some more football.

I realized tonight that one of the best things my mom ever did was to pull a Donna Harraway and sneak around (consciously or unconsciously) blurring the boundaries in the minds of her children. Movies like A League of Their Own and First Wives Club instilled in me early a sense of the differences that society constructs, the way it uses people. Those movies (thanks, Mom) set me off on the right foot, primed me for the path I am on now. It was a nice revelation to have, and, in a way, it answered some of the questions that I just don't get to ask my mom.

What did she think of feminism? I never got to ask her before she died but I can picture her sitting at the dining room table with her coffee, reading her daily devotional. If I asked her that question she would have gotten that indignant look on her face, crossed her arms and spoke her mind in that matter of fact, I grew up slaughtering chickens and sewing my own clothing voice. "Women can do it too, Marc."

You go girl.

live and learn...

...and then re-write your story.

So for those of you who don't know I want to write. I can go on and on about the power of literature and how it changed my life and how I can't wait to be behind the podium teaching it but the truth is, I don't have the balls to go all Stephen King, take a shit job, and write Carrie during my fifteen-minute breaks. I need something with a little more security (read health care and enough money to keep me swimming in Gap's latest line of argyle sweaters) than that.

I do, however, write. I journal, I have several short stories in notes and in my head, I blog. Most importantly, though, I keep stories in my head. I think about how stories are constructed. I dissect the plot lines of shows like Weeds and The OC. Every time I talk to my brother I get some new idea for how I would (will) portray him in my book. The mental process doesn't often stop. So when really good things pop into my head I have to write about them.

Last night my brother and I did a long, drawn-out face regime involving no less than six products and and a power tool (bathroom variety, dahling). The end of the regime started with a flirtation with a bronzer that injects Vitamin C into your face from the first dusting to the next time you plug in the Clarisonic scrubber. According to my brother we looked catalog perfect. My brother neglected to tell me, however, that the bronzer transfers to fabric easily and hence my new, white, zip-up hoodie was a bad choice. The hoodie spent the last twenty-four hours soaking in a sink of cold water.

A few minutes ago I decided the hoodie had suffered long enough so I started wringing it out. Word to the wise: a fully-saturated white, zip-up hoodie weighs more than you would think. It was so heavy, in fact, that I announced it to my brother. The conversation went something like this:

Jon, this is heavy.
Oh yeah?
No wonder people drown! ... You know, I wrote about this in an award winning story once. The lead character rescued a woman on the Titanic because she couldn't swim under the weight of her dress. When faced with the real thing, though, I am beginning to doubt that my pre-pubescent lead character could have done any better than the woman wearing the dress.
Award-winning story, huh?

The point wasn't that the story was juvenile and mostly shit (just slightly less shitty than all of the others) or that one shouldn't wear white while applying vitamin bronzers but rather that writing is a never-ending process. I wrote that story when I was in seventh grade. I wrote it on a whim and didn't expect to either submit it or win anything. When I lifted that (excruciatingly heavy) hoodie out of the sink my mind went immediately back to that scene when the lead character, in a daze after watching his grandmother die, wades into the water spilling into the D-Deck reception area, finds, and saves a young woman who was about to succumb to the weight of her saturated dress.

And this is why I need to write--because I can't stop thinking in stories.

holding pattern

Two of my friends announced their engagement to my roommate and myself tonight. Amanda messaged me saying she had news and that we should join her for a drink at Cafe Baudelair. I was anticipating an engagement announcement and while I was exited both for the news and for the couple in question I felt a bit numb on the inside. The conversation at the bar merged seamlessly from talk of engagement and the impending wedding ceremony to feminism, standpoint theory, and racial / economic privilege but my mind never really left the topic of marriage. To understand my obsession we have to go back a week or so to a completely different conversation in completely different circumstances.

My undergraduate advisor at Illinois College, Beth Capo, is currently teaching in Japan on a Fullbright scholarship. Prior to her departure from this continent our conversations were limited to facebook messages and chats at The Three Legged Dog when I was home on break. For an extend stay in Japan, however, she branched out to Skype. It felt weird to Skype her when I saw her online for the first time--academic relationships are often defined and redefined by barriers--but the conversation that ensued was surprisingly comfortable. In passing I mentioned my jealousy that she was in Japan--think of it, a new apartment, a new culture to experience on a daily basis, new foods, new drinks, exciting and challenging teaching experiences. Her response was typical Capo--instead of basking her the glow of her experiences she flipped the emphasis back to me. "Think of how jealous people are of YOU. I am not joking. You live in Iowa." Yeah, I do live in Iowa, a state that not only guarantees the rights for gays to marry but has, since its inception as a state, a long history of civil rights victories. Her statement called for pause and reflection.

That reflection, which in the style of my thinking rolls around in my brain's washing machine for days, is combined with my recent interaction with a fraternity for gay and progressive men and the ensuing explosion of friends and acquaintances who are of my, well, let's say persuasion. That reflection came to a head tonight when celebrating the engagement of two friends in combination with near constant thoughts of where I will end up at the end of this year when I graduate with an M.A. in English literature.

When I first moved to Iowa I was convinced that I was moving to the white trash, hick, backwater state of the midwest. I couldn't have been more wrong. Imagine my shock when, months after my arrival, Iowa made gay marriages legal. Whatever I end up doing after this bout of schooling, I would prefer not to leave Iowa. Living in a state that prizes civil rights at the sake of "social comfort" for the majority of conservative, white, middle class, Christians has been a cherished experience and I am not ready to give up that comfort.

Thoughts like these--a strong desire not to leave the land of gay marriage combined with increased interaction in the gay community combined with confronting an engagement head on--have led me to wonder the following: what would I do if I found myself in a committed, lovign relationship in the next year? It is, of course, entirely situational--it depends on the relationship. But let's suppose I found myself in a relationship where I was truly happy, where I could be myself, bare all emotion and reciprocate that process in a mutually beneficial way with my partner. Faced with the great unknown that comes at the completion of a degree, what would I do? Would I propose? Would I get married? Hypothetical questions that are, by and large, futile in a time when I have no prospects of any relationship, not to mention one that is committed. Nevertheless, they are questions perfectly suited to my mind--one that always reaches ahead to the the "what ifs" in its path.

Then we reach the part of the analysis that begs the question what does this line of thinking mean in a more meta context? Perhaps I am more ready than ever to take on a relationship? Does that mean I am looking? Perhaps, perhaps not. Some days I am convinced that I am not looking for a relationship. Other days I am convinced I am ready and unconsciously on the prowl. In the end it will be time that tells the truth but for some reason this particular line of thought and introspection has given me something resembling peace of mind.

Earlier tonight my roommate and I had a conversation about dates that trouble us. My particular date is always September first--the anniversary of my mother's passing. We talked about how it is important to be around for each other on days that are troubling to the soul and she apologized for not being there for mine this year. "Jordan," I said, "I wasn't available on my day this year. It wasn't you." It was at that point in the conversation that I realized I was doing something important for the process of recovery on that day. I was playing kickball with the men of Delta Lambda Phi, making friends, discovering people, discovering things about myself. I was living and growing, which is just what my mother would have wanted me to do.

And these questions, "What would I do if...?" lead me to believe the same sort of thing. I am still simultaneously out there and in here. I am living and growing constantly, steadily making the slow transition from closeted, insecure man to self-accepting, hopeful, open man. I think sometimes that this progress is all we can ask for.

too close for comfort

Sometimes music falls out of the sky (in a digital feed from iTunes) randomly (on the day the album is released) and hits pretty close to home (especially for emotional saps who long ago learned how to process emotions through song). Thank you MIKA for understanding what it is in my head (a fairly universal situation, to be honest) better than I know it myself. I had to do the gay gasp when I heard the lines in stanza four.

I See You--MIKA

I'm standing across from you
And dreaming of the things I do
I don't speak, you don't know me at all

For fear of what you might do
I say nothing but stare at you
And I'm dreaming
I'm trippin' over you

Truth be told
My problems solved
You mean the world to be but you'll never know
You could be cruel to me
While we're risking the way that I see you
That I see you [3x]
That I see

Conversations
Not me at all
I'm hesitating
Only to fall
And I'm waiting, I'm hating everyone

Could it be you fell for me?
And any possible similarity
If its all, how would I know?
You never knew me at all but I see you
But I see you [4x]

I'm standing across from you (But I see you)
I've dreamt alone, now the dreams won't do (But I see you)
I'm standing across from you (But I see you)
I've dreamt alone, now the dreams won't do (But I see you)

Truth be told, my problem solved
You mean the world to me
But you'll never know
You could be cruel to me
While we're risking the way that I see you
But I see you [4x]

I'm standing across from you (But I see you)
I've dreamt alone, now the dreams won't do (But I see you)
[4x]

But I see you
But I see you
But I see you

facebook freakouts, gay squeal and spins, and toe bashing

Bid night was stressful for me which really isn't saying much; I stress out every morning when I pick out an outfit. Stress set in a month ago when I realized I had class from 6-9 on bid night. It got worse when I forgot and scheduled an appointment for 9, directly after class. It got even worse when rumors circulated that decisions would be made by 8pm and I would be unavailable. It got slightly better when class got out 40 minutes early and I was back in my car pacing the streets of Ames by 8:50.

I ended up settling in at my apartment watching Rachel Zoe and drinking a beer. Then rumors started circling that nine was the new eight. Ten quickly became the new nine followed quickly by ghastly rumors that eleven was going to replace ten. At approximately 9:50 I received a text message asking where I was. I was at home. On my couch. Watching Rachel Zoe. Drinking a beer.

Meanwhile facebook was busy ruining the secrecy and suspense that I imagine bid nights were back in the day--all the gays were busily messaging back and forth, fingers flying in a frantic rush of questions and support. "You are totally in, there is just no way," was mixed right in with "There is always a chance I rubbed someone the wrong way" and "Knock on wood right now!" Not quite the idealistic picture of deep introspection while waiting for official word.

Eventually I couldn't stand the pressure and my roommate and I descended to the parking lot where I commenced chain smoking. I really did try to pay attention to her recap of her day--reports, an event, a request to organize a meet and greet / fundraiser for a senate campaign--but my mind was running over and over the time that had passed and the signal my phone was getting: "How is it that I only have three bars?! Four is optimum! No 3G?" At one point the gay squeal and spin came out and I got pretty dizzy.

Then a red car pulled up with four guys in it. Four guys never travel together in this town, at least not four guys with FANTASTIC hair. Slowly their faces came into focus and I lost the power of speech. Ben, Darin, Chris and Joe got out of the car and all I could muster was an accusatory, "what are you doing here?" "We are here to offer you a bid to Delta Lambda Phi." That's when all hell broke loose. I moaned as my left hand went up to my face and my right hand went up and dropped my cigarette. "Have you been smoking because of us?" asked Joe. "I have been chain smoking because of you."

To make a ridiculously long story short, they explained my bid papers, invited me to a dinner on Friday and gave me a round of hugs (during which I stepped on Darin--he won't admit it but I totally did...my Kenneth Cole's totally stomped his awesome blue slip-ons). Then they were off to the next house and I was back to the gay squeal and spin.

Meeting these men was awesome. Getting to hang out with them (and do things I never dreamed I would do) was awesome. Realizing that I would be fine with or without a bid was worthwhile. Learning about myself was first rate. Getting a bid was priceless. Trying to calm down is going to be difficult.

the luckiest

Back in the day when my ego and superego were much more at odds with each other than they are mow, I dated women. Not a ton of women--I have always been the kind of guy who wants something serious--but enough for me to finally realize that I wasn't kidding anyone, especially myself. Despite the fact that I have written all the time since I was very young, I have never been very successful at writing what goes on inside my mind. This is also why I will likely never be well-known for my writing. Hence, in order to describe these intangible emotions I would send them through a song, a burnt CD and a note often left on someone's car with a single flower. In hindsight it seems slightly stalker-esque but for the sake of my sanity let's just say it was evidence of my flare for drama and romance.

Looking back on this part of my life I regret what I did. I regret that I wasn't strong enough to tell myself the truth and I regret that my lack of strength hurt people, especially those women. I also regret that I gave some of that music away. I am all for memories--they are a huge part of how I function--but sometimes I get tired of reminding myself constantly that I hurt people, I get tired of walking down the road to self-blame and guilt every time I listen to those songs that I gave away.

And so I am on a mission. I am reclaiming those songs. I won't shy away from them on my iPod anymore, and I will work on forgiving myself. Because one day when I find someone to love I want to be able to give him those songs that describe the way my emotions work and not be sad. I want to be happy.

Starting with this extremely special number by Ben Folds.

The Luckiest

I don't get many things right the first time in fact, I am told that alot
Now I know all the wrong turns and stumbles and falls brought me here
Where was I before the day that I first saw your lovely face, now I see it every day
And I know that I am, I am, I am the luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you in a house on the street where you lived
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your, bike would I know?
And in a wide see of eyes, I see one pair that I recognized
And I know that I am, I am, I am the luckiest

I love you more than I have ever felt the way to say to you

Next door there's and old man who lived to his nineties and one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife she stayed for a couple of days and passed away
I'm sorry I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know that I am, I am, I am the luckiest

my overflowing cup

Tonight was the last rush event for Delta Lambda Phi. We met at the union, ate pizza and socialized. There is something really fun about munching a slice of pizza while sitting next to a bubbling fountain and conversing with all of the people you have grown to love over the course of a few weeks. After the pizza it was time for the main event--a technolatti scavenger hunt around campus. My group didn't win but I did get a few great pictures and laughs out of the deal.

That is what this whole experience has been--great times with great people. I got drunk and laughed my ass off at drag shows; I played kickball for the first time since grade school; I served a volleyball for the first time since high school; I got to mime a peacock and radiation at a game event; I cried on someone's couch about coming out, my mom, and my struggle to accept the world as it is. I started this process with the hopes of finding a niche in the queer community in Ames. I wanted to find a place to be with those like me and a place where I could feel like I was a part of a greater cause. I didn't expect to become so emotionally attached to these people and regardless of what happens on bid night I will still have those people in my life so the fraternity already provided me with one of my goals and for that I am thankful in more ways than I (a writer at heart) can find to express.

As usual the event ended with people sitting around talking to each other. Those who could moved to a cafe in Campus Town. We pulled tables together and bothered the waitress with too many "I'll just have waters" and more than a few moments of confusion. We sat and talked and laughed and joked. The air had a warm yellow-brown tinge to it and outside the plate glass windows, beyond the sidewalk and the trees the cars of Ames slipped by. I couldn't help thinking that three weeks ago I was in one of those cars driving by this cafe caught up in a graduate student's life, completely unaware of the people I was missing out on. As I had these thoughts the night started to wind down. People trickled out with intentions of studying or sleeping or relaxing before a busy Friday. One by one the goodbyes and hugs were shared around the tables and one by one the door swung open and the Fall 2009 Delta Lambda Phi rush process came to an end for me and my fellow rushees. As it does when something ends, my heart became heavy with emotion. I have a hard time moving on from things, even when I know that endings are new beginnings. With both my proverbial cup and my tear ducts running over as they are, I think that's reasonable. When things seem so perfect, why would anyone want to move on to the next step? Life as a whole isn't perfect, so we hold on to the moments when it is.

Thanks guys.

i can

I can successfully balance my workload. I can take three courses, teach three courses, serve as a senator for my department, research for my thesis, and pledge a fraternity all in the same semester. It is possible.

Self, it is time you stopped undercutting your own needs / happiness. You can argue me but it really is time. It was time, like, yesterday.

maybe

I go through phases. I go through phases for many things in my life. These phases usually cycle. I cycle back and forth from being reasonably content about my body / weight to harboring contempt for the thing in the mirror. I go through cycles of fiscal responsibility--these particular cycles are brief, sometime flipping back and forth three times in a twenty-four hour period. I also go in cycles about relationships. Sometimes I feel like I am ready for one, other times I feel like it is the last possible thing I need in my life. Right now I am ready for one.

In the fashion of such people as my life coach, I attempt to be logical about these things. While logic and reason don't always work in the real world when faced with real pressures and fears this logical life-plan has been rather successful. One thing it has taught me is that I don't logically need a boyfriend. I have the oxygen I need to breathe and a book to keep me occupied, what could I possibly do with a boyfriend? Boyfriends aren't practical. I am a narcissist--who isn't these days?--and narcissists don't get along well with people who demand things of them. Boyfriends demand things of people and that's not nice. Letting someone in requires that I become "okay" with that person asking for time, time to be together and time to be apart. The real problem is that his demands might not match up with what I am willing to give. It gets complicated, and it would likely get ugly more than once.

This unorganized list of reasons not to let someone into my life doesn't keep me from wanting one. My heart aches with desire sometimes. I have never had a "boyfriend." I went about things all wrong a few years ago and that probably left me more damaged than the actual coming out process--that was easy. What is not easy is giving yourself over to be a sex-object in someone else's passion play. Here tonight, gone in the morning, please don't contact me. Talk about contributing negativity to my self-worth. I decided to stop doing that and in a way I decided not to let anyone in. I needed time to process who I was. But now I might be ready. I might already be in love but like Kate Winslet's character in The Holiday this love is unrequited and I don't always know that I know (or he knows) why. But that's fine. I made the decision long ago to keep him as a friend and nothing more. But he will always be some milestone on my road to emotional recovery--the first time love--yes, even unrequited love--came knocking and I didn't run away from it.

My heart is just so heavy. Maybe I don't want to be a self-centered narcissist all my life. Maybe I need someone to care for just a little bit. Maybe someone out there appreciates getting flowers every once in a while. Maybe someone out there still likes mixed CDs and hand-written letters. Maybe someone out there won't mind my head on his shoulders while we watch a romantic comedy. Maybe someone out there...

adult sized swing sets

My roommate and I have taken up walking.  Both of us come from central Illinois where snow isn't a guarantee during the Winter season.  Okay, so it will snow at some point, probably at a few different points.  And it will be cold and wet.  White snow, though, isn't exactly as constant as muddy brown.  Having both moved to central Iowa and having both survived the first Iowan winter (not as bad as Minnesota, worse than central Illinois) we decided that we should enjoy the months where we aren't snowbound even if it makes us sweat a little.  Plus, it's a nice change from the elliptical at the gym.

We have also discovered it is nice to walk through a town that is unfamiliar or rather, to discover a town previously though of as familiar only to discover a different pace of life.  There is a big difference when you walk by the same landmark for the first time as opposed to driving by it twice a day for ten months.  There is also a whole new dimension to getting lost.  In a car the moments between street signs or recognizable points of interest are quite quick--you never feel the lost sensation for more than a minute--two at most.  Walking however ups the level of discomfort and unease between not knowing and knowing where you are--the pace is just that slow.  This isn't helped by our geographic location in Ames:  we are on the very outskirts of the new construction that happened in the last five to seven years.  We have seen newish looking maps where our road doesn't exist.  Directly across the street is suburbia world where the roads twist and turn and dead end and circle around and are dotted with cud-de-sacs.  The only chance at maintaining some sense of your relative location depends on your ability to look for the water tower over and / or around the two story houses set in a rolling landscape.  That plan is inherently flawed as the water tower is circular and you never really know from which angle you are looking.

There are also fun moments to walking.  On day two of our walking escapades Jordan mentioned that she remembered a sign for a bike path about three blocks from us, so away we went.  We discovered a path that leads away from the  road, through some trees, up a hill, eventually letting out on a street initially unfamiliar to us both.  We eventually figured out where we were and decided to loop around and make a circle testing out my theory that a "dead end" street a few blocks from us was not actually a dead end but rather hadn't yet been connected to another dead end street near my friend Paul's house.  Mind you, this discovery would mean significantly shorter drunk walks home; it was fairly important.  My theory was proven correct--the two roads are connected by a gravel-ish path through some prairie grass and next to a frog-filled pond.  We took the connection and looped our way back home.

The next night Jordan suggested we try to follow the same path in reverse and away we went.  Everything was going fine until we diverted from the original path to explore an interesting neighborhood--a row of new houses that sprung up in the middle of an otherwise empty new development.  We thought we could simply hop back on the grid and let it take us back.  I was convinced however, that on the first night we had walked two blocks too far on the grid and therefore directed us to where I thought the roads met up with the hilly, wooded bike path.  I was wrong and we ended up on a street that ended in a double cul-de-sac.  I was annoyed until we discovered an odd sidewalk leading into the woods from the tip of one of the cul-de-sacs.  (We had previously discovered one such sidewalk in suburbia world and had significant reason to believe that it a.) was a public sidewalk, and b.) that it led somewhere.)  We took it and had to walk over some weeds and through some grass down a tunnel-like section of woods.  Then we rounded the corner and we were in a park--a two acre ridge of grass overlooking the hospice and the road we drive on every day.  The best part of this park is the playground.

Being the giant eight year olds that we are, we immediately hopped on the swings.  They fit Jordan better than they do me because I am built like the Jolly Green Giant but I made them work and was soon flying so high that I lost tension in the chains and experienced a moment of free-fall.  The experience made us both laugh.  Once I recovered I started building up speed again.  This cycle went on a few times until I realized how exhausting swinging is.  My hands hurt, and arms, legs, and abs were all sore.  I kept going though, because it was that gosh-darn fun.

It made me think, though, about growing up.  I live directly across from a fitness center and every day I see everyone from eighteen years to sixty years entering and leaving.  There are no children.  The children are too busy running the streets like they own them, finding pools to swim in and, yes, swinging on swing sets in public parks all across the city.  Doesn't it sound like more fun to be doing what they are doing than hanging out on an elliptical?  Personally, I vote for swinging.

puckered lips

I was seventeen and gearing up for another school year--I always got impatient with summer and the heat and the listlessness.  I spent my time designing web sites, reading, and manufacturing blizzards for the masses.  Meanwhile, my mother was in the guest room dying of cancer.

There were many difficult conversations and I say difficult because, looking back, they were so exhausting that I avoided them.  One conversation I remember in particular.  My mother had decided that she was going to clean out her sewing room.  It was a large corner of the laundry room that for twenty years had accumulated fabric remnants, cases of thread, several sewing machines, and a few plastic and concrete geese for good measure.  When my dad told her she didn't have to worry about that mess she replied, "Terry, you didn't make the mess, I'm not going to make you clean it up."  And that was that.  For a day, my brother, sister, and I carried box after box--her life in sewing--from the basement up to the guest room where we would sit as she sifted and sorted each one.  Fabric was sent to the neighbor who quilts, thread was organized into cases, some things went directly to the trash.  As I sat perched on the edge of her hospital bed holding a box she sat directly across from me in a green wingback chair directing me.  I pulled out a few pictures of young women on a catwalk with feathered hair and crazy outfits.  My mother, without aplomb, told me that she had put on a fashion show while she was teaching home economics in Canada.  I was amazed at the idea that her life extended further into the past than my seventeen years.

In a rubbermaid tub I discovered the pillow my mother had sewn for me.  It was my day care pillow and I remember the pillow case being somewhat thin with a blue and red cartoon pattern.  I was surprised to see it--I had forgotten it existed.  All I could think about then was that one day my mother had sat down to sew me a pillow and a pillowcase and the amount of love evident in that simple small pillow sent tears slipping down my cheeks.  My mother said, "Marc, I would like to stay around longer, but I just can't."

It got really difficult for my mother to move.  Formerly a large woman, her body was literally withering away leaving large flaps of skin and weakened muscles and bones.  It got to the point she couldn't do stairs anymore and so one day my grandpa--her father--showed up and built a wheelchair ramp off the back deck.  It probably wasn't at all connected but I remember telling her about my upcoming choir class.  I got into choir.  The director practically begged me to be in the group--my audition was incredibly quick.  We are singing the national anthem at some event the first week of school.  Can you come and hear me sing?  In my memory I picture her standing where she used to leaned against the door frame between kitchen and dining room but I know she couldn't have been there; she was sick, dying.  I do remember her face and her hands.  Her elbows were resting against her stomach and her hands were up in front of her face, fingers touching in the "this is a church, this is a steeple" pose.  Her eyes expressed serious doubt when she said, "I can try."  The realization that she was dying washed over me yet again and I felt shamed that I had asked her to do something she deeply wanted to do but seriously doubted she would be able to.

My mother loved food and she particularly loved steak.  During the last few months of her life she couldn't eat--the cancer had blocked her intestines and so once or twice or three times a day I can't remember we hauled out a one pound bag of refrigerated milky white nutrients that we plugged into the port on her chest.  She was strong though, and was I think still holding out hope that she would pull through.  She didn't mind that we ate around her.  Sometime before she received her death sentence my dad grilled her favorite cut of steak--New York strip he has since hypothesized--and we were eating as a family on the deck.  My mother was watching television in the living room and I decided I would eat with her--I didn't want her to be alone, but maybe I was getting an inkling that I might not have too much more time with her.  There was something about watching me eat, or something about the smell of the steak wafting through the house but I looked up from taking a bite and her head was turned away from the set, her left hand covering her lips, tears sliding down her face.  I felt embarrassed.  I was young and fit and eating a dead cow in front of her when she would never eat again.  I put my plate down and gave her a hug whispering into her ear, "Sweetie your life isn't very great right now but if anyone can take it you can."

As the youngest child I probably got the most alone time with my mom.  Twice a year her hometown throws a celebration called Spoon River Scenic Drive--a glorified craft fair with fantastic fattening food.  Twice a year she would pick me up from school and we would drive two hours up to the festival.  We always stopped at the gas station on Main and Walnut and bought a bag of Chili Cheese Dorritos and munched on them the whole way there.

My mom died the first week of my senior year.  On the first day of gym class, we filled out the emergency contact cards and naturally I listed both parents.  These cards also served as a record of what units--badminton, tennis, basketball, walking for fitness, bowling--we selected throughout the semester.  As I was in fitness phys. ed. I didn't get to switch units but they still passed the cards back for us to sign each time the other students were switching.  A couple of weeks after my mom died there was a unit change and there, in my own writing, was my mother's name:  Carolyn Malone.  I was late starting the activity that day.  I couldn't get off the floor.

When my mother learned she was had cancer she decided to cut her hair.  For many years she had rocked what she called the "I have two kids in college" haircut but staring down chemotherapy and probable hair loss she decided to get it cut.  Her stylist was located downtown right next to the Illinois Theatre.  There was some sort of a street fair that day and I remember very clearly the irony of the sunshine while my sister and I hovered near a sandstone building trying to come to grips with our new situation in life.  My sister was on the phone with a coworker when my mother walked out.  Birkenstock sandals, khaki pants, grey blouse tucked in with a brown belt, trademark glasses, sophisticated new haircut.  She looked strong and confident.

She died four years later.  Sometimes I want to ask her things.  I am writing ten pages of my autobiography for an American Autobiography / Memoir course and I am trying to describe my neighborhood--modest homes with flat backyard boxes.  Then I realized that my backyard slopes downhill and borders on a field instead of someone else's backyard.  I remembered all of the sudden that the backyard was a selling point for my mother and I wondered, while smoking a cigarette in the humid parking lot, what did it feel like for her to move in to that house, go to sleep, wake up, and look out that back door on that view that was hers for the first time?  I want to ask her that, but I can't.

I miss sugar lips (my nickname for my mother to which she would always reply, "Oh stop!" and hit me with whatever piece of paper she was currently holding), my momma, my constant champion.

take control

In calling your name, I heard a voice

Yeah, somebody spoke to me spoke to me
We're one and the same, but you have a choice
And I hope that it's not like mine
I made a mistake; there's no turning back
You need to let go of me go of me
It may be too late for your dearest friend, 
But know in your heart that you still have time
Whoa time whoa
Looking back now, I'd do it again
That choice was a part of me part of me
I was so far gone that it was the end, 
But know in your heart that you still had time
Whoa time whoa
I can't say it's never too late, but it's not now
You never believed in fate, 
So show me -- take control
Of your life just this time
Take control

Take Control, The Science of Sound

jack kerouac and childhood memories

When I picked my high school senior quote, I wasn't attempting to be morbid or predict sad, melancholy feelings across the rest of my life, I was just looking for a good quote that described what I was feeling.  For the first time since my "group" of friends came together (and fell apart, and then came back in a different way only to fracture and rebuild yet again, etc., etc., etc.) I felt like the world was jettisoning us only to be ripped apart by whatever or wherever we landed.  I was positive we would land in the same vicinity, and that we would stay in contact and to some extent that has remained true.  I was just trying to express what I was feeling, and so I picked Jack Kerouac's famous quote from On The Road.

"What is that feeling when you are driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?  It's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye, but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the sky."

I actually hate Kerouac as a writer.  I find him the epitome of worthlessness, but this one little quote has haunted me since the day I picked it up from the ending of some crazy film.  I saw an old Disney movie--from back when Disney actually spoke to a generation through actual, realistic events from society.  It is called Wish Upon A Star and it brings back so many memories.  Memories of watching it while drawing up house plans, while building models of buildings, while being a nerd in general, but also memories of watching that film and being confident that I would find absolution the same way those high school girls did.  Looking back, I haven't found it, and when considering Kerouac, I realize that the world will always be too huge, it will always be vaulting us.  The best we can do is hold on to each other and hope for the best.

I have never been very good at leaning on people.

I have lost the ability to control my life.

what is the feeling when you are standing in a void space unable to look forward or back?

It is entirely annoying when I can't find my journal--my real journal.  The one I can hold in my hands and write with my own hand.  I don't write in it often--most of my thoughts are sane enough that they can exist in cyberspace.  When I do need to write in it though, it is usually an urgent need that needs to be quenched.  I tore apart my room like an alcoholic looking for a drink (no, I am not drunk).  I can't find it, and due to some strange obsession with having to write all entries in the same journal (often in the same ink), I cannot write this down anywhere else.  So.  Here I am.

Let's just say that I am constantly searching for my mother in movies and books.  When a mother character is particularly close to my own, or what I remember her to be (it sucks that I don't remember), I get sad.  Saw a movie tonight and I got sad and I miss my mom.  And then I realized that every day when I do something right--when I actually do my reading, when I make it to the gym, when I feel good enough to write--I am moving one step at a time away from that frail (skinny), broken (beautifully) boy I used to be.  I don't want to move on.  I just want to go back into her arms in the rocking chair where she would cradle me until I fell asleep.  I still remember one night when she took me to the chair--it was dark, there was one lamp, and the room looked like a yellow cloud--and sometimes, at night, when the world is asleep and I am restless (like tonight), I just want to go back and fall asleep on her shoulder.  Mothers shouldn't die.  Seventeen year olds shouldn't have to move on.  There is too much growing up left to do.  I am like that tree that grows up in a drought whose rings are all skinny and close together.

come on skinny love

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets 
And you'll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

cancer of the forearm

I am not good with doctors.  I am not good with the whole "diagnosing" process.  I don't have great experience with that in the past.

About seven months ago I went to the doctor in Jacksonville for a bump on my arm.  I had researched the bump online and didn't think it was anything to worry about until it started causing pain.  Turns out the bump was/is an abscess and the pain in my arm was a pulled muscle from lifting weights.  I felt rather stupid.

The doctor did inform me that if it started changing color or shape that I should come back and get it looked at a little closer.  About a month after this visit, the bump started morphing, not only in color and shape but also in size.  Since then it has gotten bigger, smaller, changed from red to pink to flesh tone to white-ish and I haven't gone back.  

I haven't gone back because I am convinced that I have cancer; who wants to go through that diagnosis?  Not me.  No thank you ma'am.

I am going back tomorrow because the bump is back to--or rather actually--causing pain.  I am pretty sure this isn't a pulled muscle.  There is a sort of dull ache around the center of the bump and then radiating pain that I feel mostly in my fingers as sharp pricks.  I am pretty sure I have cancer of the forearm and I am going back to the doctor.

As of this moment I have about eleven hours remaining where I am cognitively cancer free and I plan on using that time to plan my funeral.

There will be free elephant rides as well as rainbow parasols with Victorian lace trim.

You aren't invited.

finding the time

I used to be a very busy person.  Today I dug out my old planners and realized just how busy I was.  There were entire weeks when I would get up at seven, get ready, go to campus and not get back to my apartment until well after midnight.  While I recognize that being an M.A. student has its perks--only two courses per semester plus teaching=time to eat, breathe and think--I miss being a busy, overachieving undergrad.

On the wall in the hallway Jordan and I both have the Sturtevant Award given to graduating seniors who exemplified outstanding leadership and service during their time at Illinois College.  When I see it, I feel pride in my past accomplishments but I also feel a sort of nagging regret that I am not doing more with my time at Iowa State.

It isn't as easy to get involved as an M.A. student but Iowa State itself also poses some problems.  It is a large state school.  Getting involved isn't necessarily harder, but it isn't the same experience as it would be at a private, liberal arts school.  Groups here often have fifty or more students, not ten.  I like standing out; this whole big pond, small fish thing doesn't really work for me.  But...

It is hard for me to rationalize this when I see glaring issues that I would love to sink my teeth into and tackle during my spare time.  Iowa State is severely lacking in support for the LGBTQ community.  I talked with the director of LGBT Student Services and he knows of quite a few cases where LGBTQ students were completely satisfied with their academics but were dismayed by the lack of a support community; they transfered to other schools.  Its a shame, and I could do work with it.  I have ample experience with leadership and service--it feels like I am cheating the school as well as myself out of some tiny bit of difference.

In other news, I miss Paris.

salt storms in iowa

Today I discovered yet another reason that Iowa (or really any state that gets a foot of snow per week) sucks during the winter months.  Picture it:  I was sitting in class and had hung up my coat and scarf on the wall rack across the room (because when you have to wear a coat, a hat, ear muffs, two scarfs, and gloves, it gets too bulky to keep at your chair and you get in the habit of using the coat rack) but had, as usual, kept my bag at my chair so that I could access its' contents--chap stick, hand sanitizer, kleenex--during class.  At hour 1.2 of 3, I leaned over to grab my bag off the floor, plopped it into my lap and proceeded to rummage for the chap stick that the severe wind and cold require I use four times an hour, minimum.  There I was, happily applying chap stick as my hyper-literate classmates discussed the topic at hand.  I couldn't have been happier.  After a liberal application, I returned the tube to the bag and the bag to the floor only to discover a rectangular patch of murky, white dust that had accumulated in my lap.  My gay senses practically threw up on the spot and I let out a semi-audible squeak as I frantically brushed the mysterious powder off of my lap.  While a good half of the class was watching me intently, I shakily grasped my leather messenger bag only to find that the entire back of it was covered in dust.  That was when I squeaked even louder and started smacking the bag repeatedly, a cloud of dust billowing out with each, solid thwack of my hand.  At this time I had the attention of the entire class.  It wasn't until later that I discovered the origin of that white, grainy powderdust.  As I don't normally keep my bag on the floor (only when my table space is too small or otherwise occupied), this dust had escaped my notice.  It has been slowly creeping in since the first snowfall in November and is nothing less than the salt they use to make our sidewalks and drivable surfaces safe.  It accumulates in astonishing quantities.  There are little piles of it around the corners of the room and where the table legs meet the floor.  If you listen carefully, you can hear it under your feet.  If you lie on the floor and breathe deeply, you might accidentally snort some and get a contact high.  Welcome to Iowa.

my little slice of office

I moved to Iowa at the beginning of August, 2008 and at the time, the only desk I had was one that matched the bedroom set I got when I was in first grade.  It was pretty tiny; not really enough space to have a computer and a book open at the same time.  Luckily, the studio apartment I moved in to had a large, built-in desk that worked perfectly.  Needless to say, I left my old desk at home--one less piece of furniture to move six hours up the road.

I moved into this two bedroom apartment on December 1st, 2008.  While it has more space and is a perfectly nice, functional apartment, it isn't nearly as cool as the studio.  No high ceilings, no storefront look, no hardwood floors, no floor to ceiling windows, etc.  While my roommate and I are more than happy to have an apartment that keeps the Iowa winters out and our heat in, there are some things our apartment lacks that we would love to have if we had the money to pay for them.  I was mostly missing the built in desk; I spent the weeks before finals writing papers at the dining "area" table while my roommate played Nintendo and watched Desperate Housewives.  It wasn't the optimal working environment.

But ah the triumph of man!  Today, while I was at Target picking up some Seventh Generation laundry soap, I found a missionary-style desk that fit the space I had available (not much) and was big enough to spread out a bit of research or grading on.  It only took me an hour to put together and looks positively delightful.  What is more, I can finally unpack my "office supplies" box that has been sitting around annoying me for the past month and a half.  I am as tickled pink as when I got my bedroom set in the first grade.  I have some serious nesting instincts.

on upheaval

Upheaval is a funny thing.  It is something that happens and it has an effect; for me that effect has always been like being overcome by a sudden sense of overwhelming dread.  It is never pretty, but the results are like building muscle; you tear a few things down so they can build themselves back stronger.

I was thinking yesterday about my freshman introduction to writing course that I took from an amazing feminist who is very fond of the color purple.  Like most good composition courses, the focus is not necessarily about how to write a five paragraph theme or methods of research--all of the technical aspects of writing too a backseat to the readings we did.  In the end I learned a different way of looking at the world; I learned how to see with a critical lens.  I am not sure if her class was the direct cause of my change in world view but I can safely say that it planted the seeds for the plants that I would need to eat for nourishment in the months that followed.

Shortly after basic composition, perhaps two months, I came out of the closet in a not very smooth or confident way; I was not prepared for how unsettling the experience would be.  I remember very distinctly laying on my bed as the walls of my apartment mocked me with a taunting dance.  I couldn't breathe, I was dizzy, and I felt like I was weighted to the bed.  I remember kicking off the physical effects long enough to send a text message asking for help:  "I can't do this alone."  The response came back:  "You aren't alone, but I can't help you right now."  Getting out of bed the next morning was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do.

The summer before my senior year in college, I had a few friends who stayed in town for jobs or internships.  We had GRE study parties where we usually ended up cooking some food and drinking copious amounts of alcohol, our vocabulary lists and writing samples shoved in a pile to the side of the room.  One of these friends is named Claire.  After years of believing the right-wing religious nut jobs who used the Bible to condemn me to hell, I had adopted her as my religious coach.  One day I decided I wanted her to explain a Bible verse about homosexuality so I got my shit together and drove over to her apartment where she explained several things that acted like explosives at the foundation of my rejection by God.  It was one of those new world view moments where you walk in not necessarily content with the world, but at the very least confidant that you know how it works.  I will repeat something I said earlier because it is both very important and very true:  those world changing moments, particularly their after effects, aren't very pretty.  Over the next few days that talk and its implications banged around in my head knocking shit over and leaving my thoughts in general disarray.  During the next study party, I consumed a fifth of vodka and had what can only be equated to a complete emotional breakdown.  I was innocently using the restroom one moment and I was on my knees dry heaving and sobbing while attempting to crawl back into the living room where I spilled my drink on every surface available while ranting about religion, my dead mother, the pains of being born a gay man, and people like Claire, who have the innate ability to bring that kind of shit together in a cute, original, and fun package with a velvet bow on top.

At Iowa State, English graduate students are most commonly hired for one of two jobs, a composition TA, or a speech TA.  I was hired to be a speech TA and had long been mulling over whether or not I should switch to composition at the beginning of the next academic year (better for my intended career path).  I had decided not to switch as of 6pm last night--I was comfortable where I was and reasonably confident that I could still get into a PhD program without experience teaching basic composition.  I was thinking about all these things last night while simultaneously absorbing the classroom activities of my course called Theory and Research in Composition--the class where we learn how to effect that element of a "changed worldview" into our students.  The byproduct--intended or unintended, it doesn't really matter--of learning how to do this is that I am going through another worldview change.  It suddenly became very clear that I am teaching the wrong thing, that I desperately need to switch to be a composition TA.  And not just for the resume building aspect, but for the "this is what I want to do with my life" aspect.  It is what I want to do with literature as a student of it, it is what I want to do as a professor of literature, and it is what I want to do with writing as a basic form of communication--I want to teach students that it is good to question everything, to hold the crystal up to the light and look through a different spectrum, even for a few minutes. 

It was like I was back in Dr. Udel's freshman writing course, like I was back on my bed with the room spinning, like that night I broke down on the floor my friends' apartment.  It was one of those annoying, world changing epiphanies that makes you want to throw up but only because you have some putrid shit in your stomach that has been there for too long.  Now I am trying my best to sit on my laurels, waiting from an answer from the powers that be--will I be allowed to submit a late application for reassignment?

so this is the new year?

"What is the feeling when you are driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?  It's the too huge world vaulting us and it's goodbye, but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the sky." Jack Kerouac

Ugh I hate the end of things.  Today was not only the end of the "Holiday Season" but the end of 24 hours of fun and mayhem shared amongst friends from Illinois College.  Jordan, Claire, Kim, Juliane, Anne Marie, Ann, Jacob and Nikki all came together at my dad's house to celebrate the new year at Don's, the undergrad hangout.   It was so wonderful to see everyone and catch up on everything--there was so much genuine happiness surging through the air it was catching.  The group next to us said once "Man, the party is over there."  After the bar we all took the drunk bus back to the house and some of us kept drinking until five am.  Today wasn't very pretty but Dad cooked a buffet brunch and we napped a bit and spent the rest of it talking before everyone had to leave and go back to our little corners of the globe (some as far as Alaska and Japan).  Oh it is fucking depressing and I hate it.  I am never good with goodbyes and I never handle the end of things well.  It isn't just an emotional response, my entire body gets involved in it.   I feel sick, anxious, my stomach is flipping around, and there is a tightness in my chest.  

This is the same feeling I had when I tried to go to Germany, when I went to and came back from Paris and when my undergraduate career ended.  It is nice to know that these past twenty four hours rate up there among those experiences.  Good friends can change one's entire outlook.