I have a job interview Wednesday afternoon.

The potential for being in a real job again after so long (actually very close to a year ago) is odd to me. But nevertheless it's welcome. Even with putting the non profit as my sole focus I have entirely too much free time on my hands, which was why I went for that job working at the restaurant, which we all know how much I enjoyed.

But no, I think part-time's not the way to go for me. And, much as I hate to admit it, I did get used to a certain lifestyle that I've been reluctant to allow myself to enjoy again when I was in control of the financials. It'll be nice to buy a computer game if I want and not feel guilty because I think the money should've stayed where it was.

And it looks like I'd be doing something more than sending out faxes and organizing someone's Microsoft Outlook schedule, so that's an immense plus.

So, folkers, cross your fingers for me, because I'd like to get this one.

28 February 2006 at 3:51 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

He was kind enough to post something I'd written here on his own site which, lawd knows, gets a lot more traffic than mine does.

The new Sims 2 expansion comes out tomorrow.

I don't have to say how much I can't wait, right? Cos I can't.

27 February 2006 at 5:57 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

I had a pretty unusual dream last night that thankfully wasn't a nightmare, though still bizarre.

Moreso because I'm pretty sure it was almost an exact continuation from the moment a dream I had last week ended.

The problem I tend to have with recurring dreams, and I don't know if this is a problem that everyone has with recurring dreams, is sometimes my head will tell me I had a dream before and attach to that dream all the various feelings of familiarity before I realize the first time I experienced it was that time.

I noticed that a couple of times when I was keeping a dream journal regularly, but I haven't done that in a while so I can't necessarily confirm that I've never had this one before.

Anyway.

The dream was me living in a family that was a cross between mine and the family from Lost in Space, but the crappy remake movie, not the original series. My dad totally looked like William Hurt. I'd somehow or other created a teleportation device to another universe in what looked like a cleared-out mini fridge. I showed it off to my family and was preparing to start it up for the maiden voyage when I realized I'd forgotten something and ran to grab it. In my absence my sister turned the machine on, entered it, and disappeared to the horrible sound of fighting and screaming that we all heard through the box. I stuck my hand in as I prepared to go after her and had it cleanly cut off at the wrist.

The first one ended about there. The second one started at nearly the same spot, like the beginning of the second part of a two-part episode, as I was reconfiguring the machine so I could rescue her. In the middle of this one of the aliens on the other side of the world came through to Earth bearing a message in really fragmented English that thanked us for the offering but explained that she was too big for them to eat. The aliens looked a lot like Ewoks but a little taller, slimmer and more teddy-bearish. I went through to the other side and discovered a barren tundra of a world covered in ice and snow and in the middle of a blizzard. The dream ended with me realizing that my portal was one-way only and I couldn't get back in.

Differences with the second dream were that I no longer had a brother, instead I was the middle child with two older twin sisters who were apparently both lesbians.

Weirdness.

Though the dream I had prior to that one was equally strange. I dreamed that I was somehow involved with the plot of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, but it wasn't exactly the same. I was a member of some type of delegation whose role wasn't entirely explained to me, but for some reason the "galactic" government paid us a lot of respect. In the dream some sort of technological plague had nearly eradicated civilization throughout our universe and had driven the originators of our civilization into hiding. My role in the dream was dealing with them because, millennia later, they wanted to return and take control once more but had tasked us with ensuring the plague was completely gone. There wasn't very much plot to the dream and I remember being pretty adamant that if they returned they'd just enslave us so I wanted to use the traces of the plague to create a defense.

I dunno. Clearly I read way too much science fiction.

26 February 2006 at 5:26 pm | No Comments »
dreams

There's an article featured as the cover story of a recent issue of The Advocate that talks about an organization trying to take down the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. While I really respect such an aspiration, certain things within the article really bugged me.

Namely, it went to great lengths to talk about how those involved with the organization just wanted straight people to realize gays and lesbians are exactly like them.

Specifically, I found the following paragraph borderline-offensive:

Adds former marine corporal Tim Smith, the [organization's] deputy director for logistics: "I hope we can open people's eyes. They hear the word 'gay' and think of New Orleans and the Southern Decadence pride parade. I want to show that gay people are just like everyone else."

As someone from New Orleans, I've never once run into someone who heard I was gay and told me they thought of Southern Decadence. Southern Decadence is a really, really narrow example of gay lifestyles, and I thought it a little ridiculous that he'd act like they're the same thing.

And, just like everyone else? I, personally, am tired of that outlook.

I do realize that it's well-intentioned some of the time, but in my vast experience with other gay men (lesbians, unfortunately, I have less contact with) this feeling of being the same as everybody else usually comes with the line, "I am a guy who just happens to like other guys." These tend to be the types of guys who ridicule "flamers" and effeminate gay men, hate drag queens, would beat up a transsexual, and generally contribute nothing to the fight for gay rights yet are happy to sit in chatrooms and on personals and talk about how they're "discreet."

That's nothing to be proud of in my opinion. That's being chickenshit and self-loathing.

I came out to my parents when I was twelve in an ordeal that was one of the worst experiences of my life. Prior to that, I was whole-heartedly convinced that if I ever told my parents I was gay it would, at the very least, lead to me being kicked out of my house if not worse. I've half-heartedly joked to people since then that my openness and out-spokenness is due to my realization that if I lived after coming out to my parents then I could withstand anything. I wasn't kidding. I expected the declaration to result in my murder.

Straight people don't have that kindof a burden. There's absolutely no reason they should be made to realize there is anything but constant strife in the life they've forced us into.

And that's really what this aspiration to be just like straight people, with their children and marriage, is. Absolving them of responsibility for their bigotry.

Don't think I limit this just to gay issues, either. It's the same with the way women are treated in our collective societies, the way blacks, chinese, latinos, et cetera are treated. It's just different ways and right now the heat is all on top of us.

Yet there's a double-standard, because the only way we're going to be treated the same as them is when we're all on the same playing field.

There is so much hatred in the gay community itself, mostly stemming to the way we process the vocal hatred of those outside of the gay community. I choose to process it by apparently turning into a militant homosexual, while others process it by working out and yelling into manhunt profiles that they only want masculine men in capital letters.

But that's not an excuse.

I was very interested once in a guy I'd met online. We had brilliant conversations for at least a week while we worked up to the point of meeting; he was madly attractive and immensely funny, charming, suave. Then he asked me "So are you feminine, or normal?" Maybe it was the question, maybe it was his obviously-biased phrasing, but I took incredibe offense to it for the first time ever. While I don't think I'm a raging homosexual, I don't think anyone would ever really be shocked to discover I'm gay either. But the bias we have against ourselves bothers and upsets me tremendously. He and I stopped talking because of it and he was completely obvious as to why I had a problem with what he said. He decided it had to be because I wear heels and shave my legs, and I was fine to let him think that even though it wasn't the case.

But I don't respond to those people anymore. I avoid the keywords, "masculine," "discreet," and I break out in hives when I see any derivative of "str8-acting."

I once knew a guy in high school. When I met him it was when he was grappling with the fact of his homosexuality. He was one of those who got head from gay guys, but that in no way made him gay. Except he knew somewhere that he was, and somehow I was the person that ended up facilitating that transition. He went from straight to curious to bisexual to dating a guy, but constantly would say things like, "All my friends are so shocked that I'm gay, and I tell them I'm who I am, I just happen to like guys. When I came out to them they thought I was going to start wearing dresses."

I guess its our own stereotypes. But things like that offend me.

It's the same way I don't talk to people who say they won't date black guys, or asians, or latinos, or like one guy who in a very grave circumstance proudly declared he "fucks the white bread only."

Saying it's a matter of personal attraction is a cop out. Because it's not. If you put up a firewall to say you'll discount everyone of a particular race then you're a racist. Vaginas gross me out but I'll never discount the possibility that at some point in my life one in particular will interest me. I don't think it's likely, but you'll never know.

Just like I'm not entirely sure of where I wanted this rant to go.

But we as gay people need to really do a better job of not acting like such shit to each other. Don't forget it was a bunch of drag queens in the late 60s getting pissed off because Judy Garland died that enabled us to have bad shows like Noah's Arc and Will & Grace and the freedom to destroy ourselves from within with crystal meth and bareback sex. You know, just like everyone else. You need to realize that and be thankful, because it's fucking hard to kick ass in high heels. Ask Buffy.

PS: For anyone interested in what I think should've been the real cover story, this little interview was tucked away at the back of the magazine on page 58.

26 February 2006 at 12:02 am | No Comments »
bitching, proselytizing

So April 22 I'll be singing at Carnegie Hall for the second time in my life along with the choir and his boyfriend.

Put it on your calendars. And find some way to see it. :P

25 February 2006 at 10:23 pm | No Comments »
hear ye!

The problem, I've learned, with working at a job a block from your apartment with a boss who also owns a bar on the same street as your apartment is the inevitability of running into said boss after you used some specific choice words and expletives when you were fired under less than reasonable circumstances.

Given my propensity for burning bridges with artistic pyromancy, it goes without saying that I at times feel uncomfortable walking through my own neighborhood.

Today, however, I felt like saying "Fuck it." I had to walk past my old job and since it was freezing outside I wasn't going to take the time to go out of my way to avoid them. So I slipped on my headphones, put on a remix of "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson, and kept my head held high.

I realized that today was the eight year anniversary of my first website. I started doing this thing in February of 1998 on some silly little geocities WYSIWYG creation. And look at what it is now.

Walking past my old job ended up being a nice experience anyway, since I ran into my old manager and she told me that since I was fired at least ten people demanded the owner's phone number so they could call and complain that I was treated unfairly and needed to be rehired, and the first month after I left people were constantly asking what happened to me. It made me smile, though I've no idea why they'd do that since I was barely passable friendly-wise on any given day. No clue. Nice nevertheless.

24 February 2006 at 6:12 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

I think I'm beginning to see a little result from these meditative things. I, naturally, gravitated to the ones that supposedly increased focus and creativity and such, and since I started playing them regularily I've been outputting a whole lot more of my novel and related stuff. Last night in particular I added nearly three pages to it and a whole lot of backstory information that I'm keeping as reference.

I don't think I wrote it down in here but some time back I decided to scrap the first chapter I'd originally written in favor of something a little darker, a little scarier, a little more forboding. So that's what I've been doing now and overall I'm pretty happy with the results. It's a little slower compared to the original version, because I'm taking more time to describe things in greater detail. I'm excited about it.

23 February 2006 at 7:29 pm | No Comments »
a total stranger one black day, the daily things

In trying to dig up a recording I once did for a friend, I happened across this track. It wasn't what I wanted and I know there's an actual version of this somewhere with vocals, but I thought it was pretty nevertheless.

• Joshua Meadows - ("Come What May")
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23 February 2006 at 2:33 am | No Comments »
music, the daily things

My intense nightmares haven't diminished any lately.

This all started, I'm pretty sure, because two or so weeks ago I started listening to these guided meditation mp3s online. I found this site and bought a few of them online, but because of some mix up with their software they didn't get sent to me until I wrote and complained and I got them all for free.

Their whole shtick is they play these low frequencies in the background of the music and voice and supposedly your brain reacts to these sounds in a specific way and it helps you achieve certain things. I couldn't tell you if it's true or not but the website was laced with PhD recommendations and since they were free I figured what the hell.

So the first night I listened to one I fell asleep twenty minutes in. I never finished it because I passed out and turned the thing off in my sleep. That night I had a really pulse-racing nightmare that I was being chased by someone totally psycho who was trying to kill me. The next night I lasted longer before falling asleep but also didn't finish the tape. Also had a really scary, really involved nightmare. Both nights I woke up drenched with sweat from it.

The third night was the first night I actually finished the tape and the experience was really weird. I was asleep for at least twenty minutes of it (they're about an hour long) and woke up right at the very end, which happened to end with a command of "wake up." I felt immensely relaxed and calm, and I'm someone who has a lot of experience with meditation and trance states and that sortof thing.

Still had nightmares though.

So since I started listening to them, every night I do I have a nightmare. The nights I haven't played it at bedtime I don't. This got me a little concerned. So I played the tapes I'd listened to while I was awake to see if the guide said something like, "Kill yourself" or anything that would contribute to the imagery. I knew it wasn't, but I figured the simplest answer was the best.

Then I put it into my computer and ran it through sequencing software I have to find subliminal clues to see if that was the problem. While they are laced with messages, it's only of the "You love yourself whole-heartedly" and "You want to do good things for other people" variety. The first one's true, incidentally, not the second.

So I'm at a loss. He suggests that maybe the dreams are a result of my subconscious being stimulated to deal with the things that the meditations are surfacing. I guess it's possible, nevertheless I'm going to have to wash my sheets more frequently if this keeps up.

Last night's nightmare was that I was getting on the train from leaving choir rehearsal, except for some reason it was daytime and not night. I followed the choral president because for some reason we were taking the same train. Except, as I found out several stops in, my train wasn't going to Brooklyn but Poland. I got off the train in a hurry and was trying to find a way back to New York when I realized that my bag with my phone and glasses and money and wallet was on the train (which was now somehow a bus) that was leaving. I panicked and started freaking out. This dream happened at that segue point between deep sleep and consciousness so I was dreaming but I started crying in reality about losing my stuff. I started praying for some miracle to happen and then suddenly I woke up. It felt incredibly strange, not like I woke up but rather was ejected from the dream. I was completely alert and I realized that that was the solution to the problem. I hadn't lost my shit, so I just needed to wake up.

22 February 2006 at 7:20 pm | No Comments »
dreams

I got home from rehearsal not too long ago. It was good if a little weird, but I usurped his boyfriend and made him join so I'm not the only young one in the choir anymore now either.

As is always our tradition, afterward we go to a bar across the street for an indeterminate number of alcoholic beverages. In my first year in NYC this was really my only social connection to other people in a non-sexual capacity and now, three years later, this is really my only social connection to other people at all.

After everyone was thoroughly sloshed I insisted that we go somewhere else and somehow managed to convince six others to come along with me. I always have fun on these excursions but always when I'm finding myself on the subway at 1 AM or later I am depressed because seeing these people reminds me that I really don't have any friends in New York City even after three years and I'm so out of practice with the concept that I don't really know where to begin.

I've never really been good at opening up to people. And we all know what a temper I've got, so those I do get close enough to generally don't manage to last very long. It's not without effort because I do try to not get so mad whenever conflict comes up, but you know how it is.

C.S. and I stopped talking entirely some time back. I don't think either of us are really ready to just be friends with so much between us and it'll probably end up being for the best but for now I'm mopey.

Moreso because there's really not a single single person in the choir. Seeing all those gay guys with boyfriends or hearing about all their boyfriends makes me sad. It's like the way I feel when I've dated someone and we broke up and then I run into them years later and they're dating someone else.

I just feel a little melancholy.

I knew I shouldn't have had another margarita.

22 February 2006 at 2:48 am | No Comments »
the daily things