a walk-on part in the war

Can anyone think of any good love songs about the awesomeness of friendship? You know, to commemorate the specialness of those intimate relationships we have with people we aren't actually fucking?

So far, here's what occurs to me...

You're my best friend - Queen
I can tell that we are gonna be friends - White Stripes
I See a Darkness - Johnny Cash

Any other ideas? I'm running pretty dry on this topic.

We bought the tickets! I leave for Israel July 10 and return August 8. Whoo Hoo!!

The Andy Goldsworthy relationship theory is good for recouping failure, but it's based on the idea that success is the ultimate goal. It's about achievement. What we (or I) really need is a theory of relationship practice or process. I kinda like one based on driving a manual transmission:

Downshifting is not only a way to slow down without the brakes, but it's also a way to get more traction or to get more power and to increase acceleration. 

The higher gears are longer, enabling a wider range of speed without switching gears. They're good for cruising, but won't give you an exciting ride all on their own. 

To get the best mileage, you have to know when to use each gear. 

The main problem with this theory is that it presumes that a person can drive a relationship, but actually no one is ever in the drivers seat. We can afffect the ride of the relationship, but ultimately there are too many factors for anyone to be in control. 

Or would it make more sense to say that the relationship drives us?

 

A quote from Rob Brezney:

Nature artist Andy Goldsworthy is a skilled rock balancer. With infinite patience, he arranges stacks of them in seemingly impossible arrangements. Though he has a highly developed sensitivity to the heft and shape of his raw materials, his work still requires him to persist through frustration. While building one particularly intricate structure, he said, "The moment it collapses is disappointing. But since it has collapsed four times I'm beginning to understand the stones better."

Comfortable walking shoes that are also pretty and stylish
new bathing suit
conservative sundresses, tops, and light sweaters
sunglasses
skinny-ish jeans
wide back belt
gifts

This is fascinating! I am so surprised that the son is behaving with such deference to his mother after a 17-year search for her! Click on the link below to read the story and then tell me what you think.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday! I'm sorry I've been rather out of touch. I'm kinda overloaded with school and marital stuff at the moment, but I do miss you all and hope to get back into regular contact as soon as the term ends.

Speaking of the term ending, on June 13 I leave for Guanajuato, Mexico where I will work on my Spanish language skills and experience being on my own for 2 months. I'm sure I'll be accessible via email and internet. I might even set up an Internet phone thingy. We'll see.

Now if I can just get my incomplete finished without totally falling behind on my current coursework and teaching... Esp. considering I'm going to be at Lake Arrowhead for the UCI Psychoanalysis Consortium this coming weekend. So much interesting stuff going on, so little time!

1. Peter Weller (of Robo Cop, Naked Lunch, and Buckaroo Banzai) is getting a Ph.D. in Renaissance Art History from UCLA.

2. I love Jim Denny's (a diner around the corner from me) even though I shouldn't.

3. You can stick a needle into B's spinal cord and within the hour he'll ask to go for a walk.

4. Sometimes I swear I see the snowy tops of the Sierra's from just outside of West Sacramento on I-80.

Breakfast is a meal fraught with challenges for me. The things I like to eat - pastries. bacon, hashbrowns, sausage, juice - are full of bad calories. I have often tried to mediate issue by consuming a little low-fat sausage,  an english muffin with jam and a little butter, and water. Still, that's a pretty calorie-heavy breakfast. Plus there's the time thing, and I'm always in a rush. I've tried various cereals, but they bore me so. And then I discovered Reese's Puffs. Oh. My. God. These are sooooo yummy. I swear I could eat this for three meals a day.

Or maybe by next week I'll be sick of it. Who knows...

So, I took him in for an MRI yesterday, and its a herniated disk. In his words, "You can see the disk pressing all into the spinal cord. It's scary."  Sounds like only 10% get surgery for herniated disks, and others get physical therapy and various injections... I would just like this to be fixed as soon as possible. It's been depressing him.

You know we've turned a corner in American civilization when the History Channel begins showing Planet of the Apes.

Last night I dreampt that this person I know threw a bacchanal and invited me and my husband to it. In the morning, our host was cooking breakfast and I offered to help. He told me to leave him alone. Then he complained that I had ruined the white crinoline I was wearing and that I had discovered at the... party. He said it wasn't his and that its proper owner would have to replace it. I couldn't see how I had ruined it, but I said that I would pay for it and asked after the sum. He said it was $250, about 100 times what I paid for my own black crinoline. Anyhow, I wrote out a check and tried to leave. Strangely, I kept encountering newly arriving guests -- his relatives. They were very friendly and kept trying to engage me in conversation. Eventually I left the house with my husband. Outside, there were riots on the street.

I'm neck deep in finals. I will appear shortly, but until then....

Am I the only one who thinks of Gaius Baltar whenever hearing Depeche Mode songs?

Everywhere I go, I smell frankincence.

I like to think of it as some sort of divine communication, like God's trying to tell me something. Or it could signify some sort of neurological disaster. Or both.

What creative interpretations do you all have?

UPDATE: It turned out to be God speaking to me through my new Aveda Outer Peace Cleansing Pads. He was saying, buying Aveda products brings you closer to me.  Or maybe that's the Aveda corporation saying that... not sure...

Yeah, I know... blasphemy. Still, I don't believe in a God without a sense of humor.

Imagine this situation...

You have an old friend with whom you are pretty close in spite of the fact that he lives 6 hours away. This is a friend you talk to a few times a month, sometimes more. You and this friend no longer have any friends in common due to several relocations over the span of several years. Possibly also for other reasons, as well. Who's to say when you live 6 hours away from each other? This friend is coming to your area with some of his other friends. They are going to go to some parties. Your friend calls and tells you this, and tells you that you should talk to each other on the phone early in the day that he is going to be in town. He also spontaneously offers to send you a list of some of the parties he and his friends might go to. 

Questions:
1. What are your expectations about this friend's visit to your area?
2. Do you think you have tennative, if unspecific, plans with your friend?
3. How would you feel if this friend niether emailed nor called you as he offered?
4. How would you feel if you called this friend on the appointed day and he didn't call you back?

1. Fill everyone in on your coming out story.
Well, I guess this means when I came out to my parents, and not when I came out to myself or to my friends... So, um, about two years after I came out to myself and my age peers, my mother came across, in the trash, something I had written about being bi. She then assumed that I was dating this one friend of mine who was kinda dykeish, and began to say things hinting at it. Finally, one day while vacuuming, she said, "Oh come on! I know you're BISEXUAL!" She said the word like it was a disgusting curse. When I later saw the scene in Heavenly Creatures where the psychologist says "homosexuality," it reminded me of her. Anyhow, she and I had a fight about it, and then she decided to tell my father behind my back. So, a couple months later, when I was living in the dorm, he came to visit with my grandfather. After buying me some stuff at the store, he helped me carry the bags up to my room, leaving my 90 year old grandfather in the car. Once in my room, my father informed me of what my mother had said, and wanted to know how I knew I liked girls. He wanted to know if I had been with one, to which I replied affirmatively. This seemed to clinch it, almost, but then he asked if maybe I would feel differently later, to which I responded that I didn't think I would. We never spoke of it again. Although my mother and I speak of it frequently, which is interesting, I think.

2. What's your best pick up line on a girl?
I don't have one. I'm pretty bad at this, but I'm hoping to learn. Got big plans, as ya know...

3. Do you have any gay pride stickers on your car?
yes.

4. Is there a gay community where you live?
Where isn't there one? But I feel purposefully excluded here, sadly. I know I sound paranoid, but it does seem pretty much like that for me. Well, maybe that will improve soon.

5. Do you have any tattoos that identify you as a gay person?
no tatoos whatsoever.

6. Have you ever been called a "12?"
huh?

7. What signs do you look for if you don't know if a person is gay?
It's usually pretty clear. The only time it's not clear is when the person is also dating someone of the opposite sex. Then you have to sort of feel around the issue, by commenting on the attractiveness of other women, etc.

8. Have you ever made a large purchase for a significant other to make them like you?
Not a large purchase, but I have often put a shit load of effort into gifts for certain people.

9. Have you ever been in a drag show?
Nope.

10. Have you slept with more than half of your circle of friends?
sadly no. There was a time when that was true, though.

11. Do you own the poster of the two girls kissing on a bed?
What, is there only one poster like that? I have menstrual blood on my walls. Nuf said.

12. Who is your favorite gay icon
Annie Sprinkle!!!

13. Do you aspire to go on an Olympia cruise?
cruises are not for me...

14. Do you know all of the words to "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls?
Yes. In fact, i need a rousing rendition of that right about now.

15. Who do you most identify with on "The L Word?"
I hate that show. It makes bi women look evil.

16. Do you feel like you've been assigned the wrong gender?
no.

17. Do you think Feminist Rally, Lilith Fair and Ani concert are all subtitled: Lesbian Extravaganza?
mmm... no... most of the people I know who are into Ani, for instance, are straight. Most of the queer girls I know are into riot grrrl.

18. Would you participate in a hetero friend's wedding even though you, as a gay person, are not allowed to get married?
I resent this question because it implies a binary organization of sexual identity. And it also oversimplifies what getting married is. I know lots of married same-sex couples. Just because the state doesn't recognize it doesn't mean it isn't marriage.

19. Civil Unions or marriage?
Oh, I think the state should only perform civil unions, and that they should be for anyone who wants them. I think religious organizations may choose to continue to do marriage, but that marriage should be a religious thing only and not something that effects your status as far as the state is concerned.

20. Do you think Hilary Clinton is a closet lesbo?
No.

21. Have you ever thrown anything at Fred Phelps?
Just the evil eye, obscene gestures, and crude language

22. Three hotties pull up in a car. One can't hear, one can't see and one has no tongue. They all wanna go home with you. Who do you take?
I don't understand? What kind of question is this?

23. Do you shave your arms?
yes.

24. Do you shave your face?
...yes

25. If you had a penis for one day, what would you do with it?
What wouldn't I do with it????!!! How fun would that be!!!

What's up with The Naked Mile movie? I mean, I don't remember anything about the Naked Mile being a sex romp? And it was definitely being squelched back in the mid-90s while I was there for it. Is this thing even going to be set at Michigan?

I just made the flight reservations to go to Guanajuato, Mexico for two months in the summer!!! I can't believe I'm finally doing it!!

I have no freaking idea what they are ever playing at the Delta of Venus, but it is always way way awesome. I should make friends with this DJ.

Go to www.popCulturemadness.com and select the year you became 18. Paste the list of the top 75 songs. Bold the ones you liked; strike the ones you disliked; and italicize the ones you know but don't exactly like nor dislike. The ones you don't know will stay common text.


What's weird about this is not just how many songs I don't know from this list, but that even the ones I liked, I only just liked. In 1993 I was all about Nine Inch Nails and The The and Jane's Addiction. Byron had introduced me to them in 1991. And I was still really into Depeche Mode and U2, too. And of course, there were showtunes and classical, because I was in music school then. Oh, and Nirvana. And The Beatles and The Doors.