I love it when I’m just having too good of a time to catch up on journaling. I just put a long week and long weekend behind me.
Friday
a strange coffee with J, a strange friendship from the past; difficult day; skeleton staff; community event in north portland; chaperoning the most sheltered, most awkward, white teenage boy; staying in; good nights sleep.
Saturday
nice breakfast at Midpoint Cafe; naps; louis CK; naps; hung out with Jesus Christ; R had a housewarming; crazy all nighter.
Sunday
asleep until 5; charliework; getting my shit back in order; watched and loved Birdman.
went to a work function with whore durves & an open bar**
felt sleepy
watched a couple of episodes of Hoarders***
slept
*3/7ths of this list refers to energy or sleeping.
**It was at the convention center. I’m not a car guy, so it was only all right. I did see a grown man throw a petit-four that he didn’t like on the floor like a child. I was accidentally served a G&T with still water, which was really, really gross.
I’m not quite sure what’s prompted it, maybe last weekend’s fun, but I’ve been going through a little spell of is-there-anybody-out-there-for-me loneliness. I expressed this today by doing a little OKCupid trawling. My current angle is that if I message people online and keep a low simmer of fear of rejection going at all times, maybe I won’t lock up so much when serendipity happens in person. Of course the idea of there being an angle to figure out always reminds me of this scene from LOST:
I broke my resolution to not read any inspirational/life coachy material and read everything about meeting people I could find on Captain Awkward, which is all wonderful but has almost nothing aimed at me—or at least that I can see right now. One thing that I came across that seemed to address a blind spot that I have right now was a link to a piece by Kate Harding called “The Fantasy of Being Thin.” Whether from some place of logic or place of insecurity, I have a really hard time “trying on” the ideas of the fat acceptance movement. Nevertheless, the truth of these words, as well as their of-a-pieceness with other work I’ve been doing, seemed worthy of some deeper thought:
We’ve talked a lot here about how being fat shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you’ve always believed you couldn’t do until you were thin. Put on a bathing suit and go waterskiing. Apply for that awesome job you’re just barely qualified for. Ask that hot guy out. Join a gym. Wear a gorgeous dress. All of those concrete things you’ve been putting off? Just fucking do them, now, because this IS your life, happening as we speak.
But exhortations like that don’t take into account magical thinking about thinness, which I suspect — and the quote above suggests — is really quite common. Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming anentirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has…
In light of that, it’s a lot easier to understand why some people freak out when you say no, really, your chances of losing weight permanently are virtually nil, so you’d be better off focusing on feeling good and enjoying your life as a fat person. To someone fully wrapped up in The Fantasy of Being Thin, that doesn’t just mean, “All the best evidence suggests you will be fat for the rest of your life, but that’s really not a terrible thing.” It means, “You will NEVER be the person you want to be!
Even this short passage provokes strong contradictory emotions in me: part of what I’m doing right now is learning how to live as though expected outcomes—”chances”—are not a factor, yet another part of what I’m trying to do right now is to live with as few ideas about how I have to do X before starting as possible.
One thing that I’ve been aware of for a while is that if I want to go forward as a performer, I have some intense and difficult work to do with the way that I carry myself and my body language. I feel like it is related to some of the feelings that Harding writes about. Each month at Blow Pony, there are these hogbellied go-go dancing bears, and I’m always jealous of their comfort with themselves and their ability to not give a fuck.
Work was fine. I did a little media literacy with 2nd graders. One called the Budweiser commercial with the dog and the horse a movie. The only commercial that they remembered unprompted was the one where it made it seem like the TV signal went out.
Terry Gross was really weirded out that anybody would even wonder if you could read braille with the head of the clitoris or penis (you can’t). I’m glad somebody asked and answered the question.
I made a delicious dinner of garlic buttered rice, pork, and red chard. I love cooking, hate shopping.
I headed over to the Academy after finishing to watch the new Chris Rock movie, Top Five. That movie had so much squandered starpower and was such a mess that I don’t even have an appetite for picking it apart. I had pretty low expectations, and it was worse than that. I’d been spoiled on the distasteful gay jokes in the movie, but by then I almost didn’t even care that much because I thought it wasn’t a very good movie. In fact, I loved that scene because I’m coming to accept that I have a non-ironic, non-comic attraction to Anders Holm and his buttery smooth pale body:
When I got home, I was getting ready for bed when I accidentally snapped my glasses, because I didn’t have enough on my plate this month and fuck my life. I’m going to have to get replacements, and I have no idea how I’m going to pay for them.
Yesterday I was a little bit late getting started in the morning, but I kind of shook off some of my unhappiness fog and made some progress shuffling around stuff to make my use of space a little better.
When kids started arriving, I went to watch the teen room, which I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks. We have two middle school girls coming right now, sisters, that are totally weird (which is not derogatory, that’s a huge positive for me) and super into anime and manga and colored hair and weird accessories. The younger one was worked up nearly to the point of tears because All The Shit Had Gone Down in whatever manga series she is reading. Both of them gushed about whatever boy was in it and looked vaguely like this
and I had some fun making fun of his Tragic Backstory and Soulful Eyes and Husky Voice and the fact that You’re The Only One That Ever Got To Know Him. I told them that anime was building up unrealistic expectations of boys in them, and that they still had to endure like six years of boys trying to express their affection by being jerks and farting.
The rest of the day was not hard, but pretty chaotic. We were down a couple of people.
After work, I stopped by the grocery store because I just couldn’t do prepared food. A couple of weeks ago I redid my budget, and realized exactly how much money I could keep in my pocket if I didn’t spend of prepared food and drink, so I’m trying to be better about it. While making dinner, I made myself a drink, and I guess the alcohol made it before the food did, because I ended up a little buzzed. I ended up playing the piano for a while, just improvising where my heart led me, with wild abandon and many smushy notes. By about 9:30, I felt exhausted and decided to just go to sleep. I started to watch The Interview, which was not so good, but there was some banter involving James Franco and his stinky dick that was so dumb and gross that it woke me back up for a few minutes.
I woke up again at about 1am. When this happens, I give myself about 20 minutes to fall back asleep, otherwise I have to get up and do something productive or I’ll end up watching TV and jerking off all night. I wasn’t going to fall asleep, so I got up, did some dishes, cleaned out the fridge, and decided to do a 3am Winco run. I’ve never had such a relaxing grocery shopping trip in my life. It was nearly empty, I could take my time and wander every aisle, stop and contemplate weird food items, listen to my podcasts, and not be in any kind of hurry or rush or hanger.
It did make me a little more tired this morning than I would like, but I’m sure some coffee will pick me up if I need it.
I have already forgotten most of what happened on Friday in the morning and during the day. Presumably I woke up and went to work and worked and came home. The only thing that might stick is a super depressing staff meeting in which we—the lowest level staff—were being asked to “brainstorm” for ideas to solve problems that would not exist if other parts of the organization were whole and functioning. It unraveled into our boss telling us that “everyone from the top to the bottom is doing the best that they can,” and it made me feel like nothing will start to heal the patient until there is someone with some authority that can hold the people under them more accountable than that.
When I got home after work, L was up and getting ready for work. She had a weird emotional energy around her, and I felt like I had to be careful and tiptoe. We worked it out later, but situations like that make me anxious because it seems like lately I have a talent for saying the wrong thing and igniting dry tinder.
Later in the evening, I met up with Jesus Christ at his practice space in innner southeast. We had made some plans to play music and get a little weird. We ingested at around cover charge time, and spent the first hour and a half or so as it was kicking in playing music. JC has been absolutely essential in excavating my musical instincts from years of cruft and self doubt and insecurity. He has done a lot to build my confidence in my own ability to play and keep up with him, and on this night we were in a place where everything was feeling good and we could play without inhibition, surfing on our own musicality. Funky stuff.
Once it felt like time, we decided to head out:
JC: So where do you want to go? We can go get a drink at [gay bar on Morrison], or we can check out the dancing at Holocene, it’s just down the block.
me: Um, do you ever not know exactly what’s in your heart? Like, I can’t decide which one I’m resisting, and whether that means that I should do it or whether I really shouldn’t do it.
JC: All the time, man. When I’m in that situation, I always choose the most life-affirming option.
me: Awesome… I think that means that we have to go dance.
“Holocene,” by Bon Iver. A very good song named for the Portland club, but that has nothing to do with it, and a terrible music video.
We headed to Holocene, where I had never been. It was ’90’s dance party night, and within about 120 seconds of walking in, I hated it. It was filled with people that reminded me of the kids I never felt comfortable with in high school: young, moneyed, and image-conscious (but in a conforms-within-standard-tolerances kind of way, not an Oscar Wilde, my-life-is-my-art kind of way). It was weirdly bright, and the ADD DJ was changing the song every 90 seconds. I find nostalgia targeted at people my age to be distasteful, tacky, uncool, boring, saturated with death instinct, and reflective of a lack of imagination. Jesus led me to the dance floor, where he is brilliant and comfortable. I was having a little drama in my little fucked up brain:
A) I have been to other dance venues with other DJs and other crowds, and I’ve felt comfortable and have had a good time. Maybe I’m not having a good time because I’m uncomfortable and I should get out of here.
B) You always take some time to get comfortable, and you are still you. Whatever you’re on, it’s probably not powdered magic beanstalk, and you should just fake it until you make it.
Fortunately, Jesus was also not feeling it, so we went outside and bitched about the venue and walked over to the gay bar that was the other option.
While we drank, we had a really open conversation where we talked a lot about crowds, and fitting in, and making new friends, and seeking out the right kind of people. I talked a little bit about socializing, and how there are ways in which I have an outgoing personality that makes it easy for me to connect with others, yet how it can feel like what people respond to is a persona that I put up. I think a lot of that has to do with anxiety over being closeted in high school. Gay journalist Andrew Tobias described this phenomenon as the “best little boy in the world syndrome:”
young, closeted men deflect attention from their sexuality by investing in recognized markers of success: good grades, athletic achievement, elite employment and so on. Overcompensating in competitive arenas affords these men a sense of self-worth that their concealment diminishes.
Adam Chandler, a Washington lawyer, describes his best-little-boy persona:
You see, I’ve been in the closet a long time. I slipped up when I asked for a Barbie for my fifth birthday — I wanted only to practice styling her hair, I obliviously assured my parents — but I wised up fast and made a beeline for the closet’s precarious comforts.
I copied how the boys at school sat in their desks, with their knees apart. I observed how they wore their backpacks, using only one of the shoulder straps. I selected an unimpeachably staid wardrobe. And I studied. Boy, did I study.
I tore through middle and high school, craving perfect scores like a junkie in need of a fix. In college, I wrecked the curve for my straight classmates. Each semester, I petitioned the dean to overload my course schedule and sought the presidencies of student groups I had joined just days earlier. By the time I reached Yale Law School, where once-closeted academic superstars are like the hay in a haystack, coming out wouldn’t even have provoked a yawn. No matter. I built a wall of casebooks, hunkered down and ignored the growing hole in my social development.
Dr. Pachankis and Dr. Hatzenbuehler would not be surprised to learn that more than half the men in my randomly assigned “small group” seminar at Yale were gay. Deriving self-worth from achievement-related domains, like Ivy League admissions, is a common strategy among closeted men seeking to maintain self-esteem while hiding their stigma. The strategy is an effort to compensate for romantic isolation and countless suppressed enthusiasms. And it requires time-consuming study and practice, which conveniently provide an excuse for not dating.
Best of all, it distracts: “What Barbie? Look at my report card!”
I was explaining to Jesus that the worst, most insidious part of the best-little-boy persona is that, while it is a persona, it is also me. A theme is going to emerge this weekend of me, not-me, and what the difference between them are. Jesus had some very nice things to say about me and what he sees in me when I am with other people. We both agreed that we wanted to find some more gay friends to hang out with.
We went back to his studio and played for another hour or so. Then, we started to be more aware of our tiredness and our hunger, so we went to the Roxy on the west side. Diners in the wee hours after a night of shenanigans are my very favorite part of late night trouble, so that felt great and very special. After eating, though, I was done. I drove home and fell asleep immediately.
Saturday
I had made plans with L to see Big Hero Six, but neither of us was up for that and it didn’t happen. I slept in until 2pm, which felt decadent and I haven’t done it in forever [but I feel like I say that a lot so ???]. I got a haircut, and went to an optometrist to look at new frames. We (L came a long) were in our old neighborhood because I’m very loyal to hair stylists, and even though it’s barely been six, seven months since we moved away it feels longer. We had dinner at Fire on the Mountain, and it was delicious.
After dinner, I took her up on the offer to hang out with her boyfriend and his friends. His crew are very tight, and have been friends since high school. When I’ve hung out with them, it’s mostly been on Mississippi. Usually both of those things are neutral to OK. Last night, though, something was off. Mississippi is a hipster Disneyland (and if you knew how much I love Disneyland, you know what an ambivalent statement that is). I vary a lot in how I respond to that ambiance and environment: sometimes I’m super into it, sometimes I’m indifferent, and sometimes I feel completely outside it. When I get in that critical frame of mind, I only see the decor as cliché pandering to a demo that exists to be led. It’s not the bar’s fault that known quantities make money.
The high school friends thing meant that there’s a male pack dynamic that emerges, and I’ve never been able to be myself in that context, was never any good at faking it, and I’m kind of allergic to that energy when I encounter it out in the world. So I spent a lot of time trying to fit myself into this thing when I really should have just left because there wasn’t enough on the table to make it worth it to me.
In hindsight, I should have been content with a nearly-perfect Friday night and spent some time just relaxing on Saturday, but it’s hard for me to turn down an offer to hang out. I also realized that I need to always drive myself, even if that means I can’t get shitfaced—which I never want to do out at a bar anyway—because I need to give myself an out when I need it. I was kind of irritated and irritable and spent more money than I wanted on an experience I didn’t even like.
Sunday
Late start, spent the day watching the super bowl and being a luftmensch.
Once I got back to my house I felt like I could start taking some control of myself and tidied up, started laundry, charliework, etc.
I finished Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother, a sequel to her memoir about her father, Fun Home. I thought it was great, and has a lot of big ideas about relationships with parents, me and not-me, the utility of therapy, and the crazy thoughts that come into play when you’re in therapy and compulsively think and write about it and do your own research. There’s enough in the book to keep me occupied and thinking for a couple of weeks.
All in all, a mixed weekend.
A brief word on January
Some closing thoughts about January, 2015:
The emergent narrative of this month has been a feeling of renewed inner purpose. I’ve decided that now is a time where it’s very important to take action and not let myself get caught up in overthinking, or get caught up in a compulsive need to seek inspiration. I published 23 posts, and had more visitors to my blog than all of 2014—visitors & views are not the point, but I think it nicely illustrates how more comfortable I am right now with attention seeking. In addition to the blog journaling, I wrote and illustrated 37 pages in my creative notebook. I practiced music for roughly 8 hours this month; I’m aiming for 12 next month, though ultimately I’d like to be playing much more than that.
I spent most of the month sick. The alone time has been good, the fatigue has been not good.
As spiritually energized as I feel, I did not finish any work.
hammer & jack 