Before we get to this week’s post, I’d just like to thank you fabulous readers for your comments on my last post. I was thrilled to see so many new names posting and even happier to visit your sites.

Also, a wholehearted recommendation on a worthwhile way to spend your hard earned (or in my case birthday) money: Margaret Cho’s Assassin Tour! It was hilarious. If you are lucky enough to have the Cho come to your city, go see her! If you live in the boondocks, make sure you add her DVD of her last comedy tour, entitled Revolution, to your Netflicks que. For those of us who fight the good fight, who believe in human rights, gay rights, women’s rights, deconstructing racial boundaries, dismantling the scary conservative right wing, and eating all the carbs we damn well please–Margaret Cho is a refreshing, welcome, and beautiful relief. With creeps like James Dobson, George W. Bush, Bill O’Reily, and Rush Limbaugh clogging up every facet of the “liberal media” (HA! Liberal my ass…), it’s good to have someone as awesomely vocal as our Cho to help counter their scary, destructive propaganda. So go enjoy some Cho! But first, read the following “coming of age” essay that I wrote for your reading pleaure. Enjoy, and as always, your comments and readership are cherished. Take care!
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Call me Naive (I am)
© The Author, 2005

Debauchery has gotten the best of me and left me with indigestion and a monster zit on my left temple. I hate drinking.

Last winter I had my first hang over. Surprisingly enough, my alcohol-induced rancor was more than legal. I was 22 years old when I whined into the hollow chasm of the toilet bowl, “My mom’s going to be so disappointed in me!” Actually, I am lying. I never made it to the toilet bowl.

After waking up in my best friend’s apartment, I turned on the television and witnessed an unfair amount of cellulite jiggling about on the show Reno 911. I then proceeded to grab my friend’s candy dish from his coffee table, chuck its contents onto the floor, and retch into it. If my mom was disappointed when she heard, she hid it well beneath her laughter. I have not been hung over in this way since. In fact, I’d rather die than do it again.

I like letting loose. I like conversation. I like dancing. I like meeting new people. I like sex. Aside from the aforementioned drinking debacle, I have never felt the need to drink to do any of these things.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not straight edge by any means. I appreciate a glass of wine with my dinner, a chilly cider with my spicy curry, and a glass of frosty Belgium beer after work, a long island ice tea before karaoke, and a cuddly cup of sake with my sushi. But I don’t enjoy getting trashed for the sake of getting trashed. Frankly, I don’t enjoy more than the occasional drink or two with my dinner.

I could say that my moderate drinking behaviors are due to the fact that I fear the hereditary nature of alcoholism–a fear that did grip me at one point after alcoholism pickled my dad and his brothers–but that is not entirely true. Nor are my any claims I could make about the questionable morality of alcohol (although I could make a few in regards to the selfish thoughtlessness of drinking and driving).

The truth behind my rules of moderation is this: I am a control freak with a temperamental tummy. I dislike situations that I feel powerless in (and as we all know, alcohol starts with your motor skills and doesn’t stop there), and I don’t enjoy shitting sad little pellets like a bunny, which for some inexplicable reason, alcohol causes for me. Plus, I don’t need to get sloshed to feel comfortable socially like some people seem to.

As for neglecting to have sipped a beer or two in high school, I can honestly say that I was too dorky to ever have been invited to parties where booze were supplied. In high school I was a compulsively reading, theater obsessed, choirgirl. Neither the Alto section nor the book club ever got around to throwing a kegger. Plus, I have always hated acting like a cliché, and since I am white and not very gay, there was little I could do to push against the oppressive force of “sameness” that permeated from my high school counterparts. I figured that by not drinking, I would be “different.” I was blissfully ignorant to the fact that my sobriety supported stereotypical choirgirl behavior, but high school logic is never as solid as we would like it to be.

Anyhow, despite the fact that I generally live a primarily sober life, my devilishly fun best friend and cousin came from Michigan to visit this week, which caused me to foolishly abandon my typically moderate alcohol consumption preference so as not to cramp their vacation style. Their rules of alcohol consumption vary drastically from my own. According to them, the phrase “drink responsibly” can be loosely translated to “buy in rounds.”

I truly cannot grasp how so many people in their early twenties live a life style that involves frequent weekend pub crawling and clubbing. Call me naive (I am), but I am honestly perplexed about the pure logistics of it all. It was hard enough to keep up for the four days my guests were staying with me; I cannot fathom how anyone could regularly juggle their lives while suffering from the exhaustion caused by chemically induced fun. Not to mention the fact that bars are expensive. How on earth do these people have any money left over to pay their bills? How do they function at work?

While I am not judging those like my visitors (who admirably manage to function while frequently getting sloshed), my heart aches a bit for the things that I hope that this type of debauchery does not rob them of. Life can be so simple, so pure, so beautiful, and so easy. Life can shine so radiantly that it would ache to look at with dilated pupils. Human interaction is too precious to dilute. Sex is too glorious to numb. You miss a lot when you are drunk. And worst of all, the next day you just might shit like a bunny.

After bidding my visitors farewell last night, I closed the door behind them. Quietly, I rested my throbbing head against the wooden frame of the door and exhaled for a full minute. I wearily turned back to my trashed apartment. Scanning the damage, I was happy to find my partner waiting patiently for me in the kitchen. Sweetly, he held a glass of cold water out to me. I went to him and grabbed the cold glass. I gulped it down, my body relived to taste a pure clean liquid. Slamming my glass down, I sighed and held my love tight. I was nourished at last.

In Praise of the Party
&copy The Author, 2005

My fifth birthday party was the first party that I invited friends to. One of the best things about being the first child is that your parents don’t know any better than to appease their child’s more outlandish and impractical requests. In my case, my mom seemed almost as enthusiastic as I was when I said I wanted to invite my entire pre-school class to my fifth birthday party, plus my cousin (and best friend) Sheri. The only attendee that my mom had to talk me out of was my teacher. Like many preschoolers, I loved my teacher and it came as a shock for me when my mom gently told me that she would probably be busy that day. My teacher had a life outside of hanging out with me and my class?!? Outrageous! I wasn’t disappointed for long though, because if I remember correctly, a whopping 25 kids attended this party. Yowza.

My mom and my grandma played host to this party, which took place at my grandparents’ house where my mom and I lived for a time in a small cute apartment over the garage. My great grandma, who I loved intensely and called Nannar (our family is British and this was my loving variation of the endearing term, Nanna), had previously lived in the apartment, but had recently passed away, leaving it for my mom and I to live in after we discovered our old apartment complex had been haunted by a peeping tom. Anyhow-back to my story.

I’m sure my mom and grandma took great care in organizing games, and I have seen pictures of the teeming masses munching happily away at cake and ice cream, but the things I remember most about this party was the activities that took place outside of our structured activities.

For instance, I took great pleasure in introducing my guests to the apartment that my mom and I lived in. I informed my classmates that my Nannar had lived there, but now she was dead and we lived there. Most of these kids were from two parent homes without any dead relatives disrupting their early lives. They had no idea what I was getting at, but they seemed interested nonetheless.

We also enjoyed swimming in the guests’s coats that had been piled high on my grandparents big king sized bed. I seem to recall the pleasure being brief, interrupted by my Granddad peeking his head around the corner of the room and barking in a playfully scary way for us to skedaddle, but the fun was infinite.

Another game we played was jumping from one piece of living room furniture to the next. My grandparents had a huge, bouncy sectional sofa and two comfy recliners to move about on. Predicting a bumped head followed by crocodile tears, my grandma nipped that game short as well. I held no grudge for this reigning in of fun—I was too young to feel that sort of thing yet.

What is important about these invented games and activites is that they were the first time that I experinced the sensation of “cutting loose” at a party. The feeling was so great, that I have been a big fan of the party ever since. I like throwing them, attending them, planning them, and looking at all my pictures of them. I even like cleaning up afterwards.

I have thrown at least two parties nearly every year, ranging in size from sleepovers of two best friends to parties (our wedding bash) that have had guest lists of over 200. I can truly say—it is not the size of the party that matters. It matters only how much fun you are open to having. And I am always open to fun.

One year at a birthday party, my friends and I decided it would be fun if we plastered our faces in makeup, slicked our hair back in thick crusts of hair gel, hiked out pants up to our chests and created spastic skits based on the various bizarre-o characters we created. These characters married each other, killed each other, ran for president, and even ate human flesh if I remember correctly. See the above picture for the complete visual.

Another year, my mom made my favorite childhood dish-Spanish rice and beans. From this I learned the importance of catering to your guests, as most of my second grade, white suburban counter parts were unsure of what to make of my dinner of choice. All subsequent parties relied on the mainstays of pizza and subs.

My fifth grade birthday party took place at Caesarland, which is the pizza chain Little Caesar’s attempt at the more popular children’s party venue, Chucky Cheese’s. At this birthday party, we ran amok, fueled by caffeinated soft drinks and sugary angel food cake. When a disgruntled and underpaid employee sweating away inside of a Caesar costume emerged to mingle with the children, I thought of the perfect way to impress my guests. With a big tug, I pulled the giant proboscis dangling provocatively from the costumes face, unconcerned with how this might affect the human inside the costume. While my friends squealed with glee, the person inside the costume was probably recovering from some sort of costume injury as a result of my prank. “Fuckin’ kid! I’m gonna get you!” Caesar growled. Scared out of my mind, I spent the rest of the party hiding in the tunnel ‘o’ fun.

My twenty-first birthday was spent sipping Mai Tais and laughing with a handful of good friends in a creepy tiki bar that, due to decor that seemed to be stolen from a set for a David Lynch film, we kiddingly dubbed “The Portal to Hell.”

My fifteenth birthday actually seemed like a portal to hell, as I was too self-conscious to have the fun I deserved. At the end of the night, I cried myself to sleep. I don’t introduce that downer point to depress, but to demonstrate my success as a host. Judging by the emotional intensity that parties tend to bring about, one party ending sourly out of countless held is a marvelous average. Yes, I am patting myself on the back.

On my last birthday, before going to dinner with a small group of friends and my husband, I treated myself to a trip to our friendly, neighborhood psychic. I have been to a few psychics before, and I do believe that there are a few who are in touch with the ability that lies within all of us to intuit the universe. This woman was defiantly one of them. I sat down, clasped hands with her, and immediately she looked into my eyes and asked, “Do you know anyone named Nannar?” My jaw dropped. I was flooded with memories of my Nannar, the woman who had played with me and loved me so well untill her death, which resulted in my mom’s inheritance of her apartment. “Nannar’s purpose in the universe is to make sure all your ducks are in a row.” I had always thought that my ducks were suspiciously meticulous. That reunion of sorts with my Nannar was the best birthday present I have yet to receive.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I enter my twenty third year with an amazing partner, two jobs to sustain me, a strong artistic vision, life goals and plans of action, good health, a cuddly cat, a supportive, beautifully complex and big family, funny and brilliant friends, and a Nannar to assure me that more good is on the way. I can’t even think of what to ask for my birthday. World peace and equality for all would be nice, but improbable. I am happy.

Just like a kid whose birthday falls on a school night, I am going to be observing my birthday in party form next Friday. My best friend Bryan (click here for your formal introduction to my Bryan) will be in town from Detroit. Along with a group of my very awesome Chicago friends, we will be celebrating the day with a party I have dubbed, Dinner and a Cho. First we will be off to dinner at the yummy Mambo Grill (1/2 price Mojito special, ladies and gentleman!), before we will be whisked off to the Chicago Theater via the ever-so elegant Chicago public transit authority to see my political comrade and fellow feminist, the comedy superstar….MARGARET CHO! After that—we’ll see where the night will take us, but I’m sure it will have something to do with Karaoke, dancing, drag queens, or all of the above. Needless to say, I can’t wait.

Tomorrow, my love and I will be attempting to bake an angel food cake of our own, and cooking up a mouthwatering pot of eggplant and sweet potato curry. I suspect that a present or two will be involved, and of course, the barrage of happy phone calls from my loving family. I look forward to thanking my mom in particular for the agonizing 23 hours her tiny, young frame spent birthing me, making my life and my beloved birthday possible.

Last night my husband and I had a little birthday-ish celebration as well, cashing in on a free dinner cruise about the Chicago lakeshore that we won in a drawing while attending the ballet last winter. The night was spent laughing hysterically at the abundant corniness of the cruise wait staff and entertainment, boozing it up from their cheapest bottle of wine, and getting our groove on the dance floor. Like the good party people that we are, we danced non-stop from the first song to the last. I am a Brick House. I am Like a Virgin. And even though I was wearing brown and crème at the time, I am a Lady in Red.

I am a lucky little Pisces, and come March 6th, I truly will be chicagoartgirl23.

From left to right: Grandma, Mom, Baby Me, Nannar

Before you start in on my newest very-fun-to-write (and hopefully fun to read) essay, I want to share with you a lead that one of my readers, the whip smart and funny Davis McDavis has discovered about the questions I pose about the film Osama in the post, Questions from a Wonderstruck Me. Because I love his writing, and because I want to be sure he receives full credit for providing us all with the answer, I’ve copied and pasted his insight below:

DavisMcDavis’s Insight into the Scenes in Question in the film Osama:
Now I’m curious about the two things you mentioned. Not having seen the film, I have no opinion of my own, but it appears those two scenes have also flummoxed viewers on the IMDB discussion board for this movie. The lock thingy is apparently that the mullah is allowing the girl to choose which lock we will be locked into her house/room with, as the mullah keeps all his other wives locked up. It is supposed to be ironic that the only choice for a woman in that society is which lock she will be locked up with. By contrast, in the US she would be allowed to choose what color Juicy Couture sweatpants she would wear to yoga, but she wouldn’t be allowed to pull them up high enough to cover her ass crack. Is it progress? I think so – but we can do better!

The bleeding thing I don’t know, but I’ll bet it has something to do with vaginas.
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Interesting stuff huh? Three Cheers for DavisMcDavis!

Now on to my newest essay, which has nothing to do with the depressing realities of locked up women or bleeding vaginas. Enjoy!

My Precious
&copy The Author, 2005

I was six when I was first introduced to the rounded sounds, the devilishly harsh edges, the smooth textures, and that glorious smell that was to seduce me into a love affair that would cling to me for a long time to come. Dolled up in barrettes in the shape of blue poodles and a sweatshirt with sleeves that were encrusted with green snot, I was about to be awakened in a deeply profound, amazingly exotic, and very adult way. The awakening came when I read the following sacred words aloud with my class: “The sun is up. Buffy is up. Buffy and Mac are up.”

It wasn’t the message itself that was so appealing, but the sudden awareness that those strange inky blots—previously mere interruptions from the pictures in my bedtime stories—had actual meanings. Prior to my introduction to the sordid tale of Buffy and Mac and their glorious rising sun, I had always thought that those ugly black symbols provided loose guidelines to as how long a person had to invent a story about the illustration before they turned the page. These symbols didn’t have any “set” rules per se. I imagine this assumption was due to spending much of my early childhood receiving bedtime stories from my very inventive granddad, who apparently was attempting to make my children’s books (and his repetitive reading of them) more interesting.
When I learned that these blots were words, and they were a way of documenting a very specific story, I felt like I had made a startling and new discovery. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that everyone else in the world already had figured as much.

My craving for the written word became so intense, that I remember my frustration at the time consuming process of reading aloud. Since that was the practice in my first grade class, it never occurred to me that you might just simply look at the page and read silently to yourself. I remember sitting on the living room floor, my arms crossed, my book thrown angrily aside. I was scowling at my mom.

“What do you mean, read to yourself? How do I just look at the page and know it?”
“Try it,” she said.
Amazing. The thoughts of the author were suddenly, magically, my thoughts. It was like being telepathic. It was heaven.

As I grew older, my nightlight burned hot as I read until the early hours of the morning from Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, and To Kill A Mockingbird. When my eyes finally dropped closed for the evening, my dreams were vivid and beautiful assumed continuations of the story I had been reading.

As I entered adolescence, entire warm summer days were spent sprawled out on a beach towel on my family’s deck with a glass of O.J. and some toast to nibble, reading and re-reading Catcher in the Rye. During the school year, I would spend the days leading the life of a healthy, active teenager: student council meetings, Advanced English classes, play and choir rehearsals. But after school, I would become a quiet recluse, holing up in my room, heaping down and flannel blankets into a warm nest for which I would burrow into and devour Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the existential crises penned by Camus and Hemmingway.

As an adult, I devour novels with more passion and hunger than most porn stars play at in their films. Reguarly occurring emotions that I experince in my quest to be brimming with words include:

• Pride
I hold my reading up high, bringing the text to my face, flaunting the weathered cover for all too see-be it Dostoevsky or the newest issue of McSweeney’s.

• Greed
Witness my excessive spillage of precious paperbacks!

• Lust
I am frequently distracted at work by explicit fantasies of what the next page might hold.

• Gluttony
I am happy to grow soft as I suck each word to the bone and salivate greedily for the next.

• Envy
I oftentimes charge furiously through books, just to get my hands on the most recent acquisition my husband has started reading.

As long as I can keep Wrath out of the mix, I think might escape the burning throes of hell, if there turns out to be such a place.

My husband is also afflicted, making us enablers for each other. With barely enough money to stock our refrigerator, we guilty spend money on publications of all sorts: comic books, paperbacks (used is preferential—our addiction is so bad that we could not possibly afford new at the volume we consume them, unless we submit to the corporate whoredom of Amazon—which we are not to proud to do), and magazines (oh, how I salivate to see my fresh weekly New Yorker glistening at the top of my mail pile, or better yet, a nice, fat, book-sized Granta or Tin House).

Although I enjoy social interaction, and I am by no means the bearer of a “bookworm” personality, my list of favorite authors is undoubtedly longer than my list of actual friends. John Updike, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Dave Eggers, David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood, Amy Tan, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Isabel Allende, and Yukio Mishima, Walker Percy, William Faulkner, and oh I’ve got to stop because this list is going and going and I fear the list will never end. And please don’t think that this list is some sort of indication that I am a “book snob.” I enjoyed Jemma J. and Bridget Jones’s Diary as much as the next girl. But I do admit, these books might be better classified as “acquaintances” rather than tried and true friends. But they are welcome, celebrated guests in my home never the less.

Recently, I have fallen hard for an author who is new to me. In his book, Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins weaves a delectable tale of epic proportions while entertainingly nudging along a philosophy that challenges society’s view on existence. Robbins writes, “The drama unfolding in the universe—in our psyches—is not good against evil but new against old, or, more precisely, destined against obsolete” (Robbins, 326).

While this philosophic thread seems to be the reason for the fiction, this does not in any way imply that the vehicle that supports it (the story) is lacking. Although the philosophy is sometimes heavy handed (although it never takes itself too seriously, in fact, it oftentimes pokes great fun at itself), it never detracts from the jubilant and outstandingly brilliant comedy of the writing. The story is sheer entertainment from the very first page. So entertaining in fact, that I am savoring this read. I am currently 10 pages away from finishing and I have forced myself to break so that I can make it last just a little bit longer. I wouldn’t possibly conceive of ruining this story for you by providing a summary (not even the book jacket does this), as the completely unexpected, unpredictable plot is an intrinsic element of this book’s charm. Someone who caught on to my admiration of Vonnegut recommended Tom Robbins to me, and I am now certain that I enjoy Tom Robbins even more than my stud Vonnegut (no hard feelings, Kurt).

This year I have opened my home to other great authors as well. While it is hard to keep track of just how many penning ladies and gentlemen I have been involved with since this time last year, a few spectacular names of new authors immediately come to mind. The sexiest of them all is Oscar Hijuelos.

Oscar won my heart with his whammy of a novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Not only does Hijuelos completely rejuvenate the footnote (he uses this traditionally academic documentation strategy as a way to delve into the microscopic elements of character development), but he also is able to write grit, melodrama, and erotica in a seamless, sophisticated, Pulitzer Prize winning style.

Mikail Bulgakov sauntered into my life early this winter with vodka on his breath and an incredible book for me to read, The Master and Margarita. While I regularly I revel in the devil-may-care logic of Mexican and Latin American magical realism, reading a Russian author’s version of this beloved genre was a refreshing adventure. This book was laugh-out-loud funny and reminded me of the wonderment I had reading Alice in Wonderland for the first time, except this very adult book features naked witches, the devil Himself, and a talking cat named Behemoth.

My adventures continued with a little boy named Pi and his journeys across the sea in a tiny boat shared with a starving and feral tiger. Yann Martel deserves all the acclaim he has received, but what I think of most when I reflect on his writing is not the authors poignant philosophical observations, nor his vivid writing and imaginative plot, but rather an eloquent statement that he makes in the forward of his novel, Life of Pi. Martel states, “If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the alter of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams” (Martel, XII).

If I were to throw the dinner party of my dreams (which would happen only in my dreams, since many of the attendees are very dead), with all my favorite authors, plus Che Guevarra, a handful of my friends and family, and Madonna (if she felt so inclined), I would be sure to include Yann Martel’s sentiment on the invitation.

I am not addicted to the written word for its sex appeal alone. I am simply grateful for writers who produce wonderful work, for without them, my brain would starve. Their thought inspires my thought. Their stories prompt my stories.

As all of the fundamentals of existence, the effect of art is majestically, profoundly, and irrevocably prismatic. When I read a good story and it prompts me to write a good story, my thoughts and my reality change. When someone else reads my work and they are inspired to write because of it, the prism refracts anew. Soon reality as a whole is bathed in a new light, as we evolve thanks to the gadfly of art. My friend Tom Robbins’s 1000 year old character Alobar sums this constant recasting of reality when he comments on modern society in the novel, Jitterbug Perfume. “We’re standardizing people, their goals, their ideas. The sham is everywhere. But wait, now. Don’t let me spoil the party. Things will change. Even now, I’m curious to see what’s going to happen next” (Robbins, 319).
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**I hope you enjoyed this essay. As an added bonus for all of you who want to prolong your time reading about reading, I’ve included one of my all-time favorite poems, Eating Poetry by Mark Strand. If you are sick of reading about reading (or if poetry is not your bag), skip this and head straight to the comment box and be sure to leave me your reading recommendations. As always, thanks for reading and take care!

Eating Poetry
by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs bum like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

A breif note before you read the following essay:
My Xanga site was recently put on some poll on Not_Featured_Content. I am confused as to the motivation behind this poll, and to be perfectly honest, it puts me ill at ease. It reminds me of high school when everyone is trying so hard to be popular and no one is having any fun. I blog because it prompts me to write more, and writing is so very important to me. I also blog to receive the fun and insightful opinions on my writing from this neat Xanga community. I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy the community aspect of it as much as I do—the sites I subscribe to could easily be nominated above mine any day. But then, of course, you’d have to deal with the pressure of trying to be cool enough to win a poll.

For readers who have happened upon my site from the polling, welcome—I am sincerely thankful for your readership. However, if you were looking for a cool entry to convince you to “vote for me,” you might be disappointed. But I hope you will read anyhow—your insightful comments are worth more to me than a vote any day. So spill it—let me know if you can relate to this essay, if you grow bored, if the pacing is tedious, if the prose is shortsighted–I really do appreciate it.

I hate to put a disclaimer before my writing (only because it bugs me when other people do it), but I’m not too crazy about this peice. I emphasize the need for your comments not only because I love them, but because I need some input to make the next round of revisions sucessful.

Slipping Into Something a Little More Comfortable
&copy The Author, 2005

My eyes flung themselves open in sync with the digital wail of my alarm. It had taken a curiously sinister tone ever since I began my official inauguration into the adult world. A month out of college and a few weeks into a job in office land, I was trying to adjust to adulthood by mimicking the characters of “career girls” in movies and the smart fashions of women who rode the subway into the Loop at 8:30am. I was cramming myself into an ill-fitting role and I wasn’t sure why, aside from the debt of student loans that would surely outlive me. I only hoped that I looked in control and nicely groomed as I did it.

At this time in my life, I had developed a ritual of waking an hour earlier than necessary to go running. It was a time for my thoughts to occupy me, before my mind was swimming with office protocol and my was soul saddened by having ditched my dreams in order to spend a gorgeous day in an overly-air conditioned office.

I leapt out of bed and changed hastily into my grungy running clothes. My muscles ached to race the hour away. With my hair in a messy ponytail and my contacts grating against my lids, I leapt out of my dark apartment and into the warming summer morning. My jog always begins with the first step I take out of my apartment. I worry that I will be mistaken for a dunk or a homeless person in my rumpled clothes and unwashed face, and I feel the immediate need to demonstrate that it is permissible for me to be out in such a state. “See? I’m exercising!”

Soon I passed the Mexican man setting up his mango slice stand outside the bodega on Western and Grand. “Buenos Dias!” “Hola!” These are our morning exchanges. It is good I move fast because this is the extent of my Spanish speaking abilities, unless I wanted to randomly request, “la cuenta, por favor.”

Language skills aside, I felt happy and good about myself this morning. My mind was clear. No thoughts of numbing data entry, no crippling anxiety over office introductions, no worries over trying to convince my bosses that they didn’t make the horrendous mistake of hiring someone to balance their budget that struggled in her remedial math courses in college, no disappointment in myself for abandoning my dreams of acting, directing, and scripting at 22. I was light and free and delighted by the sweet smell of mango and the friendly, familiar faces of my route. My breath was effortless and the city seemed suspended in my charm.

The sun was orange and fully realized when I passed the homeless man who props himself up drunkenly against the park gates and lets his brown, dry legs sprawl all over the sidewalk. I jump over his legs, “Excuse me! Good Morning!”
“Lookin’ Good, Good Lookin!” he calls after me.

Although it might seem cheap to be sincerely flattered by a man who has been pickled in alcohol to the point of homelessness, during this time in my life, my morning run was the only time in my day I really felt good looking, despite my bedraggled and sweaty appearance. Beauty is a state of mind.

I passed the digital bank clock at Damon and Division. According to the clock, I had only fifteen more minutes to feel alive for the rest of the day. I typically crack under pressure and this run was to be no different.

My sweaty brow furrowed as my mind drifted, as a runners mind often does, from the immediate pleasures of the morning to dwell on a cloudy and indirect source of my insecurity; my loss of closeness to my best friend at university.

My friend Derek and I had been each other’s muses since High School. We shamelessly created fabulous alter egos for one another. Instead of a tall, gangly, and acne-ridden teenager, I became a beautiful, radiant actress, writer, and filmmaker. Instead of a slightly feminine, slightly paunchy teenager, he was a dashing, handsome and undeniably gifted actor. The best part about our alter egos was that we actually came to believe in them for one another. And as we became young adults, we actually grew to become these things for a time.

We chose to study theater at the same university and during that time, we became inseparable, giddy, and an incredible support system for one another. With our arms wrapped around each other’s waists, parading confidently about campus, we would comfort each other after a particularly frustrating lecture or a lackluster quiz, “Ha! We’ll never have to finish college anyhow—we’ll become famous before it comes to that!” And we actually believed it, which made things all the more disappointing when neither of us became famous and we both ended up graduating.

As my sneakers pounded out the rhythm of my movements onto the sidewalk, I thought about the last time I had seen Derek, when we were both still in college and he stole the show at a performance of The Laramie Project. At this point, I had transferred schools and moved to Chicago and I had traveled back to Michigan to see him perform. Before I had made the decision to travel to see his show, I hadn’t realized the extent to which we had lost touch. Although we spoke seldom, I still felt close to him, and I couldn’t help but beam with pride when the audience gossiped about him during intermission.

“The young guy with the black hair—now he is absolutely amazing.”
“Yeah, he’s going places, you can tell.”

After the show, I waited for him in the theater lobby, clutching my coat to my chest, watching cast members strut with pride from the back hallway door out to greet the proud friends and family who had come to see them. My eyes fixed to that doorway and I waited for him with a posed smile that began to sag as the minutes ticked by and the crowd dispersed. Soon, I was alone with a pimply coat check worker, closing up his booth. My breath slid heavy from my lips and I wondered outside into the gray, misting dusk. Standing outside of the theater, my smile was salvaged suddenly as I caught Derek laughing and walking arm and arm with a group of cast members to his car. I begged my face to not betray what my heart knew; I had been replaced.

“Hey stranger!” I called to him.
“Hey!”

He threw his arms open theatrically as he walked over to me. We hugged and a new smell of nicotine clung to him. He was thinner. I began to tell him all about the rave reviews of the audience members, but he seemed to already know about all of that, as he kept looking over his shoulder at his friends waiting for him by his car.

A year or so later, he moved to New York to pursue acting.

As I ran steadily past a group of surely teenage girls dragging themselves to summer school, I recalled the one phone conversation that Derek and I had in the past year. We were both on our cell phones, outside, in our respective downtowns. We listened to the noise of each other’s city, letting these sounds stand as proof that we were separate and overlooked in a place too busy for the likes of two young aspirants. I got the impression that he had lost as much confidence as I had since our separation. No longer did we have the world by the ass; he was a host at a Planet Hollywood and I was hidden from the world completely by the stale, corkboard walls of my cubicle. He wasn’t a famous actor and I couldn’t seem to think of myself in a big enough way to even attempt a script, let alone have one performed. Miles between us, our friendship taken for granted then almost completely abandoned, we had lost our glamorous alter egos to the realistic demands of adulthood.

Approaching the last stretch of my route, my breathing became fluid but heavy. Involuntarily, my body sprang into a mind-numbing second wind. All thought drained from my mind as my stride stretched to its limit and I flew past shops and groggy-eyed dog walkers. Derek slid away from me in a rivulet of sweat pouring from my chest.

Panting and red faced, I sauntered into my apartment. Grabbing a glass of water and draining it, my heart steadied. With a deep stretch, my pulse slowed.

As I stepped in the shower, the world came back to me. The prospect of the workday made my heart tick in a way I was not yet used to. Instead of a happy thump of a pulse, my heart seemed to twitter these past few weeks like an irritating itch. Trying to distract myself from my crazed heartbeat, I lathered my hair into a soapy sculpture.

While I attempted to create liberty spikes using a mixture of moisturizing masque and regular conditioner, it dawned on me that I might be having trouble adjusting to adulthood because I had yet to create an alter ego that fit this role. In order to survive in the reality of my adulthood, I had to create a simplified version of myself that could be presented effortlessly to my colleagues. If creating an alter ego with Derek made me feel better about my pimpled high school and awkward college self, it might work out for me in the “Real World” as well. I would simply become an Adult.

I remember this day as the first time I ironed a crease in my khakis. I had always been a neat dresser, but this was a starched, deliberate crease that I ironed in. My true self laughed in my face at that one, but my newly appointed Adult self persevered.

I arrived to work early. Typically, I had dawdled away 8:50-9:00 at the bookstore across the street from my work, thumbing through the movie reviews in Entertainment Weekly or listening to a CD at the audio sampling stations. Today, I went directly to work in a swift and grown up way, even though my true self was tugging at my pant leg, begging like a whiney kid to go to the bookstore and sample the new Bjork album.

Upon my arrival at work, I refused to stand quiet and embarrassed as the security guards mistakenly rifled through the intern ID badges for mine as they did every day. Instead, I said in a very adult voice, “I’m not an intern, I just happen to look like I’m 12.” I laughed in a trite way that I had heard somewhere before, perhaps from Mrs. Plum in the Clue movie. The security guard chuckled back at me as I told him, “You’ll find me in the Marketing stash. Thanks,” then a casual, “Have a good one!” My true self was gagging at these clichés, but I pushed onward and punched “in” to the day.

As the weeks rolled by, I found that creating an alter ego was becoming easier and easier. Instead of giving the deplorable Aunt May in the new Spiderman movie a well-deserved tongue lashing while at lunch with my older co-workers, I now chose the more tasteful conversation piece of the opening of New York’s new MOMA. “Wow,” they said, “Fascinating.” Not really, but who was my alter ego to complain?

By that winter I was a bonified creased-kaki-wearing Grown Up and the world knew it. The last fifteen minutes of my workout became as thought freeing as the first thirty. The twitter in my heart had stabilized to a soft rumbling and my true self no longer balked so openly at my displays of adult behavior. While it was a challenge for a time, my true self began to make the transition back into my body with greater ease once I was finished working for the day.

Soon, it was time for our departmental holiday lunch. While my true self jumped with joy (“free food!”), my Adult self quoted lines from a recent review on our restaurant of choice. As we munched on delicious Indian food, we began a very Adult conversation about international travel. To my surprise, my true self chimed in. I relayed a tale about a Spanish kabob that I ate that was undoubtedly made of pigeon (“It’s not chicken,” the waitress warned us). To my great surprise, my colleagues found this very funny and this made my heart infinitely happy. My true self beamed like a child who has said something cleaver at a family gathering and then is asked to repeat it over and over to a crowd of adoring relatives. For the first time, I had successfully integrated my true self into the adult world.

During Christmas weekend, I traveled back to Michigan to see my friends and family. While attending a holiday party in my hometown, I was surprised to have an elegantly wasted version of the Derek I once knew suddenly beside me, sipping stolis, smelling sweetly of nicotine—a cool and collected stranger.

My interactions with Derek used to include piggy-back rides and screaming filthy lines from the Exorcist into the night; we were so comfortable in our belief that we would soon be whisked away from our campus to become famous stars that we acted as foolishly and strangely as we liked. Now, Derek seemed to me too stylish, too mature, too impenetrable. I sat, peering into his pale and perfect face for an answer until I realized he had worn his New York alter ego to the party. It was a smashing outfit, tailored and vogue and perfectly believable. But I missed the old one. I missed the warm of his plaid button up shirts thrown over t-shirts of his favorite bands. I missed his raunchy impressions of horror flicks. I missed the invincibility of our original alter egos.

Soon enough, I was back in Chicago, waking up an hour before necessary to exercise before work. The impossibly cold and icy Midwest winters forced aerobics tapes to replace my beloved running route, but the effect of my increased heart rate’s ability to free my thoughts remained the same.

As I punched and lunged, my thoughts wondered back to Derek. It hurt me so much to see him so lost in his New York alter ego that he was unable to be real with me at the Holiday party. I worried that the Adult alter ego that I had created had become suffused with my true self, just as the New York alter ego had consumed Derek.

Later that morning, as I ironed the crease into my kakis, I wondered what Derek thought of me, if he mourned my changes as I did his. I wondered if I had given up the best of me, and if I would ever get it back.

Walking to work from the El Stop, I shivered against a wall of wind barreling off the icy lake. As I passed a bustling Dunkin Doughnuts, my scarf whipped up in such a lively way, that I thought for a moment that it was a happy little kid rushing about the sidewalk. When I paused to let the kid by, I smiled to discover it was my mistake. I caught a glimpse of myself in the doughnut shop window—a confident, quietly glamorous adult, laughing.

As much as my new Adult routine was a necessary evil to acquire my Adult need for a paycheck, I knew then that my personality would never fully dissolve into it. I just needed to see my potential mistakes materializing painfully in someone I deeply cared about—and to see my self smiling, off guard, and beautiful in a doughnut shop window—for me to realize that my identity deserves more respect than I was giving it. And after all that exercising, I needed a doughnut.

Questions from a Wonderstruck Me

Tonight my partner and I watched the 2003 film Osama, directed by Siddiq Barmak. The film depicts the struggles of Afgan women under Taliban rule through the story of a 12 year old girl who is forced to act like a boy in order to work to support her widowed mother and her sickly grandmother. The movie features genuine performances by untrained actors whose experiences with Taliban rule are so recent that their emotions emerge effortlessly and with startling urgency. These are people who have a story to tell, and are thirsty to tell it. The film is beautiful in its cathartic release, however it features a few scenes that leave foreign audiences needing to know more. After a few unfruitful attempts at souring the Internet for answers (“women’s human rights infringements under Taliban rule” turns up so very many sites, you see), I turn to you, my bright fellow Xanga authors, in search of clarity.

In one scene, the Taliban principal of the young protagonist’s school was suspicious of her actual sex. He strapped her to an apparatus that dangled her over what appeared to be a well in an attempt to discover is she was a boy or a girl. She was reveled to be a girl when, after intense sobbing, she was lifted from the well and blood streamed down her legs. I was unsure of how to interpret this—it didn’t appear to be menstrual blood—it was more like the blood of a gushing wound than of a shed uterine lining, and besides that, the protagonist seemed too undeveloped to have yet started her period. I thought it might have been some sort of hymen popping machine, but if it were shoved between anyone’s legs, boy or girl, and then blood would surely appear, proving nothing.

In another scene, our young protagonist has been married off to an old, lecherous man. On the night they are to consummate their marriage, he holds up a stick, from which metal padlock-looking items dangled. He asked her to choose one. She cried and backed away in horror. My first thought was, “are those chastity belts?” But as our young protagonist was about to loose her virginity to this bearded old goat, it is more likely that they were something else entirely.

If anyone has any idea what these two items might be, please leave me a comment or an email. I’ll continue scouting about online and I’ll hopefully have an answer to share with you all.

I highly recommend this movie. The creators of this film seemed like swimmers emerging from the water’s heavy surface-their lungs eager to inhale the sweetness of life, relieved and euphoric to tell their story. This is freedom. This is a director that has his chance to speak to the entire world, and lucky for us, he does not squander it.

First Amendment Rights Don’t Always Apply to Bloggers

My friend forwarded me this article. Luckily she’s going to be a lawyer and fight for your rights to parrrrrrtay. Seriously, though, eventhough all you Xanga authors are always sweet and generally positve about your lives (at least those of you who I read), you might want to take a look at this before you vent about Bossy McBoss. I’m all for starting a revolution, but I’ve got bills….

The article, written by Washington Post Staff Writer Amy Joyce, describes the punishmet that blogger Rachel Mosteller recived after venting about work in her live journal:

“This post, like all entries in Mosteller’s online diary, did not name her company or the writer. It did not name co-workers or bosses. It did not say where the company was based. But apparently, Mosteller’s supervisors and co-workers at the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun were well aware of her Web log.

The day after that posting, she was fired.”

Here is the link:
Washington Post Article

It will ask you to sign in. Go to www.bugmenot.com to get a sign in that won’t shovel emails into your box. But perhaps you want to subscribe–its up to you! Either way, its worth a read.

His Sister Was Six Feet Tall

The desperate stench of misguided love (the loneliness/horniness disguised as “destiny” and found in heart shaped cards, bridal magazines, and other distinctive venues) has charged the air today as society is reminded by the cuddly capitalists at Hallmark to find someone to copulate regularly with before their existence expires, and they die alone.

I’m not really all that jaded, but I have been a bit nauseated by the shameless come-on’s I’ve received today, and I blame Valentines Day.

The most recent flirtation took place only minutes ago, during my bus ride home from work. A man who—if it weren’t for his obvious and acute awareness of them, I honestly wouldn’t have noticed—had a massive case of crater face, and the sour breath that only accompanies nerves. He was 35 –45 years old; pot bellied and stooped, and seemed embarrassed of himself. As the bus rocked and bobbed as Chicago busses do, he leaned close to me to tell me something. I was startled by this sudden invasion of personal space and looked up from the Granta I was reading. Just then, the bus hurtled his forehead into mine. We reeled back, rubbing our heads. Grumpy, I turned back to my reading. A couple of seconds later, his blushing face was back, too close for comfort.

“Are you six feet tall?” He asked.
A man bumps my head to ask me that?!?!
“Umm..yeah.”
Inexplicably, he flinched, and sat back down. When he rose at his stop, he told me,
“My sister was tall.”
Wow. I sincerely hope that my brothers won’t grow up to use that line (is that even a line?!!?) on any Amazon goddesses they find.
“Great,” I said.
He left.

A skeleton of a man with a filthy do-rag leaned over and said, “That white boy want to be yo Valentine, baby! Why don’t you go catch him?!?”

I smiled and tried to escape into my Granta. A middle aged, desperately lonely, bumbling man with no confidence—I thought—what a catch!

The skeletal man laughed loudly, as if reading my thoughts, “Well, if you don’t want him, then hows about me?”

Oh brother!

For all of you who have heard the logistics of this story before (yes, I’m talking about you LinSquee. My endless thanks to you, by the way, for getting me out of my head the other day and having fun), I apologize if this story might not be fresh enough for you. I however, have just recovered from reeling from the events this essay describes, so I’ve put your needs aside for a bit of self indulgence and a way to express gratitude to my very cool husband for all his efforts. Anyhow, it being Valentines Day tomorrow–its time to get a bit mushy. Or, as mushy as I get, which honestly, isn’t that mushy. Without any further ado…

Loving a man who fights “The Man”
An unlikely Valentine story for my partner in crime
&copy The Author, 2/13/2005

I have heard before that the suicide rate amongst dentists is uncommonly high. Apparently, the knowledge that most of society avoids and dreads seeing the dentist like the plague seems to corrode whatever self-worth they arrived at their profession with. After years of being charged with the task of hovering over patients who reluctantly pry their jaws open, squint their eyes shut, and propel self-automated squirts of saliva from the back of their throats in a feeble, last-ditch effort of self defense (known by middle school boys everywhere as “gleek-ing”), the world becomes a sinister and unloving place for a dentist.

I had always understood how it came to be that dentists had the highest rate of suicide of all the worlds’ professions, until last Friday when I realized that there was in fact, another professional group who might commit even more suicides than dentists. In a dark, windowless, paper cluttered office, I met with an individual who is loathed and demonized even more than our ego-bruised dentists–I was met with the wrath of a Student Financial Aid Officer.

The story of my eventual encounter with the ruthless and feared financial aid officer began about four months ago, at a gathering with the people my husband works with in the publications department at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the warm, neon pink glow of the tiki bar, I was talking with my favorite of my partner’s coworkers-a toothy, pretty, guitarist named Sarah. We were talking about continuing our educations, and our constant curiosity about the world. Between sips of mai tai and bites of greasy, happy-hour Buffalo wings, Sarah suggested that I take some of the classes offered by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. One of the benefits of employment at my husband’s place of work is that of three free credit hours at SAIC, one of the world’s most prominent art schools.

My husband had taken advantage of this benefit before, taking awesome night classes ranging from web design to Cuban history. I had never realized that, as a spouse, I could also take advantage of this benefit. According to the beautifully well-meaning Sarah, I could do just that, as long as my husband wasn’t enrolled in any classes that semester. I eagerly awaited the course catalogue, and was first in line on registration day to claim my spot in two continuing studies night classes: drawing and photo.

The first week of classes was like a dream come true. I went to work in the day, and my nights were spent making new friends in my new classes, and gobbling up the teachings of my wonderful professors. I drew cylinders and learned how to properly use the light meter on my camera. I learned the wonders of the Conte crayon, and the possibilities of aperture and F-stop. I raved about the classes to my husband, and spent countless, happy hours on my homework assignments. I could not stop gushing about how grateful I was that he was providing this great gift for me. My partner, on the other hand, was dying inside.

I love the person I have chosen to spend my life with. And the best part is-he doesn’t even annoy me; I actually like him. However, he does have an occasional habit of hiding things from me that might make me unhappy. This is a trait inherited from the behaviors of his otherwise happy and functional family. Seeing me as excited as I was over the classes, my partner could not bear to tell me that the “special projects” status of his employment (which basically means he has been working on a contract basis that requires annual renewal for the past three years) in fact does not allow the employees spouse to take these free classes. Single-handedly and very discreetly, he had been challenging the long-standing rules of the massive institution he works for in order to allow me the pleasures of my blissful art classes.

I learned about the fight my husband had engaged “The Man” in from a jowly, tired eyed, and testy Financial Aid Officer last Friday. I had originally taken off from work a bit early to go to the SIAC to get my student ID, but as soon as I told the student desk worker my name, his eyes widened and he informed me, “you need to go to Financial Aid, like…now.”

After navigating my way through aisles of gloomy cubicles, I arrived at the Financial Aid Officer’s dungeon. She must have sensed my dread and hesitancy to approach her, because in a voice that seemed to bellow from the bowels of hell, she croaked, “Truly, is it? (*Note: yes, dear readers, my name is actually Truly) We need to talk.” Not knowing what exactly to expect, but knowing that it couldn’t be good, I put on a brave face and ducked into her gloomy cave of number-crunching angst. Her breath was heavy and stale. Her hair looked brittle and thin from what must have been the stress of her profession prompting her to periodically pull it out. Her ass, having widened to the dimensions of her cushioned office chair after years of endless sitting, propped her up tall in a superior, authoritative way.

Seething with discontent from decades managing the complaints of broke, angry students and attempting to find solutions in an uncooperative government with little interested in making higher education affordable, she sneered at me. “I suppose your husband told you what’s been happening.” She said husband as if the word were a reeking, filthy diaper that had to be carried to the trash with one hand closing the nostrils, and another holding the leaking sack a full arms length away. With great irritation, she informed me that my husband “was unprecedented in his challenge to the school’s policy of not allowing special projects employee’s spouses to take the free SAIC classes.” Exhausted with my husband’s tireless attempts over the past month to rattle the school’s foundation, the Financial Aid Officer said that she was almost relived when, “he tried to go over my head about the matter.”

My tenacious partner had a series of meetings with the chief financial officer of the school and the museum to try to inflict a change in their pointless policy. He argued his case eloquently and articulately: if people who aren’t “special projects” can extend the three credit hours to their spouses, why not him? And if he can take the free classes, what’s the difference if I take them instead of him? Everyone gets paid the same amount either way. Even the worn-down, stressed out, deflated sack of humanity known as the Student Financial Aid officer was able to see his point, as did her bosses, the chief financial officers. But rules are rules. I had to drop the classes.

I think I surprised the Student Financial Aid Officer by my complacency over dropping my classes. This was in no way due to me being in any way complacent by nature, or to me seeing the point of the silly rules that put my husband and I in this situation. I was simply shocked to hear that my partner had been fighting tooth and nail this whole time with these financial aid people (who, by the very nature of their professions, are frustrated, ornery individuals) and I had absolutely no clue about any of it. My husband had given no indication that anything like this was happening; he would smile in that soft, loving way of his when I’d talk about my classes, never letting on to his anxiety or stress over his crusade for me to continue them.

When he came home last Friday night, he said simply, “I heard you had a meeting with my friend in the financial aid office.” I tried not to say anything, to save my spiel about him needing to tell me things; persuading him that he doesn’t have to fight the good fight alone. I went to him and held him close. My selfless, kindhearted husband melted into my arms.

Even more than my beloved art classes, I love spending my life with a man who challenges the status quo in search of fairness and justice, who gives of himself so fully, who loves me so purely and endlessly.

My partner might not have won his fight against “the man” this time, but trust me, he will. He’s got the tenacity, smarts, and passion to create change, as well as to avoid professions that might strip him of the will to live. And my husband has me–a partner in crime who believes in him. Next time, I hope he’ll take me up on my standing offer to storm the forts of our enemies together. In the meantime, I’ll just revel in my luck at finding such an awesome person to trek through this world with.

Happy Valentines Day, Shaun-san. You have my love and appreciation always. I dedicate my attempt at a cylinder drawing to you.

I am very lucky person. My best friend is one of the most funny, outgoing, smart, loyal, and unique individuals I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He forges through life creating new definitions for tired labels. He challenges the strict path that society tells us we need to be on in order to be “contributing citizens,” (college, career, marriage, kids, retirement, death) acknowledging that it is really just a ploy to fuel the capitalist machine. He enriches the communities he lives in. He makes his life his own. He snorts when he laughs. Embarrassingly hung over, I recently puked in a candy dish of his. His name is Bryan, but I call him Byron or Tinos. Today is his birthday. Which explains this enourmous, hillarious, and ancient picture of him at age 16 tweaking his nipple to the camera. Oh, how I love birthday tricks!

In honor of Bryan, and in honor of best friends everywhere, I am sharing the following piece with you. While it has little to do with friendship in and of itself, it was inspired by our giddy conversations, our hilariously raunchy emails, and our shared history based on laughing at the world and ourselves.

Bryan and I often laugh about the right wing conspiracy that gays are so very threatening to the straight status quo. But beneath the laughter, there is always something more. It hurts to have someone as amazing and giving as my Byron is bashed by anyone—even if they are nothing more than stupid bigots. Those stupid bigots have somehow sequestered political power from people with a genuine commitment to civil rights. In a country that marches into other lands with our phony “freedom” and “democracy,” Bryan isn’t privy to the basic rights I have as a straight American.

So, without further ado, and with an ever-mounting disgust for the right wing, I present this little sarcastic little article, co-written with my husband, specifically for my best friend on his birthday. I love you Tinos!
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Insurgents Struggle Beneath Gay Militant Maneuvers

© The Authors, 2/3/2005

Recently, the militant gay assembly has reassessed its agenda to tear human existence apart at the crotch seams. The group has employed new aggressive tactics in its self-proclaimed “Operation Hetero Freedom,” or “War for Liberation.” Gays have reluctantly withdrawn troupes from civilian centers, where they were stationed to hump the pant legs of innocent straight bi-standers. They have moved on to tactics designed specifically to shock and awe—cartoon bunnies and sponges with square pants.

The cartoon tactic, dubbed “Color Me Badd,” began in 2001, when militant gays infiltrated Nickelodeon studios. Sodomites and Lesbos fought side by side for a cartoon character that would win the hearts and minds of America’s youth while revealing moist holes. “Sponge Bob Square Pants offered exactly what we were looking for to up our recruitment numbers,” Private Sharon Beavers said, “it is the duty of all patriots to instill [hard] core hole values from an early age.”

Despite poor fashion sense, Sponge Bob is a poster child for Gay life. He holds hands with his lover, a starfish named Patrick, and the two often engage in quadruple penetration, with starfish tentacles tenderly occupying sponge holes. Their friend Sally, a squirrel and obvious fag hag, supports Patrick and Sponge Bob in their commitment to each other. The show also features a meowing snail.

Mission “Color Me Badd” also includes forcing the cartoon bunny, Buster Baxter, from the PBS series, “Postcards from Buster,” to interview raging dykes engaging in cunnilingus on screen. The gay militants forced Buster to travel all the way to Vermont; a state that supports same-sex civil unions, in order to capture the sex acts of the butch and fem on film.

President Bush’s newly appointed education secretary, Margaret Spelling has condemned the cartoon bunny and the publicly funded airwaves it travels on as an, “Axis of Schmaxmis.” Spelling continued, “Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyle portrayed in the episode.” The militant gays couldn’t agree with Spelling’s statement more, which exactly why it is a crucial tactic in their fight against heteroism. Militant gay, Colonel Chick McDick stated, “Graphic lesbian sex is one of the corner stones of our great country. If parents can’t understand that, then at least we have a shot with their kids.”

Right wing insurgents have been orchestrating feeble attempts at defense through litigation and public demonstrations. Reverend Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, and James Dobson, founder of the Colorado-Springs based activist group, Focus on Family became particularly vocal, alleging that the militant gays were “promoting tolerance” and attempting to spread their disease to impressionable children through pedophiliac tactics. The gays don’t deny the charges.

“It’s been a long, hard slog,” Sergeant Bob Fersemen said. “We’ve tried so many initiatives: Tickle Me Elmo, Telletubbies, Bert and Ernie, Pinocchio and Geppeto—and we’ve never gotten such good response as Sponge Bob or Buster Baxter. I hate to say it, but I want to prolong this as long as possible. The liberation of youth feels so good. I dread the exit strategy.”

The Right Wing insurgents claim allegiance to Pope John Paul II, who is currently recovering from being old, and has been hiding in a Spider Hole in an undisclosed location in Rome. In a tape released last month exclusively to Fox News, the Pope advises followers to beware of the militant gay assembly’s Biological Warfare of Cooties. In an unintelligible voice, the Pope specifically stated, “You can catch ‘gay’ easier than crabs from an Italian hooker’s anus!” The Pope also made mention of an abominable snowman.

Spokespersons for the militant gays, cast of the smash hit show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, poo-pooed the Pope’s remarks during the national State of the Wardrobe address. In perfect unison, the limp-wrists exclaimed, “Papa—don’t Preach.”
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Before I get to this post, I’d just like to share with you all that I am healthy, healthy, healthy. The doctor says that if you’ve been on the pill for ages, then its common to miss a period here and there. Sounds good to me! No preggers and no period! Thanks for all of you who were nice enough to worry. Xanga people are so nice! Anyhow, here’s my lil post for the day. Enjoy!

Please Bear With Me

I have a nasty habit of hiding my feelings. My mom knows this habit well, and refers to my it when she reflects on the “separate life” that took place while I spent weekends with my dad as a kid. Out of loyalty and a genuine empathy for my dad (his faults lie in making the clichéd mistake of continuing a family legacy of inept fatherhood), I won’t go as far as to say that child protective services should have been called on him for neglect, but he escapes that condemnation by just a hair.

My dad, an incessant workaholic entrepreneurial real estate man (read: slum-lord), would leave me alone during my bi-weekly visits with my young, heavy metal blasting step mom. She stared out as a sweet, fun babysitter type-figure in my life. She would read aloud to me for happy afternoon hours from the Borrowers books, and from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We would color in Sesame Street coloring books with a giant, fresh box of Crayolas. Then, suddenly and without reason, she became an emotionally unavailable shadow that sought solitude in her attic bedroom. She barely spoke to me. She never looked at me. I ceased to exist to her. I now speculate that she turned cold on me after realizing that she forwent college to marry an older man with an addiction to work and alcohol, and to become a mother to a five-year-old daughter at age 18. While a part of me sympathizes with how nightmarish her life must have seemed to her, a larger part of me aches for how rejected I felt.

My step mom and dad kept a zoo in their tiny city house, including a menagerie of stinky birds, an enormous iguana, and three very aggressive dogs—a Doberman pincer, a Boxer, and a Pit Bull. The Doberman Pinter was kept for breeding and was left to rag all over the filthy tiles of the kitchen. A small gate kept the Boxer from raping the Doberman, confining him to the tiny dining room. A Pit Bull guarded the basement. It was a constant barrage of angry, frustrated, and sexually charged barking. My bedroom was down the hall from the dining room. The gate kept the Boxer dog, unfamiliar with my presence and designed to protect its owners, from mauling me. I was petrified to leave my room. If I needed to eat, I would have to get between a bleeding Doberman pincer and a horny male Boxer, step over the menstruation stained tiles, to reach the fridge that contained sour milk and no food. The bathroom wasn’t equipped with a toothbrush, towel, or washcloth for me. My step mom stayed in the attic, playing her guitar. My dad worked until late in the night. I cried, starved, and spent the weekend un-bathed and filthy.

Some weekends when I was supposedly visiting my dad, I was dumped off with my Uncle Mel, a nurse who had turned his nicotine drenched house into a halfway home for mentally ill individuals. On a sign in his front yard, a cheerful rainbow bore the arched phrase, “Mel’s Happy Landing Center.” Uncle Mel is an intensely nervous, chain-smoking hypochondriac with an aura of shame clinging to him, due to the fact that he grew up in Alabama during the 1950’s and was a gay man of the lisping, swishing variety. His skin is a frightening texture, due to a lifelong struggle with cystic acne. The patients of the Happy Landing Center would sit next to me on Uncle Mel’ s plastic covered couch watching news programs on the tiny television. They would drool and poop and fart and play with their genitals. I would stare straight ahead, trying to escape into the television, and trying to filter out the cigarette smoke by breathing through the pulled-up collar of my shirt. Uncle Mel’s HIV positive, brain cancer inflicted boyfriend, Freddy would wear only boxer shorts and spread his legs wide open while reclining in the lazy boy. His doughy testicles would slip out the bottom of his boxers and I would feel nauseous. Uncle Mel would request in his southern twang that Freddy, “Watch his pants.” Freddy would slowly respond, “I know.” His lolling ball-sack continued to sag from his under-shorts into the outside world.

This icky and sad truth is much different from the stories I would tell my mom. Her gentle face would look upon me, searching me for reasons why her daughter was returned to her every other Sunday of the month exhausted, famished, and filthy. Instead of telling her what was happening, I would weave fantasies of how my dad, step mom, and I would start our weekend at the park. We would play together, and go for walks around the neighborhood, telling each other about the week. We would then go to our favorite Mexican restaurant and I would eat Spanish rice every time. We would rent movies and go to sleep late. In my imaginings, Saturdays were spent flying kites, having picnics, and riding bikes. I must have been destined for a career in story telling, because my mom came to believe my lies so much that she later confessed to feeling afraid I would want to live with my dad, since every day seemed to be a party there.

I am still unable to answer the question why I hid my feelings then, and why I continue to do so now. But I am committed to trying to find out. This blog is an important part of that. But I’m still green when it comes to allowing myself and others acces to my emotional life. It is natural for me to become vocal and passionate when it comes to defending the rights, liberties, and emotions of others, but when I have to defend myself, I choose to hide instead.

In addition to my Xanga, I thought I would extend my attempt at making my feelings vocal to other forums. Last weekend, I published a satirical, humorous political essay on Xanga and on a website dedicated to political discourse. This is embarrassing, but in pursuit of honesty, I’ve got to say it—my feelings were hurt when I was lambasted on the political site.

Now in a rational state, I can see that the people who posted on the political site were nothing short of ignorant. They didn’t argue or discuss any of the points in my essay. Rather, they criticized my intelligence. I was told that I should sue my college for granting me a degree because I was “obviously cheated.” I know that someone who disagrees by basically saying, “you’re stupid!” is on the level of a playground bully (not to mention the fact that their ability to detect satire and humor is nonexistent), but the first time I read these nasty comments, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I had grown accustomed to the wonderful, intelligent web-discourse of my fellow Xanga authors (one reader in particular posted wonderful opposition to some of my points, informing me of a few things, as well as informing me of arguments people might use that I need to do a better job of refuting in my essay. *Thanks Laura*). Reverting to my terrible habit of hiding, I promptly deleted my political essay from Xanga, and spent the day with a black cloud over my throbbing head.

After having some time to cool off, I went on the political website and ranted back. Now, reclaiming my rights to express my feelings, and ready for any further comments, I am re-posting my satirical little essay, A Ménage et Trois of Freedom….Or, A Freedom Sandwich, if You Will. Please find this essay in the post prior to this current one. My apologies to those Xanga authors who did take the time to comment—your insights were marvelous, and nothing like the crude and silly postings left for me on the political site, and they did not deserve to be deleted in my temporary inability to feel secure in my opinions and feelings. Thanks for bearing with me, for being so cool, and as always, for your readership.