let's talk about sex

sexting: sexual texting.

that's mine and you cannot use it unless i get a dollar for every time you do.

proposal

do my laundy, get a dollar.

feeling the bend

i was asked to be part of a tenure committee, which means i get to provide input on a professor who is up for tenure. not a great deal of input, but it's still pretty cool. it's one of my favorite professors and anything i can do to help this person out, is an honor. it will also give me an inside look at how one attains the role of, in the words of a sarcastic bastard i consider a good friend, "tic."

this does mean, however, i have just put more on my already full plate and am starting to wonder how i will make time for everything else.

is this the bend that comes before the crack that comes before the break? and i was going to quit smoking at the end of this semester...

t-shirt idea, by syndie

i heart stingrays.

when being single sucks

i am single three days a week. the other four, it's me and kellyn, but when the weekend rolls around, its just me and i like it. i like coming into my little flat, knowing that it's all mine, with no one to take care of but me, no one to cook for but me, no one to please, but me.

and then a fever spikes.
and the warm saliva begins.
and the inability to feel warm in a 90 degree room.

it sucks to be sick when you're single. your friends feel bad, they wish you well, they offer advice, but they will not touch you or come near you for anything. it is only the love-sick fool that tucks you in, smooths your greasy, sweat-soaked hair back, spoon feeds you miso soup and keeps the green tea flowing.

i've been flogged

(come on, puking with no food in your stomach? what's the point of that?) anyway...

i <3 flogging molly. met them at the greywhale exchange in slc then attended the concert they put on at redfest at the university of utah.

one note to the lame punked out teenager full of angst and tragedy: your mom called, she wants you home right now.

seriously. you think i'm kidding?

i like a fair amount of punk music, however, and this direct from the sore thumb's mouth:

those of you who use it as part of your "i'm the only victim this world has ever seen" routine, you are, SURPRISE!, not unique. but you will not learn that lesson young grasshopper till later and all i'll have is the satisfaction of knowing i was right.

and i'm comfortable with that.


shout out to j.b. for the tip off about the greywhale where i actually was able to sit outside and chat with the accordion player for a few minutes about the historical context of some of the music.

yeah i'm 3/4 nerd and fuckin' proud.

keep me safe

i just realized that the previous post speaks back to a much larger issue at stake. safety. everyone wants to be safe. they do not want to experience pain. they do not want physical pain, emotional pain. they do not want first and foremost themselves followed closely by the people they love to come in contact with pain of any kind.

it has become all about how to stay safe. how to keep our children safe. how to prevent or cure pain. cliche's like no pain no gain and work through the pain sound good in theory, but their devoted followers are few.

we are turning into one big padded room, to protect us from each and every scratch and bump and bruise and bloody nose, physical as well as emotional because we value safety that much.

we invent and look to inventors to continue sating our desire for safety. i mentioned hiding behind a computer or a cell phone to minimize the pain associated with making new friends. but it does not end there. our playgrounds, our schools, our vehicles, our clothing, name something! what has not been manipulated to provide the most safety and security? if someone could put rubber corners on post-it notes to eliminate paper-cuts, they'd do it.

more later after i go puke my freaking guts out...

myspace as springboard: draft 1

i'll give myspace one prop, for the music connections it provides, but even this is a small prop and beyond that i am not prepared to acknowledge anything else positive about myspace. i echo the reasons blandella articulates and would like to offer my own, open to revision of course.

what is happening to our face to face contact? i see myspace as just another brick in the wall this society is erecting to provide distance between ourselves, to assure safety and security in making friends, contacts, and romantic relationships. the risk is greatly decreased or altogether eradicated when one hides in the comfort of their home or cubicle and attempts to reach out.

since little or nothing is at stake, the reward is lessened and there can be no growth. it is in the process of opening one's self up to vulnerability and placing one's self on the line, risking everything that personal growth takes place. consider the couple that meets online.

they enter a shallow pool, and by shallow i do not mean small, i mean safe. they swim around till they find another swimming in the same pool who shares their interests, hobbies, and ideologies about politics, religion, and children, to name a few. they believe they have found someone with whom they can live quite happily with and maybe they have. they send a few tentative emails and only after they have been guaranteed invulnerability, they meet.

they continue their meetings and head towards the altar where they sing the praises of internet dating. but where at any time, did they take a risk? where was the awkwardness and the uncomfortable anxiety that melts away over time to reveal a deeper inner confidence because they were open for attack but through time and strategy, managed to avoid?

this is not to say that attacks do not happen. they do and the short of is, they suck. they leave one winded, exhausted, craving validation and attention. tears, food, whether in excess or in absence, sleepless nights, wounding self doubt and insecurity are often by-products of living through a relationship attack. and i repeat, they suck, however, it is in that suffering that produces the stronger, the more observant, the wiser, and the life lesson that will be added to the stack of life lessons learned thus far.

the "friendship" one acquires on myspace, engenders a false sense of value. i am valuable because if i was not valuable, then why do i have as many friends as i have? is this how we make value judgements now? based on the amount of material one puts out on the internet? even as i write this, i hear the condemnation arising, accusing me of the same crime. and maybe i am guilty, maybe i am not.

i mentioned earlier that i viewed myspace as another brick in a metaphorical wall. within the same structure reside emails and texts. i myself have been lulled into the safety of texting, minimizing my contact with human beings, thereby lessening my chances for getting hurt whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship. there is so much that is lost when people begin to rely solely on electronic forms of communication and emotions do not make up the deficit.

nuance and body language and grammar are three particular items that suffer when one chooses to text/email instead of seeking out the person they wish to talk to and meeting with them face to face.

what about the telephone? even this device has seen its share of being ignored in favor of texting. now even just talking to a person on the phone is hazardous and potentially opens one for attack. we are losing in person contact with silencing the voice contact right behind it. what if these patterns continue? shall i carry them to their logical conclusion?

soon all americans own not one but multiple computers as well as the most sophisticated cellular phones that do not have the capability for voice communication because with texting rates through the roof, what's the point of having it? as the need decreases, so must the technology search for methods to elimination. society become quiet. we forget how to talk, how to speak to another, to speak at all is a shock that reverberates in our ears like chalkboard nails and we sanction the government to ban it altogether. but we do not do this with signs at washington's gate, we email, we text our congressfolk, demanding the silence.

silly, i know, and pulling it back a bit to the here and now, how do relationships suffer in our text frenzy? instead of calling a friend to check on them, instead of making the trip to their house, where you might be invited in for tea and intellectual discourse, you text a one liner to them, "you okay?" the person may text back, "yeah." and that's the end of the exchange even though the person who said yeah is vomiting up the contents of their stomach every five minutes.

misunderstandings arise frequently inside a text conversation and while email elicits confusion as well, it is the limit of space inside a text that make it so much more prone to causing problems. inside an email, one has more space, similar to that of a letter, and this is where people get in trouble. they write letters differently than they do emails. a letter evokes an old world, (old world...wow) sensibility and thus they are apt to choose their words more carefully, crafting each sentence with always an eye focused toward the reader. in an email, with the speed that it is delivered along with the speed anything it contains can be rectified immediately, they are more carelessly produced with the writer often not considering their reader in the least. they are merely trying to get their point across, knowing they can somehow fix it later if the need arises.

within a text, the potential for misunderstanding increases greatly. since there are only so many characters allowed, the texter has to be brief and yet get a point across. they tap out their message, sometimes re-reading it, believing it is what they want to say, and they hit send only to be texted back a "?." then they have to try again, sometimes they succeed, other times they do not. pretending for a moment that all texts were perfect in nature, that they conveyed each and every thing they were meant to, that no confusion was ever caused. is this how we want to express love and friendship with our nearests and dearests?

what about their antithesis, anger and disappointment? "you okay?" "just a little upset." "why?" what can be the response but a superficial reason containing little substance? even if the person succeeds in conveying their anger to the other, how can the other ever really trust or know fully, the extent of the hurt? they cannot. when nuance is omitted, the conversation changes, the content changes and meaning is lost. when body-language is omitted, when the voice is silenced, the meaning is lost.

so what if meaning is lost? when meaning is lost, when conclusions are reached, we carry them with us and they influence not only our words but our actions as well. we hear something inside an electronic message and no matter what the other person does to attempt to revise, we adhere, doggedly, to the first impression we received, what we perceived them to mean. what we do after that can take many forms from distancing ourselves further to spreading false images to others to a myriad of other actions that only assist in widening the gap.

i understand that there is mis-communication inside face to face to contact as well, but consider the ramifications of this versus those of texting/emailing/myspacing. an altercation arises between two people. one person, having the bigger problem, contacts the other and asks if they can talk. they meet, the problem is presented, they discuss, they argue, and at worst they get mad and defensive and hateful, swearing to never talk to that person again, which is what can happen inside a text conversation. i offer the following difference referring to an earlier sentiment.

the person who reached out, who risked themselves, who opened themselves up for attack versus the person who cowered behind their phone, punching in buttons, safe, secure, saving face, pride, and ego all at once. who is the better? or is there not a better, only different? i posit that the one taking on the risk of appearing vulnerable, wrong, uptight, demanding, while someone is watching is going to learn the greater lesson thereby achieving the greater personal growth, able to tackle more of what life spews at them than the other who shielded themselves from the scary and nerve-rattling.

as i write this, my phone is turned off and i am merely using this forum in which to get thoughts and theories down, while i work to refine and question them, preparing to take them to the table and present them to others who will argue, probe for fallacies, and offer insight. i am challenging myself, alone, to break away from the text habit i have developed, to stop being such a god damn chicken where people are concerned and realize and embrace the idea that feeling vulnerable can be beneficial and take me further along the road than sealing up the cracks and hiding.

liar

i asked my texting friends to lie to me and the one with the best lie would get a dollar. so far these are the lies i have recieved:

"____ is so cute." (had to edit this one, but there will be folks who get it)
"fake breasts"
"the pope sparks furor" (i had to clarify this one, apparently its from a news headline)
"my ass smells like sunshine all the time. even in a tent"
"i had sex with paris hilton"
"you're pretty" (with a just kidding attached)
"sharks make good pets"
"it wasn't me"
"it's a curling iron burn.. several of them. yes i am a guy with a curling iron." (and this stays until you resend the text, hickey boy)
"oh my god oh my god, bruce willis just came in and bought a crap load of rocks oh my god oh my god"


i'll add more as they come in... then i'll make a decision and one lucky liar will get a dollar.

beautiful and lame

how many words are running around, oozing love ideologies,
wafting through radios, cinemas, letters, sadistically permeating and
luring the independent heart into submission, into bondage, into believing it's so easy?

too many to count.
numbers are irrelevant.

impact: applying a formula and entertaining frustration when it fails. miserably.

all i've learned is that it's all simultaneously beautiful and lame. i don't expect to learn much more. i'm merely here for the experience now, feeling my way through each individual moment, looking to be content in whichever moment i'm presented with.

"i hear ya, i hear ya, but don't be all butt-hurt when i don't fly out of my chair to answer the door, for i might be in the middle of being strong and sane and unable to receive guests."

on coffee: section 1

"how old is she?"
is there an age limit for coffee now?

here honey, have this 152 oz. cup of soda, with free refills, but don't drink coffee because it's not healthy.

time to hit the science journals...

"one study, conducted by the harvard university school of public health, shows that the risk for developing type II diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers."

"predominantly in epidemiological studies, there have been associations between coffee consumption and lowered rates of certain illnesses, like suicide, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, type II diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease."

"caffeine is also what helps in treating asthma and headaches."

"a study from brazil found that children who drank coffee everyday were less likely to suffer depression."

okay, so let's compare that to soda... do i really have to or is it clear enough? i think it's obvious but i will post sources for the above claims as well as some research on soda just to make it glaringly apparent that me giving coffee to kellyn is not child abuse as some local bakery shop workers would like to imply.

stay tuned...

nothing doing popeye

in my fridge is an unopened bag of spinach, which i am going to throw away rather than risk giving kellyn and i ecoli. if it were just me, i might just wash it real well, even though they say that wont help, and eat it anyway, but risking kellyn's health is a different, well bag of spinach.
i wonder how much of this is legitimate and how much is that tasty toast topper, media panic spread... thanks to j.b. for the information though; i haven't been keeping up with my current events since school started and i rely heavily on news relayed from friends. here's the link for an update on the ecoli issue: CNN.com - E. coli outbreak spreads to 10th state - Sep 15, 2006*

bush assassinated

apparently, channel 4 in england is doing a tv docudrama about the future assassination of george w. bush. you can read about it here. and of course, (shocker) there's a few who are less than impressed.

who was jesus?

i sent this question out via text to several people i know. here are the responses i have recieved so far. names have been excluded for privacy. i have also edited for clarity on some of the answers.

"said to be the son of god"
"a friend of mine on myspace"
"some black guy"
"a person"
"a guy"
"a tent evangelist with no tent who did magic tricks"
"servant to mohammed"
"bored alien looking for fame"
"a jew that lived a long time ago"
"the mexican that sold me crack"
"my illigitimate child, because i am god"
"the man who can't high five because if when he does, he whistles"

feel free to add anything...

i lied

myspace deleted. just not me.

the pope's penis

it hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
it moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat -- and at night
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of god.

-sharon olds

birthday collage, take one

images by syndie a.

happy happy birthday, matty dear. happy days will come to you all year. if i had one wish then it would be: a happy happy birthday to you from me!

(i thought the mormon kids birthday song was appropriate considering the theme of the bash)

blanket moratorium memo

i repeat: i am not interested in using this or any other site as a tool to develope romantic/sexual relationships.

thank you for your understanding.

management

so you like movies eh?

www.iwatchstuff.com

our father in heaven...

...christ. i'm reading the bible and the last time i poured over the words of mathew, mark, luke, and john, i was reading for religious instruction. now, however, i am reading for historical/anthropological/literary reasons and it's an entirely different bag of peanuts.

another difference is supplementing the traditional bible with gospels that were excluded such as the gospel of mary and the coptic gospel of thomas where i found the following tidbit:

114. simon peter said to them, "let mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." jesus said, "i myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. for every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

jesus was so gay. no wonder i never felt threatened by him.

"well aren't we the little joiner?"

blah blah myspace
blah blah said i wouldn't

now maybe i'll make some friends! (said in a lilting, sugary, cheerleader voice)

however, even though i have succumbed to the not quite dark, but rather dim, side, i shall remain faithful to my dear old blog here at blogger. the myspace page will merely act as a sign redirecting folks here.

gimmie a M! gimmie a Y! gimmie a... god damn fork with which to gouge out my eyes...

insomniacs do it all night

its 3 am... im awake... again.

this time im not fighting it. cigarettes and coffee galore, so there! take that, insomnia! that'll show it.

i am falling in love with philosophy.

i do not like people who manipulate because it's a trait i have been attempting to eradicate within myself.

my friend had knee surgery. he will pick the scab when he's not supposed to.

kellyn has been getting in trouble at school for talking. go figure.

flogging molly is my current favorite band. "then the rosary beads, count them 1, 2, 3, fell apart as they hit the floor."

i bought banana sauce at an asian food market. it looks like ketchup.

i have sucessfully kept nine plants alive over the last four months. they aren't fake either.

a friend came out to me. i gravitate toward gay men.

a german couple overheard kellyn and i at dinner and told me i was raising her right.

socrates cafe is my current favorite book, hence the fancying of philosophy.

i am taking notes for a woman with cerebral palsy. my notes also serve as doodle/personal thought space.

i once jumped between two train cars in order to avoid getting home the long way. in 4 1/2 inch heels too.

at the top of my wish list is an online subscription to the oed. i finally found the verb form of tangent and intend to work it into my vocabulary.

i always keep my hair pulled up and off my face. there is usually a pencil stuck in there for easy access.

i never use my alarm clock. my cell phone has a funkier melody called sashay.

i made a pair of thai fisherman pants from bright orange fabric. i don't usually jog at night.

i go to the fair for one reason. tiger ears.

i am returning to bed. three hours is better than none, but after the coffee and smoke, i do not hold out much hope for any sleep tonight.