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Monday, November 29, 2010

The Escape, Part 1

Deconstruction

For so long, I’d made the decision not to decide.  My disciplined life walking the proverbial line between gay and Mormon had finally spun in a direction I could no longer control.  As depression and resentment began to form the currents of the gyre of my life, any decision seemed better than the fate which lay ahead.  In that moment, I was done with it all.  With my impending departure for  Chile a month away, the time had come to escape my everyday deluge. 

For the time being, I was finished with the search for Mr. Right.  I was also done with the Church and constant reflection in the misery of my making.  For the past year, I’d made every possible effort to make the impossible work, but—like a toppling tower of blocks pulled to precarious station one-by-one—no matter how deliberate my actions or my intentions, the inescapable fate became clearer with each passing moment.  Instead of losing, I reinvented my own game. 

tumbling tower

My life entered an epic of reevaluation.  If I wasn’t happy in my conflicted state or even before I realized my homosexuality and lived the life of a faithful Mormon boy, change and growth were the only logical motions.  My mind kept returning to the words which seemed so rooted in my conflict—a conflict of happiness in this world versus that in the supposed world to come: “'Life is to be enjoyed, not endured.”  These words from the now-deceased prophet Gordon B. Hinckley rang of a universal human love.  No sane person wants suffering for himself or others, but that was my state. 

Living for pleasure or even relishing the moments as they came  had in some ways been ingrained as unproductive and sinful based upon the combination of my drives and upbringing.  My father had taught me that not making each moment productive was a form of setting myself up for failure, and while completing one task I should be contemplating the next.  The resulting state of constant worry with a constant flux of motivations began to come into question along with a more worrisome question as to the value of life.  Fortunately, life had meaning in the sense that suffering was not an end—the same set of blocks, the same ambitions and emotions, the same people and experiences could be reconstructed into something meaningful and even beautiful. 

building oneself

Unemployed and unsure of the future before venturing across the globe to Chile to further contemplate and to teach English, I spent a month attempting to shift gears to a slower pace in life.  Unable to find a job before my departure, I spent my days in self-conscious attempts at relaxation: reading, bathing in the sunlight of my back yard, and wrapping my mind around my attempt to escape the faith of my fathers.  One morning, fanned by an early summer breeze and smelling of coconut tanning oil,  I stumbled upon words I needed in that moment and have guarded ever since. 

It was a simple line of poetry by Anton Wildgans: “What is to give light must endure burning.”  An obscure Austrian reference that might not have otherwise had impact on me suddenly pulled itself to the forefront.  While I’d been taught in religion that the bitter made the sweet sweeter and dark  made the light lighter, a certain sense of comfort lay in making suffering somehow less abstract.  Though I had no idea what future stood in front of me, I knew that my past, that my caution, that my religion, and my desires of the past twenty-four years would not go to waste. 

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Lessons from Childhood #3; Man Harem Must See #3

I’ve been doing some thinking lately about dreams which has taken me back to childhood.  After watching Tangled (featuring Man Harem pick Zachary Levi), I’m feeling pretty lucky about how far I’ve come and how lucky I am to have my friends and family in my life. 

I suppose this has become a belated Thanksgiving post, but I could do nothing without the love and support of all of you from Canada down to Chile. 

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Embarrassing Things That Make me Cry #6

Okay, Glee gets to me more often than it should, but this particular scene got to me because it reminded me so much of a particular person:

Monday, November 22, 2010

Sacrilege #1

Sorry to return with something outright wrong:

Monday, November 15, 2010

Goodbye, GRE #2

So here’s what I’ve been up to instead of blogging for the last two months: 

DSCN1809

Contemplating the next series as we speak. 

Friday, November 12, 2010

In Just Twelve Hours…

…two months of this: 

Man-studying

…will hopefully pay off.

Twelve hours after that…

Tempura

… tempura night with Romulus, Chedner, et. al.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Mashup #8

Dexter^2:

dexter-dexter-mashup

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Laugh of the Day #31

This one will screw with you, The Office fans.

PB and J

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Something Special for Googleites

For best results use Google Chrome

This is a pretty mind-blowing video I saw recently.  I’ll say it involves Google maps and some browser intensity, but it is an experience worth beholding.  (Yes, this is coming from a would be android user if you were wondering based on Saturday’s post). 

Go to: http://thewildernessdowntown.com/

image

Monday, November 8, 2010

Lessons from Childhood #2

I just had a flashback to a PBS clip from my early childhood of the crayon factory.  Such joy!

CarvedCrayons

It was sparked by this quote:

“Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8-color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64-color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I've got a few missing. It's ok though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8-color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation.. so when I meet someone who's an 8-color type.. I'm like, "hey girl, magenta!" and she's like, "oh, you mean purple!" and she goes off on her purple thing, and I'm like, "no - I want magenta!"”

-- John Mayer

EDIT:  Horizon found the Sesame Street Video, so I had to add it: 

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Laugh of the Day #30

A random friend showed me this on Facebook and part of me says this girl’s got to go viral: 

Food for Thought #30

Haven’t really been dealing with any grudge issues lately, but this struck me as important to share. 

Grudge

Being at peace is nice. 

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Laugh of the Day #29

How smartphone users see each other:

how_smartphone_users_see_each_other

(via JoeMyGod). 

Friday, November 5, 2010

So It Is Written…

gradschool1

Let it be known that here is my list of grad schools (no mention of programs at this point because it’s disadvantageous to have this information not be tied to my applications): 

  • Northwestern
  • UNC—Chapel Hill
  • Iowa
  • Indiana
  • UPenn
  • NYU
  • Rutgers
  • Utah
  • Columbia
  • Howard
  • Illinois State

It’ll feel more official once I push this little publish button.  One, two, three… and here we go.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Not Really My Thing, But…

Tattoos.

Tattoos aren’t really my thing.  I’ll be honest.  (So honest I’ll even cite my commitment issues…).

…BUT…

This really fabulous nerdy one showed up in my reader and I recognized it based on the text. 

Literary TattooIt makes me feel like my studying has not gone to waste. 

First one to tell me the work and the author gets a free question via email or on the blog.  (My choice).

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

GMB, Where Are You?

Okay, for those of you not reading between the lines (and face it, this blog forces you to do just that to get at what I really think about a lot of things) I’m very busy for the next month, so little to no regular thousand-word memoir posts.

I’m going through this at the moment:

Medieval Water Torture

Only metaphorically, of course. 

Imagine the biggest cram session of your life.  You have to remember everything you ever learned in college for a single test.  Now, I’m in the midst of a sucking up all of that knowledge again reviewing all of my text books for the big day. 

Really, though, it’s kind of fun. 

Like S&M for real nerds.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Mashup #7

There’s an art blog devoted to The Simpsons crossovers you should all check out.  Especially my fellow Doctor Who fans.  Here’s some of Dean’s work at Springfield Punx:

David-Tennant-Doctor-Who-Donna-Noble-3David-Tennant-Doctor-Who-1

The perfect combination.  (BTW, chedner, when I’m not busy with apps, we’re watching the entire new series). 

Laugh of the Day #28

In the spirit of the season (because I’m not quite ready for the Thanksgiving/Christmas music quite yet):

coming out card

Monday, November 1, 2010

Man Harem Inductee #7

As election day nears (don’t forget it’s tomorrow, BTW), I’ve felt a certain ambivalence in regard to politics.  In high school, I thought I knew the meaning of the word polarized, but for whatever reason, things have gotten ridiculous.  As much as I like SNL sketches about Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell, a certain uneasiness overtakes me when someone calls for:

  • No abortions for anyone including victims of rape and incest (I’m an adoptee, so I could have been one of these babies, BTW).
  • Abolishing the Department of Education
  • Dismantling Medicare, social security, public libraries, and NPR
  • Demanding continuation of tax cuts that don’t benefit me in my particular income bracket.
  • And let’s not forget the Dems: keeping marriage a states’ rights issue, neglecting Latin American foreign policy, esp. Cuba.  (Alright this was a much weaker list…).

That’s why we have this guy:

chasewhiteside

Chase Whiteside

If “fair and balanced” weren’t terms coopted for political gain, I’d use them to describe this guy.  He manages to get at some core issues and hypocrisies simply by asking questions.  That’s always what I found enchanting about journalism (my short-lived second major). 

Unfortunately, I find that in the 24 hour news cycle, this gem is lost. (A worthy tangent worthy of future discussion, though this isn’t a blog that generally deals with non-gay politics—I’ll leave that to David Baker and Horizon).

I leave with you some of his intelligent interviews first of the Glenn Beck *shutter* rally and then of the Stewart/Colbert rally:

 

 

It just goes to show every group has its issues.  (I will say that I am up on the local politics).

Mashup #6

Feels a little pokemon….

winnie-vs-hobbes

…my money’s on Calvin and Hobbes.

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