For the Love of Literature

One of the feelings I hate more than any is the overwhelming emptiness I get once I finish a book. Depending on its length, I have usually invested a couple of weeks' worth of subway rides and cold nights wrapped up in bed, flipping the pages, marching steadily toward the last sentences scrawled out into publication. For that time, I devote myself wholly to the pages that engage me, leading me to sneak a few paragraphs here and there during my lunch break or when everyone else leaves my office. I build a relationship with the characters, the storyline, the author -- I am married to the ideas of the tome, whether I even like it or not. These intimacies are the closest relatives I can build toward commitment.

My most recent break-up was with one I didn't even like. It had all the makings of an ideal mate: looked good on the outside, was sweet-to-the-core on the inside. In fact, it was a pair of ladies in the kitchen who did me in; their names were Julie & Julia, a book about an in-a-rut Queens secretary (Julie) who embarked on a year-long project where she would cook all 524 recipes in the Culinary Bible (Julia Child's Master the Art of French Cooking).

I started my relationship with the book a few weeks ago, picking it up on a Friday lunch excursion to Border's. With subject matter that appealed to me and the excitement of a real-life feel-good story, Julie & Julia had a lot of potential. But as is so customary with all of my relationships, something goes awry. I trudge on to the finish line only in the hopes of getting to a better book next.

And still, when it is over, even after riding out the storm (or, in this case, 309 pages of a whiny, self-depricating "I'm fat and annoying but my husband loves me anyway" shit), I feel lost without more pages to read. Though I will pick up a new book and start all over again tomorrow, there are times when I just want to stay with one book, or at least with one author!

My love life and my reading habits are not completely identical -- I certainly get more literary action than... other action. But there is a persistent emptiness, which stems only from a desire to find a book that is too many pages to get to the end of AND manages to captivate my attention the entire time. If I can dedicate myself so diligently to a book that I don't even like, why should it be so hard to apply those same principles to a nice guy?

I have always considered myself to be just bad at commitment, but lately, I think it has to do with something else. I am not afraid to put myself out there, and when I become involved with something, I go after it with 100% of my energy. The problem is my ability to commit even through disappointment, to see something to completion.

And to hope that the completion is far off into the distance. To hope that something can keep me turning the pages.

Life is Pandemonium

Lately, life seems to be an endless medley of one of my favorite television theme songs of all time:

You take the good / You take the bad / *mumble mumble hum hum* / and then you have..

Yes, pumpkins... you're learning The Facts of Life. And as I slowly continue to come to terms with life after college, I'm not convinced that the writer had any idea what it meant to educate oneself of these truisms of existence. Or -- and this is more likely the reality -- I have no idea what these Facts of Life are. Because the ones that I'm uncovering are more hideous and more unflattering that Blair's gigantic shoulder pads that she insisted on stitching into each of her off-white, rhinestone-adorned overcoats. The ones I am unearthing are more unexpected than when I finally realized that the gorgeous Kim Fields used to be that horrible roller skate-toting brat Tootie... and when I finally realized that the chick who played Jo was, well, a chick.

In other words, it's not at all as sing-songy as the girls who lived with Mrs. Garrett (or, in the final two seasons, with Beverly Ann Stickle, played by the indominable Cloris Leachman) would have led me to believe. There are worse things than living in a house with 38 girls -- like living in a house with 39 girls. There are worse things than getting braces and waking on the morning of Homecoming to find an enormous zit has planted itself firmly on the tip of your nose -- those zits will still reappear in the morning before a big job interview. And there are worse things than being a character of a sit-com (albeit a D-level series).

On the flipside, there are better things that Nancy McKeon's mullet -- like passing a baby calf through your asshole. [But seriously, this is just a technicality -- basically everything is better than her mullet.]

But let's break this down lyric by lyric.

1. "You take the good" - things that are going well in my life
-I am back in New York, and SO happy to be in that position. Being the only Dem in all of Ohio was not only a lonely feeling, but I was getting physically ill. Regularly.
-I have a pretty good job, and I feel like my education isn't a waste there. I am being challenged in a business environment, and while it's not somewhere I would have imagined myself -- ever -- it's a good start.
-Ohio State beat Michigan.
-I have started reading a lot lately and have stopped watching as much TV.

2. "You take the bad" - things that need some improvement
-Though I am back in New York, I am about to move to Brooklyn. Now, I am for the most part okay with this, but the little Manhattan snob that hides deep in me has a really hard time accepting my fate as a demi-B&Ter. (That's the Blair in me.)
-I can already taste the long hours of work ahead of me, the dues we pay as a young professional. (Speaking of "tasting," that's very clearly the Natalie in me -- I do adore Mindy Cohn, and I want her to know that big IS beautiful.)
-Ohio State beat Michigan. Which is awesome.
-The reason I am missing so much TV is because I have to share my TV.

The other lyrics are really just me pulling out words from nowhere, and I can't convince myself that I have any idea what they are anyway.

But it's kind of true -- for every good, you have a little bad. I just wish this song had conveyed to me HOW STRONGLY you feel those extremes. And how, when you feel them at the same time, it's utter pandemonium. I can see how the smallest action makes a difference; I can see how a little change could make something snap.

I am not a positive person by nature. This is not something I keep secret from anyone who knows me. I am the narrow-eyed pessimist, the one who revels in the failures of others more than in my own spoils. But even a pessimist wants to experience unabashed bliss. Even a pessimist has to believe in happiness.

If I may steal from Joan Didion, the most talented writer ever (and, as of this week, a newly crowned winner of the 2005 National Book Award), I am slowly Slouching Toward my own Bethlehem, without cause or understanding of what my Bethlehem is. I am slouching -- not running, not even jogging, not even necessarily willing. I am slouching, because I have neither the energy nor the confidence to walk with chest out and shoulders back.

But I am slouching. I am not static, immobile. My slouching allows me to bear the bad. It allows me to feel the good, but to prepare for the bad.

And, who knows? Perhaps my Bethlehem will be in Brooklyn.

Who's That Woman? Oh, it's a drag queen.... (or, Pride?)

The Last Sunday in June will always, for me, be equated with other "holidays" I hate... like Valentine's Day (ok, I'm bitter) and National Secretary's Day. As a journalist, I take words very seriously. Words like "potent" and "allegorical" and "anomalous" should be used only when the literal definition indicates the object being described.

Streaming right in that vein, I offer exhibit A for today's rant -- PRIDE. As anyone who owns a Barbra Streisand CD or a floral arrangement business knows, today marks that fabulously queer weekend where the true freaks come out: clad in leather straps, ballgags, neon green wigs, and sparkly thongs. I'm not even speaking about Halloween; the Greenwich Village's annual Halloween Parade isn't even this scary.

I'm talking about the notion behind Gay Pride, coming to a big fat gay city near you this weekend. But I am just wondering, in this age of assimilationist theory for homosexuals, who beg for the right to be just like their heterosexual counterparts, what are you proud of?

I am openly gay, but I am hardly represented by the people who stroll (or sashay?) through the Short North during the Pride Parade. These events, which are to celebrate diversity and the joys that come along with being different, become the Coney Island Freak Show, misconstruing blatant flambuoyancy as an accurate representation of pride. But in this mix, those who are comfortably gay are exploited as being "not gay enough" because it doesn't suit our fancy to roam around the city for two days in our CK Briefs calling everyone "guuuuurlfriend."

In my opinion, pride is something that you have every day -- and one weekend of debauchery is a shameful way to associate yourself with a community. To be truly proud, to have gay pride, is to not allow your outward impression to be made over for just a couple of days out of the year.

Avoid the Queer Eye for the REALLY Gay Guy makeover and show pride by not buying into the bullshit. If you want to carry a whip around to display pride, do it every day. Can you respect someone who suppresses his urges every day except for the end on June?

I am proud to be a gay man who can list interests that deviate from boy watching and clubbing. But I show that every day. Be an individual, but be that individual on a daily basis. We are all better than that.

Tragedy Tonight

Seriously, I just spent about 40 minutes writing a new bit (since I haven't updated in a while), and my browser reset itself before I could save. I'm not going to recreate it now. Maybe tomorrow.

Jeb's Sorry - Michael's Grateful

Today, speaking after attending Easter church services, Florida Governor Jeb Bush told the parents of Terri Schiavo that he can't help Terri. Commenting that he doesn't have the constitutional jurisdiction to violate a court order to have her feeding tube reinserted, he said, "I can't. I would love to, but I can't."

Now maybe I'm just nit-picky, but I can't help being bothered by the statement, "I would love to, but I can't." In a case that is laden with personal opinions, I find it inappropriate for the governor to reveal his stance on the situation at all. A simple "I can't" would suffice, governor.

However, even with my heels firmly planted in the ground with my stance that Michael Schiavo has the right to make this decision, I read this article on Slate that made me think twice.

Additionally, while I was peeking around Slate, I stumbled upon this great collection of political cartoons dealing with the Schiavo case. Enjoy.

Thank God there's only 3 more hours until a new episode of Desperate Housewives.

Bounced

Due to the intensity of my migraine tonight, I had to miss a concert that my friend Julie organized, which included some of my favorite bands including Pete Francis (formerly of Dispatch) and another group that she introduced me to, Throwback.

Normally, I would be pretty pissed about sitting in my room all day with the lights off, watching tivo'd reruns of Law & Order: SVU, and missing a concert that I really wanted to go to. However, the headache ended up being a little bit of a blessing in disguise because I was able to stay home and watch two really great NCAA basketball games that I would have otherwise missed.

Let me preface this by saying that I really enjoy sports, but quite frankly, college basketball tends to bore me. In fact, like most people across the country, I don't even watch it until the final three weeks in March. I fill out my bracket based on the following criteria: if the school has a silly name (ex., Gonzaga, Pepperdine), if the school happens to be Big Ten (I support the conference... unless, of course, it happens to be the University of Michigan, who I would root against in a tricycle race), and finally (when all else fails) if the school is known for its basketball program. But mostly, I rely on the goofiness of the name.

So imagine my surprise to find myself literally on the edge of my deathbed and filled with complete excitement to watch two games go into overtime back-to-back. And yes, one of the teams is a Big Ten school.

Sure, the first game was cool with West Virginia beating the shit out of Louisville (or "Lullvull", if you're a Kentuckian), leading by as many as 20 and by 13 at the half, and ending up losing the game in overtime. But that doesn't even compare to watching Illinois (a team I've had a lot of respect for since the season tipped off) jump out to a nice lead over Arizona, be ahead only by 2 at the half, completely lose it in the second half and be down by about 15, and then make up all that ground in under 4 minutes. And overtime was equally breath-taking, with the Illini (whose only loss this season came at the hands of my Ohio State Buckeyes) eventually pulling out a one-point victory.

Now, I didn't actually fill out a bracket this year, but if I had... well, I would have picked the West Virginia Mountaineers over the Louisville Cardinals. After all, I've always been kind of afraid of/totally into Mountain Men. But there is no way I would have gone against the Big Ten's Fighting Illini (which is much better than Arizona Wildcats -- I mean, come on... how many different types of CATS are there in the NCAA?).

Tomorrow, there is a chance that two more Big Ten teams could make it to the Final Four... but can a Wisconsin Badger really beat a Tar Heel from North Carolina? I don't even know what a Tar Heel is... but it sounds like it wouldn't go down without a fight. (Oh yeah, and I hear that UNC is a pretty good team, too.) But a Spartan over a Kentucky Wildcat? Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

So while all of hold-your-breath, buzzer-beating basketball was enjoyable, I don't think it helped my migraine. If this migraine were a basketball team in the Big Dance, I would probably pick it to win over Pepperdine, though I hate it nearly as much as I hate UMichigan.

The Lady Who Can't Lunch

My mind has been consumed a lot recently by the Terri Schiavo case. Maybe it's because you can't go more than 20 seconds without seeing her face on the cover of every tabloid newspaper in New York with a countdown clock, a la "Terri Off The Feeding Tube for EIGHT Days!" Maybe it's because that stud Anderson Cooper won't stop talking about her and I refuse to change the channel when he's reporting the news. And maybe it's because I stumbled upon this really disturbing webpage.

And I've decided that I'm just totally grossed out by the entire thing. I would review the details of Terri's "Fight," but I'm sure that Anderson Cooper (or whichever newscaster you have a huge crush on) has hit you over the head with them. [If not, I welcome to you visit the pukefest of a website linked above.]

From the very start, I thought that I sided with the husband, Michael Schiavo, who contends that Terri had said at some point (before the slip that put her in a "persistent vegetative state") that if she was ever on assisted living, she would not want to be artificially sustained. If she did in fact say that, I doubt she was expecting her parents to still be around and willing to shoulder the burden. Now, looking like the very faces of agony, they are fighting a battle that no one in the judicial system wants them to win. In fact, the only real victory they have had was with legislation allowing the federal government to review this case, signed by President George W. Bush, a man who almost never leads by a religious right morality and stubborn sentimentality.

But the fact is they're starving Terri to death -- which is interesting considering that reports say that she was bulimic, which helped cause the heart failure that led to her brian damage in the first place. By today, this woman's body is literally eating itself; she is dehydrated, and soon, her kidneys won't be able to produce urine. Even if she can't really experience the pain, there is something very inhumane about this process. Why not just pump her with the same lethal injection that we do to criminals? It would be faster and certainly more peaceful. But that would be something altogether different, right?

I don't think so.

If Terri had a living will that explicitly stated her wishes should she become vegetative, none of this would be an issue. What this comes down to is whether or not we should exterminate people who are incapable of social contribution. We do not lead severely mentally retarded people to a shooting squad, even though many are unable to convey their feeling or articulate their needs. One of my friends jokingly said that we don't kill people who have had both arms amputated, even though like Terri Schiavo they can't feed themselves.

I suspect that Mr. Schiavo's argument is three-fold: 1.) he is defending his wife's wish to not be kept alive by tubes; 2.) he doesn't want to look like an asshole for divorcing a cucumber and handing her life over to her parents; and 3.) if he did divorce her, he probably wouldn't stand to profit very well. Maybe that's cynical and unfair, and I ABSOLUTELY don't blame the man for wanting to move on with his life. Fifteen years is a long time to grieve a wife who has died in every sense other than respiration.

The Schindlers are kidding themselves if they think Terri will make a full recovery, and I don't really think that the videos of her mumbling proves that she is saying "I don't want to die." Still, I admire the parents and siblings for believing in miracles and having so much hope. The kind of love that this family has for Terri Schiavo is enviable. But I still don't think that love is enough to urge Terri out of her PVS, nor is it enough to legally appeal to anything other than pure sentiment.

I support the courts, and I completely sympathize with the Schindler family. But please, get rid of the nauseating website that documents Terri's Fight. I've had a migrane since I discovered it, so it must be bad for your health.

Putting It Together

I want to write as therapy. I've watched a lot of episodes of Starting Over -- okay, so I've watched pretty much EVERY episode of Starting Over. If you've never watched Starting Over, it is most easily described as The Real World for women who have completely lost control of themselves, having an early-mid or mid-life crisis. Each woman comes in with a broad sense of what she wants to achieve, and in order to accomplish her ultimate goal, she works with a "life coach" with god-knows-what "credentials" (one of them justifies her position as "life coach" because she watched her father shoot her mother and then himself). The life coach makes "steps" for the women, and once they finish a myriad of ridiculous assignments and cry at least once per episode, the woman graduates and is deemed a new woman who has, yes, STARTED OVER. Brilliant. I cling to every word of the amazing life coaches, Rhonda Britten and Iyanla Vanzant, and I even occasionally listen to Creepy Dr. Stan Katz.

But I digress. Why I bring up Starting Over is because not only does it provide me five hours a week (Monday-Friday at noon on NBC in New York) of moments that will no doubt go down in the canon of great television (think Iyanla clapping her hands and screaming "DEBRA!"), but it also makes me think -- even for a moment -- about how to work out my own problems. Granted, I am not a recovering alcoholic who gave my son up for adoption 18 years ago like Cassie, and I'm definitely not a matronly prison guard who wants to feel like a woman... like Katrinda (who goes by Candy for short, but who are we kidding? It doesn't make her the least bit feminine). But I do share many of the same insecurities and emotions that the fabulous six houseguests experience.

Not everything on this show is entirely useless. One thing every woman is forced by her LCs to do is journal -- she writes down her feelings, keeping them as a testament to her own growth and using them as a road through which she can come to know herself.

Here is what I know about myself. I am:
-originally from Ohio.
-liberal (which might be a contradicting term to the first contention).
-gay (also contradicting to the first?).
-about to graduate from New York University with a degree in journalism and sociology.
-planning on attending law school after working for a few years.
-pretty opinionated.

...and that's about it.

Without getting all "Dear Diary" up in here, I hope I will be able to use this blog to document and understand myself and my feelings on current events, and I hope that I will do this in a way that is both witty and insightful for those who stumble upon this page.

It's the first step my life coach has set for me.