Quickly, before April is over, a rant

I’m really over all of the horror-infused classics.  It was clever when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith was new. It was amusing and fun — Jane Austen’s original, but with zombie parts that seemed to work in well. We could all see what was coming next. The genie had been let out of the bottle and everyone who had the slightest way of jumping on the bandwagon was going to do so. Now it seems that nearly every classic novel will be reworked with zombies, vampires, werewolves, or some other horror staple. I can’t be the only one who thinks it has run its course. To Mr. Grahame-Smith’s credit, his fresh idea wasn’t his only one. His new book is promising, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Sure, it is in the same vein as his first work, but it is different. He’s moving forward, can’t everyone else already!?!

I’ve discovered music from the 1920s and 1930s. I’m hooked.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Spring!

I’m obviously ready for Spring. Here are a few things I’m into this week:Daffodils: I got some daffodils in with my produce this week. It is nice to have in a flower that won’t be around for a couple of months here in Anchorage.“Rabbit & Hedgehog” books: This series by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell is so adorable. I couldn’t resist them, even if I don’t have kids.Yellow & Grey: I always like this color combination, but it just seems like the perfect time for it. This is a scrapbook page in progress which makes use of a yellow organza bag I ripped as soon as I got it home from the store. I really like the way the organza pulls all of the random images together.

Lucky 13

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all. I’m spending my 13th* creating a special birthday present for Kerith. I’ll post a photo after I give it to her. Next year, I’ll attempt something more for this day. This year, low key feels just right.

*y’all know what it means… right?

Here’s Kerith’s gift.

Yep, it’s a two-headed giraffe.

Watching & Reading

I’ve been on a bit of a movie watching kick… that is, a new-to-me movie watching kick. Here’s what I’ve seen recently:

•I Could Never Be Your Woman (good)
•In Good Company (good + Topher Grace)
•City of Ember (excellent)
•A Series of Unfortunate Events (blah, I fell asleep; I really hate watching Jim Carrey)
•Finding Neverland (pretty good)
•Valiant (decent, fun)
•Mr & Mrs Smith (okay)
•Elizabeth: the Golden Age (very good)
•The Assassination of Jesse James (okay, I have trouble getting to the end)
•The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (excellent)
•Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (cute, not as good as the 2nd, but okay)
•Because of Winn-Dixie (cute, good)
•Mammoth (pretty bad)
•Oklahoma Cyclone (pretty good)
•Journey to the Center of the Earth (okay, I guess)
•In His Father’s Shoes (silly & sappy)
•Out of the Woods (good)
•Silent Night (good)
•Where There’s a Will (okay)
•Nosferatu (excellent)

I’ve still got a bunch I haven’t seen. I don’t know why I’m so glued to the TV.

I still hope to read more books this year than last year (and last year was my record). I’m a little behind, but if I stress over it, I just won’t get it done. Here’s my booklist. And on Shelfari.

Happy Birthday, Daniel

Daniel, thoughts about a friend on his birthday (mostly unfinished)

To be an artist and troubled,
untroubled, beautiful — as beautiful as you and…

My dreams seem more vivid than they used to;
I credit you, unsure of how you are responsible.

Everything your ex-lover does reminds me of you,
reminds me of laughter, but not his, of yours,
reminds me to stop and notice nature, reminds me…

You were looking back at me through
the ceramic eyes of that white stag.
You’re in everything. I wonder if you’re real, if you…

I’m whispering secrets about you
to myself on cold nights.
I’m wondering what you’re creating — love, beauty,
magic, great catastrophes, or…?

You’re still dancing through trees in my brain,
you are plucking the commonest items,
pointing out the simple beauty, the perfection, the…

I wonder what your skin feels like.

I’m in love with who I am when I remember I know you.

1.15.2010

Updates, awards

In addition to winning “Most Likely to Join a Cult in 2010,” I spent a lot of time updating my site. I’ve been adding my older xanga posts, but I think I’m going to reach back even further. I’d like this to be a sort of journaling gallery reaching back to my earliest journals, many of which are pretty funny… I was a dorky little kid. This is truly emotional exhibitionism.

I also did a bit of writing and thought a lot about John Haynes today. Today I transferred 2004; his death was a big part of that year. I do miss him.

Here are the poems I wrote today:

G

a squash blossom
perfect and lovely
so often overlooked.

1.1.2010

Autobiographie de Mom Affection

My heart is fragmented, the pieces promised to many and too few.
Wholeness feels distant, a great space waiting to be filled makes my own soul seem oddly empty.
Greatness has found me through those whose lives have been bigger than mine, more than mine – folks whose presence has occasioned my to feel touched by God.
I know a beautiful lady who seems younger each time I see her and have the fortune of calling her a friend and my mom.
I’ve known beautiful ladies who I feel connected to even years after death. Grandmothers, great grandmothers, great aunts, friends.
Life’s losses, so definingly sad for the melancholy are of people I love to remember. Friends, boisterous and infinitely humorous friends. The lives they touched now moving in various directions, away from them, not even grasping.
I’ve brothers and a father who have made some of the best friends of my life. They seem to loom above me, the things they’ve done so much more important that who I feel like I am at times. I love them for it.
Even children with their own special chaos find my heart and steal it. Nieces and nephews, little people I want great things for,
It’s me sometimes, but more often it is them. I’m not even a slight fraction of who I am without the friends and family that have made me, are still making me. My! How different things feel at thirty.

1.1.2010

David

Let’s still be friends when we’re old and cranky,
turning to each other for the laughs that get us through the day.

Smile warmly over a silent coffee about the beautiful people we’ve known,
now scattered across the globe or lost. I’ll nod that I understand.

Sometimes, I can’t bear the estrangement I feel
when you’re in your own home and I’m in mine.
Be my friend until the last days of my life.

1.1.2010

In with the new

Have a wonderful 2010 everyone!  It has been an eventful decade.  I’m going to strive to make the coming one as excellent as I can. While I don’t always trust resolutions, I might even make a few for myself to ring in the new year and decade.

Love to everyone.

Here’s to a Happy New Year

Warning: This is awfully full of self-pity, frustration, and all the unattractive qualities of a 30 year old single guy. This has been a difficult Christmas Day. I’ve tried to distract myself from it, but I’m spending Christmas alone and I am very aware of it. Last year, I had a sense of family. I spent the day with my three friends and two dogs and it was really a lovely holiday. This year, I’m feeling a little left out and lost. I suppose that is a place everyone has been at some point. And it is hardly a surprise. I knew everyone would have their real plans, but I guess I was looking for a way in; something to cement me into their lives this year. I don’t know how to create that and I’ve dealt with it all awkwardly, feeling like the pity invite to many plans over the years. Those are the times I feel gigantic, like the huge thing everyone is trying to pretend isn’t really as in the way as it is, the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room. Most people are nice enough to not mention how out of place I seem to be, which I appreciate. I just wish I felt like I belong somewhere.

Loneliness is such a horrible part of life. This has much more to do with me and my own lack of fulfillment is being with only myself than it has to do with anyone’s actions. I just feel so desperate to feel needed sometimes. Right now, I don’t.

I hate leaving sad thoughts on here, but sometimes I’m sad. Sometimes I’m not looking at what I have and what I don’t seems much larger and more important. Life can’t always be beautiful.

A Christmas Wish

Start shopping! I want six or so Buddha’s hands. These would make such amazing and fragrant ornaments. How cool would it be to clove these instead of regular oranges this year!? Can’t find any? Okay, how about something Buddha’s hand flavored or scented. Hey, it’s more tangible than the color grey, which I’ve wanted before and not received.

A Lesson I’ve Learned From My Shame

It was Cinco de Mayo 1991 when I decided to be baptized. My brother and I made our request together, saying in effect that we bought what we had been sold. We believed that Jesus was not only the son of God, but that he’d died for us. I was 11. Brent was 12. And I really did believe it, I still do. It’s a fundamental part of one’s growth in a Protestant church. And I appreciate the message that your relationship is a decision you make and not something thrust upon you as an infant. What I didn’t know at the time was that I spend my adult life feeling like my baptism was something I need to apologize for.

I don’t know where the shame came from. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I’m glad to have my faith and think it often affects who I am and what I do in my life. But the world we live in has become increasingly tolerant for all types of faith and belief with the exception of Protestant Christianity. No, for us there is increasing skepticism. I keep my Christianity quiet in most cases, but when people find out there is often the raised eyebrow and a look on their face that seems to ask “how can a rational person buy into that?” I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m gay and with the televangelists who claim to speak for God (they speak only for themselves). There are plenty of things that are off-putting about Christianity as it is practiced by so many ignorant Americans.

I’m not going to explain what I believe here. It is complicated, as I think it should be. If your faith is simple, you’ve missed something. There is far too much to consider to blindly follow or never question yourself.

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde

I struggle with that and this whole Christianity issue is only a small part of that. I have to be unapologetic about being who I am… fully who I am. And I hope others can learn to do that for themselves too. I don’t just think it takes all sorts of people to make this world interesting, I love that it does. This world would be so boring if we were all the same.