Nebenhöhlenentzündung und Stirnhöhlenvereiterung

God, I love German... they have a great terrifying long word for everything. Nebenhöhlenentzündung means "sinusitis." For those who wish to be more descriptive and precise (Germans love precision), Stirnhöhlenvereiterung means "suppurative frontal sinusitis." Today I am suffering from Stirnhöhlenvereiterung. Actually, I am done suffering from Stirnhöhlenvereiterung, I am now busy suffering from the fluff-headed stupidity that is the usual side-effect of pseudephedrin and ibuprofen combined to reduce the effect of the Stirnhöhlenvereiterung.



Stirn-höh-len-ver-eit-er-ung. I love it! It makes allergy season just so much more entertaining.



That's really all I have to say today. I'll talk to you tomorrow when I am filled with the wonder and awe of Dame Edna Everage. Until then, ungestüme Umarmungen!

Instead of Aerobics

After writing the previous post, and jetting off the San Francisco, I spent a little time thinking about this lack of introspection, this inability to think of something to write about that is interesting and deeper than a mere recount of my activities. It occurred to me that it has nothing to do with my inability to think of something to write about... it has to do with lacking the time to mine the words out.



I was considering Luiz's suggestion of laying out my family history when I was stuck for a topic, relating the story of how my great-grandparents came over from China or suchlike. And while that's a great idea, and I have in the past started such posts, they're difficult to write. I mean, it's hard enough to make my stories interesting, and I was there. It's even harder to make a bit of history that I only know from hearsay come to life.



I also considered, yesterday, writing about my relationship with my father... something that was on my mind and would probably be of value. But to do so would have taken considerably more time than the thirty or so minutes I had at my disposal (especially since my father kept interrupting me while I was writing... he called me four times yesterday morning and kept me busy on eBay looking for computer software). It's hard enough to babble glancingly about movies and restaurants under such conditions, and quite impossible to walk onesself through all the emotions and garbled memories of a paternal relationship.



So it seems to me that the problem is not so much my lack of introspection... it's my lack of idle time. Or, rather, a lack of idle time in which I have enough energy, both mental and physical, to sit in front of a computer and think and type at the same time. It takes me several hours of application to get one good long post written out. I type fast, but the devil is in the editing; and I'm always thinking of something else and having to go back and add it in, or I am interrupted and have to go back and start reading from the beginning to catch up my thread, or I make typos that aren't obvious in the Helvetica font of the edit window but jump right out in the Times Roman font of the webpage destination, so I don't see them until after I've published. And then, the harder the topic, the longer it will take for me to organize and express it, to differentiate between exposition and exhibitionism, and to create orderly prose out of the chaos of my psyche.



The last week or two I haven't had that kind of time. My life suddenly seems to be action-packed, even if the action can best be described as Resting. I have chosen to blame it on my new Boss-Guy, his relentless project-giving on top of all the extra work attendant on a change of administration in a small office (the ongoing drama of the bank signatures has generated about a week's-worth of work all by itself). Because such things are never my fault, you know.



It would of course have nothing to do with me not giving my writing a place of priority in my daily life. It would have nothing to do with me sitting in front of the television for hours instead of writing. Granted, my mind has been very difficult to manage lately, work is using up more mental energy than it usually does and I have less mental energy than I usually do... but when I look at the last few posts here, I see that I am always writing just before I have to do something else, like go to work or rehearsals or whatever, and not in the evenings when I have nothing better to do than flip through the channels and watch nothing.



Well, anyway... as has become usual, I am writing in the morning (which is when my mind seems most blank, and therefore most orderly), and I now have to get up and go take a shower and eat something and get myself off to the office. I was going to start my aerobics regimen today, but I decided to write instead. I guess that's the key to making myself prioritize things... give myself something to avoid, some work harder than writing. I wrote my best fiction when I was avoiding a college paper, and I've done some of my best journaling when I had an envelope-stuffing project at work. Something in that... but I'll have to find something harder than aerobics to avoid doing or I'll never get into the aerobics themselves (I looked into the Pilates thing, BTW, and didn't like the cost-quotient, or the fact that Madonna is one of the arbiters of the movement... I tend to avoid doing anything Madonna does).



So off I go! Much to do! Have a lovely day!

Again with the Nothing to Say

I seem to be in a mental space that lacks introspection. I'm not having insights into my own behavior, or the behavior of others. Or at least I'm not remembering them when I have time to sit and write. It's rather dissatisfying.



On Friday I went out with Caroline to Bay Street, where we saw Chicago. God, that's a great movie! It was just as good the second time as the first! The choreography and camera-work involved in the musical numbers just kill me. Especially that bit when the lights flash on at the beginning of "Hot Honey Rag," I swear I just about pee my pants. Afterward Caroline was so jazzed up (pun intended) that we absolutely had to go to Tower and get her a copy of the soundtrack. While there I hit the Used CD bins and replaced my lost copy of the Charlie's Angels soundtrack and picked up the soundtracks to The Producers and Topsy Turvy. I also picked up VHS copies of The Thin Man and Brotherhood of the Wolf. Caroline and I then went back to my house and watched the latter video, rather enjoying it though we didn't always understand what was going on (it's French, you know, and the French always find it necessary to confuse people). We both now wish we had black lace fans with razor-sharp knives protruding from the tops of the staves.



Isn't that terribly fascinating? Don't you wish you were me?



Yesterday I woke up early (9 am) and got up and did my email and reading ritual; but by the time I checked in on Jhames, I noticed my leg jogging up and down again. I decided that what I really needed to do was force myself to have some quiet time... if I let this manic energy run my life, it will run me right into exhaustion. So I got back in bed with a selection of films — The Thin Man, of course, along with Murder By Death, Gosford Park, and Plunkett & MacLeane. That lasted me until about five, when I got up and dressed myself and went out to Concord to have dinner with my Daddy.



I had intended to go to Tahoe Joe's, a place my aunts rave about. I'd eaten there once and was rather impressed by the food, though somewhat put off by the heinous decor and the atmosphere of Drunken Frat Party, a place where they encourage the imbibing of cocktails that have coyly suggestive names and more than ten ingredients and which, even at the height of my drinking days, I wouldn't have condescended to spit into. But I figured Daddy would enjoy it, and I couldn't think of anything else out in his neck of the woods (my knowledge of Concord's eateries being quite limited).



Of course, when we got there, at 7 on a Saturday night, there was a bit of a crowd... and a 60 to 75 minute wait for a table for two. Daddy was starving to death, since he usually eats dinner at 5, and I was pretty hungry too, having subsisted all day on one piece of toast and a hunk of cheese, so we decided to try our luck elsewhere. All the other elsewheres we thought of also had huge crowds, though. We drove about pointlessly for almost 20 minutes before Daddy expressed a desire for prime rib... and that word suggested the Hungry Hunter, which I had seen out of the corner of my eye as we drove down Willow Pass Road.



The great irony was that, with about a half-hour wait at Hungry Hunter, and the twenty or so minutes that we spent driving around looking for a restaurant, we only saved about ten minutes off the waiting-time from Tahoe Joe's. But at least we were spending time in the car or in a nice quiet lobby instead of amongst crowds and crowds of people. Daddy's a little bit deaf, and babbling crowds make it difficult for him to hear anything.



So anyway, he had a pound of prime rib, and I had the lamb chops, with salad and soup and all that sort of thing. The meat was yum, the soup was quite nice, and the salad okay. The desserts, when presented, were unconscionable (they all had either a grotesque combination of chocolates and caramels, or were made of sweet liqueurs), so we just had coffee and talked for a while. We had a very nice time altogether, eating and talking and whatnot. I seldom get a chance to spend much time alone with my father, and often when we are alone we're both tired and quiet, so this was a very pleasant bonding experience between us. After dinner, we went back to his place and I helped him restore some old programs that he'd lost when he bought a new hard-drive, and I taught him how to play Free Cell.



So now here we are on Sunday, and I'm typing, and getting ready to go over to San Francisco for my Musical rehearsal, then I need to grocery-shop and then vacuum the living-room, and that's about all that's going on in my mind. I've started reading Gide's Lafcadio's Adventures and am rather enjoying it; perhaps later I will have some observations to make on that text. Next week I'm going to see Dame Edna Everidge at the Curran, and that will no doubt give me something to talk about. Next weekend I have two drag shows in a row. The following Wednesday I have a dentist appointment. And it is with these inanities that I occupy my brain today.



Oh well, I can't be brilliant every day, can I?

The Edge of the Abyss

I feel very hurried, very overwhelmed, and very beleaguered at work this week. And yet, on some totally twisted Capricorny level I am totally loving it. Every few minutes I feel the beginnings of anxiety attacks, I have to close my eyes and tell myself to slow down and take it easy, one thing at a time; yet at the end of the day I feel somehow proud of myself that I managed to do so many things.



There are ten separate items on my To Do Today list at the office; though three of these tasks involve writing letters, one of them involves printing and distributing 1800 fliers to all four campuses. Yesterday there were seven items on the list, including all the banking and bookkeeping as well as meeting preparations and attendance. On a normal day, if I even bothered to make a To Do Today list (which I only do if I have been given specific projects that aren't naturally-occurring parts of my day), I would have maybe three or four. And yet, am I sitting here dreading going to work? No, I'm wondering if I can say something interesting and decide on a beefcake punctuator in twenty minutes or less (when I will have to get up and get dressed in order to reach the office promptly at ten).



Of course a lot of this feeling is my manic phase, and a lot of it is my tripping out over having written my job-description, and there is probably some performance anxiety caused by having new people around me. And I understand why I am enjoying this overwork, because there's a sort of endorphin rush that comes from doing a lot of little things and dancing along the edge of an anxiety-attack.



What concerns me, though, is the problem of heightened expectations on the parts of other people. I have noticed in the past that when people are impressed by my abilities, they come to expect those abilities to always be there... it's a fine line between trusting in a person's abilities and taking those abilities for granted. But I know that I am not always capable of doing this much. That when my next low cycle comes along I am going to forget a lot of details, that I am going to prioritize tasks not in accordance with their importance but rather in order of convenience. And then those people who have come to expect Manic Robert the Super Secretary being able to handle any old thing they throw my way will be terribly disappointed to find Depressed Robert the Slothly Scatterbrain sitting behind my desk. And I still feel guilty, beyond all logic, when people are disappointed in me. I mean, there's no rational reason for me to feel bad about other people's unrealistic expectations... but I do anyway. I still yearn (unrealistically) to be loved by all who know me.



I think I need to talk to my new boss about this. He hasn't been in the office long enough to have this conference with me that he keeps wanting to have; he hasn't even had the opportunity to look at the Job Description I wrote out (though I ran it past my other coworkers to make sure I wasn't padding unnecessarily). I'm going to have to explain to him that, while this week of activity worked out well, he has to know that I'm not always like this. I've hinted at it, like when I explained to him that making outgoing phone calls is something I hate so much that I will often put it off for weeks; he simply said to not put it off. Yes, I definitely need to have a talk with him about his expectations.



Well, kiddies, it's time to go. I have just enough time to put on my shoes, eat my Pillsbury Toaster Scrambles (ham and eggs!), and drive down to the office. Much to do, much to do. Hope you have a lovely day!

Fat Pants

Well, it's happened. After six and a half years of having a 34-inch waist, I have had to buy some 36-inch-waist pants. Unlike the last time (when I graduated from a 32, causing weeks of moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth), it's not because my bones and muscles have expanded with maturity... it's because my tummy has expanded with gluttony.



Of course, the nice thing about this is that I don't have to replace my entire wardrobe, because the tummy need not be permanent. There's not much you can do if your pelvis expands and your muscles fill in the extra space as your body reaches it's full natural proportions (which happens at different times for different people). But this belly hanging uncomfortably over the tops of my 34s can be removed, with a little effort. And so I only bought two pairs of 36-waist pants, they aren't especially snazzy, and I bought them at Ross so they didn't cost much of anything. I am accepting my belly on its own terms, but I am not going to plan on it being a permanent part of my life.



I will look at this size-upgrade as Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis, Levi Strauss and M. & Mme. Girbaud all telling me that it's time to get off the pity-pot and start aerobics again. Not only will it help to shed this unpleasant layer of fat and tone up the abs so that it's not such an effort to "suck in," but it will also probably help me limber up for my Musical rehearsals. If I were to exercise two or three more times a week, it wouldn't take so long to warm up for the dance; I've also noticed that when I am accustomed to strenuous breathing, my lung capacity increases, making it easier to sing with volume.



And then there is the issue of my body-image, as discussed two posts down. My chief dislike of my body is related to my stomach and the sagging around my chest. So why not just get rid of the belly and find some way of tightening my skin? The best way to stop sagging is to fill the skin with more mass, preferably muscle... but I don't want muscles. I just want my skin to shrink up a bit, like my sweaters always seem to do. There must be some way of doing this, short of bathing in Preparation H.



I'm thinking I ought to give up one of my bad eating habits for Lent. Not for religious reasons, mind, but since today is Ash Wednesday and it's always a good plan to suffer when everyone else around you is suffering (my coworkers have both given up sweets... though BB, a Catholic, has given up all refined sugar, while JB, a Methodist, has simply given up chocolate). I think I might just erase potatoes from my life. I will have to talk to Grandmother about this so she will only make single portions when she cooks. She won't like it, though. She really believes you need to have a lot of starch in your diet to be healthy. Which is why she weighs the same as I do although she is thirteen inches shorter.



So after my manic episode yesterday (which was rather pronounced, my coworkers and even the guys at my AA meeting noticed that I was spinning rather faster than necessary), I am bracing for my little crash. But, if I hold true to pattern, the little crash will be the last one for a while, and my Depression cycle will be over with. Just in time for allergy season. Yay!



Actually, I think allergy season has started already. My sinuses have been playing holy hell with me all day, and they were bothering me over the weekend. I think this sudden balmy weather has fooled a lot of the trees and other plant-life into believing that Spring has Sprung. They're in for a nasty surprise, according to the Weathermen (Grandmother's version of the Magi), who are predicting a cold snap any day now. I'll stock up on Sudafed and Advil now and stash pills in my car, my desk, and my bathroom so it doesn't catch me by surprise.



Well anyway... if anybody knows of a good aerobics tape (I don't want any chirpy perky instructors, but it has to be low-impact), let me know. And if anybody has a good method for drawing up the slack under your arms that will not cause the shoulder-muscles to become too pronounced, let me know that too. I don't necessarily want to look like this guy (though if I had a magic genie in a lamp, I would look something like this guy), but there's a lot of room for improvement on my torso. A lot of room. Acres and acres, darling!

(PS: I just used some of this manic energy to do some much-needed housekeeping on my ancillary pages, so go take a look around if you're interested.)

Um, Yeah...

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed today. Along with an assortment of everyday tasks, the new Boss-Guy has asked me to do two things this week: to write up my job-description so he can understand what I do, and to start coming in promptly at 10 instead of rolling in around 11ish. Perfectly reasonable things, things that I pretty much volunteered to do before he asked me, but they are putting me in a very strange and unusual head-space.



So here's the description of all my tasks that I wrote out:

Job Description

Staff Secretary

1. Phones: answering and directing calls, taking or forwarding messages; answering callers’ questions if possible, or advising callers on who best to contact.

2. Email: Archive, respond to, and/or forward emails received; maintain current email addresses of Executive Body and Membership; write and send emails as required.

3. Mail: sort and/or open incoming mail to its recipient(s) or to file; forward mail as necessary; handle outgoing mail as needed; maintain postage meter and scale.

4. Filing: maintain archival files of all documents that come into the office and copies of documents going out, especially as pertain to grievances, cases, or other issues being handled by the Union.

5. Word Processing: edit and formalize all outgoing correspondence; edit and/or create all flyers, newsletters, and other documents as needed.

6. Printing: print flyers and newsletters, maintain photocopier, make copies of various documents on request.

7. Database: maintain Membership database and copy of District Faculty database in MS Access, input new members and delete old files; forward new members’ information to District and National Affiliate; reconcile database with District deduction registers

8. Banking: receive faculty payroll deductions from District; make deposits to Union bank account; keep records of all transactions.

9. Bookkeeping: report bank deposits and checks written from office; calculate raw numbers for Per Capita payments from payroll deduction registers; assist Bookkeeper and facilitate financial transactions as needed; forward timesheets and any necessary information to payroll service.

10. Supplies: purchase, organize, and maintain all office supplies and some equipment.

11. Meetings (Executive Body & Membership): arrange meeting rooms; print and distribute Agenda and other related documents; purchase and/or arrange meeting refreshments for Executive Body Meetings; record attendance and provide voting materials (ballots, etc.) for Membership Meetings; attend meetings and take notes of proceedings; create minutes if necessary.

12. Membership: provide information regarding membership benefits as well as other issues to members; coordinate dues/fees and membership-status issues between District Payroll Department and Faculty members; produce membership applications and facilitate their return.

13. Elections: facilitate all Union elections—creating, printing and distributing documents, mailing ballots, recording ballot returns, and reporting results.

14. Hudson Audit: provide documents and assistance as requested to Auditor; produce annual Agency Fee Payers Notice; distribute by mail to all agency-fee payers; forward all Hudson Reduction requests to District Payroll Department; arrange requested rebates when necessary.

15. Web: create and maintain Union website; add documents and formatting as needed; publish newsletters and other documents to the web.

Do I really do all of that? Well, on some things, like the filing and the mail, I don't do much of it or I'm really not good at it... but it's my responsibility to do it. What I find funny about this list, after I wrote it, is that the things I spend most of my time doing are described in very few words ("...and other documents as needed" describes about 75% of my work), and the things that take up very little of my time, or only occasionally take up my time, require a lot of words to describe (like the Hudson Audit that is only done annually, or the meetings that are only twice a month).



But the reason this is putting me in a weird headspace is that I suddenly feel pressured by all my multitudinous little tasks. I'd never seen my entire job written out like that before (since the document didn't exist until I wrote it), and I'm a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of separate tasks that I have to deal with. My logical mind knows that I've been doing all this crap all along for four and a half years, and so I should be pleased that I am capable of doing so many different things; but my illogical little alcoholic mind quails before the sheer hugeness of it all. It's nerve-wracking.



The other thing is that I set my alarm for 8 (I usually put it at 9), got up at the first buzz (instead of pushing the snooze button every ten minutes for an hour), had my coffee and read my email and all my daily blogs, took a shower, got dressed, and was out of the house at 9:45 and sitting at my desk at 10 o'clock sharp. I checked messages and emails, then I ran a couple of errands, and got some other things done, wrote a long-ass email to my mother in which I described in some detail my opinion of the current political situation in the State and Nation, made a few phone-calls, counted out the newsletters for distribution, went for a breakfast pastry and coffee, came back and wrote a few letters and whatnot, talked about all sorts of different things with coworker BB, and am in general having this wildly productive day. It's kind of scary.



I guess I'm having a manic episode. I feel all pumped with nervous energy. And judging from past experience, the manic episodes are usually followed by a crash, so I had better milk the mania for all it's worth and get as much done as I can before I tank out.



Well, that's all I have to say today. Here is the email from my mother (so you can see what I'm up against) and the reply I sent back (because I think it's interesting, and because I can't think of anything else to talk about), followed by a nice little piccie:

Subj: Just me saying Hi

Date: 3/4/03 9:50:56 AM Pacific Standard Time

From: kathryn***@***.com

To: robert@mannersism.net



Greetings! I had better get back to school, I'm turning into a country hick! 



The U.S. bombing overseas, really bothers me. There are so many treasures over there, burried in the sands of time, which will be forever lost in the distruction. Hay, are you going to get involved in the Grey Davis recall?  A grass roots org. called "Peoples Advacates" is heading this move.  The "human sheilds" (War protestors) have gone home? It seems that they don't  REALLY want to die for there cause, and with Bushs finger on "The Botton"; there's a good chance they will get blown up too.



Becky [my half-sister. Ed.] wrote a short story. I will be sending you. It's both dark, and disturbing, but not easily forgotten. It would be great if you would give her your oppinion. Literature is your thing! I got to school a little late so I couldn't catch Beck before here 8:00 class.I'll have to wait until her 12:30 break now.  I come to school to use their computers!



As for my life this semester, its "not"! I'm taking a semester off, and can't wait to get back to school. I've turned into a house potato..getting all my inspiration from what is on the T.V. Yes, there are educational programs to be found, (I have found them all) But I'm tired of watching the dogs, the T.V. and not going anywhere.  Next week LeRoy [half-brother] and Becky are going to be working at the Celtic Fair from Thusrday til the following sunday nite, so I will be watching Heather and Christopher [Becky's kids]. Nathan [the other half-brother] is in jail for probation Violation til after St Patrick's day. I'm getting tired of his jail stuff. HE BETTER GIVE UP ON DRINKING.



I will be able to go down to see my mom for a few days after all that.  Margaret [Mother's sister] fell and broke her tail-bone.  Whats going to happen if Mom out lives Margaret? Marg & Tom made sure all the money was in their control. No back-up plan.. Oh well, Mom set things up that way.  



Did you have a martigra ( Marty-graw) celebration in your neck of the woods? We had one up here. The owner of the Sonora Inn puts it on every year. Becky got to go this time, as I babysat. She had a great time. I did get jealous, although I didn't say anything to Becky about  it. I've been to that party before.. and it IS a blast! Becky went with her girlfriend Jamie. Luke (Beckys boy-type-friend) wasn't invited. Why? Cuz he's no fun!  He wont get a job; so he's broke all the time, and the "charity case thing" is getting really old. 



Hmmmm, I'd better cut this off, there are students lined up to use the computers, and I'm really NOT a student right this minute!  Sooooooooooo Write back!  Yes I wanna know whatz goin' on with you!  I loves ya baby!!


-------------------------------------------


Subj: Re: Just me saying Hi

Date: 3/4/03

To: kathryn***@***.com



Hi, Mother!



Good to hear from you. I was sorry we couldn't come up and visit earlier this year, but these things happen. So far this year I have been having a hard time keeping up with life. Between working during the week and then doing all my social-type stuff on the weekends, and then running errands with or for Grandmother, it's hard to keep up with housework-type stuff ... and so anything that doesn't fall into those catergories or takes more than two hours is just about impossible.



I haven't quite grasped the Gray Davis recall. Didn't we just elect him? (and by WE I don't mean you or I or anybody we know, I certainly don't know anyone who voted for him... I only mean We the State of California) I think there are too many other things to worry about than Gray Davis. Yeah, he's a corporate shill and a business-as-usual pseudo-Democrat, and quite probably at least partly responsible for that Enron scam called the Energy Crisis, but I have better things to occupy my mind. At least it had the effect of popping the bubble of the Dot-Com Boom before it got any farther out of hand. Rent and property prices and the cost of living haven't gone down much since then, even though now nobody can afford to pay those prices, but at least they aren't going up anymore.



But anyway, in general, I am not going to get personally involved in any political movement or motion or anything. I don't believe in marching and protesting in person and allying onesself with a lot of filthy hippies and Anarchists and whoever else decides to show up at whatever Rallies are organized. I see that they serve a purpose, but they don't serve my purposes (and in fact cause me great inconvenience on occasion), so I don't do it.



I'm just going to register my opinion with anyone who has any power to do anything (my congresspeople have all received emails, as has the President... though I doubt very seriously if anybody but some half-literate intern ever read them) and then sit back and watch them dig themselves into a deep hole of sociopolitical nightmare... and then I will laugh at them. The way I see it, the nation is going to hell in a handbasket, and about half the citizens are pushing as hard as they can to get the handbasket to go faster. I'm just going to enjoy the ride as best I can.



See, this is the problem with democracy: it's vulnerable to demagogues. The reason the Founding Fathers set up the Constitution the way they did was to prevent a government by and for the people from becoming a mob of rabble... some people will view government by the people as being "majority rule," and will therefore try to persuade the majority to one's own ends. The unfortunate truth about The People is that the majority of people are ignorant, bigoted, and superstitious. However, our founders believed that people will do the right thing if given the chance, and if leaders are prevented from destroying opposition. That is why Freedom of Speech is such an important right.



But sometimes our baser natures triumph. Our current government has managed to align itself with a social movement that is peculiarly successful right now, because it appeals to ignorance. Currently the media is leaning towards a reactionary frame of reference in which wilful ignorance and social recidivism are passed off as "common sense" (because telling stupid people that they're smart is a great way to get ratings and sell magazines... just look at Rush Limbaugh). The Republican Party, particularly that portion of it which is currently in charge, has married itself to that same target demographic, and now it pretty much controls the thoughts and perceptions of a quorum-majority of voting Americans (a little more than half, by my guess). And with half of America buying their every word and believing their every lie, they can sway the Stupids with very little effort.



But do not be deceived yourself. The current government is based on corporate greed, and is using the same tactics that advertisers and the mass media use to sway the public into buying corporate products. Bombing Iraq may very well be necessary, I don't personally know what's going on over there; but I do not believe for a minute that Dubya cares what is or isn't going on over there... this move is purely a diversionary tactic, largely to draw attention away from his complete failure in Afghanistan, which was in itself a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the corporate pillaging of our nation's resources.



Did you know, for example, that the EPA has been completely gutted in the last year and a half? That contracting grants have been passed through the legislature that allow for the destruction of National Park lands? Most people are, I think, unaware of this, far too busy worrying about Osama and Saddam way off over there. It's a simple conjuring trick, and I am disgusted by my fellow citizens that they allow this.



Whooops, there I go on my soap-box again. Let me climb down so I can go about my daily business.



I have gotten myself involved in something new... I'm in the Living Sober Musical. I play "Marla," the drag-queen coffee-house waitress. I only have one spoken line ("I know some drag-queens who are into it") and may get one solo-sung line ("a little bit of lipstick never hurt no one"), and the rest I'm sort of in the chorus. There's lots of singing and dancing involved. I've never done anything like this before, it's totally new and a little scary, and very exciting.



We haven't had any sort of Mardi Gras celebrations around here. It seems to me that Hallmark is trying to take over the holiday and turn it into a big national whatnot, when in fact it is merely an overgrown Catholicism from the least-"American" city in this country. Like the way they've taken over St Patrick's Day in New York and turned it from a celebration of an ethnic identity into a national excuse to get drunk.



Anyway, I had better get to work. I've got lots to do today, and I won't get it done bitching and moaning about government and society and all the stupid people who seem to be in on the joke. Hope you're having a super day!



Hugs!

Bobby

In Which We Discuss Our Inadequacies

Jhames has this special talent for making me think about difficult topics, gently forcing me to work my way through things that I'd just as soon not look at. A few days ago, I mentioned his new project, Autoerotic, and further mentioned that I was afraid to go there. He naturally wondered why, in the form of an email, and while I was mining through the muck and clutter of my psyche for an answer, I made a few interesting observations; and having gotten started thinking in this vein, I found myself compelled to come to some sort of conclusion.



This may take a while.



I have written online a couple of times about my discomfort around sexuality and the erotic, but I've always pulled back from the edge before I got too far into analyzing myself. It's kind of a scary place for me. Largely because it's a place I know myself to be wildly flawed, and I become nervy thinking of all the work that is going to have to go into making me whole there. And in any place where I know myself to be flawed, I naturally feel inadequate, and my ego does not like to dwell on inadequacies. So anything that threatens to lead me down the path towards a perceived inadequacy will make me uncomfortable, and therefore I will avoid it.



For example, one of the first things I started thinking about when I perused the Autoerotic site (because of course I did visit it, not long after admitting that I was afraid to, because I felt like I was being silly) was "What would I submit, were I to submit something?" And I couldn't think of anything, because the things I find erotic on other people don't really exist on my body, at least not that I am aware of (I suspect I may have a cute butt, but I can't really see it). The purpose of the site it to promote a healthy and realistic erotic body-image, and I do not have a healthy or realistic erotic body-image (not by any stretch of the imagination); that is a flaw, and I didn't want to face a flaw (at least not just then... I'm not even sure I want to do it now).



But after I thought about it a while, considered my complete lack of visual erotic interest in my own body, I realized that my erotic relationship with myself is based completely on touch, not on visuals. In fact, my sexual relationships with others were also based mostly on touch. I've seldom had sexual relations with people I found visually stimulating (and often failed to avoid those I found visually repellent), and during those relations the senses of smell and taste and hearing had to be pretty much ignored, they obtruded on my tactile enjoyment... I don't especially care for all of the flavors involved in the surface of the human body, some of the smells are downright unpleasant, and the talking always made me very uncomfortable, to the point that it could ruin the whole experience for me.



However, my sight remains as a powerful stimulant, equally as powerful as touch, or even more so by virtue of its expediency. In my day-to-day life, lacking anyone else to touch, I depend entirely on the visuals for stimulation... perhaps too much so. And that which my sight glories in is, almost by definition, unrealistic — because it is removed from me. Ideal form, high-tuned aesthetics, rarities of perfection are the things that most directly stimulate me. These things exist in real life, but they do not exist in my real life. They are therefore objectifiable, which renders them safe. I cannot objectify people I know or people I would be likely to know... and I tend to avoid knowing people who I would be likely to objectify, if that makes any twisted kind of sense. None of my friends, even the ones to whom I am romantically attracted, possess the perfect or idealized beauty that I find visually erotic.



And as my body is sensitive to the pleasure of touch, it is hypersensitive to the unpleasantness of pain, and pain removes all pleasure from the other senses; similarly, my erotic visual joy in objectified beauty goes along with a hyper-repulsion toward that which is not beautiful in an ideally aesthetic manner. When I am erotically repulsed by a visual, I can't stand the idea of touching that object, either. Like, though the visual is not part of my erotic enjoyment of an actual man, a distinctly un-erotic visual will gross me out to the point that I can't enjoy touching him.



The men I find romantically attractive are not of the type I would find objectively erotic... the men I think of wanting to date are not the same kind I would jack off to or post in my blog. They are men who do not visually repulse me, and who look like they'd feel good, and with whom I feel an admiration and an emotional connection or the possibility thereof, along with any number of other variable attractions that may surprise even me.



When it comes to my own body, which I find aesthetically unpleasing in a visual manner, but certainly not in a tactile manner, then I get a little confused in this... it turns around so that I am repelled by the idea of anyone touching me, fearful of that person being disgusted by my perceived "ugliness" (even though my logical mind knows that he wouldn't be touching me in the first place if he found me repulsive). The first thought that occurs to me, when I ponder sexual relations with another person, is that the other person would have to see and touch a body that I find visually icky... mine. In this instance, my visual and tactile come up against each other and confuse the hell out of me.



On top of this confusion comes the abject terror of emotional and physical vulnerability that is a big part of sex. And when I consider all the trouble and terror I have to go through on that front, and compare it with the actual enjoyment I've ever achieved from sexual congress in the past (very very little), and add to that the amount of inadequacy I would have to deal with in regard to my performance (I've been told more than once that I'm a bum lay; and those who did not say so, out of politeness, managed to convey it in other ways) on top of the total inadequacy I feel about my appearance, it's simply the better apparent option to stick with the videos and magazines and be done with it.



Fascinating as all this is, it doesn't really answer why I was trepidatious about visiting Autoerotic. Let's see if I can figure that out.



One of my fears was that I would see things that were aesthetically icky. Among the things that makes real life so messy is the lack of stylists and lighting directors and makeup artists; catching something that is not aesthetically ideal under less-than-ideal photographic conditions often results in a picture that is not so pretty... and, as we know, unpretty pictures have the power to upset me, especially when they are meant to be erotic. Porn or erotica that focuses on things that I find unerotic, such as women or excessively hairy people or fat people or people of other races, tends to upset me more than the people themselves do. In social settings, dressed and armored as it were, I can relate to people as individuals; but undressed and displayed for erotic purposes, I can only see them as objects... and in the erotic, something is either for me or against me. It turns me on or it makes me queasy. There is little room for neutrality.



Furthermore, these Real people were, in many cases, people I know, either personally or from online. There's something slightly embarrassing to me about seeing people I know in a vulnerable position, or not at their best, or just nude. I have this completely illogical fear that if I've once seen someone naked, I will never be able to think of them any other way. I know for a fact that this is not true... there are plenty of people I've seen naked whose nude bodies do not haunt my mind's eye when I speak to them. But like any phobia, and most of my sexuality, not making sense is the norm.



I don't know exactly why, but I have always had trouble with nudity... body-shame like you wouldn't believe. According to my mother, I used to pitch an absolute fit whenever someone changed my diaper or my clothes or bathed me (which may be why I was potty-trained so early). And I personally remember once in kindergarten pitching a fit because I thought I had to take off my clothes to "trace an outline of my body" onto butcher paper (I cried hysterically for over an hour). I remember when I was eight or nine years old I got sunburned so badly on my back, arms, and shoulders (first-degree burns, with great nasty blisters the size of chicken-eggs) that I couldn't put a shirt on for two weeks, and the shirtlessness was even more uncomfortable to me than the burn, and I spent the whole two weeks off from school with a sheet clutched to my chest. I was so uncomfortable changing for gym in the 7th grade that I cut a full week of classes by hiding in the bathroom (before I realized that you can wear your gym gear under your regular clothes, so long as you don't sweat... and I never exerted myself enough to sweat). And even today, though I can bring myself to disrobe fairly easily, I don't like to do it when there is anyone else there, and I don't like to just lounge around naked... I always have to be changing or in water or under blankets or something.



That, I think, is a separate issue from my body-image... or perhaps it is a cause of my poor body-image rather than a result. Since I appear to have been gymnasophobic (afraid of nudity, not of gyms or gymnasts, learn some Greek) since infancy, it seems to stand as a separate issue from my image of my body as an erotic object. But then, maybe not. I don't know. I'm not even able to unreservedly believe what my mother tells me about my own infancy... she might have done something to me when I was a baby that made me hate being naked. You never can tell with her.



Nevertheless, I have been dissatisfied by the way my body looks for most of my adult life. As a child, I felt ashamed to be naked, but as an adult I was ashamed of my appearance. There were times I was neutral about my appearance, when I felt I could be seen on the beach or poolside without causing myself undue shame, but I've never been pleased by my body. Even when I was young and thin, I was always too soft and too bony at once, badly proportioned (too wide of hips and too narrow of shoulders and chest, too long in the torso and short in the leg) and completely without muscular definition, altogether too feminine but not in an androgynous manner, if you know what I mean... too soft and slack to be masculine, too bony and hairy to be feminine, a combination of the "worst" of both sexes. The body-hair has always been a point of contention, ever since it grew in; I have come to accept it, since it's too much trouble to keep off, but I have never liked it.



And now I find my body, in many ways, simply repulsive. The flesh sags, especially around my chest and under my arms, and I find that so shockingly unerotic that I sometimes actually get sick to my stomach looking at myself. Then there's the belly, which I find horrid on other people and doubly so on myself. Not to mention the inescapable hair all over the place... actually, not all over the place, which would at least have the charm of consistency, but rather everywhere below the waist and then in tufts here and there.



I know that if I put enough effort into it, I could get a better body. I could change my diet and work out daily and shave everything; I have in the past done that (not all at once, necessarily... and I never managed to get to the gym on a daily basis)... I just didn't enjoy it all that much, it was too much work for too little reward. It's just easier to not look. In the other, less workmanlike direction, I could have liposuction and dermoplasty and electrolysis, along with other expensive professional services. But I can't afford it. And if I could, I'm not sure I'd do it. There's something about having onesself cut up and sewn back together, for any reason much less vanity, that strikes me as rather horrific. So it seems my remaining choices are to like it or lump it — learn to love my body the way it is, or just keep it covered, shower in the dark, and forget about it altogether.



Well, let's see what we've learned today (or rather in the last thirty-nine hours, I started working this out on Thursday evening): I can only relate eroto-visually to an objectified ideal of a person that is safely removed from me and protected by a fourth-wall of a camera's lens, not to real people; I am saddled with nearly psychopathic body-shame as well as a nausea-inducing body-image; I'm terrified of being vulnerable to another person, so much so that I'd rather not have love or sex at all; and I'm too lazy to do anything about any of it. I think that just about covers it. I'm a fucked-up mess.



But then I'm depressed right now, so of course I will dwell on the negative and be unwilling to improve. I will come back and visit this page after the Equinox, when I will be (what passes for) normal again, and see if I can't find a more positive conclusion to the patterns revealed. At that time I will probably be grateful to Jhames for the insights gained here. Actually, I am grateful now, but I'm still stinging from the Band-Aid being ripped off too fast. I need to put this away and get some distance on it.



In the meantime I will continue to guiltlessly find pleasure in unrealistic, idealized, remote and completely safe erotic images of beautiful young men. Like this one: