Frogger

First off, I would like to thank Kate for her sweet comment to my first post which I just now read.

This entry, however muddled and muddy, will be about Brokeback Mountain so if you haven’t seen it, you might not want to read on.  I won’t give away any major "surprises" though.

So for some reason, this film never sucked me in.  I was very aware of their acting, of Heath Ledger’s accent…I just couldn’t connect how I wanted to.  The love between them was great, sudden, but great.  Here’s my problem:  Why is it still okay to make movies where women are just pawns on which to inflict pain?  Why are we supposed to relate and root for men who resent women.  Maybe the resentment wasn’t gendered in this case, but the women were still treated really poorly throughout.  Why did the women fall for HL’s character?  Cuz he was hot?  Cuz he was quiet?  Cuz he was occassionally sweet?  Cuz, as Jake’s character attested, he barely spoke, so when he did…you couldn’t help fall for him?? 

It just didn’t make sense, or the problem is, it did.  We’re so ingrained to men who can’t express themselves, who suffer silently, that when they treat women like their an affliction to the earth we don’t even notice?  Or if we do, we’re forgiving?  Maybe I don’t get it cuz I am a man?

I think I need to read Annie Proulx’s short story.  Is it just that we all know the story of the conflicted man?  That that story crosses genders and maybe even crosses cultures?? because it’s so familiar?  I hope not.  I hope manhood will not be defined as a man dealing with maintaining structure that fights pleasure and fighting pleasure that’s societally restricted. 

After my last posting I wanted to write a sweet Christmas suite, detailing the multicolored nights, briefly welcomed night brisk air, the buzz of familyer voices, and food food food food.  But let’s just say that all that happened, since we know it, and maybe we can savor whatever cheer graced our senses. 

The two women I’ve spoken with Brokeback about noticed, or at least focused on, the love story in the fill, not the gender disparities.  Maybe it’s just a mail hang up?  Maybe I feel guilty about something?  Either way, let me know what y’all think.

i’m angry. sometimes my boss is patient. often now. i dread telling him things that will frustrate him, of which there are many. sometimes i have to go into the bathroom, chest shallowly heaving, after he’s said something to piss me off, so that i don’t yell at him. i still am unsure how i never blow up at him. maybe too much practice.

i have issues with my anger, that is a lack of clarity about how (if) to express it. my mom used to say "kick the filing cabinet" but that was before i played soccer and now i’m concerned that either the cabinet or my food would break. i dream about ways i might get hurt so that i didn’t have to come to work. and my job is pretty good.

i think i have issues with authority but it seems so many people do. yet, i know people who vent really well or scream or cry or yell, but no matter what they do they have figure out how to let out (and let go?) their anger. process it. this i do not do and it festers and gives me headaches and keeps me holding my breath, tensing my neck.

these days, i’m realizing it doesn’t take much to make me angry, but i squash it fairly well. winter squash. bh90210 squash. yet, it keeps me from being happy/fun in other venues cuz i’m tired from swallowing my anger. and anger comes along with a bunch of other faux pas emotions (sadness, shame, insecurity, pain, loss). or supposed faux paws. i learned somewhere along the line, as most adults do, that our emotions don’t have a place in the extremities. i learned that so deeply that i am quick to negatively judge anyone who seems negatively "emotional" if they’re in my space. why are they so angry? Or rather, why do they think they can be so angry? who said they’re allowed?

maybe i should take up boxing? (giggle). sometimes i think it’s chemical, but i tend to be attractive to "passionate" people who make me scared and holding my breath because they really feel their emotions allowed. this is a quasi-recent trend. maybe i’m living my emotions through them since i won’t exert them.

i think someday it will come spilling, or roaring. i’m afraid of that because although i know it wouldn’t be interpersonally physical, i grew up watching screaming matches. as a man i don’t want to show my anger because so many men have shown it so inappropriately. not a club i want to be a part of.

this summer for a few weeks i was "taking life less seriously" but somehow that philosophy mostly faded. sometimes i can reclaim it again but when i’m de-seriousizing, a la Breakfast on Pluto but less traumatic, i lose a sense of self i’ve clinged to. i am no longer responsible/reliable/supportive brian. there isn’t space for that. at least not yet.

all this leads to aspiring but somehow "feeling my anger" hasn’t made it to my to-do list. maybe that added responsibility would make me too mad.

I think there was a time when I didn’t feel this way, but I can’t remember it well, probably because it was a delirious haze.

5:47am

that’s what time i went to bed. approximately. since 11pm i’ve been living on advil cold & sinus, generice antihistamine, and grapefruit. the last two remind me a lot of my dad.

my aunt carol sent me the grapefruits (and some oranges; half and half, like an arnold palmer) as she has most years, and she did when it was just me, dad, and gram, as she did when it was just me & dad. Dad used to have them on the table waiting for me when i was getting ready for school in the bleary high school hours. they’d be cut in half and a serrated spoon, or metal spork, would play backup. now, i can’t find the serrated spoons, so i’m peeling.

when i was sick, stuffed-up, or runny, dad would give me an antihistamine before bed. “to stop the stuff from dripping in the back of your throat.” it didn’t hurt so much to sleep on my side in those days, but sometimes i would roll on to my back to try to feel if it was dripping. for that reason, and also because on my side i’d half to roll over a lot when the snot would transfer from the higher elevated to nostril to the one closer to the earth’s core (muscles–last yoga class yesterday). gotta sit up straighter. it’s happening right now (left). maybe i should lean to my right and the congestion will neutralize. head tilting. nothing’s happpennniiinnnng

dad’s in jamaica this year, as he is most years at christmas. [anybody else way behind on their holiday shopping? shout out!] he and lucy go there each year now over my old flavorite holiday. it’s okay though. i used to love my two christmases with heaps and heaps of presents. but now, going home, i feel more distanced from seasonal spirit. this is the first year i’ll be home without a mediator (girlfriend) there, too, since ‘01. I did that at sankgeeeving, it was cool (enough)

i noticed a lot typos in my last entry. is that cool? or a major feaux pas? how about mispellings?

my to-do list is anticipating the end of the semester as an opportunity to reinstall its fixtureness into my everyday. maybe i keep forgetting i have a job and bills (e.g.i.e. telephone bills, automobills), because i keep thinking of all the working out, guitar practicing, piano practicing, songwriting, exercising, reading, writing and watching movies i’m about to do now that school’s over for a while. how do i prioritize? why have i gotten so bad at it?

4:30am, 5:15am, 5:30am, 3am, 5:47am–these are the approximate times i went to bed on monday, tuesday, thursday, sunday, and last night (monday). the world is quiet then, but my brain slows. as if i’m drinking again. a teensy bit of paranoia. a weensy bit of hopelessness. i close-r-ing to my emotions, which too often lay hidden and suppressed cuz of social function and “other” responsibility.

luckily there’s spriggy.

off to boblunchland

my eyes are so mad at me. there is beautiful winter sun outside, longing for a pond to reflect off of, and i’m a basement with coffee and moutain dew and 2pm and saturday. my friend frolick free sinmigo. luckily gutteral voices are coming out my computer, and guitar finger rolls. my mind wants to do my homework but it also wants a rest like my the muscles under my forehead working overtime to keep my eyes awake with no benefits.

i’ve been wondering what this grad school thing is all about. if i go into filmmaking, folksinging, philosophizing, or interculturaling will the masters help. will i ever feel masterful and would any such-feeling be too cocky or non self-critical enough?

john spencer died last night. his leo on west wing made me believe in subtle acting, humanity and the relative distance between a scowl and a smile. what is attachment that i need to feel to artists who unveil emotion for our benefit? i don’t really know them and i always imagine that i couldn’t handle their real selves when their public (performative) vulnerability is what i like.

it’s hard to imagine that soon i might actually read the books i check out of the library and not solely scour them for quote to make my papers fuller in pretending that i know what i think i’m saying.

last night i dreamed about someone i just saw in a new light, and they cried while we loved. i then had to teach a cooking class! to people i didn’t know. i don’t cook well. i fry

then the smoke detector awakes

This is my first blog. Some people said “it might be good for me.” Tell me if this is what people typically write at the beginning.

I should be eating something before I go to yoga, but I’ve been procrastinating blogging too long which I’m doing to procrastinate paper-writing.

These are my last papers. Grad school class room ends tues day. spring = internship. happy and afraid to leave school. been writing my papers this semester in the middle of the night. they’re very intuitive.
my professor from college has a blog. is it postmodern to write about blogging? self-reflexive? i was amazed at all she bared on there. that’s what makes me nervous, that i’ll share too much. that that.

i’m in search of my passion these days. i was told, passively, that if i don’t find my passion and follow it in life i won’t be happy. i’m not sure what that looks like. i can identify fun, and boredom, and stress, and worry, and ambition, and anxiety, and appreciation, and vulnerability, and strength, and a lot of other words that are used too often. but happiness? how long in each stint does it last? can y’all remember when i was happy–what was i doing? this isn’t my “i’m so depressed i don’t know what happiness is” hat, it’s more of a “what technically is happiness? is it when i’m feeling good? is it more durable?” hat. it’s cold outside.