CUMmings

I am reading poetry for class tomorrow and wanted to post this excerpt from E.E. Cummings poem “since feeling is first.”

 

–the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says 

 

we are for each other:then

laugh,leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

 

 

Life.

Now that’s a real thrill ride.

Somehow, in some way…

I always go back and read this whenever I am going through a lot of problems. Somehow, in some way, I feel that things will work out.

“For what is life without the bruises and the failures and the emotions of sorrow and of anguish. It is a life without texture and allure. Life should be enticing. Life must have some texture. You must feel your life; feel that you’re living. You must be seduced and intoxicated by your life. It is only the irregularities of anguish and happiness, pain and joy, contentment and desire that create the texture of life. Like scrubbing off your dead skin cells in the shower, so should the texture of life rub against your being and reveal the emergence of a newer, livelier being.”

- Jerry

Fidelity

I’ve always held myself atop a pedestal in regards to the typical gay relationship. I always seriously consider the man I choose to be with. There is one thing that I hold superior to all else when it comes to a relationship – fidelity. I have never and will never cheat on my boyfriend. Monogamy is a trait I highly value and to be accused of not staying true to my man pangs my inner most being. It always hurts to be accused of something you didn’t do but in regards to something you value so highly it hurts in a way that can not be described. It is this indescribable feeling that I am experiencing tonight.

Several weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine and made the comment that I have never cheated on any of my boyfriends to which he replied, “Really? I’ve cheated on ALL of mine.” Staying faithful to my boyfriend has never been difficult for me. When I find someone that I deeply care about I never feel the need to seek sexual gratification with another man. I fully commit myself to this individual and to the relationship. I choose to be with him and only him, not out of obligation but out of pleasure.

“A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but still I loved life. This ridiculous weakness for living is perhaps one of our most fatal tendencies. For can anything be silier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground? Sillier than to feel disgust at one’s own existence and yet cling to it? Sillier, in short, than to clasp to our heart?”

“‘I’m afraid to say,’ said Candide, ‘that it’s a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly.’”

- Quotes from Candide

It’s times like these that I am completely lost in the numerous ideas the mind conjures up. I lay motionless in the wastleland of the choices I’ve made to get me where I am now. Not to say that the choices I’ve made have been the wrong ones or to say they have necessarily been the right ones.

A broken record. Repeating. Repeating.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I don’t know where to turn. Sometimes I wish life were easier.

Still it repeats.

In the silence that consumes me, still I hear the cries of mistakes pronounced upon me, slowly eating away at all sources of happiness.

It’s finally here

and I am so excited!! My podcast page is up and running. I’ll be uploading my first podcast soon!

Click here.

Choices

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the choices we make and how they shape our lives. I find it strange/interesting/confusing how one seemingly unimportant choice ends up dramatically changing our lives and how if we had simply altered our choice in just the slightest of ways our life would be entirely different. Sometimes I wonder where I would be right now had I not done one thing or another and if I would be happier if I hadn’t. In what ways would I be different? In what ways would I be the same?

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve made the right choices. I think at times my actions and choices contradict the things I value in life. I make these choices fully realizing they go against what I know I should do and yet I still feel that in some way they benefit me. It’s almost like I don’t want to do what I know I should do. Do you ever feel like neither of the two options are what you want? What does one do in situations such as these?

School, Christmas, and Roommates

I can not believe that this semester is already coming to an end. I have two and a half weeks of class left and then finals and then I’ll be done for about a month. I think my grades will be the best they have ever been. I decided to cut back on my hours at work because it was really interfering with my study time. In the past, I was working 35+ hours/week while taking 15 hours of classes. It was not fun. Now I am only working around 20 hours/week and taking 16 hours of classes. The workload is significantly less. My stress level is significantly less. And, my love life is significantly better! (But more about that later.)

I finally got rid of my roommate (who also happens to be my ex!). He was always so messy and I hate to live in a messy place. I like to clean and organize and one of my coworkers always tells me how obsessive I am. Obsessive? Really? Who woulda thunk it?

The roommate search has been a bit overwhelming (especially since one of them backed out of moving in!) but I think I found someone that I really like. He moved in last weekend and is so nice. At first, I thought he is Native American but then tonight when I asked him he said he is Filipino! I stood staring at him in disbelief. How could this be? Had my ricedar (kinda like gaydar, only more sensitive to all the BEAUTIFUL rices out there) failed me? Everyone who knows me knows what a rice queen I am. If Where’s Waldo? had been Where’s the Ching Chong? then I would have won every time. So, it really surprised me when he told me. I guess it is because he looks more like a tribal filipino, if such a thing exists – definitely NOT my type of asian. So it’s just him and me living in this huge apartment of mine for now until I can find someone else to move in.

With my ex roommate gone I feel a little lonely, not because he is gone but because he took Lucy (his dog) with him. She and I always had so much fun together! I really miss her a lot. At times, I want to get a small dog but then I realize how much work it would be and how little time I would have to spend with him. And then, sometimes I think I would like to have a cat. Cats are very little maintenance (kinda like me!) but I have allergies to cats so that seems like a bad idea. I’ve almost decided on getting some fish. I’ve always enjoyed watching fish swim around. It always relaxes me. But, I wonder how much work it will be cleaning the tank. Maybe after Christmas I will get some.

Speaking of Christmas, it’s almost here!!! Yay! I’ve been looking forward to the Christmas season since February. I’m especially excited this year because I have a wonderful boyfriend to spend it with. It’s been several years since I had a boyfriend during the holidays so it is going to be extra special, and not extra special simply because it’s been awhile but also because he’s extra special. I’m going to get a small Christmas tree this year (since the one from last year is my roommates and he moved) and decorate it all up. Hot apple cider, carolers, walking arm-in-arm trying to keep warm, making Christmas candies, ham, turkey, pies, mistletoe – I just love this time of year!

For anyone wanting to shower me with gifts, I will have my amazon wish list completed soon!

My podcast is almost finished. I edited it last night but there are still a couple things I can’t get exactly how I would like. I’m going to have Blowesha help me this week with it and I will probably publish it early next week. I know ya’ll are barely able to function with the anticipation of such an exciting event. If you’ve ever wanted to say you knew someone famous before they were famous then now is your chance!

the tbones pcast

It’s been several months since I purchased my Mac and I just now have gotten to creating a podcast. I still have a little more to edit but it is very near finished! I can’t wait to start podcasting regularly!

Be on the lookout for it.

Tiara

Peter died in a paper tiara
cut from a book of princess paper dolls;
he loved royalty, sashes

and jewels. I don’t know
he said, when he woke up in the hospice,
I was watching the Bette Davis film festival

on Channel 57 and then–
At the wake, the tension broke
when someone guessed

the casket closed because
he was in there in a big wig
and heels, and someone said,

You know he’s always late,
he probably isn’t here yet –
he’s still fixing his makeup.

And someone said he asked for it.
Asked for it–
when all he did was go down

into the salt tide
of wanting as much as he wanted,
giving himself over so drunk

or stoned it almost didn’t matter who,
though they were beautiful,
stampeding into him in the simple,

ravishing music of their hurry.
I think heaven is perfect stasis
poised over the realms of desire,

where dreaming and waking men lie
on the grass while wet horses
roam among them, huge fragments

of the music we die into
in the body’s paradise.
Sometimes we wake not knowing

how we came to lie here,
or who has crowned us with these temporary,
precious stones. And given

the world’s perfectly turned shoulders,
the deep hollows blued by longing,
given the irreplaceable silk

of horses rippling in orchards,
fruit thundering and chiming down,
given the ordinary marvels of form

and gravity, what could he do,
what could any of us ever do
but ask for it?

By Mark Doty