Ready, Reset, Go!

There are times I don't care and don't want to be polite.

Why are other people more deserving of their half-baked views than I am about my (in my opinion) much more thought out views?


Hmmm...


Many types of people bother me, I suppose.

Two are these:

(1) Ideologues... but of a special type.

Ideologues, in general, are a bit scary but, depending on what their views are, they may be good or bad. No, I'm referring to ideologues who are not, themselves, leaders but who find a person to which they can attached all their beliefs and desires, regardless of that person's actually qualities or demonstrated behaviors.

In politics, this could be said about a JFK die-hard in 1960 or a Bushie in 2004. Same thing. Exactly the same.

To be overly fair, I've seen people of this type on both sides of the Clinton/Obama divide. But, in reality, you should admit it has been rather skewed.

*I* want things to be different, to be uplifting, to build people up.

And if someone, admittedly only in the past 3 months, says they can do that, well great! I won't actually believe it until I see it, of course.

Remember Deval Patrick? He's governor of Massachusetts now.
He had a fantastically inspirational campaign. I mean, seriously amazing.

And I'm very happy he's governor.

But, so far... he's kinda just... chugging along, trying to get the nuts and bolts done - like most governors. And, from me, that's not really a criticism. It's just the way it is.

Some day in the future, he might have the tools to push the more uplifting ideals he has. I expect it, in fact. But I'm realistic, too. It just might not happen.

I really really REALLY hope it does. But, I have always understood the difference between rhetoric and action. They're both important.

Rhetoric can tell people to aim high. And they should. Action tends to be a lot less impressive on a day to day level. Positive rhetoric at least gives people a worthy goal to act towards.

Action without goals can lead to... well who knows what, really. Goals without action lead to disappointment. Together (assuming the goals are worthy and not horrific) can lead to great and enlightening things.

It's a tough road. I'm aware of it.
I'm just not sure why some other people aren't.


(2) People who are prone to looking for their next personal high.
I'm not necessarily talking about a chemical high. I'm kinda referring to the grasping for a next "calling" or "purpose". This happens all the time in many social spheres.

Also, I'm not meaning a person who is exploring and joining different groups or causes with which the person shares some affinity. This isn't about switching form the Episcopalian church to the Lutheran, or looking at the good sides of a less than ideal candidate because they, at least, generally share some of your views.

I'm talking about people capable of extreme shifts.

Yes, some have shifts because they truly have re-evaluated the world and decided their older views were mistaken.

But others...

The danger with these people is they will change with the wind.

Often, the policies don't matter. From what ever thing they support one year to the next thing they support, they may even be diametrically opposed policies.

Think of the mass of right-wing neo-Conservatives - who graced this great country by ruining it, thanks!

It might surprise you that, long ago, many of them were so "ultra-liberal" that a few were even Maoists. Yes, Cultural Revolution Maoists.

And then - sigh - the dream, whatever it was, died. And, one can guess, they needed a new cause to live for.

"Oh YAY! Here comes the crazy right-wing wagon! Wheee! And they're WINNERS! OK, I'm with them now. What do they believe? OK, I'll believe that too! Wheeeee! What a rush!"

As if they are searching for a cause. Any cause.

Of course, many of us are doing that.
Don't get me wrong, I am and most likely so are you.
Most of us see many potential causes to join or possible avenues of purpose.

But we also, using the amazing ability of human intellect, evaluate what we see. Decide if it's the right way to go. Some of us are more willing to take a risk, others less so. But at least it's given some real thought.

But this other type of person will grab a cause that passes their fancy without actually evaluating it's validity or it's consequences. In some sense, it's really is just another high.

And, importantly, upon joining, they gather the list of all the things that are wonderful about their new thing and the lists of all the things that are terrible about the alternates to their new thing. And they memorize them. Like flash cards. No evaluation of them, just memorization.

And like a person on a high that has their mellow harshed when someone even suggests the new thing might not be 100% good for you, they become angry and disregard any factual evidence. They might even become belligerent. And the laundry lists of virtues is spoken and the scroll of damnation of the others is recited.

And, even if you too are part of their cause or purpose, even the slightest hint of non-conformity to the story will gain you ridicule and hatred from them. That's usually when the ad-hominem attacks happen.

Yeah, in my most cynical moments, I think that's exactly what happens with some people.



This isn't the current example which brought this topic up for me, but it illustrates the point, I think. Oh, yeah, and as far as religions are concerned, these types exist in ALL of them, I'm not singling out any one by showing this. This is what happens with such a person - easily swayed - in many realms, be they political, religious, nationalist, and other social ones as well.



Trust me, these guys - again, in any sphere, especially one with physical power - scare me more than any ideologue.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"


That's what he said. Seemed to be a redundant thing to say at Urge, but, whatever.


Backup.

At the very last moment, I decided I should come into New York to actually BE with my mom on Mother's day.

So I used William Shatner's Priceline Jiu-jitsu on a pretty nice hotel and pretty much scored a half-price room. Sweet! A $300 room for $150! (oh, plus tax and surcharges and 9/11-exploiting-the-dead taxes and fuck-you taxes and it comes out to about $300)

Come to think of it, hotels in NYC are insane $$ and should all spanked till they're red. For my part, I only want to spank the really hot hotel owners. I mean there's gotta be a couple, at least, right.


Anyways, I come down on Saturday with my last minute bags packed.

Took the Bolt Bus. I approve.

No, it's not the Limoliner, but it's a good step up from a standard Greyhound. For one thing, when you buy a ticket, it is indeed for *that bus*. You have a seat on that bus at that time, no questions asked. Anyone who's experienced the 500 people lined up for a NYC-Boston or NYC -DC Greyhound understands the fear that you will not get on the bus you want and it might be tomorrow until until your spot in line gets on. Not fun at all.

So, no, you get a seat, no questions. Otherwise it's a standard bus... but there's actually fewer seats. Meaning there is a surprising amount of legroom compared to a Greyhound. Not bad. No, not Limoliner luxury, of course. But that makes the other difference. Limoliner is around $85 each way Boston to NYC. Bolt Bus is pretty much Greyhound rate, around $15 each way - sometimes less, depending on when you buy.

Also, for those that want, there's wifi and - for all seat EXCEPT the emergency exit (2 rows), there's a power outlets.


OK, anyways... forward...

I suppose I should have pinged Rey and/or some other NY folks who know me, but (1) it really was last-minute, for just one night and (2) I didn't really feel up for going out, anyways.

But after movie (Iron Man - fucking AWESOME!) and dinner with mom, stepdad, my brother and sister-in-law... I went back to my room, and even though I wasn't feeling that super, ended up stepping out late. I have this weird thing when I'm visiting a place that I almost think if I don't go out to the local bars that I've somehow wasted my time. It's really a bad habit.

It was also a big fucking mistake.

Mistake Part 1: Went to the Eagle.

The NYC Eagle is always hit-or-miss for me.

I've had a few nights there that were a total blast. But for me, it's just that it isn't a casual, "come as you are, there's always someone to talk to" kind of place. It seems to only be fun - to me - if you come with friends.

Come alone... and you are alone. Well, for me that's true.

I don't know why I expected any different this time.

Right at the coat check the faggots behind me looked right at me and said "who let *this* troll out of his cave". Yeah. In just that gay way of talking about someone right in front of them in that high-pitched squeal they think is a whisper.

Right. So that set the mood.

Then, on to my drink at the first floor bar. "Could I have a Vodka tonic, please".

A look of judgment, almost a sneer.

Are you serious?

Did I fuck your mother or something? Or is my drink just too faggy for this macho bar? (Trust me, it is anything but macho in there) He made my drink and I thanked and tipped him. Why did I thank him?

I guess I'm just polite. My mistake.


Anyway, you could guess the rest of my time at the Eagle wasn't a bag of poppers, either. So, after an hour I left.

Mistake #2: Went to Urge.

I like Urge, also. This is a more casual bar atmosphere, with strippers that I usually like, which is a plus. There's often a crowd, but not an insane oxygen-depriving amount of people.

And I saddle up to the bar.

"Heeeeey! How are you youre cute wanna go fuck?"
wow, never happens like this. Cool. Oh...

The guy is still lifting his head off of the bar. He's in wobble mode.

"wasssssyurname."

I tell him and he slurs his to me.

Ugh... he's toast. And here I thought I'd finally get laid after all these months.


I part with him and prop myself at another station.

That's when this happened:

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!'

W. T. F.

I stared at the guy because it seemed like such a redundant thing to say. Yes. I'm gay, you're gay. We're all gay here.

I shouldn't have looked at him.

Him: "What's wrong with you having a drink with someone who's gay?!?"

(FWIW, he was well past the wobble-phase. How he was even able to stand, don't know.)

"Uh, nothing." I stupidly replied.

Him: "Then why do you need to drink with those straight people."

Me: "???"

Him: "Then will you have a drink with me instead of them?"

Me: "Instead of who?"

Him: "THEM!!!!"

Me: "Who? I'm here alone."

Him: "Them!!! So will you have a drink with me?"

(I still don't know who he was talking about)

Me: "I just got this drink, but thanks"

Him: "I didn't aaaassk that. I asked will you have a drink with me"

He was practically swaying in the breeze.

Oh god.


What I should have said is no fucking way Drunky McPukeshoes. He was reaaaaly far gone.

What I said was something stupidly polite like, "I'm actually ok on my own here" or something.

Then he said "OK, you know peeeeeee is sterile?"

Uh oh.

And yeah, sure enough, he'd unzipped - in the middle of the bar.

First, unlike the Eagle, Urge isn't the type of bar where people dropping trou happens much. Second, this wasn't even remotely sexual. Nope he really looked like he was about to take a leak right there against the wall.

At which point I switched over the the other end of the bar, had one more drink to drown everything out, and headed back to my hotel where, much like the week before, I hid under my covers in terror.

I should have just enjoyed the nice hotel room and stayed in for the night.

Long post here... though mostly due to cutting-pasting.
---

My head hurts.

That's what happens when you have a glass of wine and a few martinis with your ex.

Sigh...

I told you all how last month I met with my ex for the first time in more than a year - and how I felt afterward.

And how I'd been set off-kilter after doing so well for so long and even sent out a really messed up email when very drunk.

I'm going to share some of that with you. I have no interpretation of what it all means. So I'm just putting it out there.

The drunken email was in response to the end of an email sent by him. His email ended this way:

Whatever happens between you and I, I hope that you can bring some clarity into your feelings about it and come out of it with something positive. You are a very good and caring person and you don't deserve to be unhappy. I'm proud to know you and would welcome the opportunity to continue knowing you.

You'd think this would go over well. But it actually rubbed me the wrong way. I think I wanted to be told how much he had loved me and thought I was attractive and respected me as well. Somehow being "proud" sounded to me like I was being told I was a nice guy, but (don't try and understand this, it'll make your head hurt) that, otherwise, I was kind of an unlovable nobody in his life.

I know, I know. Something deep in me still has problems with me.

So I sent this... the drunken email I mentioned:

Having someone proud to have known me is how I'd want to be remembered by a fellow soldier or a co-worker or something of that nature. All I know is that the only people (2) I've ever had a relationship with remember me, if at all, as someone, oh, kinda nice. Not as someone that they loved or as someone they liked to have sex with. The fact that I am not viewed as those primal things makes any attempt at pride, etc, to be lame and unsatisfying. Fuck that. I'm better than that and could have been more.

I remember way back saying i worried that I was just a placeholder. I was right.

I am also seeing that in the short time that while this "reconnection" has been attempted that I have fallen into the same fucked up state once a fucking-gain and I do not like it at all.

Maybe if there had been substantial talk - something that could help me make sense of it all - that could have helped. I figured that's what you wanted to talk about. but as usual it never go dealt with.

You know I've come to realize that I keep dealing with people that pose as if they know how to do things and how to handle difficult situations and yet when it comes time to do something, they simply don't.

It's so funny, cause if they had said, "Hey, you do it", I would have done it. But in the work world it wasn't my "authorized" role, and in the personal world it was always people who played as if they knew what the fuck they were doing but they so fucking did not.

I do not want to feel like a lame loser, I do not want to feel like a ungainly unattractive creep who only is tolerated because he is "nice", I do not want to feel like my only hope is to accept the attentions of whatever drunken fucktard thinks he's got the right to paw me because noone else in his right mind would do that. Oh sure if Brad Pitt was doing that fine, but it's usually some asswipe that thinks because I'm not with anyone I'll go with anyone. I will not go there, I so fucking refuse it because even if no one else thinks it,I'm better than that - I've got more to offer than that.

But in the times that are difficult, and with me there are plenty, it's hard to prove my worth to anyone. No one can deal with my issues. I'm alone in this. So all roads are cut off. I'm kinda alone here. Like normal, I guess

fuck I am so hurt by everything

Yeah a few months ago things were ok, though the other issues still remained.
but here it is more than two years later an I'm still hurt - sure it gives you a thrill there.

i need to build myself up and not be torn down by you.

I so wish it was different. I'm easy in many ways- i guess ways you don't believe but they are true. i seek connections. i feel alone without them. so I've been alone for these years.

Yikes.

OK, clearly I was venting about many things.

Apparently he'd never heard any kind of honesty from me (Oh, I said things like that to him, but he never listened well enough to hear) because he was kinda surprised. There followed a few more emails back and forth. And then another passage from him that set me off, but in a different way:

One thing that always bothered me was the importance you place on the opinions of others. We all do that to some extent but with you it seemed particularly pronounced and misplaced. As far as I'm concerned you are infinitely more intelligent than the majority of the foolish faggots that are out there and a far better person. I realize though that what really matters is that you feel that and ultimately believe it. Your own poor self image was a hurdle I found difficult to overcome. And...I suppose our demise didn't do anything but support that for you. I'm sorry.

And for what it's worth, I thought we had fabulous sex. For me though a healthy emotional relationship is necessary to continue the healthy sexual one and that's where I think we fell short. Before long I started to feel distant from you and sex began not feeling appropriate. My own quirky nature

Hey, by the way, please note the "fabulous sex". I don't like to toot my own horn, but there it is. Haven't had some of that in a while though...

anyways...

My response, this time, was honesty, but of the self-aware kind.
In fact an honesty I wish I could have shared 8 years ago.

You don't know how many things had to do with worries about how you would feel about me. I took one thing to heart. You were very picky and imperfection was a reason to be discarded.

So all my physical problems, certainly those that affected sex, I viewed as things that would destroy whatever had been built up. [ed note: The things to which I refer would be nothing of consequence in a normal relationship. But, as with many things, back then, I took things way too much to heart. OK, to some extent I still do.]

This was major. Extremely significant in most of my problems. I couldn't "satisfy" was my assumption. And how could I be honest about my problems. All your past loves had been so perfect, that's what I was told. So I somehow had to lie and never be honest with you.

...

So I hid away and hoped, if I wasn't feeling up to snuff, you wouldn't notice or would be distracted and you wouldn't view me as worthless. Not really of course - I know my worth better than that. But in terms of how you viewed me. And that was important because I cared about you and how you felt about me.

So I hid.

And yeah this was on the tails of all the other hard times and upset and anger over the problems before then. So I was pretty sensitive to it all.


But in then end, it got easier to push away.

Because then I wouldn't be humiliated by you being so picky that you'd toss me to the curb.

But in the end that's what happened.

I was becoming acutely aware of this during the last few months of what was left. And I was thinking, this can be helped, by being bold and diving back in and telling you everything thing had made me a mess and how I cared so much...

but then it was too late.

Man. And no, he didn't know any of this. Not one bit. His response was one of shock.

How many things got fucked up because I was so frightened to talk - so scared I would be dumped for the flimsiest of reasons. And yet, in the end, that's precisely what happened.

The talk last night was... ok. Though the excessive vodka didn't exactly keep the conversation on track.

And, yeah, I'm nursing the headache.

But talking to him, sitting across from him last night, I find it's difficult to accept that even now after all that I *still* want to have sex with him. I *still* have deep affection with him. It hurts partly because I know there are so many problems with feeling that way *and* there is no interest on his part in any way shape or form.

I guess, without actually trying, I'm searching for something like what I had, but with some differences, and of course with someone else who actually wants me.

But there are new rules - ones that should have been old rules:

I want to be into him sexually. He has to be into me, also, natch.
I want to really like who he is.
I want him to be able to understand me - all my problems and imperfections included - without rejecting me.
I want him to respond, to communicate.
I want him to at least have some sense of what I might be going through.

I need to communicate. Even the uncomfortable stuff. If I don't, my initial reaction is to hide. And then it all collapses from there. If he can't handle what I have to say, they he isn't worth it to me.

That's critical. So fucking critical. I really have gone about things with the assumption that, if I had a page with two columns, one with my good traits and one with my bad traits, that I begin every relationship with all things in the negative column and only prove my positive worths one-by-one. Meanwhile, guys who I happen to be in to start with all things in the "good trait" column, only to add the negatives as we go along.

This is, I realize now, dangerous for two reasons.

One: Even if I don't realize it, I walk in with an assumption that I'm "on trial". That every bad thing about me will re-enforce the basic fact that I am a bag of undesirable traits while any good thing will barely mitigate all the bad stuff.

Two: I'd never considered this before, but by assuming - in my head - that he is all good things sets me up for massive disappointment when, of course, some bad trait is revealed. Precisely what I am scared of happening *to me*. Ironic, I guess.


Jebus... as good as things had gotten, I clearly have a lot of work to do.

Attention, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP):

So you've decided to fuck this up with the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) as badly as you did with the Writer's Guild, huh?

Evidently signs indicate that a Screen Actor's Guild strike is about to happen. Is this true?

How long are you guys planning on letting this one last? Eight months? A year?

I'm telling you Producer-folk right now, if your greed-induced screw-ups force Battlestar Galactica to shut down without ending properly (which nearly happened in the writer's strike), I will make sure to curse your name on a daily basis. And I doubt I'd be alone.

You greedy fucks.


Note to Ron Moore: FILM FASTER!






SAG press release:

Los Angeles, May 6, 2008 - The AMPTP suspended negotiations with Screen Actors Guild today over the objections of SAG's negotiating committee. The committee had urged that the AMPTP continue discussion and had offered to negotiate around the clock if necessary in order to secure an agreement.

The AMPTP declined to continue negotiations with SAG claiming that it was necessary to turn their attention to negotiating with American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).

...

The AMPTP put forward a proposal that differed substantially from the deals signed with the DGA and WGA. Management's clip demand would gut existing provisions regarding actors' consent to use of their clips and would allow studios and networks to use or sell clips - going forward and from their libraries - in any way they choose and without consent.

OMG. I can't stop watching this!

I mean the machine's cool, but not earth-shattering. And yet, I can't help laughing as the doggy makes his own fun.