39a. bring in da noyse

(Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

It’s December 26th, and my holiday funk is starting to pass.

It was going well for a while. The past couple of weeks I’d been feeling unusually cheerful and festive lately, playing Christmas music in my car on the way to and from work or errands. L’esprit de Noël had arrived, like the Ghost of Christmas Present, all jovial and good-natured.

Then my roommate finally stopped mucking about and asked the girl he’s been texting about a hundred times a day to date him. She agreed (not surprising), and suddenly I found my Christmas spirit a bit deflated, for I was once again reminded that I’m lonely and single at Christmas.

A-fucking-gain.

Seriously, I feel like some sort of talisman or charm. Whoever I live with seems to find the love of their life. I move in with my sister, she’s dating this guy, next thing I know they’re engaged and now married. With a baby on the way. Last June I got an apartment with a buddy of mine. He starts dating the girl next door (literally), and now they’re married. Now the current roommate.

Seriously, what the hell??

I’m just starting to feel like being gay is untenable, or at least impractical. The current guy I’m interested in doesn’t seem to share mutual interest, is too busy, or doesn’t see me fitting into his life. Apart from a Christmas Eve “Howdy, Merry Christmas” text, he hasn’t returned any of my voice mails or texts, and I don’t want to sound desperate. This added to my funk.

Lately I’ve had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t be this way, or perhaps that God doesn’t intend for me to be this way. At the same time I’m a bit suspicious because this all started again a few weeks ago when I was outed to my family and they shocked the hell out of me by not freaking me out or reporting me to church elders. As my best friend said the other night, “You’ve always wanted unconditional acceptance and you never got it. Now that you’ve been outed, you’ve got conditional acceptance dangling in front of you like a carrot from the very people you’ve always wanted to love and accept you. You’ve waited a long time for what they’re offering.”

So I’m considering (read that: considering) the alternative—that God doesn’t intend for me to be a homosexual. Not out of any obligation to my parents, a desire to fit in, or fear of damnation (though that is a factor), but searching my conscience. I’m just asking the “what if” question, and considering its implications. I’m not attracted to women, and frankly, from what I’ve seen of marriages and relationships in heterosexual couples, I don’t want to be. So here are my “con” reasons:

(Two apologies: First, this will be rather rough since I’m just writing off the cuff; and second, if you’re a woman reading this, please don’t be offended.)

1. Attraction. There’s the obvious: I’m not physically attracted to women. According to scripture, God made woman as a helper for man, delight to the eyes, all that rot. I’m open-minded and reasonable enough to admit the possibility that I could indeed be a “broken heterosexual.” Somehow, with the way that my parents raised me, any “traumas” I experienced as a child (‘trauma’ used very broadly here), and a failure to bond properly with the same-sex parent, I could’ve developed same-sex attractions. It’s possible. But the fact is that I don’t fancy female physiology. Women are just too soft, and I’ve always liked the hardness and angularity of the male figure. Then there are the breasts and… well… the rest of it.
2. Masculine space. There’s just something about the directness and functionality of it that I like (maybe because I’m male?); but it seems that once women get involved, all these knick-knacks, scented candles and homey items appear. Things have to be comfy and nice, and pillows multiply like rabbits. (Ye gods, I’m sounding like Henry Higgins.) In the movie Juno, Vanessa “gives” Mark a room for “his stuff.” I thought this just happened in movies until I actually observed it happening to my married guy friends. And they put up with it rather than fight. This is known as the “abolition of masculine spaces.” Maybe some guys like that. Personally, I don’t. Maybe it’s true that men marry their mothers.
3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. It was one thing when women were brought up to cook and clean and be the “little wife” (don’t worry, the idea of that shocks my modern sensibilities too), but with the advent of the independent woman and feminism, guys just don’t get much respect in the home. To quote My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.” In most homes today, women make most of the decisions, or at least make the final call. My guess? Again, it’s easier to capitulate than to escalate.
4. Period. There’s the fact that women tend to go crazy at certain times of the month. I know this is no fault of theirs, but honestly, who wants to endure that? A man would only put up with it if he really loved a woman, and was able to just shrug it off. And besides the moon cycle, women often seem to go out of their way to find fault or take offence with what a man says (which usually ends up with him sleeping on the couch or not getting sex for a while). Guys don’t play mind games like that (for the most part).
5. Bedroom. As alluded above (and I don’t have experience), just from what I’ve heard women tend to be rather capricious sexually. And biology aside, I just can’t imagine that sex with a woman would be better than with a guy. Guys are just more intense… going at it. Without going into detail, a guy knows what another guy needs. With heterosexual intercourse, both are essentially guessing at what to do. (Maybe. Again, I don’t know.)
6. Children. If you know me, you know how I feel about this one. I’m not a fan. There are some women who don’t want kids, for whatever reason; but (again—I’ve observed this) once women get married, they often start thinking about family and having children. I would be an awful parent, for one thing. But there’s also the inconvenience of having an infant (my friend Emily can attest, I’m sure), which is worse than having a dog. Child services tends to get involved if you leave a child alone at home all day. And it tends to turn your life upside-down. Permanently. Unless you go in for nannies and boarding school, which I think is a great idea.

I’m just thinking out loud here, because this is a stumbling area for me. I have plenty of reasons why not, but ultimately I have to bow to the fact that God is God. And it’s not like God never asks people to do hard things, but it seems utterly unreasonable for Him to expect me to endure marriage to a woman just because this is the only model we have in Scripture? Alternatively, is He asking me to be celibate? Because that would really suck.

Again, I’m just not sure. On the one hand, if what the Right is saying and this is a matter of life and death, I’m in a rather precarious situation because one can’t have cake and eat it, to borrow from dear Antoinette. On the other hand, if what the Left is saying and it’s all not a big deal, then I’m needlessly letting myself be tormented. However, neither do I want to be swayed by what sound like logical arguments, or arguments that cater to my list of wants, and “enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” I do believe that there is a battle going on for the allegiance of our souls, and this may well be a part of it.

So what do you do when both sides seem to make sense? Maybe I need to do what everyone seems to be pointing me towards and pursue God and let him sort everything out.

38. creeper

This picture accompanied the last comment from as13579@hotmail.com (this is your reminder to spam the shit out whoever this is).

Thoughts? White Witch porn? Girl unhealthily obsessed with me? Gay man with tiger fetish? Extremely juvenile straight boy who likes to run comments through Google Translator and then back into English in order to protect his identity (kind of like that episode of News Radio where the dude’s book is translated into Japanese: “Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler”)?

• “Mr. James, what did you mean when you wrote bad clown making like super American car racers, I would make them sweat, War War?”
• “Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans… and pants to match.”

Here he/she is!

That’s hot stuff. Mrrrrauw.

~ Muirnin

37. spam 2

Here’s another comment from the “spammer”:

Darling boy,

We are a vast many. Quite the fine eclectic group of poofs, breeders, fairies, dykes and the like. Against such ace you are found witless. We love how fast you posted a reply. It’s made for quite a great number of smiles!

Your profiling skills are quite the sorry rubbish. But then with actual profilers amongst us you haven’t quite got a prayer. We’re no vigilantes and we haven’t hacked a simple thing. Maybe you have friends or enemies that you are not aware of? That said your apparent paranoid was icing on a rather scrumptious cake. Alas it is time to depart as I must go forth and buy the next round! Be a good little nancy boy, belt up and bugger off.

Thank you for entertaining! Ciao bella!

~* Häikäistä Kynttilä *~

P.S. Cortege or cortège (kôr-tzh) – A: a funeral march  B. a funeral procession

I was just informed a little while ago that “Häikäistä Kynttilä” is the name of an art work, and that “Emma Frost” is a comic book character, so whoever this spammer is, they’re also not original. (However, this reinforces the idea that this person is a juvenile male.)

I could be intimidated by these grandiose, faux-foreign jokers, but no. I don’t know what their game is, but I’ve seen things like this before. I’m not wasting another minute of my valuable time on this waste of skin and breath that tried to threaten me.

36. spam

This afternoon a comment was posted on one of my previous entries in which I chronicled how I hurt my ex. I have no idea who this asshole is, but he has officially earned my ire, and if what he says is true, he’s the one who outed me to my parents, which means that he’s also officially road kill. Here what “Abdullah” (a.k.a., Cortége) sent:

Evil men whisper tales of lies. You brought the lies into flesh even after you knew it would go nowhere. Manipulated the flesh of another living being and then sent it roaring into fire. I would scratch your face to scar it but I would worry of the decay I would get under my nails.

One must wonder, how many others you have left spiritual and emotional scar tissue on? Perhaps I shouldn’t have sent an e-mail to try and sort out your parents thoughts with Biblical references. You should have been made to suffer as you made him suffer.

I raise my glass and toast to your karma which certainly will go for the jugular!

From here I can make a few assumptions about this guy:

1. He is either foreign (since the English is terrible—German or Indian?), or he ran the comment through a web translator and then back again to make it sound as though he’s foreign.
2. He either knows my parents, or hacked an email account to get their address,
3. He was able to find my online personals page and send it to my parents, and is probably technologically savvy.
4. He is a vigilante-type individual who thinks he’s doing everyone a favour by outing me (possibly as a punishment—God complex?)—possibly gay himself, and dangerous religious fanatic.
5. He experiences a sense of grand self-importance by involving himself in the personal affairs of others.
6. Mentally unstable, with nothing going for him in his personal life, and possibly abused as a child.

Here’s his email address in case anyone knows how to use it to find a location:

as13579@hotmail.com

At the very least you can spam the bitch if you like.

~ muirnin

35. speechless

Well, loyal readers (and you know who you are), if you’ve been sitting comfortably you know that there has been a lot of drama here in the past few weeks, between being outed to my family, the shit at work, and my first relationship ending in flames (figuratively, not literally—we don’t condone arson around here).

A few things to report now as the week begins.

First, a job has opened up at a place here in town with a company that is in my field, and would seem to be a perfect fit for my skills. It would be a longer drive every day, but would start later and could provide connections. Eventually I want to start and complete my masters so that I can teach at the college level, which is my ultimate career goal. Dunno how that will actually work out, but it’s like they say—if you commit, the universe will provide.

Second, I’ve met someone here in the Cities! In fact, he lives five minutes away. Right down the street from where I grew up. We’ve hung out a couple of times, and last night we both made it quite clear that the attraction is mutual. He’s a great guy, goes to a good church that I’m familiar with (not mine, mind you), and shares a lot of my values and interests. Fortunately we’re also compatibly opposite enough to provide for plenty of delving into each others lives. It’s exciting, and unexpected!

Updates ahead…

~ Muirnin

34. eucatastrophe

It’s hard to keep all the thoughts in your head from wandering off and getting lost. Most of the time it’s like they come crashing in, stomp around for a while, and then while I’m looking at something else galumph away, never to be heard from again.

That’s another way of saying that there are a lot of things that I’ve wanted to write about over here, but often lose track of.

Thanksgiving came and went without much hurrah. It was a small crew that assembled last Thursday at my sister’s house—my parents, both my sisters, the husband of the one, his two kids and his dad. My sister and I did the cooking, so it was fun. And there was no drama, except for an impromptu bout of chair throwing when my sister’s father-in-law brought up some politics.

He’s a delightful fellow—naturalised Italian immigrant. He came from socialist Italy, and is very worried for this country because he sees our leaders throwing away a largely good thing in favour of an experiment that failed in Europe decades ago. “I want to tell them all,” he keeps saying, “but nobody knows history.”

This Thanksgiving was probably the most stressful for me, though for completely different reasons.

I was stressed out because about two weeks ago I was ignobly outed to my entire family.

On 16 November, after getting home from orchestra rehearsal, I got an email from my mom at 10:14pm saying that they’d received an anonymous email from someone with the subject, “It concerns your son.” What followed was a string of insane emails sent from my end and, looking back, a string of surprisingly sane replies from my parents. They just wanted to get the story from my end, dialogue, discuss, and love me.

At first I couldn’t believe that my parents could be anything but furious, upset, or disappointed, convinced that they were going to try to ship me off to Exodus (or something like that) or blackmail me into “getting help.” But so far they haven’t done any of that, and have been unexpectedly open to dialoguing about their son being a homosexual. I’ve assured them that I’m not into “the scene” or the “lifestyle,” and while they’re not accepting this with open arms, they’ve at least made every effort to show that they’ve accepted their son.

I guess I’ve been rehearsing for this moment for so long, afraid that they would somehow find out, that my reaction went completely according to plan. And so I behaved exactly as I’d expected them to react that I couldn’t hear or see that they weren’t. In my mind they were the crazy, fundamentalist parents that every gay child fears—the ones who throw the Bible in their face, call them all sorts of awful names, accuse them of rejecting God, scream that they’re going to hell, etc. Fortunately my family is pretty used to my insane mood swings though, and it’s not like they didn’t wonder or have an idea.

At Thanksgiving my family was just happy that I hadn’t rejected them. How’s that for a reversal of fortune.

So who knows where this will go with them. I still don’t know if they’ll ever accept someone that I bring home into their family like they accepted my sister’s husband. They don’t agree with my “choice” and both my parents think that I’m “confusing my pre-adolescent mind with the adult mind.” I don’t have much time right now to elaborate on that, but I’m at least familiar with the theory from my psychology days—that being that I didn’t bond properly with the same sex as a child, so I’m now trying to fill that need as an adult. It’s all very Freudian.

At the end of the day, I’m glad that I don’t have to choose between family and being happy. I’m still not entirely happy since I’m a firstborn and therefore almost pathetically chase after their approval, and will forever be my parent’s experiment child. There is still a lingering doubt that God doesn’t entirely approve of me either, so I’m trying to distinguish that feeling from my parents disapproval of my “lifestyle choice.”

Sigh. There’s that word again.