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July 31, 2006
Heat Index of 115 this week.
It is just too frickin' hot to do anything, and I shall be slowly baked alive in my school. If the electricity does die, we'll just euthanize the children in a way that produces as little sweating as possible.
On another note, this is day TWO that our apartment building has no water to the bathrooms. We're having to shower at friends' houses, and flushing the toilet involves filling up pitchers of water from the sink in the kitchen.
Posted by G at 07:30 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
July 26, 2006
Just don't shake my hand
Summer school is over August 10th. Before testing, the students have only 5 days left. I really wish I was at a beach, rather than trapped in a hot room with kids who want to shake my hand.
Soap in the mensroom? Nope.
Soap in the boysroom? Nope.
Gross.
Posted by G at 06:16 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 23, 2006
Tripping Time!
One really effective way to get through teaching summer school is the promise of a great vacation.
I leave August 16th for this state:
I'm there until August 22nd. I leave from there to go here:
Derrick is joining me for the Southern leg, as he has never been to the South. Zod help us.
Here's where I need suggestions. Where do I go while in SF? I'm looking for fun day trips, such as the Redwood National Park, great parks, fun B&B's, specific wineries, Cupertino, what? Where should I go?
The same thing goes for Houston, but I need help to really give Derrick a good intro into gravy, Tex-Mex, and the South. I might even take him to ranch land.
Please give me some ideas. I'm up for hiking, spelunking, tubing, rafting, hot springs, spas with mud, museums, frog jumping contests, bears on tricycles, and searching for intelligent life in the universe. If you want to join me for any of these trips, also speak up.
I'm really looking forward to these jaunts. I'm quite jaunty.
Posted by G at 06:41 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack
July 22, 2006
Supervillain
I wouldn't even think to write about heroes, as so many others write about them better than I could.
Yesterday, I was carrying my umbrella onto the subway. I had one of my momentary impulses to begin smacking people with the umbrella (this happens more than I would care to admit). They weren't doing anything extraordinary, I just wanted to begin smacking people. Umbrellas, as the Penguin and my sister know, can really hurt people. In my moment of mischievous thought, I had my epiphany.
I don't really like superheroes all that much. I like the villains. I want to be a villain.
Don't get me wrong. I love Hugh Jackman as Wolverine as much as the next 'mo, especially when he's shirtless. However, if I want to be a tortured, conflicted soul who endlessly battles evil, I'll just continue with the day job. What I really need is a way to blow off steam. I could do yoga, gym time, or drink lots of alcohol, but robbing banks, terrorizing populaces, and beating up 'nice' people sounds much more fun.
Villains don't have to wear spandex, stay in shape, or have an alter-ego. It is encouraged, but not necessary. Their lives and purposes are much clearer than my day to day life, plus they get to be bad. I would like that, occasionally. When I hold my temper as a child hits me or screams at me, it would be much simpler to just simply hypnotize them with a spinning umbrella, or maybe a boxing glove pops out of an umbrella and punches them in the face. Comic, and satisfying.
When I become a supervillain, my homosexuality will be an asset. Maybe I could be called the Mathematician, with a sigma or pi as my symbol. I could even extend the pi joke by using pies as weapons. Not cream pies, but acid pies, cow pies, and pies with mechanisms that wreak havoc. Wreaking in any form is good, and wreaking havoc is the best.
Maybe I'd be called the Faggot (burning ember symbol), and I would just open a can of whup on Congress, the executive branch, and conservative religious groups. I would have a vile chemical weapon called the Santorum that would smear conservatives, revealing their worst lies and hypocrisies. Well, maybe that one would be considered a hero in NYC....
As a villain, I would use my fairly significant mechanical skills to build clever weapons and traps, with that wonderful gay flair. My villainmobile would be quite smart, being fuel efficient yet powerful, and I could tie in all my car skills.
All of these things would give me an outlet for my creativity, which might make me feel less villainous, so maybe this isn't the best idea. Maybe I'll just do it for the summer.
Maybe I should just avoid carrying umbrellas.
Posted by G at 01:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 19, 2006
Every time I think I get away, they drag me back in!
I own a Mac. I'm the cool, young, hip guy with the amazing, intuitive, well-designed computer. Worship me, as the only thing fashionable about me is my laptop.
I'm also the guy who likes to play games like Civilization IV, or at least, I would like to play. Until two weeks ago, it was only available on PC. Believe me, whenever any male age 20-40 starts telling you that PCs are better than Macs, they are only saying this because they like playing computer games.
After waiting for months, and hearing endlessly from woofy Jimbo and hottie Michael about the wonders of Civ IV, I was almost ready to buy the new Powerbook that can also boot Windows. I would just boot Windows to play games, as I detest everything else about Windows.
Then I heard they were producing a Mac version, and even though I'm lusting after the new Powerbook for many reasons (built-in iSight camera, amazing design, and superfast processor), I knew I could wait another year to purchase a new computer.
I bought the new game, installed it on my laptop, and I discovered my laptop IS TOO SLOW. Damnit, damnit, damnit. Now I have to buy a new computer just to play my game.
My life is full of pain and drama.
Posted by G at 07:51 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
July 18, 2006
Why was I not at this concert?!?
Jake of Scissor Sisters
Originally uploaded by More pics here by Kevin Tachman..
Does everyone know how much I love me some Scissor Sisters?
Posted by G at 03:31 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 15, 2006
Number one reason I almost crapped myself in NJ
Where I grew up, it was called the "Texas Stopsign." A town might not have a McD or BKing, but they always had a Dairy Queen. I loved the foot long chili dogs, the hamburgers, and the desserts. Especially the Peanut Buster Parfait. Hot fudge, peanuts, soft serve ice cream. It is a diabetic coma in a cup.
I was down at the beach town of Cape May last weekend, and I discovered they had a Dairy Queen. I was so excited, but I really should have planned better. Everyone else had eaten lunch, but I hadn't eaten in hours. I ordered a chili dog and a Peanut Buster Parfait. Everyone also ordered a dessert, and it was really cute, because our friend J. had never eaten at DQ before.
I have to say that the hot dog lasted for a delicious 5 seconds. I seriously wolfed it down. I then attacked the parfait, getting down to the quease inducing final layer of fudgy wrongness at the bottom.
By the time we got back to the beachhouse, my stomach was staging a coup. I guess I didn't realize that my DQ immune system had not had a booster shot in some time, and I was going to pay the price- for the rest of the day.
Of course I still want another. Fortunately/unfortunately for me, there are no DQ's in NYC. I'm already dreaming of another roadtrip.
Posted by G at 06:23 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack
July 13, 2006
I was also born in 1920, then died in 1989.
This is the creepiest thing.
I was reading JoeMyGod's entry on new drug names, and then read Homer's casually grim comment.
Social Security Death Index? I can find other people in American history with my name, as long as they are dead?
Grim AND fun! Like peanut butter and chocolate!
Posted by G at 06:27 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 12, 2006
Who wants a priddy widdy monster of the deep??
I finally got a flickr account. Wanna see a picture of Derrick's 'lighthouse'? Owm chicka powmaow.
Monster of the Deep
Posted by G at 10:33 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 11, 2006
Traveling
Work during the summer is so hectic. I will NEVER do it again. I'm one of the main organizers at my old school, and I actually got a blister on my foot from running around the non-air conditioned building today.
Note to my teachers: When I ask you if you have all your materials, please actually LOOK at your materials before you say yes. I had to return the extra materials to the region, so the day after returning all the extra materials is not a good day to tell me you don't have transparencies. Also, please don't ask me to get you another teacher's edition when you let a student steal your copy.
I don't work on Fridays, so I can do 3 day trips until August 9. I want to go to the mountains, back down to the beach, maybe down to DC. I'm also planning on doing a multi-city trip after August 15th, maybe San Fran by myself, then down to Houston later with Derrick. He's never been to the south, zod bless him. He'll truly understand gravy for the first time in his life.
I thought about AZ, but I'd have to see secondary relatives, and that is definitely not my idea of a vacation. It's about all I can do to call my Grandma regularly, as I'm not supposed to be gay. Hmm, 35, hasn't mentioned girls in a long time, living in NYC. Hello?
This summer school thing is gonna kill me. Somebody buy me a beer.
Posted by G at 08:00 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
MP3 Experiment
I've had a lot of people asking about the Improv Experiment thing, and here is a fairly detailed summary. It was a lot of fun, and I'm totally doing the next one.
Posted by G at 04:33 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 10, 2006
Thank zod for fat people in NJ
Summer school sucks. I got through last week with the wonderful lure of Cape May in NJ. Our friends invited us again this year to travel down there, and we left on Thursday night.
I was feeling quite anxious because I'm in the worst shape I've been in years, possibly since my straight days. To say that I'm self conscious would be an understatement.
Once I got there, I realized I would be okay being flabby, as MOSTLY EVERYONE IN CAPE MAY IS STRAIGHT AND SERIOUSLY FAT. My friends are in shape, Derrick is in shape, and EVERYONE ELSE WAS SERIOUSLY FAT.
I was totally happy ripping my shirt off. Now I'm just seriously burned.
Pics? Tomorrow.
Posted by G at 09:21 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 05, 2006
Bad knees
Blowjobs will be so much easier for me in the future.
Posted by G at 08:16 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 03, 2006
One whole year with the one I lurve
Leave me alone I'm lonely
Alone I'm lonely
I'm tired
Leave me alone I'm lonely
Alone I'm lonely tonight
Go away
Come back
Why can't I just have it both ways
Go away
Come back
I wish you knew the difference
Give me a chance to miss you
Say goodbye
It'll make me want to kiss you
I love you so
Pink, from her latest album (which I really like)
Derrick and I have been living together for exactly a year. For those who don't have a calendar in front of them, that has been ONE WHOLE YEAR of him knowing I make an apparent disgusting noise while I chew. Other than that, I'm perfect, as even my prolific farting only makes the plants grow prettier. Of course, I know that as soon as it is broiling hot in the bedroom, he'll want to cuddle, pushing his hot furry body next to my horrified limbs. He also doesn't eat meat, my dog loves him more than me, he kills any plants in his study, and he never really appreciates cars. I'm going to turn him in for abuse.
So this is love, cohabitation, and commitment. They never mentioned in the pamphlet the ENDLESS HOURS of sheer proximity. It makes me crazy! Zods! Get out!
Oh. Derrick left me alone in the house for a few hours, just like I requested. Where's my boyfriend? I miss him. I love him so. Where are my socks? Where's dinner? There's nothing to eat that doesn't require cooking. The couch seem so large and lonely when he isn't hogging half of it. Who is going to listen to my bad puns and laugh? The dog isn't finding my farting so amusing. I want to cuddle....
Yup. One year. It's a miracle he hasn't left me yet.
Posted by G at 08:21 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
My very smart boyf opines on the 'mos and 'tians
He actually wrote in my comments, which he never does. I felt it a shame not to include it in my hard to read comments section. Here it is:
I hestitate to add to this discussion as it seems to be turning into a not very fruitful one, filled as it is with recrimination, projection, and generalizations in response to Glenn's attempts to thread his way through the labyrinth of religion in America. But Andy's recent claims that only Evangelicals are closed minded vis-a-vis Christianity, while all other religious sects under this broad banner are not so much (a wild generalization, if ever there was one) needs to be, as he suggests, "deconstructed" (the philosopher in me has many problems with this use of a very specific term).
I can only do it by use of a little story, maybe even a parable, from my teaching experience. I teach a course on the masterpieces of western literature in an Ivy League university and we do study scripture, both Jewish and Christian. This university attracts liberal students from all denominations, races, creeds, genders (but not classes--a whole other story!). Every time I have taught scripture, particularly the gospels, the Christian students are--and I am putting it mildly--reactive. They insist that, individually, they know what this text means (and only their reading has validity), that students of other creeds (or, I suppose no creed at all) cannot comment on this text. I had one student raised by parents who lived in Communist China--a totally secular family--and she had never read any scripture at all, and had little exposure to people of any faith. Her assessment was that the books we read were deeply illogical, uninteresting, and filled with stultifying prose (on all these points I think she lacks nuance). But so what if she dismisses a text that others find edifying? I love reading scripture and I didn't take it personally, although later I did ask her to bring up one point of contradiction so we could examine it as a class. Before I could do that, numerous Christian students very loudly denounced her, telling her she had no right to comment on this text as she was an alien to the faith, a reaction that defeated any notion of sharing opposing viewpoints. Not once did the Christian students pause when condemning Greek literature, like the "Hymn to Demeter," an explicitly religious text, that they found alien, uninteresting, or unengaging. It was hard for these students when I pointed out this obvious instance of hypocrisy on their part.
In another class, when a reading of Luke's gospel was not going the way one student wished, she began to loudly repeat over and over, "You just need to have faith," "You just need to have faith." Now, everyone reading this likely thinks these students were extremists, even fundamentalists. But they weren't. I knew all the students involved and I can say that they thought of themselves as open-minded, politically liberal, and knowledgeable of other faith traditions. It is worth noting that they were both Catholics and Protestants.
Obviously, their reactions to readers "not of the faith" created a teaching challenge for me (which I solved and continue to solve each time I teach scripture, something I love to do). Regardless, what I found most fascinating is that these normally very generous and open people rapidly hardened when faith became a question. Christianity was not an idea, or a system of beliefs, but an object, one they possessed; it was their property and for anyone to stray on it without permission could only be construed as criminal.
Lest anyone think my characterization is histrionic, let me affirm: these students often raised their voices, often repeated that it is faith and only faith over and over not to prove a point but to show that they no longer would listen to anyone else. And it was always behavior out of character. I found that most Christian students--of all sects--found it very difficult to be in a room in which their faith was subject to any kind of analysis, let alone outright criticism. Most of these students became "intolerant, paranoid, anti-intellectual, and ideological" when it was time to look at the texts that were the core of their religious belief system. But, that makes sense when I appreciated that their belief system was the dominant one, affirmed for them in many ways, both public and private.
What difference if Homer or anyone else thinks that the Judeo-Christian texts are simply a bunch of rule books? (To be clear, I don't know what of the Judeo-Chrisian texts Homer has read.) At worst, he could be judged as ignorant of their content, but is ignorance the same as "disdain"? If someone is not intimately acquainted with the details of certain books, has not ruminated over their meaning (and may not want to at all), then does that mean that he or she "disdains" those books? I don't think so.
Now, I am not doing justice to my students, of many faiths and no faith, who read these texts in new ways, challenging their own beliefs and finding truths. Sometimes, this did happen. Sometimes, Jewish students would work with Christian students, showing the Christian students how to translate the Hebrew of "Genesis" into English, demonstrating how difficult translating texts is and that no text is ever a perfect translation: words have many meanings and sometimes words resist transport to another language entirely. A lot of exciting readings came out of these classes and many of the Christian students taught me much about their different sects' strategy of reading certain texts.
In my opinion, no one needs to be circumspect in debating and discussing any faith; errors should be challenged with evidence, stories should be shared, differences should be honored, no matter how painful they might be to paricipants. If we are all to be so circumspect, then no one will learn, differences will not be aired, and change, for all involved, will not be possible. And without change, without growth, human life, in my mind, would be greatly impoverished.
Posted by G at 07:52 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
July 02, 2006
Trouble with 'mos and 'tians
Ahhh, the wonderful devolution of discussion when religion is a topic. I've occasionally made the mistake of not adding the simple adjectives "some" or "many" when discussing conservative religious types, and my genuinely nice religious friends or family take umbrage.
Homer should have used "some," but he also didn't use "all." Being from Texas, I know MANY religious people who assume that not only are atheists going to hell, but so are Catholics, Buddhists, and Muslims; so Homer definitely has a point. Remember, in Texas, the Southern Baptists specifically split from the Baptists because they supported slavery and didn't renounce it until 1995. Yep, many religious people in the south can be viewed as conservative.
Andy is also one of those religious guys that I respect, because his faith seems fairly true to the beneficial aspects of the Bible. He recognizes that there are contradictions, but like many of my religious friends, feels personally attacked when negative comments occur. I also know he, and many others like him, are vocal in support of liberal values and positive change.
Here's my idea. Whenever I'm venting about religious people who spout hate and I forget to mention the exact groups or statistics, I am actually going to mention this fascinating website's stats:
Among Americans generally, 45% agreed that homosexuality is acceptable; 46% said it is unacceptable. Since the margin of error is 3%, this is a statistical dead-heat.
Among Born-again Christians: the numbers were 27% acceptable and 66% unacceptable.
Among Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Christians, they were 2% and 95%.
By inference, a significant majority of Americans who are neither born-again nor Evangelicals agree that homosexuality is acceptable.
When someone says they belong to a group, and the majority of the group believes something, you will often be lumped into that group. Tough luck on that, sorry. If you don't like being lumped with a group's majority that outnumbers you two to one, either get much more vocal or make a new group, like the lovely Canadians and their loving, supportive Unitarian Universalists, the United Church of Christ, and the United Church of Canada. If you already are a member, good for you.
However, if you belong to this "silent minority" then you also get to be silent when I rant. If you want to speak up, do it in your church. If you're a gay man who goes for the sense of belonging, yet belong in a church that won't accept your orientation, it's time to speak up or get out. If you're a silent listener of some idealogue who is responsible for the rising rate of hate crimes, it's time to speak up.
I seriously respect everyone's quest for a belief system, and you should respect my right to question those systems. I've actually lived in more religious systems than most other people, and I'm still looking. Faith is meant to be questioned. Anything else is blind adherence.
Posted by G at 09:59 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack