Back the fuck up

I might be on my next peak again. I’m all like, ‘here it comes!’ and I’m all hyper and shit. Oh well. Things are a little bit better. I have no food money to speak of. Late night trips to Sam’s Place have depleted whatever cash/dining dollars I have left in my account. But I have been working out a lot, doing what I can, when I can, whatever I can to keep from busting people in the mouth and stuff like that. It’s pretty tempting. The idea of a law student and a political science major hobknobbing together at the SU is infuriating. There’s also a bit of controversy concerning ‘Shit-storm’, or ‘Deconstructionist Tornado of Knowledge’, which all the ingenous Republicans think is a rip on the President. Personally, I don’t care much for both sides of the argument. Politics suck. Art that answers political opinion sucks. Funding disparities between the two suck immensely. I forwent (is that a word?) registering to vote. Fuck voting; it’s pretty unlikely that my little unqualified opinion matters. So I’m leaving it at that. Doug says he’s going to help me work on that. I don’t know; it seems everywhere I’m being seduced by political opinion. It’s fucking stupid. The only thing I care about is if America is physically present here tomorrow so I can go to class. I don’t want to join the Student Republicans. It’s one of the reasons I’m in therapy, really, so I can get over the feelings of disenfranchisement and utter hatred. Not to mention the anger. On both sides. Both sides want too much. They never agree, only when something horrible happens. I remember something to the effect (I’m not sure whether Eric told me this once) that in the end it’s not what you think, it’s what they think of you. Matt told me not to think that all white folks are out to get me. I know that (had a white boyfriend, prefer white men over my own kind), but he hasn’t lived a life where white folks seem to deprive you of everything, then go ahead and tell other white folks that you’re out only for a handout. So you move. And you do unseemly tasks. And you get called bad names for it.

People finally realize what I need. I just need to not be fucked around with anymore. I’m tired of being played with politically, emotionally. I’m setting up the fuckin’ traffic cones ’cause we’re gonna have a real muthafuckin’ crash experience here. Yes, I’m not angry, but not in the ways I perhaps used to be. Now, it’s a little more with foresight involved, instead of just unremitting anger towards anything else. I’m mad because I want change. Good things to come about. I don’t want to feel like this is getting me down all the time, fucking up my relationships. Hell, that’s why I’m in therapy in the first place. So to the rest of the world, back the fuck up. I’m coming out swinging and who knows what’s gonna happen. Only now, I’m the master and everyone else is the slave, and no one–NO ONE–is going to make me feel insecure, unhappy, or otherwise generally miserable. It’s not a “No more Mr. Nice Guy” thing anymore–Isaac told me to leave that bullshit behind. I’ve been nice to everyone. Now it’s time for some real fucking stuff right now. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore. It’s not anything useful anymore. So I’m just going to stop caring, about useless, things, that is. I still care about the guys in my life, but I’m not going to let everyone come down on me for it.

Getting Help

I had a nervous breakdown Thursday morning and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had stayed up the entire night, ate ALOT of candy, played video games, and otherwise stoked the fires of bitterness that had been kindled by this place. At around seven that morning, I went back up, put my clothes on, and walked all the way to Stangel-Murdough for no apparent reason. I was so angry and so terribly sad and so terribly embittered. I got fed up with a lot of things. I got fed up at people’s fucking ignorance. I got fed up with worrying about Michael and Doug and about the very real possibility that I could have lost the both of them. Doug said, ‘You have to stop worrying about me.’ I said, ‘I care about you. I don’t want to see you sick.’ Michael threatened to kill himself. I keep on telling him that life is worth living; that it isn’t worth it to throw it away over some stupid boy who can’t make up his mind and get his shit together. I tired of getting fucked around with my emotions and doing the same to people. Jim, Eric, everyone. I lost one and kept one. They both reacted differently to various situations in which I made up things to make myself look better. In one case Jim told me that ‘I needed serious psychological assistance.’ So with that in mind, and going crazy, Nate pops up and tells me that he misses me and that he hasn’t been able to talk and he demands to know who Doug is and how he suddenly came into my life. I am a maniac with him. I make all these half-assed contradictions and attacks on the poor guy to make him think that he really doesn’t love me. So he says he’s too busy for this, that he’s the Student Body president at Pan Am and doesn’t have to deal with this. But he says he ’still doesn’t’ hate me. I couldn’t take all these pressures. The mistakes. The anger. The isolation. The immense feeling of detachment from what might otherwise be the most important relationship I may ever have. I went all the way to Stangel-Murdough for nothing and returned in panic. It was a fresh morning. I saw something bright and gleaming in the sky–maybe it was the Space Station, or something–but it glid across the sky in a most disturbing fashion.

I took an hour to jack off and get the nerve off. TJ woke up and was gone by then. I saw the sunrise. Then I washed my hands discreetly and walked next door to West Hall, nervous and not expecting anything. I dressed in the finest clothes I had–my suede shirt and blue jeans–and went to this haven on the second floor, with its ebony furniture and fountains, and its keychains. A very nice lady gave me an intake request packet to fill out, which I did, and then I gave it back to her. I waited for about fifteen minutes, until the psychiatrist could come and take me in right away for an evaluation. I could gauge the hopelessness, the unending anger, the bitterness. I knew it was just there, waiting to come out. When the woman came out and introduced, I almost fell in a faint. I didn’t know what to think. I was shaking. I was nervous but for no apparent reason. I didn’t know how to gauge the situation in rational terms. All I knew is that things were flying out of control; I thought I was going to lose it.

So we went to her office and it was so colorful; half the wall was beige and the other wall was purple, and all over there were wind chimes and stuffed animals and garden accessories, which made the place look homey and comforting. I wanted to weep when I walked in. It reminded me of Mother. I sat down in the chair and humoured the doctor by saying I had never been in therapy before. Then, she asked me what was wrong, and I broke down. All I could say was, ‘I can’t…’ and then said, ‘I feel so awful.’ And that was how I felt. I know that I could not have said it any other way, since basically that was wrong with me. Everything had come back to get me, from Jim to Michael to Eric to Ernie to Roy to Doug, everything. It was so embarassing, but as soon as I began talking about my problems, things were considerably better.

It took about an hour. She told me to go home and rest and try not to think about things. She said she would call to arrange an appointment and then would see where we could fit me in. Last night I slept like I hadn’t slept in years. Yesterday morning I woke up and felt so at peace, but I could still feel the residuality of the pain. It was still there, but I told myself that that wouldn’t be a problem, and everything would be just fine. There was no need to fear it anymore, since it could be properly treated, and my heart reveled in the prospect of happiness, at last, without the desperation, without the need for selling out body and soul in persuit of something considerably lesser than myself.

I’m conflicted. I’m not moving saints for anyone. There are about six or seven guys who are interested in me, but I’m settling with one. I shan’t say his name, since it’s not important. He knows who he is. When I go back home, we’ll be together, and that’s all that will matter. We’ll get married. We’ll have kids. I want to settle down. No need to search needlessly for love. I realize it’s been staring back at me in the face for all this time. I know so.

Went to the doctor today. Checked my ears, which had been given me some trouble, but most likely was caused by the breakdown. He found no obstructions; said it could be internal. He gave me a dietary plan, told me to come back to take a blood test, which I’m terrified of. Anyway, if I die it won’t matter. I have the man I love at my right hand and happiness at my left. I don’t know what I’ve got. I hope I don’t freak out. I know inevitably I will. I’ve made some bad life choices. This is how I’m coping with it, unfortunately.

The only thing is I wish the men that are in my life would take me more seriously. That’s what’s bothering me.

Hispanic Heritage Month

My sometime friends from México celebrated Diez y seis in their own unique way and I did to some effect to. Most of the time I take for granted that I’m Hispanic, but I relish in the thought that I’m one of few attending this college who is completely Hispanic, in the presence of white folks. I feel somewhat ashamed to have thought for most of this time that I would have to assimilate to the language, for I do feel like I’ve sold out to the masses here. Being at the whitest school in North Texas is something I’m not proud of, but I think being being the token Hispanic on the floor (next to the guys down my hall) is something sweet and irregular. The other day I talked to two Spanish girls from Sevilla and they were surprised that I could speak Spanish. I was contented at the fact that I could speak to them in such a wonderful tongue, that no one else could speak to them except for me.

Anyway, I know what I have come here for not only lies in what I must do; it lies in what I must do for my people. I know I’m making my Mom proud and everyone else at home very happy that I’m going to this school. I know it’s tough right now, but I’m going to make it. I’m going to have this dream before me and just keep on doing the best I can. I’m going to atone tonight for my sins and ask God to help me find a job, and to make everyone at home proud of what I’m doing. I’m reminded of that passage in Shaw’s Pygmalion in which Professor Higgins asks Eliza Doolittle to realize what she’s trying to accomplish. I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself lately that I’m not realizing how lucky I am being here; how people like me don’t have the opportunities I have been given. This realization makes me want to praise God, and I know I haven’t done that since I said the Te Deum when I first arrived at the dorm. So I think I’ll do that.

I found this great site profiling Ancient Greek music–whatever’s left of it, anyway–and it sounds so creepy when you listen to it first. It’s almost like there are these ghosts of a music, almost. It’s pretty fragmentary, but beautiful to think that such an advanced people left such a wide body of music, much of it lost to the ages. I would think that the instrumentation wouldn’t have much variations, since most of it sounds like drones. It’s also interesting since there are many variations of tuning–one in enharmonic scale and most others in styles that sound strange to the modern ear. Harry Partch revisited ancient Greek scales in his twelve intrusions, and sad to say I think Jesus might have heard this music and wondered how it was done. The Greeks were pretty technical, and their system of just intonation is so exact that I’m amazed to find the notes in the notes, an infinitesimal amount of them. I remember when I was fifteen or so and hearing something on NPR very akin to the music I’m listening to right now. It was early Christian women’s chanting–a three or four part canon of a Kyrie, and it sounded nothing like the Arabic/Ionian mode system of tuning or anything like that. It was eeriely beautiful. What intrigues me about the ancient world is that there really isn’t much of a difference between us and them. Perhaps they even had more of an understanding of each other and the world more than we do now. Maybe there was a real Golden Age.

I find this interesting and guilt-arousing, since I missed Greek class for the last two sessions. I hate myself for not going, but I keep on going to bed pretty late. Actually, I’m thinking of changing my major to Classical Studies, so I’ll ceratainly keep that in mind when I show up for classes.

Anyway, that’ll vut it for now. I’m going to listen to “In C” again now.

55

I love you Douggie–

I miss my childhood

These goddamn kids…they don’t what they’re missing.

Changes

I finally unjammed the 3 1/2 inch floppy disk containing my short works from TJ’s computer last night. I removed them from the disk downstairs in the computer lab, somewhere around five in the morning, copied it to CD-ROM back upstairs, and then sighed. The works are now safe on a cleaner, choicer medium of storage, making it possible for them to be concise until I can send them off to the publishers.

Anyway, I guess that’s the way it is. I haven’t written since I left Harlingen. I remember writing a couple of days before we left. It sucks, since I’ve had some great ideas since my move to Lubbock. Thanks to some input from Duane, I have a lot of reediting to do. I don’t know, I’m considering abandoning that work, too. I might even abandon writing altogether. I just don’t know what might happen.

I’ve not been to class in about a week. Fuck you, Jim Shead. Last time I take your advice.

Chris slept with a 42-year old woman. Matt Townsend is having problem converting Mattie my CA. Sean and Mark, who live together across from Chris and Matt, had a push fight last night over a bicycle. It’s so funny since they’re kids, and they find such trivial things to fight over. I remember fighting with people over that.

I’m depressed and heartbroken, and I won’t even say why. I just left a good relationship and have entered into the best one ever. I think I’ve found the one. I think Eric doesn’t take me seriously. I have image problems. I need to cut my hair. My dandruff sucks right now. I’m scared that I’ve made a huge mistake. I bought a toy kaleidoscope. I made an Aeolian Harp. I think TJ hates me because I’m gay. I don’t have any books or supplies. I got dropped from my classes at SPC. I’m sure my English teacher hates me because I’m Hispanic.

I’m dying in this town. I’m quitting school. I want to go back home. It’s not working out the way it should. I’m too in love to care. I want to die. I want to go back home to Harlingen. I’m not being respected. I’m not heard. I’m forced to clean up the room and put up with other people’s bullshit. I’m wondering if I’m not being led along by some of the guys in far away places. I gave the ring back to Mikey and cancelled the wedding. For now, at least.

I quit my job at KTXT. It interfered with class too much; they said I wasn’t ‘mainstream’ enough. I’m a loner. I’ve finally become the object of people’s otracizing. I have been forced out of the city, bags and all and have been told to walk. I’m confused. I’m not sure where to go from here. I owe so much money and time to the government. I’m going to kill myself one of these days.

Everyone turns to me for moral support and gives little in return.

I am 20. I have tired of people coming in and out of my life. Will someone please stay for a while? Drugs are tempting right now. I found a dealer who will give me a dime. I want to smoke again. I want to feel William on me again. I want to smell his cigarette tinged breath and feel his warm masses around me. I wish Javier and I could talk. I’m sick and fucking tired of having kids all around me. I’m a late bloomer, as always, and am staying out for the evening rain. I want someone older to talk to. I want to fuck. I want to fall in love with Doug. I’m thinking of ending it altogether.

I miss my childhood

I want a kaleidoscope!

Passages

Night passes on slowly. I’m so not tired. I had some fun tonight. My good closeted formerly queer friend Chris was standing out as I was going to go throw away a cup of something that I had taken from the Sam’s Place in the dining hall. So we talked for a while and then his friend video artist Travis comes and makes converation with us. So we talk and stuff, and then later this really tall cutie kid named Mark invites us all in. They all know my name and everyone seems to know me somehow. It’s nice. Mark invites me into his dorm and we all watch television together–and everyone’s begging for porn–and it’s so funny, anyway, since I make it known to everyone that I’m gay and such–and we’re talking–and we begin to talk about sex; it’s so funny. They gave me some alchohol and I’m okay, but everyone is fascinated with me. It’s not really anything…I guess these boys just like to know how to please their partner, I guess. Anyway the party winds down and there’s nothing to do so this dude Chris and I get into this long discussion about morality and homosexuality, and then tells me that he’s done ‘alot of crazy shit’; that he’s been in relationships with guys back at some campy theatre arts camp, and that he’s done drugs and sucked cock but he’s all right with the Lord and things like that. Of course I defended my position and my relationship with Mikey, but seriously I don’t understand. Tech has to be the most conservative college ever. I mean this dude wears fuckin’ cardigans and doesn’t get a single condescending look, while something as simple as talkig to Michael C. on the telephone gets me in the social blacklist. TJ’s fucking stupid if he thinks I’m gonna put up with his asinine discrimination policies. I’ve even stopped using his computer completely and won’t touch it because I’m not in agreement with his policies concerning whom can come into my room and who can’t. It’s fucking ridiculous. Frat boys can suck my big thick nine-inch gay cock. Frats are like paying for friends. They’re the most elitest way of exerting social domination over others. It’s fucking sick. Thank G-d I didn’t do Sigma Pi. Anyway, I’m pretty lonely for now. Duane is off on a business trip; Claude won’t call me at all, citing that he’s busy and stuff like that (and I don’t blame him), Mikey’s working and doing the best he can for all of us. Michael C. came back into my life and I’m determined this time to make it work. He popped up in my window and said if we could talk and I didn’t know what to feel. Of course, Michael and I had parted ways when I couldn’t get him the money I needed, and he told me later on it was because it was my ‘cockiness’ that he didn’t like, which I guess was true–and anyway we made up, and he needed someone to talk to, and he cried, like I cried to him once, but this time it was really something, since I knew automatically something had gone horribly wrong with him. And I stayed with him till something like five in the morning begging him not to kill himself, saying that he was important to Dylan, to me, to everyone else. I think at one point I told him I loved him, and I’m not sure why I said it, but I honestly seriously feel like through all of the things we’ve said to one another that I still care for him. I feel like a jackass for having blown that one chance to get to know one another better. It’s a terrible reminder that I have to be honest with everything. I guess that’s still one of the major hurdles to overcome–that I still have to be here–that I have to tell myself that I’m so much more than what I used to be–and that everything is still going to be okay– Anyway I gave Michael some advice, and I think him and Dylan are going to work it out. He quit his job, which he said was giving him some problems emotionally, and seriously making him depressed. One of the great lessons my mother taught me is that if you sit and stew and think constantly of bad things, you will never be what you intended on being…so that’s what it is with Michael. I know we’ll proally never really know each other outside of this medium, but still it’s nice to know that we’re back to being friends–not the creepy ‘call me every night’ kind of friend, not the ‘I hate you I can’t even talk to you anymore’ friend–but just friends, people who still remember one another but are never seriously close, or even would like to be. I guess Matt and I are headed that way. Or maybe we’ve been there all along. Anyway, I can’t help still feeling some residual regret for lying to Michael. It’s proally one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. I was *this close* to being in Dylan’s position, but because of one little white lie it cost me his trust and his friendship. I feel like such a fuck-up; I feel like everything I’ve done is fucked-up. I mean I don’t love Michael the way Dylan does–I’ll never be that lucky–but it does make me somewhat sad to think that I’ve just gone ahead and ruined everything we’ve had for something like looking better or smarter than he is. I guess it’s like Brittany once told me ‘why do boys have to lie?’ and I felt like she had real candor in saying that. I don’t think I’ll seriously forgive myself ever for just spurning Michael with that lie, or all the others, or fighting with him, because he needed a friend, not someone who was going to be jealous of him all the time. It’s a terrible thing to think that you’re better than a person based on your talents or anything else for that matter; you don’t know a person like they know themselves. Perhaps in another life I can finally let Michael know how I feel about him and get it right this time; but for the moment I seriously feel like I’ve thrown away the best thing ever. I want us to be distant friends–people we can turn to–but nothing like before, where we could tell each other anything. I don’t think that’s a very wise decision. It’s not that I don’t trust Michael; it’s just that I don’t want to endanger the fragile balance we have right now. So I think it’s okay if we talk to each other now and then, never really all the time since I know he’s always busy. He’s going to marry Dylan sometime in the future, as will Mikey and myself, G-d willing. In the back of my mind I know it’s not going to happen though, and I have reservations about myself and Mikey actually being a feasible thing. I love him too much to let him go, but at the same time I feel like we’ve lost something, that everything is going wrong, that nothing is worth fighting for anymore. I miss having him hold me tightly and making plans with him when I used to sleep over at his place, I miss having him take showers with me, I miss having him go with walks with me, I miss kissing him in public, I miss holding him in front of our friends. I guess it happens though, when the honeymoon days are over, when all the passion and high emotions are packed away into the chest of forgotten memories, when you’re all settled in and the trousseau has been carefully stored in the closet. He’s spent so much money on me already; I’m wearing this ring that represents us, I’m acting like the perfect partner. What could I be doing wrong? Why won’t he take interest in me anymore? Oh, well. I’m considering abandoning alot of things right now: writing music, writing poetry, writing altogether, this relationship, college, civilian life. Maybe I should have entered the Corps, like Isaac had wanted. I have made so many mistakes. Michael C., college, and this thing are all staring in my face and mocking me right now. I owe too much to people in general. I can’t understand where their indebtedness to me and where my indebtedness to them lies. It’s scary. I hate being this way. I just want to have freedom from…well, from everything, really. Like getting in the car and just driving away, driving back home to California, driving to New York City, driving to Washington DC, driving to the Cascades in Oregon and to Lou Harrison’s house and to John Cage’s apartment. I’m scared. I don’t want to make any more mistakes that are going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I just want to live honestly and not have anything to do with people that are just going to complicate things for me. It’s the end of something, really. I guess I have to let go of the people that no longer want to talk to me or those that depend on me for so much. I miss having Sarge tell me that I’m an okay kid; I like hearing Duane and Claude telling me that all the time. I’m not really depressed, I’m just reconsidering things at the moment. Maybe I’ll pull through, after all, maybe I won’t. The thing is not to make huge mistakes like me and Michael. Every time I look at his pictures it kills me to think that someone this beautiful with so many talents is no longer something I can have anymore, that I’m just going to have to pull through life without him, that for the rest of my life all of my relationships will have to compete with this something-that-might-have-been. He’s so wonderful. Truly one of a kind. My greatest source of literary inspiration, a muse of sorts. To lose him would make life purposeless. It would be so tragic if he killed himself; the world would lose one of the greatest and most genuine people ever and I would no longer value Creation as noble or as beautiful as I once did. To lose Michael (both of them) would be like losing a part of myself. If I can’t write now, what will happen when they go away? I would burn everything, all the compositions, the stories, the poems. My work would die with them, as an everlasting protest to the inhumanity of humanity. I am so full of regret now. I know he’s forgiven me for having lied to him, but I will have to stare down this for the rest of my life and say to myself, ‘now see what has become of what was once great.’ Michael Casey was the greatest thing for me. He was the most opposite and personable person I could have known. If I hadn’t lied, and nothing like this would have happened, I would have been free to persue this. But life is strange. It’s hard. Who the fuck knows what G-d wants? I don’t think I feel like crying, but I feel like doing so. It’s silly to think that people you don’t know personally can be your friends. And then you look like such a fool when they don’t take an interest in you at all. I should stop talking to people altogether online. I have forced others to accept me when there’s nothing to accept. Other people don’t talk about me online anymore, what’s the point? Maybe I should abandon these dreams of acquiring disciples and drawing them to myself. Already I can tell Matt has grown tired of me and my endless complaining. He talks to Mikey more than he does to me. They are really made for each other, I can tell. He talks so much about how sweet Matt is, how he would like to meet him in person. I don’t know what to think. I had a dream about my dog Lulu last night, and I was so happy to see her again. It pains me every time to think that we just threw her away, that because of my family’s endless complaining that she was sent to the dogpound. I loved her with every ounce of love you could possibly give to another living creature. I miss playing with her and taking her for walks and having so much to do with her, I miss having the puppies around and taking care of them. I haven’t really forgiven Mom for that, but I’m sure the dogs are happy where they are, in God’s kingdom. I miss having someone to talk to, someone who loves me unconditionally without having to put up with  my bullshit, or with the lies, or with the endless complaining. I guess Lulu was the only thing that could give me that love, and in her own silent way she did the best she could. We made that stupid mistake of appeasing everyone by getting rid of her. I loved that dog with every fibre of my body and I will always continue to, until the day we are reunited at last in God’s everlasting kingdom, where no doubt everyone else I’ve ever loved will be there, at peace, like Mikey and Michael, and John Cage and Steve Reich and Gustave Flaubert and Virginia Woolf and Duane and Claude. I miss home so much. I miss being around people I know and love and who know me and love me in return. It’s just that forgiveness is so hard to reach right now, it’s so stupidly easy but I can’t find someone who can give it to me, other than G-d Himself. I’m tired of making the mistakes, of being completely useless, and to have people hate me or not trust me anymore as a result of them. I mean first it was Michael then it was Jim then it was Eric and look how much I’ve fucked up now. It’s so stupid. Is my life one huge mistake?

fuckin’ hilarious shit

This link will take you to one of the most laughable things I’ve ever seen on the Internet. Read it for yourself–see if it doesn’t make you laugh, too.

http://www.therefinersfire.org/days_months.htm

No doubt this is something Anti-Catholic, too.

happy birthday, john cage (1912-92)

(silence)