branwellian

Like a lot of people, I'm starting to have a problem with party divisions. It seems you either love them or hate them these days. I'll probably end up writing a paper on it sometime. Anyway, people are just getting more and more extreme, and it makes me sick. It works both ways, too. I stare at Fox News in total horror (unbiased journalism, anyone?), but on the other hand, there are the same kind of shows for liberals (if not the "liberal media") and there are books on both sides, without naming names. I read an editorial by P.J. O'Rourke this summer in which he was talking about this, and I really had to agree. No one has noble intentions anymore, or if they do, they don't show them. It's just ugly insults and shouts until you can't hear anything else.

It's enough to make me want to call myself an independent. Except then I would get lumped together with the undecided voters, and that's a face worse than death. Talk about flip-flopping.

The days are getting shorter and I have the post-election blues. People in my classes are angry and even less prone to keep their mouths shut than usual. If it's not the liberals complaining about Bush, it's conservatives complaining about how the liberals are complaining or a third party complaining about complaining in general. Just shut the fuck up, all of you, and let me suffer in peace.

I feel incredibly tired when I think about the next four years. It's not even Bush, it's my fellow Americans. They chose him this time. And what I did, trying to change their minds or at least make them look and listen, didn't accomplish jack shit in the end. Narrow margins all over this land. I'm tired of everything being a struggle.

Of course, it all comes back to gay marriage too. Eleven states. My state. That's fucked up. I thought living on a coast counted for something these days. Not that I care in a personal sense, not that I would make that choice, but I increasingly think I would like the choice. I still ignore angry screaming protesters, though. They don't know I have anything to do with this, and I don't care. They still embarrass me.

I swear to God, the world these days. I didn't have W. I'd start some heavy drinking.

I haven't updated in awhile. Sue me, I was actually doing stuff. I do have to make a living, and in summer I take what hours I can get. At this time of night I have nothing to do, though, except sleep. And it doesn't look like that's happening tonight. Too much coffee or something. I think I might have something on my mind, but I don't know what it is.

I was thinking that recently Wolfe met one of his old friends when we were in town and they went out together. It worried me. I'm sure that sounds like I'm a total condescending bastard, but no, I'm just a concerned boyfriend. We live in a city, and W.'s younger than me, and I just worry. There's no sense in it I guess, because he's been through a hell of a lot more than I have, it's not like he isn't strong in every sense of the word, but I just wanted him to go home with me.

Yeah, I could've gone with. He even invited me. But I really didn't feel like having to be explained to his friends, and I'm not a hugely social person anyway. I'm sure you're surprised to know that. I have to deal with people all day, so I'm not so keen on spending my free time with them other than the ones I already know I like. That would be Wolfe, and some days my friend S., who understands my occasional hatred of everything like he doesn't. S. is a girl, by the way. A woman, I suppose, since she's over 18. She says that's why she can afford to be cynical. I don't understand it either.

Anyway, W. and his friends were fine. I just get paranoid, and I don't really know why. There was some point I wanted to make. I think this entry is definitely a symptom of too much coffee.

Fuck. That's why I shouldn't update at 5:00 in the morning.

Disturbingly, this journal is turning out to be about why I don't want to give people their rights. I do. I'm not a conservative, I promise. I'm not going to start waving a Bible at you. But you know, there are rights and there are rights. Your right to pursue happiness shouldn't get too loud and obnoxious and in my way, because that interferes with my right to pursue happiness. That's just my opinion and thank God I can have it.

I think I have the right to walk down the street with W. without getting harrassed for it in any way. I realize that if certain things happened the legal situation could get complicated because we're not married. But I think that may have more to do with society's (understandable) prejudice toward legally married people. And as I said, I don't believe in the institution much anymore. So yes, we should have equal rights, but we don't need so much fanfare and TV coverage. I personally would be happy with signing a little piece of paper that eliminated those legal difficulties, and I really don't care if my family knows or what it's officially called.

I think my reaction to the idea, deep down, is still "gross." I suppose I would feel differently if I'd been discriminated against or had to fear violence, if I felt like I had to be out to the entire world because that was part of who I was. I know there are still people who do have to feel that, and I don't want to refuse to acknowledge their legitimate concern and suffering. What if that was me? I can't answer that. I do want equal rights and protection, obviously, but I don't necessarily believe in the right to pride.

I think that might be it. I don't think people should be allowed to march around without getting questioned. I hate that it's automatically their right because they've been denied others - I can understand that to a point, but I don't think it should have to go on this way. I mean, at some point people just need to go on with their lives.

I'm beginning to feel like a bad person. But hey, look on the bright side. There's no way I would have admitted to being with W., regardless of all that I owe him, last year. I wouldn't have admitted to being gay even anonymously. Maybe this means someday I'll feel okay with wearing pride t-shirts - or at least that I won't feel so deeply bothered when other people wear them.

I just put CNN 2 on. They're having another debate on gay marriage, which seems to be the topic of choice these days. They're even talking about it at work, so I have to go take a coffee break really quick before I incriminate myself. Not that anyone would suspect about W. and me anyway. They probably all think he's my roommate. If they do suspect otherwise, they have the good sense to keep it the fuck to themselves, because quite frankly I can beat them up.

Their opinions aren't that informed. They're usually at the level of "Gross" or "I like rainbows!" I had to do mountains of research on this for high school Student Congress. I remember one memorable time (this was at the end of my senior year, when I was already living with W.) when I introduced a Gay Marriage Bill for my school and it passed almost unanimously. I was shocked, since I'd gone against the grain and based my argument on the Constitution, not some stupid sugary rhetoric.

I'm still not sure what I feel about this, to tell you the truth. Theoretically, marriage is the basis of a stable civilization and all that. But it didn't mean a whole fucking lot to my parents (and sociologists might say that has a lot to do with my current living arrangement, but fuck them), and we also have Vegas, so I don't feel that it means a lot any more. Part of me just wants to tell the gay activists to get over it and be happy they aren't throwing rocks at us. I personally don't want a white wedding, even though I kind of suspect W. would like the idea. But who the hell would we invite? His three friends? My mother? It would be a total joke. I guess it isn't a joke to some people, and they should have the right to live their lives how they want, even if I think it's ridiculous. But I wish they wouldn't make such a spectacle of it, with their flags and their debates on CNN and their fucking marches that obstruct traffic when I'm trying to go to work.

I guess I don't want my life to be automatically political. I don't want people to automatically assume I watch Queer as Folk or want to wear things with itty rainbows on them just because I'm sleeping with W. I hate the term itself, actually, because people assume they know so much about me. To be honest, the fact that I like guys doesn't matter that much to me right now because I'm with one guy, singular. I don't want to go to clubs or hear about your sex life. I do not want to know. Leave me the fuck alone.

Maybe if I flashed a marriage licence at them they'd all go away.

Oh, there's another reason why I'm doing this. I hate psychologists. My mother sent me to one when I was fourteen or so. I figure anyone who wants to listen to people whine about their problems all day is not very smart, and they probably become less so from the very act. I can certainly feel myself getting stupider as I listen to my coworkers. Anyway. This service has several advantages over psychotherapy: it's free, no one has to know about it (especially W.), it doesn't involve talking to a stupid person, and I'm not forcing my concerns on anyone. If some stranger wants to read this, great. If someone wants to give me advice, they can go to it. They can leave when they want, and I can block them and report them to the webmasters the second they get creepy or invasive. Those are the rules, and I can set them myself.

Yes, I'm awake. Curse insomnia.

Things torture me when I lie awake this late. The AIDS crisis. Radioactivity. The Pope. I could go on, but I really don't want this journal to be a place where I just list things that anger and scare me. The worst part is that sometimes he has dreams this late at night. Dreams about... I can't say it, I can't even think it. It's too horrifyingly real, and I'm haunted by the thought that it might come back. It's so ridiculous that he should be here in the first place.

Tomorrow these thoughts won't really go away, but daylight and coffee will convince me that there's some order to the universe, some logic to what I'm doing.

Diets are another thing that seriously annoy me. Especially low-carb dieting, which is the current craze. People just don't understand that no miracle will solve their weight problems; discipline and responsibility is the answer. What's wrong with eating less and doing more? I work out at least five times a week and I enjoy it. Meanwhile, I can't walk two feet in the supermarket without being assaulted with advertisements for low-carb this or that. It makes me sad that people are still falling for that kind of garbage, although no fad diet in history has been proven to work consistently and produce long-term results.

I never thought my life would end up this way. I'm not complaining. This is the happiest year and some I've spent since I was a kid. W. saved my life, no two ways about it, and I wouldn't give him up for the world. In fact I'd give up everything but him.

But sometimes the stigma that comes from being him is extremely hard to deal with. He doesn't get it, and it hurts his feelings, but I can't deny I feel that way. We live in the same city as my mother, and I know she hates it, but I can't leave because of him. It's not my job to deny him his friends. But on the other hand, he knows my mom hates his guts, and I wish he didn't have to deal with that.

He never treats it like a hardship, though. He's willing to take anything. I admire that, but I still can't do it. No matter how hard I try, I still feel ashamed.

The world is full of terrible, senseless things. George W. Bush. Spam. SUVs. Most college students. Bad coffee. Psychologists. Jehovah's Witnesses.

I can't get as angry as I used to over them, though. I have W. (No, I'm not giving his real name.)

Speaking of the election, I went to another Democractic function today. It only served to make me gladder it was Friday. I'll never get used to how much politics involves people. Deep down, I think politics should be about getting people to leave each other, and by extension me, the fuck alone. On one hand, the things that people are allowed to do in America make me sad. However, I'm not really in a position to say that. I guess I'll have to spend my retirement years with the shades down, no newspapers and no TV.

Why am I even writing this? I guess I wanted a place to be opinionated where no one would see me. As important as W. is in my life, there are some things he just doesn't understand and sometimes can't handle. I need a place to get my thoughts out where no one I know will find them.