Best week I've had in a long time....

I miss him... I miss him a lot already. It's a pain of parting I haven't felt in years. There is pain, but at the same time I feel really really good about myself and about our relationship.

Sooooooooo much sex, food and love. It was too short. I feel in love and happy and that pain that comes with being apart. Life is good right now.

I just wish I didn't have to open tomorrow...

Thinking of going to lupaloo 's party, and will be around tomorrow as I have to pick someone up from the airport.  Give me a call :)

Reciprocity, which is another way of saying balance in relationships, is important.  I don't keep a scoreboard, but after a while, if I go to great effort for someone and they don't ever give it back...I notice.  Sometimes I decide that's ok; goodness knows, many of my friends have gone out of their way for me, and I haven't always done as much for that particular person.  What goes around comes around, etc.  I think there's a collective balance; all relationships exist within a matrix of other relationships, after all.  It's sometimes ok to be a bit on one side or another; there is grace in receiving help as well as giving it.

Past a certain point, though, it's not ok any more. 

That goes for courtesy, respect for people's opinions, and similar things as well.  If you expect me to alter my behavior because of some strongly held conviction, sensitivity, or plain old quirk of yours...then I expect the same from you about mine.  If I don't receive it, then pardon me if I don't worry too much about your opinions of how I should act.

I once got up in front of a crowd and made a speech about activism, and specifically the ways it can burn out and go wrong.  In it, I said, "Justice isn't just an abstraction, and neither is compassion.  You can't love humanity and be a jerk to the person in front of you.  Justice starts between you and me."

So mote it be.

Recovery from anything is so much fun. On the same level of fun as slow, unsedated root canals. My addiction of choice, the one thing I actually had to work my ass off to change, was rage. There are still days when someone will mistakenly pull my trigger and I want to lash out physically or verbally. The frustrating part is that I am still, nearly three years after completing a year and a half "recovery" program, being held to account for some of my actions and decision by those who didn't know me then or now.

I had the opposite response. Instead of seeking the security of my hermit's cave, I started taking a more vocal and public role in my job and in my passions. When something happens to remind me of the ogre I was, however, all I want to do if find a hole and fall into it. That's a hard fight for me and I'm fortunate to have a family, natural legal and intentional, to stand boldly between oblivion and me. It's like they are telling me "Sure, you can run and hide like a scared little rabbit but you have to get through us first". They help me remember that the man I am now is not the same man I was.

I can't change who I was and I can't change how people think of me. I can be the man, the priest and the husband I want to be today though. And in that I take strength and courage and that is all I need...for today.

Not so long ago I was chided for dismissing the "experiences" of some other people.  The trouble is, with only one exception, they weren't actually talking about their experiences.  They were making definitional claims about a group of people they didn't consider themselves part of, based on a cherry-picked selection and...that way lies trouble, because I DO consider myself part of that group of people, and I disagreed with their claims.  Furthermore, I am also a member of one of the groups being set up in putative opposition, and I disagreed about that, too.  Based on my experience.  Actually, to be blunt, they were setting up straw feminists and whacking them down with gusto, and I was trying to inject some facts and sense into the proceedings. 

The problem here is that there is such a thing as someone with book knowledge contradicting the direct experience of someone else, and that does indeed suck. If I had done that, I would be chagrined.  However, it's also true that just because you are a member of a certain group of people, it doesn't make you an expert.  You have reams of real-world information about what it's like to BE one example of that kind of person walking around in the world, but 1) your apprehension of that may be shaped by all kinds of things, including internalized "isms", and more importantly, 2) you don't speak for everybody else in that category.  Book knowledge/academia isn't the be-all and end-all, and it definitely has its own problems, but it does give some tools for addressing both #1 and #2.  You can get a handle on the forces shaping your own perceptions of the world, and you have some methods for figuring out what the experiences and views of other people actually are.  Those methods have limits...but they are a hell of a lot better than making sweeping statements based on air and your own prejudices.  If their experiences match up with your own, you have a sense of the breadth of the problem; if they don't, you can figure out why.

Tours that may be of interest:

God Module tour dates (click)

Mon. March 23: Raleigh, NC - Volume 11

Tue. March 24: Atlanta, GA - Shelter


Assemblage 23 tour dates (click)

Mon. April 19: Raleigh, NC - Legends

**A23 is NOT playing Atlanta or anywhere else in GA. Those of you who are as nutso as I am about them are welcome to crash at my house (an hour from Raleigh) and hit the show with me. Please contact me if you are interested.**


Amon Amarth tour dates (click)

Fri. April 9: San Francisco, CA - The Regency

Sun. April 25: New York City - Irving Plaza

Tue. April 27: Raleigh, NC - Volume 11

**Once again, Raleigh is the only show they're doing in the southeast. Same offer of crash space for travelers. Just lemme know!**

I have some pine trees right up on my house that I'm wanting removed for safety reasons. Anyone have any recommendations for tree service folks? If it matters I'm in Diamond Hill which is between Danielsville and Athens.

-Tyme

I had the opportunity to hang out with the Seafair Pirates the other day when it dawned on me that there were a LOT of swords in the immediate company. Here is one I just took spur of the moment for the Two of Swords.

Sabrina Mark is a graduate of my Creative Writing program, and also teaches at UGA.  She will be reading at MIT on Thursday:  http://writing.mit.edu/news

A blind, very scared terrier mix was found in Five Points, near campus this morning. He is going to be taken to a vet later today to check for a microchip, but, in the meantime, if anyone is missing a dog that fits this description or knows of someone who might be, reply and I'll set you up with the finders.

Can't sleep.  Future will eat me.

Does anyone remember a band called Sky City? I'm not sure if Fitzpatrick/Tahiti guys were involved.. would love to find one of the former members.

Spent the afternoon with the rock star people.  They are more fun than a basket of kittens, but DANG I have to sit down and rest after I have been hanging out with them.

I've had a hell of a week.  Not sure why, just... gah.  I about had a mini-breakdown this afternoon.  There's just a lot of stress going on for me, and I'm trying so damn hard to hold everything together.  Had a great party tonight, don't get me wrong, but... man.  I need to find a way to relax.  I barely sleep.  My appetite's fading (at least I'll lose weight.)  I just want to put things down for a minute, instead of being cranky and mean and oversensitive all the time.

Sorry for the rant.

So... sleeping didn't happen. I ended up going out to hang out with T-pope then Tantra until 4am. I didn't want to go home unless I was exhausted. Any sort of contact with anyone just makes me burst out crying and/or want to rip their face off.

What happened? Someone please tell me because I really don't know.

I can't wait to go work tomorrow so I have something to do....

When complimenting a lady, remember these handy definitions given to us by Beth from News Radio:

Beth: I'm not being nasty. You're pretty. You're very pretty in fact. But cute, I don't think so.
Lisa: Well I wasn't aware there was a difference.
Beth: Well of course there is a difference. Pretty means pretty. Cute means pretty but short and/or hyperactive - like me.
Lisa: Uh huh. What is beautiful?
Beth: Beautiful means pretty and tall.
Lisa: Gorgeous?
Beth: Pretty with great hair.
Lisa: Striking?
Beth: Pretty with a big nose.
Lisa: OK, you're making this up.
Beth: That's ridiculous, why would I make it up?
Lisa: Voluptuous?
Beth: Pretty and fat.
Lisa: Sexy?
Beth: Pretty and easy.
Lisa: Exotic?
Beth: Ugly

Being bad never looked so good.

Nymphoria Productions is hosting Villains Night Athens, a goth/industrial/fetish super villain themed dance party at
New Earth Music Hall
Friday, March 12, 2010
10pm - 2am

Featuring
The talents of DJ AndyRedrum and DJ EyeofKaos
Costumed Go-Go Dancers
Mini Dungeon
Themed drinks
Sexiest Villain Contest
Free Goodies and Prizes provided by Sexy Suz's!

Tickets $7 at the door for 21+, $10 for 18+
$2 off ticket price if in costume

Being bad never looked so good.

Nymphoria Productions is hosting Villains Night Athens, a goth/industrial/fetish super villain themed dance party at
New Earth Music Hall
Friday, March 12, 2010
10pm - 2am

Featuring
The talents of DJ AndyRedrum and DJ EyeofKaos
Costumed Go-Go Dancers
Mini Dungeon
Themed drinks
Sexiest Villain Contest
Free Goodies and Prizes provided by Sexy Suz's!

Tickets $7 at the door for 21+, $10 for 18+
$2 off ticket price if in costume

LONG post under the cut....many updates.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Dreamed that my mother was still alive and that I was doing that weird limbo thing where I was there to take care of her and my whole life was being put on hold for an indefinite period as a result.  Oddly enough, in the dream my brother was already dead, and I was staying in his room (which was originally my room) and he'd left a copy of Down From the Mountain in the DVD player.

When I woke up, the thought in my head was about recent conflict and how the other person was not only helped recently by me, she was helped by those very "mainstream feminists" she has been dogging, in the form of the UGA Women's Studies e-mail list.  I put together a list of local resources for her based on their suggestions.  But they're eeeeevilllll, yeah.

In other news, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature will be publishing some of my microfiction in April.  Yay!

it's my final day of classes this quarter... i should not feel this shitty. Nothing feels worth it right now. I think I'm gonna move to portland when i graduate instead of traveling. I just want to feel ok, but all i want to do is take a shit ton of sleeping pills and never wake up. How emo is that shit? Goodnight fuckheads.... hopefully tomorrow will be better.

It is in fact possible for me to eat so much seafood that I don't want any more for a while.

I know, right?!