blog entries
birdcage november 16, 2023 
long, late, sleep this morning. lots of little dreams. restful day and i think it made all the difference in my attitude. wasn't angry at all today. watched old doctor who. more good food. this evening we watched the movie "the birdcage" with robin williams and nathan lane. i found it to be very wonderful. i think there aren't enough movies nowadays where gay people live such unflinchingly gay lives. assimilation is violence! it seems like leading a life according to heterosexual structure is now the prescribed norm, even for same-sex couples. it's really refreshing to see something that speaks to that, somewhat, in their refusal to assimilate. also - i like the way it handles the conservative family. i like that they have to TRULY mean what they say and engage in the culture of the goldmans before they were trusted. "we can disagree and still love one another" is one of the most pervasive and gross elements that have grown from more wide-scale acceptance of lgbt people. which reminds me of the "dialogue across difference" paper that i have to do for my education class. it makes me so angry, seriously. there is never any world where a member of an oppressed group has something to learn or gain from a debate with their oppressor. it's never, ever going to be an equal balance of power. i felt frustrated about that the other day. we are allowed to find someone outside of class, like a family member, but even then. i hate the whole idea that discourse and disagreement politically speaking is a healthy thing. to find a middle ground. some things i am just not willing to listen to or willing to budge on. anyway. will probably have a pretty busy weekend because i've been putting off so much homework. i already know i'm going to be upset with myself tomorrow for pushing the math so long. but there is just so much life to live! speaking of life, my mom wants to take us out to eat sometime this weekend to thank us for coming to help clean out my grandpa's house. i'll have to remember to reach out to her soon. life gets in the way of school work, seriously. i would much rather do anything else. i'm excited for next semester so i can do more things, i'm hoping they'll maybe feel more worth my while. thanksgiving break is next week and i'm still not totally sure how i want to approach it. what an awful holiday. and i really do want to enjoy it because i am trying so terribly hard to mend my relationship with my family. it does help that my self and my relationship are well on the table already. even though i should be worried, apparently. food is the heart of the issue. it would take too long to reproduce the extent of eating issues here so i'll avoid it. one day in the future i'll host a dinner party and it will be so much better. oh, wait. i forgot we're going to bring cheesecake to al's thing. cheesecake's good. it's at least one thing to hang on to. i'll tell everyone cheesecake spoiled my supper. off to work on my site some. goodnight!
listening to: all i want, joni mitchell agitation! november 15, 2023 
day full of this awful agitated feeling. kind of thing that has you angry back at your anger until it exponentializes again and again. anger is the worst emotion. there's nothing noble or comfortable or brave about living in it or admitting to it. i have grown up a lot and learned to start claiming my emotions as a point of pride. i stopped being able to feel anything for a while; when i feel now it affirms my aliveness and it is overall something i feel i can glean some meaning or opportunity from. but anger! ugly, ugly anger! nothing to do with that. it leeches on others. but try to swallow it down and you just get angrier. it cracks through eventually. anyway, one of those days. traffic cutoffs and spilled milk and long, trapped hallways of hours. got up and went to the sale and it was so awfully busy i couldn't really enjoy it. got some good gifts, though! the vending machines wouldn't work. drank a nasty powder energy drink concoction at home instead. it gave me this crazy chest pain! i was sitting in my car in the parking lot waiting to go to class, like, oh my god. i think i am going to have a heart attack. made quick work of my printing today and then waited 2 agonizing hours to be dismissed. zoom class. pizza delivery. i wrote a few songs. it felt nice to sing them. i just got out of the shower and i feel a lot better. i'm going to try and drink a lot of water. i think i'm dehydrated. want to keep working on my website. it's silly but it feels exciting and novel. i love my new computer. i feel so much like i used to. the dog days of adolescence pulling graveyard shifts on the internet. it's funny to think back on childhood with all the unnecessary adult details in your mind. what would child me think of my stupid agitation? they'd think, well to me you seem free as a bird. you got all the power in the world now to turn your cheek to anything. get in your car and drive on away. eat what you like and fill your free hours as you need. that helps me have more perspective. from another vantage point, there is no reason to complain. and they'd say too, i just don't understand anger. all it does is hurt others. senseless, directionless aggravation melts down to the innocents around you. i've had enough stepfathers to know better than let agitation drive me. perspective, lee. breathe in, out, etcetera. been having to do "split-decision-functions" more than usual lately, like the counting and cold water.
listening to: magpie to the morning by neko case 
hello world november 14, 2023
is anybody out there? nice to meet you. i hope i maintain this place. i have been thinking a lot about what it means to get older. i've been writing lots down. the internet i was raised on was like this. i used to know how to do the html stuff better. i want to learn again because it is very tangible and real. i just had to do a very silly captcha to get in. the landscape of the internet and the world at large are changing so much. i am going to post some backdated writings beneath this from other half-held blogs. this place, hopefully, will be nicer because it is all mine. to me of the future: i love you very much and i know you're making me proud.
backlog: haunches september 15, 2023
when i am upset i want to play racing games. i hurt my hands. heart racing like it was real. spent the better part of this morning tossing and turning. had a long dream that seeped into the room, like the people were there beside me stroking my hair. up and brushed my teeth. had a bowl of cereal and some cheese. we were going to go to campus today so i had al try and get the mats from my head. there was an awful one right at the nape of my neck. i can feel that so much of my hair is dead. it made me cry and bust everything all open again. i don’t have the braves to do much of anything. when my mother saw my messages about not being able to sleep she offered me pills instead of comfort. how can anybody give something they do not have for themselves? for example: racing games come from my father. i think when his mind is dead and gone his fingers will still move button-to-button. pills and games do the same thing. different strokes for different folks but we all want to be numb to our pains. makes me feel better but it hurts my body when i get into it. it’s too real for me. up on my haunches. when i lose in a racing game i feel worthless. it is absurd. but i like to run, and even more than that i like to win. with my hair pulled out. imagining my mother berating me from behind with a brush in her fist. time is long and painful. i could not convince myself to leave the house.
backlog: grief september 14, 2023
does my family think of me? that is a good question to start with. did my grandfather remember my face, among the crowd of nineteen grandchildren, as he was passing? or in the day prior? the year? as he discontinued treatment did he imagine a still image of his family, and was i in this photograph? i think this is relevant though i understand it is selfish. i think of death as a door always above me. i know you and i am afraid. i have watched you close and open and eat at my life. but there are others who knew the dead as brothers and sisters. as children. they do not like my watching. stay out of this death! it isn’t yours! i fall over. i despair. the truth is that death has touched me and i wish it hadn’t. even if my stepfather had forgotten me when he died, i had not forgotten him. i wept among his family until i didn’t. blood matters to people. i’ve been exiled at the edge of my family - in many ways my own fault - but have not grown a new family. there is still the only place i belong. and he was the only grandfather i ever had - if you forget the one that jumped onto the freeway, swung through my death-door five years back. i do not forget him. he burns in my eyes. i said goodbye to my sick grandfather so many times but this time i did not jump. across the world, unknowing, i sat on a bench and cried senseless tears. i feel like if i don’t go this time, it’ll be the one time he actually dies, i said. oh, said al. it’ll be okay. i have been crying for him. i remember much of him. thinking about his burning barn, his seeing-eye goat, his joyful tricks, his tunes. you’re a teacher, he said, when last i saw him. but i can’t remember what else. he was small this last year. nothing like the god i’d known before. i can’t get myself to forget all the places i failed to show up. running all the time from my family. nowhere in the archives can you find my name. i scratched myself out and now i wish i had stayed. now that my grandfather has died everyone is telling stories. and you were there, and you were there, and you were there! it makes me smile. and i was there, i want to say. do you remember me? it’s okay. look at me - i live. made the bed for myself. but grief, this ugly thing. sets me on the floor. communal howling inside and there is no community that would take me. nineteen unnamed grandchildren, says the obituary and i don’t think i could name you them. cruelty for cruelty. shame for shame. when they cast out my mother, they sent me away. and i remember listening, little, to the ways they condemned her. how sick it was that she had put me in harm's way. but i went years without seeing their faces. couldn’t they have come to find me? if it was so wrong how i’d been left? i don’t know. sitting in my memory, i just don’t know.