February 03, 2002, 12:10 p.m.

In which we don't blind you with science

back & forth

Current diagnosis: Having constipation of the erudition glands. I have to write a short spiel on Johann Jakob Froberger and a thematic introduction for the concert on Saturday. What I need to say, in order to explain why the program makes some kind of sense together, fills probably two dense pages with jargon, but should really only be a paragraph or two. Oh, and it should be funny.
Current incense: "Tahitian Vanilla", complemented by the fresh cedar shavings in the cupboard. Current musics: Well, silence at the moment, but I've been listening to the Eban and Charlie soundtrack and Georg Muffat's Nobilis Juventus pretty consistently. Does anybody have Martial Arts Weekend yet? Please don't tell me about it. I stopped in at *th*r M*s*c to purchase it the other day, and they'd never heard of it. I think the particular skinny boy behind the counter doubted that it was cool enough to sell in his shop, nay, even doubted its existence, until I dropped some names: 'Cause you and me got the Mountain Goats and Nothing Painted Blue.

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There's no real entry here, I'm afraid. Only the media-whoredom of what I'm spending my synapses on. I don't think I've really gone out or done anything not related to moving in weeks. Although already my room is messy. That, gentle reader, is where my greatest talents lie.

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Current consuetudes: Running on the hardwood in my socks (it is easier and more fun than dusting by conventional methods). Flash-frying tofu and rice vermicelli. Last night we made pains-au-chocolat and dipped them in honey-lemon sauce. I have a copy of Tracey Takes On ... Love, which I probably shall watch tonight instead of sleeping. You see, I switched shifts today with the attractive J, and work 'till ten, and then tomorrow morning at seven. Did I mention I came out at work the other day? I'm puzzled by the necessity; by no stretch of fancy could I be construed as strictly het, and yet, people want to wonder, rather than know. I got intensely embarrassed about it; because my own aesthetics of the workplace really preclude spilling too much personal information. Then why bother? For the most awful reason: I can get away with much edgier wit that way. Gaily shunted onto the margin (despite being white, wealthy, educated and male, which are the ones that really matter), I have all sorts of license to voice the inappropriate. For a while, I relished it, of course, and used it to ribbons. For lo, being gay sometimes feels like: Stop the Carnivalesque! I want to get off! (I hope I'm the only person who feels this. Or is pretentious enough to put it thus in words) But now that my default Categorical Imperative sub-system is up and running again, I'd rather not use the kinds of privilege I haven't really earned. And if that didn't flush my cheeks hotly enough, I wonder if my obsession with my own sexuality, as everything from social-role-generator to academic pursuit, isn't more than faintly narcissistic, and whether I could get a firmer grip on it if I weren't always holding it at arm's length to admire it. O, whinge whinge whinge. Maybe this is only a pathetic plea to get onto GayBoy Drama.

Where are my friends? MG, EN, ShW, CG, why do you not call me back? Why don't you buy me airplanes, like we promised one another out in Burma? Of course, they call it Myanmar, now.

I reached out for anything white with unspeakable appetites
Found myself in the lair of a killing despair
Now it's ten years on and I'm still there...