like a diamond in the rough

    feelin like meself again. thanks for riding all that out with me. 

i have one.
because, you know, kelloggs low-fat nutrigrain has all of my vitamins and minerals.
i think this explains a lot.

PJ's coffeeshop is open. and they wireless! i don't have to go back to kalamazoo now! wooohooo!!! no, really. i'm gonna go back. just not today.

i will say, last night was a beautiful night here and if i weren't so afraid of snakes i would have camped out in the yard. instead, i talked to stevie for hours and then looked at stars.

i'm frustrated with my color scheme. grr. i can't see. it's too bright in here!

also, i have like 10 rolls of film that i can't get developed. it's a lesson. i'm sure of it. i'm learning it. i swear.

hi ya'll

so spudhead and i are putting out littles heads together and trying to make plans for a HUGE buzz gathering.

right now it looks like this:

when: late march or april
where: vegas
why: you know why
what: well everything. but one night there will be a big room with games and shows and activities
how: start saving NOW
what hotel: we are looking into that
will timmay be there: YES.

we'll keep you posted. give us you ideaas

NOW

xoxoxox
o

i have received so many emails from you guys who want to help out - and help me. i want you to know how AWESOME i think you all are and how amazing i think my "friends" list is.

as angry and sad as i am, and as hard as my situation is and is becoming, i want you to know that i don't need anything other than your words and photos - which i come to the library every night to get). even though this sucks, i am fortunate to have a little bit of help from my parents who, who knows how long they will have it, but for the time being, have some money to send my way. so as far as clothes and other thingly things, i'm sure in time i will accumualte the stuffs. and as far as things that can't be replaced - i'm working on making peace with that.

in other words - i'd MUCH rather see your thingly things go to people who need them WAY more than i.

this disaster has affected so many people on so many levels. and i feel i've walked away with too much as it is. and though my parents have some things left and some money - they don't have jobs for the time being or a place they can actually go back to for now. and my dad is in bad health as it is - so the hope is that this stress does not just overwhelm him. but he has already shown signs of wear. but in time they will re-build their lives and their business. it will just take time. years probably. but still, they have their lives and (hopefully) the means to start over.

thank you all so much. and please just keep giving in the ways that you are and can. and one day when i'm feeling better, i may just ask you to send me some pictures hahahahahahaha - cause i miss the ones that were on my walls.

love and hugs

shawn

i'm so angry.

i'm so angry i can't see straight.

i keep thinking back on a day not-so-long ago sept 12 2001. my first day of graduate school, sitting across from my soon-to-be-best-friend, foresight. september 11 everywhere, all around, and there was our professor, sitting with her long legs spread out into the middle of our our circle asking us, "if you could be any fruit in the fruitbowl, what fruit would you be?" i know that the look on foresight's face could only be mirroring mine - the looking of ARE YOU SERIOUS??? people are dying 3 hours away and you are trying to break the ice???? what fruit would i be??? C'MON!!!

that's how i feel now.

i feel so fucking angry.

today, back at work, there's this and that and the other fucking thing and the mail, and the grocery, and the bills that are late, and the clothes i had to buy on credit because i don't have a goddamn thing, there's the people who are happy and smiling...i'm just so angry.

i'm angry at the people who ask. what part of the story do you want to hear??? part about the baby who was gonna die in the lobby where my parents were sleeping? or do you want to hear about the dead bodies floating around my neighborhood? do you want me to tell you about the woman screaming in the lobby of the embassy suites when she found out her family was missing? or the dad who was sobbing in the pool area because he didn't want his wife and kids to see him break down (that would be my brother).

i'm angry at the people who don't ask. i'm angry at the calls i didn't get from people who should have called.

i'm angry that i'm so angry.

i've talked to tv stations, radio stations and the people on the street who ask about my louisiana license plates. you want me to tell about growing up in new orleans? here's what i'll say:

i learned to swim bc my dad threw me in that lake till i could swim back to him. i learned to water ski when i was 5. i "suck the heads and eat the tails" of crawfish. i call my grandparents maw maw and paw paw, i say yes ma'am and no ma'am to anyone who is my senior. i dressed up as a ballerina for mardi gras 3 years in a row and that levy that broke was where my dad took me to pick pecans. it's where my cousin lived. it's where people went to make out.

i can tell you that i am the first person in my family EVER to move from new orleans. i can tell you that when they dropped me off to go to college in boston they said, "shawn, don't forget where you came from."

i don't forget anything.

but i'm angry. i'm so fucking angry.

i'm angry and sad.

i can't sleep because i see the people in the hotel, i hear the screaming. i can't sleep because i drove away from my family, all standing there outside the cabin that they are all staying in - all 9 of the adults - my mom saying, "it's ok, shawn, go back, you are the lucky one to have a job and a home to go to..."

I DON'T WANT TO BE THE LUCKY ONE

i want to be with my family. i don't want to drive my pretty new car away - i would trade my job, my car, my house for any one or hundred of those people to still be alive.

you don't understand because it's not your town. your people. your history. your blood.

it's not so much the things i lost - it's the stories that i can only tell in words now. the pictures, every last ones on disks and on paper, that i will never show my kids. the journals, the letters i saved. there are all "floating in the street" as my brother told me. and i can't even get back to pick and choose what i want to save and what i will hope for someone to find, wet and polluted.

tomorrow i have to go to a couselor for "de-briefing" because apparently i'm "traumatized" and then maybe she can write PTSD on that piece of paper and i can get on my other soapbox about pathologizing in america. and maybe that will distact me.

maybe not.

i plan to be angry until further notice.

and sad. because people are dying. and maybe that was the "natural" part of "natural disaster" and then, maybe the country is just a fucking disaster.

hi buzzfriends - thanks to you all for all the love and support - i've needed it. it's so nice to know to there is a place i can go to just read encouraging words - and i do come here to read them, every chance i get.
 
this is a copy of a mass email that i finally had a chance to send in response to the tons of emails i've received from friends - some i haven't talked to in ages - asking about myself and my family.
 
you have no idea how much all these kind words mean to me and us.
 
i wish i had photos - i wish everything could go back to the way it was i wish i were browsing your pics and all that good stuff - but - here i am in the bum-fuckest town EVER, fighting with my brother over his laptop, shoutin out to you all al big THANKS!!!!!
 
emailing:
 
 
HELLO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
i'm SO sorry for this mass form emailing - many of you have asked if i have email access - i do on my bro's laptop, but the nearest wireless connection is an hour away - so i haven't been online often. but i wanted to respond as i'm so touched at your concern for myself and my family.
 
as of today - thursday the 1st - (none of us ever know what day it is) we are on our 3rd day at a camp type place near shreveport, LA - (north louisiana). we finally met up with my parents who were on a cruise and literally dropped off in tampa and drove 15 hours and slept in hotel lobbies to get to us here.
 
we are all in shock over the davastation. we have talked to most family members and they seem to be safe but most have lost their houses and are starting to look for jobs and start thier lives over in houston or lafayette. so many people just literally starting their lives over bc they know they won't get home or a new house any time soon.
 
as for my immediate family - my brother's brand new house (they lived in it for 3 weeks) is under water. my parent's were lucky - the have some structural damage, but only the first floor is flooded. the problem is - noone can get home. there is no gas to get there, there is no water, or power. my parents are looking to rent an apartment near here and they are looking to register my niece in 5th grade near here as the schools are closed they say till at least the first of the new year. my niece is not happy about that - noone is. the irony - that when i left boston, i shipped everything i own to new orleans SUCKS. i have a couple of t-shirts and a pair of short and my car. but whatever - i can replace clothes. i can't replace lots of other things namely every photo i've ever taken, prints, artwork, journals, books, stuff like that. and all my camera :(
 
most cell phones don't work and it's been hard to get a straight story from anyone about anything.


 
i am heading back to michigan tomorrow. i feel thankful that i am alive, my family is alive, and healthy (except for my dad who is still sick). i took a leave of abscence from my job in michigan - will return next tuesday.
 
thanks for all the offers to help - not sure there is anything anyone can do......sadly.
 
all this and then bush and his stupidity. what was that????????????? dear mr. bush, sorry to get in the way of your war...can you send help now???? jesus.
 
love to you all and thanks for askin after us, i'll pass on your wishes and will be in touch soon.
 
shawn

Do bisexuals exist?
A new study reiterates an old prejudice

BY CLIFF BOSTOCK

For years, little has made many gay men roll their eyes as much as having sex with a man who announces afterward that he is bisexual. The bisexual, in their view, is just another gay man who refuses to come out of the closet.

A recent study has given that argument an ostensible boost. According to a report in the July 5 issue of the New York Times, psychologists in Chicago and Toronto measured genital arousal patterns in 101 young men during viewing of erotic films. Of the participants, 33 identified as bisexual, 30 as straight and 38 as gay.

Gay men, as expected, only responded to men, and straight men were only turned on by women. But among the bisexuals, three-quarters responded identically to the gay men and the remaining responded like heterosexuals. Not a single man expressed actual genital interest in both sexes.

The study, the first to measure actual genital response, raises all kinds of questions. Nobody maintains that everyone claiming to be bisexual - 1.7 percent of all men - is intentionally misstating the nature of his desire. So the study suggests that the body's physical manifestation of desire may be quite different from our subjective experience of attraction. People, in short, probably mean very different things when they talk about desire.

Bisexual activists have discounted the new study on that basis. They think that by reducing sexual identity to a genital definition, the Times reports, the study "is too crude to capture the richness - erotic sensations, affection, admiration - that constitutes sexual attraction." The researchers themselves agree that a much larger study needs to be conducted before firm conclusions are reached.

I'm casting my vote with the bisexual activists, and I'm betting that any future studies that rely on pure genital measures are going to be equally inconclusive and, instead, fully demonstrative of the mystery of desire. Although the Times article cited Freud's theory that humans are naturally bisexual and Alfred Kinsey's collaborative surveys in that respect, it oddly did not mention simple historical proof of the fluidity of desire.

We know beyond any doubt that men are capable of enjoying sex with both genders. Throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, men had sex with one another under various rules, none of which exempted them from having sex with women. The same thing has occurred in various indigenous cultures, such as Papua, New Guinea, and was rampant in the Italian community in New York City at the turn of the last century. And none of that includes the well-known transient turn to sex with other men in prison, prep schools and the armed services.

The difference in the encounters of these men and those of this new study is a lack of identification as bisexual - a category of identity, like heterosexuality, that was created after the category of homosexuality was identified. In other words, the categories of sexual identity are all based on the extent of homosexual interaction. And since psychology pathologized homosexuality and the justice system criminalized it, these categories also came to represent the spectrum of normality. Prior to the creation of these virtual sexual species, the gender of one's sex partners was not a measurement of identity: Nobody attempted to pigeonhole a person in the way the culture and this new study do.

But, more than cultural history, personal experience taught me that sexuality is not purely a function of genital appeal. I was married for five years and had little interaction with men during that time. What I did have, toward the end of my marriage, was purely genital and never seemed very gratifying, compared to sex with my wife. Even after I was divorced, I used to split my time between hanging out in gay and straight clubs.At the time, I found sex with women more emotionally pleasurable than with men, although from a pure physical perspective, I found men "hotter." So I know from personal experience that it is quite possible to have a strong physical attraction to men but still feel strongly attracted to women - and vice versa. That one's pure genital response might be different from one's general attraction - especially if you add in factors like the wish to raise children - seems self-evident to me.

But it is also true that the culture, including the culture of gay men, exerts enormous pressure to identify with a sole sexual orientation. My own decision to identify as gay only occurred when I fell in love with a man and did not feel so emotionally dependent on women. The experience of fusing my primary genital attraction with my broader emotional desires was liberating, despite the stigma it entailed. But many men do not have that experience. They remain in love with their wives and still strongly desire sex with men.

Sex remains the most mysterious aspect of human life. I have never met a person whose sex life and fantasies weren't surprisingly outside the expected cultural norms. Although this new study offers fascinating information, it is too much an effort to reduce sexuality to those cultural norms. There is far more to sex than an erect penis.

cliff.bostock@creativeloafing.comCliff Bostock holds a Ph.D. in depth psychology.

07.14.05

hmmmmmm?