Catharsis…

… Or Bitter Recrimination. I can't decide on the name of this playlist. Either way, it feels good to get the inevitable post-breakup shit out of my system.


























Aaaaaah...feel better already.

Poly Songs

Decided to put together a playlist of poly songs. Someone got there before me, of course. Here's hers:



And one of my all-time favorites:


And this chestnut from the mid-70s:


More to come, I hope...

The Fertile Desert

Venice In A Day

Humanist Code Of Ethics

Good stuff to live by. 

A Post To Fawn Over

Taking a break from the Facebook is a bitch. This makes it a little easier.

 

Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949–2011)

Christopher Hitchens has loomed large in my life for as long as I can remember. I loved his contrarian piss-taking of otherwise-untouchable public figures as a 20-something, found him irritating and adolescent in my 30s, became livid with him over his support of the Iraq War and the Bush administration in the Aughts and came back around to loving him in the past several years as his pushback against a mindless monotheism increased in volume and frequency.

The thing I'd come to learn about Hitch, is that disagreeing with him on any given topic didn't preclude a deep appreciation of his insight, intellectual honesty, sense of justice, courage, and wicked, razor sharp wit.

And appreciate him I did. I hesitate to overstate this, but I've come to feel something akin to love for this man I'd never met, especially over the past few years, and even more especially over the past year. His unapologetic approach to his life, his unbelievably prolific output, his stridency in taking on the corrupt (with the sad exception of the Bushies), his strange charisma and his fierce debate skills brought clarity and energy to every topic he addressed. He was as fearsome and unsparing in describing his decline and mortality as he was with any of his other targets. (His final writings on the subject were painfully raw and insightful and should set a standard in the field.) He was profoundly inspiring to me.

Most of all, I now realize that while the irresistible pull of his aforementioned wit is what drew me to him, what spoke to me most deeply about the man—and what kept me reading him on a regular basis—was his unwavering and courageous commitment both to justice and to shining a light on purveyors of injustice.

The world will be a poorer place without him. It already is.

•••••••••••••••••••••

A collection of essays and obits from around the world:

NPR
LA Times
New Yorker
The Week
The Dish  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
The New Statesman—Richard Dawkins interview 1
The New Statesman—Richard Dawkins interview 2
Mail Online—Hitchens' brother Peter's eulogy
Associated Press
Vanity Fair

Update:
Salon catches up…
Salon
Gary Kamiya
Jefferson Morley
Mary Elizabeth Williams

Including words from those more critical…

Alex Pareene
Glenn Greenwald

Or Two

A Palette Cleanser

Dad

Dreamt of my dad last night, this morning really. Just realized a little while ago that this is the anniversary of his death. It's been 7 years. I miss him.

I Will Let You Down, I Will Make You Hurt

Cash turns Reznor's slit-wrist fest into a timeless classic. An achingly beautiful gift to us before shuffling off his mortal coil.

(It won't let me embed, so click the link.)

I Am Going To Die

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and told yourself you're going to die? Before tonight, I hadn't either. But while I was taking a piss tonight, I was also mulling over mortality, and after I finished, saw myself in the mirror. I realized I flinched and kept from looking at myself with the thought of death in my head.

Well, I couldn't accept that so, I looked myself in the eye and told myself I was going to die. Repeatedly. It was pretty cool, actually. Took some of the charge out it. Felt like I was leveling with myself.

And then I realized that it's a beautiful thing, too. Exactly as it should be. An honor of sorts. In this universe, everything changes, all life transforms. It's what we do. Letting go of this life is just letting go of one form of life. It could be a thing to celebrate and embrace. It should be. The only real hangup is my ego and, well, tough shit for it.

Now pain and heartbreak and evil and all, I still love life. With luck and and good decisions, I'll live to a ripe old age. But like every other creature in this universe, I am going to die. Cool thing is, I keep finding different way to come to terms with that.

Size Matters

Well, it feels like the week-long angerfest/pity party is winding down. At least for the time being. Feeling a little more even-keeled and...normal.

Been thinking about my childhood since the breakup. About the abuse. Pondering the impact it's had on my life. Not the obvious stuff, like sexuality and relationship. Though I clearly have some growing to do in terms of communication about boundary setting (especially in re: being online), I'm pretty content with my sexuality and it's expression.

No, what's occurred to me lately and never before, is that I've let it keep me small. That because I've spent so much time and energy and money dealing with it, healing from it, doing whatever I could to keep it from completely mangling my life, I haven't had much energy to become a vital member of society. The kind of person that I wanted to become. To become the man I could be. I've watched so many dreams and desires just fade away and let them out of this sense of resignation or fear or laziness. I've just assumed they'd die off and disappear, so why bother sweating it?

Or maybe I've preferred them to do so in order to keep myself small. To keep myself hidden. I did my dead-level best as a child to hide. Especially from my peers. Anything that called attention to myself was dangerous and to be feared. I couldn't bear being the center of attention in a group larger than a few.

I've done a lot to change that over the years, but I'm seeing now that I haven't done enough. That I still find ways to keep myself small. And that needs to change.

Your Shoulders In Your Pocket

First heard this about a month or two ago. Thought of it tonight for some reason. It's sheer, utter gorgeousness. Her voice makes me melt.

In Like An Asshole, Out Like A Dick

What's worse than a shart? A shart in public just as you're sitting down to eat. In your last pair of clean underwear. After going to your bank to transfer a meager amount from your meager savings account to cover overages in your checking account while your ex's daughter is your teller.

Alright, March, you suppurating-wound-on-a-leper's-ass of a month. What other humiliations are you going to heap on me before you're through?

Happy Equinox

Blah, blah, blah...

Dilemma

I just got a bunch of shit off my chest in a post that I can't bring myself to publish. It hardly matters that only one person reads this (again, hey Pete!). I write for myself, so I can get shit out of my head that needs release. But I can't decide whether (tiny audience or not) it's kosher to upload my judgements about someone in this forum or not. Much as I want it out there, I'm going with not. 

Waste Of A Day

Woke from a nap late afternoon feeling lonely and depressed. I spent the morning on a caravan of pain. I woke early to have breakfast with S, who's having a hard time of it. His mom's dying, being shuttled from assisted living centers to nursing home, he's not making any money, hates his job and doesn't resonate with where he lives. Between the two of us, I'm surprised we made it out of the restaurant wrists intact. Met with A at 11 to go through storage units. Found a scrap book from the trip we met on and looked through it together. Then continued combing through the detritus of our time together. I should never have taken the nap.…