You know, in my last entry I kind of inferred that I don't particularly care for the term "emo" being applied to me. However, ever since I got home earlier tonight, all I've been wanting to write here is how no one understands me and I hate myself and I want to die. I think I've subjected all of you to enough of that kind of talk from me lately, and I need to sleep on things, but ... what the fucking fuck? Seriously, what the fucking fuck?
Driving to and from Bowling Green tonight gave me some peace and quiet so I could put the events of the past week into perspective.
Basically I realize that I shouldn't have said the things I said this past week about Spectrum, especially the accusations I made. I apologize for that.
All I can say is that I really didn't know who to turn to. This past year I've felt more and more alienated from Spectrum, and the one person in the group who I felt I could still talk to is currently taking twenty-four credit hours plus working two jobs so he can graduate this semester and go study in Indonesia for the next year. When he's not around at a meeting, more often than not I wind up sitting in a corner by myself, listening around to find if anyone is participating in any kind of conversation that I have any frame of reference to. Like I keep saying, it's hard to make a connection with people when I'm here listening to David Lanz and Schubert and all anyone else wants to talk about is Green Day.
I think things got worse after my trip to Cincinnati, because I went down there, and in one day I forged more of a bond with Christina and Milena and Penny than I'd ever formed with all but maybe one or two members of Spectrum. I wish I could say it was an age thing since they're all closer in age to me than anyone in Spectrum, but I've had these kinds of problems ever since high school. I think back to my lunch in Cincinatti and I can't help but wonder, "Why can't I find friends like that in Spectrum?"
Christina and Milena have a family to raise, and Penny's swamped with work and classes, so I didn't feel comfortable imposing on them by phoning them up. Without anyone I felt was here and ready to listen to me, I came on here to emote. I mean, it's what I do. I can talk about my writing skills and all my other qualities, but if there's one thing the .org has become famous for these past four and a half years, it's for me coming on here and being so honest and open (and yes, whiny) about all the things in my life that depress me. Hell, it was even going on in the pre-.org days back when I was writing to a community that was possibly the least receptive of all to that kind of writing.
I know that even some of my friends who read the .org on a regular basis don't understand this need I have to write about this stuff. If people want to label me as "emo," then fine, I'm emo. All I know is that all of this stuff happens to me, and if I don't let it out then I begin to suffer both emotionally and physically because of it. I used to have my fiction and my poetry to let out some of those feelings, but ever since the experiences I had as a creative writing student back in undergrad, I've barely been able to write at all.
I'm not going to apologize for saying that I think Spectrum is in a weaker position right now than it was last year, because I believe it is. All I can say is that with all the hell I've gone through this past year, one of the few bright spots I saw was the opportunity to get back into power in Spectrum, get the group back on track, and at least be in a position where the members had to talk to me occasionally. Last Thursday I saw that opportunity vanish before me, before I even had time to interpret what happened, and that not only was I not going to be back in a position of power in Spectrum next month, but I was in a position where I wasn't even sure I could keep coming back to Spectrum. All of those silly thoughts I had last month about moving to Southwest Ohio suddenly became serious.
I wish I knew how all this was going to end. I know I've pissed some people off, and it's going to take a lot more than an apology to restore the bonds of trust that were once there. I guess all I can do is just go on with the plans for Spectrum these next few months, and if I do get to a point where I was about five years ago where I realize that I'm in a bad situation with Spectrum, that I'll just have to move on, even if I don't know where to go.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I have some more crying to do.
The meeting tonight went well and we were able to come to an agreeable resolution regarding the problems in Spectrum. There is a bit of personal business I still have to handle tomorrow, but I have faith that it will be resolved.
At this meeting I was made aware of the fact that some people in Spectrum actually read what I write here. (News to me. Half the time I write something here I think about starting it, "Dear Don and Joe ...") People, I love you, seriously. I just wish you all would be more open to me and the fact that I don't like MTV, and I don't like the music you listen to, and you'd talk to me once in a while. I know I'm really shy and don't speak that much, but once you get to know me I really do open up.
Ah, if there's one good thing about finding a computer at a University lab the week before finals, it's that while you wait for each Webpage to load, you can read a whole chapter of a book. I realize UT is financially strapped and asking them to get more bandwidth right now is a losing cause, but for the students who live in the dorms and don't have another way of accessing the Internet than through the University's lines, how can they be expected to do serious research on their papers? (Yes, some students actually do use campus Internet for research, believe it or not.)
Anyway, the first meeting about the Spectrum elections is at the top of the hour, and I've been spending a good portion of today going back over all of my allegations, cross-referencing them with the Spectrum and UT laws that the process violated. This whole process is making me realize the double bind I'm in; I try to be a free-going, easy spirit, and not care too much about "the rules" and all of that, but there are times when rules are needed to help achieve a higher purpose, in this case the furthering of Spectrum both within the campus GLBT community and the larger campus community as a whole. I'm not just talking about what happened at the elections here either, because for the whole semester Spectrum's been run with basically no rules, and I believe that's resulted in our dwindling attendance and morale.
Sometimes I hate being "the adult" in matters like this, but Spectrum was pretty much my entire support net throughout my undergraduate career, and I've seen both how Spectrum can be that support net, and how it can degenerate into chaos and be corrupted by factors that don't have their place in an organization of its type. I don't want to see Spectrum get like that again, and if I have to put my own neck on the line like this, losing a lot of the friendships I've made in the process, then so be it. I can't just sit back and allow Spectrum to get any worse than it's already gotten this year.
So today I took a mental health day, just because of all the crap I've been dealing with regarding the Spectrum elections and all my papers coming up here and that stuff. I'm not sure I feel much better now -- DDR can only distract me for so long -- but I just have two more classes to go, one Wednesday night and one Thursday afternoon, and then I can go nuts-out on the papers and with any luck get to the end of the semester in one piece. (I'd go nuts-out on the papers now but I'm still waiting for some interlibrary loan items to come in.)
Speaking of Spectrum, the first hearing about the election is tomorrow night. I'm not expecting that this meeting will get everything resolved, but at least it's going to put me in a position where I can have other adults in the room to discuss these things with. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here, but I am not going down here without putting up the fight of my life. I can't say that I'll be bringing out EVIL, VINDICTIVE BITCH Sean out of mothballs for this battle, but she's on call if needed.
Screw it, I'm going to bed early tonight. I sure wish I had someone to talk to on messenger, though ...
Where in the hell is time going right now? Ever since all that stuff happened with Spectrum on Thursday night, it's like I can't get anything accomplished. I have no focus whatsoever, and with all my papers and stuff coming due beginning this week I need to buckle down here. I already used up whatever leeway I could have gotten from my professors when I got sick so much this semester, and if I don't get this stuff completed on time then I'm really going to be screwed over.
The worst part is that the next thing I have to do for the papers I'm working on is re-watch Dancer in the Dark. Normally I'd jump at the chance to watch Björk, especially in the context I'll be watching her (I'm going to be doing a Marxist reading of the film), but even if I had the focus to watch it right now, the moments I haven't been pissed off these past few days I've been depressed, and watching Dancer in the Dark is about the worst thing a depressed person can do for herself.
If all goes well, in two weeks I'll be done with the semester, and this situation with Spectrum will be resolved to my liking. If not, well, I don't know what in the hell I'm going to do. Probably crawl back into my room here and lead the hermit-like life I was leading before I went back to school in the first place. I don't even care anymore, I just want the pain to go away.
Ah yes, the weekend before the last week of classes, when I need to be working on all those insipid papers I have due, but of course the NFL Draft is on TV and it's fascinating me to no end. Even now that the Bengals don't suck anymore, I still think the draft is my favourite part of the NFL season. All of the strategy and information, it's like a thirty-two-sided game of chess.
Anyway, my complaint against the Spectrum elections is going straight to the Dean of Students, it turns out. I hate to do something like this, since there's no real time to hold replacement elections (which wouldn't have been the case if we'd held elections when we were supposed to), but I can't just sit back and let what happened go by without fighting it.
Ideally I would have liked to have gone to campus today to work there, so I didn't have all these distractions around me like the NFL Draft and my video games and all that. The thing is, after highs in the seventies Sunday and Monday -- and record-high eighties on Tuesday -- we're scheduled to get up to a foot of snow this weekend. Even by Toledo standards, this weather is totally fucked up. But hey, it's a good thing Dubya is getting rid of all those environmental regulations so those big business owners can buy more SUVs for their sons and daughters, huh? Sigh.
Spectrum finally held their annual officer elections last night. If you're wondering why I didn't make mention of this fact earlier, it's because I didn't find out about them being held until about ten minutes before they actually took place. I was totally unprepared for the barrage of what happened, and before I knew it the President and the Vice President wound up switching positions, my candidacy for the Presidency being totally shot down. Given the actions of the President and the Vice President before and during the elections, there's no way this couldn't have been a setup.
I kept a brave face as I left the meeting and later as I was shopping for all the comfort food I've been devouring these past couple of hours, but since I've been home I've had these horrible crying jags as I've come to realize all my worst fears about what's been going on with Spectrum this past year and the people in the group and my relationships with them. All of the hard work I put into making Spectrum such a wonderful group last year has basically gone down the drain, and if things continue in their present state I doubt that Spectrum will even continue to exist at this time next year. Believe me, that is not a statement of ego on my part, that is a statement from the longest-standing member of Spectrum (by over one and a half years over anyone else) who has seen just what makes Spectrum great and what makes it wither.
In between drying my eyes, I drafted up a huge complaint to the Office of Student Ombuds detailing numerous instances in which the election violated Spectrum's laws, UT's laws, and just plain old fashioned common sense. Let's just say that the last time I did anything like this, I had Ted Turner's lawyers barking down my snorkel. I just e-mailed it out, and I'm hoping that speedy action will be taken upon it given how late we are in the semester. I may be heading to campus tomorrow afternoon for a poetry reading, so I'll try to stop in the Office of Student Ombuds before then and make sure the e-mail was received.
I know this is really drastic for me to do, but really I've got nothing to lose here. The (for now) incoming President clearly has issues with me, and I won't be comfortable going to Spectrum any more if she's in charge, and that would effectively destroy all my friendships in Spectrum. (Which were a huge part of the reason I came back to UT for my graduate work instead of getting my MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles.) I'm sure that I'm going to piss some people off and lose some friendships as a result of this complaint, but they're people who'll be out of my life if I didn't do anything and just left Spectrum, so I figure that this way at least I have a chance of saving some friendships.
There's more background I could go into to explain things, but honestly it's stuff that really shouldn't be made public. Just trust me when I say that I'm trying to do what's best for Spectrum at this point, and that the next couple of weeks, in addition to being hard on me because of all the papers I have to write, will be very hard on me personally. Any good vibes you all could send me would be greatly appreciated.
You know how I can tell that I've licked the last symptoms of that huge cold I had last month? Because now my allergies are kicking up. This makes no sense; when I was young I had early-season allergies, but for the last few years I only had late-season allergies. Now I'm getting early-season allergies again? Sigh, my body makes less and less sense to me as the years go by.
Not too much to report on, since I'm in end-of-semester-land just trying to get done all the things I need to get done so I can finally have a summer of peace here. Somewhere in the middle of all the paper-writing I'm going to be doing these next couple of weeks, though, I'm going to try to get something written up on maloneysbaloney.org; Maloney just wrote another article that I need to provide a counterpoint to, plus there's legislation pushing its way through the Ohio state legislature that would make Maloney's view of how education should be a reality in Ohio colleges, a prospect that, given I'm going to be teaching composition at UT in the fall, scares the shit out of me.
Anyone wanna keep me company over summer break? Please?
I'd been giving some thought to going out tonight, maybe to DDR, maybe to get a pizza or something, but those plans may have just gone down the toilet. My father went up to Michigan just now to visit with his sick mother, and now the rest of the family is insisting that they're going to go and see a movie this afternoon. Since no one's bothered to take my Camry to the shop for about a month now, this means that I'll be at home without any transportation. Maybe they'll get home early enough that I can do something this evening, but if they decide to go out to dinner afterwards then I think I can count on spending all day here at the house.
Anyway, after going to campus yesterday to get my paycheque and study, I did a bit of shopping before going to DDR. At Media Play (Replay weekend!) I picked up Twenty Years of Narada Piano so I can have more music to listen to these next couple of weeks while I'm working on school stuff. Coming from the Spectrum meeting the previous night, though, I guess buying new age music the next day made me feel out of place, though. This is what I mean when I say that I feel more in touch with my new friends down south than here in town; I know I could bring my new age CDs to Christina and Milena and Penny and they'd be interested in them, but as for everyone in Spectrum I know they'd just rather go back to their top 40 crap. Sigh. Given that I've been enjoying new age music since even my pre-teen years, I can't say that it's just that I'm getting old, it's just that ... well, what is it?
Then I went to Best Buy and picked up a two-pack of PS2 memory cards. I needed one for my current system (my old memory card is out of space, and Best Buy was out of devices I could use to transfer my save files to Yggdrasil's hard disk), and the second will be used for my Japanese PS2. Whenever I get my Japanese PS2 in, that is; The Rage still isn't stocking any Japanese systems after a few weeks of me waiting here. There are other places I could order from, but of course I'd like to give Don the commission money and all.
Anyway, if I'm going to be stuck here all day, then I guess I'll try to get to work on all that end-of-semester stuff for school here. I'd rather work from my office on campus since I seem to be able to focus better when I'm there, but hopefully I can put on my new CDs here and get going on all those papers and presentations. Sigh.
Ten people showed up at the Spectrum elections this week. That's compared with over three times as many people at last year's annual elections. We didn't even have enough eligible people to run for office, so we had to put elections off another week. (Technically they were supposed to be on the seventh, but everyone met at a bar that week for some reason.) Spectrum may be more dysfuncional at this point than I feared; I may have my work cut out for me trying to rebuild our base in the fall.
This weekend I'm supposed to start my big push on all those end-of-term papers, but so help me right now all I want to do is go get my paycheque tomorrow, play some DDR, and veg myself into a nice big coma. Anyone want to give me something to look forward to at the end of the semester so I can motivate myself to do these papers? Yes, I am looking southward as I type this, thanks for asking.
Conservative Groups Plan "Day of Truth" to Counter Day of Silence (thanks to Penny for the link)
Part of the reason for that bad mood is because Thackeray's, that local bookstore I wrote about a few weeks back, closed its doors yesterday. I was there for the final hours they were open, but the lines were stretched to the back of the store (they were selling everything at 35% off) and I didn't find anything I wanted that would've been worth that long of a wait. However, I did find lots of stuff I thought that maybe Christina or Milena or Penny might have wanted -- a boxed hardcover set of the LOTR trilogy, a boxed hardcover set of the first six Harry Potter novels -- and I wish I'd known about them ahead of time so I could have asked my friends if they wanted me to pick something for them. (Not that I'm not interested in either of those, but studying for UT's MA in English exam kind of usurps my reading time.) I swear, I don't know why some conservative somewhere doesn't just draft legislation to give Walmart control over every retail business in the US and have done.
Getting back to reading for a second, I am doing some more interesting reading right now, in preparation for the first couple of proposals I'm sending out to academic English conferences. This is a big step for me in terms of acting like a real English grad student, although recently I've been having doubts about whether or not I want to continue on to my Ph.D. after I'm done getting my Masters. At this point I'm more inclined to see myself do something like go to work at a community GLBT centre after I'm done with school, or something like that. I still have time to think about it, though, and once I start teaching in the fall I think I'll have a better idea of whether or not I want to continue on in academia.
Just to close with even more GLBT talk, Spectrum's elections are tomorrow night. I'm running for President again, and I don't know who else is running. I just hope I get elected, because I really think that things will work out best, both for myself and for Spectrum, if I'm in charge again. I have more I could say about that, but let's see how I'm feeling tomorrow night before I say anything more.
I'm still trying to deal with the last remnants of this cold, although at this point my symptoms are just slight nuisances. Well, except for the fact that I seem to have blown my nose so hard that the inside of my right nostril is scabbed up, causing me to get nosebleeds at fairly regular intervals. Not fun.
On a positive note, I finally got caught up with all the schoolwork I missed while I was sick. Given all the work I need to do on my end-of-term papers, that doesn't mean much -- basically tonight is going to be my one night of rest and relaxation -- but it does feel like a huge weight's been lifted off of my shoulders. Provided I can actually get everything done and turned in on time at the end of the semester, I'll finally be able to have a real summer break here, and believe me, I will use it. (Just kidding, I can think of a dozen things I need to do this summer off the top of my head.)
I swear, there must have been some sort of divine intervention that let Canada get to the finals of the World Curling Championships, and then in the finals they just blow Scotland out of the water ... Canada shouldn't have even made it to the playoffs, but their opponents kept missing easy shots in the final ends. I'm pretty sure Don's the only person who knows what in the hell I'm talking about now, but I don't care. You all need more curling in your life anyway.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago my paternal grandmother -- my last living grandparent -- had a simple heart operation, or at least as simple as a heart operation ever gets. However, when one of her sons went to visit her today she'd gotten totally puffed up. She was taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. She responded well to the treatment she was given, and there's a chance she could get over this, but given how old she is and how poorly she's been treating herself since her husband's death, I don't know if she'll really live that much longer.
In other news, while I'm almost entirely over whatever this bug was that screwed me up for so long, my mother is still dealing with a bad case of pneumonia. Her voice has been croaky for almost a full month now, and it really worries me. Mom doesn't keep herself in good shape, either, and she's getting up there in years too. Part of me worries that she'll never talk right again. I know pneumonia takes a long time to get out of the body, but given Mom's poor physical condition I can't help but worry about her.
Anyway, I have to get back to all the schoolwork I missed while I've been sick these past few weeks. There's a real temptation to just slack off here and chat online all night long, but I have to get to work here. Between all the catching up of past work and all the stuff I have to get started on for my end-of-semester papers and presentations, though, I don't know if I'll have too much free time for the next few weeks. No one count on me making any big road trips until mid-May or so. :(
Okay, so Monday through Wednesday I was pretty much cooped up here at home with this latest bug. My sinuses went into overdrive, I was coughing and sneezing like crazy, and I just generally felt like crap. I couldn't even do any of the homework I've been missing because my head was so stuffed up I couldn't concentrate on anything.
Thursday I was feeling a bit better, and I'd wanted to go into class that day, but I slept too late. (Then again, given how little sleep I've been getting thanks to this bug, my guess is the sleep was a good thing.) I still had a work-related meeting on campus later in the afternoon, though, so I went in for that. By the time I got to the meeting, though, my body was just totally messed up; I was feeling dizzy, and I was getting the worst case of cold sweats I'd ever had, even though I'd never had them as a result of this bug. My sinuses were okay, but I looked like absolute shit and the professor I met with said as much to me.
I had a bit of a lie-down after that, and then I took care of some shopping I needed to take care of, and I seriously thought I was going to faint near the end of my shopping trip. I came back here and laid down for a while, though, and after just a little bit of time I felt almost 100%. The only real problem I had was that my head still felt stuffy (although I wasn't sneezing and I could breathe just fine), but I felt better than I'd felt between the two bugs I picked up. When I woke up I was hacking up a lot of stuff, but now that I've been up for a while I kind of feel the same way again.
I don't know what to make of this. All I can tell you is that I just want my life to get back to normal here as quickly as possible, because if I get sick one more time I'm probably going to have to take a medical withdrawl for the semester. Anyway, I will try to get back on my diet here on Sunday (although right now I have next to no appetite), and I'll even try to get in a little DDR here today if I can. Hopefully after this I won't have to worry about getting sick again until the autumn. Hopefully.
At least if I had to get sick this week, it's given me the opportunity to watch the Tigers' home opener on TV, as well as the men's world curling championships. (Yes, I like curling, you got a problem with that, eh?)
Anyway, I was happy to actually get some answers to my latest round of Name That Tune, although I'm shocked that some of these went unanswered. Anyway, here are the answers ...
1. Only twenty-four hours in a day, only twelve notes a man can play.
- Beastie Boys, "Shadrach" (Don got this, but it was meant for him, really)
3. Some say it's like a beautiful flower, some say it is a terrible power.
- Helium, "Pat's Trick" (you all need more Helium in your life)
4. Maybe I'm just the horizon you run to when she has left you and me here alone on the floor.
- Tori Amos, "Here in My Head" (how did you people miss this?)
5. You were the brightest light that burned too soon in vain.
- Sarah McLachlan, "Ben's Song" (Penny got this one)
6. Hey, there's Carol Fango before she sliced her wrists.
- Jill Sobule, "Super 8"
7. I want to be brave, I want to live without fear, but it's hard to navigate when I can't even hear.
- Jewel, "Under the Water" (the song that proves that, yes, Jewel can rap.)
8. And the bouncer is a sumo wrestler, creampuff casper milquetoast, and the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fencepost.
- Tom Waits, "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)" (if this isn't in your music collection yet, get it ASAP)
9. I use public toilets and I piss on the seat, I walk around in the summertime saying "How about this heat?"
- Denis Leary, "Asshole" (Don got this one too)
10. I wish I was someone else, then it'd be harder to hurt myself.
- Sister Machine Gun, "Automaton"
So for those of you who don't read my diet log, I managed to get sick again, literally the day after the last symptoms of that other bug disappeared. At first I attributed my new illness to the pneumonia my Mom had picked up, but I really don't have pneumonia-like symptoms. I spoke with the other members of the family, and apparently they all have had the same problem with having symptoms reappearing after seemingly getting better. My father says people on one of the message boards he goes to have said they've had this happening three months to them.
Obviously I'm upset because this is screwing my diet up to no end, but more importantly than that I have missed a lot of school this semester, and since I can't access most of the research databases I need for my studies unless I'm on-campus, I really can't do much of anything while I'm stuck here. I really don't want to get in a last-minute crunch at the end of the semester getting things done, but at this point I may not have a choice in the matter.
Anyway, not much else has been going on, I guess. Really, I find myself wishing I lived in SW Ohio a lot of the time these days, just because I feel a bond to Christina and Milena and Penny. I certainly feel a lot closer to them than I do most of my friends here in Toledo. I just wish I were feeling better, because at this point I'm not even feeling up to maintaining an IM conversation with anyone. :(