perhaps we all yearn for magic
perhaps that's why we need art

all right all write ... and what do you write when you're suddenly startled into paranoia about who's reading?  apply buddhism like a bandaid baby, and perspective like a plaster.  ja.  either knowledge is power and paranoia's only paranoia till you prove it, or ... or in the greater scheme of things no-one really gives a fuck about anybody's puny story but their own.

enough cryptic crap.  now it's gonna get extremely enigmatic.

dyke drama:

dyke a makes a big play for dyke b.  dyke b falls for it, for her.  dykes a and b are wounded people and the kindest slant to put on the whole thing would be to say that their wounds clashed badly and that the chemistry was ultimately unkind.  and so they broke up.  dyke b fled, feeling like a failure, back to the gentle medication nation, back to routine and peace.

within four months, dyke a told dyke b she's suffered several stalkings and road rage attacks, a handful of hospital visits.  she lost her children and felt that her house was cursed.  she had a brain tumour, but an overnight second opinion at a very famous hospital proved it was a virus and she was discharged by 7am with nothing but a new haircut.  a few months after that, dyke a was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live.

dyke a's traumas are all over the internet, in poem and prose. dyke b keeps hers offline and occasionally makes a graphic riddle.  dyke a runs, sprints  fast after all of dyke b's friends.  dyke a tells a damn good tale with widened eyes and passionate gestures.

[and then you see her round town and she's wearing your coat]

poor dyke a ... either dying or lying about it and broken beyond belief either way.  dyke b's just fine - the medication's stable now, no self-harm for a while and a wonderful new girlfriend too.  she's in love and she's happy.

humans choose sides - and who wouldn't root for the underdyke here?

dyke b.. well who cares.  most people decided she's a fucking lunatic years ago.  all dyke a ever needed to do was stand, wild-eyed and yell for a while and like magic, dyke b would be crying, comatose, punching her own head, screaming.  then dyke a could say with a very long sneer, "you're just doing that to get my attention."  how many times did dyke a say 'i hate you' to her lover?  who cares.

here's to your life in monochrome
the shadows you see in the cards
they deal and the souls you steal
here's to your scars and the wounds
you've healed in the stars
here's to all the years
of your technicolour tears
and there's the end of the line.

This is when a woman just has her ordinary menstrual cycle. Just before ovulation, sperm are inserted into the uterous (bypassing the cervix). These are specially prepared and live only 6 hours, so timing is quite crucial. Nothing is required except the one trip to the clinic for the insemination. This costs about 1100/1200. Success rates at our clinic are 10% per cycle.

Stimulated cycle IUI

Same as above, except a bit more invasive. There are injections every other day of a low dose of hormones, as well as regular scans to make sure the follicle (what the egg is in) develops nicely. A day or so before the insemination, another injection is given to induce ovulation. This cuts down on timing problems. This requires medication and multiple trips to the clinic. This costs about 1400. Success rates are 15-20% per cycle.

IVF

IVF is when a woman's normal hormones are 'turned off' by medication. This allows multiple eggs to develop, which are then harvested in an operation. I would be having ICSI, which is when a sperm is injected directly into each egg. The embryos are then monitored to see if they have fertilised, how they are developing, etc. The two best quality ones are places back into the womb. This requires medication in the cycle before the woman plans to conceive, daily injections in the conception cycle, and (probably) scans. I know the least about this timeline as we haven't had the consult yet. This is very, very expensive. If I am willing to share my eggs with a woman who needs them, it costs 1050 per cycle. Success rates are 50-55%, more towards the 55% due to my young age.

We are leaning towards IVF because of the very high success rate. We have extremely limited funds, so we would only have enough money for a couple of tries before switching to IVF. I think we would rather put our money into IVF as the chances of success are much higher, the price is lower, etc. Yes, it's invasive, but I don't think I really mind that bit at all.

DN, want to tell me more about your insemination? Either by email, facebook, or here. I've been feeling hopeless about the low success rates of IUI, but sort of wishing we had loads of money so we cuold do natural cycle first. Still, IVF makes me feel much, much more hopeFUL. I welcome more info, please!!

PS - Just in case you don't read my response to the comment you made on a previous entry a bit ago, I said that I wished you lived near me. I would take you someplace slightly funky, with a nice atmosphere (perhaps a bit dim), where we could talk and talk. It would, of course, involve tasty food and things. How funny that you live so close to where I used to live, before this big old ocean got in the way.

It was (almost) enough that I called TMD to tell her about it. Funny how life works sometimes. Have not managed to sort a session, will ring her in a few weeks. I am feeling like the crisis has already resolved - for the minute, anyway.

Have spent time on some messageboards dealing with IVF. I found a thread that was a ten question thing for women who had conceived. There are almost 300 replies. I've read the first 35 pages, and the vast majority of women conceived in the first or second cycle. This has me feeling hopeful again.

I've booked an evening info session with another clinic in a few weeks time, just to compare and contrast. Our couples counselling session at OUR clinic is next week, my doctor's appointment for blood test referrals is this week, hopefully I'll get the bloods done on Friday morning. Things still seem to be ticking along very nicely.

I would really REALLY like to try in November. All the time off needed will be gross, but I am already taking a lot of time off when my mother is here, and I wonder if that will coincide with when I would need egg retrival and stuff. That would be too, too perfect.

Anyway.

I'm cheering up slightly. Don't feel as heavy or as gloomy. And still want to write about my birthday!!

But every so often, she reminds me why we have substantial disagreements. Her opinion piece, “Pornography is Crime Against Humanity and Must be Banned” (Daily Nation 9.08.08) is one such instance.

Pornography is complicated. But any sense of its long and contentious history, not to mention the infamous Sex Wars of the early 1980s, is left unexamined as Rasna scores cheap and unfair points.

• We need not mention the Sex Wars because they are a “western” phenomenon, and pornography is one of the evils “the west” has introduced into Africa.
• We must couple pornography with pedophilia at each turn, forging a conceptual link for readers—this is, of course, the kind of silly logic that claims all heterosexual sex is rape because some kinds of rape are heterosexual.
• We must emphasize that women are “victims” of pornography—that it always and consistently degrades women, that any and all depictions of women engaged in sex diminish all women
• We must link, conceptually and rhetorically, pornography to abuse
• We must invoke the very sacred, not to be used lightly, status of “crime against humanity,” something we reserve for genocides and holocausts, to write about pornography so we can acknowledge how serious it is

(that the Nation’s editors allow such a poorly reasoned piece to be published is sad)

The article betrays, I’m sorry to say, the kind of “all or nothing logic” that dominates forms of Kenyan discourse. It was the same logic that, at least in the early 1990s, said that Christian women should not wear trousers or nail polish or lipstick. It is the same kind of logic that tells us we deal with troubling individuals by expelling them.

Thinking through the complexities of an issue takes too much work, too much time, too much brain power, too much. Easier to get rid of it. Make all kinds of spurious, irrational claims, and act on them.

The article is a sad commentary on the state of Kenya’s intellectual life (if it is that).

Of course some forms of pornography are exploitative. Of course some forms are utterly degrading to men, women, and children. Of course some depict the human body in motions and actions that many of us find troubling and would prefer not to watch.

This can be said of any form of social intercourse.

And I absolutely refuse to partake of the absurd moralizing that deems sex a “special case,” “more morally destructive” than anything else.

Kenyan men were beating, raping, abusing, and killing their wives and children *before* pornography (if any such time existed).

Kenyan mores, the traditional, the contemporary, the blend between the two, are infamously violent toward women—many of the unreconstructed laws, colonial and traditional, elaborate justifications for patriarchy.

This line of argument could be extended in any number of ways.
* * *
So-called “blue movies” were being shown at Cameo, off Tom Mboya Street as early as 1982. They have been a feature of the Nairobi landscape for as long as I’ve been going to town.

Every teenage boy in the 1980s had access to porn tapes and magazines. In small rooms across Central province, Kshs 2-5 provided (and provides) access to porn screenings, where groups of men cluster to share in this ero-experience. (I avoid, for now, the homosocial/homosexual question that necessarily attaches to such clustering.)

So the question we have to ask now is what is especially new and noteworthy about the pornography that disturbs Warah? What are its notable effects? What are its potential effects? How does it, has it, will it, might it organize and re-organize the social?

To say that we are more hardened by pornography creates a golden age, retrospectively, when Kenyan men did not beat their wives when they came home from the bar, did not cheat with prostitutes, did not take advantage of children. (I’m yet to see evidence that the old men who rape children to rid themselves of venereal disease have been influenced by pornography.)
* * *
We could have an extended debate on the merits of some kinds of pornography, on what it enables for women and lesbians and gay men; about the women-focused companies that strive, valiantly, to re-think women’s pleasure; about the queer-focused companies that, in their fetish work, enlarge the scope of what is pleasurable, teach us what can be pleasurable and safe; about the kinds of risk-taking that continue to raise ethical questions about sex and its uses.

We could discuss the pleasures of masturbation, the safest sex there is.

We could consider what pornography amplifies or otherwise represses in Kenya.

Anything but the politics of infantilism that foreclose debate.

My head feels very full and heavy, and my body is slow like molasses. I woke up this morning and the thoughts were immediately whizzing through my head - should I do this? Is this REALLY want I want? Am I the only one upset here?

This was after a night of IVF dreams. Busy, busy head.

I am making plans to go forward with IVF, one step at a time. Booked an appointment to see one of my normal doctors - the pregnancy friendly one. Hopefully I will be able to get her to refer me to blood testing - I need more comprehensive tests if I am to donate eggs to another woman. These are expensive tests, and if my doctor sorts it out they will be free. Cross your fingers for free and timely!!

I'm all over the place emotionally - just imagine how crazy I will be with IVF hormones. If you choose to read my diary during that time, you'd probably better invest in a sturdy seatbelt. I am also going to call Kleinette today. Just typing this I'm getting a little teary, so going to allow myself some time to settle into work before I scurry into another room and tell my ex-therapist I need to talk/cry/puzzle/laugh. Just one session, even.

TMD suggested it this morning, and I think it would be valuable. We have a couples session scheduled at the clinic in a couple of weeks time, but it is hard to think we will be able to relax and use the space productively. Particularly as part of this woman's job is evaluating whether or not I am in a good head space to donate eggs and undergo IVF. I think of counselling as a non-judgmental safe space, and it's hard to think of it as having some sort of evaluation attached to it.

Still, I know the way I am feeling and the conversations I'm having with TMD (which usually happen as we are on a walk and I am crying! Joy!) are perfectly normal and appropriate ways to be reacting to the stress of this situation. Finances are such a huge worry. I don't want to feel that I donated eggs just to get the kickback of very cheap IVF!

How much am I willing to give up or put us through in order to have a child? I don't know what my limits are, but I am scared I might find them.

Despite having a mild case of the crazies (and during the normally cheerful part of my cycle!), I feel really positive about the outcome of IVF. I'm young, healthy, fertile. Why SHOULDN'T I be one of the women who have successful implantation and pregnancy?

Hard to focus on work. Will no doubt be back here again throughout the day. I also still want to put down in words about the wonderful effort TMD made for my birthday.

The melancholy science from which I make this offering to my friend relates to a region that from time immemorial was regarded as the true field of philosophy, but which, since the latter's conversion into method, has lapsed into intellectual neglect, sententious whimsy and finally oblivion: the teaching of the good life.

An astute student or, I guess, professor maybe, who wrote all over the library's copy of this book (I actually often enjoy what other people write in books) had written, in pencil, above the word 'melancholy', gay. And of course, yes: In this first sentence of a dedication, Adorno opposes himself to Nietzsche. His "melancholy science" (die traurige Wissenschaft) is in direct opposition to Nietzsche's gay science (die fröliche Wissenschaft). Of course Adorno isn't articulating a simple opposition here - both Adorno and Nietzsche are engaged in similar projects: "the teaching of the good life". Rather, for Adorno, something fundamental about the world had changed: Fascism had reared its artificially beblondened head.

Rather than focus directly on fascism here, though, I'd like to spend some time articulating that astute student's one-word note: gay. As Kauffmann notes in his introduction to The Gay Science, it is "no accident that the homosexuals as well as Nietzsche opted for 'gay' rather than 'cheerful'" because it "has overtones of a light-hearted defiance of convention; it suggests Nietzsche's 'immoralism' and his 'revaluation of values.'" Gay, then, I think forms one axis of a possible analysis of Adorno's work, which lays out vertically as an opposition between Nietzsche's joyful, light-hearted revaluation of all values and Adorno's "melancholy science", and horizontally as an opposition between homosexuality, and its light-hearted defiance of conventions, on the one hand, and heterosexuality and the status quo on the other.

Adorno is - the astute student was correct - gay.  Where Nietzsche took to delight, Adorno took to despair.  Where Nietzsche undermined, Adorno reinforced.  One of the things that bugs me about Adorno, which I think this introductory sentence makes clear, is that Adorno is not aiming at a Nietzschean revaluation of all values, not even the values of those systems that he claimed so ardently to oppose.  His melancholy science is one for the perpetuation of a system of values - which could be defined in several ways (Adorno's own, fascist, bourgeois, anti-working-class, racist, homophobic) - that already exist in the world.  Where Nietzsche looked (or at least claimed to look) forward, Adorno looked back.

Though it certainly isn't clear that Adorno looked to the golden past with an eye toward a return - he didn't seem to think such a return was possible - it was nevertheless in the past that "technical virtuosity, at least, was demanded of singing stars", that melody had not come "to mean eight-beat symmetrical treble melody", that there was at least a difference in terms of reaction to Beethoven's Seventh's Symphony and a bikini.  The past, on Adorno's analysis, was one in which fetishism had not yet come to dominate the musical (and, indeed, cultural) scene.

It is at the site of the fetish where Adorno most strongly attempts to rhetorically establish links between homosexuality, or sexual deviance more generally, and fascism.  Musical fascism, one can only surmise given Adorno's peculiar language, becomes embodied as the homosexual rapist.  As the first part of a key to Adorn's aggressively homophobic rhetorical construction here, I will turn to Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility", a work which Adorno openly stated radically influenced his "On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening".  Benjamin, late in the essay, announces that "The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values."  This apparatus (camera or phallus?), which artificially reproduces a process that has at least come to be natural to humankind, now (re)produces reality, substituting "a space consciously explored by man" with "an unconsciously penetrated space", opening up "a different nature", the process of which can, apparently, only mimic that "violation of the masses" at the hand of the Führer.

Adorno puts it more clearly: "Totalitarianism and homosexuality belong together."  Gorky had already stated it yet more clearly in 1934:

In the land where the proletariat governs courageously and successfully, homosexuality, with its corrupting effect on the young, is considered a social crime punishable under the law.  By contrast, in the “cultivated land” of the great philosophers, scholars and musicians, it is practiced freely and with impunity.  There is already a sarcastic saying: “Destroy homosexuality and fascism will disappear.”

Marxism, in this mode of analysis, acts as the cure for both homosexuality and for fascism.  For Gorky, this was due to a presumed direct relationship between the means of production and the superstructural effect of sexual expression.  For Adorno, the mysterious relationship between fascism and homosexuality expressed the structure of much, if not all, of contemporary society.  Despite his near-continual analyses of this or that phenomenon as homosexual/fascist, Adorno never quite gets to analyzing this relationship, however (he would later, possibly having developed a more sympathetic eye toward gay men and women, analyze this relationship in terms of repressed homosexuality (and, as the old chestnut goes, necessarily homophobia) and tendencies toward fascism, but as far as I can tell this is a turn for Adorno, something new).  Benjamin, though, is fairly more explicit: In a discussion of Futurism, he suggests that "[i]f the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. ... Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over citites; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way."  There is, here, a "natural utilization" for "productive forces" (and, I suggest, Benjamin was suggesting this was true for all (re)productive forces) which, could be, in unnatural circumstances, pressed "for an unnatural utilization".  The words "human stream", "bed of trenches", "seeds", "bombs" underline the stakes here: This is a life or death struggle.  Not simply a struggle against the forces of death, but a choice between life - the "human stream" or "seeds" (that is, semen) - or death, first in the form of an unnatural destination for the "human stream", and second as an unnatural replacement of that "seed" being "dropped" with "bombs".

This theme, first mobilized around the cluster of homosexuality and fascism and, now, the military, and second around the axis of life/death is repeated in Adorno's Minima Morlia, in the section titled "Tough Baby".  The argument developed here, one I myself saw repeated many times while in high school, takes the form "I'm not the fag, you are!"  Adorno, apparently upset that intellectuals - and he seemed to value intellectuals as the only possible saviors for humankind - were viewed as effeminate, analyzes the cigarette-smoking, whisky-drinking "tough guy" image in terms of a presumed masochism and hidden homosexuality (like fascism and homosexuality, intimately and mysteriously connected).  Adorno, the intellectual, is gay.  It is, rather, the masochistic tough guy who is "revealed" to have homosexual impulses.  Adorno, the anti-Nietzsche, is also gay.  It is, here, the "tough guy" who attempts a nearly Nietzschean mastery of the body, of which Adorno is maybe (or likely) jealous.

Here is the cluster Adorno has, with the help of Benjamin, developed so far: homosexuality, fascism, masculinity (to which Adorno opposed a "true" - his - masculinity), the military, war, death.  It is with the fetish (which, as with Adorno's brand of theory itself, is both Freudian and Marxist, both sexual and economic) that pop culture, and with it all culture, gets thrown in the mix.  In "On the Fetish-Character in Music", Adorno introduces a cast of characters: the "radio ham", who "is shy and inhibited, perhaps has no luck with girls", "'occupies' himself with music in the quiet of his bedroom" and "insert[s] himself, with his private equipment, into the public mechanism"; the "listening expert" who, like a secret masturbator, "must practice the piano for hours in secret" "in nimble subordination to what the instrument demands of him", in "agreement with everything dominant", and "produc[ing] no resistance" to the demands of authority; and, finally, the jitterbugg(er)er, the "infantile listener" (the influence of Freudian theory of homosexuality, that homosexuality is the result of a failure to develop properly, is a clear mark here) whose "ecstasy", which "takes possession of its object", "is without content", who imitate "the gestures of the sensual", "copy[ing] the stages of sexual excitement only to make fun of them".  The imitation here, of "true" (heterosexual) sensuality, maps both onto "false" (homosexual) imitations of sensuality and the false imitations of sensuality produced via the jitterbug.  The result is the production of "the masses", almost always in Adorno accompanied by the adjective "passive", who, as mentioned earlier, according to Benjamin, await their "violation" at the hands of the Führer.

Assuming for a minute that I'm right here, that Adorno's analysis is motivated by a peculiar homophobia, a fear of the Führer-rapist's sodomizing authority, so what?  Why care?  Other than the fun of queering texts, why bother?

1. Adorno in particular continues to be wildly influential in cultural theory.
2. The presumed connection between homosexuality and fascism, despite fascist atrocities against gay people, gay men particularly, continues to this day.  McCarthy, during a period where Soviet communism was presumably nearly identical with fascism in the United States, made this connection both openly and clearly when he said, "If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you've got to be a Communist or a cocksucker."  This certainly isn't new to Adorno (Adorno wasn't an original thinker, I think, though he was a brilliant synthesizer), and certainly not peculiar to Adorno.  Indeed, it is most readily found in fairly recent feminist theory, as Eve Sedgwick points out in her book Tendencies.
3. To me at least, it is disturbing that, despite his openly antagonistic stance toward homosexuality (don't forget, "Totalitarianism and homosexuality belong together."), Adorno's theory remains fairly popular among gay men.  While this is understandable - anyone who grew up gay in the high schools of the 1990s would likely sympathize with Adorno's outsider position with respect to contemporary culture, as well as have an affinity with his fantasy of the tough-guy-as-closet-homosexual - it is also deeply disturbing.

God, I feel so stressed. Picturing twins makes me feel something alternating between excitement and horror. Still, when the consultant said twins were a real risk, we just sort of looked blankly at each other. The only real risk we face is not having a baby because there's not enough money. No baby versus two babies? Not our idea of a risk.

TMD also said, 'Wow, if we had two babies at once it would be like bulk buying.'

It's nice to laugh amid the  stress of it all.

Our appointment at the fertility clinic was yesterday. We never expected IVF to be offered as a first treatment - they briefly explained all the options, and because we've never discussed IVF we went ahead with a more in-depth look at stimulated cycle IUI. I will write technical explanations when I don't feel so fucked up.

At any rate, I think we are seriously considering IVF. If I am willing to donate half my eggs, I get the treatment at a hugely reduced cost - and the success rates are five times that of a natural cycle IUI. This makes IVF both more affordable and much more attractive as far as outcomes go.

I'm just overwhelmed by the idea of daily injections, suppositories, little egg-babies in a petri dish who don't survive, little egg-babies in my womb who don't burrow right into my uterine lining. I am in excellent health. I am not an infertile woman. All of my scans have been excellent, my hormone levels are kickin', and there is always a chance I could conceive without going through IVF. But we only have enough money for three attempts.

IVF success rate at this clinic is 50-55%, and the consultant said because I'm so young it would be nearer to the 55% mark. I also have no reason to believe that I couldn't support a pregnancy, as I am fertile - unlike many women who go through IVF.

Egg sharing means more tests to make sure I'm not carrying a freaky disease, which pushes the timeline back. I don't think I mind.

Yesterday I felt so overwhelmed that when we left the clinic I started crying on the street and told TMD I don't want to do this anymore - I just want to adopt.

I don't know what the point of this entry is....venting, I suppose. Offloading. The sorts of things I would be saying to Kleinette if I was sitting on her couch. I don't want to have to be logical. Logic tells me that we should definitely do IVF - and I am happy with that choice. Despite that, I still feel scared, upset, and confused.

All I/we wanted was a baby. I never thought when I was growing up that it would be this fucking involved. Babymaking is, inherantly, supposed to be an intimate act that brings pleasure. I suppose I am mourning the fact that TMD and I have to do it differently.

I just wish I could know it would work.

OH. I'll tell you one more thing, though. Nichiren Buddhism talks about something called sancho shima. I won't pretend to be incredibly philosophical, but merely say that this means that when you are about to make a very strong step in life, life invariably throws up obstacles. Getting to the clinic yesterday was unbelieveable. We almost missed the fucking appointment, perhaps more details later.

Anyway, I was chanting in my head - the first chanting I've done in ages - to arrive by 12. When we finally made it into the city and got on public transport, guess who sat down across from us? A woman reading a book about Nichiren Buddhism - which has NEVER happened before.

Perhaps this is me striving to make coincidence meaningful, but it felt pretty fucking profound, I can tell you. We also made it to the clinic exactly at 12.

TPQ

Preachers being found with young men, old men, hairy men, even men in slings, shortly after they preached about the evils of homosexuality.

Hypocrisy is not what I want to talk about today.  Instead, I'd like to talk about a topic that will make even some liberals uneasy.  I want to talk about Bible inerrancy.

Inerrant Bible focused teachings teachings tell us that the Bible is God's word, straight from heaven, and is totally clear, and true.  The flood happened, the creation story is literal.  Giant dragons will rise from the sea at the end of time.  If recent translations say homosexuals are going to hell, they are.

This is a load of shit.  I'll tell you why.

We all know that Humans do not have perfect knowledge, or, for that matter, perfect anything.  Human make errors in everything they do.  Even when that something is writing a holy book.  Do I think the Bible is devinely inspired?  Yes.  I do; just as all great works of literature are.  Do I think it is inerrant?  No.  I do not.  Nothing that humans have a hand in creating can be perfect: black and white, right and wrong.  Many, many different people wrote the books that are now part of the canon, and many, many people had a hand in deciding what that canon would be.  The Bible was created by men in order to secure power over the Christian population, and at that time, the Christian population was the Roman population.  The Bible was a power play.

The Old Testament is, in a sense, more pure.  It is a collection of stories that teach Jewish tradition and values after the same fashion that Jews have been teaching the next generation for years and years.  Even Jesus was recorded to have taught by using parables and stories to illustrate a point.  We don't really think the parable of the prodigal son is true, so why do we think the Old Testament stories are true?

We should not.

Instead, we should read very carefully and extract, as we were meant to, the meaning, the "moral" of the story, as it were.  Here is where the Bible is good.  The moral.

Jewish morals come down to a few points:

1. There should be nothing equal to, or higher, than God
2. Take care of each other as if everyone is kin
3. There should be nothing equal to, or higher, than God

That's right.  I listed on twice.  I did it to make my point.  What is God?  What are his characteristics?

1. Eternal
2. Never-changing
3. Truth (with the capital T)
4. Love

People have started attributing these same qualities to the Bible.  They claim that the Bible is God's inerrant word.  Furthermore, they claim that this word is actually Jesus, who was with God in the beginning.  This elevates the Bible to a place equal to God.

Christians have made the Bible a Golden Calf.

Why?
If Christians claim to have a piece of God on their side, then they have a religious reason to do battle politically, and realistically, with other religious factions.  If their word is true, no other holy book can be.  They have God pigeonholed with this little book written by angry and enslaved men thousands of years ago.

And that's not right.

last year was hell.  the relationship was hell.  and so i ended up a lunatic - punching my own head and so forth ... it shocked me, i'd thought cutting myself was bad enough.  i wrote a handful of poems about it, and sang along to seether's 'breakdown' with rage and misery, but i didn't tell a soul.

she did, of course.  they always do.  chased after all my mates, stole my taste in music, art - shit like that.  threw tantrums all over my home-for-a-decade online, threw tantrums at me.  and lied, lied lied ... so many lies.

you try to understand wounded people, you try to have compassion, you try hard not to get wounded by it all yourself.  somehow it doesn't pay off and suddenly you find you've lost some more friends, gained a few more scars.  but it's ok, it's all going to be fine.  it's just life and you're only responsible for your own shit, not hers.

‘I’ll give you a job,’ the plump hairy captain of the ‘Roger’ had said to him as he stood at the harbour

‘But you’ll have to do as you’re told or I’ll throw you overboard myself. I don’t put up with laziness.’

Peter had been warned.

Three days had since passed by and Peter, unused to the heavy workload of life aboard ship, was feeling shattered. Now he’d been ordered to scrub out the captain’s room and, finding himself to be alone next to the bed, he thought to himself, ‘nobody will miss me for half an hour so why not?’

He let out a big yawn and lay down on the comfortable bed, falling a sleep almost instantly.

He’d been asleep for a long time. He knew it as he lay there with his eyes still closed. But that was okay as his brother would wake him up when he was needed, he thought.

He was still not properly awake as the smell of tobacco filled his nostrils and he slowly started to remember where he was. He opened his eyes and sat bolt up right. Darkness had descended and for some reason he sensed danger in the room as he turned his head to look around.

Sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette was the burly captain. Peter felt his skin crawl in horror at the sight of him.

‘Stay right where you are laddie and don’t move,’ the Captain’s drink slurred voice growled menacingly through the darkened room. ‘What have you got to say for yourself before I throw you overboard?’

‘Please, please don’t do that. I’m really sorry, please don’t throw me overboard. I’ll do anything but please don’t do that I beg of you.’

Peter could hardly keep his tears at bay as he begged for his life.

The captain smiled knowingly at Peter from across the room. He had planned this scene since he walked into his cabin and found the lazing there. Standing over the sleeping figure he had felt the hardness grow between his legs.

The captain stroked his beard and took another sip of his rum, purposely not saying anything for a couple of minutes. He was enjoying this, knowing the lad would be sitting there sweating.

‘You’ll do anything then will you lad?’ he said after enough time had passed.

‘Yes captain, I’ll do anything please I’ll do anything you want as long as I’m not thrown to the sharks,’ Peter replied softly, his lips trembling.

Another minute’s silence.

The captain could feel his erection trying to burst free from his trousers.

‘Okay then boy, but remember, as soon as you say no to anything, then you’ll be whipped to an inch of your life. And then thrown over. Do you understand me?’

He spoke slowly, drawing the treat out for as long as possible.

Peter’s heart leapt with joy at being given another chance. He hadn’t expected this as, over the last three days, he had seen what a ruthless man the captain really was.

‘Thank you sir, thank you captain. I wont disappoint you again I promise.’

Lighting a candle on the desk the captain said, ‘right then, get you arse over here now boy.’

Peter jumped off the bed and almost ran to him, eager to do anything to put himself back in the captain’s favour.

‘Strip,’ the captain ordered as soon as he was standing between his open legs. Without wondering why, Peter removed every part of clothing and within seconds was standing in front of his captain, stark naked.

‘Kneel down between my legs,’ the captain said. His mouth watered up at the sight of the hairless body in front of him.

Peter did as he was ordered. Without hesitation he sank to his knees. Then he glanced between the captains spread legs and, with horror, realised what was going to happen. He felt sick to his stomach, he was still a virgin with the girls, he’d certainly never done anything with a man.

He watched nervously as the captain undid his trousers with his big hairy hands.

‘Suck on my dick,’ the captain ordered as he took out his fat erection and waved it in front of Peter’s lips.

Peter’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets at the sight of the monster. But he knew he had no choice. He took a deep breath and gingerly lent forwards.

‘Go on, suck my dick now or you go overboard,’ the captain said. He grabbed Peter’s hair and tugged his head downwards, forcing his youthful lips to open up wide as his hard dick slid into the warm mouth.

Peter couldn’t believe he was actually sucking on another man’s cock. He was scared and nervous at first but soon got the hang of it as it slipped in and out of his mouth. In fact, he realised he was enjoying it as the captain’s pre-cum leaked out onto his tongue. His jaw started to ache and his lips felt bruised. They were tingling but he carried on with vigour as he found himself getting aroused. He could feel his own erection sticking up between his legs and hard against his flat stomach.

‘That’s enough boy,’ his captain said, realising that he was close to shooting his load down the kid’s throat.

‘Bend over the desk, I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you like the whores in the harbour. You’re going to be my own personnel whore while we’re on this ship. Now bend over.’

He watched, smiling, as Peter stood up and bent obediently over the desk.

‘I’m going to enjoy shoving my cock up your arse boy,’ the captain said.

He looked at the smooth crack in front of him, then stood up behind the lad and placed his cock head right against Peter’s as yet untouched hole.

Lying naked over the desk, Peter felt the captain’s hard cock nudge in between his cheeks. He started to feel panic rise with in him but he didn’t move. All of a sudden white hot pain shot through him and he thought he was going to pass out. The captain, using only his own saliva for lubrication, rammed his thick cock straight up into the boy’s tight hole. Peter screamed out loud as the captain withdrew all the way and then ploughed his cock right back up again. To the hilt.

‘That’s it, scream you fucking whore. Scream!’ the captain shouted as he kept on battering the insides of Peter’s arse.

At first Peter thought he’d never known pain like it and he did scream, but the pain soon went away and he found himself thrusting his arse backwards, wanting more.

There was another pain, but not so hard, as the captain started to slap his arse with his hand as he banged away; touching Peter’s prostate with his cock with every thrust. Peter, still clinging on to the desk for his life, soon felt his cock start to throb and with a loud moan he came under the table.

‘Get back on your knees in front of me boy, I’m going to cum,’ the captain ordered as he withdrew his cock from the Peter’s warm, tight hole.

As soon as Peter was on his knees the captain stroked his hard cock a couple of times and let off a volley of hot cum right into Peter’s upturned face. He watched in excitement as shot after shot splattered over the lad’s astonished face and he watched as Peter licked the cum off his lips. When he was fully spent he slapped his cock around Peters face a few times, to remind him who was the boss.

‘From now on you’re going to be at my beck and call. Whenever I need my cock servicing you’re going to bend over for me. I don’t care where it will be on this ship or even if it’s in front of the other men, do you understand me boy?’

‘Yes captain, my arse is yours,’ Peter replied. Only this time he was more than happy to oblige.

There is a lot of symbolism in this movie drawn from natural settings where the very nature of faith is being considered by Brady.  When he meets Clifford (Owen Alabado), and experiences falling in love, Clifford begins to love his complete self.     

The film brings home a message that self acceptance and the coming out process from a perspective of faith are so much bigger than a church or an interpretation of scriptural writings. For Christians, it is in that personal deep soul connection that one has with God where His Love is so much greater than all of us. Basically, God accepts you as a gay person. Accept yourself. 

Brady's coming out process in the end becomes a spiritual journey for him of self acceptance and true faith.

The film’s writing and editing was weak in places which made it drag at certain points. It also inhibited some of the actors’ performances. However, overall it is worth the DVD rental.

Rock Haven Official Movie Site: http://www.rockhavenmovie.com/

Academy Award nominee Gus Van Sant directs Academy Award winner Sean Penn as gay rights icon Harvey Milk.

Mr. Milk (1930-1978) was an activist and politician, and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America; in 1977, he was voted to the city supervisors' board of San Francisco. The following year, both he and the city's mayor George Moscone were shot to death by another city supervisor, Dan White.

Mr. Milk was previously the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary feature "The Times of Harvey Milk," but "Milk" -- filmed on location in San Francisco -- is the first non-documentary feature to explore the man's life and career.

Also starring are Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, James Franco and Diego Luno

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1536982&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

MALECELEBSSKIN.com - giving out free membership!

I woke up at 11 with a serious need to pee.  I saw I had a voicemail from my mother.  It was significantly more annoying than the 3am email.  I decided to go back to bed. 

At 1pm, my alarm went off.  I can't believe I slept so late, but I'll take 9 hours of sleep even if it means the day is half over.  I listened to an amusing voicemail from my dad and checked my 3 text messages from my roommate.  She's amazing.  She left me a box of muffins on the kitchen table.  I enjoyed the chocolatey one with some coffee.  Yum. 

I checked my email before heading off to a mandatory school thing.  Another email from my mother.  *sigh* This one wished me a happy birthday again, but was filled with subtle messages about how she's sad she doesn't get to see me on my birthday.  It's my damn birthday.  I should get to see who I want to see.  Annoyance. 

I checked my facebook page to see several birthday wishes from friends.  :)  Then I noticed a new advertisement on the side of my page with the following message:  "Over 30 and single?"  Jeez.  Facebook didn't waste any time!

Before I left for the school thing, I pulled a muscle in my back...all I did was attempt to stand from a seated position.  I didn't *do* anything.  Apparently my back feels 'old' today.   The school thing was incredibly boring and pointless.  At least it's over now.

Then out to dinner with friends...by far the best part of my day.  Good food, good drinks, good times.  After dinner we picked up icecream but we were too full to eat anything else so it remains in the freezer still.  We watched a movie, "If These Walls Could Talk 2".  It was good.  Check it out...but be forewarned, you will see Ellen DeGeneres' breasts.  And Sharon Stone's...but that sort of goes without saying.  If she's in a movie, you're probably going to see quite a bit of her body.  And thank God for that. 

I also talked with my mom again.  More annoyance.  More guilt that I didn't see her today.  Blah blah blah.

And now it's approaching midnight...the final minutes of my 30th birthday.  I'm about to head out to the gay bar with some friends.  Here's hoping I don't drink too much. 

I don't really feel 30.  Not that 30 is old.  Some days I feel 63.  Other days I act like I'm about 12 1/2.  Whatever right? 

All in all it was a good day, thanks to great friends!

Like, I clearly remember not liking Lindsay Lohan. I remember thinking she was a vapid talentless actor who made one good movie once.

But now...

I kind of like her. Instead of seeming like a boring ho-bag, she now seems like a sexy, smart, lesbo mama.

Funny, huh?

I love buying journals and have trouble
finishing them. I have five holes in my
ears and no more hole
in my tongue.
I have one crown in my mouth,
no tattoos, and
a serious distaste of earthworms.

I'm 5'8, taller than my mother (only just)
and shorter than my
father. Once, playing under a sleeping bag,
I watched my sister swallow a
penny.
I met TMD in 1998, I moved to this
country permanently in 2001 (we can
ignore the extensive visiting in 2000).

My grandfather had a huge collection
of
Reader's Digest books,
and he ate popcorn every night from
a giant wooden bowl.
He and my grandmother were
first generation in my home country.

I never thought about being
from that country until I moved
far away from it, and my accent and cultural
habits made me an oddity.

I dislike cutting my toenails (because it's
icky, not because I want long claw hooks),
I've worn glasses since I was eight,
I lost my virginity when I was 16. My wife
has a killer voice
and plays the guitar like a dream.

I have never met my father's side
of my family,
I have never met my grandparents'
across-the-ocean family,
I wonder sometimes how they fared in
the Halocaust, with all those
death camps sprinkled around.

I am not German or Austrian.

I've slept with more boys
than girls
but been with TMD probably longer
than all other relationships combined.
I'm a serial monogomist.

I used to tap dance.
I cannot do a cartwheel.

(I think I counted correctly. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday in one way or another. The first fact of my 31st year: I love comments on this diary. It makes me feel listened to, valued, and like someone has reached out to make a connection with me. Love to you all!)

http://www.myspace.com/atkm