The Blah-blah-blues-blog

BLECH:

So, I haven’t written a blog in almost a month.

I was a little bit sick...ish. Well, there was one day several weeks ago when I felt really bad.

And I was a little bit busy...ish. Well, I had a few extra rehearsals and a few juries to accompany.

Mostly I’ve just been lazy/depressed. I still am. I could spend this time writing. I SHOULD be working on some orchestrations for a show I’m doing in the spring. This is when I actually have time, but I’m finding it hard to motivate myself.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS:

I don’t really get into Thanksgiving or Christmas. It occurred to me a couple of days ago that I can’t really make any emotional investment in the holidays, because there’s no real pay-off for me. I don’t seem to feel the warm, fuzzy stuff that everyone is “supposed” to feel. At Thanksgiving some friends invited me to their house for a very tasty dinner. That was nice; I had a good time. But, in general, it’s hard for me to feel thankful when I’m not happy with myself or with my life. Yeah, I’m not homeless and starving, but I live alone and spend most of my time alone. And I’m really worried about money lately. I don’t have any. I haven’t really worked “enough” in 2 years, and I don’t really think I’ll get much more work next year.

As for Christmas...well, I’m not religious. In fact, I’m pretty-much anti-religion. And for those who’d say they’re not “religious” but they believe, well, I’m pretty hostile about “faith” as well. It seems that the people who say that kind of thing (not “religious” but...) are just going along with or have returned to the stuff they were taught when they were children and didn’t have the mental capacity to question it. And now it’s like they have religion-lite, and they conveniently distance themselves from the horrible stuff that religions have done and often don’t even feel much need to actually examine what they believe. They just take their own particular dose of opiate and chill out, not really have to think about it.

The commercial side of Christmas makes me ill, so I haven’t even thought about it much this year. I don’t have a TV, so I haven’t seen those blatantly offensive commercials that suggestion we all must purchase lots of crap we and our “loved ones” don’t need. I think I wrote entire blogs ranting about Christmas for 2 or 3 years. There’s an abridged version of one of them here from December 2006.

ANYWAY:

Maybe I just have seasonal affective disorder. Of course that might suggest that I’m relatively healthy the rest of the year, and I’m not willing to claim that.

So, now I’ve written a blog. Yep, another blog complaining about how I’m unhappy. Maybe I should change the name of this whole thing from Mister Christer’s Variety Show...the blog to something like like The Blah-blah-blues-blog. 

bullshit inner monologue

Damn it!

I’m trying to do some work on a script. It’s a show I started writing this summer, when I had a lot of time. And now, even when I have a day off, like today, I just can’t stay focused on it.

It’s not the facebook or the netflix distracting me. The problem is that I’m too distracted by my bullshit inner monologue. I’m not beating myself up, thinking “I’m not a good writer” or that kind of creativity-related thing (not that that doesn’t happen sometimes). It’s that boring monologue about how I’m generally unhappy being alone. See, you’re probably bored already.

There’s one particular woman I’m interested in right now, but at this point she isn’t able or willing to give me what I want. That ought to discourage me from interacting with her. I expected it to, based on how I’ve reacted to this kind of thing in the past. But how I feel just hasn’t really changed. A friend mentioned the other day that maybe the problem isn’t this woman. Maybe the problem is that I’m feeling old and tired and worried that I don’t have many chances left. Damn you, smart friend who can sometimes see through my bullshit!

Actually, I don’t know for sure if that’s the problem, but it’s certainly possible.

Why is it so easy to just sit here and write this, while working on that script feels like I’m having to stop and think and work for every line?

Blech. I wish I were either a lot more busy so that I don’t really have the time to sit around and think about this OR that I were less busy so I could really delve into writing like I did this past summer: spend basically all morning writing, a few hours in the early afternoons typing up what I just wrote, and a few hours in the late afternoon writing music. 

Birthday, schmirthday ...UPDATE

Karen’s call for people to send her stuff worked.

Soooo....I’m putting out a call for people to throw me a party. I’ve taken my birthdate off the facebook for now, and I’m probably not gonna put it back on until after Friday. I still don’t want to wade through “happy birthday” postings. But between now and then I’ll be putting in my status a call for local people to throw me a party.

Do it! I’m gonna be 40 on Friday. That’s sort of a big deal. Do it! Make it a “special day” for me. I could use one. Seriously. 

massage

I’d like a massage partner. Somebody that I know, that I like well enough, but don’t LIKE. My friend Julia thinks that people who know each other can’t give each other a massage and it not be about sex. I fully admit that there can be a sensuality to it, even a sort of intimacy. And certainly it can be about sex, but I think it doesn’t have to be.

I know that many people (I’ve talked to them over the years) would prefer a stranger give them a massage. But I just don’t feel that way. There is something important about touching each other (go ahead and get all the giggles out now), and while hiring someone who has studied and knows physiology and all that can lead to a really helpful massage—I’ve paid for some excellent massages— I think the idea of a friend touching you is really nice and might be really helpful emotionally. Also, it’s much easier on the budget. Just spring for a little massage oil, or baby oil, whatever. And if you feel like you’d be awful at it, just not know what to do, there are books which are probably cheaper than the cost of a massage.

So, anyone out there living near me interested?

Birthday, schmirthday

Inspired by my friend (or former friend? well, facebook “friend” anyway [old friend...that's what she told me she prefers]) Karen Faith, who this morning posted a facebook status reminding people to get their birthday presents to her in the mail, I’d just like to say this about my upcoming birthday: I will be removing my birthdate from the facebook sometime before the big day. Having it listed there on everyone’s home page makes it so easy for people to see it, think “oh a birthday...I must send birthday greetings”, post a little comment, and not think about the person again.

I just don’t want tons of birthday greetings posted on my wall. I will feel compelled to read them, just to see if any are worth responding to. And based on past years, I assume most won't be. It’s not that I think those kind of greetings are insincere, but to me they just feel shallow. I mean, most of my facebook “friends” are acquaintances, people I did a show or two with, or whose lessons I accompanied years ago, or maybe attended high school with over 20 years ago. They're not that close to me really. In fact, I recently un-friended about 80 people, and could probably un-friend another 80 without their even noticing. My point being, they're mostly not really friends of mine.

On most of my birthdays as an adult I was in rehearsal or doing a show or accompanying classes or lessons or whatever it is that I was doing every other day at that point in my life. The only difference is that people told me or wrote to me “happy birthday” or some other comment. My least favorite birthday greeting is anything to do with my “special day”, for the obvious reason that IT’S NOT A SPECIAL DAY! For me, the simple knowledge that it’s the anniversary of my birth doesn’t make it special. I’m not at all opposed to it’s being special, but unless somebody makes a significant effort it’s not gonna be: a party, or a great dinner or drinks with a few actual friends, or a nice date with someone I like (maybe a little sumpin' sumpin'?). And I’m just not really comfortable throwing myself a party. At this point, I fear the turn-out would be so low that I’d feel even worse.

So I go around, doing whatever, on my birthday, acutely aware of the lack of “specialness”, and hearing or reading all these birthday wishes just makes it feel worse. I realize that’s not a normal reaction, but that’s how I feel. (Yes, I’m a crazy person...okay, maybe not crazy, but I know that my feelings about and reactions to many things are atypical.) If you want me to have a special day, then do something to actually make it special, and I don’t mean to post “happy birthday, Chris” on my facebook wall.

Monkey Muffins

Monkey Muffins (Chocolate Oatmeal Banana)
I just used my basic muffin recipe and added one packet of instant cocoa mix (minus the sad little dehydrated marshmallows), a little oatmeal, and bananas. I omitted the blueberries, a little less sugar because of the cocoa, and a little less flour because of the oatmeal. I sort of improvised.

They're not bad; not as sweet as I expected form tasting the batter, and a little heavy (probably the oatmeal).
If anybody reading this is in the Greensboro area and wants a taste, please let me know. You're welcome to come by and have one or take a few with you.

National Coming Out Day – # 2

I don’t know what it’s like to be gay. But for a long time I’ve been supportive. I’ve had lots of friends and acquaintances and colleagues who were (are) gay. Apparently in high school I had friends in who are gay, but I didn’t know it then. I’m sure I would’ve been supportive. I certainly had a number of what I would call moderate but others would call liberal viewpoints. (I remember arguing with my brother at the kitchen table about things like inter-racial relationships and women in positions of authority. I was on the side that says both of those things are okay. My brother called me a “flaming liberal”. Funny thing is that not long after that I had a friend in college who called me conservative.)

About a year ago I had an experience, well it lasted several months—is that “an experience”? Maybe this is better: about a year ago I went through something that gave me some clue what that must feel like. My experience felt awful. It made me very unhappy and bitter.

At the end of last summer I had very little money and no future work lined up. I felt that I couldn’t afford to go back to NYC, so I started looking around for some possibilities. Just at that time, a friend posted as his facebook status that he needed an accompanist at the school where he was head of the voice faculty. So I ended up working there. It was a private Baptist university outside of Mobile, Alabama. I wasn’t familiar with the school and was a little wary at first, as I am not a Christian and certainly not a Baptist. But my friend assured me that as long as I wasn’t cursing at the students and sacrificing babies in my backyard at midnight it would be fine.

Well, it wasn’t fine. The head of the performing arts department asked me to not tell the students that I was not a Christian. I thought that it didn’t need to be a big deal, but I still didn’t understand just what sort of place I was working at. The students and faculty are all assumed to be Christians. It seems that the faculty are considered spiritual advisors to the students in addition to whatever they are teaching. All the time in the hallways and classrooms you hear people throwing out these catch-phrases that let you know they’re in the know: “Have a blessed day” and that sort of thing. I played some for the theatre program, and they would have prayer at the beginning and end of every rehearsal.

When I found out that they have a musical theatre major, before I met anyone there, I wondered if they had any gay musical theatre boys. (Yes, that’s a stereotype, but it’s based on real-world truth.) I’m pretty sure they do, but those boys are not even close to being out. The official position of the school is that if you are discovered to be a homosexual, engaging in homosexual behavior, you’ll be kicked out. In practice, it depends on who you are. If you’re someone the department really wants to keep, because you’re really good or a leader or whatever, then they’ll pray for you and have a sort of Jesus-based intervention at which, I suppose, you can renounce your sin and get right with God, and then it’s okay, I guess.

Well, as the semester dragged on, I found it harder and harder to not talk about my lack of faith. Only one person, other than the head of the department, ever asked me directly about what I believed. I told her the truth. I’m agnostic. But there were so many other times when I could tell that people were assuming that I was like them, that I shared their faith. There were some faculty members that I told, mainly so they wouldn’t ask me to lead a prayer or anything like that. But otherwise, I was in the faith “closet”. There was something about me that was rather significant, and I knew that most everyone else around me was not “that way”, and they assumed that I was just like them and not “that way” either.

If I had stayed on there for another semester it would’ve had to’ve been on the condition that I be honest about my lack of faith. But I did not stay. I could not stay. My being asked to not reveal that I wasn’t a Christian was a symptom of the larger problem of a focus on the appearance of things at the expense of the substance. That’s why I left. That attitude is in direct opposition to my feeling about life, how people should communicate with each other, and certainly education: teachers and schools ought to be encouraging students to examine things and explore the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. I think this is a general problem in “the church” and the reason behind so many church/minister scandals. They’re busy working on the appearance of right-ness or righteousness and not dealing with the substance or truth of things.

When I decided to leave, I did tell a few of the students about the whole thing. They didn’t think it was a big deal. It's not that they didn't care, but they weren't devastated, their faith wasn't shaken by my not sharing it. One of them was actually mad about it and told the head of the department. Good for her.

Before that experience, I knew that I considered it important to tell the truth. It’s something that I value. But I now know that it’s also very important for me to not not tell the truth. Not telling the truth about something feels just like lying, which I hate. In other, fancier words, it’s important to not commit lies of omission, not just to avoid lies of commission.

The whole experience of feeling “closeted” in that way was just dreadful. And I didn’t even feel any shame about being agnostic. How horrible would it have been if I thought it was bad or evil or sinful or unnatural or just plain wrong to be the way I was.

It’s not wrong or evil to be agnostic. Sometimes it can be difficult. But there are people out there who are like you and others who aren’t but will support you and love you and not think that you’re bad because of it.

And it’s not wrong or evil to be gay. Sometimes it can be difficult. But there are people out there who are like you and others who aren’t but will support you and love you and not think that you’re bad because of it.

Have a “blessed” National Coming Out Day.