some thoughts on my past year

2015 was a particularly difficult year for me, especially at times when I had nothing going on, which feels like most of the time. I didn’t work much, and when I did, it wasn’t full time, and it paid shit. I don’t see that changing in this new year. Anyway, the thing is, I feel that I don’t have many people – sometimes none – that I’m close to, people who are really my friends, people that I see and communicate with, people that I actually spend time with. 

That’s the big problem for me. When I’m in rehearsals for a show, then at least I interact with people, though it’s in a pretty limited way. It also helps to distract my brain from how full of nothing my life is. The one thing I’ve learned this past year— No, really the past several years – is that people aren’t meant to be alone. 

Another thing I’ve learned –and it’s really hit home this year – is that people don’t want to change. Specifically, I’m thinking about relationships. When people have an established relationship – whatever the nature of it, however close or distant or limited or whatever – they don’t want to put any effort into improving it. It might degrade slowly, and that seems okay for people. Or, if someone gets angry about something, then a relationship might drastically end or lessen. But people just don’t want to put effort into becoming closer to others. Or maybe that’s just when other is ME. Maybe I shouldn’t generalize my experience to all if human-kind. People just don’t want to be MY friend. They’re content with acquaintance-ship. Or maybe all these people that I sort of know really think that we’re friends. We’re not. Not really. 

There was one person – I’m sure I wrote about this a few months ago – with whom I tried to re-establish some kind of positive relationship (after a thing that had happened), but this person refused. And another person with whom I’d had a falling out died early last year. So I’ll never be able to reconcile that relationship. 

I can’t make people be my friend. I suppose if I changed who I am – specifically if I didn’t say what I think and pretended I shared all the bullshit cultural norms that people cling to – then maybe people would be more comfortable with me. Then I could make friends. 

I just don’t know if I could stand myself like that. 

So, I’m alone. Desperately alone. And quite depressed.

People are not meant to be alone. 

This past summer was particularly bad. I think there’s one person who knows how bad it was, because there’s one person I really talked to about it. I’ve been feeling this past week or 10 days a little bit like I was this summer. Not quite as bad. But I’ve not talked to that “friend” about it. She’s gotten busy with her own life. 

It’s the holidays. I think pretty-much all holidays now seem to be times that you spend with your friends and loved ones and feel happy as you share the time together. But what if you don’t have any of those? You know, friends and loved ones. Then holidays are just a reminded of how shitty your life is. 

And my life is pretty shitty. 

The one thing I need to not feel this way is the thing that I can’t make happen. The people I know – the ones I might be interested in spending time with – all have their own lives, their jobs and families and circles of friends and hobbies and interests. And I’m not part of those things. I can’t make people be my friend, just like I can’t make people model for me, nor can I make people do a show I’ve written (or even show up to do a reading of a script). I can’t. And being “facebook friends” isn’t really friendship. At least, it doesn’t feel that way to me. The thing that I need is people. In all the various aspects of my life, I need people. I can write a play, but without people I can’t hear it or see it. I can take photos of myself – but that just seems to push a lot of people away, and even makes them not want to hire me for totally non-photography-related work. 

I don’t know if I can really deal with another year like this. I need to figure out something different. Something better. Just SOMETHING. 

Well, those are my rambling, slightly drunken thoughts about the past year. Comments will be accepted at this time.

Be quiet, Joel Osteen

I just saw this on the facebook this morning:

I’ve hidden people from my timeline for continuously posting Joel Osteen quotes. There are tons of them out there, and they are annoying at best. 

If you don’t know who Joel Osteen is, he’s a TV/mega-church preacher. 

Here: 

That’s him. He’s almost always got that crazy-weird smile. It’s slightly off. And sometimes it morphs into a grimace, which is much more telling.

ANYWAY... 

That quote above is not only annoying, it’s kind of harmful. It’s basically a version of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Aw...

That idea, especially when coming from some sort of “authority figure”. Because what it is saying to the general public, like a mom telling her kid, everything is nice, everything is pretty and sweet and fine, don’t stir up trouble by pointing out the flaws in this or any situation. Stick to the status quo. Well, the status quo is pretty fucked up, and sometimes, maybe a lot of times, we need to say something not nice. 

Perhaps this “if you can’t say something nice” mindset is connected to something I’ve often complained about. That is the fear or unwillingness of people to say no. Instead of saying, “No, I’m not interested or comfortable in doing this thing you’re asking of me,” people will just lie to you. They’ll make up some excuse why they can’t. Some people are quite good at coming up with excuses that sound completely plausible. And sometimes people will even say “I’d love to, but...” or “That sounds great, but...” or “I can’t right now, but maybe...” 

I find this problematic, because I tend to tell the truth, and I tend to (or want to) assume that other people are being honest with me. I want to believe people. So when I finally figure out that someone has been lying, and I call that person on it (which I sometimes have done) the typical response is that he or she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. But the problem is that now the person HAS hurt my feelings AND damaged our relationship. This person don’t respect me enough (or have the strength of character) to be honest, and now I cannot trust him or her. I realize most people don’t think of this as lying, but it clearly is lying, regardless of the motivation. Ultimately, that is a greater harm than possibly hurting my feelings a little bit by being honest. 

I never made this connection before this morning. The connection between “if you can’t say something nice...” and making up some pleasant lie to spare my feelings. But now it seems pretty obvious. 

I prefer this quote:

No means no.

No means no. 

I am perfectly fine with that. I totally support it. 

But I also support that yes should mean yes, and maybe should mean maybe. I’m not just talking about sex here. I mean in everyday life. If you say ‘maybe’ or ‘yes I want to do that thing but I’m busy right now’ instead of ‘no’ – that’s really fucking confusing. I’m not psychic, ya know. 

It seems that where I live, there’s a sort of culture of not saying no. But I’m just not wired that way. For me to get to the point that I understand your ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ to mean no, I have to stop believing you and no longer trust your words. And that just damages our friendship or working relationship or whatever. 

This rant was prompted by an article I saw this morning. Here’s a link:

9-Year-Old Threatened with Sexual Harassment Charges 

Basically, a little boy likes a little girl at school; he writes her a bunch of love notes; she’s not interested; the school threatened the boy with sexual harassment. The article states definitively that the notes were unwanted by the girl. But I just want to know did the boy know this? 

Neither this article nor the “source” article mention whether the boy knew the notes were unwanted. Honestly, I am not defending childhood sexual harassment. If this boy knew that the girl wasn’t interested and didn’t want the notes, then he should know to stop. But if he didn’t know, how could he know? Not to be flippant, but was there a set of “do you like me check yes or no” boxes? 

What is clear to me from this article is that some other students were guilty of bullying &/or sexual harassment. Anyway, say no, people. If we’re teaching men and boys that they need to hear and respect ‘no’ when it is said, we also need to be teaching people to say no. 

Say what you need to say. 

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

My birthday wish

So, my birthday is coming up. Whoo. 

I have this impression that most people, when they get lots of birthday wishes on their facebook wall, fell happy or excited or “blessed”. I suppose they feel something like whatever the birthday wishers intend them to feel. 

I am not most people, perhaps in lots of ways. But when I see those facebook wall wishes, I don’t feel happy. I definitely don’t feel “blessed”. Now, I understand that other people actually do mean well. But what I feel is not well. When a bunch of people who I don’t know especially well, and with whom I don’t really communicate beyond the occasional “like” or comment on a facebook post, and to whom I am simply not that close wish me a happy birthday I’m overwhelmed by the feeling that I’m not close to them. I’m barely close to anyone, and these kinds of wishes on my birthday really make me feel that. They make me feel worse. 

This is a big problem in my life. I’m desperately alone most of the time. I can’t invent people to spend time with me. Well, I can invent people if I’m writing a show or something. But they’re not real. They don’t make me feel any less lonely. Anyway... 

To be clear, I’m not upset that it’s my birthday, that I’m getting older and all that. I’m really not. And I don’t hate the idea that people would want me to have a good day on my birthday. But the honest truth is, someone I barely know taking 2 seconds to write on my facebook wall does not help that to happen. It makes you feel better, because you think you’re doing something good for me. That’s perfectly normal. Sometimes I wish people a happy birthday. But in this case, on my birthday, you’re actually making yourself feel better by doing something that makes me feel bad. 

I know! That is a very unusual reaction. But as I said before, I am not most people. 

So, here’s my birthday wish. If you want me to actually have a great birthday, then do something to make a difference in my day. Write me a real message in my inbox, something personal and specific. Ask me about what’s going on in my life (very little, sadly), or tell about your life. Start an actual conversation – and then continue it. Or if you live somewhere nearby, make a plan to do something with me: buy me coffee or lunch or something (‘cause I’m broke). Or just stop by and visit for a little bit. And if you happen to be financially fortunate, I don’t know, send me some money; I need a new phone, and a new computer, and I’m worried that my car could break down any day now. (Did I mention I’m broke? Seriously broke.) 

Or even better, how about hire me for a gig? A normal job, even, if you’ve got something that I could reasonably do with my skill set. I’m not working much at all. (Hence the being broke.) If you’re in a position to influence such things, ask me about the shows I’ve written and if any of them might work for your theatre. Or, if you’re comfortable with yourself, you could model for me. (I’m a photographer too, in case you didn’t know.) That would be awesome, ‘cause even the people who say they’re interested aren’t interested enough to actually do it. 

The best thing you could do for my birthday would be to actually become my friend, not just my facebook friend. I have very few. (I guess I’m nearly broke in that area, too.) You may not know me very well, and what you do know is that I’m, uh...kind of prickly. It’s true. But on the inside I’m actually soft and gooey. Well, that just sounds gross. 

Most people won’t want to be my friend. That’s okay. I understand, it’s a huge investment. And a lot of people seem to have plenty of friends already. 

Oh yeah, plus world peace and all that crap. You know, since I’m making wishes. 

The awesome and exciting story of my day so far!!!

I just went out to move my car, because apparently I think I’m in New York City. 

No. Actually, when I got home from rehearsal last night someone had parked in the spot where I usually park. Not a huge deal, I just parked in another spot. This evening when I leave for rehearsal that spot might be hard to back out of, as there’s not much room back there. So I moved the car now, while there are only a few other cars here. All the “normal” people have gone to their “normal people” jobs. But they’ll be back. 

I’m sure the reason that whoever parked in my usual spot is that they didn’t want the difficulty of backing out this morning from their usual spot. 

Anyway... 

I just went out to move my car, and I found a spider had taken up residence inside the car in one of the cup holders. Not all that long ago – a few weeks, maybe – I found a spider in my shower. It has since relocated, but I was fine with it being there. I wasn’t hurting me, and I felt no need to hurt it. Actually, it might be doing me a favor, catching other insects. But I’m just not okay with a spider in my cup holder. Sometimes I use that thing, for cups, or sunglasses, or my phone. And sometimes when I’m driving, my hand may reach over there to pick up whatever is there. In such a situation, I’m probably not paying so much attention to whether a spider is there and if it might decide to bite me because my hand is in its spider-territory. 

So I removed the spider from my car. 

The End. 

Yep, that’s it. That’s the exciting adventure of my day so far. Awesome, eh?

I hope the spider makes it, finds another car to invade. 

No. Not another car, just another place to live and do whatever spiders do. 

And now, it’s time to continue my daily overdose of caffeine, i.e., cup of coffee number two. Also very exciting. Or maybe the opposite of that.

a shallow realization

I just had a realization, as I was out for a walk in my neighborhood. I realized that I was not looking at the world in the way that I’ve come to normally look at it in the past several years since I started taking a lot of photos. That way of looking is to really look – to see things. 

Oh, look at that; it’s very interesting or beautiful or ugly or whatever. That thing wasn’t here the last time I walked down this street. And that thing has definitely been here every time I’ve walked down this street. I wonder how that got here or why the thing I saw before isn’t here. 

It’s not very surprising, this change in how I look at things, except that it happened relatively fast. It’s only been a month, or 6 weeks maybe, since I put my camera away and decided to take a break. That’s not very long, right? I remember several years ago when I really started taking pictures I eventually realized I was looking at the world differently. But I think it was a lot longer before that happened than 6 weeks. 

Of course, with this realization came the other part which is that the way I’m looking at things lately is just very shallow, very much a functional visual interaction. It’s like I’m missing some part of me. 

I’m also looking at people differently these days. I guess I’d have to say I’m NOT really looking at them most of the time. I think I’m mostly just looking to see who the person is, where previously I might have looked at their faces and bodies and proportions and expressions and posture and all that stuff. (Not in a creepy way. Wait, maybe... Do people think I look at them in a creepy way? I could ask, but unfortunately, people mostly are not very honest. Anyway...) I found so many people beautiful in some way or another, and often I wished I could photograph lots of people that I saw. Not just snap a quick photo of some random person walking down the street, but to spend an hour or two with the person and my camera in front of a black sheet or a blank wall, really photographing a human person being human. 

I have missed it, and thought about it, and even had dreams about doing photo shoots. But, ironically, I’ve not actually done anything about it. Ironic because that’s sort of the reason I’ve been taking this break – that while there are a handful of people who express interest in doing a shoot with me, they mostly don’t have enough interest to actually do it. And my frustration with that whole situation has led me to stop trying. 

Electoral College

I’ve been anti-Electoral College for a while now. 

If you’re not sure what I mean, it’s that problem every four years during American Presidential elections where certain states are “swing states”. Certain states don’t get much attention, aren’t really part of the national campaign because they’re a solid “red state” or they just don’t have enough Electoral College votes to matter much. 

That has just never made sense to me. Maaaayyyyybe there was a time when it made sense, if the average voter just didn’t know much about the national issues, so they elect someone local who they know and perhaps respect, then those people go and elect a president. But today that’s just ridiculous and it leads to some weird election campaigning strategies. I’ve often thought, “Why not just let it go? Get rid of the Electoral College. It’s a leftover, antiquated idea.” 

We’re reluctant to let go of things, though, even when they’re not really working anymore. Like religion – it’s not really working so well for us anymore, yet a lot of people are reluctant to let it go. Then again, maybe religion IS working. I guess you’d have to figure out the actual purpose of religion to know the answer. 

Here’s a better (?) example: the whole “gay marriage” resistance that we’re seeing these days. For the sake of argument...suppose there was a time when it “made sense” that people of the same gender couldn’t marry. Well, marriage has actually changed in the past 50 years or 100 years or whatever, and it’s not because of some “gay agenda” to redefine marriage. As society has changed, straight people in marriages have changed what marriage is to the point that it’s something more and more gay people saw as something in which they want to participate. It’s no longer “the husband does this and the wife does that,” but it’s become more of a “we’re in a loving and committed relationship and we want to symbolically and legally join our lives” kind of thing. So we need to let go of that older idea of what a marriage was, because it just isn’t working for us anymore. 

(Was that a better example? You be the judge.) 

Anyway, the Electoral College doesn’t seem to work for the entire country anymore. I suppose you could say it’s working for some people – people in those swing states, whose vote is worth more, is more important that votes from people who live elsewhere. If you have a choice between two states in which you could vote (let’s say you attend college in another state), the perceived value of your presidential vote shouldn’t be a determining factor for where you decide to vote. If it’s possible to clearly win the popular vote but lose the election, there’s something wrong with the voting system. 

Well, since we’re so reluctant to let things go when they’re not working for us, how about this: instead of simply abolishing the Electoral College, why don’t we tweak it a little? In election coverage, nobody talks about winning the “Oregon vote” or the “North Carolina vote” unless it’s to do with the Electoral College, or to demonstrate how backward a particular state might be. (Yes, I’m talking about you, Mississippi.) But people definitely talk about other votes: the black vote; the women’s vote; the Latino vote; the elderly vote. Maybe that should be our electoral college. So whoever wins the “black vote” gets all the black Electoral College votes, etc. We’d have to figure out all the different categories, and the categories might change every four years. Each person still only gets one vote, but if they fall into more than one category, they can decide. So your half African American, half Latino, elderly, bi-sexual grandmother would get to decide where her vote is going. Non-disabled, cis-gendered, white men aged 21-60 don’t get an option, they have to vote “white dude” – call it “reparations”. 

What do you think, America? I say we give it a try, and see what happens.