Thursday, April 28, 2005 | by nathan

Oh. My. God.

Holy crap. I just finished a rough draft of a novel.

Oh my God.

I can’t believe it. I actually got to page 258 and realized - “Oh! I’m done! There’s no more story!”

Oh my God.

Of course, there are a lot of revisions left to do. According to Deborah, revision is a sixteen-step process that goes something like this (I add where needed. Mostly spiritual advice):

I. Write to the end of the book. Do not revise until you have finished writing.
II. As soon as you finish writing, make notes as to what you want to do in your second draft. Then put it aside for 2-4 weeks and go live your life as if you were a normal person. The world will know you are kidding yourself, and this is Okay.
III. When you pick it up again, go back and make all the changes you wrote down. This will cause a big mess in your story, and once again, this is Okay. Eat something fattening.
IV. Make for yourself a calendar-time schedule-flow chart for your book using posterboard, your computer, or a large table. Make sure time works in your book. Chart your scenes and story events and make sure it all is where it needs to be. Compare your chart to your original synopsis and ask, “Have I improved the book?”
V. Print a new, clean copy. Change the font so it looks fresh to your eye. Go through and make edits and marginal notes. Color code everything. Use lots of paper. Then send money to reforestation efforts and environmental groups.
VI. Go through your “revision checklist” (this was handed out in class). Be systematic. This step will take forever.
VII. Look at your scenes and sequels. Are they in the right place? Do they work? Do they follow the formula? If not, does THAT work? Can they be arranged more dramatically? What needs to be cut? Arrange your note cards in a stack on your desk and start moving stuff around. This will leave even more holes, and this is Okay. Remember to breathe.
VIII. Where are your big scenes? How many are there? They should be REALLY BIG. LIKE THIS, ONLY BIGGER.
IX. Check your chapter openings. Are they all the same? If so, shake some of them up. Do the same for the chapter endings. If characters are going to sleep at the end of your chapters, this is bad, because the readers will be, too.
X. Looking for mushy spots in the manuscript. Like checking a banana for…mushy….spots…. this is also soul-wrenching. Are there places where the story lapses but you are hoping no one will notice? ‘Cause they will.
XI. Graph out where your backstory and your hidden story are revealed. Can these places be moved to create better dramatic effect?
XII. Polish The Scenes! –> Write necessary transitions, check your story logic, check your style. This could be called what Anne Lamott refers to as the “Dental Draft.” Here you are checking every tooth for the slightest sign of decay.
XIII. BEWARE THE TEMPTATION OF SUDDEN INSPIRATION! If you get a sudden flash as to how you may revamp the entire manuscript, remember that this is your mind playing tricks on you. It is sick of revision, and it does not have your best interests at heart. This is the place where you must have faith in your work. If you had an agent, he would take the book away from you at this point. This is the step where you listen to a lot of Mary Chapin-Carpenter and India Arie.
XIV. Ask yourself: Is the book too long? Do you need to tighten it? Because someone, somewhere will eventually ask you to do so. Remove everything that is not necessary, no matter how well-written it is. Many authors have said something to the effect that they remove all the passages they love the best, because they tend to be the most unnecessary and self-inflated.
XV. Print a New Copy. Wait a week, then make yourself some muffins or cookies, go to your favorite reading spot and read the book straight through like you would a regular novel. This does not have to be done in one sitting, but if you find you can’t put it down, take this as a good sign (unless it’s your neurosis telling you not to put it down. But I am sure that you are completely healthy and that the voices of your parents, your teachers, and the kids in elementary school never pipe up in your head to tell you that you could never possibly be good enough. But the two or three of you to whom this may have happened once or twice, take heed). You may check the book here for minor things - typos, glaring grammatical errors, etc. But once you have corrected these teeny, tiny mistakes, you are finished, and you must stop mind-fucking this thing to death.
XVI. Mail the book to a publisher, or, better yet, an agent. Meanwhile, let some people who love you and who like to read look it over. Make them muffins so they will sing your praises. Take a break, live with the many rejections you are bound to receive, then roll up your sleeves and get to work on something new while continuing to send this old book of yours to as many people as you can afford.

See, so the fact that I got to the end of my rough draft is just the beginning, really. This should be an interesting summer.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 | by nathan

It Already Feels Like Friday…

It’s Wednesday. Today feels like Friday. Yesterday felt like Friday. I hate weeks like this, and I love them, because there is this sense of crabby optimism.

It feels like when I’m swimming, and I get in the pool, do a few laps, and think, “I can’t do as much as usual; I’ll go 12 laps.” Then I get to 12, and think, “If I can do 12, I can do 20,” and then at 20, “Just five more to 25,” and so on until I’ve been in there for an hour. And four hours later I still reek of chlorine and the pool always makes my hair do this cool thing that I can’t get it to do on my own. That one spot on my shoulder that always hurts is always giving me trouble, and I am slated to be here until 10 PM.

I may go outside and lay in the sun until it’s time for me to take over.

current song: “Luna’s Gone” by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

I’ve been listening to this last Loretta Lynn album “Van Lear Rose.” It makes me crazy - it’s so incredibly good. I got it awhile back but it took me forever to finally suck it up and listen to it, and when I got to the end of “Portland, Oregon” I just started screaming in the car. I mean - wow. Makes me want to give The White Stripes another chance at capturing my heart and ear.

I’m looking forward to this weekend, and, in fact, the next few weeks. Friday night I’m headed to Weatherford to hang out with Dad; I’m hoping I can finish the book while I’m out there. I come back Saturday, and I hope in time to see “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” before heading to Galileo to get a table for the K.C. Clifford show.

The Shins are going to be at the Diamond Ballroom in Oklahoma CIty on May 6th!!!! WOOT!!!!

new song: “Peach Trees” by Rufus Wainwright.

I can’t believe I’m almost finished with Moving Van People. Today in class we talked about how to find an agent and sell your book. I’m nowhere near that step yet; there are people who need to read it, and in the meantime, while they’re doing that, I need to set it aside and not think about it. I need to find a summer job. Possibly a boyfriend.

I need to let it breathe for awhile, according to Deborah; I tend to agree with this. I’ve been really pushing through the past 100-150 pages since the semester started, and - thankfully - haven’t had time to look and see how terrible it is. Once I finish it, then get it edited (which seems to be a long process involving large tables and several different colors of index cards) I will allow anyone would like to read it to do so.

It’s almost time for me to take over; I think I will go outside in the sunshine and the cool grass and close my eyes for a bit. Days like this are made for this, except the wind has been blowing a lot this month and my allergies are being especially cruel. Perhaps I will lay on the nice leather couch in the lobby, where there is air conditioning…

final song of the post: “Pictures of You” by the Cure. I’m in 9th grade all over again…

Sunday, April 24, 2005 | by nathan

Pulp Fiction and the Liberation of Gay America: A Review of Literature

I’m writing this paper, and I’m glad that the subject matter is completely fascinating and titillating to me, because writing a Review of Literature is one of the most boring and mentally taxing things I’ve ever been asked to do, like counting out all the brown M&Ms or sitting through a lecture on the overpopulation of deer. Snooze.

But my Monday night class (AKA Monday Night Football, AKA Race, Gender, and the Media) is an experience in specialness, and as a graduate student I have to write a Review of Lit (by tomorrow) over the topic of my choice. And since I am an aspiring novelist, who will, against his will, likely be pigeonholed into the “gay writer” genre (though I hope for a more David Sedaris-esque kind of course for my career), I thought that I should do something about representations of gay men and lesbian women in popular fiction. That way, in two years when they come to me and try to tell me this class didn’t count for elective credit like they said it would, I can claim to have done something pertaining to my career path.

My nervousness works to my benefit, some of the time.

So I’ve been reading all the scholarly literature about gay fiction. There is surprisingly little to choose from. Most of what I’ve read concerns either the Pulp Novels of the postwar era, which hit their peak with the Homophile movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. What fascinates me about these books - not having read them - is how it seems that an entire generation of gay and lesbian people were able to find them at their local drugstore or supermarket, cleverly hidden among all the other dime-novels on the spinning wire rack. There was an elaborate code set up by which a cover would betray its homoerotic content so that you’d know which book to buy. And there was apparently this whole underground network of book trading, whispered reviews, nothing in print of course, because McCarthyism effectively scared discussion of it out of the New York Times Review pages.

I remember being about thirteen or fourteen and being by myself in a mall bookstore, like Waldenbooks or B. Dalton or something, and finding a book of gay male erotica. It was like some whole world was opening up; it was like coming home. Of course there was the requisite Middle-America-Teenage-Angsty-Guilt thing happening, but also there was something like a fresh breeze breaking through. Like I’d found my people, you know? It wasn’t just the sex; that was ancillary in a way, because it was about finding out that there were people who had the same thoughts and experiences you had; and if there were other people out there having them, it probably wasn’t as twisted as the whole world was trying to get you to believe.

Yesterday I saw a straight couple walking across campus holding hands. I got furious for a second, because of how much they seemed to be taking for granted that they get to do that freely.

Not that I have someone to holds hands with; I wish I did.

But the miracle of all this gay literature - even and especially now - is that it has the power to help us to craft a unique cultural and political identity. Now. I’m not all about some of the more licentious aspects of gay culture, although I do understand their genesis and, in a way, their necessity. Not necessity in a sense of being needed or helpful, but in a sense of being inevitable. Like Margaret Cho said, “When you’re persecuted for who you like to fuck, you’re going to kick up your heels and fuck. And it is such an inspiration to watch.”

What is interesting is how much gay writing, especially gay erotica, changed once AIDS hit. For a while it seems to have disappeared altogether. It is strange to me how much the late 1970’s and early 1980’s changed the world for gay people. On one hand we became much more visible, partially because it was one of the first times our culture had been embraced by the wider culture. On the other, Anita Bryant and AIDS came along to convince the world we are a people to be feared, and this conception has stayed with us ever since. AIDS killed the whole “sexual liberation” thing of the 60’s and 70’s; which may be good, but what a toll. What a toll.

When gay erotica reappears it is in this context; a lot of the attitude and the narrative behind it has changed. It is less free, and a lot less edgy. Gay fiction begins to deal almost exclusively with AIDS for about a decade before taking up the mantle of the coming-out experience. These two subjects frame the greatest portion of what would be called “gay fiction” now.

But there’s the problem. If you look at the “gay literature” section of your local Border’s or B&N, you’ll find a lot of stories in those three veins: erotica, AIDS, and coming-out. When gay literature is written about everyday gay people living normal lives - David Sedaris, David Rakoff, Colm Toibin - it is classified as literary fiction and shelved so. But there is no scholarly literature surrounding the literary patterns of “gay fiction.” What constitutes it? Does it always have to do with coming-out, AIDS, or sex? Some of your better books involve all three. There has been almost no literary criticism to this effect, and I believe a study of such could be very helpful, considering a) the market for gay literature - gay product placement in general - is one of the largest, most freely-spending and untapped markets in America, and b) a lot of gay fiction seems to have fallen into - or been placed into - a genre apart from literary fiction and erotica that seems to have its own rules and freewheeling style. You may call it just a sub-genre, but it merits study.

As much as I dream of being on NPR, becoming David Letterman’s new best friend, and winning the Pulitzer, I really love those gays and want them to read more things that are going to give them their lives back. People I’ve read - inside and out of that genre - have done that for me: William S. Burroughs, Paul Monette, Kirk Read, James Baldwin, David Sedaris, Paul Russell, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman. They were my people, and they handed me myself in words. I want to do this for other people, especially gay people, because we need a lot of hope, especially under this administration.

I could never write erotica; I don’t want anyone to picture me having sex. Though “Moving Van People” does hit a few high sexual notes, I would never expect excerpts from it to get published in “Man on Man 4″ or anything like that. I don’t have the big brass cojones it takes to write explicitly sexual material. What I do have is an understanding that for gay people, finding out about sex is a fundamentally different experience than it is for heterosexuals. Because even if it’s embarassing, for a straight kid it’s Okay to ask sex questions. It’s Okay for them to feel the way they feel; it’s expected. Even if you grew up in a home where you were raised with a strict set of sexual mores, you were assumed to be straight. You were expected, sooner or later, to start asking what the deal was.

But the problem for us is that we never could. We didn’t grow up in a place where it was Okay to ask the questions we had. “What if I want to kiss a boy instead of a girl?” Even the most well-meaning of parents would have freaked out. We heard “faggot” all the time at school; there was a culture of fear there. So for gay men - gay youth especially - to start finding out, covertly, that their sexuality is something that exists for real, in others, in the world, is massively transforming. I hope to God that someday we don’t have to find out about it in secret, hiding in the corner of a Waldenbooks with some other book over the one we are actually reading. I hope someday it is Safe for gay kids to ask these questions at school, and at home, and - God help us - maybe even at church. But now, it is not.

Gay lit is important; I’m just not sure anyone knows at present what exactly it is. It’s about so much, SO much more than sex, like being gay itself is. Good thing I’m stoked about this paper now. ‘Cause it’s due tomorrow.

Friday, April 22, 2005 | by nathan

Music Makes The People Come Together

Okay, Jonathan. You are correct; my profile does make me look a lot cooler than I am. In my defense, I have never - never - owned a New Kids album. Never. Debbie Gibson, I did have. But no NKOTB, no MC Hammer, and no Vanilla Ice. And I think that’s saying something.

However. I thought I should shake down the incredible complexity of my musical preferences. I got to thinking in terms of genres, which I realized I don’t believe in. So I made up my own genres, because these are more appropriate. This is a way-too-thorough shakedown of my iPod, because I am procrastinating on writing a paper.

Angry and/or Sad Women, All of Whom Have Guitars, Some Of Whom Are Lesbians: Mary Chapin Carpenter, KC Clifford, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, Sarah McLachlan, The Geraldine Fibbers, Alanis Morissette, Shawn Colvin, Corrina Repp, Sophie B. Hawkins, Tori Amos, Carole King, Loretta Lynn, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Chapman, Rebecca Correia, PJ Harvey, Marianne Faithfull

Alternativey Music I Love But Which Has the Unfortunate Side Effect of Making Me Appear Cooler than I Could Ever Hope To Be (Or, What My Boss, Seth, Calls “Sad White Guy Music”): U2, Interpol, The Stills, The Cure, Postal Service, The Killers, The Rapture, Dismemberment Plan, Weakerthans, The Shins, The Smiths, Comsat Angels, Kind of Like Spitting, The Velvet Teen, REM, Snow Patrol, Beck, Decemberists, Chaz Jankel, The Flaming Lips, Bjork, Rufus Wainwright, Bright Eyes, The Incredible Moses Leroy, The Good Life, Death Cab for Cutie, Coldplay, Bif Naked, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Travis, Aslan, Cursive, Chomsky, Blanket Music, Franz Ferdinand, Badly Drawn Boy, Wilco, Broken Social Scene, Sneaker Pimps, G Love and Special Sauce

Stuff People Keep Telling Me I Should Be Ashamed To Love But That I Am Not(Or, “Music I Dance Badly To At Gay Bars”): Tina Turner, J. Lo, The Dixie Chicks, Cheryl Lynn, Cher, Buffy The Musical, Pink, Grease, 80’s Whitney Houston (what a crack ho), Michael and Janet Jackson, Gwen Stefani, The Cranberries, ABBA, FeFe Dobson, Beyonce, Elton John, TLC, some Shania Twain, The Corrs, Enrique Iglesias, about a third of Christina Aguilera’s songs

The Stuff I Hear on My New Favorite Radio Station, 103.5: Missy Elliot, Ashanti, Lauryn Hill, Outkast, Nelly, Sean Paul, Fugees, Tupac, Kanye West, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Usher, Ludacris, 50 Cent, Eve, Eminem, Shaggy, Omarion, Faith Evans

People Who Sing About Jesus and Speak To Me, Even When They Get Cheesy: Derek Webb, Rich Mullins, Sara Groves, Bebo Norman, Jennifer Knapp, Jill Phillips, Nichole Nordeman, Cindy Morgan, Avalon, older Caedmon’s Call, Chris Rice, Watermark, Ginny Owens, Jars of Clay, OC Supertones, Mitch McVicker

Stuff It Was Hard To Keep Listening To When Frat Guys and VH1 Got Hold Of Them But That I Refuse To Stop Listening To: Michael Tolcher, David Gray, Graham Colton Band, Incubus, July For Kings, Maroon 5, Green Day, Josh Rouse, John Mayer, Howie Day, Hootie and the Blowfish, Grant Lee Buffalo, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, Blues Traveler, Jason Mraz, Vertical Horizon, Gorillaz, Soul Asylum, Goo Goo Dolls, Eve 6

Stuff I Listened To In Secret In High School Because I Was The Merest Bit Angry: Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Disgruntled Youth, Hole, Bikini Kill, Elastica, Violent Femmes, The Doors, The Ramones, MXPX, Marilyn Manson (who I like more now), Sex Pistols, NOFX, Bush, The Breeders, pennywise, Tool, Babes In Toyland, L7, Goldfinger, Chainsaw Kittens

Dance and Pop Music That Rocks My Face Off: Scissor Sisters, Junior Senior, AK1200, Junior Vasquez, InGrid, M People, Heather Small, Kristine W, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Sonique, Robert Miles, Robbie Williams, Vernessa Mitchell, Ultra Nate, Burnside Project, Barry Harris, Deborah Cox, Kim English

Miscellaneous Stuff That STILL Makes Me Scream and/or Get Goosebumps In The Car: Bruce Hornsby and the Range, David Wilcox, Dire Straits, Rent, Live, No Doubt, Nickel Creek, Allison Krauss, Ghoti Hook, Les Miserables, Songs for a New World, Kane, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Velvet Underground, Willie Nelson, The Cardigans, Fleetwood Mac, Joan Osborne (don’t listen to that stupid “If God Was One Of Us” song. She is amazing, and that song is shite. Download “Right Hand Man,” “Ladder,” “St. Theresa,” or “My Love is Alive.” Her voice makes me almost pee in my pants.)

See how much I like to procrastinate? Anyway, I hope that helps. I am currently in the process of getting “schooled” in hip-hop by my good friend Kanika, who works at 103.5 KVSP, the really great, non-Clear Channel hip hop station here in OKC. We lost our only independent alternative rock station, 105.3 KSPI “The Spy,” so I am having to find out about cool indie music through *sigh* the internet. Also, for some reason lately, I’ve been crazy about 80’s college rock. It might have something to do with the fact that I can’t stop watching “Real Genius” and that I just finished reading “How I Learned to Snap.”

And now, because I was asked a moment ago, The Best 5 Albums I Bought in 2004 (in no particular order):

1) Hot Fuss - The Killers
2) How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb - U2
3) teeth-marks on my tongue - KC Clifford
4) I See Things Upside Down - Derek Webb
5) Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | by nathan

“You Just Never Stop Feeling It.”

I didn’t feel well today so I skipped my night class. Mom didn’t feel well either so we made cajun soup and smoothies with strawberries and lime yogurt. They were delicious.

We sat down to watch television; Aaron Brown is doing a look back at the Oklahoma City bombing, because tomorrow is the 10-year anniversary.

I was in the 9th grade that day; I was fourteen. I remember that they came over the intercom and said that anyone whose parents worked in downtown had to come to the office. This was strange but I thought little of it until they came over the intercom to tell us what had happened: “There has been an explosion downtown.”

We spent the whole rest of the day in shock. We were in junior high; some kids were making tacky jokes. I found these appalling. I still find it appalling when people mock this event in history. My freshman year I told someone I was from Oklahoma, and his response was, “What do you guys have there, nothing but Ryder trucks and fertilizer, right?” I said nothing; I walked away.

I go down to the bombing memorial about once a year. Sometimes I go to St. Paul’s Episcopal church right across the street from the memorial. The other night I parked there when I went to go mail my taxes.

Today was a really difficult day; lots of little challenges, physical ones, emotional ones, spiritual ones. I drove home listening to KC Clifford and Mary Chapin Carpenter and felt like I really wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

I started watching this retrospective on the bombing, and I cried bitterly. I’ve been crying for an hour - you just never stop feeling it. I didn’t have anyone I knew really well who was in it, but it was terrifying, and sad, and numbing. Mom said, “That was just so unbearable.”

“But here we are, ten years later. We bore it,” I said.

We bore it. We still bear it. I can’t believe I drive past that place at least once a week. I don’t understand how human beings live with the things we live with. I don’t know how people bear the loss of a parent, or a child, when I spent half my day freaking out because I lost my KEYS. My fucking KEYS. That experience sapped me emotionally and caused my ulcer to act up; and that was the first of a series of events…

And here are these people, and they’ve been through this literal kind of hell, and I just don’t understand how we deal.

Ten years later, and it’s hitting me fresh again.

There’s that old song that says, “There are holes, holes, holes in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” I think about that now, about how wounds don’t heal, but they stitch back together imperfectly, with holes between. I went through a window, and my head has a long, thick scar, and I can’t feel a good third of my scalp. I can’t forget that, either. And I don’t know how I lived through that; and here that was easy compared to what these people in the Murrah building went through.

Tomorrow there will be 168 seconds of silence. I think I’ll go down to the Memorial and see Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter speak.

Time keeps passing, and we are helpless to keep up in its sweep. And our hearts don’t get totally better, ever.

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | by nathan

Busy Busy Biz-zay.

I didn’t tell you guys the good news. I’m going to be a reporter for our NPR station next semester! It’s not for pay; it’s for a class. Still. I’ll be helping to produce a bi-weekly show that you’ll be able to listen to online. Oh yes. I am going to monopolize even more of your internet time. Aren’t you glad you don’t have pay-by-the-hour dialup anymore? I’m not sure about much concerning the show, except I wanted to do it and the station manager let me enroll in this class. My friend Patty talked me into taking ballroom dance but I’m going to drop it again as soon as I finish this blog entry. I don’t want to pay for 2 more credits for a class I’m bound to hate. No offense to Tish and Jon, or Jayson and Laurie, or anyone else married who reads this, but it’s going to be almost all engaged couples. And then me? Nah.

song: “One Step Closer” by U2.

So here’s the problem I’m having. I was really proud, in a weird way, of my Novel professor, Deborah, because I am refreshed when someone can say something I find to be appalling but without shame, or rather, without trying to make it sound better than it is. Last week, Deborah said, “I used to want to write the Great American Novel. Then I decided I’d rather be rich.”

Well. Okay then.

I mean, yes, it’s a pretty bad way to go as far as being true to one’s aesthetic vision goes, but at least she didn’t try to decry the merits of literary fiction. She always admits that literary fiction is probably a higher form of art; it’s just a much harder sell. So in ten years your good friend Nathan may be writing mystery novels or something equally terrible, but at least he’ll have a place to live and food to eat. Just take comfort in knowing that he hasn’t given up on his dream of being something more than that. Yet.

See, I don’t really care if I’m rich; I want to be stable, and writing the kind of stuff I like to write. Too much to ask? I don’t think so. I’m thinking about applying for an internship at The Advocate or Out next summer, provided this Graduate Fellowship helps me work stuff out financially like I hope it does.

song: “Arc of Time (Time Code)” by Bright Eyes.

I guess it’s good to have a career plan, right? My hippie spirit (ugh) doesn’t want to make one, but I suppose I have to. I’m going to finish “Moving Van People,” which I think is going to get pretty pigeonholed into the gay fiction area, so that’s how I’m going to market it. Next semester is nonfiction time, so I’m going to polish the shit out of my better “Queer As Faith” pieces. After that it’s back over to Jess’ story, which is begging to get written. So I’m going to get as much on it as I can over the summer so it will stop browbeating me so much. I almost feel like I’d like to have two novels under my belt before I try to publish “QAF” but it might not come out that way. Also I have this creeped-out feeling about taking another writing course in an English department - reading aloud. Gag.

Anyhow. Time to leave work. Sorry for all the rambling. Can’t imagine how anyone is still interested in all this.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 | by nathan

Runneth-ing.

For the past three days I’ve been swimming. Monday and Tuesday I went early in the morning, when the pool opened at 6. I’d swim 12-15 laps, depending, swearing on each trip back to the end of the pool where my stuff was stashed that this would be my last lap. Then I’d do just one more. Today I got to 20.

I enjoy swimming. I used to do it all the time at Wake. It actually might be my favorite form of exercise. It dawned on me today that someone with an addictive personality maybe shouldn’t get addicted even to something good like exercise, because sooner or later I’m bound to pull something. At the very least I’d be hiding my goggles in the console of my car and lying to people about how often I’m going to the pool.

current iPod song: “Evil” by Interpol.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t partially in this whole endeavor for the vanity of it all. I like the way I look right now. But there’s so much more to it than that: I like the way I feel. Every time I get out of the pool I spend the next two or three hours on the absolute top of the world. Same thing when I work out, which I’ve started doing at night now in addition to my lap times. Tonight I’m working until 10, so I won’t be able to lift. Which is fine, because I’m having a couple food issues.

Here’s the thing. We talked about my gluttony, right? Well. Today I had to swim at 11:30 AM because I got up late. So I swam and then went to Novel class. The whole time, I was starving. I had a small snack after I swam and showered, but I was starved. I kept thinking, “Just hold out until the end of class, then have your slim-fast.” Well, no.

I ran into Julian downstairs - “I. Am. Starved. For. Jimmy. Johns. You. Must. Come. With. Me.” I all but grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Yes, I could’ve been “responsible” and had the Slim-Fast, but damn, I was hungry, and it sounded good, and fuck this part of me that feels my worth has increased since my abs have become visible. And fuck the turkey sandwich - I had the club. And the fatty jalapeno chips that are like eating pure paradise and innocence. And a Diet Coke - pas du tout.

iPod changes song: “Unpretty” by TLC. Appropriate, no?

So we had food, and talked, and I love Julian a lot because he’s just a sweet guy. We talked about the boy he’s dating, and our struggles with working out, and school. When he was driving me back to Gaylord Hall we passed the two most beautiful men you’ve ever seen running down the sidewalk. We sure did just pull around and watch them run a little longer. Ah.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

new song: “We Were Bound (To Bend the Rules)” by The Velvet Teen. I love this thing.

I feel great. Odd, I know, since I’ve become known as the “slightly crabby” one in my group of friends. The sun is out, the weather is beautiful, and I reek of chlorine; summer is coming. There will be nights on Todd’s boat, a visit from one of my favorite Wake Forest friends (I hope! Dylan, let me know!) right during the sturm und drang of Pride festivities in Oklahoma City, and a whole lot of writing and revising to be done.

We’re runneth-ing over here, people. Which makes me wonder if I’d like to go for a run after work. I very well might. Geez. Listen to me; I sound like such an asshole.

Sunday, April 10, 2005 | by nathan

Elysium

I’ve been listening to the latest Mary Chapin Carpenter CD, “Between Here and Gone,” lately. I love Mary Chapin because she clearly worries about the same things I do: time passing, regret, growing old, and that there might not be enough love to go around. I worry about these things too. A lot.

I went to the Mont the other night with a bunch of my favorite people: Bryon, Matthew Perry, Julian, Todd, Gabe, Kevin, and Ryan. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Bryon in months, because he has a boyfriend, and when he gets one of those he tends to disappear. Which is okay, I guess, because there’s nothing I can do about it. But I miss him when he’s gone. We got to talking. I heard these words coming out of my mouth, and I meant them fully:

“I’m happy. For the first time in years. And everything is not okay with me, but I’m happy.”

I told Faith Glavey much the same thing a couple weeks ago when we talked. I can’t imagine how I got to where I am from where I was. I am absolutely astounded by my life.

I was looking on Facebook today and I noticed that Rich changed his picture. I looked at it; he looked the same. It was very weird; it was like he was in the room with me. I remembered what his voice sounded like. But I couldn’t remember how he smelled, which was one of my favorite things about him. I also couldn’t remember the last time we talked before I left New Haven, what we said to each other. I know that we went to sleep - he on the couch, me in the bed - and I got up at 5 AM and got in the car, and that was it.

I was thinking about that experience, because I was telling someone about that relationship the other day. I think that I started to get really healthy last summer. Maybe it was all those weddings, all that downtime. Staying out of the city for so long, being around Dad, taking a lot of walks, those things helped immensely. Getting back into school. Working on my novel (which is almost done - more on that in a few). Working out.

I can’t believe that I’m happy. The first year and a half after I left New Haven, I was the biggest mess you’ve ever seen. In the words of Jerri Blank, “I did things I wouldn’t force on a mule. And that includes things I forced on a mule.”

I used to have these moments, these episodes, where I would literally feel so crazed, so out of it and afraid and sad that I would ask myself, “How is it possible that I will even be alive ten minutes from now?” I would honestly wonder how I would make it through the next moments. It’s not that I was suicidal, because I wasn’t. I was just so overwhelmed with panic and sadness. I felt so on the verge of complete insanity so many times, you have no idea. I remember this one time, when I lived in Norman, I was driving back to work after my lunch break was over, and I felt so incredibly panicked, and sad, and freaked out. No reason, really, except this was the natural state of affairs with the volume turned up. I felt like I might snap and start shooting people. I didn’t know how I would deal when I actually got back to work and had to do something. But I got back, and started rearranging all the socks, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on the radio, and the pressure valve got released just enough for me to make it.

Things like this used to happen all the time, and it is a huge miracle that I made it through that time of my life.

Speaking of miracles, there is a thunderstorm moving just north of us right now. The computer lab has these extremely tall windows that show a panoramic view of the South Oval, and the setting sun is lighting up the underside of the clouds. When this happens sometimes the sky turns green, which is actually a bad sign. But it’s also gorgeous to behold. It’s raining like mad now, through the sun. We are in a rainbow.

I am astounded by my life. Things aren’t perfect; money problems are getting worse, and not better. I always worry about when and how the next family breakdown is going to happen. But I have so much hope that I am shocked by it. Things aren’t going to go to hell and stay there. I’m happy. I’d almost forgotten what that was like.

Last night was Kevin James’ going away party. We got a giant suite at the Habana, and lots of alcohol. It was a whole lot of fun, until all of a sudden, it wasn’t, and I no longer felt like socializing. The guy I have a little crush on was there, which was my first official confirmation of his gayness. He’s a student with me. I think he’s pretty marvelous, and we got to talk. Then Gabe needed me to drive him to go get ice, which I did, and when I got back the bloom was off the rose; the guy was gone, as was everyone I’d really wanted to talk to. I left. I like that I no longer feel this pressure to stay and socialize when I don’t want to. Like I said: I may finally be getting healthy.

And I like being single. Imagine! Some stuff still smarts a little: Jonathan, Joel. And I’d love to have a relationship. But I’m okay without one most of the time. I’m okay without money sometimes, because my life has become very low-key. Almost no going out. Most of the time I am very happy to sit around with friends and watch a movie and talk. This is what Laurie, Jaye, and Joel Lara and I did two nights ago: we watched Sideways at Laurie and Jaye’s apartment. Laurie made beef stroganoff from scratch. We had some wine (Sideways is the best wine-drinking movie you’ve ever seen!). Then when the movie was over we spent a long time talking, and finished off by watching an episode of Buffy. All in all, a pretty wonderful way to spend a night. And it cost next to nothing.

As for the novel - gasp - I am almost finished. I am writing the climax now. Well, I should say, I think I’m almost finished. I may be. Things in the characters’ situations are beginning to get incredibly, incredibly fucked up, and I just spent this past week writing this scene cluster, all these conflicts. It was so much fun. I got some really good stuff. Of course, after reading Jonathan Safran Foer I feel like a hack, but I have to do what I do and not compare myself unfairly, I suppose. Still, I wish I could do it like him. But I love this book, and these people, and I love the next one that is trying to get born, which is my novel about Jess. Stuff for it keeps coming to me, and I’d like to get a rough draft of at least the first half done by the end of summer. Next semester is all nonfiction stuff: two nonfiction classes and probably no time for novels, which may actually be nice, as I will be trying to sell “Moving Van People” in this time. Anybody know a literary agent?

In general things are more or less faboo. I can’t believe that. I can’t believe that all the hell that was going on is abating. My habit, after all these years, is to automatically assume that this means something really terrible is getting ready to be born. But hope is the ability to be optimistic when all the evidence is to the contrary. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

Thursday, April 7, 2005 | by nathan

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I am so filled with anger and rage from time to time that it scares me almost to death. An example.

I just now - just this instant - finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” which may in fact be the best novel I’ve read in the better part of a decade. It’s the Great American Novel of the post-9/11 era. It deals with a young kid named Oskar Schell, whose father died in the World Trade Center. It has been engaging enough that I’ve finished it in three days. I blew off a class reading assignment because I couldn’t put it down. It’s truly one of the most incredible, sentimental, moving, and yet important and thoughtful books I’ve ever read. Ever. Read. It.

Anyhow. I thought I’d bring it to work with me, you know, to pass the time. Well.

There is this one really intense page - so intense, in fact, that the type begins to pile up on itself and become illegible. And this one page is the key to a lot in the book. And damn if it didn’t take me a fucking hour to read it. Why? Because people kept coming in and going out, needing things, wanting my help, expecting me to do my job - I mean, honest to Pete - and I was sitting here reading about fucking 9/11 over and over and over, because every time I had to start the page anew. And every time I’d get to this one sentence, someone else would come in, and I felt very mocked by the universe, by the people at my work, by God, by everything, and I actually thought at one point that I might fucking just snap and start hurting people physically. I felt my hands balling themselves into fists. I was slamming people’s ID cards into the box, and typing angrily when I had to take control of their screens to help them. I found myself filled with anger, and hate, and violence, because they’re making me go through this experience again and again and again. This character’s pain was assaulting me. I wanted to scream. You have no idea how on the edge I felt. More so than I have in a long, long time.

I got a break, thankfully, and finished the book. Before I had even finished reading the last page, some girl came up behind me and cleared her throat - she wanted a computer. I threw the book across my desk. Threw it. She gaped at me. I threw the book. I am a bad, bad person. I want to treat these people - and myself - like beloved relatives, like slightly retarded cousins, because this is how we all act. But I can’t. I’m so, so sorry.

I get off work in 23 minutes. I love daylight savings time, because the sun is out and I am going to go for a run. I wish I wasn’t so angry. I keep praying to Jesus - “okay, I think we need some bigger guns here, hon.” But even as I type this, and people come in needing things, and talking loud, I grind my teeth together so hard I can hear them squeak inside my head. It used to make Rich cringe when I would do that, so occasionally I would do it just to piss him off, to let him know how incredibly angry I was at him.

I wish that this was the Greatest Commandment: “Get really, really pissed off, and stomp away, and treat everyone like that guy who broke your heart one time. Drown all your anger in eating a lot of really bad food really quickly, get drunk as often as possible, and imagine inflicting physical harm on the people you meet. Stop breathing. Forget the light. Trust no one. Lust after the rows and rows of hot boys who parade around in your life and on your campus, and when all else fails, grind your teeth together so loudly that people all the way across the room can hear you do it. That way, they’ll know to leave you the hell alone, get out of your face, and let you do exactly what you want, all of the time, and to pay you more money for doing it.”

Come to think of it, I don’t want to live in that world. But sometimes, this one gets on my last goddamn motherfucking nerve. (Cursing helps. Don’t judge).

Perhaps that book affected me more than I am used to. You should read it. You would like it. But read it with tissues handy, and not when you have other things that might intrude upon you. Like people who sigh noisily and angrily when they want something because they are the tiniest, merest bit angry. I won’t mention the gender of these people, lest I sound the tiniest bit angry myself.

Grumble grumble. I’m so sorry.

Sunday, April 3, 2005 | by nathan

Star Trek, The Renaissance Fair, and Leather Sex

“There’s like this whole creepy connection between Star Trek, Leather Sex, and the Renaissance Fair.” - Margaret Cho

Che weekend!

Played golf with mom on Friday afternoon. It was sunny and cold; perfetto. Of course, when I say that I “Played Golf With Mom,” what that means is that I drove a golf cart around while she played eighteen holes. I read a book and breathed in the fresh air.

Saturday I went to the Renaissance Fair with Jaye, Laurie, Todd, Steve, Adam, Brian, and Scott; what a trip. It was so huge and crowded. The Daily Oklahoman predicted that 300,000 people would visit over the weekend. That’s almost a tenth of the population of this state.

The whole experience was freaky and wonderful. I got up yesterday morning and was wiped out. Still, I compulsively, completely cleaned my room, because, well, for some reason I have the incredible ability to generate an entire Glad Bag worth of trash in two weeks. Also, I needed to wash my sheets. I can always tell when it’s time when, promptly, every ten days or so, I wake up in the throes of a horrible allergy attack.

So I did that. Peg came down and she and mom went golfing. Jaye and Laurie came by and took me to lunch at McDonald’s. This was the beginning of a problem, because, although I had all morning to work out, I didn’t. I decided that Saturday would be my day off. Fine.

(PS, I’ve lost probably 2 inches off my waist. I’m so stoked by this, but also incredibly tired. And my ass is no longer shaped or moving like that mound of pudding at a salad bar).

I decided that it was such a nice day outside that I would live it like it was my last day on Earth. The problem, of course, is that I am not remotely suited to doing things like this. Still, we got to McDonald’s and I ordered a Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, fries, and a real Coke. If I’m drinking Diet Coke on the last day of my life, I will be sorely disappointed. So I ordered that, with a great deal of trepidation - “Hi, I’ll have the snakes and spiders Happy Meal, and super size it.” When we got up to the window, there was some confusion as to what we ordered, but Jaye and Laurie and I were in the midst of a fairly interesting conversation and couldn’t be bothered to check the order. So I ended up with an order of six chicken nuggets and a regular Coke.

I cannot express to you the relief that washed over my body. I felt like I’d been saved from dealing myself some great harm; also, I felt like I must be crazy.

I want to be healthy and fit so badly, but I just really love food. I think, actually, that my love for food might be a bit unhealthy; I have noticed this since I started working out again. I have made it a habit to eat exactly enough to sate my hunger, but not to fill me up. And this - paradoxically - leaves me feeling energetic and lively throughout the day. When, on occasion, I flout this rule, I notice in myself this kind of crazed eagerness, this unsatable desire to eat until I literally explode. To gorge. It’s gluttony, and it’s horrible. Also, it feels great.

So I was relieved when I got the chicken nuggets. And also, when I let myself have a chicken gyro and some Dippin Dots at the Renaissance Fair, because I do not want to get a seat in Heaven next to the jazzercize instructors and Tom Ciola, inventor of Bible Bar.

We were all walking around googly-eyed at the Fair; it reminded me so much of the Oklahoma City Gay Pride Parade. One, because there were all kinds of gay people. Lesbians especially, with big dogs on leashes. Also, there were a couple people on leashes in leather. Margaret was right. I was walking around, for my part, goofing on everything on one hand - “Oh, that guy’s just a pirate!” - and taking it all in on the other. Many of the costumed people looked like members of Gwar, or extras from a Mad Max film. Others were just strange. My favorite were the belly dancers.

The beautiful thing about belly dancers - and also the thing that freaks me out about them - is how much they jiggle. They have these curvy little tummies sticking out under midriff tops, and they jiggle when they dance. This used to unnerve me a great deal, because I was always taught that your body should stop moving when you do, and, as a person whose body doesn’t, I am, at best, going to get a B in life.

These women were fully flaunting their undulating, unpredictable bellies. I stared, agape. It was all so unpredictable, so uncovered. Jiggly tummies are something we don’t talk about, because most of us have them, and most of us wish we didn’t. But there it was, and as I watched, I became kind of entranced; at first it was like watching a car wreck or a freak show. Then it was transformed - or rather, I was transformed - and it became this weird kind of beauty. I realized, again, that I am a feminist, and a Christian, and that these things teach me that we are not our bodies, and that we are REALLY not what other people think about our bodies. Especially a bunch of white men in New York who are dating cracked-out jazzercize instructors.

So I had my chicken gyro, and my two lemonades, and my Dippin’ Dots. I let myself have the occasional beer, and - God help me - I let myself keep working out, because some sick, hated part of me really does enjoy it. The difference this time, as opposed to every other time I’ve ever tried exercise in my life, is that I’m not picturing the people I hate, the people who have broken my heart or hurt my feelings, when I swim, lift, kick, whatever. I’m thinking, “You can do this. You can do this for yourself. And at the end of it, you’ll be a little jiggly still, and you can pat yourself on the tummy and say, ‘I love you anyway.’”

I do this while rolling my eyes greatly, because I sound so dumb in my head. I really enjoy swimming, and lifting, and running, at least eighty percent of the time. I love that breathless, hopeful feeling you get when you’re done. But I also love the hopeful feeling I get when I go into public looking less than fabulous, when my flaws are apparent, because then I’m hiding nothing.

Slept through church this morning. I suck. I miss Beverly and all my people at Holy Apostles. I’m at work now. Twelve minutes to go.