you won't like me when i'm angry

well, i've found my home

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 06:46:17 GMT

since fourth grade, i've been an awkward, somewhat socially outcast kid, who has a hard time fitting in and adapting to others' opinions. while this is a very good thing for me, it's made school very difficult to deal with sometimes. and the fact that i've been with the same people for the whole damn time does NOT help that. i was elected 'most changed' senior this year, i am soooooo proud of that. so proud. this year, i became truly involved with the performing arts, shed the skin of the programs that weren't developing me, and i can finally stop lying when i say that i don't care about the opinions of my classmates. a lot of people think i've become really weird all of a sudden, a lot of people don't really talk to me. but you know what? i'm happy. for the first time since third grade, i'm honest to (god) non-superficially happy with my place in life.

today was thespian conference. it truly rocked. a lot. i went with my school, but i learned today that i have more friends outside of chaparral than i do in it. and i honestly like these people!! i can't wait for tomorrow.

ps, senior year rocks and i actually even, for the most part, like my classes! i mean, government really sucks a lot, but in english yesterday we did the most interesting thing ever--syntax. and i feel that knowing more about and actually studying my own syntax has given me an entirely new depth to my writing. and physics? wow. i'm becoming such a physics nerd! i even laugh at hammersley's jokes! (i'm always the only person in class laughing or responding to her questions) today i saw a waiter carrying a tray, and i subconsciously determined the approximate center of mass and sketched a quick force digram in my head. and i love firebird word anchoring so much sometimes. like today. it was just fun! i know nobody actually watches it, but it was so funny when the crazy football guys were trying to distract us and then started popping up into the scene! i even made up an announcement today! just--on the spot! and i love to just break out in song or character. and nobody gets it! i understand why people think i'm weird. it's because i'm fucking weird.

another note: i've stopped putting up with bullshit and started being more forward. and leaving early and not feeling obligated to be tied to chaparral is amazing. it's changed my life!

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 22:03:23 GMT

Dear Friend,

Today my high school had a small blood drive. As a homosexual student, I knew that my blood would not be accepted. For those of you who don't already know, the Food and Drug Administration has many regulations for who is a healthy candidate for blood donation. Among the questions asked are such logical questions, such as, have you ever been diagnosed with hepatitis? Or have you been exposed to another person's blood through intravenous (needle) use? Are you a hemophiliac?

But then there’s this one: in order to 'take a measure against the spread of HIV/AIDS' the FDA has put a strict ban on blood taken from any man who has had sex with any other man since 1977 (1977 being the year that the first cases of HIV/AIDS were identified). The exact wording of the question is as follows: "Are you a man who has had sexual contact with another man or are you a female who has had sexual contact with a man who has had sexual contact with another man since 1977?" This measure is discriminatory and the facts used to establish its credibility are flawed. In claiming to be removing the highest risk category, they are actually ignoring statistics that show homosexuals do not really compose the largest portion of HIV/AIDS cases, and are rather, just preventing good blood from being donated, and are ironically keeping life-saving blood from patients who really need it and who may die if it is not received.

I was screened by a young female nurse at a small cloth cubicle-like desk with a chair and a computer. After a short while, she stumbled upon the gay question, and at my affirmative answer, she seemed uneasy for a moment, took a breath, then turned to me and informed me I was not an eligible candidate. Of course, I was not surprised, as I had seen this coming, so I turned to her to ask her a few questions, citing CDC and WHO statistics regarding other risk categories and percentages of HIV/AIDS cases by different risk category and type of infection. When I asked her why certain ethnic groups, such as African-Americans and Hispanics/Latinos were not banned from donating blood (as the second and third highest risk groups under the race category, she launched into a series of obviously rehearsed answers, informing me that some African groups (notice she did not specify African-American, as she was indirectly inferring to blood drives in the heart of the AIDS epidemic, Africa) were not allowed to donate either. Then she changed topic, “Besides, it’s more of a lifestyle thing, I think. Because gay people are promiscuous (notice she said “are” not “tend to be,” or “may behave,”), and having this sort of sexual history—” And this is where I had to cut her off, with “Ok, you can stop right there. That is a huge generalization. Hi, my name is Steve Russell. I am gay and I have only had sex with one other person in my lifetime. I can not count on one hand the number of heterosexuals I know who have several, even up to ten or more sexual partners in a year, and who had lost their virginity between the ages of 14 and 16. Thank you for your time, I have heard enough.” She did not reply, and I walked back to the small lobby and took a t-shirt I had prepared for the day, and put it over my head, and looked back to her glaring face so she could read it. This is what my shirt said:

I would LOVE to donate, but unfortunately, I can’t…

The FDA does not allow gay men to donate blood based on claims that by doing so, they are eliminating a high-risk category for HIV/AIDS and saving the lives of those who need blood transfusions.

But if approximately 50% of adults with HIV/AIDS worldwide are women1, more than 75% of adults with HIV/AIDS worldwide were infected through heterosexual intercourse2 and if there are other high-risk categories, like African-Americans and Latinos3, and if ALL blood is screened before distribution…

Wouldn’t it make more sense for all people to be asked if they were HIV positive rather than if they were gay?

My blood could save lives too!

1 Society for Women’s Health Research
2 Health Square
3 The Centers for Disease Control

Hopefully, you understand the discriminatory nature of this regulation and agree with me on its injustice to homosexuals. I hope you will copy this letter and send it to all your friends, coworkers, family and acquaintances, and I hope that you will join me in signing the petition below to make the FDA allow homosexual men to donate blood, for, as we all know:

Any life that is in danger or in need is a life worth saving.

Donate Blood!
Steve Russell

The petition can be found at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/gdonors/petition.html

it's raining cats and dogs

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 09:00:29 GMT

you know what i like most about cats?

they're their own boss. for serious. if you tell a cat 'no' for doing something bad, it won't stop. it'll try it again. if you scold the cat furiously for that bad thing, it'll storm off and give you a cold shoulder for a few hours, until you apologize and stroke it fondly.

there's this little cubby in my bookcase, behind my dvd's and videogames, where reeces loves to lay down. i can't express in numbers the frequency i have to scold her for doing this act. if the door's open or she's in a bad mood, she'll leave and i won't see her for a day or two. and when she sees me, she'll pretend she didn't notice i was there and keep hunting whatever it was she was going after, or continue her sweet little nap without any heed of my presence at all. eventually, i fold and pick her up or call her name or ruffle the space between her ears that drives her wild. i can't help but think that this whole time, she's laughing at me inside for not being as stubborn or as strong as her.

what made me think of this was when, five minutes ago, while muching on some cold pizza, i spied the dog, tess giving me shifty beggar's eyes, then pretending to not look every time i noticed. when i said 'no' she would hide her head, and when i'd had enough of her trying to steal my snack with her eyes, she went and laid down somewhere out of sight, where the pizza could no longer torment her and she could lick her wounds for having lost that battle.

i thought of what would have happened were reece sitting on the stool right then and i told her the pizza was mine. i could just picture her putting her forelegs on my side and looking into my eyes, saying, 'ok bub. i want some of the damn pizza.' then, if i moved where she couldn't reach and after a few more pleading meows, she would probably [metaphorically] roll her eyes and slink away, thinking about what a selfish prick i was.

dog lovers probably love this comparison, because it puts the dog in the more loyal place. it makes tessa the little obedient angel and my little reece is the demanding bitch. but here's how i see it and why i'm a cat lover: the dog is afraid of your rejection and is entirely dependent on you, much like a trophy housewife or small child. but i perfer the company of someone who could just as easily get up and leave (as the cat has on occasion). but she loves me on a deeper, personal level. she comes back. the dog just loves me because i have the pizza. she loves me because she needs my support to be ok. if she ran away one day and we never found her and she found a new home, i'm sure she'd forget about us entirely and be stoked shitless with her new home. i'm not saying that the cat wouldn't be happy in the perfect situation. probably the exact opposite. but she wouldn't be happy because she was getting more atention or because the food was better. she'd be happy because she found peopel who treated her better. i guess if i had to put in one word what a cat has that a dog doesn't, it would be, 'depth.'

the cat is more of a friend, and when she sleeps on your bed, you know it's not just because she seeks comfort, but because she respects you enough to be ok with sleeping there. the dog sleeps there because she loves having a body near that she can feel proud of. to her, you're a trophy. you're caulk to fill the gap, you're a cool person, but that's just for tonight. we'll see about tomorrow.

i like this metaphor a lot and i like to think about the people i know as dogs and cats. we all have these two sides: the fake, really outgoing and 'genuine' side and the real, not perfect, honest despite what that may mean side. i guess we need both of these sides at different times and when we meet someone, we may be a cat but a month later, we're dogs together. and if we meet someone as a dog, we may learn years later that they deserve our feline respect.

so, when it boils down to it, which one are you and when? are you the loyal, shallow dog, or the honest, prissy cat?

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 07:43:34 GMT

well, i don't really think i'm sick anymore. and i feel i should put that up after i've talked about it so much. the doctor said i have mono, and i'm just waiting on the test results, but i don't feel like i have mono. i just feel hot (as in the temperature). my aunt said she thinks the steroids i'm taking for my swollen tonsils are giving me a lot of energy, and part of me believes her, because sometimes i'm exhausted and sometimes my tonsils still hurt. but i'd like to be done with being sick. butuh.. i'm not allowed to do anything for the next two days so i can catch up on the week of school i missed. i'd really kinda like this to turn out to be mono though, because that means a lot of attention, but at the same time a lot of isolation. and plus, then thirty years from now i won't die of mono. that's probably the biggest plus. yeah. i watched superstart tonight. it was funny. then i stripped. that was.. ____. alys enjoyed it. but i think it may have confused her some when the iced tea started spilling out of my pants. but you just have to be ready for these things, you know? well i need to go clean the house becasue my mom's coming home tomorrow. and i need to take my ragin' 'roids. because if i don't my body might do something we don't want it to do. like implode or turn purple or something. i need to make more people to read my livejournal. i also need to change my layout.

near death experience

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 05:09:21 GMT

so, i feel kinda whiny to keep going on about this, but something reeeally scary just happened.

i took this medicine for my throat, and then my throat just closed up and as hard as i tried, i could not breathe. i was standing over the sink and everything got blurry and i started crying. my sister was there, and i tried to get her to move this knife that was where i wanted to put my head, but i don't think she understood. eventually, i just looked up and she was rubbing my back and i was laying down on the counter and she asked me if i was throwing up.

the thing that scared me the most was how easily i could have died right then and there.

i've decided to bend. if it's some nasty ass strep, i'm just taking the damn antibiotics.

i'm sick.

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:48:46 GMT

it might be strep. i hope it's strep. because the only other possibilities are really nasty diseases. and the only other one that would make sense is mono!

can you say.. fuck?

bullshit

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 03:00:29 GMT

i'm so sick of the bullshit. stop with the bullshit!

fuck hindsight

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 17:56:09 GMT

i make so many mistakes. everyone does. and they're not necessarily mistakes. just things that you can't fix or make better for yourself. they're people you stop seeing because you don't want to deal with it anymore, and you don't realize you still care until they're involved and over you. you hold on to the hope that he'll never let go and you can come back when you want or when you're ready. but he does. and now you have to too. it's time for you to stop blocking out your feelings, because despite your broken-heart suspicions, you're not as cold as you think, and you are capable of caring again.

poetry is for the wicked

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 07:10:55 GMT

the unexpected
pierced my heart
despite it's grey
twisted defiance
a speck of gold remains
or maybe red
but it's gone now

i think

halleluja

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 18:47:50 GMT

the song repeats in my head
that gives clarity to everything
because it makes your mind stop
and focus on it's word.

welll....

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 04:52:50 GMT

it's been a while.. but here's my update.

i don't care about people anymore! i don't know if this is camus influenced at all (currently reading: the stranger) but i just don't care! i realized this afternoon that in less than nine months, i will be living on my own. i will be, in less than the time it would take to birth a child, moving in to my own apartment. this is amazing.

for anyone who doesn't already know, i turned legal last friday. it was a really chill night, but some people really let me down. the next few days, people continued to let me down. and then, i decided.... i don't need to put up with shitfaced assholes!! anyone who gives me crap can go ahead and suck it, because i've only got one year left of high school, then, frankly, i probably won't talk to most of the people i currently know.

what does this mean? well, i'm not afraid to come on campus and just stare at people until they make awkward eye contact with me. i'm not afraid to drink a little before going to class (as long as i'm not drunk and in danger of being arrested). i'm not afraid to tell people they're fulll of shit when they are. i'm not afraid to talk to people i've always been separated from on the 'social ladder' and i'm not afraid to go up on a stage and make everyone think i'm a total idiot.

i don't even know if i'll come to class reunions or not. i really hate my graduating class, so i don't see why i should.. but even if i did, why should i give a fuck if someone says 'hey. weren't you that weird kid who--'oh, shut it, bitch. i don't care! hahaha.

school's actually been easier for me than any other year besdies sophmore year--socially and happiness wise. i attribute that to my iminent senioritis and the aforementioned 'shut up' policy. i told off the principal of the school and the issue ended up not being her fault. when she pointed that out, i said something along the lines of 'oopps! sorry. my mistake. i'll go deal with it then.' and decided not to use a greeting or a salutation.

this year, i plan to tell everyone at chaparral why they're ignorant, send out a mass email to all the faculty and staff telling them why they're stupid, and playing the best fucking senior prank ever. i also plan on coming to a fair majority of my classes (but only fair) and spending a lot of time in the new hidden rooms i've fuond in the auditorium. i recently quit smoking weed, but i might end up picking that up again if school gets too boring. but my new favorite thing to do is to take a shot before second hour and just be loud and unafraid.

of course there are some natural limits, like.. keep the assholes around that make it worth your while. don't get arrested. and maintain graduatable grades. but people like ***** and ****** can just go eat an egg, because i'm done with their bullshit.

so, if you mistreat me this year.. see ya!
(goodbye)

maybe i should update.

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:55:44 GMT

everything's pretty much blown over. it's a long story. if you want to hear it, ask me. but yeah.

fuck

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:13:35 GMT

ok. just when it seems like it can't get any worse. don't be surprised if i don't show up to school tomorrow. don't be surprised if i end up in court.

laura, you've really been a best friend to me, but seriously--what the fuck were you thinking? do you have any idea how selfish you were?? i'm sorry you're fucked, but i didn't have to be too. i really need to say this to your face.

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:01:24 GMT

ignorance is some amazing motherfucking bliss

school..

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:16:16 GMT

today was the first day for a long time that i have been unbearably stressed. i get stressed frequently and easily. today i was so stressed out, i couldn't do any work in any class. first, i made a mistake and carried something illegal onto campus, then i got a call from some solicitor claiming to be with the court, saying i was needed on an urgent matter--thanks for your cooperation, then counsellors told us we have a lot of work ahead of us and brought to the surface the sore topic of success and futures, then i tried to calm down by taking rescue remedy, but it iddn't help, then i had econ and physics, hopelessly trying to focus, hopelessly failing to focus. in econ we had to do a budget activity, that reminded me how in debt i am and how fucked i will be if i can't deal with that by the third of september.. lunch was no better, club rush was stressful.. lots of jerks like to sign their friends up for the 'gay club' and laugh a lot. it made me happy, though, that there was this kid who was obvoisly shocked when he read the sign, and he sort of stumbled awkwardly, contemplated advancing, then did and read some stuff, then quickly packed a few resources into his bag and hurried off. total closet case. but that was the first redeeming aspect of my day. i saw this kid who found a place to go. and i helped him find it. i sort of calmed down by the time i had a few hugs and talked to the lovely alys who bought me food but had to go to the dentist office..

but i just have to look forward. today sucked. i feel better already. i'm still desperately in debt.. i still have serious personal issues i have to go take care of.. i still have lingering problems from issues long dead(?).. i still have homework, work and rehearsals, cell phones, bills, budgets, cars, gas, insurance.. but i just have to keep walking and i'll finish the hike eventually.

regret

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 03:33:33 GMT

we regret many things in our lives. i regret a lot.

so many types of shit are all hitting the same fan.
..me

new journal?

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:43:32 GMT

i was perusing home from school, in the blistering heat beneath the greenhouse glass of my faithful steed, carro, and i thought.. jive lournal. what does that mean to me? well, everything. and what does that warbled phrase mean to you? that you'll get to hear more of them in the near future.