I Think It’s A Nice Fashion Statement

Continuing photo week, I have a picture of one of the first parties I attended senior year.

Now, believe it or not, but I like to scare people. Any chance I get, I try to use it to it’s full extent. I’m the person who sneaks up behind you as you’re walking to the store and yells HEY SO-AND-SO HOW ARE YOU?! This results in a scream, a slap, and me laughing.

I don’t know why I do it. I’m sure you all enjoy a good scaring every once in awhile, right? Hmm? We all have those friends who are so easy to frighten that all you have to do is think boo and all the sudden there’s a little pee stain on their jeans.

I think this goes hand in hand with my need to cause public embarassment. For example, most recently I’ve taken to announcing the presence of my friend and co-RA, Jess. From across the quad.

Whenever I see her, I make sure to yell out as loud as I can and in a voice full of surprise OH MY GOD EVERYBODY! LOOK! IT’S JESS! YOU KNOW! JESS ! THE ONE RIGHT OVER THERE IN THE RED JACKET AND LONG BROWN HAIR! DO YOU ALL SEE HER?! I wouldn’t do it as often as I do [aka everyday, every time I see her, even from cars] if I didn’t get the rise out of her. And boy, is it a good one.

Anyways, so here I am towards the beginning of the year. A good ol’ fashioned college house party, where the beer is cheap, the pong table is made of ply wood, and the floors are so stick you wonder how many years of anonymous sex had to occur on the hard wood floors to get them so darn shiny.

This, I believe, was Bridget’s birthday party, and Internet? Shenanigans ensued.

As you can see, I got a little bored with just a beer. So I found a Jason mask and began to find some entertainment. It didn’t take long.

I don’t think there is anything scarier than a well dressed murder with nice hair bursting into your living room with cheap beer and screaming WANNAPLAYSOMEPONG?!

The answer was a resounding no in the form of a fall off a chair and a hard punch in the shoulder.

Worth it? Hells. Yes.

Enabling Stalking Is Fun!

I have so many pictures that I want to show all of you that it is just ridiculous. So this week will be PICTURE week! Are you excited? ARE YOU?!

I HOPE YOU’RE SITTING DOWN, INTERNET! BECAUSE IT’S PICTURE TIME!

Okay, so when my friends and I go out, we get a little camera happy. But don’t we all? The thing that we do, though, is if we find something we NEED visible proof of, we pose with one another next to those people we find freakish, odd, funky or are just making an ass out of themselves. That way, it LOOKS like we’re taking pictures of friends. But in fact, we are taking a picture of some nut.

This guy had been CRAZY dancing all night at PJ Dorcey’s, a bar downtown. Now, this man wasn’t just crazy dancing…oh no. He was rave, light stick dancing. Hardcore. Seizure-ish-ness. So what did we do but send Kim on over, and TA DA we’ve got some proof. God, I wish it were a video.

After the bar closed, he came up to us outside and asked Are you guys heading to Trex?, which is a gay club that stays open till 4 am, but is sketchy as hell. So we said no thanks, but told him we’d be at Spirits on Thursday, a much safer place. He immediately goes Oh well I’m not gay. Not gay.

Oh. Right. Okay ribbon dancer. Good talk. See you at the gay club.

This we needed to take. There we are, dancing and drinking and enjoying our good time at the bar, when we look up at the TV. Now, PJ Dorcey’s is very much a go out and dance bar. You don’t really sit down here, so it’s a lively place. So watching dogs pick up bricks from the sea floor seemed kind of out of place. Right before this, there was a shark attacking a man. Do these pictures belong at a dance bar? Debatable. Hilarious to see while shaking your ass drunk? Oh yes.

We just gave up the covert-ops, ninja photography skills on this one. This man is fucked up. He was sweating a river. And he kept on falling. And tripping. And sliding down the wall. And being an overall drunken mess. He’s not gonna notice 4 people pointing and laughing and snapping picture after picture. He didn’t even notice the fire alarms. Yes. Fire alarms.

So wasn’t he surprised once the firemen came in. Oh yes. And on Amanda’s birthday night, too! With axes and crowbars and everything. All because some asshat pulled the alarm. To hell if we’re going to leave the bar right when we get there. We just grabbed a drink and watched the action unfold.

Well. Tiffany, Kim and I watched. Amanda went out to meet the firemen.

At the end of many nights, we find ourselves taking a short drive on 690 and getting off at N. Geddes street to stop at the fabulous, 24/7 Doc’s Little Gem Diner. Heaven. On. Earth. The stuff they have there is just incredible. Mouth watering, delicious, cheap and incredible. And sometimes we get to see drunk people come in, order food, then pass out at the counter and get their picture taken like they were a dying, beached whale. This woman must have snapped pictures for at least 10 minutes. Sometimes the man shifted [you could hear our gasps as we waited for him to fall like a ton of bricks], but for the most part, he was quiet. Except for some snores that vibrated like a WMD went off down the block.

We are the ruckus party, ladies and gentlemen. And we love to cause a ruckus.

You can find us at the diner. Drunk, eating hash browns and eggs and sampler appetizer plates, and giggling at people who are probably gigging at us.

Jeez, I posted a lot of photos. Basically all that I loaded on from my new Flickr account. Which, apparently, they only let you upload a small amount of photos every month! Unless I upgrade.

Hmm…

And I Thought I Was Going To See Some Queens

I’ll write another post about the following topic so you all can get a better idea of what it was like [after I get pictures and what not]. But right now? It’s 3:50, I’m drunk, and full of Jimmy John’s.

God I love Jimmy.

Anyways, last night [Thursday night] was the 4th annual Syracuse University Drag Show, Totally Fabulous.

It was SO. GOOD. I can’t even begin to tell you.

I’ll explain it all in another post, but the thing I really want to tell you all about is this. The host for the show, Aggy Dune [she has hosted this event for 4 years, since I was a freshman] and her final performance.

Let me pre-empt this with a little information. Drag is something that can be done by anybody. Straight. Gay. Lesbian. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Anyone. But it is something that is embedded within the gay culture. So for almost all shows, you will see a man dressed up as a woman, or vice versa, performing some sort of show [usually lip synched, but sometimes not] for the audience.

Now. When you look at the big picture, there are people [and there are a lot of them] who say that Drag Queens are men who just wish they were born women. They say that these people are just confused. They say that these people don’t know any better and are just acting gay.

Let me tell you. That is false. People dress in drag for MANY different reasons. Enjoyment. Entertainment. Self fulfillment. Anything you can imagine. So when someone says that Drag Queens are faggots, wannabe women, or anything along those lines, they need to sit down, pick up a book, and add some knowledge into their thick skull.

So anyways. When Aggy Dune came out to give her last performance [her first one was the premiere performance of the night] she entered wearing a beautiful blue, silver beaded dress with a low cow neck. She had long brown hair, and began singing this slow song, accompanied by a sole piano. The song was about what it means to be a man, and in the lyrics, she spoke about how she lived with her mother, helped with the chores, and danced at a bar. The men in the bar were always surprised at her strip show, because they all thought she was a full blooded woman, but when she got naked, she was a man.

At his point in the performance, Aggy began loosening the ties on her dress. Finally, she let her straps go and the dress dropped. She had no bra. No push ups. No nothing. It was her natural, male chest. As he continued with the song, which spoke about how he as a performer left to have dinner with his friends [notice the change in pronouns], he contemplated what it means to be a man.

As this went on, he took off his wig. He cleaned off his make up. And, in front of about 1,000 people, took off his dress and high heels and changed into jeans, shoes, a t-shirt, a button down and a baseball cap. By the end of the song, by the end of about 4 minutes, Aggy Dune had reverted back to her true self. A man. No make up. No dress. No wig or bra or anything. There was a man on stage in front of us where a woman once stood.

The last words of her song were something along the lines of Can anyone tell me what it truly means to be a man?

She walked on stage a performer. A woman. Someone there to please and entertain a crowd.

He walked off stage a brave soul. A man. Someone there to teach us all a lesson and make a powerful statement.

To see someone make such a strong, heroic declaration moved me. I saw someone take something that had always been used as a form of entertainment and amusement, and move it to a tool to educate and provoke thought. He told an audience of 1,000 people I am a man. I am not a woman, an entertainer, a fag or a pussy.

I am a man. I dare you to prove me wrong.

I cried just a little. I was the first to stand and applaud.

Hangin’ Tough

I’ve been getting into a lot of Listen to this weird dream I had last night conversations recently. For example, Vanessa on my staff dreamed about going to live with fantastic marine life in a tropical cave in Alaska after rowing a boat on rounds throughout the building. These conversations have been drumming up old dreams of mine that I hadn’t thought about in ages.

In this one dream, I’m living in my old house in Winthrop, Massachusetts. I’ve talked about Winthrop before. That’s where my parents practiced their mind games. To this day, they still have a rudimentary knowledge of how I am able to operate and use to their advantage. Oh lord do they use that. But that’s entering into another post.

So I’m in Winthrop, and I’m on the front lawn of our house. The front yard was more of the side yard, because in front of our house was our driveway, and wrapped around our house [kind of like an L shape] was our yard. So there I am, little John Boy, playing with a soccer ball in the side yard right near the sidewalk. But I’m not playing alone. Nope. I’m better than that. At least, in dreams I am.

I was playing soccer with all the members of New Kids On The Block.

Jealous much? Uh huh, I thought so.

So there I am. 1 versus 5. Well. 4 1/2. We all know Donnie was more bark than bite. Wimp.

It was like the freaking World Cup. I was weaving in and out between those fools, making the slalom look like ring around the rosey. Dance around that, you has beens. I owned them.

Then one of them acted like an ass and tripped me. Kicked me right in the shins as I was about to score my ten zillionth goal.

And then I woke up. I woke up from a life where I owned the New Kids. I woke up from a world where I was soccer king, and all others were just spectators in my stadium of supremacy. I woke up from a world where I was able to make Joey McIntyre look more like an ass than his solo album did.

As I sat up in bed, I breathed out a fuck, I was so upset. I think that was my first swear.

No matter. I’m still the boss of you, Donnie. And if you have any problems, just bring it.

Thanks, Confucius, Ol’ Buddy

I had Chinese food over the weekend with one of the RAs on my staff. We popped in Wedding Crashers and chowed down.

I can shovel that stuff like I was being timed. But even while lying on the ground, with the take out container sitting next to my head and my body screaming and pleading with me to stop, I still find the strength to lazily put little forkfuls of chicken lo mein into my mouth.

All was going well until I opened up my fortune cookie. I’m still confused by it.

Confucius say: Lovers in triangle not on square.

What the hell does that mean?! Go for threesomes, not for foursomes?

This fortune cookie was crap. Not only that, but my numbers DIDN’T win, either. What the hell are these things good for. I usually trash the cookie, too, because who wants to eat a stale piece of shit after being told to have a threesome. Not I. Certainly not I.

And Here Comes The Social Activist

I’ve been playing with this post for awhile now, and today I’m in a frustrated enough mood to post and finish it.

Not that I don’t experience it on a day to day basis, but the bigotry I’ve been subjected to within the last few months has been ridiculous. I don’t know if it was the release of Brokeback Mountain, the recent fights in court for gay marriage, or what. But people are taking the existence of the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community to heart.

A few weeks ago, I was at a bar to celebrate a friend’s 22nd birthday. On our way out, some drunk derelict took it upon himself to throw in some half assed insult, saying that she looked 34, not 22. Not being one to sit by and let someone insult my friends, I confronted the guy by saying Hey listen. She’s 22, so maybe you should work on being a little more polite.

Now, this is the thing that gets me. That he considers this to be an acceptable thing to say to ANYONE.

Well, maybe you should work on not being so gay.

Oh. Okay then. Let’s play.

Well, actually…I am gay. So maybe you should work on not being such a jackass.

Then I turned around and left. Because there was nothing else to say to him.

I’ve already spoken about the issues I’m dealing with personally, which I fear, while they may seem unique and unrepeated to me, are more than likely all too common. If nothing, this should prove that latent and quiet, so to speak, bigotry is just as harmful as anything else. I’ve always found it interesting how the general populace avoids being associated with such words as racist, homophobe, sexist or bigot like they would avoid the plague itself. Yet the qualities of the person and the requisites of the definition match up like puzzle pieces.

Then I read in the D.O. [page 2] today about the reaction the LGBT community had to a recent court ruling that upheld the decision to deny the right of marriage to gay couples in New York. This just put me in a worse mood. Apparently, the reason that the appeal failed was because the judges cited the traditional definition of marriage as a union between man and woman “that long predates the constitutions of this country and state,” emphasizing its “critical importance to its role in procreation.”

There is no way for me to comfortably convey my disappointment with the reasoning behind quashing such a vital and integral step towards equality. I cannot, for the life of me, understand the thought process that goes through the mind of an individual who wishes to deny another human being equal rights.

I got into a thread fight on Jon Armstrong’s site awhile back [I ended up losing my cool, a bit, as you'll see...all comments by John are me] with a certain individual whom I don’t know. I guess it was foolish of me, but I had always felt distanced from hate. I believed it was something that only a few ignorant individuals had the gusto to actually come out and voice to people. I was surprised, to say the least, that a discourse like the one that had occurred in that particular thread followed the course it did.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my education, though, it’s that there is an inbred superiority complex instilled into our culture. Specifically, into those that are not considered to be a minority. Continuing with this acquired knowledge, I know it isn’t my issue. Bigotry of any kind is not the problem of the afflicted, but the problem of the persecutor. Racism is a white issue. Sexism is a man’s issue. And homophobia is a straight issue.

It’s frustrating, because sometimes there seems to be no one that minorities can depend upon. I had gotten into a heated discussion with my boss about some of the things that I’m not happy about concerning the resident advisor position this year [I'm in my third year]. One of which being that, as an RA, I’m required to attend a 2 hour dialogue circle every week of one semester to have discussions about race and gender. While I do not disagree with the goal of the program, I do question the enactment and thought process put into the program.

The only people required to attend these circles were RAs. I will be the first to admit that discussions about social problems are a necessity. However, how much of a difference will be made in a room full of [for the most part] forward thinking, open-minded individuals? Not only that, but in order to register for what group I was going to be placed in, I was asked my race and sexuality.

When I enter the group, there are about 12 people. A mix of men and women, but 2 or 3 were visible minorities. The rest were white. This seems to be a trend to me. When forward thinking, well intentioned people get together, they spread minorities around for diversity’s sake. This way, we can make sure to educate those around us.

Good thing us minorities were around. Because without us, how would they receive their diversity education? Picking up a book is apparently too much to ask.

If there was one thing I could tell every single person, it would be this. Educate yourself. Go to public events you wouldn’t normally attend. Go out of your way to experience new things. Pick up some journals by bell hooks, Millie Bruce Pratt, Jonathan Kozol, or even Michel Foucault. Very simply, become an educated individual.

It’s the least that can be done.

DAMMIT I LOVE TV!

Because I know you all are worried, I’ll let you know first and foremost what the beeping was.

I was on pager duty this weekend [I'm an RA] and I had gotten a page. Now, I answered the call and did the whole deal, but apparently on these pagers you need to clear a page once you answer a page. Who would have thought.

Okay. On to the subject at hand.

I’m obsessed with almost every channel on TV right now, and I don’t know what to do about it, because I think that if things continue along this path, I may never leave my room ever again. Let me explain.

*TLC has the most BIZARRE programming recently. I was watching TV with Tiffany tonight, and we flipped to The Man Whose Arms Exploded. The man took so many steroids, his arms were 28 inches around. My waist is 33 inches. Just to give you some type of reference point. When this man walked around, it looked like he had two old bald men in a head lock. It was gross.

Then. Oh, there’s a then. THEN his arms collapsed. They got infected, filled with blood and puss and steroids and grossness, and the doctors had to REMOVE part of his BICEP. Ugh it was gross. Don’t do drugs.

*MTV had a documentary on today called Fat Camp. It. Was. Hilarious. It was a really interesting show because they had no narration or subtitles or anything. You just watched these kids go through a month or so of camp, and see what happens. They did do the before and after shots thing, which was cool to see. The main characters looked so much better and happier.

My favorite characters were Diane [though I thought she was a whiney bitch] and Petey [the jackass]. Diane never did ANYTHING. She just complained and cried the whole way through. Though she still stuck it out and lost about 17 pounds by the end of the program. My favorite scene was her sitting all alone in a kayak, with no one else in sight. She’s just sitting there with the oars in her hand, drifting very slowly. Not a single damn person in sight. Then she lets out a screaming Where are we even going?!

Petey was just one of those rich creeps. He thinks he’s God’s gift to all those around him. Including this 13 or 14 year old boy which he took up as a project. This entailed telling him what to say to girls, when to hold their hand, and when to kiss them.

He did this WHILE the kid was sitting WITH the girl. Hilarious.

*Bravo. Project Runway. Enough said.

*TLC again, because last night, after The Man Whose Arms Exploded, they advertised for their night of Sports Disasters, which they touted as being some exciting, hilarious, let’s rejoice in some good old fashioned football fumbles. But oh no. It was the most deadly, violent, horrific display of life threatening riots and accidents I’ve ever seen. It was almost too much to watch the clips then hear the commercials talk about it like it was a new series from Cute Overload.

Which is utterly false. They may have TOLD us those people were okay. I’ve decided that some of them died. Or at least aren’t walking anymore.

*Cartoon Network. Little do you all know that it turns into Fucked Up Network after midnight. In one anime cartoon, 12 men got on top of a roof while people were filming them, and paired up. They then cut their partner’s heads off at the same time. Then, moments later, a man in an office tries to cut his head off with a box cutter. I couldn’t turn it off, I was so intrigued. This was a BEHEADING cartoon.

God I love TV.

Quiet. Please, God, Just Give Me Quiet.

It’s 3:30 am right now as I write this. I’m not drunk. I’m not high. I’m not suffering from any type of side effects from any type of medication or sickness. I’m relatively sane and have never heard voices or such in my head. I’m in pretty good physical condition [I've taken to my summer gym habits and go at least three times a week] and have not suffered any type of chronic ailment since my childhood [I used to get chronic migraines. Once a week. They were so bad, I would be out of commission for most of the time I had it, until I got the wonderful drugs. I was prescribed Imitrex LONG before the commercials].

So all in all, I am a healthy, sober person at this moment in my life, right now, right this second.

That being said. What the HELL is that beeping in my room, and why can’t I find it?!

For the last 20 minutes, I’ve been hearing a singular BEEP coming from some place in my room. It’s short, and happens about every 2 minutes or so. At first I thought I was hearing things. Maybe making it up or it was coming from the TV or a laptop that needed charging. But no. It’s real. And it’s somewhere in my room. Annoying enough to keep me awake and make me do a post about it, but discrete enough to keep it’s source hidden from me after 20 minutes of searching.

AAAAARGH!!!! THERE IT IS AGAIN!!! WHERE THE HELL IS THE BEEPING COMING FROM?!?!

Something must be done.

God Is Raining Brimstone Down Upon Me

I can’t really talk right now.

There is a huge storming happening this very second. A wind storm. Dorothy and Kansas style. Pick you up and move you a foot down the sidewalk style. Half the campus has lost power, dorms and academic buildings, windows are being blown out down in the lobby, the food places are closed because they can’t cook and I don’t know where to find food, the hot water in the building is out, and there may or may not be a small fire in one of the residence halls across the street from me.

All of this AND I’m hung over like a bridesmaid the day after the wedding. Not good. I need food.

I need to forage.

What A Way To Start The Day

Whenever I have to wake up early, I always set my alarm to go off one or two times before I have to actually get up. I have an issue with saying to myself No, it’s okay. I can just lie here for a few more minutes with my eyes closed. There’s no way I’ll fall asleep. Just a few minutes…

Next thing I know, it’s 1 in the afternoon and the seasons have changed.

So last night I ended staying up till 5 am when I KNEW I had to wake up at 9 for work at 10. I don’t know WHY I decided to stay up so late, especially when I KNOW I’ll be so tired in the morning.

Okay, I lied. I stayed up late because I was playing video games. It was a really good part where I had to destroy a factory that was producing soldier clones for Apocalypse’s army. I couldn’t just QUIT.

So anyways, I wake up at three different times this morning. 9, 9 20 and finally at 9 40. The first thing I always do when I get up, no matter if I’m on time, early or late, is check my email. It’s one of my compulsive habits that I have to follow, like when I bite my fingernails, the other finger on the other hand has to be bitten too. If it’s not long enough to be bitten down, I’ll wait for it to grow.

I keep getting off track. Don’t let me DO that.

So I stumble over to my computer, and I have an IM from Courtney that just says You’ll soon have a little present in your inbox. What that meant, I had no idea. But presents in the morning? YES please.

Mind you, I’m still groggy and tired from my battles with Apocalypse’s army.

So I open up my email and I have two PDF attachments. And after very little sleep [in which I ate two chocolate chip cookies and a glass of iced tea...if I'm ever going to get into shape I NEED to stop eating in my sleep] I open up Courtney’s files [that sounds like geek sex talk].

You know how in Pulp Fiction when Uma Thurman overdoses on coke and they need to stab her in the chest with a needle in order to jump start her heart and bring her back to life and she is jerked back upright?

That’s pretty much exactly how I felt when I opened this.

I did not expect that. At all.

If you want to read the accompanying article, click here*. Thanks, Courtney!

*You may have to save the picture and then enlarge it.