Pair that with the another example of how stupid I am.  awful, awful.  What’s wrong with me?  Why do I take everything out of proportion?  why do I see what is clearly not there?  How could I have possibly seen interest, affection when there was none? when I was so fucking ugly.  But why did everyone except me know?

Am I causing myself pain? Is the blindness my own fault?  Is it the deceit of others?  How did I let myself become so weak?  why am I affected by this?

I am a gardener with poor eyesight; I delight at the green growth that I am cultivating, but I don’t even realize that the garden is overgrown with weeds, rubbish–a whole lot of nothing.

To his flirtations, I say: Fuck you.

To my hopeful dreamy optimism, I say: Being crushed serves you right.  Haven’t you learned anything from the past?

In recent months, however, the Christian Inspiration section has been gobbling up more and more floor space.  The section catering to LGBT folks was bounced across the aisle, nearer to psychology and self-help (go figure) and that was only the first step.  I found yesterday, to my horror, that the Christians are now fully insulated from unpleasantness by bays full of educational (and not-so-educational) toys.  The comfortable chairs have been stricken from the store all together (buy or get out! no idle reading!).  “Fine, whatever”, thought I after lamenting that a Christian bookstore and a Toys ‘R’ Us had permanently displaced current issues and sociology in addition to the LGBT shelves.  But then, I discovered that the gay rack was no longer to be found even in its second home.

I looked everywhere for it and finally wandered into the children’s section to ask my friend, an employee, what became of it.  She had to call to discover its fate.  “It’s still here,” she said and led me on a long and winding journey past the new noisy, child-filled toy section (which is outside the already sizable children’s section), past the music and movies section, and the sci-fi and bargain sections, to the corner by the bathrooms, far from the front doors.  Once in this alcove, I was pointed past the large print books, past the reference books to the corner of the corner where one single bay of lesbian and gay books were hidden from the view of the decent.  Also in this alcove were pulp novels, bodice rippers, and countless generic mysteries.

Just as our polite, sensible Midwestern society tries to do with us, our section was hidden away where it couldn’t offend.  It was there and even visible with its little labels on the shelves, but certainly in no one’s face.

Worse yet were the combination of books available.  As I mentioned before, in the same sparse collection appeared both inspirational coming out stories and gay erotica.  Along with these were gay parenting guides, books about gay theology, guides to better gay sex, etc. etc.  Could you imagine if I picked up a couple of periodicals from the “Men’s Interest” section and tucked them in with What to Expect When You’re Expecting?  Maybe a little Chicken Soup for the Soul next to the Kama Sutra and then a book about the Civil Rights movements behind a Playboy.

And so it is that I’m torn between the fact that they’re hiding their Gay & Lesbian section away and the fact that they have one at all.  Why aren’t books on gay parenting simply in the parenting section?  Why aren’t guides to better gay sex filed unceremoniously in the sexuality section?

At dinner father sat down with my mother and me and enquired whether I had heard of a murder in a town that I pass by when I drive to work.  I said that I had not.  He said that at 9.30 the previous night someone had been murdered at Generic Dairy Burger Chain.  I attempted to extract more details from him.   Turns out, it was a domestic dispute.  A husband went to the GDBC to confront his wife (who worked there), they fought and he killed her.  I asked if there were previous instances of domestic problems, or if he had a criminal past.  My dad answered to the affirmative; they had had marital problems, etc.  My mother enquired whether they were separated or divorced and it turns out they were divorced.  It turns out they had been divorced for a while, she had restraining orders on him, and she was still trying to legally obtain alimony/or financial support from him.  Apparently the morning of the murder, he had found out that his wages had been garnished, and that was the impetus for the confrontation.

my mother: “she should have known better.  She should have just been happy to get out of the marriage, instead of trying to get money from him”

me: “how could she have known that he was going to kill her?  And maybe she did need his financial assistance.  Maybe she was financially disadvantaged after the divorce, and that’s why she was working at the GDBC.”

mother: “well, she knew that he had a history of instability, so she should have expected this”

me:  sputtering and shouting something about blaming the victim, seeing red, etc.

This is ridiculous.  I should have known better than to engage in such a sensitive topic, but I am a glutton for punishment.   but the lesson of the day is this:  women–much in the same way women who wear short skirts are asking for it– who have had domestic abuse should expect to be killed if they attempt to receive alimony from their ex-spouses.

What is my problem?  this woman probably was scared and probably feared for her life.  She probably knew what kind of danger she was in.   She probably already did expect the worst, but somehow she had to live her life and one needs money to live, unfortunately.   She should not have to live in a world where she should have to expect to be killed.  She should not have (had) to live in a world where comfortable middle class women will shake their heads at her decision to seek alimony, and use past instances of domestic violence as the natural precursor to her murder.

this makes me incredibly sad. it makes me wish for something beautiful after death, so that those who did not have much beauty in life can experience some degree of weightless, pure happiness.

It started out a little hokey, but once the main character began talking about his past, I was hooked.   The concept was wonderful even if I didn’t love every part of the film.

You may have expected this if you have read a few of my previous posts, but I didn’t like the burgeoning romance between John and his colleague.  I felt that it was the weakest point of the film, but hey, (spoiler alert!) 14,000 year old cavemen deserve love too!  Maybe I disliked it because it hit a little too close to home.   John seemed almost apathetic, and his colleague was in love with him, and they both knew that the relationship was doomed, and yet they still (or at least we were left with the impression that) went for it.  Maybe that’s some sweet kind of hope–an innocent and beautiful thing–that no longer exists for me and I cannot appreciate it.

But!  Back to interesting concepts!  I think the Jesus-twist was very interesting.  Aside from the fact that biblical stories often incorporate other cultures’ myth stories, the complete disbelief and anger of the christian was a very nice touch for me.  Departing from the 14,000 year old dude issue, it made me wonder what the return of Jesus would be like, if it happened today.  What would he be like?  Humble, modest job as a carpenter (think construction worker, joe sixpack?), some guy who talks about being nice to others and not being judgmental of or deride sex workers.  And this guy will try to convince people (N. Americans) that he is the Messiah?  He would be laughed out of town.  He would be hated by all the evangelists and catholics.  The televangelists and church folk would call him a crazy person, a faker, satan-in-disguise.  He would be tagged as a person trying to lead folk astray.  What are his credentials?  He’s just a guy!  (or hell, what if the messiah came back as a woman? hmmm, that might make a believer out of me).

Moving away from the movie for a moment.  I wanted to recount a story about my aunt.  One of my mother’s sisters was over for dinner on thursday night.  I haven’t seen her in many years but that’s beside the point.  Of course they chatted about food and diets and (surprise surprise) my body and my eating habits (not necessarily my avoidance of meat and other animal products, fucking soy, wheat and peanuts if I can help it, but whether or not I actually eat, how much and how often).  Then the aunt started telling a story about how they were cleaning out the apartment of my now-dead grandmother.  The aunt related how there were lots and lots of things, much of very little value, but then she spotted a basket that was holding trinkets.  She noticed something singular about the basket and she realized it was a Special Basket (it has some special brand name that I cannot recall, but it’s worth thousands maybe?) and so she kept it.  She told us how she adored Special Baskets and that she collects them.  I thought this was incredible.  I was once again reminded of how insane I think collecting things is and how value is often inflated, or at least disproportionate to the actual worth of the item.   I don’t mean to tread on the handiwork of this particular basket maker or any basket weaver, nor any artist regardless of medium…but fucking baskets? ugh.

I’m so depressed again, that I’ll have to finish this post later.

today I had an email conversation with a colleague.  We were talking about existence and non-existence. He mentioned something along the lines of people would be sad about their non-existence (in this context, he had mentioned that those who were on a bad acid trip would say that non-existence is a negative thing).  I replied that since they exist, they can only think of what non-existence would be like from their view of having existed in the first place. He had argued something about how one can understand or comprehend non-existence.  I argued that this was impossible, as in order to comprehend or hold some feeling or memory of non-existence, a mind or intelligence or even basic instinct would have to exist.  This is not non-existence.  I explained then my definition of non-existence, hoping that this was the point of miscommunication, and hoped to receive his definition of non-existence in return.  My definition of course, is very simple, no physical, mental, instinct, nothing.  It’s just non-existence. There is nothing there.

He derailed my argument by abandoning it and moving onto another argument (this left me greatly unsatisfied, but I went along) about how to study or research existence vs. non-existence.  I’ve never seen back to the future, but I think that’s what he was alluding to. He mentioned whether a study could be performed to send the scientist back in time to stop his assistant from ever being born  (as in: take notes now about what things are like when my assistant exists, and then prevent him from existing and take notes on that —and then somehow get him back into existence before the whole movie is over, I guess).   I rallied that this could not occur (unless one believes in predestination…is that the right term? something like things are supposed to happen and that they cannot be kept from happening… I do not believe this) since, even if the doctor did prevent the assistant from being born, the doctor would be wiped out, since without the assistant to prevent from being born in the new thread/future the doctor would not go back in time to prevent the non-existent assistant from being born.  And if the doctor was then pulled to this new future, where the assistant never existed, then he would not know to study his existence or non-existence.  He would never be able to get back to the original present… I think.

All of this took me an embarrassingly long time to formulate but in the process, I became curious about time and space and about time as a dimension.  Instead of working, I went to the dry erase board and drew pictures and tried to make sense of a fourth dimension.  I tried to do this without any assistance from wikipedia; I wanted to know what kind of solution or ideas I would be able to come up with on my own.

these are my wild trippy half-formulated ideas.  In a fourth dimension based upon orthogonal axes, the other three dimensions move as they will along the 4d vector as a ray. but this seemed really simple, too simple, mostly because I cannot seem to grasp time as a vector.  so i tried to visualize three dimensions with the ability to move in any direction (which is just the more advance way of explaining the previous).  and then I was caught again—if a something doesn’t move in space, then is it moving through time?  I tried to think on a larger scale, not just like the cabinet doesn’t move, therefore it isn’t moving through time.  But I mean, if the cabinet didn’t move in relationship with the earth’s revolution around the sun, would the cabinet end up lodged in the earth somehow?  I am probably confusing space and time.  I don’t know, I wanted to get this all out before I started reading and learning as much as I could, so I will probably be cringing as I think of this post in the FUTURE TIME, but whatever.  I am happy to be thinking again.

anyway. I need to go read up on this stuff. I crave it.

One of the characters talks about breaking into her “hoard of life”, saying that she has some fifty or sixty years to spend.  She feels she can spend it freely now that her years in school have come to an end.  “I have fifty years, I have sixty years to spend. I have not yet broken into my hoard. This is the beginning,” she says.  Though I have that silly feeling that death has nothing to do with me even as I feel I’ve come to terms with my own mortality, I probably have, at best, the same number of years the character feels she has ahead of her.  I should be breaking into my own hoard right now.

I think perhaps that worrying that my life will peak in my 20s or 30s is getting a step ahead of myself, at least in terms of the hierarchy of my fears.  An even greater fear is that I won’t be able to scale this peak.  I don’t feel like I have the tools to force opened the locked door to the potential for great, bright, golden years.  I have deep passion, intelligence, education, and all kinds of other attributes that would be perfectly useful to anyone who’d be willing to help me cultivate and refine them.  But, with scores of unanswered job applications and my relative isolation in this small Midwestern city, I feel like I’m going to be stuck by the wayside.  The cards seemed to be stacked against me and I have no idea how to rectify that.

I’m having a pure, unadulterated bout of envy.  Somehow, when you hear stories about fabulously successful people or terribly unfortunate people, you’re made to believe you needn’t worry about that sort of thing because you belong to a massive, very satisfied, and perfectly respectable American middle class.  While the situation of the socially disadvantaged is unenviable, a sort of mythology about the wholesomeness of your station in life attempts to diminish the invidiousness of those who have more or know more or who have accomplished more than you.  Unimaginable wealth seems immoral and academic achievement seems stuffy, so you’re happy with your “hard-earned” income that allows you to consume, consume, consume and you feel an air of superiority about it. You’re better than both the rich and the poor.  Your common sense and well-roundedness are all you need and both the intelligentsia and the lumpenproletariat be damned.

What the Hell? I reject that entirely.  I want to be wealthy enough to have an apartment in every major city I fancy, I want to write tomes and treatises about things of earth-shattering importance.  I want the power to affect change at a societal level.  I want to be cultivated and polished and refined.  But of course, anyone who wants to be any of those adjectives is some sad sack from that big happy middle class who needs to be bashed down into place.  Well you know what?  I think that the very will to education, present in the intelligent individual, should entitle them to it.  Let all of the people who are perfectly content in their middle class lives stay there.  I have no judgment for them, but for God’s sake, don’t drown me in their sea of minivans or their once-in-a-lifetime cruises to Cancún or their cookie-cutter subdivisions or their Sam’s Clubs.  I realize I’m conflating various socioeconomic and cultural groups, but I don’t have the time to sort out taxonomize all of the kinds of people I don’t want to be.  Also, I should backpedal a bit and say that it’s not all about the wealth.  It’s about the opportunities of the élite.  Wealth begets wealth and sends it to fine boarding schools that provide back doors to Ivy League universities that are pipelines into successful careers.  It is of this process that I’m stuck on the outside of that makes me insanely envious.

Worse, perhaps is that I’m closer to it.  One of my parents has enjoyed tremendous financial success, launched in part by my grandparents’ financial success on that side of the family.  There was all the financial capital to send me to a good college preparatory school and to a fine Ivy League university but my family lacked the necessary cultural capital to make it happen.  Only too late did I realize what I should have done to get where I now want to go.  Now I have accomplished friends and acquaintances from the best schools in several countries who are doing amazing things and beginning what will, no doubt, turn out to be illustrious careers.  I’m left with this sick idea that it’s too late for me, but that I should have children who I shall raise well and from whom I’ll demand intellectual sophistication.  Never mind the complications that my sexuality poses for begetting a family of my own, I imagine that I would be a deranged, overly demanding patriarch who’s left bitter and alone at the end of his bell curve, his hoard of life spent trying to sculpt and chisel his children to make up for his own perceived shortcomings.

Phwew, deep breath.  I’m only 24.  I still have those fifty or sixty years to be an American success story, right? –an aw-shucks would-be intellectual just waiting to be plucked from the poor soil of his naïveté and cultural and academic undernourishment and set aside for something great.  Somebody save me.

In truth, in every single one of these places, I am convinced that I will end up like some tragic Greek character.  You know, one of those the gods curse by putting something just out of reach–you’re made to stand in a stream and overwhelmed with a terrible thirst that you can’t sate because when you lean down by the stream the water recedes.  I’m a 21st century Tantalus.  The moment just before I touch down in or drive up to my dream city, it disappears and I’m left with a kind of hollow, tricked feeling.

Since I’ve been “home”, I’ve found this to be terribly true.  When living in the Middle East, I often thought about all of the opportunities I’d have to rekindle old friendships, shore up family relationships, visit old favorite haunts (admittedly, there are very few around here), and try new things.  Though this sort of wholesome activity is part of my life these days, it’s not the kind of 24-hour homey heartwarming goodness-fest I imagined it would be.  I  find myself at home or online more often than I’d care to.  Most of that time is spent looking for jobs in Mytholopolis.  I doubt I’ll ever learn.

But that’s no fun to hear about.  I just wanted to describe something that I experience, on average, 3 times a day.  It’s not bad, it’s just different.

Now, I am going to address the title of this post.  See, I have this job.  I might have mentioned it.  Ranted about it, even.  I do this because every day I wake up and say to myself “this can’t possibly be real”  or “this has to be an elaborate joke.”

There are two aspects of these statements:  the first aspect is that I am glad to have a paying job in this economy, a job that does not require hard physical labor, a job in a fairly comfortable setting and a job where I do not have to sell people things.  The other aspect of this statement has to do with the fact that I am working in advertising, yes, which is what I wanted, but that the advertisements my company churns out are the kind that turn my stomach.  The kind of ads that make people say “I can’t believe this ad–this can’t possibly be for real, this has to be an elaborate joke”. These are bad ads.  Ads that have as much visual and copy information crammed into them as possible.  Ads that have certain words bolded, or in ALL CAPS, or ads that, without a hint of irony or a wry smile, tell you to do exactly what the client has determined the consumer should do, which is buy this product, now! This product is great! Ads that take an art form of persuasion through interesting word play, clever ideas, new and intriguing images, punches it expertly in its delicate stomach, throws some comic sans on it and tells you that you won’t believe these prices!  Come on down! Oh, and for fuck’s sake, make the logo bigger!  We have to give the client what he’s paying for!

Everything I know and feel about truth, beauty and love is being crushed.  I am ready to work hard, and I do, I put serious thought and effort into my work and try to make the best ads possible, only to have them slashed and torn apart, twisted into something awful.  It’s cruel.  I imagine it would also be a bit sad too if only bits and pieces of my work were taken and made into something great–sad because I was not able to come up with something great myself–but I think I would also be happy in the end and be inspired to work harder.  But no, this is awful, because I am not inspired to work harder, I am starting to question what is “good” and what is “bad”.  Am I the one who is wrong?  It’s like the twilight zone and my sanity is at stake.

There are two art directors who are amazing and I love them, and they are probably the sole reason I am able to keep it together.

I think I blame everything on my boss.  S/he takes my work, (which admittedly, might not be good or great, but they have ideas, some strategy, etc) crosses out half of a sentence, scribbles in something that doesn’t really flow as well, and credits his/her internal copywriter for the brilliance that they have added to my concept.  Ok, fine, whatever. Boss(B, from here on out) will then rewrite my copy because, well I don’t know X(X=the field of the client or the relevant information about the product), so I couldn’t possibly be able to write about it as well as B, who has personal experience with X.  I don’t know.  Last but not least, I am told by B that B has been in the business for 25 years, so yeah.  Trump card, right there.  25 years is a long time to do something, and it seems intimidating or authoritative.  We should listen, we should care, because so much time has been spent doing something.  But I cannot let that slide.  Like a resume, it’s impressive to look at, but it’s all smoke and mirrors, there might not be anything behind it.

You can do something for a long time and not do it well.  You may have made many ads, but it’s possible that none of them have any value.

Well, now I’m wasting away in my conservative, predominantly Christian corner of the Midwest that doesn’t place a high priority on fostering tasteful, bearable environments where lesbians and gays not looking for anonymous sex can meet.  And so it is that I have created a new profile on OkCupid.  So far, I’ve discovered that every gay man in America professes to hate drama and to be keen on good grammar.  Who knew?  I came across a guy who was looking for someone who was “out, but not defined by his sexuality”.  Coincidentally, he also wanted to be able to relax and “watch a game” with his ideal mate.  Because all of the dashing, intelligent, worldly men who like men that hail from my same background migrate to big cities, the ones left behind aren’t exactly the cream of the crop.  Most of them all but advertise their low self-esteem and spend their Friday nights playing Dungeons and Dragons.  It also seems to be a trend that gay men become girthier (around the belly, you size queens) the further away from a major metropolitan area you get.

Anyway, the things I’m learning about myself in this fascinating process are already numerous.  First of all, I’m a horribly shallow person.  I’ve clicked the “hide” button on most all of my matches, many simply because I wasn’t keen on their profile photos.  All the a prioris and prejudices I had based on weight, apparent ethnicity, teeth, and so forth shocked me.  Second of all, I better develop an interest either in Lady Gaga or football if I want to snag a gay on OkCupid.  The guys who share my interest seem (surprise!) snobby, pretentious, and unstable.  Alas.

And what of the ladies?  Well, there’s a handy feature in the match search that allows you to select for “both [guys and girls] who like bi guys”.  I’m not sure however if that directs the unsuspecting Baptist maiden looking for a gentleman caller to meet her father to arrange for courting to the profile of a sinful bisexual or not.  I mean to say, I’m not sure if when a straight girl fills out her info it asks if she just wants to be matched with men or specifically whether she wants to be matched with men who are exclusively into women.  Who know?  I’ll let you know if I meet any Baptist girls.

Ok, Cupid.  Let’s see what you can do.

But I must rant to you, my dear blog, because the anger and frustration never stops flowing and renewing and compounding.  I don’t know where to take it or put it.  I must throw it at this digital wall, where it will stick and decay for years until wordpress, much like geocities before it, is taken down the the morgue of the internet, never to be seen or heard from again.

My blog, my reader(s?), I work in advertising or at least pretend that I do.  I don’t so much advertise as I write things, which will inevitably be deemed not good enough, and then try not to care as the boss rewrites my thoughtful, interesting words into a terrible marketing cliche. The things that I write aren’t that great, I will accept and own that fact, but they are, to some degree, original and honest.  I do make the effort to come up with that ‘better way to say it’ that ad-people lust after.   But that doesn’t matter.  I don’t think the higher-ups are looking for a better way to say it. They just want it said.  Said in the manner that the droning in their head rambles along a dusty and dry road, muttering, mumbling always.

The puzzle pieces do not fit together at this workplace.  You are expected to get to point B before you have even found out where point A is.  And once you do get to point B, you are told that you should have really considered A, ok?  Once you hustle over to point A, there is no further instruction, but there are plenty of people who seem to want something from you now, but they won’t tell you what it is exactly.  You should know!

On a Wednesday evening I was told to make ads that were high concept.

“Think Billboard” he had said, “Very few words, big and bolded”

I thought billboard.  I churned out billboard.  There were a few things that were ok, but “You’re going to have to write a few sentences describing and talking about (the client) and (his book)”

Very well.  I wrote sentences that might not be too bad if you were forced to read them on a plane.  But he took those sentences and made them boring.  Sucked the life out of them.  Made them sound like an infomercial.

I wasn’t angry–too much Adderall in my system.  I was just a little saddened.  I felt that weird chilling sting of numbness as I considered what the ads were going to look and sound like, and figured that I tried too hard.  I need to start phoning things in.  Caring is just going to make my life worse.

The art directors are trying hard to comfort me, and it helps.

but I still feel like a shell of a human.