Filed under: My Day, My Explanations, Random Thoughts, Ranting, Writing | Tags: admitting, allergies, asleep, coming out, confession, controversy, dumbledore, excellent, family, gay, harry potter, heterosexual, homosexual, illiterate, jk rowling, literacy, personal, rainbow boys, reading, sex, sick, sleep, symptoms, wrench
You know that statue of a guy in a slouch, with his head on his hand in a thinking pose? That’s me.
Except I’m not a guy, and I’m not marble or whatever. And I’m not naked, and I’m pretty sure that statue is (or maybe he’s wearing a toga).
Regardless, he’s me. Pretty much. I think all the time. About everything. I can be playing a game made to make me mindless and stop, but the gears are still whirring, click-click-clicking along inside my head.
About what? Everything. But mostly about what I read. I swear to God, if I was illiterate, I would be a box of rocks. I wouldn’t even function. I might not even eat. What’s the point of snacktime without something to read?
I finished the seventh Harry Potter book today. Then I read the novel Rainbow Boys, which is about exactly what you think. Three gay kids in a public high school. I don’t know what made me check that book out of the library. I read the blush on Mrs. Ciminesi’s face as she scanned it for me.
I’m not questioning my sexuality (I like boys, of all varieties), but I had seen it on the shelf once or twice before and something in the back of my mind poked at me, like wiggling a tooth. Check it out, it said.
Well, I did, finally, yesterday. I finished it in three or so hours. It wasn’t emotionally moving, although I did burst out laughing a few times. From an ex-homophobe’s perspective, the narration was quite comfortable. I wasn’t uneasy, and generally I get a little jumpy, considering homosexuality isn’t something I’ve been exposed to a great deal. But this book was almost pleasant, in that I wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
But so, yeah. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. And that ties into Harry Potter because Dumbledore was gay (possibly with Grindelwald). Possibly one of the top three greatest wizards of all time, and a queer.
And so what. Before JK Rowling had said anything about it, no one gave a crap. After, there was all this talk about corruption and the rumors sprouted about Snape being a vampire, and…
Well, whatever, I’m digressing. But the fact remains that I’m thinking. About the parallels that Harry Potter reflects relating to the Holocaust, and persecution (Muggles=Jews). About how that kind of narrow-minded pursuit of those different leads to incredibly violent controversy.
And, finally, the deep wrench that comes with admitting you are who you are. On a personal level, I feel like I should be thinking and dwelling on that, in particular. That there’s something I need to admit to myself.
I don’t know what it is, yet, but I’ve done some soul searching throughout the past few hours and have found a number of possibilities. Probably all of them combined would have the same bombshell effect on my family, were I to admit them to my family, as coming out.
Not that I will ever be coming out, since (ironically) that is the one massive life-altering announcement I will never have to make. Boys are by far my favorite gender.
But that’s going to have to be all for tonight. I’m exhausted, and I’m sure I’ll be up mulling over more as the hours drag on before I fall asleep. That’s one of the stupidest parts of being sick (or having serious allergies, as my recent symptoms suggest): I lay there fretting about how I feel like crap and thinking, rather than getting the excellent eight hours.
And that’s enough rambling for one night. Yepo.
Filed under: My Day, My Explanations, Random Thoughts, Writing | Tags: anna, appealing, around, book, brian, bullshit, campbell, churn, class, decent, deep, demean, demeaning, english, especially, essay, essays, fake, feeling, feelings, find, finish, finished, hate, i, idea, ideas, inspire, inspired, instead, isobel, issue, issues, jesse, jodi picoult, julia, kate, keep, lit, literature, me, moral, mush, my sister's keeper, myself, no, novel, paper, personal, picoult, private, rather, read, reading, recent, recently, sara, savor, school, seven, spreading, subject, thought, thoughts, want, wanted, wanting, we, write, Writing, written, wrote, year
I hate English essays. Generally the books we have read in English this year have inspired deep thoughts about moral issues and personal feelings. When it comes to the book we have recently finished, especially, I find myself wanting to keep my private thoughts to myself, instead of spreading them around on paper or demeaning the book by having to bullshit some fake ideas in order to churn out a decent essay. I want to savor the thoughts and feelings the literature inspires, rather than mush the subject around until it’s no longer appealing or thought-provoking.
Therefore, I hate English essays.
Filed under: My Day | Tags: adult, alive, ariel, basketball, boy, brendan, cd, cds, chamber choir, childhood, choir, chorus, class, Damen, eighth, essay, essays, Grubbs, gym, interesting, lerew, leukemia, making music, meaningful, melody, mermaid, mr. lerew, music, musical, My Day, personal, piece, poignant, quotes, Ruth, sarcasm, sarcastic, serious, today, tres, unexpected, walker, Writing
I am busy uploading the nine CDs Katie made me into my iTunes.
I loooovelovelove music (durrh), but I don’t get much of a chance to hear the contemporary stuff. Or really, any stuff besides classical and showtunes.
Soo, I am excited. Nine CDs. KT surely is my hero :D
I am currently listening to “The Little Mermaid”– still from a musical– but hey, I didn’t have it before… I freakin’ love music. Now, if dad would only shut off the boob tube and I could listen without worrying if it will bother him.
Hum da dum. There’s a lot to write about today, I’m just not sure about where to start. I think I’ll just wing it with my stream of consciousness and see what happens. Transitions from thought to thought might not be so hot. Haha.
Alright, so– today in chamber choir, we only sang for about seven minutes, but in those few short moments I felt like I was actually making music– and I have never felt that way when it comes to chamber. I always felt that, okay, this is a fun class, I learn some things and use my vocal chords. That’s good enough for me, I can make music on my own time. But today, we made melody come alive. And it was exciting.
We began the class with a powerpoint presentation. Mr. Lerew read off the slides, which all were comprised of quotes he took from our essays. We each were required to compose an essay based on what we were able to take fr0m one of our pieces, “How Can I Keep from Singing?” (arr. Gwyneth Walker). I, personally, think that the essays were a great idea. We all seemed to have essentially the same ideas about the piece, despite the numerous differences in our choir. The Walker speaks of music as a rock– it can help one get through anything. And it’s true.
The thoughts that were aired today in class were very meaningful, but the most poignant moment in class occurred when Mr. Lerew discussed his feelings about the piece, and what it means to him.
It turns out that our distinguished, sarcastic, and entertaining but serious teacher was diagnosed with leukemia when he was in eighth grade. I can tell you right now that my jaw dropped. My heart went out to that little boy, forced out of childhood so rudely, with such a serious condition. I felt like I understood my teacher a little more, now that he’d shared that very personal (or so it seemed to me) piece of his life with us. That was a pretty meaningful (and unexpected) part of my day.
Oh, and on a lighter note, Brendan, Damen, Grubbs, Ruth and I schooled up in basketball today.
Kick Drum Heart 