I am the shadow of the waxwing slain

You can make plans, but plans must not work out;
to commit something does not make it so.
To express what you must is not to shout,
but to, though use of secrets, make him know.
And if you fail, and when you fail, you fail.
And if you try not, and do not, likewise
you fail, but, with no success, cannot bail.
You cannot give up, and that is your vice.
And so you transmit to him your failure
or try at least, so you may make him feel
if not some measure of love, then anger
or hate, sorrow or lust, of something real.

But know who you are, how little you are
for, even when close, you are yet afar.

There you are. You cannot sleep, but in a way, you are glad. Being awake lets you relish the moment; being awake lets you see him. He’s lying on his side with his back to you. His shoulder has three freckles on it; a therefore sign on his back.

It’s just an arm, but it’s ten inches away from you, and you have never seen something so beautiful before. This moment is everlasting torture and you love it. And you want to touch him; to feel him. You want him to feel you, so you reach your hand out, to scratch his back. Your fingertips stop just millimeters from the white fabric of the A-shirt that fits around him so tightly. And in that moment, you’re worried to wake him. Not from the touch, but from the sound of your beating heart. And you try to forget last night, but you can’t. You remember whispering into his ear how much you want to kiss him, and his pained protestations. And the pain in his voice comes rushing back to you.

How can you tell him how you feel? If there is one thing in the world you’ve never been more unapologetic for, it is the fact that you want him. And nothing pains you more than knowing that he has to choose, and he doesn’t have to choose you, and probably won’t. And you want to be selfish and tell him to choose you, but you know he’ll hate you if you do that. And you wonder what’s greater, the pain you’ve caused him or the pain he’s causing you. And you want your pain to be greater, not to make his less, but because it’s the only part of him you can have.

He’s turned over now. When you see his face, you know instantly why you’ve fallen in love. Awake, you can’t have him, you can’t kiss him, you can’t tousle his hair. You can’t make him dinner or make him cry or make him fall in love. So you let him sleep, because it’s the only time in which you will ever have him.

I jotted some quick verse down on an envelope I had in my car one night.

1.
In backalleys I wander
which, in this town,
is a challenge
—we have no backalleys

The moon is gibbous
were I sitting how many thousand miles to the east;
tomorrow in time,
the moon would be full

But from my alley, here,
now,
       I cannot tell if it is waxing or waning.
And for as long as I sit,
it shall never be full.

 
2.
In the act of mapping a territory
it ceases to become wilderness.

To name this
would be to destroy it.

This past Saturday, Fayetteville, AR, held a local event as part of the Great Nationwide Kiss-In. I know this not only because I attended, but because I coordinated it. I had never planned a protest before, and didn’t quite know what to expect. It was pretty easy. I made a few phone calls (the City, the Town Center, and the Farmers’ Market), let them know about the event, and asked kindly for reservation. The City called proved superfluous, as I was not asking for any roads to be shut down. The Town Center just needed a heads-up on the use of their plaza, and the Farmers’ Market gave us a booth for free.

Being affiliated with a 501(c)3 really helped out. As the event was sponsored by the NWA Center for Equality (dues paid member, represent) I had a built-in net of help; the booth at the Farmers’ Market used their tent, table, and members. Our ribbons and other supplies were purchased by the center. I didn’t buy anything, just planned. A friend wrote our press release, and sent it to all of the news outlets. I made the facebook invite, and invited some friends. They invited some others, who kept the process up. Last time I checked, 1014 people had been invited. 101 had confirmed their attendance (these numbers never pan out, and we never got a full count, but the paper estimated 100 people showed). I sent out emails asking for volunteers, gave them all a couple of hours to work at the booth at the Farmers’ Market, and planned on being there the whole morning.

The night before the protest was spent mostly cutting ribbons and decorating our poster. That morning we set up at the market and began to wait. Eventually Saundra, an Avon lady, dropped off the box of lipstick samples she had promised us, and the real fun began.

Boyd Logan's kiss

The samples were in response to a question many people had raised on the facebook invite: “how can I participate if I don’t have someone to kiss?” We threw some ideas around (a kissing booth), and eventually I had that “A-ha!” moment: we’ll get a poster and some lipstick, and people can show their support by kissing the poster. This turned out to be very popular, and a lot of people at the market came to our booth and kissed our poster. My favorite kiss was by Marley, an 18-month-old whose (straight) parents encouraged her to kiss. A lot of people picked up our rainbow ribbons, too (we ran out!), and some of them gave us donations for the ribbons! Not once did we ask for money, but we ended up making $34!

People started showing up about 30 minutes before the protest. And with the people came the media; all three local news stations sent cameramen, both papers sent reporters, and a CNN iReporter drove down from Bentonville to cover the event. I had a couple of TV interviews before the event. At 5 till, I got everyone to congregate around the steps—where we had placed a pride flag—and I took the “KISS” poster with quite a few kissprints on them. I did a countdown using my watch, and saw everyone smooch for a second. I walked down into the crowd asking where my kiss was until the boy appeared out of nowhere, pecked me, and let me get back to interviews.

After the kiss proper, I was questioned by both papers. I gave pretty simple information—I’m doing this cause I feel safe to be gay in Fayetteville, and I want everyone to know that I feel safe. Right as I was winding up, Barbara Rademacher, the CNN iReporter, asked me for an interview. By now I was familiar with what to do—I spelled my name and repeated my spiel (somewhat quickly) about why I planned the event. I helped take down the booth, then went home, napped, and caught myself on the 6:00 news. The night was filled with celebrations—Casey Willits congratulated me on a good first protest, saying that I really got the numbers out.

Front Page of the Times, baby!

But it was Sunday morning that I was waiting for. I got copies of both papers and took them down to the center. There were a few of us there, and we looked over the articles together. The NWA Times had put us on the front page, with a nicely-sized article and a kind of obscure photo. The Morning news put us a few pages in; no article, just some captioned photos, but they actually showed two women kissing (a same-sex display of affection was not to be found on any other report). We were all pleased by the coverage. A few hours later, we found the CNN iReport, and felt that that gave a good depiction of the day’s events.

On Monday morning, I awake to a text message from Casey Willits: “Fwd:The Fayetteville kiss-in is featured on CNN.com today.” My only response: “Holy shit.” I quickly ran over to CNN.com and, lo and behold, found a link to MY interview. It’s not just any Kiss-In that’s featured on CNN, it’s the FAYETTEVILLE event. By this time, I’m getting pretty damn excited. I pimp it out to everyone I can think of—Twitter, facebook, text messages. Random friend requests start coming in on facebook, with messages like “Jonathan, I saw you on CNN and as a gay southern man who has a home in Little Rock, I am so proud of you and I hope that we can become facebook friends! Hugs! Michael” attached to them.

In my excitement, I call my mom. “I MADE THE FRONT PAGE OF CNN!” I tell her. Her response: “your grandfather is pissed off.” She doesn’t share my elation at the success of the event. This has been the only negative reaction I have received so far. Overall, the iReport has been viewed almost 30,000 times. Combine that with everyone who reads the paper and watches the local news, and it’s probably safe to estimate that I was outed to around 45,000 people. And damn, it feels good. All of the reactions, save the one from my mom, have been incredibly positive and really inspiring. My favorite reactions are as follows:

• While staffing the booth at the market, I ran into my 8th grade guidance counselor, with whom I was very close. She told me she was proud of me and donated $20 to the center without being asked
• The next day, Karla Caraway—practically a surrogate mom due to the amount of time I used to spend at her house during middle school and jr. high—told me “Saw your pic in the paper this morning.  Good going–proud of ya!” on Facebook
• Karla’s husband, Steve, works at the Morning News, and emailed me a copy of the photo of me they ran
• All sorts of showings of support on twitter and facebook poured in. Lots of texts from friends telling me how awesome the CNN front page was

A lot of the comments the CNN story received went along the lines of ‘I didn’t realize how open-minded Arkansas had become!’ While this isn’t necessarily the case for the whole state, it certainly is for Fayetteville. Practically the whole city now knows my sexual orientation, and not a single bad thing has happened to me because of it. As far as protests go, I can count the Fayetteville Kiss-In as a smashing success. It did exactly what I wanted, by showing that Fayetteville is an open, safe, and accepting place.

This one time, some friends and I went camping, without any equipment. We shared a bottle of vodka to keep warm, and then the other two started to make out. At the first crack of light, i was out of there. I didn’t tell them that I left, or why I did. While I was waiting for the bus to take me back, I saw a hummingbird the size of a bumblebee. It disappeared in a second or so. It was magical.
I was miserable; my back hurt from sleeping on rocks, I was cold, and tired as fuck.

I used to be in a mixtape club with my friends. We had lots of esoteric rules and lots of weird themes. My breakup mixtape, however, is the best mixtape I’ve ever made. And that was before the club. What’s funny is that the breakup wasn’t even for a serious relationship. My mixtape for my biggest breakup isn’t that good. This mixtape started in November 2007, and I’ve been editing it up until now. So here is my quasi-finished product. It is in three sides, each 35 minutes long. Sides 1 and 2 are about the initial shock of the breakup, and side 3 is about the long-term: getting over the person, getting into a new relationship, and watching that one crumble.

Here’s the list:

Side 1:
Black Like Me—Spoon
Star Of Wonder—Sufjan Stevens
My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion—The Flaming Lips
Norwegian Wood—The Beatles
Something About Us—Daft Punk
Whistle For The Choir—The Fratellis
A Minor Incident—Badly Drawn Boy
Nothing Better (Styrofoam Remix)—The Postal Service, Remix by Styrofoam
If You Fall—Azure Ray

Side 2:
I’m a Cuckoo—Belle & Sebastian
Ragas In Minor Scale—Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass
Wouldn’t It Be Nice—The Beach Boys
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)—Billy Joel
Guilty—Amelie: Original Soundtrack Recording
Dearly Departed—DeVotchKa
Brian Boru’s March—Ceol Cridhe

Side 3:
Viz—Le Tigre
Lonely Holiday—Old 97′s
I Don’t Even Know Myself—The Who (Who’s Next Remastered)
Charu’s Theme” From Satyajit Ray’s Film Charulata—Satyajit Ray
Here Comes the Sun—The Beatles
I wanna be your Boyfriend—The Ramones
Ec-Stacy—Jess Stacy
Take On Me—The Shins
Our Love Was—Petra Haden, covering the Who
Blessing in Disguise—DeVotchKa

Each side I have mixed together, with cross fades and some trimming of the music. I have provided the files below for you to download:

Side 1
Side 2
Side 3

I shall preface this review with a caveat: I went into Brüno expecting to dislike it, and very likely formed my opinion before actually seeing the film.

I was dining with a friend a few weeks before Brüno debuted, when he said something along the lines of “can you believe what those gay activists are complaining about with Brüno?” I asked him to elaborate; he said that they did not understand that it was a satire. It appeared that, no matter what protestation I presented, his opinion of their opinion was unswayable; he could simply not understand why on earth someone could be offended by a negative portrayal of them, even if it was satirical in nature. Here are but a few of my defenses, conceived after viewing the movie, for my point of view:

In the beginning scenes of the movie, Brüno and his partner are shown having sex. They are both in full-body jumpsuits with zippers to reveal selective parts of the body. Their sex is depicted as wild—involving slingshots, anal insertion of champagne bottles, and an exercise machine rigged to operate a dildo. None of this is played against any bigots, there is no revelation of Americans’ prejudice here, except perhaps with the audience. The entire time the theatre was a chorus of laughter. Not only does the film present gay sexual behavior as deviant and eccentric, but it plays it off for laughter. (An aside—the screen is filled with a penis later on in the film. Once again, there was a chorus of laughter, which began before the ‘penis dance’ began. Why can an audience not take a penis seriously?)

A couple of scenes in the movie deal with Brüno adopting a child, and having his child be forcefully taken away by the state after he is shown to be an unfit parent. The kid is taken into custody to a chorus of cheers while Brüno tears at the security officers holding him back. This is perhaps the most disturbing part of the movie. This scene, like the rest of the movie, was played off for laughs. This is, however, an incredibly serious and very unfunny issue. The state in which I live, and have been for my entire life a citizen, currently forbids adoption by same-sex couples. If my boyfriend and I were to decided that we wanted to start a family, we would be unable to. Furthermore, if my partner had a child, and he were to pass away, I could not care for this child. I would be in the same situation as Brüno—my adopted child would be forcefully taken away from me. Hilarious, right?

The same applies to the marriage scene at the end of the film—Brüno’s partner dresses as a woman to attempt a marriage. This of course fails, to the raucous laughter of the audience. Again, someone please tell me what is hilarious about being stripped of one’s right by a vote of one’s peers.

Furthermore, the character of Brüno encapsulates a completely irreverent picture of gay men. I fully understand that the character is a parody of gay fashionistas. The problem is that I do not see this undoing any stereotypes. The Alabaman hunters, for instance, have only had their prejudices against gays reinforced by his actions toward them, and his behavior during the ex-gay church scenes completely passes over how psychologically damaging such programs can be. I can easily imagine being a closeted high school student basing some of my ideas on what a gay man should be on Brüno, and forming an identity based on a complete stereotype. I was once told that I was “an insult to homosexuality” because of how un-gay my behavior was. I was peer pressured into acting gayer. In addition, I can just as easily imagine a somewhat feminine but otherwise self-actualized high school student who has had the courage to come out be taunted by bigoted class mates for whatever traits he might have in common with Brüno.

In closing to my disjointed review, I simply wish to say this:
For those who say that I have been too easily offended, I want you to imagine that, instead of pretending to be gay, Sacha Baron Cohen had instead donned blackface and highlighted continuing racial tensions in America while attempting to play off the discrimination encountered by African-Americans for laughs.

This past April, I was diagnosed with Infectious Mononucleosis. And let me tell you, it’s no fun. Unfortunately, my case of mono was incredibly bad, and I developed hepatitis (hepatitis means inflammation of the liver; I do not have one of the life-long diseases like A, B, or C). This was an incredibly painful event for me—my liver stopped producing bile, and I could not digest food. When I ate, I would vomit the food up, 15 hours later, completely undigested. My urine was dark, dark yellow. My skin itched everywhere. My stomach swelled up and was painful in any position. I lost 12 pounds in one week. And all of this was during finals; I took them, but blacked out during one, and had to go to the student health center to get on an IV.

During all of this, I was seeing my doctor at the health center once a week, and getting blood tests all of the time. This wasn’t a choice for me—they were necessary to monitor the condition of my liver and to see if hospitalization would be required. I lost count, although I think I got up to 8 or 9 different blood tests.

The health center was wonderful for this throughout my entire sickness—the staff was kind, my doctor was kind, and, best of all, my student health fee paid for all of it. Right?

Not exactly. My student health fee paid for the visits. Here’s what it didn’t pay for:

All of that was billed to my insurance. As I am a college student with demonstrably good grades and full-time enrollment, I am still on my parents’ insurance plan. However, all of my health fees were either part of my deductible or were, for reasons I do not understand, flat-out denied. The charges were returned to the health center, who, in turn, placed a more than $500 charge to my student account. If that goes unpaid past the end of July, I get a financial hold placed on my student account that prevents me from doing any business with the University until my fees are paid.

I’m lucky. I don’t have $500, but I have parents who can help. And even if they don’t help me, that money can conceivably come out of my scholarship this August. But what if I weren’t so lucky? What if I didn’t have $500, I didn’t have parents who could help, and I didn’t have a big scholarship? And what if I were maxed-out on loans and scraping to pull by as is? This could seemingly terminate my career as a student.

I did not abuse the health center—I didn’t ask for mono (and have no idea how I got it), and I certainly didn’t seek out hepatitis. There were points in my sickness when I honestly feared dying. I did what I could, and got healthy again. But my charges caught up with me in a way that could end up with me not being able to register for classes or reap any benefit from my education.

This whole incident has me outraged. I have never understood the idea of a copay—don’t we already pay insurance so we don’t have to pay at the doctor? Isn’t the idea of insurance to insure that we will be safe during time of sickness? A conservative once explained to me that the copay was to make sure that you don’t abuse your insurance, and that it is highly desirable for people as young as me, because we hardly ever have health issues, and a high copay with limited care is the most cost-effective option for me.

Well, I sure as hell can’t pay my charge. And what’s even more ironic is that the disease that could very well end up derailing my educational career I almost certainly caught in my residence hall. It’s time to fix the system.

So this past Friday, I finally fulfilled a wish two years in the making. My own wish yes, but hey, I wanted it. Due to some pretty good luck my contract for my ancient, shattered-screen Samsung flip phone expired just days before the new iPhone 3G S was to come out. Naturally, I had to upgrade.

I had been expecting this–Apple has pretty consistent product release cycles–and had saved up some money from my birthday a few weeks ago. With that, I logged onto AT&T’s website and went through the relatively easy steps required to pre-order an iPhone.

Unfortunately, I had to be out of town on the actual day that I’d get the phone, as I was requested to take place in a roundtable on Gay rights in Arkansas. When I got back home, the package was sitting there, waiting for me. With predictable fervor, I tore into the box and opened its contents with the reference that Apple packaging demands. There were no instructions. I dug around in the box, but all I found were my receipt and a shipping invoice. I plugged it into iTunes, went through those steps, and put some music on the phone.

When I disconnected the phone from my computer, it said no service. This could not be fixed by any number of restarts. A quick google search yielded some news reports of an error in AT&T’s computers do to so many activations. It made sense. I made due with my phone on the wifi, downloaded some apps, and went to bed.

The next morning I had no luck. I tried restarting it quite a few more times. Nothing. I even went to the AT&T store, but they were predictably useless. They told me to wait, had no idea for how long, and said I could try to call customer service. By this time I’m just calling it my iPod touch.

I wake up the next morning to, gasp, a phone that has no service. I do have, however, an email from AT&T. As it turns out, att.com/activate will do the trick. It took maybe five minutes of filling out a simple web form (phone number and zip code) and agreeing to my new contract. My next restart yielded a working phone.

The actual process of getting my phone to work was simple. But the fact that their website didn’t link to the activation page, and I couldn’t find out about it in a google search, in the packaging, or in their store is a pretty good example of pretty bad customer service. You shouldn’t have to wait two days for an email that explains how to make it work. It should come the morning the phone is delivered.

The phone, of course, is wonderful; this entire post was composed using the free wordpress for iPhone app.

Take Your Kids to Dickson was wonderful! It was great seeing so many families come out yesterday. I spent a few hours reading to kids and playing finger puppets with them. All in all, a great day. Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen!