my one friend has a unique way of experiencing music. she only likes music that directly pertains to her immediate experiences. it's so weird! when i met her, we were both incoming freshmen to college. she was a ska/punk girl-- dyed hair, wacky clothes, all that. (actually that summer we met by chance at a weezer show-- she was a HUGE fan at that point.) after about a year and a half or two years, her focus changed: she no longer wanted to have such an immediate breadth-- she studied abroad both in brazil and india within a yeah of one another. we'd both studied a variety of languages up until then, but she got very into romance stuff (whereas i had a broader yet shallower focus). IMMEDIATELY she shifted from her former interests (deal's gone bad, mustard plug) to new ones (manu chao [whom i had introduced her to actually!], mestre suassuna). so for at least a year, all she listened to was brazilian, indian, and especially capoeira music. she had started doing capoeira. i still hate capoeira to this day, although i really shouldn't, simply because of her interest. you see, i viewed her shifting alliances as an affront to the established friendship we had had. anyway, after a few years of that (during which she recovered her old hard drive and was shocked and amazed to see how much ska she had had, as though it were a surprise from ancient history), she made friends with a new group of people, the townies of our rural-ish college town. now she listens to "old-timey" music-- zydeco, bluegrass, ragtime, anything turn-of-the-century-americana like that. luckily i was interested in all those before she was, or else i'd probably hate them too. i take music so seriously and personally, and she doesn't realize how little the actual music matters to her, only the social situation surrounding it, that i see it almost as an insult. no, definitely as an insult; i just wish that weren't the case.

anyway, that's my entry for now. love you.

I want to be attractive so that the use of my body could bring someone pleasure :(

I refuse to even think about the damage to me that might have been undone if, many years ago, someone made known that they wanted me.

loneliness my companion

I feel so gut-wrenchingly agonizingly lonely. I want to curl up, rake my nails over my skin, tear my hair out of my scalp, rock back and forth, keen slowly, stab things, cup myself because no one else will hold me. I keep crying. I'm so lonely. It's acute now because most of the time I am (pretend to be?) just horny but now I am craving love and affection. Jesus Christ I want someone to hold me so so badly. I haven't had a best friend in over a year and I can't keep going on as if that's not affecting me. I have no external validation and a pig-headed idiotic will that I shouldn't need any. I can't even imagine believing that someone is fond of me, let alone being able to accept physical contact without panicking. Even Jimi, those months ago, made me cry when he wanted to kiss me, and I never lusted after/Loved him (loved him yes not Loved him). And he was so kind and tolerant, and I had known and trusted him for years. Even as I desire affection I believe it impossible. I really, really wish that weren't the case. I wish I could believe in something resembling love but when I hunker down and consider it it seems too implausible. I recognize its existence everywhere else but cannot graft that idea into my own emotional landscape. Am I alone in this?-- When I watch people interact lovingly I either assume without malice that it's a charade or boggle that there could be such a communion between two people. My lovely schism: m/f interaction must be non-sexual/romantic/loving, either as friends or as porn. How happy. I want someone to hold me and fuck me and love me but I can't conceive of that happening or of me accepting it if it did. I am too suspicious of trollery. GUESS WHAT JOKES ON YOU YOU TROLL URSELF FAG. This was supposed to be a cathartic release of anguish and instead it turned into yet another pointless, circuitous, needlessly pedantic, looking-at-it-from-many-angles-but-guess-what-you're-in-a-hall-of-mirrors-so-all-
your-data-is-irrelevant polemic that no one else could wade through. Fuck. Well at least I'm not shivering and crying anymore.

"My brand of brutish happiness does not appease many people."

Just came to me

Very marginally relatedly [adverbs galore!], I strongly gender-identify as male. With self-calibrated gender quizzes, I routinely test around 75% (0% being female and 100% being male). I can't tell how much of this gender identity happened after I started being conscious of it, o what a conundrum. This train of thought is branching out into dozens of tendrils, and I don't have the inclination to pursue each of them at this moment in time. Lovely dendritic imagery there, don't you think? Even if I got my metaphors crossed. lol misfiring axons. At times I think it would have been nice to remain unaware of this maleness paradigm beneath my skin, but probably that's just because it's all wrapped up in my sexual painful issues, which I often lament but really actually need to learn to deal with positively and effectively. However I don't think the desire to just coast and be is all bad, concerning this issue. Anyhow skipping back a bit it's not just "oh I like to swear and read sci-fi" or something, not just a collection of actions and possessions coalescing into a persona; it's an underlying core consistency, one that makes me regularly identify with males and male issues (though I of course retain femininity-- not makeup femininity but emergency contraception femininity; not dizzy girlishness but an ability to appeal to raw weakness and not a blustery front). Okay now my mind is starting to slither down those aforementioned myelin sheaths so I'm going to leave this alone and continue cleaning my room. I need fresh air desperately.

part of my dysfunctional sexuality

I can't get off to things I find attractive. When I masturbate, I masturbate to revolting, painful, hardcore porn. I enjoy this and don't think it's a problem in and of itself. The problem comes in when I'm in a good mood and also want to fap, because I know that watching a man fuck a woman's face will indeed get me off, but it will also make my lighthearted spirit dissipate. The problem comes in when I can't masturbate to amateur couples enjoying realistic sex because it just makes me very sad (that it's not me in that situation). The problem comes in when I read/watch literature/films that turn me on on a variety of levels, visceral and cerebral, and can't imagine bringing myself off with that passion.

Masturbation doesn't come naturally to me. Sexual interest, hungry longing, all of that is me, but I didn't masturbate until I was nineteen(!). Even then it was just something I thought I should finally do. It doesn't make me happier, less horny, lower-strung, it's just an activity. I remember reading sex scenes in books when I was about thirteen, and feeling my cunt get hot and my clit throb... and that's about it. I read and reread these passages, enjoying how they made me feel, but that's where it stopped. (Sometimes I tried to put my hand down my pants quickly to see if I could feel myself throb with my fingers, but I guess it was an electron-like problem of observation because I never was able to catch myself.) Mentally, I've been enmeshed in the world of pornography for years-- I bow down in humble thanks, internet-- but my problem is that I have been trained by convenience (and possibly circumstance) to react Pavlovianly regarding arousal. Watching eighteen men come on a woman's face (I felt my clit get hard just writing that) turned out to be a convenient way to get off, so I used it; but I've never been a person to just explore myself and masturbate to anything interesting, so eventually I became utterly reliant on the context of hardcore degrading porn to get off. If this were only a part of my repertoire I would take no issue with it, but as of now it's worrisome to me. I also wonder: Do I just have no curiosity to explore myself, or is it an actual aversion? I just feel lazy, because laying there for fifteen minutes squishing my g-spot around and feeling no change in arousal is fucking boring.

Just as I never received any positive attention from the opposite sex at the age where it would have done me good and helped me consider the possibility that I might be attractive to someone, now my insane intimacy problems prevent me from letting someone else make me come. How have I had sex with [x] people without experiencing an orgasm? Well fucked if I know, I enjoy myself anyway. Some have tried, but after a while I sort of wave them off and we resume having fun. I'm concerned that I may not be *able* to come with another human being, just as at this point I am not *able* to come from things other than hardcore porn that arouse me.

Hmmmmmmm.

Today I got hit on twice at the bar! What the hell! I've never ever been hit on before. I mean where someone comes up to you out of the blue and the sexwooing attempts begin. One time it was some fat drunk guy and the next time it was a pair of guys offering to play cards with me and Karen. Who knows, maybe having a lesbian with you is a good luck charm. I'm not all aquiver with delight or something, I'm just befuddled (~52% pleasantly). I wasn't even wearing nice clothes or anything! Hmm, the only variable that actually changed was that I plucked my eyebrows (on a whim while stoned). MAYBE SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE WAS TELLING TRUTHS ALL ALONG. I think it'd be odd for a guy to see what the fuck is in those magazines. "They tell you how to pluck your eyebrows with a diagram with angles?!" Oh you ought to see how many cosmetic products pertain only to eyebrows. And this is coming from a person who never wears makeup or even blows dry her hair. (Shit, which sounds worse, blows dry or blow-dries?) Can you imagine how much brain power the average middle class American girl spends fussing over her appearance? I mean hey, maybe I'm less attractive and less accessible because I don't give a shit, but christ, I'm okay with that tradeoff. Anyway this became a good-natured tirade, but all I meant to mention was the hitting on. A first! And don't you dare mock me because it was totally undesirable. It's just kooky! Oh also I forgot, I lied and told the first guy I wasn't single. He just up and asked, and I remembered how my prior honesty had bought me an extra five acutely uncomfortable minutes of being cajoled by the middle-aged black man in the record store in St. Louis, so I just lied and said no. He left pretty promptly. The fat guy, not the black guy who wanted my number despite me being from a different city.

It's so weird! This feeling of possible desirability. Kind of like... eating a taffy apple when you are a kid and have a loose tooth. A new feeling, and kind of like you're maybe doing something wrong, but suck it up kid, really when that tooth is out you can justify it, it's not a grown-up tooth after all.

Weissman's last day

Today was a very wonderful day. Just got home. Last night I had gotten massively drunk at Choad's and wound up molesting Blacks, to my sober chagrin. I also walked home at one point with my finger in my pussy. What the fuck. Anyway, Dan came over in the afternoon shortly after I had woken up to drop off replacement alcohol. We wound up spending the whole day together. First we ate some of my tasty red lentils. Then we biked all over beautiful central residential Urbana, with old houses, lush ground cover, and tall trees. I took him to the garden and gave him a detailed tour; then we laid between the tomatoes and the hops and chatted lazily. Then the Ukrainian woman came out with a dog she's been puppysitting, so I got to meet little Elvis. As Dan and I continued, we came across Carle Park. We searched the pavilion for high schoolers' entertaining graffiti ("This pavilion is janky!") and talked about trees and continued. Then we met two more doggies in someone's front lawn-- a little adult dog of unknown breed and a young Sheltie who was quite the attention whore. We stayed for a long time. Dan is really good at constructing complicated power dynamics verbally wherein he creatively insults dogs, and though I realize it's only to bother me because the dogs do not understand, he still succeeds in making me angry (and then lol).

Then we decided to pay a visit to Julie, because we were trying to check if her current apartment is the one we're looking to maybe live in together next year. Oo exciting! Anyway, on the way, we saw yet ANOTHER dog tied to a tree. He was a little Jack Russell, and though he was initially kind of hostile, he warmed up to us immensely and had fun leaping all over us for at least an hour. He was a funny little man. I was concerned, because though he clearly had enough shade and space, there was no food or water out there. We went to a nearby Jimmy John's and I got a cup of water for him and was happy when he drank it.

As we were biking back to Dan's to get his bike light (we were then going to bike to Chevy's around the North Prospect area), we ran into Weissman. Yay! We told him our plans but he was not down for a franchise meal (what a gay nigger). Instead we settled on Woori Jib. It was so tasty! Dan had bbq beef, Weissman had cold spicy noodles, and I had Dolsot Bibim Bap; we all split an order of mandoo. Then we went into Rentertainment and got a bunch of good shit. Weissman was hilariously astounded when I told him that I *could* fap to hentai. So of course we got Night Shift Nurses (Yakin Byoutou). They were playing J Dilla in there. Fun. When we exited, there was a woman sitting on a bench with a tiny Boston terrier puppy. He licked my Korean-tasting finger and was very cute.

Afterwards, we went to check on the Jack Russell again. He was still there but very soon his owner came back-- turns out he's from the Nabor House right next door. He was kind and said we could come play with Scotty any time. Sooo the rest of the night consisted of various lazing activities while Weissman was packing. He leaves for Chicago tomorrow and Peru on Tuesday. After a while there he will pop back to Urbana but then be off to Antarctica for months. I don't want to make this entry any longer by expounding on why I am jealous of him. Anyway-- first Dan and I watched Gummo. It was good. Then Weissman came back from his house with a dish of brownies-from-scratch and a carton of raspberries. We voraciously and sloppily scarfed this down. Then it was time for Night Shift Nurses. Surprisingly Weissman was a lot more into it than Dan, who plopped down on the couch a while through to doze. I was farting around on internets while we watched, but Weissman and I still had a great time lolling at the "protagonist's" lecherous facial expressions and tactics (rape through extortion every time).

He expressed disdain for my 4chan-obsessive habits so I left the computer and went with Weissman to climb the roof. We scampered all about it and it was fun. Then for a long time we were leaning over the porch trying to spit on the people having a party down there. Well, more to get their attention; they're quite nice and I talk about porn and Mastodon with them. It was super nice just to chill with Weissman for a long time. Even after all these years it's still so hard to resist the urge to touch him. I'm such a physical person and I fucking survive on hugs. God I sound like a tremendous faggot. Anyway, it was still nice. Then we were drumming on some pipes in the roof and heard animal noises from within. It was super wacky and he went to go get Dan's bike light so we could see inside. Turned out it was bats! Bats in the roof! Who spread their wonderful wings! What a great discovery.

When we finally went inside, Dan had gone to bed. I stuck around internetting while Weissman packed/dicked around. He told me more about his stay in Munchen, google-mapped his dorm, and found videos of the people who "surf" on a canal in a nearby park. In turn I showed him a video of two furfags in fursuits bouncing around anthropomorphically-playfully on their bed. Anyway we had a really nice time and the conversation was great-- neurological disorders, Japanese sexuality, high school yearbooks. I also showed him the Vice article by the girl who sells her panties and shit and everything to slavering freaks for BIG MONEY.

When it was time to go, Weissman had plopped down on the floor. I covered him with a sleeping bag and said that since it was acting as a physical barrier I could hug him. To my complete shock he just waved it off and was like "Ahh, whatever, c'mere" and fucking hugged me. I didn't act crazy but inside I was touched and astounded. He finally views me as human and not female. Well maybe only at that moment. But I teared up just a bit while I was riding my bike home. I'm really honored and I'm going to miss that motherfucker.

All right, it's bed time and this is much longer than I anticipated it being. Here's to a fantastic day! Good night.

Dear Alex

Dear Alex,

Until recently, when I thought about you, I'd get heartsick. I'd get nauseous, feel empty, rock back and forth, sob, all that. So I was glad when we finally got together last Saturday. Even though we didn't end very well, we got a lot of things out and clarified. I did feel shitty that my life has become even more dreary and yours has seemed to get a bit better. (I say "seemed" because by appearances you have withdrawn from almost all of your friends, are slowly estranging your family, have willingly become brainwashed by a girl, and all that. But from what you say about it, the outlook appears positive.) We ended on a bit of a sour note, as I mentioned, but I felt at least a little hope-- of course we can never be best friends again, but the intermittent contact of an acquaintance felt good to have secured, and also to have that line of communication open for possible future enhancement, if we have both healed sufficiently.

However the email I received from you shortly after I got home betrayed to me your true character. Too much of a pussy to say it while we were face to face, you are choosing to cut off all communication with me. What's worse is that this is at least partially motivated not by your own desire to heal but rather by your girlfriend's anxieties. I was aware that you had sunk into her personality a la Ikari Gendo's hand into Ayanami Rei; each reminder was a sharp pang, and this one of course was immensely worse than the others. You are a coward. You say you are healing but so far that has consisted of running away from almost everything that has defined your past, culminating in an actual running-away to where all roads lead, NYC. And Manya's Jewish vagina. And instead of allowing me to heal, you've supplemented my still-suppressed misery with anger and hatred. (LOL ur turning me into a Sith lord lol) The vibes of scornful pity I sensed were really the icing on the cake. Thank you for adding an abandonment complex to all of my other neuroses to which you have been exclusively and exhaustively privy.

I hate you. Of course, I still love you. But I really, really hate you.
-Christina

OH jesus christ this should not go in the same post but i am so incredibly lonely i feel as though i will shatter/melt
oh what happened to my friend he's not there anymore don't you remember the memories you fucker conversations about gigantic asexual angels and bugbots and baking bread and brazilian jiu-jitsu and tigrinya and animats and acm you know it wasn't all drama it wasn't all lonely nights clinging to each other like baby rhesus monkeys remember the time i felt your aura haha why did you go away you horrible person you're a different person such a drastic schism there is no better way to make even the parts of me that i was okay with feel completely worthless i know i hurt you too i know you agonized and even before that you felt rejected and humiliated and you suffered a lot in private which i feel even worse about but please please don't leave me alone i have no one else but great news i'm starting medication aren't you happy you fucker

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Engrish and some thoughts

Ohana

The person can drink sake for the following five reasons. First of all, for the national holiday. Moreover, it fills with the nectar. Finally, for reasons. Next, to heal the dryness of the place. After that, to refuse the future.

~ ~ ~

A while ago I was told by a Persian that it's not "Per-SEH-po-lis," it's "PURSE-po-lis." This has made me feel awkward since, because every other person I come across says it in the former way.

~ ~ ~

Added to my list of things that I like: The sound of a silkbound book sliding onto the shelf between other volumes of its series.

cheese crystals

What is up with them? Sometimes when I buy a kinda aged/hard cheese (like those mediocre "Irish" cheese in the fancy cheese section at the big grocery store, where the cheese is always expired), it has very small crunchy crystals in it. First I thought it might have been a symptom of going bad. But unless a food is obviously rotten to the core, I usually either salvage the good parts or, if I'm not sure, eat it anyway. I don't think this approach has ever failed me. Anyway, I really wonder what those crystals are and what causes them. Precipitated salt when the cheese has been sitting around for a while after the aging process? I dunno. Halp please.

My birthday

My birthday was nice. It was just "nice" because it was a little disappointing but it was also full of good moments. Here's something I just realized. I never feel sure that I'm loved when I'm around a group of people. Only when I am with one person with whom I am close does my guard really come down. I never want to organize outings, especially if they are centered around me, because the more people there are, the less sure I get that anyone wants to be there and with me. A huge number of people would mean no one likes me at all. Lunch was a bit of a bust because I wanted Radio Maria's lunch menu. However when we arrived only their tapas section was open. The food was just pretty decent (which was already a little bit disappointing I have to admit) but overpriced because hey, tapas bar and dinner menu. (They switch to dinner menu at 2:30.) The waitress was earnest and eager to please and helpful. It was very nice to be around my brother, who was really great all of today, Moses, Ros, DanHill, Paul, Justin K, Veronica, and Aisha. Then some people departed (Ros and Veronica to capoeira, Justin to something) and the rest of us went home and in a silly foray stopped for chocolate chocolate dip cones at Dairy Queen. Then because the weather was so fine we stayed outside for a bit. Then we went in and watched some funny internet videos, played Guitar Hero, and watched an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. I have the DVD set. We had decided to go to the 7:30 show of 300. At the last moment Aisha wanted to go home instead. With some phone maneuvering we arranged to meet Jose and Justin at the theater, and departed. Jose we were able to meet but not Justin. We got some of the last tickets before the show sold out. As a result the theater was crowded and humid and we couldn't get seats together. I sat close to the front with my brother. The movie was real good. Nerd movies do not disappoint (me). I'm going to see it again, probably with some of the people who didn't get a chance to yet. Moses saw one of his ex-girlfriends there and afterwards in the lobby she was explaining why she didn't like it. She had a cutely styled haircut and a twee yellow overcoat and probably ballet flats for all I know, and she was saying that she had been watching French and Russian artsy (her word) films lately so this dialogue was subpar. I wanted to punch her in the throat for being such a transparent meaningless cunt but I did a very good job of conducting a sympathetic engaged conversation. Then Jose left and Moses dropped DanHill near his house so he could hang out with his special lady friend. (I am a little jealous of their relationship. Dan is just as fucked up as me and they seem so genuinely happy together and things are so swell for them. She's really pretty too. I'm nowhere near jealous enough to wish them harm but there is a sharp sadness there.) Then he dropped my brother and me at my apartment, and went to host his radio show. My brother rode his bike home. I went inside and Ros and Aisha came in soon. I was excited to go to Boltini as I had been craving their really excellent martinis. After some fun dallying we left. When we got there there was a long line and possibly cover, and it was crowded. I could tell Ros didn't want to be there, and probably Aisha a little too, so we cut and run. I was pretty sad about this but soon I was fine. Then we went to Schnuck's and got a thing of Breyer's mint chocolate chip. We took it back to the apartment and ate it together and watched Monty Python. Then Aisha left and Ros went to bed (she had to open the coffeehouse the next morning). I finished another Python episode though they are not good alone, but fortunately Paul came home somewhere into it. He drank a big Corona as we finished it and then watched an episode of Arrested Development. Then I came up here to write this, but I looked at facebook, 4chan, nerve, and Vice first. I read a story whose author blurb made my loneliness piquant. It burns and blossoms sometimes, quickly, then subsides as an undercurrent with a strong presence. Then depending on stimuli it will assert itself again and again. It's still here but I didn't cry. I think I relish it. Good night!

A note: I borrowed my friend's mandolin and am slowly attempting to teach it to myself. The strings are fifths apart (aren't guitars fourths?).

- I have only recognized two people in my entire life who had actually black hair. By that I mean that it shone blue in the sun, not reddish or brownish. Not dyed either! A Chinese girl and an Indian boy.

- I will say something about Japanese porn. No it's not about eels.wmv or japscat or anything. I just hope they don't kiss like that in real life.

- I despair that I will never regain hope in life. I miss caring about the things I used to care about. I have hope but no real plan to achieve the betterment of myself. I feel damaged, weirdly like an abused child, and don't know if I'll ever get back to that point again. Er the point of going out and doing constructive things without feeling like shrinking away. And honestly I cannot tell you what stops me from going to lectures and seminars, free shows, gardening projects, and the like. srsly wtf

instruments

Instruments I already know how to play:
piano
basic to detailed knowledge of a wide range of latin/afro-cuban percussion
basic hand drum knowledge
andean winds: pan, tarqa, pinquillo
basic recorder (B flat and F sharp are the only "accidentals" I know)
all classical percussion: snare, marimba, chimes, many et ceterae

Instruments I want to learn how to play:
mandolin (!)
hurdy-gurdy
lute
dulcimer (!)
lyre/harp?
organ
drum set
tabla
I'd probably like to refine my cello knowledge
Also whatever instruments are involved in learning ragas

I'll update this as more of my mental list reoccurs to me. Also I'm not counting anything electronic here; that'd make the list doubly as long probably.

I'm fortunate to have been educated in percussion-- I can play almost any percussion instrument within a few minutes of picking it up. I barely remember how to do anything on a stringed instrument, though, and my utter disinterest in modern guitar (Why?? I don't know.) has had a prohibitive effect on my ability to pick up other stringed instruments. You can probably tell from my list that I'd play any folk-ish small stringed instrument like a rebec or anything.

I don't know which "you" I am talking to, because I'm pretty sure I don't and won't have any readers. Anyway, pretending that you're an acquaintance who lives in my town, I'll tell you this: (a) If you know anyone who teaches mandolin or dulcimer, PLEASE hook me up with them. I want to learn these sooo fakken bad. (b) I want to take any opportunity to play music with people. I've fallen hard out of the habit and miss it terribly. Especially good is if you have need of a percussionist in a large group of people-- Irish, Balkan, Nigerian, whatever style, I can and want to do it. And especially especially good would be if someone there wanted to teach me another instrument. :3

p.s. [How] Is it true that Turkish scales have like eighty notes?

Internal recognition of Japanese war atrocities

I was in a Japanese history class for a semester. It was supposed to be post-WWII but ended up being end-Tokugawa/beginning-Meiji onward. Anyway, through all the lectures and projects, and even through a study of Japan's imperialist period, I have never discovered why the Japanese are so intensely unwilling to own up to their war crimes. Glaringly well-documented historical practices and events, such as the Bataan death march, comfort women, the Rape of Nanking, and Unit 731 are, for the most part, glanced off the shoulder or just outright refuted. Of course their wartime media focused on the plight of the ethnically superior Japanese soldiers. I can understand that during a war. But what does it say that present-day Japan refuses to deal with its past? Or, a frightening possibility, are they simply unashamed, unchanged, even quietly proud?

Did you know that during the wartime period, I'll say about late '30s to mid '40s, the Japanese killed more than Nazi Germany? And possibly even more than Stalinist Russia?! (I say "possibly" because the Stalinist figure is subject to disagreement-- the commonly tossed around number is 20 million, but one professor places the estimate at a whopping 62 million.) 30 million Filipinos, Indians, Malays, Vietnamese, Koreans, Cambodians, Indonesians, Burmese, and of course Chinese. Probably more ethnicities. Damn.

But there are quite a few analogous situations in the U.S. (American Indians principally). And regarding stuff like slavery, what do our empty politically correct apologies really accomplish? O SHI--

This is too complex an issue to tease out in a small stupid blog posting. Nihonjinron, ethnic cleansing, jingoism, overcompensatory emulation of the West... HALP.

This posting was prompted by: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/the-politics-of-apology-for-japans-comfort-women/

A - when I think about you I get so empty I feel sick.