weary as water

every time i blink i have a tiny dream

Tag Archives: in my head

some quick notes from sidewalk film festival

Films I loved, in order of “must-see”-ness:
1. The Devil Came On Horseback documents the crisis in Darfur through the eyes of Brian, an ex-Marine military observer for the African Union armed with only a camera, a pad of paper, and a pen. The documentary is a disturbing glimpse into what is happening in Sudan. Very disturbing. Please see it.

2. Darius Goes West – The Roll of His Life – is a documentary about an 17 year old guy with Muscular Dystrophy, who travels from his home in Athens, GA with a group of college students he met at a summer camp Project REACH. Their goal is to get his wheelchair pimped out on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. It is awesome – from Darius’ first view of the ocean to las vegas and the grand canyon and back. Lots of laughs in this one – and a good message too. Bonus points were given because Darius and the other cast members were present at the showing.

3. For The Bible Tells Me So tells the stories of five gay folks and how their Bible-believing conservative families react to the news. In doing so, the film also explores how the Christian right uses the Bible to condemn homosexuality, and explains why those Biblical passages are misunderstood. I cried multiple times during this film – it hit very close to home. I have never understood why my mom believes that Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are applicable to today’s society, when she eats pork and cuts her hair and wears clothes made of two different types of material. And sometimes I think that my whole quest towards militant agnosticism was sparked by the incompatibility of the faith of my childhood and my sexuality.

There were some other films I enjoyed – but those are my top three. See them if you can.

first rain

The first rain of summer started while I was walking home tonight.I haven’t been able to drag myself out of bed in time to bike to work, so Emily has been taking me and I’ve been walking a long, leisurely, uphill, evening walk back home.

I started my walk home today contemplating the existence of God. The first big fat rain drops hit my face about halfway home, when I had spoke aloud that I can not be a Christian because I cannot believe in the Virgin birth or the Resurrection. I made a conscious decision to stop thinking about it when I crossed the street, looked up to see the clouds, and thought about my dad’s friend who was recently struck my lightning and killed while sitting in his aluminum boat on a cloudy day.

Back when I was young I believed in both God and the Devil. I remember being miserable twice, so miserable that I cried out “I don’t care which one of you gets me out of here, just help me”. One time I was greeted with silence, but my wish was granted. The other time I was greeted with a loud thunderstrike on a crystal clear day, and I escaped years later.

In a time not so far away I took some hallucinogenic and had such severe stomach cramps my keeper thought my appendix had burst and I needed to go to the ER. I don’t know if my pain was mental or physical, but it felt like some of the worst physical pain I’ve ever experienced. I was laying in a sweat soaked bed, rocking back and forth, legs to my chest, cold washcloth on my head, tripping my non-existent balls off. In a moment of desperation I said “Jesus!” and instantly my pain was gone.

Moral of the story: I have to be in complete desperation to get rid of my disbelief. I think that has more to do with my upbringing than any sort of a higher power.

inspiration needed: apply within

The conversation in her office, long after everyone else had gone home, was completely unexpected. One part “I’ve always felt different”, two parts “I just want to disappear”, three parts “I’m sick of these United States” equals being miserable even at the top of her profession. Maybe she’s crazy. Maybe I’m crazy too. Maybe not.

Not that I’m at the top of my profession – I certainly have my job to provide some mental stimulation but mostly it is to provide money for entertainment and survival and the occasional road trip. But I’m certainly caught in the middle of my own rat race. There’s so much I want to learn and I have so little motivation. I’m caught in this never-earlier-than-7:30 to never-earlier-than-5:30 life, and I feel like I barely have time to cook dinner and read and clean and sleep before it’s time to go at it all over again.

I’ve always been like this – tired and melancholy and doing things because I have to, not because I want to. I have to get out of this funk somehow. I just get so tired of being here in this town, where I feel am so fundamentally different than those around me.

If I could take a picture of the smell of freshly ground coffee, I would.

march 10

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Last night we watched Jesus Camp. It’s been out for a while, but recently I saw this clip on google video and immediately moved it to the top of my netflix queue.

The documentary focuses on the “Kids on Fire School of Ministry” Bible Camp, a summer kids camp for charismatic Evangelicals, run by Becky Fischer in Devil’s Lake, ND. Three pre-teen kids are followed in particular; Levi (a preacher-in-training), Rachel (a completely-indoctrinated loner who likes to hand out tracts to strangers and has already distinguished between “churches that God likes to go to [charismatic] and that He doesn’t like [non-charismatic]“), and Tory (who likes to dance to Christian goth bands but tries to be careful to dance for God, and not because she enjoys it).

This film reminded me of my own upbringing. I grew up in a non-charismatic, very evangelical church: no dancing, no drinking, no gambling, some female members of the church didn’t cut their hair and wore dresses all the time. My dad is a minister; although after we moved to MT he took a circuit-preaching route and did not preach at the local church we went to. I went to three summer camps a year and ended up going to a Christian college. I knew kids who were like the kids in this documentary. Basically the only difference between my upbringing and this film is that we didn’t speak in tongues.

Even though my upbringing was very persistently religious, as a young kid I was always questioning God and faith and religion. This was always frowned upon; I was told that I needed to have faith and once (at a summer camp) I even had a demon “exorcised” from me.

I wonder what has happened to all the kids I knew, that went to those camps along with me. Kids who believed that they were soldiers being trained for a holy war, kids that seemed to have an easier time of believing in the absolute truth of what they were being taught.

march 9

Spring is here! Time to dust off the camping gear and get outta here.

Spent yesterday afternoon and evening installing dotLRN at work. The installation did not go smoothly – lots of compile issues – but I got it worked out. As hard as it was to install, it is easy and intuitive to use. The doc we presented it to today seemed to like it, so we’ll see where it goes from here.

There’s talk at work that I may shift to a purely programming/sysadmin role, which I’m hoping happens. Don’t get me wrong – I like what I’m doing now (mostly tech support with a little sysadmin thrown in), and I generally like the people I support…but I’m definitely bored and that makes me feel stagnant and generally unproductive.

Today I got a call on my cell from Chuck, a homeless (I think, although I’m not sure) guy who comes up to the fountain for Food Not Bombs. I gave Chuck my phone number last weekend because he skips in and out a lot, and he showed up saying that he had broken his back. Today he called from the hospital, upset and saying that his back is fucked and they want to do surgery on it, which he doesn’t want. I didn’t really know what to say, except that it sucks and I’m glad that he is not in a life or death situation, even though it’s painful as hell. I think he just wanted to hear a friendly voice.

treading water.

As seen on Boing Boing:

From The Chicago Reader Blogs:
On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity has still not been officially determined, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene.
[...]
Buried on Ritscher’s web site Chicago Rash Audio Potential, a compendium of invaluable show postings, artwork, and photography, are a suicide note and an obituary. Both indicate that he was deeply troubled by the war in Iraq and pinpoint it as a motive for suicide [...] Ritscher was a familiar face at antiwar protests, and he was arrested more than once for his involvement, including this time this past May. A note found at the scene of the immolation reportedly read “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

This news bit has effected me deeply in ways I can’t quite comprehend. I’ve become absolutely complacent about national and state politics, deciding instead to focus my mediocre efforts on projects where I can effect change directly. I’ve given up on American society to make any sort of rational decisions about their leaders, and I’ve given up on American leaders making any sort of beneficial decisions for the populace. Even in this day after the election, this day of joy for Democrats And Other Good Hearted Individuals, I’m still cynical that anything beneficial and/or meaningful and/or different will arise out of this change in power. The destruction of Iraq, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of the things and people I take for granted, all of it affects me. Depresses me. Makes me irritable and hopeless. I have to tread water for a while until I catch the next wave.

There’s a scene in Waking Life where the main character is walking down the street and runs into a guy who rants about society a little bit and then says “I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes. Let my own lack of a voice be heard!”. Then he sits down on a street corner and lights himself on fire.

I’ve always thought – that is me. One day I will be old and people will listen to me even less than they do now and I will have lived my life. Then, I will choose the time and fashion of my death and that will be my statement. I read Ritscher’s “mission statement”, and I think – that is me. I’m just not old yet.

waves

i have this friend who tells me that i am too hard on myself. i hope she’s right. otherwise i really am just biding my time, waiting for TheMove that is still a few years past the horizon.

i am not happy here. when i say “here”, i mean both here physically, in this town that makes me more of a cynic every day, and here physically, in this body that is not where i want it to be and this mind that is often cloudy even though i have not done anything illicit in years, plural. i am not where i want to be, but most days i at least try.

the death wave is going around at work again, and it makes me tired. tonight after work i took the long way home and i saw a perfect picture – a crane and a lightpost reaching high into the sky, sitting on top of a red harvest moon. reached into my bag and the camera was dead. fuck.

a new pawn shop has opened up at the intersection near the pointless rotting lamppost. the sign hanging above the shop is crooked, and the logo is a leprachaun smiling over his pot of gold. not a place i think i’ll be hanging out any time soon.

em is away at a scholarly geek fest. i am actually quite proud of her, and quite happy to be alone for the weekend, but i still miss her.

the new jason molina solo lp arrived today. it is everything i thought it would be – haunting and melancholy and so good that i turned off the a/c in order to listen to it more clearly.

passion

i need to find something to focus this passion into.there are so many things that i know a little bit about, there are so many things i know enough about to have an intelligent reaction to, but there are very few things i feel like i know enough about to have an opinion on. do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of information available to you? do you ever feel underwhelmed by your own inability to communicate?

i have always shunned the formal teacher-student relationship; maybe because when i was in college i felt so fundamentally different than anyone around me (and, indeed i was), and when i was in grad school i felt incredibly inadequate. now, though, i want a teacher, i want a mentor, but i am too old for one.

i am determined to make my own way.

long overdue update

have lots to say about today’s primary election but i need to go to bed. here’s the quick rundown.pros:
* roy moore (right wing “ten commandments” judge) was defeated in the republican primary.
* so was larry darby (athiest activist and recently outed white supremicist with two half chinese children…no i’m not making that up…and he ran on the democratic ticket.)

cons:
* amendment one (a AL constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage) was also defeated. not that i expected any differently, but it is frustrating to me when the biggest issue of the campaign was outlawing gay marriage (in a state where there is no chance of it being legalized ANYWAY)…instead of any sort of discussion about all the other crap that is going on in the world.

oh, to surround myself with people who can at least explain their beliefs.
—
“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power
to make you commit injustices.”
–Voltaire

a culture of extravagance

I haven’t posted on here in a while. It’s not you, it’s me. Really.So, I did go on that hiking trip to Sipsey. It was great, give or take a herd of boy scouts. There were wild boars, massive thunderstorms, lots of waterfalls, assorted greenery, and absolutely no cell phone coverage.Which was great, because I was really stressed out about an issue which has since been resolved (mostly) – more stressed out than I’ve been about anything in recent memory. And when I was hiking, I didn’t think about it.

I did manage to read “A Language Older Than Words” by Derrick Jensen. If you take any recommendation of mine, read this book. It awoke things in me that have been long since buried – both good and bad. And it was a nice reminder that really, we are just animals who have forgotten how to communicate with each other.

Reading this on the heels of finishing “How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest” by Peter Singer was equally amazing. There is so much that I take for granted, and so much that other people don’t have. Just a little of what I have can make so much of a difference for someone else. I give a little bit with Food Not Bombs (which is mostly a time investment), but that is really just chump change compared to what is needed elsewhere.

It used to be that “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig was my “ohmygod” book…the one I would recommend if I was asked, the one that I just *got* instantly. The two books above have taken Zen’s place. What does it say that they are both non-fiction? (Very readable non-fiction, I must add).

So – as long as I’m recommending things, Emily and I saw “Darwin’s Nightmare” at workplay a few weeks ago. An absolutely amazing film, and utterly depressing story of what happens when artificial species are introduced into an ecosystem, and then proceed to completely devestate the local ecosystem and the lives of the people in the surrounding region. Blame whitey, but in this one little instance, it’s a problem caused by the European whitey, and not by the US. (For once.)

As chance would have it, I am in Nashville at Opryland for a linux conference. I was warned that Opryland was the Land of Glitz And Glamour and Excess, but those warnings were not sufficient. This place is…crazy. 8 acres, all indoors. This afternoon there was a thunderstorm outside, the thunder and lightning and rain visible through the glass roof covering the whole spectacle. I’m having an okay time (learning a lot now that the actual sessions have started) – but I can’t help but feel dreadfully out of place here.