Make me good, Lord, but not yet.

10:02am: Getting ready for the Greece trip is very stressful. To be honest, part of me wishes I weren't going on it at all. But, it's the trip of a life time. I'm gambling that all the stress and all the sacrifice will be worth the pay out. To see the Parthenon... that's a once in a lifetime event. I dislike all this, but I'm holding out.

9:36am: I needed a little cheering
Donna Summer... MacArthur Park. Such stupid lyrics but she makes them seem so cool.

8:11am: Follow up
So, there's a fairly comprehensive article about the boy killed in Puerto Rico, in Spanish and not translated yet. Aquí está.

6:47am: Sadness
A gay teen in Puerto Rico was decapitated, dismembered, and burnt. And, if only to rub salt on the wounds, the lead investigator released a statement saying that people need to know this can happen if you lead that sort of a life. That makes my eyes cross. What sort of a life? Where you walk to a local club at 11 and leave at 2 a little tipsy? Or possibly the sort of life where you never filled in like the other boys and look a bit lank and feminine (thanks for the genome mom,dad)? It's such a despicable crime.

2:57pm: Monday Monday Monday
I have felt like crap today. Among working, I picked up Ted Hughes "Birthday Letters" and started reading from the beginning. As far as I can tell, they're a sequence of poems written about Sylvia Plath from the time she first came to England and into his life. The fourth poem, Visit, had me in tears. The poem describes him drunkenly throwing rocks at her window in the middle of the night (or what he thought was her window), and his reading her journal of that night 10 years after her death: her emotions, her fears, her joys that he might love her. It's work like this that makes me want to take up poetry again.

10:56am: Queering Catholicism
I've long taken a lot of flack for retaining my Catholic identity. I'm proud of it, and I continue to be. It's part of who I am and it has shaped my outlook on life. Before the current pope was elevated, I and several other people were enjoying a wave of liberalisation and were looking forward to a more open, more inclusive church. Then came Benedict. I'm no great fan of JPII, but he was much more of a hands off guy. Since Benedict came along, he has commissioned bishops to "reign in" parishes that didn't tow his line. He has encouraged the nut jobs to be more political. And rather than reaching out to Catholics who live in the modern world, he has done his best to embrace those further removed from it. Those things I've let smoulder without letting it get to me too much. Times change and old coots die. There are a lot of people like me who want to reclaim the catholic identity and that's fine. But things are stirring deeper within me as I've studied more. Benedict holds the church tight to neo-platonism, and is trying to re-invigorate it rather than move to a modern model. While neo-platonism is a robust platform, it's ultimately inconsistent with modernity; I don't think I can continue identifying with a neo-platonic view of the world. The fundamental idea of neo-platonism is that there is an absolute form that we can aspire to, i.e. in an ideal world there would be no differences. But I've come to understand that it's our inherent differences that inspire true growth. Neo-platonism would have us think that growth comes from the elimination of differences. That's why the gay thing, inter alia, is anathema to Benedict's Catholicism. It's very subtle, and hard to see. I don't think most people see it. Most people want to go directly to the bible and argue against biblical teachings directly... but the problem isn't the bible-- it's the framing. Sure the biblical arguments may work against evangelicals, but they're a very simple minded lot. Catholics have no inherent problem with gay sex (obviously most priests don't); seriously, gay sex between adults has always been encouraged under the table. The problem is admitting it's a good thing and a healthy, fulfilling form of expression.
To properly queer Catholicism, the neoplatonic frame work needs to be dismantled. At that point, other reforms (desperately needed) can take place. I know many people would argue the modern man does not have spiritual needs as they only arise from fear and psychiatric problems. But I don't think that's the case. The modern human being may need spiritual nurturing more... given all the stresses and absurdities of modern life. But it seems the catholic church has lost interest in tending to its flock, and only cares about making a big stink about how good life would be in people listened to them. They don't realise they need to say something worth listening to.

8:50am: I've been chipper, energetic, and even happy since I started taking the vitamin B12. Goes to show what resolving one small deficiency can do. But in reflection, even though my body was not in very good shape, I did not use that to fuel my depression. I'm very proud of that. I got up everyday, did my routine, went to work, and made the best of things. Now, I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around, and I didn't get half of what I wanted to done, but I worked at it. Sometimes, I think that's all we can ever do in this life. I'll be interested to see how my life changes as I continue to take the B12.

Sunday, my friend Jon and I bicycled to the top of Mt Washington. For me it was a challenging ride. But I liked it. I've been meaning to try a route up there for years. Bike groups regularly ride up, but I've never joined. I had a lot of fun, and it gave me a good bit of fulfillment. Will joined us for dinner later, and Jon proposed his idea for the three of us to take a weekend get-away to Akron, OH to enjoy the leather scene there.

I watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with Will Friday night. I thought it was amazing when I was a teenager. I like it now, but my tastes have broadened. One scene I really loved was the pantomime of the play Hamlet the players put on. Dry humour is so hard to come by these days.

I finished planting the tulips and narcissi. I planted them in the rose garden. There are still many daffodils, and I'm giving a few dozen to a friend, Mark. Mark, incidentally, used my garden for his geraniums this year while he moved. They're very pretty and smell nice. Emma took a few cuttings to see if we can get them to grow.

I'm worried about getting everything together for Greece. But, it should all be fine.

8:46am: Fierce
Ladies and Gentlemen, Leslie Gore:

7:31am: Random
In my dreams last night, I was supposed to donate a lung to someone in my family-- my mother or brother or something. And I had to wake up early to go to the hospital, but no one would give me a friggin' ride, so I had to walk. The nerve. I also had a few dreams about a snake trying to come after me... it wasn't trying to eat me, I could tell it was a friendly snake. Still, not ready to be comfortable with snakes. And in any event, I thought I had exorcised the snake dreams. Yeah, I have recurrent nightmares about snakes.

I looked up the entry for Paula Abdul on wikipedia the other day-- son of a gun, she's Jewish. LOL. I was not expecting that. I always thought she was half black or something. Nope. Jew Jew Jew. Jewish mother. Jewish father. Jew. LOL. When I was little, we had a her album on cassette that would play incessantly in the car-- then my brothers would bring it into the daycare center where the little girls would want to hear it more. The only reason I went along with it was because it got people to stop talking about Michael Jackson or New Kids on the Block. I even got roped into being part of a choreographed performance to one of her songs in summer camp. Aw. Memories.

Another memory: Little Red Riding Hood
Remember when Oldies stations played "Your favorite hits" from the 40s and 50s. I do. Painfully.

10:51am:

Lost in a dream
Don't know which way to go
If you are all that you seem
Then baby I'm moving way too slow

I've been a fool before
Wouldn't like to get my love caught
In the slammin' door
How about some information--please

3:44pm: You got to keep on those rascals
So, when I changed my phone plan to FiOS, they said all my other settings would be the same. Good thing I didn't believe them. They changed my "international" plan (meaning North America & Europe) to an "international" plan (meaning US & Canada). So, if I had just picked up the phone and called Greece, I would have been screwed out of over $2 / minute. And basically, all you have to do is call and sign up for an insignificant program that changes it to 10 cents/minute.

10:31am: WTF
I just got an e-mail from a 'friend' in Brazil where he confessed that although he knows he'll always have feelings for men (he's not a robot, he says) he's gotten himself into a relationship with a woman. But at the same time, he's looking forward to seeing me when he returns for a visit to Pitt-- and wonders when I'm coming to Brazil. What decade is this?
....
I always find it a little unsettling when gay friends talk about engaging in relationships with women. I've thought about it, to be sure. And there's no reason in principle not to... as long as your honest. But that's not what gay men do. They don't let their wives know they want/have sex with men. I don't think it's equitable to the woman. They're supposed to be equals, right? Then what right do we have to enter into relationships on false pretences? I'm not sure what to write back. I know he likes having contact with me-- he's usually the one to reach out. I don't know what he wants or expects from this friendship.

When he did live in Pittsburgh, I liked him a lot-- and we had our moments. I understood he had issues with internalised homophobia, and never pushed things. Maybe I should have? Now I'm a little confused.

10:16am: Will told me last night that I'm the most pleasant I've been in months. Well, since the Mexican Glutening... Then he joked, "We're never going to eat there again, are we?" But seriously, the B12 injections have been making a serious difference to my productivity, mood, and feelings about life. I looked into a list of foods high in B12, and I eat most of them on a regular basis-- it must be an absorption issue (B12 is hard to absorb). So, I'm not sure if I should consider long term injections or oral supplements. Meh. It'll work out somehow.

3:22pm: Observation
I think, in many people's lives, mine included-- what we want more than anything else, is to have a person who regularly asks, unsolicited and sincerely, "How was your day?"

10:42am: More Energy
So, the B12 shots have me more active than I've been in months. I suppose I lost a lot when I got sick this summer. The CT scan of the tummy looks fine. But they mixed some of the stuff I had to drink with Crystal Light, so it tasted awful going down, and it gave me hideous smelling gas. I know-- good information to have.

Will and I had a good length conversation over the weekend. It helped a good bit. I suppose I'm a bit ego-centric: when something's going wrong I think it's something to do with me or that I'm entirely to blame. Will was very forthcoming with the issues he's having and the conflicts he's encountering as we've gotten closer. So, maybe not much new implemented, but issues going out cleanly on the table so we know what's going on at least.

4:35pm: Daffodils
I've spent a chunk of the day in a flower bed digging up overcrowded daffodils. Seriously, they're so overcrowded that the roots of one burrow into the bulb of the other. Talk about thick. There's almost no dirt between them, only the occasional worm. From 2 sq meter I think I've pulled out over 200 daffodils. And there's another 2 sq m to go. Sheesh.

10:14am: Providence?
Remember how earlier this week I was talking about my fandom over Evangelion. I looked at the paper Friday and saw that the new Evangelion movie was playing this weekend only! I hadn't even known there was a new Evangelion movie. It's on limited release in only a dozen or so US cities. And I have the luck to come across the only weekend it's playing in Pittsburgh the day it opens. Will went with me, and he had a great time. There's always a fear going to these types of things that a new movie will disappoint the long time fans-- but no! it was great. I'd venture to say if it was a normal US release that it would be a blockbuster. Although I'm a little confused as to why full-frontal female nudity rated PG-13. It was animated, though-- that might have been why.

9:16am: I've been reading the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga online at onemanga.com. I've always been a big fan of the anime, but there's something special about reading the manga-- especially since the manga has a different (but similar) plot that give insights into the underlying process the writers had. I wonder if I'll ever grow out of it.

9:15am: About last night
I will be very happy when Will is finished with his online course. Since he's been in the thick of it, he's been irritable and occasionally insensitive. I don't hold this against him; a college course, even online, is a lot of work. Thing is, his coping mechanisms for stress piss me off-- and my coping mechanisms for stress piss him off. And yes, you do see fireworks when we're both stressed. We need to work on this.

5:46pm: Day's Followup
Note to self: Marshmallow tea is surprisingly thick and syrupy. Odd, right?

I went to the stomach doctor today and just sort of summed up how my symptoms were. So, he looked at his notes and saw that in my CT scan 4 years ago, my lymph nodes were swollen. So, I'm getting another CT scan this week. The doc said it'll give him a better idea what's going on than a colonoscopy. But of course, like last time, if anything looks abnormal I get the scope up the ass. So, we'll see what happens from here.

10:42am: Not all here
I'm not sure if it's the cold weather getting to me-- but I am clearly not all here lately. Saturday, I left my hat and scarf behind at the workshop (which went beautifully thank you for asking). And later I left my jacket at my uncle's. And today, I left my laptop with all my files at home. Geez oh man am I out of it or what?

10:19pm: Nabbed from Healthyguy

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6
Mind:	6.2
Body:	8
Spirit:	7.1
Friends/Family:	2.9
Love:	6.2
Finance:	8.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

11:26am: Priest-Off!

1:14pm: So, my celiac doctor's office called back. They had a cancellation next week, so I'm in! However, after that, the doc is moving his headquarters to Little Washington. (That's pronounced 'Worshington' to the locals). It's inconvenient, but exactly how many doctors are there in the area who know anything about auto-immune disorders and the bowels? So, I follow. I only go once a year anyhow.

There have been a few celiac reports in the usual papers lately. They have been repeated time and again, that if you suspect you have it, then don't change your diet until you have a confirmed diagnosis. That really upsets me. They honestly expect that people who have been suffering for years and may be on the verge of death delay treatment for record keeping purposes! My PCP at the time refused to order the tests (and he was a good doctor) because he said the condition was rare. And most americans are in the same boat. Even specialists don't know what they're looking at. During my first colonoscopy, the doctor said my ileum looked very weird-- so I asked him if he took a biopsy. He hadn't. Wait-- you see something suspicious in someone with chronic internal bleeding and you don't take a biopsy of weird stuff? It really gets my dander up. And no, I'm not interested in malpractise suits. Besides, this second doctor disappeared off the face of the planet; that tends to happen in Florida. So, uhm, yeah, I'm going to continue to see the doc who treats celiac because I'm betting I'm not going to find another any time soon.

5:33pm: There are times I think my mother has lost it... if she ever had it.

I talked to her today. She said she went to the beach and a guy with a rock hard body hit on her and taught her how to stand on a surf board. She thinks it's God's way of saying there are still hot men out there who find her attractive. LULZ. Good for her.

And apparently there's a nice doctor at Toastmasters who she thinks would be perfect for me; medical degree from Harvard and practises alternative medicine. "Too bad Ian's taken" she said to herself. She made it a point to ask me if there was a ring on my finger yet. Not yet, I told her. It's good to know she still has a sense of humour.