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I don’t get it. Listening to rain on your roof is beautiful and musical at night, but when it’s just dripping on something and you’re trying to sleep it’s annoying.

I regret entitling that other post "Looking For Work," now, and really this episode ("Three Weeks of Pennies") should have been shortened down and maybe combined with that other episode, but in the end it didn’t feel right unless I explained that Alex isn’t a slacker. He’s not exactly competent either, but he’s not a slacker. And right now I want to provide context for the real story, which is imminent.

I missed a counseling session today, which sucks because I’ve been really down recently. Just depression kicking in, but it’s awful that neither of us thought about it.

I’ve been thinking recently about something one of my favorite teachers in high school once said. He said that he thought that I was special because I didn’t care what other people thought about me.

I wonder what he would say if he saw me today, going out of my head trying to provoke reactions from people?

I’m not a good troll. I mean, I can put a slew of effort into creating the persona of some 27 year old Christian Single Mother who got pregnant, found Jesus, and now believes that most organized Christian religions are secretly plotting to fund the anti-Christ so that they can bring about the end of the world. Oh, right, and she’s injured and the state is threatening to take Abby, her daughter away because she can’t take care of her.

When it comes time to go out and spread the Word though, I couldn’t get much out. And when I did, about how my brother was preaching that Christians were going to hell for violating Jesus’ command, I was so vague that no one responded.

And here I am, this is the real me, and I’m fairly explicit here, and I still can’t get a reaction even with a magnesium flare.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t advertise myself well. But I don’t have a decent camera, and I know better than post naked shots of myself online. Especially grainy ones.

It’s odd, people used to tell me that I was pretty, and by “people” I mean girls. I go to the club though, and people treat me like a lemur. An ugly lemur. Granted, the music deafened me, the smoke and the heat made me sick, and I don’t drink, but I would dance, but clubs are supposed to be about easy sex. Where the hell was the easy sex at the clubs in ABQ? All of the cute guys were with other cute guys, and the moderately cute guys were about “waiting” for something special. What was that? There is definitely something wrong with gay culture if we’ve already passed the no-strings sex mentality completely behind. Because I seem to have missed it.

And I’m easy.

That’s not a particularly flattering thing to say about myself, but it’s certainly very true. I threw myself at Gabriel not because I thought he was that good looking but because he seemed interested in him. It didn’t work out because I wasn’t interested in him, but that certainly didn’t seem to matter to me at first because he showed some interest in me.

So how do I advertise better? Pictures of me with my head photoshopped onto Mason Wyler’s body would be a good place to start, except that I don’t really look anything like him and I don’t necessarily like to lie about myself.

I can’t draw (real things, anyway) so I can’t become the next Penny-Arcade, Something*Positive, or PvP.

And I haven’t figured out how to advertise a blog. Back in the day Mike and Jeff both highly recommended “forksplit” to me. It’s the blog of a NYC half-Muslim arab/half-WASP advertising exec, and it’s brilliant. Some of the best writing on the internet. How did they find it? I can’t imagine. I can’t even get them to read my blog regularly, and here is this woman from New York City talking about how she likes to go clubbing with gay boys that they read whenever it’s updated.

Let’s talk about another friend: Alex (the real one, not one of my fictional ones) validated my existence the other day. By Buddha’s man tits, it was nice to get out of the house with someone other than my mother. Someone who volunteered to spend two hours on the road to prove that the person living in my room isn’t some zombie corpse raised by my mother.

Except now I’m worried that I offended him by disagreeing with him. I knew that we wouldn’t agree on everything, but I guess I was just bored and I posted a long thing on one of his blog entries (which I read religiously) that basically called his writing tripe. Which it isn’t, I just don’t agree with him, which is a completely different issue.

And now I’m talking about it in a blog instead of confronting him. That’s so passive aggressive and passé. But I’m doing it anyway because sometimes I guess I’m passive aggressive and passé. I need to change that.

Dude, you’re important to me. Yes, I have a crush on you, but dammit, it’s because you’re brilliant and a good friend. And besides, you’re straight. My crush proves that. Any disagreement with you is automatically null and void because of that. You could probably slap me around a little and I couldn’t really dislike you. (I apologize, abjectly and profusely, for any and all wrongs I have done you Alex, and I post it here in some sort of punishment for myself. If you ever need to remind me of that, you have it in writing.)

I don’t have a gimmick, I guess. I’m an aspiring writer, but who online isn’t an aspiring writer? Geez, even the waiters and bouncers with blogs have books that they’re trying to sell. I’m gay, but not in a porn-star or even a “Super! Thanks for asking!” way so I can’t play that up.

Even the writing is questionable, although I have to hold out hope for that. If I can’t write, there isn’t much chance of writing for a living, eh? I am taking Ashley’s advice, though, and part of that seems to be working, although I have no idea why Live Journal is so popular.

But in a certain sense, I need the validation of response and interaction. This is certainly not the first time I’ve said it, but it’s certainly a reversal on my personal sense of “You don’t need anyone, dude.”

It feels awfully materialistic, to know that I want to make people respond, and I know that’s the right word, but I feel sort of like I’m treading into the area where Paris Hilton rules: being famous is having people want to respond to you. Do I want to be famous? Yeah, of course I do, but I think that I would settle for “acknowledged.”

Last thing, from out of nowhere: I haven’t heard from my little brother in more than a fortnight. That is very, very bad. My mom and I had the “talk” about what to do if two Marines in dress blues show up at the door. They’d probably come during the day when I’m home, and even if she was here, they would knock at my door first.

So, if it happens, I cry first, wait until I can talk without freaking out, and then tell her. I will try to remain calm while I am speaking to her, because she does not need me to be a wreck while she needs me.

And then I’d institute suicide watch procedures for her, which, of course, I haven’t told her about. Little to no alone time. Clean medicine bottles out of the cabinets and remove sharp objects from where she can find them.

He could be boycotting writing us because we haven’t paid enough attention (I haven’t written him yet), but probably not. The military might have blacked out communication because they do that sometimes, but probably not for this long.

It’s really starting to scare me.

Wreeling and Writhing

So, Ashley read the short story that I posted, Colony, and liked it so much she felt compelled to tell me, which is awesome. It's unreal when you realize that some has read and really liked something that you've written. In Ashley's honor, I'm going to do some work rewriting Colony and posting the second draft when I get a chance.

She also recommended that I join a couple of Live Journal communities, and I agreed, so instead of updating two blogs, I'm going to update three of them, the Myspace blog, the Live Journal blog and the main Worlds & Time blog on blogger. I've actually been thinking about this for a couple of days, so to me it isn't totally unexpected.

Ashley is also the person that originally came up with Lia. She had a record of the old original Lex blog, and she sent me a link. If you're interested in that sort of thing, you can see it here:

http://alexmercer.greatestjournal.com/

It's a lot shorter than I remember it, but I'm sure someday I'll look back at what I'm posting today and say to myself "Wow that's short." Especially if I continue trying to read Notes on a Geek Show.

Right, since I figured that no one really reads this blog anyway other than me, I suppose I forgot to mention this, but I put a little history into the links on MySpace and LiveJournal about Lex and Lia. Here's a little more.

Originally Lex and Lia were supposed to be part of a larger game of people, about twenty five or so, that wanted to do a sort of communal neo-vampire novel online. The community was based around the fictional city of San Maceideo, a sort of Gotham City in Southern New Mexico. Since we were new, we were the young, inexperienced characters while most of the characters were old and powerful.

However, nothing really happened in San Meceideo. The community was new, but it was so new that no one really could figure out their own stories. So between me and Lia, we only had a half dozen posts.

Still, I liked the character of Lex. His PB (this was my first encounter with this acronym, it means "played by" and it indicates the actor that your character looks like) was Kerr Smith, who is gorgeous, and he reminded me of Jonathan. Celia, incidentally, was Alexa Vega back when she was Spy Kids age. If you ever want to know what the characters look like, that's it.

He was also tormented, and he fit into his niche.

I knew I wanted to do a weekly serial, and Lex and Lia fit the bill. I did remove them from the fictional San Maceideo and put them into Las Vegas. I don't remember any of the other characters from the original universe, so I don't have worry much about stealing other people's characters.

That's where Lex and Lia come from.

Leavetakings

Last night I went to dinner at my brother's house. My brother's roommate cooked, and there were a lot of people there.

My mother, my father, Makoena and I all drove down together. My brother's roommates were both there, as were both of their significant others. Marge stopped by after work, and Piper's father stopped by as well. That's eleven people, if I'm counting correctly, and two dogs.

Today my brother is driving toward California, and tomorrow (Wednesday) he'll check in at the base in San Diego. Within a few days they'll fly on a charted commercial airliner to Kuwait (usually by way of Germany) and then wait for a flight into Iraq proper.

So last night was the last time I got to see him before he ships out for Iraq.

Last time, my brother was so horribly overqualified for grunt work that they assigned him to something called Force or perhaps FORCE and his job was to drive around the city at night and break down people's doors and search their homes.

This time apparently he's going to be a sniper. He's a darn fine shot with a gun, even though he really hadn't handled one with any regularity until he joined the military. I do remember playing GoldenEye on the N64 with him back in the day, and he was an unreal shot in that game. I lost to him 99% of the time, and that last 1% happened between the time that I memorized the layout of every level and before he managed the same thing.

He's an inspiring person to watch playing a strategy game. I tend to be extremely focused on my own personal situation in video games and I don't focus on winning until after I've maxed everything else out. I tend to play on the easiest difficulty on games like Civilization and Alpha Centauri (and nearly everything else). I'd much rather be city planning than leading troops (although I suck at Sim City, bizarrely).

My brother is action oriented. He leads his troops, doesn't emotionally connect to individuals, and focuses on achieving the goals of the scenario.

Back in the day I would occasionally watch him play games like Shogun: Total War for hours. I don't have to play myself, and I don't get bored either. I simply watch my little brother's actions, and try to understand the bigger picture of the impact of the battle and why he's making the decisions that he's making.

If I ever engage in territorial dispute, I'd choose my brother to be the general of my forces.

When we were driving back home, my mother spent the entire hour crying. She tends to be a wreck when my brother leaves, and apparently this isn't going to be an exception. We tried to point out that as a sniper, my little brother will be defended by an entire team of well trained marines who's entire mission will be to protect him, but she can't find consolation that being a sniper isn't all that most dangerous that an accountant.

I get pissed off at this miserableness. I don't really understand why completely. After all, I worry about my little brother too, and I don't like thinking about it.

I think that when I see my mother in shambles, leaving the porch light on as a vigil and avoiding news, it reminds me of my brother. I can put it out of my head as long as I don't see her moping around the house and worrying to the point where she's physically self-destructive.

I get angry at her when she's like this. In the car last night I wanted to slap her and yell "Don't you think you should be strong for him?" or "He needs support right now, and crying isn't f***ing helping him." Really though, it's about me. The crying isn't helping me.

The problem is that there isn't anything that we can do to help him. We can't keep him home unless we shoot him in the leg ourselves and apparently we couldn't bring ourselves to do that to him. He won't see us anyway, so she doesn't have to be stoic for him. She can do whatever she wants, and she wants to spend all of her time crying.

So he's off to Iraq.

Last time I asked him to keep a journal, and he didn't. We got a few letters from him, which was nice, but I did buy him a really nice journal and a couple of pens before he left. He said he'll probably write more this time, and I hope he does.

One last quick aside about him, he reads when he's in Iraq. He takes Proust and Nietzsche with him, and we ship him Aristotle and all sorts of other classic works that I couldn't sludge through even if I was stranded in the Iraqi desert. I've tried, and I think the two most classic works that I've read are Catcher in the Rye and the 1001 Nights. He's a much better person than I am, and it's why someday I hope to make him President.

I'm thinking of my own leavetaking, of a sorts. I'm thinking of taking a break from online (and television). I've already been avoiding IIDB due to Stiletto's suicide, and I haven't been to CF at all this month. I don't have any formal requirements to check in at WritingForums.org, and so I could just disappear for a week. I've been thinking about it for a month or so, and it seems like a decent idea.

Oddly, taking a break from television and internet during the day would probably mean that I'd be posting here at (Myspace/Blog depending on where you're reading this) more often.

If you're reading this at the Worlds & Time blog, you may have noticed that I already added a whole slew of new buttons at the bottom of each post. If you feel like it, you should think about hitting one of those buttons occasionally. I wouldn't mind the attention. I know I act sort of shocked when someone reads my blog, but it's actually a good feeling to see that someone is paying attention. I'm thinking of slicing up an image that's not me and putting it up as my profile picture to get the sort of attention that I know that Derrick was getting (although I think that was actually him).

I'm also thinking of trying to start up a weekly feature of my fiction writing. I've been considering journal entries by Jonathan, but I think that might be too confusing unless I start his own blog, and even then there are a lot of choices that I have to make. What stage of his life is the blog from, and is he here in our time or in whatever time period I choose in the future? It wouldn't really help me unless it was in the future, and posting it online would defeat the purpose of trying to get my book published.

The other option is 'Lex and 'Lia, the adorable tormented kids living in a vampire/wereperson/witchcraft novel. I just bought the Anita Blake series but I haven't started on them yet, so that would probably fit in with my frame of reference for the next few weeks.

I'm obviously leaning toward the Lex and Lia stories. I don't know what the format will be yet, so I'll certainly have to consider that. I also want to finish the hard sci-fi short that I've been working on first. So, keep a watch for something.

In the meantime, no one else do any leaving. I want promises from all of you.

Random Thoughts on English, Body Image, Sluts, and Sex

First, have you noticed that aside from numerous minor spelling mistakes, I use real words and sentences?

I've had a couple of messages on myspace from people recently (probably due to that seem to be trying to hook up. (Just for reference here, I'm talking about things are obvious hook ups, like: "u can hit me up for a g8 time l8r, dude." If we've been talking about KH2, then you fall into the "cute" category, so don't worry about it.)

The odd thing is, most of them can't seem to use basic English. If you're cute, it doesn't matter so much, but if you're not cute and you're talking like a five year old, what am I supposed to think. What am I supposed to think about how the question is phrased?

The answer to the question is usually yes, I want to have sex with you, but I don't even know how to respond to "u wnna hook up sme tme?" Not when you put it like that.

You know what would be cool? I'd really like to interview someone about their sex life. In real English. With me taking notes. If you're interested, let me know and I'll type it up for this blog or something. I'll keep it annonymous if you want. If there's one kink that I have, it's voyerism.

Second, my body image has been going really down recently. I need to work out, but I hate it and it hurts when I do it. But every time I take one step in the right direction I take a step back.

So, basically, I'm a lot heavier than I want to be at the moment, and I'm really hoping that the neurosis will lead to some sort of eating disorder.

Third, remember how I marked off that blog entry a while back with warning labels? Here's another one:

If you're a family member or a co-worker of mine that doesn't want to know about my sex life, you might not want to read further. It's about sex and it's mildly graphic. And when I say mildly, I'm lying.

Bobby's latest blog entry is called "Everyone Loves a Slut" and I couldn't agree more. I love sluts. I recently sent a friend request to Mason Wyler who's an absolutely gorgeous porn star. Oddly, my favorite picture of him on Myspace is this one:



It's so happy and full of personality, and really makes him seem a real person (and I'm sure he must be). Just like how the articles about Fredrik Eklund made him seem more real. I guess I'm just odd like that, but I really like the guys that are happy with who they are (and who wouldn't be happy as a porn star?).

Why do I love sluts? I don't know. A visit from a really good friend recently reminded me that I don't believe in sin, and so I don't believe that random hookups are a bad thing. Except that I guess that I'm terrified of them because I don't seem to interact with people well. Did you read above, about how I want to interview someone about their sex life? I wasn't joking about that. I'm a really strange guy, and I'm worried that unless I appear normal, guys won't like me.

Anyway, so there are guys on Myspace that I'm interested in that I can't even get up the nerve to simply approach, and to the tell you the truth, I can't handle the pressure. I'd like to meet them on my terms, which is tough because my terms are bizzare and disorienting. Like doing interviews, or playing board games.

And I'm not just saying that. I like interviews and board games, and I'd be perfectly happy playing in a no pressure situation where I'm in control.

How strange is that.

Last point: I'm really bad at bottoming. I really wish I was better, but I guess when you skip out on the learning phase, you're screwed, in a literal and figurative way.

It's painful and uncomfortable, and I'm sure that it's not supposed to be, but I don't really know. It's wasn't as bad as the first time, but it's not something that I could be content with all the time. This is probably why I think Mason's such a good porn star, actually.

On the other hand, I'm a big proponent of at least the idea of versatility.

I'm going through a high sex drive phase though (which is interacting oddly with the poor body image). So great, whatever.

Anyway, that's too much information. But I should be going. I'll continue with a more detailed investigation of my kinks some other time, and that will be way, way too much information.

Have a good night.

Myspace Communication 1: Depth in Blogging

I don't like rewriting stuff, and now I find myself rewriting an entire post because the computer that i was on at work just shut off. Just turned itself without warning after I'd been typing away for an hour.

I think that there are a few very interesting things about communication on Myspace, and perhaps a little about the internet in general. And I was reading some blogs, mostly Father Hayle, and I was thinking about the way that blogging has changed the social experiment. Isn't it odd that you can know so much about people that you don't even know?

I've met Father Hayle once, and he was a very interesting guy, but I learned almost nothing about what he puts in his blog. I didn't know that he's a security guard, I didn't know that he does drainage diving, or that he climbs buildings.

That, and I don't know how he met Z. That's something that I've wondered. Someone might have mentioned it, but if they have, I've forgotten it.

The thing is, blogs add a certain amount of depth to these profiles. Whether it's a "OMG that guy is 2 cute!" or a discourse on the nature of Christianity, blogs really say something about the person writing them.

Usually. There are exceptions, like the blog of Bobby, that might just be a professional writer with an entrancing profile picture. But still, Bobby makes gay men respond, our of identification, or sympathy, or just lustful interest. Even I've left comments there.

But really, there is so much depth that you can add to a picture through writing. It isn't just a like or dislike thing, but an entire way of thinking that you can communicate. What do you think that people should know, and what are you willing to say?

This is even more interesting that this.