signs and strangers

zebra said, "what do you think about socks?  do your socks have to match?"

he believes virgos have this thing about matching socks, matching their need for order and organization.  the girl sitting at the table with us had just reaveled she is a virgo.

i had guessed her birth month correctly.  september.  not an astrology subscriber myself, i made my guess based on the idea that each sign represents a movement forward in the cycle of birth and reincarnation; each sign represents a movement and development in wisdom and enlightenment, with pisces as the culminating sign.  at least this is how it has been described to me, though i have no adequate understanding of astrological mechanics.  that being said, i supposed the woman to exist mid-cycle, still young in the reincarnation cycle.

as an aquarian, toward the end of my spiritual development, i supposed i'm a bit cranky and this woman annoyed me.  my own fault, i instigated her attention: i asked her what book she was reading when zebra left the table to use the restroom.  we had been drinking beers at the red fox, developing an idea for a screenplay we want to write together.

this young stranger had insinuated herself into our conversation with our blessing, our invitation, and she and zebra had taken to each other easily.  zebra says pisces and virgos attract each other in strange ways.  perhaps he saw in her a reflection of his spirit, the vigor of his spiritual youth, of something in a past life.  i welcomed her company initially but quickly grew annoyed.

like perhaps you would expect from someone at her stage in the lifecycle, as a twenty-something year old or a virgo, she seemed mature, well-rounded, well-read, educated.  as we talked, she came to almost ignore me, talking directly to zebra and cutting me out of the conversation.  she seemed self-congratulatory, revelling in the references she made to us, almost as if expecting i would not be familiar with proust (she obviously did not know who she was talking to.)  i became annoyed that though she seemed very intelligent and could understand different arguments, could follow the conversation, she seemed to fall back upon beliefs, seeming to righteously spout conventionalities without even anecdotal evidence for her beliefs.  i could have at least gained a good story from her, but instead i garnered nothing but frustration.

i take the sign under which a person to be born as a gamble, and we gamble with the people we engage with at bars.  i said, "what are you reading?" and she responded and her acquaintance could have been a magical thing.  we could have become great friends.  instead, at least, we met and put this beautiful karma of openness and friendliness into the world, even if she annoyed the fuck out of me in the end.

equality and the issue before us now

it seems that as heterosexual friends more and more endorse the view that homosexuals should be able to share in the "misery of marriage" if they choose, an opposing voice emerges arguing that we should not even care about pushing for homosexual marriage.  some argue that we should concentrate on maintaining our right to diversity, that american homosexuals should not push for inclusion in a herteronormative institution like marriage.  some argue that we should be more concerned securing for all the rights gained from access to this institution; they argue that we should be more interested in universal rights.

i agree that we americans, both homosexual and heterosexual, should be concerned about broader issues.  we should seeking to provide universal access to healthcare in this country.  we should be looking to guard diversity and individuality culturally.  but part of that diversity will be supporting homosexual marriage.

we once wrote out "lgtb" to cover a wide range of people.  we now recognize many more identities and communities than those four letters.  american homosexuals and transgendered people and ungendered people and polyamorous people and so on have multiple interests and identities and communities, just like our wider american culture.  we do not share genders or sexual preferences or proclivities or communities necessarily, but we can share in a cause, in a fight for equality.  we can come together and say that no matter our gender or the gender of those we love or how we love, we demand the same rights as every american.  we can demand that all americans no matter should live most fully.

some of us may want to engage in the institution of marriage.  this is a tradition into which we are raised, which we accept and desire or decline.  foucault would argue that one cannot escape the cultures and communities and discourse into which one is born and raised and exposed.  but one can break the bond between discipline and normativity by decoupling action and practice from goal and end result.  in this case we're talking about marriage for the sake of marriage.  not to gain access to healthcare.  not for lower taxes.  not for access to the wills of lovers.

healthcare.  taxes.  immigration.  inheritance. he country must face these all these issues sooner rather than later, especially as they involve all american communties.  however the lgbtqi(etc) cause can support this one issue that is before us, gay marriage, access to which is desired by at least some in our community if not all.  we can come together to support progress in a pivotal issue of equality that has the potential for transformative change in this country while still working to progress further, to solve other larger problems.

primary sources: amorous subjects

from A Lover's Discourse by roland barthes:

"By a singular logic, the amorous subject perceives the other as a Whole (in the fashion of Paris on an autumn afternoon), and, at the same time, this Whole seems to him to involve a remainder, which he cannot express.  It is the other as a whole who produces in him an aesthetic vision: he praises the other for being perfect, he glorifies himself for having chosen this perfect other; he imagines that the other wants to be loved, as he himself would want to be loved, not for one or another of his qualities, but for everything, and this everything he bestows upon the other in the form of a blank word, for the Whole cannot be inventoried without being diminished: in Adorable! there is no residual quality, but only the everything of affect.  Yet, at the same time, that adorable says everything, it also says what is lacking in everything; it seeks to designate that site of the other to which my desire clings in a special way, but this site cannot be designated; about it I shall never know anything; my language will always fumble, stammer in order to attempt to express it, but I can never produce anything but a blank word, an empty vocable, which is the zero degree of all the sites where my very special desire for this particular other (and for no other) will form."

actually the whole section, "Adorable!" from A Lover's Discourse is good.

花見

the commute by bike up north williams boulevard can be hectic, frustrating, blood-boiling, and dangerous.  the busiest bike lane in portland, williams pushes straight north next to two lanes of vehicular traffic.  cars swerve into the bike lane; slow bikers take up the entire bike lane, demanding that i swing out into traffic to pedal past them; and fast bicyclist breeze past, leaving me in the dust, leaving me jealous and slow feeling and inadequate and tired.  cyclists in this town comprise some of the most self-righteous people i’ve ever met.  having just lost your bike light - they’ll let you know how difficult they think it might be to see you even on the most well lit street.  not wearing neon yellow - they’ll let you know how your dark clothes are inappropriate.  biking too slow - they’ll let you know how much this inconveniences them.

on clear days, spring and summer and early autumn, the bike ride up north williams seems quicker than the trudge through the winter gray.  north williams carries a lot of bicyclists north through portland every afternoon, but the spring seems a significant increase in traffic up the bicycle lanes.  sunnier days, the weather fairer, the other cyclists seem more placid, less aggressive.

the air smells damp, but dirty and vegetive, the trees above light green with new buds.  i smell the diesel fumes from a passing bus.  i smell coffee as i past the waypost.  the smell from pizza-a-go-go makes me hungry.  then weed, someone smoking a joint as they walk down the street.  i laugh and shake my head and continue pedaling north.  too early yet in the season, i'm waiting for the days i smell jasmine growing as i bike through the neighborhood.  my favorite scent, i love the tiny white star-shaped flowers.

the bike ride in the afternoons can be uncomfortable this time of year.  a sudden rain shower can drench me as i bike home.  or the day can become warm enough that i sweat under the raincoat i still wear most days.  it's almost time to start biking in shorts and a t-shirt - almost warm enough.

i have made this commute down the river from my house to john's landing and back every morning and evening for over four years.  i'm not loosing weight with it.  it's become static, cardiovascular maintenance at most.  but i love it.  i love the thirty minutes it gives me to bike in silence, maybe with a bike of music, introspective, unobligated to entertain, to talk.  meditative, i like running into other friends on the road, but i cherish the brief time alone.

i slowly bike through the fields of so many agents - that man smoking a cigarette, those boys on their skate boards, those two women embracing as they meet on the sidewalk, the grandmother waiting to cross the street with her grandchild.

the days when the cherry blossoms bloom on the waterfront, a fat pink cloud that floats over the river, may be some of my favorites.  i love the delicate white and pink blossoms of the low trees, the dark bark striking underneath. i love biking down the path to the steel bridge under the branches, the sidewalk soft rose colored from the fallen petals.  men with big stupid grins back up into my path as they try to frame in the view of their cameras their girlfriends sitting under the blossoms.  the women preen themselves and do not consider that the cherry blossoms might overshadow their beauty.  annoyed by their bliss, i still love seeing portland happy like this.

Voting and representation in America

One-Person-One-Vote Rule Reaches Supreme Court - NYTimes.com

"The droghte of march hath perced to the roote"

in the morning, should i take a shower, i will open the bathroom window when i finish, an oregon habit to prevent mould growth.  this past week the entropy of warm, steamy air hasn't shocked my body as terribly, and the in the post-daylight-savings morning glow, the open window lets in springtime birdsong and not just cold air.

the ceo of the company for which i work came into the office singing: "i love the spring.  i love this time of year with the warmer weather and the flowers and the sunlight."

as she walked toward her office away from me i added, "and the birds singing."

"yes.  and the birds..."

then suddenly she poked her head around the corner and said to me, "actually no.  i hate birds."

understandable.  it's just the seagulls that terrify me.  horrible creatures - they seem to have at least flown back to the coast to enjoy the warm weather there.  otherwise, the sound of birds chirping in the morning seems pleasant.  sadly at my age they no longer dress me in the morning before work.

i guess portland isn't thawing out because it never really freezes over here.  it just gets cold and rainy and will remain cold and rainy until the beginning of summer in july.  after this past weekend though, something does feel different.  a greater gradient range of green: trees budding and daffodils blooming and plants pushing up from the soggy ground.  the city spent an entire weekend without rain.  our minds thawing, the spell of hibernation is broken.

adam and i went to the skidmore bluffs with ryan this saturday.  sunny, adam worried about sunscreen and sunburn.  we shed jackets and long-sleeved shirts, envying other friends we found sporting shorts.  i grew warm in the sun and ryan planted a pearl of summer in my consciousness: tacos and margaritas.  so we had lunch at por que no.

everyone seems happier suddenly.  the cashier at new seasons agreed with me yesterday - everyone seems less grumpy, unless they lost sleep over the time change.

day to days

he said, "that's the wrong stroke order."

i said, "no, look: this stroke should align with this stroke."

he said, "they can still line up.  believe me.  i'm pretty good at stroke order."

i texted adam the next day after i had looked up the stroke order for haku.  北. "you were right.  as you always are."

this is one of my favorite games: oh! do you know this one? 東 "hee-gah-shee.  higashi," i say as i draw the character in the air with my finger.  of course adam does.  that one's easy.  he's got this.  and i think sometimes this game becomes exasperating to him, but he still plays along.

zebra said, "wait.  shut the door."

close to two in the morning, zebra had pulled up in front of my building after driving me home from ryan's event at holocene.

"how are things with adam anyway?"

i responded that everything was fine, everything was going well.

he said, "sometimes you listen to everyone else's life, everyone else's problem and become so concerned about them that you don't open up as much as you could about your own life."

i didn't tell zebra this but here's the thing: how should i say that i find myself incredibly happy that adam knows really well the stroke order for writing out chinese characters.  how should i say that over and over i am so happy dating adam.

i know a few characters from studying japanese (half-heartedly) and adam teaches me chinese sometimes (我是美国人。)

i walked down the block from adam's house to buy a bottle of wine.  back through the backdoor into the kitchen, adam had the preparation of dinner in motion.  he blanched brussell sprouts and sliced sausage and heated coconut oil in a sautee pan.  i sliced mushrooms while he heated water for quinoa.  a beautiful meal developed from what adam randomly had in his refrigerator.  and he made it seem easy as if to say, yes, you can do this, too.

finishing our wine, we watched girls together in his bed, at the conclusion of which i fell promptly to sleep, tucked in like a big snoring baby. 

yes, i seem to snore, but adam says it doesn't bother him.

adam and i let ryan take pictures of our butts for his slideshow to be displayed at holocene during the party.  adam stayed home, but while at the event i received a text message from him: "how does my bum look on the projector?"

"every time your ass came up i said proudly, 'that's my guy.  doesn't he look good?'  your butt looked hot over and over."

"ha i know you didn't but it makes me smile to think you did."