Why I Am Fed Up with People

My friend M. told me this before, but it reemerged today. And it is totally attributable to my AWOJ. So here we go:

Lately, I’ve been pretty much sick of everyone.  Sick of every part of me, and sick of things that are not a part of me.  I’m sick of Jews, sick of Queers and sick of Black people. I’m sick of the government, and I’m sick of my school. So I don’t get any static, I preface: I am Jewish, Gay, and of African descent so power down your phasers. Until today I wasn’t sure why I was so discontent with everything.  But I think I’ve got it.

I was talking to M. this summer, bemoaning my inability to get a date despite what I consider my rather ample qualifications:

• I have all my limbs.
• I breathe oxygen.
• I don’t have a communicable disease.
• And I like baked goods.

On top of that, I am a nice guy, well-rounded, more or less cultured, a speaker of a few languages and one hell of a cuddler.  Not to mention the fact that I rank at least a score of ‘not ugly’ on the official attractiveness rating system of the city.  And lord knows that even people get a rating of “never leave the house” manage to find SOMEONE.  But I digress. M. pointed out to me, using her own AWOJ, that I was a very inquisitive person.  I never let anything go by without a “Why?” and tend to over-think EVERY aspect of my own identity. The skin I have on today may not be the skin I have on tomorrow, and I don’t view that as a sign of inconsistency.  Rather it is a sign that I am grappling with the complex nature of identity, and know that at the end of the day it is just skin.  What lies beneath remains essentially the same. She said that I was frustrated with simple men who accept the world at face value.  I am not a simple person, she said, so I would never be willing to accept such simplicity from others, especially if I was trying to form a romantic relationship with them.

This observation has come around full circle today.

In dealing with a wide variety of issues, I have had a hard time pinpointing why it is, exactly, that I am so exasperated with the Human Race as of late.  The answer lies in that so many of my peers are gliding through this world without asking “Why?”.  If I’m not even willing to accept myself at face value, that which is most within my control and available to me, then why would I allow the world to go by unexamined.  Stop accepting shit at face value, people!  You are driving me UP A WALL, and I don’t know how to handle it.  How in G-d’s name am I ever supposed to get a date if I can’t find a man who’s willing to dig a little deeper into the “nature” of the world.

The World is Upside Down

Why doesn’t someone bomb the Westboro Baptist Church?  Why is it that all the crazies get to enjoy the liberties afforded to them by the Constitution, but that those who are ready to change the world and do good unto mankind…they get a bullet between the eyes?  Why?

Grrr…

Do you have any friends that you’ve made in special circumstances that you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself in normal circumstances?  Is this friend driving you batty, but you have no way out because of the special circumstances that you share?

I do.  And she is.  And I feeling a little testy about it.

Masks

I’m starting to think that I wear my kippah more for other people than I do for myself.

Why Am I So Neurotic?

So many neuroses, so little time.

So I had a fear just now (it’s actually a fear that I’ve harbored for some time) regarding my children.

What children?, you may ask. None.  Not any real ones, but hypothetically I have them.  And hypothetically there is a danger to their well-being.  I will list the reasons that their lives could suck.

1. I am half black.  They will be some black–could be more black than me.  This can be hard.  Wherever we live, they will have to deal with their blackness, or at the very least, deal with mine.
2. I am gay (or mostly so).  If I end up in a committed relationship with a man, that will be an issue for them to deal with long after I am done doing so.
3. I am Jew, and want them to be Jewish.  Enough said.

Now this…this is the fear that breaks me.

    4.  I would very much like to raise my children abroad (preferably Argentina).  I don’t want for my kids some fragmented sense of self that they cannot reconcile as a result of their heritage at odds with their cultural surroundings.  

I want things for them.  I have dreams for them.  I think that even 30 years from now when any children of mine would begin attending college, the US will still have a lead in terms of higher education.  I would want them to attend school here if they were up to it, but that would, I fear, involve a life of preparation that would remove them from the realm of their Argentine peers.  Why am I worrying about this?  Because I’m crazy.  Yep.  Absolutely insane.

Another Chance?

So E. wrote me a message on facebook.  I have yet to respond, but the underlying sentiment was “Please give me another chance.”  The thing is, I don’t know if that’s really what he needs.  There are some things that aren’t going to get resolved between us, and one of the biggest ones is the issue of kashrut.  He can be as pious as he pleases, but as soon as food gets involved, I have an issue.  And I don’t really know how to resolve the problem.  I’m not going to ask him to stop keeping kosher for my sake.  But it is odd to have few qualms about sleeping with me, and still take issue with the origins of your dairy products.  My own biases aside, I think there is an appropriate level of kashrut that can be maintained and not drive me up the wall.  Aside from that, there is no out.

Multiplicity

What is root of my passion?  Whence comes my love?  So there was an incident with A. on election night, and its outcome has me floundering.  I need to look at the situation that took place, work on my awoj, and ask what happened/and why did I respond the way I did.  And why do I do what (whom) I do?  

I don’t know what kind of Jew I am, what kind of Queer I am, what kind of Mulatto I am.  As a queer man, I should have some sense of entitlement to my queerness.  As a Jew, I should accept that we are on the earth as G-d made us.  And as a Mulatto…well, that’s another story.  But regarding the first two, I battle them: one with the other, and both of them against my sense of self-determination.  

We are who we say we are/we are who we became in our personal historic context.  Every experience of life shapes you.  It is hard for me to say that I was born gay, simply because I am gay.  It is a piece of circular logic that I don’t care for.  I will say that I am queer, and that there is no other way that I can be, because this is the only existence I have, the only reality available to me in this now.  I will say that I am queer and that G-d loves me for it, because G-d loves all G-d’s creations.  I will say that I am queer because it was one of the possible outcomes in light of the variables of my formative life.  That it is a possible outcome makes it just as valid and acceptable as heterosexuality, but I will not say that I was born that way anymore than I would say that straight people are born straight.  Facts of reproductive success aside, sexuality and procreation have little to do with one another.

And what is it that I want from men?  I feel odd relating this, but when I am with a guy I want him to hold me.  I want to feel secure with him.  I’m sexually attracted to him throughout, but I need (emotional/physical) intimacy in order to be with him.  What does that mean?  Is there a referent in my childhood?  Does the oedipus complex work on the inverse?  Am I searching in men for the father that never touched me?  The man who would hug me because my father would not, who will kiss my forehead because my father had to be “strong”?  My dad wasn’t affectionate, which is ok.  But is that part of what I’m looking for?  I place no value judgment on it, I just wonder sometimes.  Just like no man would ever actively (in general) fantasize about intimate relations with his mother, I don’t want to sleep with my dad.  (EW.) I’m not claiming some weird daddy fetish.  But I think the psychology is legit and worth discussing.  I just don’t know where or how.  

 

 

FUCK.

 

 

 

 

Did I mention fuck?

Gay?

מי אני ומה אני עושה?

هل انا مثليي؟

Or just confused?  Why can’t I seem to resolve this issue?  I thought I’d moved past this.  I thought that this was the moment when I was sure of myself.  I’m attracted to men.  Am I attracted to women?  I thought I was, but there were people/norms/friends telling me that I wasn’t.  That it was just a phase.  I wanted to move past said phase, come into my own.  So I declared myself, and I felt free. And now I feel trapped.  Trapped in the paradigm of gayness.  Fuck.

Oy vey.

Tomorrow (or today, rather) is the day.  The fate of the country; the fate of the world; the fate of everything as we know it is on the line.  I can’t wait to vote, to cast my ballot in the decision at hand.  I just hope that things emerge as they should.  Because quite frankly, if John McCain, and (worse) Sarah Palin win this election, that’s it.  I’m leaving and I’m not coming back until it’s over.  Four years (and possibly eight) is entirely too much Republican for me, especially in the wake of the worst years in the history of my cognizant life.  We need to come out of this financial slump.  We need to help resolve once and for all the Arab-Israeli conflict, and bring the fate of the Palestinians to rest in a sovereign Palestinian state.  We need to leave Iraq, to leave Afghanistan, and fix the mess that we’ve made.  Let’s do it.  Together.

Middle Eastern AWOJ (Among Other Things)

So…it has been quite a long time, dear friends.  I have been away for too long because things have been too crazy, however I’m here, and I’m gonna try and see if I can’t stay for a little while.  It never ceases to amaze me that people only write in their journals when they are feeling like shit.  If nothing else in the world can motivate you to write your feelings down, you should definitely avoid the recording of them altogether.  Alright so, since I last wrote here, I:

 

• dated and broke up with E. (after significant drama)
• participated in a school show
• had a school choir performance
• refell in love with A.
• Wrote a (fairly) kick-ass paper, did not bomb a midterm, and gave a presentation in عربية
• began learning ᏣᎳᎩ, lamented it’s decline, vowed to play a part in its revival
• vowed to resurrect Western European Jewry
• resumed learning עברית in earnest
• met new R. and fell smitten
• had a kick-ass halloween costume
  

  Max, King of the Wild Things

So…now that you are updated on my life, we can talk about some issues I’m having with America (The West)’s stance towards the Middle East.

I have concluded that the West’s view of the Middle East is such: The West views Middle Eastern violence and turmoil as acceptable (expectable) because “Arabs” are non-white, “savage” peoples.  Israel is held to a higher standard and is not allowed by the West to experience the same kind of disorder (which it brought upon itself) as other parts of the region because it would be unfair to submit such a “civilized,” pseudo-European nation to that kind of reality.  And especially because of the facts of the Holocaust they will be capable of no wrong indefinitely.