Monday, September 27, 2010

Some Kind of Meaning

I don't really have a point or a message for this post. I just sort of felt like writing I think.

I was getting off of the bus from campus to my apartment complex and this butterfly followed me in through the gates and landed on my hand as I was walking to my building.

Now I have a thing about butterflies. I love them and they're sort of my signature thing. I pick a lot of myspace layouts (haha, laugh at that, I know) because they feature beautiful butterflies, and I believe in a symbolistic nature behind them - once I even picked a birthday card for my sister over another option because it had butterflies on it. I liked the cards the same, but the deciding factor was the butterfly. I just think they are a magical creature.

My 'coming-of-age' experience is one that I prefer to liken with that of a butterfly growing from the cocoon. I don't know why but I've always had this reverence for them and their beauty. Anyway, back to today's story. I let it sit for a moment and as I was approaching my building I shook it off. I didn't really mean to do it that hard and don't worry nothing happened to the butterfly itself, it just flew away. But I sort of wish I hadn't done that. I know I wouldn't have carried it on my hand all the way into my apartment but still...I can't help but be a little regretful.

This is the second time in the last few months that a butterfly has landed on me. Nothing of great significance seems to happen afterwards and maybe it really means nothing; a realist might certainly agree with that last statement. But I'm a believer in the mystical. There are a lot of things that the human mind can't explain or random occurences that can't be called 'average' or 'normal'. Besides, what fun would life be without a little intrigue and mystery? You can't have it all figured out or what's the point?

On the bus ride home I was thinking about society and how we're all programmed to behave a certain way and think a certain way - and if you don't believe that, then you've already succumbed to the limits that society has imposed on you and your life. That may be fine for some people, but I'd like to think that life from an individual viewpoint must be figured out. You must decide for yourself what you accept as truth and what you don't, especially about the world you live in. But it is a process to do so and whatever the end result, is how you make it from one day to the next, and on until the end of your life.

This line of thinking happens to me often when I come fresh out of a 'Sociology of the Family' class session. So much of what we do and how we are today as a generation of the world are results of how people used to think and how we've had to decide as a people what was acceptable and what isn't.  This is an ever-changing process. New children are born, and the children of previous generations are now parents. Parents who decide what they teach their children and what morals, values and skills they instill in them as well. It is then up to the children to go out into the institutions of socialization and share what their parents have taught them. They find a group of children and they attach themselves to one another based on the similar ideas or maybe even the completely different ideas that they are exposed to. This new generation of children grow up and go out into the world and rock, shape and challenge the mold set by their predecessors.

I am a self-described optimist. I'd like to believe that one day, we'll see the end of world hunger, the start of world peace, the curing of Cancer and AIDS, the decline and extinction of things like rape and murder. I know these are lofty ideas - and they seem that way because we live in a world rife with all of this chaos - but one thing I can still hold onto is that it may not be plausible, but it is entirely possible. That one standing fact is all I need. I can get from one day to the next with that knowledge.

Every person wants to believe their life will mean something. As Bobby Singer says in the television show 'Supernatural': "Most people go their entire lives without moving so much as the dirt it takes to bury them."  That really strikes a chord with me. I want my life to mean something. I want someone in the future...maybe a politician, or an environmentalist, or maybe the president, to look at my life and be inspired in theirs to do more, to be more. Now even if that doesn't happen, I still know that I've done something that can have an impact on those around me. I've chosen my optimism, and my principles and my ideals and I try to live for them. If someone can turn their day around because of something I've said, or if they can pass on a good deed because I did one for them, then I'm happy with that. I've made some small difference for someone, somewhere.

That's all I really want. That's all I can really hope for.

All we can really do is love one another.

Signed,

A Fabulous Gay Man,

Queen Trixie J.D. the First

(Photo from: http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/photos/2007/08/butterfly_yellow-flowers_01.jpg)

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Never-Ending Adventure of My Life

 I'm back! In more ways than one. I am back at school - to the University that I had been dismissed from. I am so proud of myself because I know a lot of people had their doubts that it would happen. Even I did.

But I tried my best and worked my hardest and lord did it pay off. Now I just have to continue doing that. Life should be gravy right now. And for the most part it is. I just focus on school and work on getting my GPA to an acceptable level.

I have still been working on myself - after a short hiatus when trying to get back into school - and I'm a little rusty. I'm pretty much happy with everything except my body, although I will say that I'm not completely dissatisfied in that area, and that in itself is an accomplishment.

Aside from all of that I'm starting to get serious about my writing. I wrote a short piece and I contacted the Liberty Press to see if I couldn't get it published. I don't even know if they do reader submitted content, but I thought I would give it a try. Also my book is taking shape. I'm figuring out a few things and fleshing out the details and starting to really hunker down for the long haul. So far it looks like I have 16 chapters planned, but that could definitely change. It will be near 300 pages by my estimate but then again I don't know what it will look like in print so that is definitely something that will change.

I've gotten in touch with a few friends from my past and mainly I'm pretty happy. Erica and I aren't really talking all that much. She lives in Tal-Town now and every day I feel like we're drifting farther apart. She is so different from the person I thought she was. I miss the person she used to be. I think I could learn to like the person she is becoming, but I can't really say that because I don't exactly know who that is. I just hope that she knows I am always there for her and always willing to help. We've changed so much in the recent past, both of us as individuals I mean, that it's like we have to become reacquainted again.

I know that something that hasn't changed is our ability to have fun together - and maybe that's what I should focus on. After all life is short.

Speaking of...the other day I was watching the History Channel (which it turns out is a bad idea for me because I end up feeling like an alarmist afterwards) and they were doing a series special on Nazi's Past and Present. The one about white supremacists today just got me really...worried. I mean these people are training in camps with guns and in hand-to-hand combat for 'the final race war.'  Lunatics with guns are never a good combination. But seriously why is there so much hatred in the world? Isn't there enough crap to deal with without worrying about someone being black or who is supposedly 'better'? Let's get real and focus on issues like world hunger or curing cancer. Maybe then the world would be a better place. It's just that every time I turn on the news something new and more horrific is happening.

Did you all hear about the pastor that is going to burn copies of the Quran on September the Eleventh? Why is that friggin necessary? Honestly people, America was founded on religious freedom. And yes, the pastor has a constitutional right to do what he is doing, but my question is WHY? Why is it such a problem to that pastor that he must burn a nation's holy text? How would he feel if Islamic people burned the bible? I bet he'd feel pretty pissed off. It seems that everyone forgets to 'walk a mile in someone else's shoes,' once in a while. I will never lose my compassion.

I will love because they hate. I will give because they are selfish. I will not fight because they take up guns.

Honestly the world is feeling a little bit darker everyday and even though it's a scary thing, I am going to try and continue to bring light to my little corner of the world. Someone has got to. Someone has got to try and stop the hatred and the violence. I will become the change I want to see in the world.

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox!

Anyway I met a really decent guy recently named Dirk (not his real name, lol). He and I started out chatting over the internet after I read an ad that said he was moving to L-town, and we hit it off. But we met and have had a few dates and I just don't feel the spark. The 'It-Factor', the 'zsa zsa zsu.' It isn't there. Which sucks because he is pretty much everything I have ever thought I wanted in a guy. But even though it isn't working out, I was reminded that good guys are out there. Which was really nice to feel. We kissed and he cuddled with me and it felt nice to know that human touch. I haven't had that in a long while.

Money is sort of stressing me out right now. I have two different debts that I'm trying to pay off. One from the three bedroom I shared with Erica and Carissa; the other from my credit card. The credit card isn't very high and I can pay that one off soon. Thanks to me, the lawyer debt from the three bedroom has been reduced by about $5,000. But there is still about $7,000 left on it. I think I did my duty to that debt by having it lowered, but I still have to pay. Ugh. I'm working on a very tight budget and my mother just took me off overdraft protection from her credit card. I had been sort of abusing it, I will admit, but not for frivoulous self-serving purposes.

Oh well, I know it will all work out how it is supposed to in the end.

I am still an optimist.

And isn't that an acheivement in itself?

:)

That's all.

Signed,

A Fabulous Gay Man,

Queen Trixie J.D. the First.


(photo from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-COI-QbjwicuneDFDyb-OgwumcnaGLNvW7QP-24wtBqVB48mP6qywI8U25e5K6VZgYBBvOVsQXo3Brnkk0EHPlZzJy2sfRrbtFNttQjafAmip4bf6pM3ilXHuZQ-dwawohdgcmrw1QpAm/s320/ab_life55.gif)