Love

Everything there is to say about love has already been said.  However, I have not said everything I have to say.

Love is that feeling you get when someone looks at you, merely looks at you and recognizes you, and you feel like you're going to throw up or burst into tears or simply explode, because how dare they give you the hope of an actual relationship.  How dare you actually even think of one.  You would be lucky enough to become mere passing acquaintances - any deeper of a relationship, and you would likely discover that this person is not nearly so wonderful as you imagine them to be, or worse, they would discover that you are nothing special after all.

Some people believe that we are all half-people searching for our other half so that we can become whole.  I don't buy that.  The place in my heart that hurts is not a lack, not a hole, not some kind of void that needs to be filled.  It is a promise, no, less than a promise.  It is a potential.  A possibility.  That even though I am a whole person now, I might still be able to join with another person and make my life even more wonderful than it is now.  I don't need another person in order to live a happy and fulfilling life. 

That doesn't mean it never hurts.  Considering I equate love with nausea, it most definitely hurts.  And I'm sick of this awkward dance of trying to spend more time with a person while not letting them know what effect their presence has on you.  I'm apparently good at hiding my feelings.  It makes me wonder:  It seems like we're never on the receiving end.  But what if we are and we just don't know?  And how would you react if you found out someone you hardly knew felt nauseous around you?

Sometimes I wish that we were birds who had an inborn mating dance.  It would be so much simpler instead of trying to comply to unspoken rules learned from the media and the behavior of acquaintances.  For instance, it is not socially acceptable to ask someone the second time you meet them:  "Are you gay?  I think I might have a crush on you, but I'd like to be certain first.  And if you want to be just friends, that's fine too, mostly I'd just like to know."  Or:  "You're really pretty.  And I'd probably be killed in your country for saying that."  Or:  "I know you're gay and single, and I don't know much else about you, but let's go out and see what happens, because you look like you might be interesting."

Oh yes, I have extra risk when professing my love.  If you are straight, you have a 90% the other person will at least consider going out with you.  If you aren't, there's also a good chance that your object of affection will be squicked out at worst, accepting but emotionally unable to reciprocate at best.  Plus you have to go through the extra step of finding out if a person might potentially not be straight, instead of simply being able to see a gender.

Essentially, this post boils down to:  Why are there so many interesting straight girls?  Why is it so hard to tell straight girls from gay ones?  Why does society and the media try to tell you that a lover is a necessity in life?  Why do I want to be in love?  And why does being in love have to be so uncomfortable?

Right now I have the excuse that I'm only here temporarily to keep myself from investing my emotions too deeply, but once I get home it will be only my fear holding me back.

In Memoriam: Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones:  1934-2011

Funny how Death always comes in waves. 

This one, at least, I was expecting.  She had cancer for a few years, and knowing I was in the midst of a deathwave, I already somewhat expected it to happen about now.  That doesn't make it any easier.  I have read quite literally every one of her books (except maybe one or two obscure ones)

If Jacques was my gateway to fantasy, Jones was my addiction.  She taught me how magic works, and how cats talk, and about parallel dimensions, and how to blend science fiction and fantasy until one isn't sure what the difference is any more.  And more than any of that, her characters are more like people than any other writer I know of can manage.  The children are children and are sometimes selfish, the adults are sometimes helpful, sometimes well-meaning but useless, sometimes merely useless.  Yet you still have to love all of them. 

Sarah Monette (another one of my literary heros) says it best here.

In my own writing, I would have to say that Jones is my top influence.  I want to build a world that is whimsical yet plausible, with large parts unexplained but that somehow makes sense.  Nor are any but the most plot relevant aspects of magic ever explained - after all, it's freaking MAGIC. 

Howl's Moving Castle made her if not popular, at least somewhat known in mainstream.  I have to point out that I was a fan long before that.  And then, the way Harry Potter took my private love of fantasy and made it mainstream, the movie made Howl's Castle known to more than a select few.  It feels something like a betrayal when that happens.  You were once mine, and now I must share you.  Even though a private love is lonely.  I once fell in love based solely on an association with a book, but that is a topic for another time.

Diana Wynne Jones wrote in a way that I will never be able to, and I'm okay with that.  That does not mean I am going to give up writing.  It just means that I am going to try harder than ever to write MY book.  And it will be for Jones, and Jacques, and Lloyd Alexander, and every single author whose books I have read, the good and the bad, and every single person who has ever given me a story.  But Jones will not be able to read it.  She won't even know that I loved her so much, or that she had more than passing resemblence to an English teacher of mine.

So what is the moral of this story?  Meet your heros before they die?  A generation of greats must pass to make room for new ones?  In the face of death, carry on so that the lost ones did not live/die in vain?  I don't know.  All I know is that I love her books and I could not stop writing if I tried.

"Frostfire" - by Kai Meyer, Chapter 2 (Part 2/4)

            The path ahead of her seemed nearly endless and was furnished with only two lonely commodes.  All the drawers were glued shut.  The only door in the entire corridor led to the Czar’s Suite.  There was a spittoon – even that had a gold rim – but that was a miserable hiding place.

            Mouse was sweating, and not just from running.  Bit by bit, the situation was becoming serious.  The Roundsman had been trying to convict her for a long time.  He would drag her through the corridor by the scruff of her neck and present her triumphantly to the Concierge in the lobby.  “Here, a thief!  The Girl-Boy!” and then, yes then, she would be thrown out of the hotel, out into the cold of the Russian winter night.  Without a space she could crawl under.  Without a single copeck to buy a piece of bread or a hot tea.  To say nothing of the others who would finish her off outside.

            Mouse had to act.  Right now.  For a moment she played the the thought of swallowing the brooch.  But the thing was bigger than her thumb and had a stick pin attached.  Not a good idea.

            She had left a third of the corridor behind her when the shadow of the Roundsman loomed over the last bend.  The entrance to the Czar’s Suite, exactly in the middle of the floor, was a grandiose portal, with ornate columns on both sides and the relief of a roaring bear above the door.

            In front of it stood two pairs of shoes.

            Up to this point, Mouse had not gone on her daily collection tour.  Her cart which she pushed through the halls with the shoes of the guests – often a hundred pairs or more per night – stood on the floor below.

            Mouse had been responsible for the shoes of the guests for many years.  She was well-versed in the shapes, sizes, types of leather.  But in her entire life, she had never seen such curious specimens.

            The one pair was two costly lady’s shoes, worked with much filigree, with high heels, and made out of a material that looked like crystal.

            In harsh contrast to them stood another pair.  Two old leather shoes, flat and unadorned like those worn by the street boys who begged for leftovers at the kitchen entrance.  The strange thing about them was their condition – they looked as though an animal had chewed on them, after they had lain about a year in wind and weather in the forest.

            Mouse had no more time to wonder about them.  Following a sudden inspiration, she stuffed the brooch in one of the two ragged leather shoes – something warned her to leave the crystal pair alone – before she turned to face her pursuer. The Roundsman was not yet in eyeshot.  For a moment she had gooseflesh, and in that moment, it occurred to her for the first time how unusually cold it was here.  As though behind the door lay not a heated suite, but the snow-covered boulevard with its dancing whirlwinds of ice crystals.

            She jumped up and ran on, leaving suite, shoes, and brooch behind her.  She reached the next corner, wanted to breathe out a sigh of relief –

            And ran straight into the arms of the Roundsman.

The German Cult

Those who have ever taken a German class will know exactly what I am talking about.  For those who haven't, I will do my best to explain. 

People who study German are a minority.  Therefore, every time you get a large group of them together, there is an instant bond.  It doesn't matter if you have anything in common outside of German, or if you have entirely conflicting personalities.  There's still a sense of recognition, and a basic respect.

A German class will invariably come up with its own inside jokes.  "Gebiesten," happened in my high school (I have the T-shirt to prove it), "Deutsches L" is a big one at my college, and "...oder?" seems to be the Steven's Point catchphrase. 

Now here's what sucks about the study abroad program:

The students in my class come from all over the world:  Taiwan, Cameroon, Saudi Arabia, China, Sri Lanka, just to name a few.  They are here in this language course in order to take this monster of a test (The DSH - Imagine the ACT/SAT in German without bubbles.  I miss bubbles.) that they need in order to study at a German university - presumably to get a better education than they could in there homeland.  The Americans, on the other hand, are in the language course because that is where our program puts us.  We are here in Germany for fun, to experience German culture, and because we have sold our souls to ther German language.  The other foreigners are merely selling their bodies and minds, and don't understand why we would learn this ridiculous language just for fun.  Therefore, we are not meshing into a true German cult, and that saddens me.

It is true that learning German is difficult, but so is learning any other language.  In fact, for native English-speakers, German is one of the easier languages to learn, being part of the same family.  The myth that Spanish is easy is quickly dispelled by the multitude of irregular verb stems, some of which barely resemble the original verb. 

It is also a commonly held opinion that German sounds ugly.  Personally, I think it's sexy.  No, really. It has a deeper tone and a soothing rhythm, compared to English.  Spanish, Italian, French, just sound shrill and agitated.  Although in my class, the woman from Hungary would get my vote for the coolest accent.  It just sounds so sweet and musical.

For me, German is also a way to get in touch with my roots - I'm half German, as I may have mentioned.  Many Midwesterners have German heritage, and it is not uncommon to meet ones who try to show off and say "I took two years of German in high school - but I don't remember any of it except Guten Tag and Scheisse."  These are the ones who managed to escape the German cult before they signed their souls away - or rather, the souls who were not strong enough to make it all the way to the end.  Or, you know, decided on a more practical path of study.

It is true that German is not a highly marketable skill.  Yes, Germany is important in the business world, but most Germans speak English and have been learning it since grade school, which makes an American trying to learn German in college almost redundant.  Almost all of the German cultists have a second "career" major, German fulfilling the university's ridiculous requirement of needing more than one field of study, or simply for pure enjoyment.  That is another thing that sets us apart from the students of Spanish or Chinese or Computer Programming.  We are not suffering through this in order to make a lot of money further down the road. We are here by choice, because to some degree, all of us have fallen in love with the German language.

And that is what sets us apart from the rest of the class.

Please note that I am using the word "cult" in a humorous and/or metaphorical sense.  We do not sacrifice kittens at midnight.  Though we are secretly plotting world domination.

That was also a joke.  It wouldn't be a secret if I told.

A Senseless, Tragic Accident

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/118025164.html

I knew that kid.

And now he's dead.

I found out over a Facebook message, of all things.  His mother must have sent out a message to all of his Facebook friends, a brief, generic message telling that he died in a car crash.  A freaking car crash.  In fiction, a car crash is a euphemism for "killed by plot."  You forget that since it is used as a generic cause of death, that it really does happen a lot to people.  Sometimes people you know. 

I'm sure there's a plot in here somewhere, though.  I met him in high school.  In a film club that a mutual friend had started, and even though I had no particular interest in film, he needed a certain number of people to keep the club going, I liked the people there, and I had no better way to spend a Friday afternoon.

I think we first started talking when I was reading Stephan King's Dark Tower series.  (Of course everything comes down to books in my life.) He thought they were the best thing ever.  I thought they were good, but kind of a mindscrew.  I gave him a copy of King's Insomnia for his seventeenth birthday. 

And my senior year of high school, his junior year, I was not so dense as to miss the fact that he sort of indirectly asked me to prom.  But I was dumb enough to accept.  I brought my best female friend along, because it wasn't like a date or anything, I didn't like him that way...and I think I forgot to make that quite clear.  But hey, prom is an important plot point in any high school drama, and I was intrigued by the image of doing something so normal as going to plot with a boy (and a girl).  I wore a dress that night for the first time in about 12 years.  And even though I had probably one of the sweetest, most gentlemanly prom-boys (not a date) ever, I realized that night that I would never be able to like him as he (might have) liked me.  He was a nice boy, but he was still a boy, with a boy's sense of humor and a boy's taste in literature, and we didn't really have much in common anyway.  Nothing about him even struck me as particularly interesting, though admittedly I was wary of getting too close to him.  But his friends seemed to like him, and when I say he was nice, I'm not just searching for a generic, positive adjective; he really was one of those people that really tried to be polite and never really acted like a jerk.

So then I graduated, and we went on with our respective lives.  I thought of him only occasionally, mostly as a stepping-stone in my coming out story.  There was a squirmy feeling of unresolved issues, that I never really told him I didn't like him back, because I was not quite sure that he really liked me as such.  And going along with that, that I never came out with him.  That I more or less went to prom with him under false pretenses.  I felt that I had used him.  But such is life, and you move on until the pain is nearly forgotten, and you never see these people again, except perhaps at a reunion, or by mystical accident.

But not even that will happen.  I'll never be able to explain any of this to him.  That brings me no relief.  The only relieved feelings I have that I might feel guilty about are because I am in Germany and don't have to feel obligated to go to the funeral, to mingle with his relatives, and his friends who I vaguely knew in high school.  People who feel a greater absence for his loss than I do. 

It's strange.  When someone close to you dies, you go through the grieving process, that's perfectly understandable.  But when someone dies who wasn't particularly close to you but you knew beyond merely a face and a name, you don't know how you're supposed to feel.  Or you feel guilty because you aren't sad enough.  There's just shock, and the guilty relief at surviving this round, but you're still shaken by how close it was.  And of course life/death doesn't work like that, but emotions don't know that.

Plot:  A lesbian goes to prom with a boy who dies two years later.  What a stupid story.  I've put up with my Author's inanity thus far, but he really has a lot to answer for now.

"Frostfire" by Kai Meyer - Chapter 2, Part 1/4

The Chapter In Which We Meet the Girl-Boy Mouse.  And The Dangerous Roundsman.

            It is true that Mouse was a girl.  But only a few knew that.  Most took her for a boy.  And when Mouse looked in a mirror, sometimes she even believed it herself.

            It is also true that she was a thief.

            As though harried by a thousand devils, she ran through the corridors of the venerable Grand Hotel Aurora.  The man that followed her was hard on her heels.  Not a good day for a hotel-room thief.  Not even when she committed her theft with such great dexterity as Mouse.

            The upper floor of the Hotel Aurora was reserved for special guests.  At the front facing the boulevard, the famous Nevski Prospect, lay the splendid Czar’s Suite; a single night there cost more than Petersburg’s simple citizens earned in a year.

            Mouse rushed swiftly under the silver candle holders that emitted electric light.  The spittoons in the corners were of the finest porcelain.  Heavy commodes of mahogany stood against the walls of the corridor.  Lacy doilies fluttered in the backdraft as Mouse was chased past them.

            Sometimes she looked over her shoulder to see whether her pursuer had caught up to her yet.  But she still held on to her head start.  It was not the first time that she had escaped him.

            Mouse wore a page’s uniform that was patched in many places, if not so many that one of the highly esteemed guests would notice at the first glance.  Pants and jacket were of violet velvet, set with gleaming buckles and even shoulder loops sewn of golden carpet fringe.  Her patent shoes were immaculately cleaned – because that was Mouse’s task here in the Hotel Aurora:  to collect the shoes from the doors of all the guests at night, bring them into the celler, there to polish them bright and distribute them in front of the rooms before dawn.  Without switching a single pair, you understand.

            That took talent, claimed Kukushka, the dancing partner in the ballroom.  That took absolutely nothing, Mouse said.  Only the willingness to spend the night on your feet and to sleep during the day.  And not even that was an achievement, when one had no other choice.

            The footsteps behind Mouse grew louder.

            Was there a particular reason why, after all these years, she was about to be caught?  That evening she had cleaned her plate of the guests’ leftovers, and silently let the teasing of the pages and chambermaids pass over her. “Girl-boy,” they sneered.  “There goes the girl-boy, and it stinks like old shoes.”

            All this she bore every day.  She had done nothing to call blame upon herself, really nothing.

            Except perhaps this tiny theft.  Not her first by any means, but until now she had always gotten away with it.

            She looked back again.  The heavily carpeted floor almost entirely swallowed up her pursuer’s footsteps.  Mouse took the golden brooch out of the pocket of her uniform and tightly closed her fist around it.  The door to the room had been unlocked – that wasn’t her fault, was it? – and the brooch had lain out in the open on a heap of clothing.   And thieves were warned of everywhere at that, especially in such bad times.  Couldn’t the owner have paid better attention?

            No, Mouse was really not at fault here.  She had only accepted the invitation to put the thing in her pocket.  And what had happened, had happened.  Apologies, madam.

            It was a question/matter of honor to bring her loot to all the rest in the cellar.  Later, anyway.  For now she had to get rid of the thing.  Namely, a place where no one at all would stick their nose.  First of all, away with it, so that none but her could find it.  Certainly not the Roundsman, who had been waiting to catch her in the act for ages.  No evidence, no theft.  No punishment for Mouse.

I Got Gaynst, But I'm Not a Gayngster*

*Terms are defined here and here

I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones.  I grew up in a large city in a country where I am at least legally allowed to exist, was never picked on, have accepting parents without religious fervor, and a large circle of like-minded friends.  All I need is a lover, and I could make my own “It Gets Better” video.  Or maybe not, considering that it was never all that bad in the first place.  Except for maybe the uncertainty and self-loathing, but that came from a lot of sources.

Dear Dan Savage, it’s great to know that I'm going to have a great life with my partner and sperm-donr baby when I'm, like, 40, but that doesn’t make being nineteen today any better.

For instance, today in my German class, the theme was divorce.  We had a lovely sheet of statistics telling us that couples who live in a city have a 44% greater chance of separating.  Or if the woman works full-time, a 25% increase.  Or if the woman has more education, a 45% increase.

Looking at those numbers, it occurred to me that they had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH ME.  I am never going to have to deal with being more educated than a husband.  But according to this worksheet, I don’t exist.  In a marriage, there is “the woman” and “the man.”  No other option.  In fact, it is essentially illegal for me to get married (in my home state/most places in the world).  So I simultaneously do not exist and am illegal. 

Now imagine discussing this topic in a room of 20 people who all are just treating it like another worksheet and are not having their existence violated.

Do you:

a)  out yourself, make a scene, and complain to the management about implied homophobia in the curriculum material?

b)  keep silent and do not take part in this discussion, all the while hating yoursef for a coward?

c)  mention the existence of homosexuality while not directly connecting the issue to yourself and test the waters, seeing what the rest of the class really does think about homosexuality, while at the same time wondering how many of them are now suspicious?

d)  Turn into a raging feminist and ask why can’t the man stay at home why the woman works, and why is manly pride socially acceptable but one can’t have female pride without turning into a raging lesbian feminist?

When people think of homophobia, they think of gay-bashing and bullies and suicidal teenagers and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but in reality, homophobia does not come from laws.  It doesn't matter that I can get married in Iowa, or that I can be in the military and talk about my sex life (had I one) at the same time.  Homophobia comes from homework and television commercials.  It comes from a girl complaining "That's so gay!" and being called on it, explains that she isn't homophobic because she has a (token) gay friend.  Being systematically ignored, outlawed, and laughed at is better than being burned at the stake**, but far from an equal existence.

Another incident:  "'Schwuel', that means humid, right? Not 'schwul.'  That means...like when a man is very feminine. (Giggle)."  Well, no, it means when a man is sexually attracted to another man, but that's all details.  Every single one of my complaints here is a tiny little detail, and perhaps it could seem like I am blowing this out of proportion and making too big a deal out of this.  But it adds up.  Always being the butt of a joke.  Always finding out that people you thought you respected consider you to be the butt of a joke, even if they wouldn't dream of applying it to you specifically.  And most importantly, the media that are not screened for political correctness and just go off general knowledge - those are the most dangerous.  Like worksheets for German as Second Language students.

So please.  Have some consideration, world.  Know we are out there.  Realize that 10% is not an insignificant amount in a class of 20 people.

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**The word "faggot" comes from an old English word meaning "kindling," back in the days when homosexuals were burned as witches.  So every time you call someone a fag, you are threatening to burn them at the stake.  Chew on that.