You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.

A couple days ago, as I sat in the waiting room of the dentist's office, I rolled my eyes and readjusted my position as two families of children came pouring inside, loud, rambunctious, and altogether way too excited to be at the dentist. There was an Asian woman who, mysteriously, had a blonde/blue-eyed son, about six, and a dark haired daughter who was probably four. Following them was an elderly Mexican man with a great shock of white hair and eyebrows, and a Looney Tunes-eyed boy and his sister, who were four and three respectively. (I know this because they told practically everyone in the room.)

As strange or unexpected as this may seem, the children found each other and began running crazily around the small room, screaming their heads off about nothing in general and jumping off the chairs, shouting "ka-pow!" and "ka-zam!" as they did. Eventually, they realized that Elmo's World was playing on the TV above their heads, so they stopped and turned their attention upward, laughing hysterically at things that were far from amusing.

I found myself thinking back on my childhood, when I would have found that very joke hilarious, and would not have realized the network's sly didacticism sneaking its way through the airwaves. I also would not have known what didacticism was, even if I had been aware of it.

A song started and the little girl grabbed her new female friend and they began to dance in the way that only small children can. Her brother was quick to pull his sister away and say, "Let's all dance! You dance with me and she can dance with him. Boy with girl." He put his arms where society taught him they were supposed to be. His sister pulled away: "No, I want to dance with her. You dance with him," and quickly reunited with her first partner. The blonde boy, clearly the oldest and wisest of the group, turned to the other boy, reached out his hands, and said simply, "Do you want to dance?"

Something in that moment made it very clear how our culture teaches us, as we grow up, that men dance with women and that's the only possible combination. We're not aware of same-sex couples (unless our parents are such) and, conversely, we're not aware that there is anything wrong with two men taking hands and shaking their groove thing. We only know what we are taught, and seeing this rendered the delicate nature of parenting all the more apparent to me, and made the importance of future parents teaching their children that there is nothing to be ashamed of just that - important.

A few weeks ago, Hunter and I were walking into the movie theater from the parking garage and a car sped by behind us as the man in the passenger seat shouted a homophobic epithet at us. We weren't holding hands, we weren't even close to each other. It was the first time that someone had ever said something like that to me, outside of a friendly jest, and it was the first time that I had realized that even when we're not touching in any way, it is still clear that we're a couple. Being gay isn't something that goes away depending on your action. It's something that sticks to you, that flies around the air, and, apparently, causes those who were taught that homosexuality is wrong to be disgusted by your having a conversation with the man you love. I was not offended at all, and it hasn't affected me in any way, insofar as I think about that man in the car and why he can't (or won't) realize that we're just like him...

Only smarter, nicer, and more attractive.

All I Ask is a Chair That Tilts...

As Heath Ledger's Joker says in The Dark Knight: I'm a man of simple tastes.

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy, to please me. My favorite things are, for the most part, miniscule and, to most, unimportant, but these little things bring me unimaginable joy and make life worth living. Of course, I do enjoy big things - new cell phones and iPods, vacations, etc., but I find those things meaningless in the grand scheme of life; in the bigger picture. I have compiled today a sampling of the things that are meaningful to me - the things that make me incomprehensibly giddy - the things that make me love this crazy thing I call my life. (This is, by no means, an all-inclusive list.)

Joni Mitchell's soprano and the baritone of Rufus Wainwright, the strings in "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon, good acting, being scared shitless in a movie, a well-sung Sondheim tune, when Michael John surprises me, William Finn and Fred Ebb's sense of humor and ability to break my heart, seeing Hunter smile and listening to him talk about Dreamchild, hearing Heather say something mean or seeing her laugh, how my mom calls me Lanny, Sherie's "And totally miiiiine" riff in "I Can Do Better Than That," inside jokes with my sister about our family and watching trashy MTV with her, opening a new CD, finishing a really amazing book and closing the cover, going to Sam French and being so conflicted about what to buy, laughing out loud at something funny when no one else is around, remembering when Kelly was our best friend and how excited a new cast recording would make her, writing anything at all - no matter how small or stupid it is

The world is good, she said.
Enjoy its shit, she said.
'Cause this is it, she said...

Things I Found Under the Seats in My Car Today.

- Pay stubs for four weeks
- An empty Target bag
- An empty Barnes & Noble bag
- A receipt from Panera, a receipt from Mythos, a receipt from Starbucks, a receipt from the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble
- Three pens
- Six water bottles in various states of consumption
- Two empty half-size cans of Sprite from Heather's house
- An empty Starbucks cup with "Blaine" written on the side
- A newspaper from July 9th
- Directions to Hirshee's house and then to the Morgan-Wixon Theatre
- A program from Songs From An Unmade Bed
- "How I Paid for College" by Marc Acito
- A Samuel French bookmark that I'm pretty sure came out of "How I Paid for College"
- Disc One of the Rent OBCR

3:15.

I feel every minute pass through my body;
Every second, every millisecond, everything.
I don't know what to do, but stare at the ceiling
Until I pick up someone else's pen
And write.

It still feels like forever,
These last 15 minutes.
It feels like a never-ending sequence of more time
And more time and more time, etc.
Like it will never stop,
Like my eyes will never dry,
And like my head will fall off
And plummet to the floor
And roll down to my mother's desk
Where she'll pick it up and cry.

My hand feels every word I put down.
It's exhausting even to write,
And I pray for my thoughts to stop coming
To save my appendage.

turkey sandwich bagel tour ballroom grass water bench Kane ditching class and Ravenhill I'm rest as corny

I am.
& crazy.