The last few days have been awful, downright awful, and I know that the best option for my emotional sanity and well-being is to get myself out of this situation. It is a bittersweet decision, and it's not a decision that came easily. It is sweet because it will enable me to work some things in my life, as well as because by moving home I'll be able to reconnect with many of my friends I haven't seen in ages; and it is bitter because by moving home I am leaving behind in Cincinnati many of the people who are most important to me. There are pros and cons to either decision I could've made, staying here or leaving, and I honestly think leaving is the best decision of the two. Am I excited about it? No, not really. It's going to be a difficult transition. It means the end of another chapter of my life, albeit a sad chapter, and the next chapter really holds no more promise than the last. 2010 isn't making out to be the best year of my life, as it was for 2007, 2008, and 2009. These last three years have been hell, and maybe by moving out I can re:situate myself and launch forward into something new. I just know there's no future for me here in Cincinnati, or at least not the future I want. In all honesty, I am in love with a girl who doesn't love me back, and unless I get away from the situation she will never again be a good friend but will be merely the girl who wouldn't love me. And the emotional hell of that is too great for me. Sometimes you don't get what you want out of life, but sometimes you get what you need, and maybe moving back to the quiet countryside is exactly what I need.
In lighter news, yesterday was the kegger for the Haitian victims. It was great to spend time with so many good friends. Dylan, Tyler, Rob, Mandy, Tony, Amos, Blake, Nate, Jobst, Isaac, Brandy. It will be sad to leave them behind, though I plan on returning to Cincinnati for a few days every week or so.
It sucks not having a car. I had an interview today. It went pretty well.
My good friend Jobst treated me to a Chinese buffet for lunch and then we went downtown and parked at Fountain Square and walked to the Cincinnati Tobacconist and he bought me my graduation gift: an absolutely beautiful pipe and a blend of pipe tobacco. We returned to my place and our friend Isaac joined us and we smoked our pipes and played chess. I won one and Isaac won one. Poor Jobst lost both times he played.
Tomorrow I may be going to a bar with Sarah and one of her friends. Or I may be lounging around the house with my friend Tony after he gets off work. It's all up in the air right now. The bar scene isn't really mine but sometimes when I go to bars I like to pretend and it ends up being awkward and funny.
On Saturday my friends Dylan and Tyler are coming into town, and we're going to a kegger at my friend Nate's house. It's a $5 cover charge and all proceeds go to the American Red Cross to held post-earthquake Haiti. A lot of people at the school got really upset about it. But I'm graduated now, so it doesn't matter. Doesn't affect me one tiny bit.
I'm tired of being unemployed. I'm tired of being alone. I feel like my life is going nowhere. But at least I have this computer. And I have the silence at night to write. And I write fantasies and transcribe them into novels. And I write echoes of my own tormented mind. And these echoes become novels as well. Set in postapocalyptic scenarios. Because I feel that's what my life is. I've already had the best. Now I'm running on fumes. There's nowhere to look but down.
Monday. Dad
came down to visit, and we got breakfast at Frisch’s. I had an egg and toast
paired with orange juice. We talked about my fruitless job search, and he was
actually quite understanding. “In this economy, it’s almost impossible to get a
job.” He said come the end of April, when the lease at the Lehman House is
finished, I can move back in with him and Mom. Sarah and Ams are planning on
getting an apartment, asked if I wanted to join them. HELL NO. Another year of
hell being around Sarah? No thanks! I went and visited Sarah on her break at
Millennium, and we got Taco Bell for lunch. I got her a necklace from one of
the cheap toy dispensers. Ams and I ate at O’Charley’s for lunch (her treat)
and we talked about her drama with Chris and my drama with Sarah & Maggie.
Tuesday. Jessie
came back to town for the fire-up of the winter semester. I visited her at
Aroma’s and got a latte. Sarah and I were supposed to hang out at Starbucks
tonight, but she was unreliable as always, so instead I went to Highlands with Jessie,
Kugler, and Gambill.
Wednesday. I went
to the Starbucks in Tusculum and did some reading. The barista girl flirted
with me. I spent the day searching for jobs, running errands, and doing chores
around the house. Sarah got dinner with Moose, and then the two of them came
over and we all drank beer and took shots and played music. I was drunk and
happy and carefree.
Thursday. I’ve
come down with some sort of respiratory infection: awful coughing, itching
lungs, difficulty breathing. And my body aches. I tried to eat lunch but
couldn’t finish it. Jobst came over for a bit. When he left I went to Starbucks
for coffee and to read, but I got tired and went home and took a hot bath and
slept. Around 6:30 Jobst and I went to his depression support group. No one
showed up except a cute girl named Allie. We waited ½ an hour, no one came, so
I took Jobst home. I spent the evening at Roh’s Street Café with Rob, Mandy,
Tony & Jessie.
Friday. Mandy
K. is in town, and she stopped by. I fixed us some coffee and breakfast. She
may be moving to Cincinnati soon, even has a place to live. Her sister Sarah
got engaged and married. Her two brothers are engaged. It makes her lonely.
“It’s not a race,” I told her. She went to visit other people, and when Sarah
got home we paid her fee at Blockbuster and then went to Kroger for cold meds
and tissues. I went to House Church at Rob & Mandy’s with Isaac, Amos and
Jessie. We ate pizza, talked about God.
Saturday. I spent
the day writing. Ams got me Chipotle for dinner. Jessie came over for a little
bit. I signed up for an online dating service but so far no interest. I could
be Sherlock Holmes: based upon several lines of evidence (too much to write
down), I’ve deduced that on January 10 Sarah slept with a guy named Frank. It was
a drunken act which she regrets. Frank regrets it, too, because he likes
Katherine. Sarah & Katherine had a falling out which they healed on January
18, and now Frank & Katherine are dating.
Sunday. Jobst
called for a pick-up from Cheviot, and I obliged. He bought me two packs of
Basic 100s to say thanks. I spent the day writing and drinking coffee. Sarah
came home late and made a bunch of comments about how she can never find a good
guy, and I got mad and went on a drive to vent. When I got home I wanted to get
drunk so bad but am out of liquor. So I drank wine instead, and it worked like
a charm! “I’m afraid you’ll become an alcoholic,” Ams said.
My brakes blew out yesterday. I pulled up beside the house to park and heard the most god-awful sound and saw bits of metal blow out from underneath my car. I turned it around and drove down the road and sure enough the brakes weren't working and I had to use the emergency brake to slowly pull it to a stop in the overflow parking at the school down the street. It won't be fixed till around Monday or Tuesday which means I'm car-less and which also means it'll be pulling teeth to get to job interviews. Oh well.
Last night Sarah and I went to The Sunset Pub down the street. A hole-in-the-wall bar with dim lighting and a worn pool table. We were really the only ones there and we sat and talked and played a digital game on a boxy computer and she had a beer and I had a shot of bourbon. This morning Mandy drove me to Dayton since my car is broken and she made me coffee and it was delicious and we shared lots of laughs and I'm forever grateful for her kindness. On Saturday my friend Isaac is throwing a kegger in honor of Haiti. Five dollars to get a cup for the keg and all proceeds go to the American Red Cross. A lot of people are going to be there: Isaac (obviously), Nate, Blake, Amos, Andy, Sarah, Amanda, Mandy, Rob, Dylan. It should be a good time. It has gotten fiercely cold and snow has blanketed the city once again. I'm at 165 pounds which means I'm well over halfway to my goal of 140#. That's exciting and encouraging.
I hate being sick. The awful cough and the itching lungs and the sore throat is gone, but now I am more congested than I've ever been. My head is hurting and my nose won't stop running and my ears are popping. Not a big fan. But I'm not letting it render me useless. Today I hope to finish several pages on one of my books, "the toothless kiss of skeletons." I have reformatted and redesigned it so that it comes out to be about 250 pages. The original would have been around 600 pages. I have been really wrestling with this project, trying to figure out where to go with it; and I've finally come to a certifiable conclusion. Speaking of conclusions, I've again decided to take "A Dream For Us" in a different, non-zombie route. I want to break from the zombie genre and enter into the mainstream. Hopefully with "A Dream For Us," "The Boy Who Hoped," and "the toothless kiss of skeletons" I can do so.
This week has been marked with both good points and bad points. A pretty vicious cycle slammed me for several days, and I was overcome with great depression. The cycle began the week before last, and during that time I foolishly said some things that hurt someone very close to me. Thankfully everything is resolved and the friendship is back on track. It has been difficult wrestling with this depression, and it has taken a lot out of me. In TIME MAGAZINE there was an add for some sort of bipolar depression medicine, and the add said: "Bipolar depression does not just affect you, it can consume you." How true. Your perception of reality is distorted, hopelessness invades, and your world becomes all dark and numb.
Yet amidst the depression there have been high points. I've gotten to hang out with very good friends, and I've written some amazing work on one of my stories (I am currently working on three at the moment). The next few days look pretty promising as well. Tonight I'll be hanging out with my friend Matt. Tomorrow I'll be hanging out with my friend Mandy, then going to House Church, and then perhaps going clubbing at Mount Adams with friends from the House Church.
Oh: I'm also downright, awfully sick. Some sort of respiratory infection. I've gotten it before. Labored breathing. Itching lungs. A god-awful cough. I keep coughing up stuff that I didn't even know I had in me. It's not fun at all. Oh, and it makes my muscles itch something awful, especially in the middle of my back. I'm not a big fan.
Monday. Turns
out Sarah DID have sex with a stranger Saturday night. My heart crumbled when I
found out. Why am I so in love with this woman???? Maggie was going to come
over tonight, but she got wasted last night and has an awful hangover, so that
fell through. She promised to come over soon. It’ll be interesting to see if
that pans out. I joined Sarah for a trip to T-Mobile. She could tell I was
pretty upset over her sleeping with some random guy the other night but didn’t
say anything, and neither did I. We grabbed dinner and coffee at the Barnes
& Noble Starbucks. She went to her “brother’s” house (probably Keith’s).
Tuesday. I drank
bourbon late last nigh and felt nauseas until 4 AM. Maggie came over around
11:30. We got lunch from Taco Bell and watched TV. She made a comment about me
being sexy, haha. She left for work, and Sarah and I cleaned the house. Ams
went to Dayton. Sarah and I watched “The Hurt Locker” and “The Exorcist.”
Wednesday. I was
bored all morning, so I went to the Levee to walk around. I went to a bible
study in Camp Washington with Isaac, Amos, Rob & Mandy. Amos and I had
great conversation when I dropped him off at their Summit View apartment.
Sarah, Ams and I watched “The Proposal.” Sandra Bullock is hot and I want to
move to Sitka, Alaska so badly. “You’d fit in there,” Sarah said. It’s a good
dream.
Thursday. I need
to get over Sarah. There’s no happy ending here. She has no interest in me,
sleeps around with strangers, and for all I know she’s a walking STD. Unless I
martyr my feelings for her, my affection for her will be my own slaying. Amos
& I ate lunch at Skyline Chili, and Maggie came over to use my printer and
then left without saying bye. She was high as hell, too. “I really don’t like
her,” Ams said. When Sarah got home we went to Applebee’s and I said some
hurtful things. There were tears in her eyes on the ride home. I felt awful,
haven’t felt so low and rotten in a long while. She went for a drive to cry,
and when she got back we talked, I apologized profusely, and I told her,
“You’re my best friend, you know? I’ve never been closer to anyone before, and
I’m terrified of losing you as a friend. And so I erect defenses against this,
self-preservation, and I sabotage the friendship on my own accord. But the
truth is, Sarah, I care about you SO FUCKING MUCH, and I don’t want to lose
you.”
Friday. Jessie
returned to Illinois following her early week class. Jess Lynn was in town. She
came over, and we went to the Starbucks in Mariemont and shared a French press.
When we got home, Dylan was here. She thought he was cute. So do I! Dylan and I
went to House Church at Rob & Mandy’s. Dinner & Discipleship. Lots of
good folk were there: Isaac, Amos, Tony H. Dylan, Sarah and I joined Rob,
Mandy, Mandy’s sister Kaitlyn, and Tony H. for a nigh in Mount Adams. The Blind
Lemon was too crowded for our tastes, so we went to another bar and got a
table. I had two shots of Grey Goose vodka and Tony H. and I shared shots of
bourbon. We went to The Pavilion and danced like fools in the club, it was
amazing. Sarah and I grinded up against one another. Some dude grabbed Kaitlyn
and yelled, “Let’s fuck!” so we left.
Saturday. Dylan
and I saw “The Book of Eli” in Newport, visited with Sarah at Tri-Health, and
then went to Jungle Jim’s. He headed home and I took a nap. I woke depressed. I
was alone all night and the depression overwhelmed me, I wanted to cut so
badly. I forced myself out of the house, went to The Sunset Pub and bought
three shots and sat alone at the bar and shot them. I called Amos and Mandy and
Nate to see if anyone wanted to join me, but they were all busy. So I drove
home drunk and then sat in the dark alone and listened to music.
Sunday. I woke
up, felt a bit better, read the Bible for a little while. Sarah and I had eggs
and toast for lunch. She went to her mom’s and I went to the Starbucks in
Mariemont to read, drink coffee, and enjoy biscotti. I took my hot caramel
macchiato and walked around Mariemont in a cold and drizzling rain. I went to
the stone chapel and stood in the rain and drank my coffee and prayed for a
bit. I prayed for God to take away my feelings for Sarah, prayed that he would
bring me a wife and soon. I thanked him for my loving family, for all my great
and cherished friends, and I asked God to make something beautiful out of my
life. I pleaded with him to take away my poain, and if not to at least grant me
peace, joy, and endurance in the midst of it. I stood there and thought about
how she ignores me, and I didn’t thank God for this but I thought about how it
was for the best, because we’re both fucked up and would probably be toxic to
one another. I headed back home and joined Mandy, Kaitlyn, and Tony for bourbon
shots and a trip to Steak & Shake. We were going to hit up bars in Newport
but they were far too crowded.
Dad came down this morning and we went to Frisch's for breakfast. I got a coffee, orange juice, toast and eggs. We talked about a lot of stuff, primarily what I want to do in life. I really have no idea. I know there are things I like to do, and I should probably head in that direction. I have been struggling to find a job, and I've been harassed by my mom about it. She doesn't seem to believe that I have been rigorously looking and following up on leads all to no avail. Places are either not hiring (with the bad economy and the fact that January-February is the slump season for most businesses, this is no surprise) or I am unqualified (due to the economy, lots of experienced people are out of work and the result is that whatever job I apply for, there are countless others applying who have tons more experience). My dad has looked around Dayton and Cincinnati and has seen firsthand the slump. Come the end of April, if I don't have a job, I'll be moving back in with my parents, which will be sad (not because I dislike my parents, but because I'll be leaving all my Cincinnati friends behind). Right now things are looking pretty grim. I'm struggling to pay the bills and have almost no money to spend. I spend all day at home doing absolutely nothing except fruitlessly searching for jobs and wrestling through my depression. Life is bleak, and I don't seem to be moving forward, but I must persevere; what other choice do I have?
On a lighter note, last night I got to spend some time with good friends. Mandy, her sister Caitlin, Tony and I went to Newport and then to Steak & Shake. Tony had bought some bourbon, and we all took a shot or two. Bourbon is so delicious, there's no way around that, my friends.
It is difficult, in my darker moments, to perceive even a single shred of light. The darkness becomes overpowering and even suffocating. Reality becomes skewed as if it were a photograph drenched in black-and-white or sepia. I perceive everything under the umbrella of the shadows, and I let these perceptions become the undercurrents to my thoughts and actions and convictions. I assume the worst of others as I am drenched in feelings of extreme loneliness and sorrow. I feel ugly and unlovable. I come to the conclusion that my friendships are shams and that everyone is lying to me, everyone is deceiving me. I become convinced that life is cyclical and that there is no change on the horizon. Tears crawl down my cheeks and I have no choice but to persevere. And when the depression begins to fade, the light begins to break; and hope again raises its head, and the light illuminates all that I have to be thankful for. I stand from my fetal position upon the floor and wipe the tears from my eyes and stand tall with shoulders rigid and face the world. And I do not face the world alone but with a myriad of great friends who stand beside me and support me. I may perceive that I am totally alone, but reality skewed is just that: a skewed version; and when the darkness lifts reality again shifts and contorts into its rightful image, and I see that I am not alone but flocked by those who love me and care for me, and it is a wonderful feeling. Light shattering the darkness, as momentary as it may be, is a relief, and I breathe deeply and gird myself again for when the shadows shall encompass once more.
Yesterday afternoon I grabbed coffee with my good friend Jess Lynn. We went to a coffee shop in Mariemont and drank some French pressed coffee with a lemon loaf. We talked about writing, coffee, and her dream of starting her own coffee shop. I hope she does it. My friend Dylan came over, and we went to a house church with lots of good friends. Mandy fixed dinner, Rob led the message. Afterwards, when Sarah got home, we went to Mount Adams, and we went to a bar for drinks and laughter, and then migrated down the street to The Pavilion, a club, and we danced silly dances. This morning Dylan and I went to Newport and saw the movie "The Book of Eli." I give it a B- or a C+. We grabbed lunch at Sarah's work, and then we went to Jungle Jim's. He has headed home, and now I plan on relaxing for the rest of the night, winding down from a so-far busy weekend. Here is a picture Sarah took of everyone last night at the bar:
Yesterday was a bad day. I have bad days, sometimes, as does everyone. This one was REALLY bad. I don't really want to go into it. What sucks the most, though, is that when these days strike, when I'm cycling really badly, I have a warped view of reality and speak from that warped view of reality, sometimes saying hurtful things. Yesterday I made one of my best friends cry, and let me tell you, the pain of that is the worst pain imaginable. Seeing the tears in her eyes was like having a wrench driven into my heart. We talked about it later in the evening; I profusely apologized and explained myself, and she said everything is cool between us, but I can't help but fear that it's not. I just... I just keep seeing the tears in her eyes, the pain etched across her face, and it is something that I never want to see again. I feel like a deuschbag and a jackass and a bastard all rolled into one.
I have lost many friends over the years. The people I have grown closest to are no longer a part of my life. I have grown really close to Sarah, and the fear of losing Sarah--a fear conditioned into my psyche due to being back-stabbed, betrayed, and abandoned by those friends closest to me--consumes me. It doesn't make any rational sense: "The moment you get really close and intimate with someone, they will leave you." But it's happened so often throughout my life that it sticks at the forefront of my mind. And because I have been fearing losing Sarah, I have been constructing walls, erecting defenses, to guard against this; and in doing so, I am simply guaranteeing that my fear is realized--except losing her will not be due to what she's done or any other circumstances but due to my own foolish, fear-driven actions. This happened over a year ago with one of my best friends Jessie. She called me out on it, and stopped the madness, and we're still really great friends. Now it's happening with Sarah, and it says as much about the nature of our friendship as it does about me. Our friendship is quite solid and secure, and we've been through hell and back, through a maze of ups and downs and twists and turns, and we're still really good friends. I guess I'm just afraid of losing that, and in that fear I try to guard against the unimaginable pain I would feel as the dissolution of a friendship. I don't know. All I know is that Sarah means the world to me, and I can't imagine life without her.
Sarah and I had a nice heart-to-heart last night. I had hoped that me confessing my feelings for her back in November wouldn't have a negative affect on our relationship. I had been certain it hadn't, but it has gotten to the point where we cannot be open and honest with each other because I will interpret what she says one way, and she will interpret what I say in another way. The result is that our friendship has entered into a different dynamic, and I hate it. Not the friendship, the dynamic. I long for the days of last summer when we could be open and honest with each other. She's one of my best friends, and it's gotten to the point where we're more like mere friends than anything else. The type of friend with whom you share funny stories and the events of your day, but with whom you don't truly open yourself up, revealing your hopes and fears and hurts and disappointments. We used to wrestle with one another and beside one another through the trials of life, and now, quite frankly, we can't. It's not her fault. It's mine. There's no way around that. We talked about it tonight, and I regret ever telling her that I liked her. I knew by doing so that I was shooting myself in the foot. I knew she didn't like me, for a variety of reasons, yet this stupid thing we called "hope" forced me into that damn coffee shop, forced me to have that damn conversation. And I use damn in the strictest sense--because if I could, I would damn that conversation.
I have lost so many friends over the last five years that I realize how precious friendship can be. And I know right now that, while the feelings for Sarah are gone, a scar remains. Not a scar in my heart, nor in hers, but in our friendship. And I fear it will never be as it was. She told me, quite frankly, that until we move out, the dynamic will not change. We'll be stuck in that rut. And I don't want that to happen. I want the original dynamic to return. But I went and screwed things up, just like I always do. There are so many lessons I could learn from this, and none are optimistic. In the end, I fear, once May comes, when we go our separate ways, we will be friends no longer. She's going to be living with Amanda, and I'll see her there, of course. But I fear we won't spend time together anymore. I fear that we won't have the conversations we used to have. I fear that she will just be another friend that was lost. While most of my friendships have been lost due to me being back-stabbed, betrayed, or flat-out abandoned, this one would be one of those friendships that is lost due to my own foolishness. Oh, here's a good lesson learned: if you fall head-over-heels for a girl, and if you know you're not good enough for her, don't say shit, because there's never a happy ending.
I have spent most of the morning revamping "A Dream For Us" and contemplating different routes to take it, and I've finally made up my mind.
I'm going to turn it into a zombie book. Why? Excellent question!
First, I enjoy writing about zombies. While most zombie books out there are "thrillers" in the sense that the bulk of the story is focused on survival, and includes a heavy amount of gore and firepower, I enjoy writing about zombies for different reasons. First, I simply enjoy it for the fun of it. It's exciting to write about life-and-death situations, and the possible scenarios within a zombie apocalypse are endless, if the mind is willing to tramp about such unknown territory. Second, I enjoy writing about it because of the theological and philosophical implications. Writing about a zombie apocalypse isn't just fun because of the action sequences; it's also fun thanks to the way I get to explore the evolution of theology and philosophy; it's also fun because theological and philosophical worldviews must be shattered and rebuilt. The theological and philosophical undercurrents of a zombie apocalypse are so vast that entire books have been written on the subject (one is sitting on my bedside table right now). Third, I enjoy writing about zombies because I get to explore how individuals and groups would react under pressure, disintegrating or strengthening; I get to explore the human psyche and its struggle to adapt, react, and re:adapt (kudos to Michael Scott for that one) amidst the trauma. And fourthly, I enjoy writing about a zombie apocalypse because it shatters everything we have ever known--civilization, morality, and truth are strained and even broken. In my last book, "Dwellers of the Night," I explored the theological ramifications from several different perspectives; there are the perspectives of "God Is Dead" to "God Has Caused This" to "God Is Love Amidst Pain & Suffering." Philosophical themes are explored, too: the nature of chance versus destiny; the nature of mankind, its good and its evil; the questioning of morality and the bases of it therein; the nature of love and romance; and lastly, construed throughout the entire work but brought to fantastic clarity in the last thirty pages, the nature of hope and hopelessness.
Secondly, to answer the original question, it enables me to develop the characters more fully. Character development is driven by external--and internal--circumstances. A zombie apocalypse makes it easy for this to happen. The external circumstance is the zombie apocalypse. The internal circumstance is the characters' responses to this. In my first zombie book, "36 Hours", written six years ago, I didn't understand character development. My latest zombie book, "Dwellers of the Night," is drenched with character development, primarily focused on the main character: there, the main character goes from being a loving, friendly man to a cold, calloused, bitter, heartless, and selfish creature who cares only about himself--yet underlying this cold heart is the flickering flame of a hope that refuses to extinguish, a hope that is futile and empty. Thirdly, again to answer the original question, I have sold 37,000 copies of my previous two zombie works--"36 Hours" and "Dwellers of the Night"--and so I already have what could be called a "fan base" for the zombie genre. What's special about writing genre is that the readers of that genre tend to be loyal. While genre readers are much more critical of the genre than mainstream readers (many mainstream readers won't touch genre works, whereas many genre readers won't touch mainstream works), they will buy up all new publications or at least give them a read online to see if they're interested.
Fourthly, I can make it in a serial novel. A series of novellas--150 pages each--with twelve volumes. The entire volume would be called "The Procyon Strain", and it would cover the first twelve months of a zombie apocalypse. "Book One: A Dream For Us" will begin on July 31st and the last book, "Book Twelve: Sunset Royale" will end on July 31st of the next year. Each book will be ridiculously cheap, and I will get one to two dollars per copy sold; if readers get engrossed into the work, then they'll have no choice but to keep buying the new installments, resulting in me receiving anywhere from twelve to twenty-four dollars per entire volume sold.
Sarah and I cruised around Newport for a while this afternoon, searching for a T-Mobile store (we had no luck). Craving some coffee and not wanting to allow the trip to be a waste of time, I suggested we get some coffee. Sarah agreed. So we parked outside the Levee and went inside, and she got a muffin and coffee, and I got a pizza bagel and an iced caramel macchiato, and we browsed the classics in Barnes & Noble and flipped through some humorous post-cards. I miss working at a cafe, and tomorrow, I think, I am going to call every coffee shop within a twenty-mile radius and see if I can't land a job somewhere. My experiences in the workplace are essentially relegated to making coffee and customer service, and a job as a barista would enable me to make some income while simultaneously enjoying myself. I just don't want to work at Starbucks (even though I'll drink their cheap coffee; and I don't mean cheap by the price).
Monday. Jessie
and I shared breakfast before she headed off to her Early Week class. I spent
the day looking for jobs and had chicken & mushrooms for lunch. I
accidentally napped for two hours, woke up when Maggie called me. The voicemail
was just background noise and she didn’t answer when I tried returning the
call. Sarah, Ams & I watched “Year One.” Sarah looked so cute in her jammies
with her shirt hiked up, revealing her chubby waist and stomach. I’m such a
sucker for chubby girls!
Tuesday. I
talked to Maggie last night, and it’s apparent that she doesn’t want to spend
anymore time with me. Still reeling over her ex. That’s fine: as much as I
denied my ongoing affections for Sarah, I know that such denial was wishful
thinking. Sarah’s like a drug I crave, a drug I’ve never tasted and will never
taste, a drug withheld. Jobst and I hung out this afternoon: lunch at Frisch’s
followed by an Omnimax film on Egyptian mummies at the Museum Terminal. I went
to the Hilltop to return some things, and I bought and made a latte. I’m not
allowed to work there anymore since I’m no longer a student, but Karen said I
could cover a shift Saturday. Jessie came over, and we watched episodes of
“Arrested Development” until Sarah got home around 8:00. I pulled a muscle in
my back and was immobile for about an hour. Both Jessie and Sarah wanted to
take me to the ER, but I refused. Eventually it got better. Sarah and I were up
until midnight watching shows on torture methods.
Wednesday. Mandy
& I grabbed lunch at some tea house in Clifton. We watched an episode of
“Arrested Development” before she headed home to do homework. Tamar, a
neighborhood boy, came over and drank some vodka. I found out and chewed him
out. Sarah and I went to the UC basketball game with her friends Justin,
Dustin, and Henry. A decent time with nachos. I got buzzed off a single beer.
Thursday. Snow
fell all day, about 4”. The roads are awful. Sarah got off work early ‘cause of
the snow, and I almost wrecked twice getting food from Chipotle. We watched
“The Devil’s Advocate” and ate dinner. The infamous TTs stopped by; they
shoveled our porch and walkway for $6. I ordered pizza and picked it up and
once again almost wrecked ‘cause of the snow. I ended the night curled up on
the sofa watching TV and lounging around in my boxers. My penis popped out and
Ams & Sarah found that hysterical.
Friday. A
lousy, snowed in afternoon made for lots of great writing. Jessie, Amos and
Isaac came over for a little while, and it was a great time. I let Maebe crawl
all over my back per Sarah’s request, and she tried to pull down my pants to
shove the hamster down there. I stopped her, shouting “Animal abuse!”
Saturday. I
worked 8:30-11:30 at the Hilltop for freshmen priority registration. I went to
Tri-Health after work, and Sarah hooked me up with lunch. I went home and drank
coffee and wrote my sermon for Sunday. It’s brave & daring, on
homosexuality. “A Christian Approach to Homosexuality.” Kyle thinks I should
entitle it, “Being Gay: How to Do It & Why You Shouldn’t.” When Sarah came
home we watched the Bengals’ playoff game and dyed her hair black. She
complained for about twenty minutes about how fat she was, even broke into
tears. It’s ridiculous, ‘cause she’s beautiful. She went to a Christmas party
for Tri-Health, and I headed to Dayton, took Maebe with me to show her off to
Mom & Dad. Dylan & Tyler came over for a little bit.
Sunday. Sarah
got TRASHED at the party, and her friend Jaclyn tried to hook her up with a
friend of hers, but she refused, strangely enough. She ended up crashing at a
friend’s house after standing in the frigid cold for over an hour. Dylan
accompanied me to Northern Hills Christian Church where I preached. Most people
loved it, especially the younger crowd, though some hated it. “You’re a brave
man,” the elder told me. Dad & I worked on my car and then I headed back to
Cincinnati to find Sarah hungover on the sofa. I told her I was proud of her
for not having sex with anyone; that would’ve slain me. Ams & I watched
“Inglorious Basterds”.
I have been toying around with "A Dream For Us", and I think I'm going to take it in a direction I haven't yet considered. This requires reworking the 37 pages I've written so far, in particular doing something different with the journal entries--either making them dialogues with minor characters, which would open a whole new host of narrative possibilities, or re:framing the entire narrative construct in such a way that it all reads like some sort of journal entry--or, rather, a first-person memoir, which shows the steady progression of the main character's perception of reality regarding the nature of relationships, friendships, love, romance, and life and, yes, death. If I go this route, I will be incorporating all sorts of philosophical concepts as fate and destiny and the interplay between them. Of course, I would rather not make it about fate/destiny, because another book I'm working on--"the toothless kiss of skeletons"--has such meditations as the background of the story. Maybe I'll just scratch the whole fate/destiny thing and instead focus on the nature of relationships, the gritty truth of how they work and what they take, focusing upon the futility of romance. Hmmm... I am obviously hashing out my thoughts in a blog post.
Several weeks ago, a friend and I went to one of our favorite diners in Covington, The Anchor Grill. My friend had told me he wished to talk, and he said he would buy me dinner if I agreed, so of course I did. Before our food even arrived, he made his confession: he was gay. This confession came quite as a surprise, and I didn’t know what to say. He felt comfortable talking to me about this, and he said he had always known he was gay, and when he became a Christian, he expected God to make him straight. It hadn’t happened. He had really been struggling with this for his entire life, and he knew that going public with it would jeopardize his chances at being a minister. He would be kicked out of school and rejected by the Christian community. I sat there silently as tears filled his eyes, and I told him, “There is no sin in your attraction to other men.” Such a statement—that homosexuality is not a sin—came as quite a surprise to my friend, and I explained my point very carefully. The church, I fear, has a great misunderstanding regarding homosexuality, and its treatment of homosexuals—within and outside of the church—has been greatly and negatively affected by this misunderstanding. In the same way I spoke with my friend, I speak to you now.
I told my friend, “Homosexuality is not a sin. The sin condemned in the New Testament is homosexual activities—practiced by homosexuals OR heterosexuals.” I must define what I mean by homosexuality. The most basic definition of homosexuality is sexual attraction to members of the same sex. It is an issue, then, of one’s sexual orientation. The concept of a person having a sexual orientation is relatively new—its origin lies in the industrial revolution of Western Society. As to the cause of a person’s orientation—whether gay, straight, or bi—scientists and scholars in nearly every pertinent field disagree. However, there is agreement on one statement: that it is not a choice. The American Academy of Pediatrics states, “The current literature and most scholars in the field state that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice; that is, individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual.” The public’s conviction that homosexuality being a choice is founded not on any scientific or rational reasoning but upon a psychological one: firstly, it gives people who are not gay security from being gay; and secondly, it avoids the uncomfortable idea that heterosexuals could have been gay.
When it comes to the science behind sexual orientation, there are two main theories. The one most popular in the last few decades is that sexual orientation has its roots in biology: one’s sexual orientation is determined by a complex interplay of genetics and early uterine—in-the-womb—development.
The second most popular theory is that sexual orientation has its roots in a person’s early childhood development. Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Locke believed in what is today called tabula rasa, or the “blank slate” theory, that states that “who we are” is not pre-programmed but is, rather, the result of our experiences and perceptions molding and shaping us into who we are and who we are becoming and who we will be. According to this theory, homosexuality is influenced by the conditions of one’s upbringing and even—if not especially—by physical or sexual abuse in early childhood development.
The American Academy of Pediatrics states again, “The mechanisms for the development of a particular sexual orientation remain unclear… A variety of theories about the influences of sexual orientation have been proposed. Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.” Thus we find that, in the end, the reason behind one’s sexual orientation is relatively unknown. However, as stated, scholars and scientists from every field agree on one point: it is not a choice. There is no recorded incident of a heterosexual person choosing to become homosexual, and vice versa; those who are gay did not choose to be gay, anymore than those who are straight have chosen to be straight. People do not choose to be sexually attracted to members of the same sex anymore than people choose to be attracted to members of the opposite sex.”
The question is begged: “If homosexuality is not a choice, then why does the New Testament condemn it as a sin?” The answer may surprise you: It doesn’t! Now before you label me a liberal, let me make it vibrantly clear that I am not one of those fellows who twist key scriptures to promote the gay lifestyle. I am in league with many conservative Christians who condemn this liberal twist, and I am also in league with many well-versed conservative scholars who will concede with the liberals on one point: “Homosexuality is not a sin.” What distinguishes me and my conservative colleagues from the liberals is that we acknowledge that the Bible does condemn homosexual behavior, and to twist the scriptures to promote homosexual behavior or to make homosexual behavior “okay” are ill-founded, illogical, and down-right wrong.
There are two primary New Testament texts dealing with homosexuality. The first is Romans 1.26-27. In this text, Paul is writing about the great escalating evils of humanity. It began with the creature dethroning the Creator, and following that the entire cosmic world was corrupted. Tossing out the truth of God led to an abandonment of conformity to God’s prescribed order of living. Homosexual lifestyles and activities serve as a poignant example of this: it is a way of living that goes against what God intended. It makes sense, in Paul’s Greco-Roman context, to leap straight into sexual sin to give an example of the wickedness of man. In pagan myths, the gods acted immorally, and their worshippers would end up acting like them. Idolatry leads to more sins, which Paul exemplifies by using homosexual activities: women with women and men with men, working that which is “unseemly.” The Greek word for “shameless acts” is askemosune, and it speaks of one’s nakedness and shame, and it is also a reference to a woman’s genitals. Paul is saying that God gave the people over to their idolatry, and their idolatry spilled out into other areas of their lives, including their sexuality, and their sexuality became shameful. God allowed sin to totally warp even the sexual identities of the people; mankind forsook idols, became enslaved to Sin, and then Sin drove mankind deeper and deeper into immorality, driving mankind forward under whips and chains; and yet mankind laughs and gloats and enjoys every minute of it, a sick cocktail of slavery and pleasure.
Despite the perceptions people have of the Greco-Roman world, not all pagans embraced homosexuality, and many philosophers opposed it as disgusting and “against nature”. While some pagans opposed homosexuality, the Jewish people violently condemned homosexuality. In the ancient Jewish document The Letter of Aristeus, homosexual behavior is viewed as equal in gravity and seriousness to the sins of extortion and murder. Philo, a Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, Egypt, believed homosexuality sat right next to bestiality in the level of degradation, and he condemned both active and passive partners, as well as pedastery, the ancient practice of men with boys.
Paul’s view is chiefly Jewish but yet slightly different. While Jewish attacks focused on homosexuality, Paul attacked homosexual activities, not homosexual desires (what we would call homosexual orientation). Paul is not writing about sexual orientation in these verses but about sexual behavior. Sexual orientation is not something that can be controlled. It is not a choice, and thus a person who is gay is not sinning in his or her homosexual desires. Paul doesn’t condemn the desire—or temptation—for same-sex activities but the activities themselves. In Romans 1.26-27, the degradation of man is epitomized not by homosexual attraction but by homosexual activities.
In 1 Corinthians 6.9, Paul gives what is called a “vice list” regarding heinous sins. The heinous sins include sexual immorality (which includes anything from basic lust to fornication), idolatry, adultery, and then he adds the two Greek words malakos and asthenokoites. English translations generally render this as “male prostitutes” or “homosexual offenders,” but the words Paul chooses are much more specific. Malakos literally means “soft one”, or the effeminate partner in the homosexual act; and asthenokoites literally means “one who coiters” males, referring to the active partner. Thus Paul is not attacking the homosexual desire but the manifestation of that desire in actual acts which are sinful.
Thus we find that the biblical testimony is that while a person may have desires for homosexual relations—and thus be identified as “gay” in our society—that person is not sinning if he or she remains celibate. In Genesis 4, God says to Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Homosexuals are presented with the same challenge: do what is right, and be accepted by God; do what is wrong, and sin is crouching at the door; sin desires to have the homosexual person, but the homosexual person must master it—not necessarily by “becoming straight” but by leading a godly life absent of homosexual activities. A homosexual Christians who leads a celibate life is more pleasing to God than a heterosexual who engages in premarital sexual relations. One’s sexual orientation does not make him or her a “sinner”: it’s one’s actions that determine that.
“How, then, should Christians relate to homosexuals?” There are two errors the church often makes towards Christians are gay. The first error is blind hatred, seen in the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, a church which pickets different locations with signs saying “GOD HATES FAGS” and “FAGS WILL BURN.” A second error, on the opposite side of the spectrum, is blind acceptance—accept homosexual Christians into the church no matter what. As we see in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Christians within the church must be held accountable for living godly lives, and when a Christian fails to do this and refuses to repent, that Christian is to be kicked out of the church gathering. An appropriate response involves loving and accepting Christians regardless of their sexual orientation, and holding Christians accountable for living godly lives.
The current state of the church—a mixture of homophobia and homo-hatred—disables gay Christians from entering into true and authentic community with the body of Christ. With such great animosity directed towards homosexuals, Christians who are gay cannot be open and honest, cannot be held accountable, without being condemned and rejected. This has led to the formation of what are called “Gay Churches,” mostly spread out along the West Coast. Many of these Gay Churches are quite liberal, wrongfully promoting the homosexual lifestyle; but there are others that acknowledge homosexual acts as sins, and gay Christians gather together to worship God, serve the community, and to hold one another accountable for living godly, celibate lives. These Christians are honoring God in their celibate lifestyles, and the division erected within the church between Straight & Gay due to society’s rejection of the homosexual is, I believe, an abomination. We must seek to love all Christians—regardless of their sexual orientation—and we must accept them and hold them accountable for living godly lives. As this church grows and expands, there will no doubt be men and women who deal with homosexuality who come to know Christ; and as a Christian community, it is our job not to condemn and judge but to nurture and encourage and hold them accountable.
