So I just finished watching the second part of Angels in America: Perestroika. My line has been, generally, that the first play is better than the second one. Due to the fact that the second one answers questions too eagerly, and there’s some really wonky stuff, notably the scenes in heaven, and the whole bit with Roy Cohn in hell. While we’re at it, the whole Ethel Rosenberg stuff was a bit far fetched.

Well HBO cut the Roy Cohn in hell scene, and I really liked how the scene in heaven worked out. Ethel was still a little over done, but it worked out more or less.

And I must say that the “answers” given, really aren’t answers in the aspect that they don’t really provide real closure, they just say “it isn’t over yet, there’s so much more to see.” Which is totally true, and satisfying. Maybe it’s more satisfying because I know that in the 14 years since the end of the epilogue, 33 anti-retroviral drugs have been developed, Ronald Ragan died a miserable death, and the world hasn’t ended yet, and there’s a hell of a lot yet to see.

No mater how avoidant of conclusions I might be in my day-to-day intellectual life, I really do like a good conclusion that makes me smile and cry at the same time.

I guess that’s something I have to keep working on.

For all of you who cared, I think I’ve mostly gotten over whatever funk I’ve been in for the last little bit. But I suspect that those of you, who cared, noticed this fact by the four new entries in most recent 24-hour period (since 6pm yesterday). There may be more forth coming. Just hope that I don’t burn myself out, and then go through a multi-week burn out period. Parish the thought.

So I suppose I had a few goals for the summer when I walked across the stage at graduation (well a few weeks before, but whatever). They were: to get a job and make money, to get a new computer, to start writing again, to start reading again, to spruce up TealArt, and to just hang out with friends more.

To review what I’ve accomplished: I didn’t get a job, and I’ve made a little money, I got the new computer, I haven’t really started writing, and I haven’t finished a book since school let out (and thus much before that date,) I’ve done a lot of TealArt sprucing up, and I’m satisfied with that outcome, and I’ve hung out with friends a little, though perhaps not in the way I might have hoped (but that is completely in character for me, and I’m not too disappointed in that.)

Other than my preparation for college, and all that, my only real accomplishment is that I knitted a splendid shawl, and a couple of hats. Which is certainly not to be taken for granted, but as of right now I don’t have any knitting projects to speak of save a few scarves, and I’m kind of lost in that respect. Shawl number two I cometh. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment.

So I think, that I’m a bit disappointed with what I’ve done so far, but that’s ok, like I said, I’ve spent a little while in a funk beating myself up for my lack of productivity, and I’m over that for now. I’m already looking through my bookshelf in search of a (very) limited library to bring with me to college, for my own mandated reading, and I’m doing what I can about the writing.

The world only spins forward, can’t go back now.

As part of my heavily structured plan to avoid productive tasks, and my writing, I’ve been watching the HBO Angels in America that a friend finally gave me on videotape. Which reminds me that I saw a real live production of the play a few months ago, and I don’t think I ever properly wrote about that here, so I’m going to talk a bit about both of them.

I’ve only seen the HBO edition of the first part, as was the play only the first one. I’ve read both of them, but as of today, only seen productions of the first one.

In the live production, Louis (the Jewish boyfriend who leaves his lover whose (slowly) dying of AIDS) was amazing. I had a hard time being ambivalent about the character (as I suspect you’re supposed to), Prior (the (slowly) dying boyfriend), wasn’t quite as good, but he was good, and most of the other characters ranged from so-so, to horrible.

I didn’t like the HBO Louis very much, but the Prior is way better. Which I think is a good thing, ultimately. I liked Joe, the (closeted) gay Mormon, whose married to a valium addict more than I perhaps should have (probably because he was cute,) and Mary Louise Parker did a wonderful job as Harper (his wife).

I suppose the thing I disliked most about the HBO version, is that they cut my favorite scene, where Joe’s mother, and her real-estate agent are looking out over Salt-Lake City, talking about saint’s, moving on, and other stuff. They’re smoking (the Mormon mother, included, which is a bit funny,) and in response to discussion of the church of later day saints, the mother says something like “(laterday saints) are the only kind of saint’s that are left.” Which struck a chord with me, for some strange unknown reason.

So I’ll watch the second half tomorrow, and maybe I’ll write another report of it. Or not. My memory from reading the play, is that the second one tries to hard to explain things, and answer questions.

As we’ve all learned from the last entry, answers and I don’t seem to get along very much. It’s all about the questions.

Well, in two weeks time I’ll be driving up to Beloit. I learned on Friday that I got a single room. My form apparently shipped out that morning, and the lady was very apologetic. They’re brining in a big Freshman class, they had a higher than expected retention rate, blah blah blah. And then she said, But you got a single. On the 4th Floor.. Hmmm go figure. Well I kind of wanted a roommate, but whatever, I’ll take it. I haven’t really started to pack. I’ve done some abstract organization and basically know what I have to do, but I still have to sit down and make lists.

I’ve also been rather ambivalent about writing of late. I haven’t yet gathered the will power to figure out what’s happening in Another Round, nor have I had the will power to open up Circle Games and work on the never ending editing. But I did get my pen out and petted it. I realized that since I got my iBook I haven’t really used it that much. I need to give my pen a name. I recently decided to name my computer Anna Madrigal. Hehe. Suggestions are welcome.

I’m completely up to date on all of my ‘blog reading, something that happens only very rarely now that I’ve been thoroughly converted to the RSS reader. Usually I read the blogs once or twice a week. It saves a lot of time, and perhaps I should find more blogs to read.

I should probably put some work into the ASF, but can’t decide what story would be the best to tell, and given my tendencies to be too contextual about all of this, it’s going to be hard for me to come up with something that I’m going to like (as an editor). I have a little story, where the facts where severely twisted, that might (if I can untwist the facts) be a good starting place. Again, another thing I’m avoiding.

My old computer is still broken, but I’ve put the hard drive into my dad’s computer (mostly for the purpose of getting all my data off of it. I don’t have a clue as to what’s wrong with it, but it isn’t the HD, nor is it the RAM, which we verified as working before the mega-crash. Which means it’s the processor or motherboard. It simply can’t be anything else. But we’ve replaced both of those, and no combination of new and old parts work. Not only does nothing work, it all doesn’t work in the same way, which is utterly confusing. And I have conducted extensive trial and error combinations, and have documented this. I’m thinking of putting the CD drives and one of my hard drives in my dad’s computer, because at least they work, and it would probably make my dad happy.

I’m realizing that my poor little hard drive on this iBook is going to be full in about four weeks at the current rate. And to think, I got the biggest possible drive. So in addition to getting RAM (which, I think, I should be able to push off for a little while thanks to Chris’ eternal kindness,) some sort of external storage solution looms large in my future. I’ll probably just buy an external (fire wire) enclosure, and a 120gb drive (which is only 130ish bucks). In the mean time, I think I should be able to pull some sort of brilliant hacked solution together involving my father’s old external CD-RW drive, and the 80 GB hard drive, which will keep me happy for a while.

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time ripping CDs onto my iBook so I can have music when I go to school. I have, at the time of press, 2 hours short of 7 full days of music. Total space ~ 9 gigs. I’m totally going to want an iPod at some point, but given my frugality I probably won’t get that one for years. I’ll probably rip another couple of gigs, and leave it at that.

Well, that’s enough for now. Cheers!

Well, I think that the long awaited and much feared Quarto update has successfully transpired. As near as I can tell everything works now, as it should, and as near as all of you can tell, nothing has changed. So I’m going to do a little bit of talking about how TealArt works in part because I want to have some sort of geek post to balance out all the knitting and gender/sexuality things I’ve been posting, so here it goes.

There’s this massive mySQL database that has all of the TealArt information: everything that powers Quarto, plus all the static content pages, and all the style sheets and all the design elements. The files that are saved on the web server are nothing but creatively arranged PHP functions and database queries.

Quarto is the CMS (content management system) that Amy wrote to power a few of her sites. While Amy was writing Quarto, I was writing Circle Games, so we kind of bonded over our ambitious projects, and when Amy was looking for beta-testers. I started jumping up and down. I’d been switching back and forth, and had lost a lot of data, and really liked how Quarto was looking, so I jumped on board and never looked back. At this point it was clear that Quarto was beta software, and frankly, I don’t think Amy expected TealArt to remain Quarto-Powered.

Here’s how Quarto works: There’s this data base structure, and there’s an administrative interface that allows us to insert and modify information in the database. (so entries, settings, etc.)

At the same time, a completely different set of functions pulls that information from the database, sorts it out, and displays it in the form that you see here.

That’s the thing that makes most PHP/mySQL powered CMS’s unique: (and Quarto especially so) the backend (administration) and front end (display) are completely independent of each other, which gives the user (that would be Chris and I) an incredible amount of freedom in customizing output.

This is why TealArt looks exactly the same now as it did before: even though the database has changed a bit, and the admin interface is a bit different: I haven’t yet touched the display. Actually, as I look over it, I’m thinking that the display will be Chris' province.

Now here’s what we have to do:

• Make the Archives Page More organized, probably using periodical (monthly) archives, drop down lists and the like. Right now the archive page is just a modified main index page, set to show all the entries.
• Fix the categories page somehow.
• Find some way to merge the linkage and main page log into one line of data. This will probably require some hacking to do properly.
• Implement Trackbacks. This one is for Chris' amusement only. The database has a trackback table, but the support hasn’t been written into the file.
• Update the Entry page, and get commenting to work properly.
• Get (more…) links to work so that extended entry text doesn’t get shown on the main page.

That list will be updated as we find new things to do, and hopefully as we complete old items.

Now our second option is to ditch Quarto completely and start using Wordpress, which is the only other CMS worth using. Well other than GreySight, which Noah won’t even let his bestest buddies use, but that’s a non-issue.

The problem with switching at this point is that we have 630+ entries in Quarto, about 200 in the main journal 150 in the Aux Journal (formerly Paradigm,) 150 quotes, and 100 Links. Or something. All of the entries are in the same table (site differentiation are made in a site id field,) and seeing as Wordpress doesn’t have separate sites, (but their implementation of Categories, would probably allow us to accomplish the same thing. Where I was going with this train of though, is that writing an import script is going to be one major pain in the rear.

So that’s where we are now. Stay tuned (as always)!!

Ok, this is a really rough update, which i’m not even offering the basic plesentries of route spell check. I’ve updated quarto, and asuming this posts correctly, it all looks to work right. There are a few things that I need to do yet, but we’re almost there. Bear with me. I’ll edit this later, as updates are forthcoming.

I’ve started to make a list of guidelines for my Affinity story project. It’s by no means definitive, and subject to change/my whim at this point, but I think this itÔøΩs helpful to my process, so here it is.

• Contributors should be male, and have been raised as such.
• Contributors should be gay, bisexual, and/or have had significant romantic and/or sexual relationships with other men.
• Stories should be factual, though it’s ok to change minor details, like names and locations to protect yourself and/or your friends/family.
• Stories should be written from the perspective of the author in the first person.
• Stories should tell of event(s), and feelings the author felt in reaction to the events, and thus should not attempt to analyze the event in a larger context.
• Contributors need not have “come out,” to their friends, family, teachers, etc. confidentiality will be respected.
• Contributors need not be 18. (Is there some way that I can pull that off? Also, is there a way that we can dodge the mandated reporter bullet? I mean I don’t think I have to report anything if I don’t want to, but I need to decide how I feel about this. I’d want to encourage confidence in possible contributors that have stories about cutting, abuse, etc?)
• How has being gay/bi has affected your friend type relationships?
• How has coming out has affected existing relationships?
• How dose your gay/bi identity affect your relationship to women?
• Dating as a young gay/bi man?
• How has being gay/bi affected school?
• How has coming out affected your relationship with your parents? Grandparents?
• Have you ever come out and regretted it later?
• How do you feel when you see a straight couple your age being affectionate in public?
• Have you gone to a Pride celebration? Why or Why not? If so what was it like?
• Examples that other gay men/youth have presented for you.
• How has being bi affected a heterosexual relationship? A homosexual one?
• Gay role models.
• Having a closeted relationship even if you were out.
• Being in the closet, and staying in the closet.
• Your feelings about the community of young gay/bi men.

Examples of subject matter for stories:

• Your reaction upon meeting someone else that was gay (or lesbian).
• The first time you identified with some one who was gay/bi and how you felt.
• How you felt when you met/saw/heard about the first (other) person in your age group that was gay/bi.
• A time an unexpected ally came to your defense, ie. A teacher standing up for you. Conversely, the time when an expected ally (like a best friend) didn’t come to your defense.
• How you felt when HIV/AIDS became real for you.

And basically this amounts to me thinking out loud on the ‘blog, but then I’m prone to doing that even under the best of circumstances. Now all I have to do is synthesize this in to something a bit more coherent, and more user friendly.

In my last knitting post, I complained about how much I really didn’t like having a project to knit on, and was at a loss of what to start next. Well, that hasn’t changed, but I feel less like I need to cast on for the next awesome project. In the past few days, I’ve made 3 or 4 scarves. This brings the grand total to 6. There’s another one on the needles. I have yarn for another one or two in my knitting bowl. I’m working on the felted vest, and making respectable progress on that project. I might get to the steeks before I go to school. I’m not finding that very relaxing at the moment, so it isn’t my “primary” project. Not that I have a primary project at this point. I’ll probably cast on for the next shawl and pick out a few simple lace patterns for that sometime soon, but I don’t feel like I have to do that. I think the frenzied phase I was in a few days ago.

I just realized that this is the first time in, oh, two years that I haven’t been actually enrolled in some sort of academic program. I did nothing except write, after my sophomore year of High School, after junior year, I had a bunch of IB stuff to do, which really killed that summer. For most of this summer, I’ve been in a gender studies class. This is a really weird feeling, and given that I have a few days left of summer before I have to get ready to move, and then move and start the whole process over again. Like I said, the last time I was in this situation, I wrote the first half of a book. That was a whole summer; this is somewhat less than that.

Its just really weird not to be in some sort of frenzied state, to not have anything hanging over my head. I mean the moving away thing is sort of hanging over my head, but it’s completely different from the “write this paper” hanging over my head. Anyway, that’s where I am.