Family isn’t just the people who relate to us by blood or by law. Those people are a given, and we don’t really have much of a choice in the matter. For that matter we don’t really have a lot of choice in any of our families, they seem to choose us. Family are the people you love enough to keep a caring eye on even when you’re mad at them, the people whose love you never need question, the people who will always show up. It’s not something that happens by choice, and after a while people just become family.

Family are people like the closet case ex-boyfriend who you can’t help worry over, and who will always need a hug. Like his little brother who you look after, even though you’ve never spoken to him. Like the girl who would seem to be the unlikeliest match in the world, but remains constant. Like the compassionate and neurotic gay mobster who is always forgivable, it’s his ex-boyfriends who may not be as forgivable; it’s his asshole brother who really does have an ounce of good underneath it all.

It’s the guy who’s always up at two am and willing to talk about life, loves, and Linux. It’s the best friend who you love but can’t and won’t for years to come. Your best equal. It’s the friends who manage to change with you and still remain refreshingly grounded in a shared past. It’s the only person with enough balls to stand up to you, and still match you move for move. It’s the friends who still invite you to sing, despite apparent tone deafness.

Family is these people and more. In some ways it’s all of their families. When you think about things that way the world doesn’t seem like that big of a place after all.

On November 10, 1975, The Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in a storm on Lake Superior. All hands were lost: 29 people died. I’ll leave you with this account of the events, and the lyrics to the Gordon Lightfoot song (because it’s next to impossible to understand him singing it) that immortalized the event.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald --Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
Then later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
When the wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
‘Twas the witch of November come stealin’
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck
Sayin' “Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in
He said, “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed ‘til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

Last night I was someone’s date at a dance for one of the largest all boys (catholic) high schools in the area. Apparently it was an historic moment, because there had never been same-sex couples at a school dance before. Well, it went off without a hitch and no one really said or did anything surprising. Some old chaperone guy smiled at me, which I thought was nice of him (though he wasn’t a priest, which doesn’t mean much, but still).

The music was horrible, but I knew that was a given. The dancing was pretty lame to be honest, I mean a bunch of mostly straight white boys dancing to bad white boy music? Not very cool. Now I don’t consider myself much of a specialist in the trends of the popular dance floor, but a gracious appraisal of the floor told me that these people were at least 3 years behind the times. But seriously, I think the worst part about it was that it was so white and not even that everyone in the room was white, but that they were so unabashed about it.

I think I should probably do things like that every now and then so I feel better about my school and the environment there. So go figure.

When I posted my coming out piece on TealArt, I said that now that I’ve made the jump (and come out on TealArt) I’d do some more musing on the subject. And in some ways I have, but I’m not sure how directly I’ve addressed the topic. I suppose that I’m wary of it, not because I’m particularly afraid of talking about it, but more because I don’t want to affect the general interest aspect of TealArt, and over run the site with too much of this stuff.

On the other hand, it’s already happened, it’s what I end up musing the most about, and given that I have very little else productive-ish to say, I’m going to say it. I also don’t think that the weblogging world has become post gay, and I think it’d probably be a good thing to embrace my niche genre. I suppose that my main irrational fear at this point is that I won’t be unique and reduced somehow. This is an interesting point, but it’s a bit off topic and I’ll explore it more later, but. right now I’ll continue with the previously scheduled post.

Gender and sexuality are commonly viewed as boxes and categories that we force people into. Some people fit into their boxes very comfortably, while a lot of people don’t fit and feel comfortable with the boxes. For all of the faults of the Kinsey study, I think he put it best (this is from the 1948, study of Male Sexuality):

“The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white … Nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigion-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.”

This is a fairly straightforward sort of statement, but it’s also terribly hard to implement into the thought processes, scientifically, socially, and intrapersonaly. As a result, we tend to revert back to a very binary culture, which probably isn’t ideal, but at the same time it seems unavoidable. Having said that, I know a lot of folks who are trying to break out of accepted boxes and rejecting traditional labels. I think that’s really a great thing, but I’m also ambivalent about it some how, and I’d like to explore that a little.

See, while labels can oppress people and force them into characterizations that don’t fit their identity, they can also be a source of power, pride, and unity. So do you claim a label that doesn’t fit perfectly, but that empowers you, gives you a community, or do you claim an identity that marginalizes and excludes you from the community? What does that mean anyway?

Do we take labels for our own benefit or do we take them for the benefit of society? I’d like input on this, if anyone’s willing.

So I’m writing my next English paper at the moment. It’s a much clearer topic, and I’ve done a fairly good job at papers like this in the past, but I just thought a quote and some ranting might go a long way to explain the problem I have with this guy. So here goes nothing:

The general purpose of a close reading essay is clear: If you can read a paragraph in a book, you can read the entire book; if you can read one poem by an author you can read other poems by the same poet; if you can read a soliloquy or other speech you can read the entire play. This is not to say that writing a close reading essay automatically means you can immediately understand every work by the same author. Few people would insist that reading a passage from a short story from James Joyce’s Dubliners makes it possible to read Finnegan’s Wake. What a close reading essay gives you is the skill upon which you can build, an approach to any other text you will encounter.

Ok. Well that’s bullshit! But then it’s literary criticism, so that goes with the territory I suppose. But I think there’s something wrong with this idea. I mean it basically means says that practical analyses of literature can happen without context, which can’t be the case.

Can you read and understand paragraph or even a page from “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and understand the book? Can you read a paragraph from Carl Sagan’s Contact (ok, perhaps not a favorite of Literature teachers, yet, but it’s a great book in my opinion) and understand what he’s talking about. Can you read a passage from Galileo (by Brecht) and understand the play. (I’d argue that it would even be possible to understand the play, from a literarily perspective even after you read the whole damn thing, but that’s an aside.) And Ellison’s Invisible Man is very similar. The analytical perspective required to take on a short passage of prose (now, poetry is obviously a little different), will grant you the ability to look at other short passages of prose, but entire works must be approached differently.

I mean the most important thing is that in a short passage, themes and motifs and other literary embellishments that may be present but completely unrecognizable as such in a shorter section. Literature is ultimately about contexts, so critical schools which are anti-contextual seem especially pointless and particularly stupid.

Anyway. Back to the Grind.

I have mixed feeling about the whole gay marriage debate. On the one hand, I really support gay marriage and how I would very much like to live in a society that would allow me to marry in the manner of my choice. On the other hand, as gay youth, marriage isn’t something that’s incredibly important to me at this point. I’m supportive, but I don’t feel like this is my fight, given my situation. My other feeling about the fight for gay marriage is that it’s lead by a certain group of people whose hearts may not be in the right place.

A friend of mine once said that the HRC, which is the de facto leader of the mainstream fight for gay marriage, is a group of white gay men who don’t what their sexuality to interfere with their other assorted privileges. They’re not homophobic, granted, but I don’t feel they’re inclusive of non-gay queers, and I think that’s a real problem. I’ve been known to say, that I haven’t heard an argument for gay marriage (or similar HRC issue), that I disagree with. Granted, some are better than others but that doesn’t mean that on some level they are all right. The other thing I don’t like about the HRC is that it’s fairly indifferent towards gay youth. Organizationally, I can see why this is the case, but at the same time I don’t approve.

Having gay sex legalized, legitimizes the culture, and that’s something that is unbelievably important, but having marriage rights are a really logical extension. It’s also an extension that is desperately needed. At least right now, I think that the gay rights like marriage are going to be won in the courts rather than in the legislatures, because it’s a hard issue to pull the politicians around, but the issues have fairly sound legal arguments. Perhaps the courts aren’t the best venue to achieve social justice victories, but since it’s the only venue, it’ll have to do.

The other thing about gay marriage that gets left out too much is that ultimately the issue is a matter of church and state. Religion has the right to dictate what happens within their faith, but they don’t have the right to dictate the policy and behavior of this government. Let the religions marry whomever they want or don’t want, but it’s not the business of the church to dictate who the state marries. And the fact that secularist activists haven’t joined forces with the gay marriage movement, is quite troubling.

So regardless, Bush has declared a Marriage Protection week. I’m appalled, and there’s no other way to say it. I mean really now, how dare he. How dare he?!? It’s appalling for all the normal, “marriage is about heterosexuality” reasons, but it’s also appalling that he has associated breading with marriage, when this isn’t even a truth in heterosexual relationships. Thus, he’s extremely short sited or he’s downright malicious, and I’m willing to bet on the later.

Bush has every right to believe whatever he wants about marriage, queers, African-Americans, Jewish folks, Asian American’s, Disabled people, youth, Hispanics, Arabs, and women. I’m betting that, his beliefs are wrong, but anyone who really wants to remain ignorant and blind to truth in the world certainly may; ultimately it’s his loss. What Bush does not is impose his ignorance onto the rest of us. Well he does have the right to do that, but it’s AMORAL. I mean really what’s worse, me and queers everywhere falling in love (and having sex), or Bush degrading the lives and love of fellow humans?

So my erstwhile friend Eric Otis Scott and I are writing a send-up of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, entitled Guildencrantz and Rosenstern are Still Dead. A Oneact Play, in Five Acts. Characters are Carl Sagan (the cosmologist), Davey Boy Sarte (Jean-Paul’s bastard love child), and Mr. Haney of Petticoat Junction. Eric wrote the first scene, and here’s the second installment. SCENE TWO

(SAGAN is moderately confused for the duration, while SARTE is for the most part annoyed with his companions)

HANEY: How are they cooking this sushi?

SAGAN: But don’t you understand what I’m saying? What do you think?

HANEY: Wouldn’t medium rare be good?

SAGAN: Do you think Fermat’s work is even relevant?

HANEY: Is their broiler gas or wood burning?

SAGAN: Haven’t we been over this already? Does heat generation affect the universe on a fundamental level?

SARTE: (mutters as an aside) God, How did I make such friends?

HANEY: Are your ideas in a communicable language?

SAGAN: How dare--- SARTE: (louder and frustrated) Don’t you realize that you can’t have a conversation if you both talk about different things?

(pause)

HANEY & SAGAN: (surprised, and shocked. The Question is drawn out and over inflected) WHAT?!?!?

HANEY: How were we talking about different things?

SARTE: If you didn’t notice, then can’t you just trust me?

SAGAN: But if the universe is so large, and heat generation is irrelevant, then… wait, how can you cook sushi? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of sushi?

SARTE: What is sushi anyway?

SAGAN: Don’t you eat? Can’t you see that we’re in a sushi restraint?

SARTE: (annoyed) Do you think that answers my question Mr. Marx?

(pause)

SAGAN: Pardon? Why should we answer your questions, and who is this Mr. Marx character?

SARTE: Isn’t that your name?

SAGAN: My name?

HANEY: (interjects, feeling left out) Do you think it’s my name then?

SARTE: (ignores HANEY). Isn’t that your name?

SAGAN: What’s my name?

SARTE: (irritated). You don’t know your own name?

HANEY: Why should physicists need to know their own names? Aren’t they almost gods or something? Shouldn’t we order our food so they can start cooking it?

SARTE: (sardonically, emphasis on you, a la strongbad) How would you propose cooking sushi?

SAGAN: Are you saying that I’m a god?

HANEY: Do you mean that they aren’t going to cook are food? Isn’t that cheap of them? I wonder if it’s safe?

SARTE: You’re a physicist? Weren’t you a friend of my father?

HANEY: Your father was friends with Marx?

SARTE: Didn’t you know that my father had a lot of friends?

HANEY: I wonder what that says about your lineag?

SARTE: Well isn’t it kind of hard to sink below bastard love child?

HANEY: Isn’t bastard love child, a redundant statement?

SAGAN: Who is this Mark bloke, didn’t my mother always call me Carl?

SARTE: Oh, so you’re Carl the physicist?

SAGAN: Did you think my name was Mark?

HANEY: Didn’t you hear him say Marx, and not Mark?

SAGAN: (confused) Pardon?

SARTE: Don’t you think we’ve spent enough time on this subject? Aren’t you two ready to eat?

HANEY: (annoyed) What have I been saying for the past hour?

SAGAN: (high pitched, fast, moderately insane) Has it been an hour? How do you know that much time has passed? Can you be sure that time is constant?

SARTE: Waiter? Waiter? Can we have a waiter over here?

(blackout--curtain)

It’s been two years since that fateful day, and I still don’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand it would be insensitive to try and forget it and try and move on; on the other, we have to move on. Thus we are stuck, and in light of this situation, I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to think or say.

Big events like this are subjects that you feel you just can’t ignore on your blog, but at the same time there’s something inside of me that wants to say, moving on is the best thing we can do. You can’t fight fire with fire, and my general policy for fighting battles of any kind, is that sometimes it’s better to accept a little loss if it means maintaining your dignity and not stooping down to fight your enemy on their level. When you fight them on their level, they’re going to beat the crap out of you because you’re working on their terms, and when you decided stoop down you’ve given victory to the enemy. Why? Because you’ve embodied the qualities that made them your enemy in the first place.

I remember exactly where I was when I learned about the attack. The principal came on the intercom and told the teachers to turn their televisions on. She used the word pandemonium in a way that I wouldn’t have, and my first thought was, she has to be kidding right? It was mere moments after the second plane hit. I was in English class. We watched the television in the room for several moments after the buildings collapsed, and then we turned the television off and got back to work.

When class let out, the whole school clustered around the television in the lunch room. Everyone was quiet. Because of my schedule that year, I got out of school early, and spent the rest of the day doing the things I normally did. But it wasn’t a normal day.

I remember that my estimate of the death count was fairly accurate, and even then I remember criticizing the tendency towards reactionary patriotism. I remember being cynical.

Last year I said remember the five thousand who died in 2001, but also remember Victor Jara and the people who died in Chile in 1974.

So remember them all, and even though this sounds remarkably like the spewing of individuals whom I find abhorrent: fight for justice, fight for liberty, fight for equality, and fight for freedom, and don’t let anyone’s death be in vain. It’s a good set of goals as long as they’re applied correctly.