I had kind of intended to take a hiatus for this week. I just moved off and all, and they have us on this wacky summer camp schedule thing. We have all day seminars in how to be college students (well mine is about social science and Mars colonization, but the veil is pretty thin,) and then there are activities, most of which are pathetic.

I have one comment to make, borne out requisite ambivalence, and grouchyness: If it’s really easy to be a rebel, and all the authorities are saying, its fine to rebel if you want to, go for it, it’s no longer really rebellion. The purpose has been completely defeated.

I’m sure there will be more later.

As Chris reported, we talked for a while yesterday, and I think it was generally awesome. I completely agree with him, (gosh, that’s a first!) about the difference between spoken and typed communication. I would also say that, the people we are online, is a lot like the people we really are, and sometimes when we meet virtual buddies in real life, it takes a while for a physical (or vocal) report to develop, and the “jump” as it were is more the result of a non-normal first impression rather than some fundamental difference in personality expression.

At the beginning, the voice I heard was not the one I was expecting, but once I got used to, it was perfect and right. It was defiantly weird at first after all it was a “first meeting.” Once I realized on a more basic level that there are few people in the world that I’ve known (and been in such contact with) for five plus years, it was totally cool. It just took a few moments for my body to realize who I was talking to, I guess.

Chris recognized that the conversation was more flowing than it is in AIM, but I think that’s a symptom of the fact that in half an hour of phone conversation, we covered what might take several hours in AIM world. Very interesting.

That’s just my response. I’m going to go back to being on fake hiatus until next week. I’m trying to line up some awesome guest bloggers, but so far little luck. Stay tuned in any case.

In a very bold gesture I ripped out the vest I was making, and have started on the sweater that I’ve wanted to make for a long time now. It’s going to be a basic, shirt style, dropped shoulder number. Seed stitch borders and trim, with a plain stocking stitch body. The only typically Sam features (ie really weird things) is that I didn’t even bother coming up with a pattern for this sweater other than measuring a sweater that I think fits me very well and coming up with a gaguge. The other Samish feature (if I ever writing a knitting book, it’ll be called Samish Knitting) is that I’m combining yarn from two different dye lots, and with a lot of black Rit dye (or possibly India Ink), I hope to make this a non issue.

I’ll post a pattern once I have a garment completed. I’d do it sooner, because it’s a really simple and standard design, but I haven’t a clue of how I’m going to shape the neck, and with luck I’ll have decided by the time I get there.

It’s really nice to have a big project on the needles again, and I also really like how quickly it’s passing. I started it yesterday evening and after a number of failed cast on attempts I know have the effective 2.5 inch bottom trim, and 3 inches of the body-proper completed, and it’s smooth sailing till the underarms (no short rows needed!).

In other knitting news I’m working tirelessly to put together a knitting sub-site for TealArt. Basically it would be the same as regular TealArt, except only the knitting posts would appear, and I’ll be able to create a knitting specific sidebar. Also, I think it means there’ll be a new knitting contributor.

So stay tuned.

The Parting Glass (Part 1 of an indeterminate number)

Oh all the money that e’er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e’er I’ve had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had
Would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all

It’s all been done, before, but just cause I think it’s cool, and I don’t want to bother to ask people permission to write about them (and symbolically altering names is kind of stupid,) I’m going to identify characters discussed in web log with initials, or relationally. Along with this, privacy seeking measure, I’m going to remind the readership, that the stories I tell are important to me. If you figure out who the other actors are, good for you, don’t share. Secondly, as always, if I leave something out of a TealArt post and you want to know more, wait till I write more about it, or email me about it. There’s some method to my madness, usually.

I said good-bye to A.W. today. I keep doing that, and will keep doing that for a long time. Don’t ask me why. I used to be ambivalent about him, a problem that often got worse with interaction. Now, I’ve seen him way more in the last three weeks than I’m used to, and if anything I’ve gotten less ambivalent. Its funny, I’m moving away in about a week, and this was probably the hardest good-bye, and it’s not the first time (nor the last) I’ve said good-bye to him.

Because I’m in a Babylon 5 mood, and really deep down, I’m just a regular old geek fanboy, here’s a couple of things from the end of season five. Delenn, said that there’s no word for “good-bye” in the Mimbari language, because all of they left open the possibility for a “next time.” The second thing, G’kar, says good-bye to someone staying on the station, as he makes some speech about how, if you spend enough time in a place or with a person, you take a little bit of the place/person with you when you leave, and you leave a little bit of yourself behind. G’kar says something like “the part of me that is going, will very much miss the part of you that is staying.” Something like that. Both of those ideas are kind of key to my experience.

I’m going to a party in an hour and a half where I get to say good-bye to a bunch of the people I went to school with. I never socialized with them very well, but we have a bond. I suppose, and I think it’s important for closure that I go to this party. Let us note, I went to one of their graduation parties, and other than that I completely avoided their madness. Ignoring that fact, it’ll be fun, and then I get to go to my second to last gay-youth group meeting. That’ll be sad-ish.

It isn’t like I’m dying, and I’ll be back, but these “goodbye for now"s are difficult. Especially in cases like A.W. where I really really want to spend time with him.

**Update:**The party was a huge non issue. It was good to see and say goodbye to the folks, but those are some pretty lame parties, and I feel good. And then I left, and felt good for doing it. Saying goodbye to A.W., though was still so much more amazingly difficult. Alas.

I realize that this isn’t exactly a new post (at least conceptually,) and I realize/hope that this kind of discourse isn’t ultimately useful to anything or anyone; but at the same time, it’s an issue/debate that I find myself caring about a lot. Additionally, I think I’ve become a lot more coherent on the issue of late, which might be helpful. This doesn’t mean I have any answers, but my questions are more crystallized (to mix metaphors a bit,) which I need to learn to become content with. Let us also not forget the fact that I’m bored out of my mined (mostly,) and musing about this is one of my favorite things to torture myself with in fits of boredom.

I suppose these statements/questions, on some level apply to every kind of group identity, social identities like race, class, education, age, and of course gender/sexuality for starters. Because gender and sexuality are my thing, and while I’m perfectly content to go on about race and class, I’ll constrain myself a bit, but I would beg the readers to not be so constrained.

As I explained briefly in the Why it all Matters post, identity is made up of: what you actually do, what you see yourself as/claim, and how other’s see you.

I think there’s a Vorlon quote from Babylon 5 that says something like: Truth is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and fact or something like that. It’s an interesting analogy that I don’t want to stray into, so I’m moving on.

I view the trifold aspect of identity as one of the unexplainable facts of the world. I’m not sure how I feel about the “how others see you” part, and “what you claim,” and while I’m at it strict behavioral identities don’t really fully account for the complexities of identities.

So the questions I’ve been asking:

• If an effeminate (gay acting, for lack of a better term) guy, says he’s bisexual, but only has relationships with women; then what’s up?
• What would the “status” bisexuals in long term monogamous relationships be, and how does their previous relationship history affect their identity?
• Are non operative transgender people, who don’t take hormones, aren’t seeking surgery, and often live in the gender of their birth, really trans?
• If a women exclusively dates women, and is out as a lesbian, and then falls in love with a man and gets married and lives in that relationship happily for 20 years, is she still a lesbian?
• If someone is out as a bisexual, but is only has relationships with one sex, are they really bisexual?
• If someone claims a particular identity, and then “changes” identity at some later point, is that identity shift apply retroactively? Does behavior affect this?
• If someone who is out as a gay man doesn’t have relationships with men at all (or only occasionally), are they still gay?
• If a man, who dates women exclusively, has sex with men occasionally, is he still straight?
• In cases similar to the one above, would that man’s behavior affect the answer; that is, if he bottomed (took the receptor roll during anal sex) would that affect the answer?
• An individual whose in the closet, has very little if any heterosexual attraction, dates heterosexually, but given the proper contextual situation, would be almost exclusively homosexual, is

Again, the idea of retroactivity plays into this one.

There is of course the obvious “why does it matter” response, but excluding that, I think there are two ways to answer these questions: what they are, is guided by what they do, or, regardless of what they do, they are what they say/feel they are. In my gut, I usually answer behaviorally, though on an intellectual level, I know that the ‘say/feel’ option is probably closer to the truth. Something inside me says, bisexual people need to have relationships with both men and women, or they’re really hetero or homo, and that a self-identified gay man shouldn’t have relationships with women. That a man who had a relationship with a woman for a number of years, and then only had relationships with men would be gay. But bisexual people frequently lean one way or the other, that some homosexuals have hetero relationships (to varying degree’s), and that lots of homo-leaning bisexual people, identify as gay men (and lesbians). I suppose the thing is, that there’s no one right answer to identity, that it’s an individual combination of those aforementioned three aspects.

Once we’ve gotten that one mostly squared away, the issue of “Why it matters anyway?” remains.

Identity is important because it makes it possible, let alone easier to study sexualities and gender. It separates people into groups that you can study. It allows people to fit into communities based on their identities and the intersection of their identities. Having said that, you could also say, that identity segregates people and enforces stereotypes.

And it does.

Knowing this, is the fact that identity is the source for a great many things that are wrong, reason enough to abandon it, knowing that there is a lot of insight to be gained by studying identity?

Having asked that, I don’t think that its possible to ever completely avoid identity. It’s as central to the human experience as oxygen, Swedish Meatballs (Babylon 5 joke, please disregard,) curiosity, and fear. Therefore, if identity is unavoidable, how on Earth do you study it (in some form) without releasing (and therefore bathing in) the unavoidable detriments of identity?

Full Stop.

That about covers it for now. Maybe it’s enough just to write something like this, to acknowledge that the issues are out there, and then maybe it’s not. Well I tried. Hopefully I can avoid this for a while now. Carry on.

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.