If I Had the Chance, I’d Ask the World to Dance…

Spring break started Thursday for most of us, but we didn’t really get started celebrating until last night. Here’s a little peek at our 80s night at The Depot. Always a blast with them. And Lori brought a friend this time (the short Italian girl wearing black and pink)!

Ex-Mayors and Horror Stories

Sorry there haven’t been any updates in a while, if anyone’s been reading. I have so many stories, but I can’t possibly remember them all.

I’ll start with what happened today and see what I remember from there.

I was working—and actually, I’m working right now, so I have to make this quick—and we had a last-minute equipment delivery. Rustam and I had to take a projector over to Institutional Advancement at UB for a conference they were having, but we didn’t realize we would need an extension cord for it; we didn’t know the table was so far from the power outlet. So he went back to get one while I continued setting up the projector. And the woman in charge of the conference actually said this to me, or really just to the room: “Man, you guys are about as prepared as I am.”

First of all, she called us last-minute and expected perfection. Never going to happen! Second, she couldn’t get Outlook to open, and she didn’t know how to log in to the website she needed. Yeah, I think she could have been a little more grateful.

AWKward. It wasn’t our fault you forgot or that you’re having a bad day!

Oh well. I didn’t say anything. At least not until I left.

But on the way out, Rustam and I saw ex-Mayor of Baltimore Sheila Dixon coming out of the Starbucks on North Charles in Mount Vernon. A guy stopped us at the crosswalk and pointed at her, subtly. “Isn’t that mayor Dixon?” he asked. And I’m 99% sure it was. Looked just like her. Shouldn’t she be in jail or something? She must have been spending her last unclaimed gift card at Starbucks!

When I got back to the office, Shirley came out and congratulated me. “For what?” I said. Then she told me I got the second-highest score on the what-do-you-know test we took at work a couple of weeks ago (for orientation part 2). Woohoo! That’s something, I guess. I know what I’m doing at work!

Suck on that, Institutional Advancement lady. 😉 Have a better day tomorrow.

*sigh*

Okay, new topic. Movies!

I went and saw The Crazies last weekend—with Kari, Mike, and Eli—and it was GREAT! It was much more impressive than Shutter Island, which just drove us (Kari, Mike, Lori, and me) crazy with terrible dialogue and clichéd plot “twists” that read as cop outs. Scorsese was really backed into a corner with that movie. Anyway, The Crazies was actually pretty great, even had some good acting.

Tonight, I might be going to see Alice in Wonderland with Justin. I’m excited!

Alla My Friendsnstuff

Last night, I went with Justin, Lori, and Danielle to see a play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. My roommate Kari was the assistant stage manager, and Kimberley Lynne, a mutual friend and fellow MFAer, was co-director. The stage itself was simple: a rainbow curtain hung on the right side, the girls all wore a solid-colored dress (i.e., a girl in red, a girl in green, etc.), and there was a scrim in the background with an African image on it, and it is lit from behind at one point to show a woman dancing in fog—she is supposed to be an Egyptian goddess. I thought it was pretty cool. The play is funny at times but kind of hard to follow because it’s mostly poetry. My favorite poem is called “Alla My Stuff.”

You can read it here.

Afterwards, we walked to Lori’s car, and she drove us down to Federal Hill, where we met up with Eli and a couple of her friends. Mike joined us later. Some of us ate, and then we went to a bar called Mother’s. It’s actually really cool inside! There are two sections: One is just a regular bar, and the other has a huge dance floor. We went to the area with the dance floor. It was loud but fun. However, the bouncers were jerks a couple of times. We took lots of pictures, laughed a lot, drank a little, and shouted over the music the whole time so we could talk to each other. Some of us danced. Lori, Danielle, Eli, and Savannah (Eli’s friend) did the Cupid Shuffle when it came on.

It’s a shame Kari, Wendy, and Tykia couldn’t have been there.

At 1:35 a.m., the lights started coming on for last call, and we all remarked that that seemed kind of early. Apparently, bars can only stay open until 2 a.m. in Maryland. The bouncers started telling everyone to leave. We left, but Eli made sure to call one of the bouncers a name on the way out, and then she almost got in a fight with a girl outside. Speaking of outside, there were cops everywhere and people walking all over the place. I guess Federal Hill is a popular bar area. Once we got Eli, Savannah, and Kenny a cab, Lori, Danielle, Justin, and I parted ways with Mike and went to Lori’s car so she could drop us all off at home.

Justin and I went to sleep and didn’t get out of bed until 3 p.m. When he left, I made eggs and toast because I hadn’t had it in a long time. Now, it’s about dinnertime. I need to use up the rest of my eggs before they go bad, so I’ll probably make something with eggs.

It was a fun night, but now I need to do a little TV catch-up (Smallville, Spartacus, and Nip/Tuck) and a little homework.

P.S. I bought the Ghostbusters t-shirt Justin is wearing in the picture below for him for his birthday, last month, and it was a big hit last night! Lori was with me when I bought it, so I knew she thought it was great, but also, the bartender loved it. She bought Justin a shot and took a picture of his shirt. Hahaha!

Out on the (Mid)Town (and Mount Vernon)

After LOST last night, Kari and I made the trek across Howard Street and down a few blocks to Chase Street, where we met up with Eli, Tykia, and Jared at a bar called Dougherty’s. Well, after passing it and having to turn around once, but that’s beside the point. We hung out there for a while, talking, even played some pool, and then we walked (down the middle of the deserted, snowy streets) to Brewer’s Art to find some food, throwing snowballs and laughing the whole way, the girls talking in British accents sporadically; but when we got to Brewer’s Art, they were closing.

We went to see if the Owl Bar was open, but the Belvedere was locked, so we couldn’t get in. Was this normal? It was about 1 or 1:30 a.m. Surely the bar was open, and it was just the hotel itself that was locked, right? Anyway, we decided to call in some pizza at Nino’s, because they’re apparently open until 2 a.m. on Christmas, and then we took it to Jared’s apartment and ate while watching Quest for Camelot and making fun of it. Such a fun movie to watch when you’ve been drinking! Well, I imagine, as I never (feel the need to) drink enough for it to affect me very much. But everyone else was pretty toasted.

Afterwards, Kari, Eli, Tykia, and I went to Tykia’s place to visit Bruce, the cat. Then we walked to Howard Street, where we parted ways at about 3 a.m.

And now it’s morning, and the blizzard is back in full force, with high winds and snow drifts. It’s supposed to keep going until late tonight or sometime tomorrow. We’re probably going to end up with anywhere from 38 to 50 inches by the time it’s over. Really high winds expected tomorrow. They’re calling for snow again on Monday.

What happened with that groundhog?

End of the Semester Highs and Woes

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in almost a month. Apologies, if anyone was reading.

The semester is over now, my first semester of grad school. I feel pretty good about it; I think I did fairly well, and I certainly had a lot of fun. It’s nice being in a program in which I can have so much fun. I’m doing what I love, and I’m not fulfilling a bunch of distribution requirements—in classes that I don’t really want to take. I think I’m well-rounded enough at this point, after going to Wabash, so this sharper focus is a nice change of pace. Nevertheless, I struggled with my writing this semester. I know I still have quite a ways to go, things to learn about craft, but I’m willing to put in the work. This is what I want to do with my life, after all. Next semester should be great. I’m taking the second part of fiction workshop, a screenwriting class, and electronic publications. Sounds awesome!

As for life in general, some of the MFAers in my program had a Christmas party (slash end-of-the-semester party). We played the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire DVD game, Taboo, and Apples to Apples. We’re getting to know each other and having a ball. For the first time since I was a very young kid, I feel like I have a few good friends, people I can really talk to. That’s a wonderful feeling. Lori and Justin are amazing; Kari is awesome to live with; Danielle is great fun; Mike and Vinny are really down-to-earth; and I’m going to miss Wendy a ton if she decides to leave us.

This is the happiest I’ve felt in a long time.

And yet there is still something nagging at me. I can’t help but feel pissed off at Alex for abandoning me. School is tough and important, and it’s keeping him very busy, as an undergrad freshman; and then there’s the boyfriend. I get that, all of it. I really do. But we haven’t spoken at all since October 15, and sometimes I feel like scum. I don’t know if I have the right to be upset that one of my (apparently former) best friends can’t or won’t talk to me because he’s too busy with school and his boyfriend, or maybe just making up excuses. Maybe I was never really a very important friend to him. *sigh* I feel used, and that makes me feel bad. Maybe he was telling the truth about being so busy, but the fact that I sometimes don’t believe that makes me feel awful. Do I just forget about him? Remove him from my phone and my messengers? I don’t feel like I can do that. What if he finds time for me in the future and we could become friends again, for real? Can I forgive him?

Right now, I’m sitting at home in Indiana, visiting during Christmas break for a couple of weeks. I know that Alex is also home for break, just an hour or two away. I want to go see him, and yet I don’t. He hasn’t called, texted, IMed, or e-mailed, even though he’s no longer busy. I guess I’m out of the picture, and when I go back to Baltimore, and he to D.C., I still probably won’t talk to him or see him. So much for the beneficial nearbyness of our respective schools! I’ve seen him once in three months, took the MARC train to visit him in D.C. We stopped talking a month and a half after that. And I just let it go because I know he’s busy and overwhelmed. But it’s December now, two months later; this is kind of ridiculous!

I’m going in circles now. I’ll stop.

UPDATE: In a previous blog post, I mentioned being single and (I think) not dating anyone. Justin, mentioned above, is a date. At this point, we had been seeing each other for a month.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it’s early, but I wanted to put up a Thanksgiving entry, because I probably won’t have access to a computer again until Friday. I’m going to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with Hélène and Arturo at Penn State, and I leave tomorrow morning/afternoon.

I’ll post something more substantial soon. I’ve already got a potential blog topic for next time: e-publishing!

Until then, Happy Thanksgiving! Don’t get trampled on Black Friday! 😉

UPDATE: Sorry I never got around to talking about e-publishing. I still plan on doing it at some point, though!

RIP, Shayne Dube <3

At 12:32 p.m., earlier “today” (technically yesterday, by now), I received an email from my class agents from Wabash College, just an update on what’s going on since we graduated. It contained some distressing and unexpected news: the guy I roomed with for the first semester of freshman year died last month, September 18th.

I can’t believe I’m just finding out about it. I guess that goes to show we kind of lost touch after a while. He moved into a single, in a quieter building, in the second semester. The next school year, I moved into a single as well, in the same building. He was just a few doors down, and it was nice to talk to him every once in a while. He was a great guy. Gentle and kind, almost to a fault, if there is such a thing. I remember he had a pet bearded dragon. I forget the name, but now I wonder if it’s still alive and who is taking care of it. I think he had other animals at home.

I wish I had kept in contact more, after he moved to another building to become an R.A. for our junior and senior years. We sorted of lost touch after that, and now, more than ever, I feel terrible about that. Shayne was the first student I ever had contact with at Wabash. I remember getting that first email from him, introducing himself. It was a reply to a message I sent out to him and my other roommate, Jon.

Here is his reply:

wassup man? not a whole let here. i just got you email right now czu i
haven’t logged on to my webmail for a while, so i hope you don’t feel like
i didn’t want to send you a reply or anything like that.

anyways, my name is shayne dube (as you already know) and i graduated from
ben davis high shchool in indianapolis. i’m originally from zimbabwe,
which is in southern africa, and i only just moved here a little less than
5 years ago. i haven’t been up to much this summer; i worked a little bit
and spent as much time as possible hanging out with friends. i’ve actually
been out of school since i graduated in may last year (2004).

i’m not much for emails because i usually prefer talking on the phone so
the best way to find out more about me would be to talk on the phone. so
if you’re interested you can call me on my cell phone [and here he gave his cell number]. i
have it with me at all times so anytime you call i’ll most likely be able
to answer it.

right now i’m about to go swimming with my friends

lata

shayne

I can’t believe that was more than 4 years ago now. And more than that, I can’t believe he’s gone.

Rest in peace, Shayne. You did some really good things at school and in the community, and I miss you already.

Lata.

Bennett’s Curse

I went to Bennett’s Curse last night with some friends from my M.F.A. program. The haunted house itself was kind of cool but not scary; maybe I was in a bad spot (in the middle of a bunch of people), but nothing managed to surprise/scare me. It was more of a bonding experience than anything else. The girls wanted to make a human chain, in case they were scared, so I locked arms with my roommate, Kari, for some of it. The second part of the haunted house was a waste. It was mostly just a maze, and there was a guy with a chainsaw at the end, but he didn’t come out until after I had exited. This definitely was not worth $20, but we didn’t mind. It was a fun thing to do together.

Afterwards, we went to a bar/brewery in Hanover and talked, drank (some of us more than others…), and (some of us) ate. It was a good time, just like standing in line for over an hour for Bennett’s Curse. Good conversation. 🙂

After Bennett's Curse (taken with my iPhone)

No on 1 in Maine!

I just wanted to post this to help get the word out: Today is the LAST day to contribute to the No on 1 campaign that will fight to save marriage equality in Maine. Early voting on Proposition 1 starts tomorrow, and if things don’t turn out the way the current polls are going, marriage equality will be striken from yet another state. Even now, though, the lead is not by much, so please contribute if you can, to get more support out there; and if you can’t contribute, at least pass the word, and tell people to vote no on Prop 1 if they live in Maine.

None of this is about religion; it’s about the American ideals set forth in the Constitution, which says that we are all equal. And in much the same way that we have come to accept African Americans as part of that, and other groups, we can accept our GLBT brothers and sisters as well. There’s really no difference, and it’s no one’s business how GLBT community members live their lives anyway. They deserve the right to be happy and care for one another. Just let people marry who they want because it won’t harm you one bit. It really won’t.

I couldn’t give much, but even $25 adds up when a lot of people send it. 😉

Here is how the money will be spent: http://gay.americablog.com/2009/10/moneybomb-for-maine-help-us-hit-11.html

And here is a link to contribute: http://www.actblue.com/page/americablogsupportsmainemarriage

In D.C. – The National Equality March

As I said in my previous post, I went to Washington D.C. this weekend with my friend Lori to march for GLBT equality. And it was amazing.

Going in, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know how many people would be there or how they would be reacting. I didn’t know what the police would be like or how such a march would be coordinated. Would it be chaotic? A riot? Would I have to fight to stay on my feet and avoid being trampled to death? How easy would it be to stay with my group of four (myself and three others)?

I was pleasantly surprised when my group got downtown. I saw facets and sights I hadn’t really seen, or in some cases considered, before this weekend. I saw groups of people on the Metro carrying colorful signs (and some were colorful in the literary sense of the word; but I’ll leave them to your imagination). 😉 Lesbians leaning on their partners’ shoulders, gay men with their arms around one another. On the Metro! In the streets! It seemed so simple and felt like it should have always been that way.

However, it’s not always that way. People are afraid to be who they are, for fear of persecution, but today was our day, the day for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, and GLBT supporters to come out in droves and give one another the courage to be who we all are. The courage to fight for rights we have so long wanted but never been able to have. And for some of us, the courage to fight for rights we don’t necessarily need for ourselves but know others deserve, rights that have long been denied (and for no good reason).

When the march got underway, I found most of the answers to my questions rather quickly. It was anything but a riot. It was a little chaotic because there were so many people, but that was the only reason. Police were cooperating. They were there to help us, protect us, and it felt wonderful to have that support. While we had been crowded pretty close together before the march started, once we were walking, we could spread out nicely. There was no real danger of being trampled, thankfully. Christmas shoppers could learn a thing or two from this group of queers and queer supporters. 🙂

When we finally got to the Capitol building, two young men spoke; I think both of them were teenagers, still in high school or maybe just out of high school. One was straight, and the other was gay. Both young men spoke with an eloquence I could never dream of having, especially at such a young age. Even now, I envy them. I envy their courage to speak to hundreds of thousands of people—but more importantly, I envy their courage to speak up on something as important and dividing as GLBT issues. I couldn’t have done it at their respective ages. I’m still not sure I could today.

We also listened to speeches by the organizers of the event, a particularly powerful one by the head organizer. Cynthia Nixon, an award-winning actress perhaps best known for her role as Miranda on Sex and the City, even showed up to march and gave a rousing oratory on fighting for equality and on her own struggle to marry her partner of almost five years. Judy Shepard, mother of hate crime victim Matthew Shepard, spoke to us as she has spoken to many GLBT/supporters over the years. Lady Gaga marched (and may have performed, but if she did, I wasn’t there by that point). Kristin Chenoweth tweeted that she marched as well; I would have loved to have seen her and congratulated her on her well deserved Emmy.

After I left the rally, I checked Twitter on my iPhone because I hadn’t been able to get an Internet connection during the rally. Preliminary guesses put the crowd at 100,000 to 150,000, most likely more. When I saw this, I remembered a moment about thirty minutes into the rally when someone announced that we were still seven blocks deep, even with all the people that had already arrived on the Capitol mall. Seven blocks deep, thirty minutes into the rally! Insane.

Thinking back on the day, I am not in the least surprised that the openness continued throughout the day; even on Metro ride back, people were holding each other. Safety in numbers, perhaps, and there were plenty of those to go around today. But I wonder…tomorrow, will D.C. show any signs of GLBT life? Will there be a man holding his partner in public? A woman? Will GLBT America go back into the closet tomorrow, or will it stay out and continue the fight? Perhaps one of the most memorable and poignant moments from today comes to mind now: to get into the rally, many of us had to climb, literally, over a stone wall.

If that isn’t symbolic, I don’t know what is. The National Equality March was a new kind of Stonewall, a protest for a newer generation; and I hope the feeling lasts months, if not years. Or forever.

GLBT America (and the world) deserves it.