Tag: divorce

Disengaged

I don’t feel engaged on the Prop 8 thing. Some of this is distance, certainly, but not all of it. I mean, I have benefited personally from Same Sex Marriage. My (now ex) wife and I got married in Canada in 2003. And then, alas, got divorced in California in 2005, in what was likely the state’s first ever same sex divorce.
The value of divorce as a civil institution is extremely high. Unfortunately, things don’t always work out and couples need a structure to disentangle their finances and lives. As divorce is usually an adversarial process, having things like precedent and laws protects both halves of the divorcing couple. Otherwise, the stronger half of the ex-couple would steam roll the weaker half, whether that strength be emotional or financial. Divorce is an important right for that reason and also for tax consequences. If you own property, as in land or a house, it’s going to most likely change ownership status during a divorce. If it’s a divorce, the state doesn’t ask for taxes on this transaction, which is good because splitting up is already incredibly expensive.
So my disengagement with this isn’t because I don’t see the value of gay marriage. I’m very much aware of how it has helped me. But when they started same sex marriages in California, the larger gay rights groups put out word that a ballot measure was coming and asked gays to please look presentable. Which meant: no men in dresses. Because people like me are embarrassing.
Obviously, LGB people should have all the same rights as straight people. But this battle for marriage is incredibly normative in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. No, I am not just like you, Mr. Cis Hetero, and I refuse to pretend that I am. Which means that I’m not really invited to the party. And despite that exclusion, we lost anyway.
We can’t have ENDA protection for trans people because we’re too weird and gays come first. We can’t have marriages for visibly-trans people because we’re too weird and gays come first. Not that we have either of these things, mind you, but just in case let’s make sure trannies are out.
The support-gay-marriage “cause” on Facebook, which is a pseudo charitable thing one can join, is attached to the HRC, a gay rights group which actively lobbies against trans people and gives assloads of money to Log Cabin Republicans. Are you fighting to be included in the right wing? Is it your dream to be an oppressor instead of oppressed?
I want our side to win. I want the State Supreme Court to decide that narrowing the Equal Protection clause of the state constitution, or declaring marriage not to be a fundamental right, would be a major revision and not a minor amendment, as this would seem logically to be the case. I want marriage for everybody, including me. But can we stop pretending that all queers are just like straight people except we happen to fall hopelessly in love with people of the same normative gender? Because I’m tired of being told to keep quiet and these kinds of normative lies leave too many of us unprotected.

Alas, I am filled with woe and at a loss as to what to do with myself. Why did I break up with christi if I didn’t want to breakup with Christi? after she told me not to come to paris, my feelings got hurt with a high percentage of the phone conversations we had. then she announced she was showing up suddenly. i wanted space from all of it. i wanted it to stop. i didn’t know what to do. i was worried about things that we hadn’t dealt with from the past. i needed time to think. i told her we were breaking up and then didn’t speak to her for three weeks. and thought about it. and thought about what i wanted from a relationship. and realized that christi and pretty much wanted the same things and that i love her and she sent email saying she loved me.

but, of course, love conquers nothing.
I was picking up cues. i thought she’d want to work it out. who wouldn’t want a low stress, low-drama relationship with me, where reliability was stressed and there were good boundaries and space and stuff?

of course, getting there would be a bit of work. it seemed possible. we had similar goals in mind. after thinking for three weeks, i understood more of what was going on. i felt guilt. i had told christi i would always be there for her and she was in distress, which i had caused, and i wasn’t there for her. i always wanted to be more of an ameloriating factor, rather than a stressing factor. I thought about family. family is very important to me. i felt like a member of her family. she was accepted as a member of mine. a couple weeks before she died, my grandma told christi that she thought of her as granddaughter. how could I just walk away from that? what about responsibilities? what about marriage vows? what about nine years together? what about love?
not that it matters anymore, but i think it might have been better to tell her that i was distressed by our phone onversations rather than not speaking to her for three weeks. hindsight. alas alac woe
although i didn’t act it, i did have a lot invested in this. my heart for example.
there’s so much i wish i could take back or that i’d done differently. all is for naught. the past can’t be changed. the future can’t be fixed. if you make bad decisions, you have to live with them forever. it’s very cold here. there’s piles of snow on the ground. it can be below freezing and snowy for ten days in a row and then four degrees above freezing for one day and then ten degrees below freezing for the next month, but in that one warm day, all the snow disappears. what happens afterwards doesn’t change the damage that’s already been done.
everything is essentially hopeless

today

Ellen told me the Halvah eases the crushing pain of existence. I think she may be right. I’ve been in the kind of mood lately where thoughts like “I’m an asshole” and “I am a bug splatted on the windshield of life” seem profound. So a short scene came to me on bart.

We walked into Mamounds. “You’ve been so glum lately,” she said, brushing a wisp of her long dark hair from her face. She smiled encouragingly and her hands fluttered gracefully.
The woman behind the counter stared at us impatiently. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“What do you have that eases the crushing pain of life?” I asked.
“Halvah for $1.50” she indicated the display case on the counter.
“Can I have a chocolate one and a turkish coffee?” I asked.
“For here or to go?”
I shrugged at Jessica.
“For here.” Jessica directed.
I got my truck smog checked and registered. It took a long dern time. And I figured out how to record audio on supercollider. The help file has a bug in it. and I wallowed in self loathing/pity for a while.
I talked to two of my neighbors about the temporary structure in the backyard. The Home Owners Association is meeting a week from today to decide if they will compell us to tear it down. Ellen was explaining to me this morning that if she loses the temporary structure, she’ll lose her Seattle gig and be forced to take minimum wage jobs and live in a studio apartment and have a budget to buy a few pieces of drawing paper periodically and dabble in art on weekends.
Please light a candle dedicated to your diety of choice that the association decides to let it stay. their issues are twofold: 1. It didn’t get pre-approval from the design review committee. (my defence: uh sorry. i wasn’t here when it was built.) 2. It may cause water penetration (my defence: it’s only going to stay up until may 2005. the possibility of structural damage in that time is remote. and i would of course be responcible for any repairs required as a result of it’s being there temporarily.)
One neighbor was supportive. the other was on the board. she indicated that people have to face consequences for their errors. So because the review comittee was skipped, there is no way in hell that she would allow it to stay. also, it’s important to keep art in perspective. it has it’s place in life, but that is secondary to property values.
we’re having an open house on saturday so people can see the temporary structure and get an idea of what things are about. of course, neither ellen nor i posses social skills in any significant degree. i fear it will be a disaster. i’m thinking of trying to pull in outside talent to pitch our case.
doom.
i don’t have the energy for this. i have important self-loathing to do.
any suggestions from anyone would be extremely welcome.

Life Goes On

So Jean gave me her MacWorld pass and so I went to the Moscone Center and spent about an hour wandering around. Uh yeah . . new computers? Um, I prolly should have looked at those. Still, I think it was a good introduction to macworld, I guess. I thought I had gone once before, but I was mistaken. It reminds me of the county fair, but more high-tech. Actually, since I used to go to the Santa Clara County Fair, it’s probably the same amount high tech.
I talked ot the folks who make Audio Hijack and wanted to know why it doesn’t capture sound from SuperCollider. This is actually a silly question, because SuperCollider is an audio programming language. If you want to capture the auio to disk, you can just write a little thingee to do it for you. But the help files on that aren’t done yet and I was hoping for a faster solution. So I stood there and chatted for a minute, trying to recall what other oddball program that I run that I couldn’t capture audio from?? I finally gave up trying to remember and wandered off. Only just now, as I tweak the source code, do I remember that I was thinking of the Java Just Intonation Calculator. Oh yeah. That thing I’m lead developer on.

Clearly I’m much spacier than I think I am.
Maybe you’re wondering how I’m doing? Fine thank you. A bit distracted, I guess. somewhat sad. More relieved. Working to maintain optomism.
After I left MacWorld, thinking I must have seen all the exhibitions at least in passing (but that can’t be true, because I didn’t see digidesign or MOTU’s booths, which must have been there), I barted around homewards, but got off at downtown Berkeley, so I could get pants and undies. Went to Ross Dress for Less because I am cheap. No pants I liked. But I nought the only 2 pair of small boxers in the whole store. (boxers or briefs? boxers. now you know.) they’re kind of hideous. One is covered in patriotic patterns, the other is green plaid. there’s nothing wrong with green plaid, except that it’s really not a good color on me. mind you, this is not something i worry about because nobody sees my underwear.
And then as I was wlaking home, it occurred to me that I’m single now. Not only might my underwear be seen, but this might be a desirable occurance and one where it might not be best to be wearing patriotic patterns. oy! Ellen points out that there are chicks who go for the geeky thing. these chicks are clearly my only hope. (She didn’t use the word “chicks”)
Is it a little early to worry about dating again? Why, just because I’ve been broken up for less than 48 hours and have enough emotional baggage with me to charter my own airplane back to CT? So let me do a little public self-esteem building (in the spirit of blogs everywhere): what’s not for chicks to dig? somewhat intelligent. kind of have my shit together (depending on how you define “shit”). Cute in a geeky sort of scrawny geek boy kind of way. (Is “scrawny geek boy” still employed as a catagory for describing people? should it be spelled “boi?”) Have one or two pairs of nice underwear lurking someplace. (“lurking” might not be the best word for “in a laundry basket or drawer in connecticut.”) Have musical skills.
I’m trying to create a mental picture of what I’m looking for in the big, scary world, but I think I don’t want to post it, as posting it would cause me angst and thus would violate one of my new years resolutions. my goodness, the year has laready been so eventful.
I want to drink a lot of beer in a social setting. I want to crawl under my bed and hide. I want to get nekkid with geek chicks, but first I would need a lot of beer and then I might hide anyway.