Gay Marriage

While we're still touching on the subject of things we don't like to explain to our kids, Louis CK has this bit on gay marriage. I wouldn't call myself a fan of Louis CK, but I have to admit, the man is funny. Which is most of what I like in a comedian.

"You won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature."

This is my favorite quote of the day. It comes from a from the NY Times a couple of days ago in an article about school librarians who are up in arms about a recent Newberry award winner's use of the word scrotum in her book, The Higher Power of Lucky.

“I think it’s a good case of an author not realizing her audience,” said Frederick Muller, a librarian at Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. “If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that."

I can't help but wonder what it is about the technical terms for body parts that makes people so squeamish. We're fine with our kids referring to their wee-wees and their bajingos, but God forbid they should know the medical terms for their bodies. That's crossing the line. This isn't an isolated affair, either. This follows directly on the heels of a recent incident in which a theater performing The Vagina Monologues renamed it The Hoohah Monologues because a passing driver said she was upset her niece saw the word vagina. Her niece, who, incidentally, has one.

My best guess is that this discomfort in talking about body parts has something to do with adults wanting to preserve their kids' innocence. That somehow they assume that by teaching kids how to talk about sex organs, they'll be that much closer to thinking about sex itself. Which will lead, naturally, into a life of S&M, homosexuality, and, of course, necrophilia.

That's the best explanation I can come up with, because, frankly, the idea of not teaching a kid the proper terms for their body parts is unbelievably foreign to me. When I was a kid, neither of my parents ever felt the need to couch discussions of our bodies in kushy euphemisms. That's not to say I never used little-kid slang for my penis. I did, but it was self-imposed. (I can even remember an incident in which I asked my mother how a doctor knows if a baby is a boy or a girl. Mom casually responded, "If it has a penis, it's a boy; if it has a vagina, it's a girl," which made me go "Mom!" as kids do when their parents shock them.)

What gets me most about the book banning is that it's a book written for kids age ten to twelve. Librarians are saying that younger kids--even kids as young as eight--will probably be more likely to read it, but still...adults need to grow up a bit and remember that kids aren't blind or stupid. By the time I was eight, I knew damn well what a scrotum was and so did every kid in my class. As soon as kids realize their genitals exist, they start talking about them. Parents might as well teach them the right way to do so.

Of course, if they're still dead set on talking to their kids in euphemisms, they might as well use some new terms. Like these, if you have a son. Or these, if you have a daughter.

Other news...
Speaking of childhood, there's an interesting game hovering around on the net called "Alter Ego," which is part choose your own adventure, part personality test. Basically, the game asks you questions and offers you choices. Based on your answers, it develops a life for your alternate personality (the one in the game...not the one you have in real life). Theoretically, assuming you don't kill yourself, you can live out an entirely separate life. The game is less fun than interesting, but it's worth playing through a few times. Oh, and one bit of advice...when the man in the car comes up and asks you questions, run away as soon as possible.

Also, speaking of hoohahs, I'll be attending the Belmont Burlesque this coming Saturday, cohosted by the imaginary Mr. B. Come out and join me for seminudity and crass comedy. It's a lot of fun.

The Lillith Affair

In the summer after I graduated college, I had a brief friendship with a girl I never met. Her name was Lily and we met on a message board that I had joined with my best friend, Holly, and her boyfriend at the time, Chris. I had joined the board that summer because of an incident in which the moderator--an exgirlfriend of Chris's--had half-read something Holly wrote and then attacked her viciously in sight of all. I was in the mood for a good fight most of that summer, and that wasn't a good fight--it was petty and juvenile and shouldn't have been worth my time--but it was the best I had around.

I stuck around the board for a while afterward. Long enough to get used to and disgusted with message board politics and have a little fun. At one point, I developed an alter ego for myself using an invented e-mail address and a name that clearly pointed to the fact that he was a fictional character (his name was Jimminy C and his screen name was Harvey Eightfoot). He disagreed with everything I wrote and was a lot of fun to combat.

Mostly I spent my time on the board continuing and supplementing debates between me and Chris. Chris loved to argue and so did I, so when we hung out, most of our time was spent debating some idea or other. Free will. Blake. Politics. You name it. And we carried our debates onto the board, filling out points too complicated and long-winded to make properly in face-to-face conversation.

The first time I spoke with Lily on the board was in the middle of a thread on politics, using the screen name Lillith Affair. It's been long enough that I forget the exact conversation we had, but I remember that in the course of it, I got the impression from her that she had lived a hard life. Homeless for a a lot of it and living in the back room of a bookstore where she worked two towns over. I liked her a lot. She was a little flaky, but she was clever and interesting and a tenacious debater, unwilling to let go of a point until it had been discussed away to her satisfaction. I remember some great conversations with her.

The way I finally got my chance to meet her began like this. I had told the board, in some thread or other, that I believed people who turn their heads away from an injustice are responsible for it themselves. That we are all responsible for the consequences of our actions, even if our actions are inactions. She asked where my responsibility was, knowing she was living in the back of a bookstore and not doing anything about it. And I had to admit, she had me there. So I told her I couldn't think of anything I could do for her, if she had anything she needed, I'd help out. A couple of days later, she told me to get in touch if I meant what I said, and since I did mean it, I e-mailed her.

In telling this story, it's hard not to sound like I was an idiot. Looking back on it, there's a thousand bits of better judgement screaming in my head and pointing at the enormous red flags raised around the situation. Which is more or less what my friends did at the time. Chris especially found the whole thing ridiculous. He and I would sit at coffee and when I brought up the situation, he would point out that she could be a serial killer, a robber, or even a forty-year-old man who pretends to be twenty-something women for kicks. And he was right, of course. The only thing I can say in my defense is that my mistake was that of a young man still willing to make himself believe that the person on the other side of the screen was exactly as funny and interesting and likeable as the impression she gave online. That she was who she said she was. That his cynical better judgement was wrong. It was the last bit of my childhood credulity hanging on for dear life.

She didn't need much from me. She was leaving the town where she lived and heading off to Atlanta or some such place where friends and a proper apartment awaited her. Along the way, she would have to stop off in Asheville and needed a place to sleep for the night. Did I have a sofa I could offer her? I did, so we made arrangements and a few afternoons later, I walked to Pack Square at the center of town and sat down to wait for her. I had been there about five minutes when Christopher walked up and sat down next to me. He told me Holly had sent him to wait with me and suggested the four of us get dinner after Lily got there.

While we waited, he pointed out a big balding man and said that could be her. I told him sure, but she could just as easily be that attractive redhead sauntering by. You just never know.

We sat in the square for a half hour, waiting, until Chris looked at me and said, "Matt, she's not coming."

"Probably not," I said, "but what if we leave and then she shows up?"

He said, and I will always remember this, "She won't. I'm Lily."

Chris was Lily. Holly confirmed it. He had created her as an alter ego to debate a point on Taoism with me through a kind of dialectic. He hadn't known or realized that I really liked her, but when I told her I was willing to help her, he decided to see if that was really true.

I should have been mad at Christopher for playing with my emotions like that, but I wasn't. The end of the whole thing was so strange and cathartic that I couldn't muster up any anger for it. Just a sense of release and longing for someone I never met.

The Technophobe Comes Around

I was about to post an entry talking about how I've recently discovered podcasts and how much I love new technology, when I realized that podcasting has been around for several years now. Long enough to no longer qualify as a new technology. Which puts me pretty firmly at the back of the technological trend, where I tend to be most comfortable. I tend to be the last to try out any new technology. I managed to avoid MP3s until they'd been around so long I couldn't turn the corner without one appearing in front of me. Had I been around when the hammer was invented, I probably would have kept using my rock.

Suffice to say, I like being able to download This American Life and listen to it at my leisure every week.

New Blogger
For a long time, I've been saying that there are only two people in the world who read this blog (you know who you are), and to tell the truth, it's only half joking. I recently added a site tracker to my blog (you can see it at the bottom of the page), which required me to update my version of Blogger to the New Blogger. I can't tell exactly what's new about it, but I like it. Aside from it being just plain easier to use, it actually tells me how many posts I made per month in my archive section. Which has shown me that I wasn't significantly less prolific this year than any other year. Good to know.

The site tracker is also neat. I added it on recommendation from Mr. B. (who doesn't actually exist, by the way...he's just a figment of my imagination, like Mr. Snuffalupagus, who periodically gives me good advice about aspects of my life. When he and I get together, people on the street stop and stare at me sitting around talking to my hand and laughing, laughing, laughing...), and it really is eye opening. It turns out more people than two visit this site. Many of whom are international. Wow.

Number 1
Finally, I recently googled myself and found that I am the number one Matthew Rossi. That puts me right ahead of the Other Matthew Rossi. I can't say I've won the war, but I'm definitely pulling ahead in the battle.

From the Files

One of the joys of finally having my mind on something other than writing essays for future schools is that I finally have a chance to catch up on the blogs that I've ignored for a while. Blogs of people I don't know, like Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll. Blogs of people I do know, like Mr. B and Ian (who mercifully updates with even less frequency than I do, making catching up fairly easy). I've been amazed to realize how many of them update daily and how good so many of the daily updates are. I tend to take a stance that I only blog when I feel like I have something to say, because I know that if I updated daily, this blog would become a daily weather report (it's cold today, snowing, chance that the temperature will dip down into the negative digits). So I'm impressed when people set themselves to write every day and then still fill their blogs with substance and intellect and wit. It goes to show you, worrying about every word might make a great sentence, but it doesn't get the novel written.

Anyway, it made me realize there's a great deal I could have written about, but haven't for whatever reason. So here they are. A few from the files.

Tantalus
Since November, I've been working with Tantalus, first in workshop and now in rehearsal, for our new show, Toy Chest. Initially, I wasn't going to try to be involved with the show on the creative end, but as the concept for the show began to develop, it drew me in.

It's probably the tightest show Tantalus has developed to date--we had a fully realized script in hand before auditions--and I think it's going to show. As with all Tantalus shows, there's an element of chaos in it that makes it impossible to completely prepare, but we at least have those parts of the show we can control. Which gives us time to experiment with the parts we can't.

The rehearsals have posed an interesting challenge to me. My character is a hobby horse, which means that I'm basically a giant horse head puppet. My costume engulfs my arms, and a mask hides my face, leaving me with only my legs and torso to articulate the character (since I'm a horse, I can't talk much...no one can talk to a horse, of course). To top it, with this horse head, I have a really complicated and nuanced emotion that I have to convey. It's Tantalus and no emotion is simple with Tantalus. Everything has to have layers. So, at times, I feel like I've been asked to work a boulder into a finely engraved relief of Romeo and Juliet with only a sledgehammer as my tool. It's been a genuine challenge, more intrigue than frustration, and I've been thankful for the opportunity.

Like My Literary Forefathers

"I cried like a fool. Those deep, convulsive, wracking cries. Just horrible. But as bad as that was, it really helped me to work out some of this. And like throwing up, as soon as it was done, I felt better."

That above quote is from a friend's blog. I include it because it pretty well describes what happened to me a couple of weekends ago.

I've been drinking a lot lately. A lot. Beyond where I simply wake up a bit groggy and take two Advil and call it a morning. Beyond where I just make an ass of myself in public. I've been drinking to the point where, weekend after weekend, I stumble home and climb into the bathtub, because I know with certainty that I'm going to pass out cold and if I do, I'll probably die from drowning in my vomit. I don't know why it's been. I have speculations that it's just because I've been stressed or that I have been just not exhibiting the self control I ought. But for a month and a half or so, from before New Year's until just recently, I spent at least one day each weekend hanging over the toilet.

Not healthy.

Then a couple of weekends ago, I did something at a party that I thought would hurt a friend of mine. I didn't do it maliciously, but I did it with the conscious thought that it would hurt my friend's feelings if she knew. I just didn't care, because I was drunk enough to not care. The next morning I woke up, feeling like someone had used me as a punching bag the night before and feeling guilty about what I had done. I slid over to my computer, put my headphones on, turned on Johnny Cash's "Hurt" and listened to it in a loop for an hour.

And I cried. Big, hot, loud cry that, if you'd heard it, you'd think my mother had died. You'd think I was tearing out hair and cutting flesh that's how loud and agonized I cried. Everything, every whatever it's been sitting on my heart dragging me down with it for longest time, came up in those tears for the next hour. When they stopped on their own, I played Johnny again. And again and again and again. Like I was wringing out a sopping rag. Until it was all gone and I felt better and I called my friend and she told me it was OK. I hadn't done anything. And she was wrong--I had done something, even if it didn't hurt her--but I was thankful to be forgiven.

And then I went to rehearsal and set my feet toward something healthier.

Chapters
Lately, chapters have been ending in my life, loose ends folding up as though life knew damn good and well it was time to move on. Relationships, both long standing and new have ended, clearing me of ties here and elsewhere, no longer making me choose between one life and another. Opportunities have opened up for me as a writer, and new connections with people have developed that will make that path easier.

My past is folding up behind me. It makes it easier for me to see the now.

Because How Often Does Neil Gaiman Ask a Favor of Me?

Penn Jillette

The explanation of what this means can be found here. Toward the bottom of the page.

Mars des pingouins

My best friend, Holly, just sent me this. I never realized what a strong visual connection there is between penguins and Napoleon. I'll be keeping a lookout for that in the future.