CHE BELLO resolves…
I’ve never been much for New Year’s resolutions. I think it has something to do with this being the first year that I’ve felt I’m fully in control of where I end up and what I become. Which is a good thing, I suppose, but also a rather daunting responsibility. BUT, it’s a New Year and, while I don’t necessarily want a new me, there are some things I’d like to see happen in 2010.
I will,
1. Run two half-marathons. I’m currently mulling over doing one on January 16th, even though my plan was for one in early spring and one in late fall. I’ve been pushing my mileage lately and think at this point I could run 10 or so miles pretty comfortably. Regardless, I’ll get two under my belt this year, and am still pushing for my first marathon in spring 2011.
2. Be better at keeping in touch with friends. It’s so easy to lose track of people when I stretch myself as thinly as I do, but I really must do a better job of this. I think having lots of new bloggy friends is helping in that department, even if our interactions are not yet very deep.
3. Write more poetry. I think this will be achieved in the poetry class I’m taking this coming semester, but regardless, I need to focus more energy on being creative in outlets other than theatre, which, though I love it, is getting rather exhausting as I enter my third (and final) semester of leadership in the company.
4. Wait tables again. I know a lot of people dread navigating angry diners, but I rather enjoyed my stint as a Coke refill bitch and would like to return to my former state of obesity enablement. Not to mention that I made a killing in tips from winking at the obviously gay guys.
5. Knit a hat, a tie, and a sweater. I picked up knitting for about a week six months ago, but then promptly had all my free time sucked away by the show I was directing. Since I got promoted to a job that doesn’t require me to be at rehearsal every night, I picked up my needles again on Dec. 27th, and am getting really excited at the progress I’m making. Progress that I’d like to see continue throughout the new year.
6. Be content. This is a transformation that I’ve noticed in myself recently and, although it’s very unlike me, I think I like where it’s going. I’ve spent a lot of time in my life forcing things into being what I want them to be. Organizations, relationships, family ties, career choices; everything has been a game of pushing and molding and shaping. But what I’ve learned is that things that are unnaturally shaped don’t last very long. If you push a relationship to be something it isn’t supposed to be, someone is going to get hurt. (Thanks MamaMush for helping me develop my thoughts on these kinds of things.) So, as difficult as it is for me, I’m letting things progress naturally, not broadcasting my feelings to the entire world, and just being happy. It’s highly uncharacteristic as I generally don’t mind delving into emotional matters, even very soon after feelings develop, but I think it’s a good thing to be a little more subdued, a little more contemplative until things build themselves up the way they will (or won’t, but it’s natural). So, yes to sitting back and letting things happen.
We’ll check back for a 2010 retrospective this time next year, assuming I’m not on one of my oh-so-frequent unintentional blogging hiatuses (hiati?).
Blah blah blah and auld lang syne, everyone!
CHE BELLO is disheartened…
There are days when I’m really excited about the future of the gay rights movement, like when the Iowa Supreme Court bravely stood up for equal protection under the law and made marriage legal for us ‘mos. And then there are days when something happens that’s so debilitatingly depressing that I wonder what I even care for. A few days ago I had one of those moments.
My younger brother is a sophomore in high school in the simultaneously rich and trashy city of Asheville, North Carolina. Since he lives with my mom and stepdad (currently deployed to Iraq), I don’t see him that often anymore, and he’s really grown up to be quite different than the little brother I was raised with. He skateboards, loves Bob Marley, shaves his head super-close, and basically possesses every attribute known to man that would make him my complete opposite. Not that I love him any less, it’s just hard to find things in common when the lil guy I used to know has been so adversely affected by his surroundings and the brainwashing of his father. (That’s a whole ‘nother post. The man once told me that “the Anti-Christ will be someone just like me.”)
Well, the other day he Facebook friended me. I thought nothing bad of it, clearly, and added him. Exchanged a few comments on pictures, etc. It was actually really nice, feeling like I had some sort of window into what was going on in his life, especially since my mom and I haven’t talked for a few months. Yeah, there were some things that gave me cause for concern, but it’s not my job to police his profile, and I said stupid stuff when I was younger too. But then up came a status update calling someone who didn’t show up for a fight afterschool a pussy and a faggot. Now, any of you readers who know me will instantly understand how my thoroughly nonviolent self reacted to the proposition that my brother had become just another street thug in baggy clothes looking for a fight after school, but that’s clearly not what upset me the most.
If we’ve built a culture that is so accepting of discrimination and hateful language against gays that our own families use those words without a moment’s thought about the consequences or messages they’re sending, how are we ever going to achieve equal rights? If it’s so ingrained in our culture that degrading gays, lesbians, and transgendered people is acceptable, and even cool, where does that leave the movement? Yes, I realize that the words and actions of schoolyard bullies may not reflect their true feelings, but haven’t we as a society failed in a fundamental way if it’s still okay to use these words?
And so, just days after New York State Senator Ruben Diaz lambasted the gay marriage movement as threatening traditional moral values, I’m fighting my own personal battle. Not with a state legislature, or with a panel of judges, or with the National Organization for Marriage, but with a 16-year old boy so caught up in the swirling social forces of high school that he’s blinded to how his language affects even his closest relatives.
Where do we even begin?
CHE BELLO’s daily annoyances.
Things that annoy me today:
1. Getting a box of chocolate from a student (how unnecessarily sweet!) that did not include a map. How am I supposed to navigate this box of chocolate for maximum deliciousness without a guide? How will I make sure to avoid the culinary land mine that is the raspberry cream wrapped in dark chocolate? Hey, not even Sir Edmund Hillary went up Mount Everest without a native Sherpa guide, that Tensing Norgay fellow. (Who must have been asexual, as he was neither straight NORGAY! HA!)
2. I thought I could come up with a second thing, but really I’m so overwhelmingly annoyed by the first that I can’t. So. There you go.
CHE BELLO 