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2001-09-15 / 10:35 p.m. ~Re-Immersion~ The past few nights I've been looking for alternatives to the constant news coverage on television. I didn't feel I could concentrate long enough to watch a movie, or even sit and read a book or magazine, I wanted a quick fix of something that wasn't about tragedy. One night it was "Amazing Animals" on Animal Planet. One dog likes to do back flips when he catches a ball. Another enjoys grabbing tree branches with his teeth and swinging his body around. Yet another dog, a Dachsund named Brutus, enjoys skydiving with his human companion. It was heartwarming, stuff that made me smile, took my mind off everything else. Last night it was "I Love Lucy" on Nick at Nite. An episode about Lucy and Ethel selling Ricky and Fred's old clothes to a second hand shop, the second hand shop owner selling the clothes back to Ricky and Fred. It was silly, really, but one scene made me chuckle. Ricky is pissed, and when he gets pissed he shouts in Spanish. Sometimes I can pick up bits and pieces of what he's saying, and so could Fred. So Fred is listening to Ricky talk to one of his musicians, yelling that he can't believe he is having to buy back his clothes, etc., turning to Fred, continuing in his tirade, but not switching to English, and Fred understands anyway, answers him in English. Ricky and Fred walk off together, formulating a plan to get back at the girls, and Fred takes Ricky's arm, in a little European sort of men walking together kind of way, nothing homosexual, not that there would be anything wrong with that, but all the same, and says, "Hey, waddya know, Ricky, I was just talking Spanish!". Well, it was funny, but maybe you had to be there. This morning I slept late, had a dream in which I was a gay man, and I was making love with my lover. Actually, we were at some event, a sort of Disney on Ice or something, and again, as usual, I think it was at the glorious FOX Theatre, but I was there, with my lover, and I looked around behind us and it was all men in the audience, or mostly men, gay men, and I had the realization that this was the GAY Disney on Ice, or whatever it was. I was nuzzling in my lover's neck, kissing him, he had short hair, and at some point I realized I was a man too, I was a gay man, and I had this realization. My lover got up to go to the bathroom, or something, and left me there, and while he was gone I began to play with a penis, but it was my penis and I was stroking myself, quite aroused and hard. Strange dream. I read in another diary today, I think her name is "zizi", of sexual dreams as release of stress and tension. I had planned to quote her and link to her, but you can read for yourself, anyone reading this now, if you so choose. It struck me though, to read someone else write that, especially after that very vivid dream I had this morning. It wasn't the first time I dreamed I had a penis, but it was the first time I dreamed I was a gay man, to my knowledge. This afternoon I spent on the 'net, reading. Antiwar sites, newspaper sites, Washington Post articles, and New York Times articles, Reuters, Salon, testimonials, weblogs, diaries, I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know what is going to happen now, what I should feel, what others feel, what the people who live in New York feel, what the intellectuals are feeling, what they are all writing, what's being printed, here, on the 'net. I wasn't going to watch television at all, I was furious with the television, wanted it to stop, the constant news coverage, the repetitive nature of it. I was going to go out, to be outside, to enjoy the day, not just feel the breeze blow through the open window and porch here, in my apartment. I considered buying a new pair of Birkenstocks, thought that would be normal, yet not normal at all for me, something I haven't done in years - my current pair were a birthday gift a couple years ago. I never left. I never went farther than out on the porch. At some point I turned off college radio and turned on the television, began to crave news once again, wanted images once again, and was shocked to see the major networks were showing semi-regular programming, "to be announced" programming, movies, old TV movies, etc. I watched some of CNN. Another press conference with Giuliani, Pataki, the New York officials. Finally it was time for regular news, then entertainment news, news I'd been craving. "Entertainment Tonight" was on, so was "Inside Edition", with lots of personal stories, personal accounts, more video of the initial planes striking the towers, more, more, and celebrity news, how the celebs are reacting, the comedy writer/producer who died, the one who wrote for "Frasier". Something different, but more of the same. Then "America's Most Wanted", a show I never watch, but I was glued to it, 2 hours of it, no commercials, only breaks for more "news", and it was all about the rescuers, the "heroes", and as I teared up again, as I have done all week, I held back, I'd start to cry and hold it in, but this time I made a conscious decision to cry, to let it out, to finally let myself feel whatever I was going to feel, and I cried. It wasn't long, it wasn't moaning or sobbing, just tears, brief scrunching up of my face, and me saying aloud, 'Those poor people', and 'All those people', and I remember some 7 year old child one night on one news report saying, "That's too many people to die in one day", and he was so right. And I realized I wasn't just crying for them, but I was crying because I was alone, sitting there on my sofa in my living room watching my TV, there was no one there with me as I was watching so many people come together, so many people crying on other people's shoulders. I felt totally alone. I was thinking of them, then me, then them, then me. Wondering if I'll have a new job next week, wondering if I'll go to the rally on D.C. on the 29th, wondering if the new job would want me to work on a Saturday, wondering if I can handle the schedule, the pay cut, wondering if I can stay at my current job any longer, wondering if I'll ever have friends with shoulders I can cry on. It was me crying for all of us. I watched all of it, the men sifting through the rubble, the photos of the people in this country linked to Bin Laden, the children talking about how they feel, how scared they are terrorists are going to come back and kill us all. I immersed myself in the coverage I could find, this time craving it, wanting all of it, wanting to let myself feel all of it, no need to hold back, no need to tell myself it should just all go away. It's here to stay and I stayed right there with it. I don't know if I'll go to D.C., I need to see how many people are going to be protesting a future war, I don't know where I'll be working after next week. All week we've been packing our cubicles, preparing for them to be moved next week for new carpeting to be laid in the office. I have been going through my files, imagining I'm clearing out for good, imagining I'll say goodbye to that office next week after I'm hired, thinking maybe I won't be hired, thinking I won't want to be. There's an unsettled environment in my own life, there's an unsettled environment in the entire country, I think I cried tonight because it's all too horrible, not just my life, not just my own uncertainty, but the uncertainty of thousands, if not millions of people. I'm going back to the television soon, no one to talk to, just me, the cats and the TV. No guarantee I won't watch more "I Love Lucy" or more "Amazing Animals" or "Iron Chef" or something light and cheery, but allowing myself to feel the grief, the pain, that everyone else is feeling, can't be bad. Maybe this is me on the road to my own personal transformative healing. Cost of the War in Iraq
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