It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt

It's A Small World Afterall...

So...we discovered a couple of days ago right here at It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt that the human family really is one big 150,000 year old family...well...I had one of those experiences yesterday when you meet a new person and you realize that not only are we all related...but damn if we don't all know each other too. 

This isn't the first time I've met someone that knows a bunch of folks that I know...but usually you run into those people at a conference or in a big city...you don't find that person living on a rural ass reservation in the backwoods (desert) of New Mexico, and u don't meet them on gay.com. Yesterday I met this really groovy cat named Errol (yeah a straight up native boy named Errol...his Mama loved her some old movies). I guess it makes sense then though that Mr. Swashbuckler knows all the queer native folks I know.  Oh yeah...from my former boss Nick Metcalf right on down to my gal pal Coya Artichoker (though she doesn't recall meeting him, but he described her...rather hilariously...but it was an accurate description).  As we were talking last night and it became more and more apparent that we knew tons of the same folks and that we had even been at the same conference together in the same pre-conference institute together that I had better check to make sure we hadn't dated any of the same people or weren't first cousins ourselves. He's Dineh and my native roots are Anishinabe...so our last common ancestor was probably somewhere around 3,000-10,000 years ago...so I think we're good. And, heck, since my cousin Tammy just married her first cousin (from the other side of her family...not from our family)...then I can't see that would have been a problem anyhow. (Tammy was raised in Texas...I blame Aunt Char and Uncle Curt for her redneck ways).

Anyway, I was totally tickled by the experience, and it made me feel a little less isolated here in Albuquerque...I mean...hell...if he knows all the people I know and lives on the Navajo Rez (well Gallup actually)...then I don't have much to holler about in terms of limited entertainment and conocimiento options here in the Duke City. Plus, I've always been impressed with the ability of queer folks...no matter how isolated...to weave rainbow connections all across the globe. Hell...I'm surprised we're ended up being called gay instead of Novell or Microsoft Network Solutions...queer folks have been running clandestine underground networks for years...you know Harriet Tubman was a lesbian...because the Underground Railroad was later used as the first circuit party network. When Harriet wasn't leading slaves to the promised land (although I shudder to think that Canada is the promised land) she was cutting mean beats on her mule powered turn tables. No lie...I read all about...I think in Zinn's A People's History of the United States. It's there...footnotes and whatnot.

But...yeah...Errol...friend of my friends and now my friend as well. Too bad I didn't meet him back at the beginning of my stay here in the Land of Enchantment...would have been nice to have a cutie around that I had some connection to that didn't involve work ;-). But, hey...he's promised to show me around Gallup and the Navajo rez...and now I've got plenty of time in which to do it and enjoy it.  I'm liking this no work thing more and more...

Two Months Vacation and Other Thoughts...

In a new effort to try and look at the circumstances of the last couple of weeks in a more positive manner...I have come to realize that I basically have two months of play time between now and when I start working again.  I still have some work that I've agreed to do for YouthAction and there is, of course, my fun filled week in Tampa that will close out the vacation period...but...basically...I've got nothing but time on my hands...and that is a scary ass proposition!

Now...I'm pretty good at entertaining myself. I love to read...so I can always disappear into a book for a few hours a day...and then there is my obsession with movies...but...really...there is only so much time you can spend watching movies and reading. I am planning on using this time to catch up on some writing...start a new writing project...and to revise Eternal Dreams (the play I wrote back in January). But that still leaves me with a whole bunch of time to fill. One thing I am planning on doing (money permitting...and right now I ain't got none...so I ain't permitted to do much)...is taking in some of the amazing indigenous history of New Mexico. I just learned...in the last 24 hours...that the oldest human settlement in the western hemisphere is in Clovis, New Mexico. It's almost 12,000 years old.  There are some caverns I want to check out...and I'd like to get back to the Jemez Mountains one more again. But...there is only so much nature I can handle...plus...its starting to get warm here..and warm is followed by hot..and I ain't trying to be climbing around on some ancient rickety ruins while old native ladies are cooking lunch on any available stone surface.

(Side Note...I am on the tail end of this cold...but I still have a little cough...and now and then I cough and exhale a slimey chunk of nasty...it really isn't right).

As my friend Kjersten used to love to point out back in our college days at the Ski-U-Mah (that's pronounced SKY-U-MAH...and that's the U of MN to you lay people)...I am an IRA...an I Require Attention.  Before I continue let me point out that one Ms. Kjersten is at least as much of an IRA as I am. It may have something to do with the fact that we are both from Duluth...although...my family has been in Duluth way longer than hers...of course her family makes up for it by being disgustingly wealthy. Remind me to tell ya'll the story about the time my former roommate Eva (now Kjersten's wife) and I went up to Duluth for Kjersten's sister's high school graduation party...and Kjersten's old ass grandmother thought Eva and I were the help! Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried people. Anyway...as I was saying...I require attention. Not all the time...can go for a few days in isolation where I really don't see anyone I know...but after a few days...I need some attention...a text message I love you...a crowd of people listening to me act the fool...something. I am not above going into the middle of Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon and faking a seizure to get some pay attention to me time. Most of my friends are IRAs to some extent..so under normal circumstances you can find us all together somewhere...taking turns paying attention to each other...as portions of us jockey for the limelight for that particular round of amistoso appreciation (couldn't figure out a word in English that u can use like amistoso...which translates as friendly/friendship like/being derived from friends).

Perhaps I'll just sit in the offices of Young Women United for a couple of hours each afternoon until the young women point out that I'm not a young woman no matter how feminine I may be at times, and I should probably go play in the middle of the street or serenade the homeless. Hmmm....hadn't thought of those as ways to pass the time...I'm a professional people...don't try these activities at home...without licensed supervision.

I'm sure I"ll do just fine...all alone..in my sparsely furnished apartment...with my 10 oft viewed DVDs...and no internet connection...but...if you find yourself with a spare moment...text me...I could use the attention.

It's All Incest Baby...

So I am reading this fascinating book right now called DNA: The Secret of Life written by none other than Mr. Double Helix himself James Watson. Let me first give some major kudos to old JW. He, like Stephen Hawking, has an amazing ability to write about complex scientific processes/ideas/postulations/hypothesis in a way so that anyone that took a basic biology class in high school can pretty much engage with all of the material covered in the book. Since I only understood about every three words that came out of Mr. Voves mouth back in 10th and 11th grade advanced biology classes, it's a downright miracle that I am able to make any connections between what Mr. Voves droned on about in his monotone lectures and the vibrant world of molecular biology that James Watson brings to life in this relatively new book (was published in 2003).

Of all the fascinating subjects that the book has covered so far (ranging from the process Watson and Francis Crick went through in terms of identifying the structure of DNA to the debate over genetically modified food) the one that has really grabbed my attention is his chapter called Out of Africa. In this chapter, Watson discusses the evolution of Homo Sapiens and our migration up and out of Africa. I knew that science had pretty much put humans as developing in Africa(go Mother Africa)...what I didn't know was that the most distant related people living on the planet right now have a common ancestor no furhter back than 150,000 years ago. That's right...150,000 years ago a couple of homo sapiens fresh out of the jungle popped out some kids...and those kids had kids who had kids that had kids who had kids that had you and me and everyone else running about this here planet.  In the grand scheme of life...150,000 ain't nothing. Whether we like it or not...whether we want to admit it or not...whether we will ever really admit it or not...we are all relatives...one big ass dysfunctional family wreaking havoc across this pretty planet of ours. I thought it was pretty funny when I found out that World War I was pretty much caused by two first cousins that hated each other and just happened to have crowns on their heads and armies at their commands to make their family feud a little more interesting (Kaiser Wilhelm and King George V were both grandsons of Queen Victoria of England). Now it turns out that every war we've ever fought has been against our blood kin....dilluted blood...but blood none the less.

I wonder how modern life would change if we started teaching kindergarteners from day one of school that little Tommy and little Sara and Little Wei Wei and Little Alberto Gonalez de la Cruz Vargas Sanchez Maria Campos Verastegui are all members of one giant family...and not some euphemistic human family...but a real...honest to God...biologically grounded...genetically based...human family. I mean...some communities have long traditions of recognizing each other as family...if you grew up in an African-American community then you know that in addition to your real aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, you also had play aunts, play cousins, play grandmas that were just as much part of your family as your Father's sister that looks just like your Father...including the full on mustache.  In the Philipino community and in South Asian communities you will often refer to the friends of your parents as aunty and uncle and to close friends as older brother or older sister. And, of course, queer folks have been making up their families of choice as a matter of survival for a very long time.

I don't have much more to say on this topic other than I find it oddly comforting to know that I am connected to all the people walking about the earth. After I publish this post I am going start on my new project...convincing my cousin Queen Elizabeth II to name me Princess Brandon and then let me wed Prince Harry.

P.S. This falls into the YOU'VE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME file...but there is some Indian director that is making a movie about the life of Mother Theresa...and the man's top pic to play the fast tracked saint....none other than her holiness...paragon of virtue...selfless and giving in all ways...PARIS HILTON. I'm going to go and vomitar now.

The Fuck It Zone...

These are the days when I have to trust that everything really does happen for a reason. Like...for example...my former bosses...the board of directors of YouthAction...are and have been basically missing in action for weeks and weeks and weeks...and then things happen like today...I get an email from a board member asking me for information that I actually already sent weeks ago. I'm so over it...oh lord am I so so over it...so not only to have to figure out my own life and how I am going to get home and where I am going to live when I get there and how I am going to pay this months rent and if my landlord is going to let me out of the rest of my lease and will the Kaiser make it back to Minnesota and will I be able to eat once I get there and does energy really equal mass times the speed of light squared and oh yeah if I am going to have to do the work of the board of directors of YouthAction again and again and again and again...oh yeah...and how long before I just say fuck it and walk out.

See the problem is this...I care about the people that are trying to clean up the aftermath of YouthAction's explosion. Even through my constant frustration and near unending anger...I love the hell out of Miss Paulina...and I know she's not getting a shred of support from anyone else on the board...so I feel badly that I really want to blow her a kiss and say peace out Xicana. But I'm rapidly reaching that place....you know that place...where gravity breaks down, time no longer has any meaning, and not even light can escape...yeah...that's the place...where you get so angry the laws of physics just stop applying. And the next thing you know you find yourself in the Fuck It Zone.

The Fuck It Zone is a scary place because you just don't give a shit about a damn thing. Oh...you want me to put together those credit card receipts? Fuck it, I ain't doing it. You want me to pack up the office and label the boxes? Fuck it, you better hope a jolly elf and his playmates do it, cuz I sure as hell ain't. You want me to download files onto a jump drive and mail it to you? Fuck it, you better hope I don't take a sledge hammer to my desk top. You want me to negotiate what with who about what? Fuck it, I don't speak English anymore goddammit...you wanna talk to me...learn Mongolian.

I'm about two blocks from the Fuck It zone, and if I get one more email, one more phone call, one more smoke signal or one more telegram that doesn't start with...hey baby...how are you...how I can support you...let's work together to make this the best transition possible...we'll I'm going to run and leap directly into the Fuck It Zone...leave my key on my desk and barricade myself in my house until I'm able to drive back to civilized lands.

Wow...I feel so much better now.

Still here...

Heya folksy folks...I'm still here...but shortly after returning to New Mexico...I was struck with the mega-cold of the century...it hurts to talk...and I keep getting these nasty little fevers that last long enough to make my crotch sweat so badly I have to check to make I sure I haven't actually peed on myself. It's not time for depends yet....promise.

I am actually going to run along right now and touch myself as I think about the fact that Tom DeLay has resigned from the U.S. House. That's like one of the Grand Dukes of Hell going into retirement. Lovely. Just lovely. Now if only the Capitol Hill police would stop harassing Cynthia McKinney (although Rep. McKinney...you are way too dark to pull a Zsa Zsa Gabor)...then life would be hunkey dorey. Not really...but its baby steps people.