boylikesboy

Sun, 06 Jun 2004 07:04:37 GMT

Wow. Way to keep up with the journal, Brent. So I graduated college. Magna cum laude with High Honors in English. Color me ecstatic. Color me broke.

Including the check I wrote for a security deposit on my new apartment, I already went through all of my graduation money. I'll be more careful with my GHP salary.

The apartment will be nice, if it doesn't too closely resemble Stepford. It's about 10 or 15 minutes from all the cool stuff (Va-Hi, Midtown, Little Five, Lenox) and about 5 minutes from school. So that's exciting.

Leaving school was strange. The people I will end up staying in touch with are not the people I expected. Things change, and to realize that I had so many relationships of convenience without realizing it makes me sad. People turned out differently than I thought they would.

I wonder if I will actually have a career in academics. Just to make myself feel better, I was thinking about all the other things I could do with two communications degrees. They make me feel better.

There was much drama with the boys lately. There is one who wants to date me but who I just want to be friends with. There is a cute one that I hooked up with that I want to be friends with but I don't know how to go back to friends after hooking up. There is one that I used to date that may or may not want to be my friend or my boyfriend, but who I am realizing is a lot more complex and down to earth than I thought he was. He's a little neurotic, a little manic, but my other friend says he adores me. And I think he may get me more than any of the other gay boys in Atlanta.

The cute one that I hooked up with? I'll be working with his ex all summer. That might be dramatic or interesting or ridiculous or embarrassing. We'll see. I'll probably be taking a break from boys this summer.

I talked to Emily Bohannon, who said that one of her best friends got HIV. She says he has a sparkly personality, and it makes you want to cry. She says she gets scared for all of her gay friends, which reminds me of the conversation I had with Caroline about how scared she is for her gay boys. I'm always scared, of course, but, as the guy wrote in the New York Times on the occasion of his (negative) HIV test, "I treasure human touch." I told Emily I wanted to get married at some point so I will know what it feels like to have sex without a condom.

A certain friend of mine is very immersed in the porn and partying culture lately. I worry about him, even though I know that I should respect his sexual liberation more than that. Can you believe in Michel Foucault without wondering whether it's impossible to resist the discursive rendering of sex without bearing a Bordo-esque burden (like Foucault himself did.) Maybe "treasuring human touch" is the resistance Foucault never got around to defining.

When I come home from the summer, I get depressed that I have nothing to do and that no one is here unless they're visiting and that my family tends not to understand me very much. Then I realize that it's probably not just that I am at home, but that these weird interim times always depress me. Today, while I was taking the second shower of the day, I said out loud and to myself "I spend too much time in my head." It makes me feel like an angsty adolescent (although one with a college degree.) Are things different when I don't have the kind of time that allows me to spend so much time with myself? Will things be different when I have my own apartment, and things to do.

I took my mother to see Rent, and it made me cry again. (Again. I'm kind of a depressive adolescent.) Strange parts made her uncomfortable: Angel's drag, but not Mimi's drug use, Collins' singing 'I'll cover you,' but not Roger's 'Glory.' At least, that's what I could sense in the air between us.

I'm going ot volunteer with the HRC and YouthPride next year. Not to help people. But for selfish reasons. I want to feel good about myself, and I want to meet more gay people. Or maybe I need anti-depressants.

Fri, 07 May 2004 18:40:11 GMT

I've finally finished going around to all the prof's house for dinner. I remember when I went to ZK's party freshman year that I was all intimidated and impressed by the cool senior english majors who were friends with him. This year was much less cool and impressive, and I realized it's maybe because i'm one of those intimidating senior english majors now.

ZK said that he had given lots of interesting people Cs and lots of bores As and I asked him if I was one of the bores. He said no, but I still have my doubts. He reminded me he hasn't actually seen any of the film I've made.

He said everyone needed to stop back by to take a picture before we graduate. I asked him if he had a trellis, and he said, "we're not getting engaged Byars."

He still wants me to try for all As so I can get high honors, but I think there's little chance of that this semester.

The punch was still good. And I got sufficiently drunk to watch 4 hours of TV on NBC. I saw the last 5 minutes of the last Friends, and I was duly unimpressed. The sappy ones aren't very funny, are they.

Then we all went to Wendy's for Dr. Pepper, but they had stopped serving Dr. Pepper.

Oh well.
I have one paper left until I'm completely done with college here. Wow.

journal

Wed, 05 May 2004 05:43:34 GMT

I'm starting this journal instead of studying for my last college final. My feet are cold because it's cold outside (in May.) And I hope I get to go somewhere fun soon to celebrate gradumatating.

Today at my last college class ever we argued about whether the Matrix was a good or bad trilogy. The consensus? It's good, as long as you read it ironically. (Like everything.)

I'm getting an honors degree, but there was unfortunate drama in the department surrounding that. I'm not really one to be radical, or to protest anything, so I don't know how I could be that divisive.

I'm giving my copy of Boy Meets Boy to Suzanne Churchill. Maybe when her kids get older she'll read it to them. I am also giving her and ZK a DVD and a copy of my thesis.

Note to self: find conference to present parody/gazing paper. Then start project on the speech acts that close paradoxical moments in temporary transvestite movies.

Wish me luck on the exam I didn't study for.