What is it about having a Boyfriend?

Well, first of all, the Guy and I are back together. That happened about a week ago when we both put the little conflict we had had behind us. So we are back together. That is, until he moves out of the state/country/continent.

And I always wonder which came first... It seems like every time I find myself coupled up with someone, guys swarm like bees. Is it that I am more confident when I know I have someone to come home to? Perhaps. Is it that I'm not giving guys the "please sleep with me" look? Could be. I really don't see either of those things though.

Friday night, I got a "booty call" which I had to pleasantly reject. Last night, I had guys buying me drinks, was offered a job at the bar, and then at the end of the night when I was passed out on a friend's sleeper sofa after an after-bar bonfire, some guy tried to crawl into bed with me. All very flattering. But why doesn't this stuff happen when I'm single? Seriously, I can go through crazy "dry spells," and not have a gay man in the world look at me. Then I'm off the market and *poof* desirable. What's with that?

Maybe the lesson is that I need to forever operate as though I do have a boyfriend. Who knows.

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"Frozen Foods" Quietdrive,
Unknown Album

Worth Reading. Worth Saving.

This is the text of the speech that Bob Hattoy gave at the 1992 Democratic Convention. He was the first openly gay man to speak to that sort of audience, and certainly the first person with AIDS. He died a few months back, but I still want to mark this as something to remember.


BOB HATTOY: Thank you. I love you. Thank you, California. Thank you, Gay and Lesbian community. Thank you, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. Thank you, Aretha Franklin, God.

I am here tonight because of one man's courage and conviction, one man's dedication and daring and yes, one man's true kindness. He's my boss, Bill Clinton. (Applause)

You see, I have AIDS. I could be an African American woman, a Latino man, a 10-year old boy or girl. AIDS has many faces. And AIDS knows no class or gender, race or religion, or sexual orientation. AIDS does not discriminate, but George Bush's White House does. (Applause)

AIDS is a disease of the Reagan-Bush years. The first case was detected in 1981, but it took 40,000 deaths and seven years for Ronald Reagan to say the word "AIDS." It's five years later, 70,000 more dead and George Bush doesn't talk about AIDS, much less do anything about it.

Eight years from now there will be 2 million cases in America. If George Bush wins, we're all at risk in America. It's that simple. It's that serious. It's that terrible. (Applause)

(Chants of "No second term!")

This is hard. I'm a Gay man with AIDS and if there's any honor in having this disease it's because it's an honor being part of the Gay and Lesbian community in America. (Applause)

We have watched our friends and lovers die, but we have not given up hope. Gay men and Lesbians created community health clinics, provided educational materials, opened food kitchens, and held the hands of the dying in hospices. The Gay and Lesbian community is an American family in the best sense of the word. (Applause)

President Bush, we are a million points of light; you are just too morally blind to see us. Mr. President, you don't see AIDS for what it is - it's a crisis in public health that demands medical experts, not moral judges - and it's time to move beyond your politics of denial, division and death. It's time to move George Bush out of the White House. (Applause)

We need a President who will take action, a President strong enough to take on the insurance companies that drop people with the HIV virus, a President courageous enough to take on the drug companies who drive AIDS patients into poverty and deny them lifesaving medicine. And we need a President who isn't terrified of the word "condom." (Applause)

Every single person with AIDS is someone worthy of caring for. After all, we are your sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. We are doctors and lawyers, folks in the military, ministers and priests and rabbis. We are Democrats, and yes, Mr. President, Republicans. We are part of the American family and, Mr. President, your family has AIDS and we're dying and you're doing nothing about it. (Applause)

Listen. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. But I don't want to live in an America where the President sees me as the enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics.

So I stand here tonight in support of Bill Clinton, a man who sees the value in each and every member of the American family. And although I am a person with AIDS, I am a person with hope, because I know how different my life and all our lives could be if I could call my boss Mr. President.

Martin Luther King once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Fifty thousands people took to the streets in New York today because they will no longer be silent about AIDS. (Applause)

Their actions give me hope. All of you came here tonight; millions more are watching in America. Obviously, we have hope and hope gives me the chance of life. I think it's really important to understand that this year, more than any other year, we must vote as if our life depends on it. Mine does; your could - and we all have so much to live for. Thank you.

(Standing ovation)

Act Up. Fight Back. Fight AIDS. Thank you.

Please don't tell me I'm becoming one of "those" people

Wow. I've been working for the Public Defender for too long... My distrust of all things "institutional" is growing.

Last night I went to a "screening" with my roommate of the Extreme Home Makeover that aired, which featured her non-profit, Camp Heartland. It was a really nice testament to the work that they do, and helped focus on some of the shocking discrimination that still occurs against people with HIV. The ignorance that continues to exist on these issues still amazes me (and, true enough, one of the people at this party, as nice as he was, asked at a point, "So, how is HIV spread?").

But at a certain part of the show, a teenager started to speak about how she was kicked out of her CHURCH on EASTER by her pastor. Holy Lord. While I was also kicked out of a church in my youth, having it done because of a disease you are already suffering with somehow makes it seem so much worse. And yet why? I was just reading this blog post (try to read it and NOT get sucked into the comments...) about the cruelty of growing up gay in fundamentalist families.

One of the guys I mentored in college as he came out grew up in a family like that. He was terrified of what being gay meant for his soul. When this article was published in our student paper, he contacted me for guidance. After he started to come out, and was doing rather well with the process, his evangelical pastor kicked him out in front of the whole congregation at their summer picnic, the event where he knew that this young man would set the best "example" for everyone else in the flock. Why this even shocks me though is beyond me. The Catholic Church is still forbidding contraception in Africa, because it can't see past its own nose on "birth control." So it is letting people die.

How quickly faith and reason get lost in religion.

And then, this morning, I was listening to this story on Slate.com about the American Center for Voting Rights. It essentially was this fake advocacy group that used anecdotal (and often false) evidence to push forward legislation to stem the tide of big-bad-voter-fraud that was overtaking our country. Except, there was no such epidemic, and the advocacy group, low and behold, was serving as an instrument of the GOP, targeting Democratic districts to pass laws that would largely disenfranchise Dem voters (poor, elderly, and/or minority). This also ties in nicely with the Justice Department firings of AGs who wouldn't pursue cases of voter fraud against Dem candidates, particularly because those AGs didn't think there were merits to the cases.

So here, once again, it seems that we have the GOP trying to pull one over on the American people (and largely succeeding) by creating a fake scandal. It becomes one of those "trust no one" societies when even our voting turns out to be manipulated.

The truth is out there. ;-)

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"Fire and Rain" James Taylor,
The Best of James Taylor

Dancing Heartbroken

I promised myself that I would stay for two drinks.

I hate that bar.

Of course, before I could even get my first beer, I saw the Guy. He had talked a few nights ago, and settled everything out. So now... now. Now it was just pure desire to be back in each other's arms. And he held me. Held me in those arms that are like big ol tree trunks. And I just wanted to give in.

We had both had enough to drink to make it excusable. I had been at a Margarita party, and tequila notoriously makes me do naughty things. But tonight I couldn't be that naughty. I just couldn't. It had been hard enough, without adding this. If I took him home, we would be amazing once again, but disastrous in the end.

Since we broke up, I have engrossed myself in every possible distraction. But there I stood, no distractions available, just him and I, and he pulled me close. I resisted. I didn't want to. I kissed him. I didn't want to. But how I wanted to.

He's leaving in less than a month. Got to keep that in my head.

Down boy.

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"All Wrong" Down the Line,
Welcome to Flavortown

Tragically Uncoordinated

You know those times in life when you simply just have to laugh at yourself?

Yesterday I had one of them.

My family's lack of athletic ability is something of legend in my hometown. While my father bikes, my sister swims, and I run, that is because those are things that we can't muck up by missing the ball/fumbling/generally making idiots of ourselves. For a good while in my childhood I had tried soccer, baseball, basketball, even football (eek, that one lasted about two days). Each one a bit more tragic than the last.

Well, some things never change. I went to the gym yesterday with a buddy of mine and followed his work out, just to mix things up a little. A good way in, we moved to the abdominal board, which he put on an incline. He grabbed a 12-pound medicine-ball, and showed me how to do a sit-up-throw-catch exercise. I watched and threw the ball while he did his first set, and then I got on the incline to do mine.

He threw the ball, I started to sit up and *WHAM* the 12-pound medicine ball hit me square in the left eye and knocked me down to the board.

After the tears of pain cleared from my eye, we could only laugh as I said, "Have I mentioned how uncoordinated I am? Sitting up and catching at the same time might not work for me."

Even better was the super hot guy working out next to us who I'm pretty sure got a good laugh as well.

(P.S. I ended up getting the hang of the exercise)

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"Fall" Kepano Green,
Valley Drive

Uninsured American

It hit me yesterday, as I received my bill from the dentist, as the personal trainer at my new gym gawked at me, and as I scratched the continually-present (possibly fatal) spider bites I got in Chile: I am one of America's uninsured.

I just aged-out of my father's insurance this last birthday. And I won't be eligible for insurance with my job for about 18 months (assuming they give me a job).

When I had last gone to the dentist, the hygienist tried to get in my face (get it: "get in my face"! she's a hygienist...har!) about my continuing refusal to floss. "How about for next time, your goal is to floss twice a week?" she proposed.

"How about for next time, my goal is to graduate law school, get a job, pass the bar, and get health insurance, so that I don't have to pay out the nose to hear you lecture me about my mouth?" I countered. She didn't like that much.

Yesterday I went to go sign up for a new gym membership closer to work. The trainer: "You can get 20% off with your insuranc..." I cut her off. "Thanks, but I'm not insured." She was positively aghast. "What are you thinking?" I don't possibly know.

And then I looked online, wondering why the spider bites I got almost three weeks ago in Chile are still itching and how long I should expect it to last. Here's what I found. Gee... Possible kidney failure? I should go see a doctor about that. Wait. No I shouldn't. I should wait til I start seizing so i can go to the emergency room so I won't have to pay.

The honest truth is that I have now found myself among the 46.6 million Americans (that's 16%) who are without health coverage. And it's already cramping my style.

This is why this man horrifies me!

"In the Republican debate, Mitt Romney said he'd like to see the size of Guantanamo doubled: 'I am glad [detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.'"

Thanks Towleroad.

Counting Blessings

I just finished writing my Thank You Notes from my birthday. My mother was always an extreme stickler about sending notes out, and, although they are a tich late this round, it has become important to me as well. Sometimes it is less about the action of thanking the person than just generally being thankful overall. Reminds us of exactly what gifts we have received (both birthday and otherwise) and to be grateful for each of them.

To be honest, last year's birthday sucked worse than any I can remember before it. It was a law school thing, and it was just horrid. But this year couldn't have been better. I took the initiative to get my butt to Chile to be with my sister. And let me just say that no one can do a birthday quite like my sister. There she treated me to a deluge of tasty treats, an incredible meal of Tapas in Valparaiso (Poblenou: try the apple and honey roasted chicken or the pork tenderloin with saffron risotto, both amazing!), and her host mother had a little celebration that included seafood empanadas which were incredible! Carey took me out shopping, and we just spent a wonderful day together.

Then, when I got home, my father presented me with a ceramic tile piece he had bought in China with a cool fish design. He took me out for a couple of great meals, bought me a new power drill and a case for my Mac book. Quite generous.

There have been times in my life, ESPECIALLY with my father, that I have neglected everything he has given me (sometimes out of envy for what my sister has received). It's important to see that he has also been consistently generous with me as well.

It was a good birthday. And I am getting more mature (or at least older).

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"When All is Said and Done" Trapt,
Trapt

Republicans and Power

It CONSTANTLY surprises how much abuse of power we have seen in, around, and among the modern Republican party and their brethren. Be it Haliburton making bajillions off of the war in Iraq because of contracts that were funneled to them by the Vice President (their ex-CEO), or Federal Prosecutors being fired because they refused to be manipulated for political purposes. And now this:

The FBI agent ex-boyfriend of Ann Coulter put a call in to Palm Beach Sheriff's Office to get her off the hook for alleged voter fraud.

That's okay though. At least she's heterosexual.

Officially Failed

Well, I knew eventually this would happen.

I have grown so accustombed to juggling so many things in my life, and I knew that one day I just wouldn't be able to keep all the balls in the air. (I would make a "balls in the air" joke, but this is serious folks.) I finally hit that point where I neglected something important to me, and there is no longer anything I can do to make up for it.

And for this I must apologize.

Today officially marks the end of the academic year. I am now a 3L.

But around the end of last summer I started an "around the world" beer tour at a local hang-out, where the goal was to drink one of every beer they had in their selection: a total of 80. I immediately decided that my goal would be to complete this arduous journey of hops by the end of my 2L year. I came damn close, I have currently killed about 65 of those tasty beverages, so I have made a good dent in this goal, but nonetheless, this is a failure.

For once in my life I have not drank enough.

I have failed.

Name the Quote

"There's just so much to work through. Trust has to build again, on both sides...you have to learn if... if we're even the same people we were, if you can fit in each other's lives, it's a long and important process and ... can we just skip it? Can you... can you just be kissing me now?"

Opposing the Federal Hate Crimes Law...

So, in my continuing quest to avoid studying for tomorrow's exam (God, I hope I don't have to retake this class), I am catching up not only on the work on my desk, but on the blogs that I have been neglecting to read for the last few weeks/months. Among the stories of note was the passing of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act in the U.S. House of Representatives and its introduction in the Senate. Follow it here.

My first reaction was to be proud that Minnesota’s own Amy Klobuchar was a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate. I called to thank her office. I further noted that a Minnesota Democrat, Collin Peterson out of the 7th District, was one of only 11 democrats to break rank and vote against the bill. I also called his office and told him what a shitty thing that was. His staffer came back with: “We don’t think we want to classify one violent crime as worse than another simply because of who the victim is.”

Bullshit. I got into one of my biggest arguments ever with my college roommate over this issue: hate crimes affect communities in a way that is meant to ostracize and stifle minority communities through fear. Often, the victim is unknown to the perpetrator except as a member of that minority community. So Dick wasn’t attacked because he was Dick or because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but rather because he is Muslim, Black, Hispanic, Gay, or any or all of the above (perhaps at the wrong time with that minority status). Dick is definitely the victim, but so is every other minority member of his community who has to fear that they could be targeted as well.

But, after looking closely at the bill, I’m not sure that I personally support it. And it’s because I agree with George W. Bush. GASP!!!

Don’t get me wrong, if this bill were coming through the state legislature, I would be all about it. Even though there are still serious flaws (such as the possibility of rape or domestic abuse cases being classified as a hate crime against “gender”), I think that it is a good issue to be pursued at a state level.

But looking at the bill, it would federalize (or create the possibility of federal jurisdiction for) a wide variety of violent crimes. The “commerce connection” needed to qualify for federal jurisdiction is simply that a) a gun was involved, b) an interstate instrumentality (like a highway or other federally funded road) was involved, or c) that either the perpetrator or the victim were involved, going to be involved or could be involved in some type of commerce (had gone to Walmart three days ago). In the hands of an over-zealous federal prosecutor (and let’s be real, have we met one who isn’t overzealous?) this could federalize a HUGE assortment of crimes, crimes which would otherwise be dealt with on a state level.

I hate to let my libertarian, federalist colors show a little, but this is one of those things that can, and should, be addressed at a state level. It is a bit of a reach of the commerce powers of Congress, and something that I truly don’t feel like is best handled by the federal government.

This, ironically, is the exact reason that Bush’s office is threatening to veto this bill: not the gay issue, but the federalism issue. While I agree with that stated rationale, I am not sure it isn’t a smokescreen when compared to the only other two vetos of his tragic presidency: stem cell research funding and the Iraq Timetable Bill. Plus, wasn’t No Child Left Behind just a huge example of expansion of federal government? Anyway… I'm just trying to shield myself from the appearance of agreeing with the moron too much…

Oh... and please don't hate me for voicing this dissent.

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"Something Pretty" Patrick Park,
Loneliness Knows My Name

Response to Comment:

I received an interesting comment post last night regarding my sexuality and my faith. Specifically, how I can be a “gay Christian” and what my “defense” is to, well, my life.

First to clarify to the curious reader, “Christian” is not only my faith but also my name. So, at least we can go from there. I grew up in the Catholic Church, in fact almost joined the seminary, but in the end became disillusioned by the Church’s stance on many social issues that I simply think are indefensible. But while I may have stepped away from my religion, my faith is still very strong. (If a discussion on the difference between spirituality, faith, and religion is warranted, let me know).

While I appreciate the curiosity of your question, I’m not sure that I like the idea that someone’s faith needs to be “defended.” While my beliefs (clearly) disagree with many big churches in the U.S., and in fact the church I grew up in, I still believe that faith is a personal belief system that stems not from what others believe, but from what you yourself believe.

As to how I came to become comfortable with my personal faith, it was after more prayer and spiritual journey than I think I even credit myself for. It was through a personal “giving it up to Jesus” experience that was incredibly powerful when I was 17. It was through being kicked out of a youth group when I was 18 after I had come out. It was through daily prayer and meditation while living in Venezuela at age 19. It was through a spiritual pilgrimage across the northern face of Spain when I was 22. It was through getting a degree in Theology at Marquette University when I was 23. I only mention these things so that you will see that I didn’t come to some blithe conclusion that, “God loves me, I am gay, so it’s all good” (although I think there is certainly something to that argument).

My personal faith is also based on much more than what the Bible says. It is based on a personal relationship with Jesus, based on continued prayer and reflection, and finally based on what I have come to know about the existence of God and the world around us.

Someone once told me that hell is an existence in the absence of God. I don’t know if that is theologically sound, but truly I hope to never find out. Much of modern religion will give gay men two options: 1) live celibate or 2) live outside of God’s love. Through my personal journey, I have discovered that the God of the New Testament is not likely to cast entire peoples from his sight, no matter what their sins. I have also learned, as is backed up in 1 Corinth 7:7, that celibacy is a gift of the spirit, not to be expected or demanded of people, but to be celebrated in those who are able to practice it for spiritual oneness with God. I, to assure you, do not have this gift. I’ll address where my sexual practices fall into my faith in a moment.

I will tell you what my personal faith journey has led me to interpret into Biblical teaching, but for a more thorough, complete and, perhaps, correct analysis I suggest this site. As to the Biblical address to the issue of homosexuality, here are my thoughts:

1) Leviticus forbids a lot of things, most of which are ignored by modern society. The person who has forsaken shellfish and blended fibers can be the first to cast a stone at me regarding that scripture. Historically, Leviticus was written not for all of the Israelites, but for a special tribe of priests called Levites. So, even when God handed down that scripture, it was not intended for all the Hebrews, only a select portion of them. It would be like the Catholic Church’s teachings being interpreted to command all Catholics to live in Poverty, Celibacy and Service.

2) St. Paul wrote a great many books (even if you don’t believe he wrote all those credited to him) in the Bible. Honestly, I have a little harder of a time reconciling his scripture than I do Leviticus. However, St. Paul, in all his inspiration, also wrote passages that have been read to subjugate women and condone slavery. He wrote, to my knowledge, three phrases about homosexuality. My final conclusion with those pieces is that they are the “letter of the law” and missing its spirit. They capture that era’s condemnation of Greek culture from St. Paul’s orthodox Jewish perspective, and not the message of the new Church. St. Paul was trying to get his reader’s to live more holy lives. And in the process he told them what he thought that looked like.

From an interpretive stand-point, this all may sound like a weak argument, but I come back to my faith, which is based in the love of Christ Jesus, who chided against the Pharisees for living only the letter of the law, rather than its spirit. I am reminded that Jesus’ message was far less about condemnation than charity and forgiveness. About taking the plank out of your own eye and such. In that light, I find the judgmentalism of the modern Christian church rather appalling.

As for my actual sexual practices, outside the guidance of religion, this has been a bit of a personal journey as well. Would it be best to wait til I have a marriage/commitment ceremony to have sex only within the context of a perpetual, life-long, monogamous relationship? Absolutely. However, one must realize that support systems for such a decision by a gay person do not exist. That is, however, only an excuse, and I realize that my sexual encounters outside of a loving, committed relationship are sinful. Just as are those of any other Christian, heterosexual or otherwise, who falls to that temptation.

I was making a spiritual pilgrimage across Spain when I found in my prayer book a prayer for forgiveness for a “disordered” sexual life (this, of course is a rough translation of what I was praying). I realized then that perhaps what I needed to be concerned with was not the marriage/not marriage thing, as that was a worry I would not be able to overcome, but whether I am truly treating my body as a temple, or whether I was bringing chaos into life by disrespecting my body by treating it as nothing more than an instrument of pleasure.

Do I continue to have sex outside of meaningful, committed relationships? Yes. Do I admit that that is a sin? Yes. Is it something that I have reconciled in my own personal faith journey? Yes.

I have now waxed on for far longer than I think my commenter would have desired, but I thought it was an interesting and respectful question, and an interesting thought path to take.

Besides, I am still avoiding studying for jurisprudence.

Back to the Grind

I am (perhaps depressingly) excited to be back at my desk at work. I love my job.

I came back to a stack of work about 8" high, which is actually kinda fun to jump into (Lest there be doubts that I am needed at my job). I got a last-minute research request yesterday for a team that was in trial and needed an answer by the end of the day. Sweet. I love that sort of stuff (I need to get my head examined). Many of the issues I've got sitting on my desk are basic legal questions, that make me feel really smart for knowing the quick answers to them: "Can I bring up the character of the victim in a self-defense case?" "Can premeditation be formed within seconds or minutes, or does it need more time to develop?" "What sort of constructive possession is needed to convict a person of possession of an illegal substance?"

I am still putting off studying for my Jurisprudence exam. It is just a depressing prospect to have to look forward to. I didn't learn a damn thing all semester, mostly because it is a useless subject with zero application to either my professional life or even passing the bar exam. I have about two days to learn some 1000 years of legal theory. Ehh... No problem. (Fuck me!... Aunt Helen! - name the movie).

Beyond that, I tried calling the Guy last night to make one more attempt at reviving the relationship. All I can say is that at least I tried. He seems more intent on staying hurt and upset, which is his prerogative. Not the way I live my life. So, time to move on.

I went to a high-end salon yesterday to get my stomach waxed. My dear friends, stomach hair has plagued me from my youth and has always bothered me, perhaps more than it should. I even tried the laser treatments for awhile. I have a party this weekend that will likely involve me removing my shirt, and especially now that I am now single, it is rather important that I not be a woolly beast. But the reason I bring this up now is this: I had a 5:30 appointment, for which I showed up at 5:35. The waxing took no more than 15 minutes, and I didn't even get any touch-up tweezing. And I got charged $45.

When I graduate, I will have gone through 7 years of education and hold a graduate degree. And yet, even then, (admittedly because of personal philanthropic choices) my time will still not be worth $45 an hour. Let alone $45 for a half-hour. Wow. Maybe I'll just go back to cutting my own hair. Can anyone else see a tragic self-inflicted waxing accident in my future?

Musical Fodder for my Writing:
"Same" Snow Patrol,
Final Straw

2:30 am resolve, 11:30 pm uncertainty

Tomorrow I go back to work, and so should be blogging on a more consistent basis, given the desk-job nature of the work. I'm seriously giddy to return to work, but that is not quite what is keeping me awake.

The Guy IMed me today, telling me that he had read my last post, and created one of his own. He asked me to read it and get back to him. I wrote back that I appreciated the gesture, but if he wanted to say something, he is going to have to talk to me directly. While I didn't read it, I had my roommate look it over, just to a) find out if there was anything I needed to worry about and b) more importantly let me know if there was anything there that was worth responding to, as in an overt "Im sorry I pushed you away," or something. She said it was tasteful and yet not worth reading since it wasn't written to me. For your edification. (I have yet to read it, so if it is poor judgment to leave this link up, let me know.)

He came by my apartment this morning at 2:30am, and wanted to rehash everything. There has been such a strong part of me that has wanted to just get past all this BS and have him back, and having him in my apartment as I was tired and tipsy, I just wanted to pull him to me: let this be over. And yet, he was asking me to compromise myself with an unfelt apology, to say words that I did not mean, to fake emotion that I would not. So much of who I am is tied to my honesty, brutal as it may be at times. To have someone I care about very deeply ask me to change that part of me for him was not only painful but difficult for me. I stood there, longing to have him back with me, and thought, "It would be so very easy to just say the words." But I knew that I would regret it, and resent both him and myself for saying them. The whole relationship would become a farce.

There was a point were I may have pushed things too far. I told him that if we could not resolve this, Im through. I don't deal with drama well, and I had then spent the better part of two evenings on tending to the hurt feelings of someone who didn't like it when I raised my voice to assert myself. I asked him for my key back. Not to end the relationship, but because I felt like it was already ended. He was closed off to me because of this interaction, and I wasn't about to let the whole thing go on much longer. Maybe I should have. I have a history of ending things too peremptorily.

And now, after hashing it out with two best friends, my father, his friend, I am still not sure where I am with this. I have a couple of options. 1) Try to continue to open an adult dialogue, even if I keep hitting walls with this or 2) forget about this and go to work tomorrow, concentrate on all the awesome things in my life and try to forget how I lost another fantastic man who cared for me and treated me like no one else has up to this point in my young life.

As torturous as it may be, I think I'm gonna try option 1, even if just for a few more days.

It was going to end anyway

I just got off the phone with the man I had made my boyfriend, the man I had been dating for about 4 months (note the 4 month period, that is of some significance). The phone call had ended with a loud "Fuck You" from me, and me hanging up on him.

Last night he got mad at me for "raising my voice to him." Nevermind that we were at a bar. Nevermind that he had been ignoring me and asking me to do something that I was uncomfortable with. I had raised my voice.

After he proceeded to pout for the rest of the night, and then ignore me all day today, I finally got in touch with him and asked what was up. He was still angry that I wouldnt apologize for "raising my voice." I told him not to hold his breathe, and that such an apology would never happen. He had been pressuring me to do something I was uncomfortable with, and I'm not one of those people that let's that shit fly.

Later this evening, after even more discussion, he still wanted an apology, and refused to let it go. Long story short, I told him to quit with his superiority complex and let it go. I also made it clear that this was not the sort of drama I want in my life. "Well, you're a smart guy, I'm sure that you can figure out how to solve this," he said. "Cut the bullshit. I don't want to play these games," I said, "tell me what you want, or Im out."

"Out of what?" he said.

"Out of everything," I responded, indicating the best relationship (physical and otherwise) that I have been in in years. "I have no interest in continuing these games."

So... the conversation ended poorly. Im kinda not cool about the whole thing. The only thing that is keeping me from hyperventilating is the knowledge that, one way or another, the relationship was going to end this May when he left the state. There were no two ways around that one. And maybe, just maybe, ending it this way is the easiest way of all: swift and harsh rather than long and belingering pain. Still isn't much fun though.