Nothing Important Happened Today

I ended up having a slight change in plans and ended up going to see X-Files: I Want to Believe with Alex. While I was never a hard core X-Files fan, I generally liked the series -- personally, I enjoy the premise of the true believer and the skeptic trying to uncover the unexplained. I liked the experience of challenging the types of things that we'd like to ignore or deny. It was entertaining to believe that there really was much more out there than we see in our day to day existence...

...and the sexual tension between Mulder and Scully was off the charts.

Flash forward to the present movie. The original series is best summed up with the iconic phrase, "The truth is out there." Sadly, the latest film is best described by one of the episode titles in season 9 (for the record, I looked it up) -- "Nothing important happened today." I won't go into the plot -- perhaps some of you might actually go see it... not that there's much to spoil.

I didn't have any expectations going into the film, so you'd think it I wouldn't be disappointed... but I was. Why? Because by the end of the film you realize, it was all hopeless. Mulder is still tortured that he hasn't found his sister, the abducted sister that even HE admits is dead. Scully is still tortured and raging against God. This time, there's no conspiracy, at least nothing out of the ordinary. Just tortured people chasing more tortured people... and that's the saddest part: the realization that there's nothing left of Mulder & Scully, only their withered shells that STILL. CAN'T. LET. GO. What's worse is hearing them go back and forth about how they just can't be together because neither of them can do much more than not let go. It was like the final episode of Seinfeld where the writers make it clear that at the end of things that everyone is exactly who they were when they started. It was all for nothing.

It's really surprising how many people I heard expressing their disappointment in things as the credits started. Why? Because by the end of the film the only thing that happened was that Mulder & Scully decide they'll go back to being miserable together. Great. Back to where you started. SO glad we went through that. Nothing important happened today.

Refocus

"I don't know how to get close to you, Marc."

Not really sure how many people have said that to me before. I suppose I'm always a little thrown when someone says that to me because in my mind, I don't think it's really that hard... but deep down, I think I forget just how much I decide to hold back... then I wonder why I can't quite understand why people don't really "get" me. I'm not sure where it all came about, perhaps it's my Scorpio-ness, or growing up gay, or something else, I can't really put my finger on it.

All I know is that very early in my life, one morning I woke up and realized that I was different. It's like hearing that old Sesame Street song: "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong..." and realizing, "Holy shit, they're talking about me." For a long time I figured that if I just tried hard enough, if I was just nice enough, if I can just figure out what they want, they won't notice. Yeah, I was pretty much fucked from the start. It only took me a good 27 years to finally realize just how pointless that was. It's taking a while longer to figure out a better way of going about life.

Yesterday was the most recent time I've had someone tell me they don't know how to get close to me -- specifically, the wise and unique Elsa P. I suppose the best way, in my own mind, is through the music I love. I feel like that's the truest way I know of understanding me -- it's really the only way I know that I can try to help someone feel what it's like to be me.

At the same time, after talking with Elsa, it became quite clear that it's a little too much to expect the world to understand what I'm doing off the bat, because it's like a code that nobody knows but me. The only way around that is to get off my ass and to actually talk about the things that are important to me -- a lot of that is going to be my music (how and why I do what I do) but a lot of the things to which I'm feeling some kind of connection. So while you'll still see beeves, haiku and assorted other stuff here on the blog (because I really do care about that stuff too), expect things around here to go in a little different direction.

In the back of my head, there's that little voice asking, "Why would you do that? Who are you to use this voice of yours?" What I'm learning to accept is that only one answer really makes any sense to me: "Because it's important to me. That has to be enough."

Back On Course

Last week I got a couple of emails from Alex noticing that I'd been rather quiet. Worse than that, I'd neglected my Beef Haikus for a couple of weeks. Naturally, he suspected the worst. "Are you ok?"

While I was still hacking up a little bit of phlegm from the cold I've had, truth be told, its really not like anything was going badly. It was more that I'd felt like I was in a fog and drifting off course, just going through the motions. Its not that I had much to complain about, more like a big round of, "Blah blah blah, my life isn't exactly as I'd like it, oh woe is me because nothing I do seems to make any difference." A little self pity goes a long way.

Over the weekend I decided it was time to do a little reality check. For all my talk about wanting my life to be different, I'd been spending an awful lot of time and energy on things that don't immediately impact my life. Culprit No. 1 - the election. Yes, I think its important, yes, it is interesting to see how things are playing out but do I really need to spend THAT much time keeping track of every minor occurrence? Whether its the election or a variety of other topics, spending time surfing the Internet marveling at how stupid things are... well, that's just a pretty unwise choice. I know better. How can I possibly expect to feel good about my life and the world when I'm spending so much time looking for things with which I'm dissatisfied?

Long story short, I know its time to stop fucking around. Instead of spending so much energy going back and forth and back and forth and back again, then wondering why I'm not making any progress, I'm ready to get my ass in gear and do the things I already know I need to do.

Update

A few days ago, I got a short email from Alex -- basically that I had been quiet and that he was just checking up on me to see if everything was ok. As I take a look back at my blog in recent weeks, I suppose one might ask a similar question. That is, while I love hot beeves and all, I had never really intended that it only be a forum for posting pictures of hot guys and haiku. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Several years ago, I went back to grad school because I wanted to take a different direction in my life. I wanted to be able to help people instead of making my living off the conflict that is the legal system and being miserable along the way.

When I finished my program, I came to a realization -- how can I help people change their lives for the better when I'm not really sure how to do it with my own? How do you teach what you don't know? The last few years have been a slow process of getting rid of the things that didn't work and searching for things that are a better fit.

And through it all, I've been waiting, waiting for that thing to come along that finally shifts things -- a new job I can really jump into and feel good about, someone special in my life, a big break somewhere else. On the rare occasion that those things seemed to come across my path, while they'd shimmer and glow, they'd always turn to dust before I was able to get my arms around them. Its painful enough to have happen once, it seems downright cruel when it happens over and over again. It takes its toll.

What's worse is that life seemed like it had been reduced to simply passing time -- waiting for something to happen... that and regretting the things that hadn't worked out. If you're waiting for something, that's probably the worst way to go about it -- resenting so many of the moments in my life because they're just reminders that I do not have what I want and may never get it. All the while life happens while I wait and stand on the sidelines. That pretty much sucks. Through it all, I've tried playing my part to change that, but so many times I'd just end up frustrated when it seemed like I wasn't getting anywhere. Kind of like a kid shouting to the Universe, "Are we there yet?" Yeah, sometimes I wanted to slap myself too.

So in the past few months I'd finally come to the decision to spend less time finding reasons to be dissatisfied and more time finding reasons to enjoy what's around me. I know its cliche and sounds Pollyanna but in practice its more difficult than it seems... its not enough to look around and say the words that I'm really happy. I've found that it requires me to be much more honest with myself and I'm realizing how often I was willing to tell myself that I felt fine when something was bothering me.

Part of the deal has been spending less time noticing things that would get me off-kilter, whether that's the news, politics, celebrities or the everyday bitchiness that still pops up. On top of it I've been making more of an effort to find the things in my life, past and present, that have gone right. Of course, the truth is that there's a shit load of them but I've spent so much time overlooking them.

On the blog front, that's meant that I've been purposely spending less time finding some of the things I used to share before and I'm left wondering what's left. On one level, my life isn't particularly newsworthy at the moment -- I've tried to disengage from much of the drama that was left and I've stepped back from trying to be witty or edgy. Like the world really needs another bitter queen, right? At the same time, I'm finding more of those moments of satisfaction that I had been missing before. Maybe its the equivalent of trying to master the nuances of vanilla ice cream but in the scheme of things, I guess its not a bad place to start. Oh and I still love beeves.

The Next Big Single...

I wrote a bit ago about Fergie's remake of JJ Fad's Supersonic. I was thinking to myself, what really bad song will they remake next? My money is on my girls Tigra and Bunny of L Trimm with Cars That Go Boom.

Another Comparison

I went with Adam to go see Dreamgirls a couple of weeks ago. (Excellent, BTW!) We watched the previews, which included the upcoming film, Stomp The Yard.

As the preview ended, I thought to myself... "Brrrrr! Its cold in here! There must be some Toros in the atmosphere!" It is SO totally a male version of Bring It On... without the humor. Its like watching the Clovers for the entire film.

Fergie

Compare Fergie's current effort, Fergalicious...



to J.J. Fad's Supersonic.



Has anyone else noticed that they're the same song?

Update: Apparently I am NOT the first. The J.J. Fad entry at Wikipedia recognizes Fergalicious as a remake of Supersonic.