Monday Night Musings

Much ado about nothing.

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Five years ago today, I had images in my head of me intentionally jumping out in front of moving traffic with the goal of getting fatally hit. I had an image in my head of my arms sliced open and my body lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the fraternity house kitchen. I texted Alan and asked him to hide the knives. I said to Puck, "I feel like I'm in a horrible nightmare, and the only way I can get out is by killing myself."

It was this incident that ultimately led to that trip to Kaiser where Dr. Ono diagnosed me with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I started taking medication about two weeks later. It would take me another major suicide incident before I finally got into one-on-one counseling, which is where most of my transformation took place. But this first incident in April 2012 triggered the movement toward the recovery process. It brought me to a place where I could put a name to what was wrong with my brain.

Five years seems like so long ago, but at the same time, not long at all.

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Evangelicals' double standard when it comes to interpreting the Bible literally is perhaps one reason why they are so unpopular.

Take the passage where Paul says, "Do not get drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the Spirit" or something. Evangelicals will take the "do not get drunk" literally, but they ignore the "wine" part. If that whole first clause were taken literally, then it would be acceptable to get drunk on any other kind of alcohol. So that leads me to believe that maybe the entire clause shouldn't be taken literally. What makes the first four words literal and the next two words irrelevant?

I always thought that that passage wasn't meant as a commandment, but rather as a comparison to drive a point. Commandments tend to just be "do this, don't do this." But there's something deeper in this passage than a rule. It's making the point that being filled with the Spirit is superior to the pleasures of the world. Besides, the clause following the comma typically isn't interpreted as a commandment.

Also, filled with the Spirit? Like vodka or something?

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About a month into our relationship, I joined Alejandro for dinner with some of his friends at one of our favorite Indian restaurants. I was starting to get comfortable being around his friends, so I began to let my personality out a little bit more. I called Alejandro "girl" and "bitch" once or twice in a completely facetious manner.

In the car, he said to me, "Do not call me girl or bitch," in a strong tone. I was confused, and I tried to explain that that's what I call everyone, but he insisted.

Was his masculinity so fragile that calling him "girl" or "bitch" upset him so much?

"Girl" and "bitch" is one way that gay men affectionately address each other. By asking me to refrain from using those words for him, he was creating a distance between us and the larger gay community.

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I've come to realize that "growing up" is not necessarily adding another candle to your birthday cake. It tends to happens in spurts whose interarrival times are rarely uniformly distributed, and it is usually as a result of some notable life event. For me, life events that have made me grow up are most often events where I lose some kind of "innocence". Events like Griffin's passing. That made us all grow up real fast. For better or for worse, my worldview was enhanced by the loss of innocence associated with Griffin's death. I think back to times before this break point, and I think, "I had no idea then that Griffin wouldn't be here today."

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In the worst of the fictional (yet oh so fabulous) Miranda Priestly, "That's all."