For the Bible Tells Me So

I finally got around to watching "For the Bible Tells Me So." It's a very good movie.
But as I was watching it, I was thinking...
There are so many people I encounter who think that my homosexuality is a choice. Naturally, I think such an idea is ridiculous. Why would I choose to be something that invites scorn, rejection, and possible bodily harm?
There are just as many people who think I should simply ignore my "urges" and lead a "conventional" lifestyle with a woman. To those people, I suggest the following:

Spend the rest of your life writing with your left hand.
If you're left-handed, use your right hand.

Many people would react negatively to my proposition. I don't understand why.
I mean, what's so terrible about behaving in a way contrary to what makes you comfortable, simply because someone else wants you to? It's not as if you should expect to follow the course of action that comes naturally to you. Certainly it might be difficult at first, but you can adjust. So what if your penmanship never quite gains that thoughtless ease that it used to have when you wrote with the hand you were most suited to? You should ignore your "urges" to conform with what others demand from you at the cost of personal comfort.

Perhaps this can illustrate a little bit of what I feel when people suggest that I can simply "change" or "deal with a little bit of discomfort." I don't doubt that I could, should I so desire, live a "normal" life with a wife and children, ignoring the fact that I am sexually and romantically attracted to men. My objections do not lie in any doubt that I am capable of performing these acts, because I can. But why should I be expected to? Even if, as some people believe, it is immoral (oddly enough, a term applied to lefties in the not-so-distant past), frankly it's none of your damn business whether or not I'm attracted to men. If homosexuals are in fact cast into the deepest pits of hell (which I firmly disbelieve), then it's MY eternal soul at stake, not yours. So kindly leave me alone about it.

I'm sick and tired of having to gloss over that little aspect of my life simply because it makes people I care about uncomfortable. I mean, I'm not going to shove it in your face if it does make you uncomfortable, because I care about whatever relationship we may have. However, don't expect me to pretend it's not there just so you can live in your perfect little world, especially when you already know. Grow up.

I kind of feel like I should be doing more to promote equality and stuff, but I really don't know what to do. Being 18 has quite a few limits attached to it... not least of which the fact that most people dismiss you as "yet another teenager."

At any rate, here's the movie should you choose to watch it. I highly recommend it. However, bear in mind that it's an hour and forty minutes long, so make sure you have the time before you go clicking on it.
For the Bible Tells Me So

In related news, evidently I sing out loud sometimes without realizing it.

a cat... playing a "piano concerto."

Kinetic Sculptures

Maker Profile - Kinetic Wave Sculptures on MAKE: television from make magazine on Vimeo.

laptop

I have my new college laptop and it's pretty.
But it doesn't have a word processor, which is kind of weird.
I guess I need to download a freeware version of microsoft office... I'll do it later.

I'm home from Laurel Ridge. And although I know I can't go back as a camper, I know I can go back as M-staff. The only thing is, as a performance major, there would be a very difficult barrier to get through. I can't not practice. C says there would be a way to work around that if I work things out with M, and I certainly hope it works out that way, but I'm still concerned. I hope it works out. If worst comes to worst, I can council for junior campers or something.

I ordered a book of lovely hymn arrangements today. I hope it gets here before I go off to Oklahoma.

Idiocy

Why do I never learn?

Why can I not accept what cannot be? Why must I strive for what I cannot have, quite possibly at the expense of what I can?

I love LR, and it's kind of sad that I'll never go back in the same way. I'll always go back, but now it will be different.

I have officially experienced the phenomenon of "too many cooks in the kitchen."

I love what the fortune cookie had to say. God loves me.

College isn't a terrifying place, contrary to popular opinion.
Maybe I'll even talk to that guy.

Maybe I'll meet an even better guy.

Maybe I'll go to sleep before I make even less sense than I am right now.

GSE

So... a part of me is really jealous that 3 is seeing an extremely attractive ginger boy. I mean, I'm technically over him. (Sort of? Like, I still find him to be VERY attractive and funny and sweet and so on... but I recognize that it would be pointless and impossible for us to have a relationship because he's going to college here in NC and I'm going to college in Oklahoma... ) But still, the timing is painfully ironic.
Another part of me is actually really happy for him, though. I mean, the ginger boy is very attractive, from the picture I saw.

I missed Fanta Ginger Ale so much.

Watching that man dance tonight was mesmerizing. E wasn't kidding when she said watching him move is like an anatomy lesson. The entire presentation was wonderful, and I miss GSE now more than ever. But that man... is indescribable. That final piece tonight was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

I really want to play Syrinx again.

...And I'm semi-grounded. Isn't it awesome how things can go from amazing to really really crappy in the course of five seconds?

And yet, today was an excellent day.

Performance

I've always heard that the performance you give is the performance you deserve, which roughly means that if you practice, you won't suck.
Well, today I sucked.
I don't get it. I've been practicing every day, for at least three hours a day, and then I got to church this morning, and I bombed. Like, if you mess up you're supposed to just keep going, but sometimes you mess up so bad that you can't, and then you stop, and everyone looks at you, and you want to evaporate.
E is currently:

• serving as the minister of music at FBC, which requires her to learn a new set of music every week...
  
• a professor and staff accompanist at C College...
• teaching private lessons to kids at every level from "this is a quarter note" to "you need to work on using your arms more with the octaves in this passage of your college audition selection," and...
  
• preparing a concert program for her doctoral degree, which includes a Chopin scherzo. She also...
• can improvise...
• and sightread amazingly.
  

I am currently:

• having difficulty preparing five hymns a week...
• ignoring the Chopin nocturne I had hoped to learn this summer because I'm trying to learn the aforementioned hymns...
• abandoning all hope of being to improvise worth anything...
• and questioning my worth as a musician.

Like, I know I'm overreacting. I know that E is both my teacher and pursuing her doctoral degree, therefore she's a better pianist than me, and that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and that somehow I make up for my inability to improvise and my mediocre sightreading skills, and that as I gain more experience I will improve in these and other areas and that it's only logical for me to not be the best right now because otherwise what's the point in going to college, but that doesn't make me feel any better.
At any rate... this week's hymns are behind me. I don't have to play in a week because I have the Sunday off, so I get two weeks to prepare. Hooray.
At least there weren't very many people there today.


M wanted to take one of my Calvin and Hobbes books to LR with him today. I said yes, after making sure it wasn't one of the hardcover ones. But I was flipping through one that he left, and I found that it had been inscribed when it was given to me.
L has damn impeccable handwriting. I hate it.
I used to think that you could tell a little about a person from their handwriting, but then as I was looking at the immaculately formed letters, I thought, "If I didn't know better, I would think that I might actually want to know this person."

I don't think you can tell a lot about a person from their handwriting anymore.


There are certain dishes that I will never understand the appeal of, and one of these is Baked Beans. I used to be supremely picky, and while I have gotten better, there are still certain foods that disgust me. Baked Beans are on that list. They smell sickening, they certainly aren't visually appealing... Kind of like scrambled eggs.


I found out that my roommate is a tap-dancing musical-theatre major from Seattle. I find this to be very cool.


I'm currently reading Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen. It's fantastic. E introduced me to his books, and I finished one yesterday to start this one today... I'm already like halfway done with it.

College goal

There's something I want to do in college. Actually, there are many things I want to do in college, but there's one big one that I will be very disappointed in myself if I do not actually do:
I want to start a piano trio. I keep a list of repertoire that I'd like to perform at some p0int, and a lot of the chamber works I have are piano trios. It just makes sense, then, to actually be in a fairly steady piano trio.
Some of the works I'd like to do:

• Ravel trio in A minor
• Andrew Drannon's 1QM, 4Q491-496 - The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness
• Dvorak's trio in F minor
• Schumann's third trio

Also, Robert Patterson has a piece called Bell Towers for Piano, Bassoon, and Clarinet. I think it would sound very good with a violin and a cello, so we could do that one, too.
It would be awesome.