Hate to say I told you so.

[raybear]

I may become Don Quixote battling windmills for the rest of my life, but I refuse to get off my horse when it comes to two issues. Both of these I written about before, so I won't go into lengthy detail, but don't think it's easy to resist this temptation. They are both linguistic peeves.

Factoid
Miss Miriam Webster is here to inform you that the meaning of factoid is NOT little fact, or trival fact, or small fact. No matter what CNN tells you. Instead, it means: "A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition." [Courtesy of www.dictionary.com] Therefore, the common assumption of what factoid means, is in fact, a factoid. Another example of this phenomenon is the factoid of lemmings commiting mass suicide over a cliff as part of their "nature". In reality, a Disney filmmaker induced a mass suicide on film with his crew and filmed it as part of a documentary (For more info, go here: http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm). The image and idea has been repeated so much we assume it to be correct. To be honest, the use of this as a metaphor doesn't bother me since most folks understand the implication, but it's certainly not a true biological phenomenon.

Ghetto
I know I revist this topic every six months or so, but like I said, it's a never-ending quest. Let me just give you the short version. Don't say "ghetto" when you mean "cheap". Just say cheap. Or shoddy. Or craptastic. Also, don't call anything hip-hop related "ghetto", or worse, "ghetto fabulous". Don't call anything criminally-related "ghetto". In general, just stick to using ghetto as a noun and never an adjective. And if you don't or have never lived in one, perhaps it's just best to keep the word out of your mouth all together.


Please adjust your vocabulary accordingly. Thank you for your attention to this matter.



I was going through some older entries, just to see where I was two years ago, a year ago, six months ago, etc., but also hunting for some pieces I might want to edit and re-work and broaden. Of course I read lots of things that could have been written today, or at least they have some potent meaning to me and I'm happy I wrote them to myself.

[Also, almost exactly a year ago Sophie came to live with me -- I'm amused at some of the ideas I had for her name, including Bjork, Jesus, Buddha, Anya, Woadie, as well as Damon's suggestions which included 'Enry 'Iggins, Burberry, Coppertop and Bling-blouw.]
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You know that one person you were desperately in love with and believed they were your soulmate? You wanted to be with them no matter how many times they lied, cheated, ignored, or abused you? Remember how powerful that feeling of near unconditional love? How you were willing to accept them back and be with them no matter what's occured?

Eventually you learn you're delusional.

But I aspire to have that power of feeling towards my partner.
Only instead of heartbreaks and lies and delusions, she'll bring me honesty and truth and discussions and respect.
[June 2002 -- writing about the concept of nonmonogamy]
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And I don't always say this or even think this, but sometimes I just need a couple head rubbings and my back scratched a little and be told in a serious but soothing voice "oh, baby, it's going to be alright, you're going to be just fine" or some variation. It needs to be said with enough understanding so as not to trivialize the difficulty of the situation, but also with enough conviction that for a few moments I can just float temporarily into the future and put down the weight of the world off my back. [June 2002]


I don't like how I get busy and stressed in the middle of a period where I've been emotionally exposing myself more often than not and I get extremely upsettingly.....fragile. I hate feeling like I can't pull myself together.
[also from June 2002 -- unfortunately, I didn't write privately in more detail what was going on with me, so I have no idea what I was talking about at the time.]

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I have to trust someone to have sex with them. That doesn't mean I can't/won't have sex with strangers -- it's more about my pattern of trust. I give someone 100% of my trust when I first meet them, and then just wait for things to fall out of their mouth that will change how much I'm willing to give. It also explains why I can spill my guts to a stranger, but might have a harder time sharing intimate details with someone who's known me a long time. Perhaps some small encounter with them cause me to lose a small amount of trust on one specific issue, which is relatively nothing.

Sex without trust is hard. I suddenly experience all these new strong feelings like nervousness, extreme self-consciousness, discomfort with my body, over sensitivity to touch, and near impotence. I'm unable to move past my psychological hangup and act on any possible sexual desires.

But other times, sometimes a blowjob is just blowjob.
[September 2002]

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Lately I've been obsessed with a strange thought -- whenever I'm sitting and daydreaming, my mind wanders back to it, fixating on it. The idea that every experience that has occured before the present, before this exact moment, is no more or less real than all the experiences that are to follow. The concept of memory versus future experiences and plans. I'm not saying they're both pointless, I'm just thinking they are exactly the same in importance, one is not greater than the other, and when I'm feeling imbalanced is when I put more on one. If I'm dwelling in the past, I feel off, or if I'm wallowing in wasted potential or concern for future actions, I get upset.

I always liked the idea of the only conrete knowledge we have of time and space is "now" and "here". Everything is completely and absolutely relative with no static beginning or ending that we know or experience. It's fucking scary but I love it. It doesn't make me feel like life is pointless -- it just reminds me that I take things way to fucking seriously for someone who's pretty damn clueless. I obviously can't live in this large state for too long because who would do my laundry and bathe and feed me and where would the money to do these things come from?

So oftentimes I feel like the universe is humoring me: here, boy, go work on these little projects to occupy your time so that your brain doesn't explode from the sheer expansion of the universe.

And actually it's sort of comforting.
[September 2002]

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[on a post about ways to call in sick to work -- I'm just posting this because it cracked me up.]

I sometimes call in with migraines. Migraines sound sexy and exciting in the world of illness. Don't turn on the light! My vision is blurring! Why is the pain only on one side of my head? In real life, migraines are extremely unsexy. But they sound scary and mysterious to other people who don't have them. I never fake migraines. I don't have to, since I actually get them. But sometimes I could probably sleep them off in the morning and come to work in the afternoon, but I never go to work in the afternoon, so I end up feeling like I'm faking.
[December 2002]




A long time ago I was actually very very quiet.
[March 2003]

Comments

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

i'm oddly glad you brought up ghetto because i kept meaning to call you from palm springs (which some, of course, would call a gay ghetto -- you don't begin to touch here on that type of use) to talk to you about them. uh, i mean, because. having witnessed this rant in person on more than one occasion, i apparently consider ghetto synonymous with ray.

but mostly i was reading this book and it sparked this very bright memory of having read something, i'm assuming something like isaac beshavis singer, at a very young age, and that for a long time i understood ghettos only in their eastern european context, and that because i was young and impressionable, i think i had conflated them with some image of concentration camps. so in my mind it was like ghettos in warsaw were, i don't know. holding pens for auschwitz or something. in between you had to ride in a boxcar. i wish i could remember the first time i heard the word used to describe urban american settings, because i imagine i must have been very confused and likely very concerned for anyone who had to live in them.

now i'm just off in my own world of musings about self-impossed ghettos and whether the kind of forced community that would exist when everyone got locked in at night was actually as rich and nourishing as some memoirs describe it or whether that congealed kind of second-class status was too heavy to be anything but dehumanizing.

also i realize i have no idea. is it ghettos? or ghettoes? help me, raybear, you're my only hope.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

i apparently consider ghetto synonymous with ray.

hmmmm....not sure how I feel about this. ;)

also, Miss Webster is here to tell you it's EITHER ghettos or ghettoes, though the former "no e" version is listed first which generally means it's more common. so there you go.

xo