The Damage Is Done

You're a fraud
You're a liar
You're a hypocrite
You're despicable
You're disgusting
You're not the role model you think you are
You're not credible
You're ruining people's lives
You're ruining your own...

I can't believe how much I respected you
I can't believe now much I wanted to be you
I can't believe I wasted so much life on you
I can't believe I expended so many brain cells to understand you
...to identify with you
...to commiserate with you
Yet now I despise and resent you

You made me miserable...suicidal
Your latest actions are disgusting
What are you trying to prove?
You can't change it and you know it

Why won't you just shut up and go away now?
You've done enough damage

MONO Lessons (Part XII: 229-245)

Meditatively Obtained, Novel, and Observational (MONO) Lessons 

229.  I am allergic/intolerant/sensitive to:

a. Bean, Green (+1)

b. Bean, Kidney (+2) 

c. Bean, Navy (+1)  

d. Bean, Pinto (+1) 

e. Bean, Yellow Wax (+1) 

f. Beans, apparently…however, not Lima, unfortunately

g. Cheese (+2) 

h. Egg  (+2)

i. Egg-white (+2) 

ii. Egg-yolk (+2)

i. Milk, Cow’s (+1)

i. Casein (+3) 

ii. Whey – LF (+1) 

iii. In other words, everything dairy.

j. Pineapple (+1) 

k. Pumpkin (+1)  

l. Rye (+1)

m. Tomato (+1) 

n. Wheat (+3)

i. Gluten (52 units)

o. Yeast, Baker’s (+1) 

p. Yeast, Brewer’s (+2)  

q. Zucchini (+1)

230.  The Mexican food I thought was saving my life because it’s the only thing I could get down…yeah…slowly killing me: Pinto Beans, Cheese, Sour Cream, Tortilla, Tomato Salsa…  My mono nausea cure only made me sicker.

231.  A simple, sincere “I’m sorry” can go a LONG way…

232.  Restaurants have gluten-free menus!

233.  Gluten is in everything.

234.  A “positive” gluten sensitivity test is like a positive pregnancy test – you can’t be kind of pregnant and you can’t be kind of sensitive.  You are.

235.  I’m bitter about gluten.

236.  Lesson #228 is no longer valid.  I actually think I would feel worse having a Grand Slam than if I got drunk…ha.

237.  I really don’t have very good gaydar.  I need to accept this fact of life.

238.  I still get shocked every time someone comes out to me.  Haha.

239.  MLIA is hilarious.  TFLN is rather hilarious, but the sex and drugs can get old rather quickly.  FML is just depressing.

240.  “Appetite is the best seasoning.” – Jessica Johnston

241.  “The moral of the story is:  Don’t drink, or your clone will be murdered.” – Jessica Johnston

242.  “Life takes a lifetime.”  (from “Naturally” by Lisa Donnelly)

243.  We don’t do physics.  Physics does us.

244.  IgG anti-gliadin antibodies have a half-life of 120 days.

245.  With an IgG score of 52 units, after 4 months of gluten-freeness, I will be near 26 units; 8 months I will be near 13 units; and 12 months, I will be near 7 units (below 10 is normal, 3 is average).  Hence, 1 year of recovery ahead.  It could be worse.

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, & Egg-Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

On the morning of Sunday, July 11th, my friend sends me a text saying, "I feel like having a cookie."  At that moment, I had the most immense yearning for a cookie that I've ever had.  For those of you who don't know me too well, I'm really just not a sweets fan.  Yes, they're very tasty, but I am content without them.  What I'm saying is, it is odd to have a craving like this consume me so suddenly.

So the hunt began.  After looking through about a dozen cookbooks and searching the internet, I settled on a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free oatmeal raisin cookie recipe from Sophie-Safe Cooking by Emily Hendrix.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup (1 stick)   margarine or shortening (I used Earth Balance buttery spread)
1 cup                     brown sugar
1/2 cup                 white sugar
1 tsp.                     vanilla
1/3 cup                 rice milk (I used unsweetened Almond Breeze)
2 1/2 cups            GF oat flour
1 tsp.                     cinnamon
1/2 tsp.                 baking soda
1/4 tsp.                 salt
2 cups                  GF old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup                     raisins

Read more

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing my all-time favorite painting:

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte(Un Dimanche Après-Midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte) 1884-1886By Georges Seurat

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
(Un Dimanche Après-Midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte) 1884-1886
By Georges Seurat

 

  • Piece: Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Un Dimanche Après-Midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte) 1884-1886.  Now resides in the Chicago Art Institute.  Took two years to complete.  A huge piece of art at about 7X10 feet!  No wonder it took him two years of little dots.
  • Artist: Georges-Pierre Seurat
  • Birth: Born December 2, 1859 in Paris, France
  • Death: Died suddenly on March 29, 1891 of meningitis at age 31.
  • Education: Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts 1878-1879
  • Artistic Influences: Eugène Chevreul—discovered the basis for the pointillism technique.  Nicholas Ogden Rood—studied color and optical effects important to Neoimpressionists.  Rembrandt and Goya also influenced the young Seurat.
  • Known For: One of the founders of Neoimpressionism.  Contributed to the new notion that art did not have to follow the “impressionist” pattern.  He will be remembered mainly for his style called pointillism, also called divisionism, which uses small dots of contrasting color to create small changes in form.
  • Style: Neoimpressionist, used the technique of pointillism.  This technique consists of using small, unmixed, closely packed dots of paint on a white background.  To the eye, these points of paint blend creating a full, flowing work of art.  Seurat treated art as a science.
  • Other: In Seurat’s lifetime he completed seven monumental paintings, 60 smaller ones, drawings, and sketchbooks.

Here is Seurat’s personal description of his Sunday Afternoon:

“Under a blazing mid-afternoon summer sky, we see the Seine flooded with sunshine, smart town houses on the opposite bank, and small steamboats, sailboats, and a skiff moving up and down the river.  Under the trees closer to us many people are strolling, others are sitting or stretched out lazily on the bluish grass.  A few are fishing.  There are young ladies, a nursemaid, a Dantesque old grandmother under a parasol, a sprawled-out boatman smoking his pipe, the lower part of his trousers completely devoured by the implacable sunlight.  A dark-colored dog of no particular breed is sniffing around, a rust-colored butterfly hovers in mid-air, a young mother is strolling with her little girl dressed in white with a salmon-colored sash, two budding young Army officers from Saint-Cyr are walking by the water.  Of the young ladies, one of them is making a bouquet, another is a girl with red hair in a blue dress.  We see a married couple carrying a baby, and, at the extreme right, appears a scandalously hieratic-looking couple, a young dandy with a rather excessively elegant lady on his arm who has a yellow, purple, and ultramarine monkey on a leash."

"Destructive" by LeAnn Rimes

This is one of my very favorite angry, I-hate-the-world, leave-me-alone-I'm-raging-pissed songs.  For me, it's all in the lyrics and vocals.  For others, it's in screaming and loud noises.  Those of you that prefer screaming and loud noises may not appreciate this song the same way I do, but that's okay.  Anyway, I got SO excited when I found out she was performing a sessions-type version of this song for Live from Abbey Road.  Ever since I first heard this song on her album Whatever We Wanna, I wanted to see her passion when performing it.

Here, at 08:05, LeAnn talks about the song before performing it. The lyrics are provided below.

I cannot embed the video with the 08:05 start time without it autoplaying, so either navigate to that start time or click HERE to go to vimeo and watch starting at that time.

"Destructive" - LeAnn Rimes

If I could smoke a cigarette right now, I would
Rip out of my skin, commit the sins, oh I could
If I could break a heart and throw it all away for just one night
My conscience wouldn't care if I just went ahead and wrecked my life.

I want to be destructive
Trash everything in site
Beat the Devil at his game
Abuse myself all night
I want to bitch the world out
One loud aching scream
Don't want anybody wanting anything from me

Yeah, yeah…

I'm sick of being perfect
With your perfect little smile
Pick a fight with danger
Be a stranger to myself for a while
I want to come unraveled
And have it out with my soul
I'm tired of all the voices telling me which way to go,
I wish you'd silence your opinion
That's the last thing that I want to know

I want to be destructive
Trash everything in site
Beat the Devil at his game
Abuse myself all night
I want to bitch the world out
One loud aching scream
Don't want anybody wanting anything from me

I'll fell better when I'm sane
But now I want to feel no pain
I'm really sick of thinking
I just want to be destructive

Oh, oh, oh…yeah…

I want to be destructive
Trash everything in site
Beat the Devil at his game
Abuse myself all night
I want to bitch the world out
One loud aching scream
Don't want anybody wanting anything from me

Yeah, yeah…

Why free-verse poetry?

You may have asked yourself, "Why does Jason write so much in a free-verse poetic style?"  The answer is the word "free."  I write full-fledged papers and essays for school...not for fun and definitely not for blogs...not when I'm free to write whatever I want, how I want it.

It's nice to not be forced to fully explain my thoughts in ways coherent to people other than me.  Free-verse leaves at least some of the interpretation up to the reader.  It leaves a pinch of mystery.  It's a conversation starter.  "So what did you mean when you said..."

So again, "Why does Jason write so much in a free-verse poetic style?"  Why not rhyming poetry?  Or just rambling paragraphs?  I don't really know.  Well, I actually borderline hate rhyming, so I know the answer to that one, but the rambling paragraphs?  I think the formatting and structure of a poem can say as much as the poem's words.  Rambling paragraphs are just that - rambling paragraphs with no structure, no meaning in the layout, no attention to detail, no suggestions for how the piece ought to be read.  Solution: free-verse poetry.  Maybe I should have written this more like a poem...

The end.

What to do...what to do?

I have desires burning deep inside my soul.
They burn so hot and so real...
     My flesh tingles and flushes, 
     My eyes swell and drip,
     My vocal cords seize and scream.

Physics, psychology, math, poly sci, astronomy, photography...
Have I chosen the right thing?
     I want to make a difference.
     I want to speak out.
     I want to speak up.  
But I'm terrified to do more than I already am.
What to do...what to do?

Do I want to be an "activist?"
What is an activist?
Am I already one?
     Can a physics major be a gay activist?
     A gay Mormon activist?
     A gay Mormon physics major activist?
Is that allowed?

Is it dangerous?
Is it treacherous to pursue?
Which side is more threatening anyway?
Of whom should I be more wary?
     Both?
     Neither?
     Have I already ruffled everyone's feathers?

Fence-sitting sounds so simple...
But it's not that easy.
     I still have fears.
     I still hesitate before saying I'm gay.
     I even hesitate before saying I'm Mormon. 

I have friends who don't understand, 
But who let me do my own thing;
No questions asked.
     Why don't they ask questions?
     With which part do they not agree?
It's exhausting to continually tailor my words
According to my company...

Do you know me?
Do you really know me?
Who do you think I am?
     Honestly.
I'm sorry, but,
     "You don’t know me,
      You don’t know me at all.
      You don’t know me,
      You don’t know me AT ALL."

I feel stuck.
Out of place.
Always wanting more gay friends...
     More straight friends...
     More Mormon friends...
     More gay Mormon friends...
                                              Who feel and think the way I do,
                                                   Truly,
                                              Not because it's the "right answer"
                                                   Or they can't make up their mind...
                        Who doesn't "really just want to watch each other sleep...
                        ...Sleep sleep sleep."
     More friends to occupy and distract my thoughts
From wandering and wondering what I wonder...
What to do...what to do?

I want to be in love.
I want to be head-over-heels.
I want to be wooed.
I want to want to woo.
I want a hand to hold. 
I want to care and not care.

When will I meet him?
Have I already met him?
Will I find him at school?
Work?
Through a friend?

Would acting on my activism help me find my partner in crime?

                    I want to have the courage...                                                            
                    I want to have the strength...                                                           
                    I want to have the drive...                                                               
                    I want to have the reason...                                                             
                    I want to have the security...                                                           
                    I want to have the voice...                                                              
                    I want to have the sense...                                                              
                    I want to have the stamina...                                                           
                    I want to have the energy...                                                            
                    I want to have the support...                                                           
                    I want to have the enthusiasm...                                                      
                    I want to have the confidence...                                                      

to

                                                                                             end the hate.
                                                                                    end the ignorance.
                                                                                           end the abuse.
                                                                                         end the disgust.
                                                                                 end the self-loathing.
                                                                                               end the lies.
                                                                                        end the suicides.
                                                                                  end the helplessness.
                                                                                 end the hopelessness.
                                                                                        end the excuses.
                                                                                           end the doubt.
                                                                                             end the fear.

What to do...what to do?
Fearlessly be myself.