Unbelievable Fecal Tennis

The Word E2 Feed

This sport is the culmination of what it means to be American, apparently.

Salutations from the inner intestines of the American political process. The Election has come to my City, and hence I have come to the Election. No matter what I try, it reaches out a beslimed tentacle to loop about my ankle and pull me in, so here we are.

The name of the game is the game. On Feedsites, in the increasingly outmoded print medium, in snatches of conversation overheard at the local Pup Bucket over potato vodka and Labrador haunches, you can hear and see it being played. Both sides are required, because it takes two sides to make a game.

The Smirker's designated rectal cleanser has chosen a co-candidate. This might, possibly, be newsworthy, but only if in fact the selection of a VP candidate ever meant anything other than a ruthless political calculation on the part either of the Party, the Presidential candidate, or (rarely) on the part of the VP-to-be in question. Well and good.

The problem is that your press seems to have decided to suck down whole the endless shitstorms of brainwash coming from both sides of the game. Hence, the court delineated and the score re-zeroed, both campaigns compete to lob their own brand of piquant excreta back and forth across the American public's head. She's a good mother! *WHACK* She endangered her unborn child! *WHACK* She's against corruption and earmarking pork and for women! *WHACK* No, she isn't, she spends half a billion on a stadium but makes rape victims pay for their own rape evidence kits! *WHACK*

...and so it goes. The net, in this case, is a line of stunned and weary Americans, the last remaining survivors of a nation once willing to think and to take an interest in its own destiny. Watching, with the lost hope of abandoned soldiers, for the rescue that will never come - for a candidate, a campaign, or God forbid the press to actually argue or ask something about the actual job of running this country.

Don't hold your breath, other than to avoid the stink.

On one side, the Designated Successor side, we have a set of operators who have been tapped with the shit-stained finger of the currently in power scumbags to continue the rapine for at least another four-year term. Another four years with increasing efforts to dismantle the oversight and balance functions of the American Federal Government. Another four years of knee-jerk fundamentalist-informed decisions with far too much power given to those who are so brain-damaged as to think that Jesus existed, died a virgin and still nevertheless cares more about them than his regrets and anger over his never-was sex life.

(Get real, people. Even if he didn't mind dying a Virgin, he's a Jew. His mother is giving him eternal shit for not only not giving her a grandkid, but never even entering the game. He doesn't give a shit about your sins, he's too busy paying for his.)

*WHACK*

On the other side, a group of frighteningly indecisive wankers who are caught up in the train wreck of a candidacy whose primary attraction is that the man himself is apparently capable of pitching a hallucinatory brainwashing field that the Bolsheviks would have wet themselves to get hold of. One that is so powerful that weeks after even seeing the man on television, his acolytes are reduced to standing on streetcorners wearing small images of him in their lapels wanting eagerly to talk to YOU about his wonder and upcoming CHANGE with the light of Utter Certainty shining in their eyes.

I've seen utter certainty. It marches in jackboots and presses the punishment button even with screams coming from the next room.

*WHACK*

So there we have it. The Two candidates. The Growler and the Grinner. Which will you have, America? Would you like fries with that? Don't worry, we don't expect any upsets in the Status Quo; the economy is dropping with the oncoming of a poor front, but after the expected storms things should stabilize as ever - with a few shining icons of consumption parked atop a shivering mass of sheep.

Next up: Which one fucks us less in the ass with a lawnmower. Maybe.

I'm Spider Jerusalem, and I Hate it Here.

Someone just pointed out to me that tomorrow is September 11th and if he hadn't today would have passed into the unlooked at part of my calendar like any other uneventful Wednesday. Instead, I'm noding a daylog because the minute I heard my fingers typed me over to Everything2.com.

I used to spend a lot of time here and now its often just a passing memory. It's hard to believe from where I stand today how much a part of my life E2 used to be. Trips across the country, being offered a drink at my first e2 party and responding "I'm not 21 yet." jane's amusement at what I had said. My first trip to a gay club was with noders, masukomi and randir made me feel comfortable enough to try and dance in front of a room full of cute boys. I was so afraid of the world and life when I first logged onto this site. Now everything is different - including all these strange buttons like pipe link that I'm only just noticing.

The thing is that I never talked about Adam and what happened. It just seemed too personal, which is odd considering how much of myself I put up on this site. For some reason tonight I feel like talking. I don't know how much I'll say but now that I have no writeups and I've abandoned my once ultra-important quest to reach level 6 and get a homenode picture, I don't feel any conflict over talking.

So what can I say. 7 years ago I could have said any number of things, I could have talked about what a decent and handsome man I thought Adam was. How surprising it was to not be intimidated by him. In those days I had a really hard time being friends with men, especially straight men. With gay guys it was just sex, with straight men I had no idea how to bond or make a connection. Then I met Adam, and I was just so surprised how easy it was to talk to him. Any of you who've met me, if any of you are still around, probably noticed that I was very shy - not anymore, these days you could call me boisterous - but back then I could talk to chicks and Miller. Adam and I just talked.

I think I might be the last person from this site to see him. He was the first to arrive at the parsonage for our impromptu gathering and the last to leave. Everyone had already headed up to Boston, Adam spent the night. We talked a lot about his life, his relationships, some things that were going on at work he was concerned about. It was my last conversation with him that I remember the most. Adam was apologizing, the reason is insignificant because he had absolutely no reason to apologize. I told him that I wasn't bothered and that I actually thought it was cool, but it upset him a lot it seemed. It really was no big deal, he didn't owe me any explanations - I think he really wanted to apologize to you. When he left I assumed I'd be joking with him about it for awhile, it would be funny.
I don't think I got to make a single wisecrack.

I miss you Adam, you played such a small part in my life but you had such a great influence. At Tiffany, which closed down a few years back I told you about how I was going to go to college and get my life on track, and every step of the way I thought of you. I ended up with two degrees, a singing career, a great review in the NYTimes and I always seem to think about you as I move to new places in my life. Sometimes things get rough, my head gets turned around, life seems harder than it really is. I don't always see the boundless possibilities that were open to me and seemed somehow real for the first time when you offered that encouragement at that dark diner, with clowns dancing on the walls. I really do miss you, so much that I'm back on e2 letting things out, years later. I'm grateful to have met you.

I miss you.

A summer of monkish celibacy (and the greatest peace I have known in my adult life), and all of a sudden, womankind, the great unraveller of my sanity, squeezes through a crack in my armor and upsets everything. Part of me is thrilled; part of me says 'about damn time'; part of me is worried sick — not because I'm worried that it won't happen between me and her, but rather because I'm worried about what would happen if anything did happen between the two of us.

I tell myself, it's just coffee, it's just coffee, it's just coffee. But last time, it was 'just coffee', and after a seven-month roller-coaster ride, I almost married her. I hope this doesn't happen again. I do not know what I'd do with myself if I found someone at this age. I would probably go insane.

I am shamefully bad at the dating game, which is why I rarely play it. My closest friends assure me I'm a genuine mensch, but I don't need other people to tell me who I am. I am who I am, and that's platitude enough for me. But I somehow made the transition from mere 'nice guy' to something else over the summer, and I feel it wasn't just all the pot I smoked and all the Bach, Pachelbel and Nick Cave I listened to. Somewhere between May and August, I stopped being a 'nice guy', and became something else, something I'm not sure I know anymore.

And come September, I meet her, standing there all brown hair and circles under her eyes and sunny demeanor and sleeveless blouse I want to take off button by button. I find myself thinking about her way too much to be more than a passing attraction. I find myself thinking silly thoughts, like how her name reminds me of a particular flower, or how she looked back at me in class before letting herself laugh the first day I met her. Silly of me!

So I tell myself, it won't happen, we'll find enough fault with each other to not go for coffee again, we'll just forget about it and pretend I never asked her out for coffee, neither of us have the time for anything, I'm coming on too strong, I'm coming on too weak, I shouldn't come on at all — I mean, come on! I tell myself to get a hold of myself. I tell myself not to think about it too much. But I can't. A week is a long time. At what point does it go from harmless flirting to serious overtures?

At times, I envy the (voluntary) celibates. Then I recall why I'm not a celibate anymore, and smile, and remind myself not to think so much.

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