the phoenix this week bordered on ridiculous. two articles on a spread read “beer healthier than milk, PETA says” (featuring an actual scientist verbally hitting his head against a wall) and “sperm is an anti-depressant.” the second, which argues that women who have unsafe sex are happier than their more cautious counterparts, was an import from a new york paper. while i couldn’t track down the original article, i did find an intelligent, amusing reaction to it. the idea that women, after reading the phoenix, will throw all their condoms in the trash, shout “happiness over health!” and embrace their new protection-free, giddy lifestyle, would infuriate me — except that i’m so damn well-skooled in the ideas of natural selection.

happy halloween, folks. and if you happen to be someone i care about, please, choose milk.

for your reading pleasure, another of my brother’s articles. this one’s more liberal: it’s about gun control, in which he firmly believes. last time, stef asked me incredulously if we were from the same family (because her family is entirely composed of tree-hugging AIDS-activist queers). this one should establish that we’re clearly siblings. see how he references movies constantly too?

in a different, ironically wonderful vein, Black people love us! an old friend directed me to this site during a discussion of how a swattie went in blackface to the halloween party. he “apologized” to the campus as a whole and defended himself at the same time. huge deal, of course. most of the people i heard talking about it condemned the action (and the kid) in the strongest possible terms. others, more privately, have shrugged at me and said the kid was just naive. but how could someone never have heard of blackface? never seen pictures of al jolson, or bamboozled, or shots of amos and andy? if he was just naive, how dangerously naive did he have to be to think black students — or anyone — would not mind him stereotyping black people just because he didn’t mean to be insulting?

most everyone has a moment here when you realize much of what you thought about racism and systems of oppression is wrong, and that you can’t live in a merry oblivious state of colorblindness. this poor idiot’s moment happened to come in one of the most public spaces on campus; he infuriated a lot of people who had no qualms about letting him know then and there. but i don’t think him concluding that now he has to be conscious of race or careful not to offend is such a tragedy. he should have that responsibility. anyone in a position of privilege does.

too late, kross sent me an email suggesting we not announce the kill. i’d already, as promised, reported to his object as soon as i returned from my sojourn to new york to watch kross’s band play CBGB’s. he found out before we left that i had him (he won’t tell me from whom, but if someone who reads this website is responsible, i will track you down, you vile betrayer) and arranged to have my newest enemy make an attempt on my life. expecting that, i brought my careful roomie brigid along to guard my ass until i boarded that van. once safely in, kross turned to me in exasperation and said, “why can’t you just die?”

i can’t answer that. i never expected to really get involved in this game, let alone make it through weekend 1. but for whatever reason, here i am — and last night, there i was, in very close quarters with my object. naturally i got him, and he was a good sport about it, and subsequently he was such a rock star on stage it made petty battles fade away. we walked out of CBGB’s quite friendly, and into this:

man on street (whispering): acid, acid …

ross: what?

me, steering ross away: he said Acid, love.

ross (disgusted): oh, that’s what he offered me before.

three cheers, cuz i haven’t mentioned it here yet, for another rock star: go LANA! another Loveless Girl title stripped away. i’m almost tearing up w/ pride and joy just thinking about it.

a kill! a kill! not mine, but still an astonishing event: the death of my enemy. alex revealed that he was being pursued by G. but when i called G., G. revealed that actually he was just pretending and S. had alex. this morning then i called S. i enlisted him as a temporary partner: i would serve as bait for him to get to alex if he would act as my bodyguard.

a slow cautious walk through the woods brought eliz, well-protected and paranoid, S. and me ten steps to the classroom door. just then, alex leapt out from behind a car. i threw myself on the ground. eliz threw herself across me. S. and alex circled each other, sumo-wrestling style. finally one lunged and the real tussle began.

alex is quick and scrappy, but S. has long arms. before long the two had moved close enough to where i was lying that i could reach up. alex instinctively grabbed my hand and i grabbed his and pulled him down, exposing his ass to the air and S.’s embrace.

bad guys, 0; ester, alive. now S. has me but under our deal i have amnesty until i leave for nyc. YES. last year’s champion is brought down.

i’m very much unused to sustaining injuries. rarely in my lifetime have i ever put myself out in a position to be hurt, whether from climbing trees, riding roller coasters that go upside-down, or skiing down black diamond slopes even after numerous lessons (skill-wise, i’d advance to black diamond, then let fear propell me back to the safety and comfort of the blue squares). or whether from contests, for that matter. i submit to publications on campus but i can virtually count the number of times i’ve submitted poetry to the real world on one hand.

the result of my timidity, or excessive desire to protect myself, is that i have little experience coping. every few seconds i do something normal with my hand for which i am rewarded with a preachy twinge. i’m fascinated by the bruises around my left knee. when i woke up saturday morning i phased through my typical bitter reaction to rejection. ben calmly let me rant about how i’d learned my lesson: no more movies about queer poeple, cuz “i know values are paramount, but my values are Paramount.” i railed at the film industry, despaired of my own chances to ever achieve anything.

and then, after a bit, i was spent. since that morning, when people have asked me about the contest, i’ve replied honestly with very little ire. consequently people haven’t demonstrated an excessive need to pity me, which is what i feared most. i didn’t think out this strategy; i couldn’t have planned it if i tried. but i think it means that, even if unconsciously, i’m getting better at this getting hurt / losing thing. (i even know, as was established in a convo w/ ms becca this evening, that the not-writing-about-queers thing isn’t possible. she pointed out i’m surrounded by them. to ignore their influence would be artificial. so fuck paramount, or miramax even, if they don’t like it: i’ll find myself a capital-a Ally to make movies with, and if no one else my beloved queer-folk will come to see it.)

[*ring, ring*]

T: hello, worth health center

M: hi. i sprained my thumb, uh, wrestling. is there anything i should do for it?

T: hmm. do you have some bone disease you’ve never heard of?

M: no.

T: just ice it, take some tylenol, and don’t engage in any other athletic activity today. you don’t have a rugby game or anything?

M: well, no, but what if i have to, uh, wrestle again? should i tape it or something?

T (frostily): i would just advise not doing that.

stress and frazzlement. i’ve discovered the hard way whose target i am: alex, the boy who WON last year. ruthless soul, he leapt on me as soon as i walked into the dining hall this morning for brunch. luckily i had a book down my pants (thanks, rilke) and i managed to keep him at bay as we rolled around on the floor. someone handed me a tray which granted me a two second reprieve — the rules hold that so long as you have both hands on a tray in the dining hall, you’re off limits — until he lunged at me again and wrested the tray from me, spraining my thumb in the process. he’s a small guy but MAN is he tough.

we wrestled further. i kept screaming, “someone get me a tray!” until someone not distracted by the other kills happening two feet away (eliz’s double kill: first her opponent and then her opponent’s opponent, who turned out to be her girlfriend. sorry, stef) got me one and i held onto it for dear life.

i made it, shaking, to a seat. he returned a few minutes later, like the specter of death, and without even blinking pulled me and my chair down onto the floor. as i clutched the tray to my chest, he methodically reached into my pants to get the book. once he realized i had taken it out and put it on the table, he calmly picked it up, placed it in his bookbag, and walked away.

eliz and i lingered for a while, then dashed to the nearest dorm to hide out for a while. cautiously and circuitously, we made it back to our dorms, where we both intend to stay for as long as possible. alex actually lives one floor from me. i should leave a horsehead in his bed or something. oh man oh man. and dealing with conflicting loyalites is hard.

well, so i’m one of the un-special 9,750. while i was dancing last nite at the coming out “end of the word” party, i got a flash of it. that, in conjunction with not being drunk enough to feel unselfconscious or unjudged dancing, zapped me of all energy and i trudged home through the sudden, appropriate downpour to find my suspicions confirmed.

the party rocked, though, for which a hard-working ben is to be thanked. he managed all 4 hours of djing all alone and people really responded. they were assisted adrenaline-ly by the drag king show beforehand and then by the presence of said drag kings on the dance floor. at points the show dragged but it also hit a few incredible high points, particularly with a skit which began with eminem, who was then joined by elton john. together they morphed into ‘nsync, i think — some boy band — and sang an expressive love duet. they’re not the first to posit that the new elvis is secretly gay; jonah linked to a nerve article that spells it out and also implicates sir john. played out on stage by drag kings, though, it’s even more entertaining.

i have my ASSassins target. hopefully my paranoia will protect me until i get a chance to carry out my plan. and perhaps a strategically placed Fed Ex envelope.

off to an ASSassins pre-party where the ass master reveals to us contestants whom our object is. i won’t last five seconds in this game. i can’t even keep sorelle from grabbing my ass on a regular day, and worst of all, i squeal indignantly.

the way it works is, you get assigned one person whose ass you have to grab (with both hands, and so the other person can feel it) within 3 days. if you haven’t accomplished that goal, the assmaster comissions the death squad and they get medieval on your ass. yes, i will be henceforth using the word “ass” a lot. ass ass ass.

greenlight reveals the oh-so-special 250 and pats the other 9,750 on the head condescendingly. i am very very scared. but two slices of cinnamon toast in sarah c.’s company at dinner, a trip to the pumpkin patch and an aborted attempt to pick apples co|motionly have bucked up my spirits. we’ll see how it goes.

now i need to go drink wine.

in honor of coming out week, poor rusty! and in honor of my family, here’s my review of punch drunk love and my brother’s latest crazy article (“is he crazy?” “nooo, just ignorant.”)

i’m trying to listen to fiercely independent college radio but it won’t work. fiddlesticks. i’m glorying in the world of sloth at the moment, in an attempt to balance out the world of pain that was this week, monday – wedesday. in the throes of that pain, i managed to write the 2 papers and get them handed in on time, and make my observation, and not sleep very much, and win one great game of scrabble, and go to all of my classes on wednesday except the very last one cuz by 7 p.m. i was just tired of pain.

sarah k. and i trooped back to my room and quickly established there was nothing either of us could do to make the other feel better. then we promptly had a conversation that made both of us feel better. three cheers for that.

i’ve done much bonding with people recently. perhaps that’s a Return from Break thing. complex interesting conversations with sarah c., analytical ones with sorelle, tenderness with ross, and then of course with ben, who is the best person in the world for me to be dating. last night he sent me an annotated copy of the final draft of my screenplay. his notes, in blue text, consisted 90% of him writing [ha] or [ha haaa] by the jokes. i grinned all the way through and felt better about the script than i had in weeks.

and my ed prof postponed the due date of our second paper to monday. that nicely facilitates my sloth. if only the weather were nicer so i could slothful outside.