adventures in dating

the "writing" of the self as rhetorical image

i have an online journal on a social networking site called okcupid
it's an ok site...especially since it is free. i like to write in the journal there because ideas and topics come to me quickly when i read people's profiles and how they choose to present themselves to their online audience...so this is what i wrote today:

i haven't written in this thing for awhile...i think the reason revolves around the role that writing plays in my life. i am researching and writing for a living and sometimes it's just nice to just read. so i have been reading when i'm on this site. of course what i have been reading are the various profiles. it's interesting to see what people write (and consequently don't address) when they are constructing an online persona. some are really nice...well written...expressive...obviously offering up to the reader the very best of what or who they think they are. of course many are really, really sad. so look oriented, so age oriented, so much is focused on the body but a completely unoriginal and yet static abstraction of what they expect, so specific, so much like themselves or what they are striving to be. i think that the beauty principal (especially within the gay male community) is grotesque and yet pervasive and insidious. what happens, i think, are a couple of things. 1) there is the "idea" of what we want that will never live up to the second point...the materiality of this "idea." how do you fall in love with an impossibility. for instance here's and example of what i mean:



"Preferably within +/- 5 years of me but not a deal breaker
'Ripped' muscular which means not only does he work out and doesn’t smoke, but clear progress has been made. [insert my note: what does this mean, exactly?]
Honest
Intelligent
Patient
Giving
Sports minded, or sports open minded
Somewhat humble but definitely not arrogant, or narcissistic
Goal oriented
Sense of humor
Emotionally secure enough so as to not need a party every night or someone to entertain them and knows the difference between uncomfortable and comfortable silence
Clean – neat as well as free of bugs and diseases.
Likes music – all kinds but a bias toward alternative rock is ideal. (If classical music is the one and only station because of the snob effect, and ditto for jazz then that fish should swim out to sea.)
Likes all kinds of art (painting, sculpture, photography, theatre, books, architecture, etc.)
Thinks old car are “kewl” and even some new ones but not just because they’re new
Spiritual but not necessarily with an established religion
Not obsessed with money or social status.
Maybe has chest hair and a tattoo or two (or even a couple more)
Knows what LTR stands for.
Can write an inquiry email more than one line long that describes themselves and how they fit the list." [seriously? i don't even think that jesus christ (or whatever messiah you happen to believe in) could live up to all of these expectations]


clearly, as stipulated by the final sentence...this has nothing to do with any one person "applying" for this man's affection but rather this is how this person sees himself. narcissism at its finest. so specific and so "obsessive" and yet to be obsessed is something that this person doesn't want (except, perhaps in the attention that they pay to their body?). and i would like to know his definition of LTR. what does that mean. i study language...i am a rhetorician...so definitions and expectations within language systems intrigue me. does his definition encompass someone in a wheelchair? probably not...is this a search for love or for an ideal? who knows...but it is sad and pathetic and one of the main reasons why i feel no solidarity with the gay community.

on the verge of a daydream

i'm on the verge of daydream...between starting something and procrastinating about it. i find myself doing this a lot lately...i write here because for some reason writing in this journal doesn't count for me...it is probably not even read by anyone except me anyway...but does that make it any less real? language and reality are so entangled that we become shocked at the concept of sexuality, gender, race, etc. being social constructions and not naturally occurring phenomena. but as i was getting ready to work my mind shifted to how i actually gather information when i am researching. in this age of technological advancement...computers and the act or acts of composing being framed in a type of word processing that tells you when you missspelll a wrod by little red squiggly lines...i am still a hand writer. i usually write my notes and my research out by hand before i start actually composing...for some reason the quotes that i pick and the connections that i am trying to make between concepts or, even, the premises that i am either trying to further or deconstruct don't count because they haven't been placed in a more formal discourse...no one will read these words except me and for some reason i find comfort with this. i can be exposed without judgment like taking a photo without being posed or airbrushed or photo-shopped, etc. my words are beyond the scrutiny of others and my paranoia surrounding my self-perception as a writer and thinker is abated. i think that in a previous life i was one of those monks that copied manuscript in a gothic monastery...for reasons far beyond any understanding of myself...i find this comforting. setting language to page, filling negative space by candlelight and the smell of incense. i guess that's a daydream for another day.

just a thought: a monday morning free-write

i am sitting here this morning watching the world wake up. i have always been a morning person...i think i inherited that from my father...who was born and reared on a farm. the mornings are when i "think" my best. my mind seems really alert, especially after a good night's rest. but it is also troubling as well...i have so much that i have to get done and it all seems so impossible for me, at the moment. i try to take things one step at a time but my mind likes to move ahead...creating future narratives of what my life may lead to. it's kind of scary. i go on the job market this september and i really don't have any high hopes for myself...it's not about getting a job...i can get a job doing almost anything...it's about finding and doing what i love. i love my research and i love working with these really cool ideas...writing is a little bit more torturous because it requires me to put these abstract ideas in a written, concrete form that always loses shape when taken out of the mind and placed into material existence...it is also open to scrutiny and dismissal. i think that i can handle the latter but i am having trouble with the former. ugh. but the best i can do is to try and work every single day...to take a very deep breath before plunging myself underwater to move ever so slowly against the currents of life.

ability and place

the body is inscribed upon by a language of ability
that in a room confined through language the body that refuses or
cannot be inscribed with this language must be contained
how do we change the language to reflect inclusive places
how do we narrate ability in different ways
the architecture that we engage with on a daily basis
is simply a language of ability
a narrative that helps to inscribe bodies
reminding particular subjectivities of their "normal-ness"
or "other-ness"
to change this language we need to change the architecture
not just materially but also rhetorically
and not simply by laws either
this change needs to occur on the level of metaphor and poetics
we need to stop thinking and conceptualizing a certain type of
normativity as an involuntary reflex