Reflecting on the DOMA ruling today

When I came out to myself almost a full decade ago, I had resigned myself to the notion that there were some things in life which were never going to happen for me. There were things which I would never have and dreams I had to quell because of who I was, and what that legally meant here in the United States, let alone also serving in the military. It was a part of me I had parted with, which I saw as necessary in order to move forward with my life. It was my rearranging of the reality I constructed. Because of who I was, my religious identity changed because my being queer was seen as an abomination and a sin. I could not get married because that was something hetero folk did. Marriage was something which, looking back on now, I had subconsciously discarded. It was not something I was ever going to do.
I loosely followed the debate on the "Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)", as well as "Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT)". I felt the acute sting of betrayal when the first repeal of DADT failed, and elated when it finally was repealed. I knew that the Supreme Court was going to rule on DOMA this year after the knockout drag-out fight over California's discriminatory "Proposition 8 (Prop 8)". I knew that equal rights were something which was happening in small but important steps across the nation. That every year, and every election, there were small victories. Iowa was kind of surprising. Then eventually Washington State. But there was the challenge taken up to the Supreme Court. They ruled this morning that portions of DOMA were unconstitutional. There was in that ruling happiness that they did something which gave more rights to people who did not have them. There is irony in that they took some voting rights away just the day prior. But here was a federal path forward toward equality. Like Loving v Virginia, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, here was another landmark ruling. I celebrated along with the hundreds of friends too elated by the ruling. And then it hit me. There is the possibility of if I fall in love with someone, and want to spend my life with him I can in the future get married. I was so overcome with emotion, it was like reuniting with a someone who I had thought dead, mourned, and missed brought back from the dead. I was paralyzed, weeping, and contrary to my countenance so overcome with happiness psychologically, and biologically, I had no clue how to react. I'm still grappling with the notion. A door I thought closed, and bricked over was all of a sudden open once again.
There is still a great deal of work to do. There are several states for which the ruling changes nothing for same-sex couples who wish to marry the one they love. There is still a tremendous and arduous fight for transgender rights both nationally, and for the military. In Illinois because there is no recognition of same-sex marriage, the ruling on DOMA is essentially meaningless. But the fact that it happened, is a monumental step in the right direction.

Feelings of loserdom, and grappling with the reality of now

I have been away from this blog for a while, and I had a musing which simply begged it's way to my fingertips onto this computer screen. One of my students made a comment to the effect that he believed I was secretly very successful and doing a spectacular job at hiding that fact. There was some stuff that I read into that statement which basically entered the realm of being a teacher was the "Clark Kent" to my secret identity as an art world "Superman". I recognize that as an egocentric grandiose delusion. I'm a part time teacher working two teaching jobs, digging my way out of crippling student debt, living with my parents. I have had the very recent and inordinately fortuitous luck of exhibiting a substantial artwork in a National Museum. That is such a mind blowing occurrence to me as such a drifter in life with such a late start into anything which could be considered a career. And to one of my students I am "successful".
I understand perspective is very much at play here, and this student only sees one sliver of my reality. What he says and believes is a compliment, and I should take it as that, say "Thank you" and move on. But in my warped sense of what a successful thirty something should look like, the idea that I am successful is such a cognitive dissonance in what I understand to be successful.
Now this alone was just some existentialist ennui until I heard a very thought provoking episode of Citizen Radio where a 26 year old listener refers to himself as a live-with-parents-loser. He goes further to articulate how he is trying to make things better for himself. He was both very candid, and really funny in how he wrote about his situation. His plight prompted many people too empathize and reflect on their own very similar situation. This too, resonated with me, and hearing this caused my student's statement to echo. Unfortunately, in reflecting on my own situation and the age disparity, I felt a little bit worse in the apparent solidarity of college graduates in similar situations. I have friends who are married, have a place of their own, have a well established career with some job security and an overall sense of stability. Contrasting that my own life seems frenetic, and stress has a distinct rhythm which is concurrent with the stability of my income. The past four months have been more stable than the past three years.
Given the fact that I am among the generation of college graduates who had the misfortune of graduating into one of the worst economic times in the history of the United States, I can justify my current state. However, my mind has been warped by the narrative which has been pushed in the media, and socially for the past twenty years or so. In spite of my acknowledging the reality of my situation, cognitively, I have a dissonance which upon self-reflection, nags on me, and provokes the self-identification as a loser.

Adventures in Teaching or Biting off more than I can chew.

I successfully completed my first week of teaching and have been busily coordinating and concocting some plans for the school year. I have no clue how I will be able to balance out working at Oak Forest High School while sponsoring Art Club, Teaching the Community Arts Sustaining Academics Program, and Co-leading and continuing programing for the Vet Art Project. Where there is a will, there is a way. I still have a month in which to set down as much of the groundwork for the Vet Art Project and balance out my schedule of staff, department, and programing meetings as all of this will play a part in how I am able to do my jobs.
At OFHS, taking full advantage of the fact that I am only teaching one section of art, I have compared notes on all my students and touched base with as many of the Social Studies and English teachers to basically get the gears turning on cooperative lessons bridging art and historical context in academics. I already have one teacher who would like to co-plan a lesson on the Reconstruction in post Civil War America, and the Fox Sisters basically purporting to be supernatural mediums, and pairing it with a black & white drawing lesson.
In my concerted efforts to go out and do things and not be such a hermit, Thursday, I had gone to a speaking event at the National Veterans Art Museum. There I met two very cool veterans, Brock & Jake and reconnected with other cool veterans I had met before (Barry & Sabrina). Brock & Jake have been traveling cross country talking about their visits back to Afghanistan and have so many striking, shocking, and beautiful stories about their experiences. I had dinner with all of them afterwards were we chatted and met up with another veteran who had recently come back from Afghanistan the evening before. After this encounter and dropping Brock off at Midway to catch his flight, I stopped by Atomic Sketch afterwards to check out the art and acquired some artwork for my personal collection as well as talking with some of the artists at Atomic Sketch about the possibility of having them come speak to either my class, or for Art Club. Altogether it was a rather busy evening.
This got my gears turning, in which in the most grandiose delusions, I could have a panel of veterans speaking about their experiences and discussing how a decade's worth of war has shaped our culture as is, as well as what is going on as well as giving a first person perspective on what military veterans have had to go through. At its most humble, having a few guest speakers either for my own classroom, or for art club to do demonstrations and share a little bit of their experiences. With everything I will have to do over the course of the school year, it is exciting and new, and at the same time I ask myself: Am I biting off more than I can chew?

in my nightmares I.....

With the very little I recall of some of the dreams that I have had in the past years, an ongoing trend I have noticed is whenever I have a dream which I can undeniably consider a nightmare because if the true childlike fear and helplessness they leave me with are dreams in which I am back in the service during a training exercise which involves the use of, or possession of a weapon. usually what ends up happening is either I lose said weapon, have a first time user's non-lethal, not-necessarily-dangerous-in-a-training-environment-but-potentially-harmful-in-a-non-training-environment incident, like swinging a weapon in such a way that I basically put someone in the business end of a rifle unintentionally, or the weapon I have is not the serial number which I was assigned. Misplaced or lost weapons are serious security risks, and they will shut down bases to recover unaccounted for weapons. But with this dream comes the same sense of helplessness of you have a career making meeting or something to get to, and you lost your keys. You cannot remember where you left them, you have turned the house upside down looking for them, and they are NOWHERE to be found. In my nightmare usually, I am usually retracing my steps, and checking every nook and cranie of my environment for my weapon, or at least the weapon which has my assigned serial number. I usually end up either getting caught not having my assigned weapon, or I wake up from the sheer palpable fright which is physically making my heart race like I just finished a Tabata set.

Dreamscape

I have been having a series of dreams that in some ways resemble the locations that I have dreamt before. It seems that the geography of my dreams is coalescing and taking shape. It seems to be asort of amalgam of my home town in mexico, hawaiian mointains, beaches, military instalations, my grandparent's ranch and surrounding hills. There are volitile elements such as two volcanos that are always aflame, and always spewing forth lava. The military instalation seems no more than a rowdy fraternity of people who pick on the younger and lwer ranking for fun. There is a field of lava and burning pits of sulfur that is the ruins of a part of town I do not recall. I have yet to find a coalesced significance of all the elements, except the places from my childhodd being nostalgic as well as grusome. I did have two distinct dreams I recall. One of them a man cut several deep gashes accross my face and my family did not recognize me. Another one, the volcano erupted more violently than usual and it wrecked the town.
Other seemingly unrealted dreams, or at least that the geography thereof have not taken part in the dreamsphere I have also shaken me.
I had one dream where I was back home after some time in physical therapy. I was missing both my legs and I was at a gathering. It was what seemed like a welcome home party. There was an ex-girlfriend-now-friend who was there and apparently coordinated the whole thing. It seemed to be taking place in an upstairs appartment or second floor of a house. It had elements of a thrift store but with more flair. Eventually at some people left. There were other people who were telling me how brave I was and how I was a hero. I thought about how I would not be able to do cartwheels and dance the same way again. Eventually I guess I had a flare up of pain. I asked for aspirin, or tylenol, or something. found myself standing a bit unsteadily with my forehead pressed against a wall. My eyes were clenched in pain. I opened them up took a breath and I was against the outside south wall of my best friend's house in the town where we bth spent a greater portion of our lives. It was damp out. I unsteadily walked back to my old house and awoke.
I believe this dream is pertinent to my being in Baghdad and all. I figure if something does happen, I'll get over it. Eventually

The Colour and The Feeling

Last night I had a dream about my work back civilian side. I was coming in to say farewell to my coworkers and the place was decorated with many colored plastic pieces shaped like fish in the ocean, pastel and neon colored paintings of the American flag all transitioning like a psychedelic colored exhibit in a museum. Upon seeing it, and my boss, I lost all manner of composure. There was Vicki, Angela, Kathy, Lynn, Cori, Mark, and Ditdynai, Sapan, and Irene present at a table with a dinner laid out. It seemed like a cross between a children’s exhibit and a kindergarten classroom. I felt embarrassed that I was emotional, and that I had to part ways with these wonderful people. Afterward, I found myself at a dock like region by the ocean. There seemed to be all manner of activity and I was out in the middle of the water patrolling back and forth. It was dark and I was alone for the most part.
I suppose that this dream is an indication of how lonely I think I may be. I did have a somber and depressive period a few weeks back, and there are some things that just are not helping. It does not help that I have done some studies on this very common disorder and what are some of the traits. I also know when it will be considered clinical. This is going against a very strong recommendation against self-diagnosis. There was a funny sort of incident that occurred a few days back. I am working on transferring to a section of the company that works on cultural symbols and such. The supervisor for the section thinks highly of me, at least in some aspects. I am working on my Art Education Degree and she considers me to have a broad grasp of understanding in the humanities field. She called me a “practically a humanities genius”. I declined the title, and she replied “Is it because they haven’t included your name at the sperm bank?” We all had a good laugh over that.It is flattering to hear that sort of thing every once in a while. Just knowing every so often that someone thinks of you in a positive manner feels good.