matching tracksuits

Still Considering

Saturday 21 October 2000

Despite my claim at the top of this document, I have not written every day for at least twenty minutes. I suppose I had something I could have written about yesterday, but I simply didn’t feel like it. And that’s not quite the point, anyway. I don’t want to write in here only when I have “something to write about” but I want to force myself to write in here daily. That’s the only way I’ll ever get back to the journal-keeper that I once was — and I think I was a much healthier person when I was keeping my journal more regularly.

I had a thought yesterday about Lipnica and going back. I realized that what I’m more scared of is going back for a year and realizing there’s nothing there for me at all. I think that’s what Chhavi thinks will happen. And that is certainly the last thing I want, for if I go back and discover that what I’m looking for is not there, then I’ll be worse than “back to square one.” I think part of my frustration yesterday had to do with the fact that part of my life has recently splintered into millions of pieces and I've lost some things and it will take some time to pull everything back together — I’m speaking of my computer, of course, and its recent Windows 2000-induced nose-dive. That’s a relatively minor thing, and it’s simply an irritation that must be overcome. Yet last night I remember thinking, “I could work on some VB stuff, but I have to re-load Visual Studio, and I’ve lost all that source code I downloaded, and all my programs are now history.” So it’s not that I was thrown into some kind of depression over this — I was simply annoyed. Anyway, I imagine such a scenario multiplied many times in intensity and importance and I can only shudder as I imagine how difficult that would be to deal with: realizing that Lipnica has nothing for me; realizing that Chhavi might be back in India by that time; realizing that I threw away a seemingly “sure thing” for something that just didn’t work out.

Yet I did consciously use the word “seemingly” because of all these thoughts roaring through my head about having children. I’ll return to that later.

One thing I wanted to elaborate on from the previous paragraph is this: if I go back and discover that what I’m looking for is not there, then I’ll be worse than “back to square one.” I’m not even quite sure what it is I’m looking for. And that makes me somewhat hesitant to go back if I don’t know exactly what it is I’m seeking — there or anywhere for that matter. I just know that I’m not terribly happy here. And yet I think, “That’s exactly how you felt when you left Lipnica. That’s why you left Lipnica — you thought you’d find what you were looking for in the philosophy of religion program at BU. And that certainly didn’t happen.” This whole notion of being happy where you are and being content with what you have keeps haunting me. That is most definitely not what I’m doing now, though in the back of my head I have these stupid thoughts: “Once I get to Lipnica, then I’ll start living that way.” What a stupid thing to think —living an oxymoron.

So back to this “seemingly.” I’ve come to realize that I’ve have certain unconscious expectations about my life that have definite implications for what happens with Chhavi and me. I’m almost twenty-eight years old — and I thought that by now, certainly, I’d be married, and that within a year or so would be having at least one child. In other words, I thought that before I reached thirty I’d have a family. Well that’s certainly not going to be the case no matter what I do — and to be honest, I’m not ready for a family now. Not until I figure out what I want to do with my life. But Chhavi’s lack of interest in ever having kids, it doesn’t look like that’ll ever come to fruition. And so while a relatively minor assumption is being challenged at the moment (i.e., that I’d have a family before age thirty) is eclipsed by a larger, more significant one (i.e., that I’d have a family, period). So what I’ve got to do is decide whether I really want to have a child or not, and whether or not I’m willing to give that up in order to stay with Chhav. What are my alternatives? Break up and go out on the prowl again, so to speak. That’s not something I really want to do, to be honest — either break up or be out “looking” again. (I wasn’t “looking” when I found Chhav, and that’s why I found her, in part — so I’ve always told myself.) And once “freed” from monogamy, I’d want to explore that freedom a little. Sleep around a bit, in other words. It’s something I’ve always kind of wanted to do but never did — and then I’d have my chance. So I’d sleep around, maybe have a couple of years of fun. Then what?

One more thing I was thinking about yesterday, then I’ll stop. If I were to go back to Lipnica, it would certainly be nice to be able to have a place of my own (three possibilities occur to me: the old apartment, above Magda’s shop, and above the pharmacy, if they’ve built the house they’d mentioned they wanted to build), but in a way it might be better if I stayed with the Mastelas. The problem is money — I would want to pay them for room and board, but I’ve a feeling Mamo would not want me to. Perhaps I could make it that the school pays her directly and I could act as if I were completely ignorant. Who knows. Anyway, the reason this would be a good idea is in fact two-fold (or more). For one thing, I’d have someone to talk to and someone to help me with my Polish. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, it would force me to focus on the work aspect of my life during the week because I couldn’t have people coming over all the time. It would be safe in another sense, too: less chance of me fucking around with someone in my own apartment. Screwing around would not be a bad thing, necessarily, but I wouldn’t want anything to happen with anyone from Lipnica unless I was sure I wanted to pursue it farther than a casual fuck.

Enough of that. I’m going to go read something now.

Declared God

Tuesday 10 October 2000

“Octavian was declared a god shortly after his death.” This is from the profile for Octavian that I just edited for the Western Civ I book. Being declared a “god” in this case seems something like beatification in the Roman church. Thinking of this, the obvious occurred to me: it’s called the Roman church because it grew out of the Roman Empire and was/is centered in Rome. Surely after Edict of Milan all notions of Roman reality didn’t get subsumed under the Christian worldview. In fact, the Christian worldview grew out of this Roman world, so it stands to reason that certain habits/notions from Roman religion persisted in Christianity. Hence it seems logical that this ritual of declaring this person or that person a god might carry over into the Roman church in the form of beatification. The differences, I’m sure, are enormous, and I’m not so naïve as to suggest that it’s a one-to-one relationship. However, the basic notion is the same.

That being said, even if it were empirical, historical fact that the idea of beatification grew out of the Roman deification of its rulers (which is, to be sure, not strictly a Roman notion and probably exists in cultures around the world — Japan and ancient Egypt come immediately to mind), that would not change Roman Catholic practice. Once it’s been so entrenched, how could anyone change it? Even if Pope John Paul II said, “Look, we’ve come to the realization that this beatification thing is nothing but a carry-over from pagan Roman religion,” no-one would buy it. They’d want to chalk it up to senility. Of course if the Pope said this as a holy pronouncement, then papal infallibility would kick in and then we’d have all kinds of cognitive dissonance.

Rules and Regs

Thursday 05 October 2000

From http://members.aol.com/cogwriter/cmc0929.htm

Guidelines for Church Dances: The Church of God teaches that dancing is an acceptable form of recreation for members and their families. The rules and traditions we have established for Living Youth Camp dances teach the way of outgoing concern and of decency. These rules and traditions are as follows:

All music must be chosen carefully, with a very conservative approach, and with the approval of the Festival Coordinator or an individual he specifically assigns this task.

No "free-style" dancing is permitted since this usually involves inappropriate music and brings out an attitude of abandoned inhibitions and showing off; thus focusing attention on the self rather than showing outgoing concern for others. Exceptions to this are some line and novelty dances.

Fellows should politely ask a young lady or woman to dance i.e.: "May I have this next dance?" If the lady accepts, he should offer his arm to lead her out to the dance floor. When the dance is over, he should lead her back to her table or chair.

Concerning teens, we do not want anyone left out. Therefore we discourage "pairing off" of teens at our church sponsored dances and encourage dancing with many partners, particularly noting who sat out the last dance. Older singles and engaged couples who are of age may be exempt from this rule.

Music should not be so loud that those who prefer not to dance have a difficult time carrying on a conversation.

Lighting should not be turned down so low that the average person could not read a book with ease.

At any dance organized primarily for youth, all parents are welcome to visit.

Appropriate dress for a Church dance in the Northern Hemisphere is slacks, coat and tie for adult and young men and modest knee length dress or long gown for adult and young women. A Church dance is not the place for a "personal statement."

Despite the obviously abusive control illustrated in the above quote, I still find myself strangely nostalgic when I think about my time in the WCG, especially now as it’s fall and time for the Feast of Tabernacles. The wonderful excitement and anticipation of the coming week when you arrive at your accommodations — of course this depends on the fact that you’re middle-class and could afford a decent place and knew, from the beginning, that it would be a decent place. The anticipation when you walk into the auditorium for the first evening’s service and you’re scooping out the place — of course this depends on whether you’re in the “in” crowd and you can rest assured that you’ll meet someone for a “Feast fling” or at least friendship. Making plans for that first night after services, or going out to lunch between services — of course this depends on whether you have the money to afford going out to eat for every meal, like we did.

My memories of the WCG are almost all positive, I guess, because I wasn’t the victim of any abuse. I didn’t lose my job because of the stupid Sabbath regulations; no one in my family refused to take medicine and died as a result; we had fairly decent relationships with all our extra-WCG family members. In other words, I didn’t have to give up much to be in the WCG. I didn’t get to go to school dances, and I wasn’t able to swim at Saturday meets, but that’s a relatively small price to pay — more of an inconvenience than anything.

More Relationship Concerns

Thursday 28 September 2000

To Return or Not?

Tuesday 26 September 2000

General Thoughts

Sunday 24 September 2000

Critical Conversation

Thursday 14 September 2000

General Entry

Sunday 10 September 2000

I was reading a little from Luci Shaw’s Life Path and if course I’m thinking, “I should be writing in my journal every single day. Every morning.” I write more in my journal these days about the fact that I never write than anything else. What all could I write about? My job — dealing with the nonsense that goes on there. My continuing frustration with Kali’s “I don’t get it” juxtaposed to her increasing “confidence.” There we go — I’ll write about that for a while.

Kali seems to be almost arrogant with her confidence at times. It’s very strange because on the one hand she complains about “not getting it” with certain things that I have written that I think are crystal clear, and then she seems to say that she can do anything she wants, that she’s the greatest asset our whole company has. I’ve just learned to deal with her on a case-by-case basis and realize that almost everything I give her will be declared completely incomprehensible at some point — one passage, one sentence, one silly word even.

I’m listening to BNL’s “When You Dream,” and it’s making me think about what it would be like to have a child. Originally I wrote “what it will be like,” then changed it to “will/would,” then dropped the definitive verb altogether and just stuck with the conditional. Second conditional in fact — used for things that aren’t the case and probably won’t be the case. Like saying, “If Bolek were a king,” I might have explained in class with last year’s IVB. So it’s almost the middle of September and I still haven’t talked to Chhavi. I still haven’t asked her a short (but not simple) question: Do you really think you’ll ever want to have a child?

And I guess I really need to ask myself beforehand: how much do I really want a child? Would I want one right now? No — certainly not. There’s no certainty in our life right now. We don’t know how long we’ll be living here or there or anywhere. And why would that stop me? Because it goes against everything I’ve always imagined my life would be like as a parent: having someplace that we stay for several years. A place to settle down, to put roots down — all those stupid cliches for which there are no other words, or for which I don’t want to search for replacements. So that’s the situation. I have this preconceived notion of how my life would be — probably an image I’ve had since I first took an interest in girls — once I fell in love and all that jazz. And yet nothing else has turned out as I would have thought when I was 15 or 16, so why should this be any different?

What are my alternatives? If C were to say she didn’t really think she would ever want children, and if — and that’s a huge “if” — I were to decide that because of this I should go my own way, what are my alternatives? Not many as I can tell.

I’ll finish this later today I hope.

More Complaining

Saturday 09 September 2000

It seems that every Saturday or Sunday morning these days I wake up feeling that I really don’t want to do anything — as if it’s too much work even to get out of bed for a cup of coffee. It’s not like I’m really depressed or anything. I just feel that it’s more effort than it’s worth to get up. I think of all the things I could do that day — today for example I could work on the little light box I’m going to try to create — but I just don’t feel like doing anything. Do I lie in bed thinking of LW? Not really. I just don’t feel like there’s anything worth doing. I think, “At least during the week I keep myself busy.” It was similar to when I first arrived in LW, I think. No — I was just generally depressed and alone at first.

It’s amazing — I just have nothing to write about. I could write about Marlon coming over for dinner last night, but why? We just chatted. I don’t know how I could write so much in Lipnica. Page after page. And now I haven’t even finished a full page in the first nine days of the month. In Lipnica — this would have been just the beginning of my first entry, writing about the first day back to school.

This week it’s been really weird walking to work. It was so sunny out — not a single cloud in the sky — and it made me think about the beginning of school and such. Fall crispness and I was thinking about not the beginning of my own school years, but the beginning of the three years in Lipnica. And how technically this should be the beginning of my fifth year there.

I’m still so sad. I still feel like I’m not where I belong. I still feel like I’m missing out on life. “When you dream, what do you dream about?” sings BNL. Lipnica. Always.

Moving

Sunday 03 September 2000

The move is finished — accomplished — done. Or perhaps more appropriately, survived. I left at 7:15 Tuesday morning to pick up the moving van and I finally fell into bed at 55 Adams Street, 99.99% of our belongings in the apartment, at 11:30 that night. And of course we’ve spent the next several days unboxing everything and working the stiffness out of our muscles. It was, in many ways, hellish, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

The new place is a dream. We have more storage space in this apartment than we would have had we used the whole apartment at 168 North Beacon for storage. In other words, we have more storage space now than we had living space at the last place. And as far as living space goes, we have so much of it here that we don’t have enough furniture to fill it! As far as I’m concerned, we can stay here for as long as we live in Boston.

The only bad thing is the movie rental situation. The closest place is Blockbuster but they won’t let me get a membership there without a valid Mass ID. I can rent a truck that costs tens of thousands of dollars with my VA driver’s license, but I can’t rent a movie. I asked whether a passport would suffice — no go. So I can get into any country in Western or Central Europe with my passport, but I can’t get a Blockbuster membership card. How insane.

I’ve been thinking the past few days about the obvious: Lipnica. It’s now been four years since my arrival in Lipnica Wielka. I would — perhaps should — be starting my fifth school year if I were still there — and I think in many ways I should still be there. More later.

More Leaving

Saturday 12 August 2000

More Leaving

Thursday 10 August 2000

Don’t Even Ask!

Thursday 03 August 2000

Lots has happened this week. Arrived at work Monday to find everyone from Western Civ I in the religion cube, talking about Paul. Checked email to find a message from him saying he’d quit. It was, at times, almost hostile. “I will not answer any more [expletive deleted] content questions. Don’t EVEN ask.” I remember Kali doing her thing with him Friday, sitting at his computer and going through things line by line. I know how painful that can be, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that that was the cliché “last straw.” I heard someone say that Val was going to call him and try to talk him out of it. Seems unlikely.

The really big news is that I got a letter from Anna P. this week. It was short but much appreciated. And of course one could guess the effect it had on me. I’m now as confused as ever. Anyway, she’s having no problems from her ex — which probably means he harasses her only slightly when they bump into each other — and, as far as I can tell, she’s not out looking for a replacement, so to speak. Bad news though: She had a “small accident” and lost half a finger. It’s such a common thing there that she wrote all of one sentence about it, something that would send some people here into therapy!

Bus Jesus

Wednesday 19 July 2000

On the 86 coming to work today I was witnessed to. I was sitting on the foremost single seat, minding my business, when this women asked me, “Jew have Essus in your heart?” I had to ask her a couple of times to repeat herself, but I finally realized she was asking me, “Do you have Jesus in you heart?” She began to explain to me that he loves me, died for me, is knocking on my heart and keeping me awake at night. She had a little flip-book with several verses on individual pieces of paper. She would read them to me, moving her finger along below each word as if she were a mother reading to her child. (Instead of a full stop at the end, though, she had colons. I'm not sure why.) At one point she asked me if I believed in God. When I told her I didn’t she didn't really know how to deal with it, it seems. She returned to talking about how Jesus died for me, how he loves me, and so on. She also explained that eventually God would close the door. I didn't know how to explain that any God with such conditional love as the God she is describing exhibits is not worthy of my love/respect.

She was, in all honesty, sweet. She was doing what she thought was necessary. Of course the question is, was she doing this because she wants me not to go to hell, or because she’s afraid God demands this of her for her salvation? I’m sure she couldn’t even answer that question completely.

Back in the States a Year

Sunday 09 July 2000

I’ve been in America for a year now. A year has passed since my time in Lipnica, since my departure from my home, more or less. I’ve been thinking about that for some time now and I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to do some accounting at this point — figure out what I’ve paid and what I’ve earned and see whether I’m in the black or the red. So I shall begin making breakfast and think about it for a while — I’ll be back shortly.

So let’s do a year in review. Maybe a chart: what I did, how I feel it has helped me, and how I feel it has helped others. Yeah, and maybe I could add some percentages and make charts and use that to determine whether I should be happy now or not. I’m being too analytical about all this, thinking, “If I just look at the data the right way, everything will be just fine; I’ll have my decision laid out for me right there, clearly and simply.”