My Exercise In Futility

It’s no wonder why I don’t sleep well. I honestly feel like I’m never doing enough. I could be learning more about Microsoft Exchange or about Domino 8; I could be working on one of my papers for school; I could be putting together the slides that I will use for the training I am providing one of my customers next week; I could be learning about SAN devices, HBAs and other types of hardware; I want to learn to write applications or scripts that could be useful in the work that I do.

Reading that list, one might think I went into a little bit of overkill to make my point. The problem is that this was only part of the list. I didn’t have to hesitate at all to express just some of the many things I feel like I am not accomplishing but should be working on. Does everyone feel like this? It’s not as if I am squandering my time away. I spread the 20 hours I am awake across several different tasks each day. Sometimes I don’t leave any time just to relax.

The Ambien CR is gone, too. I’ve been out of Ambien for almost four weeks now. Normally, I would have the prescription refilled and think nothing of it. In Paris, I’ve been reluctant to find a doctor and get a new prescription; I haven’t called my own doctor because I don’t know how he would get a prescription to me while I’m in Paris. Plus, I wanted to see if I could sleep without it now. I can’t. What does this matter you might ask? When I had the Ambien, I would look at the clock each night and decide that I had done enough for the day and I would take my sleeping pill. Within 30 minutes I would be asleep, and I would stay asleep. It was forced downtime.

Now, it’s quite literally 20 hour days with 4 hours of restless, broken sleep between them. My mind races. In the distant past, I would watch a familiar movie as I fell asleep. It was enough to keep my mind from wandering to new ideas or problems, but the movie was familiar enough that I wouldn’t have to pay attention – I could fall asleep. That trick doesn’t work in Paris. French TV forces me to pay attention. I find myself either trying to translate or determine the story line through body language and visual indicators. I have to pay attention – I don’t fall asleep.

However, 4 weeks without the Ambien and my dreams have returned. I’ve had some doozies since they’ve come back. Monday night, Britney Spears gave me a private concert with a surprise appearance by Madonna who, by the way, came out to dance around my seat. I had her undivided attention being the only audience member in a venue in comparable size to Madison Square Garden. It was the best concert ever. And they were both singing songs I had never heard. I should have wrote the lyrics down when I woke up. They were really good songs.

Wednesday night, I had the perfect story line for a box office hit playing out in my head. The dream was of me literally writing a sensational, action packed thriller and having it play out in live action as I wrote it down in the dream. Of course, when I awoke, I could only remember what the generic idea of the dream was, forgetting the entire story line I am certain would have made me millions in Hollywood.

My work here in Paris is almost complete. I have been praised for my great accomplishments and ability to bring a difficult project to closure. While working in Paris, I’ve had close to zero living expenses; EMC is paying for almost everything. I have been reducing my unsecured debt by leaps and bounds each pay period. I am doing so well in school that my average for this class is 97%. My point is, I should be feeling extremely accomplished and relaxed right now. Then why do I feel exactly the opposite? Why am I more stressed than I’ve been since arriving in Paris? Why do I feel like I’m not doing or learning enough? Why do I feel like I’m not paying the bills fast enough?

It’s never enough…

Wow, I didn’t realize how absent I have been from my blog until I pulled up the page and saw nothing but weeks and weeks worth of Twitter updates. Sorry I’ve been away so long, folks. Work, school, vacation, and travel in general have made it difficult to keep up.

Anyhow, for those of you who didn’t already know, I’m in Paris! I’m going to be here for awhile, up to six months. I’ll get to come back to the States every now and again to take care of some personal things, but I’ll be here in Europe for the better part of six months.

My first week has been a little scary and a little frustrating because I am still suffering lingering side effects from the horrible flu that I had just days prior to my departure for Europe. I sum it all up in the video entry.

I will try and be more proactive about writing in the blog, and I promise some better video entries as time goes on. I hope to hear from all of you through comments, Facebook, or e-mail. Right now, those are my only English links and things of comfort! Keep them coming.

In Marriage Equality Protest – Part 1, I asked the question, “… are straight parents are ‘teaching’ their children to be straight and that gay parents are ‘teaching’ their children to be gay?” 

I don’t think so, but I do believe there is a definite difference on how most straight parents raise their children and how gay parents raise theirs. I think most straight parents assume that their child is straight while gay parents are more likely to not assume such an idea, and therefore usually teach their children to not to be ashamed of who they are. 

While I have no research at my immediate disposal to support my theory, my statements are based on my own experiences growing up. I can remember feeling around the time of 5th or 6th grade. I remember having a crush on a boy in my class. I’m not confusing my crush for feelings of close friendship at an early age – I definitely remember feeling very different about this boy as opposed to any other. It confused me because to this point I had always been taught that boys like girls, not other boys. 

I hid this information from my parents. My parents were born in the ’50’s, which was definitely a different time. I can definitely remember derogatory slurs being tossed around the household. I’ve heard the ‘N’ word on occasion, but I was most afraid of the word faggot, which I had also heard around the house. I knew to whom this word referred and I can only remember my parents or older siblings throwing the word around in a less than positive light.

As a result, I never spoke of my feelings for other boys. As a matter of fact, I began to think something was wrong with me, and that I needed to be fixed. I remember going through a very religious phase, going to Jimmy Swaggart ‘performances’ and becoming a Born Again Christian, thinking that somehow God would fix me. I went to church regularly for awhile, but never felt ‘fixed.’ And then there was the whole PTL scandal, and Jimmy Swaggart standing on the pulpit, tears streaming down his face as he looked up to the sky and begged for God’s forgiveness. It was then that I felt that if God couldn’t fix him, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to fix me. 

In the seventh grade, I remember having the biggest crush on my Business teacher at Pine Ridge Middle School – I think his name was Mr. Burton. Little did I know that Mr. Burton would be the model for all my other crushes – short, facial hair, not skinny, but not fat either – what the gay men call a bear. Anyhow, I can remember wanting to kiss him and wanting him to touch me. I wasn’t yearning for him to touch me sexually, although I wouldn’t have been opposed to the idea should it arise. It was this experience, these thoughts that I felt I couldn’t talk to my parents about, that started to make me feel even worse. 

I was so confused about my feelings for Mr. Burton that I thought I must have been born a girl. I had convinced myself that my mother and father had wanted a son for their first child so desperately that when I was born as a girl they had me sexually reassigned as a male. I swear I’m not making this up – I sought out my birth certificate certain it would expose the morbid truth. But, when I found it, I was just as disappointed as ever – I had been born male. 

Now, I’m not saying my parents scarred me for life, and I’m not blaming any of my adulthood shortcomings on my parents and how they raised me. I turned out just fine, and I am just as proud of my parents as they are of me. But, I could continue on with more anecdotes like these, and I will in Part 3. My point is that had I been a product of gay parents, I don’t think I would have gotten as far as the 8th grade and been as sexually confused and ashamed as I had been to this point. I don’t think gay parents would have thrown around the slurs regarding homosexuality that I heard while growing up. I think I would have felt more comfortable to ask questions, and I think gay parents would have told me that it’s OK to just love, no matter if it’s a boy or a girl. 

Maybe the question I will leave you with from part two is, as a parent, do you automatically assume your children are straight? If so, does this dictate how you interact with your child? Do you play sports with the boys and have tea with the little girls? Girls get dolls, boys get GI Joe’s?