CYBERSPACE– so my website is finally back up, albeit only partially… seems the server went honky tonk and they had to move all our stuff over to new boxes… which is nice, but it took a few days. i’m told this kinda thing won’t be happening nearly as often… and yet again, i have to reinstall things like phpBB and reupload the SQL all over again, an older database file because i haven’t the common sense or wherewithall to backup my own damn database except for once a month, if that… so that means newer things are lost forever, etc…. but i did get upgraded to the next plan, apparently, so that’s cool too… except for the fact that i don’t know where that leaves me in march, when i renew. i’ll have to axe about that. anyway… it’ll take a while for me to restore everything in its entirety, since i’m just not motivated HTML-wise lately. (what a pain in the ass.)
CULTURE– also i must mention a few things, mostly concerning queerness, etc.: 1) i am becoming religiously addicted to the PBS show “In The Life” (check your local listings!), to the extent that i actually forgo my beloved SNL just to watch it, even though it’s often reruns… but SNL is usually reruns anyway, and i only have to miss the first half hour, too. 2) i love Harvey Fierstein and Nathan Lane, who are two of the best, most positive [male] gay role models out there. 3) i need to go back to college soon, just so i can network with people and become active and involved again. (side note: i still haven’t been able to find the pic from the Dayton Daily News of me at the WSU protest against Gulf War I, where i was the most prominent protester in the foreground of the pic, with my game face on (and afro) and everything, one of the last 7 holdouts trying to argue for peace against a growing crowd of warmongers.) 4) i so love women musicians, especially gay or bisexual ones. i am so much more interested in hearing what a woman (or really anyone who is not so much like me or the vast majority of people i know) has to say than some dull, boring WASP. and girls just rock, and can do the whole DIY, indie-rock thing so much better than the guys can, IMHO.
LIFE– my sweet friend Melissa called me today… when i told her about the shuttle, her voice got all soft and she asked me if i was all right… how sweet and empathic she is, at all times… anyway, she is pregnant, which is really cool… although the father seems to be more than a bit on the loser side (that’s not just me being jealous, hehe), but i know that things will work out, and i think she’ll make a wonderful mommy. plus, having a child to raise will give her something to really live for; a reason to take care of herself a little better. (sometimes i worry… see, she’s one of those people who feel too much (like moi), so sometimes life can be kind of hard on the senses; especially when it involves the endless suffering all around us, the sufferings of our friends and neighbors, that steady, heroic climb uphill that is the theme of everyday life for each of us [who are not born rich that is]. she just cares so much, which is why i love and revere her (like an angel) so.) so yeah, big ups to her for having a baby (her first) this coming August/September!!
SPACE– few people realise what true pioneers astronauts really are. as mankind takes its first primitive and awkward baby-steps into the deep waters that fills the ocean of the Cosmos above our tiny heads, we must remember how valiant and heroic a thing it is to be any one of the first few thousand human beings to take such incredibly daunting and very risky tasks and make them their primary focus… to learn how to swim for the rest of us, as it were (because god knows someday we’ll need to abandon our poor little polluted blue-green grain of sand and make a pilgrimage toward calmer shores)… to take these measures as the first, most hopeful steps that Humankind can take toward a positive and tangible future; one where we exist as a real, active part of a vastly larger Whole; where we must make ourselves purposeful in the Universe; to co-exist in harmony with the gods in the heavens above, or at least with some other kind of flora and fauna that make up our sky-neighbors…
these people are the ones that future generations will look back on with an almost religious reverence and awe, just as we do today with the Ancients, those Greek Sophists and Egyptian doctors and astronomers, builders of the foundation we have built our humble house upon. these are the bravest of the Brave, who venture forth blindly into the coldest fires, knowing that some of them must inevitably get burned for the greater good of the rest of us. these are the founders of a brave new world; the sailors in the deepest seas there can ever be… how fearful was ancient human of the great Neptune, who swallowed whole shipfuls of men and women who dared sail past the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) for thousands of years before humans finally learned his great secrets? and now we try to be the Kind Vikings of the Skies, only we still haven’t been quite brave enough to wade out into the Greatest Ocean herself, just to dip our feet into her waters for a little while, testing her and ourselves before we make the plans that will bring us into the Universe as a proud citizen of the Cosmos… these people are actively unfolding our true human Destiny right before our eyes, meeting the greatest and most adventurous challenge that has ever faced humankind in all of history.
so yes, i wept for seven great Heroes today.
FILM– Woody Allen day today. Manhattan and Radio Days were on PBS tonight, and then at the grocery store, i ran into Annie Hall, so will watch that later.
