Author: Louie Singer

A little help

I got payed by the Citadel on Thursday.  That helped.  Not as much as I’d like, but it means I can pay bills without fear of checks bounding and still put a little into the credit card to stay under my limit.  I also got a check from the Choral Society concert yesterday.  That $250 will also be a big help.  Now I can definitely make it until next Thursday for the Restaurant’s paycheck.  I fear it will be abysmally small.  But every little bit helps, eh?

Pleasantly pitiful

Any day that I sing at the Citadel with the boys is a good day, so today was a good day. 1of2 looked particularly beautiful today.  The pinnacle of eleven-year-old beauty.  2of2 did as well, and I had a brief exchange with the Russian’s mother in which we talked about the Russian’s hair cut.  :D  I’m so pitiful.  But I don’t really mind.

Broke

Today I ran out of money.  I knew my spending was getting out of hand, but I ignored it.  I was having too much fun with my friends to restrict it.  And then today I didn’t have enought room on my credit card to buy a pizza.  I also just took a voice lesson and payed my teacher.  $120.  So now I have nearly $2,500 on my credit card and $75 in the bank.  I can’t buy gas.  I can’t pay my bills.  I can’t even feed myself.

Painful or not, I need to work more hours, and find a better job.  I get paid Thursday.  I think.  And then I’ll get the check from the Citadel soon too.  Maybe, maybe, between the two, I can pay my water bill and keep the car running.

The silver lining

Tomorrow morning is my fifth shift at The Restaurant.  I’m alternating between being satisfied with this work, and wanting to quit and find something else.  It can be quite stressful, especially when I feel like I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, but once things get in the swing, as much as I don’t like interacting w/ the customers, I really feel like it’s something I can handle.

Of course, the fact that Saturday night – late as it went and insane as it was – was a bat mitzvah with a pack of 8-13yo boys, and the night before had that cute 9 or 10 yo really helped to brighten my days.

Hopefully I’ll have another interview with The Secretary of State on Tuesday and start working at the Citadel sooner than later.  Better pay and reduced dependence on The Restaurant will make me happier.

Need to sleep.

Complaining

I had a good conversation with Jess today.  This is actually significant, sadly.  Recently whenever we talk it seems like she’s complaining about something, or she’s having a hard day, etc.  I don’t wish to be cruel, but it’s every time now, and she has said to me herself that she doesn’t like it when a friend relies on you only for emotional support, and never for fun.  She was talking about having to be cheerleader for someone else’s ego, but I think it translates.  After a few minutes of the same on the phone with her I started thinking, “all she does is whine at me.”  But then, she stopped herself and basically admitted that.  Then the conversation actually became a conversation and I got into it.  I didn’t want to get off the phone.  It was nice.  I need to be a more active phone participant.  Not just let her talk, but contribute myself.  Steer the topic to something mutual.  For surely, the one sided conversations we’ve been having are as much my fault as hers.

Anyhow, the topic of conversation started with…a complaint.  From me.  I mentioned the recording I just got of a concert I sang last spring.  I got it on Thursday, and listened to it for the first time today.  I did not like what I heard.

I had thought that I was getting much better.  That my tone was richening, deepening, becoming fuller.  but the sound I heard from that recording still sounded to me thin and very like a student and not a professional.  Maybe I hadn’t been as “on” that afternoon as I thought I was.  Or maybe the recording isn’t as true as I think it is.

Or maybe – worst of all – I really have improved as much as I thought, and that’s the better sound.  Which ever, I’m very happy to be having a lesson tomorrow, because I have a long way to go.

The new job

Short entry today.  I just worked my first shift.  I don’t really know how this is going to go.  I may not mind serving all that much.  I’m fairly certain, however, that I don’t want to do this a lot.  When I’m sent out on my own, no help, no experienced person between me and the customer…  I can’t see myself liking that.  But I’m sure I’ll get used to it, and it’ll be good for me.

I was productive today!  I did something to sustain myself.  That is, sadly, a big deal.  Just having a job at all is good for me.  Structure is hopefully soon to follow.

Pit bulls and strays

As mentioned previously, many entries to this blog will be adaptations of my journal entries.  That means that the events of feelings depicted are not necessarily current or even recent.

Oh, and by adaptation, I simply mean that I remove or change the names of locations and individuals and edit for length and understandability.  My journal is pretty stream of consciousness sometimes.  So, with no further a-do, my first entry:

I feel…off.  I don’t really understand what I feel.  Naming my truly important feelings has always been impossible.  Recently, I’ve noticed a change in the way animals react to me.  They used to love me.  And not too long ago either.  Some still do.  But my neighbor’s dog…  That was the first time I noticed.

Now, I don’t consider my neighbor’s dog to be any kind of reliable judge of character, but a little while ago–maybe two months?–my neighbor came over to introduce her pit bulls to me.  The female had just had puppies and wasn’t much interested in anything.  The male, though, took one sniff and backed away, growling.  Then, last Sunday I saw a stray cat.  I reached my hand out for her to sniff.  She also pulled back after getting my scent.  And then a little later, I let another pit bull sniff my hand as its owner was walking it.  It tried to bite my hand off.

What about my scent has changed?  Have I become the villain that I always joked I had the potential to be?  I spoke to Jess, my fellow potential villain, and she just laughed at me.  It is ridiculous.  I’m judging myself based on the reactions of a dog bread for it’s aggressiveness and bad attitude and a cat who digs through dumpsters.  Of COURSE they’re not going to want to be friendly.

But what if something about my scent HAS changed?  What did I do to change it?  How can I go back?  If I look at what’s changed about my lifestyle…  I need to simplify, I think.  I’ve become too…adult.  Focused on earning money, making a living.  At the same time, I’ve taken laziness to a new personal level.  Maybe this journal will help.  Help me focus my thoughts, force me to think more clearly.

I need to reconnect.  De-isolate myself.  Being unemployed so long, I haven’t had anywhere to go, anyone to see, or even any money to do something if I DID have somewhere to go.  But I even have had more hermit like tendencies when I DID have people around, things to do, places to be.  That needs to stop.  Maybe work will help with that.  Force me to interact with people.  Get over that insulatory instinct.  I really think I’ve pulled away from human contact since graduation, and that my friends have noticed my withdrawal and responded in kind.

Music, boys, books.  These have always been my focus.  They really still are, but I feel on some level that the way I focus on them has changed.  It’s less passionate and more mechanical.  More out of habit.

I need to change.  If I haven’t changed, then I need to now.  If I have changed, then I need to again.  But this time, the change must be positive.

I’m going to do the dishes.  Then maybe I’ll eat something healthy, for a change.

(In rereading that while I typed it up, I’m almost reluctant to post it.  I was being such a diva!  For one thing, that dog attacks anybody and anything that it can get at.  I have heard many screams of terror from people as it escapes the house to chase down them, or their smaller dog.  It’s jumped through their window before to chase something down, right through the glass.  But it’s how I felt, and there’s some truth to what I wrote.  That is what journalling is really about.  You write and you write and eventually something true ends up on paper.  As you get more experienced, it becomes easier to be truly honest.  So, I hope you’ll forgive the drama.  It’ll get better, I swear.)

Courting controversy

I am not old.  Most people would still consider me little more than a kid.  I am old enough to drink, but my generation is still viewed, not as children, but as “kids.”  Still, I’m old enough to think about my childhood as something that is over, and will not return.  And I have been, recently.  And–holy crap!–everyone was right.  I’m NOT going to be able to remember everything forever.  I’m already starting to forget stuff!

That’s unfortunate.

So, I decided it’s time to start writing things down.  I started a journal.  The journal serves two main purposes for me.  I’m using it to stop the dribble of old memories from running out my ear while I sleep and getting washed out of my pillowcase when I do the laundry, never to be seen again.  I’ll write old memories down which I think were significant in forming who I am and memories that are just too pleasant to risk forgetting.

The second purpose is what most people use a journal for.  To record my memories, my “story,” as they happen.  To structure my thoughts.  Studies show, journalling improves long term memory, blah blah blah…

It’s also practice writing, and as someone who aspires to write creatively, that’s always time well spent.

But that’s my journal, and this is my blog, so what does that have to do with this?  Well, as I was writing I kept thinking about how it would be received by a person not me.  I think–though perhaps it’s pure hubris–that it could be interesting to a third party.  So, you may love it, you may hate it, or most likely of all, you won’t ever even read it, but I’ve decided to adapt parts of my journal into blog entries.

Why would it be interesting?  (Or controversial, as the title claims)  What could I, an early 20 something guy, possibly have going on that is worth reading about?  I’ll tell you.  (Even as I prepare to type it out on the screen in the privacy of my room, where I can delete it without a soul seeing, without having to speak a word aloud, my heart is pounding and my hands starting to shake.  NEVER think that it is easy to reveal this sort of thing to anyone.  Not to one’s mother, one’s best friend, the purportedly anonymous internet at large.)

I am a boylover.  A pedophile, if you must.  Palsambleu that’s hard.  Before you reach for that “report” button or navigate away, or before you become angry at me for using the two terms as though they were interchangeable (I don’t believe them to be), let me explain to you what I intend here, and how I see myself and those words.

This blog is not going to be about boys.  It’s not going to be filled with “pro-pedophilia activism” or accounts of illicit liaisons with “lily-lad” but rather, as I said above, it is going to be an adaptation of my journal entries.  It’s going to talk about things like tiresome jobs, maxed out credit cards, a fun night out with friends, recently viewed movies, my neighbor’s annoying dog (which hates me right back), troubles with computer viruses and maybe even the occasional discussion of foot fungus.

That said, the blog is not going to be devoid of mention of boys either.  Boys are an important part of my life.  I think about them, perhaps not all the time, but quite often.  The most insignificant of encounters can turn a bad day into a good one.  A distant sighting of a particularly beautiful specimen of boyhood can distract me totally.  But my talking about boys will be in the context of my life, which is much bigger than my sexuality.

As to the difference between boylover and pedophile…  Every boylover–probably every human, for that matter–likely has a different way of defining these words.  To me, they’re like squares and rectangles.  All squares are rectangles (being a parallelogram having four right angles) but not all rectangles are squares (being a parallelogram having four right angles and all sides of equal length).  Pedophile is simply a generic term synonymous with pedosexual.  A person who is sexually attracted to minors.  (We could go more in depth and define separately pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia, but if you’re really that interested, you can refer to the lies on wikipedia.)  A boylover is, oddly enough, attracted to boys.  It is a refinement of the broader group.  But as a term adopted by a community of people to define themselves, it has further connotations beyond the physical attraction, such as a genuine interest in the happiness and well-being of the boy, even at the expense of the boylover’s own happiness and well-being.  But like I said, this is how I think of these terms.  Others may, and will, disagree.

So there you have it.  Blog about the regular every day life of a boylover, no matter how unexceptional that may sometimes be.

Thanks for reading,

Louie Singer