Well I've been living on my own (unless you count my roommate) for almost a week now. I have to say that it's not as shocking or traumatic as I was expecting it to be. Perhaps it hasn't quite settled in my subconcious that I won't be going home anytime soon.

I've already had three days of classes and so far it hasn't been that difficult. With nothing better to do, I've had no difficulty with getting myself to do homework. I was sure that this would be one of the biggest hurdles for me to overcome and it probably will be if I ever establish some sort of social life that might tempt me from my studies.

People keep telling me that I should reach out and make friends, but I honestly have no idea of how to do that. My usual method of becoming aquainted with people online first and then meeting them is failing me because none of the people that are messaging me online have been ASU undergraduates. I really want to make sure I have a few friends at school before I start branching out, otherwise I might end up with only friends that don't go to school here.

I did go get dinner with my roommate tonight and finally got a chance to talk to him. I don't know if we will ever be good friends, we're pretty different. I can't tell if he would even be interested in being friends. For those of you that are wondering, no... I have not come out to my roommate yet. I'd love for him to know and be ok with it, and to be able to get on myspace while he was in the room and not be worried about him seeing something that would give me away, but I'm just not sure how he would take it. How do you tell your roommate that kind of thing anyway? Do you just blurt it out? Do you not tell them and let them realize it when you bring a boy home one night? Every way that I can think of comes off as being so akward when I play the scenario in my head. Oh well. It will happen when it happens.

Alright. I'm off to bed now. I've been conveniently waking up before my alarm goes of every since I got here and I don't want to screw that up.

So much craziness

Ok, I was very tired and also a bit sick when I wrote all this, so bear with me if it's a little confusing:

To start, I know that it has been forever and a day since I last posted to my blog. So much has happened since that time and I could almost slap myself for not writing about any of it until this moment, but at the same time it has been hard to turn it all into something signifigant to write about until now. It will be interesting to see what everyone thinks.

The first thing I guess I should update everyone on is that fact that I'm not exactly single anymore. A couple of weeks ago I got a message and friend request on MySpace from a guy that I had not seen or heard from in quite some time. His name is Jake. I had already known Jake for quite some time as he used to be friends with the first guy I ever dated. You know, waaaaaaay back when I was seventeen. So that wasn't really that long ago, but it's been almost two years since we first met. Two years is almost 1/3 of the time that has passed since I moved to Dallas and I remember almost nothing that happened before then, so it seems almost like I've known him for 1/3 of my life. Anyways... We started talking online, which quickly evolved into flirting and then into shameless flirting. Bear in mind that I had never known myself to be even capable of flirting before that point. But eventually we met up and soon after cuddled, and then made out. That, to me, is moving quite fast. Cuddling on the first date and especially making out on the first date (I'm not even sure if we were calling it a date) is just not my style, or maybe it is and I didn't know it. Needless to say, we then spent almost every following day together until I left to go to a wedding in Ohio. I'm not exactly sure what to call whatever it is we're doing. We had a slightly akward conversation online while I was in Ohio in which we tried to label it. The best we could come up with was "exclusively dating". After all, I am leaving for school in Arizona only a week from today. We still haven't discussed what happens at that point. If he's expecting a long distance relationship I'm not sure that I can provide that, I'm bad enough at short distance ones.

In Ohio there was much drama. Possibly more so than even a whole crowd of gay teenage guys could stir up. Of course, such drama could only come into existence in a family like my mother's. There are just too many women who love nothing more than to gossip. I can only begin to scratch the surface of it here because I have been greatly sheltered from it. To begin, my cousin's decision to marry came about rather hastily. They had only just decided to take the leap in May and here we were in August getting ready to go to the wedding. Of course, my grandmother payed for everything and then planned the event to boot. With my cousin's mother, aunts, and great aunts all decidedly taking part in the process, the arguments were endless and the stress levels extremely high. My cousin took as little part in it as she could which made her seem spoiled and ungrateful. Unfortunately, as much as I want to, I can't say that she wasn't and everyone else seems to share this view. My grandmother just about had a heart attack when the bride showed up at the wedding late, still wearing every single one of her piercings and a black bra and ragged thong under her wedding gown. Still, the wedding and rehersal went off without a hitch and everyone finally settled down and had a great time.

This part is chock full of names. If you get confused, feel free to refer to the list of names at the end of this post:

My Aunt Robin and Great Aunt Candy visited us at my grandmother's house both days after the wedding. They were acting a little odd, manic even, and we couldn't figure out exactly why. My sister, mother, and I decided it must just be due to the stress caused by the wedding and thought nothing of it. As it turns out, they knew something was about to go down. We got on the plane this morning and flew home thinking everything was peachy. Then, just as soon as the plane had landed and my mother had turned on her cell phone, she got a call from her mother bearing some quite shocking news. Before I tell you what it was I'll give you a little of the back story:
Once upon a time there were three brothers named Brian, Robert, and Gravy. Two of these brothers, Brian and Gravy, were quite reckless and irresponsible, getting kicked out of schools and causing trouble of all kinds. The other, Bob (Robert), while still quite rebelious at times, managed to behave responsibly and do alright for himself. One day Bob meets a girl he quite fancies, Leslie, and Gravy meets her cousin, Lisa. Fast forward to the present and we have my mom's sister, Leslie, happily married to Bob and they have three little girls (thirteen, eleven, and nine). Lisa has also married Gravy and they have two boys (one sixteen and one twelve), only Lisa and Gravy have let their differences (his laziness and lack of ever having a job) get between them and they are currently in the middle of a divorce.
Well, my grandmother tells my mom that when Lisa and her sons returned home from the wedding and following events they found there house no longer had furniture in it. Hmm, what we have now is an ugly divorce. The rumors going around were that one of my grandmother's trucks, that is to say a moving truck from "Sewell Motor Company", was involved. Well my grandmother promptly had that investigated and put those rumors to rest, but not after some tension had been caused between sides of the family. Brian admitted that he and Gravy rented a moving truck and took the furniture. People are saying now that they had noticed Leslie and Bob acting kind of strange at the wedding and think that they knew something about what was going to happen. The fact that they may have known this, and then not warned anyone, automatically puts them on Gravy's side as far as anyone is concerned. Anyways, I don't see this heading anywhere good.

Another thing happened at the wedding that I feel is worth mentioning. One of my cousin's best friends, Robbie, is gay and it's no secret. I really don't mean this in a bad way because I like Robbie, but I would say that he is quite flamboiant. Well, Robbie participated in the wedding as one of Jenny's bridesmaids. He didn't wear a dress or anything, he wore a tux, but regardless this had my family a little upset. I guess you could say that they're pretty traditional and conservative, which is suprising to me because they are northerners, yet sometimes more tightly wound than southern baptists. Well, despite my family's objections (not from Jenny's mother of course, she loves Robbie) they had him in the ceremony. He was also at the reception, I considered him to be very brave. Though no one said anything within earshot of him, everywhere I turned someone had something not-so-nice to say about him and gay people in general. It was amazing to me the things people were saying without even considering the fact that they might be saying them to a gay person, namely me. My sister and I skipped out on the reception a little early, catching a ride with our Aunt Leslie, Uncle Bob, and three cousins Rachael, Rebecca, and Megan. During the car ride I said something about how my dad's dancing was a little embarassing as, for even the slow songs, he bounced and swiveled his butt and hips in such an exaggerated manner while dragging his dance partner, scared, along with him. My cousin Rachael respondid to this with "You know who else did...it was that...Robbie." She said it with a not-so-slight undertone of disgust. I had already argued with her the day before about Robbie, telling her that it was none of her concern what his sexual orientation was or how his voice sounded and that he was a really nice person. Anyways, I responded to her by saying something along the lines of "He's allowed to do that...he's gay." Immediately after I made this comment Uncle Bob cut in. "The term, is homosexual," he said sternly, "gay is something that they call themselves. It's supposed to mean happy." I turned bright red with anger at his remark. I knew my uncle had grown pretty conservative, in sharp contrast to his rebelious younger days, but this was crossing the line. I didn't say another word until we got to my grandmother's house, but rather sat brooding in silence. My uncle and I had previously been pretty close. I really don't think that will be the case anymore. I am also really close to his daughters, but if Rachael is any indication, they seem to have inherited their father's ignorance and I don't know if I can remain close to them either. I really want to talk to my aunt, Leslie, about it, because I have a hunch that she's a little less uptight than her husband and just doesn't want to contradict him. I'm just not sure how to approach her. I know it would somehow involve coming out to her, but how could I do this without risking her telling her husband or anyone on my mom's side of the family. The reason that I want to discuss it with her is that I hope that somehow she could try to enlighten her daughters behind her husband's back so that we could remain friends. It's just a tricky situation.

List of Names

Jenny

Aunt Robin

Robbie

Janet

Aunt Candy

Aunt Leslie

Uncle Bob

Rachael, Rebecca, and Megan

Lisa

Gravy

Brian

My cousin who got married last weekend

My mom's sister; Jenny's mother

Jenny's best friend

My grandmother

My great aunt; my grandmother younger sister

My mom's sister

Lesli's husband

Leslie's and Bob's children (in chronological order)

My mom's cousin

Lisa's husband; Bob's youger brother

Bob's and Gravy's older brother