Mortality Blog

Blog title is a song reference, see Shiny Toy Guns’ latest album ‘Year of Poisen’, track 1. This is probably one of the first blog posts I’ve written that I’ve (briefly) considered keeping to myself - it’s really just me talking about me, but I figure that you, my friends, are probably nearly as interested in me as I am, and that complete strangers certainly don’t have anything to lose. It’s kind of rambling, as usual.

So - after reading an incredibly good book (Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner) I’m thinking about typical highschool experiences, and how I missed out on some major classics: drinking, drugs, parties, and dating. Or rather, I’m wondering, did I miss out?

Obviously, since highschool, I feel like I’ve more then caught up - and while I rarely regret any past actions, I do wonder a bit about how I might be different if I’d been exposed to some of that stuff before college - or, honestly, before working at CMD, ha ha. I mean, if I’d had a date to the prom, smoked some weed in the parking lot before we went in, spiked the punch or whatever, laughed at whoever was crowed prom king, then drove up to Mt Tabor to fuck around and drink tequila, where would that leave me today? Socially, things never really lined up - I was too nervous about the repercussions of being gay in highschool to ever really persue any romantic interest, and all my friends were straight, anyway. Well, not that a lot has changed since then - my sexual preference is pretty low-key, and my sparse encounters with the ‘gay scene’ have been disapointing. Most of my friends are pretty straight, and I don’t even remember who ‘knows’, ha ha, which might be because I just don’t care, or perhaps because it almost always sounds forced to me - like I’m trying to come out of the closet, when I don’t think that should even be necessary.

But what if I’d had all that stereotypical stuff - maybe not even a boyfriend, just a somewhat gay friend, a fuck buddy, perhaps, who I went to dances with and got super drunk with? It feels like it would’ve been totally out of character - but honestly I’d always wanted to get a taste of that sort of lifestyle, but wasn’t ever really assertive enough to seek it out. Now I wonder if my parent’s hypothetical “you’re not old enough to be doing that” response might’ve been right? I’m egotistical to think that i have a fairly supreme outlook on life and people and things in general - would I have developed it if I’d partied my way through senior year and into college? I don’t know, it’s like there’s a weird parallel universe version of me, who’s probably pretty simliar, but not quite the same as the me that’s writing this. I don’t believe in the theory about alternate universes constantly fractalling out every time a choice is made, but it’s an appealing concept. I’m attracted to that idea of there being more of me, ha ha.

The reason that this has relevance and isn’t just fanciful speculation is that it has bearing on how I make decissions today, and in the future. Should I be more adventurous? (another music reference, whee!) I might just feel this way because of the group of people I hang out with, but getting drunk, high, sleeping with guys, and living in a house with some friends and owning all this stuff just seems like a normal thing to do - it’s not really an accomplishment. All of these things were sort of milestones, in my mind, and yet they’re pedestrian to people a few years older then me. They would’ve been pedestrian to people a few years younger, even. So is that something that I’m concerned about? Reaching sort of cultural milestones, being recgonized for ‘being ahead’ by my peers?

I think it’s one of those rare occasions where peer pressure, societal pressure, cultural expectations, and maybe even basic animal instinct slip through my otherwise expertly maintained self-confidence - not even to the point where it degrades the trust I have for myself, but at least to the point where I occasionally question it. Why don’t I have a boyfriend? Why didn’t I try harder to stay at CMD? When I think about stuff like that, I can’t help thinking back to being younger, to a few of my brief often nerve-wracking encounters with girls, and my petty little spats with teachers - I’ve always been mulish about submitting to authority, especially if doing so would make me uncomfortable, or if I perceive that I’m being coerced into a decision. I’ve always second-guessed myself like crazy when it comes to starting and maintaining relationships - my ideals, my hunches, and vauge notions of cultural expectations all collide and leave me fumbling for the right thing to say, or the right move to make. And yet, despite all that, it doesn’t really bother me. I mean, thinking about it at this moment, it certainly seems like a big systemic problem in my life, but an hour from now it’ll be completely gone from my mind - I won’t lose any sleep over it.

Actually, the swing between not caring and caring, frank examination and frank indeference, is probably worth thinking about as well. Am I not interested in striking up a romantic relationship because I already lead a fulfilling life, or have I convinced myself that my life is fulfilling because I never had what I would consider a real ‘going out on dates’ relationship, and I’m 22? That sounds like the sort of thing that cultural expectations would interject into my thought process, and there is the overwhelming evidence that the subject only rarely surfaces in my near-nightly introspective pondering (again, is it because I have trouble sleeping, or a cause of my trouble sleeping?) and if I hardly ever devote much thought to it, can it really be that important to me? I think more about dying then I do about dating, and I try to think about dying as little as possible due to my fear of mortality (which this mortality blog refers to.)

… after writing all this, I kind of wonder what my motivation is. Do I have a somewhat compulsive desire to inform my fellow members of humanity that I’m gay, haven’t had a real date in forever, didn’t drink or smoke at all until I started working at CMD, and et cetera? Are these really all important factors that contribute to Matt Lohkamp? They must be - I mean, they seem kind of tame, but I’ve pretty explicitly identified them as important to me, what with all this thought I’m putting into them. My guess would be that it’s cathartic more then anything else - that was such a freaking good book I just read, and the main character sort of got his whole screwed up life together at the end, and now I kind of wonder if I’m in the process of doing that too. Well, my life isn’t exactly screwed up, though. Actually, it’s probably a sort of preliminary life story telling - I would’ve discussed any of this with anyone, if that conversation had happened, but if it does now, it’ll be easier because I’ve essentially already talked it out pretty thoroughly. I actually do that quite a bit - carry on long hypothetical conversations with myself, or play out hypothetical events, all in my head, and I’m honestly not sure if doing that ahead of time helps me any when the situations or conversation actually occurs - it’s more likely that it just calms me down if I’m nervous about something.

To end, I’m going to tell a story about one of my first almost-girlfriends, one of the crazy ones. We walked down the dark path to the beach, where the ocean crashed invisibly against the sand, and we huddled together next to a driftwood log. In between french kissing, she told me that she saw ghosts, and spirits, and angels, and devils. I felt incredibly akward, because I didn’t believe in any of that stuff (despite the fact that we were both currently attending a christian church camp.) She went on about how demons had come after her while she was talking to her counselor, and they had held hands and prayed, and a white sheet had fallen around them that protected them from their supernatural assailents. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to kiss more, or maybe try having sex (I might’ve been a virgin at that point, I don’t remember), or if I wanted to seriously debate the existence of angels. I wasn’t brave enough to make any sort of sexual moves, or to do the conversation thing (she was a cool person to hang out with, appart from the semi-girlfriend thing, and this new supernatural revelation) so I opted for more kissing. A year or two later I told her I was gay, and she told me that she was bi.

Good story. The character in that book I just finished was supposed to write his memoirs as a senior highschool assignment - and I for sure would like to give that a try. I wonder - would I change the names to protect the innocent?

Last night I was adrift in a flood of vivid dreams. I didn’t know that they were dreams, but I had complete control over myself - they were a lot like real life. In one, I was sitting at a computer in the public library, along with some friends from CMD - in the ‘conference room’ adjacent, there was a speaker giving a lecture.

We heard him say, “Sometimes little jack and jill have to be told that there just isn’t any money for college, and they’re just going to have to deal with it!”

Thorin, my boss when I was at the agency, objected - “So basicly you’re saying that my upwardly-mobile daughter has no opportunity for vertical growth?”

After their argument somehow got carried out of the conference room and into the main section of the library, everyone was paying attention. After several rounds of accusations and defense, the man said indignantly, “I suppose you want everything to be however you want it, don’t you?”

Before Thorin could answer I jumped up and declared, “We want a life full of comfortabilitity [sic], or none at all!”

Not quite sure what to make of the statement, everyone looked on bemusedly.

Later that day, we went to a party at a huge house - somehow, I found my way back into an unused room, which turned out to be where you had to fight the boss (not Thorin, this was a boss in the video game sense). I don’t remember how I beat him, but I managed it, and then somehow won the right to use that room as my bed room. I moved all my stuff in, set up my bed, then lay down to sleep - but I couldn’t fall asleep. I knew that if I rolled over and looked at the outlet next to my bed, I would see something scary.

Unable to take the suspense, I looked - and there was the boss’ face, instead of the outlet, with cords stuffed in his mouth. As I stared, its eyes suddenly flipped open and stared back at me. Suddenly I was caught by a sort of air-current, like there was a strong win blowing me closer and closer to the face, which was shifting to resemble my own! My vision blurred, there was a roar in my ears, and just before I got too close, I woke up (in my dream), thrashing around in a tangle of sheets. It had only been a dream… within a dream.

So - faces of people I defeated which suck me in, and ‘an uncomfortable life is not worth living’. Weird. The experience with the face felt similar to when I tried Salvia, especially the weird air current / invisible force pushing against me, which was nearly identical. It also felt a little like that Call of Cthulu computer game, the way my vision distorted and sort of pulsated as my attention was fixated on the face.

The computers in the library are probably a childhood throw back of some kind, as I definitly spent time on the library computers when I was a kid, waiting for mom to get off work, or there with my classmates on a school trip. Thorin has a daughter - I guess he would be defensive of her given the opportunity, but I can’t think of anything in particular this relates to. My mispoken sentiment (’comfortabilitity’ is not a word) isn’t even a true one - I would rather live any life then no life at all, rather be uncomfortable for the rest of my life then lose it. So not sure what that’s about.

Dreams are so much fun.

So, I was kind of thinking about writing a quick letter to my state rep, Earl Blumenauer. From what I’ve read, he’s a pretty cool guy. But I’m not sure I really want to write him a letter. Maybe I will. I’ll try it out as a blog post first, anyway.

Salvia divinorum is a plant that contains a chemical called ‘Salvinorin A‘, which is a hallucinogen. It’s normally available in concentrations (5x, 10x, 20x, etc), and most often smoked (preferably at a higher temperature then normal lighters). It’s also legal in the state of Oregon. Sounds kind of weird, huh? Kind of inconsistent? Or even hypocritical? The thing is, if we choose, Oregon could keep it legal. And who gets to decide stuff like that? Our buddy Earl.

On a related note, consider this Latin proverb - abusus non tollit usum, or “abuse is not an argument against use.” What do you think?

edit: on a related note: legal status of Salvia in Oregon [wikipedia]
‘nother edit: “firearms to fireworks” is a pretty good phrase, if I do say so myself. Gotta love those alliterations.