Tag: US Men’s gymnastics

A Man Without a Dream

Wednesday has rolled around yet again and here we are with Pay the Bills Day again. Woo-hoo! That was sarcasm, by the way; I feel pretty confident that I am not going to be thrilled once I finish paying them this time around. Yay. (It’s one of those times when almost everything is due out of one paycheck. I have a nice cushion from the last one but still.) But I feel good this morning, and even got up without the alarm, which I’d forgotten to set! The lack of alarm obviously surprised Sparky, too, because shortly after I opened my eyes before six, he got into bed with me. When I didn’t react to the paw to my face, he curled up in a cat puddle, sighed, and went to sleep. If I could be certain I’d wake up on my own every morning, I wouldn’t even set the alarm because I feel much more awake and better today than I usually do when the alarm goes off and I hit snooze three or four times. I even stayed up later than usual, to try to catch up on the news. I ran errands after work last night–nothing big, just the mail and a short grocery run–and Paul got home relatively early enough so we could watch the Olympics, but too late for me to make dinner.

And of course, the Olympics were marvelous; it was so great seeing Simone Biles at the top of her game yet again, and the USA with the team gold in Women’s Gymnastics again. When I remember how hopeless we were with both teams back in the 1970s–and any medal seemed like an impossible dream. Now, the silver in 2020 was a “disappointment” because the women are expected to take the team gold every Olympics. It was so great watching them, and I always enjoy the crowd shots of Simone’s NFL player husband, keeping track of the scores so he doesn’t have to wait for the updates! They have a very special relationship, which is great to see. The gymnastics teams really made me happy this year, and I am so proud of them all!

So glad I’m not a sad bitter Christian who wants to eliminate joy from everyone’s life. I love the Olympics, you know? I always have, and one of my favorite things is seeing someone whose been under the radar from public view for their entire athletic career, and then have a shining Olympic moment in the spotlight and become instant stars. We’ve seen that happen already with the men’s gymnastics team; they are all adorable and their joy in winning an Olympic medal will inevitably be one of my favorite moments of these games. And of course, everyone is in love with Stephen Nedoroczik, who’s definitely having a moment, and good for him. (I also remember some athlete saying once that it’s better to win bronze than silver; silver just reminds you that you didn’t win; whereas bronze you’re delighted to have a medal at all.)

After the Olympics, I stayed up longer to watch Pete Buttigieg on Monday’s The Daily Show and the Vice-President’s speech in Atlanta. I thought I was going to regret that this morning, but seriously, so far so good, you know. Paul and I were talking about this during the Olympics; the last week has been the first one in almost a decade in which we weren’t experiencing some kind of existential dread about the future, which is both tiring and tiresome. It’s so nice to have hope again, even if it’s just a quicksilver dream disappearing through my fingers. There’s a lot of work to do, there’s a lot of excitement and optimism, and while I love President Biden and what he has managed, he couldn’t get this kind of excitement going anymore. And I don’t mind being wrong about him stepping aside either–mainly because I was so terrified of what might happen if he did, and despite the fact that it turned out better than I could have ever hoped, the Fucked-up Four (MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post) are still on my shit list, and I doubt even the impossible dream of winning control of Congress too could get me to go back to them.

I’ve not really done much writing lately, and I think it’s probably best not to pressure myself too much at this time and look at it as “I’m taking an Olympic sabbatical from writing.” I don’t have a deadline–there are some anthology calls I am thinking about writing something for, but we’ll see how that all works out in the long run. I wanted to submit something to the Malice anthology open call, but the deadline is today and I seriously doubt that anything I have on hand could be punched up, corrected and revised and sent in by midnight. If I didn’t have to go to work today, maybe I could get it done, but I do have to go in and I’m not going to kill myself to write a story for an anthology.I kind of don’t want to ever have to basically kill myself to finish anything on deadline ever again.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; you never know!

Mary, Mary

Hey there, Tuesday. How are you today? Yesterday wasn’t bad. I didn’t feel awake completely for most of the day, but I also think that had a lot to do with calorie deficits. I didn’t eat a lot over the weekend because my mouth was sore, which made biting and chewing hard. It wasn’t so bad yesterday, but I was so hungry all day, and I am sure that had a lot to do with feeling run down and tired. My mind was sharp, though, for the most part. I just felt like I needed to lay back down for another half-hour or so, if that makes sense? I did have a productive day at the office, though. I also managed to get the book outlined up through where I’ve written, and I also reread the most recent two chapters. Chapter Three needs a sex scene at the end, and Chapter 4 needs a strong revision before I move on to Chapter 5; but I didn’t know that until I reread and outlined, so we are ahead of the game for the moment right now.

The question about the sex scene is how to write it. From the very beginning, I’ve written very explicit, matter of fact sex scenes, because I wanted the reader to experience it in the same way the characters are experiencing it. My sex scenes are too graphic, athletic, and sweaty for most readers; it’s why I never tried writing a romance novel. They want prettier, frillier, more romantic sex scenes rather than the graphic depictions of what it’s really like, which is how I write them. I’ll probably write it graphically, and then tone it down and make it more palatable to modern tastes, I suppose.

Which reminds me, is mary still a gay slang term? I’m never sure about these things, and now that we’re more aware of how problematic things we took for granted are once we unpack them, I have to wonder about things like this. Mary was always a kind of slur for gay men, but we took it back and reclaimed it…and it became a kind of shorthand for gay men–“muscle Mary,” etc.–and sometimes you’d use it to address someone (“let it go, Mary”) but I was never sure where that came from in the first place, in all honesty. Hamburger Mary’s is a very well known queer restaurant chain (I love eating at the one in Palm Springs). Gay men always called each other “gurl” or “she” and so on; I’m not sure if that’s still okay or not. I don’t see anything offensive in it, but I am also not trans, and so not the best judge of that sort of thing. I don’t know where mary came from and why gay men used it with such abandon, but it has something to do with blurring gender lines with gay men–and since we weren’t “men” the way society defined them, so we started using female pronouns and adapted other non-masculine language for use. Gay men often use gendered slurs for each other without offense–slut, whore, bitch, hooker, skank–or second thought.

At least, we used to. I don’t know if we still do. Like I said, it may be problematic, and if people see it that way, then we should let it die and never mention it again.

But I will say this: it was never, ever intended to mock or insult women, just like drag wasn’t and still isn’t. It was mocking masculinity, if anything. Drag mocks and critiques gender roles, the same thing feminists have fought from the very beginning, and if you think gay men are your enemies1… I’m not going to tell women what is or isn’t misogynist, but lumping gay men in with straight men as misogynist sexists is also misandrist and homophobic. And you don’t get to tell me you’re not, either. See how that works? If you get to tell me I am a misogynist, I get to call you a homophobe when you’re homophobic. (Some allyship only goes as deep as free drugs and drinks at the gay bar.)

And how awesome was it that the US Men’s Gymnastics team won the first team medal at the Olympics in who knows how long (Okay, it was 2008, but it seemed like longer)? (The women, of course, still have a shot at gold) They also were a lot closer to the gold and silver medalists, too–so it’s entirely possible the men’s team is going to start climbing and getting better the way the women did all those years ago. We certainly can hope, and that kid on the pommel horse is phenomenal. GO USA!2 Their joy was infectious, and that young man with the glasses (Stephen Nedoroscik) was absolutely adorable in a geeky kind of way; I think we all fell a bit in love with him after he positively nailed that pommel horse routine to lock up a medal.

And that is why I love the Olympics, and will never boycott watching them. I love seeing the pride and joy of the athletes, even the ones who don’t medal or make the finals in their discipline: because the goal is always to make it there, the dream is to get a medal. Naturally, America’s pathetically weak-faithed Christians got their panties in a twist over something they completely misunderstood, and had their anchors actually been given the proper information from their producers, could have explained the Dionysian panorama to narrow-minded morons like Candace Cameron Buré (just as much trash as her fucking weird-ass brother) and Rob Schneider.

I slept really well last night, and feel more rested and alert and energetic today than I did yesterday, which is awesome and great. The coffee is really hitting this morning, and I feel like I am going to have a really good day. Go figure, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

  1. It’s so much easier to attack gay men, who aren’t the ones who’ve spent millennia oppressing women, isn’t it? It’s always the gays who are at fault with straight white women for their oppressive tactics, isn’t it, and not their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons? ↩︎
  2. Unlike some of my “patriotic” fellow citizens, I intend to continue watching the Olympics and rooting for our young athletes. Call me weird, but punishing the young athletes for something they had nothing to do with doesn’t sound particularly patriotic or American, but I’m gay so what do I know? ↩︎