Dans les matins

There's this song, you see, by Rufus Wainwright, called "Rebel Prince." In it, he sings part of the chorus in French and by God it's the sexiest thing ever. There's just something about that silky, slightly slurred voice hitting those notes with words that...inexplicably sound good. Man. It's been running through my head all day.

*stares and drools at his otter*

I haven't been writing very much here, mainly because I never seem to have the time to sit and try to spin my activities in a properly introspective light. I've been living what I tend to call, perhaps unfairly, 'the shallow life.' You know, work, watching movies, socializing, hanging out and all of that without any real...examination of who I am, what I'm doing, where I'm going, etc. etc. This really isn't a bad thing, as the little tag I've given for it would seem to indicate. Sometimes you need a break from all the thinking to just take the time to enjoy things. Which is what I've been aiming to do. By and large, I've been succeeding.

daroneasa let me petsit her new rabbit, Niuk, last weekend while she was out of town to do a family thing. It was my first experience ever...having a pet while I was on my own, and my attitude towards them have changed considerably. Well, maybe it was just the species bias. :) There's just something transformative about having something so helpless and dependent on you under your care; you learn the depths of your gentleness, patience and love. There's the fine art of discipline, the overwhelming desire to spoil with treats and petting, the need to be with this tiny little thing all the time to protect it, to make sure every need is attended to, to know that it's never lonely. I wouldn't have thought I had it in me to be endlessly loving, at least I didn't until a few people showed me what it was like. I think, emotionally, I'm ready to be a father. Now I just have to wait for the rest of society and my finances to catch up with me. :)

This is all...a bit much to extrapolate from merely taking care of a rabbit for three days, and I'm not sure I'd really cut the mustard as a parent. But I know the love is there, the boundless, endless love. I'm surprised by it, but in some ways I'm really not. ;) It's always been there, just...I've never been able to express it quite as readily, through various neuroses of my own. I've gotten better about that, and I think I'll only continue to get better. Next stop: making sure that my friends know this.

The move is coming closer and closer. January seems like two weeks ago, and already we're sneaking up on April; July and August are going to be here before I even know it. This is such a huge step, and because, I guess, I know that I'm going to be taking it I've been worrying about it night and day all year. Only...it's too early to finalize everything, or to even make the first tentative steps towards being out there...so there's nothing I can do except put myself in a good position for when the time comes, which is something I'm working on. toob and I got into a fight about the rabbit, actually (I wanted to keep him, he said it's a bad idea), and from that I think we've gotten onto the same page about a lot of things. I need to work on...how to be properly angry, I guess, so that communication doesn't break down. Once that starts to go...

I love toob with all of my heart. :)

Let's see...Matt's Changeling game started Tuesday evening. I haven't touched the setting in quite some time, and I forgot how...deceptively simple the setting is. The concepts are very esoteric, so you can dash off explanations fairly quickly, but when you *really* start to think about them, things get pretty hairy and bogged down with all kinds of rules calls. I think the game is best played loosely, so that rules can change and shift to fit the needs of the story and character development. You need a really capable Storyteller and really mature players, though, to do that, and even then it's not going to work always. Of the games, I think, Changeling is the most subjective; it's never *about* the same thing between any two or three people. And because the nature of its make-believe allows for such an incredibly wide spectrum of concepts, it's hard to get everyone to play nice under one roof. Possible, but difficult. I think Tuesday night was the best example of this ever. :)

My character is a rabbit pooka named Rochester Runcible Shaw. I've gotten fairly attached to him already, but I don't think I'll get to do as much with him as I'd like. The game is huge (6 players) and short (4 hours), so I'm not sure how...involved everything is going to be. Either way, it's a pretty fun ride and I get to be a class clown, which is one of my (not-so) secret desires.

Oh! I've lost 18 pounds in the past three months, hooray for me! I'm down to about 152 - 155 pounds, depending on how much fat I've eaten, and I don't feel quite so 'svelte' as that. ;) I think it's because I need to do more exercise, honestly; my stomach has gotten considerably smaller, but there's a noticeable paunch. I'd like to be flat and toned (the last time I could see my abs was high school...never lost those 'freshman 15' from college), so I'm going to work towards that. My ultimate goal, health-wise, is to be able to bike to work and back without killing myself by the time I'm Californy-bound.

It's occured to me that when friends of mine say 'I don't think of you as black,' I really should be taking that as an insult. Before, I've been thinking of it as a slightly misguided, left-handed compliment, but the racism implied in the statement has gotten a bit too strong to ignore. The idea is that blacks have some kind of stereotypical behavior concurrent with rap/hip-hop culture; slurred words, ghetto-speak, trendy, improperly worn clothes, thumping bass and bling. Because I don't buy into the culture, I've somehow risen 'above' the base desires of my race to a sort of transcendence that seperates me from the typical inferiority that black people tend to be plagued by. I speak so well. I dress like I've got some sense. I don't throw my race in people's faces in any obvious way. I'm unthreatening and non-confrontational, like Bill Cosby in the 80s or Wayne Brady today. I'm not quite sure what to do with this sentiment my friends seem to have of stereotyping my race and my supposed climb from the crackdens to proper...er, whiteness, I guess, but I'm not going to start going all Marcus Garvey over it. :)

Still, I'm black and I'm proud. And people need to lay off the 'black people suck but you're one of the cool ones' bit.

I saw "American History X" again last night, and there's been a bit of fallout from it. ;)

Anyway, I would say more, but I'm at work and I really should be shelving some books or something. :)