--Thomas Kelly

Just in case anybody was waiting in breathless anticipation to find out how my reading went... I got through about a third of the Marx. Which turned out to be enough for this morning's class, so that was okay. I'll have to read onwards for the next class on Thursday.

Otherwise, I've just finished the Miller's Prologue, and don't anticipate any trouble being ready in time for tomorrow's class, at least. Thursday's art class is, once again, looking like the tough part. This week's homework is "the city" -- which in these parts means "Manhattan" -- and, this time, we get to use colored construction paper, which complicates matters. Especially considering that the only colors I have just now are red and yellow. I want shades of gray, but who sells those around here?

I told the first two right off the bat. One of the purposes of this journal was, in fact, to enable me to spare them the aformentioned long, rambling e-mails they'd been getting, or at least to make them somewhat more efficient (serving more people at once) and convenient (as they can read 'em or not, at their leisure). I'm not sure either is actually following this journal, ironically enough.

I had some concern about the other two, considering that I do see them around fairly often, which, I figured, might complicate matters. Still... I never get to speak to the third as much as I'd like (which, I'd like to stress, is not her fault, and I'm quite grateful for the amount of time and attention she does give me, which is considerable), so I finally told her about the Soapbox a couple of weeks ago. As of last week, she hadn't yet had a chance to stop by.

(But let's be honest here. If I didn't think she will eventually, would I have felt compelled to interject the parenthetical comment in the last paragraph, true though it is?)

That left the fourth. I decided yesterday that I was going to invite her to stop by after all. Which I did, today. I figure that while this is likely to make me think twice about discussing various subjects, that might not be a bad thing. It's almost a given that, sooner or later, people I don't want reading this are going to stumble across this site and ignore my warning page, so there are advantages to making sure I don't say anything I'll regret too much in the first place.

Besides, the essays she's already read of mine already include more blackmail material than anything I write here is likely to have. :-)

Fact is, despite the fact that I know that we're supposed to be above this sort of petty prejudice in the '90s, I am something of a sexist. I don't like men very much. I am, in fact, a misandronist.

(No, don't bother looking this up; I coined it myself. The fact that I needed to coin a word that would be for men what "misogynist" is for women speaks volumes about the sexism inherent in our language. And, no, the second "n" doesn't really belong there, but it sounds better that way. If "-gate" can become a suffix, I can bend the rules here, too.)

Oh, sure, there are exceptions. Taken on an individual level, there are some guys I can get along with, and even respect. But as a group, we don't acquit ourselves very well.

I'll grant that men have had their achievements. Why, just think; we're responsible for swords, muskets, cannon, bombers, submarines, and nuclear warheads. Doesn't that just make your heart swell with pride?

And we have provided the world with wonderful role models, of course. Howard Stern, Jerry Springer, Dennis Rodman, Kenneth Starr, Mike Tyson... although, in fairness, I have to grant Tipper Gore and Linda Tripp. But, by and large, when one looks out over the world in which we live, one can't help but feel that it might have been a better place without quite so much testosterone.

The one thing I can't understand is why in the world women seem to get along with men. Sometimes I think the lesbian viewpoint is the only one that comes close to making sense to me.

These musings have been helped along by Columbine's latest three postcards, all of which touch on gender issues to varying extents. But unlike hir -- and I have to shift to gender neutral pronouns here, as the least silly alternative; I often wish that the author would simply have Columbine talk about the guy who writes her as another character every now and then, thus fulfilling, in a more natural manner, hir desire to talk about male experiences from a female perspective -- I don't want to be a woman, and never have. I'm mostly content being a male who's deeply in touch with his female side (at which I think I qualify). I just don't like men very much. If that means I don't like myself very much... hey, I don't, so that's okay, too.

Hmmm. It suddenly occurs to me to wonder whether the truth isn't really the other way around. That is, whether it's my own self-loathing that makes me less favorably disposed towards the male half of humanity.

Nah. That doesn't ring true. On the other hand, having spent my childhood in an all-male school where I was assaulted on a daily basis may very well have much to do with this. The question is whether I'd feel the same way if I'd gone to a co-ed school, I suppose. Beats me.

It would be nice to be able to talk to a woman without having a corner of my mind wandering off, looking at her, listening to the sound of her voice, wanting to blurt out something utterly inappropriate. I do a pretty good job of keeping my id reined in, but I'd rather not have the problem in the first place.

(Mind you, admitting that I actually have, like, a sex drive is a dangerous, dangerous statement for me to make in public. Were any family members to hear this, pressure on Yours Truly to start looking to get married would suddenly hit insanely high levels, I think. And I have absolutely no desire to do anything of the sort at the moment. Fortunately, most of my extended family is assuming that I just want to get my degree first.)

I mean, when you think about it, the sex drive is a really strange thing, not to mention a real pain in the neck. Face it, people do all sorts of crazy things for lust, abandoning all logic -- just look at the mess in Washington, for heaven's sake -- and I just think life would be ever so much simpler without it.

'Course, in that case, Mary Anne wouldn't have very much to write about, so perhaps it's just as well. :-)