Pride

Since we're in the midst, or perhaps the tail end of, pride season, I thought it would be timely to reflect on the value of the word and the celebrations we see in colorful form throughout the world. It can also be viewed as a part two of my previous post on my experience in and relationship with the queer community.

As my previous post alludes to, pride for me is about more than the queer or excessively-lettered-acronym community and its struggles for equal rights and social normalization. To borrow a term that has become loaded from what I flippantly call the cult of political correctness, but has also been described in articles I've read as the "internet moral police", I come from the relatively privileged position of benefitting from coming from a place where many of the objectives of said process of social normalization have successfully taken root and have accordingly never suffered any trauma for the sake of my status as some form of a minority. I relate with my less fortunate peers not from personal experience so much as an overarching desire to see and understand the viewpoints of more humans in the world as simply being human, and respecting our differences in the process. I want to see equality and justice for all, in a world not run by aging white conservative heterosexual men; I do not want to see any specific group prosper more than another.

Pride for me, in turn, takes on a meaning that is more wrapped up in my own peculiar weave of minority-status and privilege-wielding. Since I live in a foreign country and spend a significant amount of my time in yet another one, all of these considerations are compounded when we apply local context and the extent of my integration into them. I am not just me, an average white queer male college student, I am a all of those things plus the addition of being them as an American in a continent where it is intellectually voguish (in the best of cases) to find fault in all things American. Pride in my situation means contending with a very different set of social difficulties than my contemporaries in the US, but especially my contemporaries in the relatively progressive enclave I was raised in. So let's take a look at all of those elements instead of writing anything more about their meaning.

Pride for me is:

• Being an under-spoken member of the queer community, donating when I am able to money to targeted interests that promote an end to legal mechanisms that keep people like myself in a position of being discriminated against and resisting the small and often overlooked acts of repression that are taken for granted by so many, such as it being somehow impertinent to hold hands in public. Because of this, I don't feel the need to wear a rainbow flag or attend parades or partake in specifically queer-oriented activities, for which I am often called a "bad gay" by less enlightened peers. Shame on them. I am proud to be a supporter of the cause in my own way.
• Not standing by for casual acts of -isms, correcting friends and family on jokes taken to be innocuous, harmful patterns of speech, unenlightened views on controversial topics. I'm not perfect, nor could I imagine being an internet (read: tumblr) vigilante about it, but in my day to day personal interactions with people, I do my best. I'm proud to be proactive about continually being a better version of myself by learning and becoming more enlightened over time and passing that along to others.
• Standing up for what is good about being an American. The reality of life in Europe is that you are, as an American person, confronted with hostilities in greater number than the admirations of American people and culture. These come in the form of passive actions as much as the other way around, such as from well-intentioned "oh but you know other things so well", among other things. I may not think everything that is done or everyone from my native country is the best, but it does not stop me from liking it, appreciating it, and even often holding it in higher esteem than others. I am proud to be an American, even if it makes up just a fraction of my pluralistic conception of self.
• Embracing a pluralistic view of myself and the world. I am proud to be many things at the same time in many different places and situations, and I want nothing more than to live in a world where those around me are as well.

If you made it this far, tell me in a comment or a tweet (or an email, or a passenger pigeon, or what have you) what the concept of pride means for you. As the cliche goes, this sort of introspection should be embraced the year round, not just during a couple of party-fueled weekends in warm summer months.

Video: Wine O'Clock: Day Drinking

This week's #wineoclock features an excellent Alentejo white wine, an update on the harem pants, adventures in "bean cookies", and a Brazilian flair in homage to the ongoing World Cup. Go give it a watch:

Ten Things About Staying at Home

I've been at home more days than not in the last ten since I got back from Barcelona, so here's a list of the things going on in my life in no particular order.

1. No, the dishes really won't just wash themselves. You have to get up and scrub them or face the passive-aggressive wrath of your otherwise less-hygienic roommate.
2. Resting on the laurels of your supposed levels of hygiene as an excuse not to shower for four days is unacceptable.
3. Coming up with new ways of making the same ten ingredients in your cabinet will make you feel like a rocket scientist, except that if you share your discovery on social media, no one will care.
4. You will not fuse to the sofa regardless of how hard you attempt to.
5. Any activity that warrants actually leaving the house calls for a bath in cologne, even just a stroll to the supermarket.
6. It is entirely possible to trick yourself into thinking that you've been productive because you found new music, watched a show, and cleaned the house one afternoon. Don't fall for this.
7. The more time you spend at home, the more enticing buying cheap trinkets to decorate it with online becomes. Don't fall for this.
8. You will suddenly find yourself in a routine and get bored of being in your routine with no seeming recourse from it. You will then get bored of being bored of it.
9. Inspiration will strike at random and run away from you just as quickly. Do something with it right away instead of thinking better of it and procrastinating on what you think you ought to be doing instead.
10. The more hours you spend on it, the more you realize that instead of interacting with people on social media, you're just interacting with lists and half-baked articles on blogs and "news" sites, like this one.

Video: Wine O'Clock+Project

Alentejo red wine, the first internet mention of the (not-so-)upcoming project, 80s fashion, iPod mishaps, and more. Go watch.

Getting a Reputation

Once, when I was in high school, we got a crop of new teachers at the school who would begin working with us. One of them came up to me after a short while and greeted me with “Hi, nice to meet you. Your reputation really precedes you.” At the time, I had no idea what that meant.

As I’ve gotten older and come into my own as an adult, the concept has clarified itself considerably. My MA colleagues tend to describe me as “coherent” and it extends beyond just them. Professors, former colleagues, all the way to friends of many years and family would all describe me in similar terms. It is possible that I have maintained a roughly similar character as time has gone on, although I feel that I have changed considerably since my adolescence, but the primary difference between then and now is that I’ve become consciously aware of the reputation I have and actively cultivate and maintain some aspects of it. The main lesson of being an adult, much more so than others and beyond managing the increased levels of responsibility that it entails, is that of being aware of yourself in relation to the world around you and accepting what you can and can’t change about it.

The difference between the ideal version of ourselves—the effortlessly and impossibly motivated, well-eating, frugal, extra-ambitious, workaholic versions of ourselves that we may envision in our minds when thinking about when making resolutions at the end of the year that will go unresolved—and the real version of ourselves has much to do with this concept of awareness. We are all capable of doing what we set out to do and put our energies toward, but invariably we don’t always do everything, or do everything that we attempt to perfectly. Projects can languish, procrastination can rule, lower targets can be set out of necessity. Managing how you are seen by others is a balancing act between composure, social communication, and demonstrating your cachet through action.

It's also a bit of a roulette wheel that involves other people doing much the same and what kind of moments you happen to encounter them in. Sometimes you get off to a bad start with people simply because you get off to a bad start with them, others the reverse is true. Sometimes you can solidify habits that you weren't aware were major parts of your character simply because a critical mass of others pick up on them at the right moment. The part that matters is how consistent you are in doing things and how aware you are of what you're doing, even passively. If you can pick up on the things you're doing by not doing other things or the implications of what you're actively doing, you can direct your behavior in a way that lets you stay in charge of your persona to others.

So I may be relaxed about my punctuality in social contexts (ed. but if you're a potential employer reading this: my work ethic is meticulous and I am both punctual and proactive.) but I am known for the quality of my pursuits and what I put out in the world, from academia to cultural outings, and I like it that way. I could be more of a workaholic or more of a morning person or more of a social butterfly, but my way of being social serves my needs and interests and I feel comfortable knowing that I have a handle on it. I think we all could benefit from that.