The exit exams for my clinical doctorate are in 11 days.

That is all.



- LD

So now that I've had my little revelation, the men, they should be knocking down my door to be with me and my possibly transient sense of self-worth. I'll just sit back and wait for the deluge of deliciousness to arrive, yes?

No? No. Oh well.

Whilst I wait I will be listening to this man. I find him incredibly beautiful.

REVELATIONS


Hold on tight, this could get surreal...or maybe just narcissistic.

Facebook put me in contact with a certain person, the precise origins of whom are not important. What is, is that we’ve been emailing each other on and off for awhile, nothing regular, nothing serious. I wouldn’t even consider him to be a friend, except in the most tenuous sense. An exchange of pleasantries.

And pleasant our communications were, except for the fact that I’ve always found something somewhat...disquietening about him. Something not quite right. The other day whilst re-reading one of his communiqués, I found myself thinking – “I would never date this person”.

This was an interesting thought as dating has never even been on the books – I don’t even know if he’s gay or not, for one. But I pursued the thought. Why wouldn’t I date this guy?

The answer was immediately obvious. I didn’t respect him. He was always too self-effacing, alittle too modest. He made constant references about how much of a geek he was, how ugly and socially inept. The simple fact was that he came off as weak - fundamentally insecure.

And then it hit me.

This is what I do myself, all the time. I’m always been pretty self-deprecating. I talk about being socially retarded all the time. I constantly disparage the way that I look.

When I was younger I think I took a point of pride in my modesty, ironic as that seems. Arrogant people annoyed me. They still do. Self deprecation seemed healthy. And probably, it was only half sincere.

But somewhere along the line...somewhere in the last few years, I realize that I began to believe it. My modesty became truth. I really did see myself as prohibitively unattractive. Incapable of inspiring deeper emotion in another person. Maybe it hasn’t even been in the last few years. I suspect it’s been the last few months. Maybe only as the realization that I’m about the leave my twenties has sunken in.

If I found this self-loathing so repulsive in this the one person, how have others viewed me? Has this been the source of my anti-vibe?

Another revelation proceeded. I am not attractive enough to be modest. You can look at that tall, built, muscular guy. The alpha-male. His shear physical attractiveness is palpable. *He* can be self-effacing. On him, the modesty makes him look approachable, makes him look sweet. Not so into his looks.

But on someone like me, someone who doesn’t have the natural physical or social charisma, self-disparagement just looks weak. It accentuates my deficiencies.

This realization has lead to this last revelation. If I put aside my self-disparagement, (a modesty sincere or insincere, whatever the case), what am I left with? I believe that I’m not hot. I’m not going to be stopping traffic with a gaze. I’m no genius. I’m no millionaire. I not hugely hung.

But I am not hideous. I’m smart enough. I have a good job. And a good sense of humour. I have a healthy degree of compassion and a sense of social responsibility without being fanatical about it. I am, at the end of the day, a good person. And in the grand scheme of things, I think as someone’s partner, I’d be fucking awesome.

What has happened since I wrote last, dear neglected diary?

Well, I did go on that trip to the U.S. I presented my poster at the conference in San Francisco, and then I look a further two and a half weeks off, half of that walking around the streets of the the aforementioned city, half visiting my beloved New York. It was good to get away and coming back has been like slowly sinking into a pool of quicksand.

But I digress!

I did not take anywhere as many photos as I did on my last trip. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing really. I should note that when I got back from my last trip to the states and showed my pictures to Supe, who then saw them again on this blog, he pointed out that most of my pics looked better cropped. Well...none of those pictures were cropped thankyouverymuch. And none of these, except two, are either.

First of all, the whole reason I went in the first place;

The conference was...very very dry. And I have to admit, not particularly interesting. There just wasn’t anything groundbreaking discussed, but as everyone keeps telling me, you don’t go to these things to learn, you go to network. It was interesting reading all the assorted name badges and recognising them from some pretty important pages. I also got totally ass-fucked (figuratively, not literally) during my poster question time by one of the visiting Australia professors. But anyway...

San Francisco was quite beautiful. Surprisingly cold, though especially considering I visited in what was apparently their summer. Abit too hilly for someone as unfit as myself, perhaps. It does seem to have the strangest habit of transitioning from a “good” neighbourhood, to a “bad” neighbourhood, from block to block. I stayed in an area of downtown close to Union Square and if I walked up the street, everything looked quite affluent and spiffy, but if i walked down the street it quickly became quite otherwise.

[Performance art? Social message? I don't know, he didn't say.]


[Can't go to SF without taking at least one pic of the bridge]



I did spend a decent amount of time walking around the Castro and Mission districts. I was quite nervous walking around some parts of the city, but the Castro was so charmingly reminiscent of Sydney that I felt quite at home. Both areas actually reminded me alot of Newtown, with a very eclectic mix of people, a large portion of whom were either young, gay, artsy or some wonderful combination thereof. And lesbians! So many lesbians! I’ve never seen so many beguilingly androgynous sapphoites before. There’s something reassuring about being surrounded by lesbians...I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, though.

I was actually there during Pride, a fact that was entirely coincidental. I went to see quite a few movies from the Pride film festival which was nice.

[Margaret Cho! Cool, heh]




[Matching tats and hats. Maybe they're brothers.]


[Gay square-dancing. Very cool.]

The parade itself was a huge humming mass of people. It’s not really like Mardi Gras in Sydney, and I actually think I prefer the San Francisco version. Mardi Gras can be a very passive affair, what with just the standing and watching. SF Pride was alot more interactive with stalls and food and a big central stage. If anything it was abit too interactive. Fine, I’ll admit to being a big naïf, because some of the things I saw made me blush like a school girl. Actually the same applies for alot of the things I saw in San Francisco. Moving along...

Towards the end of my time in SF, I talk a small day tip to Sausilito which is the small town just north of SF. On the way I passed through Muir Wood. It was a great little trip and made me wish I had a longer time to spend walking through some more wildernessy type areas, like I did on my last visit. Sausalito was also very quaint.

San Francisco was a great place to visit and I’m glad I took the opportunity to go there. I really don’t think you’d ever find a more liberal city in North America, if not the world. Maybe it was just because it was Pride season, but the city was just so homo-accepting. That aspect of it was very attractive and appealing. Really I’ve never really felt as comfortable being gay as I did in San Francisco. That being said, I wouldn’t really describe it as my new favourite place in the world. I was trying to describe this notion to Supe the other day and I found I was struggling to coalesce my thoughts.

If places you could call home were equated to food, San Francisco for me, would be like...i don’t know, the perfect hamburger. Everything about it is fantastic and in all the world you could never really find a better hamburger. But for me right now, I feel like I want...fish and chips. Something else. I don’t really know if that made sense, but there you go.

Oh yes, I did end up meeting that pen pal I mentioned a few posts ago. He turned out to be one of the friendliest people I met on my trip. He also had a shockingly nice apartment despite the fact that it was totally empty because he’s moving. Needless to say, he was not a serial killer.

My next stop was New York. I’d been itching to get back here ever since I left. The last time I was there, the city seemed to be so mesmerising. So very much like...fish and chips. This time around it was also great. I don’t know though. By this stage I was actually missing my friends quite abit and feeling lonely. Yes, I know. How grotesquely dependent. Also, it was stinkingly humid. When I go on holidays, I’m a walker. I walked all over San Francisco and from one end of Manhattan to the other. But walking in that heat was pretty shite.

[One of those, "looks better on the camera LCD than it actually is", pictures. I like it. Seems kinda Blade Runner-ish.]




[I took alot of pictures of the Angel of Bethesda the last time I went too. Because I'm very impressionable, it's probably my favourite statue in the whole world. Is it strange to have a favourite statue? Yes. Yes, it is.]








[Museum of Modern Art. Had some neat stuff.]


[This exhibit actually gave my an academic-hard-on. You can actually see the Nioi lines.]








[Meat Packing Distict.]


[This is actually my favourite pic of the entire trip. The sun at just the right position to highlight the face. I kinda love street art.]

Still I saw alot more of New York than I did the last time. I stayed away from most of the touristy places and just tried to get a feel of the city.

All in all I had a great time. There still some things about the States that bug me. I still found the service industry to be somewhat unfriendly. Food was expensive, possibly because I consistently over-tipped (starting at 20% and rounding up the nearest note. I don’t know why I did that). I also developed this strange impression that Americans can be very...mercenary. I just kind of got the feeling that everyone was trying to make money of everyone else. I don’t know. Sometimes I felt like I was paying for common human courtesy.

But i don’t mean to end negatively. I did meet some very nice people on my trip, from my aforementioned pen-pal to the smiling tall guy who sold me some t-shirts.

I don’t know when I’ll be going back to the States. I still do love them, but my thirst has been quenched momentarily. I think next I’d like to go somewhere entirely removed from my usual social comfort zone. Thoughts of India have been floating in my head...or maybe back to South East Asia, which I have not yet exhausted. Maybe even Japan or China. Oh! Maybe Russia.

I've just come back from dinner with friends in which the following topics were discussed:

Pornography, dentistry, the Bible, sextoys, sex with fruit, dentistry, flossing, ex-partners, practice management, clitorises (clitori?), dentistry, t-shirts, leather jackets, dentistry, dvds, sex with fruit again, dentistry.

Also, is it bad that I bought the boxset of Psych Season 1 for the sole reason that I think the lead character is all sorts of cute?

I’ve noticed a trend of late. Whenever I think of something to write in this blog it will almost definitely involve me complaining about my Masters degree. Said degree is not exactly going well, I have to say. I question my aptitude for my chosen field on an almost daily basis. The work and stress continues to pile with no real relief in sight.

That being said, I don’t think it is healthy to ferment the anxiety. Better to ignore it...bottle it down and hide it where it cannot be seen, til it bursts forth from its psychological crypt like a mutated, hideous moth. My damaged psyche will unfurl its ravaged wings for a maiden flight of self annihilation, fluttering spasmodically towards the sweet relief of fiery oblivion, the flame promising darkness and death, and the end of tortured thought.

Anyway...I’m not going to talk about work. Here’s what else is happening in my life:

ON THE BURSTING OF CHERRIES

More than a year after I completed training for it, I’ve finally burst my volunteer facilitator cherry, facilitating a group for a local community education council. The work involved running a group of about a dozen gay, gay-leaning or bi-sexual men through a multi-week course that discussed HIV, STIs, the gay community, relationships, communication, sex and all sorts of other good stuff. Somewhat laughable, since apart from purely academic knowledge about HIV and STIs, I know very very little about the rest of it. Really, it was quite a task to sit there for the full six weeks and pretend to be well-adjusted. In the end it was kind of fun. I’m not sure it’s something I’ll do again soon (work more or less precludes it – dammit, I’m talking about it again), but I did get something out of it.

ON THE UNUSUAL ABUNDANCE OF GRAPES ON THE VINE

My friend Stage has tried to set me up with two separate guys in the past few months, both of which have indicated they were interested. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just don’t feel it back. I find myself unable to really generate any kind of romantic interest in these perfectly nice people.

Also one of the interesting consequences of the above mentioned facilitation work, was that I was asked out by one and a half participants. The half being a guy who never really asked me, but his body language indicated he was interested. Maybe I’m just imagining it. Anyway, the 'full one' was a guy who did come out and ask me if I wanted to get a drink some time.

Interestingly enough, it was explicitly emphasized in our training that a facilitator dating a group member was to be frowned upon. There is also the fact that he isn’t really my type. On the other hand I have been lonely and depressed lately and a drink wouldn’t hurt. On the other other hand, I don’t want to lead this guy on.

It’s really quite a new situation for me. Over the last...well why kid myself – years - I’ve most often been the rejectee than the rejecter. I guess I can draw from experience anyway to see how I wouldn’t like to be rejected. But this is still...new and unusual. If anyone, and I don’t even know if anyone even reads this blog anymore, but if anyone can suggest a way of letting someone down in the nicest way possible, advice would be appreciated.

ON INTERNATIONAL VARIETIES AND ANOTHER GRAPE

I’m all booked out for a trip to the States in June, right after my exams. It’s technically for a week long conference, but I’m taking a good two weeks off after just for me. That’s a week in San Francisco and a week in New York.

In San Francisco I’m actually meeting a long term pen pal. This is a guy who I’ve been in contact with for a few years now because we share a certain – how should I put this – sordid interest. Over time we’ve written to each other about more things than the original topic and have talked about jobs, relationships, hobbies. Nothing in any particular detail, mind you. But I mentioned to him I was visiting SF and he suggested meeting for dinner and possibly a quick tour of his recommended spots around the city. I was alittle bit dubious at first, delicate, shrinking flower that I am, but he seems like a genuinely nice bloke and eventually I gave him an itinerary and we’re working out a date. I am looking forward to meeting him, but it does occur to me that he is essentially a stranger and all strangers are potential serial killers. But he seems so nice! If I disappear in San Francisco, you know what has happened to me.

ON FORBIDDEN (AND UNWANTED) FRUIT

One of my highschool mates had a bachelor party recently which ended in the obligatory trip to a strip club. Thanks to Supe, this was not my first trip to a straight strip club, but I have a tendency to hope that it was my last. Strip clubs are not without their redeeming qualities. There was this one girl whom you couldn’t help but admire for her acrobatic skill and strength. She was literally crawling around on the roof, her entire body weight help up purely by a sculpted limb wrapped around the pole dancing...pole. She was like Aeon Flux. On my previous trip, it was kind of nice to look round at some of the patrons and note that some of them were adorably young, fit, shy and timidly aroused-but-embarassed. Unfortunately this time around, the vast majority of patrons were more on the old, obese and creepy end of the scale. Also the food was fairly mediocre.

The unfortunate deal killer for me was the fact that the music was the brain-melting bass beat that gave me a headache about halfway through dinner. Also there was this one stripper who was quite beautiful in her own way, but had such a look of forlorn tiredness on her face that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

ON UNATTAINABLE FRUIT

I found this picture here. Usually I’m quite indifferent to glasses. But there’s something about this pic that just makes me look twice...and keep looking.

Anyway that’s some things that are happening to me. I think this restraint in discussing work justifies me to totally rubbish my course in my next post.

BACK

If I could ascribe a colour to 2007, it would be a mottled grey. Though that’s really more of a colour/texture, I guess. It was bland and patchy, like wet, mashed up cardboard.

I suppose I shouldn’t begin with such, anti-lucidity, but it’s the mood I’m in.

Going back to uni was a decision the merits of which I’m still reserving judgment on. I remember finishing dentistry and thinking “That’s it, I’ve had enough. I will never study again”. And now I’m back here with two more years to go. I passed the first year, not well, but I passed it. My supervisors seem happy with my work but sometimes I feel like I’m just going through the motions. I don’t really know how I’m going to get past this year. The bar keeps being set higher and frankly I’m not sure I have it in me to keep jumping.

It has also occurred to me that this is the start of my fifth year since graduation. It’s a frightening thought, particularly when I think of all the different skills I know I’m deficient it. I don’t think I’ve ever done a molar endo to a satisfactory standard, I find perio mind-numbingly boring.

The marriage rate amongst my friends has increased noticeable. I can’t help but feel I’m getting left behind.

Which I guess brings me to the old nutshell of New Year’s resolutions. This year I’m going to try and understand anti-vibe. Not get rid of it necessarily, because I’m pretty sure I can’t, but I’m going to at least try and mollify it slightly. Also – eye contact. I’m going to try and maintain more eye-contact. I passed by too many opportunities this year, out of fear, indecision and pride.

All of which is abit morbid I guess.

This year wasn’t all dishwater and stagnation. I do feel older and alittle wiser. I look on my second last post with alittle amusement. Since then I’ve had to give people all type of bad news, from pemphigus to cancer. And it has gotten easier, smoother. I wouldn’t say I’m taking it all instride – when you don’t feel anything when you tell someone they have cancer, I think that’s time to re-examine your soul – but the uncontrolled blush has disappeared.

I’ve just come back from a twelve day South Pacific cruise. The islands I visited were really quite beautiful and I got a lot of sleeping done. I have decided that when this is all finished, I’m going to New York again. I’m going to bring in the new year in Times Square, surrounded by a mass of strangers and snow. Something to look forward to.