It's 4:34 in the AM on a Sunday morning... I'm listening to KRCL... Radio-Free-Utah (Radeeoo Freeee Utah- thanks Michael Stipe) some really great goth dark shit has been playing and Im totally diggin it. Every late Saturday night/ early Sunday morning they play like 4 hours of great ambient music on a show called "Dark Star Rising".

So I've been going through some shit lately... some deep depression that's been hard to deal with.

I think a lot of my depression has been around for years. I was a quiet kid who kept to myself and read alot...always felt like a bit of an outsider in any group that I was ever a part of. Being gay is either a continuation/extention of those feelings, or was part of the reason I felt like an outsider in the first place (which came first? the chicken or the egg? I ate the chicken then I ate his leg - thank you Beastie Boys)

Being gay/ pre-dominately attracted to men (oh yes I was bi-curious, now i'm bi-experienced - thank you Rachel) is a blessing because it's a great catalyst to begin to question beliefs and thought structures that have been around for ever. the downside is that being gay FORCES you to question beliefs and thought structures that have been around forever. The Cheerleader/Jock Good Christians have it easy. get born. get a girlfriend/boyfriend. get married. have children. go to church. like baseball and apple pie. die. The whole structure pushes you on to the next step and society is built around you. being gay/queer puts you on the outside of that whole structure and can be pretty lonely.

I have guilt built up around being a sexual being. I want sex to be the primacy of a relationship because i don't know how to deal with people in an grown up respectful loving manner. I need/want sex because it's a drug. It's a high. I like and hate the dark side of sexuality. I cruise bathrooms and gym steam rooms. I crave love through a sexual connection and rarely get it. I hate/need anonymous sex. A times I've thought about checking myself into some clinic because i feel like a sex addict. The emotions revolving around my sexuality are extremely conflicted at times and i contemplate suicide when it gets really bad. Some of the depression stems from all of this but I also think that some of all this stems from the depression.. a hungry snake who bites at his own tail until he's full and in pain and not really knowing why he was biting his tail in the first place. A scary roller coaster that has been going up and down and around for so long that it's no longer scary, for the most part, it's just something I've accepted because I don't know how to get off the damn thing.

The depression has been there for a long time.. it's old old old. It's a Mazzy Star cd on endless repeat but turned down so that you can barely hear it. . I think that it's become an issue now becasue I don't have the support group/distraction that was my schooling at UCMT for the past year. The nice thing about it is that I feel like im taking some active steps to deal with this depression. For example:

I'm proud of myself because i chose to go to UCMT when I knew that these issues would come up (in fact, because I KNEW they would come up) I of course picked a profession that would force me to deal with bodies, sexuality and desire on a really really upfront way.

I am reading a few self-help books... my favorite one being "The Multi-Orgasmic Man" by Mantak Chia and Douglas Abrams Arava. Lots of information on how to deepen sexuality and to connect sexual feelings with the heart. (It also teaches how to develop the self control to have multiple orgasms without ejaculating! The idea being that ejaculation, le petit mort, is exactly that, a little death.)

I am currently working on going to a retreat in Los Angeles called Celebrating The Body Erotic.. it was initially invented and developed by professional body worker and sex coach, Joseph Kramer... now if I can convince Kent, my friend in L.A. to let me stay with him for a weekend (come on kent!) I'll be ready to buy plane tickets and pay for the class... woo hoo!

I continue to learn more about Kinergetics and how emotional issues can be held in the body. I am beginning to work with my Kinergetics mentor, Michael King, about working though some of these issues.

WOO HOO

Writing this I don't feel to depressed! but I know that it is cyclical and will come back eventually... so learning to deal with these feelings will be beneficial to me and my life in the future. wish me luck.