Just got home from class. Tonight was awesome. I'm coming down from the the high of a surprisingly good day + Halloween and I noticed my sad psychological reflection journal was still here. So I thought I'd replace that with something happier and less scary to random visitors. So... puppies, rainbows, and fat babies.

Oh yeh, Happy (late) Halloween!

So this morning I woke up and went to take my pills and eat something before I tackle some more homework. I started with a taco I found in the fridge. It was gross, It was like eating wet lettuce, threw it away. So I found some churros (this is a house built on obesity and fast food). I love a fucking churro. Really, I do. So I'm nom-ing it, and I'm waiting for the cinnamon-y sweet flavor to hit me. It never came. I go into the kitchen down a spoon of hotsauce, seems less intense, and then a spoonful of honey from my honey bear, no taste at all. So I get a little freaked and I say to my mom "I can't taste anything" and she says "So do you want a new cell phone? This plan has texting and...".

I'm done with my parents. I had a really introspective conversation with my therapist (hah) last Thursday, and I was possessed by the frantic high-speed articulate Gilmore demons within me, and I ended up spending the whole session discussing my deep resentments for my parents. The idea that my maturity has led me to see my parents as less than heroes and that it is surprising me is completely false. I never saw my parents as heroes, my life was lived at their convenience, and I've always hated asking for things and feeling as though I was in eternal debt to them. Still,today if I were to win the lottery I would give my first million to them, just to say we're even.

I have a dad, but I don't know him. He's worked all his life doing crazy shifts so I was raised in a single-parent household, primarily funded by the absent parent. In the time that he is home, he is a stranger, and he has never made an effort to change that.

I just had two surgeries one after another. I had my deviated septum surgery which was my first operation of my life. In the time before they put me under and got me to the operating table my parents were there waiting for me. It was awkward. It's funny how people who have never shown interest or affection show up in times of death or disease to pay respects, as though their presence acts as a Catholic indulgence, freeing them of guilt. When I woke up I was in recovery and I asked a nurse for some water, she asked if it was okay that my mom dresses me. I said "ok". My mom comes in. I tell her to leave. Fuck that mess. I dress myself. Recovery went perfectly, and I did it on my own. Aside from transportation and money, they offered me nothing. Last week I went under again to get 4 impacted wisdom teeth extracted. It's a week later, things aren't as healed as I'd like and the taste in my mouth is nauseatingly disgusting, but I got an OK from the doc. I can't say I'm exempt from these shallow displays. A friend's boyfriend's mother died, and despite all the trouble he has caused and the fact that I've only exchanged a few words with him, for some reason the death equalized all that, and I cared.

Despite the fact that my parents in my 20 years have never asked me "How are you?" or "Tell me about your day", and that my family are simply like roommates stuck together by financial need I have maintained. Online classes. Night classes. Online school. Cancer, diabetes, ER visits, obesity, weight loss, starvation, depression, and never a thought for my future. Yet I have a 4.0 and in fact a member of a honor's society, granted at a junior college, but from the intensity and work load of the online courses I have taken, it isn't as easy as one may think.

I think the bottomline is that in the end you can only forgive and forget, as hard as it is. My parents will never accept responsibility for anything. If I don't cry at my father's funeral, I refuse to feel bad about that anymore. I'm only 20 and I believe I'd be an idiot if I ever had kids at this point. To even think of bringing a child into this world and not thinking about the stability of your relationship, schooling, college saving, and the community you'd be raising your child in is inexcusably pathetic. To have multiple children, and lose the desire to be a real parent or mentor is sad. To make the same mistake twice. It was described to me by my therapist as a "hostile dependency" and I couldn't have summed up my life right now any better. I'm waiting for my parents to divorce. Waiting to finish with college so I can get out. Waiting for the family to fall apart so I won't constantly be reminded of what should have been.

I'm too old to dissolve the truth in illusions of what never was, but too young to tire of grinding my ax.

Kind of tired. School started today, and it has been a long day. I was looking up Phylicia Rishad on Wiki because she looks better now than she did on the Cosby Show and I started following links to links and thought, "My God, Wiki knows everything...what ambiguous term could I look up that Wiki wouldn't be able to lengthily define? Ah, 'friendship'!" So here I am. Wiki has amazed me once again. Not only is there a whole section of entries on "Close Relationships", but some of the information in the "Friendship" entry was just so amazing, I feel the need to record it before I go to bed. The Wiki Entry

According to a study documented in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Sociological Review, Americans are thought to be suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships since at least 1985. The study states 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and the average total number of confidants per citizen has dropped from four to two.

Amazing. So much of this resonated with me so strongly. I often find myself thinking of people and how we relate and socialize, and this confirmed a general feeling of decline I've always felt. In my insufficient experience, the life of my generation and the one that preceded it are incredibly different on a social level; with my parents describing to me a rich community full of family and friends that they were brought up in (yes, they may have been alcoholics as well, but that's besides the point). Certainly issues like Social Anxiety Disorder were less common, or at least less recognized. The invention of television and the modern demands of work certainly encourages solitude, almost as a prerequisite to productivity.

The entry then begins to discuss specifically interpersonal relationships between males.

The Danish sociologist Henning Bech, for instance, writes of the anxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy between male friends: "The more one has to assure oneself that one's relationship with another man is not homosexual, the more conscious one becomes that it might be, and the more necessary it becomes to protect oneself against it. The result is that friendship gradually becomes impossible."

More recently, the Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger claimed that:
"There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility."

The title of this this journal is in reference to these theories. The idea that the existence of the homosexual man has killed male friendships, initially seems rather limited and almost perpetual of homophobia. However, I find these to be incredibly accurate, the latter less so, but it still proposes a logical point. As a gay guy I feel unable to connect with straight males, to the point that talking to them seems off-limits or I feel apologetic for myself. Almost as though their mere tolerance of my sexuality is worthy of admiration. When I came out to friends, I abandoned all ties with my straight friends and began to hang mainly with females. I regret this so much now, as I realize that I didn't even allow them to fail me; I was too afraid of rejection I dumped them first and rationalized that their friendships weren't much anyways. I feel I've made few mistakes in life in regard to my treatment of others, but recently I've come to realize the error.

In regards to the second excerpt, I think there is sexuality in attraction certainly to some small degree, but to propose that same-sex male friendships are broken because an internalized insecurity about insignificant homosexual inclinations seems far-fetched, although I believe at some point most gay guys find themselves praying on and preying on these human inclinations. I think the homophobia that kills the male bond lies not inside, but rather external perceptions and a fear of social repercussions of perceived homosexuality.

2am. This is so pointless, but I'm a geek and its exhilarating when you have these mushy notions that occupy your head for so long and you stumble across actual professionals who have taken these ambiguous feeling and transform them into concrete theories backed with citations and studies and all that good jazz. Besides, when I bring up these findings to some poor unsuspecting person, at least I'll have it here for reference.

I also really did kill one of the most meaningful and lengthy relationships I ever had a few weeks ago. But that's a story for another day. Also, what the hell? "Lengthily" is an actual word, it's an Americanism, whatever that means.

So today was my first therapy session since the first time I went through it, years ago when my mom was sick when I was in high school. I've always been a strong proponent of psychology and I think talking things out can be very cathartic and always recommend it to the many traumatized individuals who grace my life. Usually when you suggest seeing a shrink the reaction I get is either defensive as though I'm insulting them, or they tend to scoff at it as though I suggested the "crab" bites at Long John's. This week my anxiety over the appointment had been steadily building and resulted in me incessantly talking to myself in my head trying to sort out the best way to articulate the scope of my issues efficiently. This morning I woke up early (nine is early when you usually wake up at two)and felt like I wanted to cancel the whole thing, but I feel like I should lead by example and follow my own advice and follow though.

Me and my mother arrive at the building which homes various businesses and looks a little run down. But I wasn't too put off by that fact, and headed up to the office. Here is where I should have been more alarmed, in the directory listing I believe the word "psychologist" was missing a letter and his door didn't have a number but rather piece of paper taped to it that read, "Dr. X". But being the Pisces that I am, my anticipation was unchanged.

When I opened the door my stomach fell. I was greeted with this overwhelming smell of some kind of food and as soon as it hit my nose I felt sick. In the mornings I can't eat, I don't know if its nerves or what, but smelling anything like food in the morning makes me nauseous. The office itself was small and dingy. I can't fully explain every rotting cardboard boardgame box or every piece of awful worn furniture, but it will suffice to say, the 70's threw up all over it. Some of the couches were that retro yellow-greenish hue that can only be described in relation to vomit. The receptionist was this gay guy who gave me a sort of creepy vibe, the type of guy who I assume rode the wave of the gay movement in his youth. I spent what seemed like an eternity filling out paperwork and the doctor was waiting around for me to finish and would come out to meet me, go back in his office, come back out, check to see if I'd finished, then go back in his office. And yet in true Piscian nature, optimism persisted, and I eventually made it in to the actual session.

Surprisingly, the doc asked my mother to come in as well in order to get a family medical history. I was taken back, but it made sense, and I respect being thorough in a medical regard. Once me and my mother went inside the real comedy of my life began. We were both obviously turned off already; I displayed it on my face, my mom chose to be as discreet as she possibly could and mouthed all her concerns to me while the doc turned his back.I tried not to look at her, I didn't want her to begin to carry out an entire conversation on mute. The doc lost the game in my mom's eyes within the first five or so minutes. He doesn't address us, goes to his cabinet chucks a pill in his mouth, takes two bags of food off his seat, explains the history of the seasoned nuts he keeps in Ziploc bags, looses his pen and tears up his couch to find it, downs a few cups of water, and then finally opens with "So how are you?". My mom said he dribbled his water, I'll have to take her word for it because I couldn't manage to look at him.

He begins by drilling me on a myriad of health questions, starting generally and then proceeding to get more intrusive. I will admit the questioning seemed very thorough, but through it all my mom was kept in the room. He asked things like "Do you have any addictions?", "Any change in sex drive?", "Any thoughts of causing harm to yourself or others?". How can you be expected to answer questions like that in the presence of your mother? I was thinking he was going to ask, "Are you gay?", but at least he had the sense not to. He asked me to remember 3 objects, a rod, a ball, and something else, and told me he would ask me to recite them later. He forgot to. He asked me to spell "world" backwards, which is surprisingly difficult to do. He decided to address my anxiety by doing a breathing exercise, with him doing a demonstration first. He closed his eyes, jutted out his stomach, sat back in his chair, and began breathing in and out. Once. Twice. Three times. By the fourth time I was staring at the ground, at a complete loss of what to do. He just kept on breathing for what seemed to be forever. Then finally he snaps out of it and I end up doing this. So there I am eleven o'clock in the morning, me and my mother and this character, sitting in a floral print grandma chair being coached on how to breathe properly. Awkward. I begrudgingly did the exercise and my mom's stomach grumbled and he asked her about what she was thinking about right before. He said that my legs were tense and I looked agitated.

I was agitated. I won't be going back. I came home and slept for awhile and I still can't get the grossness of this day out of me. When I was leaving and my mom was making an obligatory appointment I won't keep, there was this cute college guy waiting to see the doc. That took us both by surprise, but I suppose if you connect with someone, then it'll work for you. From his office, the lack of privacy, his coughing, pill-popping, and eating, I just wasn't getting the vibe I need from this guy. I need someone who is younger and upbeat with a nice office with plants and matching furniture and positively energized essence. Considering a lot of my issues stem from body image and are in the realm of vanity, I'd like to see myself talking to a man who is modern enough to understand me.

My septoplasty is next week, and I'm nervous. Not about not waking up, or having someone hack into my nose, but rather the nudity. I'm afraid of putting the gown on and getting an EKG. I tell people I'd rather not go to the doctor than have to undress in front of people and they think I'm nuts, but that's how bad my body issues are. So I'm not thrilled about that. Maybe they can put me under before the tests so I at least won't feel the humiliation. As far as therapy goes, I guess the search continues. Insurance is a horrible, horrible thing.

Today was my appointment with a plastic surgeon to get a second opinion on my pending Septo-Rhinoplasty. I've been waking up at 5 in the afternoon these days because I have nothing better to do, so I only got about 2 hours sleep for the 11 in the morning consultation.

Since I can't breathe through my nose, I've been planning on getting a septoplasty to fix my deviated septum as soon as I turned 20. When the ball got rolling on that I halted the insurance and the original plan to entertain the prospect of straightening my nose. My nose leans a little bit to the right, people say they don't notice, but in photographs your face tends to get squished into one dimension and it becomes painfully obvious. My first doctor refused to operate on me because she felt the risk outweighed the benefit, for such a subtle change. She referred me to her old professor just moments away in the hopes of finding something less invasive that would give me what I wanted.

I read the guy's brochure weeks earlier and I knew it wouldn't work out. There he is, a older white man with blue eyes and white hair. His features tailored to preying on the insecurities of middle-aged women. His experience at UCLA and his many honors and awards prominently mentioned throughout the brochure between such selling points as, "let me help you return to your true beauty". His practice even has a logo, two vague faces made of loose linework, a little like Carl's Jr. After reading that I felt sick to my stomach, but my first doctor's recommendation led me to push aside my feelings and pay him a visit anyway.

I arrived at a garden entrance with leather chairs and a large Japanese painted folding wall in the waiting room. The brochure describes this ambiance as relaxing or welcoming, it just made me nervous. I was called into a room to await the doctor and there I sat with my mother. To my left advertisements for Botox, Restylene, and whatever injectable concoctions old women believe will make them attractive again. On the opposing wall there was a collage of framed certifications. UCLA. Residencies. Honors. Awards. I even read "From the President of the United States", it reminded me of the print-outs I'd earn in elementary school for perfect attendance. I wonder now if all of his rooms have the same certifications on the wall, or if we were lucky enough to be in his trophy room.

The doctor finally arrives. He shakes my hand and we all exchange the expected greetings. He questioned me about my referral and what I wanted done as well as my breathing problems. He takes a look in my nose, feels around, getting a sense of what is made up of cartilage and what is bone. I tried to talk, he often talked over me. I believe he finished one sentence and then said, "So what were you saying?". I said I wanted my nose to be straight and was looking for a non-invasive alternative. Instead, he suggested that I not only fix that but also lessen the width of the bottom of my nose and removed a bump on the bridge. He would "throw in" the septoplasty free of charge, as a grand favor to his clients. Its a shame that he jacks up the price of the rhinoplasty to cover any lost profit. Today was a 10% off discount for all nose jobs, he had his wife get the paperwork. I tried desperately to get across all the risks of repeated operations and the variable of the nose shifting again. He almost held back a laugh at the warnings of my first doctor.

The wax woman now called us to another room. She was either shocked to see us or the skin on her eyelids had been pulled back too tightly. She looked at me with eyes that seemed as honest as her husbands, a false sympathy. In my young age I look in the eyes of elders and hope to see in them, my own best interest. Her eyes didn't blink, and she wanted to make this sale. She asked for a timeframe, my mom said summer. I'll never see them again. She showed me a book of his "work", I looked at the before and afters. They always seemed to look more alive before.

I'm glad I went there today. I was on the fence about the aesthetic work I wanted on my nose. I knew my first doctor's outright refusal to operate on me was rare in her occupation. It stung hard when she said "Not looking good in photographs isn't a good enough reason, that's just vanity." You always know when you hear the truth, because it stings and it stays.

The doctor I saw today treated me like an infant, or rather, like any of his other patients. I've done the research, I've seen the procedure, I've seen what can go wrong. He said things like "cute alternative procedures won't work". He used the word "aesthetic", met my blank gaze, read it as incompetence, and defined it. He shied away from calling the procedures by their names. As I sat there between my mother and this salesman masquerading as a doctor I realized that I have no place being there. I'm not some old divorcee who needs to be shot full of plastic to feel attractive. I'm not a woman. Women regard doctors as Gods. Perhaps they learn that doctors are money and money deserves respect. My mom says things like, "Hi Doctor...what do you think Doctor?". That always makes me want to cringe.

I had the mind to not buy into his bullshit. Usually my SAD prevents me from making eye contact, but I didn't have SAD today. I looked into his eyes with an unwavering stare. As we went on about the price to my mother and avoided my technical questions it was almost comical. This whole ordeal was almost too expected. Being another piece of meat on the conveyor belt for Los Angeles plastic surgeons. The 2-for-1 surgery special. Excuse me sir, would you like to super-size your combo and get the chin implant as well?

I feel great today. I needed this experience to realize that I'm a good looking guy, as hard as that is for me to say. Hell, I think everyone is good looking. My fantasy guy is over the hill and sports gray hair and crows feet. I find beauty in everyone, but I have so much trouble finding it in myself. But it took this experience to make me realize that you can either be insecure and fall victim to everyone else's opinion or you can say FUCK YOU. I chose the latter, and I thank God that this series of events led me to this decision. I think people really need to compliment others more. Everyday you're met with a torrent of marketing designed to make you feel like shit, and I really think people need to hear "Your cute...you're boobs are great...I'd plow you". Going to therapy seems increasingly more vital to get my anxiety and insecurities worked out. I'm quickly finding out that as an adult if you lack confidence in yourself you'll forever be a victim. There's a sense of martyrdom or humbleness found in being critical of oneself, but in the end failing to believe in yourself just makes you powerless and pathetic, and those who choose to remain victims don't earn respect.

The first Doctor said, "Your nose is cute. If you were my son I'd strap you down so you wouldn't go through with this." I feel like I owe her a thank-you card and she hasn't even fixed my deviated septum yet.