january: 10 days at Sundance with Doug's film february: organizing a panel for the KaosPilots march: last chance to impregnate for december/january 2000 millenial birth april: speaking at Reboot 2.0 may: teaching at space invaders june: amy's finished school and now the rest of life awaits!

4. Any sort of resolutions

besides deciding I need to breathe more, and more consciously,
officially undeclared: delaying email gratification

5. An extended and unfortunately eloquent harangue

excited, suffused with community feelings and excited to be there, I traipsed around the Henry J. Kaiser auditorium amidst the Oakland Celebration, sometimes leading Amy and Kathy away from our previously-agreed-upon destination. Amy was sick, and tired. Later, after driving extremely slowly down our street, to enjoy the peace I swear! she became quite agitated with my impishness. So I thought I'd have her detail her concerns below:

Justin, my partner, roommate, date on many occasions, has trouble being considerate at times. I tried to explain in a she-beast tirade tonight that he needs to "think of others" more often if he is going to sustain "meaningful and lasting intimate relations". Below is a list of my citations.

1. Justin often tries to make others follow his lead in museums, grocery stores, and shopping centers. He not only uses tactics such as yelling louder than any other noise in the area, "hey check out _!" or simply, "hey you guys!", but also such horrific gestures as snapping to encourage movment in a certain direction, wildly gesturing, or physically grabbing me and steering me somewhere, when I clearly have other plans at the moment.

For instance, tonight, at the Oakland Celebration, once we agreed upon a destination inside the festival, he skipped more quickly than anyone ahead to what seemed to be the opposite direction. Given the choice to abandon him or follow suit, I limped behind (sickly and hunched over), asking repeatedly, "where are we going?" Answered with an impish grin and a continuation of the elusive bunny-hop, bunny fangs aglow, I persisted with my question. I never got my answer. Thus I felt passive, dependent, and mocked. Perhaps if some special surprise had been in store for me, I would have appreciated the lack of information, but when I realized that this was another case of Justin trying to force his "leadership" on others, I was a bit annoyed.

2. Justin just has this way of wanting to show you things you may have missed; he prefers not to leave certain experiences for your discovery, but instead (as in citation 1) loudly and grandiloquently points out sights, objects, people, phenomena, etc. either before you have a chance to notice them in your own way, or way after you already observed and moved on.

For instance, tonight at an "art immersion" section of the festival we attended, I grabbed a mobile video installation and began to play with it. It was a monitor situated on a shopping cart that changed sound and image with my movements. Seeing that I obviously did not know how to "work" the "art", Justin approached me at the cart and began trying to instruct me on how to "play" with it: "I think it works like this...and thus you should push it forward like this..." etc. Having soured my initial discovery of the object, he went on to add his own discovery: "oh I guess you were creating your own experience, " a proclamation meant as permission, I assumed.

3. Justin will repeat certain actions once he has been told that they are annoying and intolerable, such as tinny little noises, beastly cackles, physical pokings, and other 4th grade boy-likes-girl strategies. At times, he will tickle, grab or poke me, and once met with several loud "no's", will come back more enthusiastically for more. At times, I have violently retaliated, smacking him in the face quite forcefully, causing minor pain, hoping to put him down for a moment, but he stills persisted. I am not trying to prudishly dismiss "horsing around" as they call it, but there are times when such activity is inappropriate. I tried to explain to Justin tonight that my main requirement in these situations is that he cease to repeat activities that have been vehemently discouraged within the same sitting.

[her slapping me physically encourages me]

Inappropriate time number 1,previously cited before but never fully complied with: when we were "working together" on my film, him as an actor, me as director, and he insisted on groping and tugging at me in front of my small but impressionable crew. When I explained to him that I needed him to stand up and stop acting like my pet hormone so that I could get a few things accomplished, he seemed to think I was joking.

[Tonight I also cited as a reverse example a time when I called Justin affectionate homey pet names such as "stinky bunny" and "l'il baby kitty" in front of others at a party, and he took me aside, telling me sternly he had trouble sustaining "Amy and Jusin's world of intimacy" in all public situations. I heartily complied, making sure not to refer to him by the name of any other species in front of other people]

[that was during tough time for all of us.]

I'm sure, dear readers, you could empathize with me on my concerns about Justin's driving, and more importantly, Justin's response to my response to his driving. He is a reckless and dangerous driver who fancies himself some kind of "manwich appetite" adventurer; when I ask him to slow down, or to stop swerving, he usually speeds up, and swerves more, all the while assaulting me with his impish, smug, self-satisfied, shit-eating grin/cackle.

[i am typically a smooth, calm driver.]

4. The most important lesson of deference I would be pleased to have Justin learn is this: DONT FUCKING LAUGH IN MY FACE WHEN I EXPRESS MY CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR BEHAVOIR TOWARDS ME. At least feign an inkling of respect or serious attention, or you'll have to find some other she-beast to harangue.

It strikes me after re-reading this that I am long-winded and sound schoolmarmish, but that is what Justin brings out in me.

6. A final thought composed in silence

Thanks Amy - for the patience.

When she tells me not to do something, I often feel provoked to do it more, for fun. I guess I gotta get over that. I was the younger brother! I was a real pain in the butt in grade school. I like getting a rise out of people!

While I'm attracted to eternal youth and general glee, growth likely lies in abandoning the relentless need for attention that reaches beyond people's resistance into aversion.

If I can better selectively poke and link and lead, I'll die with less to remember.

(like yesterday)

daze | justin's links

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justin's links | www.links.net

justin hall | <justin at bud dot com>