The Last I'm Going to Say On the Subject.

Perhaps you're right P.

Perhaps I really have changed. I mean, I don't feel very different. But when I look at my life just a few months ago and now, yeah. Things have changed. I'm growing up. It's taken me nineteen years, but I am. I'm maturing.

And maybe that's something you're not ready to do. Maybe that's something you'll never be ready to do. 

And that sucks, because I always valued you as one of my closest friends. You knew you could always come to me, like the time you were upset with your boyfriend and came to CR to spend the night. I liked to think that I could always go to you, too.

But I never did go to you, and that's my fault. I felt open with you, and yet I never did really open up. Probably because I'm embarrassed. Maybe because I'm scared. Of what you would think, of how you would see me.

But all of that is irrelevant now. YOU chose to see me in a different light. YOU chose to make me the bad guy--even though I've never been in a serious relationship with someone for their money, or cheated on any of my boyfriends every chance that I got, or used my boyfriend's money to drink and drink and drink until I couldn't feel anything anymore.

But, i suppose all of that is irrelevant as well.

I am changing. You were right when you said I've changed. I'm growing up. And I really don't think that you ever will. Which is also irrelevant, because we're no longer friends (at your doing), and that's just how things are.

And now, in general to everyone: I hate it here. I hate West Des Moines, the snotty shoppers that come into A&F, the bitchy kids who think they're all that because they have money (at least, money by IOWA standards, as if that's even a big deal), I hate the gays and the way that they all judge me for things that I've never done and words that I've never said, I hate taking every MINUTE of work that I can just to try and save up money,  I hate being away from my boyfriend S, I hate being away from my bestie J, I hate being away from my close friends B, L, H, E, and C at Coe, I hate not being in class and seeing my professors everyday, I hate that I haven't written as much as I'd planned on, and I hate summer.

I just want to go home to Cedar Rapids. And I pray to God, Jesus, Buddha, Satan, and everybody else that I do not have to come back to West Des Moines next summer.

And that's the last I'm going to say on the subject.

But Oh, Oh Those Summer Nights

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where--" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

This quote was posted on my boyfriends facebook, and being the literary genius that I am, it really made me think. It moved me, even--I know that sounds very strange, but I read it and I thought "You're right. It doesn't matter which way you go." I thought about this quote for literally hours, forgetting about it only when something else demanded my immediate attention, and then when I had a moment of free thought my mind returned to the quote.

Furthermore, it made me want to read. Last summer I told myself that I was going to read like crazy, but that never happened. I didn't even read the book that I was required to read for my First-Year Seminar class. But, this summer is going to be different.

This is my summer reading book list. I'll keep reposting this blog as I add more books, read more books, and have opinions to write about them.

~The Reader by Bernhard Schlink*

~Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

~One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell

~Doubt by John Patrick Shanley 

~A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

~Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov

~1984 by George Orwell

~Complete Short Stories by Oscar Wilde

*The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink. This book was wonderful. I originally found out about it from the movie, which I saw with P and ended up pretty much crying in the movie theater. The book is exactly the same but entirely different--all of the same events happen, but our main character approaches them very differently. It's the story of the love between a young man and an older woman. One day she disappears, and ten years later he's attending a Nazi trial for a college class that she's being convicted in. In the movie he's very emotional and cries a lot, even trying to visit her in jail once but failing. In the book, he's cold; he feels not only as if he's betrayed her, but as if she's betrayed him. Throughout the trial he feels cold, seeing old images of her in his mind but feeling nothing. It's almost less of a love story and more of the internal battle of our character with what is right and what is wrong, what we have power of and what we don't, and who should be judged what which things that they do.

It gets a bit dry at times, seemingly going on and on about nothing, but he always draws it to a very thoughtful, deep conclusion that was worth the wait. Out of five stars: three and a half.

Mistaken Identity

It's hard to be "confident" (online definition: sure of oneself, excessively bold) without being or at least coming off as "arrogant" (online definition: insolently proud). 

As we know from my last blog, I'm attacked for this many times. I'm starting to think I'm becoming a menacing public identity. ((Will I follow in the steps of Tila Tequila and get MY own reality show? "Ian-Michael's Pitcher of Vodka"... >>It's just like "Tila Tequila's Shot at Love", except instead of finding love I drink a pitcher full of vodka and roll around on a porch.<<))

Some people think that I'm "attractive" (online definition: providing pleasure or delight; pleasing, charming, alluring). Some people don't. More importantly, many people (spoken or not) find me to be arrogant.

Well, if I am a public figure as I've arrogantly self-proclaimed myself to be, I'm using my online controversy and popularity to say this:

It's not about being attractive, it's about feeling attractive.

If you feel attractive, you'll feel confident in everything you do. If you feel confident, you'll be happy with everything you do. If you think you're attractive, who cares what anyone else thinks? And if you're happy, who gives a damn if people think that you're arrogant? It just makes the relationships in your life with the people who actually take the time to get to know you that much more meaningful.

-Abashed in Abercrombie

A blog I was tagged in by one Christian White.

Dignified Gays?

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Today at 12:34am

Being a dignified homosexual.

There is a reason I do not like women, so don't take their horrible habits (no offense ladies.)

Talk normally, do not talk like a ditzy bitch.

No use of the words oh, my, and god together.

Say "what's up" once in a while.

No pants that cut of circulation to your toes.

Gay or not, there is no such thing as a pedicure for men.

Handbags are for women. Not men. Period.

Take pride, grow some muscle. We are men, nonetheless.

If I see you at the pool in a Speedo, I will puke on you.

Skin cancer-looking leather orange is not attractive, ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Women jeans are made for women. Men jeans are made for men. Homo or not, you are a man. Wear men jeans that are made for your body and, finally, you may look presentable.

Abercrombie is for fags.

Fags are not attractive, men are.

You are a faggot. You are not attractive, Ian Bergeron.

PS Your ears make you look like an elf.


Fags: you give gays a bad name. Fuck off.

I Was a Disturbed Child

For some reason, I thought that my writing became dark with the introduction of The Great Gatsby (which I read my senior year) and darker by reading Russian Literature (just this year). However, this is very untrue.

On my way back to WDM for the summer (where, sadly, I will be working at A&F every opportunity I get), I've made a week-long pit stop at my mother's house in Kville. There, I discovered my giant old Mac (remember the ones with the clear colored backs? Yeah. Mine is green,) some stories that I wrote in high school. I was surprised that I actually like them, and some are even worth editing up.

The first I read I barely remembered writing. It was a very short, tenish page 'murder mystery' written in first person titled "Bed of Roses". This boy is dating one girl, having sex with another, having sex with a boy, and having sex with his female teacher. Then the girl he's having sex with ends up murdered, then the boy, then the teacher. Then the girlfriend is found guilty and serves life in jail. ((So I'm reading this and thinking "What the HELL was I thinking? This isn't a murder mystery at all. It was obvious that the girlfriend did it, and then she did, and now she's in jail. What the fuck.")) So I continue reading it, there's an epilogue, he's talking about how he's found a new boyfriend and he's happy, he's starting over, and nobody ever found out it was him or that he buried the weapon under a bed of roses his mother just planted. ((At which case I was like "OH YEAH! Now I remember. He killed them all along.")) It's really rough, but I think I can edit it up into something very worthwhile.

Then, on a not dark note, I wrote a story my sophomore year that I'd entirely forgotten about. It's more than 100 pages, and it's basically about this gay boy's introduction into popularity. It's FULL of sex, partying, drinking, going to the beach, shopping, clubbing... and it's not entirely awful. Maybe a little over the top, but I like it. I can tell that GossipGirl was definitely an inspiration when I wrote it--I just can't believe that I wrote it my sophomore year of high school, before I had 'seriously' gotten into any of those things!

And on Recent Writings: The first draft of "The Railroad" is coming to an end. Which is fantastic, because then I can really get in there and edit it. It's not a novel, a novella for sure, but I'm okay with that. I write what needs to be written, and this is what came out of it.

Other Projects: I'm working on a novel titled "Snow", and I wish I could explain it but that proves to be a difficult task. With "The Railroad" I don't even explain the plot, just the characters, but there are so many more in this... So the beginning. It begins (as did a story I wrote for my first semester fiction workshop) with a young man discovering his best friend, a young woman, dead in her apartment. Though ruled a suicide, he's convinced that she was murdered and decides that he alone will solve her murder. SOME of the people we meet along the way are Caroline, a high school senior dating two boys, Susan, who's having an affair with her boss, and Cameron, who's sleeping his way to the top of the modeling business. (It's definitely a family story. Heartwarming.)

I'm also working on some short stories; I plan on putting them together into a collaborative book, but how I'm going to do that is still up in the air. Some of the stories include a reporter who falls in love with a prostitute, a lesbian couple of an author and a bookstore owner, a woman who hallucinates that the man she loves is in love with her also and is in her apartment, and a very religious person who tries peyote and has a vision that Jesus calls her on the phone to tell her that God and Heaven don't exist. (Another book to read to your children at bedtime.)

Well, I've rambled about my writing for long enough. I SHOULD be working on writing these stories, not writing about them. 

-Abashed in Abercrombie