Completion

I just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray. Really fascinating novel. The whole time I was angry at most of the characters for being too charming or too blind to reality, and in the end I was so glad how the novel ended. I imagine that the final scene can only be played out in the reader's mind and fantasmically. The rules of the universe of Dorian Gray would not allow a logical idea paralleling Crime and Punishment to be the end result. There had to be magic or fate intertwined in the story.

But the gay undertones died out in the first few chapters of the novel. All the gayest characted got wives and Dorian Gray ,who I though had his sexuality disected by Sir Henry, ends up courting women all throughought his later life. Even the romantic dialogue clearly explained to be between Dorian and the painter, which was also seen in some of Sir Henry's chats, soon died out almost completely. It was as if saying "okay we were gay in our youth but as we grew older and more moral, we learned to be straight". This makes sense for the time because Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for being gay.

Now that I think about it more, I commend Wilde for painting such a strange picture. My heart is a bit heavy for the past. What gross medieval times.

Gayness

I'm currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, a really unhappy book about a coupla guys in high society Europe around the late 1800s. Mainly it's about a narcissistic guy named Dorian who gets caught up in the grandeur of his own beauty. From there it seems to be a huge plummet in his psychological well being after comparing himself to a portrait painted by one of his friends.

I was reading the mini biography about the author Oscar Wilde and it says he was alienated for being a homosexual from his own society by his own father in public. Makes me sad to imagine a guy going through turmoil over words that blood could spill.

The book itself was in a top 100 novels to read book, and it's way more thrilling than The Count of Monte Cristo which I should have read in high school anyway. That book is so dense and hard to follow, seeming to paint images of wealthy society and the interweavings of a few prominent characters. But they spend so much money just for holding appearances it makes my head spin. At least Dorian Gray isn't the richest count in all the land. I can actually keep a track of his life and his transformation of status and start to immerse myself in all the funny details about society in the novel.

Sadly I'm starting to get really confused with all this formal talk. I don't think this was a romance novel...

Today as another funhouse mirror in an all too dilapidated amusement park

I'm starting to run again. There was an article a few days ago about an Olympic finalist who broke the world record time for the 100 meter dash but he didn't get the record. Turns out another guy ran even faster in that race but they both qualified to go to the Summer games. I may not get under 9.7 seconds for 100 meters but it sure feels good to be on the field working hard for something again. I'm tired of thinking for so long about wasting the day working for things that wont improve my life- things that are like hurdles made of anxiety and trouble.

The last time I can remember running before I stopped for a year was up north in Santa Cruz when some old guy nearly ran me off the road at 10 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road. I smiled thinking "that was weird" and kept going.
Still I've been going now and then, doing 30 minute jogs but there's no enthusiasm like there used to be. I'm going to make a record for myself. I even bought a stopwatch this morning before class. It's simple and small- it better be too! A normal sized watch would drown my wrists but the smaller ones seemed too feminine (even though I usually don't mind for things I wear every now and then). Turns out it fits good and is exactly plain enough. Now I have a watch again! yey.