#9: auld acquaintance

It was so good to chat with you last night! I'm glad we're keeping in touch. It's not easy, I know, especially not with somebody who lives in the Big City. I know how easy it was to let friendships just slip away when I lived there, and I've seen many fall by the wayside since I left. Of course, it makes a it a little easier being that I visit the City once a year or so. But there are definitely people I have let slip away.

We share our struggles, you and I; we share the fact that we have struggles in our lives. I have a vivid memory of you sitting across from me at my little kitchen table in my studio apartment (the apartment you told me about) across the hall from your little apartment, when we were sharing deeply -- or so I thought -- and then you got suddenly silent, teary-eyed, and finally said I wasn't there for you. Or maybe you said I wasn't listening to you. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it's funny to me that I hold onto that moment so strongly. I wonder if you remember it?

The restaurant where we met is long gone and your career as an actress is less than certain, and my career as a playwright is on hold for the time being, maybe permanently. Sometimes I think that when I finish this novel I'll go back to playwriting. It seems an easier art in the middle of this mess. But I feel good about my progress, about my ability to stick with it. I wish you would work on your novel some more. I loved the chapter or two we read that night. You have a knack for storytelling. I think you have something there. But of course, I won't say you should do it because it's easy. Because it's not.

I'll see you next year, hopefully; I'm thinking about spring or summertime, perhaps. A week-long visit? I don't know. I miss being there, but when I'm there I'm ready to get back home. Home. I feel like I have a home now. All that time when I was going back and forth between New York and Tennessee, I didn't really feel like I had a home, I was such a lost soul. My struggles were so acute then.

You tell me I sound like I have a positive, healthy attitude about relationships and my issues. I think that's true, but it sure doesn't keep the depression at bay. At least I'm not drowning in it anymore -- chatting with you last night helped me see that; it's more like I'm on the beach and depression comes in with the tide, comes lapping at me in waves, gets strong sometimes but never unbearably so because I know the tide will go out again. (I guess I have a healthy attitude about my depression as well!)

We're getting old, my dear sweet friend. You're the one who brought it up! I have a gray beard, a belly I notice in the shower, the aches and pains of an aging body. I'm trying to have a healthy relationship with my aging, too. Happy new year.

#8: the center of your universe

I miss you. But you must understand why I haven't talked to you in over two months. Since our birthday, your party, which at the last moment you tried to play off as our party. I don't feel like we have to celebrate all our birthdays together; you're half my age. But I also don't feel like I have to be present at your party if I don't feel like it.

You haven't called me in two months either.

It seems to me you surround yourself with people who adore you. That's not a hard task, you are adorable. You make me feel young. And you make me feel really old. You titillated me with stories of your attempts at being gay, with your best friend, when you were sixteen or something. As if that would make me feel closer to you. What it did was make so much more obvious the pain in the struggle of my own attempts, at being straight, at being gay. At not being able to simply be who I am.

Who am I anyway?

Your life has been charmed. I know, I know, your father's dead, things are not exactly perfect for you, but there are plenty of people -- women mostly -- surrounding you, saying, "It's okay, let me hold you." You take advantage of all those offers. You're a little more reticent to receive my offer. Not that I ever made one outright. But I thought about it, thought about holding you, for comfort's sake (not that my thoughts have been completely 100% chaste).

But you know. You know how I feel. You're surrounded by people who feel this way about you. And you're a Scorpio, with all the inherent intuitiveness of a Scorpio.

The one opportunity we had to sleep in the same bed, you did a weird thing that I can't get out of my head: you said you had to sleep with a pillow between your knees to help you "sleep with better posture." Maybe it's true. But it's a curious detail.

It's not like I was going to molest you. I might have liked to have held you, to have you hold me, to hold each other, as friends, but I wouldn't even have done that because although there was no molesting intention, I'm sure I would have been visibly excited by the thought of holding you, by the act of holding you, of you holding me.

I think now and again that I should call you. But your world is so set, and I'm not sure I want to get caught up in it. I say things I don't want to say, I have feelings I would rather avoid, I can't really be myself, completely myself, while you breeze through everything at the center of your universe.

#7: twenty-eight years ago

You cried all that Christmas the year before Daddy died. At the time I thought it was because you couldn't afford to buy any presents, and that was the beginning of the souring of my Christmas experience. I'm not blaming you; really, I'm thankful. I like to give gifts, but not at Christmastime; no matter how aware I am of the intention, at this time of year gift giving manages to get caught up in the swirl of pine-scented poo.

I realize all these years later -- can you believe it was 28? -- that it was just the beginning of your unraveling. I didn't have much of a relationship with him, so it took me a long time to understand that he could mean that much to you, that his death could have affected you so deeply.

I didn't talk to you this year. I don't feel estranged from you, just not too connected. It's a little sad sometimes, but you've got your life, your problems, your stuff going on; I've got mine. I hope you had a good Christmas. I know your children are scattered all over the country and you don't have the closest relationships with them. I'm sorry about that. But still, I hope you didn't cry this year.

#6: you are not my father

I never really had a father figure. I had a daddy, but he died when I was sixteen, and we weren't the best of friends, so I didn't really have anyone to want to be like when I was growing up. That was okay, I never really wanted to be like anybody.

Then I met you with your elbow patches and your long drawling words, calling me Mr. B in a way that, in itself was almost enough to lift my depression, as you smoked your pipes in that old house on the hill with the ominous swinging sign out by the main road: PSYCHIATRY.

I would normally have picked a woman; I don't know why, I just always felt like I had a better chance of getting my head straightened out with a female therapist. That's why I chose your office, because of the Indian woman who was the head shrink there. (Ha! That's funny.) But she wasn't available for an appointment and I got you. Tennessee had a really good public health policy at the time (its own Medicare, which unraveled to nothing by the time I left the state, thanks to our current Administration), but the list of names to choose from wasn't long. and most of them were men. I wasn't sure it would work out between you and me, but you were provided free by the state, so the least I could do was make the first appointment.

You put your feet up on your desk and leaned back in your wooden chair. The place reeked of cherries and vanilla mixed with Cavendish tobacco. It wasn't so bad, really, and it went well with the decor, that crazy old house with the peeling paint and old furniture and knick knacks in the foyer; they looked like they might've been left there by the original owner. There were a few mental health posters sprinkled around for good measure, too.

I liked you right away, you eccentric man with your wool jacket in the Tennessee heat with the leather patches on the elbows. You were like a man right out of the Seventies, right out of my childhood. Like a father figure. I didn't think of that then; I thought of you as a friend. I knew you were my shrink, but you were the best kind of a shrink, one whom I could mistake for a friend.

In the odd times that you talked about yourself, you told me about your former life, how you hauled cattle around from auctions to ranches. Everything you told me became romantic in that damn pipe smoke. "Do you mind if I smoke?" Of course not.

Today, I bought myself a gift, a pipe and some tobacco to sit on the front porch and smoke. I don't really like smoking cigarettes except for the reflection time they offer me. I thought a pipe would be a little more classy, it would taste a little better, too. Some of the tobaccos have clever names: Texas Honey; Very Cherry; Georgian Cream; Strawberry Delight; Commander's Choice; 24 Karat.

I didn't think of the irony until this moment, didn't think of the inspiration you gave me, to make this purchase. You, my favorite psychiatrist. And the name of the tobacco I chose?

Nut 'n' Special.

#5: p.k.j.o.

God, I don't even remember your name. You weren't a friend, not really; just a kid in my daddy's small hometown, the son of the local preacher -- a Preacher's Kid like me -- and I spent the night with you because the house we were in was full and it was convenient. I'm not sure I wanted to spend the night with you, but it wasn't like I didn't; I just don't remember.

I must've been in the fourth grade, so nine or ten years old, and you were about the same age. You had a brother a few years older than us. He slept in the same room, across the room. Small country parsonage, a little white house next door to the church.

After the lights were out, we chatted quietly, tried to keep our giggles down, then you wriggled under the covers and offered me something.

"What's this?" I asked.
"Shh," you said.
It was your underwear.
Weird, I thought.

You took my hand under the covers and silently directed me to squeeze the head of your rock hard little boy penis; you wanted a pulsing squeeze. You wouldn't let me stop or slow down. I had no idea what was going on. When I got the rhythm right, you reached under and started doing the same thing to my penis. It didn't get hard until you started bothering with it. It felt good but weird, it was wicked, and that was probably the most fun about it.

Then I had my first orgasm. No ejaculation, just a full body shudder that was like the Devil and God arm wrestling between my legs. I gasped. The throbbing traveled over all the flesh of my body. I jumped out of bed and pulled on my jeans and walked to the bathroom to see what had happened to me. But by then, it was soft again.

I slept the night in my jeans, afraid that it would happen again. You ignored me.

The next morning over the breakfast table, your older brother took a moment to tease us, while your parents weren't paying attention: "I heard you two last night!" Nobody said anything more. Perhaps you made a face at your brother, stuck out your tongue or even shot him the bird (P.K.s are so wild, I'd heard, but not me, I wasn't a preacher's kid anymore, momma made daddy stop preaching, maybe this was why, maybe she knew what P.K.s did). I wasn't looking. I had my eyes closed. I was praying for Jesus to deliver me from hell.

this has nothing to do with you (part one)

my father disappeared the day I turned sixteen.

he was thirty-three;
same age as christ.

i was sixteen.
my sister fourteen.
she was there,
at the table,
when daddy said
-- after the party,
my party,
my sweet sixteen --
that he knew of a better place.
the other kids were gone.
daddy had missed the party,
he got there late.
his job...

dar was cleaning up the table,
dragging a big green plastic bag around,
throwing in plates and napkins and plastic forks and dixie cups,
some with punch still in them,
throwing them roughly into the big plastic bag.

dar.
i called her momma before that.

daddy wanted us all to go to this better place,
with him,
but momma said no.
then daddy was gone and she became dar.

everything changed when daddy left.
except him;
he'll always be daddy.
he'll always be the same,
look the same,
sound the same,
as he was when I was sixteen.

***

there was a boy,
johnny something.
johnny polacek.
I think that was his name.
i can't remember his name.
(it'll have to be changed in the final draft anyway.)
his daddy died in some kind of freak accident.
something work-related.
i don't know what it was because i didn't talk to johnny until my daddy disappeared.
and they didn't tell sixteen-year-olds that kind of stuff anyway.
but then we had something in common,
a reason to talk.

johnny was athletic,
he played baseball and basketball.
and he had squinty eyes and dirty blond hair,
and he was shy,
and he had puffy lips.
i remember his puffy lips.
he talked to me once,
in the library,
at school.
i can't remember now what it was he said.
it wasn't important and it wasn't a threat,
just some sort of passing thing.
something in passing.
like that,
like "pass me that pencil,"
or something like that.

he said "please."
i remember him as being polite.
not stuck up at all,
just very shy.
i realized that on that day.
he was popular with the girls but i don't think he had a steady girlfriend.
johnny was kind of a loner.

like me.
except that i wasn't popular.
i had friends here and there but no close friends.
my friends seemed to change every year according to what classes i was in and with whom.

i didn't like having to explain april to people.
so i usually went home after school.
she got home an hour after me and i played with her until dar got home.

during that hour before april got home while i was in the house alone i would sit on the bathroom counter and look at myself in the mirror.
i would stare deep into my eyes,
would judge my face,
my pimples.
would pick at my pores,
squeeze them.
pimples that were at the nucleus stage would be forced to the battered red surface.

it was entertainment.
i was a loner.

i talked to myself in the mirror,
interviewed myself,
sang to myself,
mouthed words,
no sound except my smacking lips and sticky tongue.

some time after johnny polacek talked to me
-- i don't know if it was immediate or some time after --
i saw something in the three-way fold-out mirror i'd never seen before.
i squinted my eyes and saw my squinty eyes through my squinty eyes,
and my hair was a little more "dirty" and a little less blond,
and my lips were puffy.

i could feel my puffy lips.
i gasped
-- ah! --
light and subtle;
i gasped and opened my eyes to see if my thin pink lips had actually become redder and puffy,
and they had.
more so when i turned the bathroom light out and saw myself in the three-forty-five light coming through the bathroom window.

but more than what i saw was what i felt.
what i felt was much more than what i saw.
i felt my lips,
my eyes,
my hair;
i felt the loss of my father to a freak accident;
i felt the glove on one hand,
the bat in both of them,
the striped uniform,
the cup pinching my testicles.
i knew what it felt like to crack a ball out of the park.
i knew what it felt like to be johnny polacek.

***

it wasn't an isolated event.
or i would be more correct in saying it wasn't that one isolated event;
it was multiple isolated events since the age of sixteen,
since my daddy disappeared,
since i felt like johnny polacek.

it still happens.
there's no rhyme or reason to it,
no explanation that i know of,
though i haven't ever looked for one.
until now,
i guess.
if that's really what i'm doing.
i will see someone i've never met before,
across the street,
or across the subway,
and when they are no longer there,
sometimes I can feel their face pressing against the inside of my face,
pressing to the surface,
trying to get out.

skin color doesn't matter,
nor gender;
even deformities.
(once i saw a man with no ears and i knew what it felt like to be him.)
it even happens with people i've known a long time.
dar,
april...
except not daddy.
never daddy.

#4: for you who needs compassion

I don't know if I'm more worried about you or annoyed by you. I thought about this last night: If she kills herself and I find her, what a hassle that would be. Have I lost my ability to be compassionate? That saddens me. But last night, I didn't feel so good, I went to bed early, not all that early -- 10:30 isn't all that early -- and at 11:45 that disconcerting ticking in my dreams managed to wake me up. What is that ticking? I felt frightened. But it was a misplaced emotion. There wasn't anything to be afraid of. But all the effects of feeling frightened were there, the racing heart, the clammy coldness, the distorted view. Or maybe that was from being awakened by a noise in my house, in my room, halfway between the bed and the desk. Fortunately. Two feet this direction or that would have been a fucking nightmare. Water dripping from the ceiling. A string of drips along a line. I know from the time before that that line matches up almost perfectly with the outside edge of your bathtub. That time when you decided to mop your bathroom floor with your bath water. All of it. I'm pretty sure I said then, "I don't think you should be doing that." I thought you got it. But you've got a lot on your plate. You left for a weekend trip (a family thing, you called it), left your dog behind and didn't come back for six weeks. Your dog is an escape artist; everybody knows this. Maybe you thought this was gonna save her. Maybe you knew. If she hadn't broken that window out, if a neighbor hadn't seen her hanging out the second floor window, had she not leaped out the window into his arms, I don't think she would've lasted that six weeks without food or water.

Another neighbor took your dog, gave her to somebody else after she -- an escape artist and a generally ill-behaved dog -- kept trying to eat the cat. I don't blame the neighbor for finding another home for the dog. And then you come back to town, lightheaded or something, distant, squirrelly. Avoiding everybody, feeling bad about your actions, hiding from us. "One day at a time," I think was what you said the first time I saw you, but not because you're in AA, just because that's the way you make it through life. And so, maybe you forgot that you aren't supposed to douse your bathroom floor in late night bath water. That's what I thought when I sat there watching the water pour on my floor, ticking and not showing any signs of stopping or slowing. I gathered my wits and my ill feelings, grabbed a couple of thick rugs from the bathroom, then an ice chest, to catch the water. I put one of the wet rugs in the chest to dampen the sound, tried to go back to sleep.

But then I remembered that you're a woman on the verge. One night when you came back and were scratching furniture across your floor, I imagined that you had fashioned a noose and were pulling a chair or something over so that you could get your neck in it and hang yourself. There was a thump -- the chair that you'd kicked out from under yourself tipping to the floor. I was glad when you emerged the next day.

I thought maybe you had decided to drown yourself last night. That's why the water was pouring into my bedroom, because you'd turned the water on and it was just rippling over the edge of the tub, your floating blue body under the surface, eyes open, lips slightly parted, a shy bubble hanging out just inside one nostril.

I put on my clothes. Lots of clothes. More clothes that I'd had on earlier. I went to bed early, feeling chilled, but now I was cold, and I was gonna have to go outside and maybe deal with some sort of a dead body in water, or a water leak, or something. I put on long johns and jeans and cotton socks with wool socks over them, two shirts, two jackets -- one with a hood -- and a hat. I found your key in my bedside table, the flashlight from the kitchen drawer. Your apartment lights were out, your car was gone. I made my way in. Your place is a wreck. The window your dog broke out is still gone; the vents around a window unit a/c are missing, so the cold wind is blowing in. The wall gas heater in the bathroom is missing all of its innards.

The tub was empty, but the lid to the toilet tank was on the floor. There was water droplets all over the sink, and standing water on the floor. I searched out some towels from your dirty clothes and soaked up the water. The dripping downstairs stopped.

This morning you called me back but I didn't answer. You left an apologetic message, but no explanation, only that you were going to be going to the doctor tomorrow for some new medicine that will "make things better."

I guess I have to keep listening.

#3: service with a simile

Bless you, you stroked my ego (ahem).

You caught me in good form. I had to send a FedEx package and almost gave up before I found the Kinko's I'd never been to before, the one you work at.

There you were, young, pudgy, cute, helping customers, your crystal beaded choker setting you apart. I filled out my forms, stuffed my box and when you were free asked if I could give my box to you.

You seemed distracted, seemed to be taking an awful long time at the register, seemed to be looking back at my box. Was something wrong with the way I'd packed it?

I wasn't wearing anything under these thin pants. You weren't looking at the box, you were looking at my box, stealing glances.

Is it stealing if it's given to you?

I swelled with pride. Your interest interested me. But we were in my place of business, your place of work.

The FedEx receiving counter is lower than the other counters, I guess in case a box is extra big, it's easy to handle, easy to get on the scale; easy for you and your coworkers to see all its dimensions. I'd say it was about crotch-high.

Your final move pulsed with bravery: you leaned over the low counter with my receipt, leaned close, not really to me, to it.

"Here's your receipt number," you said to it, making a mark on the paper but not looking where you were marking. "And here's the FedEx website, in case you want to track it."

Was that some kind of a code? My heart was racing; I felt heavy and light at the same time. I left one box and took the other -- not sure if I'd made the right choice -- stood in the parking lot a long time, dazed, fluttering, eventually regaining my senses.

Then I drove off with a big head.

#2: a deep connection

You should move here. Your boyfriend can come too. You should both come to Austin so that when the two of you break up, I'll be your shoulder to cry on, your healing hug, your next bit thing. I know it didn't work out before -- I know you tried so hard so many times -- but you have to understand, I wasn't in my right mind. I wasn't myself at all. And if you could love me like that (even though I kept pushing you away), just imagine what a catch I'd be now. I really think it would be different.

I feel a deep connection to you that has been getting in the way of my making other connections. I see now that this is true. I think there's only you. And there's only me. I think this boyfriend of yours is just a band-aid, like the last one was, and the ones before that. They mean something in the short-term, but really, we're meant to be together. You can't see that now because you're blinded by the good sex you're still having. What did you say, a year at the end of this month. We can do better than that. You know I'm right!

#1: the potential child molester

You're the stranger without a face (darkened by the shadows inside the car) who picked me up in the third grade as I walked in the rain. You gave me a ride home. I knew not to tell anybody I'd gotten a ride home from a stranger, and I'm not sure why I was walking home in the rain in the first place. I can't see your face and I wasn't afraid then or now, but I wonder if I didn't get raped and murdered. I have wondered many times about that, if I died and this is just a memory of me, a pretend version of what it would be like had I lived.

I think there were many times in my life when I could have died and the rest of my life is just an imagined thing, a way to avoid the mourning left in my wake. Maybe this is why I've always had the feeling I'll live forever -- thanks to you and other tragedies like you -- because I'm already dead, walking among the living, just pretending I'm here. It's like some Hitchcockian idea; I tiptoe through life so I don't wake myself up and see you hovering over me, engorged, enraged, too close, too close.

boo-hoo

First you tell me I oughta write a blog -- that I'd be a natural at it -- then you tell me you're worried I might offend my family or other people by the things I blog, then you take me off of your "List of Blogs I'm Reading."

Now, nobody's gonna read this stupid thing!

the christian wrong

I guess I oughta write a little something. I have a cold (or some sort of minor Biblical wrath) since Thursday night. It had been coming on for a couple of days before that, but it hit after the show.

I've started performing again in a big way. I bought a thrift store suit and tie (and shoes with holes in the souls) and had a toupee from my volunteer job at another thrift store. All of that cost me less than twenty bucks.

We sang at Flipnotics, old gospel songs, not like the kind you find in your Baptist hymnal, more the ones the country sangers and other backslider types were always recording: "Satan's Jewel Crown," "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven But Nobody Wants To Die," "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea," "It'll All Be Over But The Shoutin' When We Get Home," etc. G wore her Tammy Faye best and I was in my suit. We had a Nordic version of Jesus playing percussion and glockenspiel behind us. It was a glory-hallelujah jubilee. It was kind of anti-gospel. I think we should call ourselves The Christian Wrong, but G is hesitant for some reason. Maybe she thinks it'll scare off the crowd.

Those were my people on Thursday, 90% of 'em. The lesbians were across town at the monthly lesbian (etc.) talent show watching feminist videos. It don't matter. It was good. We gave them what they didn't know they wanted, but they wanted it -- including the "lesbian shakers" G made out of millet-filled plastic cups.

Second-to-the-last song was "Old Time Camp Meeting." We pushed the mics aside and walked through the crowded room singing our praises, tambourine for me, guitar for her (Jesus stayed onstage with the kick drum). Then when we got back onstage and I lost the suit, stripped it off, to reveal my underskin, an orange-and-white sequined (big girl's) one-piece -- which was a gift from a friend and which I have to basically dislocate my shoulders to get into -- grabbed a wooden dowel and did a spontaneous twirling routine. It was quite fantabulous.

I had borrowed a friend's boom box (to play Christian rock hits from the '70s before and during the show), and after, I asked if I could put it in her car so I didn't have to bring it over to her house the next day. She said yes. I took her keys. By this time I was somewhat redressed, but was feeling hot and itchy from the "sequined hair suit." G suggested I change in the bathroom, but I wasn't into the idea initially, thinking I was soon going home. But after I dropped the boom box off in the back seat of my friend's car, I changed my mind suddenly; several people were staying to watch the next performer and I thought I might as well.

I dislocated my shoulders and got out of the sequined number and back into the polyester pants and cotton dress shirt (which was itself very cool and comfortable; too cool, in fact, I started feeling cold and sickly almost immediately). When I came out of the bathroom G and company were on the patio (my friends were inside the coffeehouse waiting for the next performer to start), and I sat with G and them and chatted a bit. They were going to see the rest of the feminist videos. And I decided I didn't want to go in to listen to the performer after all; I wanted to go home and relax.

So I did. (Are you paying attention?)

I got home, found a pot of freshly-made lentil soup on the kitchen counter. I silenced my phone and put it bedside, had a bowl and a half and a beer, read some more of The World According To Garp, took a shower, got all comfy-cozy and ready to crawl into bed. I looked at my phone (my timepiece, as always, to see what time it was as I usually do so I know the next morning how many hours I've slept -- not realizing then that I would be sleeping for almost ten hours that night) and there was ONE MISSED CALL on the cellphone screen. It was from the friend who had loaned me the boom box. Oh, she's probably calling to tell me how much she loved the show -- she's so supportive and sweet--

NO!!! I didn't give her back her keys!!!

I paced the whole of my small bedroom, freaking out, as I called to listen to the message. I was right. "I'm assuming you gave me my keys back after you took the boom box to the car, but I can't find them and I don't know what to do..." Oh my god! I checked to see when she called -- it had been less than ten minutes (that was a minor relief), I did all that before I called back.

When I reached her, everything was fine, she was in her car on her way home; "a lady found the keys in the bathroom." (God bless that lady.) I felt like my apologies were inadequate, but they seemed unnecessary for her to hear. She just told me what a wonderful show it was (she's so supportive and sweet).

It took me forever to get to sleep after that! I almost got on my knees and said a little prayer. But that would be Wrong! I just breathed and let my heart race come to an end, and eventually I drifted off and now I've got a cold and hopefully it won't last too long because G and I (and Nordic Jesus) have been hired to play a private party on the 15th.

flip my switch

So, you're saying I'm already enlightened?
I had a feeling.
Should I put my hands on top of my head to hold the light in?

this dream brought to you by patron tequila

It is hard to wake up when you open your eyes in the middle of a dream, especially one that is so involved and enjoyable.

There was a roomful of creative people. It had the feel of an acting class, but it was different somehow. The professor was someone you all admired greatly; he told the group to take turns "doing something." A waifish woman crouched at the front of the room against the impossibly flat and tall wall, said, "What should I do?" Someone said, "Do your circus character." She did an amazing movement piece, her body lithe and agile, something a body could do only in a dream or maybe Cirque du Soleil). At one point, she stopped her movements to fix another woman's blousy shorts which flapped open a little wide at the cuffs when she sat cross-legged at the front of the room.

Other people did bits during which you were caught up in the planning of your special thing -- and that was what the professor warned everyone away from -- going off into other dream states, sitting in the back of a carriage, on a train, over water (they seemed all to do with traveling). When it came your time to do your thing, you were brilliant, tickling a fox on its belly, letting it bite your gloved hands, and playfully pulling apart its hind legs to get a look up its internally lighted bum hole. The fox was invisible to everyone but you, though your interaction with it made it come to life in their minds. A doorway that didn't exist before appeared, cutting the room into a one-third/two-third split. It was the professor's home, this room, you noticed as you braced yourself against the door frame and crawled up to the top; there were markings of the children's growth over the years, their names and heights. A piece of the door frame came off in your hands -- a corner piece -- and you animated it, held it like a baby, made cooing voices, which delighted everyone in attendance except for two. Two men were talking loudly, ignoring you, so you waddled to the floor, door-frame baby still in your arms, intensified the baby noises to loud cries and walked right up to the talking pair. Of course, that shut them up. Unfortunately, it woke you up, mid-dream, mid-(brilliant)-dream.

You reached for the deodorant instead of the toothpaste; you reached for the water faucet instead of the light; you took out the can and the bag of coffee grounds.

Earlier in the night there had been a fascinating dream in which you drank a shot of tequila from your second oldest acquaintance's breast. It was at a party. She showed up. It was a joke or something, a dare, and suddenly her boob was out, the nipple was in your mouth, and lo-and-behold there was tequila in them thar hills!

right speech blah-blah-blah

You're right. I probably shouldn't refer to someone as "an undereducated Mexican," even though it might've been referencing something he said. There are possibly hateful (more) racist people out there who would read such words and think I was singing their song, and I don't want that.

what a mess!

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turkey trot

We're in a bar. It's dark and smoky and crowded. It's me and my family, and M6 is there too, but she might as well be family. The nondescript waiter and a couple of other nondescript people start singing. They become quite a bit more descript and handsome as they sing. I'm enchanted. My family wants to leave the bar and go back to our hotel room. They say so in so many words. But I'm enchanted, I think the boys will sing to me and I can sing along.

Finally, M6 says, "JDJB, this place isn't working for us, let's go back to the hotel." I notice that she has morphed into my mother's younger sister, with all the makeup and the frosty blond hair and the frosty personality. I say, "Fine,"and we leave, traipse through the innards of one building after another until I snap.

"Why did I have to bring you back to the hotel?"
"Can't you get around by yourself?"

There was a men's room, which I ducked into with a "Fuck them." I needed to pee. There were two urinals directly across from the entrance and three or four more across from the stalls, which were a short marble hall away. There were no men at the urinals across from the door, but the others were busy-busy, men with plastic bags of holiday buys wagging their weenies at least somewhat desperately. I shrugged, perhaps I gave a little nonchalant "Hm!" and peed, ignoring whatever potential activity was going on; I wasn't interested.

I woke needing to pee.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. It took S1 and me forever to come together on what we wanted to do. First, he wanted to stay home, just the two of us, and cook a big elaborate meal. That sounded like chores to me. Last year, we went to a shindig at C1's house, which was just wrong. People eating with plates precariously perched on their squatting laps, mostly ignoring us. S1 wanted to avoid that kind of scene; I was with him there. The idea of going "Home" came up; S1 loves the crazy people in my family. To me, it's a little unnerving being so close to the source of my own insanity for an extended period of time. Plus, it would require a six-hour drive in one day. Ugh.

Funny thing is, right after I suggested to my mother that S1 and I might be going there, she started forwarding me all of those stupid email jokes. And then, when I wrote back, a couple of weeks later, and said I wasn't up for the drive, that we had other plans here, the emails stopped. (Doesn't she understand that that sort of snubbing doesn't come off as punishment in my mind?) Maybe it was just a coincidence.

S1 and I went to A2 & J2's house. It was a lovely affair; started at 5 PM lasted till 10. A2's assistant was there with her geeky boyfriend who's half her age. J2's father was there. I love him; he's a lot like J2, a wry sense of humor. O1 & V2 were there. I met them both at the Dance. He is known for being misogynistic and homophobic, etc., I think he's just an undereducated Mexican who doesn't know better. He's a bit of an oaf, but a great story-teller. She is apparently his long-term partner; I had never really talked to her before. She called me by the wrong name (which was common in the Dance because there were three of us with similar names), she's a violin player and was a teacher until recently, very smart and interesting. There was also a woman named Z1 there. She's the coolest, a law professor at UT. She was a female lawyer back in the '50s when it wasn't acceptable. Her husband is a famous documentary filmmaker, his first film was banned in the US for 25 years (so he's also pretty unacceptable!); I thought he was going to be at the dinner, but he's in Boston or France, she's heading off to France soon for the rest of the school year, I think.

The meal was about as unconventional and interesting as the gathered "family." Endive salad with cranberries, honey, bleu cheese and olive oil; turkey, lamb, roasted sliced sweet potatoes, green beans with shallots; S1's succotash, my Grand Marnier cranberry sauce with OJ and pecans (which would likely have been banned at my family-of-origin gathering). No dressing, no mashed potatoes, no rolls. (I kind of missed those things but I'm all the better for it today.)

P1 showed up just after dessert from her day of events. (Dessert, by the way, was apple pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry cobbler, with whipped cream A2 insisted we all beat a little.) P1 brought a skinny little bottle of dessert wine. She and I did a lot of the dishes together. A2 & J2 have a back-to-back double-sink set-up in two rooms -- the kitchen and a converted porch -- with an opening looking on one to the other. That was a nice way to wash piles of dishes (though I won't take credit for doing them all; we did dishes until the dessert wine was opened and it was time for a toast).

The evening ended with A2 & J2, J2's dad, P1, S1 and me huddled in a corner of the kitchen talking. It was nice. But then heaviness come over me. Sleepiness. I guess my brain needed to present me with the scene that started this entry.

This afternoon, S1 and I are going to see the Director's Cut of Blade Runner at the Paramount at 4:30. (I hope the building is heated; it's usually fucking freezing in there!)

in stinks

The day continues. The plan was to go see some of the art in the East Austin Studio Tour, starting at M6*'s house, which was #111 on the E.A.S.T. map. She and J7 hosted Stacked Studios on their land, a series of stacked storage containers with different film industry artists' personal work. It's a pretty cool thing to behold. Feeling the way I did this morning I wasn't sure I wanted to do anything, but did want to see P2, so I went. J7 is in Dubai for the month working on a project for a sheik's museum... J8 was there, and after I looked at the art and played with P2, then accidentally dropped her on her head, we left P2 with her grandma and went to lunch and planned to hit some other studios after that. I had half a dozen or so studios circled that I wanted to see.

We ate at East Side Cafe, which is expensive and serves mediocre food (M6's ravioli was the best that any of us got, and we split the bill, each paying $25). While we ate lunch, I was entertaining the two of them with family stories (I guess), and M6 told me that when I finish my novel, and I send it around to get published, if nobody says yes, that I should take out some of the made-up stuff and put in more of the real stuff from my life and send it around, "because then it would sell!" It was a joke, but after J8 commented that M6 sure didn't have any faith in my ability as a writer, I felt a little insulted. Oh, well, M6 is a shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal. (In some ways, she's a lot like my family is and always has been, in the sense that she isn't really interested in reading my work...)

We went to Salvage Vanguard Theater -- where I spent the past month of weekends -- to see the show that opened this weekend. The artist is an amazing woodworker; he had a Virtual Minister kiosk which was a computer screen where you could fill in your name and other info and get a certificate. The kiosk was beautiful, shaped like a little cathedral, and had a padded board to kneel on for filling in your info. There was also a place to get a faux marriage certificate, another kneeling place in front of a tiny wooden frame with a live image of a blank billboard. In the middle of the room, a large knitting spool, in which the artist stood and knitted a deep red tube around him. He wasn't in it when we got there, but the SVT artistic director was there, he recognized me, shook my hand heartily, then found the artist and told him to show us the piece. That was nice of him. We weren't there long, but M6 had to get back home, so back we went.

I still wanted to see more -- particularly the Assistant Stage Manager's studio at his girlfriend's house in what I accidentally called the Lower East Side, which is just about opposite on the map from the Stacked Studios. It seemed like such a long drive for one studio, so I stopped at Flatbed Press on Manor Road, which had some cool paintings, installations and photographs in it, then found my way to the Museum of Natural & Artificial Ephemerata, which was the coolest thing I saw. But I was rushed, and had a hard time finding it. While I was snaking through the neighborhood, a spray-painted car with a couple of what I subconsciously labeled "hoodlums" in it turned around and started following me. I turned a couple of times, and they turned, too. At a stop sign, they honked and pulled up beside me (on the left side of the street), all gold teeth showing, one of them holding bills in his hand. "Man, we were trying to catch you!" the passenger said. The other said, "Yeah, they real." They were referring to the pennies glued on the side of my truck. One of them pointed out that there were pennies glued randomly onto sprayed dots on top of their car. We exchanged a few pleasantries, then one said, "Let's let him get on with his business," and they got on with their business.

I ran into a couple of M6's old neighbors who remembered me from a New Year's Eve party because of something I said (I think it was "cock-tail") and an accompanying move, and just about every time they see me, they want me to repeat it for them. {My god, we were doing shots of tequila and were high. I'm not a puppet!}

I tried to make it to the assistant stage manager's studio, but it was just after closing time for E.A.S.T., and I had a hard time finding the house, and I gave up. That seems to be a pattern for me lately. On my birthday, C4 was having a party that I didn't feel up to going to, and when I couldn't remember exactly where his house was, I said fuck it and stopped looking; he hasn't called me since (I haven't called him either).

I got home and peed and S1 and I had a moment to say hello. He asked if I was going to eat with him, but I had to go to J2 & A2's to fill up J2's prescription baggies, so I told him I wasn't sure of my plans.

I was at J2 & A2's for two hours. At first they were there and we chatted a while, then they went to dinner. A2 invited me to go with them, but I thought I might get home in time to eat with S1 (seems to be lately that's the only time we really have to converse). While I was in their house alone, I heard a female voice outside say my name. Or I thought I did. It stopped, then repeated. Sounded like maybe she was standing at A2 & J2's front gate. I thought maybe somebody I knew saw my truck and didn't know where I was -- though most people who know me whom I think would do such a thing as wondering through a neighborhood calling my name, would know A2 & J2 as well. I went outside. The streets were empty. I thought if it happened again, I might have a panic attack. It didn't.

I stopped by Wheatsville for a few things on the way home and saw a woman from the Dance and a good friend of G1's. I felt so self-conscious in both conversations. When I got home, while I was in the bathroom, P1 called to "check in"; obviously she read my previous blog. For some reason, she isn't allowed (by some computer glitch) to comment on my blog entries. She wanted to respond to G2's comment about my recent fiction submission "I'm not a prude, but what's with all the masturbation?" (P1 wanted to write: I'll explain it to G2!")

S1 had already eaten, but I wasn't hungry just yet. I went out to the porch for a nicotine high and he made a phone call to his creative partner T1 (with whom he's working on a rock opera based on the Lizzie Borden story). After the cigarette (and the poop), I was hungry.

S1 just got off the phone and offered to cook my half of the greens that he had alone earlier. He is studying Pulp Fiction at school and needs to watch the film and never has, so I'm gonna go get it, he's gonna cook for me and we're gonna watch it together. That sounds like a nice way to finish off the day. Perhaps.

voices underwater

I don't know why but I feel a little depressed today. I don't know if it's because the play I was working on closed last night or if it's because I didn't feel as much like a part of the group as I wanted to when we struck the set after the show or if it's because the boyfriend of one of the actors (a ruggedly handsome straight man) didn't respond to me the way I hoped he would (though I'm not for certain how I hoped he would respond to me) or if it was because the projection designer -- for whom I ran the projections -- when I told her I was assigned to be her helper for the strike said, "Oh, no, JDJB, you should go home and rest for a long time!" (which I'm sure she meant as some sort of compliment but it felt like a brushoff) or if it was because when we were rolling black paint on the white floor to put the theater space back to its original state I ended up with paint that wasn't completely mixed and so it didn't cover as well as other people's rollers did or if it was because I left amid the others' bittersweet goodbyes only saying so long to a couple of people (because I had only been working with them from tech rehearsal on, so I really wasn't as much a part of the group as the rest of them) -- and it didn't seem right to insinuate myself on their gatherings (I certainly wasn't being invited into them!) so I slipped out, came home, S1 was gone so there was nobody to chat with except for Timmy (and our conversations are usually about him wanting food, wanting to be let out, or wanting the bathtub faucet turned on a crack so he can get a drink of fresh tap water). So I had a beer, looked over some comments S1 made on my chapter four, then went to bed. Timmy joined me (oh, yeah, and "Rub me.") and as I lay there rubbing I started crying a little bit, which kind of surprised me, but it felt right. End of story.

mop water and a cigarette butt (a dream)

I was standing in a long line at the post office, and the East Austin Studio Tour was going on (there were paintings hanging and leaning on the walls). I saw M4* in line several people in front of me but he was talking to someone and I didn't want to interrupt to say hello. When I had my chance, he was lighting a cigarette and putting headphones on. At first I was shocked that he would be smoking in the post office; second, that he would be smoking at all, as he had a cancer scare a year ago; and third, he doesn't strike me as the smoking type. I realized that he was putting on the headphones so that he could smoke without having to hear anyone say anything about it. I assumed it had something to do with his post-cancer treatment.

This probably comes from the fact that I was at H.E.B. yesterday and scoffed when I saw a woman grocery shopping with her iPod plugged into her head. Then five minutes later I made a note to myself to do the same through the end of the year because I was humming "Feliz Navidad" as I left the store.

Next, M6 was there and she was smoking too. She was smoking a cool-looking cigarette with a white filter and a filter-colored tobacco part. I looked around the post office and others were smoking as well. I said, "Am I the only one who doesn't smoke anymore?" M6 said, "You're smoking." Sure enough, there was a cigarette in my hand.

I don't know what that part was about. I smoke one or two tiny, hand-rolled cigs a day mostly for the little nicotine high I get (cheap drug). I roll my own so I can make them small, otherwise I would smoke whole cigarettes and not enjoy them very much. I also roll my own so I don't have to think about the litter of the filter. I've seriously considered starting to smoke a pipe. I always think of that as an older guy thing, but S1 pointed out last night that I'm in my mid-40s now (because, according to him, it starts at 44, though, also according to him, it lasts through 47, most likely because that's the age he's coming upon!).

I got to the front of the line, dipped my cigarette in a mop bucket under the counter to put it out and threw it toward the small garbage can back there. It missed, landed in a plop on the floor. The postal worker appeared at that moment from behind me and lifted the counter to go behind and wait on me. I said, "I missed the trash can, I need to pick that up." He said, "You'll have to wipe up the mess, too." I said, "It's just water." He said, "Mop water and a cigarette butt."

what's up, 007.5?

I've never thought much about Sean Connery, but last night I dreamed I was making out with him. Just kissing -- tongue, yes -- but nothing more than that. It was hot. It went on and on. And what did I do after? I went to Disneyland. Seriously. (In my dream.)

Astroworld was the theme park closest to where I grew up (alas, gone now). Just past the ticket booths and before you get to Main Street, USA, are the bathrooms. In my dream, there were lots of hot (mostly black) men in the restroom I went to after making out with Sean Connery. The urinals were so close together that we were squeezed in bicep-to-bicep to get our streams aimed in the right directions. I ended up in the furthest urinal, next to the two toilet stalls, which instead of solid doors had heavy cyclone fence doors that made it possible to see into their tan tiled interiors.

I noticed the stalls because some hot tattooed mulatto guy was standing naked at the one closest to me, fanning the door open to get a little fresh air moving around the room before he went back to servicing his hot black prison-like stud who was sitting on the toilet, also naked. I felt like I was stuck on the set of a porn film in the making.

I've had worse dreams.

vagina mona-logue

I had chapters one and three critiqued by the Group last night. (Chapter two had already been critiqued so I put a brief synopsis of it between the chapters.) They liked chapter one (the diary entry) over chapter three (Rona's monologue), not that they were in competition. Some feel I overdo it on the details whereas others believe my details are a strong point (so I guess that was a wash). Some were confused by the change of voice (to Rona, telling Mona's story) in chapter three, but that's ignorable since I expect the entire book to change voices in many ways, and they don't really know that yet -- it was only chapter three, for pete's sake. One retired gentleman named G2*, whom I really like personally and as a writer (well I don't really know him that well personally), said, "I'm not a prude, but what's with all the masturbation?"

are you ready to fumble?

I always seem to miss my opportunity when people ask me what my novel is about. John Irving says in his 1998 introduction to the Modern Library reprint of The World According to Garp, "Surely everyone knows the two most common questions that are asked of any novelist. What is your book about? And is it autobiographical? These questions and their answers have never been of compelling interest to me -- if it's a good novel, both the question and the answers are irrelevant..." While I tend to agree with the man responsible for making me think I could write a novel in the first place, it doesn't stop people from asking those questions, and paraphrasing his response comes off as a bit impudent.

It's about Compassion. That's what I'd like to say when people ask what my novel is about. That may only come through after the reader is finished with her job and contemplating further, but that's okay -- in fact, I think that's great. But compassion is what I'm putting into it, that's what I'm aiming for. It would be enough to just say that, and when people asked me to elaborate, to smile and put a finger to my lips (the way M4 did when I innocently asked him what was inside of a wooden box that he and J4 were building that made it ping and whir musically) as if to say, "It's a secret" . But unfortunately people don't have to ask me to elaborate. I just go on and on, can't shut myself up, circle around the drain as I try to explain what my novel is about:

It's about a young man dying of AIDS, flashing back to different parts of his life as he revisits them in the present; it's about a burning car, a box of ashes, a dead iguana, a Diana Ross impersonator; there are lyrics to songs by Pink Floyd, recorded by Cher, from the soundtrack to the motion picture musical Hair, made up "on the spot"; it takes place in a mobile home park in Florida, gay porn theaters in Times Square, the Branch Davidian Compound near Waco, Texas, the shore of Alcatraz Island; it's presented in First, Second and Third Person, and features performance art pieces by the title character -- who is not the narrator -- which fall randomly between chapters and are called "interstitials" in the book (S1 gave me that word).

I don't think this description gives clarity. "It's about Compassion" would be a much better answer.

When people ask if it's autobiographical, I usually say, "I'm not dying, if that's what you mean."

blessing in disguise

The internet connection has been particularly tentative in the apartment the last several days. I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with the digging in the streets going on around the neighborhood. I guess I could call Time Warner and complain, but the thought of waiting on the phone with elevator music and an occasional voice coming on to say "Your call is very important to us, please continue to hold," makes me want to try something, anything else to avoid that. There's no real rhyme or reason to that aversion. It might help. It's kind of like my aversion to washing food baggies. I generally enjoy washing dishes, but for some reason baggies will stay on the to-be-washed side of the counter for a couple of days before I'll take a deep breath and dive in. (Not that difficult to do once I do it.)

Yesterday, I couldn't get onto the website that allows me to download work from the company in NYC that has been helping me pay my bills for eleven years or so. I tried several times and finally gave up. The day before was a very frustrating work day because the internet connection was up and down and things were taking twice as long as usual, and though that might sound okay from the standpoint of I'm getting paid hourly, I'd rather have my teeth pulled than sit with that. I tried several things, including emailing other support staffers and the IT person at the company. No help was forthcoming.

So I turned of the work computer, turned on the personal computer, and started working on Chapter Four. I spent a good six hours splicing the new stuff I was writing with the old stuff from before -- basically a new beginning for an old ending. It's very exciting to see fiction come together, it's like pulling a loose board from the floor and finding an alternative world going on in the crawlspace; I'm often surprised that it's me coming up with the story, and not totally convinced that some outside force isn't working through me. I've said before that it feels more like channeling than writing.

My goal was to get the chapter to less than 5,000 words, only because the creative fiction critiquing group I belong to has a 5,000-word limit on submissions. I know some stories need more than 5,000 words to be told, and in those cases, we're encouraged to submit in two parts (something I haven't done and don't really want to do). Chapter Four is 250 words over the limit and it feels right. I've cut every adjective and conjunction that I can. I may just have to ask if I can submit on a week when there are only two submissions (normally there are three).

I'm not trying to write comedy -- I find that practically impossible -- but I think "Anita Cox" is a pretty darn funny chapter.

Tonight, I'm going over to P1's to drink wine and read to her; it's good for both of us.

where does it go???

Timmy has been a little under the weather, what with the little hole in his right shoulder and all the opiates and antibiotics I've been giving him and the ointment I've been squirting into the wound. I've noticed he's been sneezing more recently. I think he's fine; maybe it's just the beautiful Texas fall weather. He sleeps on the corner of my bed about three feet behind me at my desk. I put a folded-up blanket there and he's happy to sleep on top of that; he was starting to leave a gray mark on the watermelon colored crushed velvet spread in that spot.

Anyway, I don't know if this is coincidence or some actual sort of physical thing that's going on, but it seems that every time Timmy sneezes, or just about every time, he does a yoga pose and licks his butthole. What's that about?

wild things

The theater I'm working at has volunteers to do different tasks such as running the sound board, lights, fold programs and sell tickets, etc. I'm one of these volunteers (I'm running projections of ghost images, water, fire...), but most of the others are from the Junior League. I don't want to say they're weird -- because they could say the same about me -- but we don't have a lot in common, I'll just put it that way.

The play we're working on features a Yankee soldier character who was a woman masquerading as a man for most of her short life (loving the wives of the soldiers before she ended up in battle). One evening recently I entered the booth where three of us volunteers and the stage manager (A5*) do our jobs. The two JL ladies were asking A5 why a woman was playing the part of then soldier and then stumbled over the word she gave them to explain it: trans-gender. There was more to the conversation but I don't want to go into it.

Tonight, the same two of them were in the projection booth alone, chatting as they do whenever it's allowed. A5 and I were in the front of the theater when they came running out saying, "There's a bat loose in the theater. Or a bird or something!" I had seen a grasshopper crawling up the white scrim that covers the front of the stage before I left the booth. I decided against trying to capture it and let it out. When I told them this, they practically spat, "A grasshopper. It's not a grasshopper!" Mind you, they weren't being nasty, they're just naturally dramatic. A5 and I looked for the flying thing but couldn't find it; A5 said, "Oh, well."

Not long after that I was in the booth with the JL ladies and the grasshopper started flying around the house lights dipping into the opening between booth and theater. The two ladies were very skittish, screaming, "Get it!" Before I was able to catch it and take it outside, one of them said, "But you can't kill it; it's bad luck to kill a grasshopper." The other said, "Why? They eat my plants; I kill them." Only slightly annoying. I was glad I didn't have to talk about my no-kill policy. "You mean not even ants or mosquitoes or cockroaches?" (Talk about weird.)

On the way home after the show tonight, I turned down Comal Street, it runs for two or three blocks uninterrupted between the two sides of the cemetery. About a block in, what looked like a cat lying in the other lane turned its eyes toward my headlights, and so it felt like he was looking into my eyes. A quick thought of "Why is a cat sleeping in the middle of the road?" was replaced by "It's been hit!" I saw a streak of blood down its coat. I slowed, then sped up, cursing, crying, not knowing what to do.

I came home, came into the house not really crying but more like moaning with few tears. S1 was flossing, getting ready for bed early because he'd had a long day. I told him I didn't know what to do, if I should run over him to put him out of his misery or try to take him to an emergency animal hospital (which sounded frightfully expensive). Maybe I could just pay to have him put to sleep.

S1 finished brushing and put on his shoes while I gathered up the cardboard carrying case I'd just bought a couple of days ago to take Timmy to the vet in and a rag towel, in case we needed to pick he injured animal up. (I should say in case I needed to pick him up; S1 wouldn't have been as likely to do so.)

When we got back to the scene of the accident, things had changed. The animal was still there, and it was dead. And it was a red fox. A beautiful fox. I don't know if I saw the other side of it when I drove by before and saw the blood or if I imagined the blood, but she was laid out beautifully and peacefully in the middle of the road, her coat unmarred, a possible dent in her temple, which probably means she couldn't have lasted long after getting hit. It brings tears to my eyes to think that I saw her die, or looked into her eyes moments before she died. There's something sad and beautiful about that.

I wanted to move her off to the grass on the side of the road but S1 wouldn't let me. He didn't physically restrain me but he warned me sternly several times and I relented. I feel bad that I didn't do it. I forgot I had taken the rag towel until just this moment. I'm not sure if S1's fear was about me contracting something from the fur or wounds or that the fox might come to life and bite me, but it feels a improper to me that I didn't move her.

I'm glad she was dead, though. I'm glad she wasn't writhing about with a broken leg or some other awful thing. Then what would I do? A wild animal. I know it would be a bad idea to try to rescue an injured wild animal, but I'm not sure I would have been able to help myself.

meowch

Sunday night, I rented two movies, A Simple Plan (directed by Sam Raimi) and 400 Blows (dir. Truffaut). S1 and I watched them on his wide-screen computer screen. Timmy wanted out so I opened S1's screen door and out he went. About ten minutes later, there was a scuffle outside. I went out the front of the house looking for him. His former roommates and nemeses (Clyde and Puppy, both cats) were sitting in the side yard, Clyde by S1's door, Puppy at the front. I found Timmy across the street, as per usual, and brought him in.

Twenty-four hours later, as I was brushing my teeth, etc., Timmy plopped down on the bathroom floor (as he often does to get his belly rubbed) and I noticed a shiny red spot on his right shoulder. It was a bite, to the muscle, a little smaller than a dime. Shocking! He didn't seem to be in pain, but he kept licking it, especially after S1 and I put triple antibiotic ointment on it. He probably would've been okay, but I decided to take him to the vet. I had been thinking about it, and then when S1 said to keep an eye on the bite because it might get infected, that it might need a stitch or two, I figured I would just take him anyway.

An ounce of prevention costs $250, I found out. Fortunately, I'm okay on bills and have been working a lot recently, so it didn't hurt too bad. And to be fair to the veterinary profession, I also got his rabies and other vaccinations (except for FVH -- because he has to get tested for that in three months due to the bite and will get the vaccination after he tests negative), and I got the tick and ear mite drops and a 5.5-pound bag of the special food he has to eat because his urine is crystalline.

So much for not wanting to have a pet because they cost money and would slow me down on my goal of getting out of debt.

But, then again, how much does this kitty give me in love and affection? And how much of a cat person am I? His pain medicine is an opiate, and after watching the second of the two movies that I rented on Sunday last night, after not having had a visit from Timmy in S1's room the duration of the long French movie, I found him zonked out -- quite high, actually -- on my folded up blanket next to the heater. I made S1 come look at him, which caused S1 to sigh and I realized then that I would do anything for this little furry gray thing!

forty-five

I can't decide whether to call JD* (I always use both first and last name when I talk about him). Today is his birthday. I recently marked it down in my mind that he's 360 days older than me. JD is one of those missed opportunities. Or really he's one of those opportunities that came and went and I enjoyed, and I want more of. I can't decide if I'm in love with JD or if I just enjoyed our not-so secret affair.

I met him in NYC -- that's where he is and forever will be -- in 1996, I think. I was carting cases of cat food and litter, etc. home on a dolly from the pet store in Union Square. (S1 and I used to push buggies and carts of stuff around, to shows, to the grocery store, unashamedly, like two old ladies!) JD was walking down Second Avenue. Our eyes met. This is the kind of thing that used to happen for me, the kind of thing that still happens for many gay men and maybe even some straight people, I don't know. We turned back, stopped to chat, saw a mutual interest, made a plan for sex. I took the cat products home, told S1 I'd met somebody and was going to his apartment (for better or for worse, S1 and I had a very open relationship) and made my way to the lower Lower East Side to JD's apartment. He met me at the door and we didn't get past the foyer for the sex. It was great sex. He was so sexy; I was so sexy.

We saw each other three or four times between that first time and the time S1 and I left NYC for Nashville with the Act. Once I happened upon JD coming out of the gift store he owns and he took me home with him. That time we got as far as the living room floor. It was a summer day. He had a friend over shortly after I left and could only joke about the big wet spot on the painted wooden floor (sweat and whatnot) as he mopped it up. Another time. I saw him at an outdoor restaurant eating with a friend. I didn't know if it was a boyfriend or just a pal, but I didn't care. I walked up and down the block, one side then the other, pretended to use the pay phone, biding my time, and he later told me he quick-as-possible paid the bill and told his friend he needed to go home alone, or without him. (I think he was open about what was going on as well. He told me once that he could never be unfaithful in relationships, not that he had any problems having sex with other people who were being unfaithful.)

Between the times I saw JD -- sometimes many months -- I didn't think a lot about him. When we saw each other around the East Village, that was when the spark was there. There wasn't a time that I saw him that we didn't end up at his house for sex. I don't know if he ever saw and ignored me, but I tend to think not, it seems like it was some kind of a deep connection. Maybe it was only physical, but it felt very deep when we were together.

Just before we moved away from NYC, I suddenly had a strong desire to see JD. I think I journaled about it, I "put it out there in the universe" as the hippie-dippies say, and just a few days before the departure, I ran into him in his studio in a completely different part of the East Village, some place I would never have expected to find him. It was kismet.

And so I left NYC. I didn't think much about JD. Once in a while fond memories of the connection we had would wash over me, but we never exchanged phone numbers, never got physical or email addresses for each other. Eventually, I forgot his last name; I knew it was the name of a town in a northeastern state -- that was what he told me to help me remember it the first time or two he told me -- but going through a road atlas was of no help. When we traveled through NYC with the Act, I tried to find his gift store but couldn't remember exactly where it was.

Years passed.

Two years ago, I was in NYC, I went to a meditation retreat on the Lower East Side. The meditation leader instructed us before the lunch break to spend a certain amount of time during the break being silent, taking our surroundings in. Some people were meeting at a falafel shop in fifteen minutes, others were doing things on their own. I had planned to go to the falafel shop but decided shortly after I left the loft space that I wanted to take a lot longer getting there. I let the WALK lights lead me. I went this way then than, all of a sudden finding myself standing at the door of JD's gift shop, and he was inside. My heart raced. I went in, looked at the myriad items displayed throughout the store, slowly wending my way to the counter.

JD saw me, said "How are you doing today?" I said, "Fine." After a moment, he said, "Don't I know you?" I said, "Yeah, I used to live here." He said, "And you have a birthday coming up soon." I almost melted on the spot. He wrote his cell phone number on the back of a business card and gave it to me (it's on my desk right now), told me to call him. I did. We got together, had sex.

The only problem was the sex wasn't as magical as it had been all those other times. I don't know if that was because I had such high expectations after all I'd gone through since the last time we'd seen each other. I don't know if it was because it wasn't as spontaneous as it had been every other time before; we made plans, met up, walked together back to his apartment, the same apartment, stopping on the way for snacks. Or maybe it was because I had been going through a sexual change in my life, not looking at porn, not masturbating, diving into meditation and pulling away from the things I did that seemed to harm me.

Still, the sex lasted a long time. My penis was sore for days afterward, which used to be a good sign(!) but this time was just annoying. I lost my erection -- we were doing a lot of rubbing through our clothes and I became very sensitive and started wondering what this guy was into, started asking myself "Was he so into frottage back in the day? Was I? Is this all there is to our connection?" We lay on his couch naked and talked for a long time (after I finally came), which was my favorite part about the exchange. I found out that he had been in a relationship for six years, which had started shortly after I left NYC and ended a year and a half before this reunion. The problem with the relationship was that his lover lived in France. When they first started dating, the Frenchman was in NYC a lot, and it worked out. But then he changed jobs, was in France more, and they started having a long distance relationship, and, JD said, that was the beginning of the end.

That's what it was! The difference was I was so intent this time on finding a lover that the sex was overshadowed by my inner voices: This could work! Finally you have the perfect lover! Do a good job JDJB and he'll want you!

I realized on the couch that it would never work. I don't want to live in NYC, JD has a successful business there so he's not gonna move...to Texas. And neither of us really wants a long distance relationship. I called him the next time I was in NYC, which was close to Christmastime, but he didn't call me back. He had said something about being at his family's during that time and wasn't sure if he would be around, "But do call." I did, and he didn't call back, and I had a generally bad time in the City that Christmas alone.

I've only been back to NYC once since then, early this summer. I had talked about going again this holiday season, but it didn't seem like a good idea. (Well, it's not a good idea now because I don't have a plane ticket.) The thought of JD stirs up a lot of emotions in me. I don't know what to do. My biggest fear is I'll call and he'll answer and beyond "Happy Birthday" we won't have much to say to each other. He's still doing the same thing; I'm still doing the same thing. There's nothing to report. Physicality seemed to be our best communication, and now that that's not possible, it doesn't really seem like there's anything else.