dark cloud approaching

S said that several of his closest friends in life struggle with depression. I am one of them. When I first met him, I didn't know this about myself, I just thought there was something wrong with me, that I was moody at times, and unpredictably so. Well, there is something wrong with me. It's called depression; it comes like a storm front, like a slow-moving dark cloud that I can sense but don't really understand. As I've gotten older -- really in the last five years or so, since my Great Depression -- I've been able to recognize the change in me as it's happening (or directly after), but still haven't figured out any method for thwarting the episode, the way I supposedly have for thwarting panic attacks -- tapping constantly on my sternum, which rarely works, but it's all I have so I still employ it.

Yesterday was I think the first time I recall being aware of the transition from okay state to state of depression. I worked all day, had plans last night to take P out to see the housing project at M&J's, and then dinner. I was hungry when I picked her up at 7, but we went on to M&J's so we could see the containers before dark and so we could hang out with them a little bit before little P's bedtime.

When P called me at 5 I told her I was weary -- and I was -- but just assumed it was from working hard staring at the computer all day, and assured her I was still up for our evening together. Partly I believed that was true, but I also didn't want to set her to asking me questions if I said I wasn't up for going out, or said I was too weary or whatever; I didn't want to have to try to answer the questions, then or later. I have this self-preservation tactic of telling people I'm perfectly find (if I'm just a little off) because I've found that peoples' questioning sets me off in a weird way, frustrates me because I don't know how to respond, and then I tend to become defensive. S has pointed this out on more than one occasion, referring to the fact that when I become quiet, people see me as different from my "normal" state and question it, and I get defensive.

Questions seem to be at the heart of it, having to expose myself, or being asked to explain myself when I'm in a state of uncertainty. I probably should have stayed home last night. P is a naturally inquisitive person, and she seems to want to get "at the heart of things," which likely comes from her work as a social worker (or perhaps is her normal state and that's why she became a social worker). I tried to answer her questions as noncommittally as possible, but felt the defensiveness rising to the surface when she asked how my heart and soul were, questions I don't really understand when I'm in the best of moods.

On top of that, I had eaten a very small lunch and it was after 9 by the time we had dinner, so by 8:30 or so, as we were driving around unsuccessfully trying to find a restaurant, I was feeling clammy and grumpy and pretty antisocial, yet P was being her usual inquisitive self and I felt myself shrinking into a corner. Finally, she said, "You seem kind of pissy tonight," which was kind of a steam valve release on my emotional state. I stumbled through not the most eloquent or friendly explanation of what I was going through, and after a wounded moment or two, P smiled and I smiled and we stepped off of the minefield and back onto the main path, so to speak. But the damage was already done, and I think we both were a little bruised by the experience.

I dropped her off and came home exhausted but unable to sleep. I sat on the porch and smoked a cigarette; I smoked a bowl; I lay awake in bed for an hour then got up and took a shower. Finally I drifted off to sleep somewhere around 1:30, then woke up at 7 and lay there in a half-live state. I couldn't go back to sleep so I rolled out of bed at 7:30, worked for a couple of hours, then fell on the bed in tears. I pictured myself as one of those desk knick-knacks, the clear plastic rectangle with half blue water and half clear oil that tips back and forth to simulate waves. During the time I was awake and working, I felt groggy, dizzy, like water was splashing around inside of me; my feet were heavy. When I lay down, the wave rolled up to my head and splashed out of my eyes. Something like that. I had some negative thoughts about myself for awhile then fell asleep and woke again at 11.

I feel a little better now -- more rested -- but I can still feel the presence of my little black cloud hanging over me. I'm gonna have to wait it out.

evil eye ball

I went to the Evil Eye Ball with A last night; it was a fundraiser for Rude Mechs Theater Company. There was free Real Ale and good food (though we'd eaten at Blue Dahlia right before and I could only stuff down a few tiny tarts). People were encouraged to dress up in their luckiest outfits, or to wear some sort of evil eye; all of this because this is Rude Mechs' 13th year. S painted eyes on the back of my head -- which turned out pretty cool. I had matching dark underlines on the front side because I'd read that young Nepali girls are never allowed to leave the house without darkened eyes (evil eyes) to ward off bad spirits.

I bought a beer glass with the Evil Eye logo on it and had a couple of beers, then wandered around the space perusing the silent auction items, and ended up with "Pckg #24," which contained a $25 gift certificate to Farm to Market grocery store; a Farm to Market T-shirt; a subscription to Edible Austin magazine (plus the two old issues and one current one that were on display); a pound of coffee from Progress Coffee as well as a $10 gift certificate to Progress Coffee. Value: $93. Cost: $45.

I ran into lesbian artist M (on whom I have a crush) and she told me about her recent trip to Cuba; I chatted with all of A's many acquaintances in the Austin art and performance world, the UT community and the Dance Group she's heavily involved in (me not so much anymore, but that's where I met her), including J, whom I like, and her Welsh husband C, whom I've never really talked to before, but he was drunk, as was I, and the two of us were cracking each other up while the hired hypnotist went on and on and on and on...zzz... We were cracking other people up too (and probably annoying the hypnotist) because we were talking a little too loud.

Hypnotist: When I snap my fingers, you'll go twice as deep. (Snap.) Twice as deep. (Snap) Twice as deep.
C: So they're, what, four times as deep now?
Me: Twice as deep? Call me when you're twice as long, then we'll talk!

Oh, well, you're bound to get at least a couple of ne'er-do-wells when you're giving out free liquor.

I bought another beer glass on the way out (thankful that I hadn't won the silent auction item of "Pies for a Year in the form of one Pie a Month," which I bid $120 on -- undeniably a good deal, and I'm sure S would have been happy had I won, but still!) and was home by 11:00. S wasn't home -- most likely out at the Chain Drive with his buddies -- so I smoked a cigarette on the porch, then hit the one-hitter and went to bed, too drunk to do anything productive, including, as it turned out, brushing my teeth or doing any of my ritualistic nighttime duties, which I attributed as the cause of my bad dream karma.

After my 7:30 a.m. pee, I had two disturbing dreams, which probably won't sound as disturbing in writing, but you know how it is. They were terrifying.

1. I found an armadillo. He became my pet. We loved each other. He rode around on my shoulders and on the top of my little pickup truck. He was like a little fat plushy toy, soft-shelled.

Then something went wrong. He climbed out of back window while I was driving around and couldn't hold onto the roof like he had before. He fell onto a busy street. I pulled over and chased him on foot. When I caught him, he was smaller, no armor, more ratlike, with fangs that he kept trying to bite me with.

2. I was at a house with a big yard. I don't know if it was my house, but an old man who reminded me of my mother's father lived there. My middle sister was there, as were my two nephews -- one of whom belonged to her, the other to my older sister. I was going away and we were trying to figure out what to do with the pet rabbit and the stray dog puppy. We had cages for them, but they were small and I was worried that the animals, particularly the stray dog puppy, would go crazy in the time that I was gone, no free time to run around. I guess the old man was going to feed them, but I didn't trust him to do it right.

I was attaching plastic to the inside flap of the mailbox to keep the mail from blowing away or getting wet while I was gone. It was a very tedious process I was employing, using little lengths of wire to attach the plastic to the metal box. My sister said she had already taken care of that, but I pointed out that she had only done a side-to-side flap with duct tape and I was fortifying that with the top-to-bottom flap of plastic and wire.

The nephews saw something at the fence line, a dead animal or a dirty diaper or something. They were going on about it, but I couldn't be bothered; I was busily making preparations for my departure and for the animals. I decided that maybe I could afford to board the dog at least, and got in the old man's truck to drive across town for something; I didn't ask his permission. My sister was going too but in a different vehicle with the boys, I guess.

There was a dog dragging its butt along the side of the road, and then the stray dog puppy was suddenly running to catch up with me, running in the busy street. The dog dragging its butt got up under a car, but the driver avoided running over it; I was afraid I was going to hit and kill the stray dog puppy, and I was having a hard time driving the old man's truck, which was standard transmission with a hand clutch instead of a foot pedal. Suddenly I was in unknown territory, on a street I didn't recognize in an unfamiliar town.

There were sirens and flashing lights. I saw two police motorcycles on a parallel street. I pulled over with the other cars and people. The motorcycles were escorting scary-looking prisoners to jail. A black man standing in the street next to me made an unfortunate move and a prison guard stepped out of the line of prisoners and shot him in the gut. I fell to the ground like everyone else did until the prisoner procession had passed.

When I stood again I had a sporty motorcycle (which I didn't know how to work) and had a pistol in two parts (which I had a hard time putting together and keeping it that way). I pushed the motorcycle forward but I was suddenly in a hallway, in a doorway. I turned around and was headed off by a security guard who hadn't been there seconds before. He was demanding to see my prison ID. I told him I didn't have one but he didn't believe me. He pointed to a sign on the wide open door (which I had missed) that said not to go through that door without the proper ID. I was scared, frantic, pulled out my Texas driver's license and in all of my confused explaining mentioned that I had lived in Tennessee before. He asked me suspiciously, "Oh, yeah? In what district?" I told him I didn't know, that I'd never heard of such a term. He told me not to go anywhere and left with my driver's license. I considered running, but there were too many things stacked against me (and I thought of the black man who got shot for less).

Then I woke up.

luxuries

I don't know why it feels like a luxury to have the time and inclination to write, or to sit on the porch smoking a cigarette, thinking about what I've written or what I'm going to write. I had a little bit of a dry spell over the past few months; a dry spell, or maybe a germination period. But in the last few days I've gotten through chapters eighteen -- which needed a complete rewrite -- and twenty-five, which was pretty much good to go. The reason I skipped the chapters in between is because I'm working on the story chronologically now, and it feels much better. I was bogged down on chapter sixteen, so I put it aside for the time being, moved onto seventeen; but that one was written, so I moved onto eighteen, which is the next installment of the "NYC" storyline. Twenty-five was the next and last of the NYC storyline (with a total of four). And now I'm back to nineteen, which is part of the "Houston" storyline.

There are seven "storylines" running through august chagrin:

• diary (5)
• road (4)
  
• childhood (5)
  
• nyc (4)
  
• houston (4)
  
• letter (5)
  
• performance (5)
  

I put quotes around "storyline," because not all of them are actually stories; I'm thinking here of the performance art pieces that are sprinkled throughout. In fact, every storyline is sprinkled throughout. But not every storyline is the same length (the parenthetical numbers indicates how many parts each storyline has).

I was trying to write everything in the order I see it appearing in the novel, but that meant I was jumping onto a different storyline every time I finished one, and that was making it unnecessarily difficult on me. It's a lot easier to write through each storyline because I'm more familiar with the characters, am more able to be in the head of whomever the narrator is (that changes according to the storyline as well -- Sheesh!)

Admittedly, it is a very clever format, but it just kind of came together that way; I didn't really set out to make a novel-puzzle, but it would be more confusing, I think, were I to lay it all out chronologically. I guess we'll all see, in the end. S has been reading over the first draft and seems to think it flows quite nicely, so for now he's my best and only real judge.

Some of the good news is that I'm up to chapter nineteen (I'll get back to sixteen later), which means I already have at least three parts of the first four storylines under my belt, so I just might make my goal of completing the first draft of this monster by November 1, which is the three-year anniversary of the month I came up with the idea and started writing notes and an outline.

rogge ranch: the beginning

These are pictures I took this morning of our shipping containers being set into place on their piers. It was a gorgeous day, and our future home is coming together. But I don't really have time to write right now because I spent all morning out there and need to work now.

going to the ghetto

Last night was the first rehearsal of the gay men's chorus that I now belong to. I wasn't sure how I would be received or if any of my inner alarms or dialogs would get the better of me, but the first thing I noticed about the whole night was that I could wear whatever I wanted and not worry about what others might think. I mean, sure, if I wore my one-piece over-the-shoulder green thong, I might have gotten harassed for wildly inappropriate fashion for choir practice or for a church (even a gay Methodist church). But I didn't wear that. I got a new pair of striped light blue cotton slacks at the tax-free weekend on Sunday, which I trimmed just below the knees, then I had my dark blue T-shirt with the odd drawing (in light blue) of a long-haired man with no face) and a red striped number 11 in the upper stage left corner. I wore my Simple hemp slip-ons and red socks. I paused a moment before I put on the red socks; then remembered I was going to the gay ghetto and I could wear whatever I wanted. No matter what people might say, I didn't have to worry about anyone thinking I was gay because of what I was wearing. This is something I go through on a regular basis in my life. I like bright clothes; I'm a tall person; I stand out. It's just who I am. But sometimes I get out somewhere and get an uncomfortable feeling that I'm being judged.

I told S when I got home and he said this is why people are proponents of the Gay Ghetto. I hadn't really thought about it much. I have always felt kind of out of place in gay-specific places like gay bars, but I've decided more recently that it's because they're bars and that I don't really care for bars.

There was a little awkwardness last night, but it didn't cripple me. For one thing, a guy I'd seen the week before kind of gave me a short answer when I asked him what section he was in; it felt a little off-putting. He was a bass and didn't seem too interested in having a conversation with me.

But there were plenty of men who did. And I let go (as best I could) of my judgments of who was "too gay" or whatever and just tried to enjoy the experience. And I did. I only know a couple of peoples' names so far, but there's one guy named L who is such a flaming Irish queen; he's got strawberry blond hair and a bright face -- and I think he's lost his eyebrows or regularly plucks them away -- and he makes me laugh. He's kind of ditsy, which I think is his natural way, but he plays it up for comic effect. Homosexuals can be so funny; there's a lot of good material to be mined in the gay ghetto, I'm finding. Or I'm remembering. It's not like I've never been to a gay bar (or never had a good time in one) or that I've never been to a bathhouse or piano bar or gay rodeo. Okay, I've never been to a gay rodeo, but I think I'm against that more for the animal cruelty aspect than the desire to not see men in tight-fitting Brokeback Mountain duds...

To start off the rehearsal, we did what the director called a "Group Grope," which was a little weird. We all turned to face the right and did "whatever the person behind us was doing to the person in front of us." As far as I could tell, it was all neck and back massage. And we did some vocalizing all the while. Then we turned around and did it to the person behind us. Everyone seemed to be pretty concentrated in this part of the evening. As for the rest of the night, it was like being in junior high band again, with the person at the front of the room having to constantly shush one part of the room while he worked with another.

Masculine appearances aside, I'm not sure I'm suited for the baritone section. There are two baritone parts, and in my welcome email, I was told that I would take the higher baritone parts whenever available. But I felt like I was screeching and straining my voice. And the music was hard. I'm not complaining about that. I'm glad the songs are difficult; I know it'll all come together by performance time and be pretty impressive. But I wonder if I shouldn't be singing bass. It seems a little weird that the director decided so quickly in my tryout that I was a baritone (with forty or so other guys in the chorus) and they only have eight or nine bass singers and seem to be hurting for them. I've always sung bass -- and though I said before that I think I'll like the baritone section better, I'm not sure I'm up for it.

We'll see; I'll give it a little time and then go talk to somebody if I still feel like I'm in the wrong place. However, it's comforting to know that even though I feel out of place (as per usual), I know that there's a place somewhere in there for me.

praise jesus' hellish name

Whenever I'm absent from blogging for awhile, it means I'm either busy or depressed or away. I'm not depressed lately -- fortunately -- nor have I been out of town -- unfortunately, though I do have a trip planned to Nashville in October, which I'm looking forward to. When I'm busy, it's either with writing or with work. Lately, I've been extremely busy, more so with work than writing. In fact I'd kind of taken a break from the novel because I was getting bogged down. But I managed to get down several pages of chapter eighteen, "august chagrin," the titular chapter, just last night. I never was completely satisfied with chapter sixteen, but I had to just leave it be and move on. S is my first editor, and this was his advice, and he's been reading through what I've got so far and has encouraged me to not give up and to not get stuck. The first draft of chapter seventeen was already done so I moved onto eighteen, and would say I got a third of it written down last night. That feels good.

I've been busy with work and busy with the housing project. Yesterday the concrete columns got poured. M called me at about ten a.m. to say the cement truck was on its way and to apologize that they hadn't given us a little more notice. The transcription queue at work is very full, and there were several "emergency transcripts" that had to be done this weekend, but I finished the last of those this morning, so we're in good shape.

I videotaped the pouring of the concrete; S probably would have preferred to film it himself, but he was out late the night before and still asleep when I rushed out of the house to get to M&J's before the cement truck arrived. As it turned out, I barely had time to get the camera out before the truck turned the corner. I think I got some good footage, but we'll see about that when S starts editing(!).

We spread the leftover cement in the driveway where the bigger dips were. And then J, Little P and B (J's friend who's helping him with the welding, digging, clearing, etc.) went for a burger and I came home to transcribe some more. M mentioned that she'd gotten the film Jesus Camp from Netflix and asked if I wanted to watch it with her. I'd already seen it -- though I was more than interested in seeing it again -- but S had not, he said he wanted to, so he and I put all the beer from our fridge into a canvas bag (so we wouldn't have to go to the store), picked up a couple of pizzas from East Side Pies (seriously the best pizza in Austin) and headed over at about seven. We ate then got super-stoned and watched the movie, which was a great way to watch Jesus Camp (really, it's the best way to watch any film!).

I was struck again by how reminiscent of my childhood Jesus Camp is, with preteen kids speaking in tongues and proselytizing to complete strangers-- I did that shit! While the others in the room were saying, "Oh my god" at the weird antics of the Christian families, I was feeling a little woozy about my life not all that long ago. When I was a kid, we said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Christian Flag, and back then, it seemed pretty routine. Watching in onscreen last night sounded a little more cultish, made me think that it's not all that different for Nazi youth who did their special pledges and prayers, etc.

It's an amazing film equally for those us who were raised Evangelical and for those who were
not. For those of you who were not, and think that perhaps some of the scenes were faked for the camera, I swear to god that they are very realistic, truthful representations of that lifestyle.

Since the movie came out, the camp that the movie was named for was shut down amid threats by locals. That's a relief; believe me, nine- and ten-year-old kids don't know what they're doing in the area of Evangelism, and the damage done because of that lifestyle will last for many years, if not their lifetime. I think I escaped because my father died when I was sixteen and because I'm a homosexual -- in that order. It makes me appreciate a little more my accomplishments in life.

a roomful of fairies

Surely I'm not the only homophobic homosexual in the world. Many of them try to hide their sexuality. That's not it for me, I just have this deep-seated self-hatred that I'm sure came from my Fundamentalist roots. (And, trust me, it was less Fun and a lot more mental growing up the way I did.)

I didn't join the choir or drama in high school until after my father died because of a fear that people would perceive me as gay. I don't know how much that decision really had to do with my father; the fact that kids started calling me "Gay Bird" in the eighth grade made me hyper-aware of how I was perceived. It had something to do with the way I walked and carried my books, according to a girl my age who lived on my street and tried to teach me how to hold my schoolbooks at my side and not drop them. Looking back now, I see the irony in that little lesson, since she was a pretty butch girl.

Later, I chose to move to New York City over San Francisco because in the back of my mind I would quickly be "outed" by going to a city that supported and therefore obviously stood for all things queer. I might have liked San Francisco; but then again, I might be dead by now. I believe that my homophobia has kept me HIV negative. Not that I haven't had lots of sex in my time, but there were many times when I held back, didn't do quite as much as I really wanted to, not so much because of a fear of AIDS, but more of a fear as appearing feminine, weak, too gay.

My mother's older brother, C, is gay. After my one year of college -- which I flunked out of because my dorm mates found and read my journal which implicated many of them in my homosexual fantasies -- I lived with my uncle on and off. Like many of my family relationships, ours was and is sort of complicated and troubled in many ways. I'm sad to say we're pretty much estranged from each other, and I believe it's the way it has to be. But back in the happier days, he and his cousin L (who was very "nelly" and died of AIDS -- case in point) and I used to run around doing lots of drugs and hitting the bars and bookstores. I was often embarrassed by L's gayness, asked him not to be so nelly more than once. Fortunately, he had a good sense of humor about himself, and he deserved to be as big and flamboyant a fag as he wanted to be, having been in the armed services and married to a woman for quite a few years who pussy-whipped him in the most literal sense of the word possible.

Once when I was back in Bigtown visiting my mother -- who was at the time married to the most hateful redneck I've ever gotten that close to (his wife left him for another woman) -- my mom asked me nervously over a cocktail if L was "queer" and then if C was "queer." I ratted them out without the slightest compunction, and perhaps that was why she didn't pose the same question to me.

Interestingly, it was after my running around with C and L that I got married to a woman for a brief period of time. She was seventeen years my senior -- I met her through a straight friend I had a crush on who was her son. JM a lot like my mother in many ways. Speaking of my mother, she was so excited when JM and I got together; so long as she was female and white (or at least not black), mom probably wouldn't have cared if she was seventeen or seventy. JM and I both stated our sexuality to each other as bi, and honestly we had great sex. But when the fire died down, she wasn't really all that interested in women, and neither was I. We married because JM had an ailment (she was bipolar) and I had a job that offered health insurance to spouses. That act pretty much pissed the fire out completely.

And so I went to NYC, telling my mother and one of my sisters, just before I turned twenty-five, that I was bisexual on my way out of Houston. My sister said she "didn't care what I was," and my mother didn't say much. (In her defense, mom has since become a lot more open-minded; she even helped Uncle C make a section for the AIDS Quilt in their cousin L's memory.) I did go through a few bouts of bisexual longing while in NYC, but it was simply much easier to have sex with men than women, so that's what I found myself doing more of, and liking more.

S and I met and had a great sex life for awhile, and always a very open relationship (which is likely part of the reason we stopped enjoying each other physically, but whatever, we probably wouldn't be as close now all these sixteen years later had we had forced ourselves into monogamy). We started performing together about a week after we met, and so that was as big a part of our partnership as anything for the ten years we were an official "couple." We played gay and theatrical venues first, but then, after we were booed off a stage at an ACT-UP benefit (we assume because we did sounded a little too "country" for the hip New York queers) we found less and less favor with gay audiences -- though we did play in front of 15,000 people at the Gay Pride Rally that year, which was amazing. At the end of our ten-year career, we were playing more for a true cross-section of Americans at Unitarian Universalist churches, folk venues and (Border's) bookstores, which meant it was about 97% heterosexual.

So, when we stopped performing, I had a hard time socializing with people; for the better part of the previous ten years, I was in the spotlight, people approached me, Middle American homos loved us for just being regular people who happened to be a gay couple. It was a very difficult transition for me, I went through a two-year depression, and have spent the larger part of the the past three-and-a-half years trying to fit in and feeling like a social outcast, drawing on the pain of eighth grade to understand it.

It's not that I don't like homosexuals. Not really. I think sometimes that I would like to be in a relationship with a man again, but then I get all caught up in worrying about how this person might act, or how a "relationship" would even work at my age. My good lesbian friend G says that I need to stop worrying so much about finding a boyfriend and just find some gay males to be friends with.

Austin is a very lesbian-centric town; the gals are organized and socialized, some of them I find quite attractive, too. The only real place it seems that one can meet gay men is at a bar. But I don't really like bars all that much. I'm not against them, and I do go on occasion, but I'd rather smoke pot than drink overpriced beer or cocktails. And I feel awkward in those situations.

Every week, I go through the Chronicle and circle things in the calendar that I might be interested in (that I might want to not miss) over the upcoming week. The most current issue had a listing for the Capital City Men's Chorus -- which is essentially Austin's Gay Men's Chorus, but it's been around for twenty years, so I'm sure some homosexual-phobia went into the naming of it. I read the entry aloud to S, and he said, "You should go."

And so I did, last night. I saw a roomful of fairies, and I was one of them. We were all different kinds of people (in fact there was even one heterosexual man, married and with children -- I recognized him from the Fiction Writing Group I used to go to), and the common denominator for us was that we all like to sing.

There was an orientation, and then we mingled and ate snacks while one at a time, we were called into the sanctuary (of the "gay-friendly Methodist church," ugh!) to "try out," which was really to find out what section we would be in. The guys I had met that I thought were the most interesting and cute(!) were all basses, and I was sure I was a bass, but I was told that I was a baritone, and at first I felt a bit emasculated by the news. "What do you mean I'm not the lowest, most masculine part in the chorus?!" But then, on the way home, I decided that I'll probably enjoy the baritone section better; when I was in the choir at the UU church in Nashville, I always grumbled to myself about how boring the bass parts were.

What a fag.

mutual appreciation

A while back I said to M, "I saw a movie last night that I wouldn't recommend." She said, "Finally!" I love most movies; I want to love them all! (I have a hard time rating movies I've seen on the Netflix website, they seem to get 5 stars or 1. There aren't a lot of 3-star movies in our account.) Sometimes things that are going on in my life affect my reception of a movie, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse -- probably less so now than when I was younger -- but I try my best to keep Life out of my movie experience. That's what movies are for!

Really good movies and really bad movies I guess can transcend whatever is happening in life, but I strive to meet movies where they are, take them for what they intend to be. S and I saw The Dark Knight at the IMAX the other night, which was totally appropriate. It was fun to experience the special effects in such a big way, and it was fun watching the actors. It was exactly what I (and I think what S) expected it to be. It only got 2 stars in The Chronicle, but I think the reviewer must've been expecting more.

S, A and I saw Brideshead Revisited not too long again, which was fine (again, completely what I expected). S and A loved it, but it's more their type of movie. Ben Whishaw was a revelation; I was enthralled whenever he was on screen, and started getting bored when he wasn't -- and not just because he was playing a homosexual. Not just. I put his earlier movie, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, on our Netflix queue.

The movie I saw awhile back that I wouldn't recommend to M was Rhinoceros Eyes. I wanted to see it for Michael Pitt, whom I'd just seen in The Dreamers (directed by Bertolucci; I loved it, S -- who didn't watch it with me but had already seen it -- thought it was just okay). But back to Rhinoceros Eyes. I don't think I would even say Rhinoceros Eyes was okay; it had a lot of problems story-wise, as well as with some of the acting. The woman who played Jenny in "All My Children" when I was in high school (or thereabouts), and then was in "NYPD Blue" was in Rhinoceros Eyes, and I don't think she was very good in it, on top of not thinking the character was very well developed or written.

Tonight, S and I watched Mutual Appreciation, our fourth film from the Netflix queue. We both loved it. The director/writer previously directed and wrote Funny Ha Ha, which S said he plans to put on the queue (which, at our current plan and considering the number of films already on the queue, means we'll probably get it in about 18 months from now!).

It would take a lot to make me believe that Mutual Appreciation was written by anybody. At least not before the filming. At most, a skeleton script was provided which the actors compromised from. That's what I think. I mean this as a compliment to the accomplishment! The dialogue and the situations were so real and organic, it felt very ci·né·ma vé·ri·té. The director looked vaguely familiar, but there weren't any well-known actors in it, yet the acting was wonderful and very even across the cast.

There was a bit of a Woody Allen essence to the movie (the main character's name was "Alan"; I wonder if that was intentional. Hm...), though it was a modern-day 20something kind of Woody Allen. Alan was a singer looking for a band; he sang a couple with just a drummer, and S and I both really liked the songs. He was a good performer; it made me think of the Kinks for some reason.

Mutual Appreciation seemed a little long (it was about an hour-50), but that could've been the pot wearing off. This pot gets me so high then makes me so sleepy (but creative). The only way to keep up with it is to smoke more, but I've had a minor migraine for the past 24 hours and a crick in my neck for the past 3 days, so I'm trying not to over do it...

Oh, and today, S and I had to go the mall (to the Apple store), and as we got to the mall entrance, a car pulled up to let a Food Court employee off in his red Chik-Fil-A shirt. The extra-big bumper sticker on the back of the car read:

I REMBER 9-11
DO YOU?

Now, that's All-American!

{The Chronicle gave Mutual Appreciation 3.5 out of 4 stars.}

little news from bigtown

After the disappointing reconnection with my high school friend D, I was concerned that there was nothing good about Bigtown, my hometown. Now I'm convinced of it. I did a Google search for V, a boy three years younger than me who lived near me and with whom I had a certain kind of friendship when I was a senior in high school and he was a freshman.

I met him and two of his best friends, T and B, all of them athletes, in drama class; they were there for the easy A it promised, I was there because my father had died the previous year and I was finally allowed to do the things I wanted to do, like drama and choir (the gay stuff, really). V, T & B liked me because I made them laugh and because I was old enough to buy alcohol and drive. I liked them because they didn't know the hateful nickname I'd received in the eighth grade, and because they liked to get drunk and pass out at my house, at which point I would sometimes mess around with them. Actually, I only messed around with T (he was the cutest), and only a couple of times. And it's important to admit that right now because I have never been able to find T or B when I've done internet searches, and I only very recently thought to do a Google search on V.

And there he was, listed as a sexual predator in Bigtown for having made some sort of "physical contact" with a fifteen-year-old girl. I guess if I had diddled V while we were drunk and he was passed out, I might have felt a bit of responsibility for his wayward actions. But really, I blame Bigtown, that boring and evil place where I grew up. God, I hate that town! V still lives there; his picture wasn't included in the Sexual Predator Listing, but his birthday and address were, and he's still lives at the same address, just a few blocks from the house I lived in from eighth through twelfth grade. His house was a scary little shack then; I can only imagine what it looks like now. Or what V looks like, for that matter.

the day after sunflower

S and I watched The Day After Tomorrow last night. It's good when you're really stoned, particularly (or maybe specifically) the special effects. The airplane turbulence made me wish I hadn't taken such a big hit off the pipe before we hit Play. It's really a cheesy movie, but S commented early on that it was like Poseidon Adventure, which is exactly right, so all of the bad writing and so-so acting was okay. It was a little long (at 2 hours 3 minutes), but what else did we have to do last night?

The reason I've wanted to watch this movie, I'm a little ashamed to admit, is because I was having lunch a few months ago with M and a woman she works with. We ate Vietnamese at the Sunflower, which is probably the best Vietnamese restaurant in Austin. This woman -- whose name I can't remember -- was going on and on about the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal's agent was, the very next day, going to announce that Jake was coming out of the closet because he was in love with Austin Nichols.

I had no idea who Austin Nichols was, but this unnamed woman filled me in on all the "facts." The one I remembered (and could look up) was that they met on the set of The Day After Tomorrow. I was certainly curious about the kind of man Jake would fall for -- would he be Heath Ledger-like? Or perhaps more like Jake himself). I guess Austin Nichols fits both of those descriptions. Regardless if the rumors are true (the media was pretty quiet the day after my lunch at Sunflower, though I don't really tune in to the media, but of course, surely by now I would've heard something), whomever Jake chooses to spend his time with is the real winner. That smile!

There was nothing really revealing about Jake and Austin's "relationship" in the movie as far as I could tell. They started out rivals over the same high school girl, then eventually (when the tragedy was great) became pals. After watching the first season of Extras (which S and I did a few nights ago -- we love this show!), I imagine that movie actors spend a whole lot of time together waiting to be called for a scene, and since the two of them were in quite a few scenes together, they probably had a considerable amount of hang time together. Obviously they got along. Good for them.

old and decrepit

I find that I can't walk around barefooted because my feet just disintegrate, particularly my right big toe and my left heel. The flesh becomes scaly and seems to grow gills, which go deep and painful, and I can feel the odd texture when I'm putting the special foot lotion on them, which doesn't seem to be doing any good anymore. Maybe that's because the lotion has gone bad because of the heat. Should I keep my special foot lotion in the refrigerator next to the suppositories?

God, I'm older by the day. This morning, before I climbed completely out of bed, I put antibiotic ointment (plus pain relief) on my big toe and heel, then Heel Balm all over both my feet before covering them with socks to walk across the house to pee and get coffee and face the day. I got a crick in my neck reaching for the lotion. I didn't do anything in particular, nothing unusual or stressful, just reached into the bedside table for the tube of lotion, and crick! So I reached further in, past the homeopathic restless leg inhaler and Calendula creme for the tube of Arnica gel (which my computer doesn't recognize, suggests "Fornicate") and rubbed it into the pain. But really, it just takes time; three days usually. I don't think this has anything to do with not going to yoga for the past month. I think I'm just on the slow but sure downward spiral of adulthood.

missed opportunity

The Sun is my favorite magazine. It goes on the back of the toilet and I get through one before the next month's issue arrives. There's a section called "Readers Write," which is exactly what it sounds like. The editors give Upcoming Topics, (Deadline / Publication Date), i.e.,
Blood / June 1 / December 2008
Saying Yes / July 1 / January 2009
Instructions / (etc.)
The Dinner Table
Faith
Moving
and writers write something autobiographical.

While S was away this summer, I got inspired toward the end of June to write an entry for the "Saying Yes" topic. I didn't send it off, though, because I didn't want to do so without getting S's opinion on it first. And also because I was a little bit insecure about it. I changed the names, but that doesn't really change the recognizability of the characters, at least not to me.

But this is my blog. I can do what I want.

---

S & I didn't call each other "lovers anymore, though we played the happy gay couple onstage, singing silly and sweet love songs about and to each other for Unitarian churches, retirement homes and folk audiences all over the country. Our bond was strong onstage, but offstage we had a hard time communicating and hadn't had a physical relationship for about half of the eight years we'd been together.

Then we met R, a charming, good-looking transient who happened upon one of our performances in a California desert town. S and I both fell in love with R almost immediately. Within a month, the ten-year younger man and his dog had moved into our twenty-foot trailer and was traveling the country with us, appearing as the odd tag-along to our fans, causing more than a couple twisted necks and awkward questions. Some family members and friends didn't take to him right away; the ones who said something assumed he was taking advantage of us.

What outsiders didn't see was the transformation that was happening in our personal lives. S and I still had our communication problems, but we were working toward mending them. We also started having a physical relationship again, which always included our new young lover. Not to sound too shallow, R also introduced us to meditation, introduced us to Buddhist writers like Pema Chödrön, introductions that transformed our head-butting into more compassionate attempts at communication.

R told us early on around the fold-out dining table that he says "Yes" whenever possible. "Yes" got us all in bed together, "yes" gave us other options for living and laughing and loving together. S and I were finally able to say to each other that we were tired of performing the act that we'd kept going for nearly ten years, admitted that we were doing it more for our audiences than for ourselves.

Our ménage à trois was not without its difficulties, particularly the ones caused by the decision early on to always be as honest as possible. The relationship lasted a year-and-a-half. Six months before the end I said that I wanted a break from performing and a break from the relationship. We had to remain together most of the final six months because of previous engagements, and also to try to figure out what we would each do when we went our separate ways.

R and I tried to get back together several times but it never worked, mostly because I was afraid to say yes. Five years later, I learned that R had broken up with his current boyfriend and believed that all of the depression I had suffered would be healed if only R would give me one more chance.

I traveled to see him in the flesh and over the course of our day-and-a-half together I realized that R's only real interest in me was to say goodbye for good, and perhaps to help me start healing once and for all.

I returned home and the reality slowly sank in. I had a lot of help with healing from my "best friend" S, with whom I share my home and my life. We aren't lovers -- haven't been since we went our separate ways -- but we are closer now than we have ever been in the sixteen years we've known each other. It's hard to describe our relationship to people, even to the ones who've known us a long time. S found a clever word to describe it one time, but I can't remember what it was. Whatever it is -- partners, roommates, best friends -- it's pretty serious.

Yes, I imagine we'll grow old together.

the egg man

S just sent me the video of our song "The Egg Man," which won us the dubious title of Most Unusual Band in MTV's Best Unsigned Band Contest 1994. The filming, direction and editing was by Mark Bellencula and Lizzy Yoder. Ah! Those were the days.

journal transcription part one

I have random notes written in various places, and I'm looking for something in particular, some letters I wrote as one character to another. I'm not sure where they are. That's what's so difficult about writing a novel, I think, keeping things organized. I consider myself a pretty organized person, but I don't have an easy time of keeping my random notes organized. I tried recording my thoughts on cassettes for awhile, and now I have about twenty cassette tapes filled with I don't know what. I'm sure there's some pretty impressive stuff in them, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to transcribing them.

I'm just about done with my favorite little notebook, with its colorful little cover that I did myself. This little moleskine notebook is the perfect size to carry around and jot things down in. And now I'm gonna attempt to find out what's in it by transcribing it one page at a time.

peas/green veg
Quorn
coffee
eyedrops
#4
potatoes
bamboo steamer
mayo

In the Pillar of Fire
We can hear our Savior calling
We will shed this earthly pyre
As is written in His Word
No more pain and no more suff'ring
We can see our Savior smile
We are living as we're dying
In the Pillar of Fire

VOTER CARD

Kava Kava

Supertramp
Karaoke
Jerry Curl
---
Crystal Valium
---
busted eardrum physical manifestation of broken heart...
---
Jo Carol Pierce -- Little Joe

(ben)
Asian man

lookalikes of famous people

A little 'splaining:
#4 refers to coffee filters;
The lyrics are a song I wrote that I imagine the Branch Davidians singing as their compound burned down around them (it's for the novel);
Jerry Curl is a character name I think I would like to play, a real cheesy, sleazy polyester guy;
Crystal Valium I think is a great name for a drag queen;
That's all I know.

desperate living

There's something wrong with John Waters. I appreciate his irreverence in some ways, but I also have to question his morals. It's difficult to watch his early movies because of what I consider to be animal cruelty; the chicken getting fucked in Pink Flamingos of course isn't really getting fucked, but the actor is roughing the chicken up while pretending to do so. I always chalked that up to John Waters being young and it being the 70s.

S and I watched Desperate Living last night. It was our second Netflix arrival; S's pick. I don't know what inspired him to put it in the queue. I'm not saying it was horrible or totally offensive. There were a lot of really great things about it. I guess what kind of bummed me out was the second (partial) watch-through with the commentary by John Waters turned on. He's a funny man, his observations about life and art always make me laugh. But his matter-of-fact attitude about the dead rats, skinned possum and slightly thawed dog acquired from the University of Maryland animal experimentation department kind of bummed me out.

It was also very exhausting watching a film in which every line is delivered at a 9 or above; lots of screaming, lots of bad acting, lots of lewdness. The human disgust amuses me, though putting a toddler in a refrigerator (even for just a second to get it on film) was unsettling.

Still, it was great to see Edith Massey again, playing the queen of Mortville with her overly gap-toothed smile, her hideous manner. Back in the day when S and I were first writing songs and performing together, I wrote a song for Edith Massey after seeing Pink Flamingos. In case you don't know the "storyline," Edith spends most of that movie in a baby pen, waiting for the Egg Man to come and bring much desired eggs.

Where is the Egg Man?
Don't he know I'm hungry?
Don't he know this trailerpark is big enough for us three?
Oh, I love him,
And I love eggs,
I love to blow them, suck them,
throw them, chuck them,
running down my legs.

It goes on, but I don't remember it right now. John Waters said that Desperate Living was the first movie he made that wasn't written high on pot. Likewise, when S and I first met and started writing music together, we were stoned around the clock (except when we were onstage). Songs like "The Egg Man" as well as "My Man, Our Horses, and Me" (our most popular song) were created while we were pretty stoned.

S and I made a video on an upstate NY chicken farm for "The Egg Man" and entered it in MTV's Most Unusual Band contest and won! That was back in '94, I guess. Those were the days; we appeared at some event with Beavis & Butthead's life-size puppets, got on The Jon Stewart Show, got flown out to California to sing "The Egg Man" on a standup show on Comedy Central, which replayed every year for several years. We pretty much gave up smoking pot and drinking around that time so we could be clear-headed and focus on our upcoming fame and natural fortune to follow.

I sent John Waters a copy of "The Egg Man" video back then and he sent a return postcard saying thanks and "Edith is probably looking down(?) and smiling."

Last night, we got high to watch Desperate Living. (As much as things change, they say the same.)