s'experiment

The bottom half of my body is alive!

I had to shave a stripe down my left leg to get a tattoo on it, but the place where I shaved my forearm for a previous tattoo had not grown back evenly, so I shaved my whole leg to avoid the annoying tuft of hair I had on my arm.

I rather liked the way my naked and tattooed left leg looked, all smooth and shiny from the lotion I keep on it to help the tattoo heal and to moisturize my whole leg, so the other day, I decided to shave my right leg. And while I was at it -- because I didn't know where to stop -- I shaved all the hair off of my body, all of it, including my torso, arms and pits. All of it that I could reach comfortably with the electric shaver. I didn't use the Mach III Turbo and shaving cream because that would be a lot more annoying when it started growing back in.

I'm not so crazy about the way my torso and arms look, but that's okay, it'll grow back, and I'm not trying to impress anybody with my prepubescent look. But I do like the look of my shiny stubbled legs!

It struck me during the process that I was doing some kind of an alteration to my body to coincide with my year of celibacy. Like wearing a hair suit or flogging myself the way a devout religious person might be drawn to do.

My sexual thoughts have not subsided so far, and who knows if they will at all, or if they will completely. It's not like I've had a very active sex life over the past couple of years. Other than masturbation. I am attempting to give even that part of my sexual expression a break during this experiment. Masturbation isn't always so much of a sexual expression; sometimes it has served merely as a release, a relaxant. I wouldn't hesitate before taking a few moments to jerk off and cum if I felt tense, or bored, pretty much daily. But most of that time it was accompanied by looking at porn on the web. That obsessive part of my sexuality is something I'm trying to get past.

I imagine I could probably look at porn without masturbating, but I think that would defeat my greater purpose. I'm not trying to push myself to the limits to see what I can overcome, I'm just trying to move beyond the constant need for something that never really satisfies completely. So I deleted the bookmark folder labeled "Entertainment" and I am aiming to move past the urges to satisfy myself in this way.

And now I'm aware of my body like never before, the pendulous swinging between my legs, the busy testicles heavy with semen ready for the next blast. Will this subside? Will I get over it? If I make it through this year ahead of me, will I be ready to get off, or will I not even care anymore?

I'm curious to discover what kind of shift(s) will take place in my body and mind. Will my brain feel as alive as my crotch does right now?

s'experiment

When I hang out with that guy for very long, I always want to kiss him. He's got nice lips, soft features. I told him I'm experimenting with a year of celibacy. I told several people. I want to get it out there, because I think it will help me in my goal. But still, I can't help thinking about how kissable he is, and I can't help but imagining saying so to him, and fantasize that he would say, "Cool."

first blush

I got an email from someone who shall remain nameless. This person read something I wrote about them in my blog and was upset by what I wrote. I didn't use this person's name, but was voicing fears about what exactly our relationship was. This person was understandly upset, and I sent an apology email and hope it will in some way make things a little clearer. I looked back over the entry I wrote and in it (I believe) I had clearly stated that these feelings I was writing about were my inner fears. It was really a blog about my insecurities more than it was about this person. For the most part, that's all this blog is. Of course, the fact that a friend of this person "stumbled upon" my blog and reported it had an effect on the email I was sent. I'm more used to an "open book" kind of life than most people, I guess, but that doesn't excuse me.

This has happened before. I have found out after the fact that somebody I've been writing about has been reading my blog. It seems to get to a point -- or it did for this other person I'm now thinking of -- that they had to bring up the fact that they knew that I was writing about them before it got too late. Whatever that means, "too late." This second person I'm thinking of and I still have a close and ongoing relationship, so I guess it doesn't always turn out bad. Still, I don't write a lot about this person anymore, except in the most loving of ways. Not that I'm hiding anything. I have a great affection for both of these people.

I had an inkling of a feeling that one of my family members was reading my blog for awhile. Maybe they still are. I don't always say kind things about my family. I guess perhaps that falls under the heading of I can talk about them but you can't because they're mine. But my feelings are mine, too. My confusion is mine. The work I'm doing on the relationships I have is mine. But the job I do on unsuspecting victims, well, maybe that's not all mine.

I always feel torn between whether I should shut my blog down and stop writing out in the open. What right do I have to insinuate other people in my neuroses? I don't know, I don't know. What else is there to blog about?

epilogue

I have pieced together the preceding story from a box of papers, letters and diaries handed to me by a woman I met at a Buddhist sangha shortly after I arrived in Austin, Texas. We were at the same weekend meditation retreat, during which I mentioned that I was a writer struggling to complete a memoir about my depression which came on after my performance career and primary relationship ended. The woman had been holding onto the box of writing for ten years and didn't know what to do with it, and hoped that the memory of her deceased friend could somehow live on. She gave me permission to do whatever I felt inspired to do with the writings. I spent several months reading and rereading the contents of the box, then spent some time trying to track down August Collins, but with no success. The letters written to him by the woman who gave me the box had all been returned, bound together and marked "NO SUCH ADDRESSEE," so it isn't clear if there really was a performance artist named august chagrin, or if he was a creation of Randy Reardon's imagination.

birthday season update #4.5

I heard the usual clanking of the blender this morning, which didn't wake me, usually doesn't, but even if it does, I can usually go back to sleep if I want to. S was making his smoothie for school. I could smell the toaster oven, which sometimes puts off interesting smells (once, not long ago, after my toast was done, a small fire erupted to burn away a crumb that was sitting on the heating element). The smell of toast always means it's morning. For now. I guess as I get even older I'll have to start worrying that that smell might be signaling a stroke.

I had awakened several minutes early to my cat kneading the covers. I think the fuzzy covers are his favorite part about the cool weather. He seems to like it when I lie on my side while he's kneading; he also often manages to get a little cone worked up in the covers and sucks it like a teat, gets it pretty wet, which is mildly disturbing. A little more disturbing than that is the fact that he sees me as his mother and this ritual as his morning meal. I guess he imagines himself the size he was as a newborn, and I'm probably about the size his mother would be in that scenario, though I doubt I even vaguely resemble her, even with the covers pulled up to my neck. But, ah, there's the nature of neuroses.

I walked through the kitchen to pee and S was washing out the blender. He gave me a cheery "Happy Birthday," which was a little out of character for him so early in the morning, but he'd already been up for a couple of hours, so I didn't give it much thought. When I passed back through the room, he said, "Are you hungry?" As a matter of fact I was. He had made biscuits and TVP "sausage" gravy, which he stuck a candle in when he served it to me. We also had poached eggs and coffee. What a delightful way to start my big day.

And it has been a big day. So big, in fact, that I felt the need to report on it right now before much more happens, otherwise I might never get it all in. I considered doing a "wake-and-bake," but remembered I was planning on voting first thing, and figured I should do that sober. (Could you imagine the horror of somehow mis-voting? Yikes!)

I did it right. And I felt a flood of joy when I got back to my truck after my noble act. I know what I was doing, I have studied for this test like never before; I know the consequences otherwise, and I know I made the best choice for everyone.

I had worn my COMPASSION FOR A CHANGE T-shirt and my zip-up hoodie over it because I didn't want to get sent away for "campaigning" too close to the voting site. But I still got called on it. The lady behind the desk asked me to zip my hoodie up a little more because "K OBAM" was showing through the V at my neck. She was a black lady so I don't think she was just yanking my chain for the joy of it; I think people are being very careful. There's a lot of crazy shit going on out there; I read somewhere that bogus fliers have being passed out in Virginia reminding people to "Vote On November 5th."

Next stop on my list of joyful things to do today was Blue Dahlia Bistro, where I'm continuing my birthday season celebration on Thursday night with about a dozen people, friends from the Dance (those kooky new-agey hippie folks who love me and I can't help but love back). I stopped in to make a reservation.

Stop #3 was the Gas Pipe. That's when the real fun began. I recently broke a metal cleaning rod off in my brass bat, and couldn't get it out, so I put that on my list of things to get for myself today. But I wanted a glass pipe, and found a beautiful one. I got a replacement bat as well, a smaller one, only about an inch-and-a-half long, so cute that I had to try it out as soon as I got back to the truck. But before I got back to the truck, I had to pay. Next to the cash register was a black plastic Halloween caldron with different colored starlight mints in it (as well as a few packing peanuts, which seems kind of weird). The cashier said, "We're giving away prizes; would you like to pick a piece of candy and play the game?"

I picked a purple starlight mint (even though I really wanted an orange one). He said, "Oh, you win a pint glass or an ashtray!" I took the pint glass and asked him, "Is that the best prize?" He said, "I think so." (I didn't think to ask him what the people who picked the foam peanuts won, if anything.) I said, "That's cool, because it's my birthday." And he said, "Oh, in that case, you get a lighter, too!" I walked out with my arms overflowing with goodies. I felt like I was leaving the state fair a winner, and I didn't even have a stomach ache because I hadn't had too much cotton candy, caramel apples, turkey legs, sodas and such.

I tried out the cute little bat then made my way to Thrift Town just for the hell of it, because it's my favorite thrift store, and because my VIP card was full, so I was promised $10 off any purchase over $20, and I can always spend 20 bucks at Thrift Town.

I was a little buzzed, so I had a nice leisurely shopping experience, being very thoughtful about each item I might want. The yellow tag items were 50% off. I found a nice Ralph Lauren shirt and a pair of slacks with yellow tags, and another pair of slacks that were still only $3.99. I came across a beautiful sage comforter with gold trim and an orange stripe down the middle. The tag on it was white, but oddly it had "YELLOW" printed on it. I found the floor manager and asked her if the tag was white or if it was actually yellow since it said "yellow" on it. I wasn't trying to get away with anything; I checked the other tags and the rest of them had the corresponding proper color printed on them.

She said it was white, and I said no problem. The cashier standing next to the manager said, "That's curzy! I ain't never seen nothing like that." The manager agreed that it was strange. I was okay with not buying it. Not at $69.99.

Later, I was still shopping; I found a coffee thermos with a glass interior -- made in Japan; they're hard to find in good shape, and keep coffee hot a lot longer. It was marked $2.99 on a YELLOW STICKER! So, what the hell, I threw it in the basket. And I found a pink horse with a long blonde mane and tail marked 99 cents on a blue sticker. I know my friend little P loves horses and loves pink, so how could I refuse that, even at full price!

The manager tracked me down and said, "Where's the comforter?" I told her I put it back. She said, "You know what? I'm gonna give that to you at the half price. We have to honor the tag." After I got home, I realized it might have had something to do with my Obama shirt and the "I Voted" sticker on my chest.

At another point in my shopping experience a black lady shopper asked me where I got the shirt and how much it cost. She said, "'Compassion For a Change,' I like that." I said, "Hey, that's what it's all about." She said, "I heard that," and high-fived me! Joy to my world!

From there I dropped by the mall to exchange a recalled charger plug for my iPhone, then took MoPac to 35th and drove east to the Relax the Back Store to get myself a neck-saving pillow. I also stopped in the In-Step store to look at house slippers (my feet are always cold). I didn't like the choices/prices at the shoe store; had the shoes fit wonderfully, the price would have been justified. Crocs now make wool-lined shoes, but they're Made in China, which is very annoying. Maybe I'll go to the Crocs website and see if they sell just the wool liners because I would put that in my old Crocs which I rarely wear anymore (certainly not out because they're way too trendy). Of the three styles they had at In-Step, the Crocs were the most comfortable and the least expensive.

Next I spent the big bucks on the pillow. $140. But after lying down on the sample bed and putting my head on the sample pillow, the price was completely justified; I had to have that pillow. I've been dreaming about it for awhile, and naturally I'll be dreaming about it a lot more. The fact that I didn't buy $60 slippers made the purchase a little easier to swallow.

After all of that, I still had cotton socks on my list, so I went a few blocks out of the way on my drive home to Whole Earth Provisions for socks and slippers, neither of which I got. I did leave the store with a fantastic hat, a Raiders of the Lost Ark or old reporter style, whatever that's called, but made of wool. Oh, well... I'm pleased.

In about an hour, I'm having birthday (proper) dinner with another of my favorite people in the world, P (not little P, but this one isn't really all that big either!). We're going to Blue Star Cafeteria, going kind of late so that we can pick S up after he gets out of school (9 p.m.) and take him with us for dessert, which I think will be at Woodlands. But we'll see.

It seems like I've only just begun!

33. part five

a performance art piece by august chagrin titled "death."

birthday season update #4

When it's at its best, the Dance can be quite spiritual. And it was last night. It blotted out whatever else I did yesterday. A did the music, and she's the best. There was plenty of bump-and-grind and lots of fun rhythms. It's really hard to describe the experience, and particularly now since I'm anxious to get out the door and get on with my day, my actual birthDAY, but it was very healing.

I've decided to attempt a year of celibacy, starting today. That means getting rid of the links to the porn sites I sometimes visit; that means not having sex, not masturbating. But more than all of that it means a kind of change in my mindset.

I've realized lately that I put nearly every relationship I have into somewhat of a sexual context, whether it's somebody I want to have sex with, somebody I don't want to have sex with, somebody I can't have sex with, somebody I have had sex with, or if their actions make me feel sexual. All of this sexuality causes me a lot of suffering, I've realized, so my attempt at being celibate for awhile is really about freeing myself from the suffering. It sounds silly to say I'm taking a "vow" of celibacy, because I'm not a monk, and I'm not really even much of a practicing Buddhist. But I will say I'm taking a vow of reducing suffering in my world (though I typed "cow" instead of "vow" three times before I got it right, whatever that may mean!).

At the end of the Dance last night, as the music got more gentle and introspective, I found myself sitting on the dance barre and humming along with the vocals, and crying. I looked around the room at the beautiful people holding each other or dancing alone or around the room, and I said goodbye to my sexuality, I just let it go. It was like seeing a friend leave on a long trip, a friend I've had a sometimes difficult relationship with.

And then I lay on the floor face down and said a prayer for myself, to myself, and suddenly there were hands on me, people touching me, rubbing on me, loving on me. It wasn't a sexual experience, and unlike previous times when something like this happened in the Dance (and it can quite often), I didn't care if the hands were female or male, if it was somebody I might want to have sex with. It was just love.

I think this S'experiment might be difficult. I plan to blog about it and explore my thoughts and feelings regularly and try not to judge myself or others over the things that come up. But I will try to be as honest with myself and in my writing as possible. This could be transformative. I look forward to the experience. And I'm scared shitless.

32. november third (letter) 1993

(reference 27.)

amitodana writes one last letter to august, a sweet and gentle description of randy's birthday party in the hospice the previous halloween night. randy smiled while she and the hospice workers and other residents sang happy birthday to him (after having been non-responsive for weeks), and then passed away early the next morning. amitodana reports that she will be going to a meditation retreat in california in a couple of months and plans to take randy's ashes with her and sprinkle them off of the golden gate bridge.

birthday season update #3

31. journey home (houston) 1993

(reference 26.)

tom collins dies in the fire at the branch davidian compound while dying women and children around him sing hymns. he floats toward heaven but descends back to earth, to houston, to the home he ran away from when his son was sixteen and his daughter was thirteen. august is gone now, but his former friend paul bozich is living there now as dar's lover. they have had a baby born with down's syndrome, and june -- august's sister, who has asperger's -- is the caretaker for the baby when dar is out of the house. paul is in charge of cooking meals but spends most of his time sitting in front of the tv, drunk and chain-smoking. dar arrives home late from work and is upstairs with the girls when tom arrives at the house quoting scriptures from the book of revelation, much to the annoyance of drunk paul. tom goes upstairs and into the room with dar and the girls. paul knocks on the door but dar won't let him in. dar tells paul he has to move out on her way to bed. paul stews about this new development and begins to think tom is going to hurt june or his own daughter, so he pours lighter fluid on the girls' bedroom door and catches the house on fire. in the meantime, august and his partner lorax have arrived in houston having learned from june that dar and paul had a baby and that she is in charge of raising it. they go to the house to confront dar and paul and instead find the house burned down and the two of them in separate cop cars. dar seems to have gone crazy; august approaches paul, and he is repeating nonsensical things like the fact that tom came and took the girls away. there is no sign of tom or the girls, and the house is a black, smoldering pile of bricks.

birthday season update #2

I spent last evening with two of my favorite people, S & A. (Too bad S's name doesn't start with a T, 'cause that would be funny to say I spent the night with T & A! But anyway...) A picked us up at 6:15 and we headed over to South Austin, to Buenos Aires Cafe, which doesn't look like much, a divey little building under a billboard nestled between a pawn shop and a beauty parlor. It was probably a house once upon a time, and what used to be the front porch has been enclosed by tall wrought iron fence bars and thick clear plastic. And it's small. Only room for maybe 30 people tops, inside and out. And it was packed. But as my birthday luck would have it, there was one table available, right in the middle of everything.

The three waiters -- two male and one female -- worked the room together. They were all beautiful and sweet; I wanted them all and they seemed to want me, too, which is part of the reason I've been contemplating becoming celibate for a year starting on my (actual) birthday. S asked me what more that meant besides what I've been doing lately (not dating really, not having much sex) and in my mind it means not having any sex, not masturbating, not looking at porn, and not sexifying every moment of my life, every person I see. I want to stop wanting every personal (and not so personal -- i.e., seeing people at the grocery store, etc..) encounter I have to become sexual. I'm still thinking it through and will write more about it on Tuesday.

A ordered a bottle of organic white wine and then we ordered our meals. While we waited for our food, she ran out to the car to get what she said was my "trinket," but which was actually a cool recycled material shopping bag from Whole Foods Market with eleven gifts in it. I had told her about this being my Birthday Season, and she went with it! She made a card that said "Happy Birthday JDJB!! Tonight we start your BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL!!" Inside was a longer (lovely) message and a suggestion to open one present per day. So I opened one right then. It was a kid's Count Dracula Halloween mask. Fun!

My meal:

Spinach salad - A refreshing blend of organic baby-leaf spinach, feta cheese, Fuji apples and spicy roasted pecans in our sweet/tart vinaigrette.

Gnocchi Quartet - A unique combination of our wonderful homemade flavored gnocchi consisting of pumpkin-cinnamon, sweet potato-chipotle, cilantro-jalapeno, and potato-herb tossed with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and haricots verts in an olive oil, finished with specialty sauces and fresh parmesan.

I couldn't decide between the Quatros Leches and the Flourless Chocolate Cake special, so S had one and I had the other. The Flourless Chocolate Cake wasn't on the menu (but was fantastic), and the Quatros Leches was described thusly:

This traditional Latin-American sponge cake has a distinct Argentinean touch that includes multiple sauces and dulce de leche liqueur for a truly unique flavor!

Amen to that!

One of the waiters had a cool tattoo on his arm, a negative space tattoo, a black circle with a peace dove in the middle. I'm very tattoo-aware right now since I just got my St. Francis tattoo. We chatted briefly about it, and then a little later into the meal, he came over with postcards for all of us announcing a gallery opening he and another waiter from the cafe are having. It's called Birdhouse, and it's not far from our home. The East Side is so cool and getting cooler. The card says "Just For You/New Work By..." and on the back:

To Whomever Finds This
thank you for taking the
time to find this. First
life is all electrity = No god
Its the most beautiful
thing to be a human
so
drink
fuck
love
cry
spend
save
none of it Matters

As planned, we went to see The Order of Myths after dinner. The Order of Myths is one of (in fact the final) "Mystics" organizations that marches in the Mardi Gras parades and throws out the beads and -- in Mobile, Alabama -- Moonpies! The movie broke my heart. It's beautifully told and so pertinent to what we're going through right now in the country

In Mobile, there is a white Mardi Gras organization and a black Mardi Gras organization; they each have a king and queen, and they each have a parade (same day, different times). It is one of the last hold-ons of segregation in Mobile. The documentary examines both sides of the centuries-old coin; there is a lot of joy and sadness on both sides, and a lot of yearning, particularly from the younger generations, to not be so segregated. This year (it was filmed in 2007), the king and queen on both sides made steps to integrate just a little bit, and it was this effort, this compassionate effort made by all of them (but particularly by the black couple) that had me crying through the last quarter of the film.

A, S and I went to Clementine Coffee Bar afterward for beverages -- A had a cappuccino, S had a beer, and I had hot chocolate -- to talk about the movie and other things. I got to bed at 1:00 a.m. and slept so soundly...

The first thing I did this morning was open my #2 gift from A:

a box of Ak-mak 100% whole of/the wheat stone ground sesame crackers!

birthday season update #1

Fest Africa was fun last night, though I had a bit of a headache and the performances got louder and less interesting as the first act went on. It wasn't bad, just the headache. I was thinking maybe it was a hunger headache. There was food, which wasn't vegetarian, but instead of making a stink, I gave the smiling young lady at the cash box my $5 and enjoyed the meal: a chicken leg on rice, half a savory fried pie, some fried plaintains and a Mountain Dew.

All that fried had me hankering for dessert, so S and I walked down Guadalupe looking at the menus of the mostly Asian restaurants, and finally walked on home then rode our bikes over to Blue Dahlia for dessert. He had bread pudding, I had cheesecake with chocolate sauce, and we both had decaf cappuccinos. It was all yummy. S complained that the bread pudding didn't have any kind of a sauce, though where I grew up (not too far from here), bread pudding wasn't served with any kind of sauce. Still, it was a tad on the dry side, which isn't right.

My slice of cheese cake was twice as big as it should have been, in my opinion. I finally stopped eating it when I was pleasantly sick to my stomach and asked for a piece of foil to wrap it in for the bike ride home. But I forgot it on the table, as well as my phone, which another patron chased out after us with. (Why didn't she bring my cheesecake, too?!)

A couple of nights ago, I went through the first part (seven chapters) of august chagrin, getting them ready for the next phase, whatever that means, and I wanted to do the same thing with the next part last night, but I was just as sleepy as I could be when we got home. It was only 10 o'clock, so I lay on my bed and listened to one of the dozens of This American Life broadcasts I haven't gotten around to listening to. It was the one called "I Got You Pegged," or something like that. It offered several laugh-out-loud moments. And then sleep.

Tonight, A is picking S and me up and taking us to eat for my birthday at a restaurant I've never even heard of called Buenos Aires Cafe. She's a restaurant fanatic, so I asked her to choose, and she chose it for its many vegetarian options. Hooray! After that, she got tickets for a movie I want to see, a documentary called The Order of Myths, which just came out. It's about Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama (the first city to have a Mardi Gras in the US) and race relations then to now. A says it's gonna be a three-part birthday celebration because we're going somewhere after the movie for a drink.

30. christian wall (childhood) 1982

(reference 24.)

randy makes friends with a boy in his college theater class named christian, who also lives in the same dormitory. christian is more of an actor and randy is more of a playwright, and they become regular scene partners in class. they become close friends and discuss moving to new york city their sophomore year to attend a school better suited to their goals. they also open up to each other about their own confused feelings of sexuality, which randy has written about in his journal. randy's roommate, bear, sneaks out of their dorm room with one of randy's journals and shares it with other boys from broward hall. when christian hears he has been implicated, he cuts off his friendship with randy and says "new york city is off." randy trashes his dorm room, takes his box of writing to a distant campus parking lot and burns it in a trash barrel, then rents a u-haul truck (even though he only has a duffel bag) and drives to new york city.

birthday season begins now

My birthday is next Tuesday -- my 45th birthday -- and I'm starting celebrating now, tonight, sort of. S got a flier from a woman at school last week for the Africa Fest tonight, food, music, dancing on the main mall at UT.

Come to think of it, my celebration started last Monday night, also at UT; S got us free tickets to see Margaret Cho. We love her so much. She is one of those people we have been watching and loving together as long as we've known each other (almost 17 years now). She is one of those people we quote a lot to make each other laugh. After Margaret, we went to Hut's for 2-for-1 veggie burgers and onion rings. Mm!

Tuesday night, I got myself a tattoo, the St. Francis prayer "Where there is hatred, let me sow love..." which runs all the way down my left side, from the level of my heart to my ankle.

I've got other plans for the upcoming birthday season, which will hopefully (likely) end up with a gift from the United States of America, a wonderful, beautiful, compassionate president named Barack Obama. I'm almost tempted to ask my family members to give me that for my birthday, one vote to cover birthdays for the rest of my life, but I'm not so sure they would go for that. Maybe they would consider just not voting? I'd accept that, too!

29. may twenty-ninth (diary) 1993

(reference 22.)

randy writes from his garage apartment in austin, texas, that he has decided to stop trying to get to san francisco. he describes the neighborhood he has landed in, a mostly black part of town near the city's oldest cemetery where he takes daily walks, sometimes accompanied by a large black buddhist neighbor woman who calls herself amitodana.

28. part four

a performance art piece by august chagrin titled "family."

low hangers, too...

S and I watched this movie Killer of Sheep tonight. It was made in '77 and released on DVD earlier this summer. I saw it at I (Heart) Video several times, but never picked it up. So I put it on the Netflix queue and it arrived yesterday.

It's an amazing movie, beautiful, touching, about the harsh realities of being black in mid-70s LA. (I guess that's what it's about!) As I watched it, I kept getting inspirations that I had to write down. We were in S's room watching on his computer and I didn't want to stop the movie so I grabbed what I could, a brown Crayola brand marker and post-it notes.

During the course of the movie I wrote six post-its, one on bright pink, the rest on bright yellow paper:

• THIS OLD MAN
• 2 Robbers @ once
• golden afro
• letters to Sun
• devil screwing his wife
• We live like niggers

The movie had a wonderful soundtrack, including an amazing version of Dinah Washington singing "This Bitter Earth," first when the main character and his wife were dancing in their apartment (very sexy) and then again when the main character was at his job at the slaughterhouse (I closed my eyes). There were also great sounds of the kids in the movie, playing and fighting and singing. The main character's wife and six-year-old daughter are singing together at the beginning of the movie, the woman forgetting some of the words, the little girl following the structure of the tune but not the correct notes usually. They weren't onscreen which really enhanced the starkness of what was onscreen in grainy b&w. Later, the little girl was singing along with Earth, Wind and Fire to her dolls.

Somewhere, children were singing "This Old Man." S and I smoked before we sat down to watch the movie (natch), and it struck me that "This Old Man" could be funny with different lyrics, i.e.:

This old man, he played one,
plugged my knickknack with his thumb...

and the lyrics get more and more rude and/or bizarre as it goes along. I was thinking this might be a good thing to do at CampCamp, the talent show next week (which will be the penultimate CampCamp, sadly, so I really feel the need to be involved). So I wrote THIS OLD MAN on a post-it note to remind me to do that.

In the movie, two guys show up at the main character's house having devised a scheme that they want him to be in on. I think it has something to do with killing somebody. Oh yeah, and right before that, the main character's son saw two dudes jump over the fence in an alley with a TV they'd obviously just stolen. I got to thinking: I wonder if there's ever been a story written (or a movie made) in which two robbers or groups of robbers happened to hold up a liquor store or a bank at the exact same time. What could happen? They could shoot each other, or they could work together. Mayhem ensues. It seemed like an idea worth writing down, but then again, I was high. But anyway, that's why I wrote 2 Robbers @ once.

Just before we watched the movie, I took a shower, my first shower of the day; I was feeling grungy and my glasses wouldn't stay up on my nose (because my head was greasy) and a cold front was blowing in (not to mention I was high) and a hot shower sounded nice. While I was in there, I got a brilliant idea but I don't wanna share it just yet. (I'm still a little high, so it might not seem like such a great idea later, but I'm gonna sit on it for now, just in case.)

The movie was full of beautiful little black kids, sullen boys and sassy girls. I got to thinking that something that could really make my character Rich White stand out was if he had a golden afro, since his mama's white and his daddy's black. It would make him stand out and give him power.

The little girl asks her daddy where does rain come from and he says, oh, it's 'cause the devil's beating his wife. When I was a kid, we used to say the devil was beating his wife when it was raining and the sun was shining. I don't know where that came from.

I was wondering out loud just this very morning how the word tally-wacker came to be known as a term for penis. My stepfather uses it, and it's in that movie Sordid Lives... I just Googled it and got a link for a beer called Arbor Tally Wacker, a link to an MP3 download of a song called Slappy the Tallywacker, and a online personal ad for tallywackerattacker, all with obvious connections, but no historical evidence of where it came from. Maybe S said he thought it was Scottish or something.) Anyway, I thought that it would be an interesting thing for a character to say, that rain was caused by the devil screwing his wife.

And then I got more into thinking about Randy Reardon's upbringing and his mother Mona's racism. I could imagine her saying, "We live like niggers," making some reference to Rich and his family moving in across the trailerpark.

27. october twentieth (letter) 1993

(reference 20.)

amitodana writes a terse letter to august expressing her disappointment that he has not made contact with randy in hospice.

26. spider bites (houston) 1988

(reference 19.)

after catching his mother and the man he's in love with having sex, august runs back to ruckus and finds spider, the man whom earlier that year had told august he was in love with him. august apologizes to spider and tells him everything; spider accepts the apology and invites august to follow him to new york city, where he is moving to go to art school. august spends the rest of the summer in houston taking over spider's bartending gigs at ruckus to get experience for a job while spider is in new york "getting things together." when august arrives that fall, spider has become a different person, having discovered heroin and other heavy drugs. on new year's eve, august arrives at their apartment late from work to find spider tripping on lsd and accusing august of stealing his heroin stash. spider becomes violent and august runs away, ending up in times square with the millions gathered there. later that night, august goes into a gay porn theater to get out of the cold because he's afraid to go home. as he falls asleep in the back row, he decides he will go back to houston as soon as possible.

25. phone call (nyc) 1993

(reference 18.)

at his friend anita's encouragement, randy calls his mother to tell her that he is gay and that he is hiv-positive. she reacts in her usual ignorant, white trash way, insulting randy and disowning him. her tirade is peppered with coughing fits, which inspires randy, high on coke, to wish his mother dead just before hanging up on her.

24. sin city (childhood) 1981

(reference 17.)

when her best friend suddenly can't go to las vegas to see cher with her, randy's neighbor diamond white invites him to take the friend's place. randy loves cher, and has scholarship money in his checking account, so he accepts. after they cher show diamond abandons randy in a bar and he gets picked up by a female impersonator in cher's entourage (cj, out of drag). in the hotel room, cj dons a gown and lip sync's a diana ross song and has sex with randy.

23. ruckus ruckus (road) 1993

(reference 16.)

randy arrives in houston, texas, bleary and crashing from non-stop traveling on trucker speed. he somehow manages to find the dive bar where august collins first tried alcohol and drugs with spider. randy sits on the ruckus patio with a cigarette and a cocktail during happy hour as the patio fills with strangers who seem familiar because of the stories august has told him about the place. randy meets someone who offers to help him find cocaine for his travels then accepts a joint which is spiked with something, sending randy into a hallucinatory state where he thinks he might actually be august collins. he wakes up the following dawn in the back seat of his car, in the parking lot of a different bar, the r&b club where august worked after he ran away from spider five years earlier.

where there is needles, pain

Back in 1989, I'll guess, I made the stupid though not original mistake of having a boyfriend's initials tattooed on my upper arm. Even more telling was the fact that I thought it might save our relationship. Yeah, it was already there. For many years I walked around with this embarrassing ink stain on my arm, a statement of failure, of reckless impulsivity.

When I first moved to Austin, I was heavily into meditating, and was going regularly to the Shambhala Buddhist Center here. There was a flag displayed on one wall that eventually became my follow-up tattoo, née my cover-up tattoo. It's a big symbol, a circle of sword tips around the Morse Code for the letter V, which stands for "Victory Over the Poisons of Ego," at least that's what it means to me.

The flag has a more specific purpose, it is used by the Kasung, a sort of Secret Service for Shambhala higher ups and meditiation retreats. That's a super simplification of a 212-page book called True Command: The Teachings of the Dorje Kasung by the founder of the Shambhala tradition, Chögyam Trungpa. I co-opted the symbol as my own reminder for the struggle over the poisons of my ego, and those for me, as for the Kasung (and everyone, perhaps), are:

• attachment
• aversion
• aggression

The Morse Code letter for the V (three dots and a dash), when placed three over one, looks kind of like a Leggo block or a castle piece, particularly inside of the the sword tip circle. The dash part of the symbol is what was used to cover over the rectangle with my ex-boyfriend's initials in it. But the original tat wasn't applied straight, so the new one had to be enlarged to cover it up, which was fine by me.

More recently, I went back and added a red trim around the outside of the tattoo and a yellow and gold texture inside. The "gold," which is really just a slightly orangier yellow, isn't really showing up yet, so it's still a work in progress.

COMPASSION

Before the additions to my Victory tattoo, I had Compassion written out in script on my inner left arm, more as a reminder to myself than anything. It's my most popular tattoo! It has inspired others to do similar or dissimilar things to their bodies.

REFLECTION

A year after the Compassion tat, I had Reflection written out in script on my inner right arm, in mirror image (you know, all backwards). That is to remind me to send out the compassion I receive for myself. The left side, I tell myself and others who ask, is incoming, the right side is outgoing. Little lessons printed right onto my body.

I would like a Windhorse tattoo; I saw a really wonderful watercolor in Shambhala Sun magazine years ago, and have tried extensively to find it again, without luck. The Windhorse appears in the middle of most Prayer Flags, and comes originally from the shamanistic tradition in Central Asia. Its appearance is supposed to bring peace, wealth, and harmony.

Another tattoo idea I had was to get a string of prayer flags tattooed across my back. There are actually some very beautiful pictures of prayer flags on mountain sides, flapping in the wind, frayed and faded, their colors blending and making new colors. That's a big project.

But for now, this afternoon, I'm going to get "sized" for my next tattoo, my forty-fifth birthday present to myself. I'm moving away from the Buddhist symbology and am going more Catholic, as it were. But really, it's for the message, by that good ol' fellow animal lover, St. Francis of Assisi:

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

It won't be in rows like that. The plan is for it to be in one continuous line down my left side, from about heart level down onto my foot. It's a good thing I'm 6'4! I'm excited about it. And have decided that I would like to have other messages scrawled into my body. Some of my favorites:

PEACE IS EVERY STEP
THE SHINING RED SUN IS MY HEART
EACH FLOWER SMILES WITH ME
HOW GREEN, HOW FRESH ALL THAT GROWS
HOW COOL THE WIND BLOWS
PEACE IS EVERY STEP
IT TURNS THE ENDLESS PATH TO JOY

That's a Thich Nhat Hanh poem that I was inspired to set to music right around the time of 9.11.01; S and I sang it in concert a couple of times. I want to get that one near my foot, maybe my right thigh, probably the right one because the left one will have St. Francis on it.

Also, this famous one by Mahatma Gandhi:

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

22. april twenty-second (diary) 1993

(reference 15.)

randy writes on a bus from waco to austin, texas, explaining why he went to waco from columbus, texas, and why he is now fleeing (both have to do with the standoff at the branch davidian compound, which has been on the news since his car broke down in central texas). he is going to austin simply because it is where the first bus out of waco is heading. he knows nothing about the city but figures it will be a good place from which to catch a bus onward to california.

21. part three

a performance art piece by august chagrin titled "love"

it's all good

That statement annoys me when I hear it, I don't know why. But I'm feeling much better today. Actually, I was feeling better last night. I don't know if it was the weather change, masturbation, or the presidential debate, perhaps all of it. It's all good!

I realized after yesterday afternoon's rain that the weather was so disagreeably hot and muggy prior that I was on the verge of tears. S often complains about weather like that, sometimes I think he's overreacting. But now I get it, finally.

When we got home from the airport I said something about it being "moist," he said, "It's been like this for three days." We have different thresholds with regards to weather -- I don't like it cold, he doesn't like it hot -- but he's more apt to comment on his discomfort. Not that there's anything wrong with that. (It's all good...)

Maybe it was because I'd just gotten back from Tennessee where the weather was quite agreeable, and where people had their thermostats set to 70 (which seems a bit frigid for indoors to me) and I had become accustomed to it (somewhat, with a down comforter on at night), but something was putting me on edge yesterday. I couldn't work, I couldn't do much of anything; I almost felt depressed, except that it was just inability to do anything, not inability to do anything combined with the wish for death!

The presidential debate gave me a renewed hope for this country. Barack Obama is the sweetest, most genuine and generous president (to-be) I have ever witnessed. Maybe it's an act, but if so, he's deserves the Award.

I had a dream a few nights ago that I hugged him. Or I should say we hugged each other. It wasn't one-sided. The thing I remember as I drew in close was that there was a dimple in his earlobe where an earring had once been. I don't know that he ever wore an earring, but for some reason that made him all the more real to me. (This was a nice follow-up dream to one I'd had a week or so earlier in which Michelle Obama had died -- been killed? -- and S and I were sent to Barack's hotel room to notify him. That was a really upsetting dream; I was rolling around on his hotel bed sobbing while he hugged S, and when I woke up I was still crying.) The day I woke up from the hugging dream, I saw on the web that he was walking door to door in Ohio shaking peoples' hands and giving them hugs. Therefore my dream seemed fortuitous.

I was actually quite jazzed when I got home last night; so much so that I thought I would do some more work (since I hadn't yet clocked in six hours and the end of the work week was today at 1:00), but instead I read through some blog comments on the debate and felt uplifted by all of it; it really is all good.

This morning I got up and worked, and I turned in a time sheet with twelve hours on it. Not what I'd hoped for, but I was about ready to call the whole week a bust this time yesterday afternoon.

20. october eighth (letter) 1993

(reference 13.)

amitodana writes a third letter to august in new york, even though she hasn't heard from him yet. she writes more about her own situation than randy's, expressing that she feels overwhelmed and very alone.

i can't get no...

I don't know what I was expecting. All I know is I was happy to get home.

I thought maybe the long weekend would wean me off of the constant political blog-watching and get me back to work, or at least to writing. But neither of those things has happened.

Tomorrow is the day I turn in my time sheet, and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to cough up fifteen hours for this week. My plan was to work four hours before I left Austin on Friday, then work eight today and tomorrow to come up with twenty hours, half a week's work. But instead I'm spending my time looking at the Chronicle classifieds online. Why? I guess I'm so dissatisfied with the way things turned out in Nashville, I'm willing to forget about it with a happy ending.

But there aren't any happy endings in the GM dating world of Austin; I already know that. I don't look good on paper, and I don't have the balls to approach the random hottie on the street or at the grocery store to ask if he wants to "hang out."

Plus it's raining. Nashville was having beautiful fall weather, cool nights and days around 80°. In Austin last night and today, it feels like a mold factory. I have freshly laundered clothes hanging on the indoor clothesline, limp and damp; they'll probably be there until tomorrow.

It was nice to see some of my old friends -- and I made a few new ones, who were totally cool -- but there really isn't a love connection between B and me. I think we both want to be in a relationship, but he doesn't want to be in Texas and I don't want to be in Tennessee. And what's more, I don't think he's the one for me. We don't have enough in common. He isn't passionate enough for me, or at least he wasn't over the weekend (though in his defense he had some family issues going on that might have affected him a bit). I just didn't feel any strong draw to him. We had sex once; I instigated it. It was okay, not great. I didn't feel like instigating again, and although he was willing, he wouldn't make the first move (I think he's one of those guys who "doesn't have to") so I was left feeling a little cool about the whole attraction thing. Basically, I was wondering my first morning in Nashville why I had planned to stay such a long time!

On the way home I was trying to figure out why it seems to me that I want to be in a relationship. Do I really? I don't seem to be interested in the people who are interested in me and the people I'm interested in are generally unavailable (i.e., straight). Am I really interested in letting something happen? In making something happen? I considered going celibate for a specific period of time, meditating my way through the urges, but my urges are so strong, and porn is so readily accessible. And then a man I saw reading Love in the Time of Cholera in the Nashville airport, and then he was standing next to me in the DFW men's room looking at my peepee and I thought, "Could he be the one?"

Now I'm wondering why I can't just get to work. I feel anxious and horny! I had my chance, I guess, and I blew it, quite literally.

19. tattooed man (houston) 1988

(reference 12.)

august arrives at the dive bar in houston (ruckus) he has been absent from for several months looking for spider, the person he ran away from, to apologize and try to work things out. spider has arrived at the bar yet, and august meets paul, a handsome and mysteriou tattooed man who has just come out of a bisexual relationship with a husband and wife. august recognizes his own bisexual tendencies during the conversation and feels more connected with paul than he had ever felt with spider. this realization causes him to run away when he hears spider approaching the bar. by chance, paul finds august at the washateria next to his apartment. they go to august's aparment and make out but don't have sex. paul is intrigued by the paintings in august's apartment (which were painted by his mother dar of his sister june). august plans a meeting between paul and his family, a sixteenth birthday party for his sister, at which paul will show off his chefing abilities. june gets drunk and passes out on champagne, paul and dar get high, as does august, reluctantly. august goes to bedroom he grew up in, assuming paul will join him there eventually, but wakes the next morning to discover paul and dar in paul's vw bus having sex. august runs away and doesn't look back.

18. august chagrin (nyc) 1989

(reference 11.)

randy meets august collins at the gay movie theater he frequents on new year's eve. he allows august to stay at his apartment because august's boyfriend is tripping on acid and has become unpredictably violent. shortly august is living with randy and they are in a "monogamous relationship." randy sneaks a peak at august's journals one night looking for an excuse to dump him and instead finds a genius in the making. he confesses his indiscretion and encourages august to become the performance artist he is meant to be. he helps august choose his stage name (august chagrin) and asks his boss/friend charles for assistance with august's career, which comes in the form of a transgender former performance artist turned director named lorax. during august chagrin's rise to success, randy becomes jealous and visits the gay movie theater he hasn't been to in months and brings home crabs. august leaves randy, moves in with lorax, and their relationship as well as august chagrin's career, blossoms.

17. diamond mind (childhood) 1980

(reference 10.)

shortly after his graduation from high school, rich white and his high school sweetheart got married, but died in a car accident on their way to the honeymoon. rich's sister diamond, who has never been particularly close to randy, asks him to accompany her to the spot of the tragedy in southern florida. she is going to put a memorial cross and flowers on the highway shoulder. their awkardness dissipates somewhat when they discover a mutual infatuation with performer cher.

16. trucker zoom (road) 1993

(reference .09)

high on trucker speed, randy becomes obsessed with looking for anonymous sex at the interstate rest areas (because of the writing on the stall walls and the activity he sometimes sees or senses going on there). he is reminded a lot of his anonymous sexual encounters in new york city, flashing back to them, leading up to the safe encounter with a man named walter who later died of aids.

heads-up

I'm not working today. I'm getting ready to go to Nashville. I'm slightly anxious. Who is this guy I'm going to visit? What will we do for the next four days? Will we have sex a lot? Will we have sex at all? I'm still not sure. I don't know why I've gotten so paranoid about things all of a sudden, but I'm not sure it was really all so sudden. Buying a ticket to Nashville a couple of months ago has given me lots of time to think about it. I'm excited about the trip, about the possibilities. But I got a phone call from B last night saying he wanted to give me a "heads-up" on a possible development. His grandfather is sick in Georgia and he might have to dash off at a moment's notice. He wanted to be sure I have another place to stay if it came to that. I do.

S and I got high and watched a pretty bad movie called He Was A Quiet Man starring Christian Slater. And then I tried to write, and then I tried to journal. It was no use. I started wondering if perhaps the story about B's grandfather wasn't true, if he was just trying to find an out in case we didn't hit it off. I'm wondering how much weight I've gained since I saw him, what kind of shape I'm in since then (which is silly because I never exercised when I lived in Nashville, and although I'm not exercising now, but up until a couple of months ago I was daily). I wonder if he'll notice my gray pubic hairs. I trimmed my wild weed patch of pubes today in preparation for a weekend of sex.

I don't know why I've become so insecure. "Become?" Let me take that back. I don't know why my insecurity has become so pronounced of late. Oh, even that isn't true. I know why.


A couple of nights ago, S and I went to see a movie called August Evening and then I met Br and G at Bouldin Creek Cafe. We had a great time. I wrote this in my journal when I got home:

Br thinks I'm this way with everybody. But I think I have discovered the kind of love affair I can have with him, a straight man. "Humor is my weapon." He laughs at that line (because I said it with a humorous flare) but it is true. In a deep way humor is my talent borne of my insecurities. He's not the only one. I have lots of these lovers, men (straight, usually) and women, our intercourse is laughter. Sometimes it's just masturbation on my part, and they like to watch as I prance around and take their thoughts and spin them into "funny." I know I'm funny. But sometimes they join in, they make me laugh, too, at them and with them and it's done right there in the open and anyone can watch and enjoy it if they want to. But I don't necessarily notice anyone around me. It's just the two of us and our laughter. Sometimes it can be a three-way or even an orgy--

That's all I wrote. I got sidetracked, started doodling on the page. I was trying to say it was wonderful, it was satisfying, this relationship I have with Br. He even called me the next morning and I felt like a blushing bride. Not that I expect or even hope that it will eventually become a physical thing between us; I don't think it will, and I really don't want it to. What I was trying to say was that the laughter we share is special, it's like the best sex.

I tried to write about it again last night, starting with my reaction to having gotten the call from B, the "heads-up" about his grandfather:

about a boy, part whatever
If this doesn't happen there's going to be some kind of a shift, there's got to be. I don't know what that means, but I know something's going to change. It's like some kind of a sign. It is a sign. Because that's what I want it to be. I choose to know. D from the Dance always used to say that; instead of "I don't know," he would say, "I choose to know," which doesn't always work. If you asked him what time it was and he didn't know, he'd say, "I choose to know," and it kind of made sense, but if you asked him something like how does it feel to suddenly be forced into fatherhood by his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's dead-beat-dad-ness and he said "I choose to know," it didn't make much sense. To me. That's true hippieness, that narrow view of the universe, and it isn't all that different from the narrow view of the universe my fundamentalist grandparents had, so I didn't care much for it.

(Did I mention I was high when I wrote that?)

I'm sad and I'm rambling, about nothing really. B called tonight to say he may have to dart before I get there or sometime during my visit because his grandfather in Georgia isn't doing so well. He called to give me a "heads-up." But if he doesn't call, I'll see him at the airport tomorrow night.

I was really avoiding voicing my fears about him making it up. I don't really think that's the case, so I don't want to state it as fact, but I want to point out now that I was avoiding writing about it. I continued:

If worse comes to worse I can always stay with L and C -- L said "my room is always available." I wonder if I could just stay at B's and take care of his animals if he has to go away. I'm thinking I'll take my book, all of it (maybe on disc) and make a writing weekend of it. That would almost be better than a fucking weekend. But then again, maybe not. We'll see.

Night before last I met Br and G at Bouldin Creek Cafe after they got out of the Dance and I was home from seeing a movie (locally filmed, etc.), a preview. Br did the warm-up music at the Dance and maybe I would have gone to that if I wasn't going to the movie, but I don't know, something happened between me and the Dance and I can't get it back.

At the movie, a woman sitting next to S was holding a piece of paper and writing a list on it. I was intrigued and copied what she had written:

1. Copies
2. Grades on books
3. Grades on reports
4. P. development
5. Drop downs
6. Comments?
7. Conference forms
8. Call parents for conferences

It went on but the movie started and she put it away before I could get it all. (I know, I'm snoopy for no good reason, kinda like that college student who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account.) More journaling:

There are several restaurants in Nashville I want to go to. Family Wash for their vegetarian shepherd's pie; that pizza place on 12th St near L's. I asked L if maybe we could all have pizza together on Saturday night, but I haven't mentioned it to Br yet.

And then I tried to write a poem:

We are not lovers
But we laugh like we're in love
The only two people in a crowded room
The woman with you
Laughs at us and at our jokes
But she can only watch from the outside
As I touch you
And you touch back
Eyes wide open
Screaming, throbbing, slobber and tears
Our raucous laughter
Thrusting out and sucking in
Begging for a truce
A moment to catch our breath
Before we wind up again
For another round

I know, it sucks. The first two lines were in my head for a day, and I tried to turn them into something, but I think I failed.

I figured out a way to continue putting entries on my blog while I'm away, the outline of my book, anyway. They're all in there and scheduled to show up, one a day, so it'll look like I'm around, but really I'm not, I'm in Nashville, hopefully in a bed, hopefully with some part of my body buried in some part of B's, or vice versa.

15. march fifteenth (diary) 1993

(reference .08)

randy writes in his diary -- still in columbus, texas -- that he got deathly ill after the previous entry. he tought it was food poisoing but turned out to be complications from his auto immune deficiency syndrome. as of this writing, he is feeling better and still plans to complete his journey to san francisco, as much to sprinkle his mother's ashes as to finish out his life there.

14. part two

a performance art piece by august chagrin titled "puberty"

13. september nineteenth (letter) 1993

(reference 06.)

amitodana writes a follow-up letter from austin to august in new york telling him that randy's conditioin has worsened - he has had a leg amputated and can't speak because of a brain tumor. she implores august to make contact.

no loitering

There's one sad ending in my life I don't think can ever be changed for the better. When S and R and I split up, I went to Florida to live with J and her husband St, ostensibly to be their two daughters' live-in nanny in exchange for a room and meals. Four or five months later I hurriedly packed all of my belongings into my van and moved into a motel. The straw that broke the camel's back was the fact that R was coming for a visit and I was told that he wasn't welcome there. I questioned J and she said it was St's decision and she had to stand by him; I decided that I had to stand by my man as well, what else was I to do?

That was one of many straws. When their families came to visit, I was bumped out of my room and had to sleep on the couch in the living room amidst the activities going on around me, sleeping around their schedule, no matter how late they lasted or how early I had to rise. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't comfortable, so at least on one occasion, I went to a motel, on my own dime.

I was struggling with my relationship with R, and I was struggling with a lot of other things in my life, and often voiced my struggles with J, who was at the time my oldest friend in the world (we met in Houston when we both worked at a R&B club, and our friendship continued after I came out and moved to New York, and she traveled all over the world, eventually ending up with St and pregnant). I think that J always told St whatever I said, and I don't think he had the same filters available to help him understand where I was coming from.

One of the things I wanted to do when I moved off of the road and settled was to get an HIV test, not because I feared I was Positive, but rather because I had only done so once before (at the insistence of the woman I had mistakenly married as we were splitting up, sort of a punishment). I got tested shortly after I arrived at J & St's, but it was around the holidays and the clinic was closed for the holidays, then was permanently shut down at the beginning of the new year. The phone number was disconnected and I couldn't remember where the place was, and blew off making the necessary calls to find out where to get my results, and didn't really want to start the process over again.

J asked me several times -- I believe at St's insistence -- when I was going to get my results and I was non-commital at best. In the meantime, they asked their pediatrician if a gay man with HIV lived in their house, what precautions they should take for the safety of their daughters (at the time four- and two-years-old). According to J, the doctor told them that an HIV-positive man shouldn't share the same bathroom. That was why they were so interested in knowing the results of my test.

But a lot of other things were going on. I was having a hard time paying bills (the cost of the van S and I had bought together and I was now left with was nearly $500 a month); the only job I could get that was flexible enough for my nannying schedule was at the catering company where J worked, but I couldn't take any of the same shift she took because they needed a sitter because St had his own business and often worked around the clock.

J seemed shocked that I would move out just because they wouldn't let R stay with me. I made some comment about having to stand by R as she followed me in and out of the house as I carried my belongings to the van. I had also somehow found the results of my HIV test by that time and as I left said, "Just so you know, I don't have AIDS," or something insensitive like that.

It was a horrible couple of days when I was performing in a play (for some reason I thought I had time to do that) and R and my gay uncle were both in town to see me perform, and we were all staying in the same motel room, and R and my uncle ended up having sex together. (I encouraged it, I'm not sure why.)

I moved from the Beach to Jacksonville proper and saw the girls a couple of times before I left Florida for good. Once was at a catering party, the other was right before I moved; J met me at a park with the girls because she didn't think it was a good idea for me to come to their house.

A year or so later, when S finished the documentary about our life on the road and it played at a film festival in Tampa, J drove down and she and I stayed the night in a motel and tried to figure out what had happened to our friendship. We cried a lot, we apologized a lot, but St's name never came up, and R's only a briefly. The next day, we went our separate ways and haven't spoken since. In my mind I seem to remember that she said she was going to send me a T-shirt from a company she had started, and I waited for her to contact me, and it never happened.

Occasionally, I Google J to see how she is doing - or what she is doing, rather. The T-shirt website disappeared and her name showed up alongside St's for his business. Another time, I found that she had started her own catering company, but more recently saw that the business license for that company expired. Just recently, I found her name in a list of people in her county who had given money to the Democratic Party.

I'm happy that Obama is doing so well in Florida; I wish we could see the same thing happen in Texas. It would be something to talk about, I think to myself. I have J's phone number phone but I haven't used it in a long time; I don't know if it still works.

I wish her all the happiness she can have in her life, but sometimes I think that if she and St split up perhaps there would be a chance for us to be friends again. We were such good friends for a long time. Otherwise, it could only be secret meetings here and there, maybe some emails sent back and forth, but with no mention of the men we stood by back in the day, and what kind of a friendship would that be, really?

My obsession with R has subsided, but I wouldn't be comfortable telling J about that, and I really don't have any interest in St. I do miss those girls those, more than anything. I guess they're about ten and eight now.

12. sixteen candles (houston) 1985

(reference 05.)

a hail storm hits houston the day the collins family is celebrating august's sixteenth birthday. the power goes out so august's mother (dar) can't finish the cake she is baking. they decide to celebrate with hostess ding dongs. august's father (tom) returns after the storm from the grocery story without the candles he was sent to get, so august sticks kitchen matches in the ding dongs. tom suggests that the family go to waco to visit a friend of his at a "religious community" causing a riff between him and dar. august lights the matches, things go wrong, a small fire breaks out, august's midly autistic sister (june) freaks out.

movies, movies

Amitodana is a large black dyslexic woman ex-Southern Baptist turned Buddhist pothead who comes off older (in her letters) than she is in reality. I got stoned and figured this out while editing a version of chapter twenty, the third of five letters by Ami's hand.

Tomorrow is my regularly scheduled writing night but tomorrow night is the second presidential debate and S reserved us seats at a viewing of it at the Long Center, and I wanted to get my hour of writing in for the week. Next Tuesday evening, I'll have just arrived back from Nashville (where, coincidentally, the debate is taking place), so I'm not sure I'll be writing that night either, but I'll have lots of time to write on the plane, or potentially will, if I take advantage of it.

Wow, my mind just wondered. I was thinking about C, whose name I can't remember, only that it begins with a C but doesn't resemble a name that would start with a C. The young model/actor friend of M's (from the dance) who told his father to say hi to me when he was visiting from California. There's nothing more to that.

S and I watched The Graduate a few nights ago. At the beginning, when he's on the plane, I got very claustrophobic feeling. Then I remembered I was high. Later, when he's in the pool in the scuba suit, I felt claustrophobic again. Why am I so claustrophobic as I get older. Of course it has to do with the pot, but it didn't always used to be that way. Is that the way I picture death coming? Feeling closed in and then slipping away? If that's what I think, it's a good opportunity to get comfortable with the feeling. When he was on the plane I was thinking about Paris, about my trip to Paris in March, my loooong plane ride to France.

Randy Reardon is supposedly afraid of flying but I don't feel like I've captured it yet. I've decided I will journal all the way to France, write about my claustrophobia if it strikes, describe the panic attack if I have one. It could be very useful for the book.

If my fear is based on death, I think I've approached my fear of death already and I don't really fear it in a fundamental way anymore. If the plane crashes and I die, that's the absolute worst thing that could happen, so there's nothing to worry about, right? I just hope it happens on the way home and not on the way there, if it's gonna happen!

I guess a bigger fear would be being paralyzed. So I'll state right here and now that, yes, you should pull the plug on me. Whomever, however, I don't want to be kept alive on a machine. (I'm glad I go that out of the way.)

I went to see Man on Wire a couple of nights ago. I had wanted to see it for some time, and I was afraid it was going to disappear from the movie theater by the time I got around to it, particularly since I'm spending next weekend out of town. S has become drastically conservative financially, will only go out if someone else is paying (except when he goes out for his Saturday night beer or two at the Chaindrive, but maybe somebody buys for him there -- he does have that charm or whatever it is that makes people want to treat him). I don't mind sometimes, but I like to go when I like to go and don't want to have to coordinate.

That's the best thing about our relationship, I think. We aren't boyfriends or partners or whatever; we don't have to get permission from each other. We don't have to answer for ourselves unless we want to, but we don't have to. I think it makes for a more comfortable and realistic relationship.

Man on Wire is a film about the man who tight wire walked between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. It's an amazing film. I'm not usually afraid of heights, but for at least a third of the movie my knees were jelly and my stomach was in my throat. It was exciting. It's a very well-made film, very stylized. I loved it.

Last night, M and I went to see a friend of hers do a reading at BookPeople, and afterward we talked about relationships, hers and my lack of one. In many ways I want a relationship, a "significant other," but it just doesn't seem to be happening for me, and I'm trying to come to terms with that. Then again, I'm going to Nashville for a boy, so we'll see what comes of that. I know I'm not moving to Nashville, so it has limitations.

Last week, S and I watched Carnal Knowledge. I had never seen it (nor had I seen The Graduate). S's writing a paper for his history class on Mike Nichols, or on his films, rather, or at least on those two plus Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's for his history class, so he's writing the paper from some sort of historical perspective, the late 60s/early 70s, something like that.

Great film, Carnal Knowledge. The Graduate, too. But I liked Carnal Knowledge a little better. I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I hope that's in the queue. I've seen it at least once before, but would love to see it again.