wednesday, january 19th (2004)

6:29 p.m.

I'm heating up some mystery food I pulled out of the freezer a few days ago. I was on my way to work (to also take care of the flat on Big Blue in the Co. parking lot) and I realized I hadn't taken my pill, so I turned around. And then I turned around again and went and got a cigarette and decided I wasn't gonna go back to work.

I cleaned LW's house for the first time today. I got started later than I'd planned (10 instead of 9) and it took longer than I'd hoped it would (4.5 hours instead of 3 - but I putzed around some, and I took a puff from her pipe...), so I came home and took Jesse to the dog park (it was warmer today than it has been) and L showed up with Reuben and Maud, so we stayed till Jess was pooped - though she doesn't seem to be pooped any longer.

(This is a brown rice, cabbage and cheese dish; it yummy.)

I left at 5 and decided to go to the gym, and then on the way out to the truck (R is letting me borrow) I realized I didn't have gym clothes or cleaning supplies. But I felt grimy, and I didn't want to go to Co. feeling like that, so I went to the gym with a change of clothes to steam and shower (and use the soap they supply).

M with the dot tattoo was there. I have a crush on him. He said hi, asked me how I was and we ended up in the sauna together. When we were finally alone, I said what I'd been thinking for the first 10 minutes...

ME: Would you be interested in going out to eat with me sometime?
HIM: Are you asking me out on a date?!
ME: I guess so!
HIM: ...I'm not dating right now.
ME: Okay...that's cool. --Would you want to go out for dinner not on a date, just as friends?
HIM: To be honest with you, now that I've seen you naked, I don't think that would be possible.
ME: Fuck...
HIM: I'm just being honest.
ME: Okay. --Did you have a bad experience?
HIM: No, it's just not the right time.
ME: Good for you; I can appreciate that. --When do you think you'll date again?
HIM: I don't know. I'll know when the time is right.
ME: Could be soon...
HIM (laughs): What's your name again?
ME: JDJB.
HIM: JDJB.
ME: And you're M.
HIM: You have a better memory than me.
ME: I just have a crush.
HIM: Excuse me?
ME: I have a crush on you.
HIM: Thank you.
(Then people came in.)

(Later, outside the shower.)
ME: I want you to know that was difficult for me.
HIM: I know-- Okay. It's not you; the timing's just not right.
ME: I hear you. I think that's good that you're there with that.

11:21 p.m.
I'm so daft! Matt was saying he wants to have sex with me. Hey, I'm not looking for love, either. Well, I am, but not here. As of this writing, I am not interested in staying in Nashville indefinitely.

My sweet potato peanut soup turned out good but looks like vomit. I didn't have enough of any of the ingredients so I had to substitute. I used 2 sweet potatoes, a russet potato and a carrot instead of 3 sweet potatoes. I used red cabbage instead of "cauliflower or cabbage" (they probably meant green cabbage). I didn't have peanut oil so I used sesame oil - no big deal - and I didn't have roasted peanuts so I used chunky peanut butter. I garnished it was Italian parsley and it was good that way.

I'm also thinking of making quinoa to serve it with (or put it right into it).

I can't believe it's 11:28. I'm wired. C came over and brought vanilla ice cream and I had root beer, and we had root beer floats.

Oh, yeah, and I didn't have regular chili peppers so I used a dried up old jalapeno pepper. And then I jerked off later and my penis was hot for a while afterward. My face, too, because I was looking at it, picking at it.

I think the sit in the sauna was good for my skin. I've been very greasy lately. Oh, I didn't mention my nosebleed, did I? Yeah, shortly after my interaction with M in the steam room, I got a nosebleed. As C said, "To add injury to insult!" (I said it the other way and she corrected me.) I ran out of the sauna bleeding on my towel. M asked about me later...

HIM: Are you all right?
ME: Yeah, I got a nosebleed.
HIM: Yeah. I get them all the time. It's the dry air.
(Maybe.)

(photo credit)

tuesday, january 18th (2004)

9:43 p.m.

Jesse's chomping away on a beef rib on the other side of the bed. Sometimes I think I don't want a pet because I hate the constant reminder of the food chain.

I got all worked up about the Turnip Truck yesterday. I stopped by there after work and talked to Je, and now I've come down. I'd like the job, but I'm okay if I don't get it, too. When I heard myself today saying, "I just might not wanna move for a while--" and "I think I would wanna look for an apartment--" if I get this job, I thought, hm, does it really matter? If I get the job I'll be here, if I don't get the job I'll be here, for a while. I'll have plenty of time to change my mind a few more times before a decision has to be made.

I did talk to LW today about the possibility of having to leave Co., and she was happy for me. I was afraid she might be "upset." Silly me.

Interesting, this: I came out of Co. at 5 today bound for TT, only to discover a flat tire. I tried to change it myself before calling AAA but I wasn't able to get the lug nuts off. C has Roadside Assistance with Geico, and I have Geico now, so I called Geico (I skipped this: AAA had a 2.5 hour wait), but found out I didn't have Roadside Assistance on my Geico policy. Oh, and I actually had to pay up my AAA account in order to get help from them - $46 - and then I found out it was a 2.5 hour wait, and then I called Geico, blah, blah, blah.

Interesting, though, that I had a flat because: it made me stop and calm down and let the stress go (I smoked the other half of a cigarette I'd started on the way to work - C caught me, and I was just being proud of myself for not ever smoking at work - although I do all the time light up in the parking lot as I'm leaving).

R brought me Shields & Yarnell rainbow wool socks from Ecuador...

Fats went out of town without calling me about the recording. I'm only mildly concerned about that right now. I'm too tired to be any more concerned about anything right now.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

(photo credit)

monday, january 17th (2004)

6:53 a.m., MLK Jr Day

I used to be a morning person. I used to pop out of bed as soon as my eyes opened for the first time, no matter how many hours I slept, so long as it was at least five. But lately, I sleep and sleep and sleep, and when I wake up - usually because I have to pee so bad I can hardly lie flat - I talk myself into going back to a dream, just curl up sideways so my bladder won't be such a bother. And then, when I finally get do get up to pee, I'm trying to talk myself into going back to bed as soon as I'm done: Oh, won't it feel nice with an empty bladder?

This morning the bed didn't win. The dream I was having - being a burn victim in a hospital that serves piles of cheese pizza in the cafeteria - wasn't interesting enough to call me back. Plus, the door at the bottom of the stairs was closed all the way and Razz was clawing at it with his clawless paws - not so much to get upstairs but to get me down to fill his bowl (even though I fed him a little extra last night - it's his ritual). So I put my big, heavy terry cloth robe on over my flannel pjs and went down the two flights of stairs to the basement. And during all that time, my mind is still trying to figure out a way to get me back to bed, all the way up to the point of grinding the coffee beans.

And then, for a brief moment, I considered that I could still go to the gym; it's MLK Jr Day, there would be parking spaces. But, no, I guess I'd rather be disappointed in myself. I decided in the middle of the night, night before last, that I was gonna stop smoking pot and drinking beer (and other alcohol) for the rest of the month. But by the end of the day, I'd had a beer, a few sips of Grand Marnier and smoked a roach I found in a little tin I was putting a barely-smoked cigarette into. It was too fucking cold to stand outside and smoke a cigarette. But I can smoke weed indoors! What a Loser.

The reason I thought to take a vice break was because M had reminded me in a recent email that pot and beer might have something to do with my roller coaster emotions. But I haven't really had roller coaster emotions since I've been taking the Cymbalta. But that's why I thought it would be a good time to take a break from it all. But, no, I guess not yet.

Not yesterday, anyway.

I have a job interview at 1 p.m. today. I feel pretty good about the prospect of getting the job, I don't know why. It may interfere with my hours at Co. (afternoons - I think they're looking for evening people at Turnip Truck, and they close at 8), but hopefully I can get LW to say that's okay. I need a little bit more job than I have there, and I'm still not getting work from NYC, so I'm getting a little bit desperate. And still, on top of all of that, I would love to work at Turnip Truck. For several reasons. The main one is that I've wanted to work in a health food store for a long time. Other reasons include:

1. I spend so much money there, it would be nice to get a little discount;
2. It would be good experience for me to be able to get a job west of here (Denver, Joshua Tree, wherever);
3. Jo the owner is very sexy and sweet, and I'd like to find out what he's all about... straight? gay? single? partnered? I tend to think he's gay and single.
   

I saw a movie on Sundance last night called The Secret Lives of Dentists. I liked the story and I liked Campbell Scott and Denis Leary and the actresses who played the three daughters. I didn't think Hope Davis was all that good, but the way the story turned out really held my attention to the end.

11:32 p.m.
I can't sleep, and I was going crazy trying to upstairs. Jesse had my leg room and R had a sharp elbow point poking into my upper arm, and his air passage was making a ticking sound that I couldn't drown out with earplugs jammed all the way into my eardrums. In fact, I think the earplugs magnified it! Every time his breath changed directions, it would tick.

11:38
I've made myself some tea. --Oh, and my asshole was itching. I guess I have a hemorrhoid, and an irritated crack because of it. I found a nice touch through my pajamas, nice and light, and I didn't want to stop rubbing on it all night long (I felt like a dog must feel when she's getting her belly rubbed - we both look the same, I bet).

So I got up, came downstairs, threw another blanket on the bed, put some water in the microwave, got some regular {room temp} water, too, and my journal, and climbed into the downstairs bed. The lighting is definitely better for writing here.

The interview with Je at Turnip Truck seemed to go very well today. She hinted that she would definitely be having me back for a second, short interview to meet the owner... I'm thinking now - and have been all day since then (and all night, too, obviously) - that I should go back and tell Je that I'd be interested in full-time if she's interested in having me full-time. I also (first) need to ask what the hourly rate is, and if there are any benefits (not that that would make a difference because I don't have any now). But the unspoken benefits are what I've gotten all jazzed about. I wouldn't have to drive Big Blue much at all (fuel, upkeep...); I could and would walk to work. Having one job is better than two.

(photo credit)

sunday, january 16th (2004)

9:33 p.m.

Is my life just getting weirder by the year or what? What am I doing here? R and I are not lovers. We're not really even all that close of friends (I don't think). It's like I'm the housekeeper and cook who shares his bed.

I vacuumed today, and I wiped some countertops. Sometimes I'm so satisfied by the simple act of vacuuming. The job completed. And it's not just that. In fact, I think more so it's the tidying up I do that brings me satisfaction.

--Oh, I can't forget this! I saw a documentary last night (a short) about a young guy in Dallas who was paying to get shot! He paid a mechanic-looking guy $500 to shoot him - for the scar!!! I couldn't believe what I was watching, and even now, just writing it, I wonder if it was a hoax. And I'm helping to spread this crazy hoax. But it has to be true, because it will be. Somebody else will see that and say, "I want to have that done," and it will become a thing. Crazy motherfuckers!

(photo credit)

saturday, january 15th (2004)

10:13 p.m.

Hip, hip, hooray! I went to the library today and wrote the whole first draft of "Forbidden," which I was calling The Little Pirate Story, or something like that. I should print out all of my recent short stories; I think it would be a good idea to see what I have accomplished, so I can't keep telling myself I'm not accomplishing anything. I went to the library to check out Forbidden Planet, and picked up The Apartment, too, which is what I watched tonight. I'll watch F.P. later.

There's a pen and ink drawing class at an art store here at the end of the month that I'd like to take. The catalog came to R. He's thinking about taking a class or two if {his company} will pay for it. I encouraged him to take a book binding class because I think that would give him a good thing to do with all of his photographs.

The ad for the class I'm interested in (which R says he has no interest in at all) says to bring a photo that you think would make good subject matter, "no portraits, please." I would take the picture of Big Blue that R took at the CSA farm when several of us, including S were there after Easter last year. It's my favorite photograph of R's. If I get my autobiography published, and if it's called "Big Blue," I think it would be the perfect picture for the cover.

I'm sure J will be calling me about meditation in the morning - a ride; that's why I gave him my phone number, so I could give him a ride and at the same time so it would get me there. Good thinking, huh? Because I knew the time would come when I would feel just like I feel right here and now tonight, and if I had any choice about it- if I was on my own and hadn't already turned the guy down on Tuesday - I probably wouldn't go. So I'm glad he'll be calling because that means I'll be going. And I need to.

"man giving birth to himself"

It starts with constipation, weeks-long, loss of appetite.

He wonders if it is related to his lifestyle or his emotional state (both currently unhealthy).
He is contemplating a life change, again, but is interested in doing something different; he is tired of the same two or three places he seems to end up again and again.
He is between deciding on a "healthy" lifestyle and an "unhealthy" one. That's really what it boils down to.
He is interested in more social interaction. He always has been. This brings him happiness, or at least the closest to it he has ever known.
The constipation! Another cigarette. The third one of the day, none of them satisfying; all of them frustrating. The tobacco is too damp to smoke easily. Too dry is not good for smoking enjoyment, but too damp is worse.
He would like to change this fact, but he cannot. He also cannot get the tobacco to dry, cannot get a good smoke. He strains to draw on it; the paper comes loose (he rolled it himself with a head shop rolling machine) and it quickly looks old, antiquish.
He lights it again and gets his lungs full of the smoke he craves, full of the nicotine his body craves. He has had to smoke it like a joint, sucking the cigarette hard, filling his mouth with smoke and only then drawing it into his lungs. They seize up, just this side of a cough; it is a satisfying feeling.
He tries again but can't get another good draw. The cigarette is less than halfway smoked! Harder and harder he sucks on it.
And then, suddenly, it happens. The weight of his intestines reminds him. There is a shifting of the mass inside his body, like he is about to shit, the first shit in too long, a great big shit that will empty out downward and at the same time lift a weight off of his shoulders.
He throws the useless cigarette into the yard and rises from the comfy cushions of the front porch.
A waterbug, a great brown-winged date, sees a shadow, a flash in the porch light she's been concentrating on, and she flies to it, a flurry of waxpaper wings, right at his head, his face.
He falls to the concrete, arms fluttering around his head defensively.
His stomach cramps up and his legs become limp, useless, like he's disappeared below the waist. A panic attack ensues, sweat, chills, the mind watching and reporting on the body which has lost control. His mind begs the body to respond, but it does not.
He can feel his rectum loosen, feels a force against it from the inside causing it to open wider and wider.
Frantically, he grabs at his fly and opens it, slides his shorts to his knees so he doesn't shit his pants.
Something moves out of him, something so big it stretches the rectum beyond its usual opening; it seems to be pushing bones aside. The pain drenches him with sweat. The concrete is cold against his cheek.
He says to himself, "Giving birth couldn't be worse than this."
A boulder pushes out of him, but he is too weak to pinch it off; it lies heavy against one sweating buttock.
He lifts his trembling head, rolls his body over a little, pushes up with his free hand, leans at the waist and gets a glimpse of what is trying to come out of him.
A head. The top of it is all he can see, shit smeared hair his own color, a wrinkled forehead, one long eyebrow and a pair of hazel eyes, just like his own, staring back at him with an equal amount of dread and confusion.
He falls to the concrete and lands in a deep, deep sleep.

(photo credit)

in and out

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friday, january 14th (2004)

8:49 a.m.

I didn't go to the gym this morning. I woke up a little before 4:30 (I'd got to sleep at a little after 10) and talked myself into believing it wasn't enough. I thought, If I can lie here for half an hour without going to sleep, that'll be my sign.

Sign for what? Needless to say, I fell back asleep in that half hour and finally got out of bed at 7. Oh, well, Maybe it is the weather. It wasn't that cold in bed, and it's witch's tit cold outside. --Well, maybe slightly warmer than a witch's tit.

I cut open some butternut squashes and chopped onion, celery, apple, parsley, walnuts, bread and raisins and stuffed the squash cavaties with that and some wheat germ and olive oil.

I guess this is cleaning day. R just left with Jesse for the park and in my mind I'm thinking, What should I do, turn on the TV? Get online? But, no, I should clean. It won't be such an all-day affair if I do it every week.

I start cleaning LW's house next week (to pay her back for the money she loaned me last month). I'll be able to do that in the middle of the week, so it won't interfere with my Fridays. I guess I'm not cleaning the S's house anymore. I thought about sending them a card, just in case they lost my phone number and are looking for me, but then I realized yesterday that they could find me on the East Nashville list serv if they wanted to, the same way they found me in the first place. I'm not on the list serv - I never was; CB told me about the listing, and I'm sure she or R or somebody else would tell me if the S's were looking for me there.

Squash alarm is going off; gotta uncover and cook 15 minutes.

9:28 p.m.
Drunk. Waiting for my soup to cool so I can puree it. LW bought me a margarita at La Hacienda. 45 ounces! I bought myself huevos rancheros and then came home and walked a brisk 20 minutes with Jesse and then wrestled with her in the front yard. I asked LW at work if she'd share her margarita with me (knowing that she'd probably buy me one) and she said, "Sure!" The waitress put the margarita on my tab and I didn't notnice until I was writing in a $3 tip for the $14 meal. What? The man behind the register asked me if there was any way I could get cash from her for the drink. Aw jeez, how embarrassing. "Remember that drink you bought me? Well, they put it on my tab, so can you give me cash for it?"

The soup will be good. It's a butternut squash soup I'm kind of making up/altering from a recipe for canned pumpkin soup.

11:03 p.m.
I can't even see the clock from here.
The soup is delicious.
I'm a fast walker.
I smell like cigarette smoke.
I went to Lipstick Lounge with LW. She paid my way in so I bought us beers. Ronda & Jonda are great; a real Las Vegas small bar act. What a story that would make! The lead guitar is an Asian guy, the keyboard and additional vocalist looks like a big-breasted tranny with hair that looks like she's been going in for chemotherapy. The woman who plays bass looks like a boy I went to junior high and high school with, my best friend for a while; Burl Ives' great nephew.

11:15
Remember when you read back over this: I'm usually pretty stoned or drunk (or both) when I write in here.

january 13th (2004)

a little pirate story
Halloween 1956. Richie's 7, Amy's 15, Gordon's 17 and he's never around, and Cindy's 14 and she don't count. Plans have been made for weeks. Richie is gonna be a little pirate, Amy's going as a mummy, Cindy was gonna go as a nun, but they could only gone one color of fabric, so they both went as tan mummies. Gordon actually painted a realistic-looking gash on the side of his neck which scared the heck out of his mother. Papp looked up from his Bible to say, "I hope that mess on your shirt is gonna come out easy in the wash for your momma. I'd hate to think you take our generosity for granted. Momma waved Papp off and patted Gordon with the same hand. "Just promise me you'll never come home with anything looking like that that's real." Gordon didn't quite know how to take that. But he had 21 blocks to walk, so he left.

--

Oh, no, that's not right. Amy was going to take Richie trick-or-treating but she broke her leg or something like that. Cindy was going to the minister's house with a small group of girls and boys from church.

thursday, january 13th (2004)

7:19 p.m.

I had this plan to come home and write - after last night's outburst - and then I got home and it was all, like, I need to take Jesse for a walk but I wanna write (I have an idea for something); oh, and I was gonna make soup and baked squash tonight, but I'll let Jesse hang out and look up something for my idea on the web (Halloween 1956); and then I'm done with that and bored now, and I think I'll just look at some porn (or porno, as the call it here, or these days) and jerk off--or maybe play some video games.

(And then, when that was done:) Now I think I'll cook that stuff. Maybe I should get high first. And have a beer; I'd wanted a beer. (I don't know if the influence is R or Charles Bukowski, but I feel more debaucherous(?) lately.) (Someone once said they could imagine my life as a series of parenthetical statements!) (But the good thing about writing is you can always look back to find your train of thought.)

So (obviously) I got high. I tried to get to work on the soup, but I thought maybe I'd make a cream of potato soup instead, but I couldn't find a cream of potato soup recipe in five cookbooks. I knew I could find one on the Web, but that was a trap.

I went back to the squash soup I'd bought some ingredients for just this rainy morning. It's a recipe from (my favorite) Nikki & David Goldberg's American Wholefoods Cuisine cookbook. But I couldn't re-find the recipe. I had written the page number down on the shopping list, but I didn't want to search for that, so I just gave up on the project (now high) and went to watch TV.

I looked at the clock. 7:07. "Oh, yeah, CD told me I should watch Wickedly Perfect tonight. It started at 7. I'll give it a look." Fortunately, the cable hasn't been working well all day; I guess because of the storm.

I caught myself. "I oughta be writing right now instead of staring at a snow-covered TV screen." That's how I got here.

7:41 p.m.
I'm feeling the pull. Should I go back and try to catch the exciting last moments? I have a strong idea, something like "A Little Pirate Story," about the night Richie died. Halloween 1956. he was 7. The same age Dickie is in the Red Room, first time at his grandparents' house overnight. But I think the pirate story is gonna have to wait. I'm gonna let it fester a little more.

9:36
I figure I just have to let the emotions flow through me. I like my handwriting right now. Or, that first sentence, anyway. I tend to prefer skinner letters, but they don't always come out that way. Isn't that funny? Though I do like the occasional flare, and I love when a letter with an "i" in it winds up in the line below a letter with a tail, and the dot goes nicely in the tail, particularly in a fat tail, so I don't know what I'm saying, dissin' fat-tailed letters!

wednesday, january 12th (2004)

6:16 p.m.
"A story idea."

"Pull down your pants and let me see you pee."

Is that what she said? Kids have this natural fear of things they don't understand. I didn't understand much of anything, even for a seven-year-old, but was she supposed to be talking like this to me?

She repeated, "Pull down your pants; let me see your 'pee-pee.'"

I'd misunderstood her, but I still didn't quite understand. Was she talking about my 'down-there'? That's what my mother and I called it, and I thought we were the only two who talked about it. It was my first time staying with Gamma and Papp, and it was traumatic.

Earlier that same day, I had had to discuss my down-there with my mother. I'd awakened with a pain down there that just couldn't be avoided any longer. My mother came to wake me for school. I tried to tell her then, but she continued, "And remember, Papp is picking you up from school today because you're staying with your Gamma and Papp tonight, okay?"

I didn't answer. I stammered. She came close, sat on the bed. "I hurt," I said.
"What?"
"Down there."

I didn't point, didn't motion with my head or even my eyes, I just said the words. She put it together.

"Can I see?"
I nodded, blank.
"Can you show me?"

I lay back on my bed and lifted my middle up and pulled my pajama bottoms and underpants down just enough so my bruised apple-looking "down-there" plopped out.

She jumped up and ran to the doorway. "Phil, could you get me Dr. Delojune's number?" She looked back at me on the bed, still in the hiked up position, fingers cocked at the waistband. "Oh, honey, do you think you can put it away without hurting yourself?"

I shrugged and pulled my bottoms up and collapsed into a crying fit and had my first panic attack. I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but I've had identified ones since, and I know that's what it was. I became confused, out of sorts, and broke out in a cold sweat.

My mother rushed over and pulled the covers over me, and suddenly she became one of those women I'd seen on the church TV. "Jesus, are You with us?" My mother was always asking questions, and I never felt sure whether or not I should answer. I did that time. She stared her question right into me, "Jesus, are You with us?"

I cried out, "Yes!" Miraculously, the panic attack subsided.

At the doctor's office, my mother said, "Can you show the nurse your 'down-there'?" and "Can you show the doctor your 'down-there'?" Everybody was clued in on what we call that. So that's why, when Gamma asked me to show her my pee-pee, I wasn't sure what was going on at first.

But thinking back on it now, why was Gamma wanting to look at my down-there? Touch my down-there?

She did. She gave it a once-over that I felt was a little too aggressive. She told me to undress - and she stood there while I did it! - and she left me in the bathroom with nothing but a bathtub three inches full of scalding hot water and a bar of Ivory soap. She returned with my pajamas and I was crouching over the water, slowly, delicately lowering myself into the water.

She told me to get on in. "I put some salts in it; that'll make you feel better! You'll see. And Papp and me'll pray for you tonight. That'll really do the trick!"

I'd gotten a shot from the doctor, and I don't know if that kicked in right then or if Gamma was right. The second time my balls touched the water, the tingly sting felt good. It sent a shiver down my spine. I spent most of my bathtime looking down at the rippling magnification of my down-there.

Gamma knocked on the door. "Papp needs some time in there. Are you just about done?"

I jumped into action. "Yes, ma'am, just about." I ran the soap quickly down my arms and then rubbed my face hard with my soapy hands and splashed, splashed, splashed myself clean. I forgot about my soreness and put the towel right to it, like always, and boy was that a mistake!

Another mistake: Gamma didn't leave me any underpants to wear. I didn't want her to see me naked, again - or Papp, for that matter - so I put on the pajamas without the underpants (top and bottom) before I opened the door to call out to Gamma that she forgot my underwear.

She didn't respond the way I'd anticipated. She said, "You don't wear underpants with p.j.s, do ya?"

And of course I answered "No," because we were taught not to talk back to our elders. But still, everything Gamma said to me on this night made me nervous. It was the first time Gamma had made me nervous. But not the last time.

Out of the bathroom and to the right was Gamma and Papp's bedroom, uncomfortably small and dead center of the house since the add-on. Out of the bathroom and straight ahead was the air conditioning unit. Dogleg to the left of there a short hallway led to the off-limits living room and the picture of Richie. Out of the bathroom and to the left was the Red Room. It was Richie's room. I didn't know about that then; I didn't know who Richie was - or who that picture in the living room was of- until I was 16 and had my driver's license.

That had something to do with it. I walked in unannounced on a conversation about him. (I'll get back to Richie later.)

Gamma tucked me in. I'd asked her if I could sleep on the top bunk, and she just said, "No, no, we wouldn't want to lose ya." I didn't ask again; Gamma with her Dutch and German heritage was not a force to be reckoned with.

Funny, I was a lot more scared of tall and lanky, couldn't-kill-a-fly-if-he-tried-to Papp. That's how I heard him described all my life, but I never bought it. He didn't do much talking, and I wasn't just nervous about his silence, I was terrified by it. I confessed to Gamma when she hugged me goodnight that I was scared. Not of Papp, just scared. She promised me I had nothing to worry about. "Angels fly around this room. Every night."

I was thrilled. The angels she talked about, as best as I can figure out, were the headlights of cars hitting three of the four walls like a whoosh of angel wings. But the red walls of the bedroom made the spinning lights look more devilish.

And then, there he was, just outside the Red Room door, taller and lankier than ever in those over-long boxer shorts and A-shirt. I just caught a glimpse of him as another car passed. Whoosh.

Sweat beaded up on my forehead. Here comes panic attack #2. Or was it?

The next round of lights showed Papp standing now inside the Red Room door. And the next, a flash of light next to his leg revealed that he was holding a long, sharp knife. I tried to cry, but couldn't. A whiny moan came out of my mouth. But she didn't hear me; she couldn't hear me at that level. I had to moan louder and louder, slowly but surely louder.

"What's wrong?" she called out. Papp slid back into the hallway right outside of the room.
"I'm scared," I said.
"There's nothing to be scared of. Jesus is watching over this house. Go to sleep."

I tried, but he came back. I moaned again. This time, Gamma said, "Goodnight, Rich-- Dickie, shut up and go to sleep."

She wasn't calling me "Rich-Dickie," I know that now. But for the next 11 years from that night, I thought she'd called me Rich-Dickie. I stopped cry-moaning as much because of that as because Papp disappeared. I wasn't convinced he was gone for good so I kept myself awake as much as I could through the night.

Yeah, there were angels. There were swarms of red angels flying round and round my room. I don't know if I fell asleep and woke up later or if I just blinked my eyes, but the angels were gone. The swarming stopped. I lay there on my side, facing the door, watching the door.

The bed springs in the bunk bed over me creaked. I held my breath. For some reason, I knew it wasn't Papp. he couldn't have got past me without me noticing unless he was a ghost, and I wasn't scared of ghosts. I'm still not.

I saw a little upside-down monkey head peer over the edge of the bed. I recognized him right away as one of the toys on the top bunk come to life. I smiled at him, and that's when he showed me his smile, lost his balance, and flung himself into an acrobatic routine on the floor. I leaned up on one elbow and covered my face from dimple to dimple, supressing my laughs.

Gamma had laid out the next day's clothes neatly on the miniature rocking chair in the middle of the room. The monkey put them on, underpants, jeans, T-shirt, in the order Gamma had laid them out, and they fit him. He wasn't my size, but the clothes fit him.

It was a wonderful show. If I hadn't yawned, I think the monkey would've entertained me all night. But as soon as I did, he quickly pulled off my clothes and tossed them on the rocking chair, or at it, hopped up on the top bunk, his little foot coming closer to me than ever when he stepped up on my mattress. I felt a slight indentation. As soon as he was out of sight, he was sound asleep. I wasn't far behind him.

The clothes didn't manage to climb up the chair and refold themselves the way Gamma put them there. When I woke up the next morning, they were still crumpled in a sort of pile in the middle of the room.

8:35 p.m.
such an imagination!

monday, january 10th, part three (2004)

8:29 p.m.

I've had panic attacks all throughout my life. Uncertainty was often a main trigger for an attack. I remember having a panic attack in NYC when M was in town. I was with JH then and we were in some restaurant and I had an attack caused by I don't know what, and I had to go out and sit on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant by myself and sweat it out. Back then I always considered them flashbacks to bad acid trips (all but one (bad)), and maybe they are, or were. Or are. Maybe I damaged my brain just like they said I would. They'd say it serves me right.

I watched Dr. Strangelove in its entirety for the first time yesterday. It was very good. I turned to it because the TV guide gave it four stars. They very rarely give these out. I've taken to watching any movie I see with a four-star designation. The movie after it was called Portrait of Jenny. It also got four starts. R came home and I started watching it and he joined me and we watched the whole thing and I really enjoyed it.

I've been watching a lot of TV lately. Probably too much. I guess my brain is going to turn to mush, like an egg boiled, frozen and microwaved.

I took my Cymbalta early tonight, as per my doctor's recommendation: I took it at 6:05. R got home about 10 minutes ago. It's 8:47 now. I thought I was gonna write something creative. Instead, I just drew a television.

8:48 p.m.
The question isn't when will I get sleepy. The question isn't when will I go to bed. The question is when will I wake up?

BIG BLUE
Started in Jacksonville, Florida. That's where I first noticed it for what it is, so that's where it started. Everything kind of imploded. I didn't even realize the fuse was lit. But I wasn't the one who lit it. It was JG. Maybe even SN. He was certainly the one who fueled the flame.

Actually, I don't know that. I don't know why I say that. I don't know SN well enough to say he was the cause of all this turmoil just because I think I know JG well enough to say it wasn't her. I don't know anything or anybody concerned in that situation. Not well. Not even me. Maybe even least of all me.

At least that's the way it turned out. Maybe that was the case or maybe that was the cause of all my turmoil. Either way, it doesn't matter. This is where I am now. No matter how I got here, this is where I have to go from.

~
JM always said I shouldn't doodle while I'm writing, that I was letting energy out that should be used for writing. That I should utilize every drop, that otherwise I was wasting my creative flow--my talent even. But I've come to disagree with her. The doodling keeps the flow going. It's like opening a vent on a pot to let out a bit of steam so the contents won't rise up and boil over and not only be wasted, but create a mess as well.

My love affair is with a little blue and green pill. I think it's working out quite nicely. I believe it's taking (or should that be making, or causing?) its intended effect over time and is agreeing with me rather well. I feel a ripple effect. In my life, and particularly in this night. I should go to sleep and see if my dreams will guide my Big Blue story.

monday, january 10th, part two (2004)

8:32 a.m.
From the NashFae website:

The Faeries are both gay men, and men who prefer to use any other moniker that might describe them, as well as women who wish to be part of the group, and people who choose not to be called men or women, and beings who choose not to be called people. Faeries are organized as a group attempting to create community out of ritual and cooperation, except for faeries who are attempting to create community out of subversion of process and structure, as well as some faeries who wish to create chaos, often celebrating it, often not admitting it.

Many faeries are spiritual, lifting whole or part of their spirituality from any one of the world's religions or spiritualities. Some make a mix. Some react against spirituality and religion as its own evil, some find a spiritual path in reacting again spirituality.

Some faeries just want to dress up in drag and perform in the woods, some want to dress up and not perform, some faeries want to dress up anywhere they can, some faeries don't dress particularly different than they would in any other environment.

Some faeries combine their spirituality with sex, some don't, some are part of the faeries just to get laid. Some resent that. Some just want to drum by a campfire, and some want to camp far away from the drumming and get some sleep.

This is what faeries are, except for faeries for which none of this applies.

monday, january 10th (2004)

7:40 a.m.

R thinks that fat guy four houses down is gay because he has an Equality sticker (=) on the bumper of his car. But R thought MKM was a lesbian for the same reason. I think this guy down the way is just a liberal, like MKM. But unlike MKM, he's a drunkard. I see him walking up and down the alley, "walking" his dogs, always with a cocktail in his hand, no matter what time of day it is. I saw him around Christmas at about 6:30 or 7 in the morning with a very thin eggnog.

This morning, it's warmer out than it has been. The weather reports have been saying it's going to get warmer for days, but the weather hasn't borne out the reports.

I went down in the basement to feed Raz this morning as I do every morning, and the dehumidifier was humming away, drawing up moisture from its frozen ribs and then dripping it right back out onto the basement floor. I took the bucket from it yesterday to wash the kitchen floor and forgot to replace it, and forgot to put it back when I was done. The bucket was outside the basement door leading into the back yard. I opened the door to get the bucket, and that's when I noticed the weather, the nicer weather.

I replaced the bucket, fed the cat, then came back upstairs and admired my cleaning job (oops, a small puddle of water still remains!), and I opened the back door and stuck my head out to feel the day that's coming.

At first, I thought I was hearing a radio announcer, but then realized it was live voices, a man, mostly, and a woman, bellowing out over the neighborhood. It was the voice of the fat guy and perhaps the woman I've seen him with once before. I assumed when I saw them together before that they were a couple--I could be as wrong as R. They were in the middle of an argument. Their voices were raised and both of them sounded like victims.
"Well, I did this and then you did!"
"No I did not! It was you!"

I'm not even sure what the they were saying. When couples fight there is so much coded language, an outsider would have to be trained to understand the morsels of anger flying back and forth. I couldn't help myself. I stood their {sic} listening even though I didn't really understand.

The fat drunk guy has been building a fortress in his back yard for as long as I've lived in this neighborhood. There are eight-foot walls on three sides, nestling his house in arms of adobe. And since last summer he's been building some sort of a two-story structure in the middle of his back yard. It's not a garage, there's no entrance for cars that I can make out. Right now, the structure is just a sore thumb, a big pink structure with the logo of the pink outer insulation repeated on the outside wall. Around Thanksgiving, he added holiday wreaths and garland to the side of the structure to try to camouflage its incomplete state. One of the door-sized windows on the second floor was open. I didn't realize this until it was closed, shut quickly.

Maybe he saw me standing halfway out of the back door of my house, four yards away, listening to their argument. Or maybe it was her, embarrassed that this drunkenness always gets to this place. The structure is well insulated. As soon as the French door window was closed, the argument was barely more than a muffled hum, like many other noises in the neighborhood, not decipherable as an argument and not decipherable as coming from there.

I pulled my head back into my house, back into my own business, sort of. I picked up my journal and started writing.

Just a few minutes ago, R woke up, and he and Jesse came downstairs. He let Jesse outside and he went to his computer to check the weather, to see whether or not it would be a good day to hang laundry out on the line. Shortly, Jesse was running up and down the length of the fence, whining/barking. I looked out to see the fat drunk guy's four dogs running down the alleyway, and then the fat drunk guy himself, carrying a convenience store size cup - a Big Gulp or something like that, and something makes me think it wasn't full of Mountain Dew. Not from a fountain, anyway!

violation

Last night, about an hour before I got home, M tells me, she was at her desk on the computer, little P was in the bedroom watching TV. M went toward the kitchen and noticed a middle-aged white man with shoulder-length hair standing on the back porch (the main entrance) looking into the bedroom window at P.

M opened the door, asked the man if he needed something. He asked if they rented trailers. She said no. He asked if they had horses. She said no. Bones was going crazy, he followed the man as he walked up the driveway to the street. Good thing. M watched him for a minute then called the police when he sat and lit a cigarette across the street (not directly across the street but at the T about 100 yards from the house).

Two policewomen showed up in a cruiser and questioned him, and, after M called and asked for an update, came by the house and told her he told them he was looking for a trailer or land to rent (the confusion mine). They couldn't arrest him because he wasn't on the property.

I asked M if P knew about the incident. She had told her, and she was a little scared, and, M said, it gave her a good opportunity to explain to P not to talk to strangers.

J arrived home shortly after I did. He was worried. I asked him how he was, he said, "All right." I said, "How are you really?" He said, "I wish I didn't have to be worried about my family." That's understandable, that fear. My fear extended to the fact that there's a closet full of guns in the house. It's usually locked, but I wondered if they weren't sleeping with a gun in their room, in the room they share with P.

I didn't think much about the peeping tom until I went out in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette and write. All the lights in the house were on, including the front porch light (which was on when I arrived home and turned off; it was back on). I sat on the porch kind of spooked, unable to write.

Later, after I finished my transcribing work, I took a puff, then took a shower, and got more spooked as I thought about someone looking in at me, even though it's not very likely. While I was in the shower, I almost convinced myself I was going to see a shadow pass by the shower curtain

When I get spooked like that, I try to surrender to the idea that I might die, and that's not really such a bad thing. It's part of life, right? If it's my time to go, it's my time to go. But I did think it would be an unfortunate way to go, naked with the shower water running on me all night long, and maybe for days, since I don't see M&J every day and they don't bother me in my room.

We all woke up alive and okay, I'm happy to report.