jdjb

am i dreaming?

2009-11-10T14:32:00.004-06:00

Yesterday morning, S asked me if I'd had bad dreams the night before. I said, "No; why, was I making noises?" He laughed and said that several of his Facebook friends reported having bad dreams. I guess he was trying to see how far reaching this plague was. He had taken Nyquil, so he slept drugged and dreamless for nine hours.

Last night, I was startled by a bad dream. It was a bad dream, but I couldn't say that's what it was while it was happening. Usually, a bad dream is all about the label "bad dream." One could be being chased by an ice cream truck or a goat in a tuxedo, and that could be considered a bad dream, and somewhere in the middle of it, you know it. (I've had both of those dreams, and they were bad!)

In my dream that is just now coming back to me, I was climbing to the widow's peak of an old wooden house. There was a beautiful woman in a long white night gown standing next to me at the top. She stood up on the edge of the roof line and took a nose dive into the misty green silence before us. A moment later, I looked over the edge, and she had surely splatted on the concrete far below. It was startling. I thought, "Oh my god, she's dead." And then I woke up and thought it was a bad omen to have someone die in a dream (though I'm not superstitious that way, I myself have died in my dreams numerous times).

Then I thought back on the dreams S reported (and that I saw) on Facebook; one person had dreamt a close acquaintance died.

But I also remember passing by two empty public pools in the previous day or so and having a weird non-fantasy visualization of climbing up on the diving board and doing a dive into the emptiness. The part that stuck with me was that it might not kill a person to dive into an empty pool; it could just paralyze them, and as P1 says, that would be worse than death.

Just past the pool around which I had that thought, my eyes caught the eyes of an elderly black woman at a bus stop. I smiled, but it was too late to see if she smiled back. I like to think she did. A few days before that, I was riding my bike through that same neighborhood and caught a long glance at a black woman dressed in church-going finery. I nodded my head and said hello, and she smiled and said hello back. She was the opposite of the woman in white who dove to her death in my dream.

Maybe I'm making connections where they don't belong, but I fell in love with that black woman a little bit, even though I'm pretty sure that was the best our relationship could ever have been.

(photo credit)

it's not a nipple, it's a butthole

2009-11-06T21:48:00.009-06:00

And now I'm home again. I went out for dinner and to write. My first choice was Mandola's Italian in the Triangle not far from here. The food is good, but what I really like is the atmosphere; well-lit outdoor tables and good people watching. But the line was out the door and I was starving so I drove over to Magnolia Cafe on Lake Austin Blvd, which is what Sixth Street turns into at MOPAC. There was a wait there as well, but I pulled out my big cumbersome novel, removed the writing tablet from the inside pocket of the three-ring binder, found out what I needed to work on next, and dove into it.

This isn't writing, this is rewriting, revising or whatever. Whatever you call it, I haven't been doing much of it lately, so it felt good to get to it. For some reason, this part of the process feels less satisfying. The fuller versions, I would write a chapter at a time, for the most part; it was easier to get into the groove than it is when I'm just reworking a paragraph or two, or adding dialogue to a scene, which seems to be more often than taking dialogue out. I guess when things are cut down, whole chunks are usually pulled out, dialogue, narrative and all.

My first few attempts at rewriting were frustrating. I didn't think I was saying what I wanted to say, or felt like a lot more needed to be written, or that I didn't know how to get to the end of what I was writing and reconnect it with the existing manuscript. I read a couple of these to S, just to point out my frustration and illustrate my failure, and he liked what I had written. In the case that I couldn't find the end, he suggested I leave off the last partial sentence and leave it at that. He was right; it worked!

We joke that I'm writing this book for him. But he is my audience. He's a super-smart person, and knows me and my work better than anybody ever could, since we've had such a long acquaintance and because we've worked together creatively for a big chunk of those years. He's my first editor; these are his changes, for the most part, that I'm making before I consider the novel done and start the even more thankless job of looking for an agent or a publisher.

A few other people have also read the first draft. My mother is one of them. But I think she might have abandoned the project. She read the first chapter online, requested more (which meant I just had to tell her what buttons to push to get to the other chapters), and then asked if I minded if she printed it out, so she wouldn't have to sit in front of the computer the whole time. I gave her a copy. I visited there a month or so ago. It was an interesting visit. Not too traumatizing. But anyway, things get a lot more graphic by chapter four.

Another person who read (or is reading - she hasn't reported on her progress lately) is my old improv teacher. She had my favorite thing to say about the novel: It's not a nipple, it's a butthole! Perfect. She was referring to the graphic nature of my writing. My friend P1's then-boyfriend read it and sent me an amazing, descriptive, well thought out and useful critique by email. Ultimately, I didn't take his overriding suggestion - which was to change the more intimate details - but I did take a pause, as I have more than once over this, before proceeding. S was a big part of the decision not to change the content. A childhood friend of his, who is now a long-time friend of mine, is an editor and and she read it and had a similar reaction as P1's boyfriend did. She said up front that she has a hard time with graphic sexual content; I think the description of semen was particularly noted.

A lot of my writing of the novel took place at a time in my life when I was watching a lot of movies. Sometimes I would start writing late in the evening after watching a movie that inspired me. The inspiration totally fed into the august chagrin storyline; not that I stole anything from the movie, just that the inspiration that created the movie charged the inspiration that was creating the novel.

I have the hardest time explaining the channeling thing. P1 seemed to think I wasn't giving myself enough credit. But that's not what it's about. This is what I love about writing, tapping into a part of my brain that works on this completely different plane; it's there but isn't always reachable. It comes in its own time. Of course, putting myself in the proper situation to let that part of my brain work - a well-lit outdoor table at a nearby Italian restaurant perhaps - has a lot to do with it too.

I think I would have spent more time at Mandola's writing; I felt a little rushed and distracted at Magnolia. But I am happy with what I got written. It's still longhand, but I think it's going in the right direction. I just have to type it up.

thursday, february 3rd (2004)

2009-10-27T09:13:00.003-05:00

9:18 pm
[In bed.]

David is a writer who doesn't write. He starts things all the time but he doesn't finish them. He laments the fact that he can't write as fast as he can think.

I want to think of more themes for Neighborhood Association. The matching line in each of them ise good, but I want to take it further. Underlying stuff. Real dark comedy.

9:24 pm
I'm in transition. I'm smoking a lot of everything I can get my hands on (fortunately that's only pot and cigarettes) and I'm drinking regularly. Not a lot, just regularly. The regularity of it I guess concerns me. I'm gonna sleep now and take Pema's advice tomorrow: "Start where you are!"

wednesday, january 2nd (2004)

2009-10-25T22:57:00.005-05:00

12 pm-ish

I'm having a cup of tea at Bongo (the original). A's meeting me here for lunch.

I have bad gas! I was really hungry about an hour ago and I ate a bowl of soy nuts, raisins, roasted peanuts and raw pumpkin seed. Ugh!

I haven't been in here so long. I was meeting [Life Coach] the last time I came here. The place is full of college kids. Belmont, Vanderbilt, Blair School of Music(?). Everybody's young except me and a big old guy with shoulder-length frizzy [hair] sitting across the table from a boy and his notebooks (poems? lyrics?) dashing his dreams, most likely.

I touched something - on my chair - and now my fingertips smell of patchouli oil. I don't know if I should be grossed out or turned on.

R went to New Orleans Monday.

I'm not as inspired here as I am at Fido.

In "1212" David and Jett are struggling because one of them has HIV, no insurance - since his job ended - no job, and he's scared. That's Jett. He is emotionally shut off to David, and David is trying to love him, but it isn't easy because Jett doesn't love himself; he hates himself. He was raised in a strict religious Fundamentalist house and David was raised an Athiest. They each have their own particular struggles.

There's a drip in the house. David is a writer. He can't write with the dripping. It sounds like every faucet is dripping. Every faucet is dripping. He's high. He and Jett had a fight and Jett left to go get drunk. David gets high and tries to write, but the dripping... He goes to every faucet; he....

5:45 p.m.
I decided to try to just sit at the dining room table and write. I'm thinking of a first scene. I think the "1212" scenes will be scattered throughout. The first scene is in 1212 (as I see it right now). The scene starts with a slamming door. Jett has just stormed out. David yells to relieve his tension, then stands and listens for the gate to squeak open and shut, then for the car door to open and shut, the car to start up and pull away. Then David grunts (a failed attempt to yell again) and plops into a comfortable chair, peeks through the front window blinds then faces forward again, picks up his cell phone from the side table and calls his best friend. He gets voice mail and leaves a message: Hey, where are you? Jett just stormed out. It's just-- Oh, I don't want to leave you this on a message. Call me.

He hangs up and sits there and notices a dripping sound. He concentrates on the dripping and becomes the dripping; he nods his head with each drip, and starts up a rhythm. (He gets high first...) The rhythm gets more elaborate, David working his way from a head nod and a finger tap to whacking hands on legs and feet on floor, with some vocalized sounds as well.

He stops abruptly, sighs, looks at his cell phone, puts it on the side table, gets up and finds the dripping bathroom faucet and turns both knobs off tight. The dripping slows but doesn't stop.

David goes to the kitchen, gets a beer out of the fridge and sits at the small breakfast table, takes the pipe out of his shirt pocket and takes another puff, then opens a spiral notebook that was on the table (a pen is hooked to the front of it; he takes that off first). The notebook is full of writing on one side of most of the pages. Some pages have titles on them. He comes across the title, "K&M in the C&D Bin," and says aloud, "What kind of a name is that?" He rustles through the notebook to the first clean page at the back, pulls the lid off of the pen and starts writing.

s he writing a letter to Jett? Maybe. It can be vague in the way it speaks to the nature of their fight.
I think Jett just found out on this day that he has HIV.
He and David haven't been together long.
David owns the house, I think. He has a good job and Jett does not.
He is more than happy to help Jett out - financially even - but Jett is freaking out.
The letter can say something to the effect of "It doesn't matter, I still love you," etc.

saturday, january 29th (2004)

2009-10-17T09:51:00.003-05:00

12:12 a.m.

Nervous guy, watches clock/watch, until he has the exact amount of time left in five minutes for this:
I got a hemorrhoid - or hemorrhoids . I don't know which it is; it isn't the kind of thing that's well researched. At least not by me. I'm sure there are people...researchers. I did know enough to know/read that I needed a suppository. An anal suppository.

(Nervous bit about going to store, buying Prep H - but not the loud-speaker-for-price gag.)

Opening foil is difficult. Suppository was broken in half. Reached down into my pajamas, underpants, sleepthong, dropped one half of the suppository. Decided to go ahead with the half I still had in my fingers. Tried to put it in, had a hard time finding the hole. Suppository half is blunt end. Push, the hole resists. Relax. No good. Lubricate? Don't know what, then lick a finger...

Dust off other half. Smooth-point end. "Oh, so that's how it's supposed to work." Like a tongue in a French kiss, the hole practically reached out for it. Ploop; in it went! Finally, the ordeal is over.

Tie up pajamas.

Feel sudden intense gas bubble in stomach. Long, cool fart ending with two buttery reject ploops.

(photo credit)

thursday, january 27th (2004)

2009-10-15T09:39:00.001-05:00

8:45 a.m.

Yesterday was a migraine day, brought on by having to deal with C&D. F finally called to tell me that it wouldn't be impossible for us to do the recording of the songs, but it wasn't going to be easy either. He went on to list his schedule over the next couple of weeks, which has him out of town more than in town, and in the studio the majority of time he is in town. I decided right them that I was gonna tell New York that F isn't available and I told him so, and I could tell he felt bad because he started trying to help we come up with alternative ways to deal with the situation, and then K got on the line to offer her thoughts. I don't know if I already had the headache when I hung up with them or if it came on from that point, but even so, I felt a sense of relief. I called Su's voice mail.

9:21 a.m.
I got a call from S. He got the cooking job at a restaurant run by a Buddhist group in Boulder, Utah. He told me this a couple of days ago, I think - no, actually, he left a message yesterday - and when I told R he said he would be interested in going there to visit. S just told me this morning that the restaurant is attached to a lodge, and R and I (and Jesse) could get a room there (for a fee). Bayne probably wouldn't go because he's so feeble anymore.

But then I got to thinking after that that since I want to go to Denver, this may be the perfect opportunity. The question is - I guess - if Old Blue would be able to pull R's truck. Denver, CO, is on the way to Boulder, UT. It seems like it's meant to be. I'll have to figure out when and how to tell R.

wednesday, january 28th (2004)

2009-10-13T09:31:00.001-05:00

3:09 a.m.

I'm up. Finally I didn't sleep for nine or 10 hours. C came over last night and brought food from Calypso and we watched Welcome to the Dollhouse (with a 30-minute break in the middle to watch the Sundance Festival Dailies show). She went home just before 9, and I was in bed by 9:05.

We've got Sophie for the night, and she kept whining - which kept waking me up even though I had earplugs in - so I came downstairs and slept in the front bedroom and she seemed a little more relaxed. But she's up with me now, kind of pacing. I think she really prefers to be at home in her own bed, even if she's alone.

R crawled into bed about an hour ago, smelling of gin. He fell asleep quickly and his loud, deep breathing turned into snores and I was awake at 2:45, wondering if I'd slept long enough to be getting up. I took my Cymbalta yesterday at 5 instead of 6, and I think that's why I was so zonked at 9. It was that druggy kind of zonked feeling.

I think I'll finish my coffee, have some oatmeal, and go to the gym at 5. I might even go in to work after that. I can't really do anything around the house while R is sleeping (especially downstairs) except sit in front of the computer, and I don't want to do that for too long because I'll just end up playing Bejeweled, which is my on-again/off-again guilty pleasure.

sunday, january 23rd (2004)

2009-10-11T09:49:00.005-05:00

7:26 a.m.
comic bit on 10 Commandments
dress like preacher; Bible
(songs? "the B-I-B-L-E...")
10 C.s are "top 10"
adultery worse than sodomy
etc.

Characters I believe I am:

Mrs. JDJB (woman, not drag queen) - talk about domestic lief as if it were my reality...ironic.
Rev. JDJB
Babbling Brooke
Phyllis Diller (am, or can be)
Nannybird (effeminate) "They fired me when they found out I was gay"

8:13 a.m.
Went to "sexuality straightener" and was thrown into a room with 100 others to have sex and get it out of our systems...

9:08 a.m.
You could tell how happy a family was by how tall their squirrel-pile was (hillbilly).
Daddy made Russ chase squirrels around the tree...

10:39 p.m.
I'm gonna sleep in tomorrow, have challah french toast when I get up, work at Co. in the afternoon and clean up this mess of a house tomorrow evening. I am drunk on the mulled wine, and I can feel the sulfites doing their nasty little dance inside of me.

We hosted bridge tonight. I made creamy hubbard squash bisque, kabocha corn muffins, mulled wine, and an incredible cheesecake (New York style) with Grand Marnier chocolate sauce and toasted pecans (my new favorite thing... toasted pecans, that is). The pecans went on the bisque as well. Yum.

--Hm, Turnip Truck didn't call today.

--Hm, also, I almost got myself worked up over the C&D recording (or lack thereof), but it's out of my control. Su called with an update tonight but I was playing bridge host, so I didn't answer. I thought I should call her, but I'm drunk (and a little high, too) and I didn't want to call and ramble, which I would probably do - especially since I'm inebriated. So I'll call her tomorrow. If I need to worry about it, I'll worry about it then. I probably should call F before I call her, so we're updated all the way around.

thursday, january 20th (2004)

2009-10-09T09:45:00.003-05:00

6:18 p.m.
I'm got gonna do much tonight. (What else is new?!) I'm watching The Daily show and checking my email right now.

9:43 p.m.
I'm sitting on the front porch. Stoned, buzzed. I got to thinking that I'm getting that way every day now. I've given up my sexual addiction and replaced it with three others.

s.e.x.

2009-10-05T11:01:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure where it came from, but lately I feel sexy and desirable. I've been putting myself out there more lately, kind of as an experiment, and it seems to be "working." I went to a gay bar that I've never been to before on Friday night and met a handsome black man (not "boy," as my friend P pointed out, and it's true, he was easily my age or older). We talked a lot, flirted a little; he bought me a beer. I guess there was the potential to go home with him, but I didn't feel it. I mean, I felt the vibe, but I didn't feel like it, so I said I was going home; it was 1:15 a.m. He became a little whiny - not too annoyingly so - and walked me to my car, where we kissed lightly (I realized we were in the street and there were straight people around, but for some reason didn't feel in danger). He said, "I wish I could see you again." I asked if he wanted my number. He said yes, and we exchanged numbers. By the time I got home, I had a text from him, saying he enjoyed meeting me and hoped to see me again. I wrote back: Ditto. Have a good night. I wasn't truly sure I wanted to see him again, but didn't want to rule it out. I figured it would have to do somewhat with how he "acted" toward me. I assumed he would be calling me the next day, or soon. It's Monday, and he hasn't called yet, which I'm fine with. If and when he calls, I'll see how I feel then.

Saturday, I did some manscaping, with the planned intent of going to the gay bathhouse that night. I don't know why; it was another part of my attempt to get myself out there some more, just to see what vibes I'm giving and receiving. I've been reading a book on improvisation and theater (Impro, by Keith Johnstone), which I'm finding very helpful in my improv, but also in my life. I recently finished reading a section on "status," and decided to utilize it in my visit to the bathhouse. For instance, Mr. Johnstone writes about how looking at someone that you pass in the street determines status right away. If you and the other person stare each other down, you are having a struggle over high status/low status. The person who looks away first is low status. If the person looks at you, looks away, then looks back very briefly, that is also low status. If you are high status, you don't look at the person at all, or hold the stare until they look away, or look briefly then away, but don't look back. There is also a section about how one passes another in the street (on which side of the sidewalk, etc.) and other instances of status. I decided to do some "homework" at the baths, and it was quite effective! I won't go into exactly what I did, or whom I did (or who did me!)...

I've been dealing a lot with my desire to kiss-and-tell, my impulse to write graphic sex scenes. I'm speaking here specifically of august chagrin. A friend of a friend read the manuscript and I got an email from him last night with some of his thoughts. He likes my writing, likes my ability to draw the reader in and keep the interest; he made a few comments about specific things that made him laugh out loud, commented that the balance between sadness and humor works well. What he had the most criticism about was the graphic nature of the sex described in the book. He said it felt like it went into the realm of "pornography," and he felt it was a distraction and was happy when it "got back to the novel." He's straight, but he said he thinks his feelings would be the same if the sex were heterosexual.

I've had a lot of thoughts about this. Just before I finished the current draft, I wondered if my work could be taken as serious literature with all of the graphic sex, and specifically gay sex in it. S says there are lots of instances of graphic sex in literature, however this other person who recently commented on it said that he wouldn't, for instance, have wanted to read about the characteristics of Anna Karenina's privates, or Vronksy's, or the positions they may have enjoyed, even though their affair was what led to her downfall. Very interesting fodder, indeed.

22 little boxes

2009-10-02T09:24:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday, S and I had a meeting over august chagrin. He had read through the manuscript before he went to NYC to open his Lizzie Borden rock musical, and he marked it up quite a bit - but not so much as to be overwhelming. He told me then that he feels like the novel is "almost there." He also said it is "eccentric" and "sometimes disorienting," all things which I loved to hear. A couple of other people I know have also read the manuscript. I don't know them as well as I know S, but I have heard from other people I know that the sex in the novel made them uncomfortable. I'm okay with that. For a while just before I finished, I worried about that a little bit; being that I'm not an avid reader, I was worried if I was writing literature or pornography, but S calmed my fears.

I really wish I was a better reader, a more avid reader. I thought of something interesting the other day: It's okay for people to love to read but hate to write, but it's not okay for people to love to write but hate to read. Writers are expected to be avid writers, and I'm not. I don't hate to read - not really - but I don't love it either. I'm a slow reader so it's such an investment of time, and it sometimes takes me a while to really get into a book. Oftentimes, in those cases, I'll put the book down and never get back to it.

I've been going to a book club on and off for the past several months. I've read two books I love (one, Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor, I'd already read several times previously, it was the reason I joined the group; the other was a new discovery, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, a delightful find), and I've read two books in the group that I didn't like too much, one of them I couldn't read more than 100 pages of and therefore didn't go to the book club that month. I found out at the more recent book club that only one person in the group (the woman who picked the book) loved it. Anyway, it's good for me to be in this book club because it kind of forces me to continue to the end of a book that I otherwise might have put down - well, one out of two. The one I did get to the end of, Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, I didn't like the first 175 pages of, but liked the last 125 a lot, so there you go...

So, anyway, after my meeting with S, I corrected the little things in the manuscript that I could do so easily - things like deleting sentences or sections of text or moving parts of the text to other parts of the page or chapter, correcting typos, etc. - but the other, bigger edits, I flagged with purple post-it notes and made notes in a separate notebook with the chapter number, page number and so forth, and a little box to be checked off when the task is completed. My goal a while back was to finish the novel by my birthday (at the end of October). I thought I had finished early (on August 7th I finished writing the last chapter of the novel), but then S read through the manuscript and made his marks.

From our meeting I have 22 things in the novel that need to be worked on, 22 little boxes to check off in the next 29 days. As I get through with them, I am adding them to the august chagrin blog as "revised." But I'm still having to work and going to two improv classes a week and trying to keep up with my new and old blogging. It's a lot. I may drop out of sight for a while to finish the novel, in case you're wondering.

wednesday, january 19th (2004)

2009-09-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

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)

2009-09-22T00:00:00.003-05:00

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)

2009-09-20T00:00:00.001-05:00

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:

I spend so much money there, it would be nice to get a little discount;
It would be good experience for me to be able to get a job west of here (Denver, Joshua Tree, wherever);
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)

2009-09-18T00:00:00.003-05:00

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)

2009-09-16T13:17:00.004-05:00

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"

2009-09-15T13:19:00.006-05:00

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

2009-09-13T12:31:00.004-05:00

New York City does something to a person. It's unavoidable. I don't know if it does the same thing to every person - I tend to think it probably doesn't - but it does do something.

I just returned from three nights in New York City. The last several times I've gone, I've overstayed my welcome. This felt like a nice amount of time to go; it was manageable time-wise and financially. Well, I don't really know how manageable it was financially because I haven't looked at my bank account yet, but I had a lot of help from friends with plane tickets and food and entertainment. That goes a long way; New York City is expensive.

I arrived on Wednesday at about four o'clock. I was staying in Williamsburg Brooklyn at the home of G, a woman who used to sing in our backup choir when S and I were performing. I recall the first time I visited G there - years ago, probably while I was still living in the City - and it seemed like she lived on the edge of civilization at the time. Now she's in the middle of the fastest growing, hippest young neighborhood in New York.

G had a couple of meetings to attend so she wasn't home when I got there. I settled in briefly, called S (who was at the theater working on the rock opera that was the occasion for the visit to NYC), but he didn't answer. So I got on the subway and rode there to see him. I hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks. When I found the theater, I found him in the lobby looking at his phone, reading/listening to the various messages I had sent to him over the previous 24 hours or so. He was happy to see me but didn't want me to go down to the theater because it was hectic down there and because he didn't want me to ruin the surprise for myself. Opening night was to be the following night.

I called CC but she was busy teaching a friend how to cook, so I walked and walked. It was a nice night. I ended up at Port Authority (on the opposite side of town from the theater S's show is in) and then at the XXX video store across the street from there. That's a problem with NYC for me, all the sexual energy I feel. It was also interesting because this was the type of place (if not the actual place) I wrote about in my novel where Randy visited. In fact, the one I wrote about - directly across from Port Authority, "Playland" - is now gone, replaced by a new, shiny building with expensive designer stores on the ground level and expensive apartments up above.

Nobody was interesting and nobody was interested at the video store, and that was okay. I went into a closet, watched a little porn, took care of myself, went back to Brooklyn, took a cold shower (for the novelty of it - the cold water turns warm in my Texas shower halfway through), and shortly thereafter G was home and we chatted till bedtime.

Thursday, G and I had breakfast at a Polish restaurant in her neighborhood then I made my way to the company I work for (in the old Helmsley Building, next to Grand Central Station), said hello to the boss and the other people I know there - only a handful anymore - one of whom I expected would be there at 11, but she was over an hour late. I saw her in Grand Central when I was on my way out.

I met S and M (who bought my plane ticket to NYC) in the Grand Central Food Court, we ate and caught up a little bit. When I met M, she was living in San Francisco; in the past year, she's moved back to Indiana, where she and S met back when they were in high school 127 years ago. After a quick lunch, S had to get back to the theater - opening night and all - M and I went back to her friend's apartment and smoked some pot with his vaporizer, which we couldn't figure out at first and therefore got way more stoned than we'd intended. It was a rainy day, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the City, making our eventual way to the Lower East Side for the show, getting lost, taking the wrong train, etc. again and again, laughing all the way.

We met up with some others - G and her "boyfriend" among them - at a coffee/chocolate/wine bar a couple of doors down from the theater. I bought S a cheap handful of flowers at a corner store and had a mutual friend deliver them and a handmade collage card I'd created to him. And then we saw the show, which was amazing. I have nothing but good things to say about the production. I can easily see how it could expand in a wonderful way in a bigger production, in a bigger theater with a bigger budget, but it was really quite wonderful, funny, touching, hard core. I don't want to talk too much about the production here because I'm still formulating my opinions (and frankly I'm a little hung over and am just getting this out as fast as I can while I'm thinking about it - getting it out of the way, actually).

After the show, a big group of us followed the cast and crew to a "speakeasy" called Lower East Side Toy Co. You have to go down some hidden stairs into an alleyway to the end of that and up a back staircase to get there. The cocktails are served in coffee cups and pints of beer are served in coffee mugs. It was cool. S's group filled up the second floor, and I wondered around from circle to circle saying hello to the people I know and flirting with some of the others - one of whom was a 35-year-old guy who remembers S and me from our performances in Philadelphia 15 years ago. (We both vaguely remember him. He's straight, but is very comfortable with himself and very flirty. I liked that and hung around him quite a bit. Not because he was straight so much as because he was charming.)

I had had a glass of wine earlier, the weed long before that (though I think I was still a bit high) and had three(?) stout beers at the after-party, then missed the last step going from the second floor to the first, fell to my knees and jumped up quickly as everyone around reached down to help me up, professing I was okay. I was, really. I went outside and smoked a cigarette. It was raining lightly. I realized I was very drunk.

S, his creative partner T, and the media person L - all friends from their college days, and therefore old friends of mine since I've known S for 17 years - went to a diner from there and had pancakes. M&B (our Austin housemate and her best friend, who had come to NYC for the weekend as well) were at the diner we happened upon, and B, who is a successful businesswoman and loaded, sneakily paid for our meal after we had ordered as they were leaving. (She likes doing things like that.)

I got to bed at 3:30 that night. As I was going to sleep, I remembered that I was supposed to meet up with SB, an old friend, at noon that Friday (September 11) at her Episcopal church on Park Avenue for the annual 9/11 memorial service. It was rainy, kind of a gross day all day. Usually the service is a performance of Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," which SB says makes her cry every time. But the program had been changed. I don't know exactly what the choral pieces were that were presented, but it was beautiful. It took place at St. Bart's, which is a gorgeous church, very old. The sanctuary was full of firemen and policemen there to honor their lost brothers. At the end, as they were filing out, just seeing these big burly men who obviously don't show their emotions a lot being overtaken by their emotions, I too was overtaken and cried.

S met us in front of the church after the service and the three of us walked in the rain to a yummy restaurant called Le Pain Quotidien, a chain in the City at least. M and I had gone there stoned out of our minds the day before; she had had a gruyere quiche, I had had a bite of it, and wanted more. So I suggested we go there, and that's what I ate.

That night, S and I were treated to the Broadway musical "Next to Normal," which stars a friend of a M and S's friend, C; she won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for her role this year. Somebody bought us tickets to the show (I'm pretty sure it was M). I had no idea what to expect. The show - particularly the first act - was devastating; it's about depression, loss, treatment, family. I cried non-stop through the first act. I felt like the story got a little muddled in the second act, and I wasn't crazy about the ending, but I would recommend it to anybody on the fence about it, if only for the amazing, shocking quality of the subject matter and how it is handled.

After that, a big group of us (including the actress' husband, Sh, who started playing drums for the show that night) went to Film Center Cafe on 9th Avenue, very near the first apartment building I lived in when I moved to New York City in 1988. There were eight of us at a big table in the back of the restaurant. We drank and ate and laughed a lot. I called M&B because they had told us they would love to hook up with us after the show. M called back to tell me they had had five bottles of wine between the two of them and had to catch their plane home early the next morning and figured they'd better go back to the Chelsea Hotel instead of meeting up with us.

I had a plane to catch on Saturday as well, though not until 5:30 in the afternoon. I had brunch with CM, who lives a couple of blocks from G's apartment in Williamsburg. CM used to sell merchandise at our shows when S and I were performing in the City, the latter part of our run there (1992-1998). The restaurant is called Egg, and I had the best cheese grits ever (steel cut - what an idea!), and a cheese omelet served with broiled tomatoes and beet greens. CM had a caramelized grapefruit (mint and burned sugar topping) which was also phenomenal.

I had missed seeing CC, so I called her again after brunch, and we met near Union Square and had coffee and talked about writing, dating and life, things we have in common. I carried my carry-on bag with me so I could go directly to the airport from there. It was still raining and my shoes and feet had been sloshing wet for two days at this point.

The sexual energy of the City was still with me (not that I had had any major experiences to speak of while I was there), and while I was in the bathroom at LaGuardia before my plane took off, a man standing at the urinal next to me asked if I was flying to DFW, and said he could "take care of that" for me if I wanted him to in the Dallas airport. Turns out he works for American Airlines. I was a little nervous, skeptical, all of that, but when I came out of the men's room, he was behind an American Airlines desk looking up my flight information, connecting gate, etc. He told me there's a secret stairwell in the DFW airport which is much safer that LGA.

I hemmed and hawed on the plane, but as I was walking down the corridor in Dallas, he appeared with his rolling carry-on and said, "Follow me." I had more than an hour before my plane took off, so I did, out of the security area to a stairwell next to the exit (which I guess goes up and down to the parking garage). We went up one flight. He said, "Take it out." I did. I needed to pee when I got off the plane, and because of that and the fact that I was a little nervous, I wasn't sure I would be able to get hard. But he was an amazing cocksucker, and I did, and he did his part and required no reciprocation, and in less than 10 minutes, we were done. He said, "I told you so," and disappeared forever.

I caught the next flight to Austin; it rained all the way. The young guy next to me was a nervous flyer; the old lady behind me was having coughing fits as we took off. A young kid, two or three, had fallen in the airport and then started puking as they boarded the plane, so he had to be taken off and checked out (and firemen met us at the Austin airport to further check him out). I listened to podcasts of "This America Life" from NYC to Dallas and halfway to Austin, then meditated for the last 15 minutes of the flight. I thought I would go home and shortly to bed. But I was wired from the City experience and ended up going to the gay bar S goes to all the time here. I met up with some freaks there (one of whom was strikingly handsome and very funny) and stayed till closing time, then the handsome man said they were going to Midtowne Spa, the gay bathhouse here, if I wanted to join them.

I did. The handsome man made allusions to the fact that he might be interested in me if he weren't there with the go-go boy from the bar (and he had said that before I paid the $21 to get in, so I didn't feel betrayed). I didn't do anything with anybody. I wandered around in my towel looking at the naked bodies, sitting in the hot tub, talking. It was nice, but I didn't get to sleep till 4:30 this morning, and now the grog is hitting.

friday, january 14th (2004)

2009-09-12T09:00:00.002-05:00

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)

2009-09-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

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)

2009-09-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

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)

2009-09-09T12:46:00.004-05:00

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)

2009-09-06T12:23:00.003-05:00

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)

2009-09-04T09:00:00.005-05:00

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)

2009-09-02T11:38:00.003-05:00

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

2009-09-01T10:46:00.004-05:00

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.

social obligations

2009-08-30T23:16:00.004-05:00

The date with (C) was a bust for the most part. He's very cute, very sweet, and not very interested in me. Have I already written about this? I feel like I have. Maybe I haven't blogged about it. I hope not. That would seem obsessive, and I'm really not obsessive, or don't like to see myself that way. That was last Wednesday. I had a little cry over it; nothing big, just a little flushing, and I felt better, and feel better.

Wednesday was kind of a weird double-whammy on the emotions. Wednesday evening was my second improv class at the new place. It's a level one class. I've taken a couple of each level up to level three, but I wanted to get a different perspective, expand my improv knowledge. I mentioned it to T and she approved wholeheartedly. (It's weird, it felt like a confession. I had mentioned it to a few people in the community randomly and hadn't mentioned it to her, so I felt like I had to make a point of telling her, which I guess is why it felt like a confession. But anyway...)

The teacher is a nice guy, if a little clueless. Or at least it feels that way to me. I don't want to make a deal about it, but there were a couple of things that got under my skin. Which makes me thankful that I'm back in therapy - twice a month. The first class, he made a completely innocent comment about the fact that we plan what we're going to do before we go on stage based on fear, wanting to be accepted, cool, funny, "attractive to the opposite sex so we can procreate." Maybe it sounds a little biblical, now that I write it out. I just had a feeling of "he doesn't mean me, he doesn't 'accept' me." I'm really not all that political about identity, but my religious and suppressive upbringing kind of makes it similar to a political feeling. Now that I write it out.

Anyway, so I had therapy the next day, and I was able to get over it, whatever that means. Truly, I'm only bringing it up because I'm writing about it. It's been so long ago now, the fact that I haven't written about it yet should point to the fact that it's not all that important to me. Same as with the date. I'm a little buzzed so I'm feeling eloquent, in the movingly expressive sense of the word.

In the more recent class, the second class of the six-week session, the class that followed soon after the date, the teacher told everyone to find the person they felt had the most in common with them. I went to the big dyke with the piercings and black rock T-shirt on. We were instructed to find three things we had in common. We both had spacers in our ears (mine a "2," hers an "0," which is bigger, natch), so I pointed that out. Then I said, "And we're both gay." It seemed to take her by surprise. Maybe I'm projecting. She said, "What?" I said, "You're gay, right?" She said, "Oh-- yeah," which sounded like she hadn't heard me the first time. Maybe I slurred it out nervously. I have a tendency to do that. The dreaded G word. But I'm facing it, I'm getting closer to an understanding, I think, slowly but surely, one day at a time, sweet Jesus...

We then had to choose the most interesting thing and write that on a strip of paper the teacher had passed out while we were all rumbling in our two-person teams. He said, "Not the most obvious thing; something that would make everybody in the room go, 'Ooh!'"

My partner said, "What do I write, 'We're both gay?'" I said, "Put 'We're both homos.'" Which she did after a smirk.

The strips of paper were put away and forgot about for the rest of class - almost forgotten completely. As we were about to leave, the teacher stopped us and said he had to read them. Everyone froze. They were probably all wondering if what they had written was good enough, I know I was. Had I tricked this poor 20-something into doing something she wasn't comfortable with? Or did the notion that we needed to point it out seem unnecessary to her? That could be the case, I guess, if she believed there was no need for distinction other than a way of dressing, if the need to define yourself publicly was/is passé.

What am I even writing? Did I say I was buzzed. Have you seen those billboards that say Buzzed Driving Is Drunk Driving? Well, Buzzed Writing Is Drunk Writing, Too, then. But I'm not so much drunk as I'm high. Not drunk at all, actually. I didn't have enough money for a beer tonight. I was at a film party at the Art Alliance or Art Authority or The Place Next to Spiderhouse - whatever they're calling it these days. I digress.

The improv teacher read through all of the strips of paper, some interesting, some funny, some just fine. "We're both homos." was the very last one. When he read it, he stopped on the word "homo" and read it carefully, then said coyly, "Well, okay, that may be true-- And that would be okay..."

It doesn't seem like much. It didn't seem like much when it happened. I felt a weirdness in my center. My partner didn't seem to react, and everybody else just kind of laughed or ignored it, as with the others. When I mentioned it to S and others, though, I started feeling a little more isolated by the experience. It drives me crazy that I can't see these things in the moment, can't work with them. I know, I know, recognizing it at all is a step in that direction (Thank you, Pëma).

I had therapy the next morning, and when I told the story to L, he stopped me a ways down the path and said, "I'm sorry. As a straight man, I didn't even realize that was what you were saying." I love L, he's a wonderful therapist. What he said made me realize what I suspected: A doesn't even realize it; he is speaking only from his own experience. That's good to know, but it may make me judge his teaching efforts differently. I hope this isn't truly the case.

Thursday, I took S to the airport and he flew off to NYC for forever (not really, he's back on September 20th, driving back from Indiana in the car his parents are giving him). I'm going to NYC on the 9th and his rock opera (I guess that's what it's called) Lizzie Borden opens on the 10th, and I'm gonna get to see it!

I didn't do a lot else on Thursday or Friday. I had a barometric pressure headache (I don't know if that's a clinical term or my own); I get them sometimes when rain is coming. It feels like a hangover and/or a minor migraine. Sometimes the migraines get full-blown, but this one didn't. I felt feverish. And then I realized that my window unit was frozen over and blowing outside air in, and it was in the triple-digits! The rain came at some point in the afternoon, and amazingly, the headache all but disappeared.

I was thinking about going to see a movie on Thursday evening, but the a/c episode butted into my schedule. The foam over the cooling intake part of the a/c had frozen to the iced over ribs, and in trying to remove it, I pulled a hole shaped like Africa about 2 x 3" big. So I was thinking I needed to get a new one of those. I also needed to go to the store for candies, and it was almost time for the stores to close. I carried the foam thing to Home Depot, and they didn't have anything like it! Then I went to Target (because I had to go there for the candies anyway) and carried the muddy foam thing in with me in case they had one. They did not.

I needed the candies - mini Snickers, Twix, 3 Musketeers, etc. - for a Christmas Tree I was making for T's surprise birthday party (with a Christmas theme!) on Friday evening. I popped popcorn on Wednesday and it sat in my room getting stale, which I eventually told myself I intended. Friday morning I strung two strands (12 feet maybe) of popcorn and mini candies. It was quite lovely. The tree I got last weekend at a garage sale; it's a 4-foot tall fiber optic tree, so it didn't need lights. S&E put up other Christmassy decorations and the three of us made collage cards for T. I wish I had taken a picture of mine.

C had no real plan for getting T to the theater after their show at the Hideout. They were heading to East Side Pies, she thought, then somebody in the car said, "Let's go to the theater and drop off these fliers." T is easygoing, she said, "Sure." She was the one with the key at the door; I stood peeking out of the door curtain after we got the text. I saw her arriving, shushed everyone. The door was unlocked, so when she turned her key in the door, she thought it had finally happened, they had gotten broken into. She had a quick succession of dreadful thoughts - We don't have insurance; they took all our shit! - and she turned to run away, not wanting to go inside in case the bad guys were still in there. C grabbed her and pushed her into the room; she stumbled onto the stage and fell laughing. It was the best party she's had in years.

Last night I saw my friend M at Cafe Caffeine doing a monologue (with several other good storytellers) on the theme of "Clerks." M's bit was very funny, as was another guy, who read a story about a fat kid (him) trying to slide a 64-ounce Coke across a movie theater countertop Western movie style, only to hurl it onto its side sending sticky liquid flying on everyone in the lobby except him. I had tears flowing!

After that, I went to S's regular hangout, the Chain Drive. I've gone there a few times, but I'm not much of a bar person, and the times I've gone haven't been with S, and I've had some social anxiety issues there. But I got a notion to text S's friend G and see if he would be there. That was where S met G, I'm pretty sure. He indeed was going and we met up after the show. It was nice getting to know him a little better, as well as D, his ex-boyfriend best friend, who showed up. A weird thing happened, though. There was an attractive guy possibly looking at me, "cruising me," as it were. (He could have been cruising G, but I'm pretty sure we were making eye contact.) G was content to just sit there and chat with me, and I was trying to decide if it was rude to excuse myself to talk to a stranger. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that. I don't think he would have considered it rude. D did that very thing when he showed up and the three of us were talking.

The young man went inside and back out a few times, and when G, D and I were talking, I was thinking to myself that that would be a good time to excuse myself and make my feeble attempts. But I couldn't figure out the wording for it. So I just became anxious and eventually had to leave. I did do one "Fruit Loop" as D called it (a walk around the square bar with the seating lining the walls opposite it). It was during my Fruit Loop that I realized my potential suitor had left, so when I returned to G and D, I told them that I had decided to do a "Fruity Pebbles" and "rock out!" (Weird, I know.)

Today was Sunday. I started working on some minor revisions to my manuscript - woo-hoo! At 5 I had book club at BookPeople, this month discussing J. M. Coetzee's Nobel Prize winning novel, Disgrace (Wow.), but I left the house at 2 and stopped by P.Terry's for a #5 and a double-chocolate shake. That was good, of course, the book club was good. After that I met up with M at Spiderhouse to hang out before HomoScope, the film party that was going on at the place next to there. There were a lot of really weird but pretty interesting films. I saw a number of people I knew and so felt socially relaxed. I snuck out in the middle of the after party right after telling someone I wasn't going home, that I was just going to my truck, which was the truth, because I was thinking I would roll a cigarette and go back to the party and join them where they were all smoking cigarettes, but I'm not much of a social smoker, I have realized. I like to smoke alone. That's a good thing and a bad thing. Good because if I'm busy I smoke less. (I guess that's what I'm supposed to say; I actually like smoking.) But if I'm lonely I smoke more. (Oh, that's not really true. I've smoked three or four a day for the past couple of days - two or three more than my usual daily intake - and I'm feeling indulgent.) When I got to my truck, I decided I did want to come home. It feels good to be home, particularly when I left a party feeling good and brought that feeling with me as opposed to the opposite.

sunday, january 9th (2004)

2009-08-30T09:00:00.003-05:00

9:21 a.m.

Will I make it to meditation today? Something inside me really wants me to, but something else is holding me back. What's holding onto me? Why can't I persevere?

Today, we're supposed to be going to brunch with the ST's. By "we," I mean "they," the clique. I don't really want to go. Or do I? I probably shouldn't be spending the money.

Last night, R and I went to the Sutler to see Pinmonkey. Apparently, they haven't played out in a long time, perhaps even since they lost their record deal in 2002. I didn't enjoy them as much as I remembered enjoying them. Maybe they're different. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's because R was with me. Maybe it's because their fanbase (their "fan forum," as {lead singer} Michael kept calling them) is a bunch of high-pitched, screaming, drunk females. Maybe I was jealous. Maybe I am. Of what? I don't know. I guess the fact that they're doing "it." Doing something anyway. And I feel like I'm doing nothing. I lack inspiration...

Or do? Perhaps what I'm lacking, really, is motivation.

8:56
I needed to write to you. There are a lot of things on my mind. You're on my mind a lot, and I sincerely hope for the right reasons. But because of the state of my life of late, I believe we must both approach this with great caution. I would love to be in a relationship. Lately, I feel like that's what I'm most interested in in my life. It could be you I'm looking for, or you may just fit the bill at the moment. And I'm not looking for that; I wouldn't want to put either of us through that sort of a thing. I'm tired of love du jour; I'm interested in the kind of love that they talk about in romances, the kind of can't stand to be without the other kind of love. I don't think either of us are feeling that right now. There are no signs to contradict this. But I think something real doesn't necessarily have to happen instantaneously. So I would like to be near you and have a friendship that I know we can have--already have--and see what develops. I don't want to move in with you, I don't want to spend every waking moment with you. I don't want to commit anything to you--or anybody, not just yet.

9:10 pm
I meditated today. I mean I actually went to P&J's--the Shambhala Buddhist Group of Nashville. R said something about going for a walk to the grocery store and invited me along, and I said, "I can't, I'm going to meditate at 10:30." It just came out. So I did it. I took it as a sign.

It was good. A 23-year-old guy named J was there. He's a curious young man. He's big all over. And he's uncomfortable socially. He kept apologizing for speaking out of turn, or for changing the subject or whatever. But at the same time, he was at ease asking for water and asking questions about Buddhism and always ending requests or gratitudes with "my friend." As soon as I saw him, I recognized him. I had seen him on my way to meditation walking toward the Eastland Kroger (that's where Paul picked him up so he wouldn't have to take a bus). And, I think I saw him a couple of days ago at Five Points wearing a big orange poncho in the rain and walking toward the bus stop by the post office. I thought then that he might be mentally disabled, and I still think so, but not to the level I might've imagined previously. I gave him a ride home from meditation--he lives close by, on 17th between Eastland and the next street over (it's not Stratton up there, I don't think). I gave him my phone number and wrote under it "RIDE to meditation" and told J to call me if he needed a ride.

january 8th (2004)

2009-08-27T10:47:00.002-05:00

4ish, taking a cigarette break from cleaning.

There's a para. on the faerie website I need to quote for a story. It's all about what a faerie is and/or isn't. Is and/or isn't, that would be a good title (if nor for that, for something).

I heard about a writer on NPR recently, maybe he's dead, maybe that's why they were talking about him. They were talking about proliferance {sic} as a writer, and said he wrote a (or some, or "many") of his books in complete dialogue (or maybe "almost entirely in dialogue"). I was thinking that might be a good way to approach the faerie story--my faerie story.

It could start with the joke about the Indian (Native American) naming system with the punch line, "...so now you understand, Broken Rubber?" While telling that joke in West Virginia last year, stoned out of our minds on a ski resort weekend," I discovered my faerie name, Babbling Brooke. I don't know if I even finished the joke - but I'm an entertainer, so I'm sure I did - but when I said "babbling brook" in the telling of the joke, I stopped and said, "I think that's my faerie name, R," and he said, "I think you're right."

nerves of steel (alloy)

2009-08-26T09:35:00.007-05:00

It's on. (C) called as promised and we have a lunch date at 12:30 today at the Blue Dahlia. My choice, since he asked, because it seems to lend itself to a little more intimacy than, say, Magnolia Cafe or a Thai restaurant. Not that we're looking for intimacy...

Just for the hell of it, last night I Googled "first date questions," just to give me something to think about, not necessarily things to ask (C), but just to occupy my mind as I was sitting here stoned and starting to get into the realm of thinking about nothing but the date.

I Googled the phrase again this morning and found a different list, 20 questions, which I thought might be a more manageable list to look at (because the first one I came across went on and on), but these 20 questions are too much:

What is the sort of relationship you are looking for and why?
What do you think is the biggest mistake that men/women make in relationships?
What are the qualities of your ideal relationship?

Are you kidding? Who wrote these questions? I guess the most important thing to remember about this date is that it's just a lunch date. (C) "recently started seeing someone." I could take that to mean he's only looking for friendship (so the pressure is off) or that he is interested in me regardless of the fact that he recently found someone he wanted to see regularly and - I guess - exclusively (which would mean the pressure is way on). But those are not the sort of questions I would consider asking him.

Here's some from the list I found last night, from the "Random Questions to ask a Guy, your Boyfriend":

Do you have any siblings?
Where did your family go for vacations in the summer?
What jobs do your parents do?

Again, I have to ask, who wrote these questions? (But not with the same shock, just sort of a scrunched up face because of the weird wording.)

Or how about these, from "Interesting Questions to ask a Guy, your Boyfriend":

If you had a lot of money, where would we go on vacation?
What are your major goals in life?
Have you ever lied to me, and if so, why?

I guess these are for people who have been together awhile, people who are "seeing each other."

From "Personal Questions...":

How many times in a day, if at all, is it normal for people to have sex?
Is taking a pen or scratch pad from work considered stealing?
If you found someone's wallet and there was a $100 bill inside, what would you do with it?

And "Good Questions...":

Do you have any plans for tomorrow?
What was your first impression of me? How accurate now do you think it was?
On which counts do you think you were totally wrong, and on which do you think you were right?

#1 made me laugh; #2 is two questions; and #3, is that an additional part to #2? I'm confused.

"Nice Questions...":

Which is your favorite season and why?
Do you like to travel and where have you been?
What place would you like to visit that you haven't been to yet?

Zzz...

"Weird Questions to ask Someone":

What's the color of your toothbrush?
Are you left or right eyed?
What CD is in your CD-player right now?

"Really Weird Questions":

When you looked in the mirror first thing this morning, what was the first thing you thought?
How much cash do you have on you?
What's a word that rhymes with TEST?

My answers to those:

I have no idea.
Are you going to rob me?
PEST

"Philosophical Questions":

What is the meaning of life?
Is there life after death?
Why is the sky blue?

You're kidding, right?

So, I guess I'll just have to play it by ear...

friday, january 7th (2004)

2009-08-24T09:00:00.004-05:00

6:23 a.m.

It seems early, but I went to bed at 9 last night. R, too. He left work at about 7 because there was nothing to do and no one around.

I was watching the last third of a movie called Going All the Way with Jeremy Davies and Ben Affleck, and R watched the tail end of it with me. I think Jeremy Davies is a wonderful actor; that's why I could watch one-third of a movie, just to see him. He was in Solaris which George Clooney, which I saw not too long ago. I didn't recognize him in that (unless he was one of the guys I saw in the movie about computers I saw a long time ago).

I was hoping to wake up at 5 and go to the gym. But I didn't. I was probably awake at 5, tipping R's pillow to get him to stop snoring and breathing hard for a short period. I woke up at 2 and got up to pee. The house creaks like a bunch of old bones. You really couldn't sneak around in this house.

Night before last, R got home at about 2:30 in the morning. He went to the Gas Chamber, Tribe, the Chute, and then the Hermitage for a bite to eat. I wanted to ask him if he saw D out, but lost my nerve--or thought better of it. He was happy to tell me about the places he'd gone, but if I press him about particulars he gets put out sometimes. He doesn't want people (or me, anyway) prying into his affairs. And I guess I don't have any actual "right" to pry, since we're not a couple.

The funny thing is, that's the only thing that changed, the title. We're not a couple, but we sleep together. I jerked off the other morning (because he wasn't really interested in doing anything, it seemed to me), and he "helped" me. But I think we're happier and more comfortable in whatever capacity we're in now than when we were an official couple.

I managed to call F yesterday. I was reluctant, and he was very nice about it all. I told him I wish I didn't have to ask for his help, but there was no other option.

This morning, I need to print out the lyrics for the C&D songs and get them ready (put chords on them?). I also still have some highlighting to do for Co., and I picked up an application at Bongo East yesterday. It's one of those philosophical applications: "If you could spend an hour speaking to anyone dead or alive, who would it be, and why?" Seriously, that's one of the questions!

8:03 pm
I'm having a bowl of borscht. Boiled eggs don't hold up well to freezing and microwaving. The soup help up better than the guylas after being frozen, and I didn't even microwave it. No, wait, that's not true. I did microwave the guylas. I took it to work two days ago and I microwaved it and I couldn't eat more than half of of it. It's still sitting in the Co. refrigerator in its little blue-lidded Tupperware.

Jesse sure did like the boiled egg. It sat Easter egg red in the confetti of redded {sic} vegetables, carrots and onions and potatoes, from the matching shreds of beet. Boiled eggs are so beautiful just out of their shell, glistening like little alien pods. They are as delicate as they look. They are easily banged up in the freezer. The vegetables {sic - probably should be "yolks"} must get much harder than the whites can, and they press little pockmarks in the skin of the boiled whites. I bit off the end of the egg and the yolk had turned to mush and burst into my mouth. It's not nearly as pleasing as, say, a ripe strawberry bursting on contact with your teeth.

The toast makes up for the missing egg. Great Harvest, Nine Grain flavor, my favorite. I put some butter on it, just to put the icing on the cake. I notice {Jesse} hawkeyeing me now. It's like she thinks she has an "in" to my generosity now. I sit as the small chunks of butter are heating up and getting spreadable on the steaming toast. I lay it on the stone counter and a cloud of perspiration forms around it on the black stone. This counter top is always cold; I have to wear mittens when I'm writing at the island or else my pinkie finger gets numb.

I shoo Jesse away. Bayne heard something with his old ears when Jesse was chomping on the ruined egg. Now he's worked up a hunger, and since it's such an effort for him to get up on all four legs anymore, he hobbles over to the dog bowls and munches out of the full one. Jesse stands beside him looking pitiful, her head hanging over the empty bowl. Bayne tries to turn from the food bowl to the water bowl without shifting his weight off of his front legs. His back legs totter, like they're bouncing lightly in reduced gravity. Jesse moves in to finish what's left in the bowl. Bayne hobbles off; his over-developed shoulders exaggerated by his shrunken back end.

I wish R would show up right now, at 8 o'clock, like he did last night. And I wish he'd show up wanting to go out. But neither of those things is likely, since he shipped out early last night, and since he went out till 2:30 a.m. the night before.

I guess I'll eat the remaining jelly donut, make some tofu egg salad (for lunches) and highlight.

next up

2009-08-23T09:44:00.004-05:00

I've got an idea for another story (novel?). Mostly I guess it's so I'll have something to do with my creative energy now that I'm not working on the big novel. S has that (and M up in Indiana); they're giving it a once over; they're two people I trust implicitly. S knows me, knows my work, and he's very smart; I've never worked with M in this capacity, but she's very smart as well, and has done editing work for some time.

The new story I have in mind is of a middle-aged man who arrives at an intentional community after having suffered some life trauma (a dead partner, perhaps) and is at odds with what to do with his life. He is a photographer, and perhaps his partner was his muse, most of this man's artwork and whatever success he has had is tied up in the dead partner. So, he's dealing with depression and loneliness. And then he meets a boy who changes the course of his life.

The community they live in is modeled after the treehouse hostel I stayed at in Southern Georgia a few times. It's a wonderful place; all of the sleeping arrangements are literally treehouses, but big ones, big enough for a bed and a little bit of living room. In my story, they each come outfitted with a bed and a table and chair.

I would love for the story to be a musical, or rather a description of a musical (as S put it). I have a lot of ideas swimming around in my head as to how this would be captured. One thing I picture is that the residents have little songs to teach them and get them through the chores around the commune.

I think it'll be a short novel. I want to write a short novel. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, it's called); it's an organized thing, worldwide, in which people attempt to write an entire novel from beginning to end in 30 days. When I was working on august chagrin, I thought that was a silly notion, but now I need something to do, and I'm liking this idea that is in my head, so it might be a good way to get it out in some form. Whether or not I'll have an entire novel (whatever size) by November 30th remains to be seen. I'll see that as a loose goal.

wednesday, january 5th (2004)

2009-08-21T10:00:00.001-05:00

9:40ish pm

Smoking on the front porch. I was gonna go to bed at 9, but I got caught up in this PBS documentary called "Do You Speak American?" It's fascinating, but it's three hours long! I finally just pulled myself away.

I'm in this weird place lately. I don't feel depressed but I'm having a hard time doing anything. I finished a "new, improved" Regenbogen board on the back of a Chinese calendar yesterday and I was anxious to pay a game (by myself, the only option, I felt). I came home from work at 5 and sat at the island and played a round. I let Jesse in the back yard and turned around to set up the board for Round 2, but one of the green raindrops was missing. I took it as a sign that I needed to get highlighting - in front of the TV, which eventually led to getting high.

I was thinking earlier today that I need to go on a habit hiatus. My plan (resolution, if you will) was to meditate more and write more this year. I guess I am writing, but I'm not meditating at all, and I'm not writing in a way that I feel is moving me toward something. Maybe that's not true. Maybe all of this journaling is good enough for right now. I just don't feel like I'm able to do anything, that it takes a great effort to not just be lazy.

I spoke with a woman from the Vital Theatre group yesterday (or today maybe) and now I need to call F and ask him to help me further on the C&D project, and for some reason I'm hesitant to call and ask him. But I have to call him. There's no way around it. i don't know if it's the fact that I don't want to ask him for a favor, or if I just don't want to have to do something. I'm protesting my creativity.

Or, no, that's not it. In the middle of working on the Regenbogen board I started coloring some xerox copies of a xeroxed picture of one of the clients from Co., and then I found myself working on a larger version, drawing it then coloring it with markers. I have such a fun collection of colored markers; I rediscovered them while working on the game board.

So I'm not lacking creativity, I'm lacking discipline. And I guess that's why I was thinking I need to stop smoking put and drinking so much alcohol. But what about cigarettes? I know I could stand to lay off of {sic} all of it.

I was thinking today that I should go back to meditating with the Buddhist group on Sunday mornings. I was thinking today that I want to try improv. Well, I was thinking last night - or recently - that I'd like to be able to take a class in standup, and then I was reading through The Scene this morning and there was a listing under the auditions section for an improv show called "How We Met," or something like that, and I was thinking I should audition for that. I wrote the number and email address down on a piece of paper, along with a not to call F.

I didn't do either of them. I didn't get much highlighting done because the highlighters I need are either missing or dried up (I'm talking about orange and purple), and the how I was watching was so interesting, I put down the highlight work and got high and that was that.

I was thinking today that I really want to start going to the gym again. I've been thinking about that for a while, and I went so far as going last night after work and just sitting in the steam room for awhile, for my back. But I didn't go back tonight after work. That's how I've worked myself into going to the gym before, just going in and steaming and/or shaving and showering. I like going to the gym. I like working out.

I like writing, for that matter. I'm just having major issues right now with discipline. I guess at least I'm not depressed.

is this offensive?

2009-08-18T09:13:00.004-05:00

(It's supposed to be.)

Sunday afternoon, I dressed up in "yellowface" to do a spoof on Asian stereotypes and 1-900 phone sex lines for the Austin Asian American Film Festival trailer. I put scotch tape on my eyelids then covered my face with white paint (not yellow - this is a sepia tone version of the picture I took on my iPhone; interesting that blackface is done with black paint, but yellowface is done with white...). The Fu Manchu moustache, or as it said on the package, "Mandarin Moustache," came in a package from the costume shop, as did the Oriental robe I wore.

It was a short shoot, and lots of fun. The director of the AAAFF is a friend, it was quick and painless, for the most part. The only painful thing was the heat in all that makeup and the polyester "silk" robe.

It was a little weird though arriving in the house where people waited (the filming was done at another house in the neighborhood, my old neighborhood) one of the rare Caucasians - most were Asians or Indians (whom I know are Asians as well, but just for clarity) - all of us there to do stereotypical characters. Being raised in a family where "Chinaman" still isn't considered derogatory, and where Vietnamese is sometimes pronounced Vietmanese, I felt self-conscious. But it was all in good fun, and people were quick to praise my look and my bad Asian accent: "Herrro..."

The guy in the film shot directly before mine passed the bathroom a couple of times while I was trying to figure out how to attach the tape to my eyes - pull it across the temples and over the ears? vertical across the outside edge of the eye? (Eventually I discovered putting the tape on the eyelids worked best.) He seemed interested in my process, and he was cute-- handsome...sexy. When I got home, I looked him up on my friend's Facebook page and requested his friendship. Before too long, he accepted. I perused his photos - very handsome - and noticed that his profile said he was "Interested in: Men" and that he was "Single."

I wrote a silly note, making references to his character (the successful Asian business man who couldn't get the girl, even with his "large stock options") and mine. I made a comment about the fact that I supposedly had special powers and was trying them out... then asked him on a date. I stared at my message to him for a few hard minutes and literally had to talk myself into hitting the SEND button. But I did.

Then I decided he would probably never respond (that was Insecurity's whispers in my head). My "protection" was to tell myself I'm gearing up for rejection, getting used to the idea, since I'll likely be receiving a lot of rejection (or what will feel like rejection) very soon concerning my novel. I had it in my head that this could free me up to take more chances, throw caution more quickly to the wind.

A day later he responded. Not exactly a rejection. "Yes, it was nice meeting you, too," his note started. And then, "I should tell you I just started dating someone..." Ah! There it is; gentle, but rejection nonetheless. I was happy enough with that; at least he responded. He could just as easily (or some could) have ignored me, and the rejection would've gone into my bloodstream, into my brain, and fed the Insecurity that lives there.

He continued, "...but that doesn't mean I couldn't go out for lunch, etc., and get to know you."

Hm... Not really rejection at all, just an explanation of the situation. Because really, you can't monitor attraction. --Well, you can, but it still happens when it happens. I find that I can't help who I'm attracted to. It's actually rare that I am attracted to someone anymore (in that way), and oftentimes they turn out to be straight or too young, which causes me a certain amount of suffering. That was the reason I decided to stop pursuing a partner, because the attempts (and the rejections) caused me so much suffering.

S has suggested I "lower my standards." But that doesn't seem right. My standards? I don't have standards. I don't see two boys on the street and think "I'm attracted to this one, but that one isn't as cute, so maybe I'd have a chance with him." I'd rather be alone than take what I can get.

So here I am with (C), as I'll call him. There must be some attraction on his part - that's probably part of what makes him so attractive to me, that mutual attraction - or else he might not have responded to my note (or might not have even befriended me). We had a little back and forth on Facebook, he said this week was good for him (lunch, not dinner and/or drinks as I originally suggested; a demotion, but I'll take it), I said Thursday is good early or Friday anytime. The ball is in his court. I guess there's still a chance he'll back out or blow me off (shut up Insecurity)...

I put the Fu Manchu picture as my Facebook profile picture for about half an hour. (C) responded with "(!)" to the picture shortly after he befriended me. And then another Fb friend who I know from improv and don't know that well (and frankly find a little annoying) wrote, "Great picture; not racist at all. ;)" So I removed it, for fear that it did seem racist out of context.

monday, january 3rd (2004)

2009-08-16T09:00:00.009-05:00

after 7pm

I like Cymbalta. I had a panic attack the first Sunday night I was on it, but I knew what to expect and it didn't esclalate. I had been watching too much TV and I had a headache, and when I went to bed the headache was stressing me out, and then suddently the attack was on me.

It's very frightening, I felt disoriented and started sweating profusely. I rolled onto the floor next to the bed and lay there sweating for about five minutes. After that, I was exhausted and couldn't get back into bed for a while, until the sweat started making me chilly.

It was cold out then. It's warm now. It's been warm for a few days. It's odd.

R came back from Galapagos last Thursday. I'd made Marseilles Spinach Stew (with kale and chard instead of spinach) but he wasn't hungry. He'd had a bout of food poisoning or something early in his trip and was slowly recovering. The stew was supposed to be served with an egg poached in the broth placed on a piece of toast and surrounded by the greens and potatoes.

I was hungry. I ate, and the eggs looked good to R, so I made him a couple. I'd also made an organic chocolate banana pie in a graham cracker crust. I had a piece of that, but R didn't touch it until the next day. I can't believe there's still one piece of pie in the fridge.

New Year's Eve, R and I went to Family Wash and then came home to get ready to meet up with Ro for a night out, but I thought better of it and stayed home, smoked a bowl, watched some TV, and was in bed by 10.

R came home at 1:30 - later than he'd planned - and fell asleep on the floor with Bayne, then on the couch a while longer.

We're getting along pretty well. I don't know if it's the Cymbalta or what, but it's nice.

While R was gone, I got real comfortable being by myself. That's definitely a change in me. I'm enjoying my own company more now.

I also don't know if Cymbalta is the cause (or if it was R's absence) but my diarrhea is gone. Yay! One bad thing about being off of the Wellbutrin (I think) is that I'm smoking cigarettes again. I'd like to be able to have one now and again, but it seems I'm quick to start picking them up even when I don't crave one. Like tonight.

I like smoking when I'm driving and with a beer, but I don't want to limit myself to smoking only on those two occasions because I'm afraid I'll take to driving and drinking more than I need or want.

I started futzing with the Regenbogen rules a while back, and then LW and I were at Mafiaoza's and the waiter recognized me as the guy who "invents games" that he'd met a long while ago (possibly the last time I was there) with R. I thought I had emailed him back then and he'd never responded, but he claimed he never heard from me, so we agreed to chalk it up to a breakdown in communication. He gave me his info again and I emailed him when I got home and he wrote back.

Again, I don't know if it's because of the Cymbalta, but I feel like I've been able to focus on something (Regenbogen) more lately than before.

I haven't had much luck focusing on creative writing, though. I bought myself a new notebook to be creative in in the new year - one hour a day at least was my goal. It's only the 3rd, but the first two pages seem like nothing more than trivial doodles.

Actually, I did (do) have an idea that I think could be a good set of short stories called Neighborhood Association. The name doesn't bowl me over, but the idea does. I drew out a little diagram like this:
I didn't have them numbered the same as this, but I just smoked a bowl and it seemed like the better thing to do right now. I had numbered them in the sequence that I thought the stories would be in, but it might be a good exercise to try to explain them in this order. Briefly.

1. is a halfway house (I believe) for three black men and one white one.
2. is a yuppie couple in their first house.
3. is a rednecky sort of house (in my imagination - I don't really know what's going on in any of these boxes). The husband is the son of the widow who lives in 4. She's a longtime citizen of this once very liberal neighborhood. She rents the house next to her to her son and his family. The son's wife is a Rush Limbaugh radical. She smokes long white cigarettes and espouses religious views (on notes that she places on cars, screen doors and in mailboxes) while she busses her kids without even one seatbelt in use.
4. The old liberal widow.
5. A pair of old maid sisters. One spies on the gay man in 6. When her sister catches her, it causes a strain in their relationship they don't know how to deal with. For the first time in many years, they start sleeping in separate beds. They're not sexual, not really - not in their own minds, at the very least - but they are very affectionate with one another; that's how they have managed happiness when passed over by the love of a man. *A good story would be that in their youth, a handsome man came into both of their lives and tried to drive them apart by forcing them to decide which one would be his one and only, and they decided to just go on without him.
6. is the two gay men. Their lives mirror the sisters in 5. in weird ways. They aren't lovers but they sleep together; they have a most unconventional relationship, a strange marriage of convenience. Or a marriage of strange convenience.
7. is a recently widowed man and his middle-aged "bachelor" son. The wife was a good friend of the woman in 4. Her husbad died long ago, shortly after they'd moved to the neighborhood, and he never had an opportunity to really make any friends. The woman he left behind was in a perfect position to make friends. The young wives in the neighborhood came to her aid. She had a small boy. But her husband had a good job and she had a good head for business and she managed to carve out a pretty good life for herself, if not for her son.

thursday, december 23rd (2004)

2009-08-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

7:26 a.m.

I have a bit of a hangover. My shrink suggested a medication change; I'm all for it. I'm still looking for a pill that's gonna make me feel good for no reason at all! I saw him on Tuesday, and I have to see him again next Tuesday to see how the new med is doing me. Actually, I am coming off of Wellbutrin and working my way onto Cymbalta, a new drug that works on all three of the neuro-transmitters that are figured to be connected with depression. So I went down to 150mg Wellbutrin and started at 30mg Cymbalta. If all goes well, he'll take me off Wellbutrin and up my Cymbalta to 60mg next week.

You're not supposed to drink a lot with any of these drugs - and I've given up red wine because it has tended to make me have bad headaches, sometimes migraines - and I usually don't drink that much at all, but for some reason last night I had two strong Southern Comfort and Sprite, and I felt the hangover coming in the middle of the night. I don't know which was waking me up more, the hangover or the storm.

It rained and snowed all night last night and I couldn't get the gate open this morning. I had to climb the fence to go get Sophie! I almost didn't get the driver's side front door open on the Suburban, but that's the only one I did get open.

I'm not even gonna think about cleaning up this house till all the visiting dogs are gone! Sophie is done Sunday, and L comes back to get Maud on Tuesday. That's the 28th. R comes back on the 30th, so I'll have a couple of days to really clean...

When I arrived in his office, my shrink said, "Are you filled with the Christmas Spirit?"
I said, "Achh!"
He said, "It could be worse; you could be filled with the Holy Spirit!"
How true, how true.

Lu's coming over tonight (with cookies, I hope) for soup and smoke and Regenbogen. I better get to the Leek and cheddar soup.

monkey mind

2009-08-14T08:12:00.005-05:00

I meditated today. First time since Paris. What was that, March? Thoughts of C came up - the reason for quitting (or one of the reasons) - but it was a short sit, 15 minutes, and I think I need it.

Since I finished the novel, I've been wandering around feeling like a newly retired old man. And yesterday I felt kind of down. I don't know if that's the depression a couple of people have asked me if I've been experiencing because of the completion of the book.

I don't really feel complete. I guess I'm a little anxious about the next part. There's a lot of rejection to ready myself for. I had this idea yesterday that I should just self-publish the book and not worry about working so hard to get a publisher interested in the work. But I told S and he seemed to think it an odd choice. He said I would have to do the "business" side of it (the part I told him I wanted to avoid) if I self-published in order to get people to know about the book. My point was I didn't care. I spent four years writing the book, not thinking about publishing deals, not thinking about the what-ifs of fame and fortune. And I don't really feel like getting into that world now.

But I guess I really don't want to just put it in the closet and forget about it. I don't guess. Part of me does. Another part of me really just wants people to read it. That was the reason for the idea of self-publishing. Spend my own money, set my own price; give it to people to read, just to get them to read it. If something happens with it in some big way (the odds are against it), so be it, it'll be there anyway.

There's also the idea of some publisher coming along and saying they like it and then telling me I have to change this, that and everything else. I guess if it came with a big check (or even a medium one) and I didn't have to do my regular job for a while, and I could just go off to some cabin somewhere, or a studio apartment in a big city somewhere, it wouldn't be so bad. But I've opened myself up to S and M (no pun intended), two good friends who are the first readers with a critical eye. And no money involved. So here goes.

I've been uploading chapters onto my august chagrin blog, which feels good. And I've been putzing with the blog page (adding books that I read while writing the novel and/or books that are mentioned in the chapters; adding a section of links to songs, sort of a soundtrack to the story, if you will). That's what feels a lot like being retired, all this putzing.

I haven't been sleeping well. Or I should say I sleep okay, but I have a hard time getting to sleep nights. I've been staying up until 2:3o, 3:00, even later some nights. I'm exhausted, but then I lie down and all the thoughts kick in. It's only been a week. I guess I need some time to enjoy the achievement. S is in his last week of school, so I feel like I'm all alone waiting for him to have his achievement so we can celebrate together.

I rearranged my bedroom a little bit. That seemed like a good thing to do. I moved the desk from right beside the bed to the opposite wall, and pulled the meditation cushion out of the closet and put it there so I could stumble to it first thing in the morning and/or perhaps last thing of the day. I did that Tuesday morning, and this morning, I finally sat on the cushion and did a little meditation.

monday, december 20th (2004)

2009-08-12T09:00:00.006-05:00

9:23 a.m.

I took R to the airport at 7 a.m. yesterday then came home, watched a little TV (I don't know why), made a grocery list for six kinds of soup(!) and the basics, watched a movie (Kinsey... eh!), went back to Wild Oats and got a back massage (ah!!!), came home and had a Southern Comfort eggnog and started cooking.

I couldn't find a couple of items I needed at Wild Oats and I forgot one or two others, so I could only make two of the soups (probably a good thing) - S said I made him think of Sally Field on ER because I'd been so depressed recently and then called him and said, "I'm gonna five soups! No, six!!!"

I made Hungarian Vegetable Guylas and Mashed Potato Soup. Both yummy. I have yet to make Annabella's Oatmeal Soup (a Mexican, not-sweet soup), Marseilles Spinach stew, Hot Borscht, and Leek and Cheddar Soup. Oh, and Tofu "Chicken" Salad.

I'm actively saving money - even though I spent most of my housecleaning money and the bonus yesterday.

I talked to S on the phone a while, and then my mom called, and later, Su. Although my mom didn't have any praise for Life in a Box ("It certainly wasn't what I expected it to be..."), that wasn't the reason she hasn't called. She put in her resignation at school around Thanksgiving - the last time I heard from her - and her last day of work was last Friday, and between those two dates she's "just been trying to get to the end."

She retired once before and went back to it (she got bored), but this time she said it's for real. She got tired of the kids not listening to her. She said, "When I say, 'Shut up and sit down,' I expect them to shut up and sit down!"

saturday, december 18th (2004)

2009-08-10T09:00:00.002-05:00

9:09 p.m.

My back is killing me, and I don't think it's mostly from 8 hours of meditation, yoga and chanting. It was mostly sitting - and then walking - meditation, and we took several breaks, but still, it was a lot of Shambhala and it was great.

I'm in bed. I was thinking I was gonna write a whimsical schedule for myself to get into while R is gone, or write a short story about the swinging wall at Plowhaus last night (art exhibit), but I'm too tired.

I've seen a couple of good movies lately, though, that I want to remember:

The Five Senses, starring Mary-Louise Parker, and tonight
Bread & Tulips, an Italian film about a bored housewife

oh, good lord!

2009-08-08T12:11:00.004-05:00

oh, shit! I wrote a book! I've been stumbling around all day in a stupor. I was up until 3:00 AM and got up around 11. I went to the blue star for the best pancakes in town and to do a second draft of the epilogue.

I also had "cheese grits." they used to be really good, really cheesy, kind of down home cheesy, and today they tasted like garlic and salt. not altogether bad, but it's 8:00 PM and I'm still thirsty.

I didn't work on the epilogue. I read through the versions I have (so I guess that's considered work), but the people around me were more interesting, and I was too interesting to them, sitting there looking the way I do (somewhat shabby compared to the others), so I ate and listened, and looked.

maybe I'm just being paranoid, maybe they weren't looking at me at all. I guess I feel like they should be looking at me, 'cause I wrote a fucking novel!

I threfted {sic}, found a cool cap and another pair of khakis which were supposed to be short-makin's for S, but they didn't fit him, so I traded him for a pair of cutoffs I've been meaning to sew the inseam on, but he didn't seem to mind them the way they are. In fact, his words: "They're perfect."

After that I picked up the produce, and I'm now stuck on remembering if I went anywhere directly after that or if I came home after that. --well, more recently, I got high and masturbated, so I'm in a special way with myself right now. that and the fact that I printed out my 113,363 words today, then copied them four times. It cost me $100. It felt like money well-spent.

I smoked a cigarette in the truck with the windows open. the air was dry but the 100°+ sun was beaming down strong on me. my b.o. smells different, rare, strong; skunky. I like it. I think it's the chemistry with the pheromones in it that makes it smell that way and/or makes me react that way to it. sexy...

oh, I smell different in different situations, don't you? (And aren't I a witty writer!)

I also went to the grocery store to return some antifungal lotion I inadvertently bought. I picked up a video of a popular standup who I won't name because it would date this entry (and I haven't watched it so I don't know if it's good yet), stopped for half a dozen plain glazed donuts from the nice Indian man at Mrs. Johnson's (who was Mrs. Johnson?). He told me the plain glazed weren't hot, suggested a variety of cake donuts they have - which were hot - and I hemmed and hawed and said okay, and he gave me four plain glazed in the box with the half dozen cake, "for the microwave."

S made breakfast tacos for dinner, I had a beer with mine. He had schoolwork so I got high, got inspired to write down "Holy Shit! I wrote a book!" or something like that (before the shower and video), and I'm sure it all sounded a lot better in my head.

And here I am.

saturday, december 18th (2004)

2009-08-03T13:19:00.005-05:00

6:33 a.m.

The sky is just starting to lighten up; I've been awake since 4:30 or so. I'm having one more cup of tea (yerba maté) with a blanket over my shoulders before I head up for a long hot shower.

I've got a glitch in my left shoulder blade. That's what woke me up, the discomfort of that; that and the heat coming off of R's body. He smelled liked cigarettes and alcohol. I think it was shortly after 4 when he crawled in bed. We ate at Beyond the Edge and had a good talk, then I came home and went to bed and he went out.

He leaves tomorrow morning for Galapagos. I wish I was going but I'm glad I'm not spending all that money. I'm spending a big chunk of today meditating. P&J, who "run" the Shambhala group here, met a man at a recent meditation meeting and he offered up his home for a Nyinthiin (or something like that). It's basically an all-day retreat. We meet at 8, start meditating at 9, and except for breaks here and there meditate continuously until 7 pm. I think this is just the thing I need right now in my life, a little kickstart. And I'm glad it comes at a time when R is gonna be out of town. I'm hoping I'll be able to get a daily practice going and keep it going even after he comes back and the new year begins.

I spent the first part of my morning so far writing emails to people telling them I'm not going to be in NYC in February for the premiere of Cocus & Doot {the children's musical I wrote songs for}. I just can't afford it. LW was the one who convinced me (gave me permission?) to cancel it altogether.

And then I spent time online looking for events at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado in the month of June (that's when I'll have relief from a couple of big chunks of my current bills, if all goes well). Then I looked at flight times...and then I found a website that compares cities' costs of living and all that.

I was surprised to see that Denver is actually slightly lower than Nashville. The unemployment rate is double what it is here, but hopefully that won't affect me too much since I have O.

I don't know if I want to go to Denver just because I want to try to have a relationship with A, but it sure would be nice to be near C and the St's and Estes Park and the mountains...and A.

I need a change. So much of the time R brings me down. I realize that. Last night was the first time in a while that I've been able to push past that. We had a good conversation (although I don't agree with the way he sees a lot of things in the world).

It's not all his fault. I've probably gotten to a place where I've just given up on him, and that's good for my peace of mind, but it leaves me open to feeling lonely and unloved. I think a lot of my crisis lately (besides the money thing) comes from the fact that I think my mother doesn't love me, that she really doesn't know how to.

R said, "Why does it matter?"
I said, "I don't know, it just does."
He said, "You just have to put it out of your head."

We had a long talk about that and his views on the planet and animals. Like I said, I don't agree with him on a lot of stuff, and that's okay.

Gotta go meditate...!

monday, december 13th (2004)

2009-07-31T12:48:00.003-05:00

7:59 a.m.

Two pieces of Jack Daniel's chocolate chip pecan pie for breakfast. I'm trying to make myself sick. Sicker.

Last night I found myself hiding away from all the people at the party. If I could find something to busy myself with - setting up, washing up - I was okay, even if someone came up to talk to me. Well, that's if I was washing dishes; when I was moving about, putting things out, picking things up, I would interrupt a conversation and say, "Oh, I've got to go..." and I would either say, "do this or that" or I would just let the sentence fall away.

When I ran out of set-up things to do, I stood on the 4x4 board in the back yard looking over the fence, watching who was coming in. The bulk of people came between 6:30 and 7. I knew CBGB was coming, and E (who recently said, "He's just crazy.") was already there, and G called while I was outside to ask what time it started, and I wasn't sure which of the faeries CBGB didn't want to be around but I didn't really wanna be around him myself because he and S hit it off and (I assume) had sex the night before.

Sunday morning, S said, "I feel like I need to talk to you, but I don't know what to say." I didn't know what to say either; S had asked if I wanted him to stay away from CBGB because I was interested in him, but how could I say yes to that? CBGB was interested in S, not me. And then later when S asked if I was upset about him and CBGB, how could I say yes to that? I wasn't upset that CBGB was attracted to S, I was upset that he wasn't attract to me. Or maybe he is/was, but not since S's been in town. I just didn't know how to say any of that without sounding like a baby.

I just wanted to be away from all those people. I hung out in the back yard till LB came and told me how different things are since he's not smoking pot every day, how much clarity he has, how nice it is to not be hanging with that crowd. And then he said, "Hey, JDJB, you got any smoke?!"

I did, and I could've used some myself, but it was in the house. I knew but didn't think about it at the moment that I would have to say hi to all those people I spied coming into the house from the back fence. I didn't get back to LB till after the party.

I said some quick hellos, then started picking up plates and bottles and washing dishes. That kept me busy for a good while. But by the time I was done, I had to get out of the house, away from all the small talk and cackling and rave reviews on the food and party - and CBGB constantly touching S.

I hid in the shadows of the front yard this time. When people started leaving, I hid behind the big hackberry tree. And I stayed there for close to an hour. And I tried to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me. Right then and there, there wasn't a soul I could lean on, nobody I could talk to. My thoughts went from S and CBGB to my mom and family, to JG {in Florida}, to Ro {in Vermont}, to all the other elemets of my past that seemed to be damming up in my head behind that tree.

Poisoned by my past. That's the thought that came to mind. I can't seem to be in the present moment because the present moment is clouded with pains of the past, and every moment becomes the past in a brief moment, and it stays there, too. And I cried and I cried. And I hid behind the tree when people pushed open the storm door, laughing, singing back their praises and appreciation and good whishes.

And then S came out, looking for me, no doubt. And I hid behind the tree. But while he was still out there, I stepped into the beam of the streetlight. But he didn't see me. He went inside and caused a stir (I imagine) by asking everybody remaining if they'd seen me. So then I knew everybody was "concerned" about me. LW told S to call me, and he did.

I answered. He came out, feeling guilty, worried, trying to support me, but I was unsupportable. I'd already crumbled into 1,000 jigsaw puzzle pieces, and I can't put those fucking things together, and I didn't fancy anybody else digging through the pile either, trying to find a couple of matching pieces.

I outlasted S in the cold, windy night. He finally left me alone, and since CBGB was gone (even though his car was still there) I decided to go in and help pack up the party. Those remaining (Ca, LB, LW, CBGB's roommate Khrysso, R) looked at me like I'd just come off of suicide watch.

Charming R came up to me, "Where ya been? What're ya doin'? Crying? What's up? What's wrong? What's right?"

I just walked away from him.

Later - much later - when we were home and I was further downed by the fact that R wasn't even there - I told S what R had said, and S said, "It sounds like he was trying."

I don't feel supported by S when he explains away everybody else's fuck-ups! I want comiseration not explanation! I was in bed; I had told S he could come up and sit with me as I went to sleep if he was so inclined. I didn't say much, but after that response from S, the last thing I said was, "It's too much work for me to know how to take what everybody else is saying and doing. I feel like giving up."
Steven said, "You give up?"
I said, "I feel like it."
He said, "What stops you?"
I said, "I don't know. I think it's animal instinct. The instinct to live. Like those footless and deformed pigeons in New York City in the middle of winter. Why don't they give up? Instinct."

ghostest with the mostest

2009-07-31T10:38:00.006-05:00

I should be working, transcribing, paying the bills. But I'm too excited. I couldn't sleep last night, and I think I was visited by a ghost. That's not the reason for the excitement - just another of the "side effects" of it, I guess, so I'll write about it first.

Just as I was falling asleep, I was dreaming of two necklaces, beads - like prayer beads - hanging from under a staircase. I was reaching and at the same time a woman was coming up from the other side of the stairs reaching for the necklaces. Our hands reached them at the same time; they fell to the ground. I was awakened by the distinct sound of something falling in the far corner of my room, maybe my earbuds, I thought. I had been trying to go to sleep for awhile, but had lots of thoughts in my head, thoughts about my performance earlier that evening, thoughts about chapter 29, which I'm slowly but surely piecing together; I turned on the bedside lamp several times to write things down; I thought perhaps the earbuds plugged into my laptop might have been bumped.

I'm not often spooked (although that picture gave me a chill when I first found it!). I didn't turn on the light to check or anything. I just continued my journey toward sleep. It wasn't coming easy, but the time before when I had fallen asleep (before the falling beads woke me), I was going through the six sections of chapter 29 in my head:

1. The Black Man rises from the ashes.
2. August & Lorax on a plane to Houston.
3. Paul meets the Black Man.
4. August & Lorax decide to drive directly to his boyhood home.
5. Dar arrives home late from work; dinner is burned; Paul says the Black Man is upstairs with the children; she ignores him because he is drunk as always.
6. August & Lorax arrive at the smoldering remains of the house.

And then there was the tapping of the cat door in the window on the other side of my bed. I'm gonna fix that right now... (Done.) The cat door is unused now, since Timmy's passing. I have a curtain pulled in front of it, but it has a little tab to keep unwanted guests from entering. When the wind blows, it taps. I didn't think it was a ghost, actually, but it woke me up. But now it's fixed, I think - I stuck an eraser between the door and the tab - if it taps when I go to bed tonight, I will think it's a ghost!

I started working on going back to sleep again, then there was a distinct, single knock on my bedroom door. That's when I decided a ghost was in the house. I didn't feel afraid. I was just a tad annoyed that I was being kept awake, as much by the ghost as by the pot I'd smoked when I got home from the performance, and by chapter 29, which seemed to be unfolding because of the pot.

But anyway, I was excited and unable to sleep mostly because of the improv performance I did. C+T are out of town on tour, as are several of the students who were invited to perform, and it ended up being just me, L and K. It was at the Hideout, the scene of the crime, as it were, the place where I did my first, dismal improv show, that 2 a.m. embarrassment a month or so ago.

Well, I don't have words to describe the show without a boring play-by-play (as best as I can recall) description of it. But we were well connected. It was impressive. S and P1 were there, and they loved it. It was really great fun. And I keep thinking back on the few moments when P1, S and I were leaving, walking down the sidewalk toward her car behind a foursome, one of whom (a cute young man who was obviously in the audience) kept looking back at me and grinning real big. I guess that's what it's really all about!

The other bit of excitement is that, except for chapter 29 and a little bit of tidying up, I am done with august chagrin! I have begun posting the chapters on the august chagrin blog in order. I had previously been posting them in chronological order, but took everything off and put chapter one up. Chapter two will appear on Friday, and chapter three the following Monday. That's the plan. I've already got several of them scheduled to appear on the upcoming Mondays and Fridays. There's a link to the novel blog on the upper righthand corner of this blog.

Okay, I really should do some work now.

sunday, december 12th (2004)

2009-07-28T12:46:00.001-05:00

8:58 a.m.
It's not like he didn't ask what my feelings were, and it's not like he really stole anything from me because it wasn't mine to steal, but I still feel a little damaged by the whole episode.

S came to town and I was excited about that, and excited for him to meet "CBGB," but I didn't think that would happen last night.

LW & I came back on Thursday, got back at about 6:40. At 6:05, CBGB called to ask if I could cash a $20 check for him. I didn't know at the time that I couldn't, but I said yes, if he didn't mind waiting until we got to town and I got to him. His phone battery died as he was telling me he should go so I could call him when I got to town. I got to town and got to Kroger's on Franklin at about 6:50 and he was nowhere to be seen.

I drove around the parking lot (in Blue, which is very hard to miss, particularly since I've put the fake Christmas tree branches all over the top of her) and he didn't come out of the woodwork. Then I went into the store and walked across the back, looking down every aisle. I called him a couple of times and left messages - "I'm here!" "I'm in the store..." - and then I had to leave to pick up S at the airport, and I left him one more messeage: "It's 7:05, I have to go; I hope you got what you needed..."

After that, I put it out of my mind. I got S, we went home, I changed clothes and he settled in, then we went with R to Sitar for dinner. While we were there, my phone rang. I don't usually take it in places, but I thought maybe if CBGB called... And I had also just forgotten it was in my pocket. The display said it was JV. I asked S if he wanted to talk to him; he said no, I turned the phone ringer off.

After we were done eating and headed to the car, I listened to my message. It was CBGB calling from JV's apartment! He said he'd waited at Kroger's till 7:20, then went to the airport for a while, then went to R's house, then to JV's, and he said he was then gonna go back to R's.

I called JV back; he said CBGB had just left, that he was apparently having a bad day.

We got home; he wasn't here. R and S and I were sitting in the living room chatting for about an hour when there was a knock on the door. It was CBGB. I hugged him, introduced him to S, they hugged, then the four of us talked for a whle, me touching CBGB a bit - affectionately. A while later, CBGB moved over to the arm rest by S and slowly made his way to petting him and kissing him on the top of the head and they ended up sleeping in the same bed that night. (E just called - I'm going to the dog park.)

thursday, december 9th (2004)

2009-07-25T12:12:00.003-05:00

6:10ish a.m.

A woman with the "Southern Touch Tours" group said to me, "Is that a Belgian waffle?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am, you make it yourself!"
She threw up her hands and wrinkled her face in mock horror. "I don't wanna make anything!"

I put way too much syrup on my waffle. What a waste! There's 1/4" sitting in the bottom of my plate.

Yesterday morning and this morning I've been surprised by the rough-and-tumble manly men in the breakfast room in their construction working-looking clothes and speaking French. They're a lot less manly looking (and more appealing) speaking French!

One old lady said, "Are you enjoying it so far?"
The other said, "It hasn't started yet...!"

I guess I'm gonna see how much flour I can stuff into my stomach. I've already had a waffle and now I'm having a biscuit with flour gravy. The biscuit isn't quite cooked enough, so it's like eating a plateful of runny dough!

The women who work the breakfast shift crack me up. They wear chef's hats and coats and put out pre-made pastries and fruits and yogurt and little containers of waffle mix for the do-it-yourself waffles. I'm sure they didn't choose these outfits for themselves, but it still cracks me up.

One old lady's voice sounds like it is coming through a busted speaker. It's all brassy and airy and makes me want to clear my throat.

Lunch at Co didn't come until 4:15 yesterday! Breakfast held me okay until about then (and a few cookies in the office), and I had to run to the bathroom many times throughout the day; that was very frustrating.

I decided not to go to M&R's {with LW} last night after work. I stayed in the hotel room and watched TV. I got my three free drink coupons from the front desk and had three of the brightest green margaritas I've ever seen. Then I had some chex mix, and later the complimentary popcorn that was waiting in the in-room microwave to be popped, and one of the two complimentary sodas (a Pepsi and a diet Pepsi) in the mini-fridge.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers was coming on, so I watched that (Geoffrey Rush is so good), then I made some long distance phone calls (60 minutes of free long distance in the hotel every day!). While I was talking to A, LW got in and we went to sleep by 10 and I was up at 6:00 and it's 6:45 now and I think LW's still asleep...

wednesday, december 8th (2004)

2009-07-22T12:11:00.001-05:00

7:17 a.m.

I'm in Memphis. Wonder of wonders! LW asked me to come with her to do some organizational work. Works for me. Meals are included.

I've been doing pretty well on food of late (since I've been bone dry at the bank). Thursday, AL bought me lunch and the faerie formerly known as Brieze bought me dinner; Saturday, I snacked at S&G's soiree; Sunday, we had dinner with the bridge group; Tuesday was Co's holiday lunch in Nashville; last night, we got to Memphis and I got a meal at Saigon Le; and we'll be having the Memphis Co holiday lunch today, Mexican food tonight, and who knows what tomorrow holds!

Another bit of excitement in my life (also thanks to LW) is that S will be arriving in town from S.F. tomorrow night and he'll be here until Monday afternoon. Also, I asked LW if I could borrow $800 to pay back R before he goes on his trip to Galapagos, and on the way here yesterday, she asked if I would clean her house every two weeks for the next 10 months to pay her back. Wow!

I didn't realize I was coming to Memphis to lift boxes. I thought I was coming to file. What they need me to do is get the boxes of archive files labled and out of the hallway to the offsite storage. I have a stiff neck and a sore lower back, and diarrhea (still). But I'm not complaining; I'm happy for the work.

I've been feeling very down lately, mostly because of my money situation. I haven't seen a lot of R lately and I miss him. Just in the last day (not even) I've spent with LW, I remember why I don't want to live with her. Her sense of humor gets on my nerves sometimes. I guess because I don't really know how to respond.

For example, this morning, we were getting ready to come down to the hotel lobby for breakfast and I was putting on my jacket and hat, and she said, "Are you cold?!" and she said it in a condescending-sounding way. I know she doesn't mean to be condescending, but I don't know what to say that doesn't sound either dismissive or defensive. I said, "Well, I don't want to be cold," or something like that.

I guess I just can't be happy. Too much of my mother in me. I was thinking the other day about how she confessed recently that she never loved my father, even though she put on somewhat of a front for however many years it was. I got to thinking, Well, then, does she really love me? I guess this comes from the fact that we haven't talked in person since I sent her the LIAB tape.

S told me the other day he's going to rework the first part of LIAB. So many people have told him they're confused by the beginning, that they don't know what the movie is about until about 10 minutes into it. I'm staying out of it. I understand what he's going through. I love the film as it is now and I'm sure I'll love it in another form (because I'm such an egomaniac)!

A man with a toupee and lots of cologne just arrived at the table next to me and I have to get away.

december 2004 journal drawing

2009-07-19T09:35:00.002-05:00

I don't wanna die but I don't wanna live like this

rockwell stockwell

2009-07-17T09:46:00.009-05:00

I've been confusing Dean Stockwell and Sam Rockwell for a long time. Their names are similar enough that I convinced myself it was the same person. I think it happened around the time I started watching the TV show "Quantum Leap," which I didn't watch when it originally aired, but rather when it went into syndication. Whenever that was, I guess Sam Rockwell was in something that I liked, and then I saw another episode of the show and saw Dean Stockwell's name and convinced myself - even though Dean Stockwell is 32 years older than Sam Rockwell - that it was the same actor. I probably even muddled the names when I was talking about "him" to someone else, enough so that I didn't get questioned on it.

In the last week or so, S and I watched Long Day's Journey Into Night, with Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell. The play was written in 1942, was very autobiographical - Eugene O'Neill put it in a vault and said that it should not be published until 25 years after his death (but his third wife went against his wishes, and it was published in 1956, three years after his death). The film was made in 1962, but was filmed in black and white, which S tells me was the way they did things back then - dramas in B&W, comedies in color.

In the movie, Katharine Hepburn plays a woman going mad essentially (helped along by morphine and some bad memories), and the actress was just starting to get the shaky head which she said she inherited from her grandfather, not from Parkinson's disease. So, it was a little confusing to see an aging Hepburn in a B&W film. And there was young Sam Rockwell-- er, Dean Stockwell, playing her young son.

And now Moon just came out, starring Sam Rockwell. I went to see it last night with M&J. It's a very good movie, but I'm not here to issue spoilers. When we were getting into the car after the movie, I made a comment about the fact that Sam Rockwell was in Long Day's Journey (which J watched a few minutes of with S and me when it was playing at the house), and J was like, "No way! That couldn't have been him, that movie was from like the '40s or something!" And I was confident that I was right. "Strange as it may seem, it's true!"

But you can't get away with anything these days. We both pulled out our iPhones and started doing research, and before too long at all, I realized my mistake: "It was Dean Stockwell," I said. To which (in my defense) M said, "Oh, my god! It's his son!"

Very confusing. But anyway, Sam Rockwell is not Dean Stockwell, he's not even his son. The only thing they have in common is that they're both actors, and they have big eyebrows.

wednesday, december 1st (2004)

2009-07-16T09:14:00.003-05:00

Worlds AIDS Day, 9:59 p.

I imagined what it would be like to find out I was Positive. I've been sick too long (diarrhea); maybe it's a sign of something more than just my emotional state. I traced back the steps to a possible, potential encounter with the A-monster. It's not very likely, but it's enough to feed the imagination...

Or am I trying to commit suicide subconsciously?

I feel like I'm bombing at personal interaction, but people keep telling me I'm well-liked. I'm thinking particularly of the bridge group and the faeries. More so the bridge group, because with the faeries I feel loved deeply some of the time (and then it fades).

I feel like I have so small a connection with the likes of Middle and BamBam, and even Ribbon and Crazy Bear to a certain extent.

10:14 p.m.
I've been freaking myself out a lot lately. I wonder if it's the time of the year - all the shit that was happening in Florida. Not to mention the holidays.

I was working so hard to gain R's attention a year ago. I wouldn't say it's been the hardest year of my life, but I certainly thought I'd be a lot happier than I am; a lot more content.

On a good note, I went to the Y today and hardly cruised at all. Or did I even at all? I just looked at penises and bodies. But not with any sort of intention; it was all very casual. I'm actually quite proud of myself.

A train passes by regularly that has a whistle like a boat horn. It's very comforting in a weird sort of way. Now the slow hum of the passing train cars sound like a barge pushing a huge raft of cargo. I guess I'm thinking about the waterway near MW's house in New Orleans. I'm kinda glad I never got to New Orleans with R and the SSs and all that crowd. I think I'm partial to the New Orleans that has MW in it, ,and my memories of discovering New Orleans with S, two different times in two completely different ways. MW - and M - were the New Orleans we came to know and love.

It's also where a lot of filming for the documnetary between Ro and me took places. That's where the early part of the videotaping took place, and already we were complaining! Ro and I were putting ourselves and each ther through a series of tests to judge and rate and score our openness with ourselves and each other. Dissecting everything, every conversation, every sex act (or lack thereof), any emotion, every-fucking-thing.

tuesday, november 30th (2004)

2009-07-13T08:33:00.005-05:00

10:03 pm

I went to the post office today during a full day of work. Re was out sick. We had a birthday breakfast for Ca. I made a fantastic fruit salad. LW and Ra were in Memphis; it was a small crowd today (T was out sick, too, and L showed up late, andy {sic} Ci wasn't there).

I went to the post office under the Frist Center (the Center used to be the post office - our post office when S and I first arrived in Nashville). It's all modern now. But in an artsy retro way, so it's cool. It was on the way to the bank. It was a nasty, dark, coldish rainy day (it got less cold by this afternoon; it was odd). It had rained all through the night and I was feeling particularly down - I was gonna say "disenchanted" - starting yesterday sometime, and it was before S told me by email that LIAB had been turned down {by the Sundance Film Festival}.

I was also feeling the realization that I am broke: $1 in my wallet, just over $2 in the bank, and $59 in savings (after having to withdraw $140 to pay my BofN loan). What the hell!

I haven't gotten any work from NY since Thanksgiving (Ca pointed out that that was just last week, but then I realized that it must've been longer than that because I really had to struggle to pay that bill - and more are on the way, approximately $400 a week).

I've started working a full 20 hours at Co a week, but that just started a couple of weeks ago, and it was represented on the check I got today. Gulp! Thank goodness I made $150 from Ra & B for dog sitting Sophie last week.

ANYWAY!!! I didn't intend to get into all of that, but it was hard to avoid because I was thinking last night about what-the-fuck-is-next.

R & I watched a so-so movie last night called... I can't remember the name of the movie, which is okay since I don't have too much good to say about it. Two guys were set up by their straight friend. (It was All Over the Guy - and I feel okay naming it since the movie seemed to go out of its way to dis' that Kevin Kline movie In & Out.) One thing I liked about the movie - or that affected me deeply - was the fact that the two guys were clashing because they seemed to want different things. It made me feel a whole {sic} in my soul (to accompany the one in my heart caused by my little Crush I got on Thanksgiving at G&M's (that is a treat that needs to be written about)).

So, as I lay in bed last night, feeling sorrowful, I asked myself what I really want. Sometimes, I feel strongly that its love. I want the chance to have a significant relationship with someone unencumbered by all of the things that S and I had in our relationship except for the knowledge we gained. That's so sappy! But it's true...

And I keep going back to A. I know that he is interested in a relationship with me, and the sex we've had has been wonderful. So I was thinking about Denver.

11:00 p.m.
Upstairs in bed now. Jesse is lying next to me, her head buried between her back legs...

I got the idea last night to look at the Denver classifieds online. So I did this morning. There was an ad by the Unitarian Universalist Church looking for a youth and teen coordinator of some sort. Coordinate schedules for programs and replacement staff (I'm assuming volunteers from the congregation) for days the coordinator is not inhouse. They have Sunday, Wednesday night and Thursday night activities. The pay is only $10 an hour, just like Co, but it's 30 hours a week (guaranteed), unlike Co. It hit me as one of those meant-to-be things.

I told S I was thinking about it. He seemed disappointed. I just don't want to spend my whole life struggling financially. S said he couldn't imagine not being an artist, and I said I could because I can't live in this state much longer. He said he would kill himself if he couldn't be an artist; I said I've considered that. He said, "Don't do that." I said, "Most likely I won't." That seems like a weird thing to say...

I went to the post office and forgot to go to the bank and had to go back. I discovered while at the post office that I'd left my shaving kit at the Y the night before and went to get it. (I forgot it because I'm such a letch.)

S said I disappoint myself more than anybody else, and I agreed with him. I had said I feel like I'm spending my life disappointing people lately. S asked who and I told him, "You, R, Ro..." AND IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY!!! Money is ruling my life.

I'm gonna start meditating; I set up a chair for it when I cleaned house last week (all week long {I haven't meditated} because I didn't feel good... a cold or something - and this blasted darrhea is still with me, since the Friday follow the election. That's a month now!).

I also saaw a cutie at the post office. He got there the same time I did, threw around hundred dollar bills - well, one anyway. He has a p.o. box there. He glanced my way a couple of times. That's all it takes lately. I putzed around in the p.o. and felt like he was too, both of us waiting for the other. This is my fantasy, my creative imagination (who needs to make money at it when it's so much more rewarding doing it in your head for your own and your closest friends' entertainment?).

I had to putz around a little longer in the car before he came out. He walked close by the Suburban and then just passed up his SUV and went to the Union Station Hotel. I contemplated it for more than a few minutes - we were both parked in the POST OFFICE 15 MINUTES parking spaces - but went ahead into the lobby. I convinced myself it was a good idea since I've never been in there.

And I was right. The building is beautiful - I've always thought that - but it's much more beautiful inside. The ceiling, three or four stories up, is made of stained glass. The faux sunlight behind them was bright and wonderful. A fountain trickled in the middle of the room not far from the baby grand piano, which I didn't realize was even being played at first. I heard the music, beautiful - gorgeous - music. But then in a one-two punch, I realized the piano was being played, and was being played by the guy I'd followed in there. The dark-skinned Greek or Italian man was playing the hell out of that baby grand. That was why I wrote all of this, I didn't want to forget that.

11:27 p.m.

friday, november 19th (2004)

2009-07-10T11:31:00.001-05:00

7:52 p.m.

I'm cooking and cleaning. Well, cooking. I'm planning on cleaning. Right now, I'm having a fungi sandwich (Quorn pattie) and a Diet Coke. Not any tapes this week from O. It's a drag and a blessing.

R was off all week and we both did our best to enjoy ourselves and each other. Which actually wasn't all that much. I wake up so early and he goes to bed so late, and most nights lately he's slept on the couch. I don't think it's because he didn't wanna sleep with me (maybe I'm kidding myself), he told me so (maybe he's kidding me -- and myself). Whatever; it doesn't really matter to me at all.

I cleaned the house on Russell Street today. 5 hours. It always seems to take 5 hours. Unless I skip some things and really rush - last time it took 4-1/2 hours. But I felt like I rushed and skipped some things today, and it still took me 5 hours. They don't seem to mind; they must think I do a good enough job.

I came home after that, shaved and showered and hung around the house in case R wanted to hang out with me. That seems to be what I've become, his on-call companion. I don't mind. I've finally gotten comfortable with my role, I think. Plus I've been sickly for the past 3 weeks and haven't felt like doing much.

I went to the gym for the first time in over 2 weeks and was totally exhausted after 20 minutes on the treadmill thing.

more more more

2009-07-08T15:07:00.006-05:00

Last night was the decider. After my experience a couple of Friday nights ago in the improv festival that had no clear leadership, no real focus, and lots of people I didn't know playing around me, I was starting to think that maybe I'm not cut out for improv, or performance of any type. I know, I know, I performed for 10 years and was almost always nervous but I never felt like I couldn't go on because of it. Something happened after we split up. I forgot a line in a play I was doing at a community theater and that scared the hell out of me. A while back when I performed as the musical accompaniment to M's one-woman show, I had stage fright feelings, and I've felt that when I've performed with G and with other people. Though never with S.

My new goal is to get S to take some improv classes with me, because he and I have chemistry and stage presence like nobody's business, and when we're sitting around smoking weed (or not), we make each other laugh. He tends to fear the stage as a starting point (not the same as when we were making music together, for some reason), so it'll take some work, but that's my goal and my dream. But that's not what I'm writing about right now.

Last night was the first official performance by TNM improv theater's house troupe - "the standout students," as they call us, and them, the two teachers (who were both absent from the horror show a couple of Fridays ago). It went very well. The format was a little weird, unfamiliar (guests told a story and were asked questions by the other half of our troupe and we had to improvise off of what was said) but my goal for the night was merely to get on the stage and not freeze up or end up in a corner, on the verge of vomiting or crying.

None of those things happened!

TNM has another show on Friday evening, and more in the coming months; I didn't commit to any of them, and said I wouldn't, until I found out how last night was gonna go. At the end of the night, I said to T, "Okay, I'm on for Friday." She said, "Oh! That makes me so happy; that's the thing I was most interested in happening tonight."

It wasn't a brilliant show - and in fact I was only onstage a handful of times (something I discovered: with six people on a team, there aren't a lot of opportunities to be in a scene; you really have to work to get out there before somebody else does) - but it went smoothly. I played a muppet, a stripper (as S pointed out, "a Bob Fosse-style stripper"), a karaoke machine, among other things. It was fun.

Phew!

wednesday, november 17th (2004)

2009-07-07T11:25:00.003-05:00

10:28 p.m.

I just came home from L's gig at Radio Cafe and made myself a gorgonzola omelet, a peanut butter and "jelly" sandwich and a glass of cold, refreshing rice milk.

Today was the big day to buy the Xmas trees. Four Xmas trees, one for LW and two for her friend in Memphis who loves Xmas trees so much she had to have two of them. I didn't really want a whole Xmas tree to myself, so I cut mine in half and let RM take the other half. Saved me money, too. It was a weird experience, getting the trees from, {sic} I had to meet at a place -- since he's not even from this state. I {sic}

saturday, november 13th (2004)

2009-07-04T11:12:00.004-05:00

I don't know -- O.K., it's 5:30 p.m.

I just went and got my phone because I just left a message for A -- I said, "Call me!" and then I came ouside and didn't bring my phone.

I'm bundled up like I'm on the North Pole or something. It's cold but not that cold. It's hard to write and smoke with gloves on, and I don't even know where any gloves are. Maybe it'll feel warmer now when I go back inside. R keeps the thermostat at 66º and it's a pretty drafty house; I'm almost always cold. My extremities are, anyway.

I'm feeling unsettled. I guess that's why I'm smoking. I haven't smoked in a long time, and I didn't have a craving for a cigarette, but I thought it might do something about my unsettled feeling. Or maybe I'm sick. I still have diarrhea. For 15 days now. I took the medicine and ate bland foods for a couple of days and then I went to the doctor and my symptoms had cleared up, so I left and ate Indian food and they came back. But I've been--

The phone just rang and I lost my train of thought.

I think I feel unsettled about my "relationship" with R, whatever this is. I'm feeling lonesome I guess. I have been spending some time with E and I enjoy that, but I have to keep my emotions in check around him.

I thought that was A on the phone but it was JV. I went over to his apt. last night and watched a bunch of shorts (including S.A.L.L.I. and the Y'all music video), a lot of stuff he did with his friends who are down from NYC. I called today in hopes of doing something with them tonight, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't stay home and transcribe. I have six tapes to do by Monday. But I wonder if I'll really do them, or just find other things to occupy my unsettled mind.

I smoked the dregs from my pipe and I've got a little buzz now, but I also feel nauseous. I don't know what's up with me. And in the midst of all this, I wrote another song for the play today.

I'm all over the place. I think I'll listen to JV's message and see how that makes me feel.

news flash

2009-07-02T11:18:00.009-05:00

There is movement outside my window. A couple of days ago, a teal Pontiac pulled up the driveway. The driver was H, a Mexican guy who's been working at the bar that J built. He cleans the entire bar every morning, and used to be the barback, but the bartender/manager said he really needs somebody who speaks English, so they found somebody and J put H to work on the container house - our house! Yay. He met with J that first day, and then yesterday he was back, trimming trees and moving a beam from near the current house (M&J's house where S and I currently reside) to the top of the two containers - essentially S's room and mine - that have been sitting over there since early this year, when the work was halted shortly after beginning because of a drying up of resources. S and I weren't too upset about it because we've had some financial woes of our own of late and aren't paying rent as long as we're in the house.

That's the big thing. After a while of waiting, and being able to see that nothing was happening outside my window on that side of the yard, I wasn't sure it was ever gonna happen. Well, that's not true, I knew it would happen eventually, but I didn't know when "eventually" would be, months or years...

Another thing is that I've been really doing a lot of writing on august chagrin. I feel really focused, and haven't been socializing much at all (which has its disadvantages and disappointments), but the more I spend focused time on the book, the more it comes, and that seems like the right thing to be doing. I've got a lot more chapters completed than are on the august chagrin blog, but I'm trying to put up a chapter a week at least.

But that's been a little more difficult lately because work has been picking up. Because of the financial crisis on Wall Street, I'm not allowed to work more than 40 hours a week (used to be we could work as much as we could), but there hadn't been enough work to do 40 hours until a couple of months ago, and now it's pretty steadily coming. I also got an email from the boss yesterday telling me where the company stands financially and that he can't give us back the 25% cut we got when the crisis hit hard, but I feel confident that he will do it as soon as possible - it's pretty impressive to me that he has become so open about the finances of the company; that feels honest. I figured out early on that I would have to work 40 hours to make the same amount of money as I was making in 30 hours a week - which had become my comfort zone. I'm hoping now that I've figured out a way to get to 40 on a regular basis, I'll be able to continue it after our 25% is reinstated, and therefore get out of debt sooner than later.

That's going well, the debt thing. It has a lot to do with having no social life, just spending my time working and writing. I've let down a couple of friends, but after what happened while I was Paris long distance with C here in Austin - the friendship that crumbled - I took stock of my friendships and of Friendship in general, and there just isn't enough of me to go around right now. That sounds harsh, but I feel like my primary friendships have to offer me something, not just take from me. And not to say that the friends who've recently gone by the wayside were taking from me physically - a little bit but not so much the actual physical time required to maintain the relationship - but I mean more on the emotional plane.

Besides work and writing, there is improv. Which is more like therapy than a social life. And it's been difficult of late. Last Friday night, I was in my first group show, but was on a strange stage with quite a number of people I had never met, we hadn't had one rehearsal as a group, there wasn't a strong leader in our group, and the performance was at TWO A.M.!!! I freaked out. It was something like stage fright, I guess. I spent the hour onstage standing and sitting on the sidelines hoping nobody would call me out onstage with them, and when they did (they did!) I felt like I had nothing to offer. It was awful. I felt like shit on my way home (at 3:15 a.m.); I didn't say anything to anybody, just left. The next day I cried a little. I think my biggest fear is that I'll have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not able to be onstage in front of people again, and since I really want that, it would be something I would have to let go of.

It's like aging.

But there were so many problem factors in that show so I'm cutting myself a lot of slack and gearing up for the next group show, which will be this coming Tuesday. We have one, maybe two rehearsals planned, T&C will be part of the show, and all the other people will be folks I've been taking classes with for quite a while.

thursday, november 11th (2004)

2009-07-01T10:59:00.005-05:00

8:12 a.m.

I wish cock didn't taste bad in my dreams. I met a cutie last night, followed him around and finally got in his pants, and yep, it had that odd metallic unpleasant flavor. Quite a turnoff.

I also had a dream that I heard or read about an old lady and a man (don't know if he was old) who drove off a cliff next to a road, and then suddenly I was there, could see the red car dangling right-side up next to a tall rocky wall. I was on foot and traveling with someone - perhaps R because it seemed like we were maybe in Angel Canyon, Utah. We came upon a cluster of houses that belonged to an odd family of portly men and scrawny women. They had built the houses themselves and they all had ventilation just under the metal rooves {sic} and spiders had webs all over the ceilings like canopies over the beds and what not. I talked to the people there and they saw the accident happen. One of them had caught the car or something and attached it to a vine or cable there and there it waited for the emergency vehicles.

I thought this might just be a tall tale. Then I noticed that all of the men had their shirts off and they all had big scars in the middle of their chests. Heart surgery, I imagined. My uncle just had heart surgery, so maybe that's where that came from.

Last night I was feeling puny. I was exhausted but had had a cup of tea when I got home so I could stay up and transcribe, but I realized I was too worn out to transcribe and too hopped up to sleep. I tried to watch TV. No good. Then I lay down on the bed downstairs for a while. I think I slept a little while. R was making something that smelled very good but I knew I couldn't eat. I'd only had white rice, bananas, applesauce and toast (or crackers) for two days and my diarrhea was gone.

I went to the doctor yesterday, told him my diarrhea was gone, he said, "Oh, well, then what do you want from me?" He was 70-something, old and puffy, charming but hard of hearing. He told me to take off my shirt so he could get paid, and thumped on me a bit, then sent me away with a bill of clean health - or a "clean bill of health." No charge (to me or TennCare).

I met E at an Indian buffet restaurant for lunch, pigged out, then regretted it the rest of the day. On my way home, I almost shit my pants, and had diarrhea for the rest of the evening. R asked me how I felt and when I said, "Exhausted and anxious," he said, "Exhausted and anxious?" And that was that.

I got up from my nap and decided to go to the store for some Gatorade but couldn't find my wallet. I still haven't. So I paced around awhile then went to bed at 9:00. I said goodnight to R and he said, "You're going to bed?"

tuesday, november 9th (2004)

2009-06-28T10:52:00.001-05:00

6:47 pm.
Sometimes I feel like I live in a fucking Pinter play.
J: Would you like some rice?
R: What?
J: Would you like some rice?
R: You're asking me if I want rice?
J: Yes.
R: You're making rice?
J: Yes, I'm making rice. Would you like some?
R: You're eating rice?
J: I'm gonna make some.
R: What kind of rice?
J: White rice.
R: Just white rice?
J: --
R:No, I don't want any white rice.

---

I came up with a piece of a song on the way home from work:
I side-swiped a white truck,
Yes, sir, my life sucks;
All kinds of bad luck--
Don't ask me for anything.
I got nothing to give you;
Don't you know I gotta live, too?
I side-swiped a white truck.
Jesus Christ, my life is bad.

he loved that rat

2009-06-27T10:11:00.002-05:00

sunday, november 7th (2004)

2009-06-25T14:54:00.005-05:00

11:06 pm

Everything's different. I'm in a kinda dazey state from having spent the better part of the past two days writing songs for the children's musical SB and I are writing and A is directing. I got 6 songs out of me.

I spent 4 hours at the library yesterday looking at books (I checked out 2) but not writing any songs. I basically got myself all frustrated and decided I needed to get high to find any inspiration. I called LW; no luck. Then I went to LB's house and we smoked a whole joint together. Status quo for him; way beyond my usual intake - I would've been fine with a pipeload - but these are desparate times and I took what I could get however I could get it.

His assistant C was there; he told me she arrived and was getting out of the car and that she's a big fan of S.A.L.L.I. We smoked in the back yard with all the dogs. Then the NES guy came and needed the dogs in the house and access to the back yard so he could put in a new meter. And I was raring to go. I waited for LB a while, but he was taking too long and I was too high. I told C to tell him goodbye and left.

I didn't wanna come home because I knew if R was here I wouldn't likely be able to work. So I went to Shelby Park. But as soon as I parked I knew I was in the wrong place to be doing the kind of work I needed to do. I decided to drive around and listen to my "C&D" cassette of ideas to see if any inspiration came from that.

It did. I got inspired to make an album of the cassette of ideas, call it "First Takes," mass produce it (small run) and give it as gifts. It cracked me up. I wonder if it's still as good, now that I'm not high? (I'm only high and dry now.) We'll see.

It did get my creative juices flowing, though, and I sat at a Chinese buffet restaurant and ate bad food and roughed out four songs, then came home and wrote a couple more. R was here but was unusually removed. He's always removed - or most always - but he was kind of pleasant. Actually, quite pleasant.

The restaurant was one I'd been to a few times before for white rice. $1.50 for a quart at any Chinese restaurant in town. Quite a deal. I've been having diarrhea for going on 10 days. I have to call the doctor again in the a.m. I don't know her; I just called the number on my TennCare card. She called in a prescription for some tiny little pills that stop the diarrhea. The problem with those medications is they just stop you up. She said I could take up to 4 doses a day. I've only taken one dose at the most in a day, here and there, and only when I'm shitting water.

I don't feel particularly bad; I don't feel sick, really. I'm more tired than usual and I feel nauseous when I eat anything but B.A.R.T. (that's supposed to be B.R.A.T.: bananas, rice, applesauce and toast). I can't stick to that diet, though; I get unbelievable cravings for all kinds of things like bar-be-que and pizza and onion rings. I have stopped drinking coffee, which is a good side affect from all of this - I felt like I was drinking too much in a day.

I ordered a pizza tonight and as soon as I was done with dinner, I shat water a couple times, and then I was done. The doctor said avoid dairy, even yogurt, avoid sugar... I avoid them, but they seem to find me! I don't have a huge appetite; I'm skinnier than ever. The doctor said sometimes the body has a hard time getting back on track after a virus or something like that.

I hope that's all it is. I guess I should be more worried, but what good would that do?

R went to SMS, or nearby anyway, to stay the night with G. He took Jesse with him. Jesse is terrified of G. He has weird energy, I must admit, but I'm sure she'll survive. I'm glad I'm not having to take care of her.

R and I stopped writing notes to each other, nice or otherwise. I guess that's okay. It's kinda weird being here in all this silence. I guess I'll have to see how it unfolds.

the good kind

2009-06-23T13:46:00.005-05:00

P1 says I'm crazy. She means it in a good way. I've been cranking out a couple of chapters a week for the past few weeks. It's not like I'm writing them from scratch, not most of them, but the work is real and it feels good.

Whenever I have a new chapter done, I read it to P1. It is important to me to hear what I've written, to make sure it sounds the way I want it to sound. P1 says she loves hearing it. It works out for both of us.

Other than writing, working, and improv, I haven't been doing much of anything. I spend a little bit of time with S around the house - having a meal, watching 30Rock (we're obsessed - it's very good; we're about halfway through the first season) or a Netflix offering - but he's busy with school and studying most of the time, so we don't really spend all that much time together.

A emails me occasionally, trying to get me to make plans with her; LR texts me once in a while telling me it's been too long, that she needs to see me. I feel like I should respond to them - and have, but my excuses sound pretty lame anymore. There are people in my life who are good about ignoring people. I wish I could be more like them, less guilt-ridden over my desire to keep doing what I'm doing right now and not get caught up in the other stuff. It's working for me, I don't want to change it.

I'm being very productive; it seems more and more likely that I will be able to finish this novel by my birthday this year. I'm usually so easily distracted because of my gregarious nature; I want to be around people, want to hang. But if I go off and do this and do that, I'm not writing. I like hanging out with the people in improv because they are from wildly diverse backgrounds and because they and the improv work itself is helping to keep the creative juices in me flowing.

It's also therapeutic. I've said that before; I'll say it again. Improv is therapeutic.

I'm anxious to start work on chapter 16 (having just read chapters 2 & 9 to P1 last night). I looked over 16 the other day, and as with others that came before it, I see a clear path; I recognize what needs to happen in the chapter, what can go away. It's thrilling.

But I also don't want to start up on it and get interrupted with work - which, until I hit the 40-hour mark in the week, is priority - so I'm adding entries from my 2004 diary, scheduled to appear every three days (so that I can get caught up in writing and not feel bad about not updating my blog for a while), as well as adding chapters to the august chagrin blog.

The good new is, I'm at the 33.5 mark with work this week (which runs Thursday-Wednesday), so it's likely I'll be able to take most of Wednesday off, like I did last week, and will possibly have another chapter to read to P1 by the end of the weekend. Crazy!

wednesday, november 3rd (2004)

2009-06-22T14:51:00.004-05:00

What happened to Blue?

tuesday, november 2nd (2004)

2009-06-20T09:41:00.002-05:00

7:20 pm

Pint & Pie night at Family Wash. I think I'm going for it, even though I've had a bug in my stomach since Friday. Rice and yogurt for the last two days.

Crazy weekend. I spent about 30 hours filing Friday-Sunday. I was wiped out. And this morning at the dog park I squirted in my pants. Good thing nobody else was there! I say squirted because I don't got no real shit in me.

L and the ST's are supposedly coming out tonight. I'm glad to be here; I think it would've been kind of oppressive spending the evening at home...

7:57 pm
There's a waitress here named CS and she's got a website. I heard her sing on the radio this weekend. She reminds me of LK.

thursday, october 28th (2004)

2009-06-16T13:07:00.004-05:00

HOORAY! IT'S JAY DAY! - AKA JAYMAS

7:16 am
Waffle House is the place to find me on my birthday these past three years. Pecan waffle is the menu item on the plate in front of me. Today I made it a double - only $1.00 more. What a deal!

It must be a rule in the employee handbook to greet the customers as they enter the establishment. I'm never ready for it when I walk in; two or three "Good mornin's!" get throwed at me. It's hard to even respond. Then as I sit here I watch and see everybody else get good mornin's throwed at 'em, and they don't know how to respond either. Well, once in a while a regular walks in at his regular time and he gets a personalized good mornin' throwed at him, and he might even get razzed a little about something if he's the type, and he usually throws back a kind good mornin' or a "Howdy, sweetheart!" if he's the type. But for the most part, we're all in the same boat; we don't know how to respond.

7:29 am
One would've been enough! I guess I was afraid I might go hungry since my Jay Day schedule I made up over the last few days. {sic} Or maybe I was subconsciously thinking I need to start working on my paunch since I'm 40-something now! The first item I on my schedule was GYM, but I decided last night that I didn't need to do that first thing since I went at the end of the work day yesterday.

The rest of the schedule looks like this:
BREAKFAST @ WAFFLE HOUSE
VOTE
PICK UP AV SYSTEM
AV TO FUUN 1 - 4
I {HEART} HUCKABEES 2:25(?)
FRIST EXHIBIT
EAT
SET UP AV
SCREENING 7 - 11:30

I might change things around a bit, naturally. I'm still going to vote next, but I might go to the gym after that to steam. My right shoulder/side hurts. And I can shower and shave too. And I think I might see an earlier movie. I better get to the poll since I hear they've been pretty crowded, and today is the last day for early voting.

3:31 pm
I haven't had a chance to update. Things have been swimming along. One reason I was thinking of going to the gym was because I thought maybe B the black guy would be there. I figured I could stand to have sex on my birthday. He was and I did. We drove to a Baptist Hospital parking garage, pulled the curtains in the back of Shambhala Blue, and got off. It was okay. There was no spirit connection there and I realized that is what I desire most in my life, whether it be sex with a stranger or someone closer, or whether it be conversation with someone or a group of people.

I'm having a falafel sandwich at Kalamata's now. On my way here I came up with an idea for tonight. (Wear the terrycloth robe and house slippers.)

Under this robe I'm wearing my birthday suit, and this is my birthday party! Which might make me look like a real egomaniac! And I know there are therapists and people in therapy in the room tonight, so please don't read too far into all this! Actually, the reason why I'm wearing my birthday suit tonight is because in the email invitation I sent out, I said that there would be nudity. And come to find out, in the final edit, S all but edited out almost every last trace of nudity, so I thought I should give you what you paid for... Just kidding!

Actually, you didn't pay for this, yet. I said in the email that this was a private screening and it wouldn't cost anything, but that was just to keep Sundance from disqualifying LIAB. So, it doesn't cost to get in, but it costs to get out. Just kidding!

However, if any of you would like to put a little money in the corn silo, it would help me out with the money I spent renting all this equipment so y'all could see it in style! Please don't feel obligated in any way - it's my party and I'll cry if I want to! - but I figured out that if everybody put $5 in the corn silo, the system would just about be paid for. But like I said, don't feel obligated if you can't or don't want to make a donation. And that's all I'll say about that.

(Two things S wanted me to mention about this film)

These two films will probably explain why I've been in therapy for 2 years now. But obviously, the therapy is working. I've made some real progress, which is clearly evident in S.A.L.L.I.

3:56 pm
I just went back in for the largest piece of tira misu the woman could find in the cooler. And then I came back out and wrote the above part before I remembered to write the time code.

After sex I went and picked up the audio-visual system for tonight. On the way to TennVisual, S called and I answered. He said, "Are you driving?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to die on your birthday?"

What I didn't say to him - but I might have to call him back and tell him because I just thought of it - was that I don't avoid talking on the phone while I'm driving because I don't want to kill myself but rather because I don't want to kill someone else. I couldn't live with that. Well, I couldn't live with killing myself either, but that's different.

C called while I was at TennVisual and I called her back when I was done with my transaction and we talked for a while. Then I took the system to the church, unloaded it and went to see I {Heart} HUCKABEES. (How am I not myself?)

Good movie; I especially like how Lily Tomlin seemed very well-manicured and unrushed, even when she's running. S said I would {heart} it, and I did {heart} it; I {heart} I {Heart} Huckabees!

Now I'm at Kalamata's. Not too far off schedule. And I'm gonna add an event: NEW PHONE @ TMOBILE. (and case). My phone has shattered to the floor so many times it looks downright pitiful. And then I'm planning on heading to the Frist, skipping EAT after it and continue on with the schedule from there.

11:52 pm
There were a few hitches leading up to the screening, but nothing that wasn't fairly easy to take care of, thanks to the kindness of friends. Sa had left the only copy remaining in the city of Nashville of S.A.L.L.I (did that make any sense? I'm high.) in a baggie in case it rained on their back patio. I kept forgetting to go get it while I was having Jay Day, and finally got it on my last way home before the screening (at 6pm or something like that). The baggie felt very light. I opened the DVD case without even opening the baggie, just to check. Oops! No DVD. I called Sa. They wouldn't be back home until 9 or so. I called L and he called somebody and located a DVD-R for me to reburn it. He actually got me two copies and asked for a copy of S.A.L.L.I. as a return favor for the people who had the blanks. He even brought them by the house for me. How nice!

And having CK at the screening to set up and run the AV system, that was a stroke of genius on my part - there were a couple of times during the process that I'm sure would've stressed me out totally: opening the projector screen; replacing a missing cable (actually it wasn't missing, it was non-existent, it hadn't been given to me with the rental). CK said a computer cable would do the trick. And I turned around and there was R, the computer geek member of First UU. He went right to a stash of three extra ones.

I think I'm gonna stop writing now, and glow a little bit (the film is fantastic, thanks to S); I had people leave messages for S on the camera and I'm gonna go and watch them before I send the tape to him. Besides, it's no longer Thursday, October 28th. It's 12:05 am tomorrow.

tuesday, october 26th, part three (2004)

2009-06-13T14:31:00.001-05:00

----------

I've been reading Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness. It's very inspiring.

Or it could be that I feel the depression lifting; I see a rosy future. Well, that may be going a little far! I see change and I see opportunity. And, of course, now that I've set my sights on a goal, other opportunities are gonna come up, and they're gonna look so good - things like M tonight, or A1.

I had a nice chat with him in Denver tonight. He went through a similar thing with R, and so I've looked to him for insight at times, and we've got a really deep connection in other ways, too.

By the way, I've stopped smoking cigarettes for real.

tuesday, october 26th, part two (2004)

2009-06-10T13:37:00.008-05:00

----------

Cutie at the gym tonight. I've seen him there before, once or twice. I thought he was the young friend of the rich guy in the fancy house next to the little East Nashville post office. I saw him and a guy who looked a lot like this cutie at the Merce Cunningham dance performance. He was wearing what someone pointed out was a Commes des Garçon suit which was kind of a joke - completely unfinished, with the laundry pencil marks on it where it should be cut out and pieced together, and without finished hems anywhere.

A couple days later I think I saw this guy at the Y, he said hi. More recently, I thought I saw him again, and he had bleached a sprig of hair in the front. I don't guess they were the same guy.

The cutie I saw tonight was the one with the bleached sprig. I was coming in from working out, he was coming out of the shower, toweling off. We looked at each other across the room, our eyes meeting over the tops of the lockers. We were both at end lockers, with four or five rows were between us. He smiled big at me, watched me undress and wrap a towel around me. I walked directly to him, said, "What was your name?"
He said, "M. Have we met before?"
I mentioned the dance, the house, A, the friend of his. None of it sounded familiar to him. I said, "So I guess we haven't met before!"
He said, "M."
I said, "JDJB."
He asked to see the tattoo on my arm: JH in a small blue box. He said, "Oh, from across the room I thought it was a blue dot." He pointed to the blue dot tattooed on his arm, "And I was gonna be like that's just too wild!"

He face was soft, young. His facial hair made a sparse design on his face. A real cutie. He held my gaze and smiled into me, and I returned the experience as best I could.

I went toward the steam room, but didn't have my shave kit or fresh towel. I retrieved them and walked past him again. I mumbled a line to him as I passed.
He said, "Pardon?"
I said, "You made me forget all my stuff!"
He said, "Oh-ho!"

I did my stretches in the steam room, shaved, showered, hot then cold. It's getting easier to be focused on the task at hand and not getting caught up in looking at all the nakedness. I think meditation is doing me good. What would happen if I did it every day instead of just Sundays?!

As I left the building, I had to walk through the workout area. M was finishing up on a treadmill. I walked over to him, holding my canvas bag and sweaty gym clothes over one shoulder. I started to talk, but stopped myself when I saw him taking out an earphone.
"Pardon?"
I said, "You shower before you work out?!"
He said, "Yeah, sometimes...!"

It would've been funny and light if I'd say, "I was thinking I'd never see you again!" But I didn't think of that till I was down the road. It's probably best I didn't say much more at all. Better to look uncomfortable than obnoxious, I think!

I told him to have a good night, he chuckled and told me to do the same. Then I left him there. He was on the far inside treadmill, so I had a while to recompose myself before our eyes met again. I turned and saw him looking up after me by his reflection in the wall of mirrors surrounding us. I was behind a column. I wonder if he knew I was looking. Probably better not to make a big deal out of it!

Cu-tie!

yikes!

2009-06-09T08:12:00.007-05:00

Everything can change in an instant. You can never be prepared for the worst of it.

Friday night, S went out for his regular Friday night beer. He left the house at about 9:45. On the way out, he stopped in the kitchen and said goodbye to M&J and me. We were telling stories about being teenagers, about the bad things we did. Like J when he was a high school sophomore running around town egging the seniors' cars. S said he and his friends used to egg the fancily dressed students on their way into or out of a school dance.

M&J offered to let S use the car, I joked that he should take the Deuce, a monstrous military truck in our yard that was used in a movie that J worked on and he ended up with. But S was fine on his bicycle. It's about a 30-minute bike ride from our house down Springdale, over MLK (which is the busiest road), down to Cesar Chavez, and then over to the bar, which is just on the other side of I-35.

Friday nights have of late become work nights for me. In these economically uncertain times, in my job working in the financial community, I'm always waiting for work to become available. Fridays seem to be the best time to count on work, because as of four o'clock (five o'clock NYC time), most of the support staffers in-house take off at least for the night. I clean up on Friday nights, get a good chunk of hours on my timesheet (which run Thursday-Wednesday).

At 10:45 I was considering stopping work. I thought it would be nice to smoke a bowl and do some writing. I had just put my name on a transcript, so I was trying to decide between going ahead and doing it (two to three hours work) or taking my name off of it. I had also just brought a bowl of potato chips into my room to give me a little energy to perhaps go ahead and work.

The phone rang. I didn't recognize the number. I don't usually answer the phone when I don't recognize the number. But this time I did.

"Is this JDJB?"
Yes.
"Your roommate S was hit by a car."
Shit!
"He's okay. He's at Brackenridge Emergency Room. We're examining him right now. He's been asking for you."
I'll be right there.

That was the whole conversation. I walked into the living room where M&J were watching TV. Little p was in the bedroom with a friend who was spending the night. I said to them, "S is okay, but he got hit by a car on his bike."

M threw on her jeans, asking "Can I go?" as she did.
Of course.

M told me to pull up to the ER and she would park.

Brackenridge is the charity hospital here. The ER waiting room was filled with a mélange of the usual suspects. The sign over the first counter I came to said SECURITY, so I went to the desk on the opposite side of the room. I walked past the obese, the tattooed, the confused, the pregnant, the drunk.

At the desk, I was behind one man who was being admitted. Next to me, a dark black man in darker black shades and an orange hoodie with STATE PRISON and a number on it (it was a joke hoodie, I'm pretty sure), said, "Can somebody wipe my nose? ...Can SOMEbody wipe my NOSE?!"

The man behind the desk said, "I'm helping this man right now, sir, and then I'll be with you." I think the training for working at a charity hospital emergency room must be at least as much patience and compassion as it is medical and administrative.

I was told to go back across the room to the first desk, which besides being SECURITY was also PATIENT INFORMATION. A woman who reminded me of Natalie Manes from the Dixie Chicks asked who I was there for, and my name, and called back to the ER.

Shortly, the social worker who had initially called me came out to tell me that S was having a CT Scan, she assured me again that he was okay, and said she would let me go back as soon as he came out of that.

She disappeared. I called J at home to tell him what little I knew. M appeared, having parked the truck. We sat and made small talk. I noticed that people had on name tags, and asked Natalie Manes if I needed to sign in before I went back. She took my driver's license, put it through a machine, which spit out a photo ID sticker which she attached to a backing that had red stripes on it that slowly emerged over the course of the night (as your welcome wears out, I guess).

Finally, I went back. As the social worker and I walked and turned what seemed like a hundred times, she told me that S would ask me what happened, that he would repeat himself a lot. She didn't give me any medical diagnosis, just that. I asked her what I was supposed to say. She told me he was hit by a car, he thought he was on Sixth Street, that he was either going into a bar or coming out of one. I knew it hadn't been long enough for him to be leaving the bar, and I said so, not that it meant anything.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw. His right eye was swollen shut and purple. The whole right side of his face was bloody and bruised. He had on a neck brace and seemed immobilized. His left eye was frantically searching the room, searching my eyes. He wasn't himself.

What happened?
Did I get hit by a car?
Was I on my bike?
Did I say goodbye?
Were you at home?
Where was I?
Did we have dinner together?
What did we eat?
Did I go out after that?
What happened?
Did I get hit by a car?

I answered the repeating questions as calmly as possible, again and again and again. I was holding it together as best I could. But then he started crying, saying he was scared and didn't know what was going on (before relaunching into the list of questions). I felt a panic attack coming on. I called P1. I called her home number and her cell phone. I left a message and she called back directly. I didn't know why I called her, except that she's a social worker and works at Brackenridge some, and she would be more familiar with trauma stuff than either S or I were.

She called back, said she was on her way to hospital. I told her she didn't have to come. She said, "Yes I do."

An ER tech came to S's bedside and said, "I just want to talk to you alone for a second." He was small, cute, his forearms had tattoos on them. "I found your one-hitter in your clothes and threw it away. I'm sorry I had to do that, but if the cops saw it, they would give you a lot of grief." S and I were both very thankful. (I had wondered if he had pot on him when I was heading to the hospital, and was thinking I'd better find his belongings and take care of that.) I thought about how everybody was taking care of him, in more ways than might normally be anticipated.

P1 arrived, and while she was in the ER with him, I stood outside in a daze. M was standing nearby but we weren't talking. I was glad she was there. But I felt there was nothing she could do. I moved the truck out of the parking garage to a spot on the street, then called P1 and asked to trade off, asked her to give M a ride home and go home herself. She said she would take M home and come back.

They gave S morphine while she was with him, and he was feeling better, repeating himself less. A doctor came in to put stitches in the cuts over and under his eye. I couldn't watch the doctor stab the wound with the needle that contained the lidocaine because of S's wincing, but I did watch them stitch him (three total) because he was unaware.

All along the way, S asked me to take pictures of him (though he didn't want to see them yet).

He was admitted. The tech who had thrown away his drug paraphernalia came to wheel him upstairs. On the elevator I tried to make the tech understand really how appreciative we both were and he blew it off. He knew. Of course he did.

P1 was already in S's room when we arrived. The three of us stayed up all night (I dozed a little) talking and laughing. When the sun came up, P1 got her car out of the garage before she had to pay for parking and went home. I spent the day with S; J and some of S's friends from the bar came by for a visit, so I went home and took a shower, but was back again. S was told he was being kept another night - so the opthamologist could see him. I stayed the rest of the day with him, but went home to sleep in my own bed and slept 10 hours very hard.

We left the hospital Sunday afternoon, rushed to get to an appointment at LensCrafters so that S could get some interim glasses in order to get to school (one of the biggest worries on his mind over the weekend). The hospital experience was pretty amazing; the nurses and other staff were great. It wasn't the way either of us would have chosen to spend our weekend, but if it had to be, it was the best experience we could imagine.

We stopped at Target to try to find some clip-on shades for his cheap nerdy glasses (which P1 bought for him), and I suddenly had to shit. I ran to the bathroom, and realized I hadn't gone all weekend, that I had literally been "keeping my shit together" for S.

Sunday evening, I had rehearsal with my two-person improv troupe. I didn't want to do the usual exercises we've been going through and so we did one-person scenes, which T had been wanting us to do for a while. The second one I did was a multiple character scene of me going to the ER and all of the people in the waiting room, and eventually getting to the examination room in the back where my friend was and passing out. Once again: Improv is therapy.

tuesday, october 26th (2004)

2009-06-07T13:21:00.006-05:00

9:43 p.m.

She drives me crazy the way she's always pulling at that tag of skin under her chin. She used to be beautiful. Hell, she still is. But she started developing this droop under her face. When she looked in the mirror, it was all she could see. The years catching up with her. She'd frown at her reflection, and the flesh seemed to extend the edges of her mouth downward, like the frown ran all the day down to her fucking cleagvage. She would hold the underside of her face up to her ears in front of the mirror. That's what I'd look like, she'd tell herself. But it just looked like she was being choked by an invisible hand. Plastic surgery was out of the question; she was determined to grow old gracefully, and more importantly, truthfully. To her closest girlfriends she would muse about her "chicken-neck." She was determined to make friends with this new limb. Sometimes when she lay in bed, she found herself feeling around for it in the dark. She pulled at it, fondled it, demanded it to be present at all times. Always or never, she asked of it. It promised to try, but Gravity was a powerful foe. Then again, Gravity was the owner of this loose skin, so she felt she would have to make friends with It as well. She was a good Christian girl; she believed that enemies should be made friends with. The boys she dated never noticed the purse on her head until she mentioned it. Then they would be like, "Oh, yeah, that is peculiar." And then they would find themselves losing interest in her, not really knowing why. She knew why and she made a promise to herself not to mention it anymore. Not that she was trying to hide anything (this wasn't something she could hide), but putting so much attention on it tended to put suitors ill at ease. They were not inclined to make friends with it, as they had made friends with, say, their penis or a birthmark (not that they would ever admit to that). So she stopped talking about the loose flesh under her chin; her girlfriends, too, had long since stopped wanting to talk about it. She felt a little crazy talking to it, particularly in private, so she took to stroking it. It was kind of like sign language, love from her hand to her chin skin, an unconscious thing. People might see her doing it and say, "What are you doing?" to which she would pull her hand away and say, "Nothing." Or, more likely, those people catching her doing it would examine the act in silence, and never say a word about it, lest they risk hurting her feelings. I guess I fall into that last category. But I feel better now that I've gotten it off my chest.

thursday, october 21st, part three (2004)

2009-06-04T10:08:00.004-05:00

----------

Once I discovered it, my life was all about masturbation. It took a while to sink in, but it's sunk now.

I was a preacher's kid for a while when I was growing up, and PKs have a reputation for being wild. I heard about this a lot, and believed it to be true, but only in other PKs.

It may be because I wasn't a PK for very long. Momma didn't wanna be a preacher's wife (PW), and daddy wasn't getting the gigs to take him to his dream of having a big church ("then you can make the real money," he told his best friend).

But anyway, that wasn't the kind of jerking off I meant to be writing about!

My Mamaw and Papaw lived in a tiny little town in East Central Texas. There was a little Methodist Church and there was a little Assembly of God Church in Flynn, Texas. Mamaw went to the Methodist Church, but daddy was an Assembly of God preacher (thanks to momma's momma, my Nana), so that's the church we went to when we were at Mamaw and Papaw's, and we were there about two times a year.

I guess a new preacher came to town because he suddenly appeared between our visits to Flynn. Daddy made friends with this preacher - or maybe they knew each other from the Assembly of God preacher's college in Waxahachie, I don't know. Since Mamaw and Papaw often had lots of family visiting at the same time, sleeping quarters were scarce. Once night I was pawned off on the preacher's family. Maybe it was because I'd made friends with the PK who was my age. I don't remember making friends with him (probably in Sunday School or after church), but I ended up spending the night with him.

This kid had a brother who was a couple of years older than us (we were 9 or 10). Both boys slept in the same room. They had twin beds on opposite sides of the room.

[I'M HAVING A HARD TIME STAYING AWAKE.]

Shortly after we got in bed and the lights were out and the parents were far enough gone, the PK whose bed I shared shuffled around under the covers then handed me something.
"WHAT'S THAT?" I asked.
"shhhh," he whispered, "it's my underwear."
He dug at mine and "helped me" take them off.

[I COULD DO A COLLECTION OF STORIES LIKE THIS
AND CALL THE COLLECTION "BONERS." OR MAYBE
THE STORIES WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS,
JUST THIS STORY COULD BE ONE OF THE ONES.]

He took my hand and put it on his hard little pecker. I yanked away, but he grabbed my hand again and silently instructed me to pinch the head of his penis over and over again, placing his hand on top of mine to keep it there. When I stopped or slowed, he cranked me up again and kept me going. [This sounds a lot like Anne Sullivan pounding the letters W - A - T - E - R into Hellen Keller's cheek until she got it to me right now {sic}.]

When I finally got the hang of it, he started in on mine. It only took a few peckerhead pinches to give me the first orgasm of my life. I was in the fourth or fifth grade - fourth, I think - so I was shooting puffs of air, but it shot into my brain as well. Satan was in there!

I jumped out of bed, pulled on his much shorter, smaller jeans by mistake in the dark. I tucked my still erect, probably spasming penis into the pants as best I could, and paced the room a couple of times them made my way to the bathroom. That seemed like a reasonable, God-fearing place to go in the middle of the night in a stranger's house, too freaked out to let it show.

thursday, october 21st, part two (2004)

2009-06-01T09:51:00.001-05:00

----------

I'm being good to myself tonight. And bad. I didn't transcribe. I checked my mail then closed the email program, looked at dirty movie clips on the web and jerked off, then smoked some (more), poured myself a SoCoCoCola, and am lying in the front bedroom writing.

I didn't write the above story here in bed - I just got here, at the line. I read one story - no, two - from Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness. This inspires me. Same thing happened when I read that collection of short stories by the guy with the cool first name; I can't remember it. The inspiration happened while I was reading his book of short stories (can't remember the name of it either). I don't think I took advantage of the inspiration enough at the time and regretted it, so I'm trying to remedy that regret by taking advantage of what I'm feeling, where I'm at right now.

I'm also making Bourbon Street Red Beans & Rice (vegetarian-- vegan, actually). R asked me today if I would. I'm glad he asked, it made me feel good for some reason. A little more content. It seems that maybe our relationship is settling into a place that he can handle. He's an odd bird. More odd than I thought! (But loveable all the same; perhaps even more loveable because of it.)

sincerely, me

2009-05-31T10:30:00.006-05:00

I've been getting lots of emails in my spam box from me. Right now, there are 14 spam messages, and six of them are from me.

The subject lines:

Reply right after reading
When did you come?
Interested in freelance?
Know any places for dinner?
Mike caught with weed
Once more to all

Which leads me to the conclusion that I don't know myself very well at all.

I do know this: I've been writing like a motherfucker; it has been exciting. I've cranked out three chapters in the last week - S has been out of town; rewrites, but major rewrites for the most part.

I've added a section to this blog connecting to my chapters as I've finished them and gotten around to uploading them (I've actually completed seven but only have three up on the page so far).

Nobody has looked at them though. One friend in a foreign country asked what the name of my novel was (she didn't know I was writing one) and I told her, and sent her a link to the novel blog page, and she wrote back: "Great title. But I'll wait till it's done." I guess everybody feels that way. S has been reading in, and listening to me read it from the beginning, because he is kind of my first editor. I've also been reading it to P1, and she seems to enjoys the process. Could be because she just wants to support me.

I guess it doesn't really matter if anybody reads it now or not - or if they ever read it. I would like to think that people will read it, that people might actually get excited about it. But that's not my reason for writing it. It's a process of purging my past, and being creative. It's my therapy.

thursday, october 21st (2004)

2009-05-29T09:20:00.001-05:00

9:37 pm

When I was in the fifth grade, I sang "Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man" at the monthly Friday talent show. The winnger of the first show of the day got to skip class later in the day to go back for an encore performance. I got asked back that first time I performed and was hooked. I had an LP of songs that were supposedly "truck drivers' favorites," the back cover of the LP looked like the rear-end of an 18-wheeler trailer, it actually opened in the middle like the real doors would. Inside were the names of the various songs and the liner notes - although I didn't know what "liner notes" were at the time. "Put Your Hand in the Hand..." must've been a trucker favorite, 'cause it was on the album. "I'm Just a Girl Who Cain't Say No," from the Broadway musical Oklahoma! was on the album, too. Curious that that was a trucker favorite, but there it was. I imagined cheerful truckers driving down the highway whistling along to "I'm Just a Girl..."

Those two songs were my favorites on the album, mostly because they had easy-to-learn lyrics. For the second talent show, Lanny Thompson sang "Flying Blue Angels, Up in the Sky," and he was very good. Not only did he have a great voice, but he had great stage presence. He did this thing with his hand that is burned vividly into my memory: it turned into a flying blue angel every time he sang that line. You could almost hear the jet engines roaring past overhead.

The students always clapped for every performer in the talent show. It was a requirement, and it was easy enough to fulfill the requirement because not doing so would meant school instead of assembly. You couldn't usually tell if most of the students liked or didn't like most of the acts in the talent show by their applause, but you could certainly tell that they liked Lanny Thompson. I don't remember any other acts in the talent show besides Lanny's and mine.

The second time I was in the talent show was the first time Lanny was. I hadn't had much competition in my first talent show, I guess; none that I can remember. I guess I didn't really even know what competition was, not in that arena. Competition always had to do with sports, not the arts.

It was obvious, however, that Lanny was my competition on this day. Only one of us would be asked back for the encore performance and get out of class later in the day. You have to give me credit for being able to think on my feet, if not for being able to make wise artistic choices. I had to do something like what Lanny did with his hand. I had been pretty good about that in the previous talent show. My mother had given me lots of encouragement and some tips, too, for "Put Your Hand in the Hand..." I "stilled the water" and "calmed the sea" with my free hand.

My gimmick for "I'm Just a Girl..." was to sit on the edge of the stage and sing to the auditorium, to the music teacher or art teacher on the front row - the judges - to perform for them in hopes of keeping my title, as if I were the character singing the song, the "Girl."

The teacher's aide who put my album on (we just sang along to records, back then; karaoke was years down the road) lifted the arm and placed the needle in the groove right before the track number I'd instructed her to play. The introduction started, I was in place on the edge of the stage, one foot dangling, one foot on the stage, my free arm resting at the elbow on my bent knee, feeling pretty good about my aw-shucks choice. But before the singer and I had a chance to start singing, the teacher's aide lifted the arm and needle off of the player. She held the record player arm in one hand and the album in the other, the back doors of the 18-wheeler flopped open. She called from the wing, "Is that right?"
I said, "Yeah, that's it."
She shrugged and put the needle back down in the groove and I sang:

It ain't so much a question of not knowing what to do.
I knowed what's right and wrong since I was ten.
I heared a lot of stories and I reckon they are true
About how girls're put upon by men.
I know I mustn't fall into the pit,
But when I'm with a feller,
I fergit!
I'm just a girl who cain't say no,
I'm in a terrible fix
I always say "come on, let's go!"
Jist when I orta say nix...

The smiles on the faces of the judges bore into them and must've hurt to hold them there.

The usual unenthusiastic applause was unusually sparse as I took the LP from the expressionless teacher's aide and handed her the microphone. She announced the next act and I slipped into the audience. I don't remember having any remorse about my song choice. I do remember feeling embarrassed and a failure as I sat in Mrs. Bussey's math class while the second assembly was going on.

I remember plotting my next act. It had to be bigger and better than sitting on the edge of the stage, bigger and better than stilling water and calming the sea; better even than a blue angel flying off the end of my arm. But, alas, I had waited too long into my fifth year of school to perform. Summer break came the next month, and then sixth grade, which meant a new school.

wednesday, october 20th (2004)

2009-05-26T09:10:00.003-05:00

11:55 pm

I wonder if Dr. C has any clients who aren't smart beyond measure and talented and good? I'll have to ask him about that. Or is it some kind of trick to help us to get better? It's working; I guess that's what counts. I've never had a relationship like this with a therapist-type. And he's an actual shrink, and people say they're usually disinterested in the person and keen on filling out prescriptions. But that's not Dr. C. He said, "Worker {sic} harder than you think you need to, and save faster than you think you have to," and I've been doing that without even realizing I was taking his advice so strongly. But I guess I am. And I'm glad I am.

I do get drugs from Dr. C, but I'm pretty much in charge of my medication needs status. I started taking double the Wellbutrin and weaned myself off of the Lexapro altogether, a little at a time. I'm just off of them for three days or so, and in the last couple of days, my equilibrium has been off. I feel dizzy now and then, particularly when I turn corners or turn my head left and right quickly. But it's not always, and it's not forever. I think I remember feeling like this when I first got on Lexapro. I'm not sleepy all the time now, and I feel pretty darn good. I've even gone so far as to sing the extended version of "Throw Away the Dove" as Nell Carter in the Suburban. (Now, that's crazy!)

tuesday, october 12th (2004)

2009-05-23T09:29:00.004-05:00

10:36 p.m.

At first he didn't want me to try to change him. He felt like I was always trying to change him. What it was was I was always trying to be myself, but kept running into his "You're trying to change me!" And I'm talking about as simple as rearranging stuff in his house. The "controversial library," I call it, was the first of these big clashes.

And now that I'm going away (in a year), it seems to him that we were just falling into place, that I know where things went, and I let him do the things that only he (and his dearly departed mother) knew how to do right. But it felt to me like we were falling into a stuck place. That was the impetus for me wanting to leave. I also feel like sex should be a part of a relationship. A close one. And then I also realized that I desire that creative connection S and I have, and that was the easier thing to focus on, for mine and R's sake.

The reason I picked up the journal to write, I wanted to say something in particular. There's been a $40-something-dollar receipt floating around the kitchen. R cooked a wonderful meal the other day and afterward said, "That was a $35 meal." Wow, I thought, I like to eat at home to save money.

But I didn't say that. The receipt seems to keep appearing in different places. R tends to put things away haphazardly, but the receipt isn't floating around haphazardly. I don't think. Am I just high? Does he want me to/expect me to pay half of that receipt? Shouldn't he say something if he does? Should I say something to him or will that cause bad vibes?

My paranoia's making me think he is trying to cause bad vibes. Not intentionally, but he may be doing what he's doing - moving the receipt around (if he is) - as a way of saying something to me. It causes a number of opportunities for the creation of a tangent in my mind. Is he keeping track of what I'm eating? what he's bought? Should I willingly pay for whatever he asks me to pay for since he isn't asking me to pay rent? Should I offer to pay rent? Haven't I already? Could I even afford it? No. I would have to go back to LW's. She'd be more than happy to oblige. She just brought it up again recently. But I really don't want to live in that area, in that little house. I'd rather live in a small apartment by myself. But could I find anything cheap enough to afford? And why wouldn't I give that money to R? I have no problem with that, but it's hard to get answers to all these questions when I'm the only one talking.

It's 11:00. S's gonna call any second now.

coke adds life or something other than that

2009-05-22T14:02:00.006-05:00

I'm trying to get my mind around chapter 04. I've finished reading my research book (Edmund White's States of Desire) and I know where I want to go with this chapter, but the inspiration isn't coming. It'll come, I know it will, but there's always a feeling of frustration waiting for it.

In this chapter, "Hell's Kitchen," Randy is thinking back over his relationship with Charles Hatch, the first person he met when he arrived in New York City. Charles dies of an brain aneurysm while coked up having sex with a man much younger than him (he is 63 at death).

At death, Randy is upset with Charles because Charles has become a financial supporter of Randy's friend August Collins (who becomes the performance artist "august chagrin" for whom the novel is named). Randy met August on New Year's Eve 1989, they had a brief relationship, during which time, Randy asked for Charles' assistance with August's career - getting him a director, rehearsal space and performance opportunities. After August's career is underway, Randy and August have a falling out, and Randy wants Charles to stop funding August's career, but Charles refuses. That is the source of Randy's unhappiness.

Randy believes Charles changed, but realizes, after death, that he was the one who changed. He thinks back on his arrival in New York City in a rental car, his one night in a hostel and the ad for a job he found on the hostel bulletin board (a weekly newspaper focused on the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood where Charles lives called The Kitchen Sink). Charles takes Randy under his wing, first as a "personal assistant," and at the end of the summer, when the newspaper begins publishing, as its listings editor; Charles also provides Randy with an apartment in an old tenement building his family owns (the Hatch fortune is from real estate).

Randy flashes back on what precipitated his arrival in New York: a year at the University of Florida, in which his best friend Christian betrays him. The two of them had plans to move to New York to become famous playwright (Randy) and actor (Christian). Randy rents a car because he is afraid of flying, after his round trip to Las Vegas the summer after high school with his neighbor friend Diamond White, which was fraught with turbulence, literally and figuratively.

Chapter 04 is written after Charles' death in 1990, but the bulk of it takes place in 1982. It is difficult figuring out how to make that work.

Randy and Charles had sex shortly after he arrived and moved out of the hostel and into Charles' loft, but the sex is more for Randy's "education;" Charles readily and constantly tells Randy that he isn't his type. Unlike Charles' other numerous sex partners (muscle men in their mid-twenties) though, Randy and Charles maintain their friendship. Randy recognizes that Charles is like a father to him, though he is three times older than Randy when they meet.

The night Randy moved into his apartment, a stray cat splattered with tar comes to his fifth floor window. He spends most of his first summer in New York at home watching TV and hanging out with the cat whom he named Ahoy, not even realizing that he missed Gay Pride Weekend (Charles is on Fire Island) until he sees coverage of it on the local news.

That seems like a kind of lame place to end the story, but I haven't even figured out how to get to this point dramatically. Charles is a difficult character to write. I have several versions of him, all very different. Mostly I see him as a very tall, thin, healthy but insecure man who believes sex won't kill him because he is a top. He is referring to AIDS, which is a bigger and bigger issue in New York City from 1982 when Randy arrives.

In the end, sex does kill Charles, in a sense, because all of the cocaine he snorts is in order to keep up with the young men he is fucking.

improving

2009-05-21T13:12:00.004-05:00

Last night, S and P1 went to the theater with me to watch me do improv. It wasn't an official performance, just the weekly jam, but I was pooping all day yesterday, I think because of the nervousness.

The shootaround (jam) went all right. Both C and T were there; T is my current teacher and coach, C was my first improv teacher in Austin (I took a class when I was in Nashville five years ago).

It was nice to have S there to observe me and give me some insight on my insecurities, particularly with C, who I think is a wonderful performer, but I wasn't really all that crazy about his teaching style. I also have felt very self-conscious with him onstage, and I wasn't exactly sure what that was about. I feel a little more comfortable playing with T, although she's the best improviser I know.

S pointed out that the difference is likely the fact that T is a woman and C is a man. I am more comfortable around women, for the most part. Boys are so hard to figure out, particularly straight white 20-somethings. Well, there's the attraction thing (not that I'm all that attracted to C, though he is cute), and then there's the issues I had with boys from eighth grade on, with them calling me names, picking on me, etc. That was 32 years ago! It's crazy how psychological shit sticks with you.

That's what I see as the "good" of improv for me. It's not so much about the performing, it's about the therapy I get out of it (though I do look forward to performing for an audience of more than two!). The first several shootarounds I went to, I was so nervous and felt so out of place, particularly when T wasn't there and there were several of the guys from the other theater I took an improv class with (before C+T got fired and started this one). But I stayed aware, have been observing myself and my relations with these people. The first couple of times I played with C, I felt so bad, dorky, stupid. The first couple of times I played with T, I felt awkward, but it was fun.

Last night, I actually enjoyed a couple of scenes I had with C. I don't know if it was because S and P1 were there (I had something to prove), or if it's just that I've gotten more comfortable with myself and others. Maybe a little of both. There was a skinny kid named N at the shootaround last night, too, young enough (or looking), I guess, that I wasn't as intimidated by him - or maybe it was more of the comfort of having S and P1 there, and/or more of the comfort I'm gaining doing the shootarounds every week.

There were also a couple of men there who were a bit annoying. One of them was there before. He has never taken an improv class but believes he "gets it" and "knows what it's all about," but his choices are offputting and just wrong. He brought a young man with him who was almost as annoying, but not quite as in-your-face as the older dude. The first time I played with him, the next time I saw T, I asked her what was the good of the shootarounds, if there are people there who have no experience. I was "concerned" that perhaps playing with untrained improvisers might be doing me more harm than good. She said that for her it is good for keeping her sharp and helping her to work with unexpected situations. She said she also meets people whom she loves playing with and would never have met had she not gone to the shootarounds.

I realized last night that I was also seeing the good of playing with "bad" improvisers. It certainly puts me on the spot more than a comfortable situation like being in class or in a rehearsal with T and just CG and me. It's like cheap therapy. Cheap because the shootarounds are free, and because repeating levels of classes (which is most of what I've been doing lately) is free.

There is an intensive class next month on recognizing and working with patterns and games in improv scenes. It is going to be led by C, and it costs $100. When I first heard that, I thought I wouldn't take it because I don't like C's teaching style. But I think maybe I need to give him another chance.

saturday, october 2 (2004)

2009-05-20T09:01:00.006-05:00

almost 10:00 a.m.

The College Street Tent is filling up. Word has it there are at least 10,000 people who come to the International Storytelling Festival. There must be 50,000 stories here at least. I'm close to the back of the tent. I'm thinking I'll stay here for the first three tellers of the day, that way maybe I'll be able to move forward a bit each time. Number three is an elderly lady named Kathryn Windham; I hope to be pretty close for her.

I got my program and sat down with it and a cup of coffee and tried to figure out some method for deciding which teller to see when and where. I was wearing the raw silk knit cap I got at Spring Gathering. An old man stopped and asked me if I got my hat in Morocco. He had gotten one similar to it when we was stationed there in the Navy. We talked a while. He's been coming to this festival for 17 years - only missed one when he was flat-on-his-back sick. He told me I was gonna be hooked. I told him I already am, and haven't heard one word of a story yet. People are so friendly.

Jonesborough is the oldest town in Tennessee. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, these people are from all over the place. I asked the old man how to go about deciding on who to see. He said he and his wife pick one tent and sit there all day. He pointed out a few acts that he said I should not miss. He's an old Service Man, could be a Bush fan, but his was the only advice I had to go on. He said, "Some of 'em are average, but a whole lot of 'em are outstanding."

John McCutcheon was in the Midnight Cabaret last night. I wish I'd known that; I would've paid the extra $15 for that one instead of tonight's. Not that I think tonight's show won't be good. It's a Cuban woman named Carmen Deedy. I'm sure it'll be spicy.

I'm wearing my yellow Crocs. People can't help but look at 'em.

I spent the night in a parking lot in Johnson City. Big Blue was very comfy and cozy. Well, I could stand to make the bed cushions a little more comfy. But I slept well.

There is non-stop chatter. A woman behind me just said "--compromising position!" and laughed. Earlier a woman screamed out a name and the din of noise abated for a moment then rose up again. When I first sat down, I heard an old man two rows back. He said, "How are they gonna get the elephants in here?" I guess he didn't get a response because a few moments later he said, "I don't know how they're gonna have a circus in this tent with all these people here!"

Krispy Kreme came on as the official sponsor of the festival this year. They have a 10-year contract, so I heard. People are carrying familiar little half-dozen boxes around everywhere I look. The couple next to me just gave the man in front of us a bottle of water. He insisted on paying the $1.50 he knows it cost. Then they offered the chubby boy next to him a donut. The boy tentatively nodded, then took the box. The man offering said, "Just one."(!)

I guess it wasn't as close to 10:00 as I thought it was. I sure am glad I got here as early as I did. I parked in the Kiwanis grass lot next to the fire station. It cost $10 to park, but it's within walking distance so I'll save the $2 round trip shuttle fee to/from the $5 parking lots, and I'll probably be able to go back and forth a lot more. I'm glad I brought cereal and rice milk with me. I had that and an apple and so the donuts aren't calling me like they would've otherwise. I would've been walking around with one of those half-dozen boxes like everybody else.

A church on Main Street is offering "Free Water from Jacob's Well." I wonder what that's about, and how free it really is.

--

Must be 2:00 o'clock now. I decided to get a little lunch and get out of the tent for a while. My stomach hurt during the last hour because I had eaten a bunch of trail mix and needed to go potty.

It's been raining on and off all day. Fortunately, I've been under cover every time. Across from the table where I'm sitting is a little Toyota pickup with a gay-identifying rainbow under the cab back window, and on the passenger side it says in bright orange shoe polish:

HEY, YA'LL
and
JUST HITCHED!

friday, october 1 (2004)

2009-05-17T08:50:00.003-05:00

9:30-ish

I'm in Johnson City. I got here at 7:30, had to shit real bad and went to see a movie just so I could. I wanted to see Life of Brian - that would've been fun - but it had already started (well, actually I don't know, what with all the previews; but I didn't know how long it would take me to shit...). I watched The Forgotten, only because it starred Julianne Moore. It had Anthony Edwards in it, too, which might've swayed me away from it, but I didn't know that. It was all right, that's all. Sort of an extended "X-Files" kind of movie. All right.

I realized on my way eastward today that I was sort of taking Big Blue on a test run. To see how she did/does long distance. Today was a 7.5 hour drive. It could've been shorter, but I didn't push her. I stayed behind slow-moving 18-wheelers on the long inclines.

I told R on Sunday that I want to go to California by the end of next year. He didn't say much until Wednesday, his first day back to work after a 5-day weekend. I was in the home office transcribing. He came in and was putting on his shoes. He looked up at me and his face was all wet and his eyes were all red. I still tear up when I picture his face, even here in the Olive Garden (all-you-can-eat soup and salad - old habits die hard!).

I knelt in front of him and we cried for a while. He said, "I don't want to lose you." Up until Sunday I thought all I wanted was to get away from R, away from that relationship. But after I thought about it some more, and after Wednesday, and after I put my thoughts into a 6-page letter, I realized that it isn't what I have or don't have in my relationship with R, it's what I don't have in my life. Namely a creative collaborator. And that is something I could never have with R. The fact that he's not an artist (although he could be with his photos) is one of the things I love about R. I was ready to get away from that part of my life. And I did. But I couldn't stay away from it forever. I tried to convince R in my letter that we should have this relationship for this next year, that we should continue to work on it and ourselves. And when it's time for me to go to California we can have the satisfaction of ending a relationship that is not a failure.

I dropped the letter in his lunch box today. He left a message on my voice mail while I was out of range in the Smokies. He said he'd already read my note (I'm assuming before he even left for work). I'm glad I told him last weekend. I told Dr. C I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell him before I came to the Storytellers Festival or if I wanted to use this weekend away to ponder it. As it turns out, telling him on Sunday and not getting a response from him until Wednesday, and then taking the past couple of days to gather my thoughts and deliver them to him, turned out to be best for all of us. I have all that heaviness off my mind and can concentrate on the festival. And since I'm out of range, he'll have the weekend by himself to ponder the mysteries of me!

tuesday, september 28th (2004)

2009-05-14T07:55:00.007-05:00

10:27 p.m.

For the last four nights at least, I've looked at a clock when it read 10:27. I wonder if RM still sees "1027" like he used to all of the time.

I'm under the tin roof of the carport, with insects singing their night song. (or) with the night-song insects playing away. (!)

We saw John Waters' latest tonight. E said the other day in the dog park that Chris Isaak would get R to that movie.
I said, "Oh, really?"
He said, "Don't you know about his Chris Isaak thing?"

I'm smoking again; killing myself. For what?

Sc from the dog park was there at the movie with his friend M - who I thought was H because I didn't remember his name. R and I were the first in the theater. Sc asked if they could sit with us. Our arms and legs touched now and again during the movie. I don't think it was all me (oh, god, what a pervert!). I'd plied R with a pot brownie. We stopped at Chez Jose because he had a coupon. I'm so tired of eating at places just because we have a coupon! R didn't say a word to me the whole meal; didn't even look at me, I don't think. He had eaten the brownie before we got there; I didn't know it. I thought he was just being hateful. I asked him if I'd already told him that JT from our bridge group is in an upcoming production of Sweeney Todd and he just shook his head and looked off into space.

I enjoyed the movie. The last time I enjoyed a movie that much was when we saw Sordid Lives for the first time - when we were on the "ski trip" last February in West Virginia. We were on pot brownies that night, too.

When Sc and I laughed, we leaned into each other. When R laughed, he pulled away.

I left R a note recently that said: I've been struggling lately, in case you didn't notice(!).
He wrote back: I notice, anything I can do for you?
I wrote back: Don't pull away.

Since then, he's pulled further and further away. Poor thing, I know he's stuck, but I can't help him anymore than I already have. It became clear tonight and ended with him vomiting in the compost pile and clambering off to bed.

RB was at the movie tonight, too. He and his friends sat behind us. When they arrived, he kissed me on top of my freshly shaved, buffed-looking shiny head. He told his friends I was the only bigger fan of John Waters than him.
I cawed back, "I've got an award with his name on it, and I got a postcard from him!"

What kind of monster must I sound like? I was just playing the part with RB like I always do. But I probably still sounded like a braggart to some of the people around me. Hopefully Sc and M saw it as me being confident and wealthy of acquaintances(!). [I keep putting parenthetical exclamation points because I like the way that came out. And I only explain that because I love the word "parenthetical!"]

There's a gas can clicking in the garage; I'm having a hard time including it in the symphony.

RB said he and his friends were going for a drink and invited us along. We didn't commit. I was willing to go if R wanted to have a drink. (He often does - that's the way of his people. And I often do too, of late, because it seems I've become one of his people.) Turns out R was too high to go out, but not too high to stop at the liquor stor for beer.

When we got home, he said he was having a hard time getting out of the car. He was way-high by this point. I lit candles in the carport, opened beers, gave R an excellent dark chocolate bar, put the plastic Cape Cod chairs on the carport. R came out and said, "This is perfect!" He was content and I was enjoying the moment.

It didn't last long. He was at Ida last night, and said tonight that the last time he was at Ida, he and E and JV went together, and they slept in one tent, and he slept alone. (R was so in love with E.)
I said, "That's a drag."
He said, "Yes, it was." He looked into my eyes and I could see his sadness. This is what made me fall in love with him.

Is that sick? I fell in love with R because of his sadness. At the time, I was lonely and insecure. He was lonely. We fell in love. Me with his sadness, with the need to help him; him with my desire to take care of him. I'm his caretaker, I'm not his lover.

I do love taking care of R. But in the bargain I've neglected to take care of myself. Two weeks ago I told my shrink I was content with my relationship and what I'm getting from it. Yesterday afternoon, I told him I was unhappy, that I need a change. I said I realized that OK wasn't good enough for me.

After that session, I decided I wanted to move to California, to be with S. Since then, I've decided I will move to California by the end of next year.

I decided this would be a good time to break the news to R. I didn't just decide on the spur; I considered the decision carefully.
R said, "I'm so high!" He was enjoying himself. Then he brought up the sadness he felt about E and JV closing him out. About E closing him out throughout their relationship.

It seemed to me that he was in the state of mind to deal with my issues. But before I got the chance to say anything, R said he had to pee and I helped him up and sent him on his way. While he was gone, I sat back in my chair and thought about what I would say and how I would say it. The insect symphony was joined by a single cop siren, up and down, as the candelier with the beautiful ceramic ball in it swung gently over my head, hanging by black chains and metal rings.

I'm not happy. I haven't been happy much lately. I'm not happy in this relationship, and I've realized I once had a goal to live in California, and I want to continue to pursue that goal, that dream. I'm not leaving you. I'm still here for you. For now. I plan to be in California by the end of next year.

When R came back from peeing and plopped back into his chair next to me, after we'd exchanged a few pleasantries, and after a silent time had passed between us, I said, "I have something serious to talk to you about."
He said, "Nnnot nnnowww... I'm not in the right mood for that."
I said, "What kind of mood would that be?"
He didn't answer. He bent over, almost in a fetal position, eyes barely open.
I told him to lean back, to relax, "We don't have to talk about anything."
He leaned back in his chair, sprung back into position like a rubber band, locked his fingers together between his knees. "How's this?" He was defying me, refusing to communicate, flaunting his defiance.
I decided to tell him anyway. But he beat me to the punch.
"I think I have to go to bed," he said.
He didn't need help getting up this time.
I said, "All right." (Still practicing patience...)

I leaned back and looked up at the gently swaying candelier. The wind picked up as R walked away and the deep, dark windchime rang its three tones in a new variety of patterns.

I had to hear him heaving a third time before I realized R was vomiting. Still, I wasn't sure. I got up and carried my beer with me. He was leaned over the side of the compost bin. For a brief moment, his heaving sounded like deep, dark cries of pain - heart pain. But he wouldn't cry over me like this. Maybe he was feeling like a failure at this relationship, and any failure reminds him of the biggest failer in his life, and that was his love for E.

As I helped R into the house, poured him a glass of water, put toothpaste on a toothbrush and handed it to him, I thought, God, he's such a Tennessee Williams character! I should call him Tennessee Williamson. I should base a character by that name on him. I mean, how perfect was it to avoid having a serious discussion by getting sick enough to vomit?

I had to find my jounral while I was in the house taking care of R. I kept saying to myself throughout the evening, Remember this; write this down.

How perfect was it that I was sitting between R and Sc at the movie, sitting between What Is and What Could Be? It was very telling.

natural excitement

2009-05-13T12:34:00.009-05:00

I had a brand new experience this morning. I went to check the mail, then noticed quite a bit of garbage on the 3.5 acres on which I live, more visible because the property was mowed yesterday. P1 returned my call from earlier - she's coming over tonight for dinner and to have a beer on the porch with S and me - and so I had the phone to an ear, the other hand full of bits of paper, plastic, foil, etc., and the mail tucked under an arm. The dog and pig were following me along the inside of the fence; I noticed lots of baby figs on the tree by the road, and then a sprinkling of bugs flying in the air. As I trained my eyes on them, I realized it was more than a sprinkling, it was a cloud - a swarm! - a swarm of bees. I came out of my shoes as I ran backwards toward the more open area of the yard, my head hit a low branch of a tree. I cut P1 off in the middle of a sentence to tell her what was going on.

After we hung up, I discovered a moving lump on the branch of a pecan tree hanging over the fence into the front yard. I called P1 back to tell her of my discvovery She asked if I could take a picture, which I tried to do after we hung up again, but iPhones are not made for close-up pictures of bees in the shaded limbs of a tree.

It was exciting, but my second thought was one of regret. Other than P1, there was no one who would likely share my excitement about the bees. S is afraid of them. Little p would love to see them, probably, but then her dad would likely go after them with pesticide; the thought of it bummed me out.

Just yesterday I said to S that when we move into the containers I would like to get a beehive. He didn't show much excitement - I guess because of his fear - and said, "That'll be nice for you."

I didn't know how this cluster of bees in the front yard was going to act, if it was going to grow and grow until we were overrun with bees and even I was ready to see them gone. I came inside and got online. Apparently, when a hive gets overcrowded, the queen lays eggs that will become new queens - I guess those stay behind for the existing hive, but didn't read much about that - and then the worker bees engorge themselves with honey and leave with the queen to find another suitable home, sometimes resting on a branch for a few hours or a few days (with the queen in the middle) while scouts go out looking for their new residence.

I was relieved, and intrigued. I started looking online for beekeeping supplies, thinking that I could keep these bees as my own personal honey-makers. But there are no beekeeper shops nearby, and I'm strapped for cash currently, and I would "definitely" need a bee suit. The whole process started sounding daunting, especially as I'm sitting at the computer waiting for work to come in.

I found one of little p's cameras (I thought it had a video feature, but couldn't figure it out) and went outside and got pretty close to the cluster (the websites all said that the bees weren't likely to be dangerous - unless they were the aggressive African bees, which are in the Southern half of the country from California to Florida, which is where I am, but I felt at one with the critters for some reason). When I first discovered them, they were stretched along two or three feet of the limb, thicker in the middle; when I returned half an hour later, they were confined to the size of a ball smaller than a volleyball.

I took some pictures, which didn't come out very good, and I don't know how to transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer, so I cheated and grabbed a random one off of the web. The tree limb in this picture is smaller than the actual one, and the bees in this picture look larger than the ones on our tree, which Wikipedia says describes the African "killer" bees - but it also describes harmless Egyptian bees.

Well, anyway, I'm still alive, and I just went out to look at them again for an update, and they seem to have reduced even more, to about the size of a toupee. Or maybe my memory of them was enhanced earlier by the excitement.

sunday, september 26th (2004)

2009-05-11T07:46:00.001-05:00

12:17 a.m.

I'm kind of in a daze. Not because of the movie, though it was good. I decided today (or yesterday, technically) that I'm gonna move to California within the next year. Most likely, S and I will live together. Now the question is how do I tell R? And what do I tell R? And when? He's at Idapalooza tonight, maybe till Sunday.

Dr. C pointed out three times that I said I was glad today:
1) Glad that R was going to Ida without me;
2) Glad that I was going to Jonesborough next weekend without him; and
3) I can't remember what the third glad was.

S dreamed a "Peace. Love. Y'all." logo for the documentary. (A peace sign. A heart. A lucky green dress.) He and C finished the submittable edit of the film (2 hours) in the nick of time to get it to FedEx to send it to the Sundance Festival committee.

I'm wired. I think this is the right decision. Perhaps one year will be a good goal for being off of antidepressants as well...

2:56 a.m.
There's an old tale about a woman who cut the ends off of roasts before putting them in the oven... I heard that when I was young; maybe that's why I came to despise my mother's Sunday roasts.

hotne$$

2009-05-10T23:17:00.006-05:00

I believe I am having an identity crisis. I feel slightly afloat, unmoored. It is not a completely bad feeling, just awkward. I'm used to that. I haven't gone to yoga in over two weeks. I was supposed to have a therapy session tomorrow (I've been going once a month), but I canceled it. All to do with money. I kind of miss the yoga, but I really miss the therapy, even though I won't have missed a session until tomorrow. I feel the need to tell someone in The Profession that I'm having an identity crisis. Well, not someone, him, my Therapist. He's good. I like him. I was afraid that if I quit going to yoga and therapy, it would be hard to make it back. But I long for both of them.

Financially, I feel okay. Things are tight, but for once in my life I'm handling things pretty well. Except for the $28 I spent on two groovy 1950s chairs from Goodwill on Friday, I think it was. Retail therapy. They're in very good shape. I put them on the front porch.

Today I moved the logs to the side and the trunk to the front of the porch next to the (for now) unused chimenea. We now have seating for six out there. I don't know if there are six people I would want to be around at the same time. Not right now. I have been feeling very anti-social lately. I enjoy my friendship with S, and my other housemates are easy enough to get along with, though I don't spend a lot of time with them - I don't think I've ever sat on the front porch with them. P1 is a good friend; I feel close to her. She makes time to come over and sit on the front porch with me.

Last night, I had a performance with M, her one-woman show in the Ladies Are Funny Festival (LAFF). It's the same show I did with M several months ago as part of the FuseBox Festival. I screwed up the last line of my song (and therefore the grand finale of the show) that time and had a lot of anxiety about it happening again, even though I never missed the last line while rehearsing the past couple of weeks at home.

Plus I just didn't feel like doing it. But I did. And I didn't screw up the last line, but nobody noticed anyway because they were clapping for M through the song. I was just glad to be done, glad the stress was over. As soon as the applause ended, I unplugged my keyboard, walked offstage and out the backstage exit, to my truck and home.

Nobody was here. It was 8:45 pm on a Saturday night and I had nothing to do. Oh well. I read.

I'm reading Edmund White's States of Desire, the whole thing. It's a good read, published in 1980, and so written right before the AIDS pandemic. It is research, inspiration really, for my novel. I'm trying to get a handle on a character who speaks more eloquently than I, who is more educated, more sophisticated, more wealthy, more gay. Sitting on the front porch last night, I wrote this:

Charles talked incessantly using words I didn't know the meanings of, but which he used so convincingly that whenever he asked if I knew what he meant, I invariably said, "Yes," and was able to respond in some (albeit brief) way that kept the conversation going. The cocaine helped.

I didn't become addicted to coke because I couldn't afford it, but whenever it was offered I partook. Somehow our talk found us in bed together, having sex, not because Charles was attracted to me - as he said numerous times during the act - but rather to "catch me up," as he put it, on all I had missed in my eighteen years. My boyhood crush on Rich White, who fucked me without regard, and my "adult" experience with the famous drag queen in Las Vegas were inconsequential, according to Charles, who was three times older than me, and admittedly a very good lover.

His tastes were more toward buff Chelsea Boys, whom Charles met at the gym (where he regularly went to keep himself physically and mentally youthful), and it was almost a relief when I was set free to pursue my own sexual interests after living in his guest room for a month-and-a-half.

I myself feel inadequate much of the time. When I read Edmund White - who is an intellectual elitist - I have waves of embarrassment thinking of people reading my writing, because, like Randy Reardon, I've always felt that if I surrounded myself with people who were smarter than me I would naturally soak up some of their intelligence. But most of the time I just feel inadequate.

One place where I don't feel inadequate (most of the time) is in my improv troupe HOTNE$$ IN A PO$E, which is CG and me. We had our first rehearsal with T today. I've already learned so much in just an hour-and-a-half (besides all the other hours of class I take every week, because they're free for the most part). Here's a rundown of the scenes we did/characters I played (mostly for my own edification):

silent scene; me eating, elaborate process of opening basket, taking out food/drink; CG arrives, offers me a flower; I pack up basket, set it down, take flower, say thanks, drop it to the ground, pick up basket, repeat elaborate process. This happens three times; third time, I eat the flower. It went on from there, but T said that should have been the edit.
I'm father in mother's dress; daughter arrives... The scene went awry because I showed shame for being in the dress instead of it being normal or fun... (T's note: MAKE THE PLAYFUL CHOICE).
I'm a happy bride (absurd) who wants a wedding dress made of clovers, want to be married in a barn by a crow; CG is the wedding store worker who tries to play it straight but falters a little.
I'm crying against the wall. CG arrives, says "Mr. Smith, you have to come down; we have to do your taxes." This scene went on too long (T: need to recognize natural edit) but there were some fun things happening. I had spent all of the company money turning my office into a castle; I was up in a tower with a Rapunzel wig and dress; I had long curly fingernails and couldn't sign the company over to CG's character...
Quails. I had pet quails in the house; CG said we had to eat them. The scene turned into a Yes-I-am/No-I'm-not scene, got stuck.
Two characters folding laundry. CG: Your brother's coming home today. Me: He was denied parole; what happened? CG: He's coming home; you have to move out of his bedroom. Me: But he killed all those people... The scene turned dark and (worse) mundane. (T: MAKE THE MORE PLAYFUL CHOICE.)
I played a gay man (ha) feeding a girlfriend odd foods he's prepared in hopes of luring a mate: Quail that I caught in the park with a butterfly net (but couldn't figure out how to get the "claws" off so I tucked them under), grated sponge that "acts (and looks) like rice" (!), gravy made from mold, biscuits made from powdered cow hooves, alcoholic beverage made from fermented olive juice. (Pretty good scene with me doing most of the talking, CG responding physically.)
Housewife on speed (me) after husband's death, rearranging petunias, drinking champagne, in love with her doctor. CG played the daughter who couldn't get a word in edgewise. Tiring scene for me, but funny.
Transaction Scene (T: Sweet!) - I'm the moving man, ask for payment. CG: Checkbook is in one of the boxes. The scene was, according to Tami, well-paced at keeping the transaction from being completed, which you don't want to happen in a transaction scene.

thursday, september 23rd, 10:30ish p.m. (2004)

2009-05-08T08:13:00.001-05:00

I'm in such a fucking quandary right now. For the last day or so, I've been thinking I need to do something about this relationship I'm in. I don't feel like I can leave, for so many reasons. I love R, but this isn't the relationship I wanted; this isn't the life I wanted.

I saw Sc at the park a couple of days ago. There was flirtation. I invited him to see Maria Full of Grace as we were packing the dogs in the cars. He said he has a big job this week, but took my number and said he would call. He did. He couldn't go.

I didn't go to the movie either. I found out it's playing through the weekend. He was at the dog park again tonight, with his friend who was with him the first time I met him (when R was in Wisconsin, because I didn't have Bayne at the park with me then). I felt a little weird around Sc.

When I was first courting R, L commented to S that I was going in fifth gear, and S told her I always do. What's that about?

I was trying to think of all of these things Sc and I could do together. I did mentioned the other night that I have a "partner." Tonight I found myself wanting to take that back.

My attraction to Sc isn't what's making me contemplate and reassess my relationship with R, but it is making the fact that there's a problem in my relationship with R all the more clear.

I called A last night - he had a short-lived relationship with R and then lived with him for five years as a housemate - I figured he would be a good shoulder to lean on. He was. But he complicated matters a little by telling me I could come live with him. I don't feel that's at all an option, but it's tempting - or it is on occasion.

The fact is I do need to reassess my relationship with R. Well, we need to reassess, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who'll be taking part in the reassessment (though I'd love to be wrong about that).

This whole thing started yesterday or the day before when I was thinking about how I shouldn't be going to the Galapagos Islands {with R}. I can't afford it. If I go, I'll be $3,000 deeper in debt. I really have no right going off on an expensive

no, really, i'm okay

2009-05-05T19:10:00.006-05:00

I found an hour's worth of work to do this morning. Not much coming in these days. It's the annual slow period for satellite workers while the New York City home office prints out graphs, binds them, and sends them to clients. Not many phone calls being made, not many interviews, not much call for transcribing.

The fact that I got a 25% pay cut a month or so ago makes it worse; the fact that, along with that, my cushy minimum 20 hours a week also disappeared makes it horrible.

Fortunately, I'm not paying rent right now.

I canceled therapy. I stopped going to yoga. I canceled my monthly massage club membership (which admittedly was a weird thing to have anyway). I'm down to the bare bones. Watching my lap top for incoming transcription work while working on my novel on the desktop Apple behind it. It could be a lot worse.

Things are going well with august chagrin. I finished chapter 31, "Christian Wall" and am now working on chapter 4, "Hell's Kitchen" (which chronologically comes after chapter 31). Christian Wall was a brand new write; Hell's Kitchen is just a rewrite, but it's really being rewritten; the structure of the story remains, but the characters are being changed.

S checked out a book from the library for me that he read 25 years ago, Edmund White's States of Desire. He thought the section on Houston would be useful, and it may well be when I get to the section in my novel that deals with Houston. Right now my main character has just moved from Florida to New York City. The chapter in Mr. White's book on New York is amazing, perfect, basically a blueprint for the character I had already started writing, the Manhattanite Charles Hatch, a wealthy homosexual who (sort of) befriends Randy almost from the moment he arrives, gives him a job, an apartment, fucks him, all the things Randy really needs after what precipitated his hasty departure from Florida (chapter 31).

Right now, my longhand notebook is a mess of beginnings, endings and middles, and even reminder notes for the next two chapters in this section, chapter 11, "Anita Cox," and chapter 18, "August Collins." This is the most exciting part of the work to me.

monday, september 20th, 7:39 a.m. (2004)

2009-05-05T16:52:00.000-05:00

I go through these periods where I don't know what I'm doing here. I feel like I need to get out to save myself, but I feel like I can't because I have a certain responsibility to R. He is non-communicative, emotionally unavailable and sexually disinterested 100%.

10:30 p.m.
I'm a lost boy. I'm unhappy. I don't know what it is. My life is not becoming what I wanted it to be; it isn't anywhere close to where I hoped it could be. I have no energy, no inspiration. I felt like I was gonna fall asleep at work today. Or cry.

Sophie has the ottoman against the front window with a blue tones Indian blanket on it to keep her from ruining it. She likes to lie there and look for something to bark at. We've already gotten into a ritual, and it's only been two days. I walk over in the morning, take her home until I go to work, then pick her up after work with Bayne and Jesse on board, and we go to the dog park. Then it's back to our house for the evening, and then back home for Sophie.

R&B have such a well-appointed house. They have a happy little life here. I'm not saying it's what I want, but I can certainly appreciate the appeal. Of course, I'd have to have a filthy rich boyfriend to live like this because I am 40 years old and haven't made the choices in life that would allow me such luxuries.

Handsome S who works for Sony was at the dog park tonight. The last time I saw him there, I put a note on his car door: Call me if you're heading to the park, I'll meet you there, or something like that. He never called. That's been about three months or so.

He's disgruntled with his corporate life. I think he is fascinated and slightly appalled by my life. I take his fascination as flirtation and I'm right there, even tonight, despite myself.

J said from the stage Saturday night, "Weve got a local celebrity in the house tonight. He's part of the Hey, Y'all Group." Oh, brother.

I imagined saying to him in our fantasy life together somewhere down the road, "I can't believe you said that! I hated you for saying that! But really, that was the only thing I could find to not like about you that night, and now look at us..."

Oh, brother!

R left me a note tonight: Where have you gone? I seem to have lost contact with you again. Or something like that. I hate that note. The last time he left something like that, I poured out my heart in a multiple-page letter to him and he barely responded to it, if at all. I don't recall anything. Why would I want to keep opening myself up like that for no return? I just simply can't. I love R, but I'm not getting what I need, and if I don't just tune him out sometimes, medicate myself more than I normally would, I'm afraid I would begin to hate him for his inabilities. And the fact that they are inabilities - deeply ingrained inabilities - makes me feel so much sadness for him and for us.

sunday, september 19th, 1-ish (2004)

2009-05-02T16:04:00.000-05:00

I don't know what reason I have for feeling down today, but I do. I've been thinking a lot about my life here lately. What am I accomplishing? Where is this going? L and I went to see some singer/songwriters last night; one I know, one she knows.

His songs moved me - I cried at the one about his friend R's cancer treatment. I wonder if it made me cry because of Pamela, or because it was that beautiful.

Or was I just longing for a different life for myself? One with him? He smiles a lot, he's very gentle; not at all like what I've got now. I find myself wanting to leave this relationship, wanting to run away. But I feel trapped in it, too. Mostly for his sake.

I've always called his anger a good lesson for me, for my cultivation of patience. But have I learned enough? Is that what this feeling is? Is my relationship with R the reason I'm disgruntled with UU? Or is that another issue altogether, another factor contributing to my funk?

Or is it the medication? Is it wrong for me?

Today is ST's birthday lunch. I don't want to go, but I don't want to say anything. I don't want to eat; I don't want to spend the money. And I'm thinking it's gonna cause some kind of funk on the group. So I feel like I should say something to R. But at the same time, I feel like I should stand my ground. It's my right to go and not eat and just celebrate his birthday, right? But then why am I avoiding signing the card for the present R bought ST?

Does it all go back to my pulling back from this relationship? From that church? From this life?

I daydreamed about just pulling up and going to California. But that doesn't feel right at all. First, S doesn't even have a place to live, and he won't for some months. I know he'd be happy to have me at that point, but it's not something I'd even consider right now.

So I think to myself, How many months? But that's so irresponsible. I have enough jobs here and the living situation to support getting myself out of debt. That's a good and noble goal, I know that. But I fantasize about a relationship with poor artists like singer/songwriter J, and try to arrange sexual encounters with people like that older swimmer dude at the Y who flirts with me with his huge dick. My sexual life beyond that is pretty nonexistent.

Party time...

5-ish
Novel idea: Big Blue. Starts off with my depression and switches back and forth between that and the Suburban Big Blue.

just shoot me

2009-04-30T08:00:00.011-05:00

Wednesday nights are the improv jam, or the "shootaround," as it's called sometimes. I don't know where that term comes from, but people talk about it like it's famously familiar, so I go along with it.

I went first to see Neal Medlyn at the Blue Theater in the Fusebox 2009 Festival doing a show based on Beyonce's live album from 2007 (I believe it was). I wouldn't have gone (not a Beyonce fan, believe it or not), except M bought me a ticket. I took her with me last year when Neal did a show based on Lionel Richie's most famous album; M had seen the concert that accompanied that album, so it was great fun for her, and even though I was never that big a fan of LR's (bigger than Beyonce, though, of course), it was a much better show because there was so much more to it; there was a storyline woven into the songs and great stage props - I will never forget him giving head to a unicorn until it ejaculated! There was nothing like that last night, just lots of spandex outfits and a couple of backup dancers (who were pretty phenomenal, by the way). The first time I saw Neal Medlyn was the year before last. He's a performance artist, and I went to get inspiration for the title character in my novel, august chagrin (himself a performance artist).

ANYway... I walked into the improv theater and was pushed onto the stage in the middle of a scene that was already happening. This is a funny idea/rule #1 of 2 they have at the jams, if you show up late, you have to go onstage immediately (rule #2 is if you have to leave early, you have exit via some sort of action onstage). Three of the guys from my level one class at one of the other improv theaters in town - the one which fired C&T who run this one - were at the jam; one of them ushered me onstage, yelling, "Push him! Push him!" Apparently, I was a girl, because when I finally got around to pushing the other character onstage, other characters laughed and said, "Beat up by a girl!"

That was okay, but the jam seemed to devolve into discomfort for me, and that's what I'm trying to figure out here. Two characters were about to hug - they were being played by two men, but I'm not sure they were playing men - when an older guy (older than me) jumped onstage and said, in some weird character choice, "We're banning all homosexual content from the rest of the night." It was a really odd choice, breaking many of the "rules of regular improv play." I know that many of my friends, upon hearing this complaint, would assume that my problem was with the anti-gayness of the moment, and that might have been a part of it, but more so it was a feeling of ABSOLUTELY NO CHEMISTRY with these people. I was onstage with C a couple of times, and the scenes felt difficult; I took my first level one class from him and didn't think he was a very good teacher (for me) and the lack of connection I have for him seems to continue onstage. I also feel a bit clunky when I'm onstage with T, but I think that is a feeling of intimidation because I have so much respect for her as a teacher and a performer. (C is a very good performer, too, and when C&T play together, it is awe-inspiring.)

So I had to force myself onstage every time I went. Once in a while, I got a laugh. But mostly I felt like spiderwebby wheels were slowly turning in my head. I think that had something to do with the fact that there were five or six people whom I'd never met sitting in the room (players are "supposed" to remain standing) who would jump in with odd choices, like the homosexual ban idea.

In moments like that I think to myself I could never actually do this in front of an audience, this improv thing. Sometimes the laughs I caused (or helped cause) made me feel like the eighth grader who got laughed at and called names. When I'm playing with CG (HOTNE$$ IN A PO$E), on the other hand, it is joyful for everyone. But she wasn't there last night. I'm not saying I quit, I'm just saying this is an interesting feeling that I want to note; this awkwardness is a big reason I'm doing improv. Getting over it is the goal.

thursday, september 16th, 10:08 a.m. (2004)

2009-04-29T15:34:00.000-05:00

Even though I really can't afford it, I bought tickets for a weekend at the Nat'l. Storyteller Festival in Jonesborough. When I mentioned I'd like to go, Dr. C said he thought it sounded like the best idea he'd heard in a while.