social obligations

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.

ghostest with the mostest

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.

tuesday, october 26th (2004)

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.

sincerely, me

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.

distraction

How can I feel so content and so sad at the same time? That's not a rhetorical question; and I don't really want an answer.

I skipped yoga on Sunday, which hasn't become a regular day for me anyway, and then at the last minute yesterday - as I was getting dressed for it - skipped my regular Monday class, too. My knees hurt because of all of this rain. But I like this feeling, this humidity; it's not hot so the humidity doesn't bother me, it feels rich, I like the smells it activates.

R disappeared from Facebook and I got a little panicky. I had gone to Flightpath Coffeehouse to work on chapter 31 last week and suddenly got an urge to contact him, and thought I would do so on Facebook via my iPhone. He had contacted me a couple of weeks earlier, shortly after (I later discovered) he and his boyfriend had split up and his boyfriend had moved away. He called, but it was a short phone call; he said he had to meet someone and would call back. But then a couple days later he emailed to apologize for getting in touch and then disappearing again, saying simply "I've been unable to communicate..." Forgetting that the sentence actually went "I've been unable to communicate with anyone," my thought at the Flightpath was to ask "Is it just me or are you hiding from everybody?"

But he wasn't listed in my Facebook friends list. I was done writing for the day - that's why I let the distraction take me away - but it quickly turned to anxiety. Again my thought was "Is it just me or everybody." I packed up my notebook and bicycled home. I was somewhat relieved to discover that he had committed Facebook suicide, as it's called, having deleted his profile completely.

I guess I'm not over R. I don't guess I ever will be completely. The fact that he's moving from Tampa to Seattle makes me wonder what he's going there for. Or whom. Surely he's not already "with" someone. It probably has to do with his disdain for Tampa (yeah, I can imagine that).

The fact that S recently had sex with a man half his age who reminded him of R and then blogged that it was possible (not likely) that he could have a "whopping midlife crisis," fall in love and follow the man to California didn't help matters. Things don't feel so permanent here anymore.

I have a sneaking suspicion in the back of my head that the reason I haven't been able to find anyone to be interested in is because I'm still harboring hopes that R and I will be together again. I can picture a happy reunion sooner or later - even late in life. S has his doubts that such a thing would work out. I wish I could get it through my skull that such a thing could never work, but there is for some reason this feeling that R will always and forever be The One.

Not that S isn't important to me, but S is more like family, like a brother, my best friend. Our relationship is less defined in terms of our hearts; it's more of a soul connection, not physical. My love for S is stronger than it has ever been for anybody in my family, but it wouldn't (and hasn't been) changed by living across the hall or across the country from him.

I sent R an email, told him I felt a little pang of fear that he would disappear out of my life, that I felt like he was part of my family, a part that I never wanted to become estranged from. He responded a couple of days later with mutual feelings, said that I'm a big part of his family, too, "probably more than you know."

Was that just a statement to comfort me? It was comforting. It also made me want to write back and say, "Well, in that case, I'll meet you halfway there." But really, I'd much prefer it if he suddenly decided to come here where I've got a pretty good life going for myself, with the kind of weather I like, a performance community I'm beginning to feel comfortable in, and where I can afford to live and write.

Maybe that's the real reason I ain't got nobody...

near miss

Last night was the improv jam. It's not a class; every Wednesday anybody and everybody from whatever level of improv they've reached (some haven't even taken one class) get together and "play." I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable in the big group without certain people like CG, the woman with whom I took level one and am taking level two (but she's been absent with health and family problems for several weeks, and I was out of town a couple of classes before that).

I took my nine ideas with me that I wrote down in my improv notebook - Romantic / Despair / Fight / Joy / Horse / Madness etc. - and that was useful; I didn't get through all of them, but it was a good springboard for getting me onstage. I still felt clunky some of the time, but I'm starting to find my improv stage legs.

After the jam most of us stood outside, some smoking cigarettes or drinking beers. T - the Indian dude I took level one with but who stayed on at the other theater after the split - asked what I've been up to. I told him I've been writing and doing improv mostly. A, another guy from our level one class who I don't think is all that good a performer and/but who thinks pretty highly of himself (it seems) - and, more importantly, doesn't seem too interested in me! - was standing next to T when we starting talking. T asked what I write and I told him I'm working on novel. He moved closer; A moved away.

There was a moment, as there often is in my life when talking with relative strangers, where sexuality comes up. I don't know why I'm not comfortable with it. (Well, I do know why, but I don't know why I haven't gotten over the discomfort in my life - but I'm working on it, and improv is helping.) T asked what the novel is about. I could see my mind working around Randy Reardon, the main character, his sickness - AIDS, the tell-all - and stumbled at that point of the revelation and then just went for it, just let it out, spilled the beans. And T didn't freak out or anything! Not that I really thought he would, but that's what goes through my head.

He told me he's taking a creative writing class this semester, we talked about his writing some and he said that most of the other kids don't like what he writes. I said, "Fuck them! It's not about them!" He described a story he recently wrote. It sounded a bit all over the place; he admitted that was the case, said he has a hard time sticking with one storyline. It's a bit like improv, I think, and I told him so; just going with what comes and not editing. I told him about Natalie Goldberg's book, Writing Down the Bones, which I recommended to him, and might even purchase for him when I'm feeling a little more flush (and, sadly, when looking for the link to her book, I discovered that I just missed a rare visit by Natalie Goldberg to my town).

Also, besides the fear of sexuality talk is my fear of intellectuality talk. T is a computer geek, inventor, scientist, etc. In other words, he's an intellectual. He's a very funny, instinctive performer, but a lot less absurd in his choices that am I. Well, he does a lot of weird things, but they seem a lot more intellectualized to me. Anyway, when I was describing the novel, talking about the seven different storylines that run through it, I was describing specifically the letters that Amitodana writes to August - one of the storylines - and T asked, "Is the whole novel epistolary?" My mind went blank for a moment.

I don't think I'm a stupid person; I know I am clever and smart enough to write a novel and plays and songs, and can usually come up with the word that means what I intend for it to mean, even if I don't know the exact definition. I use words in sentences that sound right, and often are right, but I sometimes misuse words. S has said that my vocabulary is the weakest part of my talent. (He didn't say it in those words, but that's the gist.)

And so, when T asked me if the whole novel is epistolary, I had to consider what he meant. I probably should have just asked him what it meant, but I was afraid of looking stupid. The word apostle came to me, which brought to mind preachers, storytellers, particularly Bible storytellers. Epistle seemed a similar word (there's a "pistl" in the middle of both of them!), so I made the leap to think that he was referring to the letter-writing storyline, and said, "Oh, no, there's prose and script and other things, as well." I think there was possibly a look of panic on my face (or at least I felt a look of panic directly behind my eyes and did my best to hide it!), but T didn't comment on it. And why would he?

That's the thing, I guess. I'm smarat enought to be writing a novel but fear people will think I'm not. I struggle with words like "epistolary" and other even less intellectual words than that. I would never use the word epistolary in my writing, I don't think, and I definitely wouldn't easily use it in a conversation (though I use words in my writing and in ways that I would never say aloud all the time). So I keep looking for the comfort in the idea that there exist many novelists who aren't (or weren't) as word-smart as even I am, and there are plenty of novels out there that are full of big words that are crap. It's really not something I need to worry about.

But I do. That and the Gay Thing.

nine ideas that work

They are:

ROMANTIC
DESPAIR
FIGHT
JOY
HORSE
MADNESS
VULGARITY
THE STANLEY
FOREIGN LANGUAGE REPOSE

These words were written in chalk on the stage by the five actors in a play I saw on Friday night. It's called The Method Gun, and the company presenting it is Rude Mechs. It was at the Off Center. I also saw it about a year ago (a different version) at the Long Center here. It will be in New York City at PS 122 in January 2010 - I highly recommend it - but that is not what this entry is about.

I was inspired by the improvisational-seeming nature of quite a bit of the play, and particularly by the RASA BOXES (whatever that means; that was how they were described when presented in the play) with the above words in them. The actors ran from box to box (there were nine boxes, each with one of the ideas in them) and they incorporated the idea written in the particular box they were standing in into their actions and words.

I wrote them down.

I went to improv class the next day, and each time I got up on stage, I thought of one of those ideas in the RASA BOXES - actually, I started with the one in the top left box, "Romantic" - and took that onstage with me for the scene I was playing. The next time I went up, I took Despair as my emotion. The next time, I thought of a Fight. And so on.

It worked beautifully for me, really gave me something to hold onto.

Interestingly, we are taught that Fighting on the improv stage is dangerous because you have to build on what is happening onstage, and once you get to the point where you're throwing punches or chasing or being chased, there's not much left to build on. I thought about that before I went on. I said the line, "I think you're trying to start a fight!" I said it in kind of a drunkard's voice. And so I became an old, seriously drunk man on a street corner under a street light. (In my mind, I was black, but that's not really important.) It didn't become a fight onstage because the man playing opposite me chose a similar character - "No I ain't! This is MY corner!"

I was feeling it in improv class on Saturday. Sometimes I feel it; sometimes my natural comedian comes out. I feel very comfortable play absurd characters. Or I should say I think I am best at playing absurd characters, and sometimes I am comfortable with letting those characters come out, but other times I feel stunted.

I realized long ago that improv is all about chemistry. And I'm starting to notice patterns in me, the times when I'm really cooking and the times when I feel awkward and even bad. When I took Level One a year ago or so, the class was mostly twenty-something straight white dudes. The more recent Level One I took had a wider mix of types of people, women, blacks, an Indian, etc. I was much better the second time I took Level One, and I didn't think it was because I had already taken the class before.

And now, the Level Two class I'm in has C, a woman with whom I have such a great stage chemistry. She loves to play straight, normal characters (and is very good at them), and she feeds my absurd characters onstage so perfectly. I seriously see the two of us performing together down the road. Or I hope we will. We even have a "team" name picked out:

HOTNE$$ IN A PO$E

Don't ask! (Or do, but not right now. Okay, well, the one key in pronouncing it is that $ is pronounced "dollar sign.")

I haven't blogged a lot about improv. But it has started feeling like a good outlet for my creativity, and I feel myself leaning toward a stronger involvement in it. Time will tell if it's just another passing fancy.

shut up and write

I'm in a race to write a book,
getting things in order before I sit down in front of the computer
or splay myself on the bed with the three-ring binder and pen.
I need concentrated time, uninterrupted.
I want to get all of the interruptions out of the way,
bedtime,
breakfast,
sending pictures of my Paris trip to my mother,
journaling,
blogging,
and work.
If work comes, I'll do that first.
I want work; I need the money.
If work comes, it takes precedent over writing.
Unfortunately, that's just the way it is.

I don't have far to go to finish this book,
but I feel like I'm forever away from the end.
I'm still in the midst of first draft land here,
but so much of it is done,
so I'm really just filling in the blanks.
I don't even have to do a top notch job with it,
just get it out,
there will be time later to fix the stuff that doesn't work.
But that's not the way my mind works.
I'm forever fixing,
perfecting,
rewriting
even as I'm writing,
thinking about stuff down the line that might oughta be changed,
picturing the finished product,
the proud responses,
the surprised reactions,
the not-so-surprised.

But now I need to take a shower.
And it's a shaving day.
And I keep clicking the Refresh key on the laptop to see if any work has come.
And there's breakfast dishes to do,
and laundry,
and the mailbox to check,
and just a little downtime to think.
And then yoga,
and improv.
How did it get so complicated?

I did do a little writing last night,
after everything else.
I got through a little more than a page,
typed up something I had written longhand.
It was good; I'm happy with it.
I could have gone on for a couple of pages more,
easily,
typing up what I had written,
but I was distracted,
thinking about this, that, and the other thing;
checking email,
looking for a recipe for a friend in need,
going hither and yon,
pulled away
all the while wishing I had more time to write.
I was tired so I didn't want to commit too much time to writing.
Chapter 24, "Sin City."
It's a good one.
I'm just getting geared up for it.
This is one of the ones I wrote ages ago,
part of the very original draft,
something pulled from real life
so it's practically effortless.
But I have to work it into the lives of the characters,
who are not real life.
Not really.
They're in my head and so vivid they seem real.
Sometimes I catch myself doing loving-kindness meditation for the characters I've created.
Which I guess is okay;
I guess it's like doing meditation for myself,
the many facets of me.

But I'd rather be writing than meditating.
I'd rather be writing than doing so many other things.
But then, when it gets right down to it,
it is really hard.
Just me and the piece of paper,
waiting for the inspiration.
Come on, come on...

--Oops! There's work to do.

v.d.

Saturday was a great day and seems to have marked another shift in me (though that may not be obvious in what I'm writing). C and I were supposed to go for a weekend meditation retreat centered around money and our personal relationships with it -- which, with the recent slash in my salary due to the economic downturn, seemed like a good idea -- but we had had a glitch in our platonic love affair the Monday prior, and I felt the need for some space, particularly since we wouldn't be able to talk about us during the retreat.

First thing Saturday morning, I went to the Blue Dahlia to pick up compost (aka, pig slop), five 5-gallon buckets of it. I usually go through it right away, pull out the stuff that Tinkerbell, the resident pot-bellied, won't eat -- citrus, squash peels, onions -- or shouldn't -- foil butter pats, drinking straws, paper, plastic wrap. (An aside: Recently, Tinkerbell ate a latex glove, probably from the old folks home across the street. I discovered it coming out of her butt. She was in distress, foaming at the mouth, but M fed her some extra food and it worked its way out.) Anyway, I didn't go through the compost right away because it was cold out, and even though I wear rubber dish gloves, my hands hurt when I go through the slop on a cold day. So I vacuumed my truck out instead -- a little V.D. gift for me -- while S made eggs and potatoes to serve with the biscuits he'd made the night before as a V.D. gift to all of us.

At 1:00, I went to my improv class, which was pretty good, then went from there to nearby Hyde Park and picked up our box of produce for the week and brought it home for S to deal with. Then I went through the compost, even though it wasn't much warmer out.

I rushed from there to my friend G's house in South Austin. He was hosting a tea party with a friend (N) who recently spent two years in Taiwan learning all about tea. He had fascinating stories to tell as he served different tea varieties. I was only there for the last hour of the three-hour party, but G, N and I were tea-drunk by the end of it, laughing and dancing to the music the two of them were playing in tandem from their laptops.

The next thing on the schedule was the dance, dinner and concert at the space where the dance group I sometimes meet up with (more often recently). C called while I was at G's house from the meditation retreat to tell me he was going to go to the V.D. event as well. We made plans to travel together. I went to his house and gave him the V.D. card I had made for him the Sunday night previous. We had spent all day that Sunday together making cards for others, then I came home and made one specifically for him; when we had the glitch on Monday, I didn't know what to do about sending it, feeling the way I did, so I didn't mail it, but then gave it to him in person, which isn't t quite as good as receiving it in the mail, to be sure, but he appreciated it.

The dance was great. The usual stuff, except at the end, C, P1, M and I ended up in a three-song four-person embrace. C had talked to M about what was going on between us a couple of nights before, and P1 kind of knew, I think, because she reads my blog. But there was so much affection in that little circle that the tears just streamed down my face throughout the second two songs. I don't remember the exact words of the last song, but it was something like "You are love and you are precious and this is perfect." I wanted it to last forever. It was a healing for C and me. (Yet another!)

After the dance, dinner was served, yummy, healthy vegetarian food, cous cous, veggie stew, kale salad and cornbread. C snagged the very last lemon square, and halved it with me, then I halved my half with another person, and he halved his half twice and ended up with just a tiny little bit of lemon-sugar goodness.

We went inside and sat against the wall behind the people who had the foresight to bring pillows and blankets to sit on and wrap themselves in. My old friend L -- who introduced me to this crazy dance thing -- sang a set of new songs, after having been out of the scene for a couple of years following the birth of her child. She always tells me I make her laugh more than just about anybody, but she's pretty damn funny, too.

While she sang, C, P1, M and I touched each others' hearts, held hands and massaged one another all curled up in the love bundle we had started at the end of the dance. I was in heaven; I think we all were.

And then M sang her songs of love lost and love desired and it was all right as rain.

(graphic: "Jesus Healing a Broken Heart" ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, obviously...)

there are 168 hrs in a week

Here's the problem: Money work comes slower this time of year; there are other things that are going on in-house (in New York) that I can't (and frankly don't want to) be a part of. So I have to babysit the computer to see when work is available. It's like a game of sorts (though not a very entertaining one), trying to grab the work before another satellite or in-house support staffer gets it. Whatever... yawn.

But that's not the whole of the problem. I did get some writing done the other day, but I have no regular writing schedule. Yesterday, I was sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette thinking to myself, Why am I so bored? Why do I feel so overwhelmed? How can those two things be happening simultaneously? I feel like I'm not doing anything, but at the same time, I've got a lot on my plate. I'm in a performance this Friday with my friend M. She's reading letters that she's written to different companies -- complaint letters, mostly, and one letter of compliment -- and the outcomes of the issues she's had with them. She asked me to write and perform a theme song. Or she asked me if I wanted to be involved in some way, and my involvement became the theme song, "To Whom It May Concern":

To Whom It May Concern:
I'm the little guy who just got burned,
So I'm writing you this letter
In hopes that you can make it better.
I didn't get 100% satisfaction
In my most recent transaction,
That's why I'm writing you this letter,
In hopes that you will make it better.
What can you do for me?
Well, you can start with an apology;
And if you want to give me something for free,
That would go a long way.
I'm only saying this because it is true.
Why should I give my hard-earn money to you?
To win me back, what are you going to do?
Come on, I don't have all day...

And then M does her presentation, and I play the chords of the song in the background each time she reads a letter. And then I finish up the show with a reprise:

To Whom It May Concern:
There's a lesson here that could be learned.
That's why I've written you this letter.
Thanks in advance for making it better.
Sincerely, Me!

M sings the "Me" at the end. It's a cute show; it's part of the FronteraFest Short Fringe that they do every year here. So, I'm busy with that.

I'm also taking (or I should say retaking) the comedy improv class I took a year or so ago. It's free because I've already taken Level 1, and M is taking it with me. I felt kind of out of place the last time I took it. Having M there give me an instantaneous bit of confidence; having someone to bounce my feelings off of, and to hear that I am not the only one who is terrified is very helpful. I also think there are a lot more good people in this class than were in it the first time I took it, more varieties of people, ethnically (last time they were mostly 20-something straight white guys), so it just feels better.

I'm also trying to rewrite the first draft of my novel. I sat with it one day a week or so ago, took out the last thing I'd written, and read through the first couple of pages, marked out a word and put "as if" in its place. "As if," that's all I wrote that whole day! I thought that was kind of telling. A couple of days later, I got an idea and did some good writing, longhand, which I haven't transcribed yet. I feel like I need a chunk of time (or chunks) to work on the novel, but when I'm waiting for work to appear that I can grab, I have to be ready to jump on it -- which just happened, incidentally -- and I can't work with interruptions looming.

I think maybe when S goes back to school (Monday), I'll be able to better create a schedule I can live by. I tried creating a schedule but just came up with a list of things (WORK - 30 HRS/WK; WRITE - 10 HRS/WK; EXERCISE - 5 HRS/WK; SLEEP - 56 HRS/WK; PLAY - 20 HRS/WK) and no timeline for any of it.

Anyway, work now, figure life out later.

(photo from Wikipedia)

sitting with desire

S left for Indiana Sunday morning and I've been feeling a bit depressed. I hate to put those two things in one sentence because I don't like to be defined by my relationship with S. Or I should say I don't like other people to see how I'm defined by that relationship. We are not a couple. But we are closer than I think I can expect to be with another person in my life. We are not lovers, but we share more about ourselves and know more about each other than anybody else does. Our relationship is hard to define. It's not enough to say he's my housemate or my best friend. Both of those things are true, but sound limited. I've used both of those words when talking about him to new people because I don't want to have to explain our relationship, because the explanation always confuses the truth.

So why am I feeling depressed? It could have to do with S being gone and now I'm all alone (except for a cat, a dog, a pig and a turtle). It is easy to plan my day around something we might do together, like eating meals, watching movies, or just getting high and sitting on the porch rambling or in silence. I got more work done yesterday in his absence than I've been able to do in a while, since we moved to this new address.

But I don't think it all is about S. I feel like my relationship with someone on whom I have a crush (likely straight) has met its end. It's an odd, somewhat icky feeling. I was talking about my attraction to this man to another (straight) man, a friend on whom I once upon a time had a crush. That crush evolved into a good friendship; it feels stronger now than ever. But the other one, the new one, seems to have met with some sort of barrier. He knows I'm gay, but he doesn't know I have a crush on him. At least I don't think so. But maybe he feels uncomfortable with the attention I pay him. Or perhaps his ex-girlfriend with whom he works (and who I know almost as well) has pushed him into a corner about his attraction to me and so he has decided to leave that corner.

I do believe there was some sort of attraction to me on his part. A crush, perhaps. Straight guys seem to do that a lot in my life. It's a weird thing; it's been going on since high school, I would say, long before I even could admit I was gay. I think it might have something to do with the way I was raised, the religious anti-homosexual stuff that is a big part of who I am. I'm a non-threatening homosexual, I guess in part because I was raised to believe that being gay is just about the worst thing one can be (it leads to child molestation, drug use and other illegal activities).

So, back to this straight guy. I have very recently being trying to come to terms with my attraction to straight men, to accept what it is I get from them, what they get from me. Ninety-nine percent of the time it doesn't become a sexual thing. The desire is certainly there on my part, and sometimes I get the sense that it is there in a small and perhaps confused way on their part, but only rarely has it turned into anything, and not because of my pushing. I had a brief fling with a straight guy a couple of summers ago, a man about half my age. He told me up front that he was straight, "always have been," but that there was "something about me." We hung out a few times, eventually gave each other blow-job,s but it ended in the middle of that. I kidded myself that I was just going along with this as experimentally as he was. But the moment he said, "Okay, that's as far as I can go," I realized that I had already gone a lot farther; it broke my heart. I blubbered like so many girls whose hearts he had likely broken. In retrospect I imagined he thought less of me because I was just like all the others.

There have been several instances -- most of them in the last three years, since I've been living in Austin -- in which I have developed very nice relationships with straight men on whom I have originally had an attraction. They transmuted into something better. I've tried to imagine how these men must feel around the women they've been attracted to but with whom they cannot have sex because the women are in a relationship or gay. I have conversations with these men about that, about the difficulty of maintaining a relationship that is different than the initial attraction, and they seem to think their struggle is very similar to mine. Perhaps. But I think there are additional factors that make my struggle more difficult. Particularly the fact that homosexuality is not accepted as normal across the board. And beyond that the fact that I was raised being taught that not only is it an aberration, but one of the worst sins a person can commit. Bring on the drugs, alcohol and minors...

S and I watched a movie called Cat Dancers, a completely surprising film about a three-way relationship. (The link has a schedule of when it is showing on HBO through the early part of January 2009.) The narrator of the film is Ron Holiday, a very beguiling character, very egocentric and odd looking. He wears wigs (different ones for different outfits, curly or straight) and seems to have poorly painted-on eyebrows. He is almost 70 years old and now teaches young people about working with exotic animals. I'm not fond of the idea of people exploiting wild animals, and that is one part of the effectiveness of this film for me; there are so many things about it that I had issues with and alternately with which I could relate.

One of the things I could relate to was how Mr. Holiday sees himself in his late 60s. He was an attractive man when he was a young dancer. He met Joy and they married and seemed to be a perfect couple; their life and their career were intertwined. They were the top adagio dancers in the country, performed at Carnegie Hall in their heyday. But when Ron felt he was too old to do the moves impressively, their performance changed from being just about Joy, and then, when they got their first black panther cub as a gift from a famous person friend, it became about their exotic cat show. They were doing stuff long before Siegfried & Roy (and apparently, if Siegfried had had his way, his show might've been called Siegfried & Ron, but Ron Holiday says Siegfried was not his type at all; "Too fem!").

Ron & Joy Holiday's show grew and expanded with more and more exotic animals, and eventually they needed help and hired a young man who eventually became their lover. The three of them were together 14 years, until tragedy struck. It's pretty jarring. But now all these years later (nine, I believe) Ron is living with the loss of both of his lovers, and he seems pretty content with not having a lover; I got the impression that he felt like he'd already had the best relationship of his life and that he didn't need another. Though he still seems to see himself as attractive.

I have to admit that I didn't see him as attractive at all. And that was the thought that stuck with me most. I see myself getting older, see my desire for younger, unattainable people, and I wonder why I keep doing this to myself. I've been asking myself for the last couple of days why I keep trying. I feel sexy, but no one else seems to. And that's not sour grapes. I feel like I long for (sometimes desperately) a relationship that is not available. As each day goes by, it becomes less likely that I will have another relationship. And I wish I could just give up on the desire. Where is that cord so I can snip it in two? It seems that I have a lot to offer people, that they are attracted to me, but then my sexual desire gets in the way and that confuses things. I hate that.

I want to find a way to release myself from this suffering, this desire that has no positive outcome. I won't make that my New Year's Resolution because I don't do those, and because, lordy, could you imagine what a set-up that would be?! But I continue to question this part of myself that plagues me. I would like to channel my desire into something more productive, something creative like my book. I planned on sitting down with paper and pencil as soon as S left town and creating a schedule for myself -- work, creativity, exercise, entertainment, socializing -- but I spent yesterday feeling sorry for myself, and finally got outside and raked half of the yard. It's a huge yard. I did this because I've heard that exercise is good for depression, and I can't seem to get myself to yoga class. Besides, I can't really afford yoga right now. I ignored my checking account for a few days and something horrible happened with my finances and I ended up spending something like $175 in overdraft fees. Fuck!

Oh, and that's something I meant to write about with regards to the latest crush that feels like it's coming to an end and isn't really turning into the friendship that it pretended it was going to be. This guy has opened an art gallery with his best friend and his ex-girlfriend. I think, because a friend of mine took me to the restaurant where two of them work, an expensive restaurant, he got the idea that I had a lot of money, that I might be a supporter of his cause. He gave us a flier for his gallery the night we were at the restaurant and then S and I went to the opening. I had some money saved up and liked some of the art and decided I would invest in a couple of pieces. Nothing extravagant, but a lot of money for me.

This guy was very attentive and sweet and really seemed to like me. He invited me to meet the three of them at another gallery opening; I dropped by their gallery with beer a couple of Sunday afternoons. I told him I wanted to hang around him (and them) more because I was inspired by them. He seemed to get it. I went to see a weird movie last night called Wonderwall (released in 1968 with a soundtrack by George Harrison); it was part of the Alamo's "High for the Holidays" series. I don't know that I would recommend it-- maybe if you're really high. I was a little high, and I enjoyed it enough. But while I was sitting with my bad service and my pizza and over-priced beer, I realized that my attraction to this straight guy has a lot to do with the fact that he reminds me of my novel, makes me feel inspired about it. He is similar to a couple of characters in different ways (one in a physical way, another in an artistic way). I thought I should write him a letter and tell him about this, but then realized almost as quickly that I was stoned and there was probably no way to make it come out not just sounding weird!

But speaking of letters, I think I need to write a letter to the Alamo. I'm working on a show with my friend M . Over the years she has written lots of letters to businesses (airlines to landlords to restaurant chain corporate headquarters) about dissatisfaction with service she has received. She is doing a performance of several letters in FronteraFest next month, and she asked me to write a song (which I did a couple of days ago -- depression is often creatively productive for me... hm, maybe that has something to do with why I keep leaning in that direction) and to perform with her in the show. Whee!

But anyway, yesterday when I was deciding on going to see Wonderwall at the Alamo, I read this on their website:

Music Monday Specials: Free large popcorn with purchase of a bucket of beer at all Music Mondays! Free large soda or $2 Alamo Ale w/ purchase of a pizza!

So I was thinking, Mm, a pizza and a beer, how nice?!

I ordered the "Wild at Artichoke Hearts" pizza and an Alamo Ale, and when the waiter came, I checked to make sure that the beer would be $2, instead of the $4.50 on the menu. She said she had never heard about that offer. I told her it was on the website. She said she would check with her manager, but obviously if it was on the website she would honor it. I told her I wanted the beer either way, but appreciated her checking.

She came back and told me that the manager said no. He told her that since that offer is outdated and they haven't offered it in so long that they wouldn't honor it for me. However, he was willing to give me a complimentary soda with my pizza! I think I need to harness my emotions and write the letter right now.

motivation...

...or lack thereof.

I'm struggling to find routine in my life. Not that I don't like living in this new place; I love it. But there are more chores to do here -- taking care of animals, which includes cleaning up messes, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen. Maybe it feels a little too much like vacation here, possibly because our friends -- our current housemates and future landlords -- are in Panama, on vacation, and it feels a little bit like I am, too, or should be. I don't know.

I need routine to work on my book. I finished the first draft in November, which I'm proud of, but I'm not ready to show it to anybody outside of S, and not really even ready to show it to him, because I've got some work to do on it as I'm going through it "one last time" before I give it up.

I only worked 20 hours the past two weeks (I usually work at least 30 a week), so my paycheck tomorrow is going to be small. Fortunately, this is a three pay period month. I've worked close to 25 hours already this week, but am currently transcribing a call by a Swedish ESL guy, which just makes me want to take a nap. I just did.

Also, S just finished his last finals yesterday, so now he's around all the time (though he was away for most of the morning), and that tends to make me want to just hang out, get stoned, watch movies, eat. We're going to movies at the Alamo tonight and tomorrow night. Tonight, we're going to the one on South Lamar to see an Argentinian film called The Swamp (La Ciénega), and tomorrow we'll go to the Ritz on Sixth Street to see In A Dream, which I saw at SXSW and really want S to see. It's a documentary about the man who has done mosaics all over Philadelphia. It's a beautiful movie, and my treat to S for finishing his semester (any excuse...!).

Speaking of the animals, we were having some problems with Tinkerbell the potbellied pig. She was seeming a bit aggressive, butting our legs when we were in the kitchen, chasing us around, making kind of scary grunting noises, etc. She got into a six-pack of root beers (likely with the help of Bones the boxer), chewed off the lids, and made a mess of the main room! They drank up most of three bottles of root beer, but there was still a mess, and it was easy enough to clean up, but I was frustrated by all of Tinkerbell's cries for attention. I wasn't sure we were feeding her enough, so I sent my friends in Panama an email asking "Is Tinkerbell starving?" I got an email yesterday letting me know that once a month, Tinkerbell gets "what we call FRISKY." Oh... I was a little more understanding of her last night and today, let her chase me around the yard, and didn't yank my foot back so fast when she went to bite my Crocs, and it really doesn't hurt. I don't know if it's her form of affection or frustration, but she's pretty harmless. I spent some time combing her, which she sometimes likes, and rubbing her belly last night, which she always loves.

We're also doing a lot of entertaining, which S and I both love to do, and since we have this great house to ourselves we're upping the occurrence. This coming Saturday, we're having a Solstice Soup Party (with 45 expected); on Christmas Day, we're having a Orphans' Xmas Brunch (with eight people, more or less); and then on January 11th, we're having dinner for the three people who run biRDHOUSE Gallery, from whom I recently bought some art and endeared myself to them. One of the two guys gave us a postcard for the opening of the gallery when we were at one of my birthday dinners, S and I went, and we hit it off; I like them a lot, have stopped by the gallery for a beer and have gone out to another opening they invited me to The woman who completes their staff (who is more the administrator, I think, while they are the actual curator/owners) as it turns out, is having a birthday on January 12th, so I'm going to make a cake and we're going to kick off her birthday season. That'll be fun.

I'd much rather think about these things than work, but work I must.

soup salon number one

On Saturday, S and I hosted our first of hopefully many monthly salons, we're calling them Soup Salons, because no better name has emerged, and because really that's what they are. S made two soups, as well as baba ghanoush; I made cupcakes from my Aunt Melba's Dream Chocolate Cake recipe and my mother's fudge icing recipe, using the black onyx cocoa we order from the spice shop in Boulder, Colorado. It really is black, and it's a little unruly as an icing. In the cake pan, I just pour it in and it settles, thicker in the corners and thinner (but still thick) in the center, and it hardens like a candy almost. It's delicious, but it doesn't spread once it has cooled in the slightest, so some of the cupcakes just had a poo pile of chocolate in the middle, so dark, they made the Ghiradelli's dark chocolate cake underneath look like bran! But no, it was all chocolate!

There were eleven of us in attendance. I told prose readers to bring something not more than twenty minutes in length, singers, poets and others to bring a couple of things. equally about fifteen to twenty minutes. The idea was that we would go around the room, and then back around for the singers and poets to do a second set. But we got a late start, so we didn't get back around to the poets and singers, it felt right length-wise.

We had the salon at A's house; she has a big dining room table that comfortably sat eleven (thirteen were invited but two couldn't come, and I think ten or eleven is ideal, for that situation anyway). S set out the baba ghanoush, pickled okra and roasted and spiced squash seeds that he made with the crackers and flat breads that people brought. I had put down Sun magazines as place mats; A added flowers and we set each place with napkins, silverware, plates and glasses.

To start the evening, we went around the room and most of us spoke an epigraph after picking a rune out of a bag that I had painted numbers on so we knew what order to go in. Then we started in with the creative expression. We watched a documentary about drag kings, a YouTube video of one attendee doing contact improv at Barton Springs; we saw a PowerPoint presentation that went along with an academic book-in-progress about depression and crafting; we heard poems by attendees and by a famous poet; a chapter from a completed novel was read as well a chapter from a novel that is barely a finished first draft; we got a sneak preview of text from an upcoming story/song performance piece; we heard a couple of singers sing a couple of songs as well as a recording of a song on a CD from a rock opera that is soon to be produced in New York City. It was quite a salon!

Somewhere in the middle, when the timing seemed just right, we took breaks to deliver first a creamy, spicy squash soup to everyone's place setting, and later a potato and kale soup. There was wine, there was Perrier, there was beer. And later than that, I swiftly moved the bowls and delivered platters of cupcakes. It went as smoothly as it coud possible have gone. Had we started a half hour earlier (as we were supposed to), we might have got back around the room for another couple of songs and/or poems, but nobody seemed to mind.

Many were nervous. There was some overlapping acquaintances (all from my personal collection) but several of these people had never met each other before. Some were nervous about singing in front of others, some were nervous about doing something that they feared might not be "creative" enough, some were reading work they hadn't thought about for many years, some felt completely unprepared and were nervous that the thing they did have to share was darker than what they hoped would be the first expression shared with this new community.

That last one was me. I didn't read the chapter I had intended to read A few days earlier, I felt done with the rough first draft of august chagrin and was going back through and revisiting each chapter in chronological order (chapter three is first). That was whatI wanted to read at the first salon. But when I reworked the chapter I someone mistakenly labeled it "(1976)" instead of "(1972)" which was what it was, and that changed things considerably. In a good way. Randy catches an idle train car full of timber on fire with a roman candle; it works because in the Summer of '76, the sky was "more full of fireworks than ever before." I read what I thought was the newly completed chapter to S Saturday morning, and he gave me a big note for a change making me realize it wasn't ready to be read that night, not along with the last minute shopping I had to do, making the cupcakes and getting to A's early to help set up for the salon.

I ran around anxiously for awhile, and finally decided to find something else to read. I read chapter nine, "road signs," which went well. I was actually pleased to hear it again myself; it made me remember that not everything I've written has to be completely reworked, which is a relief three years into the process!

I stayed up until two a.m. Saturday night. S and I sat on the porch chatting about the success of the salon for awhile, and then I did some writing. And then last night I was was up until three a.m. (the clock said two but with the time change early in the morning it really was three). I think I'm getting very close to a happy completed not-so-rough first draft of chapter three.

Starting a salon has been my dream for some time. I decided to start it now because it was my Birthday Season, and it was just about the best present ever, second only to the one I'll be receiving in just a little more than forty-eight hours from now. And then my celebrating will morph from being about my birth forty-five years ago to the bright future for the whole country and the world. I can't wait!

birthday season update #2

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

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

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

My meal:

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

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

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

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

Amen to that!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

where there is needles, pain

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

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

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

• attachment
• aversion
• aggression

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

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

COMPASSION

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

REFLECTION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also, this famous one by Mahatma Gandhi:

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

heads-up

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then I tried to write a poem:

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

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

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