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

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, october 21st, part three (2004)

----------

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.

tuesday, october 12th (2004)

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.

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...

sunday, september 12th, 5:52 p.m. (2004)

They say you aren't supposed to relight a cigar once it goes out. What they should say is it's damn near impossible to relight a cigar.

There's a beagle in the neighborhood. I can also distinguish the raspy bark of the black Doberman at the end of our alley.

I quit smoking cigarettes while we were in Nova Scotia. I got a cold a day or two before we left Nashville and had smoked the last of the pack of American Spirits I had so I didn't buy anymore to take on the trip. I smoked one of R's early on when we were at J's, there by the 20-foot high cliff overlooking St. Mary's Bay, and it did nothing for me. Well, it made my throat sore (more). So I didn't smoking another and didn't really have a second thought about it until I was reading an article by a columnist in the Montreal newspaper who smoked 25 Camels a day and had cancer. A side bar in the article mentioned the addiction people have to the smell of the match, putting the cigarette to the lips, the first drag, the curl of smoke rising, and I thought, Oh, yeah, that's what I like about it. The nicotine addiction is an unfortunate side effect. So that's why I just smoked the last Sweet Daddy cigar from the tin that I bought in Las Vegas.

I cross my legs, left ankle on the right knee, and I see a bundle of wrinkles at the top of my calf and I think, Oh, yeah, I'm 40. That's a sign of my aging. There are several gray hairs in my moustache and my goatee is almost solid white, except for a stripe down the middle. My jazz tooth isn't aging as fast as my other facial hairs. I plucked a few gray eyebrow hairs yesterday, and I've been pulling out shocking white coarse nose hairs for a while. Crazy.

I'm having a Spiritual Dilemma. Did I mention that? Let's see... I guess not.

Mosquitoes are starting to hover, even here on the front porch; I'll either have to go in or slather on some Burt's Bees Insect Repellant. One mosquito in particular is testing the ground that is me. My shirt, my arm. He hasn't dipped in yet.

Should I have a third Southern Comfort & Diet Coke? Should I smoke another bowl? Should I go inside and turn on the TV? It feels like I've been watching TV for two days. I've only been watching IFC and Sundance, and once in a while Comedy Central, but still, my eyes hurt from staring at the tube. I saw some good documentaries though.

Should I turn on the computer? And do what? Play Internet games? I feel like that's all I've done besides watch TV the past two days.

T's in town. (J's new boyfriend; we met him in Nova Scotia). We were supposed to go have a couple of drinks with him tonight, but we haven't heard from him. And here I've already had a couple of drinks.

It's one of those times when nobody's answering their phone. I called S. I called T. I called Sa, I called Ci, I called my mom. I called the S's, whose house I clean.

It rained all day today. Till now. It's cooler now; it's nice.

A's in town and we've been having sex. We're very connected in that way. And now that I've "figured out" my relationship with R - my "place" in our relationship (or something like that) - there's no need to hold back.

R and I had a shower together yesterday or the day before, and he said he had to jerk off; he hadn't had an orgasm in two weeks, which was the longest he'd gone in 20 years! I enjoyed watching him jerk off. He yanked my dick while he jerked his. I got hard but I didn't come. He made some comment that I can't remember, but which made me say, "Our relationship is not about orgasms." He said, "That's true," or something to that effect.

I am so out of money right now. My checking account says I have $10! I hope I have some money in savings to put in there. I was gonna go to the bank Friday morning and R discouraged me because it was 8 a.m. And so I ended up not going. And I've been spending some of the leftover cash I have from the trip to Nova Scotia. Actually, I didn't use any cash there because we heard you get a better exchange rate to Canadian if you use credit cards or even debit cards. And since I didn't have any money in my checking account (I thought I had $40; I only had $10), I told R to just tell me how much I owed him at the end of the trip.

S got to California in three days and starting working on the doc with C yesterday. They watched the 3-hour 45-minute edit that S created, and he told me that every idea C had, every suggestion, went right along with his thinking, and he's very excited to be working with him. They have a week to create the next edit, which they'll send to enter the Sundance Festival. (Sundance will accept unfinished entries.) And then they'll work another two weeks (? three weeks?) to finish the final edit. And at that point the budget for C's part will be spent. It's very exciting, really.

I've been having weird dreams lately. The most recent, most memorable weird dream included a family of deer running about, doing tricks and even dancing on busy streets, as well as a church service with a lot of inappropriate behavior (a weird play-acting thing in which a young guy is wearing only long john bottoms as his costume - though he has underwear or shorts on under them - and a mouthful of cassette tape that wouldn't stop coming out). I woke up with severe cottonmouth after that!

I had a falling out with R today. I don't know if he even knows it. He had gotten all his pictures out and was inspired (by A) to do a collage in an old window frame, and I thought I'd give him a hand by organizing the photos into Nature, R, R and Friends, Friends only, Animals, Things, etc. He came into the dining room, said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm organizing your photos, and looking at them." He said, "Well, they already are... I'll take care of it. It doesn't matter. I just have them in groups so I know where they were taken..." I left the photos and watched TV and played computer games. What am I saying? Of course he knows I had a falling out with him. It often happens as a reaction to him seemingly overreacting to something I've done in which I think I'm doing him a favor.

A and I joked about the fact that I could live in Denver.

I don't know if any or all of this has to do with my Spiritual Dilemma. I was reading UU World the other day, and there were article after article on the recent General Assembly, and I found myself getting bored and thinking, This is all a bunch of religiosity. Now that MK is gone, I don't seem to have a Spiritual base here. It seems that it's all about choir and lay ministry. And choir is a lot of input (Thursday night rehearsals and early Sunday morning calls). And lay ministry seems to be suffering from a lack of leadership.

tuesday, august 31st, 5:37 p.m. (2004)

My stand-up for tonight:

I have an Aunt Joy Belle. That's pretty funny, isn't it? Actually, she's my great-aunt, but I never called her Great-Aunt Joy Belle. I don't know why; she is pretty great. When she was born, her daddy opened up the church hymnal to the song "Keep the Joy Bells Ringing," and that's where he got her name.

Pawpaw was a bit of an alcoholic. He was definitely drunk when he named her sister Aunt Konk!

Actually, that's just her nickname.

I'm no stranger to nicknames. I was born with one. JDJB. That's my name. Most people call me Jaybird, and you can too, if you like. My family called me Fancy Pants for a while when I was growing up.

One Christmas, I inadvertently got a present that was intended for my Great-Aunt Joy Belle. The tag said, "To: Joy, From: Santa," but the present passer-outer thought it said "To: Jay, From Santa," so I got it. It was these pants. They didn't fit me much better then.

I tried them on and somebody called me Fancy Pants, and the name just stuck. But nobody said anything about the fact that they were intended for somebody else. I figured it out myself later when I was looking at the tag, trying to figure out what Santa Claus was thinking. Did he know something I didn't know?

When I was in the eighth grade, my classmates nicknamed me Gaybird. Not because of these pants. Mostly because I didn't know how to carry my books. Apparently, I carried them like a gaybird. Like this instead of like this. Valerie, the butch Italian jock girl who lived on my street tried to teach me how to carry my books like a jock. But it was useless. I was chubby and nelly and I played the tuba in the marching band.

Correction, I played the John Philip Sousaphone in the marching band, the big, white fiberglass anaconda-looking tuba. It really was. Our team mascot was the anaconda, and all of the sousaphones were outfitted with two fangs and a forked tongue. Essentially, we were blowing into their assholes! That's what it sounded like when I played, too. I was a terrible tuba player.

So, because of that, and because I wasn't a jock, and because I couldn't even carry my books like a girl jock, they called me Gaybird. And they made fun of the mayonnaise and sugar sandwiches my momma packed into my lunch bags. And I took to eating my mayonnaise and sugar sandwiches at the dead end of the hall where they kept all of the spare desks. Behind the desks. I made a little path and crawled behind the desks and ate my mayonnaise and sugar sandwiches in peace, and dreamed up ways to take revenge on my classmates and on my school.

I decided to learn to play the 12-string guitar. Somebody at our church played "Amazing Grace" on the 12-string guitar and everybody oohed and ahhed and acted like it was the Second Coming of Christ, so I decided I would learn to be the greatest 12-string guitar player that ever lived. That would be my revenge. (This was long before Columbine and that kind of revenge. This was back when learning to play an instrument really well was revenge enough.) I imagined that people would soon be eating mayonnaise and sugar sandwiches and trying to figure out my secret to playing the 12-string guitar so well, and they would call me Fancy Fingers or something like that because I would be the greatest 12-string guitar player ever.

{Strum ukulele.}

I'm a third the way there...

{Sing "Fancy Pants."}

message in a dream

I had a dream this morning. I was walking through an area with warm, low Frank Lloyd Wright type buildings, live oak trees were abundant and old, their limbs like hundreds of big strong arms hovering near the hilly ground and high into the sky. It was a sunny day but it was cool and shady where I was.

I heard someone say my name. I recognized it as being C's voice, a friend with whom I've recently had the third and what seems like final falling out (in the course of our short and very intense relationship). I turned to look and saw someone who looked like him but wasn't him.

"Did you call me?"
"No," the stranger said, "That was just C pointing you out. He went inside."

That sounds about right, I thought to myself, considering what we've been through recently. I turned to leave the area and saw litter on the ground. I picked up a clear plastic bag and put the litter in it as I walked toward the exit. I dropped the bag in a big trash barrel. There were bottles and cans in it, but I didn't see a recycling bin, so I didn't bother separating them. At the end of the sidewalk, there were several recycling bins, organized for the different items. I went back to the trash barrel to retrieve the recyclables. There were ants coming up from deep within the barrel. And then there were bees and wasps hovering around. Every time I looked away and back, the ants, bees and wasps had multiplied exponentially.

I tried to pick out the bottles and cans, but the flying insects were thwarting me. I saw a shovel on the ground, it was covered with the bugs as well. They were flying in my face, scaring me a little. Finally I put down whatever was in my hands, said to myself, "Better to just leave it alone," and walked away.

Better to just leave it alone.

It was one of those message dreams, pertaining no doubt to the stuff I've been going through with C. I was the one who instigated the separation, but it wasn't really what I wanted; it was what I felt like he wanted. I expected my email to sting a little - I was in Paris, feeling very alone, feeling like he was responding to everything I said from a very selfish place, not seeing what I was going through, not being the friend he had been the previous two months. I expected to get a response from him the likes of when I canceled out on a meditation retreat after our second falling out. That time he had written, "It makes me me very sad to hear that."

Apparently, this was exactly what he wanted to hear. His response to my "Letting Go" email was, "I think this is for the best." He went on to tell me that our relationship now "brings up confusion and an agitated heart" for him.

Maybe it was foolish of me to write that email saying "I feel like I need to let go of this relationship." (Be careful what you ask for, comes to mind.) But I was in a really sorry place in Paris, and I felt like the focus had been on him in our recent interactions - and come to think of it during the whole relationship, I decided in the moment before I wrote the email. I kept it on my phone a whole day, rereading it, editing it a very little, making sure it said what it needed to say, before I sent it.

He had never had a close gay friend before me. (Whenever I repeated that back to him, he was always quick to correct me, saying that he had never had a close gay male friend before; he had lots of gay women friends. Whatever.) Suffice it to say there are things in his past that make him a bit leery of male companionship at all, and particularly with a gay man.

But that was what this relationship seemed to be about in the beginning, about him working on getting over some of his issues. It was about that for me, too. It has long been my desire to be friends with a man in which sex is not a consideration. We discussed very openly (at first) all of the things that were coming up for us; it wasn't hard, but we were determined to press on, to figure things out. We even had a therapy session together!

And now I'm left with my own confusion, agitated heart, and a softball-sized pain in my belly. The only difference is I'm still willing to try to work it out.

I've outlived my father by six years so far. He seemed so old when he died at 39, so grown up. I know he had his problems, but he didn't deal with them in the big way that I feel like I am dealing with this loss. I cried all day long yesterday and the day before. Not constantly, but when I went outside to deal with the laundry or turned the corner into my bedroom, or somehow the wind changed, a great sadness would suddenly descend upon me and I was unable to move for a few moments, except for the movement of my insides, my pounding chest, my pounding head, my tears, my gasps, my anxiety. I don't feel like a 45-year-old man; I feel like that same boy in the eighth grade who cried in private and had no one to understand him or help him figure things out.

All of this is not C's fault. --Okay, is any of this his fault? We got a little too close to his edge; he got very scared; he ran. I understand that need sometimes.

But he said he wouldn't. Over and over again, I expressed my fears of being abandoned; again and again he said he would not do that. He said he was there for me. He said "I love you," he called me his "dear, dear beautiful friend"...

What do I do with all of this? Where do I put my sadness? C came strong into my life shortly after Timmy my cat died. And now for some reason, the sadness of Timmy is back. Day before yesterday I was drawn to his grave and just sobbed uncontrollably for 10 minutes. C was a nice substitute for the uncomplicated love I had for and from my cat. The love C and I shared was always complicated, but it was as deep as any love I have felt for a man, and special because it was not sex-based.

There were trust issues on C's part because of my sexuality. He seemed more sure and confident of my sexuality than even I am. He seems to have some stuckness around what that means, what it means to him, what it should mean to me. I've tried to work through these things, have tried to process all of my fears and anxiety through him. He said he was open to that, said "bring it on" in so many words. And so I did.

And then he pulled away. And now I feel abandoned. I've printed out our email and text correspondence - 43 pages of 10-point Arial typeface. I'm trying to figure it out. I wonder if one last therapy session with him would be possible or even a good idea?

changes

There's been a change in me. Two weeks ago last night, I had dinner with a friend (whom I'll call P1 'cause she loves it when I call her P1 for some odd reason!). On the way home, I lit up a cigarette and it didn't go down so well. The next day, my sore throat was worse. I had a cold. I got acupuncture and Chinese herbs and chased the cold from my throat to my head to my chest. Today is the first day since then that I haven't felt "sick." I also stopped drinking coffee and alcohol, and smoking pot for the most part (I took a hit once to inspire my writing and another right before S and I went in to see Carrie). And oddly, I stopped masturbating for the most part, just once a week and without looking at porn.

I finished writing chapter 10, which had been plaguing me for a while.

I ordered a new, longer yoga mat and will restart my Mysore practice again on Monday.

I started once-a-month therapy.

I became very close with an old neighbor and we have spent an inordinate amount of time together, talking, eating, crafting, meditating, crying. It's the very first relationship of its kind for both of us; he has never had a close friend who was gay and I have never had such a deep relationship with a straight man before. We are both healing a lot of old wounds. It's pretty incredible, and at times feels like being in love.

It is also scary for both of us in our own ways. We've talked about going to therapy together (since he recommended the therapist I started seeing).

This all came to me because I had dinner at P1's again last night.

(photo "Buddha Tears" by Blue Perez (c) 2007)

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.

no loitering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

spinning out of the din of the den

I'm somewhat of a late-comer to the political process. I blame it on my fucked up religious upbringing -- and why not?! Basically, I always saw politics as similar to religion in that someone was hollering about this is Right and that is Wrong, then somebody on the other side would holler, no, this is Right and that is Wrong. The difference in politics is that the two sides get together and holler at each other, and neither of them make much sense.

I'd always been a reluctant voter; my decisions were based mostly on what my Right Wing anti-everything (except Life and the Hereafter) family would vote for, and then vote the opposite. When I was 19, I refused to talk about politics with my outspoken boss because, I said, I didn't know enough to back up my thoughts. She said it was my duty to figure out what I stood for and spout it off whenever possible. My mom and grandmother were outspoken women, so that didn't really convince me of anything.

But now we have this current election. I believe this is the most important election of my lifetime, maybe of all times. It is certainly a history-maker no matter how it turns out (though I am completely serious when I say I will start looking for an alternative country to call home if the McCain camp wins). Fortunately, I have S on my side. He's a pretty smart guy, he's willing to explain the stuff that I don't get, two or three times if necessary until I understand it or decide it doesn't really matter.

I first got caught up in the election fever when I suggested to S that I would vote for Hillary in the primaries, way back when they first became candidates. S pointed out his thoughts on Clinton and Obama, so I started paying more attention and quickly came to realize that Obama was a candidate who has represented me more than any other candidate ever has. Mostly in the sense that, in S's words, "he brings compassion to politics." That's what I want, a president who is compassionate, who thinks about the majority.

I'll admit that my first concern about Obama getting elected was that he might get assassinated. It's a real fear. I'm sure his camp is aware of the possibility. There are definitely relatives of mine who categorically wouldn't vote for Obama because of his race. That's one reason why I would, to be honest; that was one reason I thought I'd vote for Hillary -- probably the biggest and maybe only reason in the beginning -- because she is a woman.

But then there came this Sarah Palin political embarrassment. The fact that she is from the same wacky religion that I grew up in cause me to become obsessed with the news coverage on her and all things Election '08. At this point, the frenzy has died down, thankfully, and my fears have mostly subsided about the possibility that she could get any nearer to the White House than she already is. I've made some campaign contributions to Obama, I've bought bumper stickers and T-shirts that I wear whenever possible. (Besides, if the unthinkable happens, Spain or Italy might be very nice choices for residency.)

Last night, a group of us met at M&J's for the first presidential debate. There were ten or twelve adults in all, and it was obvious very early into what I thought was a very important event, that the atmosphere in their den was more like one at a sporting event. People around me were very vocal, particularly when McCain was speaking, saying "You're a fucking idiot!" or "That's a lie!" so loud as to blot out any ability to comprehend what he was saying. While Obama spoke, the audience was a little more reverent but there were still outbursts of things like "Yeah!" or "Give it to that fucking idiot, Obama!"

S and P and I inched closer and closer to the TV. A couple of times, I made comments like "I'd like to hear what he has to say," and the adult-children tried to hold down their exuberance, but it was difficult for them; that's just the kind of people they are. Me, I'm admittedly slower to catch on to what all of the subtelties mean; I need time to think about what is being said, perhaps listen to the reporters spin it, read Andrew Sullivan's blog, or ask S or someone else for explanations, or just hear what they think.

As soon as the debate was over, there was that interaction, but I felt cornered. "What did you think?" and "Don't you think Obama should have done this?" I don't know. That's what I said. I don't know. It seemed the consensus was that Obama should have "slam dunked" McCain early in the debate, put him on the defensive, hit him with a left hook then carried the ball down the track for a home run...

But that's not the way I see Obama, and that seems to me to be why this presidential race is different. This isn't a blood sport to Obama. He comes off as level-headed, intelligent and prepared. And compassionate. That above all. He seems really compassionate. For the first time in my life last night I thought what an honor and a thrill it would be to meet the president, to meet someone like Barack Obama.

in the wind and rain

Hurricane Ike has finally brought a little relief from the humidity and high temperatures in Central Texas. It's early yet, we haven't seen any of the major storm activity here. In fact, out my window I see the sun shining and butterflies dancing around the flowering fruit tree in the neighbor's yard. There's a nice breeze through the house without all the fans on high, so there's relief. But you never know what the wind's gonna blow into town.

Yesterday, I got a call from my eldest sister, R, saying that she and her boyfriend and son and an undisclosed number of "dogs" were on the road having been evacuated from their home on the coast near where Galveston Bay meets the Houston Ship Channel. They had been on the road for hours already looking for a large town with hotel availability when B, the boyfriend, said, "Where does your brother live?" I was fine with having them pop in, but our apartment is small and I didn't think we could host (or even greet) all those people and all those dogs, so I called M and asked if I could meet them at their house.

As it turned out, M&J had J's sister K's ex-boyfriend T's Airstream in the driveway waiting for friends from down near Corpus Christi, but when Ike decided to head more northerly, they chose not to make the trip. J is a tinkerer and was proud that he had been able to get the a/c working in the Airstream, so I think he was quite happy to have people staying in it.

I went to H.E.B., got a case of beer and headed to M&J's to have one before my family arrived. Little P had a friend (whose name I missed) over, and then L&S -- M&J's friends they met because their daughters are in school together -- showed up with I (their daughter), who has been calling me "uncle jaybird" like Little P always has (which I love), and they had more beer, and so it turned out to be a regular old beer-drinking Friday night at M&J's.

The dogs numbered three, "all angels," R assured me on the phone, and they were fine. Bones, M&J's dog was ecstatic to have in specie guests, and didn't care that all three of the dogs had their hair raised and teeth bared for the first half hour, he just wanted to play! Eventually, the two younger dogs allowed Bones to kiss and sniff on them and even wagged their tails a little bit.

My sister was so grateful to have a place to be and turned in rather early; the rest of us sat in front of the big screen TV watching the silly CNN weathermen in their L.L. Bean jackets standing on the coast of Galveston Bay alternately over-dramatizing the wind and rain and "complaining" that the winds weren't really all that strong. I could only take a little bit of that and found myself in a jump roping competition with I and her mother (those girls are very competitive) which made my head throb, partly from the beer and partly from the weather.

M talked to her mother every couple of hours. Her mother kept saying, "I don't think we're gonna get any rain from this," and after several hours and several beers, M changed her tune to sound a little more like her mother's, which I chided her for.

My mother had called me earlier in the day to say she wasn't leaving her home, which is less than 10 miles from where my sister was mandatorily evacuated, and just 7.5 miles from the Houston Ship Channel. "After I sat on the highway for 12 hours that last time, I said, 'Never again!'" My stepdad took off the day before for the country house, but she is stubborn, by hers and everyone's admission.

B and D talked to her on the phone a couple of times last night and she was still there, still fine, though her 93-year-old father -- who was supposed to be picked up from his house closer to the bay and delivered to her house -- hadn't shown up yet. But he's pretty stubborn, too. (There is plenty of 8mm footage my grandfather and grandmother took from the Galveston Wall back in the day when they heard of a hurricane brewing and would drive to the water's edge to film it!)

I tried to call my mom at 7:30 this morning, but the telephone was out of order, not surprisingly. At 8:15, the radar showed a big red color-enhanced dot of wind and rain right over my mom's neighborhood. I guess we'll just have to see. I'm expecting to get a call any minute now from M or J, or even B to say they're up and ready for breakfast. I sure am. I don't know what the day holds. I certainly hope it won't require me to sit with family and friends while storms rage around us.

It's a little disheartening being around my nephew, who just recently returned from a Christian finishing school in California. But what bums me out the most is something that I struggled with growing up, and it is sad to see that it still exists in this family, and that is the idea that animals are disposable. They have three dogs, "angels all," though my sister and her boyfriend, D's guardians for now, have said that he can get a pit bull when he gets rid of one of the other dogs. So he's always trying to get somebody to take one of the dogs, while at the same times saying this one has Down's Syndrome or that one is worthless or whatever. I guess, in essence, they aren't cool enough for the image he obviously would like to project.

I can't say much more on this subject except to say that I know where this is coming from, and there is nothing I can do about it. I feel for the dogs, I feel for my sister's kids, I feel for my sister.

P.S. I wrote this entry for the most part before I met M&J and my family for breakfast, and now I'm back and it's 2:15 and we've gotten some breezes and have overcast skies, but still no rain. WTF?

P.P.S. My stepdad didn't actually leave my mother to fend for herself, I found out over lunch. Silly me, I called their land line and not her cell phone. Oh, well; reports are that they're fine except for a couple of leaks in the roof. They got rain, so where's ours?

the power of the prayer

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evil eye ball

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I woke up.

praise jesus' hellish name

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a roomful of fairies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a fag.

little news from bigtown

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

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

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

t.r.u.t.h.

(That's not an acronym, I just wanted to connect it to the previous entry.)

The kind of thing that I want to write about with regards to movies I see is what things they bring up for me, the conversations they ignite between me and whomever I see the with, which is why I like going to movies mostly with S; he and I understand each other, know each other better than anybody else knows us -- even better than ourselves in some instances.

L.I.E. brought up a conversation about pedophiles. S and I have had this conversation before. I don't know if it's because of our upbringings or what, but he seems to have a much healthier relationship to sex and sexuality than I do. He has a fairly active sex life, says he's not willing to give up that part of him, whereas I feel my sexual life waning, and I'm not even forty-five!

For me, I think a lot of it has to do with who I'm attracted to. I'm not generally attracted to men my age or older. Men my age, even men a couple of years younger than me, seem so much older than me, out of shape, over the hill, not sexy, and so I find myself not generally attracted to them. I have met a couple of men in their thirties whom I've been attracted to, but nothing has come of it. I also have met a few twenty-somethings whom I am very attracted to, and they seem attracted to me, but not necessarily in a sexual way (it seems), more in just a kind of I'm a cool older guy giving them a lot of attention and they like that, so they like me. I guess.

I wouldn't force myself on anyone. I struggle a lot with my attraction to younger men. But I don't think I could ever have a bona fide relationship with anyone younger than thirty, mostly because of societal views on it, I suppose. (An interesting aside: When I was twenty-three, I was in a relationship with a woman seventeen years older than me, so that's kind of my cut-off age; I guess because it wasn't looked on as so freakish by my family or by society at large.)

S thinks it's not so black-and-white. I agree with him, but I don't think I could deal with the responses of people, regardless of the situation. Sometimes I get the feeling that people are whispering "pedophile" when I'm just hanging out with a young guy. It must be some kind of fucked up Assembly of God religious guilt. Still, it's different for straight people, and I suppose I could work on changing my views (of myself, of It), but I don't think society's views will change.