bugs

My cordless keyboard for my PC died last night, just as I was gearing up to finish a transcript for work that appeared on the time sheet I turned in yesterday. What a bother! I haven't had the thing for six months, but of course I don't have the receipt or the box or any paperwork on it, and I'm not positive of where I got it, so I don't know if the store will take it back. Most likely I'll have to buy a new one. I was thinking about that last night; there are very few things that I buy new. Groceries, yeah; a blender; electronics. The last two are generally all made in China. And normally I would be up early (as I was today) and typing away on a transcript -- most of my best work is done early in the day -- but the electronics stores all seem to open at 10:00 a.m. That's two hours away. What'll I do? I watched some previews on imdb; there are some movies I wanna see (or see again), among them the new Hulk movie, The Ice Storm, The Anniversary Party, Eyes Wide Shut. I don't really know why I want to watch Eyes Wide Shut; I went to one of those links that appears on my gmail page that said "Tom Cruise - 25 Years" which is a site dedicated to all the power, all the glory, all the humor the handsome little Scientologist has brought us for the past 25 years. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise the person, not really that big of a fan of his movies, though I do love his ex, Nicole Kidman, in just about anything she's in, and it seemed to me that Eyes Wide Shut was under-represented in the movies of his career. Perhaps that because it's not a very good movie, or maybe it has something to do with their relationship. Whatever. It looks interesting enough to spend $1.50 on a rental. This was where my rabbit-holing on the internet got me last night after my keyboard died.

I had two very fine offers of other things to do last night, but no, I was gonna be a good boy and work. M and R, friends from the Dance, have been staying at A's house (she doesn't like the house being empty since J and his dog Dillon died, and M needed a place to stay, and then R showed up on the scene). A's niece, son and his girlfriend are in town as of yesterday, so M and R didn't have a place to crash (I don't guess -- I'm sure they would've found somewhere to go), so I offered to let them stay here since S is out of town. They were grateful. And they're cool, mellow young guys -- chill, as the kids might say. They came over yesterday evening and we sat around talking for a couple of hours; it was so laid back I didn't realize so much time was passing by. They kept talking about going to see some band play at Waterloo Ice House, then we'd get involved in a new subject. R had my keyboard out and was tickling the faux ivories; he's an amazing musician, having an undergrad degree in music and computer science. When Mr. Rogers came up in the conversation, he quickly switched what he was playing to play the "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" theme, to a tee. They asked if I wanted to go see the music with them, but I declined, seeing as I was going to work. They're also night owls, and I wasn't sure I wanted to get caught out with them around the time I wanted to be home in bed. (That was a good thought because they rolled in at 3:45 a.m.)

I sat on the front porch with a cigarette (before I started working) and listened to a message from P who was going to Shady Grove with friends to hear Guy Forsythe, whom I love; she invited me along, but I left a message back to her saying that I was in for the night, getting ready to work. Yawn... I didn't really want to go out anyway because I had been out late the night before, dancing for G's new "improv disco band," she's calling it Gretchen's Disco Plague (which S says it sounds a little too reminiscent of AIDS with "disco" and "plague" so close together). It was at the Chain Drive, the leather bar down by the creek that S goes to much more regularly than I do -- that's where he gets the good pot. It was a fun show, but I felt a little sick to my stomach afterwards, because I danced non-stop for an hour in a tight-fitting sequined twirler onesy, my very warm fuzzy orange pants and yellow rubber wig. I ended up taking off the wig early in the performance, and I took off the pants for the last song. I think I hold my breath a lot when I dance, that may have had something to do with the stomach ache. There was a cute gay boy talking to G's musical partner in this band -- a straight man -- but I needed to get home and get out of my clothes and take my contacts out; all the sweat in my eyes was bothering me.

Oh, and I've got critter issues! For the last couple of days I've been pulling caterpillars off of the dutchman's pipe vine that covers the trellis in front of the porch (or used to); dozens and dozens of the beautiful burgundy- to lemon-colored critters. I've been throwing them in the wild side of the yard (the organized weeds), but I don't know if they're surviving over there; there isn't a lot of viney type stuff in that side of the yard, but I want them a little farther away from the garden than they currently are. I have no intention of killing them; if they finish off what they're working on and make their way into the garden, so be it; I just can't imagine killing them because they're eating my food...

There are wasps all about as well. The most menacing nest is two feet from the front door, which I often have propped open a few inches to let the cat in and out. Last summer I was good about knocking the nests down with a long pole. Somebody at the Dance told me about that; it doesn't kill them (probably pisses them off, if that's really an emotion wasps experience); they usually come back to the same spot and try to rebuild, but if you knock the nest down enough times, they go elsewhere. There were two nests over S's door, which I've ignored as well (out of sight, out of mind). M asked last night if they could use the back door so they wouldn't bother me, and when I told him about the nests and my intention, he got the pole and knocked the bigger of the two down; a flurry of wasps danced around the back screen door while R and I watched M disappear into the darkness toward the front of the house.

The problem with the nest on the front porch is that it is on the blade of a (non-working) fan, inside the grille, so the pole can't get to the nest to knock it down. I could take a waterhose to it (another effective method), but the neighbors have all kinds of furniture and paperwork, and now parts of a computer on their side of the front porch, which would be hard to avoid with the spray. I would just let the wasps be except that a couple of nights ago three wasps made their way into the house; they were just hanging out on the wall and ceiling and computer. They're mellow critters; I was able to take a plastic juice jar and put the opening -- which was barely bigger than them -- over them, walk it down a little to annoy them into flying into the bigger space, cover the opening, and take them outside, one at a time. The catch-and-release program. My mother would make fun of me, to be sure. Whatever.

Speaking of my mom, she was supposed to be visiting this weekend, but her aunt died yesterday so she had to postpone the trip. I was looking forward to the visit, but also am quite okay that she's not coming. We do just fine long-distance. She was only going to be here for two days, and she would be here alone, so it probably would have been fine -- fun even -- but little things get under my skin sometimes, like perhaps her insistence that I kill the wasps around the house or coat the vines and garden in pesticides to repel caterpillars, or not liking this restaurant or that that I decided to take her to.

S is in Indiana with his family right now. I think it's a total of three months, which he's mostly enjoying (though there are naturally some annoyances that I've heard about). Three months! I spent six weeks living with my mom before I moved to Austin, and my meditation practice really took off during that time!

An hour to go before I can go to the store and replace my keyboard. In looking for pictures of the caterpillars I've been tossing into the weed side of the yard, I came across a site that sounds like it's saying they're not so bad, that they only eat dutchmen's pipes, often down to the ground, but the plants survive because of their strong root systems. I'm not sure I would be around to see them replenish themselves (since we're planning a move to M&J's side of town when our container housing is built), but I will likely see the pipevine swallowtail butterflies that come from these caterpillars later this summer. And what beautiful bugs they are!

orange crush

Here's what I can do to avoid working on chapter sixteen: I can blog.

I'm afraid this is gonna be all over the place. I've been trying to encapsulate last night in my brain since I was in the middle of it, and I feel incapable. Molly Venter (pictured) performed a CD release party last night at a tiny little yoga studio on Kerbey Lane. I got a call earlier in the day to see if I could round up some extra chairs. I called on A, who loves to throw parties and has that kind of stuff, and got eight from her.

When I arrived at 7:30, a handsome blond man was loading chairs into the room from a little shed in the yard. He spotted my penny-dotted truck and said he had to have a closer look. He had a German accent and a gentle way about him. His name is R. He said the truck looked like a "belt animal." He couldn't think of the word in English: in German, it's Gürteltier. Come to find out, he was talking about an armadillo. I said, "You have armadillos in Germany?" He said, "No, but we have a word for everything."

He is a friend of the owner of the studio and appointed himself door-watcher, trying to keep the door closed as much as possible to keep the air conditioning in. Since I already had a crush on him, I appointed myself as his assistant. It was fun greeting people, and R and I were making each other laugh a lot.

Early on, he said something about liking big boobs, so I realized that he was not my type (or maybe I should say I'm not his type, seeing as how I don't have boobs at all). That was okay; I called it a "Flash Crush," and made mention of a boyfriend I had in a story I was telling him. So we knew the score and things went on from there.

The little yoga room filled up and the owner told money-taker arm band seller L that we could only hold X amount in the room (I think it was around 70), and when she sold all the arm bands, L told us to put a sign on the door saying the show was SOLD OUT. R jumped on this, made a sign out of a business card, stuck it on the door and locked us inside. But there were still people driving up, and a half dozen people or so wanting to get in.

A couple of songs into the show, people were knocking on the door to the rhythm of M's songs. It was weird. And then they went to a side door -- a couple got in that way, but then I think the owner locked that door. Then the people outside the door R and I were "guarding" opened the window right next to it. I raised the blinds so they could see in. R got agitated by this for awhile. "The air conditioning!" I told him I couldn't close the window on the people because they were mostly my friends out there (and M's friends, too), including A who had loaned us her chairs! Eventually we let four or five more people in, and others were happily gathered around the window.

During the break, R and I followed J out to his car and got high, really high, it was strong shit! I didn't think about the fact that I normally wouldn't get high in a situation like that, probably because I was following my crush out to the car -- even though I already knew he was straight.

When we came back for the second half of the show, I had a couple of emotional and creative breakthroughs, as simple as thinking I wanted to write something inspired by M's songs the way P.T. Anderson was by Aimee Mann for Magnolia. And then I had this idea to get S to write a song inspired by each chapter of my book and have M perform/record it. That would be nice.

But I was having other, much deeper, hard to explain things going on. I was really high and was coming down from the current useless crush and M was singing "Playing For Keeps," and the lyrics were connecting to what I was going through in a very real and bittersweet way. The next song was "Hello Fear," and I don't know if it was during that song or the next one that I noticed that E was singing, or trying to sing along with every word. And I had a sudden realization about E.

I haven't mentioned E yet. I met E awhile back at the Dance. He was one of my earlier useless crushes. We hung out once, I gave him a ride somewhere where a bunch of other Dancers were meeting; his shirt was sweaty from having been dancing and I happened to have one in the truck that he could wear. I dropped by his house unannounced once and it wasn't bad or anything, just a little awkward, I guess. I was going to Dance and dropped by to see if he wanted a ride. I knew he was straight; it wasn't about that. It was really about needing a friend at the time. But it kind of played out, I don't know why, and we stopped hanging out; maybe he didn't like my vibe or something.

Shortly after that was the soup party that S and I threw (a year ago about). I remember E being there and being very animated for a group of people who were piled up on my bed. I didn't think much of it at the time (perhaps because I was recovering from that crush or something). But last night at M's show, hearing E singing along, I suddenly realized that hE and I are very much alike, a little awkward sometimes but also inventive and creative and animated.

What's interesting about E has to do with D, who is a friend of L -- the woman who introduced me to the Dance. The first time D came to Dance, I kind of latched onto him. He was sweet, we had nice conversation. This was back when everybody used to go to LR's house on Friday nights after Dance. I encouraged D to go and once there sat at his knee and fawned over him. He didn't seem particularly put off. I mentioned to L after that -- after I found out that he was her friend -- that he was cute. Her response: "Hm, I don't know if he swings." Which still strikes me as a weird response. Maybe she's more in tune with my energy than I care to admit, but, really, I wasn't asking her to set us up or anything.

After that exchange, the next time I saw D (and I'm not saying the two are connected), he avoided looking at me. I wasn't imagining it; it was very obvious and very weird. That was months ago, and still to this day he hasn't looked me in the eye.

Some time after that, I saw D and E dancing together. And they arrived at M's show together last night. (For the uninitiated, straight men regularly dance together at the Dance; in fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only regular Dancer who is a gay man.) I hugged E by default; it seemed right, I didn't know what else to do. No biggie. D avoided looking at me; whatever. They've found in each other what I wanted with each of them...well, maybe slightly less, but it's what they wanted with me, perhaps. Or maybe D is afraid of his attraction to me; I seriously think that straight men are drawn to me, "attracted" to me, but most of them probably know where their affections lie and so it doesn't end up being a problem for them (usually just for me), but sometimes it makes men uncomfortable.

When E passed me on the stairs last night, he squeezed my shoulder, which I thought was a sweet gesture.

After M's concert, R followed a group of us to Kerbey Lane Cafe and it was lots of fun, lots of laughs, and good strawberry pancakes.

brud to the blain

I'm having a watermelon smoothie. I'm trying to use up the leftovers from the potluck I had a couple of nights ago. Earlier today I made myself an arugula, black olive, feta omelet with white wine (I put the wine in the omelet, I didn't have a glass on the side!). The eggs and the feta were the only ingredients that weren't leftovers from the party.

My friend M is going on a four-month performing road trip (her myspace page) and I suggested a going-away party. She said that two of her girlfriend's birthdays were on the same night, so it became a bigger party than that. It wasn't out of control, though someone showed up with a standard sized poodle and freaked out my cat (or maybe it was just me!)

I made a salade niçoise from my favorite and most used cookbook (Nikki & David Goldbeck's American Wholefoods Cuisine), and I made my Aunt Melba's Dream Chocolate Cake with black onyx dutch process cocoa S and I get from a little spice shop in Denver, Colorado (we order it); it made the cake and icing so black that I wanted to put yellow stripes down the middle of it (longways) to make it look like a piece of highway; I mentioned this to P when she called to ask if I needed anything for the party; I told her birthday candles. She brought candles and a can of yellow icing! It looked cool. She also brought a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate finding out that she had gotten a full-time job that day. She came a little early, and so did A (who also brought a celebratory bottle of pink Prosecco -- or maybe it was P who brought the pink; anyway there was a bottle of white and a bottle of pink) and the three of us had a toast and a nice quite conversation until guests started arriving.

B came late and stayed late-late. He and I were sitting on the front porch drinking beer and talking until 3 a.m. It was nice (it was nice to have started and ended the party in the same way, having a nice conversation with friends). B is one of those guys from the Dance Group I attend on whom I once upon a time had a crush. (Okay, maybe I still do.) He knows this. He's straight, as are the majority of the men who go to the Dance, though they seem to be mostly in touch with their feminine sides -- which is sometimes confusing for a homo like me.

B and I found out we have a similarity in our lives: religion. He was raised Jehovah's Witness; I was raised Assembly of God. We both got out of it at about the same age (though he's nineteen years younger than me), but for some reason he seemed to fare better in the aftermath. Not that I'm totally fucked up, but I think I'm a lot more neurotic. Probably the homo-factor.

The conversation came around to that, to my fears about peoples' perceptions of me, about being judged for being gay and therefore not wanting to let too much of myself out. B encouraged me to be who I am (which sounds cliché, and those weren't the words he used), said that being my more authentic self would allow me to have deeper relationships with others, not just in Dance, but in the world in general. I know that's true. I asked him if he ever saw a woman across the dance floor and had a sexual thought about her. He said yes. I was glad to hear that because it seemed to give me permission of some sort. I told him that I have to hold myself back, though, because I have the urge to go sit in somebody's lap or kiss them... He said, "How funny would it be to go up to somebody and say, 'I wanna sit in your lap!" I guess it's the kind of group that could handle that sort of a thing. But I'm a'scared. I've got this self-defeating thing about not wanting push myself, my style onto people, holding back, not wanting to be a big fairy, not wanting to be a faggot, not wanting to be the labels I was given back in the painful days of my youth...the scars are deep.

Last night, I went to Dance because B was facilitating for the first time (the warm-up, another person facilitated the bulk of the night). I had a great dance. It was wild and I felt really connected to myself, to my past. I felt wide open. At closing circle, inspired by what B and I had talked about the night before, I said: "Some of you may wonder why I'm such a great dancer." (giggles) "Well, from the eighth grade to the 12th grade, I was ostracized by my schoolmates; I was having a hard time coming to terms with the religion I was being raised in; I was having a hard time dealing with my sexuality, with being different from everybody else. But when I went to school dances, I shone." It felt good to say that, and when I thanked B for allowing me to be neurotic and always being encouraging, he said he was happy to hear me speaking. He asked how it was for me. I admitted when I got to the part about SEXUALITY my throat started closing up and my heart was racing. Interesting to notice.

I've got to get ready to go to yoga now. I'm still not sure -- and am very intrigued -- by my very handsome and sexy (and presumably straight) yoga teacher. I get a strong sense that he is flirting with me. I don't know if he knows that I'm gay, but I am very titillated by the things he does for me and to me, holding me, touching me, placing his front on my back when I'm bent over, tapping on my thighs... We're in the middle of a room of women, so it's not like he's making the moves on me, he does these same things with them, but there's something going on, there's an energy; I don't think it's just me. Thump-thump, thump-thump; man, I love yoga! And I love crushes, especially reciprocal ones!

the rogge studios drawings

the throne awaits

I have this new obsession of late: drawing, particularly drawing bathrooms, specifically one bathroom. My bathroom. Well, more of a toilet room than a bathroom, because there's no water involved. M&J have three acres of land and have offered to build S and me living quarters. It will generate some income for them while being cheaper rent for us, which are both good things. But what's really exciting about this venture is that it's going to be very green. They're going to purchase two 20-foot containers, or get one 40-footer and cut it in half. S and I will each have our own container as a bedroom/office, with great big doors opening to the outside on one end, most likely overlooking our vegetable garden and Northeast Austin (the property is on top of a hill). We'll also have a regular door on the inside so we won't keep the big doors open all the time, just for parties or when the weather's really nice.

The two containers will be positioned about 20 feet apart from each other, and the space between will be enclosed; this will be our common space. On the front end, we'll mostly likely have a Modrian-type wall of salvaged metal and colored Plexiglas that J can get from his work as a set builder for movies. I was over at their house yesterday and we took a drive through the bone yard to look at the particular stuff that's soon to be thrown out from a past movie project. I'm also hoping that my beloved penny-covered GMC Suburban hood will be incorporated into the front wall.

The back wall of the common space will possibly be Modrian as well, or if we get lucky, will have a sliced in half Airstream trailer incorporated into it. M&J have a couple of Airstreams on their property; one is brand new, beautiful, owned by J's sister's boyfriend; the other is falling apart, old, left with them by a friend who now lives in the Northeast. They're gonna ask if we can have it. That back wall will have the sink and washing machine (under a liftable countertop), next to the shower room (which is opposite the toilet), as well as the cabinets, stove and refrigerator.

At first, when I was drawing my vision of the space, I got my calculations wrong and thought S and I would each have 10 feet of living space (by 8 feet wide by 9.5 feet tall), and at that point I was thinking it would be really cool to build a cob toilet and shower attached to the back of the living quarters. (Cob is basically mud fortified with straw.) But when I realized that we would each have 20 feet of living space -- which seems like too much to me -- I reconfigured the drawings and incorporated the toilet and shower into the back 5 feet of each of the containers, which leaves a 3x5 storage closet for each of us, as well as 15 feet of living/working space.

All along, we've been talking about using composting toilets. M&J have friends in Panama who have a composting toilet system, and S and I have always been interested in that as well. (I should say that I have been interested in it for a long time, and I think S has been as well; I know that he's into it now.) So, I have been reading a very insightful book called The Humanure Handbook. The more I read, the more I redraw the toilet, not because it gets more complicated but because it gets more simple. The people in Panama have a composting toilet system that they bought from a manufacturer (I think). But the Handbook gives instructions on how to make them out of 5-gallon buckets.

Of course, I don't expect everyone to be excited about this. Last night, I went to dinner with my oldest friend in the world (in fact, my girlfriend from seventh grade); she is in town from Dallas to go to the X concert here tonight; she's been friends with Exene Cervenka and John Doe and all of them for years. Anyway, she asked what I was up to, and I very excitedly told her about my composting toilet plans. She said, "You're kidding." When I told her I definitely was not, she said, "Well, I won't be eating at your house!" Joseph Jenkins, the author of The Humanure Handbook warned me about this reaction, and told me that many people are fecophobes. I imagine I'll get a similar reaction from my mother, but whatever.

In my latest drawing, there is a seat with a storage area next to it. There is a 5-gallon bucket attached to a hole under the seat and an extra 5-gallon bucket under that side. The other half of the room has a storage area that's about 6 inches higher than the sitting side. A 5-gallon bucket full of sawdust (or rice hulls, etc.) fits into a hole -- that's what you cover up the poo with instead of drinking water -- and underneath there is space for an extra bucket of sawdust, an extra empty bucket, extra toilet paper, and even a full bucket (with a lid, of course), in the back. There will hopefully be an outside access door from which the full buckets can be retrieved and carried to the compost pile not far away.

J thinks that it'll only take about three months to get the structure livable. We might have to rough it a little bit in terms of the common space, but I think we're okay with that (it's according to how "rough" it's gonna be!). Eventually, we'll have a deck and garden (possibly hydroponic) on the rooftop, both of which will cut down on heat. We're also looking into wind power and solar. I'll post another blog with the recent drawings of "The Rogge Studios," as they're called (because they're on Rogge Lane), but not of the composting toilet drawings because I'm still working on those.