sincerely, me

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

The subject lines:

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

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

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

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

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

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

thursday, october 21st (2004)

9:37 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wednesday, october 20th (2004)

11:55 pm

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

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

tuesday, october 12th (2004)

10:36 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

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

coke adds life or something other than that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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