"Nevertheless, the death who now rises from her chair is an empress. She shouldn't be living in this freezing subterranean room, as if she had been buried alive, but on top of the highest mountain presiding over the fates of the world, gazing benevolently down on the human herd, watching them as they rush hither and thither, unaware that they're heading in the same direction, that one step forward will take them just as close to death as one step back, that it makes no difference because everything will have but one ending, the ending that a part of yourself will aways have to think about and which is the black stain on your hopeless humanity."
-Death With Interruptions, 183
I finished this beautiful Jose Saramago novel yesterday. It's the first book that I have finished in months. One of my many new year's resolutions is to get back into the habit of reading fiction. It really is necessary. What good fiction can do is insane. It reacquaints a person with the beauty and mysteries of what it is to be human, what it is to be alive, and what it that we are really doing with our short time here on this planet. It both grounds and elevates a person, tying them into what it is to inhabit this planet, bringing forth questions that are otherwise easy to silence with time wasted on social media, time spent thinking about your job, or time playing games on your cellphone as you move about your day. Fiction successfully does this in a way that no other art forms really are capable of, at least for me.
Other resolutions:
-to become more muscular, more fit, to have better posture - all tied together
-to smoke tobacco less, if at all
-to spend way, way less time seeking out sexual stimulation or satisfaction through online methods (porn, Scruff, etc.) - it's all a distraction
-to get employed by an ad agency in a full-time gig with benefits
-tied to the above resolution, is the resolution to get health care and get on PrEP
-to be both more confident and more vulnerable
Thinking back over this past year, I am proud of myself and what I have accomplished. I took a big leap by finally leaving a comfortable job in hospitality that paid decently and had benefits to intern as a copywriter for way less pay and no benefits. And I am so fucking happy I did. I only wish I would have been brave enough to attempt it earlier. You have to go after what you want.
I moved apartments. I left a shitty one bedroom apartment that I liked a lot out in Bushwick because the landlord wanted the apartment to sell for more. I moved in with my friend, Diego, into a much nicer apartment in Williamsburg. I was scared and upset when I was told I needed to move out of my apartment, felt like I was regressing by having to again have a roommate after living by myself, but sometimes things work out for the best. My living situation now is much nicer than my one then and I am really glad circumstances conspired to bring about my current situation.
I ate a lot of burritos.
I'm not sure I had any real romances. A lot of attempts at them, a lot of failed attempts. The words of Aaliyah continually inspire me: "Dust yourself off and try again."I am pretty happy alone right now and couldn't even imagine what a romance might look like, how it would fit into my life in which I barely have time for myself, let alone another person. And as you can see, my 2015 resolutions have nothing to do with romance, with anyone else. For what might be the first time in my life, I can say that I really am more concerned about my own life, my own career, and things that I want to accomplish for myself, so much so that I'm not even thinking about a boyfriend. And, yes, I am sure you, if you know me well, are probably rolling your eyes, maybe even pointing to diary entries I have written this past year, saying What about X, or What about Y? And you know what? Eat shit. Because there are the occasional crushes, yes, but really I just want to be the best I can be right now, and that doesn't involve any sort of romantic fulfillment at this point.
I want to get better at writing comedy. I want to get better at writing everything.
While I was at my mom's house over Christmas, we went to the movie theater to watch Wild on Christmas Day after opening presents. I have been thinking about the movie since. It's one of the better movies I have seen in a very long time and really hit close to home for me, this story of a woman who has spent a large part of her twenties sowing wild oats recklessly, doing what some might call wasting time, and who decides to try to get it together, to move on. And the way she does this is by hiking the PCT, which clearly is where our stories diverge. But the broader contours are what I identify with. There's this scene in the movie, a flashback scene in which Reese Witherspoon's character is talking to her mom, played by the always amazing Laura Dern. Witherspoon's character asks her mom something along the lines of, "How can you be happy? Don't you regret that you married Dad, an abusive alcoholic?" And Laura Dern's character replies something along the lines of, "No, I don't regret any of it. I don't regret marrying an abusive alcoholic. Because I got you out of it. If I hadn't have married him, I would never have had you." A stream of tears were falling down my face during this scene because I remember a near identical conversation with my mom once when visiting home on a break from college, my mom at this point divorced from my dad, and having suffered through numerous traumas brought on by being married to a person with an appetite for drugs and destruction. Discussing my dad and how she was really happy to be free of him, she told that is was worth it though because she got me and my sister out of it, that it had its purpose.
And everything has its purpose. 2014, you were great. All you previous years, equally amazing, all for some purpose, every moment, even the terrible ones, teaching me something, making me this current person I am. 2015, I welcome you and whatever it is you may bring. Let's dance!
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Charles Mingus - "Mood Indigo"
New York - a city like no other. Yes indeed. I was thinking this to myself yesterday afternoon riding a train back to New York after a couple days in suburban Delaware. The skyline of this city was starting to come into view, home was.
This thought - that New York is a city like no other, that that's why I live here - was soon followed by an opposing thought. New York - a city like any other.
I have lived here for eleven plus years now, have taken that train into the city up through the Meadowlands of New Jersey so many times now. When I first started to do so, the thought that would come in to my head would be: NEW YORK FUCKING CITY! And I would bop up and down either literarily or metaphorically, so excited about this place and the potential it held, the potential I saw for myself in this city, for what I could be. My excitement about New York was a proxy for my excitement about my own life and everything that it might hold, everything that might come of it, here, in this place.
At some point, that giddiness shifted into something else. The city has become my home and so the feeling of approaching it now is more of relief, of that soon I will be back home, and then I think about all the things I need to get done in that approaching skyline. New York is a city just like any other in that it is a place where people go about their daily lives, struggling with bills, frustrated with their jobs, and trying and failing at romance. This is the story of every city, and in that way New York is no different. I thought about the little money in my bank account, about how I need to actually get hired in the new year, about my approach to hitting on men I'm attracted to, how it's clearly not working, how that needs to change. There were many other shortcomings I found in my life on the train ride in. For a moment, looking at the city from a distance, I was able to see my own life in that city from a distance, was able to clearly evaluate where I am and to assess how far the gap is between where I am and where I would like to be.
In a couple days, it will somehow be a new year.
Last night, back in this town, I hung out with some friends at their apartment and had drinks and talked about goals for the new year. I then went out to various gay bars and danced. I ate a burrito at the end of the night and rode home in a taxi with Diego talking about the past, the future a night's sleep away.
The dreams I had last night I don't remember. I woke up with other dreams in mind, bigger dreams, and they are going to come true. I am going about trying to become the person I want to be and there are stumbles along the way, certainly, but it's part of the process. NEW YORK FUCKING CITY!
This thought - that New York is a city like no other, that that's why I live here - was soon followed by an opposing thought. New York - a city like any other.
I have lived here for eleven plus years now, have taken that train into the city up through the Meadowlands of New Jersey so many times now. When I first started to do so, the thought that would come in to my head would be: NEW YORK FUCKING CITY! And I would bop up and down either literarily or metaphorically, so excited about this place and the potential it held, the potential I saw for myself in this city, for what I could be. My excitement about New York was a proxy for my excitement about my own life and everything that it might hold, everything that might come of it, here, in this place.
At some point, that giddiness shifted into something else. The city has become my home and so the feeling of approaching it now is more of relief, of that soon I will be back home, and then I think about all the things I need to get done in that approaching skyline. New York is a city just like any other in that it is a place where people go about their daily lives, struggling with bills, frustrated with their jobs, and trying and failing at romance. This is the story of every city, and in that way New York is no different. I thought about the little money in my bank account, about how I need to actually get hired in the new year, about my approach to hitting on men I'm attracted to, how it's clearly not working, how that needs to change. There were many other shortcomings I found in my life on the train ride in. For a moment, looking at the city from a distance, I was able to see my own life in that city from a distance, was able to clearly evaluate where I am and to assess how far the gap is between where I am and where I would like to be.
In a couple days, it will somehow be a new year.
Last night, back in this town, I hung out with some friends at their apartment and had drinks and talked about goals for the new year. I then went out to various gay bars and danced. I ate a burrito at the end of the night and rode home in a taxi with Diego talking about the past, the future a night's sleep away.
The dreams I had last night I don't remember. I woke up with other dreams in mind, bigger dreams, and they are going to come true. I am going about trying to become the person I want to be and there are stumbles along the way, certainly, but it's part of the process. NEW YORK FUCKING CITY!
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Cake - "The Distance"
I learned more about what time is this past week. It’s been said before, many times actually, but it takes personal experience for those aphorisms to actually resonate, but the saying, “You can never home again,” is as true as true can be.
Jacob, my ex, who now lives in London, was in town for about a week and it was really nice to see him. It also made me sad, made me clingy, made me ponder certain things, like distance, time, and these other factors that constitute life and its trajectory. Physical distance isn’t as easy to collapse as a transatlantic flight. This person here in my bed can still be elsewhere. He’s not the person that I used to share a bed with. I am not that person either. That place, though Brooklyn also, no longer exists.
He talked about how much he loved London. He looked at his iPad a lot. I kissed him on the neck one night sleeping next to him. He pulled away.
He is my past and it was nice to see him in my present, especially since I haven’t seen him in a long while. It allowed me to match things up, to try to, to fail to be able to, and to realize more distinctly what it is that constitutes my present, what it is I want from it, and what I might want in a future.
New York changes and doesn’t. We ate Mexican food from Haab and watched comedies on Netflix. We went to Metropolitan and had drinks. I was comfortable around him doing not much of anything, which was nice. He flew back to his home, London, last night. I kissed him goodbye and closed the door behind him and said something I couldn’t say him to the door. I stayed in my home, my love, my steady, New York.
Jacob, my ex, who now lives in London, was in town for about a week and it was really nice to see him. It also made me sad, made me clingy, made me ponder certain things, like distance, time, and these other factors that constitute life and its trajectory. Physical distance isn’t as easy to collapse as a transatlantic flight. This person here in my bed can still be elsewhere. He’s not the person that I used to share a bed with. I am not that person either. That place, though Brooklyn also, no longer exists.
He talked about how much he loved London. He looked at his iPad a lot. I kissed him on the neck one night sleeping next to him. He pulled away.
He is my past and it was nice to see him in my present, especially since I haven’t seen him in a long while. It allowed me to match things up, to try to, to fail to be able to, and to realize more distinctly what it is that constitutes my present, what it is I want from it, and what I might want in a future.
New York changes and doesn’t. We ate Mexican food from Haab and watched comedies on Netflix. We went to Metropolitan and had drinks. I was comfortable around him doing not much of anything, which was nice. He flew back to his home, London, last night. I kissed him goodbye and closed the door behind him and said something I couldn’t say him to the door. I stayed in my home, my love, my steady, New York.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Blonde
I had a dream last night that I was blonde.
Only today, here at work, hungover from the company party last night, and listening to the same music that I was listening to yesterday do I understand where this dream came from. I am listening to Ssion and the song "Blonde" just played, lyrics clearly the source of my dream last night:
"Last night, I woke up dreaming that I was blonde."
I danced a lot, consumed a lot of whiskey, and confessed to a couple co-workers all the people I have crushes on. Thankfully, I did not tell this to these crushes. Yes to starting exercise some modicum of self-control in my thirties! Progress, people. Progress.
It snowed yesterday throughout the day, light flurries, making the city look pretty from the warmth of an office view, looking out. Less pretty when you are out in it. This is some broader analogy here about looks, about them being deceiving, and about things capable of being ugly and pretty, good and bad.
"I just want to get blonde with you."
Only today, here at work, hungover from the company party last night, and listening to the same music that I was listening to yesterday do I understand where this dream came from. I am listening to Ssion and the song "Blonde" just played, lyrics clearly the source of my dream last night:
"Last night, I woke up dreaming that I was blonde."
I danced a lot, consumed a lot of whiskey, and confessed to a couple co-workers all the people I have crushes on. Thankfully, I did not tell this to these crushes. Yes to starting exercise some modicum of self-control in my thirties! Progress, people. Progress.
It snowed yesterday throughout the day, light flurries, making the city look pretty from the warmth of an office view, looking out. Less pretty when you are out in it. This is some broader analogy here about looks, about them being deceiving, and about things capable of being ugly and pretty, good and bad.
"I just want to get blonde with you."
Sunday, November 30, 2014
constant glances toward the door
Prince is playing on my stereo, but then again, when he is not playing on my stereo?
I went to my mom's house in Delaware for Thanksgiving. It was a crowded house full of relatives I hadn't seen in forever. Lots of Trivial Pursuit was played. Some Scrabble. I smoked a lot of cigarettes with my aunts and uncles as they hid their smoking habits from their kids, smoking in the backyard with constant glances toward the door.
I want to write a novel called "Constant Glances Toward the Door." I have no idea what it would be about. I just like the title. A short story is probably a more realistic goal. Even that, like most ideas, will probably be unrealized.
I was horny while at my mom's house, probably because there was nothing I could do about it in such a crowded house, probably because I was thrown back mentally into what it was like to be a horny teenager being in my parent's house and wanting to jerk off all the time and having nowhere to do so as I was given the couch in this full house.
At the Wilmington Amtrak station on my way home, I used the bathroom before boarding which seemed vaguely cruisey. There were a lot of homeless seeming dudes and someone in the stall next to me standing in an awkward position, feet to the side, that made me think he was jerking off. I wanted to reach under the stall and tug every dick this world had on offer. Instead, terrified that this was some entrapment thing, that I would be arrested while my sister was in the waiting room of the train station, and it would be a fairly unpleasant scene, taken out in handcuffs, my family having to come rescue me, imagining all this, I instead buttoned my pants and boarded the train eventually. Once on the train, I went into the bathroom and finally jerked off like I had been wanting to all weekend, unable to wait until I made it back to my apartment in Brooklyn.
Last night, I drank a lot of whiskey, did some drugs, and travelled around town, starting off at a Morrissey party which was a little boring. We then headed to Metropolitan. I told someone that they were a douchebag that I think is a douchebag and it felt really good. Sometimes it feels so fucking good to say how you feel, that it's similar to cumming, shooting this load finally that you have had pent up, letting it go. Orgasmic release.
I hung out at a friend's house after the bar closed. There was a blind dog.
I walked home with the same friend that I had sex with last weekend and again had sex with him last night. On the way to my house, I vaguely remembered him saying, "Are we going to talk about this?" We didn't. He was gone by the time I woke up this morning, hungover, head aching.
Another weekend.
I went to my mom's house in Delaware for Thanksgiving. It was a crowded house full of relatives I hadn't seen in forever. Lots of Trivial Pursuit was played. Some Scrabble. I smoked a lot of cigarettes with my aunts and uncles as they hid their smoking habits from their kids, smoking in the backyard with constant glances toward the door.
I want to write a novel called "Constant Glances Toward the Door." I have no idea what it would be about. I just like the title. A short story is probably a more realistic goal. Even that, like most ideas, will probably be unrealized.
I was horny while at my mom's house, probably because there was nothing I could do about it in such a crowded house, probably because I was thrown back mentally into what it was like to be a horny teenager being in my parent's house and wanting to jerk off all the time and having nowhere to do so as I was given the couch in this full house.
At the Wilmington Amtrak station on my way home, I used the bathroom before boarding which seemed vaguely cruisey. There were a lot of homeless seeming dudes and someone in the stall next to me standing in an awkward position, feet to the side, that made me think he was jerking off. I wanted to reach under the stall and tug every dick this world had on offer. Instead, terrified that this was some entrapment thing, that I would be arrested while my sister was in the waiting room of the train station, and it would be a fairly unpleasant scene, taken out in handcuffs, my family having to come rescue me, imagining all this, I instead buttoned my pants and boarded the train eventually. Once on the train, I went into the bathroom and finally jerked off like I had been wanting to all weekend, unable to wait until I made it back to my apartment in Brooklyn.
Last night, I drank a lot of whiskey, did some drugs, and travelled around town, starting off at a Morrissey party which was a little boring. We then headed to Metropolitan. I told someone that they were a douchebag that I think is a douchebag and it felt really good. Sometimes it feels so fucking good to say how you feel, that it's similar to cumming, shooting this load finally that you have had pent up, letting it go. Orgasmic release.
I hung out at a friend's house after the bar closed. There was a blind dog.
I walked home with the same friend that I had sex with last weekend and again had sex with him last night. On the way to my house, I vaguely remembered him saying, "Are we going to talk about this?" We didn't. He was gone by the time I woke up this morning, hungover, head aching.
Another weekend.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Prince - "Forever in My Life"
I am packing a bag of clothes to board a train tomorrow. I'm going to go see my family for Thanksgiving.
I am listening to Prince. I am a little stoned. There is a glass of red wine by my side.
I told Diego today that I was talking to a boy, a boy that I like, that I have tried again and again to make something happen with. And he, Diego, made the analogy, a wise one, about "Party at Our Place."
I used to have this t-shirt, bright blue, that said, "Party at Our Place," which I have come to assume is some Chuck E. Cheese-like children's birthday party venue. I used to wear this t-shirt all the time. Over and over again. It was comfortable but I also felt cute in it. I really liked the shirt, the fit, the feel, the mood, the color - everything about it. At some point, Jacob made some comment about how unsurprising it was that I was yet again wearing this "Party at Our Place" shirt. Diego was there at the time and seconded this comment and both of them told me I was never allowed to wear the shirt again, that they were sick of seeing it.
This t-shirt, my attachment to that, is the same as whatever is going on with this boy. Diego said they were one and the same. I am not sure the analogy is apt but it sounds like it could be and definitely gave me pause. Either way, I think he's sick of hearing about this person. I kind of am too. But I see his Facebook picture every now and then in my feed and I get all sixteen old high school student seeing that cute boy in the hall and all nervous and shit and holding their books tight to their chest as they swoon and think about fainting, and I think that I want to kiss this person, this cute fucking person.
I'm going to try to hang out with him this weekend once I return from time with my family.
I may have scabies, which I think I got from sleeping with people at the MIX Festival - I have been itchy ever since. And in another physical irritation brought about sex, my pelvic area is really sore from having wasted sex with one of my friends this weekend. I'm hoping it's just soreness, but then there is another part of me that spent a large part of the day Googling hernia symptoms.
Prince is playing. I don't have health insurance. I just scratch myself and get stoned. And I play Prince! I play him loud, loud, loud and play this one song on repeat over and over tonight, the "Party at Our Place" analogy again rearing its head, this thing with repetition, some specific fears and insecurities eased immensely by repeating something over and over again, jamming out to "Forever in My Life."
I am listening to Prince. I am a little stoned. There is a glass of red wine by my side.
I told Diego today that I was talking to a boy, a boy that I like, that I have tried again and again to make something happen with. And he, Diego, made the analogy, a wise one, about "Party at Our Place."
I used to have this t-shirt, bright blue, that said, "Party at Our Place," which I have come to assume is some Chuck E. Cheese-like children's birthday party venue. I used to wear this t-shirt all the time. Over and over again. It was comfortable but I also felt cute in it. I really liked the shirt, the fit, the feel, the mood, the color - everything about it. At some point, Jacob made some comment about how unsurprising it was that I was yet again wearing this "Party at Our Place" shirt. Diego was there at the time and seconded this comment and both of them told me I was never allowed to wear the shirt again, that they were sick of seeing it.
This t-shirt, my attachment to that, is the same as whatever is going on with this boy. Diego said they were one and the same. I am not sure the analogy is apt but it sounds like it could be and definitely gave me pause. Either way, I think he's sick of hearing about this person. I kind of am too. But I see his Facebook picture every now and then in my feed and I get all sixteen old high school student seeing that cute boy in the hall and all nervous and shit and holding their books tight to their chest as they swoon and think about fainting, and I think that I want to kiss this person, this cute fucking person.
I'm going to try to hang out with him this weekend once I return from time with my family.
I may have scabies, which I think I got from sleeping with people at the MIX Festival - I have been itchy ever since. And in another physical irritation brought about sex, my pelvic area is really sore from having wasted sex with one of my friends this weekend. I'm hoping it's just soreness, but then there is another part of me that spent a large part of the day Googling hernia symptoms.
Prince is playing. I don't have health insurance. I just scratch myself and get stoned. And I play Prince! I play him loud, loud, loud and play this one song on repeat over and over tonight, the "Party at Our Place" analogy again rearing its head, this thing with repetition, some specific fears and insecurities eased immensely by repeating something over and over again, jamming out to "Forever in My Life."
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Saturday night, people blurred, joined, and split apart. I had had a weed brownie, drank some whiskey, and ate some mushrooms. I danced or didn't. I wandered around a lot. At some point, I hid my shirt and jacket underneath a stage. I made out with a boy who soon turned into two boys.
At some point in the early morning, I left with the two boys. I couldn't find my jacket or shirt, had awful thoughts about being that mess of a person walking around New York in November (any month really) without a shirt on. Luckily one of these guys let me borrow his overshirt. It for some reason reminded me of a shirt that Malcolm might wear on The Cosby Show.
This guy, this shirt-lender, this true gentleman, at some point en route to leaving told me he just wanted to sleep with me, did not want to have a threesome. We went to get in a taxi, the two of us, and soon again it was three. It was an awkward taxi ride back to my house where neither of us said anything. Only once the taxi stopped, once this person travelled to my house, did I tell him that I was going home with this other person. It was a very awkward moment, but I was happy for vocalizing my desires in a situation where normally I wouldn't, where normally I would just go with the flow.
The sun was up. His dick was huge. It was beautiful. In that high state, I came to idolize it, less so hungover in the afternoon when we finally woke up.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Curtis Mayfield - "Get Down"
The leaves on my block are yellow. They look good when I leave for work in the morning, sun low on the horizon, casting beautiful shadows. They look great in the afternoon, sun shining through them. They look good at night time, street lights giving off just enough light to let me see the difference, to see time moving, to see this particular moment that I am living in in which summer is now done and winter around the corner, and things changing, always changing. It's fucking beautiful.
All the more so because of its hyper-transitory nature, this season. One big rainstorm and most of these leaves will be gone, on the ground, in gutters. Even without a big storm, they will soon enough be gone. And so I take in these sights while I can.
A couple nights ago, I spent the night in a guy's bed in Bushwick, this crush who I had pursued this summer only to have it fizzle out. Aaliyah sings, "If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again." We smoked weed and drank booze underneath his covers while watching Frozen. It was incredibly cute. He's incredibly cute. Everything's incredibly cute.
I cleaned my apartment this morning and I have my bedroom window open to let out some of the thick heat of my radiator. Cool breezes every so often punctuate the heat. This is fall.
All the more so because of its hyper-transitory nature, this season. One big rainstorm and most of these leaves will be gone, on the ground, in gutters. Even without a big storm, they will soon enough be gone. And so I take in these sights while I can.
A couple nights ago, I spent the night in a guy's bed in Bushwick, this crush who I had pursued this summer only to have it fizzle out. Aaliyah sings, "If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again." We smoked weed and drank booze underneath his covers while watching Frozen. It was incredibly cute. He's incredibly cute. Everything's incredibly cute.
I cleaned my apartment this morning and I have my bedroom window open to let out some of the thick heat of my radiator. Cool breezes every so often punctuate the heat. This is fall.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Madonna - "Take a Bow"
It was after last call had been announced. They were winding down the night, letting people know it was time to go. It had been a Madonna-themed night at Metropolitan. I danced, really danced, to songs that I hadn't heard in a while, some of the less frequently-played Madonna songs, losing myself to all the feelings I have ever felt to this music, from those days when I was a kid and watched MTV in the eighties with my sister, both of us drawn to Madonna's videos even then, music I would discover again and again throughout my life, from teenage years, to early years as an out gay, from time later on when I found new meaning in particular songs, really heard them in ways my youth had never allowed me to do. The feelings invoked by particular Madonna songs is pretty crazy, and last night a bit high and a bit drunk, those feelings were particularly heightened.
I was a clown, a mime, something. Sequined outfit and face paint, a bob wig.
There was this guy, beautiful man. It was the last song they were playing. "Take a Bow." Perfect choice for a last song of the night. I played out this fantasy in my head of approaching my bullfighter, this hunk of a man, beautiful thing, being forward, to this song, dancing with him, going home together, always remembering how our relationship started with this song, with that time I approached him during Madonna's "Take a Bow." I made eyes at him and followed him with my eyes as I saw him approach someone that looked very much like his boyfriend.
I kept dancing. On screen, my man, out of reach. I fall to the floor, rub myself against that bullfighter on the tv screen, eroticize distance, unavailability, the joy in pain, of heartache, of wanting. Push the sword in deeper. Bull down.
I hung out on the street after the bar closed, smoking cigarettes underneath the awning of a funeral home. Unpack the symbolism in that sentence. Or don't actually.
I ran home in the rain, chilly, cold.
This morning, I woke up hungover, scattered sequins all over my floor.
I was a clown, a mime, something. Sequined outfit and face paint, a bob wig.
There was this guy, beautiful man. It was the last song they were playing. "Take a Bow." Perfect choice for a last song of the night. I played out this fantasy in my head of approaching my bullfighter, this hunk of a man, beautiful thing, being forward, to this song, dancing with him, going home together, always remembering how our relationship started with this song, with that time I approached him during Madonna's "Take a Bow." I made eyes at him and followed him with my eyes as I saw him approach someone that looked very much like his boyfriend.
I kept dancing. On screen, my man, out of reach. I fall to the floor, rub myself against that bullfighter on the tv screen, eroticize distance, unavailability, the joy in pain, of heartache, of wanting. Push the sword in deeper. Bull down.
I hung out on the street after the bar closed, smoking cigarettes underneath the awning of a funeral home. Unpack the symbolism in that sentence. Or don't actually.
I ran home in the rain, chilly, cold.
This morning, I woke up hungover, scattered sequins all over my floor.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Madonna - "Rain"
New York is a beautiful place. I left work tonight in midtown, walked across 42nd Street, walked down 5th Avenue, passed the stately NYPL, autumn night, things crisp, chilly but not too cold, and took in the sight of these buildings at night lit up, streets for the most part clear of the worker crowds that fill them during the day. And I walked and walked, taking it in, looking at shop windows selling sweatshirts and name license plates.
I am broke but happy. I bought a bottle of wine yesterday with quarters. Bought a dozen eggs with dimes. I don't get paid until the end of the month. I am trying to make it. New York in some ways has the same feel to it that it did a decade or so when I first moved here. I am hungry. I want it. Things seem possible, and in possibility there is beauty. Without that sense that something could happen, something new, you don't look at things the same way. You, in fact, don't really look at things. You just go through the motions. I am looking at things, at people, at the city, at buildings, at imagined futures. It's a new city to me. Everything is open, a potential path. I am trying to start again, to make a new life.
And I am drinking lots of coffee because it's free at work. And I am smoking lots of cigarettes, not that they are free, but they pair quite nicely with a caffeinated state.
And I am listening to music and dancing around my room, dancing in place at my desk at work, headphones on, feeling it, this thing called life that music does such an amazing job of making startlingly present.
I am broke but happy. I bought a bottle of wine yesterday with quarters. Bought a dozen eggs with dimes. I don't get paid until the end of the month. I am trying to make it. New York in some ways has the same feel to it that it did a decade or so when I first moved here. I am hungry. I want it. Things seem possible, and in possibility there is beauty. Without that sense that something could happen, something new, you don't look at things the same way. You, in fact, don't really look at things. You just go through the motions. I am looking at things, at people, at the city, at buildings, at imagined futures. It's a new city to me. Everything is open, a potential path. I am trying to start again, to make a new life.
And I am drinking lots of coffee because it's free at work. And I am smoking lots of cigarettes, not that they are free, but they pair quite nicely with a caffeinated state.
And I am listening to music and dancing around my room, dancing in place at my desk at work, headphones on, feeling it, this thing called life that music does such an amazing job of making startlingly present.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Janet Jackson - "You Want This"
He shot his load on to the fogged glass shower divider separating our two showers.
I had left the steam room, delirious from the heat, from trying to sweat out everything bad in my body, had stumbled to a shower stall. I could hear someone else leaving the steam room behind me, and then saw that they, despite other open showers, had opted to go in the one next to mine. I knew what was coming.
For a straight gym, my gym has some of the most homoerotic gym showers I have ever been in. The shower stalls have fogged glass separating one from the other, so that you see the outline of the person showering next to you, see a blurry vision of a naked male next to you, one of those scrambled porn channels that you would try to unscramble mentally as a kid. I usually peek out of the side of my eyes, so as to be somewhat discreet, as I watch guys shower next to me.
There was the usual coyness of the two of us washing our cocks and our assholes for way too long, some way of saying that we were cruising. He would put his ass closer to the glass separating us. For a moment, the scrambled cable station, comes into view. For a second, I see a late night softcore movie, the volume turned down so my family doesn't know what I'm doing, trying my best to mentally hold on to the image, to save it for later, to eventually have enough of these snapshots to assemble into a short movie, one that will be projected on to the screen of my childhood sexual imagination in moments in locked bathrooms.
He turns around. I get a good view of him stroking his cock. I stand closer then, giving him a view of me near the glass, me stroking my cock.
I watch underneath the glass, the view of his sexy toes digging tighter and tighter into the floor tiles as he gets nearer and nearer orgasm. It's about to come. He puts the head of his cock against the glass and I watch with all the hunger in the world as his semen paints the glass between us. He towels off and leaves the stall, not bothering to clean this huge streak of cum from the wall, not bothering to rinse down the drain the drops of it on the floor. For a moment, I dream of how good it would feel, how good it would taste, to wipe up the drops on the floor and put them to my mouth, my tongue. I wish I could reach the streak of it on the glass between us. He has left to get dressed and I watch his cum slowly ooze down the glass in slow motion and am so turned on by this, by this now absent man, by his swagger, by his lack of care. Something in his failing to clean up his cum, to leave it there for whoever to see, his exhibitionist qualities, push me over the edge. I cum. I wash mine down the drain and watch his on that glass keep sliding down as someone else steps into that stall.
I had left the steam room, delirious from the heat, from trying to sweat out everything bad in my body, had stumbled to a shower stall. I could hear someone else leaving the steam room behind me, and then saw that they, despite other open showers, had opted to go in the one next to mine. I knew what was coming.
For a straight gym, my gym has some of the most homoerotic gym showers I have ever been in. The shower stalls have fogged glass separating one from the other, so that you see the outline of the person showering next to you, see a blurry vision of a naked male next to you, one of those scrambled porn channels that you would try to unscramble mentally as a kid. I usually peek out of the side of my eyes, so as to be somewhat discreet, as I watch guys shower next to me.
There was the usual coyness of the two of us washing our cocks and our assholes for way too long, some way of saying that we were cruising. He would put his ass closer to the glass separating us. For a moment, the scrambled cable station, comes into view. For a second, I see a late night softcore movie, the volume turned down so my family doesn't know what I'm doing, trying my best to mentally hold on to the image, to save it for later, to eventually have enough of these snapshots to assemble into a short movie, one that will be projected on to the screen of my childhood sexual imagination in moments in locked bathrooms.
He turns around. I get a good view of him stroking his cock. I stand closer then, giving him a view of me near the glass, me stroking my cock.
I watch underneath the glass, the view of his sexy toes digging tighter and tighter into the floor tiles as he gets nearer and nearer orgasm. It's about to come. He puts the head of his cock against the glass and I watch with all the hunger in the world as his semen paints the glass between us. He towels off and leaves the stall, not bothering to clean this huge streak of cum from the wall, not bothering to rinse down the drain the drops of it on the floor. For a moment, I dream of how good it would feel, how good it would taste, to wipe up the drops on the floor and put them to my mouth, my tongue. I wish I could reach the streak of it on the glass between us. He has left to get dressed and I watch his cum slowly ooze down the glass in slow motion and am so turned on by this, by this now absent man, by his swagger, by his lack of care. Something in his failing to clean up his cum, to leave it there for whoever to see, his exhibitionist qualities, push me over the edge. I cum. I wash mine down the drain and watch his on that glass keep sliding down as someone else steps into that stall.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Eliades Ochoa - "El Carretero"
To tell you about my weekend, to tell myself about it, to tell whoever it is that these diary entries are written for, let me say this: both Friday and Saturday night, I found myself at bodegas shortly after four in the morning hoping that the folks working would still sell me beer, heading on my way to some impromptu after-party, and being successful in the attempt, purchasing it, raging, living, being up until seven or eight in the morning hanging out with folks, chatting, smoking way too many cigarettes, hooking up with folks, having fun as they say.
Both nights were filled with booze, with drugs, with dancing, with flirting, and with Metropolitan. Little sleep has been gotten, fun has been had. One night, Friday, ended in that way that sometimes nights will end when you are steered by the strong arm of horniness, a steady driver, but one that drives you places you probably would never venture to if your rational self was the one driving, hooking up with some dude from Scruff at seven in the morning, another person holding on to the last bits of the night, him hungry too, him not ready to say goodbye to anything yet, to even put it on pause for a few hours for sleep, another lonely person in the night still wanting to rage, and having sex in your bed, telling him not to ring your buzzer, to text when he gets there, so that you don't wake up your roommates, who, like most decent people of the world, are asleep at that hour. Not me. Instead, I gratified something that I wasn't sure I needed to as soon I came. Instead, I wanted him gone, and he left. I was left with the smell of his balls in my throat, which lingered well into the next day, way too long into the next day despite numerous tooth brushings.
Saturday night, last night, was different. I hooked up with some cute boy that I wanted to sleep with, and which was the best part, this gorgeous body that held me throughout the night, that I I fit so nicely against. I wanted him to stay, to linger. I never wanted to leave my bed, stayed there until one or so, one of us in the other's arms, cuddling, and rubbing our bodies against each other.
My room smells like smoke, like the memories of sexual encounters, and like Fall, me having kept my windows open all day to try to air out these various smells. It will soon smell like Mexican food, as I am about to place in order for some, to try to fill the hungriness of a hangover, to try to squash it all with hot sauce, cheese, fried meat, and tortillas. They will all mingle together, these smells, and soon I will sleep underneath the fog of it all, getting ready for my first day of work together, dreaming of these things, of other things, of so, so many other things.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Cheryl Lynn - "Shake It Up Tonight"
When the white's all done, then you move on to the red. Or, whatever else you can find in the kitchen.
I hung out with Nik last evening, worked off a hangover with the best cure anyone's come up with yet: the hair of the dog. We drank some Charles Shaw and had a double feature at my apartment, watching The Birds, which was fairly underwhelming compared to the other Hitchcock movies I've seen lately, and then Before Sunrise, which was, as always, amazing, and left me, as Linklater so often does, fingering the memories of old failed romances and feeling real, real sentimental. Blame Charles Shaw too probably.
Nik left. I ate some flan from Gran Morelos and somehow conflated my love of flan, which is very strong thing these days, with another infatuation I am feeling these days, this cute guy Nick. I was drunk and the two swirled around in my brain. I was blasting Janet Jackson and writing insane messages to people on Facebook. Luckily, perhaps too late to save me from my own self-sabotoging impulses, Diego came home, and that's when I started drinking red wine, and we hung out in our backyard, it late September and feeling like mid-summer. We are all going to die, the world is - one of us said this. Him, I believe. Global warming and all. We talked about life and food and wine and work and aging and all the things people drinking wine out in the night are prone to talk about that have known each other for quite a few years.
This morning, the hangover, which I had outrun for a bit, was back, back in full force. I went to the gym, spent about two hours there, trying to outrun it again, sweating everything out, trying to forget about my love of this person, my financial troubles, my hangover. Run, run, run on that treadmill. Escape it all. Exhaust yourself until you're nothing but a body, a human body in motion, sweating, struggling, a machine. It felt amazing. My body felt so good afterward and I told myself that I was going to cherish this feeling, to treat my body kinder, to feel this way all the time, to feel healthy, in control.
And here I am drinking an energy drink mixed with vodka before I go out again, someone texting me to go to Bath Salts with them, and me, full of energy, aware that this is my last week of unemployment, my last chance to go out on weeknights with zero cares about work the next day, said okay. I said okay. I also said: Try to get your dreamboat roommate to come.
I hung out with Nik last evening, worked off a hangover with the best cure anyone's come up with yet: the hair of the dog. We drank some Charles Shaw and had a double feature at my apartment, watching The Birds, which was fairly underwhelming compared to the other Hitchcock movies I've seen lately, and then Before Sunrise, which was, as always, amazing, and left me, as Linklater so often does, fingering the memories of old failed romances and feeling real, real sentimental. Blame Charles Shaw too probably.
Nik left. I ate some flan from Gran Morelos and somehow conflated my love of flan, which is very strong thing these days, with another infatuation I am feeling these days, this cute guy Nick. I was drunk and the two swirled around in my brain. I was blasting Janet Jackson and writing insane messages to people on Facebook. Luckily, perhaps too late to save me from my own self-sabotoging impulses, Diego came home, and that's when I started drinking red wine, and we hung out in our backyard, it late September and feeling like mid-summer. We are all going to die, the world is - one of us said this. Him, I believe. Global warming and all. We talked about life and food and wine and work and aging and all the things people drinking wine out in the night are prone to talk about that have known each other for quite a few years.
This morning, the hangover, which I had outrun for a bit, was back, back in full force. I went to the gym, spent about two hours there, trying to outrun it again, sweating everything out, trying to forget about my love of this person, my financial troubles, my hangover. Run, run, run on that treadmill. Escape it all. Exhaust yourself until you're nothing but a body, a human body in motion, sweating, struggling, a machine. It felt amazing. My body felt so good afterward and I told myself that I was going to cherish this feeling, to treat my body kinder, to feel this way all the time, to feel healthy, in control.
And here I am drinking an energy drink mixed with vodka before I go out again, someone texting me to go to Bath Salts with them, and me, full of energy, aware that this is my last week of unemployment, my last chance to go out on weeknights with zero cares about work the next day, said okay. I said okay. I also said: Try to get your dreamboat roommate to come.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Tennis - "Never Work for Free"
A week from tomorrow, I start working at another ad agency. It's a paid intern position that should hopefully turn into a full-time job in a couple months. I am beyond excited.
The past month and a half of being unemployed has been fun in that I can live this life of leisure and poverty and go out late on weeknights and sleep in as late as I want, however I was starting to get worried. I was starting to worry that the dream I had set up for myself wasn't going to come true, that my hopes of doing copywriting weren't going to pan out, that no one was ever going to hire me, and that I would probably soon find myself working in hospitality again, driven by the very real need for a paycheck.
Which is why when on Friday immediately after I got off the phone with this agency, I was jumping up and down and dancing around my room, so, so happy.
And I have been jumping up and down since that phone call, having so much fun this weekend. I went to some fun parties on Friday night, seemingly walked all over Brooklyn, met some cool people, and ended the night in my favorite way - ordering a sandwich from my bodega and having a long talk with Lucky about life.
I spent yesterday binge-watching Scandal, getting caught up to its current moment, before going over to a friend's house who lives a few doors down from my first home in New York - not my first apartment because those were month-long sublets that I hopped around from before settling here for about four years - 424 Grand Street. When my friend texted me the address he was at, I was really excited to go there, to go to this block I rarely go to anymore, stretch of Grand Street right by the BQE. There are ugly, expensive condos on the corner that didn't used to be there and the blocks around it all have changed so much, however this little stretch of Grand Street, this one block seems fairly unchanged. I stood underneath my old bedroom, looked up. The windows were dark. The gingko trees in front of the building. I had forgotten how in love with them I used to be. Wave after wave of memories rushed over me.
I called my friend to let him know I was out front, stepped as much as I could into the present.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Hiss Golden Messenger - "Southern Grammar"
I was walking home, drunk but more so hungry, walking home down Grand Street from the Pat party at Union Pool. I passed bars, familiar sights, this line of buildings that I feel so at home walking past. I looked up at the sky and told myself, told the sky, there is no place, not one other place on this entire planet, I would rather be.
I stopped into my bodega for a roast beef sandwich and started chatting with Lucky, the guy who makes the sandwiches there, the guy who I think is amazing and who I have had so many late-night drunk conversations with. "Where have you been?" he asked. He told me he had just been talking about me earlier, wondering why I haven't been there in a while.
The reason is because I have been eating lots of bagels and peanut butter. The reason is because I am trying to eliminate unnecessary expenses since I am unemployed. The reason is because I am broke and should not be going to various bars buying drinks, let alone buying sandwiches drunk afterwards. I didn't really want to go into all of this with him though.
He started asking me what's new, what's been going on in my life. Not much, I said. A lot of the same, nothing's really changed. And he asked if I had a girlfriend or a new job. He told me some saying that one of his uncles has which I am failing to remember now, but it was something like happiness is having a nice girl, a nice job, and a nice house. And how his uncle could never seem to get all three, that when he got one, he would always lose the other, never able to achieve his idea of happiness, one piece of the tower always falling away before the thing could be completed.
He asked me why I didn't have a girlfriend, what type of girls I liked, whether I liked Spanish girls, black girls, Indian girls. I just laughed. I didn't tell him that I don't have a girlfriend because I like sucking dick. I didn't want to scandalize him. I am not sure what I was afraid of. He told me he could set me up with some Indian girls but that they only spoke Punjabi, that we'd have to use Google Translate anytime we hung out. Again, I just laughed.
Somewhere near the beer cases, some man was saying something about some faggot.
Lucky wrapped my sandwich, smiling ear to ear, one of the most consistently happy people I have ever met, saying, "Have a good night, my friend." This is one of my favorite language quirks of immigrants, this habit of addressing people as "my friend." There is something so beautiful in that practice.
I walked home, smiling, happy to be here, happy to soon consume this sandwich.
I stopped into my bodega for a roast beef sandwich and started chatting with Lucky, the guy who makes the sandwiches there, the guy who I think is amazing and who I have had so many late-night drunk conversations with. "Where have you been?" he asked. He told me he had just been talking about me earlier, wondering why I haven't been there in a while.
The reason is because I have been eating lots of bagels and peanut butter. The reason is because I am trying to eliminate unnecessary expenses since I am unemployed. The reason is because I am broke and should not be going to various bars buying drinks, let alone buying sandwiches drunk afterwards. I didn't really want to go into all of this with him though.
He started asking me what's new, what's been going on in my life. Not much, I said. A lot of the same, nothing's really changed. And he asked if I had a girlfriend or a new job. He told me some saying that one of his uncles has which I am failing to remember now, but it was something like happiness is having a nice girl, a nice job, and a nice house. And how his uncle could never seem to get all three, that when he got one, he would always lose the other, never able to achieve his idea of happiness, one piece of the tower always falling away before the thing could be completed.
He asked me why I didn't have a girlfriend, what type of girls I liked, whether I liked Spanish girls, black girls, Indian girls. I just laughed. I didn't tell him that I don't have a girlfriend because I like sucking dick. I didn't want to scandalize him. I am not sure what I was afraid of. He told me he could set me up with some Indian girls but that they only spoke Punjabi, that we'd have to use Google Translate anytime we hung out. Again, I just laughed.
Somewhere near the beer cases, some man was saying something about some faggot.
Lucky wrapped my sandwich, smiling ear to ear, one of the most consistently happy people I have ever met, saying, "Have a good night, my friend." This is one of my favorite language quirks of immigrants, this habit of addressing people as "my friend." There is something so beautiful in that practice.
I walked home, smiling, happy to be here, happy to soon consume this sandwich.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Taxi Zum Klo
We smoked some weed, the local news on mute in front of us. He just wants something on, he says. You know, he says. He doesn't really ask this, just says it. I nod my head even though I actually don't know. I don't know why anyone would have a TV on just because.
He soon put on music. The silent TV stayed on. We got naked and fell into his bed making out where I couldn't see the images on the TV, just its shifting lights, glowing brighter than dimmer, than brighter.
At some point, while he was giving me head, I started rubbing my foot against his ass, knowing this guy has a foot fetish. He sat back more and more, his face making that "fuck yeah" face that is one of the most beautiful things to see, to see someone lost in pleasure, to know that someone is feeling it. He kept leaning back more and more, rubbing his ass against my foot. He reached for the lube and soon was riding my big toe.
Afterwards, I rode the subway home, thinking of how good a burrito would be. I bought one. I ate one.
I watched Taxi Zum Klo and then Getting Go, the first amazingly good, the second one really not good at all.
Taxi Zum Klo is one of the more honest gay movies I have seen. There is no melodrama - no struggles of a man coming to terms with his identity, with coming out, or with exile from his family or community. There is none of that boring egotism of gay men trying to make their own overblown insecurities a narrative worthy of a feature film. There is also none of the moralism that seems to also be in too many gay films - that there is something sinister or depressing about cruising. Instead you have a movie that depicts something vaguely resembling a reality that feels familiar to me - a man who manages to balance a professional life with a life in which he parties hard and seeks out sex everywhere. That this movie came out in 1981 is pretty amazing to me. It's really funny and really honest. The film opens with Frank Ripploh wiping his ass after taking a shit. That right there announces everything - that this movie you are about to see is going to give it to you real, warts and all.
Then fast-forward some nearly thirty years and you get the shockingly conservative Getting Go. The filmmaker's attitude toward sex is so Victorian and prudish. Compared to the movie I had paired it with, it felt dishonest, all the more so because its framing device is that it's an actual documentary being filmed, though really just a conventional love story. The filmmaker/narrator follows around a go-go boy he is infatuated with under the pretense of making a documentary about him. When he interviews the dancer about go-go dancing, he does so with questions that make it seem as if there is something depressing and degrading about it. It was actually a maddening film to watch. Some really saccharine clips of romance, of him and the go-go boy together at last, and all paired with a patronizing attitude towards not only go-go dancers and sex workers, but toward the idea of sex and sexuality itself. It had potential, but it was just really bad. But it's got a lot of company. Put a pretty naked boy in your movie, dumb as it is, and apparently you now have a distributable gay movie. The number of bad gay movies I have seen is way too many, which was why Taxi Zum Klo was such a joy to watch.
He soon put on music. The silent TV stayed on. We got naked and fell into his bed making out where I couldn't see the images on the TV, just its shifting lights, glowing brighter than dimmer, than brighter.
At some point, while he was giving me head, I started rubbing my foot against his ass, knowing this guy has a foot fetish. He sat back more and more, his face making that "fuck yeah" face that is one of the most beautiful things to see, to see someone lost in pleasure, to know that someone is feeling it. He kept leaning back more and more, rubbing his ass against my foot. He reached for the lube and soon was riding my big toe.
Afterwards, I rode the subway home, thinking of how good a burrito would be. I bought one. I ate one.
I watched Taxi Zum Klo and then Getting Go, the first amazingly good, the second one really not good at all.
Taxi Zum Klo is one of the more honest gay movies I have seen. There is no melodrama - no struggles of a man coming to terms with his identity, with coming out, or with exile from his family or community. There is none of that boring egotism of gay men trying to make their own overblown insecurities a narrative worthy of a feature film. There is also none of the moralism that seems to also be in too many gay films - that there is something sinister or depressing about cruising. Instead you have a movie that depicts something vaguely resembling a reality that feels familiar to me - a man who manages to balance a professional life with a life in which he parties hard and seeks out sex everywhere. That this movie came out in 1981 is pretty amazing to me. It's really funny and really honest. The film opens with Frank Ripploh wiping his ass after taking a shit. That right there announces everything - that this movie you are about to see is going to give it to you real, warts and all.
Then fast-forward some nearly thirty years and you get the shockingly conservative Getting Go. The filmmaker's attitude toward sex is so Victorian and prudish. Compared to the movie I had paired it with, it felt dishonest, all the more so because its framing device is that it's an actual documentary being filmed, though really just a conventional love story. The filmmaker/narrator follows around a go-go boy he is infatuated with under the pretense of making a documentary about him. When he interviews the dancer about go-go dancing, he does so with questions that make it seem as if there is something depressing and degrading about it. It was actually a maddening film to watch. Some really saccharine clips of romance, of him and the go-go boy together at last, and all paired with a patronizing attitude towards not only go-go dancers and sex workers, but toward the idea of sex and sexuality itself. It had potential, but it was just really bad. But it's got a lot of company. Put a pretty naked boy in your movie, dumb as it is, and apparently you now have a distributable gay movie. The number of bad gay movies I have seen is way too many, which was why Taxi Zum Klo was such a joy to watch.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Strangers on a Train
He was asleep on my bed. He had made some joke about getting into my bed when we were about to start watching the movie, about how happy I must be to have him in my bed, my desire for him not very well concealed. I was on the couch next to my bed, a friend in between us.
The three of us were watching Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. I was watching the movie and I was not watching it. I kept on looking over at this guy asleep in my bed who I have such crazy desire for. My heart was racing and the thing he joked about was too true. I was beyond thrilled to have this cute guy asleep in my bed, to imagine sleeping there next to him, to imagine even lying where he was later in the night and having some second-hand contact with him through the sheets. The thought of lying where he was, of trying to catch some whiff of him, catch some bit of his essence that may have lingered - this is what I was thinking of during the movie.
I would look over and marvel at his legs. Again he was wearing knee high socks. On this person, this look turns me on so much. There was the stretch of tanned skin between these socks and his shorts, the hair there blondish and sun-bleached. I imagined being at his feet, looking up, feeling those legs, those socks in my hands. I imagined what it would be like to suck his dick.
There is a really great scene in the movie that I did manage to catch despite this sleeping beauty in my bed that I kept staring at. Bruno, psycho crazed stalker that he is, stares straight ahead at Guy from the stands of a tennis match. It's a great visual that Hitchcock does here, the heads of the audience turning in sync right and left, right and left, following the action of the tennis game, but in the center of it all, you see Bruno, eyes focused on his target, straight ahead, ignoring the action everyone else is following.
It is only today that I am aware of the analogy between my own behavior during the movie and Bruno's during the tennis match. My eyes were focused not so much on the movie, but on this guy who I have had a huge crush on now for a while, a crush that has swelled and swelled to nearly unbearable levels recently. And last night, toward the end of the night, after bottles of wine were drunk, cans of beer were consumed, and weed was smoked, then, after sitting next to this guy in my bed, this guy that I wanted so bad, that the swelling pushed and pushed against the seams of my heart. He left to go home and it exploded. I sent him a text message that destroyed the game, that ruined the tension and the flirtation and the tease that I had enjoyed so much these past weeks. I made things that were only hinted about explicit. I turned on the lights at The Cock at 4am basically.
"You are so fucking cute ps. Slash beautiful. Slash I want to have sex with you."
I am just going to preface anything I might soon say by first reminding you, dear reader, and also reminding myself, that I am in my thirties now, that I have done stupid texting while drunk on too many occasions to even think for a moment that it might possibly be a good idea. It is never a good idea. I have learned this lesson time and time again, but apparently not well enough as last night is proof of.
And he responded with that word that is a knife in the heart when you like someone: friend. I have heard that word so many times from guys I have liked and it doesn't get any less painful no matter how many times you hear that.
It is what it is though. He's a nice guy and hopefully I haven't made things weird so that we can still be friends, which I think we should be.
In the film, there is a chase scene on a carousel where the movie resolves itself. The speed crank gets pushed forward and the carousel spins and spins, furiously out of control, faster and faster, the riders holding on for dear life, the two main characters fighting it out on the carousel, trying to knock the other one off to their death. The carousel eventually comes to a grinding halt, people injured, the wooden horses broken, the thing a complete mess. You can't make a carousel go that fast without ruining it apparently. Enjoy the leisurely ride, the ups and downs of the horse. Don't wish for things to go faster.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
"toast to cliches in a dark past"
I had a temp job that lasted two days this past Thursday and Friday, my first time working in a month. It was fairly fun and I'm bummed it was only a two day assignment because 1.) I am really broke and need to be working more, and 2.) because it was really easy and I worked with a queeny gay boy and we just gossiped about gay things for those two days.
To celebrate the end of the workweek, my whole two days of working in a month, I raged on Friday. I went to some event at Tao where I drank a ton of free fancy booze before having an impromptu pre-game party at my house before heading off to the new neighborhood gay bar. It was awful and I wished that I had stayed at my house partying. This bar is so tone-deaf to the neighborhood it is in. It is wildly out of place and tacky. I have trouble seeing this bar lasting for very long. In some ways, it reminds me of Fun, a short-lived Williamsburg gay bar that tried to have the same classy (read: tacky/douchy) Manhattan vibe. Probably that they had bussed people in from Hell's Kitchen was a large part of the problem. There is a glowing sign behind the bar that says "More More More," and that sign says everything you need to know. If you can read, you should run, run, run. I was surrounded by awful Hell's Kitchen gays, one of whom grabbed my drink and guzzled it cause he was under the impression that he was some real cute thing. Everyone was suffering from this delusion there. Consumption is what is celebrated - the sign glows More, More, More. Egos sadly unchecked. You own everything, or want to. No thanks.
Everyone I was with quickly fled to Metro and I walked up to Greenpoint to hang out with some friends. I stayed up until 9 something in the morning, hanging out, chatting, getting wasted, and slowly watching daylight appear outside their living room windows as I smoked cigarette after cigarette and drank Coors Light. I walked home, stopping at the now open grocery store to buy some eggs. I fried up some eggs back at my apartment and talked to Diego about boys, about one boy really, and about life, all in the overly theatrical ways that a wasted person will do at 10 in the morning after not sleeping.
Needless to say, I did not do anything yesterday.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
"Goodbye Horses"
I got off at the 1st Avenue L stop last night to head to Linda Simpson's "Drag Explosion" show at the Wild Project. I walked over to A and was shocked by the empty space on the southeast corner of 14th and A. Had it been that long since I have walked around the East Village that I didn't see the process of these buildings come down?
I know those businesses had slowly been bought out and vacated - the gritty bodega on the corner where years and years ago I bought beer to bring to Erica's apartment when she was living in Stuy Town; the fantastically divey Blarney Cove; and a 99 cent store I believe. However, it was still shocking to see this expanse of openness where buildings used to be, where buildings that were maybe three or four stories tall stood, blending in with the rest of the neighborhood. It's not the emptiness so much that upset me but thoughts of what were sure to fill it. I haven't seen the plans for what's going up there but I have a pretty good idea - the same type of ugly, giant condo complexes that pop up everywhere, erasing slowly parcel by parcel the character of this city, probably too tall for the neighborhood, probably made of glass and metal and not the brick that everything else in the neighborhood is made from.
I walked down A thinking of bars that used to be there, of Boysroom when it was on 13th and A, where there is now some straight beer bar, one of many on the block. I thought of the Cock when it used to be on 12th and A. I walked past guys in suits that made no space on the sidewalk for me. I walked past young professional women that were hanging outside of an expensive looking wine bar, Cork n' Fork. I hated them. I hated this East Village. I hated these people responsible for this. I walked past an entirely too bright 7-11 and nearly lost my shit at that point.
I soldiered on, buying a pack of cigarettes at a bodega to steady me.
Linda's show was good and it paired all too well with the thoughts I had been having on my walk there about the changes that have happened to the East Village in the 11 years I have been here. She took it back much further, took it back to the eighties, and mourned the changes since then. The show was an elegy for a period of time, a moment, and a particular culture that doesn't exist anymore. She showed relics from this place, snapshot photos she had taken over the years presented as a slideshow. It's always such a treat to see visual evidence of these times, to get a glimpse of what things were like. Linda called this time B.C. (before cellphones) and joked about how it was such a more fun time because people actually went out to meet people and have fun. She joked about it because sometimes that's the best way to deal with tragedy, with the loss of something so essential and beautiful. I am often sad that I didn't live more in a time before cellphones. I didn't have a cellphone until I moved to New York in 2003 and even then it was a shitty flip phone and those years before the iPhone was introduced were my favorite years in New York. Bar culture was so different then. Everything about life was. It was before everyone stared at screens during any moment of boredom, during any moment in which chance encounters or something unknown might happen. Protect yourself, close yourself off, quick, look at something on your phone.
In the photos she showed, you could see what a fun time it was. That joy in seeing these moments of creativity and fun in an earlier New York, the one I think all of us dreamed about when we moved here, is paired though with a bit of heartbreak, knowing that in some ways those moments will never be again, that that level of camaraderie and shared fun while going out isn't possible in our current technological culture. Because even if you are not continually distracted by a piece of metal in your pocket, even if you can claim to be unaware of its pull, of that world in your pocket, other people certainly are. There will probably never again be a time when people are fully engaged in the present, in their surroundings.
Despite its disjointedness and tech hiccups, it was a beautiful show, a drag slideshow that in ways both explicit and not so explored the passing of time. There was a really sweet moment toward the end when Linda dedicated the performance to her friend, Kathleen White, who recently passed away, remarking that that's the hardest part of getting old - losing the people you love.
She ended by showing real (and surprising) vulnerability by asking what her life might have ended up like if she had put just as much energy into her male self as she had put into her female self, where she might be, where he might be.
I have always loved Linda's presence and humor. She hosted one of my favorites parties in New York years ago - Slurp at the Cock with Michael Magnan and Telfar. I would try to make it there just about every Wednesday. There was a great energy to that party. It often had really great performances and blended those seamlessly in with the dance party. She was a large part of the reason I would try to make it there. She somehow had the voice of an earnest, slightly corny woman, but also at the same time could throw off clever one-liners in the same voice showing how over it she was. It's a fine balancing act that she somehow does so well.
And that's why the way the show closed, with Linda showing real vulnerability on the stage as she looked back over her life and wondered what if things had been different, was so powerful. It was so different than the voice I have known seeing her host various parties around the city in my time here. You see the person behind that voice.
I walked back to the L train. I passed the Phoenix where a group of people were inexplicably playing accordions in front of it. I had zero desire to stop at this bar that I used to love when I first moved to the city. In Brooklyn, I went out to Bath Salts at Don Pedro's, which made me happy, gave me a feeling that I was still in the city I had wanted to live in. New York didn't die. Maybe the East Village did. Maybe I never go out there anymore. But there is still a scene happening of weird gays doing weird shit and having fun.
I kissed a boy on the neck and asked him to come home with me. He did.
I know those businesses had slowly been bought out and vacated - the gritty bodega on the corner where years and years ago I bought beer to bring to Erica's apartment when she was living in Stuy Town; the fantastically divey Blarney Cove; and a 99 cent store I believe. However, it was still shocking to see this expanse of openness where buildings used to be, where buildings that were maybe three or four stories tall stood, blending in with the rest of the neighborhood. It's not the emptiness so much that upset me but thoughts of what were sure to fill it. I haven't seen the plans for what's going up there but I have a pretty good idea - the same type of ugly, giant condo complexes that pop up everywhere, erasing slowly parcel by parcel the character of this city, probably too tall for the neighborhood, probably made of glass and metal and not the brick that everything else in the neighborhood is made from.
I walked down A thinking of bars that used to be there, of Boysroom when it was on 13th and A, where there is now some straight beer bar, one of many on the block. I thought of the Cock when it used to be on 12th and A. I walked past guys in suits that made no space on the sidewalk for me. I walked past young professional women that were hanging outside of an expensive looking wine bar, Cork n' Fork. I hated them. I hated this East Village. I hated these people responsible for this. I walked past an entirely too bright 7-11 and nearly lost my shit at that point.
I soldiered on, buying a pack of cigarettes at a bodega to steady me.
Linda's show was good and it paired all too well with the thoughts I had been having on my walk there about the changes that have happened to the East Village in the 11 years I have been here. She took it back much further, took it back to the eighties, and mourned the changes since then. The show was an elegy for a period of time, a moment, and a particular culture that doesn't exist anymore. She showed relics from this place, snapshot photos she had taken over the years presented as a slideshow. It's always such a treat to see visual evidence of these times, to get a glimpse of what things were like. Linda called this time B.C. (before cellphones) and joked about how it was such a more fun time because people actually went out to meet people and have fun. She joked about it because sometimes that's the best way to deal with tragedy, with the loss of something so essential and beautiful. I am often sad that I didn't live more in a time before cellphones. I didn't have a cellphone until I moved to New York in 2003 and even then it was a shitty flip phone and those years before the iPhone was introduced were my favorite years in New York. Bar culture was so different then. Everything about life was. It was before everyone stared at screens during any moment of boredom, during any moment in which chance encounters or something unknown might happen. Protect yourself, close yourself off, quick, look at something on your phone.
In the photos she showed, you could see what a fun time it was. That joy in seeing these moments of creativity and fun in an earlier New York, the one I think all of us dreamed about when we moved here, is paired though with a bit of heartbreak, knowing that in some ways those moments will never be again, that that level of camaraderie and shared fun while going out isn't possible in our current technological culture. Because even if you are not continually distracted by a piece of metal in your pocket, even if you can claim to be unaware of its pull, of that world in your pocket, other people certainly are. There will probably never again be a time when people are fully engaged in the present, in their surroundings.
Despite its disjointedness and tech hiccups, it was a beautiful show, a drag slideshow that in ways both explicit and not so explored the passing of time. There was a really sweet moment toward the end when Linda dedicated the performance to her friend, Kathleen White, who recently passed away, remarking that that's the hardest part of getting old - losing the people you love.
She ended by showing real (and surprising) vulnerability by asking what her life might have ended up like if she had put just as much energy into her male self as she had put into her female self, where she might be, where he might be.
I have always loved Linda's presence and humor. She hosted one of my favorites parties in New York years ago - Slurp at the Cock with Michael Magnan and Telfar. I would try to make it there just about every Wednesday. There was a great energy to that party. It often had really great performances and blended those seamlessly in with the dance party. She was a large part of the reason I would try to make it there. She somehow had the voice of an earnest, slightly corny woman, but also at the same time could throw off clever one-liners in the same voice showing how over it she was. It's a fine balancing act that she somehow does so well.
And that's why the way the show closed, with Linda showing real vulnerability on the stage as she looked back over her life and wondered what if things had been different, was so powerful. It was so different than the voice I have known seeing her host various parties around the city in my time here. You see the person behind that voice.
I walked back to the L train. I passed the Phoenix where a group of people were inexplicably playing accordions in front of it. I had zero desire to stop at this bar that I used to love when I first moved to the city. In Brooklyn, I went out to Bath Salts at Don Pedro's, which made me happy, gave me a feeling that I was still in the city I had wanted to live in. New York didn't die. Maybe the East Village did. Maybe I never go out there anymore. But there is still a scene happening of weird gays doing weird shit and having fun.
I kissed a boy on the neck and asked him to come home with me. He did.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Bjork, "Undo"
I don't honestly know what it would be like to kiss him. It might very well be terrible, might be really awkward, but that doesn't stop me from wanting it when I am in his company. At a certain point, a crush becomes too much. The fanaticism builds and builds, eating any sort of rationality, rampaging past any cool and casual approach. You stare really hard at them whenever they are around, or maybe you have more game than I do and do not do such a thing, however I certainly do.
He has these gorgeous brown eyes that I look too hard at, awed by how cute he is. He wears his socks high and I dream about being at his feet, looking up. I basically just dream about what it might be to caress this person's body anytime he's around and as such I have some trouble talking to him without seeming like a basket-case.
It is now September. I have been unemployed for a month now. I have a lot of time to think about boys, too much time to do so. Boys are a lot easier a subject and a lot less stress-inducing than thinking about my financial situation or about jobs. The steps to obtain one seem somewhat simpler than the steps necessary to obtain a job, or at least I feel more sturdy navigating those steps. It is not a matter of waiting and waiting for emails back from ad agencies or temp companies. There is a person out there who will I see out at night at parties and I can talk to him. I can try to flirt with him, can engage with him. There is a face, a really cute one, and not a screen I check again and again. There is a presence, something I know is real.
And so I dream about him.
He has these gorgeous brown eyes that I look too hard at, awed by how cute he is. He wears his socks high and I dream about being at his feet, looking up. I basically just dream about what it might be to caress this person's body anytime he's around and as such I have some trouble talking to him without seeming like a basket-case.
It is now September. I have been unemployed for a month now. I have a lot of time to think about boys, too much time to do so. Boys are a lot easier a subject and a lot less stress-inducing than thinking about my financial situation or about jobs. The steps to obtain one seem somewhat simpler than the steps necessary to obtain a job, or at least I feel more sturdy navigating those steps. It is not a matter of waiting and waiting for emails back from ad agencies or temp companies. There is a person out there who will I see out at night at parties and I can talk to him. I can try to flirt with him, can engage with him. There is a face, a really cute one, and not a screen I check again and again. There is a presence, something I know is real.
And so I dream about him.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Beyonce's birthday, Joan Rivers' deathday
Two things. Beyonce turned 33 yesterday. Joan Rivers died yesterday.
Both of these affected me a great deal. I woke up in the morning yesterday, vaguely hungover from going to some Fashion Week party the night before with an open bar and where Kiesza had performed. Lying in bed, I read on form of some media, probably all of them actually, that it was Beyonce's birthday. What struck me was not so much that it was her birthday, but the age which she turned yesterday, my age, 33. Now, anyone that tries to compare their own life to Beyonce's is probably setting themselves up for disappointment, but still that didn't stop me from thinking about the differences in our life and how I am not anywhere near where I had hoped to be at this age, that I have not produced any of the work that I have often thought about doing. Beyonce has such a strong body of work at this point in her life, at the age of 33, my age, and I couldn't help think of little I have done. Thoughts of doing something and then not doing them serve no good. There's nothing to show for that. I felt a little shitty, but also inspired.
And that is because sometimes you need to feel like shit, sometimes you need a kick in the pants, someone to laugh at you, someone to say your work is shit, that you are lazy, that you are unproductive, and, yes, sometimes that person will be yourself. I am not saying I am going to put out amazing albums that are going to sell a gazillion copies worldwide - that's not what I want to do. There are things that I want to do though and I need to work just as hard to achieve them. I need to quit being so fucking lazy about the things that I claim to care about. And yes, I am pretty sure I have written the same thing to myself numerous times over the years in this diary, that I am going to work harder, commit to things. And I am going to keep on saying those things to myself as many times as I need to until I finally do them, until I finally heed these mantras, buckle down, and produce great work.
Then later in the afternoon, the news that Joan Rivers had died flashed on CNN while I was working out at the gym. It wasn't entirely surprising, given her condition in recent days, but still it made me quite sad that this voice, this caustic, acerbic, and fiercely intelligent voice, would no longer be around. She was a fucking badass and her fearless style of comedy has in small ways informed my own way of thinking and my own way of communicating thoughts about the world, though usually that side comes out when I'm a bit drunk and a bit belligerent. Which is what she was, a voice that said those things you might joke about with close friends while drinking, which otherwise you might be too polite to say. She gave voice to those cruder, meaner thoughts and did so in such a brilliant way that often pointed out the absurdities of our lives and burned down the temples to false idols we have come to worship, skewering celebrities and the idea of celebrity with a particular ruthless glee.
Aside from the fact that she was a woman who started doing comedy at a time when comedy was even more a boys club than it is now and that she was a fucking trailblazer for just about everyone, there is the fact, irrespective of this in itself important work, that she was fucking hilarious. Male or female, she was one of the smartest and funniest comedians we had.
She was also a workhorse, absolutely tireless. That she was still out on the road doing comedy shows, doing various tv shows, making late night appearances, and hosting QVC at the age of 81 is amazing.
The lesson here from both events is that hard work matters. More than anything else perhaps. Without it, whatever talent you may have is never utilized, never seen, never shared. Work, work, work. Make it fucking happen. Eyes on the prize.
Both of these affected me a great deal. I woke up in the morning yesterday, vaguely hungover from going to some Fashion Week party the night before with an open bar and where Kiesza had performed. Lying in bed, I read on form of some media, probably all of them actually, that it was Beyonce's birthday. What struck me was not so much that it was her birthday, but the age which she turned yesterday, my age, 33. Now, anyone that tries to compare their own life to Beyonce's is probably setting themselves up for disappointment, but still that didn't stop me from thinking about the differences in our life and how I am not anywhere near where I had hoped to be at this age, that I have not produced any of the work that I have often thought about doing. Beyonce has such a strong body of work at this point in her life, at the age of 33, my age, and I couldn't help think of little I have done. Thoughts of doing something and then not doing them serve no good. There's nothing to show for that. I felt a little shitty, but also inspired.
And that is because sometimes you need to feel like shit, sometimes you need a kick in the pants, someone to laugh at you, someone to say your work is shit, that you are lazy, that you are unproductive, and, yes, sometimes that person will be yourself. I am not saying I am going to put out amazing albums that are going to sell a gazillion copies worldwide - that's not what I want to do. There are things that I want to do though and I need to work just as hard to achieve them. I need to quit being so fucking lazy about the things that I claim to care about. And yes, I am pretty sure I have written the same thing to myself numerous times over the years in this diary, that I am going to work harder, commit to things. And I am going to keep on saying those things to myself as many times as I need to until I finally do them, until I finally heed these mantras, buckle down, and produce great work.
Then later in the afternoon, the news that Joan Rivers had died flashed on CNN while I was working out at the gym. It wasn't entirely surprising, given her condition in recent days, but still it made me quite sad that this voice, this caustic, acerbic, and fiercely intelligent voice, would no longer be around. She was a fucking badass and her fearless style of comedy has in small ways informed my own way of thinking and my own way of communicating thoughts about the world, though usually that side comes out when I'm a bit drunk and a bit belligerent. Which is what she was, a voice that said those things you might joke about with close friends while drinking, which otherwise you might be too polite to say. She gave voice to those cruder, meaner thoughts and did so in such a brilliant way that often pointed out the absurdities of our lives and burned down the temples to false idols we have come to worship, skewering celebrities and the idea of celebrity with a particular ruthless glee.
Aside from the fact that she was a woman who started doing comedy at a time when comedy was even more a boys club than it is now and that she was a fucking trailblazer for just about everyone, there is the fact, irrespective of this in itself important work, that she was fucking hilarious. Male or female, she was one of the smartest and funniest comedians we had.
She was also a workhorse, absolutely tireless. That she was still out on the road doing comedy shows, doing various tv shows, making late night appearances, and hosting QVC at the age of 81 is amazing.
The lesson here from both events is that hard work matters. More than anything else perhaps. Without it, whatever talent you may have is never utilized, never seen, never shared. Work, work, work. Make it fucking happen. Eyes on the prize.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Kurt Vile - "Girl Called Alex"
There were a lot of hairs. They were long. A unibrow was starting to take shape. Somehow this had gone unnoticed. I usually pluck these hairs well before it gets to this point. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror this morning, groggy, tried to shake myself out of this grogginess I've been feeling for weeks of being unemployed now. It had come to this. I have apparently stopped caring about things I normally would, had failed to notice myself, had perhaps done so intentionally, perhaps wanted to forget myself.
I started tweezing hairs away, making two eyebrows, sending the fighters back to their respective corners, pulling them off each other.
That's when I noticed ear hairs as well, a lot of them. I have been failing a lot lately. This was proof.
I have been unemployed for about three weeks now, probably long enough for these hairs to grow wild, untamed. New York is getting the better of me these days. I want to win. I want to beat this city. I don't feel like I have ever felt solidly in control of this city. To keep with this fighting analogy, it's been a gritty backyard wrestling match amongst school boys. For the better part of my time here, I have been pinned to the ground, the city yelling "Say Uncle!" There have been moments where I have squirmed my way out from underneath and managed to pin the city, have felt for a moment, sometimes even moments, that I was in control, that I had the city pinned, that I would emerge victorious. But usually the city, stronger thing that it is, usually quickly flips things again and has me pinned again, shoving my face into the grass.
I honestly have no clue what my future holds. I am unsure how I am going to pay my rent this month without overdrawing my bank account. I thought things would be easier. I didn't really plan for this. I somehow imagined after interning at an ad agency this summer, I would easily get hired at one. The process is a lot more drawn-out and time-consuming than I had imagined. And so I applied at a temp agency, but so far they haven't had any short-term assignments for me. They offered me a month long job, which I was nervous about taking because I had been hopeful that I would get a job at an agency soon, but now I am realizing I probably should have taken it.
I have been eating way too much pasta, way too many bagels, way too much peanut butter. Once I finally get steady income, I never want to eat these things again. I have been drinking too many three dollar bottles of Trader Joe's wine, which, let's be honest, I will probably continue to drink once I have steady income.
Diego and I are taking on a third roommate, renting out our living room for a couple months, which has eased my stress about rent somewhat.
I have been striking out with boys I like left and right, which has just been adding to this feeling that the city is piling on me right now, wanting to kick my ass, and to do so in a way that leaves me humiliated. The city has taken my shoes and thrown them over telephone wires, told me to walk home barefoot. Some boys do appear to like me, though they tend to be 21 years old or so, and I am too old for that. Everyone is too old for that, even 21 year olds.
The summer is coming to a close. I am noticing now I need to clip my nails as well. This, as most acts of grooming are, is a metaphor.
I started tweezing hairs away, making two eyebrows, sending the fighters back to their respective corners, pulling them off each other.
That's when I noticed ear hairs as well, a lot of them. I have been failing a lot lately. This was proof.
I have been unemployed for about three weeks now, probably long enough for these hairs to grow wild, untamed. New York is getting the better of me these days. I want to win. I want to beat this city. I don't feel like I have ever felt solidly in control of this city. To keep with this fighting analogy, it's been a gritty backyard wrestling match amongst school boys. For the better part of my time here, I have been pinned to the ground, the city yelling "Say Uncle!" There have been moments where I have squirmed my way out from underneath and managed to pin the city, have felt for a moment, sometimes even moments, that I was in control, that I had the city pinned, that I would emerge victorious. But usually the city, stronger thing that it is, usually quickly flips things again and has me pinned again, shoving my face into the grass.
I honestly have no clue what my future holds. I am unsure how I am going to pay my rent this month without overdrawing my bank account. I thought things would be easier. I didn't really plan for this. I somehow imagined after interning at an ad agency this summer, I would easily get hired at one. The process is a lot more drawn-out and time-consuming than I had imagined. And so I applied at a temp agency, but so far they haven't had any short-term assignments for me. They offered me a month long job, which I was nervous about taking because I had been hopeful that I would get a job at an agency soon, but now I am realizing I probably should have taken it.
I have been eating way too much pasta, way too many bagels, way too much peanut butter. Once I finally get steady income, I never want to eat these things again. I have been drinking too many three dollar bottles of Trader Joe's wine, which, let's be honest, I will probably continue to drink once I have steady income.
Diego and I are taking on a third roommate, renting out our living room for a couple months, which has eased my stress about rent somewhat.
I have been striking out with boys I like left and right, which has just been adding to this feeling that the city is piling on me right now, wanting to kick my ass, and to do so in a way that leaves me humiliated. The city has taken my shoes and thrown them over telephone wires, told me to walk home barefoot. Some boys do appear to like me, though they tend to be 21 years old or so, and I am too old for that. Everyone is too old for that, even 21 year olds.
The summer is coming to a close. I am noticing now I need to clip my nails as well. This, as most acts of grooming are, is a metaphor.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Lucky
Last night, I stumbled back to my house from a friend's place in Greenpoint. Stumbled not so much because I was tipsy, which I was after watching the VMAs, but stumbled because I had injured my foot at a rooftop party on Saturday and have been hobbling around since.
I stopped into the bodega by my house and ordered a roast beef sandwich on a roll and chatted with the guy that makes the sandwiches there, Lucky. I probably have had more meaningful conversations with him than a good majority of the people that I consider to be friends. He's there every single night working the overnight shift. He has seen the entire spectrum of Charlie wasted, from just a little tipsy to an absolute mess. He is the sweetest guy and we usually end up talking about life in broad strokes.
He asked me if I am always so happy since usually I am smiling quite a bit I guess when I talk to him. I said that, yes, usually I am pretty happy and like to laugh a lot. He said he's pretty much the same way. He told me about how when he was a kid, his mom used to ask him why he laughed all the time. He would laugh about everything and his mom would say: Why do you do this? However, he told me that he isn't always happy, that there are moments when he also is really sad and doesn't laugh and people don't understand that either. For instance, he said, that recently his sister's husband had died and he was very sad about that, that it showed just as visibly on his face as a smile.
We talked about how the two come from the same place, the happiness and the sadness, that they really aren't that different at all.
I went home and ate a roast beef sandwich.
I stopped into the bodega by my house and ordered a roast beef sandwich on a roll and chatted with the guy that makes the sandwiches there, Lucky. I probably have had more meaningful conversations with him than a good majority of the people that I consider to be friends. He's there every single night working the overnight shift. He has seen the entire spectrum of Charlie wasted, from just a little tipsy to an absolute mess. He is the sweetest guy and we usually end up talking about life in broad strokes.
He asked me if I am always so happy since usually I am smiling quite a bit I guess when I talk to him. I said that, yes, usually I am pretty happy and like to laugh a lot. He said he's pretty much the same way. He told me about how when he was a kid, his mom used to ask him why he laughed all the time. He would laugh about everything and his mom would say: Why do you do this? However, he told me that he isn't always happy, that there are moments when he also is really sad and doesn't laugh and people don't understand that either. For instance, he said, that recently his sister's husband had died and he was very sad about that, that it showed just as visibly on his face as a smile.
We talked about how the two come from the same place, the happiness and the sadness, that they really aren't that different at all.
I went home and ate a roast beef sandwich.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Roisin's Italian EP
So that nice, cute guy that slept over last weekend? I texted him on Tuesday telling him I wanted to hang out with him again, that he should come over and get stoned with me some night, or something. And his reply? Deafening silence.
His reply was to not reply.
I am beginning to realize I am a terrible judge of knowing when someone is into me. I thought there was some nice shared moment, something cute, that this person definitely wanted to hang out again. Wrong. Alex Trebek buzzes that buzzer to let you know you have said the incorrect answer and says "Oh, I'm sorry," his face contorting in pain that you were so wrong, that you were so oblivious of your wrongness, answering your wrong answer so confidently.
So maybe I'm not going to win Jeopardy, but that's okay. I'm playing the game and that is all that matters. I am trying to make myself more vulnerable, to verbalize what I want, to go after it. And that's part of life, of playing the game - getting the answer wrong. But there are more questions out there, more chances to get it right.
I hung out with this guy, Sebastian, last night. We had chatted on Scruff briefly before I invited him over. He was cute, charming, and new to the city. He was in his early twenties, another guy probably too young for me to be hanging out with. After some talk about something or other, we started kissing, took our clothes off, had sex. We held eye contact as we fucked, saying yes and more and this feels great with our eyes only. Afterwards, we lay next to each other, dripping sweat on to my sheets.
We then moved to my roommate's room so we could smoke out his window. We sat there drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and talking about our lives. These moments of connection are all I want and they are so nice when they occur.
The moment expanded. A woman who lives a couple doors down walked past the open window that we were sitting in front of and said hello and introduced herself. We chatted for a bit through the window before we invited her in to join us. The three of us hung out in our apartment, drinking and chatting about past histories.
It was a great New York night, having this nice evening hanging out with two people I didn't know even just several hours earlier.
My neighbor eventually left. Sebastian had to leave soon as well. We kissed goodbye by my door, which led to fucking goodbye by my door.
It was raining. I gave him an umbrella for his walk home.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Gilberto Gil, "Tenho Sede"
I rode the subway by myself yesterday out to the beach. I read from a book I have been reading, Long Division, but more so, I didn't read from it. I enjoyed that luxury that you have on long commutes alone, losing one's self in a particular type of thought that really only seems able to breed in these circumstances, moving through space and time in some vehicle, somehow these conditions making everything (appear at least) to make more sense. You can sketch out, in ways you hadn't been able to earlier, the contours of your life.
Soon though, I was on the beach with friends. I was so much happier to see them because I felt more secure, more aware of who I was, after that subway ride alone, that quality time I had been able to spend with myself.
I drank a lot of vodka and swam in the water and talked to people in the sun about Walt Whitman and mole people.
Everything took on the blur of those best summer beach days in the city, alcohol combined with the effects of the sun, for making everything have that beautiful mellow glow. Cares of other lives, lives other than this one now on the beach, seem so distant. There are few better experiences of freedom than to spend the day at the beach. It felt so good. Soon, it was evening and I was riding in the back seat of a car, somehow finding a ride home. The drive home was beautiful through various neighborhoods. At some point we were driving north on some road - I know this because to my left was as we passed each block, the beautiful view of a sunset happening perfectly at the end of each road. I kept waiting until we got to the next corner so again I could view the bright red setting sun lining up perfectly down every block.
I ate some food and then went over to Nik's house. We pre-gamed there and then went to Spectrum. The blur of the beach, a hazy playfulness to the day, continued into night, into the city again. Beach vibes all day and night.
I was introduced by a friend to this guy, N. We have been introduced once or twice before, mutual friends in common, however I was excited for some re-introduction because I've always thought he was cute. So I smiled at him as we were introduced. I looked at him for probably a few moments longer than that of polite friendliness, saw in his eyes something that told me it was okay, that he was looking for a couple moments longer as well. I smiled at him again and we talked about the beach, about his sunburn. He showed me a picture he took of his backside, so you could see the tan lines of the burn, could see his cute ass.
And I don't know what else happened in that bar, who was there, what music was playing, anything. At that point, everything but this guy faded away and I just wanted to keep talking to him, to keep this ball in the air, having so much fun talking to this cute guy. I remember at some point some guy I used to be into a lot recently and who blew me off multiple times came to say hi to me, but I ignored him because I didn't want to stop this conversation, this moment. N asked if I lived nearby. I said I did. I asked him if he wanted to come over. He said he did.
At my house, we drank wine, smoked weed, and talked about Roberto Bolano and science-fiction. He is so fucking sexy.
When he left my house this morning, I smiled. It was my first time having sex with someone in my new apartment, which is not that new. My bedroom has finally been broken in. It was really nice to have a guy in my bed next to me, to sleep against someone. And so I smiled for those reasons, yes, but on top of that smile, there was another one, happy to have slept with this particular person, this nice and cute dude.
After he left though, a hangover started to set in more and more. Beach vibes came to a scratching halt. I slept off some of my hangover. I ate Mexican food. I read Walt Whitman and paranoid lunatics and committed dreamers on Twitter. I listened to Gilberto Gil. I ate more Mexican food.
Soon though, I was on the beach with friends. I was so much happier to see them because I felt more secure, more aware of who I was, after that subway ride alone, that quality time I had been able to spend with myself.
I drank a lot of vodka and swam in the water and talked to people in the sun about Walt Whitman and mole people.
Everything took on the blur of those best summer beach days in the city, alcohol combined with the effects of the sun, for making everything have that beautiful mellow glow. Cares of other lives, lives other than this one now on the beach, seem so distant. There are few better experiences of freedom than to spend the day at the beach. It felt so good. Soon, it was evening and I was riding in the back seat of a car, somehow finding a ride home. The drive home was beautiful through various neighborhoods. At some point we were driving north on some road - I know this because to my left was as we passed each block, the beautiful view of a sunset happening perfectly at the end of each road. I kept waiting until we got to the next corner so again I could view the bright red setting sun lining up perfectly down every block.
I ate some food and then went over to Nik's house. We pre-gamed there and then went to Spectrum. The blur of the beach, a hazy playfulness to the day, continued into night, into the city again. Beach vibes all day and night.
I was introduced by a friend to this guy, N. We have been introduced once or twice before, mutual friends in common, however I was excited for some re-introduction because I've always thought he was cute. So I smiled at him as we were introduced. I looked at him for probably a few moments longer than that of polite friendliness, saw in his eyes something that told me it was okay, that he was looking for a couple moments longer as well. I smiled at him again and we talked about the beach, about his sunburn. He showed me a picture he took of his backside, so you could see the tan lines of the burn, could see his cute ass.
And I don't know what else happened in that bar, who was there, what music was playing, anything. At that point, everything but this guy faded away and I just wanted to keep talking to him, to keep this ball in the air, having so much fun talking to this cute guy. I remember at some point some guy I used to be into a lot recently and who blew me off multiple times came to say hi to me, but I ignored him because I didn't want to stop this conversation, this moment. N asked if I lived nearby. I said I did. I asked him if he wanted to come over. He said he did.
At my house, we drank wine, smoked weed, and talked about Roberto Bolano and science-fiction. He is so fucking sexy.
When he left my house this morning, I smiled. It was my first time having sex with someone in my new apartment, which is not that new. My bedroom has finally been broken in. It was really nice to have a guy in my bed next to me, to sleep against someone. And so I smiled for those reasons, yes, but on top of that smile, there was another one, happy to have slept with this particular person, this nice and cute dude.
After he left though, a hangover started to set in more and more. Beach vibes came to a scratching halt. I slept off some of my hangover. I ate Mexican food. I read Walt Whitman and paranoid lunatics and committed dreamers on Twitter. I listened to Gilberto Gil. I ate more Mexican food.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Gilberto Gil - "Sandra"
I am unemployed. This is the first time I have been in this position in at least five years. In the recent past, I have left one job for another for another. The future has always been a bit more known over the past several years. I forgot how stressful and terrifying it can be to not know what your next job will be, whether anyone will hire you, how long that will take, and all while you have little money in your bank account.
I am being positive about it because I do think there is something to that, to manifesting the life you believe you will get, that life sometimes is just a game of confidence. Perhaps a more apt analogy is that it is a game of chicken. Whichever. Hold the wheel steady, look straight ahead, and floor it. The future is what you make of it.
On Thursday, I said goodbye to the people I interned with this summer. I tried not to cry. I could feel it coming, that quivering bottom lip. I made my goodbyes quick. Out on the street, it hit me that I had nowhere to go the next day, no job lined up, no clue what I would be doing. My eyes started watering and I held back tears as I walked through midtown crowds. I wasn't sure if I was sad about likely never seeing some of those fellow interns again who I had become so close to or whether it was some terror of what my future might be, or more likely some combination of the two of those.
I swam in the ocean yesterday. I floated on my back, feeling free and unencumbered by the concerns of land. I rode waves in and then swam back out because that's where I wanted to be, in the weightless depths of the Atlantic, bobbing around, hopping over waves and feeling some satisfaction in how well I could do so, obstacles nothing, easily overcome, dove under, jumped over, and ridden on top of to the shore.
Tuesday, there is a recruiter fair that I am going to and hopefully I will hear good new from an agency this week. There is the waiting for the waves to come. I want to ride them. What scares me are those moments when there aren't many waves, when you are in the water just waiting and waiting for one to come. I like the action, the movement, the reaction, the decision about how to approach each wave. I've got my fingers crossed and my swimsuit on. I am looking away from the shore.
I am being positive about it because I do think there is something to that, to manifesting the life you believe you will get, that life sometimes is just a game of confidence. Perhaps a more apt analogy is that it is a game of chicken. Whichever. Hold the wheel steady, look straight ahead, and floor it. The future is what you make of it.
On Thursday, I said goodbye to the people I interned with this summer. I tried not to cry. I could feel it coming, that quivering bottom lip. I made my goodbyes quick. Out on the street, it hit me that I had nowhere to go the next day, no job lined up, no clue what I would be doing. My eyes started watering and I held back tears as I walked through midtown crowds. I wasn't sure if I was sad about likely never seeing some of those fellow interns again who I had become so close to or whether it was some terror of what my future might be, or more likely some combination of the two of those.
I swam in the ocean yesterday. I floated on my back, feeling free and unencumbered by the concerns of land. I rode waves in and then swam back out because that's where I wanted to be, in the weightless depths of the Atlantic, bobbing around, hopping over waves and feeling some satisfaction in how well I could do so, obstacles nothing, easily overcome, dove under, jumped over, and ridden on top of to the shore.
Tuesday, there is a recruiter fair that I am going to and hopefully I will hear good new from an agency this week. There is the waiting for the waves to come. I want to ride them. What scares me are those moments when there aren't many waves, when you are in the water just waiting and waiting for one to come. I like the action, the movement, the reaction, the decision about how to approach each wave. I've got my fingers crossed and my swimsuit on. I am looking away from the shore.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Free Fall
Maybe it was good that the movie was so miserable. Maybe it was good that its view of gay life so bleak. Maybe had it been some charming, romantic movie showing all the joy in life, I would have been miserable. I probably would have cuddled up with my pillow and wished for something like the thing on screen, sad because it is currently absent in my life.
But the movie, Free Fall, instead played up how hard, how difficult, how miserable gay life is. And it is in some places for a lot of people, yes, but it just seemed way off for a movie taking place in present day Germany. I grew up watching movies like this, gay-themed movies from the 90s too numerous to count, too unmemorable to even remember by name, in which the gays get their comeuppance, in which they suffer because of their sexuality, racked with guilt as they struggle to accept themselves, shunned by society and loved ones, unhappy endings all around.
Are we really still making movies like this?
The year is 2014. Where is the joy? Where is the fun? Where is the sense of play? I know that there are some movies out there that depict this but then to come across this movie, which has good reviews and which several of my friends have been recommending, I get really confused and I get really angry.
But it just means I need to depict the world I know. There is such a beautiful gay world out there that I get to participate in. I am so happy to be gay and to get to participate in this gay Brooklyn life, to have such amazing friends. Life is fucking awesome and I wouldn't have it any other way.
But the movie, Free Fall, instead played up how hard, how difficult, how miserable gay life is. And it is in some places for a lot of people, yes, but it just seemed way off for a movie taking place in present day Germany. I grew up watching movies like this, gay-themed movies from the 90s too numerous to count, too unmemorable to even remember by name, in which the gays get their comeuppance, in which they suffer because of their sexuality, racked with guilt as they struggle to accept themselves, shunned by society and loved ones, unhappy endings all around.
Are we really still making movies like this?
The year is 2014. Where is the joy? Where is the fun? Where is the sense of play? I know that there are some movies out there that depict this but then to come across this movie, which has good reviews and which several of my friends have been recommending, I get really confused and I get really angry.
But it just means I need to depict the world I know. There is such a beautiful gay world out there that I get to participate in. I am so happy to be gay and to get to participate in this gay Brooklyn life, to have such amazing friends. Life is fucking awesome and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" - The Smiths
The human body - its wants, its needs - I am not sure where the line is between those two, though am certain that there probably does exist some line, as porous as it likely is to be.
Friday night, I partied hard. I went to some party at a club out in Bushwick. As soon as I got there, I saw a certain someone that I have been trying not to have a crush on any longer, my lack of success with him making me feel insecure and slightly crazy. He was flirty and cute as hell. He immediately came up to me and started talking in some intimate manner that confused me but also made me happy, made me think that this person actually did like me, that I could hook up with him, that we could have some cute romance. Really, though, the reason he was talking to me was because the party wasn't that crowded yet, that there weren't yet other people willing to give him attention. He wanted attention, and I was too willing to be that person who gave it to him, smitten yet again.
At some point our nights diverged and I went to some rooftop party with friends. I got further drunk, further high, and danced to music on some old rooftop that I imagined collapsing under the weight of so many people. I danced as the sun came up. I talked to some cute boy unsuccessfully, some boy apparently with a boyfriend. I left the party with my friends soon after daylight started to appear. They were going to take a taxi back to their apartment and try to find a bodega still selling booze. I said goodbye, wanting to walk home and enjoy the sunrise.
It was such a beautiful walk. The sky kept on getting more and more beautiful, purple into pinks into fiery reds, explosions of color on the eastern edges of the sky, glimpsed down the ends of blocks, glimpsed over high school football fields, glimpsed under overhead subway tracks.
And because my body had all those wants that night, the desire to party until daybreak, it had a lot of needs on Saturday, needs that perhaps might have been wants, again the line never too clear. I slept a lot and lied around the house for too long. I chatted with the crush on Facebook even though I shouldn't have, said it was nice to run into him at that party. He was at work and had gotten barely any sleep. He mentioned wanting to cuddle. He said he would text me later in the day and we could hang out and watch movies and cuddle. And I wasn't expecting him to necessarily text, had my doubts he would, but certainly hoped he would, and definitely was disappointed when he didn't. My body then told me it needed pizza, which might have been a want, but my body was absolutely demanding it, saying it needed it. A hungover body is in some ways what I imagine a pregnant body to be: having very particular demands that it insists it needs.
I ordered Domino's and listened to the Smiths and watched an eighties teen movie. My body wanted this other body next to me, believed it needed it. I ate pizza instead and listened to one particular Smiths song again and again, feeling slightly sorry for myself. The song title was what I wanted to tell myself, that the story was too familiar, this frustrated longing, this tease of him saying we'd hang out, not hearing from him, and for some reason still hoping for different results. That I know how the story goes and yet I keep thinking it will play out differently.
So please, go ahead, stop me, stop me. Stop me if you think you've heard this one before.
Friday night, I partied hard. I went to some party at a club out in Bushwick. As soon as I got there, I saw a certain someone that I have been trying not to have a crush on any longer, my lack of success with him making me feel insecure and slightly crazy. He was flirty and cute as hell. He immediately came up to me and started talking in some intimate manner that confused me but also made me happy, made me think that this person actually did like me, that I could hook up with him, that we could have some cute romance. Really, though, the reason he was talking to me was because the party wasn't that crowded yet, that there weren't yet other people willing to give him attention. He wanted attention, and I was too willing to be that person who gave it to him, smitten yet again.
At some point our nights diverged and I went to some rooftop party with friends. I got further drunk, further high, and danced to music on some old rooftop that I imagined collapsing under the weight of so many people. I danced as the sun came up. I talked to some cute boy unsuccessfully, some boy apparently with a boyfriend. I left the party with my friends soon after daylight started to appear. They were going to take a taxi back to their apartment and try to find a bodega still selling booze. I said goodbye, wanting to walk home and enjoy the sunrise.
It was such a beautiful walk. The sky kept on getting more and more beautiful, purple into pinks into fiery reds, explosions of color on the eastern edges of the sky, glimpsed down the ends of blocks, glimpsed over high school football fields, glimpsed under overhead subway tracks.
And because my body had all those wants that night, the desire to party until daybreak, it had a lot of needs on Saturday, needs that perhaps might have been wants, again the line never too clear. I slept a lot and lied around the house for too long. I chatted with the crush on Facebook even though I shouldn't have, said it was nice to run into him at that party. He was at work and had gotten barely any sleep. He mentioned wanting to cuddle. He said he would text me later in the day and we could hang out and watch movies and cuddle. And I wasn't expecting him to necessarily text, had my doubts he would, but certainly hoped he would, and definitely was disappointed when he didn't. My body then told me it needed pizza, which might have been a want, but my body was absolutely demanding it, saying it needed it. A hungover body is in some ways what I imagine a pregnant body to be: having very particular demands that it insists it needs.
I ordered Domino's and listened to the Smiths and watched an eighties teen movie. My body wanted this other body next to me, believed it needed it. I ate pizza instead and listened to one particular Smiths song again and again, feeling slightly sorry for myself. The song title was what I wanted to tell myself, that the story was too familiar, this frustrated longing, this tease of him saying we'd hang out, not hearing from him, and for some reason still hoping for different results. That I know how the story goes and yet I keep thinking it will play out differently.
So please, go ahead, stop me, stop me. Stop me if you think you've heard this one before.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Boyhood
We are so insanely lucky to have Richard Linklater. He is such an amazing filmmaker and really gets at the heart of what it is to be alive, what it is to be human. There is no other director right now that even comes close. Some of Woody Allen's older films definitely got it, definitely got close to the matter of what it is to be alive. Some of Eric Rohmer movies also hit the mark.
But these days, there are no other films coming out that leave me floating after I see them, so aware of what a precious thing this is, this time here on Earth.
I am still processing Boyhood, still under its spell from this past weekend. I want to go see it again as soon as possible. I want to again experience that joy in cinema that I had in the theater watching the film, that joy that I had in encountering a work of art that was really asking the big questions, asking what it all means, asking what it means to have these crazy ups and crazy downs and to be here for the shortest amount of time, about what the point of it all is.
And the point, which he shows us through his humanist style of filmmaking (because it'd be so easy to pose these same questions and have bleak, flippant answers that didn't acknowledge the seriousness of the inquiry as some method of deflecting having to grapple with the answers to these difficult questions), the point he shows us in all of this is just that - it is to have these ups and these downs and this string of slightly miserable events that will be the memories of our life - that that is the purpose. It is to take these moments for what they are, to treasure this thing because of its briefness, because of its pointlessness, to love every single moment of it, to see the crazy beauty in it all.
But these days, there are no other films coming out that leave me floating after I see them, so aware of what a precious thing this is, this time here on Earth.
I am still processing Boyhood, still under its spell from this past weekend. I want to go see it again as soon as possible. I want to again experience that joy in cinema that I had in the theater watching the film, that joy that I had in encountering a work of art that was really asking the big questions, asking what it all means, asking what it means to have these crazy ups and crazy downs and to be here for the shortest amount of time, about what the point of it all is.
And the point, which he shows us through his humanist style of filmmaking (because it'd be so easy to pose these same questions and have bleak, flippant answers that didn't acknowledge the seriousness of the inquiry as some method of deflecting having to grapple with the answers to these difficult questions), the point he shows us in all of this is just that - it is to have these ups and these downs and this string of slightly miserable events that will be the memories of our life - that that is the purpose. It is to take these moments for what they are, to treasure this thing because of its briefness, because of its pointlessness, to love every single moment of it, to see the crazy beauty in it all.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Everybody rise
Elaine Stritch died yesterday. As did a lot of other people.
A plane full of people, something close to 300 people, was shot down over Ukraine. A lot of prominent AIDS researchers were among the passengers, the now dead.
With the world’s attention shifted to this, Israel sent ground troops into Gaza, and yet more Palestinians were killed.
There is so much bad news lately, so much disregard for human life - people actually protesting buses of migrant children, yelling at them; insane and unpunished police brutality; planes shot from the sky; rockets fired into Israeli and Palestinian civilian areas.
There is always this stuff, but the convergence of so much of it yesterday proved particularly dispiriting. I am not sure what can be done, where to even direct my outrage to, that there are so many things to be outraged about, so many things not even mentioned here, that it leaves one feeling quite powerless against the seemingly unstoppable forces of stupidity and hate in our world.
And so I did what could be done last night. I went out for drinks with a friend last night at Marie’s Crisis. Elaine Stritch had died, this firecracker of a woman, and I wanted to hear people with joy singing some of the songs she made famous.
I don’t know what the solution is other than to approach life with as much joy and playfulness as Elaine Stritch did. There is a lot beyond my control. I can go out though and have fun and celebrate life and be surrounded by a crowd of musical theater folks all singing along to “Ladies Who Lunch,” raising their glasses again and again at the line “I’ll drink to that” throughout the song.
And I can take the song’s ending lines as an incantation, a call to arms, Elaine from the grave telling us something: “Everybody rise! Everybody rise! Everybody rise!”
A plane full of people, something close to 300 people, was shot down over Ukraine. A lot of prominent AIDS researchers were among the passengers, the now dead.
With the world’s attention shifted to this, Israel sent ground troops into Gaza, and yet more Palestinians were killed.
There is so much bad news lately, so much disregard for human life - people actually protesting buses of migrant children, yelling at them; insane and unpunished police brutality; planes shot from the sky; rockets fired into Israeli and Palestinian civilian areas.
There is always this stuff, but the convergence of so much of it yesterday proved particularly dispiriting. I am not sure what can be done, where to even direct my outrage to, that there are so many things to be outraged about, so many things not even mentioned here, that it leaves one feeling quite powerless against the seemingly unstoppable forces of stupidity and hate in our world.
And so I did what could be done last night. I went out for drinks with a friend last night at Marie’s Crisis. Elaine Stritch had died, this firecracker of a woman, and I wanted to hear people with joy singing some of the songs she made famous.
I don’t know what the solution is other than to approach life with as much joy and playfulness as Elaine Stritch did. There is a lot beyond my control. I can go out though and have fun and celebrate life and be surrounded by a crowd of musical theater folks all singing along to “Ladies Who Lunch,” raising their glasses again and again at the line “I’ll drink to that” throughout the song.
And I can take the song’s ending lines as an incantation, a call to arms, Elaine from the grave telling us something: “Everybody rise! Everybody rise! Everybody rise!”
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Belle and Sebastian - "Tigermilk"
A couple nights ago, I cuddled with this person I was attracted to. We spent the night spooning each other and rubbing boners against each other. It didn't mean much because it was in a room with other people asleep in it and he had a boyfriend. And yet, it made so happy. I slept so good despite not getting much sleep. My body had forgotten that feeling, forgotten how happy the act of cuddling with someone made it. It's been a really long time since I have spent the night with anyone - the last time was probably in January. I think it was in a snowstorm while I was staying in the hotel I worked at. I invited this boy over who I soon became disinterested in later because that evening I realized really how young in some sense other than his actual age he was, how different we were, how there were things I could not bridge, did not want to. Anyways, we cuddled in a fancy hotel bed with nice sheets while a snowstorm raged outside. It was a beautiful moment. That was seven months ago. I think that was the last time I spent the night asleep next to someone until a couple nights ago.
My body felt this joy again, felt what a great feeling it was to cuddle with someone, to sleep against someone's body that you are attracted to. My body had simply forgotten, or done its best to. That warm press of another body in the night brought it all back though.
And so it was probably not surprising that I found myself messaging Jose as soon as I got back on Sunday from Fire Island. I wanted to experience certain feelings, certain pleasures, joys. I asked him if he wanted to see Boyhood with me this week. He said he did. And then when I suggested Tuesday, he didn't respond. And then today, Tuesday, when I messaged him again, he didn't respond again.
I already had the feeling that he wasn't into me, however today still made me sad to realize that what I thought might be the case was definitely the case, that this cute guy I liked wasn't interested. I mean, I just want to cuddle with someone and to talk to them as we drift off to sleep. And so then, despite me being in my thirties now, what one might consider an adult, someone that should be above such lines of thinking, I thought to myself (because I am human) "Why doesn't he like me?" I would say this in my head in a comical Valley Girl voice to mock the question, to mock my asking it. Still, though, I was asking it.
I am not sure what the answer is, but I thought about it a lot. And it really has nothing to do with him because he's just some guy I barely even knew, just some really cute guy that I had a big crush on. Which surely is one of the main problems, if not the only one here, the cause of any others - that I liked him too much, that I was thirsty. It shows. I am too hungry, too desperate - too thirsty for love. It's been a long time and I want things too badly now. I walked in the rain tonight because the streets were more empty than they otherwise would have been and everyone was hurrying to escape the rain. The air was impossibly thick. It was warm and the rain just slightly less so. I walked slowly to take in this physical sensation of the air and the rain, to indulge in it. When it rains hard and I am sheltered by my umbrella from other people, I like to sing out loud. And so I did so to the Prince songs I was listening to on my headphones. Buildings, the tall ones further downtown, were blurred out slightly by the rain, their lights though still giving some hint of not only their own shape, but also that of the rain and the air it passed through.
My body felt this joy again, felt what a great feeling it was to cuddle with someone, to sleep against someone's body that you are attracted to. My body had simply forgotten, or done its best to. That warm press of another body in the night brought it all back though.
And so it was probably not surprising that I found myself messaging Jose as soon as I got back on Sunday from Fire Island. I wanted to experience certain feelings, certain pleasures, joys. I asked him if he wanted to see Boyhood with me this week. He said he did. And then when I suggested Tuesday, he didn't respond. And then today, Tuesday, when I messaged him again, he didn't respond again.
I already had the feeling that he wasn't into me, however today still made me sad to realize that what I thought might be the case was definitely the case, that this cute guy I liked wasn't interested. I mean, I just want to cuddle with someone and to talk to them as we drift off to sleep. And so then, despite me being in my thirties now, what one might consider an adult, someone that should be above such lines of thinking, I thought to myself (because I am human) "Why doesn't he like me?" I would say this in my head in a comical Valley Girl voice to mock the question, to mock my asking it. Still, though, I was asking it.
I am not sure what the answer is, but I thought about it a lot. And it really has nothing to do with him because he's just some guy I barely even knew, just some really cute guy that I had a big crush on. Which surely is one of the main problems, if not the only one here, the cause of any others - that I liked him too much, that I was thirsty. It shows. I am too hungry, too desperate - too thirsty for love. It's been a long time and I want things too badly now. I walked in the rain tonight because the streets were more empty than they otherwise would have been and everyone was hurrying to escape the rain. The air was impossibly thick. It was warm and the rain just slightly less so. I walked slowly to take in this physical sensation of the air and the rain, to indulge in it. When it rains hard and I am sheltered by my umbrella from other people, I like to sing out loud. And so I did so to the Prince songs I was listening to on my headphones. Buildings, the tall ones further downtown, were blurred out slightly by the rain, their lights though still giving some hint of not only their own shape, but also that of the rain and the air it passed through.
"I Contain Multitudes"
Sun, sand, booze, drugs, flesh. It was a full moon also. This past weekend, Fire Island swirled together into some hazy vision of what fun looks like.
I wandered from party to party, from Cherry Grove to the Pines, and back again, crossing through the Meat Rack seemingly countless times, that gorgeous walk, made all the more beautiful by the light being cast by the moon on the dunes.
A party was happening in the middle of the Meat Rack. Someone had hauled out speakers and DJ equipment there. Some pagan rite I seemingly stumbled upon. Inebriated naked men under a full moon dancing and having sex with one another all over the place. A fundamentalist's nightmare; my vision of what heaven might look like. Everyone was insanely beautiful and sexy. Needless to say, I stayed at this party until the sun rose, enjoying the festivities, enjoying these men.
I stumbled back to the hotel room I was crashing in with five other people and cuddled against the guy next to me. A few hours later, I was on the beach again, under the hot sun, diving under waves, and taking in all of these men around me, flirting with a few of them. There was such a current of sexuality pulsing through Fire Island - I felt electrified by it - this intense desire circulating around, felt in each passing person's glance.
I fell asleep in a station wagon on the way home. I remember stopping at a gas station somewhere on Long Island, somewhere that looked like anywhere, and I got a thing of Combos, the Pepperoni Pizza flavor. I then remember waking up at the White Castle by my house. I was let out of the car and stumbled to the burrito place by my house.
Yesterday though was when the memories of all of that fun became tempered with reality, with what it is to be a sexually active gay man in 2014, that it may be fun, insanely fun, to engage freely in some orgy rave party happening under a full moon in the middle of the woods, but that I can't do so, not to the extent I did, that even though what I did was on the lower risk end of the spectrum of unsafe sex it was still unsafe and still possibly risky. I have been meaning to go on PrEP for the past couple months but wanted to wait until I settled into a new job and got my insurance situation settled - I didn't want to start it and a month or two later figure out how I was going to pay for it. Anyways, the point is that time old tale: would have, should have, could have.
So I found myself early yesterday morning at Callen-Lorde trying to get PEP treatment. After waiting for about an hour there, they then made an appointment for me two hours later and said I might actually get seen even later. I told them that I really couldn't spend all day there since I was supposed to be at work and they directed me instead to CityMD since I had insurance.
It's really unfortunate how difficult it is to get PEP. Yes, I made a mistake, but it seems crazy to me how annoying these barriers to receiving this drug are that can prevent HIV, that for a lot of people, that commitment of time required at Callen-Lorde is probably a prohibitive barrier. Anyways, CityMD was quick but frighteningly clueless - I don't think the doctor knew anything about this treatment and she tried to dissuade me from it since I didn't have any symptoms (um, not how it works Doctor). I finally got the prescription but then had a whole other series of annoyances to deal with - namely that of my insurance company as well as my COBRA administrator. Even though I wrote a massive check to continue paying for my health insurance from my last job through COBRA, Aetna did not have me enrolled anymore, and so it was literally hours and hours while at work that I spent on the phone with various parties trying to get this fixed, which was hours and hours that I couldn't pick up this prescription for since I don't have several thousand dollars to pay the out of pocket price that pharmaceutical companies gauge the healthcare system for for HIV medication, which meant hours and hours of a delay in starting a time-sensitive treatment where each passing hour makes it less effective.
I finally got the drug though, Atripla, and felt nauseous and slightly dizzy for most of the evening once I took it. Hopefully that side effect will wear off, won't occur when I take it again today.
There is the balancing and the rebalancing of what memories mean. These erotic memories, fun moments in the sand with a guy, are reconsidered, become something else, when you are on the phone with various people trying to get your insurance situation figured out so you can start taking a pill that makes you feel nauseous. Fun too often comes at a price. That hangover. That sense of shame. That waiting in a doctor's office. But for a moment, before all of that sets in, before those after moments occur, you are as alive, as present, and as happy as it might be possible to be on this planet when you are fucking that dude in the dunes under the light of the moon. But that means little to nothing when you are sitting on a toilet with diarrhea wondering why you can't exercise more self-control.
There is the balancing and the rebalancing of what memories mean. These erotic memories, fun moments in the sand with a guy, are reconsidered, become something else, when you are on the phone with various people trying to get your insurance situation figured out so you can start taking a pill that makes you feel nauseous. Fun too often comes at a price. That hangover. That sense of shame. That waiting in a doctor's office. But for a moment, before all of that sets in, before those after moments occur, you are as alive, as present, and as happy as it might be possible to be on this planet when you are fucking that dude in the dunes under the light of the moon. But that means little to nothing when you are sitting on a toilet with diarrhea wondering why you can't exercise more self-control.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Beyonce - "Schoolin' Life"
I waded into the water slowly, my body shocked at first by the cold. Baby steps. I kept moving forward because despite it feeling freezing, it also felt so good. I was vaguely hungover, had gotten little sleep the night before. It felt therapeutic to bathe in the ocean, to let this cold water slap my system into a state of being awake, of being alive. Once I dove in, I felt the joy. It was cold, yes, but the pleasures were greater than the pain. Pain subsides. Keep swimming, keep moving, and you will forget about it. I played in the ocean forever, solitary swimmer, riding waves, diving under them, floating on my back, enjoying what it is to have a human body and to feel its fluid movements in a body of water.
I came out shivering and lay down next to Nik who was passed out, getting some of the sleep we didn't get the night before. I can never sleep at Fire Island, can never get much of it. I always want to be up late, chasing those parties, admiring the men, dancing to music, feeling alive, free. There were so many beautiful men everywhere you turned. There were so many beautiful moments, so many beautiful scenes, so many beautiful sounds. The sound of waves crashing just out of sight as you stumble through the Meat Rack between the Pines and Cherry Grove, dusk slowing occurring over dunes, everything insanely beautiful. Shimmering blue pools of water. Green eyes. Exposed skin. Passing smiles.
I left the party with this guy who was staying at the house I knew people at. We got into the hot tub together, everyone asleep at the house. Soon after, we were kissing, stroking each other's dicks. We moved into the shower and I was a little drunk and overwhelmed with all the beauty of that island, all the beauty with me in that shower. He had an amazing body. I kept running my hands over it through the water. I was so happy to be there, to be touching his body, to be under that stream of water.
I woke up at the crack of dawn, having crashed on the floor of their living room with massive glass windows that did nothing to hide the day's announcement of itself. I went out to meet it.
On the train ride home yesterday, exhausted, I could feel sunburn setting in. I listened to Beyonce's "Four" the whole way over and over again. I snacked on almonds and looked at the towns of Long Island we passed through. I texted some boys to see if they wanted to meet up, wanting so badly to continue having nice moments, for it never to end.
I came out shivering and lay down next to Nik who was passed out, getting some of the sleep we didn't get the night before. I can never sleep at Fire Island, can never get much of it. I always want to be up late, chasing those parties, admiring the men, dancing to music, feeling alive, free. There were so many beautiful men everywhere you turned. There were so many beautiful moments, so many beautiful scenes, so many beautiful sounds. The sound of waves crashing just out of sight as you stumble through the Meat Rack between the Pines and Cherry Grove, dusk slowing occurring over dunes, everything insanely beautiful. Shimmering blue pools of water. Green eyes. Exposed skin. Passing smiles.
I left the party with this guy who was staying at the house I knew people at. We got into the hot tub together, everyone asleep at the house. Soon after, we were kissing, stroking each other's dicks. We moved into the shower and I was a little drunk and overwhelmed with all the beauty of that island, all the beauty with me in that shower. He had an amazing body. I kept running my hands over it through the water. I was so happy to be there, to be touching his body, to be under that stream of water.
I woke up at the crack of dawn, having crashed on the floor of their living room with massive glass windows that did nothing to hide the day's announcement of itself. I went out to meet it.
On the train ride home yesterday, exhausted, I could feel sunburn setting in. I listened to Beyonce's "Four" the whole way over and over again. I snacked on almonds and looked at the towns of Long Island we passed through. I texted some boys to see if they wanted to meet up, wanting so badly to continue having nice moments, for it never to end.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Jose
This guy came to my party a few weeks ago. I had never met him before. He came with a friend of mine. I talked to him on and off through the night. We both had bleached hair at the time. That was something we talked about. The rest I don't remember. I just remember immediately thinking he was so fucking sexy and that I wanted him.
He was at Spectrum later that same night and we danced on each other for a moment, it clear that we wanted to have sex with each other.
Last night, weeks later, I finally got to hang out with him.
It was my first "date" in I'm not sure even how long. It's so weird to meet up with someone you have never hung out with, to go to a bar and meet up with a person you don't know but who you want to know. It shouldn't be weird. It should be something I am used to at this point in my life, thirtysomething years old. But most of my romantic and sexual experiences have all been borne from some hookup, from a drunk night in a bar and going home with someone or going over to some guy's house from Scruff , and then having nice or awkward sex, either way though it soon becoming awkward because it's usually with someone I barely know, but the problem becomes that more than I wanted sex, I really wanted to know someone, and I realize, in those post-orgasmic moments, rare as they actually are in my life lately, that I confused the things, linked them so that they appeared to be the same, but I put on my clothes and head out the door because I realize I'm supposed to leave and we say let's hang out again and I am never sure if they are saying it because that's what people say or because they really want to, and I realize that I say that because I am not sure if I am supposed to say that or if I actually feel that - I go through the motions is what I am saying, and I walk back towards my house. So because of this, because most of my experiences tend toward these of-the-moment things brought forth by sexual hunger and which end the moment that hunger is sated, it's always weird to go and have a conversation with someone in a not-too-crowded bar and look at their eyes and get to know them, to try to actually connect with another human being, the thing sought unsuccessfully in all those hookups.
I was really nervous before going to this bar. But I went and he was insanely cute and I rambled about I don't know what. We sat in the corner booth at Legion against the glass windows, his back to them. A very intense thunderstorm had just ended, one of those angry summer storms, the sky unable to take all the humidity, all the heat, it just exploding, huge wallops of thunder, bright lightening streaking across the sky, fucking beautiful stuff that reminds me of so many Florida storms, those daily things I would sit through for their short duration, admiring their ability to just let things out. There were still massive flashes of lightening shooting across the sky as we sat there after the heavy rain part of the storm had passed, intense flashes, lines traced by a drunk hand at warp speed. The bar was playing nothing but Garbage for the first half hour we were there. So there all these things: this guy with his cute fucking face and adorable smile sitting across from me, every thirty seconds or so a huge flash of lightening which illuminates the sky behind him, and these songs of angst, rage, and loneliness that I used to listen to all the time in high school. There is all this stuff, this beautiful fucking stuff, and my heart is swelling with all kinds of things because I hadn't talked to a boy I liked in so long. I have chatted with them briefly at clubs shouting in each other's ears over pulsing sound, or have exchanged the briefest bits of text possible with various guys on Scruff, but there hasn't been this - this leisurely thing, to just sit and hang out and talk and see if you and another human being actually like each other.
After many more beers and many cigarettes, he came home with me. We smoked weed and I played T. Rex. We made out and didn't have sex because he didn't want to, or said he shouldn't. I just said okay and didn't question it, everyone having their reasons for things they have to do. We made out and dry humped with our shorts on. He left to go pack or something.
I have been scared to like a person. I recently realized this when I was talking to my friend Darnell on Gay Pride Day. I told him about how I literally ran away from a club a couple nights before from a guy who I liked and who had agreed to come home with me. Literally ran away from the club, back home. His reaction wasn't "You're weird" or "Why the hell would you do that?," but instead was comforting because he realized what the problem was right away: "Aw, Charlie, you're scared." And then he proceeded to tell me that I don't need to be scared to like somebody, that I am amazing and that I shouldn't be scared.
I am trying to be open, to like someone, to allow myself to feel certain things, to let down safeguards I have erected.
He is really fucking cute. It feels so good to like someone and for it to be this new thing, for it to be this awkward dance cause you're pretty sure the other person likes you as well and both of you are dancing around each other trying to see what's up, what's there.
He was at Spectrum later that same night and we danced on each other for a moment, it clear that we wanted to have sex with each other.
Last night, weeks later, I finally got to hang out with him.
It was my first "date" in I'm not sure even how long. It's so weird to meet up with someone you have never hung out with, to go to a bar and meet up with a person you don't know but who you want to know. It shouldn't be weird. It should be something I am used to at this point in my life, thirtysomething years old. But most of my romantic and sexual experiences have all been borne from some hookup, from a drunk night in a bar and going home with someone or going over to some guy's house from Scruff , and then having nice or awkward sex, either way though it soon becoming awkward because it's usually with someone I barely know, but the problem becomes that more than I wanted sex, I really wanted to know someone, and I realize, in those post-orgasmic moments, rare as they actually are in my life lately, that I confused the things, linked them so that they appeared to be the same, but I put on my clothes and head out the door because I realize I'm supposed to leave and we say let's hang out again and I am never sure if they are saying it because that's what people say or because they really want to, and I realize that I say that because I am not sure if I am supposed to say that or if I actually feel that - I go through the motions is what I am saying, and I walk back towards my house. So because of this, because most of my experiences tend toward these of-the-moment things brought forth by sexual hunger and which end the moment that hunger is sated, it's always weird to go and have a conversation with someone in a not-too-crowded bar and look at their eyes and get to know them, to try to actually connect with another human being, the thing sought unsuccessfully in all those hookups.
I was really nervous before going to this bar. But I went and he was insanely cute and I rambled about I don't know what. We sat in the corner booth at Legion against the glass windows, his back to them. A very intense thunderstorm had just ended, one of those angry summer storms, the sky unable to take all the humidity, all the heat, it just exploding, huge wallops of thunder, bright lightening streaking across the sky, fucking beautiful stuff that reminds me of so many Florida storms, those daily things I would sit through for their short duration, admiring their ability to just let things out. There were still massive flashes of lightening shooting across the sky as we sat there after the heavy rain part of the storm had passed, intense flashes, lines traced by a drunk hand at warp speed. The bar was playing nothing but Garbage for the first half hour we were there. So there all these things: this guy with his cute fucking face and adorable smile sitting across from me, every thirty seconds or so a huge flash of lightening which illuminates the sky behind him, and these songs of angst, rage, and loneliness that I used to listen to all the time in high school. There is all this stuff, this beautiful fucking stuff, and my heart is swelling with all kinds of things because I hadn't talked to a boy I liked in so long. I have chatted with them briefly at clubs shouting in each other's ears over pulsing sound, or have exchanged the briefest bits of text possible with various guys on Scruff, but there hasn't been this - this leisurely thing, to just sit and hang out and talk and see if you and another human being actually like each other.
After many more beers and many cigarettes, he came home with me. We smoked weed and I played T. Rex. We made out and didn't have sex because he didn't want to, or said he shouldn't. I just said okay and didn't question it, everyone having their reasons for things they have to do. We made out and dry humped with our shorts on. He left to go pack or something.
I have been scared to like a person. I recently realized this when I was talking to my friend Darnell on Gay Pride Day. I told him about how I literally ran away from a club a couple nights before from a guy who I liked and who had agreed to come home with me. Literally ran away from the club, back home. His reaction wasn't "You're weird" or "Why the hell would you do that?," but instead was comforting because he realized what the problem was right away: "Aw, Charlie, you're scared." And then he proceeded to tell me that I don't need to be scared to like somebody, that I am amazing and that I shouldn't be scared.
I am trying to be open, to like someone, to allow myself to feel certain things, to let down safeguards I have erected.
He is really fucking cute. It feels so good to like someone and for it to be this new thing, for it to be this awkward dance cause you're pretty sure the other person likes you as well and both of you are dancing around each other trying to see what's up, what's there.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Robyn - "Call Your Girlfriend"
It's not too late, I told myself a block away. You don't have to act like such an insane person. You don't have to sabotage things all the time. You could still go back.
I did not. I rounded more corners, made myself more safely out of sight and soon enough was home, where I fried up some eggs and soon after eating them passed out in my bed.
Earlier in the evening, I had gone to Riot, at a space very close to my house, some queer Pride party full of cuties. It was warm inside the venue. I danced shirtless, drank a very tall glass of whisky I got poured there, and every now and then sniffed from the vial of poppers I had in my back pocket.
Around four in the morning, I finally talked to this guy I had noticed as soon I got to the party hours earlier. He was cute and seemed weird in his own ways, in a way that didn't reek of the forced weirdness that is queer Brooklyn. I don't think he had any glitter on. I think he was wearing all black. He seemed distant, a little removed from the goings-on.
I don't remember who said hello, though I am pretty certain it was me. A lot of the conversation I don't remember. But I do remember that I was totally smitten talking to him. Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" started playing and my heart beat in pulse to the music, faster and faster. We danced around to the song. I was screaming lyrics, feeling them. "But you just met somebody new!" I was smiling. I was happy. After the song ended, I suggested to this guy, this Sebastian, that he should come home with me. He eagerly agreed to the idea. He said he just had to go tell his friends he was leaving.
Cool, I said. Just meet me outside, I'll be smoking. I said these things. I then walked out the front door and soon found myself quickly walking through the parking lot, around the corner, down the street, and around the next corner. I don't know why I do these things. I don't even know why I'm doing them during those moments. I question them even then, asking myself what I'm doing, why I'm running away, what it is I am afraid of - happiness, sex, intimacy, the chance at being human? I have no clue what the issue is.
I remembered how at one point we hugged and he cracked my back, how good that moment felt, that he felt something that needed fixing in me and with his touch fixed it. I felt really open during that moment. I remembered how dancing around to this Robyn song felt like "a moment," something full of import, that this was a person I was going to be connected to and that I would remember this particular song playing when I thought about my relationship with this person later on down the line.
I remembered how I had felt these things as I darted down empty Brooklyn streets, running away from him, running away from other things.
I did not. I rounded more corners, made myself more safely out of sight and soon enough was home, where I fried up some eggs and soon after eating them passed out in my bed.
Earlier in the evening, I had gone to Riot, at a space very close to my house, some queer Pride party full of cuties. It was warm inside the venue. I danced shirtless, drank a very tall glass of whisky I got poured there, and every now and then sniffed from the vial of poppers I had in my back pocket.
Around four in the morning, I finally talked to this guy I had noticed as soon I got to the party hours earlier. He was cute and seemed weird in his own ways, in a way that didn't reek of the forced weirdness that is queer Brooklyn. I don't think he had any glitter on. I think he was wearing all black. He seemed distant, a little removed from the goings-on.
I don't remember who said hello, though I am pretty certain it was me. A lot of the conversation I don't remember. But I do remember that I was totally smitten talking to him. Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" started playing and my heart beat in pulse to the music, faster and faster. We danced around to the song. I was screaming lyrics, feeling them. "But you just met somebody new!" I was smiling. I was happy. After the song ended, I suggested to this guy, this Sebastian, that he should come home with me. He eagerly agreed to the idea. He said he just had to go tell his friends he was leaving.
Cool, I said. Just meet me outside, I'll be smoking. I said these things. I then walked out the front door and soon found myself quickly walking through the parking lot, around the corner, down the street, and around the next corner. I don't know why I do these things. I don't even know why I'm doing them during those moments. I question them even then, asking myself what I'm doing, why I'm running away, what it is I am afraid of - happiness, sex, intimacy, the chance at being human? I have no clue what the issue is.
I remembered how at one point we hugged and he cracked my back, how good that moment felt, that he felt something that needed fixing in me and with his touch fixed it. I felt really open during that moment. I remembered how dancing around to this Robyn song felt like "a moment," something full of import, that this was a person I was going to be connected to and that I would remember this particular song playing when I thought about my relationship with this person later on down the line.
I remembered how I had felt these things as I darted down empty Brooklyn streets, running away from him, running away from other things.
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