I am so ready for a change, I cannot even tell you. I really feel like I am stuck in a rut - that there are skills I can offer, things I should be doing that I am not doing. The mindlessness of my job is really starting to get to me. It has been for a while, pretty much since I started working there some ten months ago, and all of you have heard me complain about it way too often, and you are saying what I need someone to say to me, people to say to me everday: Well what the fuck are you doing to change your situation then, you fucking whiny baby? Get off your lazy ass and do something about it besides getting trashed and dancing! That's so easy! Come on, jackass!

Something like that. I have been discontent with my situation for too long, and it has been starting to come to a head where I dread waking up because I know I will have to go spend eight hours in that same place I do everyday, doing nothing. Not today, not ever. Please. For this reason, I called in sick today. Granted, I did have a sore throat, but I was more than capable of going into work today, but God, if it did not seem like willingly stepping up to the executioner this morning. There has been Matt to distract me these past couple weeks, which I have been more than grateful for. But now, the mediocrity I am here is again becoming appearant. And the worst part of it all is that I am not sure at all what I would like to be doing. I think time spent with Matt and his roommates are adding to my discontent. Everyone there is an art student and does stuff with their time, can point to tangible results of how they spent their time. Last night, I went to Matt's studio, saw his stuff, heard about his day, and he asked about mine, about what happened. And without any touch of drama because it is the painful truth, I said, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing." And the contrast between our two days made me really sad. I really don't know what to do. Hopefully, I will get into Hunter in the fall, but what until then, and what after then? What the hell do I want to do with myself here in this town, or if not here, where?

Right now, I am going to take a bath and listen to Tom Petty sing songs that sound too sad right now.

I had a few fairly important things I wanted to get done this morning. I woke up not too long ago. I am heading off to work. They are not going to get done. Ask me if I give a fuck. It is a cold, dreary day - a day that could probably possess the depressing effects that a dreary, cold day appearing after a spat of nice temperate ones normally has the effect of. But it is not going to. And don't ask me why. Surely, there must be other reasons besides the fact that there is a boy I am going to call this evening. However, I don't think I could tell you about them. And let's just pretend that the reason I can't is because I have to rush off to work right now and don't have time to elaborate.

It is no secret. Many of you know this from personal experience with me. But I have no self-control when I am drunk, and tend to get a little boy crazy. So yeah, last night, I went to galleries with Christy, Matt, and Kevin, and please don't ask me about the art - I couldn't even begin to tell you about anything I saw. I don't really recall seeing anything besides a surreal country duo playing in a cheesy gallery full of vaginal art. It felt like a weird parallel universe I had stepped into, and I ran from there pretty quickly. Then there was a series of what I thought were cool distorted images of vixens. That gallery was serving orange martinis. I had a couple and was done for the night with the art.

There were more galleries, more booze, and then Krispy Kreme where I got free doughnuts by asking for them, flirted out of control with Kevin whenever Matt was away, and then yanked a bunch of doughnuts off a tray with Kevin, and then for some reason loittered in front of the crime scene with the goods. A few minutes later some grumpy manager came out, following the pointing finger of some employee, saying "It was them." He yelled at us about the doughnuts, asking what happened, that those cost money for him, and Kevin with a bag of doughnuts in his hand said blankly, "It was our friend Jimmy." For some reason, this satisfied this guy and he gruffed about how we need to tell Jimmy that if he comes around again, he'll kick his ass and have him arrested.

Then riding to Kevin and Matt's with some people collected from the galleries, more booze and everyone talking in Kevin's room. More indiscrete flirting with Kevin. And eventually most people left and Kevin kicked Matt and I out of his bed. The two of us played with each others cocks, with each others sensitive skin, and afterwards lying next to him in silence, Matt said, "Charlie?" I said, "Yeah?" and waited tensely for what the question would be, thinking that it would be some comment or question about the sex just engaged in, or future sex to be engaged in, but instead, "What's going on with you and Kevin?" I was taken by surprise because it was not the question I was expecting, but also because I did not think Matt was around when Kevin and I exchanged gropes. So I choked on words for a while before saying, "Nothing, um, I have been hitting on him all night though, which makes me a horrible person." And Matt said that he was not jealous, that it was okay if I wanted to make out with Kevin, and he sort of grudgingly encouraged me to do so if I wanted. But I am not sure it is okay since they are roommates and best friends, and I think it bothers Matt a little. So, I am going to try to exercise a little more self-control in the future with regards to Kevin, not towards other things. The less self-control the better.

It is a cloudy day, rather lovely, and its loveliness is being paired with the equal loveliness of coffee and Morrissey. Perfect weather for curling up on my couch and thinking about the gap between how I am living my life and how I would like to, and thinking of ways to collapse that space, and then realizing that, in fact, right now, aside from a few minor things, the space between how I am and how I would like to live my life is very thin, very thin indeed. And this is great news. Of course, I would like to be writing instead of thinking about how I should, how one day, I will get around to penning stories to show you. Of course, I would also like to have a job that involved less time and more money. And of course, I would finally like to get ahead of the bill curve instead of constantly tightening my belt and worrying about finances. Those are problems everyone, most everyone has. And they are nothing. They are moot because they are problems that will always exist, no matter where I am working or how much I am making. It will always be One day... and If only if... And citing them as problems, citing financial poverty is a sad, sad way to try to justify spiritual / mental / artistic poverty. There need be no correlation. So the only real problem is wishing I lived a more creative, exuberant life. And that is something that is going to be remedied starting right now. Today.

I encounter art a lot, pretty much every waking hour and sometimes these are really meaningful encounters. I read constantly, spend forty hours a week surrounded by the thoughts and utterances, the gorgeous turns of phrases of innumerable living and dead comrades, and I spend my days off going gallery hopping, my nights listening to music - and yes, I am a very diligent consumer of artistic products, but for what purpose? What is being achieved by this? The right things? Any thing? Yes, things are, but is it leading somewhere, what is it going to culminate in? And so, today, for this reason, I quit my "internship" at Lamda Legal, knowing that I do need time to myself. That there must be some reflection to absorb the week's offerings, some time to think things, and even produce tangible products from this thought. Yes, so the resolution is that my days off will focus on a "self-improvement activity" (do with that phrase what you will). The main goal is to write non-diary entries on my days off, to see how that goes, if anything comes of it. But, these days could also include learning either Greek or Spanish or the guitar. Reading narratives will no longer consume my days off. Maybe occasionally it will, but I will no longer spend my days off plowing through a good book. I do that all week long.

I am going to make my ideal life and my lived life congruent. There is no reason not to, and nothing but my own lethargy preventing me from doing so. But again, today, I realized that the incongruencies are tiny, that all I need to do is channel my exuberance. I already have the exuberance because I am trying to live as honestly as possible. I am becoming better at talking to strangers, which is the result of letting down my guard more and opening myself up to emotional experiences, and disclosing my true feelings of joy and of sadness when they occur. And that is what I mean by a life of honesty, about going with your feelings, not letting those howls be restrained be decorum. I am reading Whitman again lately, if you can't tell. That probably has a lot to do with my recent joy, as does the temperate weather of the last week, as does the fact that I have been sharing a boy's twin-sized bed for a week or so now, a boy whom I like.

Last night, on my way to his house, I stopped at La Bonita bakery and bought a coconut doughnut for fifty cents. I started to eat it on my way there, only to drop it after my first bite. Two fat guys pointed and laughed way too hard, splitting a gut, exclaiming, "Ha-Ha, He dropped it, Did you see that, Eat it." And I picked it up, smiled, took another bite and continued on my way until I walked past a car covered in eggplants. And the sight was too surreal, probably made all the more so by my intoxication. I gathered an armful, went to the bodega, bought beer, got laughed at by all the guys hanging out in the store about the eggplants, and then finally made it to the saftey of Matt's, where we hung out in Kevin's room, looking at Kevin's high school yearbooks, listening to music, talking. And the three of us sat on Kevin's bed, talking about something or other, and I was so happy to be there, on a comfortable mattress, with two intelligent cute peers of mine, laughing and talking about nothing into the early hours. Those are the moments I live for. Just talking and being in close physical proximity to my fellow humans, being alive and comfortable with that. I could want nothing more in the world. Eventually Matt and I left Kevin's bed and collasped in his own, throwing off clothes with pefect ease as if the act were nothing, just making ourselves more at ease with each other, feeling the warmth of his skin, smelling his particular odor of sweat, cum, and mold, and doing things, being in close enough contact throughout the night, so that when I came home this morning, I could still smell it, him on my skin. I stunk and I loved the smell. I breathed deep, but never deep enough to understand the appeal of this smell or what exactly its components were, but instead it was always just on the tip of my tongue what it was about this smell, what it recalled. It was always almost coming to the surface but whenever I tried to think about that flash of recognition, it faded back to the recesses of my mind, to the recesses of some past experience, some past person or odor that this one evokes.

Have I told you that I missed you, that you are that thought being evoked by the odor of sex? All of you, those moments of closeness and of awkwardness. I miss it and experience some form of reunion with you by the sniffing of this scent. I am happy with it and hope for your happiness, would like to somehow add to it, be involved in it.

black beans, cilantro, onions, corn, yum

Last night was spent with Matt and his roommates, Kevin and Sasha, drinking forties and giving each other haircuts in his enormous bathroom which is probably about four times the size of my bedroom. Then listening to Spacehog because Matt seems to have a soft spot for the alt rock of that era, I made out with him, did other things, felt the press of his flesh to mine, and eventually fell asleep for a few hours in his bed, in his arms, happy as I may get in this world.

I woke up early this morning around eight with the sun glaring through his window, and the sound of birds, people, and traffic starting to go about their day. I kissed him goodbye and started to go about mine also. I have cast a vote for Denis Kucinich, applied to Hunter, paid some bills, bought some fruit and ate it. And now what will this day bring forth?

Okay, so there is this Cassavette's movie, Minnie and Moskowitz, and it shares a lot of the same themes as A Woman Under the Influence: characters that are unhinged, Gena Rowland being abused by men, awkward conversations, and concluding with a somewhat happy ending. A happy ending in the same way as The Graduate, not totally happy, but the guy and gal are together and they are going to try to make it work. I watched Minnie and Moskowitz last night and loved it so much. While it is disturbing to see Gena Rowland getting roughed up by various guys and then to see her fall in love with one of these abusers, there is something very oddly beautiful about how imperfect this love story is. That both parties are seriously flawed, and they are never going to have the cinematic ideal love, which is interpollated into the movie with clips of old forties movies. Things aren't always perfect, in fact, usually far from it, but it is about living in these imperfect spaces and trying the best you can, making beauty wherever possible.

And so yesterday, I talked to Matt a few times on the phone, apologizing for leaving instead of engaging in dialogue that night, and our last conversation yesterday ended in him saying, "Well I still want to hang out with you if you don't think I am a racist." And I said, "And what if I do think you are racist? I'd still want to hang out with you." And there was laughter and talk of REM and the battery lady. And so yes, thank you, all of you concerned friends for your advice. Compromise is necessary to acheive any sort of happiness, and this boy is really cool, and things are going to change. I am not going to look for any excuse to close myself up to feelings, to sensations that I only rarely get to experience. It is not an even trade. These feelings, this lightness in my stomach when I talk to him on the phone and bounce from foot to foot is something that I don't want to trade. And so again, thank you, and tonight, I am going to hang out with him again. And yes, be a little worried that I am seeing a boy for a third time. Something unheard of. Can I tell you that I have been listening to that Human League song, "I am only human, of flesh and blood I'm made..." on repeat for most of the day? God, being alive is so awesome.

Okay, so this boy I really liked asked me if I wanted to bounce or get another drink. This boy's name is Matt. He is the boy I went home with on Monday, Kevin's roommate, and the boy I have liked incredibly since Monday.

So tonight we met up at Metropolitain after I went to the Judith Butler talk, which was fucking amazing by the way, and we both got throughouly trashed, Morrisey was played twice, we debated the merits of criticism, he from the artist perspective, me from the critic and the lover of criticism perspective. It was fun. I started to hit on an old Italian man and started talking to him about the changes that have occured in Williamsburg over the past couple years and what he has thought of them. Somehow this led into racist ramblings of Matt about "the blacks" and the last neighborhood he lived in. He was appearantly robbed twenty or so times by black people there, which may be an understandable cause of generalizations, but not understandable enough for me, and when he made one too many comments about "them", I said I was going home, and he said he was going with me, and I said, No, no you are not. Prior to his slightly racist ramblings, I had my hand all over his ass and could not imagine going home with anyone hotter, but his comments disappointed me so much, I said no. When I was about to reach my house, I recieved a call from him, asking me what was going on, that he liked me, and I told him, I could not deal with his racist comments, and he said something about if I was there, and I told him I just did not find him attractive anymore, but told him that prior to opening his mouth I found him so fucking hot, and wanted nothing more than to go home with him, but he had to say those things, which made his body replusive. And am I am an asshole? A hot guy really liked me for the fist time ever, and I blew him off because I pushed him into this corner to discuss his thoughts on race, a test that no one could have probably passed, since no one would have been able to live up to my standards. And he called, and I told him, that yes, I was no longer into him because of what he said, and maybe I would call him, and I could hear the sadness, and the me not getting laid for antoher eight months when some hot homo wanted to be (perhaps) my boyfriend. And yes, don't ask what is wrong with me - you already know.

Last night, I saw Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. It was a bloody spectacle that I shied my eyes away from during certain scenes, but those moments were brief because something somewhere inside of me was captivated by this display of pain, by the spectacular beauty of it, and the seemingly contradictory feeling of sadness that it inspired. I don't want to be the jackass that talks about every scene of a film that just opened, but oh boy, some of those scenes are haunting. Little satanic children, a demonic bird, a maggot slithering up Satan's nose.

I am also wondering, what, if anything, Gibson is saying about homos in this movie with his depiction of a decadent King Herod adorned by half-dressed young males. Gibson took lots of heat for his faggy gay prince in Braveheart whose gayness/sissiness prevented him from being anything other than a whiny little baby incapable of leading. Herod, not femme at all, but definitly into the dick, refuses to condemn Jesus and turns the case back over to Pontius Pilate. He is contrasted from the blood-thirsty Pharisees, as too concerned with the flesh and wine to think that this man, Jesus, did anything wrong.

And how exactly do we read that? Do we read that as Herod being too concerned with matters of the flesh and not enough with matters of the spirit to be concerned with the fate of Jesus? Or do we read this scene as evidence that the libertine lifestyle is not so different from the life that Jesus proposes? A life concerned with loving everyone, and Herod just cannot understand why these stuffy Jews have a stick up their ass about this man Jesus? But that is probably my own singular reading of that since I have far more liberating ideas about what to do with those teaching of Jesus advocating boundless love than most people. It's a difficult scene to examine, all the more so because of its shortness, but neccesary in light of Gibson's previous representation of gay royalty.

On an impulse, I bought the JC Chasez CD yesterday. Today, I am wondering why. I blew off Lamda Legal today because the thought of filing did not appeal to me, and I tried to schedule for tomorrow, but was unable to do so, so will pick up doing boring work for a cool orginization next Thursday. This afternoon, I am going to try to go hear Judith Butler talk at CUNY. And Matt is supposedly going to want to hang out later tonight, which makes me so happy. The message he left on my phone yesterday I played more than a few times and maybe have most of it memorized. "I just had a really lame day. I maybe want to get a drink. Maybe with you. I want to ruin all of your plans for tomorrow." If only my stupid phone did not crap out yesterday afternoon, I would have gotten that message before today and would have had good cause to blow off Lamda Legal today.

This morning, I shivered up and down my spine with each exhale that Matt did against the back of my neck in his near slumber, in my near slumber. To feel these things! Man, it has been an incredibly long time (eight months) since I have slept with anyone, and even then, there were not these things, these slight things, but important things nonetheless, in fact, some of the most important things, these gentle caresses, these soft breathings against my skin, these things creating happiness, an exhaustion of feeling, becoming aware of an entire body, of its sensitivites. God, how I love it.

The night started out with me calling Matt (Kevin's roommate) and Kevin to come out with my friends from work. Kevin could not make it. Matt did. And in the course of the night, I ate some old man's lamb, after he posed the question how much could I eat, and I retorted, however much lamb I am fed. Do with that what you will, but from somewhere emerged this big plate of lamb from some place or other. And it was so good and bloody. Then there was dancing, lots of laughing, making out with some random people, encouraging other people to do the same. Then there was Matt hopping the subway turnstile to get home, a police officer emerging from nowhere, wating around for Matt to get his summons. Then there was more laughing, not more, but a return to the steady stream of laughter that was the night. And then yes, following those Hollywood screen codes, cut to a shot of us in bed together the next morning.

I love being alive. But goddamnit, if fuckface Bush did not almost squelch my happiness this day. But I can contain both, the joy and the rage. It's a dangerous fucking combination, so stay on your toes.

I love it when a boy that you like calls you and leaves a message, however banal, however message-like on your answering system. Today, while at work, I recieved two messages from Kevin, asking me to go to some film event with him tonight. I played the messages a few times, giddy, listening to his voice over and over again. My ear pressed to the phone as if that could possibly make the moment more exciting, while a grin that could never be suppressed spreads ear to ear, and I laugh, and don't notice the traffic, the city, its pedestrians, any of it. I am somewhere in this phone, imagining the message being said, him, his lips moving, and yes, giddy. It has been a while, too long, since I have had messages that I played over again, getting giddy about them. I love this feeling. Please God, do not ever let me get mature.

Besides the fact that someone cool wants to be my friend at a time when I have been yearning for more friends, today is noteworthy for the reason that I won this CD. About which, I am more excited than is probably mentally healthy.