Every day I come home and set to work killing the flies in my apartment. Every day I kill every last one of them, the task of chasing them down, slowly stalking them, and banging them with a rolled up magazine giving me far too much pleasure - some demonstrable sense of completion, a task I set to myself done, a goal completed - my stated goals of writing however don't ask about. And every day, thinking I have successfully killed off these flies that swarm around my house, that there should be no more left to spawn more, I still find a few flying around the next day when I get home from work. I am convinced that shortly my efforts will be successful and that I will come home to a house free of flies.

I am eating lots of chickpeas and using olive oil to cook just about everything I eat. I just finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and am trying to alter my diet and food buying habits. I have been eating more plants, buying more of them, and trying to buy minimally processed foods. After reading some of his other work and that of many other food crusaders, the book wasn't revelatory, the argument having been made before in other venues, other articles and books, about the negative effects of industrialized food, and yet the book was still affecting, reminded me of things and explained others in interesting ways, laying out a cogent argument against the culture of nutritionism and showing how the ideology underlying it allows food processors to continually market new products containing some hyped nutrient.

Fall arrived on Thursday. I called in sick to work on Wednesday and went to the beach, the weather forecast scaring me that it may have been the last warm day of summer, certainly the last warm day of August. And perhaps it was, the air quite chilly now at night, the days having some scent of fall, an autumn breeze seeping in, feelings of nostalgia and loneliness and lovesickness all colliding in a way that they tend to with the onset of fall for me. I want to put on the Belle and Sebastian and wear long sleeve collared shirts that I can shelter my neck in from the wind bringing about these melancholy feelings. This week I have been consuming things: alcohol, lots of cigarettes, Britney Spears at MSG, Gloria Trevi, Paulina Rubio, Juanes, and Enrique Iglesias also at MSG, The September Issue, the already mentioned Pollan book, Didion's After Henry, and countless (mostly pointless) magazine articles. I am looking for distractions. I live by myself and sometimes find I don't know what to do with myself. Increasingly, I find myself longing for some sort of boyfriend figure, someone to hang out with and sleep next to often. I am killing flies.

It was while I was on the LIRR this afternoon headed to a town I had never been to before to wrestle a stranger, a man who contacted me and wanted to pay me money to wrestle him and pin him and scissor him and taunt him, that I noticed my iPhone no longer worked. This was and was not great timing. This was not great timing because my bank account is running a bit low after blowing through money in P-Town and after just purchasing tickets to see Gloria Trevi and a bunch of other Latin acts on Friday. This was not great timing because I really did not want to have to pay my overdue phone bill, quite large at this point, so I could get a stupid upgrade, and in addition to those costs there still being the cost of purchasing a new iPhone, of having to buy the more expensive 3G data plan, and on and on, a litany of costs I was beginning to add up as I futilely tried to get the touch screen to respond to my touch, it refusing, it no longer turned on by me, these the delayed effects of me cracking the screen a couple months ago. This was not great timing because I had no clue how I was going to contact this man once I got off the train since my phone did not work, since I couldn't even slide the screen to answer an incoming call, and since this person's info was stored in my phone. The only way in which this could have been considered good timing was that assuming I was somehow able to still meet up with this guy, I would have all this cash to pay my phone bill and to purchase a new phone, the thrill of the money no longer so thrilling, no longer this supplemental income to spend willy-nilly, now it was to be used for specific purchases, phone bills and such, and not say a weekend trip to Key West.

I got off the train, worried that I would be unable to find this person without being able to call him, that my trip out there had been in vain, and that I would not have enough money in my bank account tomorrow to purchase a new phone, would be incommunicado for a while, would be unable to call a boy I like say, the real consequence I was thinking of with regard to not having a phone. I walked past the line of cars waiting outside the train station hoping that this person would be waiting there, would recognize me, and would call out to me. Check, check, check. Things worked out as they seemingly do often and the guy waved at me. I hopped into his car and we were off to his suburban house.

He put on ESPN and talked to me about the Yankees.

We wrestled on his bed, a picture of a teenage boy across the room taped to his dresser mirror, looking like the photograph of a son, me imagining this as someone's dad. I was kicking this man's ass and taking some pleasure in being able to outwrestle this man about twice my size, to have him pinned so easily again and again. When we tired out we would lay on our backs, the tv talking in the background, and him asking me questions about my life, and me with just a few fibs here and there, answered him honestly, talked about my life in more articulate and sincere ways than I am able to talk about it with people I actually know. I have this ability to charm certain people, generally older men, and this man was charmed my verbal nonsense I could tell. Most of the two hours I spent with him was the two of us on our backs talking about life and me trying to work out some theory of seasonal weather being necessary for one's mental health, holding up all the crazies that come out of Florida as an example.

I took the train back home, falling asleep along the way, bored and annoyed with the talk of the people ahead of me, and waking up in Penn Station. I walked across the street and bought a travel alarm clock at Duane Reade, my phone dead to my fingers and that having served as my alarm.

There is so much going on and I am feeling more and more the desire to get it down but my time is limited that I have to do so. Work is taking up too much of my time but paying me well so that I can live in an apartment by myself and make silly purchases and eat out and go on weekend adventures. I really do want to write and really, really am determined to figure out a way to balance the two, to not lose and be past a certain point, one past this already late one, without commencing on this thing that I believe I can do very well and can bring something special to. I am inspired by the drive of some of the younger people I have met lately that are just doing doing doing it. A man on Friday night at 4 am at the Bedford stop chastised me a lot, read me in a really rude way. The conversation started off with him telling me I was sexy and I had my headphones in and wanted to keep them in, me not into him, not into anyone save for the idea of sleep and the voice of Lou Reed coming through my headphones. The man thought himself something deep and started to talk about what we do with our lives, how much we underutilize them, how I am dressed in a pretty and color-coordinated outfit and how that is what concerns me, how that is hardly enough, the wearing of cute, monochromatic outfits. All of this gleaned from me trying to ignore him and saying little. His accusations weren't entirely off and after a good ten minutes of his drunken prophecies I put in my headphones again and told him I had had enough, drew a line, declaring my own mental space, and defended myself against his accusations that I was rude to put in my headphones while he was talking to me, had to explain how it was rude of him to talk to me while I had my headphones in, that just because my interests did not align with his need for social interaction that that did not make me rude. It was an insane interaction, one that I want to sketch out more. I have been thinking about it a lot since its occurrence, thinking, like I too often do without actually doing it, how I need to change my life, to do this and that and less of that and that.

the absence of a couch, the presence of other things

I get it now, get why so many people make the trip up to Provincetown, why people like the place so much. This past weekend I went with Diego to Boston, spent a day and a half there, quickly seeing some old friends, some art, and the physical sites where this or that happened, seeing the graves of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere's house, pretty parks, and the amazing bookstores of Cambridge. From there, we took the ferry to Provincetown and spent a couple of nights there at this slutty gay guesthouse, The Ranch, sharing a twin bed and a fan. I got giddy as soon as the boat approached the dock, the masts of sailboats in the harbor foregrounding the onset of dusk over this cute little town, the site gorgeous, new, and something that stirred something in me.

Every aspect of this town was beautiful and charming, the place continually feeling like some movie set, some place too cute to be real. There is a lovely beach that one has to hike to through a long stretch of sand dunes and salt flats, clam shells, little crabs, and sea birds present. There are lots of fun bars to go to. There are happy hours with dollar oysters. There were amazingly friendly people. There is the most outrageous public sex site I have ever seen, probably some hundred or so men underneath a dock on the beach after the bars close, all jerking off together. We extended our ferry departure time, neither of us wanting to leave yet, wanting to milk as much from the town as possible before leaving back for home. After already checking out of our room, we wanted to have sex with some boy, Eric, but had no place to. We asked, quite drunkenly and high on sunshine and the fun spirit of the place, if we could use someone's room, told them they could watch. That was absurd and turned into a group sex session hurried by the limits of time, by the fact that the last ferry was leaving in half an hour and we had a brief amount of time to get off together before dashing to the ferry, passing out on it, and then dashing to the bus once back in Boston, getting home around three am yesterday.

I got about two hours of sleep before rushing off to a 16 hour workday yesterday, which was also amazing despite me being quite tired, despite being at work so long, and that is because the second half of that day was spent serving food at a fancy party. At this party I saw two of my artistic idols, Tar*ntino and Rushd*e. It was pretty exhilarating to be in such close physical proximity to these people, to brush past all these big names as I pushed through the packed crowd carrying around trays of fancy finger foods. And last night again, I got two hours of sleep before again having to be at work and that was okay, it was all okay, the not sleeping for days, because those days were filled with sights and beautiful beaches and a boy who I love a great deal in a blurry way and there is work again in not too many hours and then there isn't for a few days and I still don't have a couch and don't know when I am getting one. The energy that I had when I first moved into this apartment has dissipated to this heat and to my desire to burn through money going here or there and being out and seeing that person, this person, or going to the beach and trying to read a book but really just starting at people and daydreaming and swimming. And summer only has a few more weeks left to it and the couch will probably have to wait.

August 1

Diego’s head popping out of the ocean, hair and face wet with sunlight, the day the warmest and brightest one in too long, this summer not yet entirely feeling like one in the way they normally do, the weather and its coolness and its oft cloudiness somehow affecting my perceptions of summer, that something seems a bit off, but today, this afternoon, in the Atlantic Ocean on the shores of New Jersey, a fairy ride away from this city I reside in, New York that is, today, oh, the day felt so right, so summer. Perhaps it felt like last summer, to be with this boy going off on some gay adventure together, to the nude beach in NJ, that that made it feel like summer, his company, like some memory of some summer not too far back. Maybe, but why assign reasons or try to trace things back to their source and feel guilty about the well you are drawing these sentiments from, that that water made you sick once before, that you should know better, and blah blah blah – why, why do that, when the feeling is so nice? And so I submitted to it, to what it was, enjoying it for what it is and what it is not, that this affectionate friendship we have is nice, that we are friends and neither bound by standard ideas about sex, and can have this thing, and sometimes there are hurt feelings, more so on my part, but lots of times there are not, lots of times this thing is just what I need at this moment in my life, that I need something.

The sight, to mention it again because it is something that struck me so much then and has again in recalled memory a few times since the image manifested itself: We were fooling around in the water, kissing, hugging, rubbing our penises against each other hidden somewhat by water, surrounded by gays, and after a wave would crash over us, there would be this smiling face of someone I care a lot about in my face, goofy looking, so cute, that some beauty not always as readily apparent was brought out by him being wet, that I am not sure why people look better when they are wet, something innocent about us revealed, that you see the little kid splashing in a pool, so fucking happy, some lovely life. The bright sunshine and the salt water in my eyes made the image often under-exposed, the horizon darker that it should appear and yet the light on his hair and face in droplets of water, of ocean, making it seem so beautiful. I told him he looked so cute when he was wet.

He said, “Great, so I look ugly when I’m dry? I only look cute when I’m wet?”

“Yep.Uh-huh.”

We drank vodka and lemonade drinks we made from our beach bags and laid in the sun and looked at all the various types of dicks, talked often about ones we desired.

I called in sick today to work. I needed it after the past few days, which I had had off but which were spent doing the process of moving from one apartment to another. The process by this point has become hardly emotional at all, it becoming so common this past year. But I feel settled and at home in a way I haven’t since Niki kicked me out of our Bushwick apartment. I don’t really talk about it too much, but when I think about life late at night and how it’s been going lately, I see that moment as a big one that set me off on some nomadic quest for the past year, feeling a bit unmoored and lonely, kicked out of a place I thought was home. I still have a lot of anger towards Niki about that and all the more so now that I have realized how much crazier that has made me, how awkward I have felt in the past couple places I lived, unsettled.

I am living by myself in a studio apartment off the Morgan stop. It feels so great and I feel so at ease, so at home, so excited about the prospect of making this a home, of having one that I feel tied to and whatever subconscious feelings of security and happiness that having one provides a person. I have painted the walls, built bookshelves, painted tables and chairs, and it is not yet there yet, but it’s well on its way. I jerked off into all these various paints I used, me feeling like it was some ritual to make this place home, to imbue it with something, these walls and this wood furniture. I believe that things are going to be really good here. I am going to buy groceries and cook as much as possible. I am going to buy a good radio that picks up the public radio stations at the bottom of the dial, specifically 91.5 and I am going to listen to the radio and sit at this cute little kitchen table that I painted yellow and type missives to the world, and I am going to get a sofa, but maybe the radio first, and I am going to be so much happier.

His name was Sonny and he was Dutch, from Amsterdam, here for a few months doing work. I found out this information, the only information I really know about him, on the couple block walk from the Bedford L stop to his apartment.

I worked for 15 hours yesterday, the last portion of that working at an event doing coat check with this other cute boy, who I flirted with, sometimes the two of us finding some reason to brush against each other while going back into the coat check area. We exchanged numbers and lots of goofy smiles. This was followed by me heading to some goodbye party for friends moving back to Europe at Brass Monkey, where I consumed some drinks quickly, needing the feeling provided by those drinks after a day of working, after hours spent working at a party watching people drink for hours. This time spent at this bar was time I was supposed to be spending with this really attractive Mexican boy, Ali, I met on Sunday and who I was supposed to hang out with when I got off work at ten. I missed my chance to hang out with him and instead went to eat with Brian and some other people. At this restaurant, I flirted with the waiter, exchanging numbers with him, and was told I could wait an hour at the bar for him to get off work and then to go out with him somewhere. I declined the offer, not wanting to sit at some straight restaurant bar for an hour.

I was still quite horny though after this day of flirtations, of thoughts of boys, and wondered as I got on to the train if I had made the right decision, was thinking about going back to this restaurant to wait for this boy to get off work, his name Dom. I sat on the train, put on my headphones, and rocked out to Little Boots, which I have been doing pretty much every time I have been drunk or high for the last two months, me in love with this pop music every time I am a bit tipsy and all I want to listen to.

At Union Square, this boy sat across from me on the train, and I thought that it was Ali, the boy I was supposed to hang out with earlier, even though he had told me he was already home in Astoria. I kept looking at him, trying to figure out if this was him or not, and if it was him why he was not saying hi to me. I soon realized that it was not him, just someone dressed like him and that resembled him physically. This knowledge that it was not the person I thought it was did not stop me from looking at him. He caught me a few times and did not seem annoyed by it; rather he seemed amused by it, into it. My staring became a bit more lustful and we would hold a stare for long stretches, an intense stare eventually broken up with a smile. This happened until the Bedford stop, where we both got off. I pulled out my headphones at this point and said hello, asked him what his name was. This is when I found it was Sonny. Outside the station, he asked me where I was going. I said home and pointed in that direction. He said something along the lines of, "No, you're not. You're coming home with me," and I followed him in the opposite direction. In his apartment, we undressed and had really hot sex, me pretty much in heat after such a day, such an intense subway flirtation somehow so quickly transformed into something more, into me in this person's bedroom naked, the two of us sucking each other's dicks, his ass sitting on top of my face.

After we came, I put on my underwear and shorts, ready to head home. I woke up sometime early this morning being spooned by someone and seeing an unfamiliar apartment. I wondered where the hell I was, thought to myself that I had went home last night afterwards, but realized I must have passed out in his bed while getting ready to go back home. I realized whose bed I was in, not some regret, but someone beautiful and sexy. My brief moment of discomfort and feeling of disorientation gave way to comfort in his arms, to where I was. I slept a bit more, we cuddled, got naked again, and had sex again this morning. His cat kept trying to hop into bed with us and I kept shooing it out.

I got dressed this morning successfully and I left his house, not exchanging numbers, but saying that I hoped I ran into him again, pretty certain that I would, and that if not, then knowing that it doesn't matter. Things are going to happen or they are not, and the exchange of numbers would have only made me think otherwise, that a certain something should happen. It was really beautiful and as he opened his door for me, we kissed goodbye, the polite kind of goodbye kiss, but knowing that this may have been it, that polite kiss turned into something else. He closed his door and we made out intensely against his wall for a few minutes. I said goodbye again, stumbled home against the crowd, the morning stream of people heading toward the subway, to their jobs, me heading in some other direction. Recently I find myself wondering what direction that is.

July Sixth

The age of 28 arrived a couple of weeks ago. It feels a lot like 27, though I was happier to receive this gift, feeling more and more comfortable with these increasing numbers, my shift into adult-age sounding numbers, less and less of a fear of no longer being part of these early and mid-twenties, of becoming old.

I am torn lately between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, thinking through the appeals of both and trying to decide between them – my life for the most part some Dionysian orgy, an extravagance of fun, release, and energy, but new options being both thought about and presented to me. This conflict is chiefly embodied in a boy with an oceanic name beginning with P. I met him several Sundays ago at the Metropolitan BBQ, which I plan on heading to shortly, no food in my house and being quite hungry. There was some connection that was more intense than a normal flirtation. I was really attracted to this boy and he apparently to me as well, and so when he jokingly or not said we were going to get married and have a dog called Horatio, I was quite seriously imagining that future, quite into the idea of it.

I went home with him that night, talking about my love of the Late Night line of Doritos along the way, stopping in bodegas hoping to find these rarely stocked Doritos to let him experience it as well as to satisfy my drunken fixation on them, my hunger for the things, perceived in that moment to be just the thing my stomach needed, the only thing that would satisfy it. On his bedroom wall were lots of pictures of Marilyn Monroe; I think these were the only things on his wall, photographs of Monroe in various stages of her career. This made me even more smitten. I overslept for work the next morning, not really caring, quite happy to have met this boy, the potential trouble worth it and more.

We have hung out a few times since, the conversations sometimes going off down the trail of relationships, of what an ideal one would be. His ideal one is monogamous and mine is not; we discussed the different philosophies informing our view of why this or that is better, the two sides a bit irreconcilable. I know that if things were to go any further with this boy, cute, adorable, and smart, then I would need to make some changes, to basically quit being such a slut. And so lately I have been thinking about the two sides presented here – this debauched carefree life that I have been living for the past few years, one which for me really does have philosophical groundings in the sexual nature of man, a belief that the body is something really magical and not wanting to see that hampered down by morality, possessiveness, or the fragile underpinnings of human egos. I feel like in some ways I would be compromising something I believe in to satisfy someone else’s belief system. But I am also thinking that maybe that is okay, that changes are okay, and that I do like this person quite a great deal and should maybe let it play out by normal rules and see how things go.

A few days ago, I did however sleep with Diego, and that threw into doubt many of these thoughts, that it was fun and a really nice experience, that it was the type of hungry sex, of instincts being gratified, that I find really fulfilling and enriching, something that gives me a great deal of happiness, and something that I would potentially be losing. There are many forms of happiness though, and so, saying what I say quite often in these confused and directionless days, I don’t know. I may meet up with this boy later tonight and we’ll see if that happens and if that is ever followed with anything. He loves Muriel’s Wedding, which him kind of perfect.

This past week, I have been working the graveyard shifts at my job and I really do not enjoy it at all, have been sleeping away the day, getting even less accomplished than the little I do on days with a somewhat normal sleep schedule.

It is Father’s Day and I have been thinking about my father some on this day, some music provoking the thoughts more than an awareness of what day it is. It was only after I followed a trail of thoughts that I realized what day it was. But there are things that I think I should get from his sister while I am still able to, bits of information and dates that I would like to have and that I don’t. There are thoughts about some fictional project tied to this desire to collect data, to get details rights.

After Gay Pride next weekend, things are really going to have to change. I am going to start being more frugal because I am going to be going out far less. I am letting life get past me, am working a great deal and partying probably an equally great deal, getting very little sleep and having zero time for reflection, the absence of diary entries here lately proof of that. There are so many things that I would like to get done but which I never do. There are things that need to be written and I am going to have to figure out how to work that into my schedule. I also am feeling a bit restless in my current job, do love the amount I get paid, but don’t really want to be doing this for the rest of my life, and so really need to think long and hard before more of these birthdays appear and I find myself saying similar things, need to think long and hard about what life I want to be leading and to make that a reality, to pursue things I want to, to make things, to perhaps find a job requiring a bit more of my brain.

And these diary entries are so often a forum for me to say this and this and this is wrong, to point out these flaws in myself, to show you my banged-up knee in the hopes that you will kiss it and make it better, but to be clear, to add a bit more flesh to this skeleton of what my life is lately, things are really good despite the normal doubts that come now and again about everything. The week leading up to my birthday, I got to eat amazingly decadent meals each day for free in this restaurant that is opening in the hotel tomorrow. I have friends that really entertain me and care about me and add a lot of joy to this thing, this time here on Earth. There is a boy who makes me kind of insanely giddy and he doesn’t have any of the baggage that everyone I have really liked over the past few years has had; it’s a healthy start for once with someone. I have been in the habit of reading more, of getting stoned, and listening to pretty music on my new headphones with clear sound, no longer the tinny effect of my busted ones I had been using for months. The difference and its effects on my well-being are striking.

Twenty Eight

The age of 28 arrived a couple of weeks ago. It feels a lot like 27, though I was happier to receive this gift, feeling more and more comfortable with these increasing numbers, my shift into adult-age sounding numbers, less and less of a fear of no longer being part of these early and mid-twenties, of becoming old.

I am torn lately between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, thinking through the appeals of both and trying to decide between them – my life for the most part some Dionysian orgy, an extravagance of fun, release, and energy, but new options being both thought about and presented to me. This conflict is chiefly embodied in a boy with an oceanic name beginning with P. I met him several Sundays ago at the Metropolitan BBQ, which I plan on heading to shortly, no food in my house and being quite hungry. There was some connection that was more intense than a normal flirtation. I was really attracted to this boy and he apparently to me as well, and so when he jokingly or not said we were going to get married and have a dog called Horatio, I was quite seriously imagining that future, quite into the idea of it.

I went home with him that night, talking about my love of the Late Night line of Doritos along the way, stopping in bodegas hoping to find these rarely stocked Doritos to let him experience it as well as to satisfy my drunken fixation on them, my hunger for the things, perceived in that moment to be just the thing my stomach needed, the only thing that would satisfy it. On his bedroom wall were lots of pictures of Marilyn Monroe; I think these were the only things on his wall, photographs of Monroe in various stages of her career. This made me even more smitten. I overslept for work the next morning, not really caring, quite happy to have met this boy, the potential trouble worth it and more.

We have hung out a few times since, the conversations sometimes going off down the trail of relationships, of what an ideal one would be. His ideal one is monogamous and mine is not; we discussed the different philosophies informing our view of why this or that is better, the two sides a bit irreconcilable. I know that if things were to go any further with this boy, cute, adorable, and smart, then I would need to make some changes, to basically quit being such a slut. And so lately I have been thinking about the two sides presented here – this debauched carefree life that I have been living for the past few years, one which for me really does have philosophical groundings in the sexual nature of man, a belief that the body is something really magical and not wanting to see that hampered down by morality, possessiveness, or the fragile underpinnings of human egos. I feel like in some ways I would be compromising something I believe in to satisfy someone else’s belief system. But I am also thinking that maybe that is okay, that changes are okay, and that I do like this person quite a great deal and should maybe let it play out by normal rules and see how things go.

A few days ago, I did however sleep with Diego, and that threw into doubt many of these thoughts, that it was fun and a really nice experience, that it was the type of hungry sex, of instincts being gratified, that I find really fulfilling and enriching, something that gives me a great deal of happiness, and something that I would potentially be losing. There are many forms of happiness though, and so, saying what I say quite often in these confused and directionless days, I don’t know. I may meet up with this boy later tonight and we’ll see if that happens and if that is ever followed with anything. He loves Muriel’s Wedding, which him kind of perfect.

This past week, I have been working the graveyard shifts at my job and I really do not enjoy it at all, have been sleeping away the day, getting even less accomplished than the little I do on days with a somewhat normal sleep schedule.

It is Father’s Day and I have been thinking about my father some on this day, some music provoking the thoughts more than an awareness of what day it is. It was only after I followed a trail of thoughts that I realized what day it was. But there are things that I think I should get from his sister while I am still able to, bits of information and dates that I would like to have and that I don’t. There are thoughts about some fictional project tied to this desire to collect data, to get details rights.

After Gay Pride next weekend, things are really going to have to change. I am going to start being more frugal because I am going to be going out far less. I am letting life get past me, am working a great deal and partying probably an equally great deal, getting very little sleep and having zero time for reflection, the absence of diary entries here lately proof of that. There are so many things that I would like to get done but which I never do. There are things that need to be written and I am going to have to figure out how to work that into my schedule. I also am feeling a bit restless in my current job, do love the amount I get paid, but don’t really want to be doing this for the rest of my life, and so really need to think long and hard before more of these birthdays appear and I find myself saying similar things, need to think long and hard about what life I want to be leading and to make that a reality, to pursue things I want to, to make things, to perhaps find a job requiring a bit more of my brain.

And these diary entries are so often a forum for me to say this and this and this is wrong, to point out these flaws in myself, to show you my banged-up knee in the hopes that you will kiss it and make it better, but to be clear, to add a bit more flesh to this skeleton of what my life is lately, things are really good despite the normal doubts that come now and again about everything. The week leading up to my birthday, I got to eat amazingly decadent meals each day for free in this restaurant that is opening in the hotel tomorrow. I have friends that really entertain me and care about me and add a lot of joy to this thing, this time here on Earth. There is a boy who makes me kind of insanely giddy and he doesn’t have any of the baggage that everyone I have really liked over the past few years has had; it’s a healthy start for once with someone. I have been in the habit of reading more, of getting stoned, and listening to pretty music on my new headphones with clear sound, no longer the tinny effect of my busted ones I had been using for months. The difference and its effects on my well-being are striking.

I feared that it was going to be a sunny day, as yesterday was. I woke up this morning and there was a slight rain outside. This was great news and I only hope that this gray weather continues into the afternoon when I will be working coat check at some party for seven hours so that I will actually have things to check and the ability to make tips.

This week I am working at least sixty hours for some reason, the offers to do overtime and work coat check at two parties coming my way, and me unable to say no, me desiring to rebuild my bank account, to begin saving money in the hopes of perhaps moving in July. I really love the location where I live and actually like my apartment a fair amount, but I either want to live by myself (which is the preferable option) or with people I have slightly more in common with and where the rent is cheaper, me feeling slightly out of place with my roommates because of their age, their straightness, and their something elseness. They are nice though and I rarely see them since I am home so infrequently, leaving early in the am for work, coming home late from going out, and really just crashing here for brief periods. And so perhaps this situation is ideal for that, especially considering its location. But I am convinced that I can find something for not too much more that I can live in by myself, and in which I can be moody, be constantly naked, masturbate whenever without feeling awkward because people are hanging out right outside my bedroom, and where I can blare music when I wake up at 6 am everyday because I won't have a house full of sleeping roommates.

I am in love with taramasalta. I am reading books again, currently am involved with The Botany of Desire. I saw Outrage yesterday and it was meh, wasn't as great as I had hoped, and in some ways bothered me, the politics of outing people something I am still conflicted about despite the film's argument for the practice. I haven't had sex in quite a while, probably at least a month, and I think it's making me a bitch. Some people have commented on how I have been increasingly bitchy. I found myself getting outrageously frustrated with the people working at the movie theater yesterday and with the person I spoke with on the phone today at Callen Lorde when I needed to reschedule my appointment I had for tomorrow (because of this coat check job) and was told that the next appointment was in six weeks. I am quick to get angry and to throw shade and I am becoming increasingly convinced that this is because my life is absent physical intimacy lately, of touch, of the release and pleasure that comes with such things, and that things are blocked, that that frustration manifests itself in other ways.

Also it seems that once you stumble, the harder it is to walk upright - bad analogy. What I am trying to say with that is that the longer one goes without sex, the harder it becomes to get it. For a long while, it was something that I wasn't so focused on pursuing, something that I didn't have to make an effort to find, that it just happened. Now, however, I am not sure how it happens, find myself sometimes thinking, as I did two nights ago at Metropolitan, how it was that I so easily used to end up going home with someone, what it is one says to someone, how two people, strangers most likely, can agree to this thing. I am becoming more and more removed from this process, am thinking it too much. And as such, my attempts to hit on people are more and more resembling my early attempts to do so when I was 20 or 21 and inexperienced and lonely and desperate and a bit socially clueless as to how go after things I desired. People can smell it, the desperation, the lack of casualness, the lack of ease, and it gets harder and harder.

I smoke lots of weed and listen to music and walk around and feel great. I find myself getting stoned quite often these days.

may

I got back to this city, New York, sometime early yesterday morning, two am or so, having spent the previous days in Tennessee for the Beltane celebrations at Short Mountain. I am still processing my time there, which was time spent processing my life as of late, and so perhaps really I am still processing my life, trying to understand what path I am on and what adjustments should be made considering the shortness of this life and my desire to live it as best as possible.

There was a fair, perhaps excessive, amount of substance consumption, including acid, weed, opium, whiskey, box wine, and poppers. These all were probably unnecessary, as the most insight I had was riding in a car through the rain with Matt Savitsky, listening to a mix CD he had made, this my first kinda sorta boyfriend, some six years ago. Surprisingly, he was there amidst these faeries and I reconnected with him, spending quite a bit of my time there hanging out with him, having quite a lovely time in his company. Also in these gay woods was Diego and his boyfriend. Also there was Gabriel. The three of these people together in this rural out-of-state setting seemed more than coincidence, seemed some sign signaling something. The three people that have consumed my erotic imagination for my most of my time in New York were all there and so that subject was explored, as were ancillary ones along those lines, such as what I have been doing, what I have been pursuing, what I should be, the nature of time, of attraction - the usual.

Matt and I escaped the mountain one day, the rain and boredom of being in the rain leading us into town. We were talking about relationships and friendships. We would occasionally smoke cigarettes. Melancholy songs would play, some of which I didn't know, would ask him who the band was, would make a mental note to download the band when I got home. I kept looking at his hands on the steering wheel, remembering how attracted I used to be to his hands. The town we drove through seemed like a nightmare to live in, so isolated, so nothing but strip malls. We ate at a Cici's pizza buffet and went to the Goodwill next door.

It rained pretty much nonstop during my time there. My tent flooded. My sleeping bag was half wet and I slept in an awkward and uncomfortable position to sleep in the dry part of my sleeping bag. I danced a lot. My last night there, I asked Matt to make out with me, me again quite attracted to him after spending so much time with him, my dormant crush on him having been called back to life. He said no.

I have resolved this before, but this week the travel guide is going to be written. Matt was in Tennessee for this reason, so was Diego. Their being there was as clear a sign as any that the project needs to take shape, needs to happen, was a bit of an emotional refresher on what it is people from my past meant to me, what they mean to me now, the seeming distance between those (past and present feelings toward places and people), the actual closeness of them.

I am home, or what is home these days. It is still raining and apparently will be for the next few days if the weather forecast is to be believed.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight

I am listening to Elton John, mildly stoned, but enough so to really enjoy this music in such an intense manner, an emotional one, got home from Phoneix, where I had a couple drinks while talking to Matt, and once here, this new, odd home that I already dream of moving out of into someplace by my \self, in this place, I scrounged around on my dresser for any remaining bits of weed, any crumbs, and gathered enough, my stash empty for a week or so now, to get stoned, stoned enough to listen to Elton John and enjoy it in such a fantastic way and to even feel whatever it is I need to feel to type on these keys, to write on my keyboard, to try to get at something, or at least to document it, attempt to, this little life of mine, short and hopefully sweet, and god oh man, god - I am alive, and there are sometimes when I feel that in a way that I don't that often these days and right now is one of those times and this music is certainly helping me feel that way, helping me feel alive!

But the truth is so much more layered and more contradictory, more gray than the bright blue optimism of the preceding declaration about my aliveness, implying some sort of whoo-hooness, which, you know, honestly at times, probably more so than most people, I do feel, but which to be honest is not a feeling that is constantly present in this little mind of mine, that often there are much sadder feelings, feelings of being pathetic, of not being alive, of being sad about this or that, often some person or other, and feeling quite depressed and wanting to do nothing more than sleep.

And can I contain both of those in a diary entry - joy and sadness - and have the thing make any sense? There is a natural division between tragedy and comedy (look back to the Greeks) and to try to contain both in a work, even a diary entry, often dilutes the emotional power of either, the ability of the reader, you in this case, to get carried away by the work. And what the hell am I talking about again?

I have seen some incredible things lately, among them "9 to 5," followed by Dolly Parton talking to the audience afterward, Justin Bond performing at Joe's Pub, House of Ladosha performing at two venues in Williamsburg, and amazing art shows by Yayoi Kusama and Sophie Calle that are up right now. I am incredibly lucky to be able to experience these things so often because of the place that I live and the circle that I happen to inhabit within these geographic coordinates. Work is going quite well and I imagine I soon might be announcing a promotion here. I interviewed for it last week and am pretty certain I will get it and perhaps if there weren't all sorts of concerns about co-workers or employers stumbling across these things, I might detail these office politics things in more detail, as they are really quite fascinating and full of really rich human dramas, but considering these things and also my luck at having such a well-paying job in what is often described as a bleak economic environment, I will just keep my mouth shut about that and continue on with other topics.

I am maybe friends again with Gabriel. He arrived back in town a week or so ago and I ran into him at a bar and we were friendly and have mostly been since then. We agreed to be friends when first seeing each other, me really missing him a lot, and never really talked about the underlying issues that caused the months of not talking to each other, and maybe that's best, maybe that to try to discuss those things, to discuss hurt feelings, would just lead to further hurt ones and not a friendship. But really who knows because also I am still sort of convinced he hates me, particularly after this redhead and I tried to get him to have a threesome with us. I often think about whether we are meant to be friends, about if we could be, about how really we have to be, should be, and yet it seems so difficult.

This week has also seen some attempt at reconnection with Diego. I hung out with him at his house for a bit last week, me talking to him about my life in a way I haven't been able to in a long while, and me starting to get emotional, honest, me really happy that I had these ears, absent in my life these days really, that I could open myself up to and be really honest with about my insecurities, and then of course he would get a call from his boyfriend, fine except for that his boyfriend got a little crazy pscyho when he heard I was there and started yelling at Diego about what I was doing there, about what I could be there for, all these accusatory questions to Diego, clearly indicating his hatred for me, and all of which I overheard clearly as the two of them were arguing. I got my stuff, headed out the door, and walked home incredibly sad that this person in my life, that these two actually, that I used to be so close to in really special ways that allowed for an emotional honesty I otherwise don't have an outlet for, that the two of them still seem far off, that I need to really work on developing some new friendships of a deep level, but finding it quite difficult to bridge something, to step beyond some polite line.

And Diego and his boyfriend will be at Short Mountain in a week, as will I, and that has me vaguely worried for potential drama that might arise in what I had been looking forward to for months as some sort of spiritual retreat, some time to clear my head, or dirty it, and be something that I am not now, something better.

I don't really know where I am going with this. I am terribly behind on that writing project I mentioned some weeks ago, have (to be totally honest) made no progress on it since those last words written for it, and the goal of finishing it by the end of this month now seems increasingly delusional. If only I didn't love the social life so much, the not being home life so much, that not being alone with my thoughts (or forced to confront my lack thereof) life, I might be able to actually get going on these continually stated goals for my life. Rather I am going to this bar, to that party of a friend, to that show, to this gallery, to here, there, and back again with these limited few hours, continually seeking out the company of a friend, constantly, this neediness I have for friends and companionship and a person always there, someone to kill time with. Thinking a lot lately about what is important in life and less and less sure; sometimes I am convinced to pursue something other than a life hanging out with friends and being constantly stoned is cracked, that everything else is some perverse ambitiousness.

But to be truthful, I am less and less sure of what I writing here tonight, increasingly saying ideas or phrases because I like the way they sound or the force that the argument has in my mind, the ability to stir something, and so for this reason, for a couple, chief among them tiredness, I am going to end these ramblings and head off toward my bed with my headphones where I may play a certain Elton John song on repeat as I drift off to sleep.