Fun in the Sun

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A Well Made Bed

The guy's apartment was in one of those massive apartment complexes on West End Avenue. I thought that I had been there before. Something about the place looked familiar, however he did not. The apartment was like that of lot of old people's. Things were neat, wooden furniture seemed too polished, everything in its place, nothing lying around, no mess of papers, framed photographs on side tables. I really had the sense that I had been in that apartment before but sometimes things just look that way, like some place you have been before. But also I wondered if maybe I have not been in so many random apartments of men at this point that I may not even remember people. Had I maybe seen this man years ago and blurred his face together with that of so many other random men? I wasn't sure. He was quite old, had stitches down the front of his chest like he had had heart surgery recently. He was bald and had really nice eyes, really soft and flabby skin, loose, and yet real pleasant to touch. He sucked my dick and kissed my feet in a way that made me look at them like they were really beautiful, made me kind of see what he saw. We kissed. It was nice. I came home.

I've reason to believe that we all will be received in Graceland

Last evening, I booked a return flight home from Memphis in early May. I am going to Graceland. I am incredibly excited about this. Many years ago, I used to be quite into Paul Simon, especially the Graceland album. Whenever I would listen to its title track, I would have elaborate road trip fantasies about driving to this place and listening to this song on the way there. I still love Paul Simon and this album and this song. I do not like Vampire Weekend, not at all, find them a bit offensive. Yet, Paul Simon, I don't find this way, find sincere and beautiful and touching. And so I would listen to this track, often skipping it back to the beginning as soon as it ended and had all these fantasies about Graceland, about driving there, making some pilgrimage to the place, much like the one described in the song.

When thinking of Elvis, I also think of the Gillian Welch song, "Elvis Presley Blues," think about the lines, "Just a country boy that combed his hair/Put on a shirt his mother made and went on the air/and shook it like a chorus girl." When thinking about Elvis, I find myself more often thinking of these other objects, songs and things written about him, about what he means, what he meant, rather than the things he made. And though they are spectacular when you listen to them, amazing often, it is more likely that I think of this Gillian Welch song or this Paul Simon one or the writings of Greil Marcus.

But the circumstances that led to this trip are particular. There were some issues of timing, there was the likelihood that I would have a car, there was the encouragement of a friend who wanted to go to Graceland. Jacob and I are going to Milwaukee at the end of April, are being flown out to that beer-producing city by some John. I wanted to go to Beltane this year, wanted to see some people, wanted to be in the woods. The timing was such that to make it there in the morning, it would have made most sense to drive there from Milwaukee. I also wanted an excuse to rent a car and drive some hundreds of miles through this country. And so since we would already have the car, it seemed to make equal sense (as much sense as any thing makes when logic is already questionable, already discarded) to drive to Memphis afterwards and see Graceland. And so Bob, the one encouraging the trip to Graceland, and Diego, the one encouraging us to go to Short Mountain, are going to be part of this Tennessee road trip. Return tickets have been booked from Memphis. A car has been reserved. And four gays are going to go pay homage to Elvis after spending some time in the woods with the radical faeries after Jacob and I spend some time in Milwaukee with some rich dude. Each leg of this trip seems comical, absurd, and amazing. I can't wait.

I called in sick to work today, am actually sick, and should be doing things like writing and working on my resume and applying for jobs, but instead am here writing in my diary and watching Elvis videos on YouTube, watching Brent Everett videos on any porn site I can find them on, jerking off, eating Stacey's pita chips.

_____________________________

A couple days ago, Jacob and I went to a hotel room near Times Square. The man got on his knees as soon as we entered the room. We undressed and he started sucking our cocks. He said he wanted to eat our cum, wanted to drink our piss, wanted anything we would give him. I didn't know what the desperate "wanted anything" referred to but I had some thoughts about its specific meanings, also some thoughts about the vague poetry of the request. While he was sucking Jacob's dick, I began to fuck Jacob. He told us in a hungry voice that he wanted to lick my dick and Jacob's asshole when I pulled out, that he wanted me to cum in his mouth, hunger and desperation and horniness in everything he said, it a bit repulsive.

I pulled out of Jacob and there was some shit on the head of my penis - normal and not disgusting. Hungry Man, however, said he wanted to eat it. Rolling with the punches, trying to, I stuck my dick in his mouth even though it grossed me out a bit to watch. He started to make exaggerated sounds of pleasure, the smell wafted its way up to my nose. I started to dry heave, each moan from him, him talking about shit, me smelling it, making my stomach very unsettled. I kept on trying to turn my head up, to escape the smell and sight but his noises kept my brain focused on what was going on and I kept on nearly puking. He asked if I was okay and I told him that the smell of shit made me nauseous. He told me I could go rinse off. I went into the bathroom, ran the water, and started to dry heave into the sink, caught my breath, cupped cold water in my hands, splashed it on my face, drank from my cupped hands, the cold water feeling so good against my sore insides which had been suppressing the act of vomiting. I came in his mouth, fed him more, and we got dressed and left.

__________________________________________

I bought the Ungame recently off eBay. I have not yet played it, have been trying to have people over to do so, but find myself not home often, find myself busy doing things, getting drunk, dancing, seeing things. I have suggested to Jacob that he move in with me since he has been sleeping here every night for months now. He seems like he wants to but has commitments to his current lease and current roommate. I have started to say the word love on occasion with this person. I need to start eating healthier. I need to buy some running shoes. There are other things I need to do surely, but those seem like easy places to start.

Bananas

After Dark

At the Armory show, there is this installation of a very long bookshelf, the books on it arranged alphabetically, all the books part of the same "After Dark" series, the name of a various city and then the words "After Dark," sometimes real ridiculous cities that you would not imagine to be included in such a series. I am now wishing that I had asked the people in this particular booth more questions about the work, as now that I am googling it, I am unable to find out answers to particular questions I am having about the work and the books. The work is by Richard Prince, something I did not know when I first encountered it and was so drawn to it. I am glad I did not know that, as the name has a lot of baggage and I've never been able to really get into his work before and so probably would have dismissed this "After Dark" piece as another work I didn't really get from this big name artist. However, there is something quite beautiful about this piece, all of these individual books with absurd captions on the front cover, a fake library, an imagined one.

One such caption for a city I can't remember, perhaps "Bangalore After Dark," went something like this (a game of telephone happening here with me not remembering the caption at all, only its punchline): "The student became deeply uncomfortable and asked the professor to repeat his statement. 'The sun and life will die out in a billion years.' The student breathed a sigh of relief and said, "You're really had me worried. I thought you said a million years.'"

I am seeing in some basic googling now that Prince did a series of paintings based on these paperback After Dark books that he had been collecting about various cities. My question however is about the books in the piece. They all seem manufactured for this particular work, the captions too absurd, the price of the paperbacks too low for the new condition of the books. I have so many questions about this work that will probably always go unanswered now, the likelihood of me returning to the Armory show this weekend very slim. And so my reading of this, the associations I am attaching to it, may be wrong. These may be found objects arranged on a bookshelf, not the imagined, fanciful series that really touches me.

There are some really striking works in the exhibition, but I got the same feeling I get every year going to this show, and after about an hour of looking at work I became less and less receptive to the things, gave each piece less and less time to make an impression on me before I moved on the next booth, the next gallery, the next works of art. From there, I went to the Scope art fair, and now feel thoroughly exhausted with visual art for a while, especially with having attended the Whitney Biennial a week ago. I have seen some nice things, have a feel for what certain artists are doing, have some new names of people to look for in group shows, and that is it. I was with a boy today and that is probably more what I will remember about this day in some distant future day, walking around these covered piers with Jacob and looking at things, and sharing the only empty chair in the cafe area so we could try to sit and drink a coffee.

I saw this other boy I used to sleep with there, also this young boy, also 20 I believe. I saw him in the Peres Projects booth (typical) where Terrence Koh had a couple pieces. He was with some other boy and was slightly cunty, perhaps for good reason, perhaps I was an asshole to him some time ago. I thought about age briefly, about boys, about paths crossing, and then said "nice seeing you," the politest way of escaping a situation, starting to roll the credits.

Nice seeing you.

Perhaps if you don't want to have a melancholy morning, picking at emotional scabs over a cup of coffee, it is best not to put on The XX first thing. Perhaps I was mopey before I put on the music and that's why I put it on - I'm not sure at this point now. I do know that now I am questioning many of my life's decisions, thinking of what I could do to rearrange my life that would ease this sadness I feel.

There is a problem right now preventing me from even going into these problems, and that is the public nature of this diary, that more and more people will mention to me that they have read it, people I never mentioned it to. Normally, this is fine by me and something I take as a compliment of sorts that there are people that read this thing, however there are certain people that tell me this and the knowledge of which makes me quite uncomfortable, people that would otherwise be subjects on this site, boys I am sleeping with, boys I have romantic attachments with, boys I did. Diego tells me he doesn't read this site but has on occasion mentioned something I wrote on here, always doing so with a long story about how his ex read it and so it was in his history or something. Jacob told me that he found the site a couple months ago but told me he would not read it if I didn't want him to. And so there is that agreement that I should be able to continue to be honest without fear of hurting someone's feelings, that these people are not actually reading this thing, but I would not be being honest were I to say that I actually believed that would occur - I know would still read the diary of someone I was seeing if it was online. And so that is why the entries for the past couple months, my time seeing Jacob, have been sparse and coming every couple weeks or so, that the things I would actually like to talk about, my feelings toward being in a relationship, my feelings toward this boy, would have an adverse effect on that relationship with that boy, would somehow alter the terms of it, him knowing everywhere I was coming from, the whole story, which probably should be good, should be okay, but romance seems to be built upon shadows, things out of reach, doubts. To throw it all under flood lights removes some of the mystique, the fog and shadows.

But maybe that's okay, maybe that's what I want right now, maybe I am going to lie and say that these people told me they are not going to read this and I believe them, that it's okay to write honestly about them. Thursday night, I told Jacob I needed more space, more time to myself, time to read, write, and see my friends. That was the first night that we didn't spend the night together in nearly two months. I didn't sleep with him on Friday and didn't do so last night, hung out with him in the day, got off with him, saw a play with him, and then told him I wanted to read, slept by myself. It was really nice. I am increasingly unsure and yet also more sure of the things I want. I couldn't perhaps put them in actual terms of words, say that I want x and y to be happy, but can say that I don't necessarily want z in my life.

He is young, 20, and I find myself more aware of that age gap these days. He is also incredibly nice and sweet and fun and dirty, this lovely combination of qualities. But I don't know what it is I want. I know that when I hang out with Diego, I do feel a little crazy toward him still, know that I did try to sleep with him Thursday at Mattachine and failed as he ditched me to go home with some other boy, know that I left some crazy voicemails and text messages afterwards, know that I felt like shit most of Friday. I do know that when I go out and encounter some men (normally older men), I find myself feeling a bit woozy and getting that reckless crush feeling where I want to end up in their bed and have them make me coffee the next morning. I also like sleeping by myself, reading a book of short stories (this Justin Taylor book still) and thinking about my life, feeling perhaps real sad and being okay with that, embracing that, and not feeling like I had to entertain someone. So basically, I am not sure where things with this boy are headed. I do know that I am intentionally trying to take steps back, to establish space and see if that is what I actually want.

I am spending a lot of time on Kayak these days, really wanting to purchase plane tickets somewhere, to feel like I had a date to look forward to, a time I would be somewhere new.

valentine's day

I am feeling New York in a way that I haven't in a long while. I am preparing for winter's end, starting to come out of this self-imposed hibernation, a hibernation brought on my discomfort in cold weather, my reluctance to try to assemble decent looking outfits amid layers and layers, my desire instead to get stoned on my couch and watch movies and British tv shows and cuddle with this cute thing, Jacob, who is at my house every evening. But I am climbing out of that exile, embracing the cold now that I know there are not too many more weeks of it, that we are in the waning phase of winter.

There are all these things happening. There always are in this city. It's just a matter of knowing about them, creating them, or someone telling you about them, someone putting you on someone's list that you may or may not know, but whom you will certainly make it sound like you know when you say really confidently to the doorperson that you are on Geordon's list. And so Friday night, I skipped a long line of people in the cold and went and saw this singer that, for reasons I am not entirely sure of, I adore, Little Boots. Jacob was doing a photoshoot and hanging out with his friends and I was on my own for a night and it felt real nice to lose my mind and float from conversation to the open bar, to conversation, to the dance floor to dance whatever song I really liked that just came on, to conversation, to push my way through the crowd to get close to Little Boots and hear her sing "New In Town," accompanying herself on the keyboard. I was a bit stoned and certainly a bit caffeinated and quite a bit drunk and feeling real, real in love with the ways of this city and how, given a little craftiness, one can have so much fun for free in this town.

Diego knows the Bana people and so from there, we headed to the Financial District and all got into that party without trouble and without charge. Soon after checking my clothes, there was a glass of vodka next to me in the hot tub and I was going down on Diego, was getting head from strangers. Lots of vodka and cigarettes were consumed, animated conversations were had, and brief, fleeting moments of sexual contact with people I may or may not ever see again occurred. There was a moment when the four of us were all smoking in the smoking room, seated on chairs next to each other, and I felt so insanely happy to be friends with these people and to be able to share these moments and to be alive right now, felt so fucking lucky and happy, and I told them this, propelled by the honesty and sentimentality that alcohol will often provoke in people, myself especially. I love them. I love these moments that I am lucky enough to have.

Yesterday, I was walking around Bushwick, the streets and sidewalks in this neighborhood not very well shoveled, large patches of ice and snow on sidewalks, the going a bit slow so you don't fall on your ass, and because of that, because of the hangover I was in yesterday, and because of the soundtrack I was listening to on my headphones, the Florence and the Machines album, I found myself overcome, so fucking overcome with the life I am living, was going at a slow enough pace physically to contemplate the landscape of this neighborhood and of my life as of late, the snowbanks, dirty, were holding in the glare of the sun, reflecting the afternoon sun, the glow so beautiful, making this industrial landscape seem real magical and my stroll through it epically cinematic. I was walking back to my house, large bags of groceries on my shoulder, happy that I was able to do this, to feed myself and sustain myself, and have a house, and great friends and this really amazing boyfriend, and to live in this town right now. And yes, there are things that I want to be doing, that I am not doing, there are friendships that are not perfect, relationships that aren't, and I could focus on those things, could detail them for you and for myself, could go on and on, but I don't want to because that's not how my mind is working these past few days. Let me tell you the song that I am listening to over and over, the song that made me download the Florence and the Machines album. It is their song, "Dog Days are Over." And I really suggest that you listen to it. I have been living in this song, playing it on repeat while I take long showers and feel really in sync with the singer, feel like I am her and these are my words, an anthem, a hymn. It's so fucking empowering to scream that the dog days are over, that the dog days are over, and that you can't carry it with you if you want to survive.

I am feeling really moved these days, real alive if I haven't said that already, but I know I have. I could surely scan up a couple of paragraphs and see that I did say so, but you can't carry it with you if you want to survive. I am focusing on the things that I have, the good things, the people who make me happy, and I am doing well. It's crazy that I am still learning such rudimentary techniques to achieve happiness at this age of 28, that I didn't know these things earlier, or didn't abide by them, thought I could change the rules I was told, that they didn't apply to me.

And last night, Jacob and I drank some cocktails at my house, listened to songs, and tried to watch "Drag Race," though my wonky internet connection did not want to cooperate with that agenda. Diego joined us for booze and conversation and then we went to Bouquot 2012 at Shea Stadium, a few blocks from my house, walked down these poorly shoveled streets of Bushwick, slipping in patches, however not one of us falling.

We waited in the line going up the stairwell and once inside I stashed my jacket underneath a bench and slowly began to lose my mind. The decorations were fantastic. The atmosphere was. Jacob remarked that it looked like a party they would go to on "Skins," and the analogy was real apt, perfect almost. I was stoned and drunk and began to dance and dance and didn't stop until three something, sweaty, but not tired, but knowing that Jacob had to be at work early. It was the most fun I have had dancing in months. I cannot think of the last time I have been to such a fun party, filled with people I love, all these various social circles overlapping at this space, this booty, dancehall rave music making me able to dance in an expressive crazy way that felt new. It wasn't the same music that I dance to all the time, that I have moves to, that there is an easy way to dance to. It was fun and I really did at times feel transported by dancing around and around, catching glimpses of faces of people I knew also dancing like crazy people, our paths briefly intersecting with a shared smile. A really good dance party is one of the best feelings in the world and this was that.

I bought Justin Taylor's Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever today and read the first story in the collection on my way home. So far, so fucking great. The mood and the style of writing are everything I desire in fiction. There was an "Oh Shit" moment though while reading it. I felt like this person maybe beat me to something, this Justin Taylor. That the tone is really similar to my attempts at fiction and worse is that he captures the awkwardness of being a young adult in Florida, a subject I have always dreamed about tackling, my life and community of being a college student in Sarasota, Florida. This first story, in six or so pages, captures that mood so fucking perfectly and I imagine if you lived in that town with me, you would probably really enjoy this book, or maybe just the first story. Maybe I should continue to read more of the book before I attempt to discourse on what the book does or does not do and whether you will or will not enjoy it.

And tonight, because it doesn't end, I am going to make dinner for Jacob when he gets off work and then go to some Butt party to see the amazing House of Ladosha perform and probably dance like a maniac again. And tomorrow, it takes a pause, work begins again. I have these goals for this week that I am really going to try to do, going to try to not be a piece of shit, and do these things, make myself an even happier person, take to heart these lessons I have been learning lately.

Self imposed five minute time limit here to write things because I have to go pick up tickets to see "In the Heights" tonight. Thinking about sexual frustration and violence and serial killers. This morning, I started to fuck Jacob. He was hurting and said he had to shit. A while later, I was holding his dick in my hands and telling him how I wanted it inside of me, it yet to be, us playing this same role night after night. He said soon. I wanted it then. We messed around, dry humped, and I asked when he would fuck me. He said Two weeks. I lost interest, became a bit mean, was annoyed, and thought about lots of things that made me sad. I thought about topping and bottoming and how this role of being a top is not a role I am entirely comfortable with, a role I have never had to play before for a sustained period of time, a role I had only played in sex work situations really before, never having fucked Diego. And so I was thinking about role reversal and what I had signed myself up for, whether it was what I wanted, became really unsure, and pulled away as Jacob dug his stubbly chin into my neck, it not feeling good, me feeling uncomfortable and unsure of lots of things. I hopped out of my bed, got dressed, made coffee, and didn't really talk to him for a while, played around online. I eventually sat next to him on the couch and we looked at each other for a long time, he asking me why I was mad, me saying I wasn't, me not being entirely truthful. We looked at each other some more and I asked him what he was thinking. And he told me he was feeling insecure, that he hadn't fucked anyone in a few months, and liked me and was insecure about it. And my coldness melted to some extent and I again saw this adorable little thing and we talked, which is probably what I should have done in the first place rather than shutting down. We made out on my couch and he left for work.

Five minutes is up.

However, serial killers. So I watched this A&E Biography of John Wayne Gacy on YouTube after he left and really got to thinking about violence and sexual frustration and wanted to work this subject a great deal, my brain consumed by thoughts of Gacy and Dahmer today, these two epic gay serial killers and the reasons behind it seemingly some sort of sexual repression and frustration. And there is a subject here with a lot to parse out and I am trying to do so, really into thoughts of these two right now and broader analogies about sexuality.

But I have to get dressed. We have already exceeded our time limit.

the state of our union

It was at some point after President Obama had talked about health care. I am not exactly sure at what moment it was that the two of us tuned out, tuned more into each other. We had split a bottle of wine with dinner and were consuming more while watching the State of the Union. We had started to lie in each other's arms to make ourselves more comfortable. That turned into kissing. That turned into Jacob taking his dick out of his underwear. That turned into me sucking his dick. The humor in that we were beginning to have sex on my couch while this address was unfolding several feet from us on my television was not lost on either one of us, slight giggles accompanying the sex early on before the speech and Obama and a room full of people half standing and applauding and half sitting in their seats faded into the background, became less and less on my mind, the only thing for periods that began to stretch longer and longer this sexy boy and our two bodies together and our hunger.

I got my lube and we started to fuck on the couch, Obama's head looking out at us, an American flag behind him. At some moment when my dick slipped out of Jacob, I used the opportunity to get up and get poppers and to turn on the webcam, used the opportunity to push things further, to make the contrast more absurd. High on poppers, drunk on wine, and insanely attracted to this person's body, I gave myself more and more to my appetites. There was a moment when I heard Obama forcefully declare an imminent end to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I paused and commented on the importance of his saying that during the speech. Some talking heads commented on the proceedings, a Republican governor in Virginia gave a speech, and the same talking heads again came on to discuss the evening. I was vaguely aware of these things. We came. I said, "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

He fell asleep on my couch and I used the opportunity to read more of this Patti Smith book I am reading. Eventually his snoring distracted me enough from reading and my own desire for sleep became stronger that I called his name until he awoke, until he climbed up in to my bed with me. This morning, I left for work, his body still stretched out in my bed. We kissed goodbye. I have been waking up early and going to work for this past month with a nice body still in my bed, Jacob, and I have been in such great moods because of it, smiling as I lock my door behind me, as I walk to the subway, as I take it to work, happy because of this person and his presence in my life.

Dark Side of the Moon

I have been thinking a lot today about this work I heard Dan Fishback read last evening at Dixon Place. The work talked about what it means for him, born in 1981, the same year as the AIDS crisis began, to grow up gay in the shadow of this thing, in the wreckage of this thing. It was an insanely beautiful piece and really moved me a great deal. To see someone work with such big themes in such successful ways, someone working the theme of being born in 1981, the year also of my own birth, really made me want to get my shit together and take writing more seriously, that there are really great things to be written, to attempt to say, and to witness one of my peers articulate things so well and in such a lovely fashion really made me want to spend more time in front of my laptop (and not on Facebook).

I sat next to Diego in the space, had gone with him to happy hour earlier at the Stonewall, where some young kid had proudly showed off the staples in his head to me while I was alone at the bar and awaiting Diego's company. The kid was real young looking and was sort of bragging about this "design," telling me in too flip a fashion that his boyfriend had broke a glass over his head the other evening at Barracuda and he had to get staples in his head at the emergency room. I eyed the clock behind the bar out of the corner of my eye, wondering where Diego was, wondering why this person was so crazy, wondering where I was.

The work that Dan read talked about a lost generation of gays, things and people and a culture lost. It talked about awkward adolescent moments of sex. It talked about Catwoman and Madonna and gays being persecuted currently around the world. After the reading ended, I gave Diego a gigantic hug, pulled him close to me, and wanted to feel connected, knew that I was connected to this person, that I cared so much about him, and wanted to make this known, so gave him a hug, shared a moment physically to somehow convey the impression left on us by the reading.

I had another drink in the lobby of the place, walked with Diego to Parkside Lounge and left there quickly, not really wanting to be there and walked up to Erica's house, bought some whiskey along the way, and thought about this life I am living.

I have Pandora on and "Nada Personal" is playing right now. I am losing the focus I had intended to bring to this thing, distracted by this song, by my hunger, by the fact that Jacob is coming over very shortly and that I told him I would make him dinner and that really I should get to that project, the project of feeding our bodies rather than this thing, this Internet thing. But this feeds something in me also, less easily identifiable a hunger than the one that food sates, but a hunger still.

I was cleaning my bathroom earlier this evening and there was a Virgin Mary trinket from a necklace that was here when I moved into the apartment and I had too much guilt then to throw it away, thought it a bad omen to do so. Raised Catholic and the thought of sin and sacrilege still present, some idea of consequences, of the sacred. Today, I decided though that I didn't purchase the thing, that I didn't need to hold on to it, and tossed it in the garbage.

A couple weeks ago, my aunt, my dad's sister, mailed me a box of things of his. She asked me not to throw it away if I didn't want the stuff, to send it back. They were cheap and tacky knick-knacks, a couple of religious necklaces. I left the box underneath my bed for a couple weeks, really not wanting any of it and not wanting to mail it back to my aunt who would have been real offended and even more sure that I was out to piss all over the memory of her brother, who she has some religious devotion to in her own aging state now. I threw the box away, wanted it out of my house, out of my space, that to even store these items somewhere buried in a back corner would have some energy in this space that I didn't want. If it was a Pink Floyd album or something else of his that I remember of him, I would have kept it, but they were these maudlin items that I could only imagine him buying when very near death from lung cancer and wanting to somehow atone for a life of sin. I don't carry things with me. I am trying not to. I let them go, set them on curbs on trash days. I am trying to travel light.