Stumbling
Today the hospice nurse checked Mom over and pronounced her recovering from the worst of the crisis. Which means, really, that she'll probably stabilize but not necessarily improve. After hearing the news I found myself so tired that I left her house at 4 to come back to Crowman's and do nothing but lay in bed and watch movies.
If she seems fine tomorrow I'll probably look for the next available flight back to SF. Back to my "life", as it were. Though I don't welcome returning to work as though this never happened, I can't handle hanging around Mom and Lee's house much longer. My brother acted even more quickly; he left tonight for Albuquerque. I haven't really mentioned that when the kids began to postpone our return flights, Lee asked me to tell him to stay with a friend's instead of remaining in her house.
"I can't be stumbling around people anymore," is what she said, although she let her own children remain. Would she have asked me to leave, too, if I wasn't already staying with Crowman? I don't know, and quite honestly I'm so tired of her resentments towards my brother (and putting me in the middle) that I want to make this week the last of my supporting roles in that drama. Just being in the house is a strain, and I find myself wanting Mom's struggle to be over, both for her comfort and for ours.
And yet.
I try to imagine what I'll feel after she dies, what my days will look like, what colors they will carry.
And I imagine me alone somewhere, traveling, maybe with Louie, going anywhere and nowhere and back again.
Mailbox
10:40 PM | link
Bad Thoughts
(there's nothing as irritating as typing out a journal entry only to have the computer or connection fail before one posts)
As I was saying.
Mom seemed better this morning, which in an unwelcome fashion let loose a flood of questions and bad thoughts. Namely, if she pulls through now, are all of yesterday's grieving and decisions premature. Dad has driven here to support my brother and I, I cancelled my plane reservation, told work I won't be in this week, and have called friends to try and juggle pet sitting responsibilities. Somehow it seems that it would all be for naught should she live, and of that thought I'm not proud.
The bad thoughts tap my shoulder and whisper, "Enough, we're tired, let this be over."
The hospice nurse came by and after checking Mom out spoke to the rest of us. It's too soon to say, she said. Although Mom does have some of the signs of dying, (i.e. lower blood pressure, high pulse, irregular heartbeat and breathing), there is a possibility she could beat the pneumonia and stabilize. Or she might not. The nurse seemed surprisingly confident that we should know by tomorrow. I guess she sees plenty, in her line of work.
It's taking too much effort to type without mistakes. It's late.
Goodnight.
12:38 AM | link
Tuesday, December 25, 2001
Christmas
Things have changed remarkably in the three days since I last posted. We think Mom may not make it past the next day or two. She is so weak, and she has caught pneumonia, which to a person with ALS, can be fatal. In fact, it is the usual course of events, once the person's lung muscles are so compromised that breathing is a chore. Her blood pressure is low, her pulse is high, and she is now on morphine every four hours. (Morphine! That I can exist in a house with a controlled substance I've never tried and not think about it constantly is a miracle. But I must stay present, for her.)
I've cried a bit today as the reality hits me in small waves; talking with Lee and the other kids about a service; seeing a picture of her years before the illness, crossing the finish line of the Twin Cities Marathon; calling her minister and asking her to come for a visit.
People have been by all day. I try to concentrate on keeping a fire going in the fireplace. Everytime she sees someone she reaches out to hug them, her eyes coming in and out of focus. She needs to rest, to sleep, so I avoid her line of sight for awhile, but then later we are alone and I tell her that I love her, that she has raised me well, to love and to be loved, that I am sober going on 14 months, that I will take care of myself and my brother, that she has been a great mother to me.
I will stay longer. I call friends in SF to give updates and ask for help, to cover my absences. Tattooed Monk says he wishes he could be here with me and I wish the same. I wish, today, that I had a partner to hold me.
I'm back at Crowman's on his computer. If she goes tonight, I will be fine. As Tattooed Monk pointed out, sometimes a parent cannot let go if the children are present.
Silent night, holy night. You are always welcome at this campfire.
11:28 PM | link
Friday, December 21, 2001
Ammunition
(Transcribed) " It's harder than ever to communicate with her. She seems more withdrawn, unable to nod or shake her head now. "Yes" is raised eyebrows, "no" is no reaction. Most questions go unanswered or at least unrecognizable. I'm more and more at odds with myself, unable to communicate well; without dialogue, coversation is prattle. At Lee's urging I sit at her bedside and read her old poems, sonnets, and a picture book version of The Nutcracker. My brother's new girlfriend, tells me I have a soothing voice and should read books on tape. Mom does seem to sleep for a bit.
"At yesterday's ALS support group the inspirational speaker is so uninspiring that I struggle to keep my eyes open. I'm wiped out. Compared to my last visit to the group a year and 1/2 ago, Mom is no longer one of the healthiest. In fact, she is the worst of all, the least mobile , the least responsive. Lee tells me that is the way the others have looked before they died. Later, at the caregiver's separate support group, I keep myself from crying by counting the number of times a woman across the table says "Y'know" in a minute. About fifteen. Everyone and their thick MN accents. So many white people (including me).
"I'm staying with my friend Crowman, the postal inspector (thanks for the bed and the car, Crowman). My first night here he takes me to see the Ballet of the Dolls' Nutcracker parody; Barbie dolls, drag queens, house music and all. To be honest, it seems inert and not nearly as cute as they probably intended. Later, he and I stop at the downtown post office and from a vault in his office we pull 5000 rounds of 9mm Luger ammunition so his division can complete their regular firearms qualifications in the morning. We stack it in the trunk of his Chrysler.
(Pause: UPS has just now delivered a special box: Mom and Lee have been selected to carry the torch for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Lee wrote a nominating essay about Mom, and they ended up both being selected as inspirational partners. They'll help carry the torch two-tenths of a mile each through Omaha, Nebraska. Amazing. The box contains the white and blue torchbearer official outfits.)"
Later: I'm back at Crowman's on his mac upstairs in the spare bedroom, home from seeing the horrible new Tom Cruise movie, alone. I mean I saw it alone, trying to save the good movies for when the family wants to see them this weekend. After Mom's simple, quiet 55th birthday party, I kissed her good night, and then my brother does the same. As I'm lacing up my boots he asks where I am off to and I lie a little, saying I'm going back to Crowman's. There are tears in his eyes and I find that I cannot talk to him about IT, that all I can do is drive in the dark to a movie theater, and sit in the dark and watch someone else's life flash across my eyes for awhile.
Mailbox
11:32 PM | link
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
The Night Before
Leaving early in the morning, I'm nervous still, or more, or whatever. I worry that I'll somehow disappoint or anger Lee, that I will fuck up somehow, that just coming for a week is not enough.
I'll be okay. But I'm not ready for the end, at least not like I thought I was. I'm afraid of what life is like, motherless.
But look, she's been gone to you for a couple of years almost, at least as that mother.
But her spirit remains on earth, for now, and it gives me a place to seek out, like now.
Ski is coming early so we can share a ride to the airport. Good Night.
12:03 AM | link
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Holiday Hospital Cheer
Transcribed: "I've got an hour to kill, having discovered too late that the little neighborhood store that sells stuff like sugar skulls and tin angels for the Christmas tree is closed on Mondays. So I'm sitting outside SF General Hospital as the sun sets, waiting for my doctor appointment. Twin Peaks and the Sutro Tower standing silhouette, the hills are dark paper and pinpricks through them gleam. Long strings of headlights flow down the hills in thin rivers. The trees along the hospital roads are lit. My breath rises. People trickle out of the buildings, for a moment some of them look where I'm looking, and then turn and smile at me.
"I'm feeling a little mute, maybe I blew a fuse after the last entry. Maybe it's that when I called home yesterday, Lee told me that Mom's not doing well. Very weak and tired, the brightness in her eyes dimmed. I'm glad I'm going home."
Later. T-cells 909. Viral Load 170.
On the bell curve of his patients, I'm much better off than most. I could go for years without meds, he says, cautiously optimistic. I'm so healthy, in fact, that we just sort of smile at each other, not much to say.
Most uncomfortable moment: When he asks if I'm having sex. I say no. He says how long has it been and I have to think. Hard. A couple of months, I say.
I get the third Hepatitis B vaccine shot, all caught up there. I catch the 33 going back to the gym. On the bus there's a girl in her twenties with bleached blonde hair. She's wearing a surgical mask and hopital clothes, like pajamas. She's wearing platform shoes. A tube snakes out of her bandaged arm and wraps around her wrist. She pulls out a compact and powders her nose and the cheekbones above the mask.
Ski leaves for New Jersey the same morning I leave for Minneapolis, early. We make plans to take a cab out to the airport together. I haven't flown since August.
1:46 AM | link
Sunday, December 16, 2001
Blue Sky
My Russian barber, to whom I'm ridiculously devoted, leaves the barbershop where he rents a chair, and prepares to open his own shop. In the meantime I need a haircut. I risk my head at a shop down the street and jesus, she fucks it up. There wasn't much to fuck up, but she does. I come home and within five minutes I'm shaving it all off. Just in time for the holidays (sorry, Mom) It looks a little severe to me, but my sponsor (AA jargon) tells me it's not much of a difference. I don't have the most astute perception of myself, I admit.
Later, Louie and I cross South Van Ness Ave to the east, over to what has become one of my favorite neighborhoods. I'm the only gay boy in sight. Lots of old warehouses and funky flats, parking lots and laundromats. Little corner stores and burrito joints. Very Latin and working class. There's SF Fire Department Station 7 two blocks away. In the lot next to the firehouse they've put up a skinny, seven-story building for training. I haven't yet walked by when it's smoking, but I'm waiting. The Atlas Cafe, on its quiet little corner, is crammed full of neighborhood artist types this morning. Pumping my coffee from its carafe, I remember the night The Ex and I sat at the table next to the window with the paper's rental listings spread out. Four years ago, he drops quarters in the payphone and does all the talking, while I look out at the brick buildings, hoping SF will let us in.
Empty parking spaces. Side streets that run into other side streets. Weeds growing up through cracked asphalt. Trees changing color and dropping leaves. Once, a few mornings back, Louie and I pass a car parked all alone. I realize as the driver and I make eye contact that there's a woman's head bobbing up and down above his lap.
On the wall surrounding the PG&E parking lot someone's painted bright, elaborate murals like a Carnival. Against the corner of the wall squats a small man dressed in faded work clothes, his baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. He's so still, he's hardly there.
A woman in her thirties, dressed in a black leather jacket and sunglasses, pedals past us on a small girl's bicycle. It's pink and white, with a wicker basket on the handlebars. A pink plastic daisy stuck to the front.
We pass back over South Van Ness, on to Dolores Park, which becomes swampy in the winter. The neighborhood dog owner's association has left a box of donuts from the morning playtime. It sits on the bench next to me, the chocolate melting and sticking to the plastic window. When I can't take anymore of the other dog owners (like the obnoxious, all-knowing parents you'd avoid at the playground), I whistle for Louie and he trots after me, mud streaked on his face, smiling. It's a beautiful blue-sky day, and from the hill you can see across the bay.
My city is not the city of Tales of the City. There is no 28 Barbary Lane, and though I may often feel like Mary Ann Singleton, there is no Mrs. Madrigal to rent me a room and tape joints to my door. We have to make stories of our own, like it or not.
My friend Lil' Gummi, he of the beautiful soul, sends me Instant Messages on AOL at home. I mop the bathroom floor and while it dries we joke back and forth, and then, he asks me out. And now I am the one giving the unwelcome answers. Yes, god, I see the irony.
On the treadmill at the gym I can't help but see myself reflected several times over in windows and mirrors. My head shines with sweat, but I move so much slower than I feel. Inside I'm Chariots of Fire, and outside I'm Frankenstein's monster, pieced together rag-tag and waking up, lumbering. Learning how to walk. To move with grace.
Coming home I run into my roommates Smokey and Red, the couple. They're piling out of a big ol' blue American car. They've come from the hospital where their friend is dying from Huntington's Disease. Red, who also has HD, tells me the doctors will take their friend off life support tonight. The car is his gift to them.
The campfire is warm tonight. These flames, they dance.
3:01 AM | link
Saturday, December 15, 2001
Night talk
The campfire is a little quiet tonight. It's a cold night in the city, and I'm hunkered down over the flames, warming one side of my body, and then the other. The embers glow. Despite dog fidelity (and a cat making compromises with my laptop) I'm feeling a little heartsick. But I get that way when I see Ski, god forgive me for not being a truer friend. Unavailable men. They make the world go round. Hard to play for keeps when you're competing against the dead lover's memory. If the ghost ever pales, I'd better be the first in line. But companions on the road can be rare, and it's not my style to want things black or white. I only wish his tent would sleep more than one.
Throw another log on the fire
1:52 AM | link
Thursday, December 13, 2001
Handcuffs
Tonight a hooker ends up walking side-by-side with me and Louie on our way home.
"I like dogs. As long as they don't bite"
"He won't bite. He'd run away first," I say. (I didn't raise a dumb dog)
"I had a half-wolf once. Half huskie, half wolf. He had silver eyes," she says.
"Did he howl?"
"Sometimes at a full moon. Of if he heard sirens. He thought they were singing."
Suddenly she breaks rank with us, and steps into the path of a tall, middle-aged Asian man who's looking very nervous. She wraps her arms around him. His arms hang at his side. She kisses him on the cheek and says "Merry Christmas". He stands there, absolutely bewildered.
"Yeah," she says, like an affirmation, then crosses the street, leaving him standing there as Louie and I continue.
For the second time this week there's a cop car outside a building on my block, and again one of the cops has fastened one ring of his (her?) handcuffs to the front gate, preventing it from latching behind him. I figure it's to give his back-up an easier entrance into the building.
In contrast to yesterday, today was all about LEAVE ME ALONE at work. And nobody seemed to pick up on it. I really need a vacation. But I'm digging reading everyone else's blogs on company time, especially with the T1 connection. (Yes, I admit it, I use a 56k modem at home. I'm poor. Or at least, poor enough)
One of my three roommates is settling into the living room next to my room. There's a set of pocket doors that separate the two rooms, which means little privacy (I've had sex here, like, maybe twice) and I'm not an extrovert. Which means a slight er, moderate resentment towards my housemates, which isn't fair, because one of them pitied me enough after my break-up to give me and Louie a place to live. But.........but.....but I'm not cut out to live with others, unless the other is Significant. Sorry, the whining will stop here.
Moving on. Oooooohhhh. BLACK. Kinda sexy, kinda dirty, kinda edgy. And ME, mysterious? C'mon Huck. I'm from the Midwest!
9:50 PM | link
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
Tethered
Places I pass in the five blocks between work and home: A printing company, a lot under renovation, a building that houses a consulting firm and a children's book publisher, a warehouse of messenger bags, a warehouse of Levi's t-shirts, a parking lot full of PG&E repair trucks, a leather wholesale supplier, a dot.com, a motorcycle repair shop, a funeral home, a wood door and sash company, a dance studio/school, a gas station, a defunct dot.com, a corner store that lets me bring Louie in when I get my morning coffee, a fencing studio, a retirement home, several auto repair shops, and several apartment buildings or flats, depending on where you're from. It's not the quietest, or the best part of town. In fact, given the choice I'd probably rather live in several other neighborhoods, preferably one with a good park for Louie. But it's a quick commute, I get to read billboards in Spanish, and the hookers are nice to my dog.
I thought about Louie on the way home, which isn't hard to do, since I'm tethered to him at the time. And I choose that word carefully. If one is less tethered, are you more or less happy? It's a definite balance. Louie's certainly worth it. Aside from him, what's got me tethered? Family, friends, AA, this new Campfire. Sex, even if I'm not getting any now. Infatuations. A curiosity about other people and about how my own life will unfold.
Okay, I have to take any chance I can get at adding kindling to the Campfire. My first review, even if it is from a friend. He writes (and I can quote him because I know he likes the exposure as much as I do):
"I LOVE the journal and I'm so glad you're keeping it! I was actually wondering if I should "encourage" (read: browbeat) you to start one. I really do love the directness and rhythmic quality to your writing. And you are so cyber-slick -- linking to everything like you do -- very smooth. I also love the feel of the city and the times that I'm already picking up. You're a natural observer. Well, it's obvious you're a writer, period, even if you're feeling out of shape...Can't wait to see where this goes. I'll be watching... :) "
Thank you, Devon. I can't claim credit for being slick when it comes to linking. Better bolgs than mine showed me the way. But for what it's worth, I love that you are hookin' and lovin' it. And that we ran into each other again. As I seem to recall, I met you while I was looking for the literary Huckleberry to my Tom Sawyer. Or something. Do you think Huck, growing up in today's world, would venture out to SF and become an escort? It doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.
whitewash my fence
9:05 PM | link
Beauty
Feeling very, uh, FIT, sipping my Jamba Juice (the seasonal Pumpkin Smash flavor. I've definitely got white trash in my blood) post-work out. Hit the gym twice within twelve hours. I'm NOT an Uber-Gay, I've just come to the conclusion that the only way I stay disciplined at the gym is by momentum. If I let too many hours pass, the tractor pull gets weaker and weaker. And if you've heard me bitch about being broke, making non-profit wages here in SF, then you might ask why I've held on to two gym memberships; Gold's on Market (circuit central) and the 24 Hours on Potrero. 24 Hours is a half block from work, and very straight, so when I'm feeling less-than-perfect, it's easier to roll in there under a few sweatshirts than it is at Gold's. Of course, THEN as I get back into shape and a little more interested in the Games We Play, Gold's is a more conducive setting. God. And I think I'm so immune to all that. Like I said, sexuality's power knocks me speechless. Anyway, I've become a believer in the Power of the Treadmill to ease the depression. Thirty minutes of sweating and I no longer feel like the world is about to come to an end.
Last night I went to Gold's with my new friend Handsome, who recently moved here from L.A. (Thanks for taking me to Sandra). I find it much easier hanging out with people who are better looking than I am than I used to. When I was in my early twenties, I had a gorgeous friend named Chris who everyone was in love with, much to my chagrin. I've come to realize since then, though, that it's okay if only two out of ten guys think I'm a hottie, compared to say, oh, nine out of ten for Handsome (are you blushing yet?) I'd probably dig those two more than the others anyway. (That is, if I'm lucky enough to get two)
What does this have to do with poetry and the human spirit? Well, I don't know yet. But having majored in sociology, I do love to watch the inner workings of groups and cultures. And eventually, I do write about them.
Write Me
1:52 PM | link
Tuesday, December 11, 2001
Mac
Until I become a Web-Page Guru, I'll have to make do with ready-made templates. For a couple of pics, check this out. Send me mail. Or ghost stories.
8:46 PM | link
Desert Storm
Today Paul in San Diego sends me this article from the NY Times. Seems as though the U.S. is finally admitting that soldiers fighting in the Gulf War were in greater danger than they thought. Veterans of that war were twice as likely as other soldiers to get ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Now I am trying to rack my brains wondering what Gulf War Vets and my Mom have in common, and am drawing a blank (but I'll keep you posted....um, burning oil? night vision goggles? Hmmm.) She grew up in Kansas, not the desert. Since it took them two years to even admit to such findings, I'm not holding my breath waiting for updates from them. Will we look back on this and say "if only we knew then what we know now"? I can't say I hold out much hope for a cure, not at the rate it's progressing in her. She's outlived some of the statistics, at least for her rare type (which includes Parkinson's and dementia. Go play with those odds).
I'm thinking a lot about next week and seeing her. Lee says she gets weaker and weaker. The bright spot seems to be that her spirits are good, and I remember her reaching out to hug me every twenty minutes when I was there in August. Because of the nature of the disease, (the loss of her speech ability, the progression of the dementia, etc), it's hard to know if her spirits are good because she's made some peace, or if the dementia has whittled away at her consciousness, hopefully erasing some of the more pressing questions of mortality and suffering. I can only guess.
Is there more that I could do? Should I go home again for an extended period of time? I wasn't of much use then (um, not so sober). And I don't know what else I could do now. She's surrounded by able-bodied friends, and cared for by Lee. Still. Is it a hero thing? Do I need to save something in order to live without the question "Did I do all that I could?" If she's coherent enough, I'll ask her that myself.
6:28 PM | link
Poz
Just when I thought Sandra Bernhard had lost her edge, her show at the Warfield tonight tore the shit up. I laughed so hard I cried and sweated in my dumb sweater up there in the balcony with all the other gay boys. Despite a last-minute jab at AA (such an easy target, I mean, c'mon, who in their right mind would choose to sit in a church basement on a folding chair drinking bad coffee on their nights off? We do it cuz the shit works. ), she manages to win me back by pulling our her rendition of "Little Red Corvette". And besides, anytime she talks about Stevie Nicks she makes me fall out. Like a Gypsy. Like Rhiannon.
On my lunch hour went and got my blood drawn. My numbers have been good, hope they stay that way. It's odd to be a statistic, to be on the other side of the fence. To write my undergraduate thesis on AIDS as a negative boy, and now, several years later, to carry "it" around with me. To be one of the young ones, the ones who should have known better. I don't think I expected that the words "DD Free, UB2" would have the affect they do on me today. If half of this city is positive, there are a hell of a lot of guys playing dumb, keeping secrets, or just plain hating who they are. Cuz too many pretend they are negative for the numbers to add up. Why don't safe sex campaigns work better? Because we don't understand sex and sexuality; the drive, the pull, the thing that makes us do the things we do, in that heat, in that dark, blissful space between two people. I don't understand it. It's power knocks me speechless.
2:29 AM | link
Sunday, December 09, 2001
Crazy.
Missed the 33 after the candlelight meeting so after I hug the Tattooed Monk good-bye at the corner of 18th and Castro, I make the long trek home down 18th Street to South Van Ness. As you drift further into the Mission the gay boys disappear. I pass two drunk straight couples, perhaps on their way back to the Marina after a dinner on Valencia St. Improbably, they're dusted with glitter.
At the tennis courts in Dolores Park, someone has taken long strips of fabric and intertwined it in the chain link fence surrounding the courts: it spells "COOL". It's a cold night as the cloudcover lifts, I wonder again how cold can the palm trees get along Dolores. A man with a face like a mask, skin badly burned, passes me, head down, eyes to the ground. The group of drunks on the corner of Mission and 18th have pissed against the trash can again; little rivers to cross.
I hid under the baseball cap at the meeting, my eyes closed or looking at other people's shoes. With the lights off sometimes it's easier to talk from the floor, but tonight I kept quiet. It's clear there are people crazier than me in this world, yet sometimes I wonder if I'll ever feel a little more normal, connected to life and others. Even with Ski today I felt something wrapped around me, my perception and energy clouded by something that I wish would burn off, like fog. We sat in a bad donut shop on 24th St in Noe Valley, and when I told him that I had recently seen The Ex, he asked if we had had sex. I was surprised, a little taken aback. Of course not, I wanted to say, but are you asking out of jealousy? I wish. I couldn't say what I wanted to say to him (i.e. "Have you fallen deeply, madly in love with me yet?")so our time together seems to end early. We take the J Church back over the hill and part ways on (again) 18th St.
At home I resume the emotionally unnerving task of logging video tapes I made over a year ago, before I was sober and when I was still with The Ex. I have this great intention of putting together a little video montage for my family for Xmas, as I'm broke and I can't afford real presents. We'll see if that actually happens in the ten days before I leave for home.
So I watch The Ex and I in fast forward, me with my nervous speed twitches, hands constantly going to my face to scratch or smooth or just check, constantly, that I am alive. My face giving my quivering hands a place to rest. Watching us together I do miss him.
Note to self: Did I think taping hour-long stationary conversations between him and I would be art? Did I regret never having applied to be on a reality show? Blogging will have to suffice.
I can't even listen to those taped conversations, out of fear of what I might have been saying, what crap I could have been justifying outloud, while inside I was an empty, brittle husk. At least I've changed, in some ways.
2:01 AM | link
Friday, December 07, 2001
Okay.
I know I work for one of the best animal shelters in the world, but do we have to apply our humane animal treatment standards to mice? I just discovered a small nest of three in the cabinet over my head. I'm butch and all, but for godsakes my skin is still crawling a little. Aren't there public health concerns? Louie hardly noticed. Then again, he's no terrier.
6:53 PM | link
Courtney Cox.
Friday. I'm slumping (my own creative spelling) through work again, following link to link, reading friends' blogs on company time. Can I just say here that I need a change? I keep having Bruce Springsteen going through my head; "I check my look in the mirror. Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face..." (Dancing in the Dark, the song where Courtney Cox was supposedly a random fan at the foot of the stage, giggling over Bruce until he stuck out her hand and pulled her up. Though I never would have admitted it at the time (I was 13) I would have pushed Courtney out of the way and grabbed his hand myself.) But I do lately hate my clothes, my hair, my face, not necessarily in that order. I just feel so....er, normal-looking, conservative, something, I keep thinking about shaving my head again like I did in college, but I remain unconvinced that it looked that great on me.
To top it off, the latest antidepressant I'm on in my journey through the land of antidepressants, Remeron, seems to have made me put back on the five pounds I lost on Serzone. Although I like it on other guys, five extra pounds isn't that flattering on me. Maybe instead of using the treadmill I'll actually run after work. In the dark, around Dolores Park or something. To its' credit, the last couple of days have been better than it was. I hate depression. It can be disheartening thinking that it may be part of my life forever, treated or not.
Last week I responded to a guy's ad on gay.com (I won't link it out of respect to his privacy). Nice butch-lookin hairy guy. He liked the pic I sent, and asked me this week to have coffee tomorrow, but I think I'm gonna postpone, feeling this way. I think the Remeron has chipped away a bit at my libido, too. Sometimes that can be pretty freeing, you know, not tied up so much to my sex drive, but when I get that way I can also see more clearly how it makes the rest of the world go round. Men. hrumph. But what gave me greater pause in responding right away to his email was that as I checked out HIS website (privacy, remember?) he mentioned that as part of his work in the sex education industry, his personal fetish favorites included blood-letting. (pause)
Ok, I consider myself pretty open-minded (dosen't every comment like this start out the same way?) but if that is what gets him going, I imagine I'd have a hard time keeping him satisfied. Maybe it's too soon to be doing all this. Maybe not. Besides, I'd much rather meet someone in person, it's easier to judge potential chemistry that way rather than comparing pics online. Not that I'm getting very far with my real-time crush (there will definitely be no links to him yet).
I'm getting a little lightheaded here. Time to grab something to eat.
5:22 PM | link
Pilot Episode.
Unusually quiet day at work; gray and drizzle outside, hardly enough for an umbrella. Nothing like the rain in the Midwest, the hard, thick rain. Lightning and thunder. I do miss some things. Fall, the smell of it. Warm summer nights. Everyone knowing who you are and what you've done (relatively speaking).
Where did that come from? Guess I'm feeling a little nostalgic, or maybe the upcoming trip home to Minneapolis has me thinking. But December in MN is not fall, nor will there be thunder and lightning (and when there is, Eddie hiding under the bed or curled tight against you). It'll be cold, and we can hope for some snow (the first month of snowfall, the actual sight of it falling quietly over the city).
More people drifting into the office now; dogs getting up and moving about, Mia giving her warning bark which by now everyone is sick of. Post-lay-offs and I still have very little work to do, so I'm stealing company time and resources writing and posting this. At least it's not porn sites. Not that I'm pure. I scanned Craig's List's "men for men" postings out of idle curiosity, promptly distracting me from any work to be done.
Louie sighing at my feet. He's got a little collection of toys and bones under there, every item he's stolen from the other dogs and hoarded. He's sweet. On our walk to work he looks up at me, my face framed by the umbrella, and his tail starts wagging, he smiles in the way dogs do. I'm a lucky guy.
Strangely, on the same day I create DogPoet's Campfire, a friend of mine sends me a link to his journal chronicling his escorting here in SF. My own exploits are admittedly tamer. I just hope to write more. There's nothing quite as painful as being a writer who doesn't write.
Christmas in Minneapolis means seeing my mother again, her body and mind further compromised by the ALS and dementia. The latter, if nothing else, may have simplified her struggle enough so that she seems in good spirits about life, while her body weakens and the neurons commanding her muscles wink out like dying stars. Lee, her partner, is dealing with this day by day. I cannot pretend to know what she is experiencing, and the stress has come out twisted up sometimes in visits that my brother and I make home. Though I wish she could treasure us the way she does her own children, I'm making my peace with that. (as I should, as a "grown-up"). You only get one mother, right? Even if you have a lesbian step-mom.
I've been scrolling through poetry sites lately, trolling for inspiration perhaps. I've let the inner critic and my fear of the Literary Establishment keep my from writing too long. Plus that and a daily crystal/booze habit that I nurtured until just over a year ago. What seems to be the most important thing is to develop the voice without letting those critics get their share of head space. And to read, read, read. I wish I had a couple hundred bucks to drop on a class or two now; Poetry Lit or Writing to start and make up for my poetry/english deficit in college. Maybe over xmas I'll rake in a little cash.
I'm waiting for my friend's roommate to burn out on crystal and maybe leave the city or at least move so that I could take over his $500/month room. More space, privacy, view for 300 bucks less. $800 for a room with three roommates, four dogs, and a TV on the other side of my pocket doors is too much. My gratitude for it is running thin, I admit.
4:17 PM | link
