And it’s um…well it’s eleven now and I’m kind of hard to get ahold of but if you’d call me back between 12 and 12:15 I have a ton of questions about your program and would appreciate an immediate response. click.

I’m flipping out. Along with the ongoing workplace lay-offs/restructuring bullshit, they have given me this girl’s whole job, one that involves constant phone calls with strangers. I just checked her voicemail and there are 48 unanswered messages. I don’t even like the phone.

Louie wants me to find another job, one where he can still come to work, though. Please help. Save his New Year.

Unleashed

Due to a series of scheduling conflicts, I became the representative for the animal shelter at a meeting of a subcommittee of the SF Board of Supervisors today at City Hall; my role was to speak out against the policy drafted by the city’s Park and Recreation Board that effectively tries to eliminate off-leash exercise areas for dogs in the city’s parks. Little-’ol-administrative-assistant-me, representing a world famous animal shelter that is the model for other shelters around the world; representing the Behavior and Training Department which is led by one of the world’s top dog trainers who has written books considered to be the Bibles of dog training. And lest you think this was a minor issue, the meetings regarding this issue have been the highest-attended meetings in city history (San Franciscans love their dogs). Man was I terrified. Earlier I walked down the halls, past the doors of the Board’s offices, reminded of the ex-firefighter who assassinated Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first openly gay elected SF Supervisor) and Mayor George Moscone in their offices in 1978.

But I had my two minute speech prepared, and yes, I made cable access.

Later, as I was leaving City Hall alone, after hours, I walked down the gleaming marble main staircase to the empty lobby. I could feel the power and importance of the building. Suddenly I was like TJ on The West Wing. I participated in the political process, I made a scratch on history.

Then I took MUNI home.

///

Speaking of politicians, after I read your post about the Myers-Briggs personality test, I took it again and reconfirmed my rock-solid INFJ category. Yes, I’m a Counselor. Now, I don’t normally take to labels and categories and astrology signs, etc, but damn, I have never read something that accurate about me.

I’ll try not to bore you with the details (you’re probably more interested in your type), but following my recent minor meltdown, I found comfort in the fact that “mute withdrawal” is a major INFJ defense. Also, we tend to rarely be at complete peace with ourselves, needing constant growth and improvement. And INFJ’s are supposed to be the rarest of all types. Which is both kind of exciting and sad.

Isn’t that sexy? Aren’t you happy you stopped by?

///

When I got home from City Hall, I got Louie and walked across the street to the dog park and let him run around, off-leash. We worked on some of the tricks for our drill team that’s performing on the field at Pac Bell park on Saturday (another terrifying proposition, made worse because Barry Bonds has hit 599 career home runs, so the game is sold-out).

Then we wandered up the trail that snaked around the edge of the park, a trail that looks out over the whole city. A rare warm summer evening; the sun setting behind us, the buildings downtown glowing.

Tonight, without prompting, he followed me down to my room. He’s laying beside me, his sides rising and falling. When I can’t think of the right word, my hand leaves the keyboard for a moment and scratches his soft ears.

Mondays with Louie

As though my new home were not enough, I’ve been dreaming about moving. Last night found me surveying a friend’s inprobably sprawling house in a nameless location; a city that reappears in my dreams but that goes unrecognizable upon waking. My friend had not one but two rooms from which I could choose, two rooms containing a jumble of posessions belonging to his mother, who had just died. Suitcases and raincoats, drawers of jewelry and dry, powdery make-up. An expansive armoire containing sweaters and empty coat hangers. Cloudy, spiderwebbed mirrors reflecting back my nervous figure as I picked through the piles of clothes, trying to imagine my own posessions within the confines of the room, hoping my friend would move his mother’s things on his own accord. I slipped into the walk-in closet which stretched on into the dark, stepping over her collection of shoes and handbags, drawn by a sliver of light ahead. I pushed open a door at the rear of the closet and like a buried treasure a luxurious bathroom appeared, its tile counters cluttered with hand lotions and ivy plants. “I’ll take it,” I said.

When my mother was diagnosed with ALS in the fall of 1999, my father gave me the book Tuesdays with Morrie. I know he was trying to offer some kind of comfort, and as I read the book I imagined the similar conversations I would have with my mother now that we knew she was going to die; the pearls of wisdom she’d impart like Morrie did. Unfortunately, her type of ALS included dementia, and unlike Morrie, her speech and swallowing muscles were the first to go. So I did not get those golden greeting card afternoons and, as my mother put it, Morrie was already in his goddamned 70′s, while she was only 52.

She could not tell me in words what her cruel descent meant, if anything. What I had to work with were my own reactions, and the reactions of the others gathered around her. Even more, I had her actions; her simple determination to go until she could go no further. Whether it be travelling while her limbs still worked, volunteering where she loved, supporting her partner, spending time with the amazing numbers of people who appeared upon learning of her illness, she taught me at least one small lesson; What are you waiting for?

Which doesn’t mean I’ve learned it entirely. Just that I’m trying.

I’ve decided to start a Monday tradition here at the Campfire. Every week, through a complicated internal nomination process involving numerous emotional factors, Louie and I will pick a fellow blogger and encourage everyone to send them some love. We’ll leave the love, of course, up to you. Emails, comments, dedications, posts, singing telegrams, you decide. Just spread it around. You have a week.

Our first pick is only at the top of our link list by coincidence. So go tell Aaron how much you love him. If you don’t know him, visit his site and get to know him. Spend some time with his writing and then say hello. He makes our world a little brighter.

Balancing act

In my subversive attempts to access my blog at work, I’ve been using a “virtual” browser that doesn’t block sites and that, apparently, covers my web-surfing tracks. All this, and I don’t even surf for porn. Well, yesterday I made the discovery that if I try to update my template on the virtual browser, all hell breaks loose and my site becomes useless. So I spent a few hours last night tweaking the HTML (which I don’t actually know very well) so that you, the reader, can get your fix of the aesthetically brilliant combination of green and orange. Not to mention Louie’s sad-eyed photograph at right. There’s still some minor font crap going on, but eventually I needed sleep.

Thank you for the congratulations and blessings you’ve all sent my way the past few days. It’s been especially nice to hear from those of you writing me for the first time. If I haven’t said it before, I love hearing about your lives.

Louie and I love the new place, our only minor complaint being the extended walking commute to work; what used to take ten-minutes now takes forty, and the way home is ALL uphill. Soon I’ll get the car, so the sweat is worthwhile. Our street is lined with fragrant eucalyptus trees, and all I hear at night is the wind through the leaves. The fog blows over the hills and past my window at night, and even then my room gets more light than my last place; the pale orange glow of the city at night is cast across my bed, and I hug my pillow tightly as I drift off. I find I want to take more time off from work just to stay home and enjoy the place. But my ongoing campaign to become a human bullet demands attention. The alarm wakes me at 6, I burrow deeper under the covers for two snooze respites, and then I pull myself out of bed, go upstairs for coffee, then back down to pack the gym bag. By 7:30 I’ve dropped Louie off in the office and am struggling through sit-ups at the gym down the street. My routine stays disciplined only through momentum; I must be faithful.

While honing my physical shape, I quite naturally think a lot about sex. Love, too, but not as often. I hear myself telling friends lately that sex and love are the last areas not yet fully integrated with the rest of my life. I haven’t exactly lived up to the gay male promiscuity cliche the past year. No regrets. Besides, few men could have held on through the ride I’ve endured. The extended periods of abstinence haven’t exactly been by choice. If you’ve been reading the Campfire for awhile, you know I’d jump Ski if given half the chance. But an obessession doesn’t count as “integrated”; its shape and weight throw my life off-balance. I can’t yet say I’m completely ready to let it go, for whatever reason. Maybe I’m afraid it’s the last good chance I’ll get; a ridiculous idea. Of course there will be other men. Of course I’ll fall in love again. Of course it’ll hurt like hell. All this the mind knows. But the heart, the dick, they’re slow to learn.

Whatever will become of us?

Louie talks. In his own canine way, naturally. I’m not saying he’s one of those Letterman dogs. I noticed it when I was still with the Ex, usually the three of us laying in bed. The Ex and I would talk and watch movies and read the newspaper and I’d like to think that Louie just wanted to be part of the pack. So he’d sigh and groan between us, his nose buried in the covers, and when we’d mimic him he’d respond in kind; creating a conversation of sorts that was ridiculous and gratifying. He did not talk like that as a puppy; it was an acquired trait. Our conversations have become common to the point that I take them for granted, and strangers and co-workers will laugh at his world-weary sighs and groans.

“Is he growling at me?” they ask.

“No, just talking,” I say.

They laugh some more and scratch his chest and he groans some more; a sound of both comfort and plaintive worry, a call awaiting the response.

///

Home’s getting worse. When I need it for sanctuary, it’s instead a hostile amusement park. I no longer pretend. Asking for peace is turned to treason. Wanted: a little place for an earnest boy and his talking dog. Will trade poems for hardwood floors.

Sleeping Dogs

Tranquility, yes. I could not fall asleep last night. My friend’s place was eerily quiet after lights out, and I heard something I had almost forgotten about: Wind through the trees, creaking limbs, absence of traffic. Plus I had forgotten my anti-depressants at home, the ones that make me nice and sleepy. At 2 o’clock in the morning I turned on some Beethoven to play in the background, and the dogs regarded me wearily, woken again by my restless movements. Strange scenes flashed repeatedly when my eyes closed; me hissing something like “It’s either me or the dogs” to my boss, to which she dryly replied, “We work at an animal shelter”; bitchy alcoholics cornering me in a church basement, upset at how I was running the meeting; erotic encounters with Ski spliced with a dinner conversation in which I say to him, “I’m not really your type, am I?”. Sigh.

Catching up on my class reading last night; Scott Russel Sander’s memories of his drunk father, Mary McCarthy’s accidental brush with Communism, Richard Rodriguez’s portrait of San Francisco in the 1980′s, the facades of Victorian homes and the growing absence of gay men. I’m not worthy. I think again; so many wonderful writers I haven’t yet read, who am I to think I could do this, my words are immature, derivative. In choppy times the sullen critic gains ground, doubts trail after him like shrieking ghosts in my head, emptying the meaning from my life. He likes it when I lose sleep.

And please, feel free to eat any food that’s in the house

In what could only be an act of contrition, the Chinese tucked two fortunes into my cookie today:

“Good things are being said about you.” and
“Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.” (That is, if I don’t die from eating so much Chinese food.)

///

Rather than put myself through the hassle of finding a new apartment here in San Francisco, I think I will instead become the guy who watches your house and dog while you’re away. Tonight through Tuesday Louie and I begin another mini-vacation away from my roommates, sequestered in a studio apartment in the Mission with a lush green backyard, and a car available in its own garage. And a sweet dog named Basil. Plus there’s something about just disappearing from my house for days on end that appeals to my passive-aggressive side. Not that they’d notice.

No More Excuses

There’s something in the air. Time to get stuff done.

I put so many things off while my mother was sick; school, acting, career decisions, financial decisions, travel, etc. I felt I needed to stay flexible should I need to go back suddenly, so I kept myself in a suspended state of daily survival, a state not unlike holding my breath for a very long time.

Now she’s gone, and I’m left with the fact that the only thing standing between me and my future is myself. I find myself lately in long moments of paralysis, unable to act upon the world. So I get acted upon; the undesireable elements (home, work, health) of my life continue, and I haven’t taken the steps to change them.

The Studly Couple returned from Hawaii last night, flying into a dark and windy city. Louie and I are back home, our Week of Peace officially over. No more excuses. It’s time to find a new place to live.

I’ve had difficulty imagining where to take my writing. (To the nearest landfill, says the Inner Critic) Although I hate making definitive statements about my talents (or lack thereof), I know it’s what I do best. Dogpoet has helped me start, but I can’t make a living blogging. And I do want to make a living writing. I want to stop settling for low-level non-profit administrative jobs that fulfill my yearning to contribute to the Greater Good, but that leave me uninspired and resentful after a year because they take up all of my time.

I’ve thought about pursuing an MFA, but I haven’t made up my mind. Most schools want you to pursue fiction or poetry, but I keep coming back to this creative non-fiction thing, so that narrows the field. (Then I read articles like this, and I feel stupid for wanting to write about real life. I swear, listen to enough people and you’ll never do anything your entire life.) Besides, I’m not sure if an MFA is the end or the means. I suppose it would help if I had a clearer idea of Who I Wanted to Be. Then when it comes time to actually apply to a program, I’ll need some recommendations, and since I’ve been out of school for almost ten years, I’ll need people familiar with my current work, which means I need to meet some other writing professionals, and have sex make friends with them. And I need more current work.

Which brought me to the next logical step: take a class. It took awhile, but I can finally afford one, so today I signed up for an online creative nonfiction workshop through UC-Berkeley Extension. I’d prefer a real-life course with classroom discussion/dialogue, etc, but there was a time conflict so I thought I’d give this online class thing a try. So. Little baby steps. You thought I made everything look easy, didn’t you? Someday you’ll learn.

Sleepwalking

- What did you do all day yesterday?
- Well, when you called I was secretarying the meeting like I do every Saturday.
- Mmm hmmm
- And then I went to the gym with Handsome, and then I went home, went over to the Studly Couple’s house so they could show me around, then I drove them to Oakland where they’re flying out of, and then I went home and packed a bag, and came over here with Louie. I didn’t get your message until last night.
- What time?
- (pause) I don’t know.
- (chuckles)
- I didn’t sleep well last night so…
- So you’re isolating.
- Well, yeah.
- (silence)
- Thanks for sounding so understanding.
- Oh, come on, you know I’m understanding. I’m completely understanding.
- I know you are. You just sound sometimes so…simplistic.
- Well sometimes it is simple.
- Right.
-(silence)
- I took the dogs to the park for awhile, but I didn’t really want to stay. I sat next to some dumb girls talking about some dumb things.
- Were they flirting with you?
- If they were, they weren’t doing it well.
- (silence)
- They were talking about doing too much drugs and sleeping with the wrong guys and getting fired and having dumb ideas for businesses they were going to start, and then they wanted to know why Louie got an erection.
- What?
- He gets an erection sometimes when he’s outside, rolling around and having a good time.
- Yeah?
- So they wanted to know why he got one, and why it was pink.
- (laughs)
- I don’t know why I feel this way. It’s been a week like that.
- I’m about to head out. I think I’m going to go shopping, get some groceries, stuff like that.
- I’m wrapped in white gauze, I’m the ugly pair of boots you need to replace. When am I set to wake? You just want to shake me, snap me in two.

We’re here, we’re queer, we’re used to it…

This morning I walked solo into the Hometown Deli, whereupon the Vietnamese proprietess asked, “No dog today? Too cold?”
“Actually”, I said, “my ex has him. We have joint custody.”
To which she laughed incredulously. “Like kids?”
“Yes.”
“Ha ha ha…So she gets him sometimes? On weekends.”
“Yeah”, I said, “she helped raise him, so she likes to see him now and then,” I said, pouring cream into my coffee as that peculiar pronoun guilt rose its ugly head.
“Good thing you don’t have kids, huh?” she says, “Ha ha ha ha!”
“Yeah, right,” I say, laughing with her as I leave.

Out on the sidewalk I smack my closet-face. “What the hell did you do that for?” I ask myself.
“Sometimes it’s just easier to go along with the other person’s conversation,” I answer.
But the little activist in me is burning with shame. “You should use EVERY opportunity to be out, asshole. Challenge their assumptions. You’re taking it for granted. It’s fags like you who killed Matthew Shepard.”

Well…I didn’t really say that last part. But you get my point. Welcome to the abandoned carnival that is my head.