John

Coach, I wanted to call him. Daddy. But I didn’t. I was younger then, and it was harder to say things. In the light from his bathroom he took off his clothes and I felt on the edge of a cliff. The silhouette of his shoulders, his approaching figure eclipsing the light. I looked up and jumped.

When it was over I laid the small stack of twenties on his nightstand. The corner of his mouth pulled up and he looked away. “I’d like to get together with you again, you know, normally,” he said. My mouth twisted to hide the joy. “I’d like that,” I said. He walked me to the door, past the television we had pretended to watch. Did I kiss him goodnight? I can’t remember. Though I left many messages, I never heard from him again.

You WILL dance at my party

Imagine if you threw a Love Bomb and nobody came? Well, thanks to all of you, we can only guess. You guys ROCK. Thank you for your love and cooperation; thank you for making the Love Bomb a success, thank you for reminding me of the boundless confines of the human heart.

But wait, it’s only Wednesday. Have you visited HCL yet? Have you swallowed your fear and pride and said hey sexy muthafucker, you make me smile? (ahem, did I say that out loud?)

Go on, go get him.

Round Two

The Lou-meister and I would like to thank all of you who participated in the first ever Love Bomb, sending your positive vibes to the Eight-Legged One, a most deserving target. And just because a new week is upon us, you need not stop sending him fan mail or staging fire-twirling-to-J-Lo-dance performances in his driveway at night. (What, like I don’t like J-Lo?) True love has no end. Or if it does, it doesn’t sound as pretty.

I hope you stored up some love over the weekend. ‘Cause guess what, it’s time for the next target. Louie and I are going out on a bit of a limb here, because though we’ve been quiet readers of his site for some time now, this week’s target has never heard from us. Before now. Through our usual complicated internal emotional nomination process, our next Love Bomb target is HCL, a man we feel deserves to hear from his usual friends and unusual strangers. Like you. Comments, emails, posts on your own site, his initials carved on the flesh of your forearm. Get thee to his site. What light through yonder flat-screen breaks? It is the East, and HCL is the sun.

The Lovely Mirrored Ball

Yes, Rob’s right. I could tell you stories. But they’re not very glamorous.

My friend Handsome, who also knew Tina quite well, came over to the new place before we did the AIDS Walk on Sunday, housewarming orchid in hand. He scanned my room appreciatively and said, “this would be the perfect tweaker room”, meaning, I think, its quiet surroundings and abundance of privacy. Well-suited to sex. Easy on the paranoia factor.

Schwinng’s last roommate before me was an out-of-work speed freak who had boys over 24/7 and generally made the house not a home. Schwinng literally burned sage when the guy moved out, cleansing the house of all evil spirits. I’m pretty sure it worked. The room doesn’t feel haunted. It just feels like mine. Which doesn’t mean I’m not haunted by the ghosts of summers past. I don’t think sobriety is necessarily harder during the tough times; I think addiction sneaks up you when the going’s good. It taps a wee finger on your shoulder and whispers “Man, you’ve got it good. Let’s celebrate.”

With such a perfect abode, I’m tempted to stay home more often. But what I’ve learned through my experiences with addiction and depression is that I need to stay,er…busy…to stay healthy. Shit, that sounded so lame, I know, but it’s true. My current Human Bullet campaign is working, mainly through physics. A body in motion stays in motion, no? Seven new pounds of muscle propelling me forward. No, not that kind of muscle, you perv.

When my friends were helping me move, I happened to casually mention that I disliked the full-length mirrors on my sliding closet doors. I said I wanted to get rid of them. Oh, my god, you should have heard the screams.

“NOOOOO!!! Oh my GOD they are so HOT!! You HAVE to put your bed in front of them. Are you CRAZY?? You’re SINGLE now, you HAVE to put them to use.”

So I backed off. And honestly, the only place my bed worked was directly across from them on the opposite wall. So I’ve been trying to get used to them. But sometimes I happen to glance up while I’m watching TV or reading, and I look like a TOTAL dork; a slack-jawed, vacant-eyed slouch of a man. They’re unnerving.

I admit it, I don’t want to see myself when I’m having sex. Sue me. If it’s an esteem problem, well, there’s always therapy. I wouldn’t mind seeing the other guy reflected back a few times, though.

Speaking of, I broke my 4-month spell this weekend. Yes, ladies and gentleman, the DogPoet got laid. And did he ever…:) Love? mais no. Two men in heat? But of course. I can truly say this guy knew how to press all the right buttons. Although after it was over, I can’t say I wanted a date. And we did it at his place, so I still haven’t broken in the mirrors. So to speak. The search continues.

The Love Bomb

Hey, have you sent some love to Aaron yet? Remember, as this week’s recipient of the Love Bomb, Aaron is entitled to hear from each and every one of you. I don’t care if you don’t know him yet, this is the week to get acquainted. If you do already know him (and who doesn’t know our eight-legged teddy bear?), then what the hell are you waiting for? Get thee to his blog and drop the bomb. Toss your proverbial panties on his stage and keen wildly during the slow ballads. Can’t you tell, he’s singing to you.

///

In other news, researchers have concluded that we’re actually wired to cooperate. This doesn’t really come as any surprise to me. It’s only dismaying how seldom it’s encouraged. Haven’t you ever gotten all choked up when someone does you a small act of kindness? The tiniest olive branch, the most fragile dove; don’t these, even if only deep down inside, wreck you? I think you know what I’m talking about. There’s no “i” in “TEAM”. Ha! I can’t believe I just said that.

Okay, so I finally added comments, and if someone doesn’t say something soon, I’m gonna scream.

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.

And thus the Human Bullet

Is it just me, or are there an awful lot of horrible things done to girls out here in the West? Since I moved here five years ago, it seems like there’s always another one getting snatched and killed. This little girl’s murder threatens my usually solid anti-capital punishment stance. When the three women disappeared at Yosemite two years ago, I got so hooked into the story that the news of their murder devastated me. It reminded me of the whole Andrew Cunanan fiasco, which I followed not only because he seemed like a gay boy gone nuts, but also because he killed someone I knew in Minneapolis, in a loft about four blocks from where I used to live.

In other morbid news, here’s an update on the girl whose body was found in a trash can a couple of blocks from my last apartment.

A fierce protective streak runs through me; one fueled perhaps by my Irish temper. My mother’s illness was so maddening because I could not protect her from it. Abused animals, children, women, society’s freaks, etc: Underdogs arouse in me the urge to pummel the cruel and viscious. I should have been a masked avenger.

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.

The Welcome Wagon

So get this. My new roommate Schwinng made a cake for me and the friends who helped me move on Saturday. A cake. With fresh strawberries and powdered sugar. Bearbait and I grabbed three muscular sober boys after a meeting and we got it done in two and a half hours, and later we sat around the dining room table eating cake. I kid you not. Then the next morning (my first in the house; heavenly) he and I sat at the table reading the Sunday paper with coffee, and he asked me if I wanted an omelet. What, like I don’t want an omelet?

Within three days I had the Studly Couple, the Tattooed Monk, and my new friend Smart-Ass (you can take it) over to see the place. The Monk put it best as he looked around my bedroom and said “You have a home now.”

After they had all left, Schwinng asked, “Where do you meet all these nice, well-mannered men?”

I should have said “At my bible study class. Which reminds me, have you found Jesus?” That would have been good. Instead I told the truth. “AA”, I said.

Some other blogger lists as one of his pet peeves, “Recovery stories”. I’m not going to link to him because a) I can’t remember who he is and b) I’m pissy that way. It’s easy sometimes, in the company of good friends, to forget what’s at stake in sobriety. This past weekend Bearbait and I heard some news about another one of his sponsees who had checked himself into a treatment center for the third time. On July 5th, he swallowed a fistful of pills and downed a bottle of something and eventually his esophagus exploded and he drowned in his own fluids.

And this is what happens in “recovery”: people die, people drink, people disappear. And each time it happens we are reminded of the stakes, of the work needed to survive. And each time it happens I scan my life for flaws, and instead find it full of people I love, people who make me laugh, people who know the dark corners of my soul.

Settling in

Yo MTV! This is the D to the P-O, and we’re jus’ kickin’ here at my crib. C’mon in.