Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song

I have again missed the call from the publishing job. I missed the call because I was wrapped up in Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. During this movie about fighting The Man and standing up against injustice, I not only missed a call from a job I really want but also missed the moment on C-SPAN where I could have seen the moment you could point to where things went wrong, when our highest court became stacked against us. I am really scared and I don't even like to think about how much damage this confirmation will cause all of us for a long time.

I called this woman back when I saw that she had called and she did not pick up and again, has yet to return my call. Maybe in another two days, I will get a call from her that I will miss because I'll be in the shower.

The script of this movie sucked, lots of the camera work sucked. Some company seriously needs to do a nice clean transfer of this film to DVD. The sound quality is absent and the picture itself needs some serious cleaning up. I have become so spoiled in this age of Criterion DVDs and of gorgeous versions of films on my television set.

But the editing is awesome, as well as the soundtrack, which was done with Earth, Wind and Fire. An interesting story about the making of this film, care of Wikipedia:

Infamously, when funds ran low, Van Peebles made extra money by applying for worker's compensation after he contracted gonorrhea when filming one of the film's numerous hardcore, unsimulated sex scenes. The scheme paid off, and Van Peebles used the money to further fund the project.

the response

I woke up startled a short bit ago, waking up and saying "Oh Shit," wondering why I sent that email last night. I got out of bed and even though I am still tired to see if he wrote me back telling me to die or something. And I saw that there was a message from him, and God, seeing that made me so nervous. Oh no, oh no, what have I wrought? And almost shaking, I clicked on the message to see what awful things he would say, and luckily, there were no awful things said. Now, I think I can go back to bed. He said:

Thanks for the compliments I believe that I saw you at Stasche as well.
Do you know anything about the documentary that is apparently being made about Stasche this Thursday (well they are actually just shooting some footage. Perhaps you will have to prove me wrong... I never thought of Coors Light as enducing anything but nausea (wink wink)
Say hi
Christian

the ill communication

What a nice way to go to bed, by looking at a picture of your crush shirtless in some silly outift, and seeing that he is even more beautiful than you originally had thought, that he obviously works out to have such toned arms, and all right, this crush is Christian. I have occasionally seen him around, but the crush solidified itself for some reason or another on Thursday when I saw him dancing at Stache. I have secretly, not so secretly viewed his Friendster profile and daydreamed about this cute boy.

And then tonight, Ethan brought over a tape of this tv show he is helping to edit, and who is one of the participants in this reality show - but my crush, Christian. And so I got to watch this really dreamy boy for an hour of so tonight while drinking Coors Light and I want to make out with him so bad, and really welcome to 2005. It never left. This boy is so fucking cute. He was in my living room tonight, on my television! I was tempted to pause the tv and pet it, but I didn't want Ethan to think I was totally psychotic, you know, because that would be a complete misconception. Obviously.

---------------

Update: Okay, obviously I am psychotic, because I just sent him this insane message on MySpace. Fuck me and fuck drunken e-mails. Have I learned nothing in my years of living?

i think you are really dreamy. i don't know why i am telling you this. blame the numerous coors lights drank and maybe even the ham and cheese eaten, ate.

i saw you dancing thursday at stache and wanted to tell you such, but i am sometimes a big wimp when my audacity is not enabled by such liberating, depersonalized things as the internet.

and then tonight, my friend showed me a tape of art stars which he is helping to edit, and i said, oh shit, that's that boy i think is really dreamy. and he rolled his eyes or something because i tend to say that a lot. but no, seriously.

uh yeah, hi! how are you doing? my name is charlie and i think you seem neat. you should be my friend.

reason number 222

So much for the coffee. Wait, I'll go get coffee! Brilliant plan, Charlie!

I don't know why that just occured to me. I was getting so angry because our water is turned off and I wanted coffee and tried turning on the faucet about every thirty seconds for ten solid minutes, just getting madder and madder with my landlords and their constantly messing with our water or our heat or making lots of noise, just generally being headache inducing.

So I went downstairs to ask what was up, only to find Ada having trouble understanding me, and I remembered why I never ask about things because talking to her is more trouble than its worth and it never solves anything. However she did manage to yell at me about my neighbor, to tell me that I needed to tell her (as if I was her landlord) that her rent is going up to the same as ours on February 1st, otherwise she has to move out. Even though, I am almost positive you have to give thirty days notice prior to raising the rent, but I am not going to argue with this woman about the rent for an apartment that is not even mine. Then she proceeded to try to explain to me why the water was off, that someone was fixing a leak. Apparently the heater from the second floor was leaking onto to the first floor. Not totally surprising considering Ada turns the heat up to about ninety degrees whenever she is home. Everytime our building's water boiler busted always coincided with Ada being home and the heat being on nonstop. She is pretty much a total idiot.

And then when I told her Jamie was out of town, she yelled at me again, saying "What, she can't leave town and not tell anyone. This leak isn't my fault. It's not my responsibility." Again, I was silent, even though, um, yeah old troll, it's your building, your responsibility. Your tenants shouldn't have to notify you when they are going out of town. The building shouldn't have disasters every week that require you to enter our apartments. One time, Iris called me and asked me where I was. I told her I was in Virginia. And she was pissed, telling me that she drove all the way from Pennsylvania and needed to get into my apartment to fix the shower. Well, I am in Virginia and very well can't do anything about that. However, had you told me you were going to drive to Brooklyn, I could have saved you a trip or arranged a way for our apartment to be unlocked. They are so absurd, it would be humorous, if it weren't so fucking annoying.

My toilet is making scary monster noises, gurgling violently and if that shit starts shooting out water, Ada is going to be put in a headlock until she cleans it up.

Now, to get coffee!

Madame Bovary

Today is a joke, this whole winter has been a joke. It was sixty degrees earlier today and I was warm even in my light jacket walking around my neighborhood. I do love jokes, though. This weather makes me so smiley and I almost cannot believe that we are going to outrun the police chasing us, that surely they will catch up with us and cover us in snow and painfully cold temperatures. There have only been two really cold weeks so far this year, no big snowfalls, and I am okay with that, more than okay with that. February is two days away and then it is March and then Winter is over. It's almost like it never happened.

I finished Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary this morning. My job is again out of work and so I am really glad that I worked all those shifts when they had them. That publishing job has not called me back since I called them this morning. I fear that she reexamined my resume and realized that she must have been drunk when she called me before, that I am totally lacking in the qualifications they asked for. But there is still some time left in this workday for her to call me back.

I am about to start D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover after I down some more coffee and write a bit. The opening lines of this book are lines I have read again and again many times in my game that I like to play of picking books up at bookstores and reading the opening paragraph. It's up there with Anna Karenina and The Great Gatsby with opening lines that people know by heart. In case you have forgotten how good it is:

"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."

the salad affair; or, reason #221 why I wish I could afford to live by myself

Sometimes, I feel like the headmistress at a boarding house. Our fridge smells funky and I assume this is because of a bag of salad mix in the fruit drawer that has been sitting there so long it has turned to liquid. Something I did not even want to make bodily contact with me, otherwise I would have just chucked it. I asked Jillian if it was hers. Nope, that's not mine, I thought it was yours, it must be Adele's. Hm. So I asked Adele this evening if it is hers. She says no. I ask her if she is sure. A confirmed no, that's not mine, I thought it was Jillian's. So now, the burden falls on me to clean up this disgusting liquid puddle of salad that surely, did not walk into our house, into our fridge on its own accord. I want to wag my fingers until someone claims it, but know that will do no good. And you know what, I might not clean it, might see whose will to stomach that smell is the strongest. Maybe one of them will break first and clean up the mess that is obviously one of theirs.

My Own Private Idaho

The first time I saw this movie, it was rented from a video store somewhere in Northern Virginia and I watched it either late in high school or early in college, sometime when I was at my mom's house, and this is why I surely did not enjoy it as much then, because watching a movie about gay hustlers around my mom probably had me too much on edge to actually enjoy it. Blame it on youth, too, my inability to totally appreciate this movie. Although this is the type of movie that I think youth would tend to overprivilege. See all those awful junkie movies that late teens tend to like, that I liked.

But this movie, despite Gus Van Sant's tendency to be boring even at points during this movie, is so good. Some of the scenes are so beautifully shot. All of the sex scenes are amazing with the actors holding themselves in these frozen poses and the bodies still obviously moving. That scene in the video arcade where all the porn cover boys talk to each other. That blowjob scene in the beginning of the film where a house crashes to the ground. And Keanu who is playing with River's nipples right now as Adele watches this and I rerewatch it. I understand the Keanu thing now. He is breathtaking in this movie and is so for all those reasons that are 2005. Everyone loves someone that isn't interested in them, and that is what Keanu's whole acting shtick is, this thick-headed aloof boy who seems oblivious to just about everything, and so surely oblivious to me, and for that reason, I want him to notice me, to like me. Ashton, look at me. Christopher, like me. Matt, talk to me past the hello. And yes, aloofness is 2005 and is no longer the quality that is going to attract me to another male. Save, of course, for my screen crush, Mr. Reeves in this movie.

Of course, this viewing of the movie is after I have done sex work and so find the depictions of sex work more interesting, can relate better to these portrayals of weirdo johns. Today, I went and saw a nonweirdo john, the regular. He called me right as I was putting on my jacket and about to head off to go do a jackoff video for some website. This regular always calls right at these moments, these moments where I need money really badly. And so, I went and saw him, canceled my appointment with the pornographer. His apartment was overheated and while standing up, getting head from him as he sat on the edge of his bed, I kept on wiping my forehead, pouring sweat, and I was not that into this, could think of nothing but how hot it was, how I was going to pass out if I had to stand on my feet any longer. I told him I needed to lie down and immediately felt better, again experienced the pleasures of my penis aroused, of another person's mouth around it in such a state. And in this position, I was able to get a rimjob also, which was pretty amazing, and I came shortly thereafter.

Getting dressed, he asked me if I wanted a ride home. I laughed and said if you are serious, sure. Because the L wasn't running and I love car rides. So I got a ride from the Upper West Side to Williamsburg and got to chat with this guy for a long time, him telling me amazing stories about New York in the pre-AIDS era. I love hearing these stories from people who have lived through all of this. He told me how there used to be so many sex clubs and how you could just pick someone up on the street and duck in somewhere, that now everything is all on the internet. He told me those were the happiest days of his life, those wild sex crazy days of his twenties when New York was a way sluttier place. And then he joked sadly that he survived because he is a cocksucker. Told me that he lost lots of friends and that he would have been dead too if he had engaged in ass fucking, but his fancy for sucking cock spared him.

He asked me if I was hungry and invited me to eat with him at Dumont and even though I was hungry and would really have liked to been treated to a nice meal, I told him I wasn't, because I am lame and was fearing shame. I was sure that eating at a popular place a couple blocks from my house with my sugar daddy, that doing so, I would be sure to run into people I knew, people I probably wouldn't want to run into. So I passed on the free nice dinner offer, got myself some Chinese food and some Coors Light, which is pretty much my idea of a really nice meal, pretty much heaven.

Oh, and in insane news, on Friday evening, I got a call from one of the numerous jobs I applied to. I did not get a call from one of the numerous ones I am overqualified to work at, shitty data entry jobs, shitty office jobs, shitty filing jobs. Instead, I got a call from a reach job, one that I am so underqualified to work at and so confused as to why they called me. It is to be a production assistant at this small press. The qualifications said: "Minimum of one year of experience in book publishing and knowledge of Excel, QuarkXPress, and InDesign are preferred." Um, we are going to do some creative fibbing during this interview because man, I want this job so bad. And these are "preferred" qualifications, not "necessary" ones. Things are going pretty good in my life lately. It's awesome. In some ways, I feel like I did when I first moved here. I am totally giddy about this city and about kicking its ass. Also, I have been listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs again, which was all I listened to when I first moved here.

I have never gotten into Garrison Keillor, finding him a little too hokey. However, that might have to change. This review he writes of Bernard-Henri Lévy's new book is amazing! Keillor belittles his book to irrelevance and in the process, argues against these awful caricatures of America as a nation of fat hee-haws, in the process making some caricatures of French intellectualism - but those, my friend, are always welcome.

that's my life (part two)!!

Despite not going to bed til two last night, I somehow managed to shake my ass out of bed around five thirty and went in early this morning to work a shift that someone else had dropped. And sometimes when you are tired, that's when you are most sensitive. People cry easier and get bitcher with people when they are lacking sleep. And this morning, I stepped out of my building, rounded the corner to walk to the J and said something like Holy Shit Fuck God. Dawn was just breaking and it was oranges and pinks thrown left and right, fireworks bursting and really, for those of you that were up early this morning, lucky you, lucky us, because I have been up for a few dawns in New York and really, I think this is by far the most beautiful one I have yet to see. Everytime I see the dawn, I resolve to myself that I am going to experience more of them and I resolved that this morning to, but now, shit fuck no, I do not see myself holding to that resolution.

I was doing fine until about one pm and then my body was ready to crash. And I stayed awake with the Pixies turned up load for those remaining two hours, came home, and crashed in a major way. I was going to try to stay awake and do laundry and other things that need to get done so that that way, I would be on a normal scheudle and my sleep would have been so nice tonight and you know, no longer be wearing clothes that smell like sweat, ass, and feet. I laid in bed to think about doing laundry, took of my pants, you know, simply to get more comfortable so I could contemplate doing laundry, not mind you, so I could take a nap. I love how you lie to yourself when tired, like you are trying to fool somebody. Oh no, I am not going to sleep. I am just resting my eyes!

With the absence of pants and a tiredness that was bordering on sleep, I started to get a boner and I really wanted to masturbate, but even that I could not summon the energy to do. I was wishing there was some machine so I didn't have to move, that I didn't have to stroke with my hand, and that I would still be able to masturbate and come. Realized that this is what a blowjob is. Wanted one. And rubbed my penis against my sheets, and finally stroked myself off so that I could get it out of the way and get some sleep, because by this point, I was no longer lying to myself that I was taking a nap. I came and did not even want to wipe myself off, but did so, and then snap, I was out for a couple hours until my stomach woke me up.

I ordered a shitload of Mexican food because the thought of walking to the store seemed so onerous, and then there was another nap until about an hour ago, and now I am going to go to sleep soon and know it will not be nice, know that I will wake up in a fit at three like I always do when I slept too much during the daytime, and at three, there will be no episodes of Law and Order on the tv, waiting to entertain me and lull me back to sleep.

loneliness scrapbook (part 3)

"There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable," [Pope Benedict XVI] said.

Really, there is no reason for me to update since I am way drunk and my roommates are asleep right next to me, and surely this noise is probably waking them, but why not? There is that drunkenness that cancels out any possible concern for their sleeping schedules, and it's not like I am playing the drums out here, just typing on this old, loud keyboard.

I went with Gabriel and Bri to R Bar tonight and ended up in my underwear to take advantage of the free drinks. I shamelessly threw myself at Ashton and now, after the fact, am pretty filled with shame that I again threw myself at some boy who not only lacks any interst in me, but who I am pretty sure is actively disinterested in me. He was in this white pair of boxers that occasionally hung low, showing the peak of his ass crack, and the sight was too much to handle, and I could not help throwing myself at him again and again. I don't know why I think he is so beautiful, aside from the fact that he is, but this crush is over as of tonight. It's 2006, as if you didn't know, and there's a new me, and this is not supposed to be it. The interest in assholes is over. Ashton who?

Coors Light is the best! Ham and cheeses sans mayo are also awesome! And so is Journey! And Paul accused me tonight of not knowing anything about music, thought I only liked "pop", because I did not know a song that came on. W.E.! PS - Valley Girl speak is also 2006!

As is eating a bag of dicks! So get eating, assholes!

don't stop believin'

Well, thankfully, there is again work at my job and I will start doing this work tomorrow afternoon. It is mildly annoying that my job never gives notice about what is going on, about when they will again have work, or when there won't be any - will just tell us, like they did today, that work starts tomorrow, or will do as they did two weeks ago, and tell us that they are out of work.

I was going stir crazy these past two weeks, was way too idle and did little of anything productive. I really think that I am more productive when I have limits on my time and so treat it as more precious. When working, I play harder and live better when I get off work, have to somehow make up for all those lost hours staring at Scantron tests. But when I am not working, I, for whatever reasons, reasons you can probably easily guess, never can manage to motivate myself to get excited about things. It's because I have all this free time and tell myself that I will do this or do that later, and it never getting done, because there is all this free time and it can be done at some point.

So yes, I am so excited to start working again. During this time off, I have spent my days transferring music to my ipod, and am excited to go to work for that reason also, to sit for hours and be able to listen to all of this music. I will have money, which I won't see any of for three weeks, but money, still! Meaning, I won't starve or be evicted. Which, you know, is pretty awesome.

I wandered around town today, stopping in Domsey's, and spent so long there looking at women's shirts and being stalked by some scary lady with a shopping cart full of stuff. Everytime I would move to a different rack to get away from her and her shopping cart, there she was, right behind me again, cramping my ability to hunt mindlessly for second hand clothes. At some point, I managed to escape her and her crazed shopping. She had a shopping cart overflowing with clothes! When I left, some Journey song came on, and I was almost tempted to stay and hear it because it was making me so happy, but because I am unemployed, I had spent yesterday burning my Journey CDs to my ipod, and so there that song was in my pocket, and I put it on, and walked home, happy about many things, and thought about Williamsburg and the changes it is undergoing, walking past a fancy condo on an otherwise derelict street, and thought about boys, about Daniel and why I think he is so incredibly sexy, how these things are so irrational. And then of course, all these thoughts backgrounded to me front and center on that stage, spotlighted, singing to you, lost in this song:

Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night

I know, I am a bad New Yorker if I am excited about the appearance of a chain store in my city. But thank you Gawker for pointing this out, a Trader Joe's is going to open in a few months near Union Square. And they are even opening a wine store so that they will still be able to sell their two-buck chuck. Bonnie, I will now know the pleasures of this thing you talk about frequently. I am so excited!

And supposedly, my favorite wine store, Astor Wines, is about to become even more amazing and gigantic this year. FYI.

Shit, I was writing and I might have been looking for an easy distraction, but really I have become oddly fond of all these various Law and Order shows, and so I told myself I would take a one hour break and watch it. Bad idea. I am just coming out of that stupor of tv, a whole frozen pizza, and a couple can of beers. By ten o'clock, I was a fat, tired blob and plopped down on my bed, feeling my belly, which is really, despite what you might think, becoming larger than usual in this state of umemployment, where I never leave the house and eat yummy, fattening foods and beer all the time. Seriously, today's menu is not out of the ordinary and today so far: cereal, bagel and cream cheese, bacon!!!, coffee, lots of coffee!, three beers (so far), a cheeseburger, a piece of cake, a bag of popcorn, and a decent sized frozen pepperoni pizza. And that shit totally knocked me out. I am just regaining my senses after my body went into slow drive, trying to deal with all that shit in my stomach.

If I'm not working and never leaving the house, this drugging myself with food is going to have to stop. Maybe I'll even start eating some greens. And maybe I will stop watching the L and O spinoffs, and only stick to the original. And fuck no, am I going to try to write. I have lost all energy and instead, since none of these Craigslist sluts are responding to my excited interest in their horniness, am probably going to read some more Madame Bovary and maybe even have another beer and of course, probably more likely than the Flaubert getting read, will be satisfying my own piqued horniness now, doing so the best way I know how.

Dario Argento's Infernon

I almost feel like I missed something, that I have heard Dario Argento's name bandied about, and so surely there must be something more to this boring B horror movie, but I don't think there is. This movie was bo-bo-boring. The lighting was so cheesy. Think eighties music video of bands playing arena shows. A green spotlight. A red spotlight. And then a blue spotlight. Even though this movie seems to have been filmed in English, he used actors who sound like they do the dubbing for foriegn films. The talking was so stilted and basically there was nothing about this movie that did it for me.

I watched it, slumped into my couch, drinking Schafer beer (12 for 6 dollars at Key Food this week!), and though awake, kept on nearing that edge seperating awake from asleep. When the movie was over, I lied in my bed and I listened to Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" on repeat and masturbated while doing so, feeling really good about things.

Shit, I have a crush. Nothing new. And worse, I've already slept with him. So it's been a while and nothing is probably going to come of it. This, Halloween hookup, Ryan.

I went to Beauty Bar tonight for the first time since the night of awfulness where I threw myself at countless boys in shameless and dramatic ways, getting kicked out, and then coming home and puking all over myself and my bed. Tonight, none of that occurred. I was more caffeinated than drunk (thank you, Sparks!), and danced to so many songs that made me really happy (again, thank you, Sparks!) and hit on some boy on the street with an accent, gave him a tulip care of Gabriel, and nothing came of that, but he is not the crush.

That would be Ryan, who we ran into on the subway ride home, and who was coming from the emergency room after having a cyst on his ass taken care of. He told the story in this gorgeous voice and I was so smitten listening to his gay affectations punctuating the story, and I walked with him part of the way home as he hobbled, having to walk slow. And why do I only get smitten with boys when nothing has the chance to happen, or when my chance has come and gone?

Fuck Sparks, I am wired and am not falling asleep anytime soon.

PS - I want pizza. Bad. Like the desert misses the rain. Shit.

key food was out of schlitz, but this will do

That fit of horniness I had a few nights ago that led to me trolling Craigslist never resulted in any action. It never does. Cruising online is a form of window shopping, enjoying the fantasy of purchasing something, trying it on, going through this elaborate tease with yourself, pretending that you might get it, and then not actually getting it - but a satisfaction somewhere in there, in the barely repressed erotics of consumerism. Something analogous happens in online cruising, the erotics of pretend - role play - are a lot more explicit though. And were you being totally honest and not under the spell of horniness, you would admit that you really had no intention of ever meeting up with these people you are writing to. That this communication, and the knowledge that this is a sexual act that could be realized is enough to get you off, and more often than not, it does - masturbating to your flirtation with this potential sex, and by masturbating and coming, removing the need and the potential of sex that fueled those masturbation fantasies.

But there was this one boy in my neighborhood, with a really gorgeous penis who responded to me the next day, and we emailed back and forth before deciding it was "too late" and agreed to try tomorrow (yesterday). When emailing yesterday, I brazenly told him to come over, giving him my address and my number, hitting send fast before my shyness could prevent me from doing so. And then for ten minutes, I fretted and got really nervous about this stranger coming over at midnight, and then I quickly emailed him back some lame excuse claiming I was going to meet up with some friends at a bar. But he just wrote me again, asking if I wanted to come over or if I wanted to meet up at Metropolitan first and see where things go. Eek!

I am so not as caution to the wind as I sometimes portray myself. I haven't seen a face pic of this boy, so really, I have no clue what he looks like. He's skinny and has a large penis and hands that I really like, but yowsers, why am I being such a wimp about meeting up with this stranger? Well, there's the easy excuse that I am not going to miss The O.C. (Marissa's slutty little sister stirs up Newport, yikes!), and afterward, I plan on dancing/getting wasted with Ben and Gabriel. So maybe another night, large penis boy.

I am in good spirits because I got paid today, and even though I fear it may be my last paycheck for awhile since my job is sort of on hiatus, it is enough to finally mail out my rent check. I didn't think it would be enough, but my job did not take out a quarterly health care premium from this paycheck like they said, and instead took out only this two week's portion. Boring stuff, but boring stuff that excited me greatly today when I opened my paycheck. Ends that I didn't think were going to be able to meet, were met, and I have lots of good music that I listened to all over town today doing these errands and I have friends I am excited to see and a cheesy teen television show on in one hour and some cans of Beast calling my name from the kitchen, from inside the fridge, saying that I am from Milwaukee and I am the Best and you will love me. And two out of three ain't bad.

Sh! Don't tell. I am watching American Idol. Minutes before eight, I was trying to play it cool, was saying that it's just a big commerical for Coke and not worth my time. But I tuned in for those first few minutes. It's a commercial break now and I anticipate watching it all season. I love this show so much. I was embarrassed last time I hung out with my relatives and last season came up and I talked so knowledgably about it, surprising them that I watched it so avidly. It's so embarrassing. I love karaoke, and what it means for people to sing popular songs. See Candice Breitz and everything I thought was amazing last year. This is something so beautiful and so vulnerable about these people singing. I love it!

I am feeling pretty good right now, thanks in part to the Sade I am listening to, and thanks in even more part to my good friend, Walitin, the poor man's Claritin. Within minutes of waking up today, I was having sneezing fits, those where you sneeze over and over and you heave over and over, getting ready for a sneeze that never wants to seem to ejaculate. I cannot lie and say that the feeling was not pleasant, the high felt from whatever it is that is released when you sneeze, multiplied the countless times I was sneezing, but it was getting totally absurd and preventing me from doing even the simplest tasks without sucking in a bunch of air, preparing for a sneeze and then running for some tissues.

At Walgreens, I was so confused, and I do not believe if it was just because of my itchy nose and confused cold-clouded mind. The prices on the different sizes of Walitin made no sense whatsoever, and I stared in shock at them, trying to figure out why they would possibly price them in such a manner, and trying to figure out which pack I wanted, which would have been the smallest pack, had the pricing been a little more sensical. The smallest size, a ten pack, was 7 dollars. The next size, a twenty pack, 14 dollars. Makes sense. But then, a thirty pack, 13 dollars. And so why anyone would get the twenty pack, I didn't understand. But then, more confusion, a sixty pack for 10 dollars. The sixty pack, cheaper than the twenty and thirty, which were also on sale. I spent probably a good twenty minutes in the back of Walgreens pondering this mystery before I finally brought the sixty pack up to the register to purchase. This, my day.

I have also eaten a large amount of broccoli and paid a bill.

Last night, I went out with Florida kids to an open bar at Fat Baby despite my sickness (thank you, Dayquil!), drank a decent amount of free rum drinks and danced to music that excited me in a way that music being played at a bar has failed to do in so long. Granted, it was lots of typical rap and r and b songs from the mid nineties, but songs that I haven't heard played in bars because all I ever hear are the same indie and eighties songs. They played Tribe Called Quest and I was so happy to be dancing to it, for Gabriel to be there dancing to it. And this music maybe spoiled me, because afterward we ended up at the Cock, where it was the same music JonJon Battles has played every Monday night there for the last three years. When Hole came on, I rolled my eyes so dramatically, so tired of hearing this dj play this same Hole song everytime he spins. But even with this music, I was in too good a mood for it to bother me much because all I wanted to do was dance, and I danced and it wasn't all bad because Le Tigre's "Deceptacon" was not played and their "Hot Topic" was. And I was in close proximity to people that make me really happy and so, and so, I felt a lot better at the end of the night curling up in my bed, feeling like I had lived, than I would have had I not gone out like I was considering and instead nursed my slight cold. I did, however, wonder today what living is and whether I am doing it right, and what would make it more right.

My two last attempts at fiction are both blatantly autobiographical. I am okay with that. One, written December 21. The other, today, January 15. I am not entirely happy with how they are turning out, but it takes practice, something I am not doing enough obviously if you look at the fact that nearly a month seperates these two attempts. I had resolved to do this every day for at least an hour, and today, I am starting that resolution again. I want to talk to about the Smashing Pumpkins and alt-rock and masturbation and loneliness and I have all this in my mind, these great ambitions, but then I am always so ambivalent, if not depressed, by what I have actually written, that the putting down to paper doesn't come as easily as the memories do.

I am a nervous wreck today. A recipe for you to be a nervous wreck also: Have a cold. Take a lot of Dayquil. Then drink not only tea, but a brew of really potent coffee, and man, I am overstimulated but physically weak and so all that energy is going to my mind and I am losing it.

I wrote an entry a couple hours ago, posted it, and saw that there were so many grammatical and spelling errors, that I couldn't even begin to try to fathom trying to make it make some sort of sense, and instead deleted it. I just drank some Theraflu which makes me slightly loopy. Add to that, our apartment's decision to start spewing heat, making it about eighty degrees in here even with the window open. So loopy.

I was reading this article just now and was so filled with rage. I really hate rich people. No, really hate. Especially the type this article profiles that go to all these arts events I would love to go to, and as a joke bid on what sounds like an amazing piece by my favorite painter.

He found refuge at the auction, stopping before "Carpet Tapestry," a Hernan Bas painting transposed onto carpet in which a young, shirtless man is seemingly drawn through the ocean by a team of swans. Mr. Hammerstein said that he did not like the work, but considered bidding on it all the same. "I just think it is in such bad taste that it would be funny," he said. "An androgynous boy? Lying on a canoe? Being towed by swans? My favorite!"

The phrase "blinding fists" was used in this bad eighties movie I watched yesterday, My Bodyguard. That phrase Mr. Hammerstein needs to experience. Is there anyone that reads that and doesn't want to serve Mr. Hammerstein some blinding fists?

I can't make sense today. I slept most of it away. Reading things, I can't pay attention, can't follow a thought through a full paragraph. Writing, I am making even less sense. And all I want are my senses back, want this slight cold to leave me. All I am good for today is drinking hot liquids, watching bad tv, and feeling that tired horniness. I am hitting on people on Craigslist and really don't see it going anywhere and if there is no progress soon, I am going to hop in bed and masturbate myself to sleep.

"It's only water," some man yelled at me as I was dashing, sprinting through the rain, stopping into La Bonita, the place I had been fantasizing about even before I started drinking beer. Once I started drinking beer, it was all I could think about, how on the way home I would get a ham and cheese sandwich - all right, a blatant lie and such an absurd one as anyone who hung out with me tonight can attest to - me claiming that this was all I could think about. It most definitely was not since I was boy crazy tonight at the Metropolitan and really ham and cheeses came a far distant second to boys in what my mind was thinking about this evening. I saw Ryan, the boy I slept with on Halloween, actually the last boy I slept with outside of sex work. And he was looking cuter than I had remembered and I talked to him briefly and didn't desire him when I was talking to him, but afterward, man, I kept replaying that sexual encounter which I can recall startlingly well considering how I had been drinking all night long that evening.

And I didn't sleep with him this evening, did not even attempt it because I didn't want to know that I couldn't have, that maybe he never desired me, that he was just drunk and horny - I can keep the fantasy if I don't hit on him and get rejected - and so I didn't hit on him, instead talked to Ben about how much I love boys and listened to Diana Ross's "Love Hangover," wishing they would have played some Supremes, but happy still to even hear this song. I am on such a Supremes kick right now, it is embarrassing.

And I ran through the rain afterward, mildly drunk, and feeling like I was going to throw up if I didn't stop running, but too in love with the feeling of my body in motion and the rain, the cold rain making contact with my warm body, and I told someone earlier in the night that the only reason people go out to bars is because they are looking for love. He wasn't comfortable with that word. No one is. And so I rephrased it as human contact, which he accepted. And I didn't end up with any of that close human touch, but I felt a decent substitute, or the best I could get, when I was dashing, sprinting through that rain, feeling physically exhausted and having this rain, its coldness make contact all over me, wet jeans sticking to thighs and sweat and water, and it felt so good. This man told me it was just water and then asked me for money, and I laughed because I do that during sex sometimes, so exhausted and got the food I had been desiring all night, ran home and ate it, and again, felt like I was going to throw up, the sandwich not as good as I had been imagining, too heavy on the cheese and on the mayo.

There is so much in this life to do. It is thrilling. The sun was out and the weather was in the fifties today and I woke up thinking about the same things, the same person I thought about when I drunkenly tried to fall asleep, to tell myself that it was unhealthy to think about this person for so long. I went to the Metropolitan last night with the Florida kids and it was the most crowded it has been in a long time. Everyone was there and there was even dancing going on. And I danced to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" with a mass of people whom I love. And fuck, I have about five minutes to write here and there is so much I want to talk about, but I have to go to some gallery openings that I am really excited about.

The weather was amazing today. I made food, and coffee on my stove (stovetop coffee is the best!) - coffee that had me on the verge of manic tears when I was walking around later enjoying the day listening to the Supremes, stopping in a used book shop and browsing forever before purchasing three titles I am really excited about. Before that I spent a couple hours sending out resume and cover letter after resume and cover letter to about fifteen different jobs, hearing myself say absurd things, that I was really excited about the most loathsome jobs and laughed a lot, and have an interview at one of those loathsome jobs I feigned excitement about on Monday.

But besides that, there are two things that I need to write for my own sanity and I have just not been finding the time to, but they are both important and fuck, time's up, have to leave this second. I love you!

So, yet again, I am without a cellphone and this made me terribly depressed not when I lost it, but afterward, when I was waiting for what seemed like hours for my train to arrive at Union Square, when I could no longer pat my pocket and feel my phone there, pat it and feel like I was, at least theoritically connected to my friends and to others in some definite way. Those ties seemed cut and the loneliness that I occasionally feel and normally am able to stifle came right up to the surface and I thought about so much, about my dad's death and about high school and social isolation, and about more recent events, and about even more recent events, this night's - thought about how I more than likely lost my phone while talking to some twenty year old boy who was only marginally interested in me, only in fact talking to me because his friend that he came with was making out with the friend that I came with. I was way too drunk off of vodka and rum, off of the drinks I drank during this open bar at Happy Valley, surrouned by really pretty scenesters and feeling pretty insecure while sober, and then while drunk, pretty judgemental.

Um, but yes, my phone is lost. And I cannot hold on to cellphones for more than three months to save my life. So again, I am unreachable, but there are so many things I want to do this week and I hope you will make the effort to still do these things with me. Also, if you happen to have an old T-mobile phone you want to throw my way, I have big wet kisses to give you in exchange, or you know, platonic love - whichever you prefer.

Fuck roommates! I seriously would kill to live by myself, and to be able to wake up hungover with a raging headache and go to make coffee and for it to be there, not as has just happened to find out that after your roommate replaced the coffee maker she broke, she uses all of your coffee in this new, nice coffee maker. Fuck! I do not want go get dressed and go get coffee. I want it to be in my kitchen right now. I want to live with someone that buys coffee and doesn't just use up all yours. Aahh!! I need a job that pays me money so I can live by myself. I would seriously live at Coney Island if I could do so by myself.

To constanly use my coffee and never buy any for their house is already pretty obnoxious, but to use the last of it is just so unthoughtful and ungracious, to not even leave me the last of my coffee to make for myself when I wake up is so dickhead. I have had it with words and actions lacking in grace.

saturday

Yesterday, I didn't do anything during the decent hours of the day, and it was awesome. I lied around various rooms of my house, chatting on my cellphone, reading a proof of this well written analysis of pro-wrestling, Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, watching episodes of Six Feet Under, and eating between these things, during these things, and just generally spending weekend days like they were meant to be spent. I cracked a beer around six, because why not?

Come eleven o'clock, I was already pretty drunk and made my way to Manhattan and met up with Ben and Gabriel and we wandered around Chinatown and Little Italy and then SoHo trying to find a bodega to get Sparks. It was drunk from straws once found as we walked to the Look. I don't want to say that the Look was awful because they did, as seems to be standard for this party, play "Meeting in the Ladies Room," but aside from that, it wasn't terribly fun. The bar was a weird set up and no one was really dancing. Gabriel and I were. And there was this giant Long Island/Jersey contingent sort of ruining any fun vibe with their aggressive hetero vibes they were sending out from their half of the room. At some point, one of the hets came up and danced mockingly around us. I continued to dance and then after this boy finished his little dance, his friend came up and shouted at us, "Now, are you going to calm down?" I don't like writing in capital letters, but this was said in capital letters, so aggressive, this dude telling, yelling at us to CALM DOWN because we were dancing and he was not, because two spastic boys dancing together is obviously a threat to the natural order.

And that's all it takes, one thing that you do not like, one thing so venomous to you in a room full of people, to feel like you do not want to be in that room. And so we left not soon enough in search of gayer pastures, ending up at the Cock after some more Sparks consumed through straws while walking. We ended up bypassing the ten dollar cover somehow and I felt at such ease once in that bar, pressed against a sea of male, of gay bodies. Felt safe and unguarded, unashamed about the full extent of my desires. I drank a couple drinks, smoked too many cigarettes and stared at this naked go-go boy so hypnotized. Four o'clock came and everyone was kicked out, lingering on the sidewalk in front, last chance to hook up with someone, and Gabriel, because he is awesome, started asking everyone where the afterparty was. Asked this to a bunch of shrugs, until a group of three friends told us it was at their apartment, and so we walked there and I drank a beer in their living room and played show me yours, I'll show you mine and the cock we saw was large and pretty and it was shortly after this, that everyone started heading to the bed and that's when in this game of chicken, of trying to pretend that I am more sexually liberated than I am, that I said chicken and swerved out of the way of the oncoming car.

I said good-bye and quickly left, made that long walk to the J, and only a block or two away from that apartment, I was already regretting my impulse to flight, that surely, spontaneous orgies with mildly attractive people are not that common, at least in my life, and that I perhaps had missed an opportunity that might not present itself again. It was a long walk to the train and those long solitary walks so often become searching questions one on top of the other, this brilliant, often melodramatic monologue. One night only. In town for only one night. Only chance to see it. And I wish there was a way of somehow recording the curves and progressions of those trains of thought. I can tell you where it was that this reverie, at least momentarily, ended. It was after walking down Avenue A and crossing over Houston Street right by that park there. A homeless man that I walked past called out to me, "Foxy Thing!" And it was the nicest thing anyone had said to me all night and even knowing that this drunken comment was probably yelled at every shape walking past, made me so happy still.

WTF?

I was very confused, looking around the kitchen for the coffee pot that goes in my coffee maker. Quinn, Adele's houseguest, saw me looking around the kitchen and surely, must have known what I was looking for. She went into the bathroom. The pot was nowhere to be found. I call in to the bathroom. Um, Quinn, have you see the coffee pot? Oh yeah, apparently, it fell or something.

Uh. I don't know what that means and am grade A unhappy that I am unable to make my daily pot of coffee. Granted, I had been meaning to buy a new coffee maker, but I want to know how it fell. I am assuming someone is responsible for its fall, and I am hoping that said person buys me a new one. I have kind of had it with Quinn. I am pretty sure she is the person that made me sick. She was up at 8:15 this morning making a decent bit of noise out here in the living room, banging away at the computer, and coughing violently and loudly, obviously knowing she was waking up everyone. And I did not appreciate her curt explanation about the coffee pot. This is one houseguest that needs to leave. She is leaving on Monday and then no longer will I be woken up to her coughing.

Metropolitan Life

I am drinking coffee because I didn't yesterday, because I told myself that I was going to treat my body right, coddle it until this sickness was out of my system. And the thing is, it is the smallest amount of sickness, just a sore throat, but something that I feared would snowball into something larger, more painful, and I thought I could nip it in the bud, kill it with cold medicince and lots of warm liquids other than coffee. I woke up this morning and still have the slightest tickling sensation in the back of my throat. And Quinn, this morning was hacking up a lung in our kitchen, and I forgot that she was sick and realized that she was probably the person who gave me this little bug that I have now.

So yes, coffee. Yes, to work. And yes, to probably drinking tonight with people whom I love.

I finished that Fran Lebowitz book, Metropolitan Life, last night and I don't like her much at all. Her humor is so insular, all these New York is the only place on Earth jokes, and her humor is so dependent upon one liners. There is also lots of dated humor that just seems offensive now, cracks about lavender gays and cracks about women's liberation, I guess written when there were people that still earnestly used that phrase. But these jokes are too easy. I think I rolled my eyes more than I laughed reading this book. I like stuff a little more nuanced that can build and sustain itself for more than two pages. Most of the pieces in this collection are between two and five pages. The longest one is only nine pages and that one is mainly just a list of things. She is witty, for sure, but I have no clue why she is held in such high regard by so many people. Surely, because those people holding her in high regard are confirmed that their insularness, their smug belief that New York is the only place that matters, that this is the case, comforting them that this is so, and that they are not the provinical twits they really are.

Coming home last night after spending way too long waiting for the J train since the L train was not running, I had my headphones on and was listening to the Cranberries, Everyone is Else is Doing It..., my new favorite album of this past month, my new favorite album meaning the one from high school years that I have rediscovered and listened to all mopey and sentimental and thought about the differences into time and the lack of differences, how little has changed. And it was lightly drizzling during this walk under the train tracks along Broadway, and I stepped out from under them to be more in the fall of the drizzle. It suited the music better.

And I thought about boys. An update: There is nothing to update. I am a loser. So nothing new, really. I called Eric a few days ago, left a message, and have not heard from him. The Missed Connection boy is not aggressive enough and I am tired of emailing him back and forth and it not going anywhere, so I am not emailing him anymore.

Getting home after thinking about these thoughts, thinking about boys and loneliness and life, I saw I had a new Friendster message from Quentin and then I felt like a jerk, for thinking that boys don't like me, which is not the case, that it is just the boys I like that don't like me. There is normally always some nice boy that for whatever reason I am not attracted to, and I was braced to read another flirty email from Quentin, him telling me he liked me or something. No. This time, a request to do porn with him:

charlie
was wondering if you would like to take porn pics
with me...my friend is a great photographer...she
needs models and i thought of you...checkout her
stuff...www.brendastaudenmaier.com.great back to me
qui

And this message just creeped me out, made me lonelier still. I wrote him back with a curt "not interested," took some Nyquil and passed out until about two this afternoon. It was amazing deep sleep.

Oh yeah, I saw Match Point last night. It was amazing. And now I have seen every Allen movie. I am tempted to go see Munich tonight since I called in sick to work and I don't feel like going to Beauty Bar. I have a friend date on Saturday afternoon to see The New World. We are going to meet in front of the Opera House. He was the one that said it was very Woody Allen. I love it when you have a friend crush, where you think a person is so awesome, so genuine and want to be closer to them, not in a sexual way (maybe that's there) - but really, just wanting to be someone's friend really bad. I think the best example I can think of is Megan Cooney. I had a friend crush on her for a long time, for some reason really wanted to be friends with her, found something really rad about her. And there is something really delicate when you hang out with these friend crushes, like you try to be your best self and it is awesome.

The Da Vinci Code; The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Season 1

The problem is that books, more so than most other forms of popular entertainment, are often thought of as art, that literature should do something for us, enrich you in some vague way. I thought about this today because I was reading something that is dismissed by lots of people, that was dismissed by me for the last two years, but which I finally read today, The Da Vinci Code. And so I wondered what it was then that I was reading, if not art? Simply entertainment? And where is the line that demarcates one from the other, and how often is that line drawn by some form of class anxiety, of needing to distinguish yourself from common tastes? And so when you read something, like this book, a page turner, you are slightly embarrassed by it, that there are so many levels of pretension associated with reading, and to read something like this, to read this book that is a best seller, you, or at least I, and lots of my friends have unease about it, about our own tastes. So far this entire paragraph is evidence of that. There is always the need to somehow distance yourself from that mass of people for whatever reasons we feel superior to, the general reading public, and make it clear that you are aware of what it means to read this book, somehow trivilize it, read it self-consciously.

I doubt I would have taken this book on the subway to read, despite how much I enjoyed it and how much I seriously could not put it down. I would have been too aware of being one of those people reading Dan Brown. There is nothing artful about the language of this book. There is often not anything artful about the language of lots of popular fiction. There was not one passage that I wanted to star and for that reason, I brush these books aside normally, but man, there is something at the very least, skilled, about being able to write something that has you racing to the end of the book, that can get its hooks on you. And maybe that is not what art is supposed to do, that art should somehow make you slow down, reflect, and take things slower, but fuck, this book had me from the first ten pages. I started it yesterday afternoon, put it down for five or so hours to watch the first season of Pete and Pete with Ethan and then picked it up again, not putting it down until I finished it this morning.

I really enjoyed it a lot, the book, and I wish I wasn't so hesitant about admitting that, wish I did not have to preface it with all of that. It's a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, and I understand why so many people read it, are reading it. And so maybe some of the art history and Vatican history isn't totally right - I wouldn't know, but so I have heard - but it is a fun read. And maybe that's what I want, to have fun and listen to pop music and dance close to other human bodies.

I have really been incredibly horny ever since New Year's Eve and really wish there was a boy in my life to ease this loneliness. Work ended up getting canceled today; however, the regular contacted me and so I am about to go see him and get a blowjob and that could ease some of this horniness, but also could have the opposite effect of being the taste of the meal I can't afford, will make me long for the rest of the entree, the never entirely clear set of emotions that accompany sex with a person you like.

Also, I have been thinking a lot about this one episode of Pete and Pete, "A Hard Day's Pete," and it was amazing, that episode, it said so much about memory and pleasure and art, that we can remember these moments we spend with rock and roll, but we can only hold on to them for so long, that slowly the song fades from our mind and we have to search the radio airwaves hoping and praying to come across it again, and if desperate enough, will try to recreate that song, will start a band to keep that song alive, to keep it playing. There was something so beautiful about the theme of this episode, a beauty that is still with me on this day after, the memories, and how long till they fade as little Pete also wondered, and what to do with this beauty, this inspiration we have come across, that has entered our lives?

I had a great New Year's last night. I love all of you, I really do, and I was so excited this morning waking up, saying twenty oh six, because that's the proper way to say it, not two thousand six, but twenty oh six, and I felt such glee despite my pounding headache from drinking so much last night, a glee about a new start of some sorts that got me out of bed reasonably early and into the arms of a hot, hot shower.

Let's do amazing things this year and love each other like these are our last days here on Earth. That's my resolution in a nutshell, to love unguardedly. I am not going to smoke cigarettes. I am going to say no more often to bullshit, to vapidness, and to the desire to be cool. I am going to say yes to other things, lots of things. I am going to listen to really good music and am going to try to smoke pot more often. I have a list of day trips I want to take in this year, and I am going to do it. I am going to be more graceful, grateful and more righteous, will not tolearate elitism, racism, or classism, will try not to take part in things that I think contribute to these.

There's an article in the Times this morning about NY1 with a picture and mention of Bobby Cuza, that dashing reporter who captured my heart during the transit strike. The one other thing I logged on here to mention was that last night I downloaded Sinead O'Connor's new album, Throw Down Your Arms, and it is fucking amazing. It is what I listened to writing this, thinking about changes I need to enact in my life. It is so good, this album, and people that say otherwise are not people. Basically. It is an album of covers of all these beautiful reggae songs and it is what I listened to last night before going out, preparing for this year, this oh six, and if oh six has an influence so far, it would be this album, these twelve songs.

Ugh. So drunk and yucky feeling. I made out with 6 people, four short of the ten I for some reason was aiming for. Charlie and Christopher both told me no though and made my night somewhat sad even though I did make out with some cute boys, just these two saying no that I wanted so bad. Um, and one boy's number, an Eric, who I might call tomorrow. So, decent New Year's - far better than last year's. First song heard of twenty oh six: Madonna's "Hung Up." That is a good omen in case you didn't know I am kind of obsessed with that song. I didn't get dick and am home by myself watching Goonies and so am mildly sad, because there were so many people there, but getting someone to come home with me seemed so difficult. This movie is awesome.