I woke up at nine today, incredibly happy and despite the slight hangover I was feeling, incredibly energetic. It is a sunny day and that is part of it and when I was taking a shower, belting out The Smiths "Panic" loudly and singing the same lines over and over again because I didn't know the other lyrics despite my thinking I did, during this shower, I laughed and asked myself, why, how could I have this much energy since I didn't leave Metropolitan until around two and didn't go to bed until three something because I was eating ice cream and reading and daydreaming about a boy, and even then in the shower despite knowing why I was up so late last night, I still wasn't able to tell myself why I was so giddy on this morning after.
After my shower, hair still wet, I walked to the bank in this sunny morning down Grand Street and that's when I got it, understood why I was so excited. I was listening to "Panic" on my headphones then, feeling like I did know all the lyrics so long as I had the song playing along for me to sing to and I was so happy and memories of a past happiness, of past happinesses came back, the associations for this current happiness and it all was sort of tied to last night and the last nights of years ago.
The night, St. Patrick's Day, started out with Ethan in my living room, watching Frisk, drinking cheap beer, and then I got a call from the 96th Street regular and so went to see him, brought Ethan along since this regular takes about ten minutes and I had Ethan wait outside so we could go to bars afterward. And being on the Upper West Side, we went to 8 of Clubs, which was a major letdown. It was a gay bar in a small town, a small thing on an industrial strip, something tragic and desperate about the atmosphere. There were very few people under forty there. The music was so bad, the type of music gay people in small towns think gay people listen to. It reminded me - everything about gay life is reminding me of this lately - of this recurring sketch on Little Britain with this small town homo, sadly proclaiming that he is "the only gay in the village," and yet despite his supposed isolation from gay life, possessing all the cliches of gay dress and attitude. And gayness fascinates me so much, how this identity emerges, this listening to cheesy "gay" music, from whence do these things spring? And how and why what constitutes "gay" is so different in places outside of New York, or even apparently in the Upper West Side?
But yes, getting far sidetracked from the discussion of the happiness I felt this morning and where it came from and what it evoked, but one more thing about this part of the evening: The Smiths were listened to very, very loudly before heading uptown and this happiness carried me through most of the evening, the echo of Morrissey's voice saying, "I am going to meet the one I love."
After the debacle that was 8 of Clubs, we headed back to Brooklyn, headed to Metropolitan, which was crowded with lots of homos, all so different from what was witnessed at 8 of Clubs, all so different from "the gay" on Little Britain, and Ethan went to pee as soon as we got there and so I was left not yet having found people to talk to, standing amongst all the cute homos engaged in conversation, waiting not so patiently for Ethan to emerge when I saw the boy who I cannot shake despite it being 2006 and multiple resolutions to quite obsessing over people, especially people who are not interested in me, and have made that perhaps too explicitly clear (read meanly) on many an occasion. I saw Matt. And I wasn't ready to talk to him, and so I ran and hid in the back, went to the bathroom also. And really, it didn't matter. I should have said hi then, because obviously I was going to at some point and perhaps then I could have gotten it out my system, this desire to talk to him, but I was trying to suppress this desire, trying to be 2006, but then of course, I was at a bar, and so got incrementally more drunk as the evening wore on and despite being engaged in conversations with several people, could not think of much but him. I was positioned a few people away from him somehow, for some reason, and stared at him as much as I could get away with. He was in boat shoes, and was this where this obsession with boat shoes came from? Is my obsession with boat shoes and boys in them a transposed, a redirected, confused love of Matt? Very probably.
And when I finally did say hello to him as he was passing me by, he stopped, touched my shoulder and said hi with a smile. He is one of those people that is really friendly and makes casual body contact to put other people at ease, and I love that, and it was the briefest exchange of hellos and I was giddy afterward. My body was emanating a glow circling out from the spot on my shoulder where he touched me. Most people make me really uncomfortable if they touch me in any way, and I tell myself that that means something that I do not get uncomfortable if he touches me, but get totally comfortable, totally happy. I tell myself lots of things. Example A: This, what you are reading.
And so, to try to bring this back to the original point is that this is what I remembered this morning, that even that hello and brief contact was enough to make me giddy, so giddy that I could not even stay asleep this morning. I realized this because I was making a walk early in the morning that I used to make when leaving his house in the morning a few years ago, that I could never sleep past eight or so with him, would be too giddy to sleep in, and would wake up as the sun was still beginning to shine and walk home down Grand Street positively thrilled with life and that, because I am one fucked up individual, is where I was this morning. I began to realize this when I put on my boat shoes this morning. I thought of him and I am totally out of my mind. You will have to forgive me.
It is so sunny outside still and I need to go the bank yet again and so will put on these boat shoes and walk in this sunshine back down Grand Street, perhaps even again listening to the Smiths, and daydream about boys and their shoes and I drank so much coffee between then, that earlier walk, and the one I am about to embark on, and so I am going to be an even more emotional, nostalgic mess.
I would love to go back to the old house.
Oh, Morrissey, not today, please.
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