"A happy excitement shot through me like an injection, as I realized that the world was full of spontaneous sensuality always in reach if you had the courage to spit in the face of convention."
-Bruce B., The Romanian (129)

The man who said, a writer that I admire, is the man I slept with last night. I went over to his house in the East Village. He served me some whiskey and we sat on his couch, smoking, Clueless playing silently on his television, and talked. I am so interested in this man and so thrilled and shocked that things have played out the way they have. It is weird and funny and perhaps ironic, if you so choose to use that word that way, that a week after reading his memoir of his obsession with a hustler, I got to meet him and now am also getting paid money to sleep with him. Aside from the awesomeness of that, of making money and getting to sleep with someone I admire, there are other potential benefits and it may make me calculating to be aware of them, but since there is already a monetary dimension to this relationship, it doesn't really bother me that much.

Seeing this writer live and struggle and work makes me realize yet again that writing is a job if you are to actually do it. He works rewriting other writers' book proposals to help him get by, does lots of freelance assignments for really cool magazines, and writes fiction also. It is really instructive for me to see this, that he juggles lots of things, some he doesn't care about that much, to get by, to do what he wants to do. And so I am aware of his numerous contacts and know that if I were to seriously start writing good stuff, he would be an invaluable contact and friend to have. Bruce, in case you did not know, is the man basically responsible for bringing JT Leroy into the world, JT originally contacting him and Bruce putting him in touch with editors and agents, something he feels terrible about now.

And there is that also - the literati gossip that he has, that he is a part of. He is friends with so many artists and writers I also admire - John Waters, Bruce LaBruce, Terrence Koh, Dennis Cooper. He used to live with Manuel Puig! He went to school with Camille Paglia. I am definitely a bit starstruck around him, listening to his stories that I asked him to tell. I don't think I would get starstruck around any other type of people except writers. Rock stars, pah! Movie stars, ha! But writers who have written things that I have read in private moments and felt something while doing so, man oh man, they mean the world to me. If I ever were to meet Philip Roth, I think I might faint.

And so it was definitely weird when we finally went into his bedroom and I was making out with him. When he was sucking my dick, I was aware of who was sucking my dick and it seemed totally absurd, that I was in a situation this writer I liked had written about, that I had read prior to enacting this situation.

This week, starting Tuesday, after I get out of my job at the Princeton Review, I am going to go over to his house and help him ready his apartment to sublet it, am going to get paid an hourly wage to do tasks and basically hang out with this man I find really interesting. He is going to Miami for three months to make some money by subletting out his apartment and living at his Florida house, which surprised me - that even well regarded writers (aside from the big names) and who work all the time still aren't rich enough to do whatever they want, that money is still a concern even at that point in your career. He has mentioned that he will bring me to Miami to visit him. I hope that I can sustain his interest during this week of working for him to make that actually happen. Um, this is a bit long and doens't really say much, but I am really excited about this new relationship, am actually almost giddy sometimes about it, and I had to get this out of my system so I don't have to write these things ever again, can write about other dimensions of this thing if it continues, can write about other things, like this sunshine and green leaves and dicks with last names you've never heard of and life and books and my five senses and the things that pleasure them.