"Hey rainbow!" I am wearing a striped shirt, knew they were talking to me. "Hey rainbow!" I am glad I had crossed to the other side of the street, having seen this pack of guys hanging out on the stoop on one side. They continued to call out "Rainbow" to get my attention before giving up and calling me faggot. As a faggot, I hate that I have to live in white(r) neighborhoods, more gentrified ones, to feel safe walking on the street alone late at night. I was pretty scared and was also made voiceless, was not allowed to respond how I would have liked to, yelling obscenities back, because then I certainly would have suffered bodily harm, the streets being totally empty aside from these aggressive males. I hate how I have to bike everywhere late at night to feel safe, how every time I have walked on foot in my neighborhood late at night I have suffered harrassment of one sort or another. It's so beautiful during the daytime, but at night, males own the streets, aggressive, homophobic ones who make me feel very unsafe.

I had left this bar, Sugarland, feeling like shit. I had hit on this one boy there, a fairly boring boy who I had slept with earlier and who I thought liked me, hoping (expecting) that he would sleep with me. Instead, I got the cold shoulder from this boy I didn't even like all that much and that hurt so much more than being rejected by a boy I thought was really sexy or by a stranger - that to be rejected by a fairly unsexy boy, bland as could be, who was not a stranger took my already fragile self-esteem down about twenty notches.

And so I left the bar, doing so because I was unable to talk to anyone with any confidence at this point, that my night seemed over, got a slice of pizza at the Beford place by the subway, and there in their wall of mirrors checked myself out, questioned what it was I saw, and really felt like shit, just wanted to stuff my face with this pizza and ride this train home. I did so, and of course after getting off the train would not even be able to sulk home in peace, to wallow in self-pity as I had planned, but instead would be called faggot by a pack of men and would keep my gaze ahead, not wanting to engage with them, not wanting to get my ass kicked.

Yesterday, I played hookey from work, leaving early by claiming I had to go to the eye doctor and instead going to see a matinee of Wicked and then, a few hours later, a performance of Phantom of the Opera. That I was lucky enough to see both for free in one day was amazing, and seeing the two basically back-to-back allowed me to think about those types of productions, the lavish, big musicals. I have been to a few Broadway plays now but had yet to go to what people generally talk about when they talk of Broadway shows - these types of shows. They are both gigantic productions with big casts, fairly crazy stage effects, and things flying through the air over the audience - monkeys in the case of Wicked and a chandelier in the case of Phantom. Both were pretty amazing in this respect and definitely wowed with me with some of the effects. That said, both probably would have been pretty boring without these garnishes, that the effects were a large part of the show. That, however, is not a problem for me. I was trying to tease out an analogy yesterday after seeing Wicked to Gabriel about how the musical was analagous to the wizard of Oz - that both were amazing, Wow-inducing things because of the smoke and mirrors, that really the wizard is a small man behind a bunch of machines, and that this musical also had its power because of these things, bombastic effects to win over the audience. And I am easy, was won.

My job has possibly gotten even more boring, as today I opened envelopes, removed checks from those envelopes, and stapled said checks to envelopes - did this all day long. And yet, today was one of the least boring days as I decided if they were going to give me such boring work to do, I would need to play my iPod to be able to make it through the day, and I listened to loud rock and roll and was there and was not there, was in various songs all day long, living out fantasies and memories for three minute stretches, some pretty amazing fantasies, some pretty amazing memories.

Tonight, I tried to go to see a screening of a Wes Anderson short. The event was at nine. I had left at eight. Even if I had actually been at the event at eight, it is doubtful that I would have gotten seating, but by the time the M train finally came and rode the two stops before stopping at Myrtle and making everyone wait for a J train the time was 8:40. I gave up then, walked home from there, resolving to myself, yet again, that I needed to move. The location is not convenient for the type of lifestyle I am still holding to, running to this or that event, wanting to go to this or that bar. There is too much commute time. But then, walking home from the Myrtle stop, through Bushwick, the non-industrial parts of it, I again appreciated so much where it was I lived, that the neighborhood is that, a cute neighborhood with lots of life, homes, trees, and people.

I live across the street from a beautiful park. Right outside my door there is a bodega that sells roast beef sandwiches for three dollars. Near my old house, if I desired a late night sandwich, I would have had to go to Sunac or Hana and pay six or seven dollars for a sandwich. There is an amazing fruit stand with so much cheap produce right around the corner from my house. There is a pizza place less than a block away, another one two blocks away, and countless Mexican, Dominican, and Salvadorean places all over. This is the image of New York I had in my head as a teen when I daydreamed about moving here. Fruit stands always factored into those fantasies. In my imagined New York, there were fruit stands on every block and that I finally am living in this imagined version makes me so happy every time I walk past the place, Angel's.

There is all of that, and then there is its distance from places where I spend my time, where I hang out, where I work, where I get drunk, where I go to events.

Niki is watching Dancing With the Stars. We live in a railroad apartment. Even in my room, headphones playing Gillian Welch, I can still hear the car commercials. The sound of television really makes me crazy. My job is boring and each day I struggle to stay awake, have to list for myself the benefits of working, that it could bring, things I can buy, places I can visit, houses I can move into, if I continue to work. Today was amazingly beautiful and on my lunch break, I laid out shirtless by the river, wanting oh so badly to be able to dive in, to be swimming in water.

Death Proof and Exit Ghost

Death Proof's opening credits are superimposed over a shot of two feet propped up on the dashboard of a car speeding down the road. They are sexy things, obviously loved by the director, Tarantino, and throughout the movie there are so many shots of feet, Tarantino's foot fetish coming out in a much more explicit way in this movie, rather than the less explicit thing that people have noticed in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, Uma's toes wiggling. Here are long shots of feet hanging out car windows. Here is Kurt Russell staring at a pair of them with all the longing in the world.

I understand the pleasure it was for Tarantino to shoot this film, to shoot these feet. I squirmed because I understood his longing gaze, have shared it, though for men's feet and not his ass-kicking female stars. There were memories of other feet provoked by these shots, my desire for them.

What a pleasure this movie was, a giddy joy that I only get when watching Tarantino films for the first time - his love of seventies cinema, his soundtracks, his references - it always thrills me so much on first viewing.

There is more that I wanted to say, but this hangover, odd thing it is since I don't think I drank that much last night, is getting the better of me, that or the giant thing of ice cream that I just ate, the coffee drank beforehand, and the gas that the combination of the two is giving me. I went out dancing at Sugarland last night, there surprisingly being a lot of people there, people dancing even. I made out with this boy there, a Brian perhaps, and let him take my penis out of pants and stroke it, me enjoying that so much. He wanted to come home with me and I didn't want that, didn't want the stranger in my bed, those moments outside of sex to fill with conversation. I just wanted this moment on the dancefloor and when I realized that by having this moment I was leading him to expect future moments, I had to say goodbye, had to leave the bar, and on my bike I got, biking home, and that ride, aside from the brief hill on Central that I had to ascend drunk, tired, and winded, was such a joyous ride, one of the highlights of my night, the streets empty for the most part, and there was me and this rusting piece of metal going from here to there, being in movement, and feeling like I was accomplishing something I could point to, that my legs had gotten me from this point to that one.

Today, I exchanged Philip Roth's Exit Ghost for Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The Roth book, his last with the Nathan Zuckerman alter ego, was lacking. Maybe it was supposed to be and I have been thinking over the book in moments today as I have been walking or riding the trains, wondering about what exactly he was trying to say. Nathan Zuckerman, in the book, admits to senility and having trouble in his advanced age continuing to write, and perhaps this book, Exit Ghost, was supposed to reflect that. It is a bit unfocused and there is very little of the exuberant prose that normally thrills me about Roth's writing. There is Roth defensively critiquing the contemporary practice of reading the author's life into the work of fiction, of seeking out autobiographical details about writers as if that should help reveal the text, and that part, though a bit obvious, I enjoyed a lot, not least because of my sympathies toward Roth's view, coy as it is with his Zuckerman character mirroring his life so closely. However, Roth's digs at feminism (an aged version of it he is still imagining that he is fighting apparently) and at trends toward p.c. selections seem out of place in the novel's setting of 2004. It all seems so nineties, that tension. There is also a lot going with the practice of writing and how one is to do that, what that means. The book is a mixed bag, certainly a good book, but not the great book that I had been hoping for. If just about every critic is to be believed, hopefully this new book I picked up today, the Diaz book, should be fucking amazing!

What a thrill it was to watch Death Proof, to see these ladies so excited about test driving a Dodge Challenger, a 1970 one, what a fucking thrill. If you had only been here next to me on the couch in my new apartment in Bushwick, you would have known; you would have heard be squealing in delight, so full of joy and excitement that I couldn't even process it, could only make shrieking noises of pleasure.

BNdotCommunist

The office I work in is in a building that takes up an entire city block. The company I now work for takes up an entire floor of that building, an entire block. It is a daunting walk from one side of the office to the other, from even my cubicle to the bathroom. It is a job gotten through my new temp agency, me finally abandoning my old one after they offered me one shitty job too many, to the point that it was insulting. It is the Website of a massive chain bookstore and I work in the accounting department doing boring, fairly mindless tasks. I started yesterday and so far have no real complaints. The location is ideal and there is all the free coffee my coffee-loving self can handle. Hopefully by working full-time for a while, a couple months maybe, I can get myself better positioned financially, pay off some bills, not constantly be broke, perhaps go visit people across the country and perhaps across the Atlantic, and also perhaps have some money saved in case I want to move, somewhere else in New York or somewhere else entirely.

My new room barely gets any sunlight and so I sleep much later than I would like to, lack the spirit that the sun used to fill me with in the mornings in my old bedroom, and so another plus to this job is that it forces me to get out of the habit of being lazy, to wake up earlier.

Boring jobs have another plus, a plus that I enjoyed so much today and which I was so grateful for, that being the ability to daydream all day long. The tasks are simple enough not to occupy all of your attention and the quiet of an office environment is great for uninterrupted reflection, for thinking about things, reliving recently lived moments. You find yourself horny in the morning, still tired, recalling the body of your friend that you slept with this weekend, his patch of hair on his chest, the thought of Matt's patch of chest hair intruding on this daydream, the realization that the patch of chest hair is similar on both boys, that perhaps this has something to with the attraction to both, perhaps, or perhaps just a coincidence. And because there are eight hours to get through, these thoughts can be teased out, chased in any direction they will lead you, thinking about life and fiction and their relationship, this being sparked by reading the new Roth novel, thinking of that boy, this boy, of electricity and the Internet, of dancing, of Tom Petty lyrics, on and on, more time with my own thoughts than I have gotten in so long.

With Ben B. tonight, mentioning this satisfaction I was finding, warning me, he joked that I better have a good imagination, that the well of thoughts would dry up soon.

I wandered the Natural History Museum by myself yesterday, there for an hour depressed that my friends were nowhere to be found, feeling lonely and depressed, the massive whale, normally able to thrill me so much, did little to mitigate the self-pitying mood. I decided to walk to MoMA. On the way there, there was an injured horse on 59th Street, looking terrible and in pain, and that was unbearable to look at, was almost the thing that pushed me over the edge. My life and scenes from Anna Karenina were starting to blur. I felt like Vronsky at the races, everything falling apart.

At MoMA, in the fairly terrible "What is Painting?" show, there was one very pleasurable thing, a Philip Pearlstein painting. I love Pealstein's work so much. His figurative paintings of middle-aged naked bodies are so sad and beautiful, so real in a way that many other things seem to not be. I stood in front of that painting for a very long time, pondering the two naked bodies, both female, and thought about this flesh we carry, that carries us, and the thing inside it pondering its container. Pearlstein's bedroom scenes of ennui grow on me more and more each time I see them.

Tonight, I had some man come over to my house. He spit on me, gagged me with his cock, called me names, slapped me, and in those moments, I felt most good, most happy, was able to not think about the things I have been thinking about for the past couple of days. There is no time to feel self-pity with a dick down your throat, making you gag, tears starting to well up in your eyes. There is only that thing, that moment you are currently in, no past, no future, just this now, this intense physical feeling. It felt so great then. But it ended, I was drenched in semen, literally dripping it from my hair, and this man reminded me that we had had sex a couple of years ago, and then we were back. The present was no longer just that; it had associations of the past with the recollection of the encounter with this man before; and there were thoughts to the future, to the semen all over everything I had just washed, to it all over my self and to how I needed to take a shower to be clean of it, thoughts to a future self, a clean one.

Teddy

This 19 year old boy, Melvin, came over to my house last night. I met him on the Internet and he is this cute, shy Puerto Rican boy with lovely skin to touch who graduated high school in June and still lives with his family. My apartment has now been baptized; sex has been had in my new residence; things feel better here. He was young and that youngness showed through several times, him looking very nervous when he first came into my house, not really knowing what to do with himself, later showing when after making out and starting to undress he said that he wanted to get to know me before we did anything. Frustrated at first, I lay back on my pillows, making conversation to make him feel like he wasn't a slut, a body being used just as a body, and then remembered being young, younger, remembered those early sexual experiences and how then I wanted similar things from them, had different ideas about what they should be. He had this cute smile and talking to him, looking at him, remembering what things felt like not that many years ago, I enjoyed the conversation, the getting to know each other before anything happened. I also enjoyed the anything happening.

Afterwards, I biked away from my house toward the bank and on the way, my back tire popped in a major fashion, becoming totally flat. There seemed to be some symbolism here. I wasn't sure what it was, but it seems as if it signified something after having this nice sexual experience. Earlier in the day, I had read J.D. Salinger's "Teddy" and so life seemed important and unimportant, its unimportance the source of its importance. After reading that story, I tested negative for HIV, which was a relief since the story and my having randomly read it that day, its message, seemed to me to be a foreshadowing of something ominous, of me falling into an empty pool, cracking my head open, and someone approaching the pool scared, hearing my sister's scream, the scream "highly acoustical, as though it were reverbeating within four tiled walls." And for a story that takes as one of its themes notions of space and how physical objects and spaces seem to be so only because of logic, that reference to the four tiled walls and that "as though" doubting its reality seemed really significant.

eight steps, but to where?

There were a few moments early this morning where Niki and I would look at each other and just start to laugh, laugh because what we were doing was so spur of the moment, was so hairbrained an idea, was so absurd in every way, because this is life, these absurd moments strung together. On the subway ride this morning, Mikayleigh and Niki had whitening strips over their teeth, and her speech hobbled by this product, Niki asked me what we were doing, and that was one of those moments where we laughed. The question was apt, too apt, and the answer too funny. We were on our way to audition to be Disney characters on a Disney cruise ship, a job that would require an eight month commitment.

Mikayleigh had flown up here from Florida specifically to audition for this job, believing she had it in the bag. At some point in the day yesterday, she convinced Niki that she should audition for it also. The two of them sold me on the idea when I got home late last night and the idea of spending several months on the ocean sounded so good to me then. Being a Disney character, Goofy most likely, did not sound so good, but it sounded easy enough and it would have paid really well, enabling me to travel and perhaps live in foreign locales (Mexico City at the top of that daydreamer’s list) with the money paid after not having paid rent for months and having no real place to spend the money being earned.

And so this morning, after sprucing up our resumes, printing photos of ourselves as costumed characters, and practicing some eight steps, we headed off to this dance studio in our very amateurish dance outfits. It was a world far removed from my normal one and so fascinating to observe, very A Chorus Line. Everyone handed in a headshot with their resume printed on the back and then sat down in this mirrored dance studio doing stretches in their spandex dance outfits and jazz shoes, doing this, but more so applying make-up, perfecting it, in the mirrors.

They split the mass of people auditioning into two groups. We were in the second group and we could hear the choreographer yelling instructions through the room next door. Nerves started to set in for Niki and I and we began to take more seriously how out of place we were amongst these professional auditioners.

Group Two was called and we went into the room next door. A dance routine was hurriedly explained by the choreographer. Somehow this routine was learned by most of the people there and I felt more and more nervous about how bad I was doing. I was looking at the other people around me in the mirror, copying their moves, but not fast enough, and found myself bumping into my neighbors a few times. After these group run-throughs of the routine, we performed for the casting director in groups of three, small groups where I could no longer so easily conceal the fact that I was just faking my way through this dance routine, spinning on my right foot rather than my left, following my neighbor’s lead belatedly, and trying to keep up.

Mikayleigh had told me that I was definitely going to get a job, not probably, that they desperately needed tall guys all the time for Goofy, and from the room full of hopefuls, it seemed to be true. Ninety percent of the people there were females. I didn’t do totally terrible during the dance routine. The casting director asked me my height, then asked me to smile at him so he could get a good look at me, and that was it. After all the groups of three had finished, he looked through his list and then read the names of the people he wanted to stay. Niki’s name was not called, Mikayleigh’s wasn’t, mine wasn't. Our dreams of life at sea were quickly put to an end.

We crossed the street at Mikayleigh’s suggestion, heading to White Castle, she incredibly disappointed about not making the cut. We ate little burgers, quite a few of them. It didn’t mean as much to me and so the burgers didn’t need to comfort me and I wasn’t drunk, which really is probably the only way to enjoy those burgers.

It was a lovely day still, getting to do something and see a side of life that I probably never would have without this visitor. I tried and had fun, got a free dance lesson.

Later this day, this same day, the three of us found a gorgeous couch and matching armchair on the street. We carried them the couple of blocks to our house and then I made a dinner, a lovely thing because it was made with love, for us and I sat on this new couch eating the yummy thing, drinking yummy rum drinks.

Mikayleigh left tonight, not before making me laugh over and over again with amazing stories, and not before christening our nameless cat, Kitty, Bob Dylan.

the savage detectives, a midsummer night's dream, 33 to nothing, walmartopia, darwin's nightmare

Another week, a work week, has ended, and I am again aware of how I have not worked during this week, how I have not only not worked in the sense of going to an office, doing shitty work, and getting paid for it, but how I haven't even really done much with my free time, my not working time, to justify that not working, how despite living in this new apartment and having lots of alone time, I still have not been able to make myself write amazing things, that instead all this alone time is just being put to use to make myself elaborate omelettes and to watch video after video on either xtube or youporn, masturbating for hours and then feeling incredibly guilty about doing so, about how by doing so I have failed to do the things that I should have been doing with that time, namely writing great things and/or looking for money-making opportunities, legit stuff or that other stuff I do.

Despite not producing any things, I have consumed a great deal, and it is a nice stew in my head right now, all these cultural products and the thoughts they are inspiring.

First off, I finally finished Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives. The book traces the history of these two Mexican poets, Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano. They start a poetry movement, the visceral realists (obviously a gibe at the magical realists), and treat it like membership to a kid's clubhouse, at one point randomly kicking out members. Small in terms of how many pages she is mentioned on, but looming large thematically over this book is their obsession with Cesarea Tinajero, an older poet who they have found one poem by, and who they trace down across Mexico. The book is intentionally messy and because of its set-up lacks the novelistic voice that I normally like from a work of fiction. Instead, the novel is the diary of a young poet infatuated with the visceral realists and then interviews with many, many people about their relationships with Belano and Lima. I kept thinking that this book would all come together, that the messiness would be worth it, that the ending would make everything clear, its purpose, however as I neared the last thirty pages, I knew that it would not happen, that the book was just messy and not what I wanted from a novel. There are genuine moments of beauty and some really stellar pargraphs and pages, but compared to Bolano's shorter fiction, this book just didn't do it for me. It did provoke a lot of thoughts in me and gave me so many intense instances of wanderlust, particularly for Mexico City, but I would have a hard time recommending this book to someone that was not already a big Bolano fan. I am still processing the book though and these feelings very may well change, particuarly as I re-read the criticism about the book I had read, much of it essentially hailing this book as a masterpiece. I would like to go re-read those arguments to help me process what this book was trying to accomplish.

Several plays were also seen this week. A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Delacourte Theater was the best of them. It is a play that I love a lot, that I acted in high school, and that I have seen several times. More and more levels of meaning to this play become apparent with each encounter. The metanarrative aspects to it with the interpolated play, Pyramus and Thisbe, are so weird and seem very modern. There is so much to parse out there on the nature of plays, of acting, of performing, and even more so of watching, of what it means to be an audience member to this thing and the relationship between a work of art and its audience.

33 to Nothing, a musical, dealt with a band in its death throes, breaking up for various reasons, and their last rehearsal session as things start to fall apart. The play dealt with aging, with attempts at artistic greatness, and when and at what point one must realize that they are never to achieve such a thing, that they will always be a mediocrity, and give up the struggle. There were amateurish aspects to the thing, but it did, in not always subtle ways, present questions certainly worth being asked.

Walmartopia, another muscial, was at certain moments silly and at other moments a little ham-fisted, but really what else is to be expected with a leftist musical? For what it was, it was really good. The two lead actresses had amazing voices and to hear them sing was a joy. Wal-Mart is evil and this country is fucked up, the world is, and the musical could have been so much more terrible (not that it was terrible at all, just at time a little preaching to the choir).

Perhaps it should be mentioned now, amdist these terse and superficial critiques (if they even can be called that) of artistic products that I am a bit drunk, having gone to some party in the East Village tonight where there were cute boys and where I drank a decent amount of vodka.

Gallery openings were went to last night and tonight. So there is a whole mess of stuff bobbing around in my head from those, chief among them though the new Larry Clark stuff on view at Luhring Augustine. Most of the photographs focus on this young boy (of course, it being Larry Clark), and Clark elevates this boy through his gaze and his lens to such a beautiful status. When a photographer loves their subject it comes through so clearly and there is some magic on display on those gallery walls, something that I would like to talk about more and something that I may upon second viewing and when I don't have so many other things in my head right, artistic products, boys, and otherwise.

But the one reccomendation that I would like to make to you, the thing that is most on my mind right now, is this documentary I watched today, Darwin's Nightmare. I could say stuff about it but it would be better if you were just to watch it. It is a movie that will break your heart and think that the world is hopeless, which it very well seems like it is. It focuses on a village on the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania and how their economy is built upon fishing nile perch from the lake, a species which is non-native to the lake and which is totally destroying the ecosystem. There is terrible environmental stuff happening. There is the exploitation of the natural resources of developing nations by developed nations. There is a country suffering from famine but exporting all of this food to Europe. There is HIV and AIDS, large numbers of people dying from these, and stupid preachers saying that condoms are a sin. Then there is weapons smuggling on these same cargo planes that take the fish out of the country. I felt physically ill at so many points during this movie, realizing that the world is a terrible place, that by my purchases and my existence in a developed nation, I aid in its terribleness, and that really there is little that can be done to stop it. This movie and some of its scenes will be on my brain for a long time, and that I think is a good thing, will help keep me focused. If you have yet to see this, I suggest that you do.

And there all these things, all these cultural products consumed, plus many not even listed, and it is all floating around in my brain, and it's so easy to consume this stuff, far harder to do the opposite and produce, but I am aware of the things that need to be done, aware of the things I am doing, and am moving myself in that direction.

books in hands, in my head

Yesterday and again today, I lied underneath branches, leaves, looked up to see the sunlight sometimes filtering its way through the mess of green shading me. There was a book in my hands, Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives.

Occasionally I would read from it. More often though, I would look at the leaves above me, at the families, couples, and single men sitting in the park with me, thinking how nice this place was, how lucky I am to live right across the street from this park. Thoughts shifted to the nature of sitting in parks, of loittering, of doing nothing but being in public with others sitting on benches just passing time, contemplating the nature of passing time. I am here and not here. Some pieces of me didn't make it in the move to this new house, new subway stop. New items are being picked up though and I am falling in love with some things, with some ideas, am dreaming about things in a way I haven't in a long while. I feel new and old enough to recognize that newness as something else. I still love Neil Young. I bought a bilingual Neruda book yesterday, a half-hearted attempt to pick up some Spanish. I am determined to learn it, all the more so because the fishmonger spoke no English today and placing an order proved difficult, proved embarrassing.

Last night, I fucked this man, the second man I have done this to, and enjoyed it tremendously. There was a book in my head.

The water at Atlantic City was warm, so much warmer than I was expecting, being used to the somewhat chilly ocean waters of New York. It felt nice to wade in it, even nicer to do so as the sun was setting and the sky was an explosion of pinks. Skeeball was played, tickets were won and were exchanged for trinkets, a rabbit foot. Slot machines were played, dollars were lost, and the rabbit foot did us no good. There were however numerous free drinks provided by the cocktail waitresses. Niki wanted to eat cheap buffet food. We found the one cheap buffet place, and as you can maybe tell from Niki's facial expressions in that picture, the food was terrible, some of the most terrible food I have eaten in recent memory. We then got on a bus home and nearly had to rough up the two old ladies sitting behind us. The one sitting behind me complained about my seat, asking me not to lean it back. I told her that maybe she should find another seat. That was the last I heard from her. The woman behind Niki alleged that somehow Niki's reclined chair kept smashing her fingers. We fell asleep, chairs reclined, talking about wrestling, darkness inside the bus and out its windows.

Imagine Billy Bob Thorton in U-Turn. That is what I was reminded of last night seeing this guy into pig stuff on the Upper East Side. The pleasure he took in smelling my foreskin made me shiver because there is my own love of smells, of body odors, and in a couple decades that could be me, man with the crazy Billy Bob Thornton voice, man with too much body odor, squealing in delight, shaking in delight, with his nose in scents, with his throat full of piss, with his mouth full of ass. If you are at all succesful in imagining Billy Bob Thorton here, imagine that distinctive hick voice saying dirty things, saying, "Get on your knees so I can eat your ass." This has no meaning, no humor value, if you can't hear this particular type of voice saying this, saying dirty things. Increasingly I am finding that there are reference points you either share with me or you don't, and really so much of how close I can get to you, can get to anyone, is depenedent upon this, upon them being familiar with these reference points and me familiar with theirs, that these are the things that make me feel connected or disconnected to other people, that this is my life, ours. It's nice to say this or that reminds me of this or that and you having been there for this or that, having been friends with that person that this person on the street looks like, or familiar with the banjo tune in Deliverance, or at the least familiar with what Billy Bob Thorton's voice sounds like.

With this money, I am about to go to Port Authority with Niki and board a bus for Atlantic City. I am so excited.