Twenty Eight

The age of 28 arrived a couple of weeks ago. It feels a lot like 27, though I was happier to receive this gift, feeling more and more comfortable with these increasing numbers, my shift into adult-age sounding numbers, less and less of a fear of no longer being part of these early and mid-twenties, of becoming old.

I am torn lately between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, thinking through the appeals of both and trying to decide between them – my life for the most part some Dionysian orgy, an extravagance of fun, release, and energy, but new options being both thought about and presented to me. This conflict is chiefly embodied in a boy with an oceanic name beginning with P. I met him several Sundays ago at the Metropolitan BBQ, which I plan on heading to shortly, no food in my house and being quite hungry. There was some connection that was more intense than a normal flirtation. I was really attracted to this boy and he apparently to me as well, and so when he jokingly or not said we were going to get married and have a dog called Horatio, I was quite seriously imagining that future, quite into the idea of it.

I went home with him that night, talking about my love of the Late Night line of Doritos along the way, stopping in bodegas hoping to find these rarely stocked Doritos to let him experience it as well as to satisfy my drunken fixation on them, my hunger for the things, perceived in that moment to be just the thing my stomach needed, the only thing that would satisfy it. On his bedroom wall were lots of pictures of Marilyn Monroe; I think these were the only things on his wall, photographs of Monroe in various stages of her career. This made me even more smitten. I overslept for work the next morning, not really caring, quite happy to have met this boy, the potential trouble worth it and more.

We have hung out a few times since, the conversations sometimes going off down the trail of relationships, of what an ideal one would be. His ideal one is monogamous and mine is not; we discussed the different philosophies informing our view of why this or that is better, the two sides a bit irreconcilable. I know that if things were to go any further with this boy, cute, adorable, and smart, then I would need to make some changes, to basically quit being such a slut. And so lately I have been thinking about the two sides presented here – this debauched carefree life that I have been living for the past few years, one which for me really does have philosophical groundings in the sexual nature of man, a belief that the body is something really magical and not wanting to see that hampered down by morality, possessiveness, or the fragile underpinnings of human egos. I feel like in some ways I would be compromising something I believe in to satisfy someone else’s belief system. But I am also thinking that maybe that is okay, that changes are okay, and that I do like this person quite a great deal and should maybe let it play out by normal rules and see how things go.

A few days ago, I did however sleep with Diego, and that threw into doubt many of these thoughts, that it was fun and a really nice experience, that it was the type of hungry sex, of instincts being gratified, that I find really fulfilling and enriching, something that gives me a great deal of happiness, and something that I would potentially be losing. There are many forms of happiness though, and so, saying what I say quite often in these confused and directionless days, I don’t know. I may meet up with this boy later tonight and we’ll see if that happens and if that is ever followed with anything. He loves Muriel’s Wedding, which him kind of perfect.

This past week, I have been working the graveyard shifts at my job and I really do not enjoy it at all, have been sleeping away the day, getting even less accomplished than the little I do on days with a somewhat normal sleep schedule.

It is Father’s Day and I have been thinking about my father some on this day, some music provoking the thoughts more than an awareness of what day it is. It was only after I followed a trail of thoughts that I realized what day it was. But there are things that I think I should get from his sister while I am still able to, bits of information and dates that I would like to have and that I don’t. There are thoughts about some fictional project tied to this desire to collect data, to get details rights.

After Gay Pride next weekend, things are really going to have to change. I am going to start being more frugal because I am going to be going out far less. I am letting life get past me, am working a great deal and partying probably an equally great deal, getting very little sleep and having zero time for reflection, the absence of diary entries here lately proof of that. There are so many things that I would like to get done but which I never do. There are things that need to be written and I am going to have to figure out how to work that into my schedule. I also am feeling a bit restless in my current job, do love the amount I get paid, but don’t really want to be doing this for the rest of my life, and so really need to think long and hard before more of these birthdays appear and I find myself saying similar things, need to think long and hard about what life I want to be leading and to make that a reality, to pursue things I want to, to make things, to perhaps find a job requiring a bit more of my brain.

And these diary entries are so often a forum for me to say this and this and this is wrong, to point out these flaws in myself, to show you my banged-up knee in the hopes that you will kiss it and make it better, but to be clear, to add a bit more flesh to this skeleton of what my life is lately, things are really good despite the normal doubts that come now and again about everything. The week leading up to my birthday, I got to eat amazingly decadent meals each day for free in this restaurant that is opening in the hotel tomorrow. I have friends that really entertain me and care about me and add a lot of joy to this thing, this time here on Earth. There is a boy who makes me kind of insanely giddy and he doesn’t have any of the baggage that everyone I have really liked over the past few years has had; it’s a healthy start for once with someone. I have been in the habit of reading more, of getting stoned, and listening to pretty music on my new headphones with clear sound, no longer the tinny effect of my busted ones I had been using for months. The difference and its effects on my well-being are striking.