August 1

Diego’s head popping out of the ocean, hair and face wet with sunlight, the day the warmest and brightest one in too long, this summer not yet entirely feeling like one in the way they normally do, the weather and its coolness and its oft cloudiness somehow affecting my perceptions of summer, that something seems a bit off, but today, this afternoon, in the Atlantic Ocean on the shores of New Jersey, a fairy ride away from this city I reside in, New York that is, today, oh, the day felt so right, so summer. Perhaps it felt like last summer, to be with this boy going off on some gay adventure together, to the nude beach in NJ, that that made it feel like summer, his company, like some memory of some summer not too far back. Maybe, but why assign reasons or try to trace things back to their source and feel guilty about the well you are drawing these sentiments from, that that water made you sick once before, that you should know better, and blah blah blah – why, why do that, when the feeling is so nice? And so I submitted to it, to what it was, enjoying it for what it is and what it is not, that this affectionate friendship we have is nice, that we are friends and neither bound by standard ideas about sex, and can have this thing, and sometimes there are hurt feelings, more so on my part, but lots of times there are not, lots of times this thing is just what I need at this moment in my life, that I need something.

The sight, to mention it again because it is something that struck me so much then and has again in recalled memory a few times since the image manifested itself: We were fooling around in the water, kissing, hugging, rubbing our penises against each other hidden somewhat by water, surrounded by gays, and after a wave would crash over us, there would be this smiling face of someone I care a lot about in my face, goofy looking, so cute, that some beauty not always as readily apparent was brought out by him being wet, that I am not sure why people look better when they are wet, something innocent about us revealed, that you see the little kid splashing in a pool, so fucking happy, some lovely life. The bright sunshine and the salt water in my eyes made the image often under-exposed, the horizon darker that it should appear and yet the light on his hair and face in droplets of water, of ocean, making it seem so beautiful. I told him he looked so cute when he was wet.

He said, “Great, so I look ugly when I’m dry? I only look cute when I’m wet?”

“Yep.Uh-huh.”

We drank vodka and lemonade drinks we made from our beach bags and laid in the sun and looked at all the various types of dicks, talked often about ones we desired.

I called in sick today to work. I needed it after the past few days, which I had had off but which were spent doing the process of moving from one apartment to another. The process by this point has become hardly emotional at all, it becoming so common this past year. But I feel settled and at home in a way I haven’t since Niki kicked me out of our Bushwick apartment. I don’t really talk about it too much, but when I think about life late at night and how it’s been going lately, I see that moment as a big one that set me off on some nomadic quest for the past year, feeling a bit unmoored and lonely, kicked out of a place I thought was home. I still have a lot of anger towards Niki about that and all the more so now that I have realized how much crazier that has made me, how awkward I have felt in the past couple places I lived, unsettled.

I am living by myself in a studio apartment off the Morgan stop. It feels so great and I feel so at ease, so at home, so excited about the prospect of making this a home, of having one that I feel tied to and whatever subconscious feelings of security and happiness that having one provides a person. I have painted the walls, built bookshelves, painted tables and chairs, and it is not yet there yet, but it’s well on its way. I jerked off into all these various paints I used, me feeling like it was some ritual to make this place home, to imbue it with something, these walls and this wood furniture. I believe that things are going to be really good here. I am going to buy groceries and cook as much as possible. I am going to buy a good radio that picks up the public radio stations at the bottom of the dial, specifically 91.5 and I am going to listen to the radio and sit at this cute little kitchen table that I painted yellow and type missives to the world, and I am going to get a sofa, but maybe the radio first, and I am going to be so much happier.