constant glances toward the door

Prince is playing on my stereo, but then again, when he is not playing on my stereo?

I went to my mom's house in Delaware for Thanksgiving. It was a crowded house full of relatives I hadn't seen in forever. Lots of Trivial Pursuit was played. Some Scrabble. I smoked a lot of cigarettes with my aunts and uncles as they hid their smoking habits from their kids, smoking in the backyard with constant glances toward the door.

I want to write a novel called "Constant Glances Toward the Door." I have no idea what it would be about. I just like the title. A short story is probably a more realistic goal. Even that, like most ideas, will probably be unrealized.

I was horny while at my mom's house, probably because there was nothing I could do about it in such a crowded house, probably because I was thrown back mentally into what it was like to be a horny teenager being in my parent's house and wanting to jerk off all the time and having nowhere to do so as I was given the couch in this full house.

At the Wilmington Amtrak station on my way home, I used the bathroom before boarding which seemed vaguely cruisey. There were a lot of homeless seeming dudes and someone in the stall next to me standing in an awkward position, feet to the side, that made me think he was jerking off. I wanted to reach under the stall and tug every dick this world had on offer. Instead, terrified that this was some entrapment thing, that I would be arrested while my sister was in the waiting room of the train station, and it would be a fairly unpleasant scene, taken out in handcuffs, my family having to come rescue me, imagining all this, I instead buttoned my pants and boarded the train eventually. Once on the train, I went into the bathroom and finally jerked off like I had been wanting to all weekend, unable to wait until I made it back to my apartment in Brooklyn.

Last night, I drank a lot of whiskey, did some drugs, and travelled around town, starting off at a Morrissey party which was a little boring. We then headed to Metropolitan. I told someone that they were a douchebag that I think is a douchebag and it felt really good. Sometimes it feels so fucking good to say how you feel, that it's similar to cumming, shooting this load finally that you have had pent up, letting it go. Orgasmic release.

I hung out at a friend's house after the bar closed. There was a blind dog.

I walked home with the same friend that I had sex with last weekend and again had sex with him last night. On the way to my house, I vaguely remembered him saying, "Are we going to talk about this?" We didn't. He was gone by the time I woke up this morning, hungover, head aching.

Another weekend.

Prince - "Forever in My Life"

I am packing a bag of clothes to board a train tomorrow. I'm going to go see my family for Thanksgiving.

I am listening to Prince. I am a little stoned. There is a glass of red wine by my side.

I told Diego today that I was talking to a boy, a boy that I like, that I have tried again and again to make something happen with. And he, Diego, made the analogy, a wise one, about "Party at Our Place."

I used to have this t-shirt, bright blue, that said, "Party at Our Place," which I have come to assume is some Chuck E. Cheese-like children's birthday party venue. I used to wear this t-shirt all the time. Over and over again. It was comfortable but I also felt cute in it. I really liked the shirt, the fit, the feel, the mood, the color - everything about it. At some point, Jacob made some comment about how unsurprising it was that I was yet again wearing this "Party at Our Place" shirt. Diego was there at the time and seconded this comment and both of them told me I was never allowed to wear the shirt again, that they were sick of seeing it.

This t-shirt, my attachment to that, is the same as whatever is going on with this boy. Diego said they were one and the same. I am not sure the analogy is apt but it sounds like it could be and definitely gave me pause. Either way, I think he's sick of hearing about this person. I kind of am too. But I see his Facebook picture every now and then in my feed and I get all sixteen old high school student seeing that cute boy in the hall and all nervous and shit and holding their books tight to their chest as they swoon and think about fainting, and I think that I want to kiss this person, this cute fucking person.

I'm going to try to hang out with him this weekend once I return from time with my family.

I may have scabies, which I think I got from sleeping with people at the MIX Festival - I have been itchy ever since. And in another physical irritation brought about sex, my pelvic area is really sore from having wasted sex with one of my friends this weekend. I'm hoping it's just soreness, but then there is another part of me that spent a large part of the day Googling hernia symptoms.

Prince is playing. I don't have health insurance. I just scratch myself and get stoned. And I play Prince! I play him loud, loud, loud and play this one song on repeat over and over tonight, the "Party at Our Place" analogy again rearing its head, this thing with repetition, some specific fears and insecurities eased immensely by repeating something over and over again, jamming out to "Forever in My Life."

Saturday night, people blurred, joined, and split apart. I had had a weed brownie, drank some whiskey, and ate some mushrooms. I danced or didn't. I wandered around a lot. At some point, I hid my shirt and jacket underneath a stage. I made out with a boy who soon turned into two boys.

At some point in the early morning, I left with the two boys. I couldn't find my jacket or shirt, had awful thoughts about being that mess of a person walking around New York in November (any month really) without a shirt on. Luckily one of these guys let me borrow his overshirt. It for some reason reminded me of a shirt that Malcolm might wear on The Cosby Show.

This guy, this shirt-lender, this true gentleman, at some point en route to leaving told me he just wanted to sleep with me, did not want to have a threesome. We went to get in a taxi, the two of us, and soon again it was three. It was an awkward taxi ride back to my house where neither of us said anything. Only once the taxi stopped, once this person travelled to my house, did I tell him that I was going home with this other person. It was a very awkward moment, but I was happy for vocalizing my desires in a situation where normally I wouldn't, where normally I would just go with the flow.

The sun was up. His dick was huge. It was beautiful. In that high state, I came to idolize it, less so hungover in the afternoon when we finally woke up.

Curtis Mayfield - "Get Down"

The leaves on my block are yellow. They look good when I leave for work in the morning, sun low on the horizon, casting beautiful shadows. They look great in the afternoon, sun shining through them. They look good at night time, street lights giving off just enough light to let me see the difference, to see time moving, to see this particular moment that I am living in in which summer is now done and winter around the corner, and things changing, always changing. It's fucking beautiful.

All the more so because of its hyper-transitory nature, this season. One big rainstorm and most of these leaves will be gone, on the ground, in gutters. Even without a big storm, they will soon enough be gone. And so I take in these sights while I can.

A couple nights ago, I spent the night in a guy's bed in Bushwick, this crush who I had pursued this summer only to have it fizzle out. Aaliyah sings, "If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again." We smoked weed and drank booze underneath his covers while watching Frozen. It was incredibly cute. He's incredibly cute. Everything's incredibly cute.

I cleaned my apartment this morning and I have my bedroom window open to let out some of the thick heat of my radiator.  Cool breezes every so often punctuate the heat. This is fall.

Madonna - "Take a Bow"

It was after last call had been announced. They were winding down the night, letting people know it was time to go. It had been a Madonna-themed night at Metropolitan. I danced, really danced, to songs that I hadn't heard in a while, some of the less frequently-played Madonna songs, losing myself to all the feelings I have ever felt to this music, from those days when I was a kid and watched MTV in the eighties with my sister, both of us drawn to Madonna's videos even then, music I would discover again and again throughout my life, from teenage years, to early years as an out gay, from time later on when I found new meaning in particular songs, really heard them in ways my youth had never allowed me to do. The feelings invoked by particular Madonna songs is pretty crazy, and last night a bit high and a bit drunk, those feelings were particularly heightened.

I was a clown, a mime, something. Sequined outfit and face paint, a bob wig.

There was this guy, beautiful man. It was the last song they were playing. "Take a Bow." Perfect choice for a last song of the night. I played out this fantasy in my head of approaching my bullfighter, this hunk of a man, beautiful thing, being forward, to this song, dancing with him, going home together, always remembering how our relationship started with this song, with that time I approached him during Madonna's "Take a Bow." I made eyes at him and followed him with my eyes as I saw him approach someone that looked very much like his boyfriend.

I kept dancing. On screen, my man, out of reach. I fall to the floor, rub myself against that bullfighter on the tv screen, eroticize distance, unavailability, the joy in pain, of heartache, of wanting. Push the sword in deeper. Bull down.

I hung out on the street after the bar closed, smoking cigarettes underneath the awning of a funeral home. Unpack the symbolism in that sentence. Or don't actually.

I ran home in the rain, chilly, cold.

This morning, I woke up hungover, scattered sequins all over my floor.