ME: "I don't know. I guess I am just not happy."
HE: "Is anyone happy? Anyone we know, anyway?"
ME: "Thanks for saying that."
HE: "Well...you know."
A fleeting moment of happiness
Monday, October 30, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
The Lost Chapters of....
He wakes up with his eyelashes clumped together forming a prison cell over his eyes. The sun blasting through the window penetrates the bars of mascara that have incarcerated his eyes for the five short hours of toss-and-turn sleep he assumes he just had.
As soon as the gates open his eyes start itching and burning. He is squinting and rubbing his eyes like a newborn. The taste in his mouth is a combination of tinfoil, cardboard, and excrement. Equal parts of each. The room is intensely dry but cozily warm, with just enough breeze from a cracked window to keep anyone under the down.
He looks at the digital clock with it's ruby red numbers and reads 9:45
He thinks, "Already!" and "It's Only?" at the same time.
He turns to the other side of the bed. There's no one there even though no one's left.
He himself is no one.
Only glitter traces both his and the other pillow.
He retraces his steps.
Unfortunately, he can't remember anything that follows his impromptu number at 2:00 a.m.ish.
His desire for coffee is strong enough to evoke the muscles in his arms and legs to conjure up some semblance of bodily movement.
He stops at a mirror in the hall.
The blood in his eye's hit's him like a shot.
Before he can self deprecate the sweet saliva begins to form in the back of his throat and the intense, rapid swallowing increases.
He makes it to the bathroom in time, because he is a pro.
With two drops of Visine and a spoonful of Listerine, he's standing upright with his shoulders back and proud. At least outwardly.
No one is still there in the bed.
No one knows and no one cares.
It's back to the neighborhood of make believe.
Where he doesn't appear to have a life that could be a chapter in an Augusten Burroughs Memoir.
As soon as the gates open his eyes start itching and burning. He is squinting and rubbing his eyes like a newborn. The taste in his mouth is a combination of tinfoil, cardboard, and excrement. Equal parts of each. The room is intensely dry but cozily warm, with just enough breeze from a cracked window to keep anyone under the down.
He looks at the digital clock with it's ruby red numbers and reads 9:45
He thinks, "Already!" and "It's Only?" at the same time.
He turns to the other side of the bed. There's no one there even though no one's left.
He himself is no one.
Only glitter traces both his and the other pillow.
He retraces his steps.
Unfortunately, he can't remember anything that follows his impromptu number at 2:00 a.m.ish.
His desire for coffee is strong enough to evoke the muscles in his arms and legs to conjure up some semblance of bodily movement.
He stops at a mirror in the hall.
The blood in his eye's hit's him like a shot.
Before he can self deprecate the sweet saliva begins to form in the back of his throat and the intense, rapid swallowing increases.
He makes it to the bathroom in time, because he is a pro.
With two drops of Visine and a spoonful of Listerine, he's standing upright with his shoulders back and proud. At least outwardly.
No one is still there in the bed.
No one knows and no one cares.
It's back to the neighborhood of make believe.
Where he doesn't appear to have a life that could be a chapter in an Augusten Burroughs Memoir.
Friday, October 13, 2006
SIGNS (Post #5)
December 31, 1999-2000
I sit on the roof top of my friends’ apartment in Silverlake, CA. Some of the people are on acid, some are high from smoking pot, and some are drunk (or wasted rather). It's a new year. A new millennium. I ring it in with cheer in my hand and a pang in my heart. I miss Doug. We ended it just shy of two years. I am loving California. It's my first visit. It makes me hate New York City. I work too much in NY. I am in debt because of NY. I dropped out of school just to stay in NYC. I am barely surviving. But, I am not an oblivious idiot. This is a vacation. Life isn't always a tab of acid and unlimited miles on a rental car.
I met Rob the Z-Man December 31st, and it's inevitable. We are hooking up January 1st. I knew it before midnight and now it is nearly 4 a.m. I let myself get into Rob's TransAm even though I barely know him. But, I joke inside my head that it's been a year. We met in '99 and are gonna finally fuck in 2000. But, when I get into Rob's TransAm, I am really looking for validation, intimacy, love, tenderness, and acceptance. He drives drunk and high all the way back to Sherman Oaks while the sun comes up. We get into his bed that is draped with black curtains boxing it in. This pad is made for fucking. He must know what he is doing. He is older, taller, leaner, and bigger. He is much bigger than me. I ask him to do it. I tell him to do it. I almost command him. "Just DO IT," I say. He doesn't even hesitate. He attempts, but I am tense. So tight, I can't. He keeps trying. It hurts, but I feel like I need it. He turns me over. I bite the pillow, clench my fists, and sob silently. "What am I doing here?" I might have even said this out loud.
I get it now. Maybe not in that pillow biting moment but what followed, I did. Everything happens for a reason. The universe is teaching me-to grow, to strengthen, to listen. I will get through this. Z-man hears my cries. He stops. He lies on top of me and kisses my ear. He asks me if I am okay. I nod yes. He stays on top of me ear to ear, brushing my right arm with his fingertips for what feels like hours but is probably a few minutes. He doesn't ask me anything. He doesn't move. I would never have predicted this tenderness in him. I finally turn over. Our faces are centimeters apart. Through my tears I crack a small smile. He just looks me straight in the eye....and says..."You're a virgin, aren't you?"
I return to NYC grateful to the Z-Man and slightly rejuvenated. I am of course, s little ashamed of my failed attempt at a raunchy, racy loss of virginity, but ready to march through life with a restored faith in man and, more importantly, in myself.
I sit on the roof top of my friends’ apartment in Silverlake, CA. Some of the people are on acid, some are high from smoking pot, and some are drunk (or wasted rather). It's a new year. A new millennium. I ring it in with cheer in my hand and a pang in my heart. I miss Doug. We ended it just shy of two years. I am loving California. It's my first visit. It makes me hate New York City. I work too much in NY. I am in debt because of NY. I dropped out of school just to stay in NYC. I am barely surviving. But, I am not an oblivious idiot. This is a vacation. Life isn't always a tab of acid and unlimited miles on a rental car.
I met Rob the Z-Man December 31st, and it's inevitable. We are hooking up January 1st. I knew it before midnight and now it is nearly 4 a.m. I let myself get into Rob's TransAm even though I barely know him. But, I joke inside my head that it's been a year. We met in '99 and are gonna finally fuck in 2000. But, when I get into Rob's TransAm, I am really looking for validation, intimacy, love, tenderness, and acceptance. He drives drunk and high all the way back to Sherman Oaks while the sun comes up. We get into his bed that is draped with black curtains boxing it in. This pad is made for fucking. He must know what he is doing. He is older, taller, leaner, and bigger. He is much bigger than me. I ask him to do it. I tell him to do it. I almost command him. "Just DO IT," I say. He doesn't even hesitate. He attempts, but I am tense. So tight, I can't. He keeps trying. It hurts, but I feel like I need it. He turns me over. I bite the pillow, clench my fists, and sob silently. "What am I doing here?" I might have even said this out loud.
I get it now. Maybe not in that pillow biting moment but what followed, I did. Everything happens for a reason. The universe is teaching me-to grow, to strengthen, to listen. I will get through this. Z-man hears my cries. He stops. He lies on top of me and kisses my ear. He asks me if I am okay. I nod yes. He stays on top of me ear to ear, brushing my right arm with his fingertips for what feels like hours but is probably a few minutes. He doesn't ask me anything. He doesn't move. I would never have predicted this tenderness in him. I finally turn over. Our faces are centimeters apart. Through my tears I crack a small smile. He just looks me straight in the eye....and says..."You're a virgin, aren't you?"
I return to NYC grateful to the Z-Man and slightly rejuvenated. I am of course, s little ashamed of my failed attempt at a raunchy, racy loss of virginity, but ready to march through life with a restored faith in man and, more importantly, in myself.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
SIGNS (Post #4)
January 1998
I felt I was ready for love. No one else seemed happy for me, or should I say, ready for me. I had moved on from humiliating myself in front of women to wearing my heart on my sleeve in front of men while hiding and lying about it. There had been the 30 something guys I lied to about my age. There had been the 80s fanatic Andrew who broke my heart. The closeted celebrity driven acting student who, shortly after toweling my cum off his chest, told me we could never be and he wasn't even "really gay." Then came Doug. The secrets Doug and I had to keep from everyone. It was so much work and pain. No one wanted us together. I fought and battled with Doug and with those smothering us. It effected my school work, my social life, my sanity--his too.
I came to this city to be myself. But who was that? At this point, I had people dragging me out of the closet. I had other's tell me my acting career would be over if I admitted to being gay. I lost friends who knew me when I was "straight." I thought bisexuality was safer and more accepted. I couldn't distinguish between which gay friend was truly a friend or which ones wanted to sleep with me. And I had people who didn't believe I was old enough to even understand anything.
This wasn't how I imagined discovery in the big city.
That night, I took the stage in a new musical called "The Human Heart." "How apropos," I thought. My parents were in the audience oblivious to my "other" life, oblivious to my strains and struggles. Oblivious to who Doug was to me as we shared the stage. Oblivious to the human-ness of my heart.
My character Sam was to committ suicide in the end of Act I. He couldn't take it. Sam couldn't last long enough to make it to the second act. He felt misunderstood and lost. His perspective on life left nothing at the next bend in the road.
Where was his hope and faith? Maybe the same place mine had gone?
Over the weeks of rehearsal and performance I had developed a very unhealthy connection to Sam and my own personal life's Act I.
So, the end of Act I approaches and as the music speeds up and crescendos, Sam pulls a gun out of his pocket and stands at the top of a wooden stairway with it pointed to his temple. The prop gun goes off and Sam is supposed to drop and dangle over the banister. Instead, my body began to shake as the gun approached my head. My knees were buckling and my heart was beating rapidly. Sweat immediately covered my forehead as the migrane made it's home behind my eyes in an instant. I pull the plastic trigger and begin to topple over the railing only to fall completely over and crash to the stage floor 8 feet below me. The sound of the audience was that of utter amazement of how real the suicide looked.
As I laid in a pile of sawdust and sheet music, the universe began to speak softly to me again. The signs were flashing before my mind's eye as I lay with my eyes closed. Love, too, was speaking loud and clear. As were the stage manager and a dozen actors, and I awoke from my brief blackout with Coca-Cola and aspirin being lifted to my lips.
The show finished. I didn't tell my parents about my fainting spell or my aniexty. I remained cool and collected as any actor could. I recall introducing Doug to my parents as "my friend." It was all too fast and far too brief.
But, I stayed in this life and in this city for two more years looking for Doug to love and save me.
I felt I was ready for love. No one else seemed happy for me, or should I say, ready for me. I had moved on from humiliating myself in front of women to wearing my heart on my sleeve in front of men while hiding and lying about it. There had been the 30 something guys I lied to about my age. There had been the 80s fanatic Andrew who broke my heart. The closeted celebrity driven acting student who, shortly after toweling my cum off his chest, told me we could never be and he wasn't even "really gay." Then came Doug. The secrets Doug and I had to keep from everyone. It was so much work and pain. No one wanted us together. I fought and battled with Doug and with those smothering us. It effected my school work, my social life, my sanity--his too.
I came to this city to be myself. But who was that? At this point, I had people dragging me out of the closet. I had other's tell me my acting career would be over if I admitted to being gay. I lost friends who knew me when I was "straight." I thought bisexuality was safer and more accepted. I couldn't distinguish between which gay friend was truly a friend or which ones wanted to sleep with me. And I had people who didn't believe I was old enough to even understand anything.
This wasn't how I imagined discovery in the big city.
That night, I took the stage in a new musical called "The Human Heart." "How apropos," I thought. My parents were in the audience oblivious to my "other" life, oblivious to my strains and struggles. Oblivious to who Doug was to me as we shared the stage. Oblivious to the human-ness of my heart.
My character Sam was to committ suicide in the end of Act I. He couldn't take it. Sam couldn't last long enough to make it to the second act. He felt misunderstood and lost. His perspective on life left nothing at the next bend in the road.
Where was his hope and faith? Maybe the same place mine had gone?
Over the weeks of rehearsal and performance I had developed a very unhealthy connection to Sam and my own personal life's Act I.
So, the end of Act I approaches and as the music speeds up and crescendos, Sam pulls a gun out of his pocket and stands at the top of a wooden stairway with it pointed to his temple. The prop gun goes off and Sam is supposed to drop and dangle over the banister. Instead, my body began to shake as the gun approached my head. My knees were buckling and my heart was beating rapidly. Sweat immediately covered my forehead as the migrane made it's home behind my eyes in an instant. I pull the plastic trigger and begin to topple over the railing only to fall completely over and crash to the stage floor 8 feet below me. The sound of the audience was that of utter amazement of how real the suicide looked.
As I laid in a pile of sawdust and sheet music, the universe began to speak softly to me again. The signs were flashing before my mind's eye as I lay with my eyes closed. Love, too, was speaking loud and clear. As were the stage manager and a dozen actors, and I awoke from my brief blackout with Coca-Cola and aspirin being lifted to my lips.
The show finished. I didn't tell my parents about my fainting spell or my aniexty. I remained cool and collected as any actor could. I recall introducing Doug to my parents as "my friend." It was all too fast and far too brief.
But, I stayed in this life and in this city for two more years looking for Doug to love and save me.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
SIGNS (Post #3)
May 1997
Only a few short weeks after my arresting token debacle was the end of the year party for my college. I had completed my freshman year. There was beer, pot, dancing, and sexuality flailing about and crashing into one another on the dance floor. Proud boys approaching me. Knocking on my closet door. Asking me to join them on the dance floor. I denied them all the while brushing their shoulder, hand, thigh before returning to the next girl in line to disguise me.
Later that night, in a drunken attempt to use the public bathroom in my dormitory, a cowardly boy found me in the dark and bravely made his descent into me. It was a crash landing. I survived. But, with injuries.
I awoke on my stomach. My cheek was drenched in my own saliva. I pulled my pants up and looked in the mirror. I left the 2nd floor bathroom with baggage.
What kind of sign from the universe was this?
Only a few short weeks after my arresting token debacle was the end of the year party for my college. I had completed my freshman year. There was beer, pot, dancing, and sexuality flailing about and crashing into one another on the dance floor. Proud boys approaching me. Knocking on my closet door. Asking me to join them on the dance floor. I denied them all the while brushing their shoulder, hand, thigh before returning to the next girl in line to disguise me.
Later that night, in a drunken attempt to use the public bathroom in my dormitory, a cowardly boy found me in the dark and bravely made his descent into me. It was a crash landing. I survived. But, with injuries.
I awoke on my stomach. My cheek was drenched in my own saliva. I pulled my pants up and looked in the mirror. I left the 2nd floor bathroom with baggage.
What kind of sign from the universe was this?
Saturday, October 07, 2006
SIGNS (Post #2)
May 1997
As Desiree and I were being hand cuffed, shouted at, and shoved into the back seat of a cop car on Broadway and 79th Street, I couldn't help but think that I might be able to get away with never telling my parents about this.
We were poor college kids (18 and 19 years old) desperate to get the hell out of the dorm (crack house) and create some sort of fun. We emptied our pockets. Collectively, we had enough money and tokens for two round trip subway rides, two huge cafe au laits, and maybe some sort of pastry. We chose to go to BMW's on 7th Ave and 21st Street. It stood for Beer Music Wine. But, they were also a cafe, so no ID check at the door. But, they had live music and it was free. 10:30p.m. and we were out the door and on our way to the subway.
It wasn't until after fingerprints, mugshots, 9 hours in a holding cell and a court date set for the second week of June, that I realized there was no explaining this to my parents. "Ma, Dad...umm I have been arrested, but it's nothing to worry about. I was just trying to save a little money. We pushed both of us through the turnstile on one token. They were undercover."
Now I would have to stay in NYC to attend court whether my parents liked it or not. I re-booked my flight, missed a wedding rehearsal dinner (that I was singing for), all for $1.50 token violation by two piss-ass-poor college kids. I sat in a diner with Desiree and picked at my cheese fries, ignoring the universe that was practically spelling it out for me.
As Desiree and I were being hand cuffed, shouted at, and shoved into the back seat of a cop car on Broadway and 79th Street, I couldn't help but think that I might be able to get away with never telling my parents about this.
We were poor college kids (18 and 19 years old) desperate to get the hell out of the dorm (crack house) and create some sort of fun. We emptied our pockets. Collectively, we had enough money and tokens for two round trip subway rides, two huge cafe au laits, and maybe some sort of pastry. We chose to go to BMW's on 7th Ave and 21st Street. It stood for Beer Music Wine. But, they were also a cafe, so no ID check at the door. But, they had live music and it was free. 10:30p.m. and we were out the door and on our way to the subway.
It wasn't until after fingerprints, mugshots, 9 hours in a holding cell and a court date set for the second week of June, that I realized there was no explaining this to my parents. "Ma, Dad...umm I have been arrested, but it's nothing to worry about. I was just trying to save a little money. We pushed both of us through the turnstile on one token. They were undercover."
Now I would have to stay in NYC to attend court whether my parents liked it or not. I re-booked my flight, missed a wedding rehearsal dinner (that I was singing for), all for $1.50 token violation by two piss-ass-poor college kids. I sat in a diner with Desiree and picked at my cheese fries, ignoring the universe that was practically spelling it out for me.
Friday, October 06, 2006
SIGNS (Post #1)
August 1996
With a grin from ear to ear but a heart rate of a marathon runner, I wait for my luggage at the baggage claim area of La Guardia Airport. I am not sure how I managed the three huge suitcases and two carry-ons, but I make it to the yellow taxi line with a look of utter astonishment. I made it to New York City. I was about to get into a taxi all by myself. I confidently direct my cab driver to my destination, all the while checking the cheat sheet my Resident Director dictated to me over the phone. I put the cheat sheet back into my file folder, toss the folder in the back window and gaze out as we drive over the Triborough Bridge. We arrive on the Upper West Side and I step out of my first NYC Taxi. There's a doorman and 20 floors of stories awaiting me. The driver slams the trunk closed. I tip him. The doorman asks if I would like a cigarette. I ponder my freedom to decide for myself and realize I left my file folder filled with every single important document an 18 year old boy from Iowa could possibly need in the back window sill. Documents that include my birth certificate, insurance papers, social security card, bank documents, traveler's checks, you name it. I leave my luggage at the front door of my building and proceed to chase the taxi from 77th and Broadway to 73rd and Broadway. I feel like I am running faster than I ever did while competing in high school. I jump the median on Broadway and scream at the old lady who is opening the door to my fate just outside Citarella. I scare her enough to have her raise her hands over her head as if I were to arrest her. I retrieve my files and plop down on the curb to cry and, also, to decided if I should listen to what the universe might be trying to tell me.
With a grin from ear to ear but a heart rate of a marathon runner, I wait for my luggage at the baggage claim area of La Guardia Airport. I am not sure how I managed the three huge suitcases and two carry-ons, but I make it to the yellow taxi line with a look of utter astonishment. I made it to New York City. I was about to get into a taxi all by myself. I confidently direct my cab driver to my destination, all the while checking the cheat sheet my Resident Director dictated to me over the phone. I put the cheat sheet back into my file folder, toss the folder in the back window and gaze out as we drive over the Triborough Bridge. We arrive on the Upper West Side and I step out of my first NYC Taxi. There's a doorman and 20 floors of stories awaiting me. The driver slams the trunk closed. I tip him. The doorman asks if I would like a cigarette. I ponder my freedom to decide for myself and realize I left my file folder filled with every single important document an 18 year old boy from Iowa could possibly need in the back window sill. Documents that include my birth certificate, insurance papers, social security card, bank documents, traveler's checks, you name it. I leave my luggage at the front door of my building and proceed to chase the taxi from 77th and Broadway to 73rd and Broadway. I feel like I am running faster than I ever did while competing in high school. I jump the median on Broadway and scream at the old lady who is opening the door to my fate just outside Citarella. I scare her enough to have her raise her hands over her head as if I were to arrest her. I retrieve my files and plop down on the curb to cry and, also, to decided if I should listen to what the universe might be trying to tell me.
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