Thursday, November 1, 2001
Novel Writing for Dummies
My novel sucks so far.
Well, first of all, that’s okay, because it’s supposed to suck. You’re just supposed to put down words as fast as you can. This is about quantity, not quality. Quality can come later. If ever. No, don’t even think about quality, because that will inhibit your quantity. And again, it’s all about quantity.
Not Quantico. Quantity.
Okay, the excess verbiage and random thought-spewing is spilling over into my blog. I can’t tell if that’s good or not. I try to use a certain amount of decorum here. I try to write nice, flowing sentences and I usually try to let each entry have a theme, not just random musings about my day. I try to let each entry be about Something Greater; I try to let each entry say Something about the human condition. After all, my god, people are gonna read this thing!
Anyway, did I say novel? If by “novel” I meant something that has no plot, rhyme, reason, or shred of imagination, then that’s what I meant. I’ve never written a novel before. And so, as this is my first novel, it’s turning out to be… come on, say it with me… autobiographical. All first novels are autobiographical, unless you’re one of those people who has a “stunning first novel” or a “stellar first novel reminiscent of Camus, Naipul and Updike all rolled into one.” (Blech. Mayonnaise and chili and peanut butter, anyone? Great tastes taste great together.)
I’m no good at plot. I’m not even any good at characters, apparently. What I’m good at is intellectualness. Writing about thoughts and concepts and such. Perhaps I’d make a good New Yorker essayist. Well, no, because they actually write about things. My thoughts are all over the place. I’m very internal-oriented, thoughts-and-feelings-oriented, not events-oriented. So not much has happened in my novel so far, except for the main character (a.k.a. me) basically recounting bits of his life through random memories. And I’m trying to type it at light speed without really seeing if anything makes sense. Or even has a common thread. My gosh.
Well, when you knit a sweater, it doesn’t look like a sweater at first. It looks like a glob of yarn. And when I’m finished, this is gonna be a damn butt-ugly sweater. Not even Quasimodo’s gonna wear it.
Anyway: 1,787 words down (the year of the Constitutional Convention!), and let’s see, that makes, uh… 48,213 words to go. Not sure what’s going to happen in the year 48,213, but I’m sure H.G. Wells will be involved somehow. Or H.R. Puffinstuf. But I don’t really know who that is. I’m too young for that. I never liked the Kroft Superstar people anyway. I was all about the Superfriends.
Wonder Twin Powers, activate! Shape of, a walrus! Form of, a bucket of ice water! Come on, Jayna! Grab the bucket with your walrus tusks!
Gleek gleek gleek gleek GLEEK gleek gleek!
Shape of, a novel! Form of, a piece of chaos!
A beautiful, ugly piece of chaos.
11:22 PM | 6 drops of oil Saturday, November 3, 2001
Flickering Lights
Last night was… odd.
I spent the evening with the Piano Man. I met up with him after work and we went to see a play near Union Square — rather, a series of short plays, under the title “Unwrap Your Candy,” by Doug Wright, who also wrote the screenplay to the movie “Quills.” They weren’t very good, except for the last one. Satanic evil babies!
Actually, on our way to the theater, I saw Mike walking past Union Square with someone. I called out his name, but he was too far away and didn’t hear me.
After the plays, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I didn’t get enough sleep this week, so I was pretty tired — which I told Piano Man — and I sort of wanted to go home — which I didn’t tell him. He suggested we walk around Union Square and get some coffee, or go hang out at his place up in Midtown (hint, hint). I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic about either option, which I also didn’t tell him. What was wrong with me, I wondered? Why was I feeling so lackluster?
We wound up taking the subway up to Midtown, buying a box of Entenmann’s Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies, and going back to his place. We took off our jackets, in a nice anticipatory mood. Then he checked his messages. One of his friends from California called, saying that “something had happened.” He called the guy back, and it turned out that all that had happened was that the friend’s ex-boyfriend had called. Oh-kay then. Piano Man told him he had company, so they ended the call. We settled on the couch and started kissing.
Then the halogen lamp started flickering like crazy. The lamp is broken. So he got up, got a couple of candles, placed them on the coffee table and lit them, and put the halogen lamp on low.
We started kissing again. But the lamp was still flickering. So he got up and turned it off and came back.
This was all very annoying.
Finally we started making out again. In the past, he and I had only made out with clothes on, because he wanted to move slowly. This time, after making out for a while, he removed my Oxford shirt and then the white t-shirt underneath, and eventually I removed his as well. Shirtless!
I wasn’t feeling very attracted to his upper body.
Then he suggested we move to a place where there was more room: the bed. So we did.
In the candlelight, we went up to the bedroom, which is actually a big loft-like platform in the middle of the apartment, with Japanese shoji screens (paper walls) cordoning the room off from everything else.
We stood there and began kissing again.
And I just wasn’t feeling it.
I don’t know what it was. It all felt a little too intense. I started to get all antsy inside. I think he’s more into me than I’m into him. Something about him bothers me. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.
We lay on the bed, continuing to make out. He removed my socks, and it was too much — thoughts started going through my head. Okay. For whatever reason, I don’t want this to happen tonight. So I’m going to have to find a way to leave. I’m going to have to be semi-honest here, tell him that I’d like to move slowly and that I should probably go home. I mean, that’s the truth. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s still true.
We continued to make out for a while, and my brain was working overtime. I thought of spilling out all my thoughts and feelings about the situation to him, but I decided that would be A Bad Idea. I was proud that I was keeping my thoughts to myself, because it means I’ve learned something somewhere along the line. A few months ago I probably would have spilled out everything, thoughts and feelings all, thereby either freaking him out or offending him.
For some reason I really wanted to throw my clothes on and leave quickly. But I couldn’t. So I slowly, gradually pulled away, smiling and kissing him; slowly put my clothes back on, and lingered around for a bit; kissed him again; we said goodnight and I said I’d see him in a few days; and I left.
Okay, that’s the narrative.
So what the heck’s going on with me? Have I had so much casual sex that I can’t associate sex with intimacy? Or am I just simply afraid of the intimacy? Have I looked down upon other gay men who have this fear of intimacy, only to find out that I have the exact same problem?
Is it his body? Am I just not attracted to his body?
Or maybe the feeling was just too intense. Or his feelings were just too intense. Usually, after casual sex, I want to get out of there, because I feel guilty or we have no connection other than the sex or I just want to be alone. Here, if he and I actually have full sexual experience, I’m going to have to hang out afterwards and possibly sleep with him.
Part of me wants that intimacy. And part of me doesn’t.
And I still don’t know him well enough yet. We met and then went on two dates in a week, then we e-mailed throughout his two-week vacation, and last night was the second time I’d seen him since he came back. This was our fifth time hanging out together. That seems like a lot. But it didn’t feel like enough. I’m still not sure how I feel about him.
There’s a bit too much… domesticity? stability? gayness? in him. Thirty-six. Loves theater. Goes to the theater all the time, in fact. Has a tastefully decorated apartment. A bit too gay. Internalized homophobia here?
Could it just be that the chemistry just isn’t there for me?
Maybe I still need to explore. More than three years out of the closet and I still haven’t really been in a serious relationship.
I fear I’ll wind up 35 or 40 and single. I fear I’ll be one of those over-the-hill single gay guys who still hangs out at bars but nobody wants to talk with him because he’s too old. I will be that way because I’ll have arrested my development. I’ll have realized (or not realized) that I can’t deal with intimacy. That I really don’t want it after all.
Here’s a great guy, we seem to get along well and have lots in common and have nice, enjoyable, semi-domestic, semi-unexciting times together, and yet even he’s not the one for me?
Am I going to be a perpetual explorer? The rest of my life?
I suddenly desire to be free again. To be able to cruise and explore and find that right combination of compatibility and sexual attraction. Haven’t found it yet.
We were walking around Union Square last night and I kept looking at guys. I couldn’t help it. I always do it, and last night I did it too. There were so many attractive guys walking around. And they were more physically attractive than he was. I wanted them. One of the joys of living in an urban area is the abundance of cruisy material out there. I don’t want to give that up! It’s my right as a de facto New Yorker to cruise! I thought, oh no — if we become serious, will I not be able to do this anymore? Will I never be able to look for anyone else again?
One of the joys upon finally, finally coming out of the closet at 24 was being able, at last, to say yes to my sexuality, to enjoy the fun of cruising and checking guys out and anticipating fun times. I don’t want that to end. Do I? Or don’t I?
Maybe I shouldn’t worry about this. Maybe it’s okay to be feeling all this. Maybe it’s okay to want to move slowly with Piano Man.
Even sexually.
It’s just that I can’t figure out whether my desire to go slow — sexually — is because I’m not physically attracted to his body, or because I’m afraid of the sex-plus-intimacy combustible combination.
But it doesn’t matter. In the past, my bane has been my tendency to worry and to question myself. So this time I won’t question myself. I will own my feelings, respect them, validate them, and will try not to worry about what they mean.
Anyway, my parents are coming over to see my apartment this afternoon, and I have a novel to write.
Gee. Do you think I have any material?
3:05 PM | 10 drops of oil Sunday, November 4, 2001
Content
It hasn’t fully hit me yet that I live here. This is my apartment. Mine! I can’t get over how happy I am in this place. Rather, I don’t want to get over it. I keep making myself appreciate it so I don’t take it for granted. I play thought games. I pretend, Well, it’s so great that my friend has let my use this terrifically spacious and beautiful and quiet apartment for the past week. Too bad I have to go home tomorrow. And then I’ll say, Hahaha! Surprise… THIS IS MY PLACE NOW! This is home! I can stay here!
I can’t get over it. It feels so strange to enjoy where I live. It’s been more than two years since things have been like that. When I graduated from law school, I came back up north and lived with my parents for four months. Then I moved down to Princeton, moved in with a random roommate whom I found through the classifieds. We got along horribly, so I left after four months and moved into my friend’s guest bedroom temporarily. “Temporarily” turned into six months, while my belongings remained in storage, but I always knew it wasn’t permanent. Then I got my clerkship in Newark, so a year ago I moved up to Jersey City into an apartment that I knew from the get-go I wasn’t going to like. And finally, a year later… here I am.
It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way. In fact, have I ever felt this way? This apartment is terrific. It’s absolutely terrific. I love my apartment, and I’ve never been able to say that before.
On top of that, I’m in an economy-proof government job. Also, last year I knew my clerkship had a finite ending date. This job doesn’t.
So I have an apartment I love and I have a stable job.
And where all that stress used to be, there’s now a big hole. I’m so used to feeling stressed out. I’m not used to not having to worry about things like this. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not quite convinced it’s real, either. But it is. It’s really real.
Perhaps these are things you take for granted, but not me. I can listen to the radio or to a low-key classical CD at night without interference from loud blasting Latino music or loud yelling people on the street or my upstairs neighbors. I have cable. Tonight I watched “North By Northwest” on Turner Classic Movies. Yes, I vegged out on the couch with the Sunday Times crossword and a plate of food and watched a classic Hitchcock film on TV. What a great evening.
As for yesterday: in the afternoon, my parents came over to see the new place, and they loved it. My mom kept fantasizing about how she’d decorate it. She had some great ideas, actually. If only I could afford those ideas!
After hanging out in my apartment for a while, we went for a walk. We walked around the park and took note of all the different brownstones with their elegant moldings. Then we went to this international food store in town. I’d never been there before; it was enormous, cavernous. I got some things and they got some things and we waited on line for an interminable amount of time. God, the cashiers are slow there.
In the evening, we drove to Hoboken and had dinner together. We wandered into this really nice, relaxed, and cozy restaurant, called The Brass Rail. Had a bottle of Cabernet. Our appetizers were fried calamari with a Thai lemon dipping sauce, and Phyllo-wrapped shrimp. For entrees, my mom and I split a steak for two and my dad had swordfish. For dessert I had an apple tart with caramelized walnuts. We had great, laid-back dinner conversation. And there was a TV over the bar, so at around 7:30 we slowly began to turn our attention to awful Game 6 of the World Series.
Afterwards, they dropped me off at home, and I wound up having a low-key evening. “Fiddler on the Rood” was on Turner Classic Movies. Then I wound up chatting online with a guy I’d chatted with several times before. He came over. We’d never met before.
We watched Saturday Night Live together and ate cookies and drank apple cider. Then he went home, and we ran into each other online again, and so he wound up coming back over here, and… uh… stuff happened. It was really really good, actually. My favorite body type, small and slim.
Do y’all watch “Sex and the City”? Remember when Carrie had met this great guy (the guy from “Northern Exposure”) who wound up buffing her floors, and while he was buffing her floors she ran off and had sex with Mr. Big? Remember how she self-sabotaged her new relationship?
I don’t think this is quite the same thing. I’m not sabotaging anything, because Piano Man and I have no agreement to be exclusive. Heck, technically we’re not even an item.
And yet, for some reason, that “Sex and the City” situation is coming into my head.
So that was yesterday.
Today I met up with my friend Nick at the Barnes and Noble in Lincoln Square and we walked up to the Church of St. John the Divine. Neither of us had ever been there before. Huge cathedral. I felt like an ant, like humans were supposed to feel back in the twelfth century when so many cosmologically-sized cathedrals were built.
I also called both Wes and TRHG guy today to see if either of them wanted to get together this week. So far neither of them has called me back. Of course in my paranoid mind I wonder if they’re sleeping in each other’s beds and that’s why they haven’t called. That’s totally not the case, I’m sure, and even if it is, I shouldn’t care.
When I met up with Nick, he was sprouting a new goatee. It looked good on him. Later in the afternoon, he suggested that I’d looked better with a goatee. I shaved it off two months ago, but now I might grow it back. I dunno:
Oh, here’s my novel so far. I wasn’t going to post it, because I didn’t think I wanted people to see it, but then I figured, why not? After all, other people are posting theirs. Anyway, some names are made up and some names aren’t, and my product so far has no consistency at all — I’m writing about one thing and then I’m writing about something totally different — and some of the grammar sucks because I’m typing and typing without looking back. Okay, apology over. I have no idea what I’m doing here; I don’t even know what my novel’s about or who’s in it. I’m driving a car at night with no headlights. I’ll either get home or I’ll drive off a cliff. I don’t care either way, as long as I hit 50,000 words by the end of the month.
So, yeah, I’m focusing on content. And I’m content. Haha, get it? The title of this entry? Con–
Oh, never mind.
10:07 PM | 11 drops of oil Wednesday, November 7, 2001
Politics
Well, it’s quite a night in New York City politics: Mike Bloomberg wins in an upset to become the next mayor of New York. What the fuck? Actually, I was thinking in the last couple of days that if I were a New York City resident, I’d probably vote for him. I don’t like him very much (he’s giving his victory speech as I type… *snore!*), but I like Mark Green even less. I think Mark Green’s pretty much a schmuck, he was an obnoxious publicity hog in his role as public advocate — but I just watched him concede, and I don’t want to kick a man when he’s down.
Still, I’m dubious about Mike Bloomberg. I mean, come on. Mike Bloomberg is going to be the mayor of New York? The mayor of New York City is supposed to be big, brash, larger than life. New York City mayors are supposed to smell and sound like New York. Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, even David Dinkins to a degree fit that role. New York mayors work their way up through the political ranks. Bloomberg… well, he seems like the mayor of Los Angeles, maybe, but not the mayor of New York. He’s totally colorless. Actually, he seems strangely like Barry Bostwick, who plays the mayor of New York City on “Spin City.”
Well, the race was tightening in the last couple of days, but frankly, I’m still stunned. This will all be interesting.
As far as my home state, hooray! Democrat Jim McGreevey beat Republican Bret Schundler, in what looks like a damn big margin; at this point it looks like the arch-conservative Schundler got only 42 percent of the vote. Schundler and I have the same voting location, actually — the Jersey City Public Library. I voted at about 7:30 this morning (for McGreevey), and I’m sure Schundler was there several hours later, photographers in tow. As for McGreevey, he gets to move into the governor’s residence, Drumthwacket.
And then there’s Virginia, my one-time home state, where Democrat Mark Warner beat Republican Mark Earley. (I voted for Warner in the U.S. Senate race in 1996, but he lost at the time to the incumbent senator, John Warner.) A Democratic governor for Virginia! Hooray for that, too! It’s about damn time. Okay, it’s only been eight years, but it sure feels like it’s been longer.
So that was the night in politics…
As for me, I finally got sworn into my new position today. All state offices were closed for election day, but almost everyone in my division had election duty, and those of us in our division who didn’t get election duty still had to report to work. I started my day by taking the train down to Trenton to get sworn in — which took about two minutes — and then I had to take the train all the way back up to Newark and go to my office. There was almost nobody there — just me and one other guy. No secretaries, nobody. It was really nice, actually. Very, very quiet, no distractions.
In the evening I had therapy, and I think I ended tonight’s session feeling better than I ever had. It started off strange, because, in a surprise, my therapist has moved into the office next door to her old one. I was sitting in the waiting area and she came out through a different door. Her new office is more spacious with taller ceilings. Hey — I’ve moved, she’s moved. Why not?
You know what? There are no problems in my life right now. This is so weird. I love my apartment, my job is tolerable and stable… what were formerly the two biggest problem areas in my life are no longer problematic, really.
I talked with her about the Piano Man and went from there into an involved discussion about relationships in general. I realized that there’s nothing wrong with not feeling as interested in the Piano Man as I used to be. See, I’ve been annoyed that I’m 27 years old and still haven’t really found someone with whom I’m in love. But my therapist helped me remember that I only came out at 24. It’s been just over three years since I’ve begun dating and having sex. If I were a straight person, I’d be about 19 or 20 years old right now. One wouldn’t expect a 19- or 20-year-old to meet the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.
And I was surprised to hear my therapist tell me that it’s okay for me to continue to explore and to hook up with people, as long as I’m always safe, which I am. It’s okay for me to continue to sow my wild oats and figure out what I want in a guy. To enjoy myself. I mean, I wanted Piano Man to be the one. On paper, we seem to have so much in common. As for a boyfriend, though — I don’t know. I just don’t know. And that’s okay. At the least, I’ve made a new friend.
I’ve realized that I’ve made progress in my social life in the year since I’ve moved back to the New York environs. I’ve met new people. My social circle has widened. What would be really great would be to be part of an urban tribe. I have several friends here now, but I tend to hang out with them one on one. None of my friends know any of my other friends. (Well, except for Wes and TRHG, as of recently.) I want to be part of a tight circle of friends, like I had back in college.
I’ve heard several people say that once you move to a new area, it takes about two years to develop a solid social life. I’ve been back here a year, so I’m at about where I should be.
Anyway — I left therapy tonight feeling so optimistic and so good about where my life stands right now. It all comes down to appreciating what you have and being patient about the things you don’t have.
Afterwards, I went to Mike’s place to watch a special epsiode of “Buffy.” It was a musical. I’ve seen “Buffy” maybe four times before. Sometimes I think I’d like to get into watching it regularly, but I watch “The X-Files” and I think I only have room for one offbeat monster-type show. “The X-Files” appears to be going downhill this upcoming season, but I’m gonna continue to watch, at least for now. Anyway — maybe I’ll give “Buffy” a more extended try. But I can’t seem to get into its plot. And everyone’s always talking about James Marsden (Spike), but he just doesn’t do much for me. I don’t get it.
Still, the show has great dialogue. My favorite line from tonight: “Ergo, the weirdness.”
I was surprised to realize that among Mike’s guests was East/West’s Mr. 7500, the Jersey City recipient of a pizza! Wow, the memories. Anyway, he and I wound up riding the PATH back to Jersey City together after hanging around at Mike’s to watch the election returns for a couple of hours. It turns out he reads my blog. So, Jersey City Pizza Recipient, you’re probably reading this.
Thanks for the goatee feedback, everyone. I was thinking I’d be Clintonesque about it, like taking a poll to decide where I should go on vacation. I appreciate the feeback and I’ll make my decision shortly. Aw, who’m I kidding? It’ll take me forever to decide.
Finally, I took my novel-in-progress off the site. I decided I was feeling a little uncomfortable about leaving it up there for all to see. I’d say it was a political decision, but that would only mean I was trying to bring this entry full circle. And that would be lame.
2:03 AM | 5 drops of oil Thursday, November 8, 2001
Ugh
Alcohol… pizza… Wes… sex… too much alcohol… I think I’ll stay home tomorrow… feel really really bad… too much alcohol… Wes… hottie… sex… we both think the other is totally hot… I feel awful… not mentally, just physically, because of the alcohol… ugh… too much… it’s been a long time since I’ve had this much to drink… Wes walked me back to my place (four blocks from his place… we got naked… hottie… what a night… too much to drink… ugh…
Nite… I hope…
1:44 AM | 3 drops of oil Changing Your Algebra
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Close parentheses. Whew! That had been annoying me. You know I’m drunk when I forget to close the parentheses. Remember, kids, don’t drink and blog. This message brought to you by BADB (Bloggers Against Drunk Blogging).
So I’m home today, taking a sick day, because — well, because I was feeling sick this morning. Anyway, now that I’m sober, I can write about last night.
I’d called Wes a few days ago to see if he wanted to hang out some night this week. We decided on Wednesday. I wanted to do something low-key and inexpensive, so I suggested we just hang out and make some dinner and rent a movie. Okay, who am I kidding? I didn’t just want to do something low-key and inexpensive. I wanted to get into his pants.
We decided that we’d hang out at his place and use this coupon for a free Domino’s pizza, which was part of a welcome packet I got from the U.S. Postal Service after I moved into my new place.
So, after making sure I looked good — clean-shaven, wearing my contact lenses, my pull-over shirt tucked into my jeans — I walked over to his place, just five minutes away.
He came down to let me in to his apartment. He was wearing a white undershirt tucked into a pair of jeans. He looked great and totally sexy.
We went up to his apartment, and it was the first time I’d been there since the end of August. I can’t believe it had been that long.
From the get-go, he was plying me with alcohol. He offered me something to drink, so I had a beer. He did, too. We hung out for a while, talking and so forth. We wound up talking about porn for some reason. Wes told me he didn’t like porn. How could you not like porn, I asked? He said it’s because the guys are so ugly. “Yeah, in straight porn,” I said, “but not in gay porn.” It turned out he’d never seen gay porn before. Wes has never seen gay porn! Can you believe it?
I could feel sexual energy going on. I mean, we were talking about gay porn. But neither of us was really acknowledging it.
We ordered the pizza. He put on a long-sleeve shirt over his undershirt and we walked down to the local market and got some salad, then came back and turned on the TV. Soon the pizza came, and then he offered me another beer (which I took) and we settled in for an evening of pizza and salad and TV.
He has a two-person couch and an easy chair with a footstool. I went over to sit on the two-person couch, but he, disappointingly, sat in the easy chair across the room. Darn.
We watched “Dawson’s Creek” (or “Dawson’s Crack,” as Wes calls it). Jack the Gay Guy was having problems balancing his boyfriend with his fraternity pledge duties. After that, we watched “The West Wing,” which Wes had never seen before. He liked it.
By this point I think I was on my third beer.
Then we watched “South Park,” which neither of us had seen in a long time.
Now I was on either my fourth drink or my fifth drink. I think it was my fourth. It was a Jim Beam and ginger ale.
I knew where I wanted to take things.
“So, be honest,” I said to him. “Do you think I look better with the goatee or without the goatee?”
“Oh, no question, you definitely look better without it,” he said.
We were sitting in our respective seats again. “So what’s been going on in your life?” he said to me.
So I wound up telling him about the Piano Man and how I don’t think I’m really into him, and how I’ve decided that if I meet a guy that I want to date, that’s great, but in the meantime (hint, hint) I’m totally into just having fun with people. I said, “I mean, take you and me. You and I have decided we don’t really want to date each other, but like, I still think you’re totally hot.”
He told me he still thinks I’m attractive, too, and he said he’s decided he just wants to have to fun with people also. Actually, it turns out that he met someone in a bar a few weeks ago that he’s really into — they both like cars and sports and he’s cute and whatnot — but Wes isn’t sure he wants to be exclusive with someone yet. Wes, one must remember, has even less gay experience than I do. He’s 27, like me, but he really only started acknowledging his gayness in the last year or so. He had a fraternity brother whom he used to fool around with, but he’s never really had an extensive relationship with someone.
We got up so he could fix us some more drinks. He poured me my second Jim Beam and ginger ale and he poured himself his second vodka tonic.
We went to sit down again, but this time, instead of going over to the couch, I sat on the footstool, directly facing him on the easy chair. We continued to talk about his fraternity brother and our sexual pasts and so forth, and I oh-so-casually began easing my thigh up against his, and then resting it against his, and then nonchalantly putting my hand on his thigh, as if I didn’t even notice what I was doing. We were still talking, and as we talked, I really casually moved my hand up his thigh, and then it wound up underneath his long-sleeve shirt, stroking his chest all over, with only his undershirt in the way. The whole time we were still talking. It was so casual, like, “Hey, how’d my hand get there?” Kinda neat.
Finally we stopped talking. I stood up and I leaned down and kissed him. Bam! Electricity. This was the first time we’d kissed in two months.
It continued. We wound up on the couch, enjoying ourselves, still kissing and doing whatever and talking. It turns out that he thinks TRHG is cute, but he feels bad because he hasn’t gotten around to calling him. An at another point he said to me, “I have sort of a confession.” It turns out that a few weeks ago, he wound up calling Sean, the guy whom he openly flirted with right in front of me at the Phoenix that horrible night. They met up and wound up hooking up. Now, I don’t know if this was before Wes and I had the talk about not dating each other anymore, or after we had the talk. If it was before, that somehow feels insidious, even though it’s not. But his word choice was interesting, wasn’t it: confession. That was his word, not mine…
Actually, I was surprised at how little the news bothered me. I think it failed to bother me because Wes happened to be hooking up with me at the moment. Isn’t this what I’d wanted? Obviously, even if he was hooking up with other guys, he was still into me.
And then it happened. I started to feel really ill. I’d had too much to drink, too quickly. I got up and went to Wes’s bathroom and shut the door and I leaned over the porcelain god. My gosh, it had been ages since I’d done something like this.
It wasn’t too bad, actually. There was only a tiny amount of toxin to get rid of. It could have been worse. It was really quick, and then I rinsed out my mouth nice and good.
I walked out of the bathroom and said, dizzily, “I feel really awful… I think I should go home now.”
He insisted on walking me home, which was nice of him.
So we put on our jackets and he walked me the five-minute walk back to my building. He wound up coming up to my apartment with me.
He gave me a hug, and then we were at it again.
Kissing. Me on my knees. Down with his pants. Over to my couch, off with his shirt, off with my shirt, off with everything. Then over to the bedroom.
It was DAMN fun.
As we were rolling around, we were still talking. He wanted me to tell him dirty stories. Well this was new! He’d never expressed interest in that before. So I was telling him things. As I look back, at first it seems like we weren’t on my bed for very long, but if we did all this talking, maybe it was longer than I’d thought.
And he told me something that made me feel great. He said that Sean had had a really weird dick, not a nice one at all. And then he was totally contrasting it with mine. Complimenting me on it over and over, calling it beautiful… wow.
I guess it’s totally worth it to find a good mohel. Whoever mine was, thank you thank you thank you! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.
Okay, I can’t believe I’m writing about that.
What did make me uneasy was that he asked me, more than once, mind you, what TRHG’s dick looks like. Sigh… fine. So hook up, both of you, as long as I can still have dibs on both of you too.
Finally it ended. I was too woozy to reach any sort of completion, but he had no trouble. Afterwards I gave him a much-needed towel. Then we put our clothes back on and we said that this was really fun and that we’ll have to do this again. And then we kissed again and he went home. Today he’s off for a four-day Homecoming Weekend at his old college.
After he left, I went online and blogged and IM’d briefly with Queerscribe and with Choire, who apparently has quite the goods on me now!
You know, I really had a fun night with Wes. There’s a lot to be said for seduction. This was my most enjoyable sex with him since the night we met. There seemed to be all these undertones to everything. And I think he and I both totally needed this. It was, like, life-affirming sex. We both seemed so uninhibited, which didn’t really happen when we were still kind of dating each other. We knew beforehand that this didn’t have to Mean Anything. We knew we were just plain old enjoying ourselves, having fun. Damn good fun.
In writing and thinking about last night, I keep coming back to an entry I wrote during the early weeks of The Tin Man. I was thinking particularly about the latter half of that entry, but now that I’ve reread it, I see that the whole thing is relevant. Read for yourself.
Wow. Fun is so great.
3:18 PM | 2 drops of oil Sunday, November 11, 2001
Loathing and Crushing
I could kick myself for missing Andy’s show last night. According to him and him, it was fabulous. Unfortunately, I can’t go to the next performance, which is next Friday night, because I’ll be in D.C. for a college friend’s wedding. Andy, I hope you do even more performances, so I can see you for myself.
It’s been a weekend of random blogger encounters. I ran into Sparky not once but twice — at the Phoenix on Friday night and then at Hole (formerly the Fat Cock) last night. I also saw Julian at the Phoenix, cowboy-hatted, and I saw Andy, fresh off his performance, at Hole, as well as Michael.
Before going to Hole last night, I had dinner with my friend Arch and a few other people at Cookies and Cous Cous, a small Middle Eastern restaurant on Thompson Street, north of Bleecker. It was a great meal, for so many reasons. Five articulate gay men, a meal at a late hour, a cozy corner table, and one of the best burgers I’d ever had — on a squishy homemade roll.
One of my dinner companions was this friend of Arch’s whom I’d met two or three times before, and I’ve decided I have a full-fledged crush on him. Physically, he’s the guy I’ve always dreamed of marrying: totally clean-cut, short conservative hair, glasses, cute teeth. At UVA I had a longtime crush on a guy with a similar look. Unfortunately, this guy is kind of a space cadet and it doesn’t seem like we have much in common. I told Arch that I had a crush on him, and Arch discouraged me from pursuing it, for the same reasons I’ve just mentioned.
We left the restaurant and walked over to Hole, where, as planned, we ran into Sean. Sean, you may or may not recall, is the guy with whom Wes was flirting on that now-legendary (to me) night at the Phoenix two months ago, the night that was the beginning of the end for us. As I wrote the other night, he and Wes eventually wound up meeting, and hooking up, and Wes told me that the guy has a really weird dick.
Last night was the first time I’d seen Sean since that night. I knew I was going to see him at some point last night, and I tried to prepare myself for it. I didn’t know what I was going to feel. But I told myself I’d play it totally cool and happy.
You know, I don’t usually loathe people. But I really think I loathe Sean. He’s a queeny, flirty airhead. It’s not that a purse falls out when he opens his mouth. It’s that a really stupid purse falls out when he opens his mouth. I think I should call him Bubbles. I hate listening to him speak, I don’t like how he dresses, I don’t like the fact that he flirted with my date right in front me when he knew we were on a date, I don’t like the fact that he gave my date his phone number, right in front of me. I just really can’t stand the guy. We all need someone to loathe, right? I think I’ll use him as my golem and just pile all my frustrations onto him. Yeah.
Anyway, I pretty much avoided him last night. I did have an enjoyable moment when I looked at him and thought to myself, there you are, Sean, standing there, acting all cool, but I know your secret: you’ve got a really weird dick.
I also got to point him out to Sparky and Andy, without him knowing it, which was kind of fun.
If he only knew he were a blog celebrity.
My cute bespectacled crush guy wound up leaving the bar a bit early, and eventually I left as well. I would up going over to the Phoenix for about five minutes, and then I came home. Not a thrilling night. But it’s always best to focus on the good things, and I did have a really terrific dinner with some nice people.
So now here I am, it’s 5:00 on a Sunday afternoon and I’ve done nothing today except get up late, read most (not even all yet) of the Sunday New York Times, and do some grocery shopping, and blog, and now it’s practically dark. I have tomorrow off for Veteran’s Day (yay being a government employee), but I can already feel the weekend slipping away. I’m going shopping with my mom tomorrow to buy stuff for my apartment. I think I’m going to go out tonight, although I’m not sure where. But the last time I went out on a Sunday night of a three-day weekend, I met Piano Man, so you never know what can happen.
There are moments when I feel like I’m sitting at home wasting time when I could be out and about. At some of those times, I ask myself, “Where would I really like to be right now?” and if it’s at all practical, I’ll go there. Unfortunately, right now I’d like to be visiting the Panorama of the City of New York, which is at the Queens Museum of Art out in Flushing, but it closes at 5 and I wouldn’t be able to make it out there in time. Really, I didn’t plan my Sunday very well.
Last year — around this same weekend, in fact — I took the 7 train out to the QMA in Flushing Meadows Park and saw the Panorama, which I’d always wanted to see. It’s a scale model of the ENTIRE city, all five boroughs, in great detail: skyscrapers, other buildings, bridges, streets, parks, airports, and so on. It’s amazing, it’s beyond words. If you’ve never seen it, you should.
By the way, I’m hopelessly behind on my novel. I haven’t touched it in five days, which means I’m about 10,000 words behind. I’ll never finish on time.
Anyway — if you go out tonight, maybe you’ll see me at a bar. I really wish more people had Veteran’s Day off.
And I wish I didn’t feel like time were slipping away.
5:09 PM | 1 drop of oil Monday, November 12, 2001
Mamma Mia/My Mom
Today was Veteran’s Day, so — being a government employee — I had the day off. My mom and I had made plans to go shopping for apartment items: rugs, curtains, kitchen things, stuff to put on the walls.
At about 10:30 in the morning, my phone rang. I figured it would be her. “Are you watching the news?” she said. My first thought was, Oh, shit. They’ve done something to us again, haven’t they.
You know you’re living in a transformed world when a plane crashes two rivers away from you and it seems like just another disaster. You can’t find enough psychic room to focus on it, because that whole part of your psyche has been taken up by other things.
Strange how, upon hearing that it wasn’t a terrorist attack, a plane crash seems refreshingly normal.
Strange how, these days, it would seem normal even if it were a terrorist attack.
Strange how I can’t find room to feel how horrible it is, even though I know it is.
When I got to the PATH station at about 11:00 this morning to go to Newark –from which I’d take the bus to my parents’ house — there was yellow police tape across all the station entrances. They’d shut down the PATH lines. Fifteen minutes later, they removed the tape and I could go on my way.
I had a great day with my mom. We went to a diner. We went shopping. We bought a couple of rugs, a paper towel holder, a toaster, a spatula, and a few things to put on my walls. I got to run around the backyard with the puppy and watch her run after things that I threw.
My mom and my dad had plans to see Mamma Mia tonight, the new-to-Broadway musical that is basically a vehicle for ABBA songs, but my dad wasn’t too keen on going. I said I’d be happy to go in his place. He was fine with that. So in the late afternoon my mom drove me and my stuff home, and then we went into Manhattan, had dinner, and saw the show.
I enjoyed it. It was a confection, pure sugar, but it was fun and energetic and charming and there were hot shirtless guys. That’s always a good thing.
When I think of ABBA, I picture a gay British teenager moping alone in his bedroom with the door closed. I don’t know why.
I don’t know ABBA too well — at least I didn’t think I did. But there were so many songs to which my response was, “Oh, I know this one! I didn’t know ABBA did it.” Apparently a large chunk of the audience knew the band better than I did, because a character would sing the first line of a song and then half the audience would begin either clapping or laughing at the way the song had been worked into the show.
Afterwards, after a long, enjoyable day, my mom and I parted ways, and I went home.
I feel like I took a lot more from my mom today than I gave. I wish I’d at least paid for dinner tonight. I’ve never taken one of my parents out to dinner before, but I wish I’d done so tonight. Had I not been worried about my finances, I would have.
Why do I often wish I were still a kid? Why do I want to spend time with my mom and yet I lust after men? Why does my mom have to be the only woman in my life? Am I gay because I want to shirk responsibility and commitment? Is it possible that I can’t find a man because I’m only meant to sleep with them, not spend my life with them?
Sometimes, when I have a great time with my mom, I wish I were straight.
My mom is the most important woman in my life. Sometimes I wish I could say that that’s only temporary, that someday, some great woman will come along to displace her.
Sometimes I wish I could find a guy who’s just like my mom.
Sometimes I wish I could find an adult relationship.
Sometimes I wonder if being gay is a copout.
Sometimes I wish I were straight.
11:55 PM | 6 drops of oil Tuesday, November 13, 2001
Here Comes Buffy, There Goes Mulder
Okay. I’ve become a “Buffy” watcher, thanks to you and you and you and probably several other people. Tonight was the first time I actually set aside time to watch it — on my own.
It’s about time I hopped on board. What took me so long? I mean, this is such a great show! Not only is there magic and combat and excitement and great snappy dialogue, but the characters are multidimensional. Here it is, Season 6 and now I’m starting to watch regularly. I hope the show lasts a few more seasons so I can settle in for a while.
My newfound Buffyness does not seem incompatible with my long-standing slavish devotion to “The X-Files,” which began its ninth (yes, ninth) season on Sunday night. Yes, we have entered that one-half of the year during which they actually run original episodes of the show.
Unfortunately, with David Duchovny gone and Gillian Anderson being downplayed this season, it’s not the same show it used to be.
First off — wow — after eight years, the opening credit sequence has undergone a major change, even moreso than the slight changes last season. Now we have completely different graphics, different fonts, and more people listed in the opening credits. It’s about time Mitch Pileggi was moved up there, which I guess they needed to do, because Robert Patrick isn’t as big a draw on his own as Duchovny used to be. And apparently there’s no longer a center of gravity: we’ve gone from two major players to one part-time major player and three supporting players: Gillian Anderson, Robert Patrick, Annabeth Gish, and Mitch Pileggi. Not to mention the additions of the always-scrumptious Cary Elwes (it’s the first time I’ve heard him speak without a British accent) and Lucy Lawless.
“The X-Files” seems to be turning downright lesbianish. In last year’s season finale we saw hints of Agent Reyes’s attraction to Scully; throw in Lucy Lawless and they definitely seem to be going for the girl power this season. Niche marketing, maybe?
The show has lost much of its charm, though. Really, there’s not much of a reason to start watching it now if you’ve never watched before; I’m probably one of the only people still watching, and this is probably its final season anyway. Chris Carter should have shut it down a couple of years ago, but then what would I do on Sunday nights at 9?
At any rate, it’s nice to have good TV reception again, and a quiet room in which to watch it. Ah, it’s the little things that make life grand.
11:31 PM | 1 drop of oil Wednesday, November 14, 2001
Overt Homosexuality!
Not much to report today, except that I’ve taken on a new AOL screen name: TinMan1973JC. No longer TinMan25NJ; that’s because I haven’t been 25 for almost two years, and, well, JC (”Jersey City”) is more specific than NJ (self-explanatory).
Oh — check out the New York Times’s special section celebrating the paper’s 150th anniversary. Lots of interesting articles, including an imagining of the paper’s first day, written by Michael Chabon, and lots more articles of interest to those fond of grand history and obscure arcana, as I am. My favorite old headline, a reprint of which accompanies an article on civil rights by Anna Quindlen (in the paper edition, at least):
In City Provokes Wide Concern
It’s from the mid-1960s.
Overt homosexuality! Good lord. This city’s gone to the dogs.
Anyway, I have the sniffles and a scratchy throat, so I’m going to bed. Nite.
—–
11:29 PM | Comments Off Thursday, November 15, 2001
Old Friends
My oldest friend in the world called me last night. We’ve known each other since we were three years old, and we’ve been close friends ever since. He’s practically my second brother. He and I are similar in so many ways — both bright, creative guys; born a month apart; my Hebrew name is the reverse of his Hebrew name; my first and middle initials are the reverse of his first and middle initials. I guess we were fated to meet.
Anyway, he called me last night to tell me that he’s going to be moving away for eight months. He’s going to be living in… Antarctica! For eight months! Holy shit. He’s going to be helping to construct buildings for the Raytheon Corporation and the National Science Foundation, at McMurdo Station. More information here.
He and I have followed completely different paths. I was Mr. Conservative: getting high grades, pleasing my parents, going to law school, scared of living; occasionally that life has been one of quiet desperation, or at least one of frustration. As for him: he never finished high school, never went to college, has lived in Boston and Arizona and then moved back here, has worked as a security guard, a waiter, an installer of home theater equipment, has written poems, has taken photographs, has taught himself to play the guitar, has written songs, has taught himself Spanish, has created geometric drawings, has spent the night in jail, has had his driver’s license suspended for marijuana possession, has gone mountain climbing in sub-zero weather in the Adirondacks and Germany, has hiked through Chile, has no e-mail address or Internet access. And now he’s going to Antarctica.
He’s totally Mr. Unconventional, and he’s always astounded me. He never follows a pre-set path; he never thinks about why he wants to do something. He just knows that he wants to do it, and so he does it. He’s so unlike me — I’m a guy who analyzes everything and can’t do something enjoyable unless I can figure out why I want to do it. He’s not like that. He just does it. Which one of us is doing more living?
Yeah, I lived in Japan for three years, and I had to deal with being gay and coming out of the closet, and I went to law school and I write a blog. But him…
Well, he’s amazing.
We’re so different, but we go waaaay back. We used to play with Fisher-Price Little People together. With Super Powers action figures. We went to Hebrew school together, we went to the UK together. When I lived in Japan, when I came back, when he moved to Arizona — wherever either of us has been in the world, we’ve always managed to get back in touch. Even if months go by without hearing from him, when I do finally hear from him it’s like we’re picking up from where we left off five seconds ago.
I came out to him one Thanksgiving weekend when I was 19, before most people knew. Turned out he’d already known. And he didn’t care in the least. He’s always been there when I’ve needed support, when my life has felt like it’s been turning upside down, when I’ve wanted to die, when I’ve needed a lift. He’s one of my biggest fans.
Sometimes we still get together and play Talisman — this old board game that the Games Workshop used to make. They don’t make it anymore — the company doesn’t even exist anymore — but I have the whole thing, including all of the expansion sets. And he’s the only person I play it with.
We’ve known each other for almost 25 years now. Practically our entire lives. I have no other friend like him, and I never will.
Tomorrow afternoon I’m leaving work early and heading down to Washington, D.C., for the weekend, where I will attend the wedding of a college friend. The groom is Catholic, the bride is Jewish, the bride’s first name rhymes with the groom’s last name, and the ceremony and reception will take place at a swanky hotel. The ceremony will be officiated by a priest and a rabbi. (Isn’t that the start of a joke?)
It’ll be great to see some old friends. Unfortunately, one guy won’t be there — my friend Doug, who died in the World Trade Center collapse. Another guy has decided not to fly up from Dallas, because his girlfriend doesn’t want him to fly. Still, most of us will be there — including a friend who’s currently attending business school in Paris — and it should be a great time.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
11:41 PM | 1 drop of oil Sunday, November 18, 2001
The Wonderful Washington Wedding Weekend
I’m exhausted, I have laryngitis, I don’t want to see my credit card statement next month. I’ve come back home from the Wonderful Washington Wedding Weekend. I had a spectacular time with my college buddies — much more enjoyable than our last occasion, which was the memorial service for our friend Doug.
Now here’s something really bizarre. Every day since September 11, the New York Times has been publishing short profiles of people who died in the attacks — a photograph and a few paragraphs that illustrate that person’s life. They run about 15 profiles a day. I’ve been checking the page every day, waiting for Doug’s profile to appear. Wouldn’t you know it? They ran it today — the day after the wedding, a day when he was supposed to be with us.
I wish he could have been there. It was a terrific weekend. The bride’s parents, who are loaded, threw one hell of an affair at the Four Seasons Hotel on Saturday night, followed by a big brunch this morning (much appreciated by those of us with hangovers).
Places attended: J. Paul’s restaurant on M Street, for a post-rehearsal-dinner gathering on Friday night. Madam’s Organ, a bar in the Adams-Morgan District (get it?), for the subsequent bachelor party, sans stripper. The Latham Hotel, where we stayed. The aforementioned Four Seasons Hotel for the wedding on Saturday night. The Eighteenth Street Lounge (ESL), for the post-reception partying (sans bride and groom). Back to the Four Seasons this morning for brunch.
Highlights: the groom booted in the cab after the bachelor party. (It’s a good thing the wedding wasn’t until the following evening.) The groom’s sister hit on my lesbian friend CanadaGirl. Four of us played a legendary game of spades on Saturday afternoon, in which my spades partner and I went down 200 points in one round because my partner broke his nil bid and I failed to make my own bid. (If there are four of us in a room, there’s guaranteed to be a game of spades going.) While playing, we watched the dreadful first half of the annual UVA-Virginia Tech game on ESPN (31-0 at the end of the half).
The ceremony and reception on Saturday night were black-tie-optional, so I wore a tux. I must say, I looked mighty fine. I can’t wait to see the pictures. The band was spectacular and the crowd was wonderfully energetic. CanadaGirl and I danced our way across the dance floor and had a blast. I can’t remember the last time I’d danced.
During the cocktail hour, a few of us learned that one of the guests was an old fishing buddy of the bride’s father who had had a sex change operation and was now a woman. While some of the gang tried in vain to figure out which guest it was, CanadaGirl and I spotted her right away — independently of each other. It was classic. Leave it to the gays to spot these things.
I learned that if I have a Cosmopolitan, a glass of champagne, a glass of red wine, a glass of white wine, another glass of champagne, a glass of Cognac, and a Crown Royal and ginger ale, I can get a really nice buzz going — as long as they’re consumed over a six-hour period.
So it was a great weekend. I’ve decided I love D.C. Even though I went to school only two hours away from ithe place, I never really got to know it well. But it may well be my second favorite American city after New York. I wouldn’t mind living there some day.
And the boys in Georgetown are cute!
I love this group of friends I have. They are the funniest, wittiest, smartest group of people I know. I laughed more this weekend than I’d laughed in months. That always happens when I’m with them. Damn — we sure know how to have a good time. The memorial service a few weeks ago was very depressing, of course, so it was nice to be able to get together for a happy occasion this time. It was reassuring; it reminded me that while we don’t know what life will bring us, there will continue to be occasions for great celebration.
With Thanksgiving approaching, it’s good to be reminded of things like that — and of friends like these.
8:27 PM | 2 drops of oil Monday, November 19, 2001
Something About a Woman
I talked to my mom tonight and told her all about the wedding this past weekend — how wonderful it was, how lavish, how enjoyable, and so on. There was a tone in her voice — she seemed troubled, or perturbed, or cynical, or something. You can tell when something’s wrong with one of your parents.
“I could say something nasty, but I won’t,” she said.
I knew what she wanted to say.
“I know,” I said.
“It’s just that it would be nice if it were my own child,” she said, having changed her mind about saying something.
So my mom, who’s seemed really accepting of, and pretty cool with, my being gay for almost two years now… isn’t. At least not as much as I thought she was.
But that’s okay, because I’ve felt the same way lately.
A confluence of events: boredom with random sex. Lack of luck in the relationship department. A weekend-long celebration of heterosexual happiness. Feeling emotionally close to my lesbian friend CanadaGirl.
You know, I can’t see myself marrying a guy. Sometimes it seems like it would be really nice to find a woman and settle down. And I’ve never had intercourse with a woman, and sometimes I think I’d like to try it. A woman’s hands are so soft when they touch you — soft in a way that a man’s hands aren’t. They’re sensual. Why not have some variety in life?
Not that I’ve lost my attraction to men. And I’m not going to become one of those people who says, “I’m not gay — I think about men only when I masturbate.” Men still rock, and I know it.
But women kind of rock, too. Not as much as men, but they still rock.
No, no, no. I’m not going to do this. This is why I stayed in the closet from 19 to 24, an asexual being. I was so confused. I didn’t know whether I was gay or bi or a straight guy who was scared of women, and I didn’t want to come out until I could give myself a proper label. I didn’t want people to know I liked men unless I was willing to commit to it — and for a long time, I wasn’t.
And even after I came out, it resurfaced. I got mono during my last year of law school, and my mom came down to take care of me for five days. I was dating a guy at the time, which she didn’t know about, and I didn’t call him once during that time. When my mom left five days later, he and I broke up, because he was mad that I never called him, and because I felt guilty about dating guys after my mom had taken care of me and bought me clothes.
I’m not sure where this is going, and there’s no need to analyze it. It’ll probably pass in a few days, and I’ll get over my cold, and I’ll get a full night’s sleep (fat chance of that ever happening) and I’ll want to have sex again. But as for settling down with a guy, and creating a life together… I don’t know if I want that or not. I don’t know if I can envision that.
Sometimes I really wish I were more into women.
Maybe I am, and I’m just repressing it.
Okay, there I go again. Stop that, self. I don’t want to regress again.
I thought I’d nailed this all down three years ago.
Well, I guess things are never as cut and dried as you want them to be.
Eh, this will probably pass.
10:37 PM | 7 drops of oil 11:06 PM | Comments Off Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Nothing On
Oh. My. God.
Do I do well for myself or what? Tonight it was my mom who didn’t feel like going to the theater, so with my dad and my aunt I saw the Broadway revival of Noises Off.
It. Was. Hysterical.
I saw the movie a few years ago, so I knew what to expect, but still — this is one of the funniest, most ingenious plays ever written. It’s a play within a play and it’s a farce and it’s slapstick and it’s sardines. Michael Frayn (the author) is a genius. And the actors are terrific. You’ve got to be way talented (or at least really know what you’re doing) to be in this play. And this production has quite a cast — Patti LuPone, Peter Gallagher, Faith Prince, Edward Hibbert, and five other people.
If you’re in the New York area and you haven’t seen it yet, SEE IT. I’ll probably do so again.
And one of the actors, T.R. Knight, who plays the stagehand Tim, is adorable as all get-out. I want to marry him. On the way out of the theater, members of the cast were collecting donations. He was standing at our exit, so I got to see him up close. What a cutie.
And then on the train home I was totally cruising this tall blond guy who was probably an actor.
Women? Was I saying something about women the other day?
11:53 PM | 2 drops of oil Wednesday, November 21, 2001
Playbills
This really has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, and it seems like such a Blogging 101 sort of post, but I’ve seen so many Broadway shows lately that I thought I’d go through my Playbills and take stock of them all. I have a Playbill for every show I’ve ever seen. Well, okay, I cheated a bit — for the first two shows, I dug through my mom’s collection a few years later and pulled out the extras.
Some Off-Broadway shows have Playbills, too, and those are included. There are only like two of those, though.
Anyway — for no other reason than the fact that I want to do it — I present to you my entire collection of Playbills.
No, not Playboys. PLAYBILLS.
Without further ado:
Peter Pan — July 1980
Barnum — January 1982
Annie — March 1982
A Chorus Line — December 1983 (my 10th birthday)
Singin’ in the Rain — February 1986
Starlight Express — June 1987
Coastal Disturbances — June 1987
Jackie Mason’s “The World According to Me” — September 1987
Anything Goes — December 1987 (my 13th birthday)
Phantom of the Opera — March 1988? (I know I have the Playbill somewhere but I can’t find it right now)
Me and My Girl — April 1988
Carrie — May 1988 (signed by Betty Buckley, Linzi Hateley, and Gene Anthony Ray — how much do you suppose this is worth?)
Broadway Bound — June 1988
The Heidi Chronicles — July 1989
Gypsy — July 1990
Jerome Robbins’ Broadway — August 1990
City of Angels — August 1990
Lost in Yonkers — August 1991
Nick & Nora — November 1991
Falsettos — May 1992 (first show I ever saw by myself… how fitting)
Guys and Dolls — May 1992
The Will Rogers Follies — July 1992
Conversations With My Father — December 1992
My Favorite Year — December 1992 (my 19th birthday)
Kiss of the Spider Woman — March 1994
She Loves Me — June 1994
Show Boat — August 1995
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum — January 1997
Chicago — March 1997
Rent — June 1997
The Last Night of Ballyhoo — July 1997
The Life — December 1997
Ragtime — June 1998
The Beauty Queen of Leenane — October 1998
The Scarlet Pimpernel — November 1998
Art — November 1998
Far East — December 1998
Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk — January 1999
Electra — January 1999
Fuddy Meers — March 2000
A Moon for the Misbegotten — March 2000
The Music Man — April 2000
Betrayal — January 2001 (ok, it’s actually a “Stagebill”)
Bloomer Girl — March 2001
The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife — July 2001
Tick, Tick… Boom! — July 2001
Proof — July 2001
The Play About the Baby — July 2001
The Producers — September 2001
Hedda Gabler — October 2001
45 Seconds From Broadway — October 2001
Mamma Mia! — November 2001
Noises Off — November 2001
You’ll notice it’s kinda spotty in the mid-90s. Keep in mind that I spent the better part of eight years in Virginia, though. You’ll also notice it’s picked up greatly in the last several months. That’s because I live up here now!
Anyway, this is nothing compared to my mom’s collection. Hers goes way back to the 1960s. Her collection is a treasure trove for any theater buff.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
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11:59 PM | Comments Off Thursday, November 22, 2001
Gratitude
Giving thanks is not something you should do just one day a year. But something about human nature makes it hard for us to appreciate things. We’re not good at noting the obvious. To our ancestors — running around the savannah, picking nuts and berries, and running away from scary predators — it was probably more important to note suspicious changes in the environment.
Okay, that may or may not be a load of bull.
But in any case, we’re a readily adaptable species. It’s easy for us to incorporate new things into our idea of normality. Case in point: the state of the nation over the past two months. The new becomes normal very quickly, especially these days. Whether it’s good or bad, our lives evolve to a new normal. What this means is that while we can get used to adversity, we’re still always looking around for something better, complaining about what we don’t have, trying to find what it is that we think we really need to survive.
Contentment would seem so damn easy to achieve, but we’re not wired to notice it too well.
Give thanks every day. You may forget, but try to remember.
In no particular order, here’s what I’m thankful for these days.
I’m thankful for my new apartment. This place rocks. After a year of annoyance, of high rent, of noise, of unpleasant neighbors, of a busy street, I’ve moved into an apartment with lower rent, on a quieter street, in a charming building, with lots of space and cable TV. I love being here. In fact, I’ve become more of a homebody lately because it’s nice to just hang out here. I’m so thankful I love where I live.
I’m thankful for my health. I have all four limbs. I can hear out of both ears and listen to beautiful music. I can see out of both eyes and recognize gorgeous colors. I can speak. I can taste. I can touch. I can walk. I can turn my head. I can blink. I can smile. I can breathe. I can run. I can exert myself with no problem. And my pancreas, liver, kidney, spleen, and heart all seem to work just wonderfully.
I’m thankful that I can afford certain material things. I don’t make a ton of money, and I have school loans to pay off. But I can afford to live alone, and I go to sleep with a full belly every night, and I have heat. Those things alone are worth giving thanks for. Also, I have Internet access, and a television, and I can see movies and an occasional show, and I can go to bars and buy a drink or two, and sometimes I can buy new clothes from the Gap.
I’m thankful that I’m young. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have said that 27 was so old. Heck, after I graduated from college I felt old — I mourned the apparent fact that the fun part of life was over. That’s damn sure not sure anymore. Twenty-seven is nothing. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, I’ve barely begun to live it, and — if all goes well — I have lots to look forward to in my future. There are so many people yet to met, places yet to go, things yet to do, thoughts yet to think, words yet to write. I can’t wait to find out what good things the future holds.
I’m thankful for my talents. I’m thankful that I’m a smart guy. I’m thankful that I’m creative. I’m thankful that I’m empathetic. I’m thankful that I have a particular gift for writing. Oh, and I’m thankful that I’m good in bed.
I’m thankful for orgasms.
I’m thankful that I’m a very good singer. I haven’t had occasion to use this ability for a couple of years, but it’s still great to know that it’s still there.
I’m thankful that I’m human. I’m glad I have the ability to feel emotions. And despite the fact that I publicize my thoughts almost daily, I’m thankful for the barrier of the self. I’m thankful for the privacy of the human psyche. That’s true of the human race no matter where you are or when you’ve been alive: employees with really evil bosses, Jews in concentration camps, Soviet citizens in the gulag, women ruled by the Taliban, whoever or wherever or whenever you are: people might be able to tell you what to do, but they’ll never be able to tell you what to think while you’re doing it. From this comes human dignity. People cannot yet get inside your brain. People cannot tell you who you are.
I’m thankful for my family. My parents may have screwed up along the way, but doesn’t everyone’s parents? I’m damn sure I wouldn’t be able to raise even one kid without some major trauma happening. I’m thankful that my parents have been married for more than thirty years and still love each other. I’m thankful that I had a stable, well-off childhood. I’m thankful that my parents recognize my interest in theater and have taken me to tons of shows over the years. I’m thankful that they recognize my love of writing. And my brother — I’m thankful that he and I are close.
I’m thankful that I like what I see when I look in the mirror. Okay, I’m not Abercrombie material, and I’m not musclebound. But I think I’m cute, and I have a slim, nicely-proportioned body with the outlines of some good musculature. If it were at all possible for me to gain weight, I could put on muscle, but on the other hand — at least so far in my life — that means I can eat anything I want and not worry about putting on pounds.
I’m thankful that I’m out of the closet. It took a long time, but I did it a few years ago. For a long time I felt like there was a civil war going on inside my body, but the two sides had a truce and I wound up a stronger, unified person. Life is so much better when you don’t have to spend so much energy hiding who you are. And nobody seems to love me any less for being me.
I’m thankful for living so close to Manhattan. Manhattan’s terrific. The last two months have reminded me of that. You can do anything you want. You can see so many shows, eat any type of food, meet all types of people. You can be whoever you are without being bothered. You can walk along the streets without knowing what interesting things you’ll encounter. Manhattan crackles with energy; even at four in the morning, you can feel the hum.
I’m thankful for this blog. It’s great to have a place to work out my thoughts and feelings and neuroses. It’s great to get positive feedback for doing so. It’s great to get messages from appreciative readers. I love the instant gratification it brings. I guess that makes me instantly thankful.
I’m thankful for the blogging community. I’ve met some great people since I’ve started this thing. Interesting people. Wacky people. Individuals. It’s been a fun part of my social life. Wow, bloggers are a weird lot. You’ve gotta have a few screws loose to do something like this — well, at least if you’re the type who rants on about your own life in public. If you’re the type who posts lots of links and doesn’t say much about oneself — well, then you’re much more normal than the rest of us. I love you anyway.
Well, that seems like a good enough list for now.
No doubt I’m leaving lots of things out. But like I said, it’s hard to recognize the obvious.
Try to do it anyway. As often as you can. Not just today.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
12:55 PM | 1 drop of oil Friday, November 23, 2001
Thanksgiving Day, and Television
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Jews don’t have Christmas, and Chanukah is actually a pretty minor Jewish holiday that took on significance only so we wouldn’t be left out of the holiday cheer. I always felt envious of all the kids who had Christmas. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, belongs to everyone.
Our family is pretty small, but at our house yesterday we had the largest group in quite a while, thanks to a Japanese man who works with my dad along with his wife and two small daughters. They were so adorable — these four- and six-year-old smiling Japanese girls with identical hairstyles and rosy cheeks. They got along great with my cousin’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. The three of them were running around, chasing each other, laughing together, and, in a sight that was as adorable as a teddy bear, Elmo, and a puppy all rolled into one, the three little girls hugged each other repeatedly. I nearly cried over how cute they were.
The food was wonderful. My mom’s an amazing cook. After the mushroom soup, the turkey, the cranberries, the stuffing, the sweet potatoes, the green beans with persimmon, the brussel sprouts and turnips and beets, we finished off the meal with several desserts including a pumpkin chiffon and a cranberry-pear pie with crumb topping.
Later at night, after a good Thanksgiving meal, what could more Norman Rockwell than settling down in front of the TV to watch a sitcom about an urban gay man and his bitchy friends? It’s been a few years since NBC last showed a real Thanksgiving-ish movie or some other television event. I guess they’ve realized there’s no reason to give up their regular crowd-pleasing Thursday night lineup. I actually relish the idea of someone’s parochial Grandma and Grandpa and corn-fed Uncle Jasper and Aunt Betty sitting down in front of the TV in Selina, Kansas, to watch “Will & Grace” together. “Hey Gert, what did that guy mean just now when he said he didn’t know you could actually use a turkey baster to baste a turkey?” Welcome to the twenty-first century, I guess.
Today I’ve been at my parents’ house, mostly vegging out and watching PBS. See, this weekend WNET, New York’s PBS station, is rebroadcasting the entire 14 1/2-hour New York: A Documentary Film, by Ric Burns. I’d never seen it before, but I came across it late last night. Because I love New York and because I love American history, I’ve been glued to the TV. It’s really a phenomenal project, and if you love this city I encourage you to see it sometime if you can. It’s on videotape and DVD. I immersed myself in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, in which about 150 people died, mostly teenage girls, and in which onlookers were shocked to see people attempting to escape the fire by jumping out of 8th-floor windows. (It was sad to remember that this documentary was made in 1999, when nobody could have predicted that people would one day be jumping to their deaths from the 100th floor of a burning skyscraper.) I watched the rise of the Empire State Building, the rise and fall of Al Smith, the New York draft riots of 1863, the construction of the subway system, the incredible energy and triumph of modernity during the Jazz Age, the stock market crash of 1929 — and the impact of all of these on the city.
It’s also chock-full of stunning views of the skyline — including, of course, the World Trade Center towers. Every time they appear on the screen, I mourn their absence.
And yet, while watching the long, engrossing paean to the Empire State Building, I realized that we’re lucky we still have that building. The Twin Towers might be sadly missed, but the Empire State Building would be even more deeply mourned were we to lose it. Thank God we still have it. I’ve actually found myself paying closer attention to it when I see it towering against the sky, say while walking through Greenwich Village — just in case it, too, should someday disappear.
Holy fuck, I love New York. I’m so glad I live here.
In a little while I’m going home, and tonight I’m going out. In Manhattan. I’m not sure where, but I’m sure this is a big weekend and every place will be packed. That seems appealing, all of a sudden. New York, New York — a hell of a town.
5:30 PM | 2 drops of oil Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Light the Tree
My mom is earning a master’s degree in a graduate art program in Manhattan, and tonight there’s a reception for all the students. My brother and I are going with her tonight (my dad can’t go). It should be very nice: it’s going to be at the Rainbow Room, on the top floor of 30 Rockefeller Center. Great views of the city. (Though I guess there’s no longer a view like this one.)
And, um, the Christmas tree lighting is tonight.
Yeah, right there in Rockefeller Center.
Um, I guess the area won’t be too crowded.
If there should be some sort of terrorist attack, well, it was nice knowing you. Please remember me fondly.
In the meantime, here are some fast facts about the tree. Here’s a live shot of the tree. (Right now I just see a man sitting in front of it with his eyes closed.) And you can watch the ceremony live on NBC, you know. (In the U.S. and parts of Canada, anyway.)
So, it’s been a few days since I’ve written, eh?
I think I’ve needed a little bit of “me” time. It just kind of hit me: why am I writing about the details of my life? How could any of this be interesting to anyone but me? I mean, who the hell am I, Princess Diana? And I mean, I don’t even know you people! It’s all really bizarre when you think about it.
Sometimes it’s nice to remember that your life really does belong to you and you alone.
I’ve also felt a bit stifled because I know with certainty that my parents have seen this site. When I was home over Thanksgiving, I found the URL in the Internet Explorer history files for a day when I wasn’t at the house. Apparently, one (or both) of them visited my site on Sunday night, November 4. The day before, they’d come to visit my new apartment and they’d taken me food shopping and out to dinner. I guess they wanted to know my take on the weekend.
I can think of two ways they could have found this site. One, I might have left traces of my own visits on their computer on the few occasions that I’ve blogged from their house. Two, one of them typed my name into Google and, with some detective work, they found the site. My parents are smart people. And I’d told them I had a journal on the Web.
Three, they know someone who happened to stumble across this site, and that person told them.
It was that stupid Associated Press article that did it. If not for that article, there would be no way of knowing I have a blog. Allowing the writer to mention my blog in that article was a big mistake, then. Gee, I sure didn’t get the mileage out of that piece that I’d expected: no increased readership, no interviews from Newsweek, no nothing. I did manage to reunite with an old college friend. Other than that, no good came out of that piece.
Anyway, from November 4 through November 23, there were no traces of parental visits to my site. Not from their home computer, anyway. I guess they decided that some things weren’t meant for them to read. Hehe. Yeah, they’re only for the rest of the world to read.
Or for about 180 people to read, apparently.
Well, mom and dad, if you happen to come back to my site: welcome. You might come across things that I didn’t want you to know about. I hope it doesn’t bother you too much. I am a human being, after all. At any rate, neither of you has treated me any differently in the last several weeks, so I guess either you chose not to read very much of my journal, or you did, and you read about things you now wish you hadn’t, but you were so damn proud of my writing that you just didn’t care — or you realize that I’m an adult now and that I have to make my own decisions.
At any rate, right now my relationship with the two of you is probably the best it’s ever been, so I guess it’s all good.
Back to my non-parental readers:
Watching Ric Burns’s documentary on New York City finally got me inspired to read a book I’d wanted to read for a while — The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert Caro. It’s supposed to be a masterpiece. So far, it’s pretty damn good.
I’m obsessed with age. Whenever I read a biography of someone famous, I compare myself to where that person was at my age, and I realize I’m woefully behind. Did you know that when Walter Lippmann was a college student at Yale, William James, the famous philosopher, was so impressed with something he wrote in the paper that he sought him out? Lippmann didn’t seek out James — James sought out him! And look at Leonard Bernstein: he stepped in to conduct the New York Philharmonic at the last minute and gained great fame for doing so — when he was 24!
You know, nobody’s ever sought me out. Nobody famous has ever recognized any particular talent in me and recruited me onto the path to greatness. My life hasn’t yet had that “aha” moment with which writers like to end Part One of people’s biographies.
Michael Chabon published his smashing first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, when he was 24. David Foster Wallace? Same thing, I think, with The Broom of the System: 24. Tina Fey graduated from UVA three years before me, and she’s already the head writer and news anchor for Saturday Night Live. Kirk Read, one of my UVA classmates and my one-time hallmate and confidant, has already written his first book.
Then again, when Harry Truman was 40 years old, he owned a hat store.
I kinda thought maybe this website could be a launchpad for something. So far, it hasn’t been. And my readership numbers have stagnated. No wonder — no contests here, no send-in-your-photos, no gimmicks. All I do is write. I don’t even write short, snappy entries; I write long, in-depth, sometimes rambling entries. If this were a book, I’d need a good editor. And I don’t even write about things that people care about. I write about myself, of all things. Are you kidding me? Who am I? Who cares?
This is one of the most solipsistic, inconsequential endeavors ever.
I want to do great things with my life.
Then again, I’m still young, so people tell me. But I’m constantly beholden to the illusion that my life is almost over, that all the good days are behind me, that the future does not exist — because I just can’t conceive of it. Jeez, there really can’t be that much time ahead, right? There can’t really be 50 or 60 more years of opportunity ahead of me, right? That would just be too good to be true.
And then I realize, wow, it really is true. What a blessing — truly a blessing. I have so much opportunity ahead.
And then I get impatient to get going with my life already. I want to do great things already. I think I have the talent. I have to work on the discipline and the focus and the drive, but I think I have the talent.
I just wish I knew what those great things were.
4:59 PM | 7 drops of oil Friday, November 30, 2001
A Night at the Rainbow Room
Wednesday night at the Rainbow Room was pretty great. Around 6:30 at night, I emerged from the subway at Sixth Avenue and 49th Street to see throngs of people packed behind barricades on the other side of the street. I managed to find my mom and my brother on a nearby corner, and we made our way over to the entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. (My dad’s been in Florida for a few days, so he couldn’t make it.) My mom took out her invitation, a guard looked for her name on a list, we all showed our IDs, and we walked through the lobby to the elevator, which whisked us up to the 65th floor at the top of the building.
Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, people I’d never met. My brother and I basically hung out together and made joking remarks about unfamiliar people. That’s always fun. He and I have similar senses of humor. I’ve never written here about how much I love the guy, but I really do.
But the best part of being up there was the view.
The Rainbow Room is divided into a couple of rooms, and unfortunately we weren’t on the side of the building facing Rockefeller Plaza and the Christmas tree, but that was okay.
To the north I could see Central Park. It seemed somehow truncated from this high up. I could even see the big reservoir in the middle of the park. To the north of the park I could see the continuation of Sixth Avenue, brightly lit — it was Lenox Avenue, Harlem’s wide boulevard, another world, a place I’ve never been. Far in the distance was the Triborough Bridge.
To the left of Central Park I could see clusters of tall buildings — the luxury buildings on Central Park West and the apartment towers of the Upper West Side. To the right of the park, the Upper East Side.
I wakled over to the windows facing west. We were on Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, and I could see all the office skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, and then the Hudson River, and then New Jersey beyond that.
But the most impressive view of all — that was to the south. The Empire State Building was 15 blocks directly south of us, huge, soaring into the sky, the top lit up in red, white and blue, as it has been for the last two and a half months. It dominates everything around it.
And then — to the right of it, but far, far away, all the way down in lower Manhattan — an eerie, pale white glow in the distance. No more tall, shiny twin towers piercing the sky; instead, something earthbound and dead and powerless. The crews have been working there around the clock for 11 weeks now, night and day, removing rubble. From parts of downtown Jersey City you can usually see the glow of the fluorescent lights. From lower Manhattan you can see it too, a ghost of what used to be. From this high up, though — especially after having seen