11:46 AM *

i'm drinking a couple of beers while i watch showgirls at home.

i'm eating chips and salsa for dinner, then popcorn.

i'm going to bed at 10 on friday, earlier than the weeknight, tickled.

i'm beating off under the sheets.

i'm getting up early and writing.

i'm writing about the fucking and the drugs and the unspoken affection.

i'm falling in love with the future.

i'm always falling in love with the future.

i'm impatient with the present, over coffee.

i'm high on caffeinated early morning air

and i'm pulling it out of the pen's pages.

 

9:56 AM *

she was breathless in her urgency how DARE you tell me i'm damned as religious fanatics usually are but this cracked-out person was instead yelling at the fanatic as if i'm going to burn in hell and you're not and i've lived here 8 years and this kind of yelling is one of only three things i cannot stand to listen to on the train how dare YOU judge ME except when this one was over the displeasure turned to wonder as if it's all in you're favor and not mine that is, wonder just a little.

 

1:15 PM *

he still lives in austin, texas.

he is still so very tan, always verging on burned, so muscular (with those luscious popeye forearms and chunky upper arms), still so very warm, and still such a good kisser, hallmark of someone who can connect. it's an exceptional pleasure to be able to return to an intimacy that happens once every couple of years, one that is completely dormant betwixt visits, in this place or that.

we've known each other through pictures since 1998, and i find it beautiful that our attraction is unfaded. if you were to click on the link above and write me, pointing out directly that that is because he and i have only been with each other fewer times than fingers on one hand, i would laugh at the message and quietly reply by changing the subject. like by saying "come a little closer and look at this":

one of the unique things about phil is that he forms opinions that have emerged solely from deply held convictions, ones developed through a great deal of examination and contemplation. his beliefs never appear to be affected at all by how other people feel about things, nor are they open for discussion or debate. despite what one may expect, i deeply admire this about him, because his ideas are truly his, no matter how peculiar they may seem to me at times. those beliefs came from him and what he purely knows. friendship with him is challenging yet rewarding.

if i were tempted by sophistry i might say that he embodies a texan spirit: fiercely independent in ways that would work differently in my eastern urban home, with an occasional 'this is a matter of life or death' tone, something inspired perhaps by objectivism but in the sense that the pursuit of personal desires are the ultimate goal. but this would merely whittle around a core of emotions and caresses without adequately describing anything about my friend.

last night, while he was dreaming next to me, he rolled over, leaned into my face, the sudden sense of expectation stirring me slightly, clasping my forearm, and pushed this word into my ear: GOAL. he later told me he has been struggling with what to do with the rest of his life. i was puzzled: at 41 he owns a very successful business that he runs from a tranquil living room. this entry is being typed on his computer there. he lives in a gorgeous, yet efficient, 60s modern courtyard house in a complex of said houses. he lives in a hot and sunny clime. his world is filled with light and glass. he sees his mother, sister, and oldest friend every day because they are all part of the business (and bonus they work in a house next door, close but not-too-close). what is there to change?

i was not looking deep enough.

i see the surface benefits of his life, and combined with my own fantasies of self-employ, fantasies as nebulous and as prominent in my thoughts as that white cloud contrasts this blue texas sky, encompassing the horizon in its long wake--forcing one to ask oneself is the blue your sky or is it the emerging cloud-edge?--i am unable to fathom what difficulty may lie beneath the luminous field. it seemed so obvious when he said that he has no time to write, no time for personal projects, no time but for work. and i can't shake off the feeling of foolishness at my lack of insight, and can barely admit it to myself, and can't blame our constant sexual tension, can't blame the lovely distracting affects of his playful dog, and can't blame the overlapping of unrelated thoughts.

after all, for the past year, at my job-work, i find my daytime desires to be nothing more than to be doing my own-work, spend my day (add it to my night), writing my insides, designing my buildings, building furniture ideas conceived in 1997, execute sculptural installations, drawing installations, buying lamps and fabrics for a client, discovering my city at all and different hours. i long to release myself from the constraints that encapsulate my self and divide my day and night, forcing one half of my city to be hidden to me because of the need to be in the office. the fact i could not recognize an identical impulse in phil means i have a lot to learn about my own simplicity. being his friend forces me to recognize those desires as animal needs.

 

8:54 PM *

despite what may be seen by some parties as an innocent attempt to preempt this entry, i have decided to write this entry.

i love TELEKON. because it has my favorite gary numan song on it: i die: you die.

This is not love
This is not even worth a point of view
In echo park I
Pause for effect and whisper who are you?

[dudley, hearing my admiration at my party a few weeks ago, alerted me to the fact that another of my favorite recording artists did a brilliant cover of the tune on a tribute album.]

and as such there are some undiscovered treasures: the songs that form a lovely arc at the end: remember i was vapour, please push no more, the joy circuit. these songs are unearthly and my cosmic mind has no body for 16:02.

it's the point where the synthesizers, the mechanized handclaps from "cars", the robo-voce, meet bongos, guitars played by people, piano with strings, and a leavened plea for someone to understand him, while at no moment releasing the anomie that makes an appearance from time to time to remind one that understanding another person, in any way, may be wholly impossible.

i think i've said this before: this weird, goofy, provincial, urban-living, body-controlled-by-convention-and-the-mechanisms-of-the-city child from ohio is also a robot. and yes i am laser, too, warm, bright, and sometimes able to keep my focus from here to the moon. so i can relate.

did i mention that my first DVD purchase was the remastered tron? well the sound is spectacular, and the lines that break up reality are crisp. almost as real as what i see underground.

 

12:18 AM *

first time: "hey. woah." recognized him at the door, standing in my way down the narrow, dim hall. "hey."

"hey cutie. it's been a long time"

quick stroke to my midsection, a touch i'm familiar with, or, to be more accurate: the sensation that stroke triggers is very familiar to me, although he's only done that a few times. no amount of years (two) interrupts his familiarity with my body. neither does the presence of his boyfriend.

"too long?"

"yes. you look great."

he touches again, this time using his hand for a little grasp to the waist. it would make me stutter to feel any more.

"thanks" for copping a feel? "see this" i show him the flowers.

"wow it's beautiful" touching my bicep with both hands, holding it like a vase, his back-bay-projects accent all over his fingers, all over my arm. he's warm and close now. i should be undressed. he should be watching the door to this place. he should be paying attention to his boyfriend, who is visually agitated by our familiarity. it is obvious this is not the first time this has happened.

i don't care. not because i'm not unusually sensitive to these things, out of consideration, but because i don't like his boyfriend, not because he's his boyfriend, but because he's slow, possessive, and making my old friend miserable. when you can get all that in two lines of chit-chat, my first impulse is to dispense with any regard and get to the goods. it's been a long two years, and i'm tired of fucking around. not that fucking around. i mean the kind that wastes time and energy.




second time: "princess." i knew i was going to find him here, so i was ready with something that would make him laugh. my friend and his friend are with me this time. the friend of my friend knows him too, and is visually agitated at our familiarity, doubly because he was the one who suggested this place. it is obvious this is not the first time this has happened.

"hey cutie."

the friends go ahead, into the bar. we stroke each other's midsections. we get close, but i'm careful not to kiss him, getting him excited by pulling away, eluding his grasp. it's for my own good. he looks as supremely toughish and fine as he did two years ago, when i first met him on ninth avenue, or as he did three weeks ago, when i saw him here. he lives in brooklyn now. i didn't know he moved.

"i need your phone number." there are a couple of guys chattering next to us, but not this kind of chat. they are talking too loud. and they don't want each other.

"i'll give it to you."

"do you have a pen?" i give him my card, get closer, touch.

"no. get one at the bar." i pull back, eluding grasp. he follows me.

at the bar, he writes his number on another of my cards. he rotates the card so that my name is upside down, and he writes his so that our names touch, me on bottom, he on top, but turned. if you have my card, you know how this looks.

my friends are watching this because it's happening right in front of them. i order a drink. he touches my behind as i order. oh, this is copping a feel. i should be talking to my friends. i don't want this to get complicated.

"thanks." for your phone number? "see this." and i show him my front side, kind of flexing my chest and smiling.

he grins, ear to ear, keeps taking quick glances at the door to the hall, keeps taking steps away, stumbling a little, visually happy but unexpecting my forwardness, and keeps taking quick glances at me, and heads out the door. that behind is still fine.

"you know him too?" my friend's friend says, trying to claim a little ground.

at times, there are opportunities in conversation that allow one to charge a moment, open it up to interpretation, give everyone who hears it something to think about. i took a moment to choose that phrase. unfortunately, the opportunities often are presented by those who will not appreciate the cleverness of the simple reply.

"he used to live near me" and i curled my lips.

 

ps all work in this domain is copyright chad the minx.