| Journal & Weblog | Write to Save Your Life | August 24, 2003 |
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posted Thursday, November 28, 2002 Self-Conscious I stood in the long line outside of the club, bundled in a leather jacket and gloves. The night before Thanksgiving is somehow the busiest day of the year here. Our collective breath rose in a grey puff above our heads and disappeared into the black night sky, whispering of fog machines and warmth inside. I tilted my head back and downed the rest of a gummy-bear Red Bull. M was in Kansas and Josh was visiting from NYC, so I had come out alone to meet him, braving the warzone of the interstate, holiday crowds, and the decked out, gussied up chorus line I was now a part of — although it could be said that, despite the weather, the crowd was "gussied down" in sleeveless t-shirts, tank tops, and various slinky outfits as gay men are wont to do, even in sub-freezing temperatures. I pulled my jacket around closer and felt unusually overdressed. Despite my foresight, I was cold nevertheless and rocked back on my heels, buried my nose in my glove, and watched the pavement as the line moved lethargically towards the door. I had looked up for only a second. A familiar face drifted from the door and eyes that I had seen only in pictures for the past two years met mine. My black gloved hand reached out, blended in with the night as I waved and Josh walked over without pausing, saying my name with that familiar perspicacity, voice loaded with a sly knowing or a childish naivete depending on your mood when you heard it. He was drunk but coherant and explained that he was just leaving to get some sleep. Great, I had gotten there just in time to catch him leave. Programming my number into his phone, he said he'd call me this weekend, although I knew that in his state and with his track record, the next time I'd hear from him would be on some harried night, one, maybe even two, years from now. He looked up at me with those expectant eyes. I opened my mouth slightly, the question on my lips and he answered before I spoke. The rest of my friends were inside, he said, and I nodded to indicate I'd keep my place in line to meet up with them. Leaning in, he kissed me on the lips. I returned to the line and waved, smiling, feeling a little less self-conscious about being overdressed and alone, and headed into the bar to join my friends, much to be thankful for.
Road Trip The yucca plants in the Nevada desert grow tall and thick, bow under their own weight in a hasty attempt to reach the sun. They grow like trees, whereas here in Colorado they sprout small and stay small. We used to collect yucca pods on the walk to school when I was a kid. If you pick them at the right time — right after they've ripened and begun to dry — you've got a pretty nifty maraca. Pick them after they've dried and split and classmates beware! A good shake and you're showered with a spray of black seeds. M and I drove through the desert, through the mountains, cross-country to "the fertile valleys" of Las Vegas, seduced by the warm lights, warm air, and warm possibilities of much, much more than real life — a skin of glitz and glamour that floats atop the pea soup of vice and desperation. More than that, however, we wanted to spend time together. Tim was kind enough to meet us on the strip to show us a few of the more touristy things, the white tigers at the Mirage, the Venetian, the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. We gambled at the dollar tables at the Sahara and lost our money at craps on Fremont Street. As Tim quoted, the house always wins. We had a great time, nevertheless.
Fried Had a craving for fried potatoes this morning. Peeled, sliced, tossed with an onion, crisped to gold in the slick, new, non-stick skillet purchased for very meals. Weekend cravings for fatty dishes, satisfying base, gastrointestinal wishes for carbs and oil and salt, velvet dips into forbidden garners, Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, / The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn. And with those, fried eggs with pepper. Afterwards, hours upon hours of televised football. Indulgent, fat-fried weekend—and a potential contribution to the evolution of our species. Speaking stricty from a scientific perspective, of course. [I]t is not just changes in diet that have created many of our pervasive health problems but the interaction of shifting diets and changing lifestyles. Too often modern health problems are portrayed as the result of eating "bad" foods that are departures from the natural human diet--an oversimplification embodied by the current debate over the relative merits of a high-protein, high-fat Atkins-type diet or a low-fat one that emphasizes complex carbohydrates. This is a fundamentally flawed approach to assessing human nutritional needs. And: Indeed, the hallmarks of human evolution have been the diversity of strategies that we have developed to create diets that meet our distinctive metabolic requirements and the ever increasing efficiency with which we extract energy and nutrients from the environment.
Engagements  I don't remember the first time I felt the thrill of swiping that slick plastic card, that first, quick seduction, or the subsequent spiral that's lead up to today, but the history is spread out before me now, a paper chorus line singing my name. Finally deciding to do something about it, I lined 'em up, took aim and fired.
Don't worry, everything will be alright, "In the future, we will all be married to J.Lo for 15 minutes."
Tasty This morning I woke to an empty refridgerator. No orange juice or milk or yogurt, staple breakfast items of mine, and so I baked a loaf of crusty French bread I'd kept in the freezer and topped it off with some Strawberry preserves and butter I'd managed to hold onto. Felt like I was in Germany again. Carrying that memory with me into the day, I convinced my mom to meet me at a local German restaurant where we ate schnitzel and took pictures of her new grandson. I know, technically that would make him my nephew—or step-nephew, as it were—but I don't feel related to her new family, no matter what the law says, added to the fact that she's already technically my step-mother anyway. Step-this, step-that. Do-see-do. My family is like a square dancing convention or at the very least, a huge, spiraling staircase.
See you Space Cowboy.
Loquacious Transubstantiation Saturday's excursion to the mountains was met by an invasion of enormous, wet clumps of snow, appropriately forbidding as M and I made our way to what would be a Barmecidal timeshare presentation, replete with voluble, smarmy salespeople and ostentatiously decorated rooms. The trip was worth braving weather and salespitches, though, as we left with two tickets to hopefully-sunny, southern California. Meanwhile, it continued to snow. We were trapped in the stuff, held up for a night in the lodge across the street, making the best of it with a bottle of wine and relentless episodes of Trading Spaces. A weekend snowbound debacle was miraculously avoided by M's meticulous driving and a quick break in the weather, allowing us to arrive and depart with little trouble despite fear-mongering weather reports heard on our return. My fears of avalanches, snowy asphyxiation, or being stranded in wintry deserts, which would normally seem to serve as the driest kind of creative fodder, made for nothing but an interesting, angst-ridden trip. I made little to no headway on the book. As I started wondering if my priorities are jumbled, my days being doors that hinge on my word count or the latest downloaded dance remix or weekend plans with M or who hooked up with whom at the club this weekend, I realized that even though I may have grown soft on the outside, reliant on social superfluousity, my heart remains strong, tethered to the earth, armored, able to withstand harsh wilderness and grey solitude, the night of failure and the desert heat of truth.
Trading Spaces with Ty
Feeling slightly frivolous today as the novel plods along at a little under 3,000 words (last year at this date, 20,526 words). New hairstyle idea, inspired by Ty Pennington: three months of growth, texturize, blowdry, wax. Repeat as necessary.
Benefits of a Graduate Education My friend Cale illustrates the benefits of a graduate education with two excerpts from assigned readings that don't mean what they did when they were written: After my month [following childbirth] was up, my mother returned to Dean Street and I to my occupation of daddling after her, carrying the child with me, as I had the honor of suckling till I became a perfect shadow; and they were forced for very shame to let me off that duty, and get me an ass to suck myself. And: ... I turn and retrace my steps and come back to the winding road past the hospital, where at night in certain wards the gay student nurses dispensed a far more precious thing than pills to lucky boys in the know...
Punch it Out Writing is so much harder when you are content with life. No. Nix that. It should be said that writing is simply easier when the thunderheads of depression fill your skies, when the knives of breakups pierce your throat, or when the pull of life's undertows suck the words out of you, through you. Caffeine and music are medicines, but a well-rested, happy boy makes a difficult artist.
Burnt Pumpkins  The smell is smoky and sweet, not unpleasant at all, unlike the initial whiff of innards that wafts from a freshly opened fruit. Once emptied and carved, candle in place, the aroma that fills the house conjures memories of cold, dark nights. First prize for the contest is one hundred dollars.
I spent the day in prison clothes, fake tattoos, and a cubicle dressed up like a cell with black ribbons of crepe paper, and INMATE emblazoned in large letters across my back, which could be read by anyone looking in while I surfed through Textism and Metafilter. Abstracted, the truth is often scarier than fiction, although I don't feel imprisoned exactly, just limited to what I have. And, in all honesty, that isn't so bad I suppose. Truly scary this Halloween: the persecution of athiest boyscouts, the rise in syphilis, Focus on the Family, and learning there are not enough fish in the sea.
Chris Paul Is... Chris Paul is one of those farmers who migrated south in search of cheaper dairy farm land. Chris Paul is one of the top three point guards in the class of 2003. Chris Paul is thinking about quitting graduate school. Chris Paul is one of our favorites here at the DC improv. Chris Paul is in africa with his wife. Chris Paul is. Well, according to Googlism, anyway. (thanks Caterina).
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Like my fridge, the week has been sparsely populated leading to tasty, albeit less-than healthy television frivolity. Pizza for Monday Night Football, naturally. Last night, X Files and cook-whatever-you-can-find-in-the-kitchen. Frozen pizza and Cowboy Bebop tonight. I'm set, although you may want to help Jodi decide what to cook tonight.
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