September 19: Creative Writing Group notes

I couldn't be more different if I tried.

I feel the eyes (of the younger guys mostly) checking out my pink socks peeking out from under my gray camouflage pants. It seemed like a good idea; the socks go well with my pink t-shirt. I should know that would look strange. Maybe I'll work my way into one of their stories.

Who are these people? Why do I have to feel judged? What does it matter? Two hours a week, that's all I'm required to spend with them. I spent an extra hour with them tonight at the California Pizza Kitchen where they gather after the Creative Writing Group every week, dropped $20 on a beer and a pizza. That seems a bit outlandish. Just to get to know these people better? I won't be doing that every week. Maybe a beer. Still, that's $5 + tip.

They're nice enough people. We're all nice; we're all freaks. Writers. Freaks. Same thing.

The moderator of the Group said something about my fashion choice being "Bold." Okay, so I'm bold. Is that code for homosexual? What if I had on a red shirt and red socks, would that be bold? Green? Black? White socks with sandals and a Hawaiian shirt?

He suggested I should wear sandals if I'm gonna wear pink socks. I said, "That wouldn't be very subtle." He said, "There's nothing subtle about pink socks." Okay, so we've established some ground rules. I guess.

We have to go over three submissions a week (though for the past two meetings it's only been two submissions for one reason or another), chapters from a novel, a short story, poetry, whatever we feel inclined to submit. 5,000 words or less. Less is better, they say. I submit next week for the first time. Chapter Two.

I feel a little worried about how they're going to take my work. How judged will I feel this time next week? I feel confident in my work; I think I'm up to the task.

But I don't know. I'm still worried. I wear pink socks and a pink shirt and I still concern myself with the fact that others are looking at me. Out of the corners of their eyes. I guess that's what makes it feel different. I guess I should appreciate the fact that B brought it up. The others wouldn't dare. I don't think. Not in front of me. Maybe to their roommates, maybe to their girlfriends. "There's this guy who wears weird clothes, pink socks, pink shirt and gray camouflage pants!" Yeah, that's weird.

So I'm a weirdo. My novel is pretty weird, too, probably, from their more conventional viewpoints.

One of the pieces we critiqued tonight was of the Women's Fiction genre, written by M, an African-American woman. The other was by DF, one of the younger guys. He calls his Popular Fiction, I guess, or something along the lines of what you would find in multiples across the front of a display case, hard back, paperback, at the checkout counters of grocery stores. I've only been to two meetings, but he has talked numerous times about being famous, making it big, writing his bestseller.

I can understand that drive. I used to want to be rich and famous. When I was his age (29), I was convinced that I would be famous in a few years' time. Star of my own TV show. So I can understand where he's coming from.

But I don't want to get sucked into his belief system. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm creating Art.

I wouldn't really say that with a straight face to anyone, but I heard myself having an imaginary conversation with someone -- perhaps the moderator -- him saying something like, "If you want to sell this book, then it has to appeal to X, Y, & Z." And I heard my imaginary self saying, "Hold it right there! I'm not looking to sell this book!"

What a crazy thing to say. And that's not exactly true. Of course I would like to sell this novel. Of course I would enjoy seeing it stacked up on the New Releases table. But that's not my drive. I don't want that to be my drive.

I feel like I worked hard to do a good job of critiquing these peoples' work. I read through the submissions fully at least three times, wrote notes, marked things, tried to stay away from making suggestions that seemed like they were saying that's the way I think it should be.

That's all it is, though, my opinion. I was nervous about giving my opinions. Not that the person would think I was a freak (that was already obvious by my outfit), but that I might hurt their feelings in some other completely unrelated way, say something that was way out of line.

But on the other hand, I imagined them (or DF, at least) taking my hard work on his submission and simply dismissing it. Maybe because that's what I'll have to do with their comments on my submission next week!

I can't imagine these people will have anything useful to say. I imagine a lot of blank stares or confused statements or perhaps even some outright denials of it having any real merit.

I'm armoring myself. Really. I want to be open and hear what they have to say, but I think I'll be a nervous wreck.

I also think this is very good for me, just the kind of thing I need, though I'm not really sure I'll understand that until I'm farther down the road.

September 19: movie (15 minutes)

I didn't feel like sitting at my computer anymore last night -- my butt was numb, my back was sore -- so what did I do? I went to see a movie, where I would sit on my butt for two more hours. At least I would be able to slouch differently.

I like to go to movies that I don't know anything about; I'm willing to take a chance at seeing something bad because I also might find a treasure (like I did the summer Junebug -- still one of my favorites -- came out, after only seeing a trailer once).

I had heard a very little about Descent (THE YEAR'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL FILM -- oh, please!), and I went at least in part because of the NC-17 rating ("for brutal rape"). I wasn't hoping to see a brutal rape, necessarily. I was thinking more about Rosario Dawson's "descent" into drugs, sex and risky behavior, according to the blurb on the press release in the paper. I'm always interested in other artists' portrayal of these things, and I figured there might be a lot of freedom to explore deeply and honestly, what with the "morals-free" rating.

Overall, I didn't like the movie. If you're one of those people (like me) who doesn't read reviews before you go see a movie, stop reading now, because I find it hard to say much about a movie I don't like without giving some things away.

There were only three other men there to besides me (kind of telling, huh?!) sitting in separate places around the theater. It reminded me of the Times Square porn theater days of my youth, though this theater was much cleaner (but, in contrast, the old horsehair-stuffed seat cushions back then were much more comfortable).

There are two rapes in Descent. The first one wasn't all that brutal, and I was glad that the second one happened (saw it coming, said "It better happen or I'll be pissed!"), but it wasn't very brutal either. The second was man raping man (that, I believe is the real reason for the NC-17 rating). The rapist is doing a favor for someone by raping this man. Although he is belittling the original rapist -- who said some pretty offensive things to the woman as he raped her -- I was still personally offended when this man said (as he fucked and fucked and fucked and fucked the guy) "I ain't no fuckin' faggot!" What?!

The director/co-writer was, I suppose, trying to make some kind of point, but it went over my head; I don't know about the other men in the theater (one left after the first rape, I'm thinking because it wasn't brutal enough for his tastes...) Earlier in the movie this very sexy Black Latino man (whose character is confusing in so many ways) belittles another white man in front of Rosario -- in sort of an "I'm the Master" way, and that piqued my interest. "Oh, maybe he's bisexual," I thought to myself. That was interesting.

There were a lot of interesting ideas -- I applaud the director's vision -- but the writing was obvious and clunky throughout. The scenes of Rosario's supposed "descent" were filmed in such poor lighting that it was hard or impossible to even tell what was going on. At one point, somebody thankfully shone a spotlight on her so that we could see what she was doing, but she was only rubbing up against and fondling (tamely) a variety of men and (even more tamely) women, which was I suppose the sexual descent the press release alluded to. She was told by the bossy hot guy to snort a line of something or else she would hurt the drug dealer's feelings, but we didn't get see her go down on the line, and this only happened one time. As for the "risky behavior," I'm not sure I saw any of that, certainly not of the NC-17 variety!

The acting was okay all around (excluding some really bad brief scenes in which even good actors couldn't have made that schlock sound like anything a real person would utter). In order to show her descent from introverted college co-ed to rape victim on the verge, Rosario Dawson got a haircut. Nothing major. A new style. (Which wasn't even the hair-do that's in the ad for the movie, which for some reason annoyed me!) And she pouted (with those huge lips, who could miss that she was pouting?), but it didn't really feel like any kind of actual descent took place.

A reviewer for the New York Times (Matt Zoller Seitz) wrote: Dawson's intricate, imaginative performance equals those of Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver" and Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry" ... essential to see!

Matt, you owe me $8.75.

September 16: postcard #6 (10 minutes)

I pull out the clear push pin of a random postcard stuck into the bathroom wall, carry it to bed and look at it. Sigh. Can you hear that? How embarrassing.

There is nothing written on this postcard, it's one of those leftovers from a trip abroad, but really there's nothing to be said.

I don't hate Scotland, but I don't think I'll ever go back there. There's too many other places to explore for one thing, and going there would require so much work. In my mind.

I was there twice, two years in a row. The first time was joyous and giddy, so much newness, so much excitement, so much waiting ahead on the road. I was with Steven. The next year, it was Steven and Roger. Roger who doesn't really even think of me anymore.

First, Steven and I went to play a festival in the Shetland Islands. We had just met Roger and were no doubt quite in love with him. We walked across one of the larger islands, a ferry took us across the brackish water and deposited us there. Farmlands, ponies, sheep. We called Roger long distance from a red telephone booth. We got back to the States anxious and ready for what was sure to be the best time of our life. And it was good in many ways.

He went back to Scotland with us for a month the following year, after I had decided to break us up. The plans had been already been made, we had to follow through with a few concert commitments, the Edinburgh Festival being one of them.

We came together, ran away from each other. We avoided each other. Avoided the conversations that might have made a difference.

But it wasn't meant to be. I'm here now, Steven's here too, and although we're not lovers we are close, closer than we ever were. Roger is somewhere else. Somewhere entirely different.

So I simply can't go back to Scotland, can't look at the streets we walked on, this rock we climbed, the bad Mexican food restaurant we foolishly visited, the overpriced resale shops.

I think I'd rather go to Italy or Spain, somewhere brand new. (There is more of the world out there to see, so much that Roger is not a part of.) Not so that I can forget him, because I never will, but so that I can find new memories, new experiences to draw on when I come across a blank postcard tacked to my wall.

September 13: RR journal (12 minutes)

Things don't seem to scare me anymore. I'm talking about the little stuff: a homeless guy suddenly appearing from behind a tree (where he most likely was taking a shit) in the cemetery; a roach running across my face in the middle of the night and waking me up; falling down because my foot seems to have acquired this habit of forgetting how to stand.

I told Brianne about this and she said it sounds like I'm depressed, but that doesn't sound right. I feel calm. Maybe my mind is helping me get ready to die. Brianne doesn't seem to want to talk about Death.

We have long conversations -- she comes over most nights -- and she just listens and doesn't have much to say about that. She says she meditates for me. I told her I don't want anybody praying for me, and she said that's not it at all. "Buddhists don't pray," she said. She does this thing she calls "Loving-Kindness Practice," starting with herself, saying in her mind, "May I have happiness and the causes of happiness," or something like that, and she repeats it over and over again for a while. Then she pictures somebody else -- her aunt or a girlfriend or one of the people she gives massages to -- and one at a time she repeats the mantra for them: "May Aunt Laura have happiness and the causes of happiness," again and again for a while before going onto the next one. She said she includes a bit of "May Randy have happiness..." in the process. It sounds kind of like a prayer to me, but I guess I don't really have a problem with that, and it doesn't really matter, does it? because she doesn't need my permission. But seriously, I thought meditating was supposed to be about being quiet, and that sounds pretty noisy. Whatever.

I've been writing a lot. Stories, I guess I would call them, some play-like stuff. Some of it is about August, some of it is about me/my family, some of it is random. I don't really have a handle on writing a novel about August. What I'm writing doesn't really seem to have any kind of cohesive thread. They're not really what you would call "chapters," but I guess that doesn't matter. It's not like I really have time to write a novel! It feels good to be creative, that's all, and maybe that's why I feel calm. Brianne likes to read my stuff, and that makes me feel really good. I hope she knows that.

She mentioned a couple of times that she would be happy to come home and pick me up if I want to go to the Shambhala Center (where she works in the afternoons) to try meditating there. On Wednesday nights they only meditate for 30 minutes. Only?! The thought terrifies me. I don't know if I could "sit with my thoughts" for one minute, much less 30. By way of an excuse, I told her I wouldn't feel right making her come all the way home just to turn around and go right back to work, and I also said some pretty pitiful sounding stuff about not being sure my leg would allow me to sit on the floor all crossed legged and Buddha Style. She said I can sit in a chair if I want, OR she would also be happy to meditate with me, talk me through it, right here in my apartment, if I would be more comfortable with that. I said Maybe, but I didn't mean it, I don't think!

September 12: RR journal (7 minutes)

There is a profusion of beetles, greenish-blue in the crisp, dry, afternoon sunlight, flying around. I feel like I'm at the airport. Beetle International. They seem to have specific flight plans, some of them follow the same route as the one before them through the tall grasses, between the limbs of trees, narrowly passing through the strong lines of the webs of the crab-like spiders. They seem to have a purpose, not stopping unless they run into a window screen, and then only for a moment, to change directions and be off again. In this moment, their frantic wing-flapping sounds like a discontented buzz, a little "Dammit!" in bug language.

The spiders -- which are also quite prevalent of late -- don't bother to move from their central position in the web when one of the beetles grazes a line. These bugs are too strong to be caught and eaten, and the spiders seem to know this. They're waiting for mosquitoes and moths and other papery insects which are easily ensnared, paralyzed, wrapped up like spider burritos, and left for bragging rights and/or a later meal.

These spiders really do look like tiny crabs (from the sea, not from the crotch!), and they come in a variety of colors, red, yellow, orange, and white, all of them with the same pattern of black marks on their shell-like bodies, kind of like a smiling face. Their webs are strong enough to stretch over spaces of five feet or more, from limb to limb or to the corner of any available structure. They build them fast; attaching to a car parked in one spot for only a couple of hours.

I remember from my childhood great long strands of spiderweb blowing in the breezes across open fields in the late summer, like lost cords from a kite, with no kite at the top end and no child at the other. Rich and I used to chase after them and spin into them so they would stick to us. We had a contest to see who could catch the most on us, yelling (pretty unimaginatively) "Spider Man!" every time we caught ourselves in one. Rich always won the contest. Rich was better at everything.

September 11: RR journal, part two (8 minutes)

{dated before July...}

There's life going on out there. Even in this out of the way forgotten little neighborhood, on this two block long street, cars pass by once in a while, the UPS truck, a skinny black woman pushing a bicycle with no seat.

Pecan trees grow like weeds in this town, and crepe myrtles grow in their shadows like younger siblings with bows in their hair, pink, purple, white.

Turtle doves and noisy black grackles busy themselves from limb to limb. Life is short but they make the best of it.

Daytime, it's so slow around here. There's probably more activity in the cemetery than there is at 1003 E. 15th Street.

Brianne is a massage therapist and she works out of her house sometimes but she does a lot of out calls, too. In the early evenings she answers the phone and does office work at a meditation center in South Austin. She's a Buddhist. I guess that's why she's so calm all the time. She is around me anyway. I made a comment about it and she said, "I'm not calm!" But she is. Maybe she's just extra careful not to get excited around me because of my delicate condition, or what she considers to be my delicate condition.

I want to shake her up like a snow globe, just to see.

Maybe it's racist of me to think so, but she's a black chick, she should be able to get down, right?

Yeah, that's racist. Not every black chick gets down. Maya Angelou probably doesn't "get down."

She offered to give me a massage for free and I told her that sounds good, but I really don't want to take my clothes off in front of her. I don't know if she's ever given a massage to a leper, but that's what I look like under my costume. She knows there something wrong with me, she knows I'm Sick, but I don't want to have the conversation with her about my body:
"No, they don't really hurt, they're just little skin cancers, that's all. Rub away!"

I look in the mirror and I don't see me anymore. I see a medical experiment. Or maybe I'm more of a social experiment. "Pay attention, class, this is what happens to the homosexuals, prostitutes and drug addicts who make foolish choices."

September 11, part one: RR journal (3 minutes)

I really need to rethink my dietary intake.

In the past 7 days I have eaten 12 PBJ sandwiches.

I take the bus up the interstate feeder road to the Mexican grocery store and I get overwhelmed.

Eggs, bread, cheese slices, butter, milk, peanut butter, and jelly.

That's about all I can carry to the bus stop and then back home.

Maybe I'll ask Brianne if she can drive me there.