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.

September 10: RR journal (10 minutes)

August 31, 1993

Sometimes I wake up in a panic. I've had a dream that I can't remember, except that I know I've died. This morning I lay there for a long time, not moving, just listening to my heart and the air conditioner going on and off. Then I suddenly remembered that it was August's birthday. I sat up quickly, thinking for some reason that I needed to get ready for the party. But there's no party.

I was drenched with sweat. I sat on the edge of the bed till I started shivering. I got up, turned off the air conditioner and it was so quiet in my apartment I thought I might have gone deaf. I made a noise and I could hear that, but I wasn't convinced; deaf people can hear themselves.

I wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep it off but the sheets were still wet from my night-sweat so I took a hot shower. That made me feel better until I noticed a new spot in the mirror as I was getting out of the shower. A third nipple, easy enough to see without the mirror.

I got dressed, fried an egg, but I couldn't eat it because the smell made me nauseous. I sat on the top stair with the door open and the air conditioner on to air the place out, smoked a cigarette and watched a cat hunting in Brianne's back yard. Then I was sweating for real so I went inside and lay in bed fully dressed, but I wasn't sleepy. I kept thinking about August. He's 24 today.

I got up and wrote a story about him, about his mother Dar and his father Thom, really. Then I fried another egg and ate it this time, and reread what I'd written while I ate it. I got so engrossed that I didn't realize I was smearing egg yolk on every page. I felt satisfied with my work and took a nap.

I just read it again (that's when I noticed the yellow stains), and I still like it. I think I'm gonna write a novel based on August Collin's life.

Happy birthday, august chagrin.

September 9, part four: journal entry (20 minutes)

(two days later:)

It rained all day yesterday and I wrote Anita a letter (finally). It wasn't very long. I just thanked her for taking care of Hazard (I resisted saying that, had she spent a little less time making babies and a little more time paying attention to his "distressing sounds," as Simon called them, he might not have suffered so much) and I wished them well in my old apartment (I signed and sent back the two-year lease so they could continue living there).

At about 4:30 the rain let up and I was feeling energetic so I took my cane for a walk to the Oakwood Cemetery (the entrance is barely a block-and-a-half from my front door). Very impressive. Very old. A historic sign just inside the fancy old wrought iron gate says it's the oldest cemetery in Texas and a bunch of other (interesting) stuff I intended to come home and write down, but instead I fell down.

My stairs are apparently very slippery when wet, particularly (and I guess fortunately) the fourth one up. Fortunate because, had it been, say, the eleventh one, the fall would've hurt a lot more. And judging from the way my hip feels today, it could have been fatal.

It's crazy that I'm walking around with a cane at 29. It feels/looks more like I'm 92. And I won't likely get there, so I suppose I ought to be thankful for the opportunity to be a rickety old man in this lifetime. But I'm not.

So I fell -- boom-boom-boom-boom -- and I seriously believe I could have gotten right up and kept on going, but I didn't. I just decided to feel sorry for myself (or something), just stayed put for awhile. I didn't have an inkling of a thought that anyone could see me there -- the six-foot high fence between my apartment and the college house makes it impossible for us to see each other except from the top of my staircase -- and as the standing water soaked into the front of my clothes, it was cool and felt sort of good.

But suddenly there were hands upon me, the hands of a tall black woman who was stronger than she looked in her tie-dyed house dress. That's right, it's the neighbor across the alley whom I hadn't seen until that very moment. She was very concerned about me, stood me up, placed my left hand on the stair rail while she fetched my cane and put it solidly in my right. I tried to tell her I wasn't really as hurt as it might have seemed, but it's hard to convince somebody that a person looking like me would just be lying face down at the foot of his stairs because the puddles of water soaking into his clothes was "cool and felt sort of good."

Her name is Brianne. She is chocolate brown and wears her hair in a multitude of long braids knotted into a wild collection at the back of her neck. The ends of the braids have wooden beads on them and they clack together a lot. Brianne's most striking (and unnerving) feature is her colored contact lenses, which make her eyes wish they were blue, but look more like they have sheer curtains pulled over them. Whatever. She's nice. She offered to do my laundry, which was piled up just inside the front door. I declined her offer, then when she refused my decline, I offered a compromise: I'll do them myself in your washing machine. She accepted and made me promise not to attempt to bring them over until the stairs are dry.

Apparently, she had a change of heart. This morning she showed up with a large canvas laundry bag, stuffed my clothes into it, and wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't think she noticed that I wasn't protesting, but my bruised hip necessitated my change of heart.

September 9, part three: journal entry (7 minutes)

It's overcast today. A storm is coming. The air smells like dirt. I sat at the top of my stairs and watched the college kids drink beer and make a huge spaghetti dinner. It was quite an event. The blond one with the unbecoming handlebar moustache seems to be the alpha dog. The Jewish kid (he wears a yarmulke) is the omega. The other six -- four boys and four girls total, fall into a not-so-clearly defined pecking order. They made the sauce from scratch -- Blondie must've brought his grandmother's recipe to school with him; he carried it around instructing the others to chop veggies, cook hamburger, boil pasta, garlic-butter long loaves of bread and make a salad. There's a huge burnt-orange ice chest on the deck just outside of the kitchen with a seemingly never-ending supply of beer. They threw vegetables at each other and for a while got into a beer-spewing fight which started when the chubby guy laughed beer onto his chubby girlfriend, and came to an end on the deck and in the back yard with cans of beer being shaken and aimed at one another. The whole operation came to a halt as the participants (all of the guys and the two rowdier girls) cleaned themselves up, the girls out of sight in the interior of the house and the boys hosing themselves and each other off on the near side of the deck, ending up shirtless and wet-shorted. That was my favorite part of the show. And when the dinner preparations resumed and I was sure there was nothing more to see (new shirts were donned), I made myself a PBJ sandwich and finished eating it just as they were setting up the card tables and folding chairs and getting ready to sit down for their meal.

September 9, part two: journal entry (10 minutes)

It's harder to be comfortable when you're an adult. It had to be hotter and more humid than this in Florida, but I'm dying (no pun intended). There were so many distractions when I was little, so much to help me forget the weather, forget the miserable state of my life. Running, jumping, screaming, even fear was a good antidote. Now I just lie around wanting to do something but with no energy to do it.

Anita sent me a long letter full of news, good and bad -- or what she considered good (she and Simon are gonna have a baby) and bad (Hazard died from a urinary infection and blockage that had been plaguing him unnoticed for weeks); I would likely label the news the other way around -- and I sat at the desk planning to respond and must have spent three hours looking at a blank piece of paper, no energy to write even "Dear Anita."

The sun set and my eyes were too strained to focus on the paper any longer so I looked out the front window and much to my horror (and curious delight) witnessed the across-the-street neighbors having sex. Such an ugly thing, hetero-sex, so uni-directional and uninteresting. I may have had different feelings about it if the young woman weren't the most visible participant. She isn't ugly in her street clothes -- and her boyfriend is certainly "attractive enough" -- but naked she looked like a Frankenstein creation, particularly because of the huge purple scar running from her belly button to her breastbone. The only opportunity I had to see the man's genitals I completely missed because he removed himself from her throat and traced the scar with his cock then quickly poked it into her pussy. I was way too distracted by the gash to get a good look. My mistake. I have half a mind to send them a postcard and let them know a thing or two from the peeping tom's point of view.

But then again, like I said, I don't even have the energy to write my "best friend" a reply to her letter, and now I've completely wasted what little I had today writing this journal entry.

September 9, part one: journal entry (5 minutes)

I managed to write a few "journal entries" from Randy's point of view. I'm not sure where they fit into the story; I just feel like I need to write a bunch and then see if and where they might go...

Today, I woke up in a wet bed. Not a wet dream -- I've never had one of those (I guess I've been too avid a masturbator for that to happen). No, I wet the bed, pissed myself. Jesus Christ! In the process of taking off the sheets and dumping them into the bathtub I decided to get off my meds. There's one for sleeping in my daily "cocktail" and I blame that for my bladder release.

The rest of the morning I sat at the desk letting the mattress air out and watching the top page of the Chronicle float up and down in the breeze of the ceiling fan.

I need to eat something. I need to wash my sheets. ( I need to get a spare set.) But I don't want to go back into the bathroom because the enemy is in there. It's a monster. It's the mirror. I was never one to spend much time in front of the mirror until Waco, until the KS started showing up. Brown spots are taking me over, and the only good thing I can think to say is I'm glad Mona is dead because she would undoubtedly say "You're turning into a nigger!"

I hate that woman, more now than ever. She told me once she wished she'd aborted me (and Rona), and these days I kind of wish she had, too. She might have saved us all a lot of misery. I wonder if she would have smoked as much, drunk as much?

Who am I kidding? She would have ended up with some other brats if not me and my half-sister. They might not have had my red hair or Rona's long legs, they might not have been homosexuals or sluts, but they still would have "been the death of her." She makes White Trash look bad!

September 6: postcard #5 (32 minutes)

In late April I got this postcard in the mail, an advertisement for the artist's "Annual Studio Sale." I didn't think much of it; it was taking place in Houston and I knew I wasn't gonna go to it.

But I liked the painting, a lot.

I was in and out of Houston most of last fall and into the winter when I got an email from J., an old lover, long since past -- from the summer right before I left Houston for New York City in October 1988. It was a wild, savage, desperate affair like a Scorpio and a Leo have (I say that because I've had other affairs and relationships and one-night stands with men and women born on August 31st, and they were all wild, savage, and desperate, sexually fulfilling but fraught with problems otherwise).

J. saw me in Houston while I was there once, quite by accident. I was helping a friend who was going through a Bone Marrow Transplant and other treatments for his brain leukemia. He's also blind (but not from the leukemia). I signed on to get him to his many appointments around the huge mega-medical complex that is the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. As it turned out, J. was also taking his mother to M.D. Anderson a lot for her cancer treatments. He saw me when we passed in a hallway but didn't say anything at the time. Later he told me he knew it was me because I look exactly the same. It's true, I haven't changed a lot in the past twenty years, except that I shaved my head about nineteen years ago, and J. saw pictures of me after that... So I guess it's more fair to say I haven't changed much in nineteen years.

But this isn't about fairness.

J. emailed Steven (in California) by way of the old Y'all website -- which is gone now -- looking for me, and Steven forwarded the email to me here in Texas. So I emailed back. We were in touch. I guess it was toward the end of winter or maybe early spring; my friend wasn't living at in the M.D. Anderson complex anymore, just going back for occasional checkups, so I was in Houston less and less. I found out that J. travels a lot with his job, that he travels to Austin a lot with his job, and he really wanted to see me. But every time he was here I was out of town, and by the same token, when I found myself in Houston, J. was gone.

We talked on the phone once or twice. It was a nice connection. I hadn't actually laid eyes on J. in twenty years, but his voice sure did sound the same. He told me the things I'd said to him, reminded me that I'd given him a key to my last Houston apartment; he described in great detail the various elaborate greeting cards I'd made for him (I did that for a living the last year or so I was in Texas) and other drawings I'd done and the words I'd written. He remembered it all much more vividly than I did. I remembered leaving him for another man because that man was offering me life in New York City. But as J. tells it, he was already planning on moving to San Francisco and therefore was breaking my heart. He made a vague reference to still having a crush...or something. I have to admit it stirred up some of the old feelings of passion. I'm a lonely man; I haven't had that kind of attention in a while, and it felt good.

We decided to get together the next time I was in Houston. It was the last time I was at the hospital with my friend. His wife arrived one late morning and I was free to head back to Austin. I called J. and he invited me to stop by his condo on my way out of town. His boyfriend was returning from out of town later that afternoon and he would have to pick him up at the airport, but otherwise he was completely free.

It seemed innocent enough.

I hadn't looked at this postcard in awhile, don't even think it was on display with the others at the time, but it was the first thing I saw when I walked into the condo, J. and his long-term lover's condo. Not the postcard, the painting the postcard was made from ("Split Decision," 2006, oil on cnavas [sic], 24" X 30"). I felt confused. "I know this painting," I said. There were more in the same style on almost all of the walls of the condo, wonderful, bright colors, mysterious, familiar eyes crying and smiling at the same time. "I have a postcard from this artist," I said, finally realizing it. J. smiled, "Yeah, I sent it to you." It was a weird feeling, like I had been spying on them, or like I was being spied on by the eyes on the postcard in my apartment. I don't know exactly how to explain the feeling, only that it was very odd.

J. showed me all of the paintings in the house, all of his lover's paintings. He confessed that the round head, the eyes, the other features, were inspired by him. His lover's work really took off when he started putting J. in them. I inquired about maybe buying a painting. I don't know if I was thinking the lover would give me a good deal because I was an old friend of J.'s -- or maybe even slip me one unnoticed from the bottom of the pile -- but I really wasn't hoping for that; I sometimes seriously think I would like to invest in art if I found something I liked and could afford it. J. directed me to his lover's website.

We sat on a couch and a chair, next to each other, facing each other. His cologne was strong and bothersome. His hair was thin, his face wide and round like always, and now his body matched it. I wouldn't have been attracted to him had we just been introduced, but the memories were washing over me as J. took out a cigar box and showed me the cards I'd made for him, the drawings, the key to my apartment glued artfully to a fancy greeting card.

When it was time to go, we hugged a little too long at the door. We kissed politely, and then not so politely, and then we were making out heavily in the foyer, in the office, pulling off our clothes, on the floor, knees rubbing hard against carpet, stopping ourselves, forging onward, stopping ourselves, being pulled uncontrollably back into the distant past. We almost went too far. May we did go too far. We didn't come, didn't fully engage; eventually stopping ourselves won out. I felt like I had to be the one to put my foot down, before another kiss, before another body part was revealed, touched, pulled into the mess.

I left with the sting of cologne in my mouth, the strong smell of it on my hands, onto the steering wheel. I drove with the window open. J. called twice, once right away, then again while he was at the airport waiting for his lover to arrive back home. Not apologies, like I expected; he was standing at the edge of something ready to dive into it. I wasn't ready. I listened to the messages on my voice mail, erased them, didn't return them.

J. called again a couple of weeks later. He was on his way to Austin for business, wanted to take me out to dinner, wanted to see me. "I don't even know if you're in town," he said, and that was my out. That he didn't know. I didn't return the call, decided to let him think I wasn't around. He hasn't been in touch since.

I guess maybe he's cooled on the idea.

I still love this guy's paintings, but not enough to actually call him up and transact business with him. I'm not so sure I would want J.'s eyes always looking at me, spying on me, smiling at me and crying at the same time.

September 5: postcard #4 (30 minutes)

postmarked 09 November 2005:

I can still picture you writing out postcards in Abundance, with sparkly lime green ink; sitting in the Box. This card reminds me of you & I send it with a big ole smackerooni on yer lips.
Inspired & creative lately -- yearning to create more artsy craftsy things.
I'm unsure about a winter trip ($$$).
Big Love, Nina

Oh, Nina, I miss you so much. You're the Mother Earth of my World; I think of you in good times and bad, imagine all the laughs we shared, all the times when your hugs healed everything. Your ears were always wide open and your eyes always managed to see right into the Heart of things, into my heart and soul. I miss your big old Vermont home, your little boy Bodhi -- who is likely not so little anymore. The last time I was there, your man saw a bear early in the morning while he meditated on the deck. He woke us up with hushed hollers and we ran outside to see nothing but his excitement.

I still remember the exact moment I met you, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, you were visiting family, we were there to perform. We met you on the street and made our way directly to a bead shop where you cooed and giggled over all the baubles available for sale. And I cooed and giggled, too. You infected me with your bright light, catching my hazel eyes in your blue ones across the store.

It was a brief visit, that first one, and then we saw you again in Estes Park, Colorado, your home at the time. That was where you met Roger, your soul mate and mine. You held court in Estes Park, everything seemed to revolve around you, and so it did, your friends and the activities we took part in -- drum circles, Peace Dances, long hours of preparing and eating meals, lots of laughter. I got caught in your orbit then, and my mind still spins when I think about you.

I almost moved to Vermont, after you'd moved there, after you'd been to Hawaii and learned to give the best massage I've ever gotten (still), after you got pregnant and had a baby boy. I was going to move there to be with Roger. But that wasn't meant to be. And even though Roger and I went our separate ways and he took many little parts of me with him, he didn't take away our connection. And you were there to hear my moans, my deep sadness, and you helped me understand that maybe he wouldn't ever find his way back to me; you helped me understand that some things just can't be understood.

And then you and your man split apart, and I could hear the sadness in your resolve with that situation, but I don't think I was able to be there as fully as you were with me in my sadness. I don't think I have that same ability as you have. I was already living in Austin then when you told me about that. My roommate's name was Jay and your man's name was Jay. Such coincidences. I was taking his dog for a walk in our Clarksville neighborhood and you and I talked on the phone for a long time. And you were so present.

You're always so present; that's what I remember most about you. How do you do it? You made me feel all right for not being able to be there for you as much as you had been there for me. You are massively open, wide open, ready to receive any- and everybody. You are a healer, you can even heal yourself. You are quite phenomenal, actually.

Someday I'll make my way back to you, when I am financially able, or maybe you'll get down here some winter, escape the long Vermont cold spell for a retreat to learn a little more about massage. That was the plan, but it didn't happen. Steven would love to see you, too. He always says you are the most understanding person he's ever met. How else could you have moved in with us -- Steven and Roger and me -- in our 20-foot travel trailer and live with us for almost a month, with all of our ongoing troubles, and not get sucked into it all? You probably even managed to help us survive a little longer than we would have otherwise. Unlike the three of us, you never got caught up in your own sorrows; you had your challenges but you were always able to sit down with them, express yourself, and listen fully.

You are one of the most playful, joyful people I've ever known, building elaborate costumes out of simple materials, turning fabric and glitter into something fabulous and so right. Where are those pictures I used to have of you, glitter-faced and grinning like the cat who ate the canary and won a prize for it.

I can picture you when you're seventy years old and I'm almost eighty. We'll smoke a bong or sprinkle "special granola" on top of bowls of ice cream and fresh fruit and laugh ourselves to tears. You take me from one end of the spectrum to the other, from tears of deep sadness -- release -- to tears of giddiness -- also release. Let's do it, Nina! Let's make plans for a party when we're old and gray and rickety on our feet. Let's drink coffee and eat deep dark chocolate and look forward to future times together, to the end of our lives and into the next one! xo jay

September 4: postcard #3 (30 minutes)

You know how sometimes you see something out of the corner of your eye and you think it's something else, and even after you look closely and realize it's not what you imagined, you can see the same thing out of the corner of your eye again and again? Well, that's the way my mind works anyway.

This postcard is one of a series of "Readers," photographed by Harvey Finkle, that Steven had a collection of (the whole series in one of those postcard booklets). The postcard got messed up a little in the mail -- it went through a machine roughly or scraped across the mailman's bag or something, and the mark it left made it look to me like the woman is holding an ice cream cone. On closer inspection, it is quite obviously not an ice cream cone, and the woman isn't even holding it, but it still looks like an ice cream cone to me, out of the corner of my mind. Maybe it's just wishful thinking!

Steven sent me this postcard from Utah last year, shortly before I drove cross-country in my old GMC Suburban "Blue" to pick him up and bring him back to Austin to live here. He worked in a restaurant for a couple of seasons in the middle of nowhere while he was living in San Francisco (in a large "closet" in his childhood friend Martha's apartment). Between the two seasons he decided that San Francisco wasn't working out for him and he surprised me by saying he actually wanted to move here.

He wrote:
J-- Two unrelated things popped in to my head today:
1) Is there room at our new place for our trailer?
2) Let's go to Mexico for Christmas, or Key West again, or someplace!
Our 1000 Trails dues is paid up -- that's just another random thought.
I love you. S

1) Our trailer, the "Box" we lived in for two years, the title character in the documentary about the end of Y'all called "Life in a Box" is sitting on a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Bugtussle, Kentucky. I didn't think that my old Blue would be able to haul the trailer (and I had some doubts that she would even make it to Utah and back), and what's more, I don't want the trailer. I don't really even want to ever see it again. I took it up to Kentucky when I lived in Nashville (I think Steven was visiting me at the time and I think he went with me, but that memory, like all of my memories about Nashville when I lived there post-Y'all, is kind of murky). The young couple who run the CSA farm were delighted to have the Box on their property to use for afternoon naps and/or diaper changings for their baby. We gave it to them on permanent loan because I couldn't afford to stow it anymore, and I didn't have any place for it in Nashville.

And, no, we don't have any room here for the Box.

Steven's parents loaned us the money to buy the Box, and we still owe them $6000. I look forward to the day when I can pay them my half and be out of that debt, out of debt completely. That was my main reason for moving to Austin: to get out of debt. Living on the road in the Box, and the couple of years after we broke up and went our separate ways, me first to Florida and then back to Nashville, are the big reasons I got so bogged down in debt. I'm slowly but surely making my way out, but I'm not quite ready to pay off the Box. That'll probably be the last thing I pay off, and what a happy day that'll be.

2) We didn't go to Mexico or Key West last Christmas, also because of my being in debt and Steven's lack of funds. The year before we were both in Nashville (he lived there briefly before moving out to San Francisco). We drove to Key West, stayed in hostels, smoked a lot of pot, ate key lime pie. It was a good time. We're so close to Mexico here, and we've recently been talking about doing that trip together. That would be nice. But I don't even know if this is the year we'll do it. We travel well together, but he also will probably want to go to Indiana for Christmas -- I'm invited but don't know if I'll want to. He's in school now, too, and I have this cat I adopted, Timmy, and I really don't like leaving him alone for too long. Or maybe it's just Home that I don't like leaving as much anymore.

September 3: postcard #2 (30 minutes)

This is Australia. Ayers Rock photographed at sunrise from the Sands Motel. It was sent to me by my friend Marcie in 1996. Back when I lived in New York City. Marcie and I used to have a pretty good correspondence going with each other, her from all corners of the earth to me in my most important corner at the time. It started when I moved to New York in 1988. I would write her long letters and she would send me long letters back, pages and pages of doodles and crazy text of our various outlandish adventures. Mine slowed down some when I got involved in Y'all, and hers slowed down when she got married and had a baby. Now we don't write to each other at all anymore, mostly because we live in the same town, I guess.

Marcie went to Australia a lot. She has friends there; I think she even lived there for a while. I don't know if she was living there when she sent me this postcard. It says:
Having an absolutely fabulous time mate. Like Good vegemites we've traversed the continent thoroughly speculating on all sorts of remarkable and quite astonishing creations of the good Lord most High. Only yesterday we climbed this here rock. Mah heart was racing not because of the hight but because I just drank a 27$ URULU Challenge at the pub.

I could never decide if she was a bad speller or just a comedienne, but I tended to spell crazy too and disregard punctuation and Capitalize at will in my correspondence to her as well just to be a part of the gag.

When I was passing through Houston once and visited her at the warehouse she and Jeff lived in at the time, she pulled out a huge office wall calendar I had written an extensive letter to her on. It had a drawing of the Twin Towers and said something about I wish they'd just blow those things up. She showed me this not too long after the September 11th Tragedy and I was shocked at my insensitivity and also my Nostradamus-type foresight, until she reminded me that I had written the letter shortly after the Terrorists had previously tried to blow up the Towers by driving a moving truck full of explosives into the parking garage. I was still a bit shocked by my insensitivity, but had to finally chalk it up to my sense of humor at the time, which was oftentimes insensitive but generally full of disregard for anything other than making the recipient of my correspondence laugh. It was only intended for her eyes, and I never in my wildest imaginings thought she would have held onto it. But I've since learned that several people with whom I had a regular correspondence (her among them) were "good" about keeping all of the Crap that I sent to them.

I have kept only a few things from others. A love note or two, some postcards, and lots of my own creative writing, which I went through and depleted quite a bit the summer before I moved here. My mother gave me a box of my writing from her attic and I didn't even recognize a lot of it as being my own (except for little clues that made me realize the fact).

I kept a few items, including a one-act play I wrote called "august" which was never performed (though several others were). It was short enough and I was bored enough to read through "august" right then and there when I came across it. I liked it. I set it aside and then, during my next trip to New York City, couldn't stop thinking about it, and it became the basis (roughly speaking...maybe inspiration is a better word) for the novel I'm now working on.

In the play, August's last name is Chevalier -- August Chevalier was a character I'd created for my then boyfriend Jack -- and now the character's name is august chagrin. He's not the main character in the novel; he's more like the catalyst character.

It's interesting to me how inspiration works.

September 2: postcard #1 (13 minutes)

There are 22 postcards on the bathroom wall, hanging on strings of yarn by clothespins and some tacked directly to the wall. I love postcards. The 22 in the bathroom conjure up good and bad memories. Twenty-two so far.

This was the most recent one added to the collection. It's a photo from my friends Marcie & Jeff's friends (and now my friends too) Ray & Rachel's wedding in Marfa, Texas, last year. This is a cool photo. Ray took it. He gave me the postcard they made out of the photo recently when they were visiting the States (they live in England, that's where Rachel is from), staying with Jeff & Marcie in their new house.

Anyway, Ray and Rachel are photographers, and their plan is to get jobs photographing weddings and make a living like that. Or maybe they already do. Anyway, they have a website (www.randrpictures.blogspot.com) which I went to and looked at the slide shows of different events they have photographed.

The back of this postcards says, at the top: FRIENDS WITH CAMERAS, and at the bottom:
Reportage Style Wedding & Party Photography
Mr & Mrs Ray & Rachel Lewis will come to your wedding,
talk to your Uncle Bob, and shoot documentary-style pictures
that capture the spontaneity of even the best-planned event.

(Okay, so I didn't study the picture or the writing much before I launched into this exercise.)

That's their ad. This postcard is an ad. I don't mind that. I remember when the advertising companies first put up those free postcard holders in trendy restaurants and bars for postcard ads (sometimes real cool ones) for tourists to take. I wasn't even a tourist but I always took a bunch of them. I found that I preferred the ones that have space for actually writing a note on them, not with the whole back side filled up with ad copy. Who am I gonna send that to? Nobody. So I stopped taking them unless they had the space for writing on them.

Every time I go to NYC, I always try to make it to Restaurant Florent in the Meatpacking District to get a stack of postcards. Oh, and several packs of matchbooks. I just realized I have some from my recent visit there that aren't in the bathroom yet. So 23, 24.

I really prefer postcards with personal writing on them. Notes to me -- or from me, if they never got sent or if I sent them to Steven because he lives in the back end of the house and therefore his postcards are collected in the bathroom as well.

Send me a postcard, dear reader! I would love that. I will probably put it in the bathroom and I will definitely send you something back. Maybe a postcard, maybe a really cool one or a really cool something else, according to how much I love it (and/or you)! But remember to give me your address (people don't normally do that on postcards).

Here's mine: 1002 E. 15th St. #1 , Austin, TX, 78702. I can't wait!

September 1: oil cloth (7 minutes)

I painted this picture the night I gave you my phone number. I was giddy with inspiration, feeling like I had all this energy and nowhere to put it. I was sitting at the kitchen table trying to write but being unsuccessful. I wasn't writing about you; maybe that was the problem. The Mexican oil cloth taped to the old wooden table caught my eye, bright colors. I could paint that. So I did. I spent hours on it. By the time I was done I had a headache and felt nauseous from staring so hard for so long.

You don't know how long it took me to give you my number. It was something I worked up to. I tried not to let it take me over, but it gave me a certain amount of energy over the couple of weeks that I was working up to it, sussing you out, trying to figure out if you were flirting back, if you were interested. I still don't know.

I felt like I had a logical reason for giving you my number, it seemed in the moment like the better choice between giving you my number and asking for yours. It seemed like the kind choice. Either way, I would've been putting you on the spot.

Still, if you had given me your number I would have called you by now. I don't know if you'll ever call me. I thought about this in the moment and as the giddy energy kept me up way past my bedtime watercoloring. But that didn't matter. At that moment I was just enjoying the chemicals being released into my brain.