Boy

There really is something about a boy in jeans.

I'm lying naked on his bed and he comes out of his bathroom, a towel around his shoulders and I see the way his muscles are relaxed and he walks over to his dresser and picks out a pair of briefs and walks over to his closet and puts them on and in that very oh-my-! way they fit him - hugging him in every right way - I can't help but look as he picks out a pair of blue jeans and he leans over to put one leg through and then the other, the sinew of his back bends and flexes in near-apocalyptic ways, and he rights himself and buttons them and he throws his towel at me because I've been watching him with such awe, I must look like I've a few too many chromosomes.

It's the way he holds my hand as we walk down the street.

It's certainly the way when I open my eyes and meet his gaze and see that smile as he lies beneath or on top of me. I wonder what he's thinking. Because I'm thinking I'm this fortunate that this is who I get to share this rightnowthisverysecond moment with. Makes me think of things like fairy tales being true and genuine. Maybe is the lack of space between our skins that seals what's wonderful about this moment, feeling him writhe all along my body, the way his flesh gives way to mine and the way his sweat makes him taste.

The way when we're sitting in the dark of a movie theater, watching some story that's already derivative of something from ten years back, and maybe we're both leaning into the armrest between us just so that our arms are touching and I move to cross my leg ankle to knee, his thigh mere millimeters away, and he slides a hand over my leg and clasps mine and we continue watching the movie and i rest my head on his shoulder and everything is alright with the world.

It's not surrender when he wins.

And when I see him for the first time on any given sun-flooded day, he smiles and says hi and puts his arms around me and I've mine around his waist and I can feel him everywhere and he kisses me the way it supposed to be and I smell the way he smells and there's no music playing but that's okay.

Fate

As I'm typing this, I should be changing clothes and I got a text message saying, "p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" from Corey.

Today, I turned thirty-three years old. And I think and I wonder what's the big deal with me? Why's it that even a birthday is more problematic for me than it need be? Of course, it's not always about me, so I just need to get over it.

Thirty-two was very impressive. I'm not prone to thinking about fate or destiny in any way, but, as I said to Corey on new year's day, perhaps the preceding year needed to happen the way it did because I learned so much from it. It hurt me and it loved me unlike anything ever before. It isn't hyperbole. I can look back and see various instances where I got a chance to show all my little cracks everywhere and be adored for it; I allowed myself to not be a piece of sharp metal all the time. My family and I, this year was very precarious and I'm glad well all came out of it relatively unscathed. And, for me, thirty-two showed me what I'm missing in my life.

Spent a lot of time with the best friend from the very beginning. Probably the most in nearly five years since I left Las Vegas. And as it's worked out, she was my foil through this last year. I don't know if she knows it, but with her reflecting what's good and right and appropriate at various points, I could see nearly every single time that what I did and said or not had value or had value taken away. I hardly ever see things in these terms. Because, mostly, I see life as a series of unconnected events I get the chance to wade through. And I still believe this. But just because I go through these experiences and see these people, I have a say in how it will all turn out.

Some things just are. But not everything can be left up to chance.

Golden and I would say often how we should be more punk rock about life and take chances. She and I exchange this little bit of wisdom, and I, for one, didn't stick to it. And now that thirty-three is here to stay, I'm reminded of something else I wrote late last year (which I deleted because I'm done with those histrionics).

I'm not going to foretell this year, but what I've seen so far of it, I love. Truly. Because already I'm just walking through a series of events and letting them happen to me. I'm exacting some of it. Big shock: it's better. Some things just are, true. Others do mean a lot more than anticipated. And yet, others cannot just be left alone. What I see for myself as far as I can taste is a wonderful man in my life, a family that's suffered (and still is) but who still remains united, my best friend making me grow more than I think she even knows, a job that's actually enjoyable and could take me places.

I'm rambling.

Thanks to my family and Golden and Corey, thirty-two was infuriatingly necessary. Thirty-three, because of all of them, will be extraordinary. Might even call it fate.

Yes

Third week of the new year's coming up, you see.

I don't date is the easiest way to put it because it's succinct and accurate. Because I don't. Most people, good Christ, I can't stand them. But that's not entirely true: I love people of all shapes and flavors. It's when they want to get close to me or I them, they lose their appeal. Which is fine. As I mentioned before, I'm not in this life situation to collect ex's. I'm not looking for my next person to date once this one is done with. Who does that? Why? I never really got it.

Over the last few weeks I've been thinking...

"And when you meet someone and fall in love, and they fall in love with you, you ask them, Will you take my heart—stains and all?” and they say, “I will,” and they ask you the same question, and you say, “I will,” too."

...and what I seem to have come up with is a really simplistic answer to a pretty complex question. Because no, I'm not in this to collect ex's. I'm not.

Metal

Sitting in my car as I type this:

Last night we're on the phone and I'm on the verge of tears and maybe she doesn't notice but she's telling me exactly what I need to hear and I know it all to be true because I believe these things about myself and what my value is but probably because I'm a pretty prideful person I don't want to make time for more truth and seeing as how one bad day has turned into two I really ought to own these little tidal waves of emotion and allow myself to feel hurt and sad and cry my eyes raw but as I said to her this doesn't happen to me because I don't make it a habit of developing anything with other people because usually [they're] not worth my effort and she says how perhaps this is different and I know it is but that doesn't mean much to me right now.

I think it's so stupid of me to feel bad. These things happen so infrequently. Call it what you will, I'm made of metal and I can't have anymore of it. And it creeps in from the edges of my days. I feel so foolish.

Maybe one good long cry and that will be that. Maybe that's what I'll do tonight.


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Crooked Little Vein

"If even half of what you’ve told me about yourself is true, you should’vs turned into the world’s biggest asshole years ago. But you’re sweet and you’re funny and you don’t give up. You know how hard it is, finding someone in this town who’s still determined?"

- Warren Ellis, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN

The Sandman

"Love…Have you ever been in love?…Horrible, isn’t it?…It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…you give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t you own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like ‘maybe we should just be friends’ or ‘how perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart…It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love."

— neil gaiman, THE SANDMAN: THE KINDLY ONES

Insomnia?

Can't sleep and I know why.

That's the worst.

Vulnerable

Sometimes it's enough to just cut yourself open for the world to see...

...trick is not missing the opportunity to do so.


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Squander

In the fall, I had this weird realization: with all the social networking (a phrase I hate, but HAVE TO embrace) everywhere, I know a lot more about strangers than most people I know personally. Which is a little sad I think. I mean, people with whom I share zip codes and cities, I should know them better, shouldn't I? I thought if it was my own aloofness that was making me think this way, but couldn't see that was the reason. Or the only reason. Over the last three weeks or so, as it turns out, I've come to discuss this strange realization with people I know pretty well, and, ignoring the sheer irony of that, I think I came to a pretty sad conclusion: not just anybody rates. In this case 'anybody' means me.

I'm not sure if disconnected is the right word. Probably more like abandoned.

Look, a couple years ago, Golden said to me how she's come to realize that people come and go in and out of your life for particular reasons, and it doesn't mean everyone's going to be close to you, no matter how much you'd like it. I kind of didn't want to accept this. Not until now. Which, in just typing it out right now, makes me feel so naive. But she is right.

I'm feeling a bit off. Probably sad and resentful and I'd really rather not be. But I can't help thinking about when I found out I was sick and thought I could go somewhere I could get that support and that attention I know I was entitled to. And not just that day, but for the remainder. It was the single most important day of my life and I hate feeling I squandered it. Is that wrong and unfair of me, heaping this huge responsibility onto someone who really didn't need it, couldn't handle it, or possibly never wanted it? What is it that I thought would come from it? I'm not sure, but I suppose as I think about it more and more, and little bits of anger grow, had I known how it's all worked out in two-plus years, I wouldn't have bothered.

It's just past three in the morning and I'm thinking about this now.

Have I said? I hate the twenty-first century.

Thirty-three Januaries

I'm ready: bring on the rest of 2010!

"My boy, when the devil cannot reach us through the spirit...he creates a woman beautiful enough to reach us through the flesh."