November 21, 2007

11:45 p.m.

Talking to Myself

I woke up at 8:00, still a little tired, but unwilling to suffer any longer the boom box bass that was pulsing somewhere in the neighborhood. This feels like the day I choose to stay mostly in bed, although looking at the mess in this room bothers me. At some point I�ll get up and tidy things. Right now I�m sleepy, melancholy, and mackled, and my hands are cold. I�ve had breakfast and am sipping very hot decaf from my new coffee maker from Starbucks. I should make a start on making Christmas books. Should. I should do all sorts of things, but the last two weeks I�ve had a very hard time getting myself to do anything on the list. I need to allow my mind to let go for a while, release the shoulds. Float through the day without a plan, don�t answer the phone, listen to the clock tick, the sound I�ve heard since childhood. I can even tell when it hasn�t been wound in two days; the ticks are a little weaker. It�s cool that I�m that tuned in to this clock. I�ll bet running my little vaporizer in here is better for the wood, too.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Peter G., one of the young bus boys I fucked when I lived in Portland in 1978 and worked at the Rheinlander restaurant. My memory of him was of an arrogant boy with a misplaced sense of entitlement, largely untroubled by compassion. This is not because he treated me poorly, but in the way I saw him interact with the world. I wondered if it was something about the German culture, that he was so critical of America and Americans. I wondered, if he doesn�t like it, why is he here? This feeling crept up on me slowly as we walked around the city, talking, interacting. Later I was sorry I�d gotten involved with him, however briefly.

Apparently he came out of our encounter with no such distaste, or any sense that anything was amiss. I�m not sure why he contacted me; he said he found me by accident on the web and listened to some music, which was �quite nice.� (?) He said he still remembered the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which I had taped to my bathroom wall in Portland. �You see,� he wrote, �you made quite an impression on me.� We then had a couple of emails telling what we were up to in general, and then they stopped. I never told him how I remembered him, and we didn�t mention having had sex. He�s a doctor now specializing in ER medicine, travelling to various countries to work. Part of his college training was in the U.S., so he�s lived here more than once. His English spelling is poor. He sent a picture, and looks relatively the same as long ago. I didn�t send one back, as he�d already gone to my website and I figured he didn�t need one.

The fact is, I don�t remember going to bed with him, though I�m sure I did. Knowing me, then. I went to bed with almost everyone I met in that short period. I don�t even remember all their names, but I fucked them each once, hoping for some kind of validation, and then moved on. I was nineteen.

The two I remember best were Bruce and Michael. They both worked at the restaurant. Bruce was on the outs with a girlfriend, to whom he later went back. We had a very meaningful affair with lots of talking and working out of life�s issues, and extremely hot sex. It wouldn�t have lasted even if he�d been 100% available, but it was important and tender, and I remember him with fondness. I think neither of us had encountered anyone like the other before.

Michael was a beautiful, lithe, pale statue of a boy, a math genius, totally disconnected from his heart. Sex with him was a very private affair, with me, myself and my dreams of what could have been if he�d really opened up. I think he came from money. I went with him one afternoon to his grandmother�s flat, where he had promised to wax a dining room table for her. I was struggling to tell him something at one point, I can�t remember what, but trying to find words, and he said with a smile, shaking his head, �If you�re wanting me to say I love you, I�m afraid I can�t do that!� It wasn�t what I�d been trying to convey, but still, I was disappointed. What a creep. I had no tools to deal with anything at that age. We barely spoke after our encounter, though I assume we both went on working at the restaurant.

Oh, the seeking in those days, the endless longing and loneliness! I was thousands of miles away from home and family, with no plan, no confidence, and no common sense! Thank Goddess for guardian angels.

Receiving the email from Peter made me think about all these other guys, and I ended up googling Bruce to see if he�d show up anywhere. I found someone who had done his masters at PSU and who sounded like a likely match, so I emailed a hello to see if it was him. No response; later I thought, jeez, maybe it�s his son! That was a sobering thought.

And speaking of guys with whom I�ve lost touch, I don�t seem to be in contact any longer with Robert, the man who had such a crush on me at the Folk Alliance. I called him on a whim last month while on the road, and we had one of those annoying conversations where the cell phone connection isn�t that good and there�s a delay in the transmission so the speakers keep interrupting each other. He was picking up his son somewhere so he had to go, and said he�d call back shortly. I made one other call and then suddenly didn�t want to have another hard-to-hear conversation, so I turned my phone off. Later there were two messages from him, but I never returned the calls. I think that was a little rude and I should email him and tell him I haven�t abandoned him, but maybe I have. My motives aren�t all that pure for being in touch. I found him boring on the phone, after being effusive in his emails (�Do you know how much I am going to miss you?� �Every time you turned to look at me I felt like I had won the lottery.�). Am I really so starved for attention that I need this kind of validation, from someone I don�t even want? Or am I just bored?

So I seem to be letting it go. Still I feel I am working out my own issues at his expense -- whether I contact him or not. Silly.

Every time you turned to look at me I felt like I had won the lottery. There�s something about that that makes me mad. How long is it going to be before I feel that kind of jackpot over someone again? And why is it the ones I cannot want who feel that way about me?

Later

Bessie is gone. The men came and took the two heaters out this afternoon, leaving grey footprints on my new living room rug which almost entirely vacuumed up. I scrubbed the rectangles of floor beneath where the heaters had been, knowing they were seeing daylight for the first time in probably forty years. Sunny asked politely if she could come up and look at where they�d capped the chimney holes, and I said yes. I think she was thrilled that the whole thing was finally over. I tried to match her enthusiasm -- I say tried, not because I wasn�t enthusiastic, but because I want her to want to be friends with me. I think we need a good evening�s conversation over wine and good food -- just the two of us. I�m realizing that the slight stiffness, the shyness, I still feel around her is probably also coming from her, and it would be interesting to get past all that to a level of friendship that�s deeper and more natural.

Anyway, the altar now resides where the living room heater was, and in place of the kitchen one, my rolling-office-desk-turned-microwave-table-and-pantry. It now looks like it�s always been that way.

Sometimes I think about Barbara, the woman who lived here before me (this time) and whom I never met. Sunny didn�t care for her. I think she didn�t like living here. She painted in bad colors and left kitty litter strewn about. She also left three gas leaks in the living room about which she did nothing. I imagine her coming back up here for some reason, and exclaiming how different it looks. �Did you paint?� she�d say, bewildered. �Yes,� I answer in my mind, �you chose horrible colors I couldn�t live with. You were a slob and a terrible decorator, and you lived with gas leaks. This place is better now that you�re gone and I�m here. And, oh, the heat is better now too.� I don�t know why I should feel so antagonistic towards her. She did me a favor by leaving, after all.

I feel generally antagonistic about much, right now.

But tomorrow is Thanksgiving and it will be a good day. And I no longer have to wonder when the workers are showing up, setting my alarm early every day just in case. Today I went back to sleep after breakfast and didn�t get up again until around 1:00. My home is my own again. Thank God.

And I did reorganize the closet.