Friday, 29 March 1996Alex tried to convince me to come out to the Barn with he and Shane Wednesday night, but not even I could be that irresponsible, feeling as poorly as I did and knowing full well I would call in sick the next morning.
But that night I dreamt about going out with them. In the dream, Shane ended up taking us to some club in New York City! But Alex and I didn't seem to be particularly aware we were in New York. Shane stranded us there, so Alex and I had to find our own way home and it wasn't till we exited the basement club and got out on the street in the wee hours of the morning that we realized where we were. I remember the thick New York accents.
Decided that the only way to get home was by subway and so we found the nearest subway station.
The station was swollen with people coming and going and Alex accidentally bumped into this mean-looking older Asian lady, and she very purposefully rammed back into him vengefully, her face full of hardened rage.
Alex started to cry. I put my arm around him to console him, and the energy between us instantly became sexual. We clung to each other and sat down on a bench and made out passionately. Soon we were 69ing right there! I remember him sucking my balls and I vividly remember feeling anxious that Alex would think my dick was small.
Next thing we know, the subway was pulling into the station and we hurriedly tried to dress and catch the train. Alex got himself put back together in short order but I was incredibly clumsy. Alex kept yelling for me to hurry up as he ran to the door and stood there. I kept fumbling with my clothes and in a real panic I called out to him to go ahead on home without me, that I'd find my own way home.
The subway doors were shutting but Alex stood blocking the door and the train driver was yelling at him to get out of the way. But Alex refused to budge; he was holding up the train so that I would be able to get on.
I woke up at that point, my dick throbbing in my underwear. It was 4:30 am, and I called Alex's voicemail and related the dream, complimenting him on how good he is in bed.
Tuesday, 14 May 1996
Went over the Alex's at 9 pm and he and I sat in his room talking and smoking until 11. And for once I did most of the talking--which was horribly uncomfortable. This wound up being the subject: how difficult I find it to open up, share stuff. It was almost a traumatic experience to sit there and admit to Alex how frightened I am that he will abandon me.
But this was so important, me pushing myself to peel off the mask in his presence.
He finally kicked me out, with a bunch of hugs, kisses and "I love you's" when Dave phoned. I left quite discombobulated; again, a good thing. Walked home much more in touch with myself than I've been in a while.
He left me voicemail again this morning to reassure me he would not abandon me, that he loved me.
Such a sweetie. Why do I feel so unworthy of his love?
It's time to face head-on what I've been avoiding. And perhaps I don't have to go through it alone.
I awoke this morning from a dream that Alex had died of AIDS. In the dream he'd had several negative test results but then dropped dead from it anyway.
These are the dangers from loving.
Thursday, 28 November 1996
All I will write this morning is this dream I awoke from at 1:30. Had the good sense to phone my voicemail and get it down that way and it took FOUR messages to re-tell it!
IN THE DREAM:
I rolled into work late, around 10:30. Shannon my boss was in a superb mood and my other boss Duncan was on the tear. He took me away with him to show me what he wanted me to do and we went several flights upstairs not by elevator but by some rickety back stairs and even had to crawl through some windows. It was an ordeal.
Because Shannon was so easy-going, I snuck away from work and whether intentionally or by chance I ran into Mom, Alex, John and my lover Mark. The scene shifted back and forth between the university campus and the farm where I grew up for the rest of the dream.
Mom was either involved in or merely planning to attend an AIDS memorial service and John, Alex and I decided to go. John was the most gung-ho of the three of us. Alex was not that enthusiastic and he seemed far away from me in the dream. I was aware of his presence or absence at various points but don't recall much interaction with him.
So we were at the farm waiting for the ritual to begin in one of the steel bins west of the shop. The ritual people were strangers but seemed nice. There were endless delays: Mom and a bunch of other women were still talking in the house and that seemed to be the hold-up and then I thought Alex had fled--I couldn't see his car but then I saw it so he hadn't left. John and I and the ritual man were standing in the bin waiting for others to join us.
I was feeling really emotional, that the service would bring out all my grief and tears. I left the bin and sat in the passenger side of the old blue Mercury truck in the yard and as I gazed at the beat-up old driver's seat memories of Grandpa overwhelmed me and I began to cry a bit and then John came out and made friendly small talk and then once he'd had a look at my face he asked me, concerned, if I was alright.
Immediately I started to cry again and I blurted out that I knew I was going to really lose it during this service. Don't remember exactly what John said but he was supportive.
Then I slip away, thinking I'll show up for a few minutes at work so as not to be missed. But I duck into a CD store on the university campus where the sales clerk young woman knows me, she met me through some mutual friend at a party several years ago and I don't remember her but we chat for a few minutes. And then I browse the store until I find this one CD that has a song on it that I know will help me to cry and I don't remember or know now what it was but it was a double CD and was $30 and I know I can't afford it.
As I'm walking out of the store I realize I have in my hands four of my own CDs (one of which still has the cellophane wrapper intact) and I know I'll look suspicious so I go up to the sales clerk and explain. There's one of those shoplifting sensors at the counter and I pass my CDs through it to further validate my situation and she cheerfully tells me I'm fine.
As I am about to pass through the sensor at the store exit I realize that I'm also carrying the CD with the song on it, that I have taken it out of its case and I am actually stealing it! It doesn't set off the alarm as I leave the store and I nonchalantly make my way up the elevator.
Moments later a hand slaps down on my shoulder and it's the store clerk and she is furious and accuses me of shoplifting and says I am in big trouble. In a well-rehearsed performance, I feign shock at noticing the incriminating CD in my hand and after much heated dialogue she seems to believe my protestation that it was absent-mindedness on my part and I get away from her.
Then I'm back at the bin (or perhaps the service's setting had changed to a room on campus?) and the service is over and people are standing around. John says the memorial was great. Alex is there somewhere, as is Mom. I am standing beside this fairly cute Asian guy who I don't know and he looks at me and says "[QS], you're really uptight!" I look at him, dazed, and walk away.
End of dream.
Sunday, 13 April 1997
Damned if I didn’t wake up half an hour ago from a dream about Alex dying! I feel scared for some reason about bringing this up at group this way but I will write out what I remember.
All of mostly it seemed to be happening at [back in the small town where I grew up]. But Alex died of AIDS. He was not alive in the dream (or at least in what I remember), just the news of his sudden death.
His friend Mike asked me if Alex had AIDS and I avoided answering.
Other than that, I was pretty much alone, and the challenge was to find out when and where the funeral was and to get there. And Alex’s funeral was in some funeral home in [the small town where I grew up].
And I went to bed in the dream (seemed to be my bedroom here) with enough information to know the funeral was the next afternoon at 2 pm.
And I woke up (in the dream) around 2 pm the next day in a panic. Because I still seemed not entirely sure of the time and place for the service, never mind that I was late.
I picked up the phone in the dining room of the house at the farm and Marion [neighbor lady, back home] was on the party line (we haven’t had a party line since I was very young) and I frantically interrupted her and asked if she knew when and where the funeral was for the young Portugese boy and she said yes she did, that it was going on right now.
This is when I woke up -- in real life.
Friday, 15 August 1997
And this morning I awoke to the alarm from a dream about Alex. (When I lay awake at 4 am I checked my messages and he had called, so that was undoubtedly the seed…) All I really remember was that we were outside somewhere alone and affectionately clinging to one another. He had no shirt on, and I don't think I did either. We were talking as intimately as I fantasize we could in real life. I don't remember any of the dialogue, except that at one point Alex said either "Anytime you want me to hold you, just ask" or, "Anytime you want to talk, just ask" -- but I think it was the former.
Our touch was very sexual for me and I was playful with him, at one point fondling his nipples. But it was so incredibly loving and affectionate. I felt so loved and connected to him.
Sunday, 10 May 1998
The only other thing I have time to write about now is this morning's dream about Alex. Haven't dreamt about him in a long while.
We had sex, a kind of sex, in the dream. All I really remember now is that we didn't suck each other's dicks, and I wanted that to happen. But we had to get dressed and go do something so there wasn't time. So I was pouting that even though we'd finally after all these years been sexual, I still hadn't had his dick in my mouth. I'd also wanted to taste his ass.
Next, we are at this checkout cashier in some big department store waiting to buy some stuff. The cashier is incredibly inefficient and the person ahead of us in the line-up is taking a long time. The cashier disappears in the middle of the transaction and we are left standing there forever. I am incredibly angry at the delay.
And that's all I remember. I was even more attracted to Alex than usual when I was over there last night. Plus, once in bed last night I was reading my February 1997 journal entries where Alex and I were really going through a hot and cold phase of our friendship. Same time as I began to go to AA. That was a stressful period of my life! Yeesh.
Tuesday, 9 June 1998
Alex told me that he'd had a waking dream this morning about me having sex with some guy that he knew. He didn't dream about the actual sex, but about him somehow figuring out that I had had sex with this guy. He did not recall who the guy was, nor any feelings attached to him deducing we'd had sex. In my mind, I wondered if this waking dream somehow fed into his envy of where I am at, but I didn't say anything. I was flattered, in a way, because it's the first time Alex has ever told me he's dreamt about me.
Friday, 24 July 1998
Alex has been waking up each night with vivid, disturbing dreams about his immediate family. One night he dreamt about his father's violence when he was a kid. He didn't remember too much about that dream. The next night he had a long dream about having sex with his brother - Alex has a brother, a few years older than he, I think, whom he has not spoken to in years. There was a whole bunch more in this dream which I've forgotten - he left the first part of the dream on my voicemail, and recorded a second voice message to me but was so groggy he forgot to hit the "send" button so I didn't get it but he told me on the phone later how the dream ended. All that's fuzzy now for me. I will transcribe his voice message onto here.
I was watching The Brothers McMullen on video the night before last and Alex phoned at 1230 am and I was worried he might be in trouble so I answered and he was shocked I was still up. He was sound asleep and woke from another dream and was calling my voice mail to record it.
Anyway, his dream that night was another long one. The precis is that he and his father were having sex, they were back home at the family house, his mother was there and his father was trying to be nicey-nice with his mother but she was aloof and meanwhile Alex and his father were having sex everytime his mother left the room, taking care not to be discovered. Then Alex later found himself at another place, being interrogated by a bunch of co-workers who were asking him intimidating questions about religion and Alex felt put on the spot but tried to answer their interview-style questions as best he could, outlining his own perspective on religion. Then one of them showed him a graphic image on a big piece of paper, told him this image was "him". The image was kind of Rohrsach-like, depending on which angle you looked at it: from one perspective it was two naked children, one boy, one girl, and from the other it was this malevolent looking face, almost gargoylish, corrupted. Then Alex goes to a church where he wants to get involved in this religion and the church is full of attractive men who are really really cruising him. He goes over to the older man at the organ, and talks about wanting to get involved. He is basically rejected by the organist, and shunned - kicked out of the church and as he's walking out everyone is calling him "evil". He wakes up.
From: Alex
To: [QS]
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 11:42
Subject: dreams..
So here's the deal what the hell does it mean if I've been dreaming about having a bird shit on me. I've had the same dream 4 or 5 times in the last week, week and a half
Was to have included this in yesterday's email and I forgot
Signed
Dying to Know
Tuesday, 8 September 1998
I woke up again at 7 am from a dream where Alex and I are stretched out talking and cuddling, either in my parents’ bed or my own bed at the farm. Next thing I know, we start to make out. All I really remember is that he is biting my bare butt.
And yet another dream about sleeping with Alex: must the 3rd or 4th dream I’ve had about that scenario over the years. I have been surprised, in spending time with him since I got back, that I don’t feel sexually attracted to him at present.
And the day residue about this is that at the Barn Sunday night I was sitting on a stool in the corner talking and making out with Rob, the 21 year old Chinese guy I ended up bringing home that night, and Alex came up to us and playfully bit me on the butt to get my attention.
Sunday, 13 September 1998
I asked Alex where this "bad boy" attraction started, and he said "Oh probably with my father." I had always suspected as much. He told me a recurring dream he had as a teenager about a motorcycle gang invading his home, coming into he and his brother's bedroom, terrorizing the entire family (his father being noticeably absent), sawing off his mother's legs. He said he has always concluded that the motorcycle dudes represented his father.
Tuesday, 15 September 1998
After several mornings in a row of waking up vaguely remembering dreams and then promptly forgetting them, I awoke at 6:15 am remember one more clearly.
I dreamt that I was planning to take a trip to London, England with my birth father. He warned me that I'd better not cancel out on him, or he'd be really disappointed and I assured him that I would not back out. It's not clear whether I did, in fact, back out, or whether I merely cut my trip short with him and came back early. In any event, the part I recall best is that I am now on my way to catch the plane to London with Mom, not Pop.
Alex is helping get Mom and I with all our luggage to the plane. This involves walking with our luggage for a long way, up stairs and via a very circuitous route. There are many delays. One such delay involves passing through a café run by a young husband and wife with foreign accents. This couple are very friendly and I judge them very harshly, that their friendliness is only an attempt to make money off us.
As we make our way along this route, I am increasingly upset with Alex, somehow blaming him for the delay. We have to catch a very primitive ferry across a body of water to get to the airport, and by the time we reach the ferry dock, I realize that the only way we'll catch our flight is if the plane is delayed in taking off.
We stand in a short line-up at the ferry dock and watch the ferry come towards us. And it is really primitive: the ferryman is actually rowing it with oars! The ferryman is, in fact, that fiddle player who was on the train ride when I went home in late July! I rush to the front of the line-up and anxiously ask him if the plane for London has been delayed or not, and he informs me that no, it was on time so has already taken off. I am very upset.
While I am standing there, feeling vexed, this pudgy, effeminate, attractive blonde guy at the front of the line strikes up a conversation with me, pointing to a "bouquet" of ripe wheat sitting in the middle of the ferryboat, exclaiming at how beautiful it is, commenting on all the various details of how tastefully it is arranged, etc. I am very distracted, and can barely pay attention to what he is saying or to the bouquet of wheat, and give him stock responses.
I wake up.
Thursday, 31 December 1998
Two dreams in the last few days. In one, Alex was sitting in a living room telling my Mom all about his sex life.
