Friday, Aug. 16, 2002 - 4:02 p.m.
Whittling

‘Private’ thoughts transcribed from my handwritten journal this week; sweet Eric’s recent, intense entry moved me to post them here. Although they contain little in the way of answers to his questions, sometimes empathy is a mirror, reflecting damage and hope and beauty.

Sunday, 11 August 2002

At Bread Garden, mostly because I need to buy some low calorie dinner or other here. I’m on a bit of a diet, you see. When I weighed myself at the gym Wednesday I was 176 pounds; to my dismay, I’d put on 2 pounds since the week before! So that night I set a goal to lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks. I’m not going on a power diet; more than anything else, I am committing myself to eating healthy. So for the first time in my life I am starting my day, not with coffee and cigarettes, but breakfast (granola and yogurt, to be precise). The cigarette and coffee follow immediately thereafter, but on weekdays, now, I no longer have time for two in a row, so that’s good too. And I still eat a big lunch, my big meal of the day. It’s dinnertime where I get serious: only salads of some sort or other. And the only snacking I shall allow in between meals will be fruits or vegetables. So far, this has been going well; I shaln’t have much trouble losing 20 pounds in 10 weeks, especially in tandem with my return to regular exercise. So, yeah, I’m feeling pretty positive about this development.

On the whole, though, I’m not feeling very positive. Hmm, what do I really mean by that? Mostly, I need (or think I need) an ego boost right about now. I need/want to get cruised, picked-up. I’m embarrassed that this is true, but it is. As delightful as last weekend with the boys was, that bad experience I had at the baths was hard on my self-esteem.

Of course there’s a connection between getting triggered that night (I wrote a quite powerful entry on QS after I got home that night, the writing of which really helped ground me) and this new goal of shedding some pounds. Joey doesn’t think I need to lose 20, by the way, and some people thought I was too skinny when I used to weigh 160 but that was when I felt best about my body. We’ll see; if I get down to 165 I’d be pretty happy. Anyway, sure I’ll feel a lot better about myself as I lose some weight. And guys will be more interested in having sex with me, sure. But of course this won’t solve very much. Hmm, I don’t know if I believe that, that it won’t solve anything. Being in shape and eating better will be a good thing. Fitting back into more of my clothes will too. Being attractive to more people isn’t a bad thing (goal) is it? I guess it depends on what I do with it. I’m certainly under no illusion that increased desirability will put life back on an even keel—it won’t. I very easily get fucked up and thrown off kilter when “everyone” wants me. But man, oh how a part of me craves that.

And there’s a sense in which I wish to postpone the inevitable. I am getting older, and less guys want to sleep with a man in his late 30s. Ah well, the most profound thing I have to say about that is, even LESS want to sleep with a guy who’s pushing 40 AND who has a belly.

Anyway, have I mentioned WaiSang before? Let me check. Wow, I haven’t. Briefly, then, WaiSang is this very cute, tall 30 year old Asian guy I talked to on gay.com about 10 days before I went on holidays—ah, I see I did mention him on July 13. Anyway, he phoned the night I got back from holidays and seemed eager to meet but I was busy for the next week getting ready for and then entertaining my guests. WaiSang and I tentatively talked about meeting this past Wednesday, but earlier that same day he backed out, said a friend was in town. Whatever, I was in no hurry to meet him. (Which is good for me to remember now.) You see, I saw him Pride Day, recognized him from the lovely pics off the Internet but was too intimidated to approach him. (He didn’t see me.) He looked good, even hunkier and cuter than his pics. I didn’t worry too much—didn’t judge my decision as completely neurotic—since he was with friends, and so was I, in the middle of the horrendously crowded Pride pavilion, and I would have much rather met him one-on-one.

Anyway, I don’t need to keep going into this level of detail: suffice it to say that we had tentative plans for yesterday. I thought they were firm plans, and but I was mistaken, and in fact we did not meet. And while I appreciated the fact that at least WaiSang called, the fact that he was basically being non-committal in the way, to my mind, he was effectively backing out of our plans definitely triggered me. I’ve been quite subdued ever since, and that is definitely an overreaction.

Enough about that. I shaln’t make contact with him again, despite the niggling doubt I have that my assumptions about him may be exaggeratedly negative. If he makes contact with me, which I doubt, well I guess I’ll just play that by ear.

Monday, 12 August 2002

I am feeling superficial about this whole diet/fitness regimen. I’m glad I have the stick-to-it-iveness but I guess tonight I feel that what motivates me is pretty fucking pathetic! I want to get laid more. I want to be more desirable to more men. There’s something more than a little ridiculous and sad about that. Or is there?

(And just to be clear, I am not really dieting at all. I’m eating 3 square meals a day for the first time in my life. I’m just eating vegetarian or low-fat dinners, that’s all.)

Anyway, I feel more sadness than desire, lately, when I see all the buff, beautiful guys in the neighborhood. Something about the futility and unattainability of the whole sexual milieu, my concern that I am, as a 36 year old, from here on in on the outside looking in. Of course that’s probably not true—it’s only been about 10 days since the last cute (younger) guy cruised me—but there is something so “dangerous” about continuing to live my gay life, my sex life, egotistically. Like, I can see the road of diminishing returns. And so I have a choice—is that what scares me? No matter how trim and toned I might manage to get over the next while, fewer guys are going to want to sleep with me primarily because of my body.

There. Something just clicked. The fitness and the slimming down—that’s all fine, worthwhile for reasons more than the superficial ones alluded to above. But here’s the real dealio (“dealio”—J.C.’s word): at my most natural and grounded, I have a passionate intensity, an exciting vibrancy, that is very sexy. I am not saying that in some silly strategic way, and what I’m trying to get at is that that intensity has been repressed, dampened down, severely for quite some time. THAT’s the issue. It’s about turning the mute button off. I’ve been keeping myself small, hidden. The whole shame thing. Sure, looking better and feeling better will help a little bit with the shame, but only a little.

As usual, everything relates to everything else. Putting my creative writing on the shelf 3 or 4 months ago drained the last of my passion, and this all ties into that. I’m also thinking about AA, how difficult I’ve found it to meet guys there, especially the ones I’m drawn to.

So, here’s the dealio: My sex life will improve dramatically—more than that, it will deepen—as I once again confront my fear of people.

There.

Journaling is magic!

Thursday, 15 August 2002

Just had a yummy shrimp-Greek salad down the street with Enrique. And, with precision, I met my weekly goal: weighed myself at the gym tonight and I’ve lost 2 pounds. I weigh 176.

I’ve been in a sucky, pouty mood all week. What’s that about?

I’d like to start using this journal to explore all that more deeply, and less as a superficial chronicle. (How often have I said that before?)

I just went to the bathroom here. More to the point, I just had two eminently satisfying bowel movements in the past 15-20 minutes. The superficial comment would be that my new diet is definitely keeping me regular; I have really noticed it—that is Dump Number 3, or maybe 4, today.

More than that, it’s a metaphor. I need to shit out so much crap that has constipated my soul. I mean, it’s urgent! I need a spiritual suppository! ‘Soul’ and ‘spirit’ are not words I’m all that comfortable with and I’m beginning to think it’s time to take a look at this. I distrust the easy words that might come about all that but dammit all it’s time to cough up some better words, some more precise words, some fucking scary, beautiful words. Or, to forget about the words and open myself to the music.

Because I’m shriveling up, man. I’m dying here. I’m a classic case for getting cancer or some terminal illness, you know? I haven’t really been alive or wanted to be alive for a while now. I’ve been terrified of coming out and being seen. I am back at square one, a frozen baby scared to unleash the Haringesque radiance I plaster all over my walls.

People freak me out, man. I am a chicken-shit and it has been aeons since I’ve let anyone have more than a peek at me. So people are forgetting me, not remembering having met me (at AA, for example). This NEVER used to happen.

I want to be more and do more and feel more again. This relapse, this ice-cubism, is ridiculous. It’s fine if I don’t know what I want to do next, or become; but jeepers creepers, my hiding is becoming the face I present to the world. It’s all I let most people see!

Today in the sauna an Asian guy (older, not cute) was talking to a yummy, naked, bearded Caucasian guy. I quickly discerned that the Asian guy was taking some sort of exercise class from the yummy bearded guy. The Asian guy asked his instructor how long he’d been teaching this class. “20 years.” I did a double-take, as the yummy guy looked to be in his late 20s. The Asian guy asked him old he was. “40,” came the reply.

So I spoke up through the steam, as I admired the instructor’s fat cock hanging there. I asked what the class was. Kick boxing. And I said, “Will you give me a written guarantee that if I take the class I’ll look like you when I’m 40?”

He didn’t really get the joke, and my voice sounded self-conscious and wimpy to me, and he may have thought, too, that I was flirting. (Which I wasn’t.) But he did not take offense, just said that I wouldn’t look like him, only myself, blah blah blah, and encouraged me to take the class.

It was a small, clumsy example of what I’m getting at here, what I need to do, and be, more often. Because I cannot remember the last time I initiated a (non-sexual) interaction with a stranger.