Getting Life; Foreign Phrase – Saturday, May 31, 2003, 7:47 AMOkay, this morning's dream is a doosey.
I am looking for a book at a Chapters-like bookstore. The book is What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson (the book Mikey and I were talking about last night on gay.com, during our first, most-interesting chat -- he's reading the book, and I'd read a lot about it several months ago).
I'm standing there at the bookstore, flipping through this oversized hardcover book. It's beautifully put together, thick glossy pages with lots of color and black and white photography. Amazingly, there are several photographs that speak very personally to me, which the author used to illustrate the basic principles of his argument. Most notably, there were a series of black and white photos of the shop at our family farm being torn down! (In real life, the shop/garage is still very much standing, but in the dream this didn't seem to be the case.) The photos were shot from the south side, I recall. And they seemed to be illustrating the point "out with old, make way for the new".
There were also color photographs of the bridges in **, and of bridges in other Canadian cities. The metaphor seemed to be "bridging divides". The ** bridge photos really struck a chord with me, made me homesick, emotional.
As well, the book was chock full of other fantastic photographs illustrating this that and the other thing. There were photographs of things I didn't know the name of before, with descriptive entries describing the "things" in great detail. As I flipped through these sections of the book, I grew excited at the thought that this book could really help me with my writing, with putting names to things, enhancing my descriptive powers as a writer.
I needed to buy this book, I decided. No ifs ands or buts. But it was a heavy book, and I didn't want to carry it around all day so I planned to return to the bookstore later on, after I'd run some errands.
(There was also some other section in the dream, either just before or after the part about me in the bookstore, where I'm having coffee with some pedantic older guy, reminiscent of ** and may well have been him, and he's talking pompously about this book too.)
Then, later, I'm walking down what seems to be ** Street near Walter's apartment building. I'm walking south. There's a stout grey-haired lady talking loudly and excitedly to herself in a foreign language I don't recognize. She's smartly dressed, not a street person or anything, with glasses. She's repeating the same short sentence over and over again. I am walking behind her but soon come right up beside her. As I pass her, I glance over and in a teasing voice I repeat one of the words she keeps saying, one word from the short sentence she's reciting. She is taken aback and all the more excited by my unexpected verbalization. She looks at me, eyes wide, smiling confusedly, and she repeats the same word back to me with a question mark on the end. I keep walking, smiling, not wanting to get any further involved. But she has other ideas. She follows behind me, her voice louder and more agitated as she repeats the word over and over and over. I regret having said it to her. I don't know why I did. Now I don't know how to get rid of her. I walk more quickly and she can't keep up. Her loud, excited voice fades further into the background.
That's all I remember.
Life Planning & Sex - Saturday, May 31, 2003, 8:04 AM
Wow, I'm a bit blown away by this morning's dream! It wasn't emotionally compelling, not like some of the big dreams I've had in years past, but it's certainly the longest, most complex dream I've had in a long while. Fascinating. And that it ties into the book I was chatting with Mikey, this cute 26 year old Asian guy on gay.com last night, is further intriguing. What Should I Do With My Life? The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question, by Po Bronson. I first read about the book maybe six months ago, and even put in a request for it at the library if they ever acquired it. Then more or less forgot about it until last night I asked Mikey what he was reading (since he listed reading as a hobby) and this was the book. Led into a great conversation about the topic. Mikey's in his last year as an ** grad student at ** and not at all sure what he wants to do next. And obviously this whole big question is on my mind too.
So that I would dream about it, the book and its topic, especially as it concerns writing--I wanted to buy the book because it would help me with my writing--is certainly pretty fucking interesting, I'd say!
There is a swell of meaning here. My re-emergent curiosity about shame, the haphazard steps I'm making to at least expose myself to writing stimulation. There's stuff going on in the background that I'm not blocking so much as I usually do. This is all good.
This Mikey fellow sounds interesting. But I should probably run the other way, as he's very much a romantic monogamist, uptight about sex and not able to separate sex from love. This made for a great conversation, but I should probably run the other way, shouldn't I? I intrigue these people, and they intrigue me but we are like oil and water I think. I end up hurting them (and/or getting hurt by them) and it's just a disaster waiting to happen. Yet he is (they all are) so wholesome and the absence of a sexual fixation in the conversation appeals to other parts of me.
It was just an introductory chat, but he did give me his email address and seemed quite enthused to keep in touch. I will email him of course, and we'll see what happens. There's really nothing more to say at this point.
I would like some sex this weekend. Some kind of sex. At least an orgasm would be nice. (smirk) When did I last come? I remember I was going to jerk off to the softcore erotica on PrideVision one night early this week as I was getting ready for bed but then a commercial came on just as I lay down with my underwear around my ankles and I thought to myself, I'm too tired to waitfor the commercials to end so I went to bed without touching myself. That's the kind of week I've had. So, I have no idea if or when I last jerked off since my last sexual encounter which would have been, hmm, oh wait it was only Monday night! That goofy Asian guy with the big dick, Jian.
How eminently forgettable that was. I'm laughing. I was pleasantly surprised this morning to get an email from Satinder the East Indian eighteen year old! It's been a month since I last emailed him (and my email was a month after he'd last emailed me) so I'd kinda concluded this had fizzled out. But no. I have only seen that mouthwatering bare belly pic of him and that's been enough to sustain my interest all this time! (smirk) I'm in the mood this weekend to finally meet him but he doesn't seem to0 eager to meet. But I am going to suggest it. I swore I'd swear off eighteen year olds after **, but what the heck.
It is more than coincidence, I think, that when my dance card (my fuck card is more like it) is full, I barely concern myself with questions of "what am I going to do with my life". Only when I'm more or less dateless do those larger questions enter back into things.
I read an article in the online edition of today's NY Times that ripped my heart out, about a doctor from NYC going over to Sierra Leone to help out with all the amputees who'd had limbs so cruelly chopped off in the civil war there, who ended up bringing an eight year old boy home and adopting him. I am pretty sure this doctor was written up in that incredible article I read on the same topic in the New Yorker late last fall or early this winter. That article--which I think I alluded to in my journal at the time--affected me more than anything I've ever read in that magazine, more than anything I've read in the last year. Why? As usual, I don't know how to say it, to express anything about what in me got sparked into being by these stories. This morning's article had a similar effect; I almost started audibly crying!
Maybe it's the adoption thing that gets the deepest in. Certainly wanting to help out with all the tragedy and unrest and disease in Africa, that's becoming a larger and larger yearning for me too. I don't know. Something about this story just fucks me up, back into humanity. Wow.
There's stuff out in the world for me to do. That's for sure. I just don't know what. I just don't know how. What did Mandela say at his inauguration?
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we
are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory
of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Wow, according to several Internet sources (where I found the text), this actually was not part of Mandela's inaugural speech at all! In fact, the author is Marianne Williamson, that Course in Miracles writer. Wow. I'm actually not entirely surprised: when I first saw this text pasted on Margot's fridge years ago, it simply didn’t sound like Mandela. (Not that I knew very much about him at the time, but it just didn't sound like something Mandela would say at that time, so free of any political/social references.) The lines distill Mandela's vision, really, stripping it of the political and the social but it is a poetic rendition of what he means to me.
But apparently he never said these words, didn't even quote them in his inaugural speech. Funny how these things get started. Anyway, be all that as it may: my playing small doesn't serve the world.
It does not.
It's Saturday: I sure wouldn't mind a cigarette! It's been two weeks, and I don't allow myself one until next Saturday. And then not for a month after. But yeah, my body is kind of conditioned or something, because I do have a certain craving for a cigarette lately. I'll be okay though.
Don't have much else to say right now. Think I'll just relax here until my laundry's done and then eat something and go work out this morning.
8:48 am
Clarity? - Monday, Jun 2, 2003, 7:12 AM
I sketched out my bardo place about some of this stuff, sex, friendship, boyfriendship, last night online to one of the latest gay.com boys, Mikey the 26 year old Asian guy. He was definitely thinking that, were we to meet and get along, that things would proceed along that conventional boyfriend route and I had to extensively spell out how and why that just wouldn't happen with me. I'm glad I did too, because I think he was ready to meet sooner rather than later. And I don't want to fuck with him. Excuse the pun. By the end of the chat, he was thinking he didn't know if he could have sex with me knowing that I was also having sexual friendships with others, but that he was definitely interested in a platonic friendship with me if nothing else. I thought that was so cool that he
would say that. "And then you can entertain me with all the stories of your wild sex life," he said.
And that's probably the best, if that's what he can handle.
Anyway, life is interesting. Sex is interesting. My ongoing bipolar relationship with my body is interesting. I just need to keep writing myself down to the heart of these matters.
(Not) On The First Date – Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, 8:42 AM
Oh dear. Mikey and I met last night. Dinner at **. He was ten times cuter and hunkier than I'd anticipated. Nice surprise. I'm getting hard just thinking about how nicely surprised I was, seeing him walk down the street towards me at 8 pm. No that can't be him. Oh my god it is. Look at those muscular arms, that slim waist. OH MY GOD HE'S HOT!
Dinner, chat, fun. Nice little connection. We'd talked online about the whole ‘I'm a big slut and you're looking for a conventional monogamous boyfriend so maybe we should just be friends’ scenario, and those attendant issues--sex, relationships, gay life, etc.--formed much of our face-to-face conversation, too. It was all very interesting. He is beautiful. Big brown eyes, full, plushly cheekboned face. Lickable everywhere, and those toned smooth arms spilling out of his tight blue tee. Fuck.
So we walked around, joking and talking, stopped in a couple bookstores, and then I invited him back. He hummed and hawwed, I said not for sex, just to hang. My shoulder was really bothering me too, wanted to rest it. Blah blah blah. We headed over without him having made up his mind. He came up. "For a bit," he said.
So many things to look at my apartment, eh? Naughty photo books (I was surprised that he headed right for that section at the gay bookstore) and the Harings on the wall and photos on the TV stand. Then more of the same conversation we'd started in our first online chat, what's it all for, why do we gay men meet up, is it always just about sex to the exclusion of anything more, blah blah blah. I said I was powerfully attracted to him, wanted to jump him, wouldn't, not tonight. Wanted to get to know him, knew already he was much more conventional than I, let's get to know each other, be friends if that's meant to be, and see what else might come. He liked the sound of that. He didn't say nearly as much about where he was at as I did. Typical.
Perhaps the truest thing I said "I'm drawn to guys like you—more conventional guys, I mean--because there's a part of me that wants what you want, a conventional, monogamous relationship with just one guy. And I don't mean to presume, but I bet you're drawn to me because some part of you wants the chaotic sex life too." He didn't know what to say to that.
But the sexual tension was building and building. We seemed to be sitting closer and closer together on the couch. I lit candles. Started kneading his big hard arm and shoulder. He said nothing, kind of froze up. I asked if this was okay. He said it was. His tone wasn't convincing. I stopped touching, sought clarification. What did he want tonight? We'd already definitively agreed there'd be no sex, but did he want affection? Yes, he nodded, breathily, after a long pause. And kissing would he let me kiss him? Another pause, another breathy yes of a nod. I leaned in and tasted his lips. Touched more, and kissed, and lay down together and snuggled and hugged.
"I just know this is not meant to go any further than this tonight, " I said. Feeling emotional and excited.
Later, lying in bed, there wasn't much of his clothed, ridiculously-perfect body I hadn't grazed, groped and caressed. I was agog.
His resolve began to crumble. I did nothing to help him keep it. He began to sound less sure that he didn't want sex tonight. He began to have less and less to say. I was confused. He was confused. Our dicks were shrieking in our jeans.
It's the oldest story in the book I guess.
I couldn't believe how thick his dick was in his jeans. At first I groped clumsily, then began walking my fingers along it pointedly, feeling it swell and harden. I began to obsess. He couldn't believe how hard mine felt in my jeans. He got more and more worked up, groping me. "You're so, so, so sexual," he exclaimed.
Um, yeah.
By this time our shirts were off. His torso made me gasp. Totally hairless, ripped, six-pack-esque, pottered armpits, everything was perfect. A large black mole up and to the right of his belly button, very much resembling a third nipple. Unbelieveable. I jabbed my tongue in his nearest pit, tracing that favorite line I love to trace up and back from the nipple. I was fast losing control.
The stalemate intensified. I encouraged him to consider the option of jerking himself off, with me not touching him, to break the impasse and move us onto the other side of it without going back on what we'd agreed. I had no idea whether to trust whether what I was saying was valid, was helpful, or merely a less hypocritical prurience.
Whatever it was, it's what happened next. I undid his belt, his fly. He did the rest. Big fucking dick flopped out, it went from soft to hard many times but I first saw it soft. He jerked it stiff and I was mesmerized--yes, that's the word, mesmerized--by its girth. Thickest dick I've seen in a long while. This on top of his porno star body, it was all a bit much. I was puckered and ready to explode. I stripped my jeans and undies down to my knees and joined him in this solo masturbation compromise. Then he grabbed my dick. I let him, grabbed hold of his. It became less and less of a compromise. We'd go back to jerking ourselves, it had just been a sampling little interlude maybe, and then back to jerking each other, well maybe not, and then I moved myself down to lick his balls while he jerked and of course I was down in dangerous territory so that when Mikey asked me to please suck him it was all too easy to oblige.
And my desire transmogrified, then, into something base, elemental. It was as if his dick was molded from the contours of my throat. I haven't craved a cock with the nerve endings (or whatever they are?) at the back of my throat like that since that magical night the French guy introduced me to deep-throating in Toronto in '99. I plunged and plunged down on Mikey, stoned on his big fat cock. "Big fat cock!" I exclaimed, over and over, feeling dirty, deep-throat-drool dribbling off my lip as I looked up at his candlelit face.
Heaven.
He couldn't cum. I had to. My orgasm shocked and aroused him further; he exclaimed at its intensity and tried to use this surprise to effect his own. To no avail. I was obliterated. I was feeling pretty guilty about all the fine words we'd said, that I especially had said, to now be lying here so obliterated, so hypocritical. Very much wanting to see him again but intuiting that if he--conventional Mikey, who hadn't had sex nor so much as fooled around with a guy since he and his ex broke up six months ago--would allow this to happen it would probably remain a one time encounter, that he couldn't handle seeing me again knowing I wasn't willing to do the conventional boyfriend thing. That he'd got what he couldn't admit to himself or to me that he wanted, and I'd been willing to forego what I wanted--the opportunity to get to know someone interesting over the longer term, to give it up to enjoy a pert young body for a night instead.
Of course it may not go that way. But the odds are against it, and we both fucking knew that and did it anyway. As I kept saying last night, "We're guys. This is a guy thing. Under the circumstances, two guys turned on with throbbing hard-ons, I'd say we're doing pretty darned good!" And that's true.
He left, and it was a bit uncomfortable. He didn't have much to say. He didn't seem to even want to hug or kiss at the door--it was 3 am--but I took those from him before letting him go.
And then I sat here at the computer, still feeling my throat craving more of his fat cock, remember all the sweet little things about his personality that make me want to see him again.
The thought that came to me, I don't know that I'll be able to express it this morning, but it was something like As men, when it comes to sex most of us are too confused, too unconsciously self-delusional for high-minded, mature boundaries and goals and intentions to pan out. Stop dwelling on the rational , stop talking about it so much with these guys! Become less verbal. You're giving off deeper vibes, just let them work. If anything emotional, substantive, is meant to flow, it will -- don't push the river, it flows by itself. Shed the high-minded crap. You are so often bewitched by desire, and your mesmerization makes you bewitching to many a beautiful man Let his conversational, verbal needs set the tone. Mikey didn't need to hear half of what you thought you needed to say last night. You talked too much, and now you look hypocritical, at least to yourself. Yet you both got something powerful from the evening. Let it keep happening. If he calls, great; if not, you will certainly live. Don't hold back from stating your needs in an attempt to evade, but so as to be truest to those needs and desires that cannot pass into language That's where the power of two men meeting resides. Trust it. Words are for later.
And now I'm off to an acupuncture treatment. I have really bunged up my shoulder again -- rolling around with hunky Mikey didn't help! Do I care? Not particularly.
9:23 am
Lost & Found & Zany - Sunday, Jun 8, 2003, 8:42 AM
Couldn't sleep in again this morning, this time on account of my shoulder. Yesterday's acupuncture treatment helped a heck of a lot, and I felt remarkably improved all day. But this morning I awoke around 6:30, uncomfortable, and have basically been awake ever since. But I'm in a pretty good space. Yesterday was a zany, often out-of-control day but I was anything but bored.
To jump ahead to the best part, it appears that my concern—that having sex with Mikey would jinx the potential for anything further to unfold between us—was unfounded. I am so happy about that, wow. Exchanged emails yesterday, by which I couldn't really tell where he was at but then we had a fantastic chat on gay.com early last night that really allayed my worries. Let me go back and read what I wrote yesterday - the journaling session is a blur now. Wow, I like what I wrote--for the first time since starting the Livejournal format, I actually edited it a bit, tightened up one or two phrases, nothing too major. But I quite like what I wrote! I especially like the italicized "note to self" at the end, because that's sort of what I've accepted now, after having touched base with Mikey yesterday.
Because that whole rational "we can't do this or this won't be possible" type of scenario is shit. Look what happened with Garth. The whole "ten date rule" - what a load of crap, eh? I mean, it didn't prevent him from being a jerk in the end, did it? It just made me get more attached to him so that it hurt more when he did.
Sure, there is a generic wisdom that my experience does bear out, that having sex on the first date often does thwart anything further. But the whole "just let it happen" thing is what I want to focus on here.
Intellectually, I fret too much about all this stuff, and there's a whole neurotic thing that plays in the background. That's what thwarts a lot of potential connections, I think.
Anyway, so I'm totally excited about this Mikey dude. Sexually, he just blows me away; I mean, his body does. He himself, in terms of what he did sexually and his own energy, was noticeably reserved Friday night.
But I am not concerned about that. He's inexperienced, and admitted last night online that he's a bit intimdated by the difference in our level of sexual experience. As well as being turned on by how experienced I am, what he might learn from me. (ahem)
We don't have a huge amount of things in common, but enough. More so, I really feel comfortable and stimulated talking with him (so far; it is early). We're getting together after work Tuesday. Wow.
I am not sure about "Mikey" though. It sounds like such a little boy's name to me. Sweet sounding but kind of juvenile. I'd much rather call him "Mike". Maybe I'll ask him.
But yeah, an interesting guy. Came over here with his family from ** when he was 18; they run a ** store and don't speak English. But he gets along really well with his parents and they do not limit his freedom like, for example, **'s family did his. He came out to them and they are quite accepting too, and he thinks he'll bring them to the Pride parade. So that's all very cool.
Way too early to tell, but early indications are that Mikey is dating material. I really like him, and not just sexually. (Admittedly, the sexual is the most intense part so far but then as if I needed to spell that out!)
Me, date someone? I've got a lot of growing up to do, or whatever you want to call it. (smirk)
Because for most of the time I was having this extremely important online chat with Mikey yesterday I was simultaneously chatting with (a) NubianStud, this beautiful Caribbean guy, Andy, with whom I've been flirting off and on for a few months, and (b) some 19 year old pictureless Asian guy, Kenny, who was eager to hook up and sounded so cute and so hot to trot that, without seeing a pic, I invited him to come straight over. So I chatted with Mikey and Andy while waiting for Kenny to arrive and then Kenny arrived and we had quickie sex just before I headed to the 8:30 AA meeting!
Like, what is that? This is a very similar dynamic to when I was so mixed up with Robin and Garth and Nobutoshi--I get such a charge out of erotic juggling like that.
Kenny was sweet, only sort of cute but cute enough - we had fun. He hadn't had sex in about six months either, he said. (What's up with that?) ** student at **, moved here from ** by himself.
When I asked him where he learned to suck cock like that he said videos. Yeah right. After we came I noticed the skin on the top of his calf, back of his knee looked melted, slightly unsightly. I asked him about it. He was badly burned when he was one year old, playing with a hot pot I think he said. The doctors recommended his leg be amputated below the knee, but his parents wouldn't consider it. Wow. It's not that bad looking—normal flesh color, just has the appearance of having melted. He said he's pretty self-conscious about it.
Anyway.
What I know is, I haven't been as turned on by anyone as Mikey turns me on; I could probably, eventually, be monogamous with him. (Provided he loosens up and gets more reciprocal and "into" it - but I sense that is just a matter of time, a short time actually.) I mean, fuck, he is so totally my type.
Yesterday was a very strange day, especially the first half. After my acupuncture I got back downtown and suddenly felt extremely horny for anonymous sex. It was a total emotional compensation type of thing as I was pretty sure that, excuse the pun, I'd blown things completely with Mikey. Cruised the Bay men's room, nothing going on there, and ended up buying a really cool short-sleeved black shirt that I couldn't afford and the cashier lady did a bang-up job on selling" me a no-questions-asked Bay card with which I got 20% off anything I would buy in the store that day. So I dropped $500 in the next hour or so. Jesus Christ. Four pair of jeans/pants, two pair of shorts, two pair of underwear, three or four shirts, cologne.
Then I took a new Haring poster in to be framed, then I hiked down to the cruisy part of ** Park, itching for sweaty al fresco sex. I thought it would be hopping but there was hardly anyone there, certainly no one that interested me. There's a second cruisy part farther in that Colin showed me a long time ago so I made my way there, not sure if I remembered where it was. Seemed to find it, a few guys walking around, lots of condom wrappers on the ground.
And I kept wandering farther in, in search of the action, in search of the ultimate hot guy just waiting for me to suck him off. Farther and farther in. And then I thought, oh my goodness I better be careful or I'm going to get lost in here! And I did. I got totally lost in the bush, in the dense forest, with no clue how to get back to a main trail, no idea which direction I was walking, nothing. The brush was getting thicker and thicker and I was sweating profusely and starting to panic. I was lost for maybe only half an hour, 45 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I mean, ** Park is a pretty big park and if I was heading in a certain direction I could get totally removed from civilization and died of exposure or mosquitoes or from the wolves or whatever might get me! That's what I was panicking about. It might take months for anyone to find my body. So that when I finally stumbled onto a main path, what a relief. And there was a huge basin of thick, quicksand-ish mud between me and the main path but I didn't fucking care, I was almost freaking out that I had to get across onto the beaten path (more than a beaten path, it was like one of the main walking paths) and so I fought my way over some logs that were so soggy that they literally crumbled beneath my feet and pushed my way through slimy branches and jarred my sore shoulder to get through onto the other side, staining my face and clothes with dirt. Too wild.
And then I had no idea where I was, what path this was, which was right direction to head back. But at least I was headed somewhere! So to make a long story short, after walking another half hour or so on this main path I ended up at ** Beach, way to the north of the farthest north point I'd been on the path before, and so walked the path back to ** Beach, checked out the original cruisy area once more, still nothing going on, and then finally headed home. So that it was after all this adventure that I ended up online and talking to Mikey, Andy and Kenny.
That's the kind of day it was. These last few weeks have been reminding me a lot of how chaotic my sex/love life was in Toronto much of the time.
I am not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Never a dull moment, anyway.
9:30 am
Everyone Wants Me, Don’t They? - Monday, June 9, 2003
But yes I am misbehaving, not focusing. Not focusing on myself—my writing for a good example which I completely ignored and avoided all weekend. Not focusing on any one guy long enough to nurture anything. I'm crazy about Mikey but how pathetic is it that while he and I were having that crucial conversation Saturday I was flirting with Andy and arranging for sex with the nineteen year old? I mean, there's something about that that excites me, thrills me--but it's fucked isn't it? Same sort of thing I would delight in and get off on with Nobutoshi, Garth and Robin when I was acting up with the 3 of them -- rushing from one to the other in the same night or whatever, cruising Robin under Nobutoshi's nose.
When it comes down to brass tacks, I don't play the games that intentionally hurt people, I don't lie. But I better watch this because these sorts of shenanigans do not further anything other than the entertainment value and erotic value of keeping my options open in perpetuity. I'm crazy about Mikey at this early stage; Andy seems more and more interesting the more we communicate; I'm still interested in hanging out with Nobutoshi. Now I sense that the Chinese guy whose name escapes me, from our talk online last night, is still somewhat interested, and I do want to pursue that; Satinder it would just be for sex but that would be hot.
How much more do I need or want? What software is running in the back of my mind that I'm not fully aware of here?
I don't need that much sex. As I said to Colin yesterday, when I'm horny and it's summery out, 3 times a week would be enough; at other times when I'm feeling less sexual or whatever, once a week or even once every ten days or so is plenty. So it's not about the orgasm. It seems to be about the intrigue, nowadays. What I obsess over is the naughty thrill of juggling three flirtatious online conversations, or going from one date to another in the same night, or whatever. Beneath the drama is the crazy belief I'm attempting to validate: that everybody wants me.
And that gets me into trouble. As I said to Walter that day he and I had brunch after the AA conference, that's what I'm addicted to. Being wanted. And it fucks up my life--it's the opposite of spirituality.
Anyway.
It's okay to have fun, and right now I am in enjoyment mode as opposed to fucked-up mode. If Mikey disappears it will trigger me, I predict. But right now I'm just going with the flow.
Right now, I am anything but grounded.
7:50 am
Forward & Backward - Tuesday, Jun 10, 2003, 7:21 AM
Well, I did hear from Mikey on email yesterday afternoon -- not until I emailed him expressly to ask if we were still on for tonight (since he hadn't returned my phone call from Saturday). Does any of this sound familiar? I got into a similar dynamic early on with Garth and I really need to take a look at this. This anxiety, this niggling sense, always, that the guy is just going to vanish. It's mistrust, really.
It's silly to trust someone prematurely, and I guess I've been guilty of that a lot in my life. I'm sure that would be Alex's number one critique of me in relationships, that I'm too trusting, too open. (Whereas my critique of him in relationships would be the exact opposite. Is it any wonder we're best friends?) But this bouncing back and forth that I do when I first meet someone--they'll call, no they won't call, I'll see them again, no they'll disappear just like all the others, I should focus on seeing where this goes, no because they're going to fuck off like everyone else so I might as well keep my options open, keep chatting other guys up online, keep meeting new cute guys, keep looking for sex, it's good to have back-up.
That is the bald truth, right there. I don't need to trust anyone if I've got a constant stream of back-up. Or if I at least feel like there's back-up. This dynamic reminds me more of the last couple years I was in Toronto. I was slightly this way while in ** too but it was really bad in Toronto and it's getting back up to those proportions again.
Anyway, so Mikey emailed me yesterday afternoon, said he'd been sorry he missed my call Sunday and was going to call me Monday night anyway. (Fair enough, right?) Said we were definitely on for Tuesday, and what did I want to do? So I called him last night and we had a little chat, agreed to meet here at 7:30 and probably watch one of my movies after heading up to KFC to pick up the cheap "toonie Tuesday" meal. That was basically our conversation; Mikey sounded uncomfortable, wanting to get off the phone.
So what do I feel now? I'm looking forward to seeing him but it's not so visceral now. I think he is going to show up (or at least call to cancel rather than stand me up). This is definitely something worth following up. I don't have anything else to say about it, and now I actually feel cranky.
Which probably means I'm on the verge of some insight.
Here's something that happened Friday night. Mikey and I browsed at the gay bookstore and I found Speaking for Vice: Homosexuality in the Art of Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, and the First American Avant-Garde by Jonathan Weinberg on sale for $15 so I bought it. We looked through it together when we got back to my place. Felt very comfortable, flipping through gay art books with Mikey like that. I could feel the heat of his body beside me on the couch. Then this indented quote jumped out at me from page 113, and on a whim I read it aloud:
For a homosexual, the best moment of love is likely to be when the lover leaves in the taxi. It is when the act is over and the boy is gone that one begins to dream about the warmth of his body, the quality of his smile, the tone of his voice. It is the recollection rather than the anticipation of the act that assumes a primary importance in homosexual relations. This is why the great homosexual writers of our culture (Cocteau, Genet, Burroughs) can write so elegantly about the sexual act itself, because the homosexual imagination is for the most part concerned with reminiscing about the act than anticipating it. And, as I said earlier, this is all due to very concrete and practical considerations and says nothing about the intrinsic nature of homosexuality.
(I only identified the writer--surprise, surprise, it's Foucault--when I looked it up again this morning.) I asked Mikey if he agreed with the point. I don't think he had much to say about, other than that he found it interesting. I was similarly eloquent. But yet it seemed to speak directly to this experience, this heightened erotic tension I felt sitting there with him on the couch, juxtaposed against the certainty I felt intellectually that sex could and should not happen. Well, sex did happen, and I did not begin my visceral, joyous reminiscences until Mikey and I had that great online chat Saturday early evening--then my body was flooded with all the beauty of the night before. Now my recollective delight is suppressed again.
I suppose it's also a great deal about fear.
7:51 am
Date #2 – Wednesday, Jun 11, 2003, 7:21 AM
I had a great time hanging with Mikey last night. (He said I can call him Mike if I'd like, and I think I would prefer that, but I will also wait a bit before making that switch in my mind. 'Mikey' is not without its charms, but 'Mike' sounds both more grown-up and more manly to me...) He seemed a bit stand-offish when he first arrived, and that made me a little shy too. But it was no big deal: we both had every right to be a little withdrawn. The fact that he'd bothered to show up, etc. -- this was the unusual part in my experience! So we slogged on through the uncomfortable bits as we ate our Kentucky Fried Chicken sitting here on the couch. He sat as far over to the one edge as he could, and remained there a long while. We watched 'Trick' - he'd never seen it, and it was the perfect movie for us to watch together. He came more alive during the movie, very obviously enjoying it. I grabbed onto him, caressing here and there at points in the movie and he did not reciprocate at all but seemed to like the attention. I eventually lay my head in his lap and massaged his big thighs and he was ever so slightly more responsive to that. Then when the movie was over his inhibitions evaporated: came back from using the washroom and sat right beside me, put his arm around me and planted a deep kiss on my lips. Oomph! So I too came alive at that point, of course.
We went to bed, after agreeing not to have sex again. After agreeing, again, not to have sex. We almost did anyways, but not quite. Neither of us came: that counts, doesn't it? (smirk) But the notable thing here was how much more responsive Mikey was, how much more reciprocal. What a pleasant surprise. Everything else was great too: the sexual conversation we had, the taste of his smooth ass, his big cock again stretching the back of my throat. Fuck!
The conversation was very interesting. It's almost as if he views me as his erotic mentor. How very very interesting! I can play that part! (smirk)
What I got from the experience was how much less emotionally intense it was, yet still very much enjoyable! I do think this is going to go somewhere, that what we've started has some viability. Ugh, have I ever used that word--viability--in my journal before? It actually does precisely describe that quality of potential ongoingness that is so incredibly elusive, but not very poetically. Mark Doty's ongoingness rolls much more trippingly off the tongue.
But what I mean, I think, when I say it was less intense was that I myself was more grounded, more boundaried. I was present--mostly in a sexual way, but who's to knock that level of presence?! Not me!--and everything felt really right. But I was very much in my own body and not fantasizing as I so often do about an idyllic, dyadic future that would nub out every qualm and unhappiness and unresolved issue in my own little life.
Instead, I could sense an ongoingness that would not upset or radically transform my life, our lives, but might gradually help to shape it. You know, the normal way love weaves itself into life.
I feel we really connected, though. Appropriately yet promisingly. I don't feel so romantic about this now, mostly friendly and sexual--those zones I'm most comfortable and, I must admit (and I don't think I'm merely bullshitting), most able to connect. (Those zones where ongoingness is most viable. (smirk))
But then the whole thing may be over now. I told Mikey as he left that I would leave it up to him as to scheduling our next get-together and he said he's going to be busy all weekend with his birthday (Saturday) up to and including Monday. I was a bit taken aback that he wouldn't want to make time for us to get together sooner than a week, but fair enough. I will wait to hear from him.
I may not hear from him.
I think I will. He wants to fuck me. He'll keep coming back till I give him that at least.
How's that for optimistic eh?
Enough about that. I'm going to stop writing here in a minute anyway. But I am aware of another wave of shame in my life right now, this time in relation to writing. Every time I think about writing (not including this private journal) I feel almost nauseous. I can't bring myself to write. Who knows, though. Maybe I'll get my second wind here.
But yeah I just feel ashamed. Vocationally too. That whole "you'll never amount to anything" voice inside my head. That book Mikey reintroduced me too, What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? - I bought it on the weekend, haven't started reading it yet. Kind of scared to.
All this sex stuff, including meeting great guys like Mikey--it's all a distraction from this. That's the sad part.
Downcast, Looking Up – Thursday, Jun 12, 2003, 7:12 AM
Today, after a nice long sleep, things feel noticeably better. My shoulder, and my mood. Interesting chats online last night, yeah. A new Japanese guy, Hiro - 35. Can't tell how cute he is from the pic but interesting enough to bear further exploration--by the end of the conversation he sounded a bit geeky. That Scott guy from the tubs a month ago was on again, wanted to come over, and we had a fun flirtatious chat. He gave me his cell # for the first time so he's definitely interested.
What I'm thinking is, I should probably forego sex for at least a week. I think my shoulder was bothering me so much because of the rolling around in bed with Mikey the night before. Isn't that sad though? It wouldn't kill me though, not for one week. (smirk)
This morning in the shower I was thinking about Mikey's big cock. This is not unusual; I've been thinking of little else since I first saw, grabbed and tasted it Friday. But what I was specifically reminiscing about this morning was that I asked him to slap my face with it. He looked aroused at my request; I don't think I've ever asked anyone to do that, nor have I really had it done to me. Oomph! So he did, but he did it too gently and repetitively: slap slap slap slap slap. I grabbed hold of his big dick and showed him what I liked: THUD ................. THUD ..................... THUD........................... THUD. (smirk)
Fuck I loved that so much. His dick turns me on so much.
Stepping back from sex, though......I should really consider stepping back from sex. All of a sudden, again, there is nothing going on in my personal life except for sex. How did that happen?
I love sex. Sex is wonderful. One of my most creative energies, for sure.
And, sex is a potent antidote to shame. That's what is really happening here, the negative part of what's happening. And I'm not sure "antidote' is the best word: hmm, now this is interesting. Sex does/can neutralize or counteract the shameful feelings, yes. But not permanently; there is no eradication, only temporary relief. I guess a better antidote is love.
I guess a better antidote is love.
The tenuous sense (or complete absence of) connectedness that loosely stitches together my "sex life" is not good for my shame. Wow. That last sentence, however awkwardly put, is a new insight. What I put up with or foster interpersonally in order to get sex exacerbates my sense of shame. Wow.
There's such a sense of barely caring about the other person, not allowing those feelings to take root inside me, not expecting or believing that any of these guys could or would feel them back in my direction. That is so often the emotional underpinning to the entire erotic enterprise: above all, avoid emotional entanglements. These are just bodies; I am just a hungry mouth and a flatterer and a--as Mikey put it--a "master" in the erotic realm, anxious to bestow pleasure and sexual wisdom.
No love please, no love.
Give me a fucking break!
I'm stating it too emphatically, yes -- but there is a huge thud of truth to these musings.
I am glad that the compulsiveness seems long-gone, but I do also sense that I'm on somewhat of a slippery slope at times and I do need to mind what's happening, how I'm feeling about what's happening. I also need to sustain a sense of joy and enjoyment about it all. No need to problematize what's unproblematic.
The problematic part is that I seem to be unconscious, unaware about how addicted I am to being found attractive. It's not translating into the quantity of sex it used to (but I'm doing pretty well in the quantity department too, eh?) but I find myself getting triggered, more often than I'd like to admit, by anxiety about not being found attractive or about the person who finds me attractive not wanting to spend time with me once they get to know me. Most notably, Garth; I felt similar anxiety here with Mikey Tuesday night.
Got to keep paying attention to this.
And how it all ties into my writing. I still feel nauseous at the thought of writing. This is bizarre. But it's so reducible to shame. So much of what doesn't work in my life is reducible to shame.
Enough. I feel a lot clearer having written this.
7:40 am
Only Disconnect – Sunday, Jun 15, 2003, 9:19 AM
I am grounded, and it's time to take a look at the "easy come easy go" syndrome in my life. Nobutoshi is the latest casualty, I think. Did I write about running into him and some guy on the hiking path last Sunday when I was out with Walter? It was slightly awkward, but no big deal in the grand scheme of things, as I've always wanted him to keep putting himself out there to meet a boyfriend or whatever, because that's what he's ideally looking for. So I sent him a friendly email mid-week and haven't heard back.
And I don’t really care, truth be told. I enjoyed him to a degree, but....am largely indifferent as to whether this inchoate friendship goes anywhere or not. I mean, part of that is cynicism, jadedness, and I do things to try and counteract that cynicism. But the emotional truth here is that I don't care very much about him. We've had fun, a friendly kind of fun, and that's been it. I guess I don't place as much value on friendly fun as I think I do, or think I should, or think everyone else should. So I've sent Nobutoshi my friendly little email (Wednesday?) and I shaln't do one other thing to contact him.
Mikey, haven't heard from him since I sent him an email probably on the same day. He'd said when he left Tuesday night that he'd be busy for the next seven days (his birthday was yesterday) but I thought he'd at least email me. Oh well. It's the same easy come easy go thing: I'd be shocked, now, if I ever heard from him.
Hmm, maybe I'm not as grounded as I thought. I mean, this is the fucking story of my personal life. People don't stick around. No one sticks around long enough to really figure out whether it's worth sticking around. And it's always less likely to happen if there's no sex involved. The choice I am faced with on a guy-by-guy or dick-by-dick basis is, do I want to get to know this person or do I want to have sex with them?
That is probably the saddest thing about my life right now.
I'm not lonely. Not really. Not very. But I have an excess of sexual life, and a paucity of connectedness.
It just feels like none of us are capable of having sex and looking one another in the eye. Not unless it's some conventional commitment---the whole boyfriend thing--and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that just isn't me right now.
Is it me? Is it them?
I do invest a lot of time and energy in meeting new guys, and 99% of the time nothing happens that lasts more than about 2 or 3 weeks. Toronto, **, here, it's all the same fucking thing. Literally.
What to do about it? I have more to learn, more growing to do, that's for sure. But I think the learning and the growing I've done has been part of the problem. (Part of the time I wonder about that; other times, I think I'm just bull-shitting myself that I've grown or learned a thing!) I'm too honest with guys. If I'd just shut up, not deliver this big song & dance about not looking for a boyfriend, wanting to start off as friends, maybe something would develop. I don't know. I really don't know. I'm the most honest person I know, sometimes that's what I think; at other times, I think I'm the world's biggest bullshitter.
Sex is easy to find, again. For a long while (much of last year) it eluded me, and now sex is everywhere again. I really feel a lot of the time lately that I'm just going to concede defeat on the whole love/sex dichotomy: love and sex will never cohere in my life. And just go with platonic friendships and lots of fun playful sex in completely separate compartments. It's what most gay men--who aren't the marrying kind--do.
Is it not just the reality for so many of us?
Acceptance is a great idea and all, but how to know what it is we must accept and what it is we must rail against, confront, grow into instead?
Anyway, I guess that little rant was helpful. :)
