CONVERSATION IN CAR

 

KYLE: Do you think she’s in Heaven?

MARK: What? You mean Jenny?

KYLE: Yes.

MARK: No. No fuckin’ way. Not her.

KYLE: Mark, how can you-

MARK: First off, she was the biggest goddamn slut in the entire state. She fuckin’ spread her legs for any prick or dick lookin’ to get wet. God, from my understanding, doesn’t look so good on those that are sluts.

KYLE: She was your girlfriend Mark. You love her. Why are you talking like that?

MARK: Don’t be such a faggot. I’m just speaking the truth. And most often, I’ve found, the truth bites balls.

MARK: Besides, I don’t believe in Heaven anyway. You can’t be in a place that doesn’t exist.

KYLE: (silence)

MARK: Look Kyle, that’s where most people go wrong. They get so pent up and full of these stupid emotions and ideas while wasting time trying to figure out just what it all means. We try to make sense of something, like what happened to Jenny, and say shit like: “Oh it’s God’s plan” and “it was His time for her” and other bullshit. Here is the truth: There is no fucking God. No pearly, gold street Heaven, no burning Hell. There’s here and now. There’s this life and that’s all there is. Sometimes things just happen because they just. fucking. happen. No mystical, spiritual shit. Just life. And the sooner everyone opens their eyes and accepts this truth…, well, the more fucking honest we can be with one another.

KYLE: Says the guy with the cameras following him around. Says the guy with the scripts and the careful editing of his “so-called life”.

MARK: Hey, that’s different.

KYLE: Yeah, how so?

MARK: I’ve accepted the truth. I acknowledge that there’s no higher power or greater purpose to life than whatever fuckin’ pretty, cutesy label we decide to slap on it. There’s no rule that says I can’t use everyone else and their ignorance to make my life better.

KYLE: That’s pretty sad, you know? I like to think that there is something else out there, someone else out there. Or, at least some place we go after we die. To make up for all the horrible things that happen to us here. I like to think that somewhere out there, in space or Heaven or…wherever, Jenny is happy and living better than she did here.

MARK: Jenny’s dead. Gone. Nothing more. What’s really sad about all this, is that I never knew you were such a fuckin’ sheep.

KYLE: Yeah. That’s me. A sheep. Bah, bah, bah.

MARK: I feel sorry for you dude. Life is gonna chew you up, boil you down, chomp on your bones and shit you out in a puddle of crap. You better wizen up to the truth as I see it. Things will go better for you. Trust me. You might even get to cash in on it.

On Writing

Earlier I had written about this time when my best friend and I decided to try and co-write a screenplay. The screenplay never came to fruition, but the idea behind it has never been far from my thoughts. As a matter of fact, the ideas had been planted before the two of us had even discussed writing something together.

I have a hard time expressing myself and the things I feel in person. I find that there is some sort of disconnect between my brain, heart and tongue that trips up the things I’d like to say or do. The things that go on in my head seem to run so much smoother than the course of action I ultimately take. This is one of the reasons why I love to write. I might not be all that great at it (no formal “training” or “instruction” outside of the high school education), but it’s something I have to do. Otherwise, all these…things inside of me will just fester until I explode. Yes, I can be dramatic.

Like everyone else, there is a lot of history that comes behind everything I do. There are events that happened that have, for better or worse, shaped and molded me into the person I am today. Like everyone else, I have issues with my parents. Issues with letting go of past events. Issues with former loves. Issues with the law. Issues with work. Issues with myself. I know I am not unique in this journey and that the feelings I have felt are not mine alone to feel. None of this is extraordinary.

Before all others came Caleb Kennedy. He was born from the quiet talks between Teenage Corey and Teenage Katie in a Barnes & Noble on 83rd and Bell Road. He was, like me back then, a high school student whose views of the world were heavily shaped and influenced by his parents and life at home. He was an unflinching conservative who pushed his views in every conversation, regardless if such a topic even warranted it. He had a quiet, shy charm that most girls were secretly drawn to, but chose the more handsome, better built, more athletic and louder boys. Caleb, like me, was thin and plain, and aside from the fiery passion of politics, news, books and video games, was completely unremarkable. He was untouched and intact from the realities that lie outside of the small high school world. He was me, back when I was young.

When Teenage Corey and Teenage Katie decided they couldn’t work on that project together, Caleb Kennedy faded into the recesses of Teenage Corey’s mind, waiting patiently for a chance to be let out again. He would incubate for 2 years. In that two-year span he would grow and change in ways he could not have possibly foreseen. And when, on that cool winter’s day in 2006 when two best friends were mulling over a screenplay, Caleb was once again let loose.

Only now he was Caleb Archer. A high school graduate who was coming to terms with all the new things about himself. He was no longer a fierce conservative, unquestioning of the ways of his world and of his God. Once removed from the comforts of home and the securities of all that was familiar, he grew to question everything, and accept dormant feelings that had been rising within him since adolescence. He met new people, made new friends and even found love in the arms of another man. And his entire world was flipped upside down. Everything he had known was thrown away. And in the confrontation with his family, his core security, chaos was further sewn.

But then, like his previous incarnation, Caleb Archer was locked back into the recesses of Post-High School Corey’s mind. Unlike Kennedy, Archer was not content to just sit and wait. He would constantly scream and shout about needing to be let out and given life. He would not lie down and accept incubation. Caleb Archer demanded life. He would parade all that had happened to shape his existence in Corey’s mind, constantly reminding him of all the good and the bad that had happened. Such a thing made it hard to move on from what came before.

For four years Caleb Archer whined and pouted. And in those four years, Post-High School Corey became Adult Corey and had his life shaped even further by events within and outside of his control. Caleb Archer felt the changes and became something else too.

He became Kyle Fog, the latest and most current version of the person that carries all the weight and emotions that have made Adult Corey into what he is today.

The evolution of that one character also speaks to the evolution of the story I’ve been trying to tell since high school. I had forgotten, until I started writing this that I had tried to write a story with an old friend of mine, Katie, back in the day. This story has been haunting me for so long and all I’ve been able to successfully do is write about writing the fucking story.

Working titles had been things like “Where The Falls Begin”; “The Whereabouts of Happiness”; “Haze”; “Not An Exit”; “Up, Down and Somewhere In the Middle”. Shit. All of it. The screenplay never had a working title. A while back I had thought that maybe the reason I couldn’t express any of what had happened up until now was because the story just wasn’t meant to be told. That the feelings I have inside of me are meant to just stay inside of me and never be properly expressed because I just can’t.

And then I finished Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction and Lunar Park and thought to myself: Why limit the story to the realm of what happened to me and what it made me feel? Why not explore deeper connections and the consequences of all things- action and inaction? Why not do what your betters have done, Corey, and write about society as you see it today?

After all, when I was younger I was a firebrand for politics and hot-button topics. I’m still very much a political spirit, but I have tempered into that a more moral-pseudo spiritual, philosophical aspect that had been previously lacking in my belief structure. Not only that, but the world is ripe right now for being picked apart. Almost everything about popular society is shallow and superficial. It’s something even knowing doesn’t help one escape from.

Enter “The Killers”. An idea that has been gestating for the past 8 years somewhere inside of me. On the outside, the narrative is plain and straight-forward. A pretty teenage girl disappears after an altercation with her vain boyfriend. From there it weaves backward and forward in time, tracing the lives of the boys and girls who were so closely entwined in her life and the impact such a sudden loss has on each of them. The narrative is loosely based on songs from The Killer’s 2004 debut album “Hot Fuss”. I know that there isn’t really supposed to be any sort of narrative to that album as a whole, but when I thread the tracks together with the idea of the story and who the characters are, it sort of does tell a tale.

What was Caleb K and Caleb A became Kyle Fog, who in turn gave some of his likeness to the other main characters in the story: Jenny, Natalie, Andy and Mark. Each of them has become a reflection of certain traits and ideas that make up who I am. Each with their own faults and insecurities; desires and dreams.

I’m not worried if the plot is flimsy. Back when I was younger, that was all I cared about. When I would write fanfiction, I would produce these grandiose, multi-layer plots that eventually turned into this gigantic monster that could not be controlled. And the characters were lost in all of it. Lately, with this latest incarnation of who I am, characterization and growth are what I am about. Exploring people and why they do what they do. Why they feel what they feel. The basic plot is just a means to explore these emotions and feelings that I have inside of me.

That’s ultimately what all of this boils down to: expressing feeling. Exploring things I cannot otherwise quantify or subject another person to in conversation. One cannot simply look at me and see and know all there is. One cannot read a singular blog entry and know who I am. One cannot pour over pictures and songs and know all that I am. It is my hope that, somewhere in this novel, I can put to rest certain aspects of that which has made me who I am today.

I live to write and I write to live. It’s a delicate system that has lately been set upon by the demands of “the real world” and not the one I’d like to fall into. I hope I can turn whatever focus I have on this project and finish it. Even if it does not get published, I’ll still post it online for anyone with an interest to read.

For me, it isn’t about the money or becoming famous. Though money does ease the movements one makes in this world, I write this story for myself and to anyone else who may have felt what I have felt. For anyone who may have experienced the things that I have experienced in this brief life.

I try to remind myself of these things every day. If what I write offends or depresses or excites or elates, then I have done what I needed to do.

Career Day

A song came on Pandora while I was driving into work this morning. “Career Day” by the Format. It took me back a couple years to when I was working at Safeguard with my best friend, Ryan. I remember we were outside the main building, around the back, smoking cigarettes and tossing back ideas, as we used to do when we were younger.

We both liked to write. Well, I loved (still do) it and I think he thought of it as something to do to pass the idle times that find us here and there. Back in high school we had both tried collaborating on a writing project. Some fantasy drivel about warring kingdoms and a religiously persecuted people. A dramatic tale of brother’s separated at birth and destined to face one another in combat. Terribly cliché, I know, but it was fun stuff. It was fun to sit around and talk about what our characters would do and say, their actions limited only on the imaginations of teenage boys who played too many video games, watched too many cartoons and read too many books. Boys, who had, back in grade school, ran around the playground battling dragons and zombies and plotting the ways one could assail the chain-link fence to escape the dreary prison that was the school.

Somewhere along the way the co-written piece dropped out of the making. I attribute it to the fact that he unexpectedly moved away to New Mexico and left me in Arizona to work on in myself. Which, I found, I could not do because, despite knowing him so well, couldn’t plot out everything that was happening on his side as he would have wanted it. So it was abandoned and time took to it and covered in a blanket of dust. We both moved past it and that was the end of that. Until that day.

While we were trading stories and ideas and general randomness, I asked if he might like to try and collaborate on a project. No, not some fantasy flub of our youth, but a more dramatic, serious piece of writing. . A screenplay. Neither of us had ever written anything in such a format before. Where would we even begin? How does one go about writing it? It’s a mostly dialogue sort of thing, isn’t it? We batted these questions around to one another, both our minds starting to open and take in everything that we could possibly write about.

We were no longer in high school, 3 years removed from it in fact, and both had come to experience very different things since then. My idea, my drive for writing this screenplay, had been to express those experiences and feelings. When you’re in high school, you’re exposed to a very limited “Life Factor”. That is, while you’re given a little leeway to do things how you want, much of what goes on is very scripted and organized. Your day operates on a schedule and, aside from an upcoming test or college admissions (if that’s your bag); you didn’t have much to worry about. Worries tended to revolve around one’s social standing, which truly amounts up to nothing once you’re handed a piece of paper and toss an overpriced, cheap cap into the air. And even then, the change isn’t quite immediate. It’s what I call a “slow burn”.

From 2004 to 2006 (the tail end of which is when this conversation took place), I had gone through some pretty defining moments, or moments that seemed to be defining compared to anything else I’d gone through. He had his own fair share of the Life Factor to relate. And there it was. An untitled project formed. We were going to take three characters and follow the course of their lives, starting with the tail-end of high school and ending…well, we never really talked about and ending. We both agreed that we would just stop at a point when the characters had sufficiently expressed what it was we were both trying to express. I wanted to make sure that it didn’t end, end. It would have no real, concrete resolution because I had come to believe, back then, that so much didn’t truly end nor have a resolution. Especially when it came to relationships with people. Life is not final until you’ve drawn your last breath. That was what I wanted to wrap around everything we were going to write about.

Since we were writing a screenplay, we also thought it would be a good idea to try and tie in songs to certain scenes that we’d already envisioned in our brains. Enter “Career Day”. We both thought it would be the perfect way to introduce the three main characters and show their morning routine, which, naturally, spoke of their personalities. There was a character based on me, based on him and one loosely based on our friend Rob, who was, out of all of us, the most unfocused and lackadaisical, and also the one who stuck with college.
We had the conflict of the three main characters loosely threaded. My character would be the one who tried hard to please the desires of his overly religious, conservative family, all the while coming to terms with how all of that conflicts with everything he is. It was to ultimately culminate in an explosive confrontation with his parents, who disown him and he is left alone. Ryan’s character would come from an already broken home, parents who care next to thing and he would find solace in a mentally unbalanced girl whom he ultimately impregnates and then has to put his dreams and desires on hold to take care of this family he’s created, because he doesn’t want to end up like his own. And lastly, Rob’s character would experience a downward spiral once hitting college. Drugs, sex, booze would all take hold of him. All three friends would split apart during these experiences and ultimately come together near the end, each realizing something important. I had pictured some sort of rooftop conversation, just before sunrise. They’d speak softly to one another, each a broken person in their own right. They’d make half-hearted promises to one another to be there, since they’d all sort of forgotten one another since entering college. And then the sun would start to rise, and they’d stare out over the city and each would wonder what exactly they’d do now. And one of them would smile because, despite all the terrible things that had happened, there is always hope that tomorrow will be better. And then aliens come down and blow everything up. Roll credits.

It’s all cliché, I know. We weren’t aiming for anything original. Our thinking at the time was that while many of us are built (or made) to look unique, the things we feel and experience are decidedly not. Cliché is life, because everything has been done before. It wasn’t about being edgy or different. It was about expressing these new feelings in a way that we could relate to, and hope others could relate to as well. So yeah, it was typical, but it was ours.

As it turns out, the whole thing was moot because it never happened. The Life Factor intervened again and the story was left to the wayside. The next time we ever talked about collaborating was when we discussed making a video game. He’d program it, I’d write the story behind it. That too, never happened.

And while our screenplay might not have ever been written, it did give rise to something. Which I’ll write down in another entry, because I feel like this could ramble on.

Amazing what comes to mind from some simple song.

I don’t know

 

What are you waiting for?  Who, if anyone, are you waiting for?  Why are you waiting? 

These are the kinds of questions that seem to have been plaguing me since…for as long as I can remember.  I’ve always felt, since leaving high school, that I’ve been searching for something.  Identity.  Purpose.  Answers.  Anything.  Something more.

Sometimes, I feel like I should really be past all this.  I’m not old by any means, but I feel that by 25 we should have a good grasp on who we are, what life is about and what we want from it.  I feel like I’m staring at a chalkboard just recently erased.  I can see the smudges of all that was written before, but I can’t make anything from it.

Lately, it’s become more and more apparent that I’m having a hard time “fitting in”.  Where do I belong?  It all seems so juvenile; something we’d ask as kids moving up to high school and dealing with all the crazy hormones and emotions itching in our every fiber.  It’s funny, I guess, that I never really had those kinds of troubles in school.  I knew who my friends were.  I knew the crowd I could hang with.  I knew things.  Everything was secure and familiar.  God, I hate sounding like a whiny child.  I guess that’s how I feel though, and I should own up to that, no matter how embarrassing or stupid it seems.

I’ve lost my train of thought, as I’m so apt to do.  I’m feeling something, that I expressed earlier in a Tumblr post, that I just can’t put into words.  It’s shades of grays and blues.  It’s the sorrowful moan of a bow coming skillfully, and slowly over the strings of a violin.  It’s being alone in a sea of a million people.  It’s a vast, endless cast of stars and twinkling lights.

I just don’t seem to fit in anywhere.  Everyone around me seems to be, to an extent, a personification of a stereotype.  And shallow.  And at an arms length. 

I was told by a friend of mine that I’m not a “good gay”.  She brought up the fact that Pride is next weekend and that she wanted to go.  I told her I had never been.  That’s when she (playfully?) accused me of being a bad gay.  And that got me thinking.

If by me not being a “Good Gay” you mean I don’t mold myself into the sterotype, then yes.  Yes, I’m a bad gay.  I don’t watch Logo or any of it’s programming.  (I hate reality TV, gay or straight.)  I don’t have an over-attentiveness to fashion, or really care what exactly I look like upon leaving my house.  I don’t spend hours preparing to go out.  I don’t particularly like gay bars/clubs anymore.  Been there, done that scene.  It’s played out.  I don’t like the music most gay guys blast.  The lame, crappy pop shit just does nothing for me.

So when I’m around other gay guys, conversation usually stems around those kinds of things.  Things I can’t relate to, because I just don’t like them.  Most guys I’ve had an attraction to or dated seem to have some of those qualities I mentioned above, and that’s fine.  We are who we are.  I mean, I wouldn’t want to date someone just like me.  Where’s the fun and experience in that?

Where am I even going with this?  I’m just tired.  I feel like I have no one I can really relate to or count on anymore.  Someone who I can completely open up with and share all the quirky aspects of who I am. 

My love for video games, anime and the written word.  My love for Japanese horror movies.  For Samurai films.  Kung-Fu movies.  Indie music.  Rock and Roll.  Classical.  Sushi, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Italian Foods.  Philosophical conversations about why we are here and where we are going. 

I can’t type anymore.  I’m done for tonight.

It's So Over

Dear ______, I just want to take this moment and say that I regret sleeping with you. Having sex with you ruined everything and I feel spoiled. I never want to see you again. It's over. Sincerely, Yours Truly, But Not Really

That Guy At Pei Wei I Liked (But Never Knew)

 

             I wonder, as I hand him my Visa debit card, just what kind of lover he is.  Gentle, perhaps?  Does he hold them tenderly with, what I imagine to be, the softest hands this world has known?  Do his lips, so supple and moist, leave the tenderest traces of feeling over their bare flesh?  With such simple motions do all worry and care cease to be and find them to be replaced with an almost unbearable sense of calm and security?  When he enters them, does he do so with a slow-burning intensity, his eyes fixated on the person beneath him so that they know they are truly the only other person in this universe that has been born of their connection?  When they are both riding the highs of this passion and sweat has come to gleam on their flesh, so intimately connected in the most visceral of moments; when the apex of which culminates in an explosion of fire and ice, such contradictory and complementary sensations; when the lull has quieted their racing hearts and they come slowly down from such great heights, I wonder: does he hold them again, or does he leave?  Does he call?  Does he still even care?

            All this enters and leaves my mind in the span of seconds it takes for him to swipe my card through the reader and hold it expectantly for me to take back. My eyes meet his for a safe three seconds, during which I express my thanks and deposit the card safely into the confines of my wallet, which in I place into the satchel I have crossed over my chest.

            “You know,” he says while he gathers up the two bags that comprise my order, “every time I see your name print out for an order, I think, “wow, he just can’t get enough of us.’”  For a moment I think he has said, “can’t get enough of me” and my face, I can feel, burns something brilliant and I stumble for some sort of response.

            In my minds eye I can see myself laughing the careless laughter of some charismatic, suave gentleman of leisure.  Of course no such thing happens and instead I stand there, just looking at him with an expression I hope does not come across as if what he has said makes me appear to be ill or, even worse yet, melancholy. 

            “Yeah, well, um, you’re pretty close to my, ah, work.”  It comes out chopped and almost barely audible, to my ears at least, amidst the buzz and hum of a kitchen at lunch.  Behind him shouts are being made for orders; people at tables chat listlessly about things that, in my world are insignificant, but strike a chord of envy in my chest all the same.  Outside the sun is shining.

            My response must have been adequate, because the bags containing lunch are placed before me.  “Chopsticks or forks?”  The query is indication enough that our business here, because that is all this ever has been, is swiftly on its way to conclusion.  My contact with this man, who I have interacted with on the most basic of levels countless times before, is coming to an end. 

            I shake my head, add a quick “no thanks” and gather up the bags and paper cups, all emblazoned with the restaurants logo, into my eager hands.

            “Have a nice day,” he says to me before offering a polite smile before turning back to the growing line at another register. 

            I offer up a “you too”, though I imagine it has already been lost in the noise around us.  I walk away from all this to the soda fountains in the back where jars of red pepper sauce and spicy mustard sit neatly in the little cubby holes of the shelf along the wall.  I fill the two cups with iced tea, squeeze an orange slice into each one and deposit the squished carcass into the liquid.  Lid on.

            I place my ear buds back into place and Jarrod Gorbel has replaced Damien Rice.  I can’t place the song at just this moment because I have once again let my attention wander to the man behind the counter.  He is attractive, I finally deduce, though I had come to that conclusion a long time ago. 

            Moving past everyone again, I don’t even spare him a final glance.  Music streams into my ears, some song about infidelity.  My hips push the door open and I step out into the warming afternoon sunlit parking lot.  No, I muse to myself as my feet carry me back toward the office across the way, he is probably not gentle at all.

rabbit hole

I watched this movie, tonight, after already being in a mood that was probably not helped by watching. Perhaps though, I could appreciate the sorrow, despair, sadness, rage and…hope that it conveyed because of this.

I won’t go into a synopsis of the film. If you want to know what it’s about, Google it. Watch a trailer on YouTube. Rent it (because you can’t own it yet).

While I was watching it, I had to keep asking myself: “How does one move past something like that?” It would seem so easy being on the outside of a horrible situation offering someone your shoulder or an ear or words or…whatever. After all, at the end of day, you get to walk away, back to your undisturbed life while those going through something so horrible have to contend with the fact that “s/he is gone…forever…and not coming back.” They are gone and nothing you can do will change that.

I hate to call things “real”, but that’s what this film felt like to me. It seemed (because I’ve never been through anything like it before) like what would be an honest portrayal of a couple experiencing grief over a dead son. It was utterly depressing, but it did end on a note of hope. It wasn’t a happy ending, but it was a hopeful one. That maybe, someday down the line, they wouldn’t move past the fact that their son was taken from them, but they’d learn to…accept it and cope and adapt.

It reminded me of an amazing book I read two years ago, “Beautiful Children”. A child runs away, disappears into the night and is never heard from again. Part of the narrative focuses on the parents and how they cope (or lack thereof) with the situation. I almost imagine having your child runaway would be worse (if such a thing is even quantifiable). I mean, when your child dies, you know they are gone and not coming back. When they run away, there’s always that hope that they’ll return; the never knowing for sure what happened, or why. Or even if they’re still alive.

Watching it brought me back to this idea I had for a story. I had started part of it, somewhere down the line, but I lost inspiration and quit. I wanted to tell the story of a teenage boy who kills himself, and the aftermath. I had certain scenes all formed in my head. The opening would be of the mother in her therapist’s office, talking about the morning she discovered her son. How she woke up in the morning. Took a shower. Started making breakfast. Grabbed the paper. You know, doing all these mundane morning things we all take for granted. And then she goes to get her son out of bed and... Because, you know, that's how these things go. Death and loss aren't movies. There's not always some grand, exciting scene. It just happens and most times without warning. Just...bam. One moment life is positively fine, and the next it's not.

Another scene, one I almost sat down and wrote out a couple weeks ago, involved the father coming home after a long day of work. The house is empty. He starts to walk to his room, but something stops him. He turns to the door that belonged to his son’s room and he can’t help but go in. At that point I’d have gone into detail about how untouched everything was. How, as the father goes through everything that his son left behind, he never really even knew him at all. That he had never taken the time to get to know him or want to. And he breaks down and just loses it. In my head, if it were to be put into the screen, it’s this really dramatic, yet quiet scene of both rage and despair; love and loss and regret.

That scene I found I couldn’t write, because I was drawing from my own relationship with my father and imagined that it was him coming into my room and looking over my things and realizing that he never really knew me at all. And it got to be too much, so I stopped.

I think I might pick back up on it though. Of course, come tomorrow and this feeling having worn off, I might not.

I also think about these things I write down and post on my blog sites. Or on my journal on my hard drive, which is essentially everything I post to the public. Because let’s face it, I don’t think anyone really reads this. Even if they do, you don’t know me outside of this screen. You’ll probably never shake my hand, or laugh with me or cry with me. You’ll probably never have lunch or share drinks and stories. We won’t ever drive insanely fast down the lane with both windows rolled down, screaming out the lyrics of some punk or indie-rock song.

That’s okay though. In the end, I think that there’s this subconscious drive in all of us to want to be remembered. I know I’ll never be remembered for doing something great and historic. I take a small comfort, I guess, in knowing that someone, someday might stumble across all this in a random Google search. Maybe they’ll read an entry, find it interesting and continue on. And then they’ll keep reading until all my posts have been absorbed.

And even though I won’t know it because I’ll be long dead and gone, I’ll at least have been remembered. Thought of. Mortality is so…

We are mysterious creatures, yet in the end so much it seems not to matter.

Oh. One other thing I liked about rabbit hole. In part of the movie, the mother meets with the boy who hit her son. They talk and through each other cope. Well, he makes this comic book about a boy who travels through parallel universes, searching for his father.

At one point, the mother, after having read it and they’re talking says something like to the effect that she likes the idea that, somewhere out there in another time and space, she is happy.

I like that idea too. That maybe, in another universe, there is another version of me who isn’t so hard on himself. Who isn’t so unhappy for reasons he can’t quite explain. Who takes the love given to him with open arms and doesn’t question or sabotage or make light of it. Who can express himself outside of words and blogs and to the people in his life who can reach out and touch him. Who can laugh honestly and without fear of rejection. Who can be himself around everyone, and everyone likes him for it.

Who can sleep peacefully at night and not dwell on things that are best left in another universe altogether.

Dinner with Famke Janssen

Last night I had a dream. In this dream I was competing with a friend of mine to go out on a date with Famke Janssen.



At one point my friend turns to me and says: “Dude, you’re fucking gay. You won’t even sleep with her. Why are you doing this to me?”

I don’t recall my exact words, but it was something along the lines of “I’d happily go straight for her. I’ve always loved Famke!”

I also don’t recall what exactly we had to do to win her love and affection, but I do know I won. We were eating on some patio (probably in Venice because there were canals) and the entire time she did nothing but whine and complain about her failing film career. I just sat there, consoling her and thinking that I’d never get to sleep with her at this rate and that my life was ruined.

Upon waking I realized two things:

1) Famke Janssen hasn’t exactly had a megastar career

2) I don’t care, I still adore her anyway.

so about saturday night…

 

I was supposed to go to a “bad art” party.  I was invited to a going-away party.  I was also invited to a “let’s all sit around and listen to me be depressed” kick-back.  I was invited over to a friend’s house for hookah.  I did none of these things.

Instead, I made up several conversations in my head with the people who invited me to said functions about why I couldn’t come, or why I was uninvited.  And then I drove my car West on Bell Road out into the desert where no one knows my name and no one with any sense lives.

I drove on a barren road, under the cover of darkness (it was cloudy out) and parked on a turn off.  I got out of my car and proceeded to walk, alone, into the desert.  The air was chilly and dry.  This “super moon” everyone was talking about was, sadly, not visible due to the cloud coverage. 

I kept walking until I got to a point that, when I turned to look behind me, the road was distant enough that any lone traveller on it would be a duo of tiny yellow dots.  It was really quiet.  Almost eerily so.  At that moment I wished I was either high or drunk.  Alas, Babylon, I was neither.

I tilted my head up.  Took in a deep breath.  And I screamed.  At first, it was nothing but the sort of angry scream we’ve heard on movies dozens of times.  Inside I felt like a small boy who went suddenly radioactive and exploded in a sleepy neighborhood.  All this pent up rage and anger; it was so much that it felt like if it could be focused into a single point, it would trigger a large explosion.

Once I was out of breath, I stopped and panted.  And then I screamed again.  This time, it was actual words.

“I hate you, Joe Vega”
”I hate you, God”
”I hate you, Mom”
”I hate you, Dad”
”I hate you, Corey”

And then, when it was all over, I slumped back to my car.  I sat there for a moment or two, hands on the steering wheel, trying to collect myself and actually feel what just happened.  Nothing.

I started my car and drove back home.  Nothing changed.  Nothing magical or wonderful happened because of my little tantrum.  I could still feel the stiffness in my chest.  I could still feel the burning rage settling in the back of my mind, dormant and waiting to be triggered again.  And most of all, the hollow, empty, alone feeling remained center of it all. 

I got home, told a lie about where I’d just been, went to my room and attempted to write this out.  I couldn’t.  Instead, I watched porn and failed to respond to it.  I listened to 5 minutes of Bill Maher, but found it numbing.  I tried to write something not related to what I had done, but couldn’t find words.  I turned on Netflix and fell asleep to some mind-numbing teen show about aliens in Roswell and their “tragic” lives.

Day 4: Write about your closest friend(s)

 

I’m using by blog to answer this one because I have this guilty feeling whenever I post rather lengthy text posts on Tumblr.  I don’t like the idea of hogging people’s dashboards.  Not too mention no one really reads something long.  Not that this post is going to be insanely long.  It might have been earlier today, when I gave a fuck about things.  But now I’m buzzed, a little sleepy and ready to just get on with it.

My closest friend in the entirety of the planet that we live on in the solar system of space and heaven and Wally World and

My closest friend is Ryan.  We've been friends since 7th grade.  At first, we hated each other.  Like, bad.  We both found one another to be obnoxious and annoying.  He hated my weird, geekiness and probably my glasses.  I hated his smug, “I know everything” sort of attitude.  Somehow we ended up the best of friends.

We share a lot of the same interests; from video games and movies, to tv, music and politics.  We have a lot of the same though processes and compliment each other nicely.  We’ve definitely been through some shit over the years.  I did very, very, VERY wrong to him a couple years back, but our friendship survived.  It was pretty rocky for a year or so, but in the end we came out alright.  He’s married and has a daughter (another one due in August).  He moved to New Mexico going on two years ago.  Lately we haven’t really talked as much as we used it.  It does make me feel…sad.  I hate the thought of “out of sight, out of mind”…  At any rate, I try to visit him as often as I can.  I was just there for a week this past January and it was a blast.  Just like old times.

That’s really it.  You know you have yourself a soulfriend when you can go without talking for a month or two and then, when you see each other, you can pick up right where you left off.  Like nothing happened.  That’s us.  And I love him dearly.  He’s pretty much my other brother.

Another close friend would be my “work wife”, Diana.  We have this interesting relationship.  We don’t have too much in common, though we do both love really attractive men.  She’s a year older than I am, married and has two really adorable  boys.  The story of how she and her husband came to be is touching and almost makes me believe that it’s all worth it.  Sometimes

She and I get a long (for the most part) pretty swimmingly.  We play off one another, trading jokes and saying things that would get anyone else fired for sexual harassment.  We share personal stories about our relationships, give one another advice and just support each other through shit.  We don’t always see eye-to-eye or always get along (or always get one another), but in the end our friendship is a strong one.  I know she will always be there for me, even when she moves away this summer.  I will always be there for her too, though I don’t think she always believes that.  Then again, with my track record I don’t blame her.

And then there is my sister.  She’s almost two years younger than me, but we grew up pretty close and a strong friendship resulted from that.  Again, we don’t always get along (sibling fights are a must, after all), but she is the only one in my family to vocalize her acceptance of my sexuality and that there is nothing wrong with it.  Sometimes we don’t like going out with one another because we look nothing alike and sometimes people will mistake us for a couple.  No good.  Nooooo good.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Katie.  We met back in high school and I thought she was kind of pretentious at first.  Which is what I think most people think of me too.  We bonded in Chemistry, ditched our respective third periods on a daily basis for Egg McMuffins and conversation.  She supplied my addiction to Mountain Dew and smart, quirky talk and I…gave her someone to laugh at and rides to places.  We’ve grown apart over the years (totally my fault) and I miss her.  We hang out once every great while and I love it when we do.  If I wasn’t so damn anti-social most nights I’d be asking her to do stuff.

Fox.  Met this guy back in exile in Michigan in 2007.  He’s hot.  He’s funny.  He’s a total man whore.  He’s smart.  He paints.  He tried to sleep with me (or I him, I don’t recall……) and I’m glad we didn’t.  I think it would have ruined the long-distance friendship we share.  Fox St. John, you are a dirty, dirty boy.

Conner.  We’re not best friends, and I think that has more to do with time and space than lack of interest or effort.  Plus, the guy knows a shit ton of people so I could see how easy it could be to get lost in the fold.  Regardless, he’s a really awesome guy.  Funny, quirky, smart and cute.  A good kisser too.  And a sucker for wine, fires and good music.

Trina.  You’re my best friend’s wife.  I won’t lie, there was a period of time I resented the relationship you have with Ryan.  There was a time, when it got serious between you two and you got married and all, that I wished you had never shown up.  That it was still the two of us against the world, facing it down the barrel of a gun, waiting to dodge another bullet or get totally fucked up.  Of course now I know you were one of the best things to have ever happened to him.  You tempered out some of his more irrational ways and have helped mold him into the awesome joe that he is now.  Plus you’re sweet and caring and have put up with more than your fair share of my shit.  You’re a good friend and I miss talking to you.

Welcome back Mr. McCarthy

Let me just say that US Representative Peter King (R-NY) is a complete and total gasbag. He’s chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, which has recently started holding hearings into the radicalization of American-Muslims.

This whole thing just SCREAMS of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Red Scare days of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Seriously, what the hell is the point of these kinds of hearings?

It’s one thing to investigate possible threats to your country. I get that. Being safe is good and all, but at what cost? Furthermore, why limit the scope of such a committee to the Muslim community? Yes, extremist Muslims performed horrific acts of terror. Let’s not kid ourselves though, Christian extremists are just as bad. Extremists of any sort aren’t usually a good thing.

You have psychopathic, ignorant members of the Westboro Baptist Church who mentally and emotionally terrorize the family and friends of fallen soldiers who had been fighting in a war that should never have been waged, all because of their misguided, narrow-minded view that America is accepting and promoting homosexuality. (Last time I checked, while not Uganda or the like, America isn’t exactly the inclusive, accepting haven of the gay community).

You have organizations like the Klu Klux Klan that have been terrorizing minority communities for decades, and for what? Because they weren’t born white? You have people like Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson who weren’t Muslim but still managed to incite chaos and destruction. Where’s the committee to investigate people like that?

This is Islamaphobia. A center-right, “religious” nation that balks at any sort of culture that might challenge the ideals that this country was founded on. This is the result of a political party that has become dominated by a vast wing of religious nutbags who can’t seem to accept the division of church and state. A group that wishes to see a singular way of living and thinking brought into law.

Ugh. I get irritated and pissy just thinking about it. Aren’t there other things we should be focusing on right now? This is just a huge waste of tax-payer monies. What the hell is going to come from this? What is the outcome? Are we going to ban Muslims? Are we going to pass more laws that limit our personal freedoms in the name of “security”?

Here’s something to think about. The top three most crime-ridden cities in the US: Detroit, Flint and St. Louis. How about you direct your energies into investigating why that is and how to stop it. Make an effort to do something practical and, I dunno, benefit the country as a whole instead of pandering to your close-minded base.

Our economy is in the tank. Let’s work on that.

Oh that’s right. Poor people and minorities don’t vote for you anyway, so why would you care?

stupid kiss

I still can’t write that story for this picture.

I see this and I know this was not a sad, goodbye, breakup, “we’ll never see each other again” sort of kiss, but I know that’s how my story would end up.  I’m just not good at writing something happy and cheery and joyous.

At any rate, I shall force myself to have it done before week’s end.  That way I can start on something else.

scratch that.

I just remembered that I have a blog out there where I write letters to real people in my life.  It’s all done anonymously.  I don’t use my name.  It allows me to express exactly what I’m feeling without having to actually tell them and…  yeah.  so very passive-aggressive.

I read through a couple of them last night and felt a little silly.  Which is why I’m glad that I use a different name for myself.  I still need to write that story.  And finish my thoughts from last night’s blog.

I’m just unmotivated and feeling a lot less profound than I’d like.  Bitch.

yeah, tomorrow.

 

So I was going to write this long thing about feelings and issues.  My walks at night, aside from keeping my dog from become a rolling stone, are a good opportunity for me to just think.  I think about a lot of things.  Too many things.

Tonight was some serious self-reflection and yatta, yatta, yatta.  I had it all planned out but now that I’m home and sitting down and typing I just don’t think I have the energy to do it all again.

I don’t really have anyone I can talk about all this stuff with either.  It’s all pretty heavy. 

It’s times like these that make me sad I’ve removed myself from it all.  The more things change, the more things stay the same.  Truly true.

let’s talk about the sex

I’m supposed to be writing, or starting to write, a story based on a picture I pulled off dA about a kiss. instead, because I just can’t seem to focus on writing that story right now, I’m going to talk about sex. Or rather, better answer a question I was asked earlier today.

Q: Corey! Just how many guys have you been with? Huh, huh? Are you a slut? I bet you are! The quiet ones always are!

A: (at the time) Yes. I am a raging cum whore. Bukkake or die!

--

Now, that’s not even close to the truth. She pressed for a number and I wouldn’t give her one. Personally, I think it’s tacky to blurt out a number, as if it were some badge of conquest or honor. Then again, if your goal in life is to have sex with as many people as possible, then more power to you.

I didn’t have the time or inclination to provide my real answer. That and “what’s bukkake” kind of curtailed that conversation.

Real Answer: I’ve been with enough guys that I remember all their names (well except the ones I refer to as "Grand Canyon", "Meth Head" and "Christian Closet Case") and what having sex with them was like. I didn’t necessarily have a meaningful relationship with everyone one of them, though some might say even a one-night stand sexual experience does have some meaning. Each was different and opened my eyes to different things. Not all were great, but I’m still glad I had the experiences. There are even a couple I wouldn’t mind going another round or two with ;D

I look at sex as a way for two people to connect on a deeper, more intense level than if you were to say, just have a conversation or share a kiss or even punch ‘em in the face. Sometimes there’s love behind it, sometimes there’s just the need to feel something and sometimes it’s just because you’re horny and you want to get your rocks off. I don’t look down on or differently at guys (or girls) who just want to whore around. (So long as it’s safe and consensual)

I think media and entertainment have put this glossy, rose-colored lens on sex that really differs from the reality of the matter. It doesn’t always come from a place of love and frankly, it shouldn’t have to.

I like to ask some of the people I get into “debates” about relationships and sex with: “Why can’t two people come together, for even just a night if that’s all it is, and share a singular connection through sex? And then, when it’s all over, go their separate ways? Why does it have to always be something more?”

I usually just get some half-answer or a mumble or something about “being afraid of commitment” or “someone has self-esteem issues”. Someone who has control of their sexual identity and life has to have self-esteem issues? Really?

I guess for some, it’s like Cameron Diaz’s character in “Vanilla Sky” said":

“When you sleep with someone your body makes a promise, whether you do or not!”

Personally, I like to use another one of her lines when I’m feeling sentimental with another guy and he’s just not having it:

“I swallowed your cum, it means something!”

What's your daily morning routine?

My alarm goes off at 6. Then again at 6:15. Then again at 7:05. By this time, the other people I live with have graciously fed my dog, though that doesn't stop her from trying to trick me into feeding her again. Before I head to the bathroom, I check my phone. Now depending on how much time I have, I'll either brush my teeth at my sink or in the shower. I shower. I get dressed. After that, I get on my computer, check Facebook, CNN, Queerty, IGN, joystiq and gay-nerds.com.

On my way out the door I grab a cup of coffee. I usually take breakfast at work. Oatmeal.

Ask me anything

I Call Shenanigans On… (volume 1)

 

First I am going to preface this with a minor thing that is irritating me.  I downloaded Evernote this evening.  I downloaded it to help organize my various writing projects and it is wonderful.  So why the irritation?  Did it suddenly chafe me in places I’d rather not be chafed?  Maybe.  The truth of the matter is, it keeps synchronizing and alerting me in the corner of my screen.  The same way that stupid formspring app on my iPhone keeps alerting me every five goddamn seconds that I have unanswered questions.  Well newsflash!  Life seems to be nothing more than fracking unanswered questions!!!!!

Alright, now that’s out of the way.

The future.  It’s so unpredictable, right?  The road before us is just littered with so much possibility.  Anything could happen.  Anything.

Stop.  Right.  There.

The next time a guy, or girl if that’s your fancy, asks you if they might have a chance, please, please, PLEASE don’t use a line like: “I’m open to the possibility.  You never know what the future might hold.”

I call bullshit on that.  I’ll admit.  I’ve used it.  And I used it for the reason I imagine most people do.  They’re too afraid to be honest and possibly hurt someone’s feelings.  That or someone just has a serious phobia of commitment.  Either way, bogus, bogus, BOGUS!

While yes, the future is most assuredly open and unpredictable, it isn’t completely random or unknown.  Crouched somewhere in the field of possibility is a thing called “probability”.  It’s that thing that keeps suckers in low-income status where they are because they’re spending money, that could otherwise go to bettering their lives, on lottery tickets.  Is there a chance they’ll win big?  Sure.  Is it probable?  No.  Life is not just a series of unanswered questions; it’s also a game of statistics and numbers.

Deep down, when you’re telling someone who has an interest in you if there’s a chance they can get with you and any other occasion you’d say “no”, but they’re just too damn nice or sweet, you know you’re selling them a lottery ticket.

On another note…

Don’t buy into the whole “if it’s meant to be, then it’ll happen.”

Unless of course you subscribe to the idea that every moment of our lives has been plotted out already in some grand production directed by the Invisible Man Upstairs.  Fate is an illusion.  We are beings of Free Will and make all our own decisions.  Our futures are the products of those decisions. 

We’re not on rails.  And if we are, how do I get off this ride?

Would you rather be rich or famous?

I'd rather be rich. I like the idea that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted and not be noticed so much for it. I like my privacy and living a bit "under the radar".

Ask me anything

3 AM

 

I hear my name being called out.  It’s distant, like a call over a roar of waves at the beach, or over a thousand talking heads in a crowded street corner.  I can feel myself stir.  It’s called again.  Closer.  It’s a familiar sound, though one’s name usually is. 

“Tom.”

I mumble something, still coming up from a dream.  I can see the surface of the waking world above me, all waves and shimmers.  Up and up and

“Tom.”

My eyes slowly flicker open, taking in the blackness of my bedroom.  I close them again.  I’m groggy and my limbs are just as slow to waking as the rest of me.  Again that whisper of my name sounds.  Like caffeine to the bloodstream my senses are suddenly jolted and I feel another’s presence.  Not the familiar warmth and feel of my wife next to me, it’s something else entirely.

“Hey Tom, are you…awake?”  The voice was soft and hesitant.  And familiar.

It takes me a moment for my waking mind to scroll through all the possibilities.  I open my eyes again and they are a bit more accustomed to the dark.  I see the outline of the figure.  Slight, hunched and staring at me from the foot of my bed.  I reach to my side.  She’s still there, sleeping.  Good.

“Who…”  I let my voice trail off as I pull myself up, leaning forward to get a better view.  “Kyle?” I ask.

I haven’t seen my brother in five years.  He had always been the “free spirit” of the family.  Other families would have labeled him the “black sheep”.  Really though, it was all the same.  He did want he wanted without the fear of the consequences.  He had always lived like a tide.  In and out.  One moment here, the next gone to some other shore, some other world.  It was all well and good, I suppose.  He wasn’t a big “contributor”, as our father would have put it. 

“Hey Big Brother,” he says.  “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

I rub my eyes.  I move to turn on the light at the bedside. 

“No, you’ll wake her,” he says.  “It’s fine.”

“I’m surprised she’s not awake already,” I say as I forgo the light and carefully start to slide out of bed.  “She’s usually such a light sleeper.  The slightest of noises and she’s up.”

I can’t quite see his face, but I can picture a smile.  I guess I can’t honestly say what his smile looks like now, what with five years spanning the last time we’ve spoken or seen one another, but I can picture what it would have looked like back then.  Wide, white and whimsical.  Totally uninhibited and without remorse.  No regrets or worry.  Just an endless sense of wonder.

“I’m sorry to call on you so late,” he says.  “I just figured

“That I would be up at 3 in the morning?  Making some coffee?  Getting ready for work?”  I can feel a bit of heat in my voice.  A bit of edge.

He says nothing.

I’m on my feet now, looking at the blinds shift and sway with the air pushing down from the ceiling.  Every now and then a slit makes room for some light from the lamps out back.  I look at my brother.  He’s wet.  Soaked, in fact.

“Jesus Kyle,” I tell him, making a few steps in his direction.  “You’re soaked.”

As I get closer I can see his face.  Worn and thin, as if his skin was made from sheets of tracing paper and not flesh.  His eyes are sunken and dark, his hair matted to his head from the water.  He’s dripping from his clothes to my carpet.

“What happened to you?” I ask.

He shrugs his shoulders and seems to wince doing so.  “Rain.”  He snorts, halfheartedly.  “Fucking weatherman, am I right?”  His smile is dull.  “You’d think with all the advancements now they’d be able to predict a little downpour or some sun.  You know?”

“Yeah, right.”  My voice is soft, as if what I said hadn’t actually been said.  There had been no rain, at least not in the past several hours.  He and I both knew he hadn’t ben rained on.  I just wasn’t sure what to say though.  Five years is an awful long time and to suddenly have him here, now, in my room, with my wife sleeping soundly and him wet as if he had been borne from the ocean.

He seems to sense my unease and shifts his weight onto his other leg.  He smiles meekly.  It was so bizarre to see him like this.  He suddenly moves past me and fingers the blinds, letting a little more light in.  They rattle at his intrusion.  I look to my wife.  Still sleeping.

“You remember that time with Ringo,” he asks after a moment of silence.

I ignore him, my sleepiness starting to rise up again and with it, annoyance.

“Why are you here?” I ask calmly.  I’m sure he’s here for money.  Or maybe place to crash.  That’s just how it was with him.  Always taking and never giving back.  I try to steel myself down.  I was sure he would ask for something and leave me feeling infinitely guilty if I didn’t. 

“You told me he ran away,” he continues on, as if the question that had left my lips never made it to his ears.  “You said that he must have made for the woods after Dad left the backdoor open.”  His fingers have brushed a blind out of the way and his eyes are fixated somewhere outside.

“Is it money?” I ask.  “Did you get yourself into some trouble Kyle?  Did you do something?”

“I was broken up about it,” he says.  “I loved that dog.  I insisted on looking for him, you remember that?”

I stand still, my eyes on his wet back.  I’m trying hard to contain the annoyance that is quickly evolving into anger.  I want to keep my voice in check, otherwise I’ll wake my wife and then things would just devolve into something worse.  Then he would for sure walk out of here with whatever it was he wanted.

“I asked you to help me.  I didn’t think you would.  You always hated him.  He ate a pair of your shoes, you remember that?”  He turns to look at me.  A sad, forced smile.  “They had been new and you got so, so mad.”  His gaze turns back to the yard, to the lights in the distance.  “I thought you were going to kill him right and then there.”

My fingers started to clench.  “Kyle.  What is this?”

“When I asked you to help me, you said yes.  You said it was what brothers do.  So we went walking out to the woods.  We called for him, you and me.  I thought for sure with you helping me, we’d get him back.”

He pauses.

“I had always looked up to you.”

I roll my eyes.  “Bullshit.  What is this Kyle?  You need money, don’t you.  Five years and some things never change, you know that?”

He doesn’t seem to hear me.  “You were always so sure and set on things.  You had this security.  When I was a kid I always imagined you had this like, forceshield around you that kept everyone around you from harm.  Nothing bad could touch them because they had Tommy around.”

I say nothing.  I’m sure this is just a ploy.  Him playing the same song to the same tune.  It works with everyone else, why not me? 

“We searched for hours and found nothing.  You told me that we could go back and make posters and flyers and that you’d have your friends help put them up over town.  You took a photo I had made copies and put all of it together.  You were like a soldier on some mission.  That’s how intent you were on doing this thing.”

I can feel myself slipping back to that time.  To those days when I was a teenager and he some annoying little brat who hadn’t quite yet come into his own as the “free spirit”.  Back then he had been the hanger on.  The crybaby.  The epitome of all those things little brothers were.  Good and bad.  Me, being a teenager, naturally saw only the bad.  The common thing, I think, is that we were still both young enough to take any problem, no matter how small or infinitesimal and give it the force and scale of a nuclear explosion.  So much so that it overtook our lives and always, always seemed to be the end of the world.  This had been his.  Ringo.  That damed dog who had, he had told the truth about that, eaten a brand new pair of tennis shoes.

With this memory I can suddenly feel myself start to soften.  My fingers unclench. 

“You were my little brother,” I tell him.  I wince.  “Are.”

His shoulders sag as he leans forward and rests his forehead on the window. 

“You did all those things,” he says.  “You did all those things to help look for him.  Why?”

I pause.  Where is this going?  What is his angle with this?  Why now?  So many questions. 

“I knew how much that dog meant to you,” I tell him.  “I didn’t like seeing you so down, you know?”

“You knew he was dead.  Didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, still so unsure about this thing he is doing.

“Mom and Dad told you to do all those things, didn’t they?  You were bent on telling me the truth.  You were excited about the truth.  You wanted me to know, not to know because that’s what had happened, but because you knew it would hurt me.”

My fingers clenched themselves up again.  Any shred of sympathy or concern seemed to evaporate immediately.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I hiss.  “Why are you here?  To try and make me feel bad for being a good brother?  Is that it?  To try and twist something good that I did for you into something awful so you can find some sort of justification for your shit poor views of me?  Is that it?”

He says nothing and keeps his forehead on the glass.

“When are you going to grow up?  When are you finally going to take some sort of responsibility for your life?”

He brings his head off the glass and looks at me.  His eyes, sunken and sad, tear through me.  For a moment I think I’ve channeled some of my fire into him and that he will launch out and strike me.  For all his whimsical, carefree spiritedness the boy had always had a temper.  He could house so much rage in that slight frame of his.  It was a wonder, I always thought, that it could live side-by-side with such a different emotion.

“They offered you a new pair of shoes,” he tells me, “for your willingness to go along.  To make me think that my dog ran away.”

He sighs.  I sigh.  What’s the use?  I slump back down onto my bed, hunched.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”  I look up at him.  “Can’t this wait?  Can’t we have this…moment or whatever the fuck this is sometime tomorrow?  Call my office and we can schedule a lunch or something.”  As if to sweeten the deal I quickly add: “My treat.  Anywhere you want to go.”

Again he offers me that sad smile.  “I don’t hold it against you, Tom.”  He almost laughs, but not quite.  “Hell, had the roles reversed and I was in your shoes, I probably would have told you to spite you and our parents.”

I can’t deny that.  “Or if you can’t make lunch we can do dinner.   I’m sure Stacy would love to chat with you too.  She always liked you.”

He steps up to me and places a hand on my shoulder.  He squeezes with the faintest of strength.  His fingers are bone.  “Tomorrow then,” he says. 

Relief washes over me.  I can finally get back to sleep.  With any luck he’ll forget all this.  My mind tells me that he’s high one something or other and that he’ll crawl back to whatever hole he’s been hiding in these past five years and stay there.  Or find a new one.  Yeah.  He’ll probably find a new one.  And then I can get back to sleep and get back to my life with my family…

“I promise,” I tell him.  “We can talk about Ringo or anything you want to talk about.  Tomorrow.”

He nods and shuffles to the door, water still dripping from his clothes.  He pauses in the door frame.

“You still did more than what they asked of you.  They just meant for you to walk with me for a bit in the woods.”  He swallows.  “It was Dad who finally told me about Ringo.  After you went off to college.  I can’t even remember now how it came about.”

I watch him, unable to speak.

“Tomorrow then.”  And he says this and walks out.  I hear the front door click softly.  He is gone.

I turn to my wife, still in peaceful repose.  I lie back down, turn to face the blinds and watch them dance in the air pumping down form the ceiling.  I close my eyes and think of tomorrow.

 

The alarm goes off promptly at six.  I stretch.  I am out of bed and into the shower.  I have the faintest notion that I am to do something important today, but I can’t quite recall what. 

I’m dressed and in the kitchen by half-past.  Stacy has brewed coffee.  She steps into the kitchen, smiling and kisses my cheek.

“Sleep well?” she asks.

I nod.  “Yes, though I think I had a strange dream.”

“Oh?”

“I dreamt I had some sort of vistor, some…guy I know.  Or knew.  I’m not quite sure,  it’s all so hazy now.”

She shrugs and pours herself a cup.  It’s our routine.

“It’s so odd,” I say, still trying to recall what had happened.  “It felt so real, but I can’t quite place it all.”

She turns on the television in the adjacent room.  The morning news blares.

“I almost want to say it was my brother.”

Stacy cocks her head to one side.  “Jason?”

"Kyle,” I say.  “Strange, isn’t it?  That I should be dreaming about him after all this time.”

She says nothing, though I know there is something cooking in her head.  She always had liked him.

I step into the living room, coffee in hand, still trying to work over the dream.  The news anchor is speaking.  I’m only half paying attention until I hear the following:

“…pulled from the river earlier this morning.  Police suspect a mugging or drug deal gone wrong.  The victim has yet to be identified.”

I can can suddenly hear my heartbeat.  My breath is caught in my chest.  I almost drop my coffee.  No.  It can’t be.  Impossible, I tell myself.  Just impossible.  And then I hear them, recalled as if it had all been a dream.  Distant.  An echo.  My own voice. 

Tomorrow.

---

Eh.  I’ll maybe come back and flush this out.  Iron out the details.  Put a bit more stuffing into it.  Just had to get the idea out there, I guess.  Funny what sort of things can come to a guy while brushing his teeth.  I still say the best thoughts and ideas strike me while I’m in the bathroom.  I don’t know what that says, if anything, about me.

7 pm

 

It blinks in a rhythmic beat.  Flash.  Dim.  Flash.  Dim.  It is off in the distance, far enough that I can see the entire structure the radio tower is perched on, but close enough to make the illusion that I could wrap my hand around it and

A cooler wind blows past.  I shiver.  The end of my cigarette flickers and flares as I inhale.  The red light on the end of the radio tower continues to pulse.  On the streets below, cars pass.  Small groups of people, one or two at a time, begin to mill out of their homes as the sun sets.  It is a signal for the fun that comes with the night to begin.

One day I will be dead and no longer able to participate in all that is going on out there in this vast complex of steel and glass; of flesh and blood.  I flick the cigarette off the balcony.  I watch it tumble, fast and sure, to the ground below.  The embers spark and splatter in a brief display of heat and light.  And then it was finished.

Inside the apartment someone waits.  A faceless body of artificial warmth that will still the shivering, if only for a little while.  I lean forward, arms folded across the black railing.  I inhale.  A car honks.  Someone yells out. 

The red light flashes.  Dims.  Flash.  Dim. 

I am fog rolling over the hills in the vast stillness of predawn.  Over dewed grass and wildflower I seep.  I encompass sleeping doe and fawn, a thin, elusive blanket.  For a moment, all is as it should be.

The sun rises.

The door opens.

I begin to melt away with each ray of golden run.

Footsteps.  Almost hesitant.  Eyes on my back. 

Melting still, fading over green pasture.

A gentle hand brushes my back before two arms slide around me, encompassing me, enclosing me.

“Let’s go inside.”

I open my eyes.  The sun is gone and it is full dark.  The red light on the radio tower, perched atop an old hotel, blinks.

“Yeah,” I reply, but make no movement.

Squeeze.  A gentle kiss on my neck.  A hint of more, but I can’t bring myself to care.

Another car horn blares.  The towers of downtown are checkerboards with darkened and lit offices.  I inhale.  He withdrawals and grabs my hand.

He leads me inside.  I pause before entering and look back at the night.

Flash.  Dim.  Flash.  Dim.

g-o-n-e

 

Today I was physically present at work.   I woke up.  I took a shower.  Dressed myself.  Poured my coffee.  Walked out the door.  Drove to work.  Sat down at my desk.  Poured my coffee from my thermos to my mug.  Made a bowl of oatmeal.  Filled my water bottle.  Ate my oatmeal.  Answered some calls.  Made some calls to some insurance companies.  Worked several patient accounts.  I stared out of the window in my office.  I checked over the headlines on cnn.com.  I browsed the latest gaming headlines on joystiq.com.  I browsed over the forums at gay-nerds.com. 

I stood at the fax machine while a co-worker told me of her problems.  I watched her lips move, but did not actually hear a word she said.  I received a text message from a friend wanting to know what was wrong.  I am not here today.  Nor was I there yesterday.  Chances are, I won’t be there tomorrow.

Corey is on a vacation.  Everything that is being done in his absence is pure automation.  The Brain has taken over.  Autopilot has been engaged.  Please keep your trays in the upright position for the duration of this flight.

Corey will be back.  In the meantime, enjoy the show.

nothing

 

there is nothing here tonight.  I had something earlier, a feeling or some words; an image or two to share, but now there is nothing.

I hope tomorrow is better.  I’m not quite sure why I’m posting this.  Something is better than nothing, I guess.  Maybe if I keep typing something of substance will come of this.  Or maybe I’ll just go to sleep.

That sounds like a more realistic option.  Saturday is what I’m aiming for this week.  My new iPhone will be here Saturday.  Sometime between then I will start this story that has been churning in my being since 2006. 

The one I had started to tell factually, earlier in this blog, but stopped because I didn’t wan to be borne back into the past.  Of course, when night comes and I’m lying awake staring up at my ceiling, and those images and voices that spawn from the swirling darkness, left to be created by an overactive imagination and a sense of deep longing and regret, I can’t help but be brought back there.

I don’t miss him or any of it.  I just miss what it all meant.  that’s what this story is going to be about.  Not about me or him or anything that happened.  Just the feeling.  The idea.  The power of a simple thing that can, though space and time, still reach out and scratch you from time to time.

maybe once it has been put out there I can finally…..

go to sleep.

Dream a la Lynch

Warning! The following events happened (probably) in my dream last night, whatever pieces I could fit together that is. With that said, there are somethings that happened in the dream that certain people might want to avoid reading altogether. So considered yourself warned any family or people who'd rather not get certain, ah, mental images in their heads.

Alright, disclaimer done.

-cef

------

I'm standing on the corner of Bell Road and Cotton Lane, watching as cars speed by. It is sunny and the air rests somewhere between chilly and warm. Upon awakening I will realize that this is not how the corner of this intersection actually exisits. But I'm dreaming and unaware, so things proceed as they will.

There is an "authentic" (beacuse the neon sign deems it so) Japanese restaurant with doors wide open, beckoning me inside. I enter. People lounge on floor mats around low-resting tables, word bubbles and noise flittering around their heads. Fire and smoke issue out of the middle of some of these tables, but I continue walking forward. I am meeting a party of friends.

I proceed down a rather lengthy hallway. The tiles on the floor are distorted and wavy, as if being viewed through an aquarium. They're teal and green and blue and speckled with flecks of gold. The ceiling is impossibly high, though at the time I thought nothing of it. I pass a long bar where talking sushi chefs in tall white hats and black aprons furiously slice huge slabds of raw fish. They toss small, white porcelain cups to the talking heads hovering above the stools. The heads open their maws and ingest the sake, (I assume that's what was in them), cup and all.

The fact that these heads have no body and mouths impossibly large don't seem to phase me. I have people to meet. Near what seems to be the end of the hallway, an oriental woman stops me. She starts talking about my the party I'm meeting and how they're are just in this next room and if I'd only come in through the door I'd meet them, only there is no door and I politely decline her invitation and continue walking. She's still talking as I walk away.

I finally make it to the end of the hallway without any further fanfare. The door is white and plain and wouldn't otherwise be present in a place like this. I open it and proceed to enter.

I come to find myself inside a family room with carpeted floor, a couch and two easy chairs facing a rather large and antiquated televesion. My friends are seated on every cushion available. I give a "hello" to the room, but no one seems to give it any attention. I turn to see what they are watching.

What I originally thought for an enclosed room was actually no so. Behind the television, where a wall would normally be in a room like this, was the open outdoors and, what appeared to be, the side profile of a white house with one of those wraparound porches. Big, old American cars drove slowly on the street in front of the house. Perfect lawn. Perfect trees.

A couple was on the porch, arguing rather violently. I realized, after closer inspection, that the two had an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Only they kept calling each other "Frank" and "April". I also realized that every word they spoke, every action they took was being played out in black and white on the TV.

"Stupid cunt bitch!" He yells and moves to strike her.

"Oh big man!" she shouts. "You gonna hit me, huh? You gonna show me what a big man you are?"

"April don't make me..."

"What Frank?! Do it you asshole! HIT ME!"

"One of these days bitch, one of these days-"

"Straight to the moon? Oh please! Grow a pair!"

And as if on cue he has these pair of gardening sheers and the next thing you know he's lodged them in her throat. She's wide-eyed and gushing blood.

Somewhere in the background a studio audience applauds.

I'm shocked at the events that have unfolded before my eyes and turn to leave. Sydney, a friend of mine on the couch laughs.

As I turn toward the door, the room is suddenly altered. I'm lying on a bed, hardly clothed. Conner hovers over me on all fours, naked and erect. He kisses me. He kisses me hard enough to draw blood. We begin to roll around, at some point the rest of my clothes are removed. Our hands move feverishly over one another and we're lost in the moment.

He starts to trail kisses down my chest, toward my abdomen. I open my eyes and I'm back in the sushi bar. Sydney and Ivan are laughing and spilling drinks over the table. I'm reaching forward from my seat between them to try and stop the spilling.

As my hand comes between their glasses I'm once more in bed, naked with Conner's head between my legs. I inadvertantly smack his head and he withdrawals, looking up at me confused. I shrug and he makes a move to return to his previous attentions, but suddenly gasps in pain.

With a speed I haven't seen, he's off the bed. His hands grab his visibly throbbing penis; his face eschewed in pain. I move toward the edge of the bed to get a better view of what is going on. I see him looking down at himself, his fingers moving over a piece of metal on the head of his penis. It looks like he has gotten himself a Prince Albert and it must have caused some sort of problem, but then he's unscrewing the metal.

He starts to pull it out of his shaft and I can then see that the metal piece is attached to a small hose. He keeps pulling and makes a motion as if to offer me the hose. I see now that it's actually a hose to a hookah and smoke has started to emit from his dick.

"Conner."

And then I blink and Frank and April are making up as if nothing happened. As if he hadn't, moments before, taken a pair of sheers and ended her life.

April smiles. "Pass the-"

CUE ALARM. I WAKE UP. THE END.

passages

two passages from "Call Me By Your Name" that really get to me.

Chiagneva sempe ca durmeva sola,
mo dorme co' li muorte accompagnata

She always wept because she slept alone,
Now she sleeps among the dead

I can, from the distance of years now, still think I'm hearing the voices of two young men singing these words in Neapolitan toward daybreak, neither realizing, as they held each other and kissed again and again on the dark lanes of old Rome, that is was the last night they would ever make love again.

"Tomorrow let's go to San Clemente," I said.
"Tomorrow is today," he replied.

and

"I'm like you," he said. "I remember everything."
I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you're just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there's not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name.

The entire book is just good. A summer romance that is done by the fall, but lingers still over the years. I found that I could relate a lot to the feelings presented in this piece of work and I think that's why I find myself growing sad when I read it. Though I read it to remind me of him, even if I should just as well forget.

work in progress

i need to post what i have thus far. i really need to get my head back into my actual work, work. not having any bosses around has been good for my creative productivity, but not so much on my actual “hey, this is gonna get you a paycheck” sort of productivity. so i’m posting what i have thus far so that when i finish work and go home, i can pick it back up.

—

Are you going to betray me?

There was only the slightest of hesitations before she gave her answer. It was an honest hesitation. He knew it. He knew an immediate answer would have been a lie. He knew one that took longer to give than she had would have also been a lie. Everything fell into place as it should have.

She thought about it for a moment. Did he know what was going through her head during this brief passing of time? No, probably not. It didn’t matter. She leaned upwards with her mind made up and kissed him.

Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the shades covering the windows in his room. It danced and bobbed on her exposed flesh. She was warm. He was alive. They made love for the second time since crawling into bed together the night prior.

It was decided then.

the tragic ballad of tomas vega

an ink story



by corey fleming







He came to her because he required the special services that only she and her kind could provide. Did he, on occasion, take advantage of her otherworldly beauty and physique? Sure. He was only human, and a man at that. He knew that he would be given a hard time the next time he saw Elias, but it didn’t bother him all that much. Elias, he figured, should be the one here seeking the services of an Undine over him. Unlike Elias, he was a master at keeping his cool. He was a master at caging the beast.

If that’s true, why are you here? He swatted the thought away as the door closed behind him. It was always the same room. It was dark, almost to the point of pitch blackness, and cold. He knew she would be seated in her customary place near the wall furthest from the door.

“You’re here early Tomas,” she said. He could feel her cool eyes on his body, sharp and intent.

“Can’t get enough of you, you know that.” He smirked as he pulled off his jacket, letting it fall to the floor. There was hardly any furniture in the room. Most of the rooms had at least a coat rack or small bench for clients to set their clothes on. Not her.

“I’m not so sure about that one Tomas.” He could hear her shift from her position. “The blonde I’ve seen you with makes me think otherwise.”

Tomas furrowed his brow. “I need a quick a session.” He was not about to get dragged into discussing Faye with her. Nothing so emotional with an Undine.

Sensing his discomfort with the subject, Namine eased the lights on. Not nearly bright enough to expose everything there was to see, but enough for him to make his way to the brass basin situated in the center of the open room.

It was still a shock to him, despite the numerous times he frequented her place, to see the room’s interior. The walls bobbed and pulsed like a river with a lazy current. The various shades of blue overlapping and mixing with one another truly gave off the feeling that one was actually under the water. This was impossible, considering the building had no basement. In fact, he was on the second floor. The lights were small pulsating strings, wafting close to the walls, as if they too were part of the underwater scenery.

He had heard of some of the other Undine in the place simulating water life into their rooms, small fish and coral fixated in the walls, but he preferred the way Namine had made hers. Vast and open, a seemingly endless expanse of nothing but water. Less busy.

“You know the drill then,” she said, watching as he had already started peeling off the layers of his clothes. Tie. Shirt. Shoes. Socks. Pants. Everything went until he was as naked as he was the day his mother had birthed him.

Most of her other clients grew erect at this point. She was, after all, quite an alluring creature to witness. There were no clothes covering her dark blue frame, most Undine had no need for clothes. Those in her line of work needed them even less. She was taller for one of her kind, and slender. Most Undine are small and slight of build, making a shorter human woman feel not as small as she actually is. Like the walls in the room, her flesh seemed to pulse and shift with every moment, like ripples on a pond. Full lips, almond eyes and a head of thick, long dark blue hair rounded out her already exotic appearance. Yes, most of her clientele made obvious their attraction to her.

Not Tomas. He hadn’t even gotten hard the first time they had performed this little deed together. He was a consummate professional and, even she had to admit, that detail irritated her. She lost the leverage she had over most of her clients when she was with him. He gave off nothing and always remained a closed book to her.

She stood and motioned to the basin as she moved toward him. He climbed into the empty tub, goose flesh rising over him as the cold metal inside greeted him. Tomas closed his eyes and let his breaths come in slow, rhythmic intervals. He was getting relaxed.

Namine looked down on him and afforded a small smile. He was so unlike her others. So different from the men who came to her seeking pleasure from the bonds an Undine could share with a mortal man. The temptations and promises that they could fulfill in ways no other woman could. And while she never tired of such liaisons, she appreciated her connection with this one far greater than her other dalliances. It was always a new discovery with Tomas.

“Are you ready, Tomas?” She stroked at his forehead. He was so cold.

“I’m ready.”

Namine brought her hand down the length of his face, droplets of water trailing in her wake. Little-by-little her features grew more and more translucent. They lost definition and firm shape. She grew warmer. When she felt the change start to travel up her arm, she leaned down, quite literally pouring herself atop him and into the basin. Water filled the tub. Namine filled the tub.

Tomas managed a soft, content sigh as the warm water flowed around him. It was an unusual feeling to find yourself suddenly buoyant amidst liquid you knew to be alive. For the most part, it was as if someone had poured hot water over him. Unlike bath water from a spout, the water that was Namine was thicker and softer. Not gel-like in any shape, but not exactly pure running liquid. There was still an indefinable firmness to it.

The Undine ran over every inch of his flesh, tugging gently this way and that, pouring herself into every open pore of flesh. Her voice echoed in his mind.

Relax Tomas. Let me in.

Hearing her soft words, he let himself be pulled completely down into the water. She smothered his face with her warmth. He held his breath, preparing himself for the part that always seemed the most jarring. Clients that had been seeing her for years longer than the man presently occupying her tub still had trouble with the part that came next. It was just so natural a thing not to do.

Tomas was different. With only the slightest of hesitations, he inhaled. The liquid filled his nostrils and slid with ease down his throat. He did not squirm or thrash like so many others did. He remained poised and calm. In total control. He was always in control.

And then, there was darkness.

II

I don’t like stereotypes, but I know they exist for a reason. I don’t think I’ve ever really fallen into the stereotype of what most mainstream, straight people slap on a gay guy.

Stereotypes. That’s where I was. And that’s where I’m going to leave it.

My mind is bouncing all over the place because I’m not completely sure where to pick this back up again. I know my goal with this is to give my thought some form and presence. Something I can look back on, if I need to, just to remind me.

People say we have a past so we can look back on it from time to time and learn from it. Learn and move on. For whatever reason, I find that one of my feet seems to have gotten caught in an exposed tree root and I just can’t seem to move past it. Tug, tug, tug.

2006.

And now we get to it. The magical year. The year that held the story I thought I needed to tell. The one I wanted to write out in some grand, epic novel of self-discovery. A novel of a boy walking down that winding road of Life. A novel of love and loss, happiness and sorrow, excitement and terror. Only it’s been just recently that I’ve come to realize that this particular story doesn’t need to be hashed out in some emotional, Oprah’s Book Club novel. This story isn’t all that unique or worthy of that kind of accolade.

After my first full on sexual encounter with another guy, I realized that the next time it happened, I wanted it to be with someone I actually liked. Not just someone who happened to be available.

I had tried, prior to Isaiah, my hand at possibly “dating” someone. We met online, naturally, and set up a dinner date. In a random twist of events, we ended up at the Grand Canyon, parked someplace dark and removed. We made out. It was late, so we got a hotel room but, in a totally awkward moment, just went to sleep. Nothing happened and I was returned the next day to a worried roommate who thought my date had kidnapped me.

Coming into the New Year, I realized that I wanted to try an actual, honest, in the light relationship with another guy. A friend of a friend (I can’t even recall her name now) introduced me to one of her co-workers and suggested that we go out. He (I can’t even remember his name now) had just moved to Arizona from Mississippi. He was cute and seemed like a nice guy. Why not?

So we went out on a couple dates. Typical affair really. Dinner, a movie or two. The last time I recall ever seeing the guy was the morning after a movie-night he and his roommate held at their house. We had woken up and proceeded to fool around a bit. I had forgotten about a prior commitment I had that morning, so I didn’t realize the time. By the time I did realize what time it was, I had two choices: finish him off and leave and be late or….leave immediately and make it on time.

Looking back on it now, I’m pretty sure the fizzle and dying out of our communication was due to the choice I made that morning. (Or it could be, as I found out later on, that it was because he was a total crystal meth addict)

After Meth Head, I tried the online thing again. Friends of friends, I thought, could be so unreliable. I came across this nice-sounding guy and we talked a lot over the course of a couple weeks. We did the traditional crap. Movies. Dinner. Talked.

I recall one night we were walking in a park, just talking. We were walking kind of side-by-side, but not holding hands or really doing anything that would have signaled to anyone to think “hey, look! Two gays!”. At any rate, we’re walking along and this truck pulls up beside us. The next thing I know, he and I are being pelted by key limes and being called not-so-nice things. It got me pissed, but he was more passive and chalked it up to “high school shenanigans”.

That was also the same night I discovered he couldn’t kiss worth a damn. He was the type to like…devour your face when kissing. His mouth was all teeth and spit and it was just…no. It didn’t really matter because things died before anything could really begin. He had come out to his parents (something I still hadn’t done yet) and they flipped. They pushed him into some sort of ridiculous “de-gayification” Christian counseling crap. He voluntarily joined. He told me that he felt he really needed to get over that kind of thing. (Two years later I found he totally ditched the whole “ex-gay” thing and came to terms with who he was born to be)

By this point I was a little flustered. Zero for four. Think about it for a second though. Most straight guys are already accustomed to dating and working relationships and meeting people by the time they graduate high school. Why shouldn’t they be? No one looks down on a “normal”, “socially accepted” male-female relationship. All of this was new to me at 19 and it was an awkward touch and go kind of game.

I didn’t give up though. I was determined to find a guy I could connect with at any cost. I never really stopped to think why I felt I needed to be with a guy. At that point, having just come into my sexuality and, being a young guy, I felt that it was probably the most important thing I should be focusing on. School? Been there, done that. Work? I was working for my mom again. Nothing exciting about that.

What about writing? I was putting words together here and there, but nothing really stuck. I think my desire to be in a relationship, at that point, outweighed my dream of getting work published. That and I hadn’t yet been hit with something I felt could make that great of a story.

I was just checking my deviantART account to see what I had been writing around that time. Nothing. There is a lull from Dec 2004 and it finally picks back up again on June 2006. So I guess I hadn’t written anything that I published to an online source. Even the old hard-drive that I had Ryan recently comb through didn’t have exactly what I had hoped for. That has nothing to do with this though. So…

With writing taking a back seat and my best friend still living in New Mexico, I flung myself into finding the perfect guy. After my tryst with Meth Head but prior to my tryst with Denial Boy I started to fancy an acquaintance from high school. We didn’t really talk all that much during our school years, but we had shared my senior newspaper class together. I had met him again during the tail end of 2005 and he had confessed that he sort of had a crush on me way back when.

In this lull between the two aforementioned guys, I thought I really wanted to pursue him. Naturally he was taken, so he became shelf-candy to be ogled at and dreamt about. Nothing serious could ever come of that, right? Well, yeah but that didn’t stop me from wishing. Still, it was nice to just have a gay friend because those were on short supply in my life. Looking back on it now, it was through Marshall that I actually met a lot of really cool, decent people. (Not that I talk to any of them today)

Marshall was also the one to come to my rescue after the mess with Denial Boy. Summer was coming. Days of pool lounging and nights of parties. Clubs would be bouncing. Drinks would be flowing. Music would be pumping. And sex, sex, sex, sex, sex! It was everywhere! It was summer!

It was toward the end of May and I was house sitting for a co-worker of mine while she and her husband spent the weekend in Vegas. She had given me full access to whatever I wanted while I was there, most especially her booze cabinet. I had expressed my dismay with Marshall about my “single” situation.

He remedied it, but I need to stop for now. I really, REALLY need to get something done. I’ll probably post later after the hockey game tonight.