Sunday I went to SFMoMA with Philip, a very nice day with an utterly likeable fellow, the Lichtenstein show surprisingly enjoyable, but the Glamour show a bomb, with totally not enough dresses and stupid architecture that had nothing remotely to do with glamour.
I did get cruised by this totally hot daddy bear–not in the way that I’ve ever been cruised by a totally hot daddy bear, either. Wait–was this the first time that I’ve ever been cruised by a totally hot daddy bear? Maybe it had to do with my own different relation to my newly middle-aged self. Typically, if a dude of this dude’s grandeur and pheromones directs any kind of desire my way, I assume it’s because I’m this young thing and he’s this tired old guy, and I hop to it and make it my mission to remind him of what it was like to be young and admired and virile. Well, sad but true, I’m no longer this hot young thing, but with a gray beard and in bed by 11. This time I felt a tension of familiarity, not of imbalance, like we were just two guys sniffing each other’s butts. I’m still anxious from the encounter, and of this new relation to desire and intimacy. It really is just chemicals, right? Perhaps my high blood pressure and challenged waistline are indicators of this new chemical reaction, too. What’s next? Cancer and love?
BC, my big bunny warmer, is snoring away on the kitchen banquette, speaking of age and glamor. Yes, he’s still sick, and yes, I’m still in dire need of the horizontal mambo. Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome libido?
Having Les here is at least intellectually stimulating. This morning we talked of Marlon Riggs, Genet, socialized health care, gay representation, stereotypes, North Korean hair propaganda, Soap, the new California Garden, umlauts, and the objective “I.” He’s a treasure.
Alicia, my dear old Brazilian college buddy is in town, and will take over Les’ place on my office sofa when he departs on Sunday. Alicia is this truly glamorous mix of beauty and irresponsibility. We met in China in 1987–the rest of my group (we were students for the summer at the Zheziang Academy of Fine Arts) would be grumbling and sweating over our rice gruel at breakfast, and Alicia would burst into the room in a lovely flowing dress and sandals, scoop up some gruel, and exclaim, “I LOVE this delicious rice pudding, and how moist and ALIVE my skin feels here…” We’d all smile and forget our rashes and dysentery, and toss more peanuts and pickles into our savory breakfast mush. She just spent a month in Bali with her new lover, leaving her 7 year-old with the jealous father of the child, while she explored “being free.” I love Alicia only because I embrace her disdain for restraint. Like, I’d never ever meet her somewhere. Time is only a suggestion to her. As are traffic signals and recipes.
Well, it’s getting past 11….