Category: The Dating Game

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Ouch

Big Chrissy and I were up all last night, talking and moping. Our processing was briefly but pleasantly interrupted by the arrival of Victor, Trey, and in-town-for-the-weekend J, all of whom came by to watch Angels in America on BC’s big screen. The film certainly didn’t do much to calm me, although the company was a swell group of guys, and behind my nervous giggle I stifled back the tears about to wash over both of us. Perhaps I’d like to remember this pain in my gut and head as something real, instead of this imagined pain of longing that only occasionally bubbles to the surface as vain-hearted attempts at constructing a new improved reality and identity.

Chris has decided that since I’m not able to commit myself to him in the way that he’d like me to, he needs some distance from me. Actually, not just distance, he needs to not see me “again.” You’ve all seen me occasionally making these grand statements about what I need to do, who to be with, where to go, confidently moving forward on this and that… well, Chris pointed out that I seem to be most resolute in my indecisiveness. I’m not ambivalent about how I feel about him. I love him. And I hope he will let me in again someday.

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Talk, Tears and Angels

Big Chrissy and I were up all last night, talking and weeping. Our processing was briefly but pleasantly interrupted by the arrival of Victor, Trey, and in-town-for-the-weekend JC, all of whom came by to watch Angels in America on BC’s big screen. The film certainly didn’t do much to calm me, although the company was a swell group of guys, and behind my nervous giggle I stifled back the tears about to wash over both of us. Perhaps I’m writing this because I’d like to remember this pain in my gut and head as something real, instead of this conceptual pain of longing that only occasionally bubbles to the surface as vain-hearted attempts at constructing a new improved reality and identity.

Chris has decided that since I’m not able to commit myself to him in the way that he’d like me to, he needs some distance from me. Actually, not just distance, he needs to not see me “again.” Personally, I’d kick me out of town.  You’ve all seen me occasionally making these grand statements about what I need to do, who to be with, where to go, confidently moving forward on this and that… well, Chris pointed out that I seem to be most resolute in my indecisiveness. I’m not ambivalent about how I feel about him. I love him. And I hope he will let me in again someday.

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The Lobster Dude Cometh

Well, the last few days have been fairly uneventful, except for meeting Ted, which was actually quite eventful, stagnant impulses in me significantly stirred after only one afternoon of tea and dog walking. He’s an exceptional person, very inspiring to be around, full of vibrance and direction, wit and delight, intelligence and warmth. I am very excited about getting to know this dynamic young man better.

I’m working on Dean’s exhibition design for Marjorie Wood. Dean’s work is just sublime. The challenge for me here is to create something that mirrors the depth found in the rigorous simplicity of his gestures. Thus far, the “circle.” Tomorrow I’m experimenting with the “rectangle,” a bold departure into horizontality.

Okay, so Monday morning I hear this screaming and then feet running across the floor above my studio. Several more minutes another scream and feet again. After the third scream, I run upstairs, thinking perhaps Albie was having a heart attack and was rolling around in his desk chair trying to dial up an ambulance with his big toe, and there he is, the lobsterdude boyfriend of DM, visiting through Sunday. “The vacuum cleaner, it’s following me everywhere, I can’t get away from it!” “Well, I’m sorry that you’re bothered by it, but the cleaning lady’s here for another hour, maybe you’d like to take a walk or perhaps get out of my house, you’re in San Francisco and there’s a lot of stuff to do other than audibly masturbate all day when I’m right below you and you know that I’m hearing everything and I’m really not getting off like you imagine I am.” He’s the one who left an espresso machine on the stove last time he visited until it burned up (like, all of it), so I’m not too thrilled about him being here again and the promise of more destruction to my little housie. He and DM, whose bedroom is below mine, make love at least five times a night, loudly, thrillingly, sure, but at the expense of my much needed beauty rest. And this after beating off all day. For the last few days, several times a day, whenever he hears the slightest noise–the vacuum cleaner on Monday, a leaf blower on the sidewalk today, he screams, leaps up, runs across the flat, back and forth, and switches on all the TVs and stereos in the house, trying to drown out the sound. He’s like Roderick Usher on crystal meth. Today I rang his bell, “Hello, hello, Mr. Loster Dude…” but no answer, only everything turned on full blast. I turned everything off, didn’t find where he was hiding, and returned to my work. The bad energy in the house is actually cool, it’s so rare, I’m amused by it. Come Monday morning, though, I will talk with DM and suggest that perhaps if his boyfriend were to visit again, a padded cell somewhere might more sufficiently accommodate his desire for city life without city life.

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Another Final Goodbye

D. just called, a few days after sending me a note telling me how he had “FINALLY closed the chapter” on us…

which was sent a few months after sending me a note telling me that he had “FINALLY closed the door” on us…

which was sent a few months after sending me a note telling me that he could “NO LONGER be a part of” my life…

which was sent a few months after sending me a note assuring me that it was his “LAST e-mail” to me (and that I was a liar and a sociopath)…

which was sent the day after sending me an e-mail with the subject “Keeping Communication Open…”

etc… etc…

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Wine Country, my Bartender at the Pit

Wine country with Barb and Vick today. We drove up the Sonoma Coast, through Guerneville for some quick cruising and a stop at Armstrong Woods, “It was only a moment for you..,” then on to West Side Drive, and the Dry Creek Valley, blah blah blah. There’s a beautiful new winery on the West Side Drive–called Roshambo. Really. The wines were fairly good–light, but with lots of complexity and fragrance, and the architecture was stunning, a departure from the Sonoma County vernacular combining sleek contemporary lines and curves with beautiful warm wood planked ceilings and large glass windows framing spectacular views. Joe Bob says check it out.

Did I mention cruising in Guerneville? Well (now close your ears, tulip), while munching our sandwiches at what’s-the-name-of-that-cafe-on-Armstrong-Woods-Road? an employee in way tight shorts and an even tighter tank top that rode 3 inches above the top of his shorts, exposing a cute little furry belly, made frequent trips to the front counter for no apparent reason other than to jiggle that 3 inch section of flesh my way. My lunch companions were oblivious to the heated non-verbal dialogue that I was engaged in.

Do you remember The Pit? It was a dance club downstairs from Cocktails, on Howard at 9th, where AsiaSF is now. I often went there after Manny died, just to watch the bartender. He was a black haired fur-ball whose pudgy tank of a body was frequently poured into an outfit similar to the one described above. As he leaned over the stainless steel counter to give patrons their drinks, that same 3 inch section of belly made contact with the counter-top for an instant or two. Imagining the sensation of that live hot belly, on those hot nights, pressed against the cold steel sent shivers down to my prostate…

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Too Many Martini, Pancakes and my Fireman

So I drank too much last night. Again. You’d think that ONE martini wouldn’t be too much. Well, actually, it was served in a martini glass the size that is usually neon with a blinking olive. My cousin Vicki is visiting with her friend Barb, so we went to eat at Nirvana, on Castro. Nirvana is always filled with cute twenty-somethings of unnatural hair color and at least one visible piercing each. Vicki chatted engagingly about vivisection (Vicki is a lab technician working with rats and Alzheimer drugs) and her boyfriend. Vicki is dating this hunk of mid-western farm boy. He says he’ll never marry her, that he just wants a lifelong girlfriend. And he cooks, too. She wants a ring, so she’s signed up for a dating service that’s kind of like musical chairs, where 40 men and women gather in a room and conduct 3-minute interviews with each other. Potential lifemates are matched and e-mails exchanged. I say keep a side of farmboy and his homemade pancakes. They just left, Vicki and Barb, for a day at the Alemany flea market. The last time I was at the flea market, in 1997(?), I saw my fireman, sans shirt–a big balding hairy slice of chocolate cake. I had seen him around town for several years, and never had the guts to introduce myself, or at that time, the excuse of wanting to photograph him. Well, several weeks later, he showed up at the LAB auction, and was the winning bidder of MY photograph! I buzzed right over to my sweet fuzzy 220 pound flower and introduced myself as the creator of the image that he just bought, and, thinking fast, asked if he’d let me photograph him. He actually said yes, and I thought, “This is what I’m going to do for a living.” I came up with an idea about photographing every inch of his body, as a way of getting access to it without violating my marriage vows, and with no idea of what I was going to do with the images. Unfortunately, he bailed out after the first session, unfortunate also because we had started at the top and didn’t get down too far. I placed an ad on the internet and met Jacek, my next obsession, and created a whole installation about my obsession with him, The Night of the Hunter, and then made my first photographic construction, Every Inch of Jacek (above).

Who knows what Vick and Barb will find at the flea market.