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Travails

Big Chrissy and I spent a week visiting his parental units in the heart of this great nation.  We discovered that Captain Kirk was, or rather, will be born in a town only an hour away from his mom’s, so we had to drive over and pay homage.  There are serious Trekkies who live there and are anxiously awaiting his arrival.  The drive through Iowa was just like in the Regionalist paintings of the 30’s—lush, rolling hills and beautiful old farmhouses, red barns.  Corn everyfuckingwhere.  We also spent a day in Divorce Court with BC’s sister, found a few Lustron Houses in the area to visit (post WWII prefabricated porcelain-enameled steel houses), gained about 10 pounds, stopped at the World’s Largest Truck Stop, which contained the World’s Largest People, saw a great show at the Figge in Davenport, the highlight of which was a mural that Jackson Pollock painted for Peggy Guggenheim, an amazing transition from the recognizable to the abstract, had deep-dish pizza in Chicago and visited the new addition to the Art Institute, which we both agreed was pretty sweet.

The week before I was in Alabama visiting my own parents, and old buddies from my childhood.  Since I’ve been on a fairly limited diet for most of the year, I went a little crazy and consumed every fried thing that could be found.  In one Meat-n-3 that I went to with my buddy James on the edge of Birmingham, we were treated to a culinary experience that was like being in an MGM musical.  A baptist church had just let out, so everyone was very snazzily dressed, in zoot suits, hats…  Everyone was happy, even the waitresses, who kept bringing us free things to eat.  The women were like Venuses of Willendorf poured from Jell-o molds, jiggling gravity-defying masses of bodaciousness on heels, just amazing how they moved through space.  I had fried okra, collard greens, fried green tomatoes, a fried pork chop, and squash casserole.  If there were more fried things on the menu, I would have ordered them.

James and I went on a little Catholic kitsch outing one day and went to the Ave Maria Grotto and the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, near Cullman.  Cullman is a lovely southern town, settled by Germans in the late 1800s.  Dry, still.  I think it’s the only city that celebrates Oktoberfest without beer.   The Ave Maria Grotto is a kind of magical place, a landscaped garden with miniature reproductions of historic buildings and shrines around the world.  You know, like the Castle of the Fairies, and the grave of Lazarus…  These tiny structures of stone and concrete were made by Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey, over a 40 year period beginning in the early 30s.

The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, on the other hand, is the kind of cathedral where they don’t tell you in the parking lot which is about a quarter mile from the cathedral that exposed flesh is not welcome so they turn you around the moment you walk into the church with those shorts on all sweaty from that hot southern sun and ask you to change into pants but because you left your pants in the car then you have to walk across that huge plaza again to change your clothes in the parking lot and then walk all the way back across that plaza made out of cheapy cast stone with no shade anywhere just to see this pretty lousy reproduction of an italian basilica and develop a rash while Jesus, without pants, I might add, looks down, unhappily, from his wooden perch.

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Que sera sera

And so, my dream man isn’t quite the man of my dreams, after all.  He still looks like him, though.  He’s someone who dreams—of someone like me, of a life like mine.  His history, his relation to his sexuality, his relationships, his openness… we share little common experience.  He assures me that we want the same things, so I proceed, cautiously, but hopefully, positively, happily, into a future with him.  I love him, I want this to work.  I’m so happy that he’s opened up as much as he has, and I’m girding my loins for whatever else comes tumbling my way.  I’ve grown calm, let go of specific expectations, and am open to exploring what’s possible with this man who has stepped out of the romantic fog and into the light of day.  I still love what I see, the clarity just giving focus to different possible paths, with different obstacles.  I find that I’m still squinting, though, this lucidity a bit jarring.  I felt more at ease in my romantic haze.

It’s been a challenge to get comfortable, to transition from the smooth ride of a few months ago, and over and past the bumps of the past few weeks.  I’m so settled, so established, love the only thing missing from an otherwise very full life.  He doesn’t have a home, a job, friends.  He’s moving to a new country, leaving friends and family behind, so much to establish—a complete identity in fact.  I have to be patient.  He needs me to be supportive, needs me to be patient.  I want him to need me, to depend on me.  I had envisioned being with someone my age (he’s 16 years my junior), someone with a similar sense of establishment and comfort.  I so don’t want to be one of those old needy guys—“What, you have to work late again?”—and this situation seems to present a scenario in which my needs may be subsumed by his, if only in volume.

I can hear my Chorus of Therapists, “Coco, only an independent YOU will be able to join with an independent HIM to make a healthy union.  Focus on yourself, find happiness within.”  Of course I scoff at those SINGLE bald dudes looking at me over their little horn-rim glasses and yell back, “Haven’t you people been listening to me??  I want to be codependent, to be lost in the melding of two beautiful minds and sweaty bodies!  Stop with the independent crap already, you guys are killing me!  I can’t be alone, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.  I’m dying alone, dying! Why can’t you see that?  Could you talk to him for a change?  Why aren’t you all bugging him?  Just fucking tell him to smother me with love, kisses, his touch, constant affection, copious orgasms, 100 emails a day, an incessant and nonstop presence…  It’s so easy to make me happy!  I know what I want, to be SMOTHERED by love, oozing into and out of every orifice.  I can’t do this, I can’t pleasure myself—he has to, just tell him!  And throw in what a great lover I am, how sensitive and caring and talented and hung!  Do something for your $175/hour!!!”

Que sera sera.

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Falling, falling, falling

I really understand the term “falling” in love.  I’m without ground, my breath constantly being taken away, my body tumbling from a cliff, occasionally smashing into a rocky outcrop, landing momentarily on a soft branch, feeling like I’m going to hit bottom and go splat at any second, Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon.

I’ve fallen in love with this guy on the other side of the planet.  If you can call it that, we haven’t even met.  Falling, that’s what I’m doing, grasping for anything to hold onto.  I watched him sleep last week, via Skype, for 8 hours.  I watched him toss and turn, invited Bob to watch the butt-filled screen for a bit while we ate dinner to his cute little snores, wept over his occasionally tented undies, imagined my head on his gently heaving chest, his heartbeat in my ear…

I can’t think of anything else.  If I wake and there’s no email from him, I panic.

We’re experiencing some bumps on our road to virtual bliss—inconsistencies that I’ve found hard to overlook and have brought up for discussion.  As I’m discovering, he initially presented to me this person that he wanted to be.  He’s in advertising.  I sensed that there was something behind the façade, that perfection out of sync with something in his character.  I pried my way into the cracks, and he has, little by little, opened up, but his desire is for rebranding.  It’s not possible to reposition one’s identity, to forget, not possible to put these monsters under the bed without them coming out from time to time.  I can’t know him without getting to know these monsters.  They’re going to be living under my bed, too.

What can I do?  How can I stay calm?  How can I give him space?  We’re several hemispheres apart already!

A relationship devoid of physical contact means a relationship splayed out in my very fertile imagination, my needs addressed solely through my fingers clicking across a keyboard.  Every nerve cell in my body is screaming for attention, aching for stimuli, sending frantic messages nonstop to my brain for relief…  Au secours! My brain is trying so hard to work through all these signals, so impossible to evade or to satisfy, or to even consider locating elsewhere.  And yet, this is all I have right now, frantic and intense feelings of love and despair and longing and anguish and desire, hunger, all attached to something that I can’t touch.

Marlene Dietrich in Touch of Evil, her still-beautiful sad sack mask of a face encircled in smoke, she puffs, “You a mess, honey.”

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Are you two sexy nurses?

Two exhibits in town have momentarily drawn me away from pre-connubial ennui.  William Kentridge is showing at SFMoMA, a big show of his films, and environments constructed for them; and John Neff has a sassy little installation at the Right Window.  Both artists are within the parameters of Coco’s Type: physically slightly larger than life, a belly here, a bald head there… oh, and their art seduces me with wit, intelligence, and a kind of informal formal rigor.

Kentridge’s films are such complete experiences, containing so much narrative invention, such dazzlingly simple technique, his hand and likeness in everything… my only disappointment in the show is that the films are given these kind of meaningless environments with superfluous framed stills on the walls, etc…  One installation, though, was quite wonderful, a meditation on the artist in his studio.  For this installation, he summoned Meliese, who is always summoned indirectly anyway, but this time referring to specific films, utilizing simple techniques to create a magical tableau of the creative process and environment.

Neff’s installation utilizes early photographic techniques filtered through contemporary digital technology.  The results feel old and new at the same time, and the imagery pared down into lovely washes of form and texture and image.

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Liquid Lemon Joy

Life gave me a lot of lemons this year… so I’m making Limoncello! Meyer Limoncello, that is. Here’s my recipe, using the lemons I grew on my back deck. (You can substitute tangerines in this recipe, and then call it Mandarincello, but use about one-and-a-half times as many peels):

—Wash and peel 25 or so Meyer lemons. Put the peels into a 2-liter glass container. (Squeeze the lemons and set aside the juice for lemon sorbet. Mmmm….).

—Pour the contents of 2 750-ml bottles of Vodka over the peels. Put the jar in a cool dark place for 40 days to 2 months. Every few days, or whenever you remember, gently turn and rotate the jar upside down to distribute the flavors, although I don’t really know that this is necessary, but it makes me feel like I’m helping things along.

—After 40 days to 2 months, create a simple syrup of 4 cups sugar and 4 cups water. Mix the sugar and water together in a saucepan and heat on the stove until dissolved and starting to thicken, about 5 minutes. Let cool.

—At this point, you’ll realize that you should have started out with a 3-liter bottle to begin with, so if you didn’t read ahead, then you and I are both going to have to now transfer the contents to a 3-liter bottle. Add the syrup to the vodka and lemon mixture, and let sit an additional 10 days.

—After 10 days, strain the mixture and pour into bottles that have been cleaned and boiled. Let rest for another 10 days before serving. Or go ahead and drink it now, what the hell.

I keep a small bottle of Limoncello in the freezer, where it turns nice and syrupy and ice cold, a perfect after-dinner summer refresher.

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Meanwhile, Back to my Butt

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my butt, hasn’t it? Well, since my procedure in early February and the complications that followed, I’ve had another procedure, to remove the tissue that formed after one complication exploded. Sheesh. Yesterday the doctor pulled the stitches out. I was so nervous and sweaty going in, that when he asked me to pull my cheeks apart they kept slipping out of my grasp, so he had to kind of elbow his way in there.

And thus, my life since February, aside from going to New York a few weeks ago, has pretty much been about fiber, and not much else. Oh, and love. It’s awfully convenient during this convalescence to have a boyfriend on the other side of the planet. There’s no pressure to actually use any part of my body other than my fingers, which type away countless passionate emails to my sweet furry foreigner.

Having never met, there’s this part of me, the part that has seen maybe too many episodes of Oprah, that wonders if this is all too good to be true. I imagine myself on The Saddest Episode of Oprah, the one about women who sign over their mutual funds to serial polygamists, my friend Susan reading my missives to the far corners of the earth, illustrating the purity of my love and gullibility, tears streaming down my face, the audience sniffing, Oprah carefully dabbing a tear so as not to smudge her mascara.

But then I immediately think that the reason for this absurd paranoia is that I’ve found my total fantasy man, and it’s just not part of what I had planned, or imagined. I’ve never seen this episode of Oprah. I didn’t believe someone existed, or could exist, who not only conforms to every fantasy I’ve ever had, but who could love me so completely, to already pledge himself so fully to me, I mean without even meeting. This kind of love is just so easy. What will I write about now? I usually channel Raymond Chandler in my relationships, not Danielle Steele. Where’s the struggle? Where’s the heartache? The pain? The convoluted and almost impossible to follow narrative? There’s only bliss, now and forever. Our happiness is so entwined. We have envisioned ourselves as such a part of the other’s future that it’s hard for us to be in the present, for the present can only be incomplete without each other. If this is codependence, then I should have been looking for a codependent relationship all this time.

Speaking of Michael Jackson, I’m so fascinated by the contents of Neverland Ranch that are being auctioned off–or were being auctioned off. I’m so intrigued by Michael’s taste. I’ve been flipping though the catalog, was thinking of bidding on some things that look like they were made by the same people who make Jeff Koons’ sculptures. While there are many fine decorative arts pieces, most of the fine art is compelling in the absence of any aesthetic or material refinement. Like what a child with a lot of money would think of as fancy.

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Coco Invasion: My Foreign Correspondent Speaks!

This is my first time to write on my boyfriend’s blog.

The story is that i was very lonely, aching for something i don’t have the most; a real person.

I said to myself, well why not check the worst tool on earth; online profiles. I uploaded some photos for me, thinking that there will be impossible chance to find someone who fits my profile. Then i went through the profiles, stared 4 minutes on broad shoulders, crisp eyes, and tremendous perfection. I wrote some words, desperate words, for such perfection is hard to be left without a lifetime companion to take care of and to cherish.

The weirdness is that i found a reply, a sweet message that shows quality, perfect written language, intellectuality and a soft tone.

And oh my Lord it was a killer!

I found what is called love it all came facile and easy. A love of a lifetime grew and embraced me in a disregard of pain. Oh Chris came to my life a man beyond all expectations. A reason to live for.

He invades me all of me and control my heart until i can’t breathe whenever i listen to his melodic voice. A love that can’t be found in this century. A challenge of two gay people in the time of the war. An open poem that will never end except with our own life time. A man that is once in a lifetime. A deep inside agony whenever he leaves my sight or the time takes few minutes away from his smile.

Whoever knows Chris sit in his chair that he has just left and feel his presence in its warmth and tell me how the ease and comfort is; because i miss him so much.

Each time i see Chris is a new life for me. Now it is 124 days since Chris invaded my leftovers embraced them and made me what i am now …. A happy man.

Who ever saw Chris in the street stop him and ask him for the time or anything and tell me did he smile to you? How it feels when he smiles? Isn’t it he the most handsome guy in the whole world.

If you work in a restaurant that Chris eats at it, collect the ashes of air that touched his beard and blow them to me. As i miss his smell in my pillows and my my shoulders.

Oh Chris i can’t stop loving you, who taught you to be what you are? What are you made of? Oh baby you wasted me but i love it. You made me moan for you.

Chris thank you.

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I Thought I Lived in a Secular State

So it’s important to realize that Proposition 8 isn’t against anyone; it’s for marriage. It’s for our children’s future.

How is preventing me from marrying my boyfriend not against me?  It seems that the opposition is set to continue their fight to prevent us from filing divorce papers and joint tax returns like everyone else.  Like, why?  All of the arguments against gay marriage are based on religious ideas about biological and cultural imperatives that not even straight people follow, and it’s been my impression since my first civics class that we live in a country that keeps religion and government separate.

I’m not sure how marrying my boyfriend will destroy this idea of family that people are trying so hard to protect.  Isn’t it about us embracing the same notion of family?  If we can’t marry, not much will change—I’ll have to do a little extra work with estate and medical planning, and I’ll have to refer to him, pathetically, as my husbear instead of my husband—but our love won’t be taken seriously.  This isn’t about saving marriage, it’s about preventing people who love each other from having that love acknowledged.

There are no rational or unbiased arguments for preventing us from getting married.  Nothing is being protected, or saved.  No matter how you slice it, it’s all baloney.  Not that I’m the type to tell them what to do, but imagine if the religious people decided to put all this money and energy into something beneficial to humanity.

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A Night With Dean A Night With Emily

Dean Smith’s opening was Thursday night. Bob and I went together and met up with Nick, whose opening Bob had been to earlier. They both were still glowing, Bob all pink and giggly. Dean’s work is really amazing. His hand is so present but in a way that’s about it seeming not present at all. The work itself contains forms and spaces that are rendered in a way to confound resolution. It’s frustrating and beautiful, harmonious and disjunct.

Emily and I went to see Godard’s Made in USA tonight at the Castro. The film was exhilarating. Exhilaratingly frustrating and beautiful, harmonious and disjunct. At times the narrative seemed almost within reach, but then we’d be assaulted by a blaring soundtrack or recorded message, or an absurd political digression, or an emphatic political digression, or Marianne Faithfull tenderly singing As Tears Go By, or a whimsical Hollywood pastiche. Godard reimagines cinema by utilizing its language, alternately seducing us and punching us in the face with his many manifestos and domination of the medium’s clichés and vocabulary. The truth must not be known. If you finish your novel, everyone will know it, for poetry is truth.