the massage client was interesting
in the refrigeration of the AC
i was constantly hungry…
or was it something else?
and did i feel like i was teaching? growing?
was anything good happening?
i can only hope so
but i was feeling despondant
i was feeling sad
was i the TV?
was it the Suburbs?
or the closet? (albeit Large and Decorated…)
was it the dog?
i left there sunday morning
gave another massage (imbalanced)
and then headed to see my friend Charles
only there a half hour
and out to the Bar
NuTown
well
sweet people
and everyone was in love
and there was this over-all talk of Isolation…
beautiful kids! beautiful bears… beautiful black men dancing with me
all sorts of grabbing and swining and hopes..
well
met this sweet military daddy who took me out to his big Suburban..
the dirt
the desert
all the misters
the water spraying into the air
the flooded lawns
irrigation
the Desert!
what is this place?
the history here
yearning for community
i felt bad that i left charles to go see Sandy
but i hadn’t seen him in 5 years, nearly 6
and i had a good time with him back then..
should i tell the story?
sorry
i’m just glossing over things
i’m tired here
been tired the whole time..
like in Florida?
this heat? or all the air conditioning…
such sadness
fear, maybe
hiding from people
the car ride out here
at 100 mph
(serious)
these two sweet men turned into raging assholes
shouting at every one in the meanest of ways
manic misogyny
made me retreat into myself
so now where am i?
floating in some back street in phx now
i’m flying back to indiana tomorrow
and is that a good thing?
some feeling…
just like a lot of work
but…
but…
i’m heading back to New York
and that makes me happy
— i’ve commited to seeing my friend in Columbus
but damn
i’m happy to be heading back to New York…
though i have no idea where i am right now
nor where i belong
i hope that changes when i get home..
i hope it’s Home…

no…
it’s about Kanye West breaking the rules
risking to express his point
it’s michael moore
and people looting…
and looking for food
it’s survival…
it’s knocking people out of a life of luxurious wasting
into bare survial..
making people step up
the life flowing up into their eyes…
or out into the streets, or waters…
i don’t hold that every life should be saved, etc, etc…
so much more worthy to be alive fully
offensive
i’m sorry
but i’m not sorry
i’ve always been a purponent of Life
regardless of how painful it is
but here i am Phonenix now… choking on all the waste i see here
but it’s Nice
and it’s nice as long as it needs to be
i’m glad there’s just an example
a chance
something precious in these people’s lives…
something, somehow, they’re sharing.

— i keep getting this feeling that Dhalgren is in New Orleans
and i need to go there
it is terrifying
and very compelling.

i’m in Tulsa.
what to do?
…
i thought i’d go make some money
a client..
in Phx…
and other friends there
and other clients…
but expensive tickets
no, i didn’t do any planning
but…
my friends were driving out west: back home to Palm Springs
i looked on craigslist to see if i could get a ride from detroit or ann arbor to Grand Rapids so i could leave with them in the morning
no offers
but a guy going to phoenix the next day
i called him
and he’d left already
but
ok
my friends said they’d pick me up in the morning…
and now i’ve been driving all day
and just stopped
in a motel 8
in Tulsa: Oklahoma
hey Wuzz.. where are you?
i’d never spent a night in this state yet…
tomorrow: to Pheonix
what about the primetimes in oklahoma city?

Wow
i had a great day today
still didn’t get to sleep til after 4am last night
but was woken gently by my friend Robert calling me
and on the second time
i got it.
he came over
and we had a wonderful reunion
— it felt so good to have a familiar friend from NYC invade my Michigan trip…
Indiana was starting to make me feel dead inside… just slightly
but i got out before it was bad
and grand rapids and the cabin certainly helped make me feel happy and alive again…
today with Robert was even better: we got to do what i love about the midwest…
we sat for a few hours doing nothing
in plastic lawn chairs
on a soggy lawn
looking out at the swampy Huron River behind my brother’s apartment
smoking cigarettes
as we talked about our families and desires and experiences
the river became beautiful
the lawn became beautiful
everything was being infused with joy/love/life
— colour filling things up.
i taught him about plants a bit
he taught me about accepting people
letting them live their lives and saying
“i hope you’re very happy!”
we went for a walk to get breakfast…
wandered along the street
taking in the sights
… being tourists
(he grew up near here… a michigan boy)
we went into an amazing old store
stacked to the ceiling with everything Hobbyish.
guitars… doboros!
model train sets and setttings…
jigsaw puzzles
toys you have to put together yourself!
the Kooky Roost!
and paint by numbers…
all very old packaging..
strange…
but we were hungry
and found ourselves at Leo’s Coney Island.
i got a rootbeer float
a Gyro omelet with tomatoes, onions and feta
side of hashbrowns
and two pancakes
as we ate
he told me the story of his father
which was so terrifying to me
i shivered
and couldn’t eat…
“My dad is an emotional black-hole like that”
Huuuuuuuuu
eventually
the life flowed back into me
and i finished my food
and we walked on..
where?
to the Train Tracks…
i haven’t walked on train tracks in years
never in a small town
during the day
on a track i knew to be still in use
(i heard the cars go by late at night… when i should have been sleeping)
but we went walking.
immediately saw a large bird that had been hit by the train and splattered all over…
but kept on walking
balancing on the rail…
talking to the construction worker..
being paranoid we’d get arrested..
enjoying being bad boys…
we got off at the park
and walked around…
but he refused to walk by the kids in the playground
said the world was too fucked up for that
(everyone worries about something)
— we eventually got back on the tracks
walked over the tressel by my brother’s road
and then around the back…
like kids
…
and i found a whole stand of Elderberries and wild grapes!
YUM!
and the bitter-sweet nightshades that Michael Moore had told us about!
and some other berry that really didn’t taste good…
then an irish nun stopped us and asked for directions…
anyway
it was just a really nice flash through the day…
then we were back at my brother’s place and feeling good
and…
and i feel way too tired to make sense of anything
i’m trying to remember something forgot
something i wanted to write about Iowa
that i have forgotten
and the steam is out of this entry..
i guess it all got packed into that other one i just posted…
there was something really nice though!
— nice doesn’t have as much texture as strife
such is the nature of Art, i guess…
i left my brother’s place
and am now at my uncle’s place
and i will probably run around Detroit a bit tomorrow
and leave in a few days for Phx
to spend a few days there
before returning to Indianapolis
to continue my gentle path east…

… and tonight
i will sleep in my clothes…
i’m at my brother’s … apartment
in Milford.
i set to cook him italian food
i had the choice of rancid olive oil
or partially hydrogenated oil
so we went to the store
came back
and i started cooking..
i wanted to cook for my brother a simple dinner
the kind of stuff we ate in Tuscany
on that olive farm..
— i’m starting to feel it… that pull
i really want to go back to europe…
but let me get back to Cooking.
my brother has been asking me about 23 for months.
can any of you kids answer the question: What does 23 mean?
i danced around with him
in my most dominic ways of the socratic method
forcing him to answer his own questions
til he was fed up with me
and i had to give a lecture
but i gave a dance
some poetry
a story
the highlight was:
“there’s a part of you that wants to know…
and that part is listening
and something hears it
and the greeting card they leave is
23
— there’s a part of you that hears it
and hopefully
the rest of you will listen to it too someday
— but it may take a while til you’re ready..
but keep wanting
and keep asking
—- we’ll keep helping.”
so dinner was ready:
Linguini
carmelized onions from my aunt’s garden
fresh zuccini
a ripe tomato
some grapeseed oil, rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano and Salt
and after that’s all cooked
added raw garlic
to only get warmed in the mix
fresh and crisp
poured the pasta in
and more salt
and olive oil
served to he and his beautiful fiancee, Heather.
white wine
and it was so good
so good good good
more olive oil
and a bit more salt
and so good!
she went to bed
we sat down to watch Cinema Pardiso
which i knew nothing about
but had from Netflix for MONTHS now (since i moved to NYC)
the disc i had was two sided: so we watched the original version
and i just loved it..
it cycled back!
i wish so strongly to be back in Europe…
Italia!
i want to speak the language
i want a lover…
but the movie might have said
Oh, Broken Heart
you must be famous
live for yourself
work hard
make your life
maybe Love will find you after…
the movie said
Nostalgia…
before you Live
you must Let Go…
and he and i talked about Sheridan
and he reminded me
“what you had most people will never had… that kind of exploring… finding out who you were…
but many people get tired of exploring and they just want to be normal people… you will never tire… but you have to respect other’s wishes to do so”
yes yes yes
i mumbled
BUT I WILL ALWAYS ENCOURGE PEOPLE TO EXPLORE
yes yes yes…
there is always such a sadness in me
my cold irish blood
thick and heavy
wanting only to be warmed and thinned with whiskey
but the wine brings out my darker skin
the sun
Italy!
where does poland hide?
in a bottle of Vodka?
another sadness?
my love of eastern European authors…
there is so much more to read…
and for you, dear reader…
who spends time with me in my isolation
in my tower
in my pit
at the heart of it all…
i post this in the present
and have back-dated a few things i’ve written over the last few days
i’ve been bad, though
still haven’t written about other important things
Iowa… even SF
— i will
and i’ll let you know
meanwhile
Goodnight
and…
read on, if you like
there are other thoughts
and notes
and wishes…

i’m up at The Cabin right now:
my father bought a big hunting lodge when i left for england 10 years ago
it’s in quite nice shape now
about 30 dead animals around the house
mounted on the walls
— they watch over us.
acres of forest around us
against 1000 acres of national forest behind that
through the rivers
for fishing
and canoeing…
while the small town of Baldwin holds great icecream
interesting small-town-folk
slight ghetto lifestyle
and reminders of Idlewild, the end of the underground railroad up here
once a Black Mecca of the arts and freedom…
my father and his friends
my brother and his friends
have been up here this weekend Fly Fishing.
(and drinking)
i left Indiana on thursday with my dad and his buddies
drove up in a caddilac…
they dropped me in LaPort so i could work on a massage client there
— an interesting fellow
— his aura was amazing
so open..
i had to ask him if he knew he was psychic
and he admitted to it
but in a tone that expressed how much it bothered him
— he reminded me of another old friend of mine from michigan:
a big man, very big man
perhaps the largest man i’ve ever worked on
and i was very tired
but it felt pretty good
soothing him with energy
and skin…
i hope his muscles felt better too..
he told me how relaxed he felt the next day:
the first massage i’ve ever done an hour at night
and then another in the morning
(well, there was that guy outside of boston…)
he rented a hotel
and in the morning
he drove me up to Grand Rapids…
Gene and Jim
these two guys: i love them.
(in so many ways)
they are 61 and 73, respectively
and Jim is my playmate, where as Gene is my Sister.
they both love telling stories
so
that night
i met up with a boy i met down at Short Mountain
and after some cuddling and conversation
took he and his friend back to Gene and Jim’s house…
kinda to show them off as a wonderful wealth and entertainment…
G&J talked non-stop for nearly four hours
but i felt my friends were, over all, interested
G&J came from modest families
and built up their current wealth from their own hands…
they have been together for 38 years
and love eachother as family
sleep separately
enjoy bickering
but also enjoy expressing how indelible they are in eachother now
they drove me up to my father’s cabin yesterday
and Gene was, his usual self, fully out and loud…
he was very attracted to my dad and his big-bellied friend
cruising them and pushing the energy around
i felt my own “boundaries” being pushed
as i’ve done my best to agree with my father’s comfort level
and don’t push his buttons about homosexuality
to have G&J talk with him openly about their Gay Bath House businesses…
seeing my father’s face glaze over and body tension rise
then subside…
and noticing my own tensions doing the same…
Gene, openly, asking me why i’m not built like my father and brother (big bear men)
exposing my own, perhaps, sources of attraction for men like themselves…
it left me feeling pretty giddy and spun…
then i was alone with Family again (the other kind)
and dinner was made
my potatoes weren’t all that good by the time we ate them
and i felt out-of-place
and insecure…
sitting around the fire only deepened that
as my brother and his friends discussed drunk-dialing eachother
and the days of College…
— i couldn’t relate
and when i came to speaking with my brother
a familiar dynamic arose yet again
where he felt i was being condescending and haughty
and i was doing my best to relate and understand
… but from an “above position, looking down”
because i’m just not in the same kind of life they’re in…
i would prefer to say “from a different position to another”
but it really was more like the former
though i…
anyway
i walked away to let things cool
past the security light
to the road
to see Mars…
not as large as the moon (thank god)
but beautiful and bright
the moon close behind it
stars falling through the sky
and a strange lime-green northern lights creeping down from up north to show off for us… first time i’d seen that
it made me feel nice to go to sleep
even if there was a coyote skin on top of the bed before i lay down…
and this morning…
i only pray that New Orleans isn’t totally obliterated: i’ve not seen it yet and would like to…

Litost
an old friend of mine lives in Prague now.
Friend?
in the way that i met him to have sex with him
and our relationship changed
to teaching him about yoga and giving him massages
to remembering sexuality
to and intimacy through distance we only have through Friends
a Friend after the fact
a roll-switch we weren’t expecting…
do we still want eachother for help and instruction? Yes.
do we still think of eachother lustily? Yes.
but we also hold eachother as anchors for some sort of pleasant memory
we want to find eachother and bouy ourselves near eachother to return to a happy time…
he lives in Prague now
and i’ll visit him soon, i’m almost sure
i can feel the momentum pulling back to europe:
the Winter! the spring?
meanwhile
i wonder if he knows what the word “Litost” means…
i know he’s studying Czech
but how quickly do we learn the intricate words that don’t really relate to our own culture?
perhaps faster
as i learned Saudade in Portuguese shortly after arriving
as it expressed something they often term as “untranslatable”
: the feeling we get from missing someone, a type of sadness
not necessarily lonley…
what is the word we would use in English?
Litost , apparently, is something similar
expressed as “Grief, sympathy, remorse, and an indefinable longing”
not necessarily applied to a person or relationship, but about one’s whole life.
he said it’s an emotion of Youth
what we use to justify terrible actions we inflict upon other people because of our own self misery
what we use to seek out love as the ultimate panacea…
Downstairs
sits a boy
a friend of my brother’s…
he married a girl named “amanda” a few years ago
— i know her: Blond hair, big eyes: loud mouth.
we were in high school together, she and he a year older.
their marriage lasted about two years
and was pretty traumatic
yet now
he has another girl from the same town
who did not go to our school
who has the same name, and blond hair (not quite as…)
not Such big eyes, not Such a loud mouth…
What can we do against our Patterns?
She’s injured, his new Fiancee (yes, already)
and, thus, he needs to help her
both with Litost?
this amazing Amanda blond girl will somehow patch that feeling in him
as so many relationships
she gets into it
and says (through some action of God)
“if you want me to care-take your wounds… you must also do mine”
i’ve had a few lovers… and friends
that have typified our relationship at its start like this
“hello, i love you.. i’m very sick/injured– please take care of me”
since i’ve been a “professional masseur” i have less of this… a lot less of this
— as some psychic woman told me years ago
“we all have gifts… and we all have to use them… if you don’t find a way to use them professionally for your own growth and income… you’ll manifest needing to use it in your personal relationships… which almost always gets messy”
Yes.
but i remember times i’ve asked this of people
and they have of me
drowning in Litost
we demand our lover be the panacea for our own self-misery…
and, because of how miserable we are…
and how our Litost is different than that of our lover (for their strengths to our weaknesses is how they can heal us)
we become increasingly angry when we see them accell and move freely in the places we are weak and broken…
. . .
i feel i recognize this very strongly as a motivation for “Love”
and i have denied that action/reaction for many years now
which leaves me wondering, often
when i get into relationships with people
Why and What are we to do?
how can we be useful for eachother?
how can our love actually pull us out that swamp?
create levees… install windmills… pump it out
enough sun to dry things a bit.. and create growth?
(even though surprise hurricanes will eventually come..)
i sludge along through the swamps on my own
hanging out with friends on hammocks
smoke a pipe
eat some berries
enjoy the company
and trudge off apart from eachother
wondering what we can do for ourselves
knowing one or the other of us strongly wants the help of the other…
but how to ask? and what for?
Youth… ah Youth…
until we’re 40
until we’re 56
until we’re dead…

burn out
— to burn a prairie or forest
so fertile for new growth
sterile, like antibacterial soap;
hypochondriac’s houses
sterile makes very fertile for new growth
bacterial or otherwise
ripe for mono-culture
to blanket, take over.
————
“liberals”
vascilate so much…
trying to decide what’s best for them
and for everyone else…
individually
while trying to take all the details into consideration
“conservatives” just take things from the Assumed Right position
and forces action from that sturdy stance
—————-
that thing about Kari
and why not quit smoking pot?
————
imagine a better world where all actions aren’t made from fear
:
anything that’s not US is going to try and take from us and kill us
so let’s take everything from them and kill them first!
outside of the light in the night
at the edge of the darkness
wait the scary monsters
something better?
—————-
i love giving massage
and blow jobs
i love having sex
i love it love it love it.
all the time?
right now!
i love Gene and Jim
inspiring
push my own boundaries of OUT
-go figure
YEAH
good for them
and me.

i was just walking around naked outside in back yard
sat down on the wooden chair to eat the blue-berry desert with vanilla ice-cream
when the conversation from earlier today hit me:
my sister has changed her major in college many times
what do you want to do when you grow up?
— she’s just graduated… finally
she spent nearly two months in Belize this spring digging around the Mayan Ruins
she wanted to get into Phorenzic anthropology?
Dental Phroenzic anthropology..
something like that
but it seemed passionate
anyway
in the last few days she’s told me she’s going to be a Dental Hygenist (which is kinda in my dad’s field… and it seems to make him happy)
because she knows she’ll make money
to pay off her bills, support her dogs, etc…
but it’s not her passion
my brother did this too..
though the major he was going for was “being Jack Kerouac”
to whatever extent he could acheive it
but
yet again
he had to pay his bills
and took a job he wasn’t (and isn’t: four years later and still doing it)
interested in
coz it pays…
and i am still hearing stories from full-grown men of the jobs they don’t enjoy but have to do
WHY do we do this?
i don’t fault my siblings (if you’re reading this)
it just makes me sad that the world does this to us
whores to the dollar, to the debt
all balancing… dancing a way to make it work out.
anyway
for those of you who read this
and often read here
sorry i’ve not written
i’ve had lots of ideas
i’ve just not been focusing
mercury retrograde?
it’s catching back up to speed
so the words are comming out again.
Hello
i’ll try and back-date some writings soon
i’m indiana now
and heading up to michigan today
(and damnit! there’s a nudist bear gathering about a half hour south of here and i only just found out about it after i made my plans to go north!)
so it {we,i} goes[s]