… 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]
Eating is Fun!
[ i just came off a three day fast .. yesterday ]
nothing like eating nothing to make everything taste amazing…
the coconut!
the Kitchari!
(
but, by nature of Kitchari.. it was just stubtly wonderful…
nothing shocking… just really nice…
got me high..
as it always does
)
then carnitas tacos in kelseyville!
and dark Chocolate (and green Tea!) Gelato!
a bite of Turtle!
MEAD!
a heavy meal of salad
potatoes (rosemary!)
asparagus!
LAMB!
almond cake and lady fingers and splenda ben&jerry’s chocolate ice cream and chocolate frosting and raw chocolate nibs and
RED WINE!
YES!
Eating is FUN!
but DAMN
it’s heavy
[slam me down back in my body]
i couldn’t really sleep…
or is it that i’m traveling to day?
eventually i gave up trying
(i’d close my eyes and just dream… )
i opened my eyes and stared at the stars…
put on my glasses to see better
took out my camera to try and photograph the stars
cuddled and talked with Leo
made Tea
came to journal
the sun hasn’t risen…
but i have
So…
Good Morning.
SO
i can hear about how my past friends were poison to me
( i can imagine it the other way around… )
i can listen to the music of teen-age years
the voice recordings of “The Door”
by CS Lewis… or Edmund White? or EM Forester? i don’t remember his name
i just remember Richard was Obsessed with that story
so he read it to Trevis [who recorded it]
as he read it to me
as he read it to every young thing who he found
with an existential crisis:
there’s got to be more to life and the world
than getting a job
suffering under it
and dying
ignorant and unhappy
Or blissfully sedated
existential crisis
of finding the right door to make God happy
or finding the right door to get out of this dreaded experiment
of human Kindness
human cruelty
the wars and jokes and battles and games
the endless suffering of broken hearts and forsaken gardens…
as we were drawn to eachother:
Teen Agers in the wasteland…
even the waste land of New York City
where we would talk on the phone and he would point at me and say
“you generate an energy that’s very difficult to be around…
i am fine with you when we are alone
but if we are with anyone else
anyone else i know
anyone you don’t
i can’t take it
i feel ashamed, uncomfortable
like i can’t take it: i have to get away”
and i can think about that
and wonder of my own faults
and my current Friend [lover] would say
“he’s just in the Closet”
because he’s only a Homosexual in the socially acceptable sense of the word
of the main stream variety
and my friend has a certain acceptable contempt for that
as i do
as i wonder
what i should do?
find a vice and stick to it!
chew on the floor…
have sex every day
the ebb of energy keeping me still and placated
or drink bourbon with mint leaves
three glasses
and a bottle of red wine
it’s enough for one night
or a day or masturbation
…
but looking through a million photographs
and hearing the old voices
and wondering
did i forsake them?
did i forsake myself?
what am i doing now?
do i need to impress anyone with my writing?
with my beauty?
with my voice?
do i need to give to the world?
does it care?
will it help?
or is it just Something To Do?
and is that Something, perhaps, Better than Other things to do?
like watching TV and killing animals with high-procision rifles?
i can’t help thinking about these things
as i take this turn through time
and look back at whenever the last time this happened was
when i felt this way
when i lost them all
when i left them
and they wouldn’t have me back
and i rejected them
and i don’t remember
how it all goes down
i just know i don’t ever really want to let go of anything
if i have to hold onto anything
i want it all
otherwise
i’d really rather just drift off on an iceburg and let it all go
but we’re never offered such clean extremes in life
always such smaller
more exacting choices
yes
fine
so i’ll keep knitting
keep twiddling my thumbs
all my fingers
not doing anything
or maybe looking for the key
to open the door
to please god
or get me out of here.
i just back dated some journaling about the last week and a half
in two long entries
as opposed to the two short ones i posted for today
oh, this makes three.
When i got back up here
i was still sick
but it was only a day or two before i felt much better…
Sure
the hot springs had a lot to do with that…
we all went together on tuesday
and i was totally shot after the first dip in the hot water
fell asleep in the sun
everything just moved through me
waking up that first morning with the sun burning the trees: what a gorgeous sunrise…
then the the hot springs
and the greasy french loving in Leo’s cooking
i felt so … nurtured…
yet a bit OUT
my two friends were able to be playful/sexual
and my throat was still ripped up
and lips were still raw
so i had to wait…
and when Leo left Wednesday night
i declared a Fast
well
the next day N and i went to the Hot springs again
i ran into people i knew
california folk…
N was annoyed
and i just took it in stride
yeah
these people are annoying..
but they are who’s out here
they come from the midwest and dream their biggest dreams
talk of being possessed by Kali all the time
and ghost written novels
yes
the hot springs
the goddess
sure
it’s so beautiful
i didn’t care
i just felt so good…
just felt so much better
and N cooked for me that last night of food
so nice to be nurtured by him as well
we slept together out under the stars
the Fasting (started on Friday, i guess)
also feels so good
the challenge of not eating
of wanting to share food with N
of wanting to eat!
everything becomes so scrumptious
(grin)
yesterday we went into town
i drove him around kelseyville and lakeport
took him to the supermarket
where i was taunted by all the food
AND all the hot men
the farmers… the hunters
the guys from the trailer park
hot men here
but they’d kill me!
i left
went and sat in the car…
that night (last night)
i went through many of the photographs…
many repeats
lots of trash
quite a few files that weren’t of me
but were Trevis’s… maybe Sheridan’s…
all those kids from highschool
the kids we used to be!
the kid i was…
even before that
stuff i must have stolen from my mother
5 years old
8
11
my teacher…
kids i’ve not talked to in years
kids i’ve grown apart from
all of them…
it made me feel really delicate
i tried to look up one on the internet
.. couldn’t find him
i called trevis and left a message
letting him know i had all these photos that were his, now
and a journal…
did he want them?
just a voice mail.. with Morrissey singing “You Wonder How… We’ve Stayed alive til now…we’ll let you know, oh, but only if… you’re really interested”
yeah, how?
Eli called
and we talked for an hour or so
while he drove through LA
on his way to the Movies
we talked about relationships
ours
and others
Friends
what that means
i got to be honest about my anger with him
without being mean
i got to hear myself in compassion and friendliness
he complimented me on how good i was being to myself
protecting myself from him
it just left me feeling really crazy
sad
frustrated
the Past….
i had to shake off after i got off the phone
run to a tree
and let it go
then have a conversation with nayland
in my strength
and insecurity…
so scared as i can be…
but it’s alright:
We’re Friends.
and i’m sad i’m not in New York now…
i miss it
and i won’t be back for a month!
argh..
i’m here
going through the past
writing
plotting the future
wondering what to do
what is right…
knowing i have to make a new scenario for myself in the city
given myself the time already
now do it
so i have a new trellis to grow on
not just blow away from
so much yet to learn
s’alright
it’s happening.
…
Leo comes back tonight
and we head off to the city on Tuesday
” it’s the past…
it’s in the Bracken…
Did something happen?
i’m like a butterfly
in a case
and i’m a number
in a drawer…
but NO
i don’t remember…”
when i posted that post about the terrible “good-bye” to Sheridan
Trevis’ girlfriend from 10 years ago commented on it:
she had googled the net looking for him
and found him with me
a spider
a keeper of the past
i gave her his number
and passed on…
on the phone with my brother a few moments ago
he told me he went to his 10 year high school reunion a few weeks ago
and this girl named Courtney came up to him and asked him about me
(didn’t know his name: “Are you Nick’s brother?”)
— she wasn’t surprised at the life i’ve led
then she paused and said
“is he still hanging around with Sheridan and Trevis?”
-No, he said
“good, i didn’t think he would be: they were always so poisonous to him and he never saw it… i’m glad he finally did”
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