Taking a new approach on the book…

Been looking at some new agey books in an effort to reside in an inspired state more often. The books claim in the word "inspiration," is actually based on "in spirit," so that by connecting to spirit through meditation and all, you tap into the source that provided the insight in the first place.

The other way, and the way I have been doing it, is to accept the inspiration when it strikes, but then switch into a more ego-driven mode and forcing myself on a path of motivation, which is sort of the opposite of inspiration.

Again, it’s one of those things with no downside. If I meditate, I get calmer, more centered, and such. So, certainly a mental state that will also help the book long-term. But there seems to be something there that does appeal to me.

Being a writer is so typically egocentric, though, it’s hard to put the ego aside and trust in something larger working through you and all that. We’ll see what I find…

Another story of gay Pennsylvania…

To curb my anxiety about being so straight and such so often, I’m at the gay bar again the night after the racist remarks (see next post down). The bar is in Moosic, which is as unlikely a place as any for a gay bar. It seems to be a decidedly residential area with a big flamboyat gay bar nestled into the houses.

Upon entering, I immediately go to the bar and order a Malibu and Pineapple. My drinking strategy in Pennsylvania is drink early and stop early, as I never really learned to control my buzz for driving home. In San Francisco, I tend to walk to the bars, so… it’s not an issue.

At both bars, I get the feeling that I was harsh to judge the area in the past. Or at least to judge against something it could never be. As much as I live in a huge gay ghetto now, there was something charming and communal about being out there. Everyone seemed to know everyone, and a lot of people crossed over through their cliques to welcome others in a way that seemed strange, with preppies welcoming the, err, lumberjacks or whatever that look was supposed to be. In any event, I was feeling as though I misjudged the area unfairly, and as much as I still don’t want to live there, there was something unique and special about it.

Then I saw him.

Short black button-down shirt. Tight on the biceps.

Faux-hawk, perfect.

He was perfectly put together, but not overly so. Just simple and elegant.

I somehow (immediately) end up next to him at the railing overlooking the dance floor.

With a closer look, it is even clearer. This boy would fit in at any club in the Castro. The look is exquisite, the hair, the bone structure of his face, his aloof yet personable smile. there you go, Mr. Big City. You’re in MOOSIC and finding a stunning boy who could be dropped into any club in San Francisco and fit in perfectly, time to get over your big-city bullshit…

I go to play the "out of towner" card again.

"So…" I say, having to get close enough to him to effectly tongue his ear if I wanted to. (Well, I should say, if I thought that would have gotten me anywhere…) "What goes on around here during the week?"

"Honey, I have no idea. I’m here from out of town."

"San Francisco!" I say, raising my glass.

"Provincetown!" he replies, clinking his glass to mine, as we both drink to our fish out of water status. Seems his friends brought him here, and he wasn’t realy feeling the vibe. But he gave me a warm, sincere hug when he was leaving and it was still a fun moment.

At least I tried to give Northeastern Pennsylvania some credit! Really, what are the odds that the San Francisco boy just picks out the other boy visiting from another gay ghetto?!

I’m not crazy enough to think there is no racism in SF. It’s just something I never experience first-hand.

But when I recently went home to Pennsylvania, it was a bit eye-opening. Now, I ended up going home on the Monday after gay pride. So, Friday night, out until after 4 a.m…. Saturday night, out until after 4 a.m…. Sunday night, tired, but still up until 10 p.m. on not much sleep the previous two nights. Then Monday, I fly back to Philadelphia. From being surrounded by tens of thousands of gays, to hundreds of thousands of gays, to… not that many.

By the time, friday rolls around, I need to be with the gays. It isn’t a question of hooking up, making out, meeting friends, even talking with anyone… I just need to have that energy around me. I never experienced that before. It is disconcerting to have guys not maintain eye contact in public, and all of the things that I consider normal anymore.

I go to the gay bar in Wilkes-Barre, and sit at the bar outside on the patio (to reduce my contact with secondhand smoke). Some boy next to me starts chatting, and I get to play the San Francisco card, which always makes for easy conversation. He asks about pride, and I mention clubbing on Friday until all hours, then a street party Saturday, etc., etc., and he asks what kind of club I went to.

So, I mention, it is a club called Dragon, and it’s this gay Asian bar.

"Oh," he says, taking a sip of his drink. "I don’t like the slanty-eyed ones."

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The slanty-eyed ones?!

I debate my course of action. I mean, a lecture on racism seems a bit much. And, what was worse, is that he said it the same way people here would say "I’m not into Asian guys." It was how matter-of-fact he said it that creeped me out. I just play it off, saying I find Asian boys to be really hot or something.

After this comment, I start looking around and notice a group of Latin boys in the corner. I hear a lot more about Latinos back home anymore, mainly about "them" "taking over" and such. After Mr. Slanty Eye’s comment, I watch and see no other white boys approaching the Latin boys. Racism? Just something not happening in the 60 seconds I’m paying attention? Who knows?

So, I walk past the Latin boys on my way to the restroom. One of them says, "You’re cute," and walks past me. I say to him, "You should do something about that." (I’m more brazen at home). So, he stops, turns around and we chat. I meet the other Latin boys and they are very warm and welcoming.

When I go back to the bar, SlantyEyes is still there, and says: "I see you’re taking the long way back to the whites… slanty-eyed to droopy-eyed…"

I didn’t listen to any more of his nonsense, as it was closing time. I also got distracted when an overweight fag hag who drank too much, grabbed onto me in the hallway by the bar, and said "You need to hold me up until my friend gets here." So, I continue to hold her, and her friend never shows up. Eventually, I set her down in one of the seats, and leave the bar. That was the only racist remark I heard in the gay bars while I was there.

Had to take a few days off from the gym due to a recent injury, one that comes on the heels of an injury when i was back home in PA… we’ll go in order:

But before that, is there some reason I never get butch injuries? I never jam a finger playing rugby or anything more masculine, always some crazy little thing (possibly due to the fact that I don’t play rugby or do anything masculine? I mean, I did karaoke for like two hours on Thursday night… alone… in my apartment… no injuries, though.).

So, first injury. I’m grocery shopping in Pennsylvania and enjoying things I tend to never do in California, like use a shopping cart. With rare exception, whatever I usually buy at the store ends up in my backpack here, so it’s a lot of mini-trips rather than the big bi-weekly, fill-up-the-car stock-up that they do back home. As we approach the car, I just up onto the shopping cart and ride it toward out car. We empty the cart and, once again, I jump on it to ride it to cart return thing.

Now, I’m not stupid. I intentionally rode the emprty cart differently and choked up on the handles to further lower my center of gravity, but apparently not enough. BAM! In an instant, the cart is upended, and I’m on the ground. My knee ripped its way out of my pants, and is bleeding. My left wrist is sore, and the wind is almost knocked out of me. But, despite all of that, I’m laughing at the stupidity and frivoloty of it all. I bounce back up, return the cart, and get in the car. The left wrist takes several days to not be sore. The knee scabs up nicely. The "wind" being knocked out of me ends up being a bruised rib or two, which affect me for about a week, sending a flash of pain whenever I roll out of bed, get up from a couch, etc., etc.

So, upon my return to CA, I end up sleeping on my couch because I didn’t make my bed before I went to PA. I had washed all the sheets, etc., but they were all bunched up on the living room chair. It isn’t easy making the bed, because it is a loft bed jammed into a corner, so you have to make the bed while crawling around ON the bed, basically. After a few days, I concede and make the bed and, for the first time in nearly three weeks, sleep pressed up toward my ceiling.

Like all middle-aged men, in the middle of the night, I get up to pee. So, I get up, dangle my legs off the side of the bed and…

I think I was still in mid-air when the words "LOFT BED!" filled my brain and I crash into the floor, a half-conscious 6.5 foot drop at 4 a.m.

Somehow, I am not cut, bruised or seemingly injured.

When I go to the gym, though, my bosy is giving more resistance. I figure it is just shaking off the atrophy of my vacation. But, after a few more workouts, it seems like I have injured my tibia, probably a hairline fracture or something. It is fine with normal usage, but when I do a cardio workout, it is throbbing by the end.

So, I gave it a few days off and tomorrow, I return to the gym. I will still adapt my workouts to it, but not end them. That could mean using one of the older, less punishing ellipticals or, heaven help me, go on fat row with all of the people languishing on the bicycles and calling it a workout. We shall see…

I don’t think I would mind butcher injuries, or something more age-related even, but falling off a shopping cart and rolling out of bed? Please…

So, against my desires, I sold my pair of tickets to see Pearl Jam a few blocks from my house last night. I just figured it was not in my financial interest to see a $55ish ticket for a second time whilest unemployed, so I sold the pair off for $120, deposited it in the bank, and went to Whole Foods and got some produce on the way home from the sale.

But having heard tales of people just handing people free tickets, the massive amounts of scalpers, and the close proximity of the venue, I figured I would head down to the venue about 5 minutes before Pearl Jam hits the stage and see if I could score. To ensure I didn’t cave, I set my wallet with only $25, with no backup (often when I go to buy from scalpers, I’ll set my wallet with what I want to pay, and the rest in my jacket pocket, so I can open my wallet and hand them every bill I supposedly have).

I walk toward the venue, and when I hit the corner closest to my apartment, at the back of the venue, it opens up and someone says something and closes the door again. I’m normally not too curious about weirdness happening in this city, but I ask the guy sitting there what that dude just said. I was informed that he said for $40 he’d let anyone in… so I walked up to the door, and as I approached, he opened it.. the guy in front of me hands him $40 and walks in, and I say "I only have $20," he says "whatever, whatever, just get in here." I hand him $20, and enter the side of the building, set up with bars, off the main auditorium.

Within ten minutes, I am about 30 feet from the stage, on the floor this time (wearing my messed up sneakers that got trampled in both the Green Day and Arctic Monkeys pits, now known as my concert shoes), the lights go out and the band plays another amazing set.

Of course, my question is one of karma. I had sold all of my previous tickets to PJ for cost, not making any profit. The hope all along was to get a reluctant scalper to hear pearl Jam playing and just unload the ticket before he had to eat it, or finding someone just handing them out because they wanted to quickly get inside. Those seemed like fine alternatives, as the scalper likely made money already for the night, and the other guy is just giving up on making his money back (and I’ve done that dance before myself).

I’m just not certain that my karma would line me up with a security guard (oh yeah, I don’t think this was a random attendee, but someone paid to make sure that door remained secure, heh) who would be sudsidizing his income by letting people into the show on the cheap.

I did go there with the intent of seeing the show for $20, and I did, but I’m not sure if karma is just supposed to "work," or whether this was some randomness that happened to intervene. I always ascribed more altruistic methods to karma.

In any event, with the $8 markup I got on the initial pair (I always round ticket sales to the nearest $20 anymore, since people are always coming from ATMs, and I don’t care to ensure I have proper change), I got an extra Pearl Jam show for $12. Not too shabby.

Being back from PA always means I’m up for having fun again…

I guess one of the things I noticed about myself is how rigid I am about time, despite not having a job, appointments, anywhere to be, etc., etc.

So, I just got out the black electrical tape and made the rounds in the apartment. The microwave, VCR, alarm clock, etc., all now return no information. Other clocks have been turned around, and my watches tossed in a drawer.

The goal is to learn to listen to cues that make more sense: eat when I’m hungry, read when I’m awake, nap when I’m tired, go to the gym when it suits me rather than trying to predict traffic patterns…

I’ve done this routine before, mainly for "lost weekends" where I tried to write at all hours. That’s not the goal now. Mainly just looking to start paying better attention to the internal cues that make more sense.

We’ll see how it goes… job hunt is back on in a major way, too.

Just got back from the Pearl Jam concert… I was about to write that it was so recent the setlist isn’t even posted yet on the Pearl Jam message boards, but of course, I just checked and that isn’t true.

Pearl Jam holds a special place for me in that, I barely know any of their lyrics, know anything about what the songs are about, but they just give me a great vibe and fill me with emotion. For most bands, I’m a total lyric queen, so this is an anomaly. It’s similar to REM, except in their case, I just don’t listen to their stuff between concerts as much… with Pearl Jam, I do listen to it, but it really becomes the soundtrack to my life, helping me excavate emotional terrain without taking root.

It all started with Black, which in typical fashion they did not play tonight. It always puts me right back in 1992. And, again, despite this being a favorite, I would have to mumble half the lyrics incomprehensibly if ever forced to do a lyricless karaoke, which would only make it sound like an authentic Vedder representation anyway.

It connects me back to how I used to relate to boys (and I am aware the math doesn’t really work on all this as far as the song coming out in 1992, me not coming out until 1995, and some of the boys I apply it to not occuring until shortly thereafter but, again, in my head this is all one time…).

Back then, I was basically all about the unrequited love. Whether it was online relationships or some of the boys I initially, awkwardly pursued (TJ, Jeremy), the relationships lived a much fuller life in my head than in reality. But eventually, reality won…

In my little emo world (before all you new-school bitches who think you invented it…), I would build elaborate relationships from scraps of reality, until more reality intruded. At a certain point, the reality would outweigh the fantasy, and it couldn’t be sustained any longer. Entire emotional, fictional one-sided relationships lived and died in my head. Jeremy’s version laster longer and he experienced a lot of it first-hand for better or worse. TJ’s didn’t last as long, and I don’t think he knew about it until I wrote the White Room essay some time later.

But whenever I hear Black, it connects me in spirit to that time in my life. Only the final lyrics, though…

i know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, i know you’ll be a star
in somebody else’s sky, but why
why, why can’t it be, why can’t it be mine?

That was sort of my mentality then. I would set them free and wish them well in one moment, and then make it all about me in the next. When the song came out, it was completely who I was at that time.

Now, I still find beauty in the words, and they still reach down into my core, but for a different reason… and I’m no longer that person. Listening to it now (and I am as I write this *cough*drama queen*cough*), it is a time capsule that lets me visit someone I once was. I felt the fiction of my life so deeply, painfully inept at making it the reality I wanted.

I like the innocence I had at that time, misguided as it was. I yearned for external completion then more than now… hell, I don’t even believe in it now. But despite how offbase I was in my pursuits, I was still able to find amazing people in the process who became and remain important in my life.

Jeremy is perhaps my best friend. I say perhaps only because people approaching 40 typically don’t reference people as being best friends, do they? But we share everything, talk at length and often, and I think slowly I am even getting better at being there for him. (The more time I spend cooped up working on the book, the more I have to remember not to babble endlessly from being a bit stir crazy.)

TJ is a different case in that he isn’t online much, lives in Pennsylvania, and I only get to see him when I visit home. Less than a week ago, we spent nearly two hours during one humid afternoon, both of us pretty well buzzed on a hearty pitcher of white wine sangria, just sitting in his hot tub and talking about everything and nothing, completely relaxed and open, despite the huge gaps that exist between our exchanges. Spending more time with TJ and his boyfriend of 11 years, Peter, is high on the list of reasons I would love to live on the east coast again at some point.

This past visit, I even got to see Will, in from his new home of Boston, and compare notes about the "old days." Will was always sort of a role model, although I don’t know if that was even verbalized at the time (he didn’t seem to have any knowledge of that role on this past visit). I remember when I first started going out to Selections, the newest gar bar in Wilkes-Barre (no longer in business), when I had first come out. Some of the first boys I met were… well, some of the, umm, looser boys? Eh, who knows and who cares anymore? In any event, the first gay boys I ended up kissing at the bar kissed very open-mouthed, although no tongue was exchanged. Newly out, I just accepted that as how "the gays" kissed amongst friends. Will put the kibbosh on that immediately with a smart "Who the hell taught you to kiss like that, Jeffrey?" and quickly corrected my form. He was then and remains a  source of great warmth and light in my life and our recent visit just had an ease to it that seemed to reinforce a solid foundation that was built more than a decade ago.

I guess it’s good to know that even when I was often going in the wrong direction compared to my goals of the time, I was somehow finding the right people along the way. And it is also nice to know that, despite my horrible track record for remembering my history, there are a few clear signposts that can immediately connect me to who I was, what i was thinking, what i wanted, and how I was trying to achieve it. One of them is Pearl Jam’s "Black."

It’s like reading an old diary, taking the words in and wondering who that person was… while not wanting to change a moment. (not true, but you can’t, so it’s a bit silly to go down that path otherwise. I think the piece ends nicer without any ambiguity anyway).