Filed under: Layers
I know I’m overdoing the whole Raymond Chandler thing, but I just can’t help myself. There is a method to this madness. (And I ain’t gonna explain it today!) I found another quote yesterday that I have to share.
“Room 332 was at the back of the building near the door to the fire escape. The corridor which led to it had a smell of old carpet and furniture oil and the drab anonymity of a thousand shabby lives”
The Little Sister – Raymond Chandler
I’ve been busy. That’s good. I’ve been so un-busy the last few months, that I haven’t gotten anything done. I know that sentence doesn’t make sense, but for me it’s true. The less I have to do, the less I accomplish. “Too much time and not enough to do in it,” is how the phrase should read for me. I tend to procrastinate when I don’t have much to do.
The last few weeks have been a blur, but a lot’s happened and I have gotten a lot done.
- I’ve moved
- Helped someone else move
- Drastically reworked my resume
- Started working a on decent paying project (is decent the right word here?)
- Started catching up on films
- Learned two new computer programs
- Read a lot
- Written some
- I saw Don for the first time in six years
Not bad for a month, especially if you look at the preceding one. I’m not trying to brag or say it’s been a perfect four weeks, it’s just a start.
I feel bad about not posting anything of substance on this blog for a while now. As Steph said in When They Leave, “Can somebody else be me for a while? I need a break.” I’ll have to admit that I have felt that way for several months now.
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051220/NEWS02/512200397/1025/ARCHIVES
http://www.millermosterrobbins.com/visitations/View.php?id=78
After Judy died, I slumped into a dreadful despair. I felt like I had been drawn into some cruel cataract and no matter how hard I tried, I could neither find the surface nor air to breathe. (Of course my Ptown adventure didn’t help my mood much either.) I’ve tried to hide it from my friends, mostly they’ve said they don’t notice, but I think they’re just being nice. I have tried to remind others to be positive about their lives, hoping that advice will stick with me. I’ve really felt more like Polonius and have often feared that I will soon be found behind the curtain. I also figured if I didn’t write here I would give fewer clues to the curtain I was behind. To quote Steph again, “I feel like I’m lying by omission.” (sic)
So now I’m busy again and trying to catch up on my omissions. I hope I have enough time.
“Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.”
- - Raymond Chandler- From a letter to his editor regarding a proofreader who had changed Chandler’s split infinitives
Cool gray limestone on a light Summer night,
Bare feet gliding along moss covered banks,
We shed our clothes below a Barley Moon,
And slowly slid into the dark green river.
Warm water slipped around your slender legs,
Quickly hiding your perfect nakedness,
It’s wetness, barely hiding yours.
You stood there resisting only the river’s flow,
As I entered where all was darkly new,
While the water washed away our imagined sin.
We laid our bodies upon some grass,
It’s greenness only muted by the night,
And the kind September air dried away the water,
Finishing our final flight from innocence.
Filed under: Layers
1 Eight ounce cup of Starbucks coffee = $2.70
1 Eight ounce cup of Regular unleaded gasoline = $0.19
Last week was an interesting week. I did so much. I had a quite few great lunches with friends. Max on Monday, Tuesday it was Jeremiah, Lourdes on Wednesday, and Randy on Thursday. Friday I was so busy wrapping up my business at work, that I skipped lunch. The lunchtime events or the discussions were very dynamic and fun.
Monday’s lunch with Max and his new boyfriend was a challenge. (He’ll kill me for writing this) Maybe I’m too fond of Max to be a good judge, but these guys seemed mismatched. I could not get the new guy to engage in conversation. He made me feel obtuse, when I’m pretty sure he was the phlegmatic one.
Tuesday, I had a really sweet lunch with Jeremiah. I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much time alone with him and it surely was special. He had been under a lot of pressure with the end of the school year, and I was worried about him. His blog entry from a few days before our lunch, really concerned me. I finally realized, over lunch, that we share some characteristics, a nervous energy and our need to worry about others. I was at lunch to see how he was doing and I think he was doing the same for me. The advice he gave me was so dead on right. It sort of shocked me, that he understood me so well. Of course his conduit/boyfriend spends enough time with me, that I shouldn’t be shocked. Now if I could only follow JC’s sage advice, I might be happier.
It was great to see Lourdes. She has to be my favorite ex-employee, and I have quite a few ex-employees, I’m sorry to say. I came out to her and she was completely shocked. I am surprised that she didn’t figure it out before. We had lunch a month or so ago and I almost told her then, but chickened out. I threw some hints then, but she didn’t see it. During lunch, I think she realized she had missed the signs while she was working with me. Maybe I missed the signs too.
The lunch with Randy was great too. We went to a brew pub and sat outdoors. It was a beautiful day. We talked about so many things. He is moving to LA. (I hear he is already on his way) He’s so bright and hardworking, I know he’ll succeed. I don’t think he wants to go, but there are no real opportunities in Boston. Emerson hasn’t really treated him well. Of course Emerson is basically amoral when it comes to things like that. So what the heck? I told him he was doing he right thing. I believed it, I just hate to see him go.
In the end, it was a series of lunches with people that have or are moving on. So it fit into my transitional phase right now. The lunches made me happy, but made me long too, made me think about how many people I truly miss every day. I fall in love so easily, and never fall out. Pleasurable regret.
Filed under: Layers
I’ve made it to Provincetown. It is hard for me to even believe that I am here. Just a few weeks ago I would have laughed at anyone if they even suggested the possibility, yet here I am. And you know what? So far so good. I’ve been here four days and the time has passed quickly. There is so much to do. The hotel needs some help and I’m not lamenting. It needs some changing and I’m going to be able to effect that change. In the short time I’ve been here I feel like I’ve made a difference.
There is much for me to do. I have to make sure hotel is physically in shape to take guests. I have to manage the staff, I have to learn the local politics and business culture, for my personal survival and for the sake of the hotel too. I have to help take reservations and check in guests. And all of this has to be integrated into a system that makes sense. I think its going to be fun, a great big challenge, but fun.
Of course the personal challenges are intriguing also. This is a very Gay town! “Not that there is anything wrong with that.” Its very tolerant place and I seem pretty straight in comparison to most of the people I’m around now. This too will be an interesting experiment for me. And there is a beach across the street.
The Wednesday before Easter I went to lunch with Randy and Arthur, after we finished a video shoot. It was a gorgeous day and we didn’t get a chance to eat until late. We decided to hit a local pub, ostensibly because they have great burgers, but we really wanted beer. Spring was in the air and we had just finished shooting at a grade school. I think there was something about being in a school on a warm Spring day that made us want to play hooky. So we finished the shoot and hit the pub. We knew that we were not going to return to work, sober at least.
Randy is straight and this was the first time I’d been in a social situation with him since I started to Out myself. The intriguing thing is, until that lunch I assumed that Randy thought I was straight. Now I am not sure what he thinks. If you’ve been around me at all in the last few months, you would see the change, at least I think. But during lunch I could see confusion in Randy’s face when he saw me interact with Arthur. And twice when an opportunity came up for me to directly address my orientation I directly avoided it.
Of course assumptions are funny things. I assumed he originally thought I was straight. Why? Because when I met him originally I acted straight. Maybe he didn’t think I was Straight. Perhaps he has Gaydar and is good as spotting those things. Of course I don’t think Straight men have Gaydar, I believe only women and Gay men have it. God, knows I don’t have it. Perhaps I don’t have it because I have so much baggage. I’m still prejudiced in some ways. If a friend says, “Oh he’s Gay.” Often my reaction is, “Really?” or “No?” After fifty years I am conditioned to think it’s a bad thing.
The whole lunch made me ponder where I am on the denial scale. The questions I am asking myself are, Does it matter? How far do I have to go with this thing? Am I being dishonest with a friend/associate, that knew me as straight, if I don’t clearly Out myself? Maybe I’m over reacting just because I’ve found a new religion. (Since this was the Wednesday before Good Friday, I did think about St. Peter and the three denials. It also made me choose a particular song of the day.) Maybe its egotistical to even think people care one way or another. Of course on occasion my Father was known to say, “Mark, you think too much.”
The hamburgers were great!
One of the last things I do in the morning is to put my ear phones in and turn on my iPod before I leave the apartment. This morning as I did that, I began to wonder if my Song of the Day list, that I’ve started here is reflective and or predictive of what is going on in my life. Most of the songs I pick just are chosen, because they struck a chord that day. I will have to admit that the choices for last week were chosen because of the biblical references. (I’ll write more about that some other time.)
So I thought is the Song of the Day the soundtrack of my life? Is it the score of my moods? Then I thought of Steph of course, because she is so fond of movie soundtracks. She really likes soundtracks. Then I thought of Elizabethtown, a score and movie she and I have spoken about, but that I have not really seen or heard. I made a mental note to rent the film and then to write Steph next week, after she returns from her trip to Nicaragua, to discuss it with her. Of course she got me again. When I got to work there was a email from Steph telling me that she had made a couple of CDs of the Elizabethtown soundtrack for me. She was trying to arrange a way for me to get the discs before she left.
I haven’t heard the discs yet, but it should be interesting. It is so weird to have this connection with Steph. If you read my blog, you would think she and I talk a lot. We don’t. I see her once a week and usually that is accidentally or very casually. We are both busy with the end of the school year, so we don’t have much free time. We are both very fond of Jeremiah and Arthur, but this psychic connection seems to have little to do with that, other than that is how we met. I do not know what it is. It makes me smile and yearn for more, to want to figure it out. It makes me think of a few lines from the song Woodstock of course.
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it’s the time of man
I don’t know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
I’ve been thinking about music a lot lately. I guess that’s obvious. This morning I was awakened by Scott Joplin on the radio. NPR was doing a piece about Joplin and a recording of a recently found piano roll was playing when my clock radio went off. It was the "Maple Leaf Rag." How can you not like that number? After I got my coffee I remembered another piece by Joplin, that I love. I found it later in my collection. Its called Solace. I’ve played it about 30 times today.
Did Scott Joplin find me today, or did I find him?
