An Update

On the way to court ...

" ... but that is not this day. This day WE FIGHT ..."

This morning, we were awakened by the sound of one horn honking. The winter palace is located on a busy residential street - otherwise quiet, give or take the traffic, the cars roaring down the street from Ft. Sam Houston, and the occasional deceased house-pet.

Although the royal driveway is long, the fleet is large - and the Great Prince has a large supply of cars at any given time sitting on the street, in the driveway or otherwise nearby ... and so was the detriment of the Viscount of the Car-port. A Honda CRV came barrelling down the road today, and in the course of doing so, it took out the Viscount's car, a minivan behind it, coming to rest atop a Ford Contour one house down. It was the Contour's horn that blared at full volume as the SUV sat on its hood, the front passenger side tire passing rather eventfully through the windshield. I watched from a safe distance the mayhem one house down, until I was reminded of my legal status (the police were en route), at which point I wandered inside to resume my morning regimen of white wine, blogs, and web-comics. I had writing to do.

A few days ago, I would have made much of this incident; however, at the moment, it merely provides fodder for nostalgia and amusement. How often does one actually have one's parked car taken out by an Army colonel / nurse, or - in general?

I find myself reflecting on my 21st birthday, arguably the start of my Bacchanal. Sean and I started the day sitting in a quiet park, smoking a joint and drinking Sake screwdrivers. I was in awe that people did such things. I was in love with the boy across from me, who was my age and beautiful, brilliant and completely mad, and it was a kinder, gentler world ... did I mention that the night ended with, among other things, being locked in the trunk of my own car ... and, when eventually found and released, puking on a chartreuse velvet chair?

I still haven't decided - nine years later - if the vomit was a comment on Sean's boyfriend's choice in chairs, or a result of the 12 hours of drinking, or if perhaps it was just the inevitable and appropriate response to turning 21 (which likely combines theories #2 and #3 rather perfectly). In any event, sitting here at the Winter Palace, a plastic cup full of ice water on one side of me, my cell phone at the ready - for text purposes, and a small, crystal flute full of ice cubes and Gekkeikan (sake) on the other side of my $250 laptop, I find myself ready to face the evening, and the morning that will follow.

Meanwhile, there is still more sake, and the night is young ...

Throw a big stick ...

Cable toss is a rather extraordinary event. Large, often hairy, men in kilts vie to see who can toss their big stick - the cable - the farthest. So, when I dreamed that I was attending a cable toss event, it occurred to me there were sexual overtones. The heavily-bearded men with bulging muscles (and bellies), woolly kilts, and a very casual relationship with deodorant are not my usual type, but my subconscious is always game for a challenge.

The dream ended with a bang, not a whimper ... as one of the hairy, kilted men lost control of his cable - crushing me beneath its massive weight.

In another dream, I was asleep on the Councilman's couch - minding my own, sleepy business, drunk as a frat boy (before his first gay experience), when I was awakened by a ruckus. The Chihuahua, the Beagle, and a strange assemblage of animals - a 'coon, a bunny, two beavers, and some chickens had somehow gotten into the house. There was a multi-species cat-fight going on just beyond the couch. I was confused. I was frightened. I had to fight my way out - the best way I knew how ... running from the beavers, using the bunny to beat down the 'coon, and choking the chicken(s).

Freudian(?) ... no, never, not me.

Frankly, though one has little control over the course, or the particulars, of one's dreams, I usually benefit from the sort of obtuse, impenetrable fantasies explored in numerous Kurosawa or Bergman films. They are occasionally in black-and-white. I think there was once a ninja, but that could merely have been an hallucination as that particular dream did involve the French Foreign Legion, the Sahara, and at least one camel in heat.

There may have been a mime ... but far be it from me to appear pretentious.

I have been remiss in my film class this semester. It's summer, and I am facing jail-time, so my focus is off - needless to say; nonetheless, I have seen every film we are discussing - among them: "Casablanca," "Spaceballs," "The Thing," "Spartacus," "Citizen Kane," etc. The picture is a standard one - the American canon, expanded somewhat to include Mel Brooks, a little SciFi, and horror. I think "Friday, the 13th" is part of the 10 weeks course. In any event, my paper on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," entitled: "My Favorite Bog: the Consequences of Knowing Each Other" was a hit, and the piece on "Casablanca" - "This is the Beginning of a Beautiful [Mess]" promises to raise eyebrows, if only for the suggestion that Peter Lorre is a desperate homosexual (another dream ... don't ask).

My own precarious legal predicament is such that I, perhaps, have desperation on the brain. It is not often, after all, that one actually finds oneself called to surrender one's own freedom - rather, it is often simply taken away - swiftly, cruelly, and without much warning (although often with much ado). That said, I find myself anxious but not desperate. I am eerily calm - convinced, if you will, that the God who protects fools, babies, ships named Enterprise (and bloggers) will somehow provide a little deus ex machina.

My awareness of the desperate - for now - is tuned upon those around me, although degrees of desperation vary from one to the next.

Ova the Top - for example - is intent on buying a house. He is intent on owning a home, and being able to move into it when his fiance, Daddy, arrives in town in a few weeks. Any number of people, including the Czarina, the Great Prince, the Frenemy, and myself think he could do better, could otherwise find a better deal than the one into which he has now entered; nonetheless, what Ova's doing is far from desperate. If anything, it fits him - practical, reasoned, and while there is compromise, it's not in the way of sacrifice. He is getting a house - which will eventually, quickly - I'd say, become a home. He will live in a subdivision, and there will be children (evil things, really ...) at play nearby, but short of living in a bath-house (to which he and Daddy might not be completely opposed) there are not a great many alternatives.

On the other hand, the Frenemy - who recently decided to rebirth his alter-ego, Tori - is not only desperate but also horny. It is said that one should never shop for groceries when hungry. If men are groceries, the Frenemy is always hungry ... and thus should perhaps never shop. Nonetheless, despite drives to Floresville for 3AM hook-ups, the acquisition of an entire S&M wardrobe for the sake of an (expensive) encounter with an escort, and countless hours spent sleeping off a buzz in a dive bar parking lot, the Frenemy maintains a near-constant supply of "trade." Moving, as he does, from one hook-up to the next (many times in succession), through a seemingly endless string of sex play(s), his modus operandi smacks not only of desperation but also of a religious devotion - likenable, it seems, to a sexual jihad.

Being the all or nothing queen that he is, the Frenemy decided to relinquish his gay self; six months, it seems, of general success with gay men who do not return phone calls, or require him to pay for a date, or who stay the night (talking) and don't put out, pales in comparison to the quantity success of blowing drunken day laborers behind dumpsters, or in the backseat.

Viva puta!

Others in my life, far less absolute individuals - with jobs, goals, and the expectation of waking up free tomorrow live lives of far less quiet (or noisy) desperation. For this, my first writing in a week or more, I find myself melancholic but hopeful.

Is it blind ambition, delusion, or hysterics that keep me going today? I wish I knew ... but I am enjoying a glass of wine for lunch, tapping away on a netbook at a heretofore undisclosed location - hoping, if I may, that you picture something more romantic than a pilfered Starbuck's WiFi connection, and the red flip-flops I am actually wearing. Picture me romantically, if you will, sitting beside a lazy river - in Gruene, or Boerne, or one of those local places I hope to frequent again soon - once the period of my unfortunate incarceration passes. Think that I am writing to you while gazing wistfully upon a deer, and sipping a Riesling at some place where it would not be unexpected to find a celebrity, but not Paris Hilton or anyone from "The Hills."

Suffice it to say, that today will be a good day.

Mark

Plenty of fish in the ...

When Lysander observes, “the course of true love never did run smooth, “ (Midsummer Night’s Dream) he said a mouthful brother … although, in truth, what I am dealing with is neither true love or even good lovin’. As it happens the series of unfortunate events that is my love life has moved from the ridiculous to the absurd. Keep in mind that I certainly have plenty bigger fish to fry these days than to worry about my love life, or even getting laid; nonetheless, man cannot live on bread alone.

A man has needs …

the Frenemy being the frenemy he is commented the other day that he saw the guy I’m seeing and our favorite Russian buddy buddy(ing) about at the grocery store the other day. As things go, one never needs to hear much about one’s exes, something that the Frenemy never quite seems to grasp. Mind you, this is someone who spent three years stalking a guy he slept with a total of three times. In truth, I haven’t thought much of the guy I’m seeing since our thing dissolved – give or take finding out that he is now dating the guy with whom I wanted to rebound. Four years, all things considered, fly by without much ado – particularly given that our thing largely consisted of doing drugs together and making out in the occasional bar restroom. Ah, young love …

I have been lucky enough – thinking of it now – to have had some lovely, long-term bed buddies (although none of them made it to boyfriend status). And yet it is – I suppose a question of degrees. Rodney – the pale, bone-thin, accounting major (who was a convicted sex offender, mind you) – had an instant willingness to play. He was passive to the point of resembling a blow-up doll. I don’t recall how it ended … but somehow, a fade-out occurred.

Brian wrote beautiful poetry – about his dead lover; we listened to the Carpenters while he talked about the plans he and his lover had together, or pored over old photo albums. That we were naked when these things occurred was the few actual nods to a sex life we enjoyed. He dumped me when I applied to law school – said he couldn’t bear to lose another man in his life.

the guy I’m seeing, of course, never saw me in daylight; we had breakfast together once – separate checks, please – and drinks together many times … among other less than legal associations. The sex was never reciprocal although the drive was mutual. Despite the amazing kisses, and occasionally passing out together post-blowjob, we could never sleep together. It was a motley assemblage of arms and legs, with injury around every elbow or corner. I somehow think the black eye he wore the last time I saw him has more to do with more bad sleep chemistry than it does with any domestic violence.

Mikey – who enjoyed fisting – blew my mind, among other parts. He was smart, funny, kinky, playful and in constant want of large black man, individually or in a group setting. After three years of wearing him like a glove, I still got exciting from just him walking into a room. If there is God in this world, he is in rehab … or post-rehab … has moved to a religious colony in the mountains of some very small town. His demons caught up with him shortly before my own did with me.

While the rest of my sex life – before, after, and certainly during college – is a blur of ups, downs, and the occasional sideways, the sum of the tragic comedy that is my life occurred just the other night. I met Roger online. We seemed to hit it off well enough, and one late night, spent hours sitting on my father’s front porch – innocently chatting. We shared a kiss and parted ways somewhere around 5AM. When I didn’t hear from him, I assumed it was just another missed connection … and then he called. It was 2AM, and he was drunk, and wanted company. I know this by way of the voicemail he left – the five voicemails, actually. I was in bed at the time, and was indeed in bed the next three or four nights when he called at 2 or 3 in the morning.

Not exactly in the mood to be someone’s booty call, but also in need of a little attention, I called him – at a decent hour – and suggested we get together. He picked me up, and as I could not play at my place, and he could not play at his, we decided to get a motel room – or I did anyway. I brought the necessary requirements, a bottle of booze, a change of clothes, and condoms. I think it was halfway through the bottle when the frank conversation started – one I’ve heard time and again over the years – the “I like you, but just not in that way …” I was finishing the next glass when he proposed I get a hooker … a twink … that way, we could both play.

I toyed with the idea for whole seconds, before determining that I’d rather right off a night without nookie than pick up a crack hoe, especially on my dime. We went round and round on that before I simply demanded to be driven home. He refused. Under the auspices that he was too drunk to drive all the way back to my place and then get himself home, he suggested I stay in the room, that I perhaps get a hooker on my own, that I have a friend pick me up … in other words, he was done with me. After more bitching, he begrudgingly agreed to pay for the taxi to send me on my way.

I believe the taxi ride cost approximately a tenth of what I spent on the evening, but it was the tedium of yet another rejection that stung much more than the lingering feeling I was played. As things go, counting down my remaining days of freedom, I am half-tempted to get in as much fun and frivolity as I may, and otherwise find myself wanting to lock myself away in a monastery – safe from the temptations, thrills, rejection(s), and other such things that made up the previous two years.

At some point, the party’s over …