being at 3am

3am in the morning and chocolate milk and tortilla chips taste really great.  fatty.  salty.

holocene.  the crowd at the club is young.  it’s a young energy.  and at first that energy is indescribable.  men and women dancing together while djs from new york cooly spin.  cool.  as in relaxed, un-anxious, un-perturbed by the crowd.  he wears a solid white t-shirt below his black curly hair and head-phones.  a torrent of bodies below him as he cocks his head, listens to the beat, and bends down to mix beats.

the crowd here loves him.  dancing.  boys grinding on girls.  boys dancing alone.  girls with their gal friends.  boys sharking through the crowd cruising for girls.  the crowd is young, alive, and twenty-something, roiling in its twenty-something pheromones, revelling in its twenty-something sexuality.  the youth of crowd seems odd and fantastic to me just because i generally find myself in a crowd with a greater age range, a different energy.  adult contemporary.  but the sight of all those boys and girls pressed close together under the pulpit is beautiful.  the crush of bodies blurred and bouncing beneath a blanket of pixellated projected light.

he is in his early twenties.  he’s young.  he’s cute.  he’s fit.  he’s awkward, nervous, but i guess two men just meeting for the first time must be a little awkward like this.  earlier in the evening before the dancing and drinking and red bull and laughter, i meet a young caller, a new friend.  he comes to my house.  we go to bluffs.  we talk about our shared southern heritage growing up in alabama and arkansas.  we drink pacificos.  we make out and pull off each other’s clothes and roll around in bed.

emmanuel levinas thought that the erotic touch, being together sensually, may be a primordial relation allowing two living beings to extend outside their own experience, for one person to affect another person’s being directly, another’s person’s being and time and existence.  and beyond the pleasure of sex, the excitement of sex may be generated directly from the way in which your existence brushes up and touches mine, changes and bends and shapes my own experiential trajectory.

“It is impossible to say just what I mean!/ But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen...”

we kiss, his hands on my skin, his mouth on me, the heft and shape of his body under me as we have sex.  he bends my present, changes the possibilities of my future.  he moves this way, so i respond that way.  time dilates now.  a flush under my skin, a rapid heart beat, the details of my surroundings seems to blur, my attention oscillates between my own pleasure and his own.

through sex we intentionally engage and affect present time, my own and another’s.  drinking and dancing and partying together, we get caught up in another time warp, a strange collective shift.  the crowd at holocene does not merge into one protoplasmic being, one consciousness.  but the crowd collectively affects one another, the movement of one dancer affecting the present moment of another person, the movement of the crowd together affecting each individual within it.  we dance and bump into one another, the rhythm binding our experience. a flush under my skin, a rapid heart beat, the details of my surroundings seems to blur, my attention oscillates between my own pleasure and his own.  our visions blurs of color and figures and shadows.

parties and dancing and having sex: the nature of these activities allow our motions, our movements, our caresses to directly affect the trajectories of another’s present.  these engagements exemplify some simple, physical gestures in which those involved escape the solipsism of the mind, of consciousness.

at home, i have to take care of my body.  i’m hungry and tipsy and still excited by the party at holocene.  three in the morning, i indulge in tortilla chips and chocolate milk, alone now.  when it’s all said and done, each person lives alone with his or her thoughts and a biological body.  susan sontag wrote in her notebook: "as consciousness is harnessed to flesh."

summer sickness

thursday i found myself with a fever of 101° and it wasn’t just the sudden onset of summer here in portland, oregon.  the weather here arrived right on schedule: july 5th, warm, cloudless, sunny, brilliant.  if through the haze of my fever i remember correctly, the city seemed energized and active and happy.  or at least that’s how i imagined it as i made my way to work.  but honestly i don’t remember much about yesterday morning, about waking and preparing for work, about driving to the office, about sitting in the office for two hours before i had to make a hasty exit because i was sweating and shaking with chills and dizzy.  i had found only an hour of sleep and felt crazy.

so i went to urgent care where the doctor discovered that i had a fever and was very dehydrated.  waiting for lab results, i still don’t know what’s wrong; i expect just some sort of bizarre infection that only i could have stumbled upon during my oregon misadventures.  in the meantime, i’m forcing down a bland diet of bread and attempting to hydrate myself with coconut water.  should i choose to stand, my nausea keeps my body bent at a ninety degree angle as my head spins.

i am not sure, however, how much i can blame certain recent behavior on my intense illness.  though i felt sick on the fourth of july, i hadn’t yet come to grips with my condition.  puke and rally, right?  i did not stay out late that night, but i probably should not have gone out at all.  i held it together when mikiel and i showed up at a barbeque in the northeast where friends had congregated to watch magic mouth play.  i was probably already a little feverish though; i felt a little lost in my head, unable to really keep up with conversation.  but i had fun.  i felt better than to be expected.

after this, mikiel, john, and i made our way to the block party being held behind biwa in southeast.  djs.  dancing.  more friends.  but i was finding myself exhausted and dehydrated.  excuses, excuses.  what excuse can i have for being rude to a stranger, especially a handsome young man flattering and flirting with me.  this dude was very smooth, obviously flirtatious, and funny, however i kept trying to spin the jokes in an inappropriate direction.

at one point i think the conversation went like this:

he said, “you’re a very attractive guy.  i think you’re the cutest guy here tonight.”

i replied, “ha.  so you’re desperate to get laid tonight?  i need a beer.”

i probably walked away at this point.  i really can’t remember the end of our conversation, but the guy looked slightly disappointed every time i looked in his direction.  and i looked for another drink.

that’s my problem: i’m always looking for my next drink.

my boyfriend and i broke up a few weeks ago; i’ve been drinking heavily and happily since then, keeping my hands and thoughts occupied.  which has been successful.  i lost myself in the revelry.  but that’s all i’ve had thoughts for.  when my friends and i visited seattle a couple weeks ago for gay pride, a couple friends of mine found sexy companions during the course of the weekend to keep them occupied.  sunday afternoon, eating ice cream on a sidewalk in capitol hill, they recounted their exploits and asked if i had found any special friend.  i responded that i hadn’t, that i’d been on the lookout for my next cocktail, not just cock.

i then thought that a couple drinks before the car ride back to portland would probably make the trip easier.

part of the problem is that drinking is a lot more predictable than dating.  at the time, the man at the block party seemed only to want to take advantage of me.  i don’t want sweet words for a sweet hour late at night.  i don’t want the pretense.  a hook-up is fine, but i don’t want the song and dance around it.  unemotional.  uninvested.  disinterested.  i don’t think i can stand any sort of emotional investment, even knowing up front how false it is.

with booze, if i don’t like the salty dog i’m drinking, i know the gin won’t awkwardly insist on a second date.  if the sweetness of this bourbon runs dry, there’s beer in the cooler.

now with my illness, i find myself on the timid christian diet: nothing spicy, nothing sexy.  bread and coconut water.  nothing alcoholic.  it’s just me and my fever dreams and time to come to grips with everything.  to sort it all out.  i find the sobriety kind of frightening, but i’m sure my body will appreciate it.

wednesday night i dreamed of a cramped, damp castle on a rocky outcrop over the ocean, and an invading army unconvinced by my speech to turn away.  and inside the castle i knew there were all sorts of false friends, agents secretly seeking my destruction.  it was very game of thrones.  external invaders against my own pathogens and the mind games of the dangerous liaisons already within the castle.

sketchbook no. 10

in 1962 alison knowles made salad making an art.  she elevated an everyday activity into art.

in the 90s, social relations were turned into art through relational aesthetics.

i have always wanted to make art out of science, and economics, and community.  i want to reduplicate science experiments as art installations.  i want to create businesses as art works.

i want to make art out of cultivating plants.

in one piece i propose, i would install a series of plants in a gallery.  each plant would be a part of an experiment with a control to measure efficacy of some chemical or treatment.  perhaps miracle grow or other supplements.  to both scientifically record and visually demonstrate either the failure or prosperity of a living organism under certain condition.

in another piece, i would plants seeds from fruit garnered from supermarkets, organic grocery stores, and fruit trees in the city.  do many americans realize the produce, the food they consume comes from genetically altered plants that cannot reproduce?  obviously most of the seeds would not germinate into any plant.

in a three piece i propose to give away growing starter sets with seed trays, seeds, and soil to volunteers in portland.  the volunteers would grow produce in their backyard promising to harvest the second generation of seeds produced from these plants to return to my art installation which would then send the seeds to impoverished farmers in need thereby allowing the farmers to bypass the corporations from which they must buy seeds that are genetically altered not to produce future generations.

these charming men

one of my best friends is a public school teacher.  tonight he related a tale about how he needed to call a substitute for his next day of class; he needed a day to recover.  teachers need to find a substitute at least twelve hours ahead.  he had just been on a trip during spring break to some sunny spot away from the rainy, cold oregon winter, a place with drinking and dancing and sunny days and adult contemporary nights away from runny noses and hands sticky with jam, and he needed a day to recover, to rest before he went back to school.  but in his fatigue, he forgot to call a substitute.  the next morning, the phone rings.  but it’s not his principal inquiring as to where my friend’s whereabouts.  it’s an automated message letting him know that due to weather, school would be starting late, at ten a.m. that morning, allowing him enough time to beg some substitute to cover for him.

later he says the principal once told him he should quit teaching and become a principle because he’s so good with people.  and he is.  i’m sure the principal said that to him, he make a joke, they laughed, and everything was easy for both of them.

he lives a charmed life.

monday night and my friends are watching rupaul’s drag race at shawn’s house.  he graciously hosts us each week at his house to watch a cadre of men wearing dramatic makeup and dresses run a gauntlet of often demeaning or humiliating challenges.  this week each woman has had to dress as a dog.  each man gathered around the television set is some sort of charming.  these men are designers and architects and entrepreneurs and teachers and professionals.  they’re socially captivating, witty, and handsome.  perhaps one or the other may gone through an awkward period in middle or high school, but that possibility is remote to me, incongruous to the man i know today.  my friends are happy, and can somehow seem to glide through life with a wink and a smile.  life seems to come easy to them.

that week, i got a ride home from my friend and neighbor who is a landscape architect.  he has been taking a series of tests in order to be certified as a landscape architect here in oregon.  on the ride back to our neighborhood in north portland, my friend tells me that he had forgot the date for final registration for a last test he needs to take.  he called the office saying, “i knew i could talk myself out of it, or into it, or whatever,” though apparently he did not even need to scheme.  the office would wait a few days to complete the registration rosters, allowing him time to submit his application.

he’s charming and lucky.

at least that how it sometimes seems to me.  as i write this, i am stuck in a job i do not love, struggling monthly to save money and pay from my apartment, unable to travel or vacation, with little time to spend on myself.  i often suffer from social anxiety; the older i get the more i have found i can control my anxiety, however it never ceases.  and i have a stye in my eye, an infection under the eyelid that is causes it to inflame and droop.  the moments in which i feel lucky do not come frequently and do not last long.

the best luck i’ve known may have been finding such alluring friends.  the group seems cohesive, they seem supportive.  they plan great adventures with each other and attend each other’s events and party together and have coffee together.  so even when i am not the most captivating person, it helps to be around those that are, to bask in the glow of their charm and good fortune.

night poems

nine o'clock at night and the sky is electric blue in the west, fading through midnight blue to black above my head.  soft pink tufts of cloud migrate north, brightened by the last of the afternoon light.  nine o'clock in the afternoon.

i'm listening to john coltrane, cleaning my apartment, drinking water with lemon.  today i have been reading patti smith's memoir of her life in new york with robert mapplethorpe, so i'm in an "i want to be an artist" sort of mood, which the coltrane only enhances.  i read frank o'hara's "meditation in an emergency" as sort of a literary digestif.  i think of my friend elizabeth who gave me this volume of o'hara poetry.

first this:
"Now there is only one man I love to kiss when he is unshaven.  Heterosexuality! you are inexorably approaching.  (How discourage her?)"

then this:
"St. Serapion, I wrap myself in the robes of your whiteness which is like midnight in Dostoevsky.  How am I to become a legend, my dear?  I've tried love, but that hides you in the bosom of another and I am always bursting forth! (but one must not be distracted by it!) or like a hyacinth, 'to keep the filth of life away,' yes, there even in the heart, where the filth is pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines.  I will my will, though I may become famous for a mysterious vacancy in that department, that greenhouse."

a letter to my sister

evian -

today i wore a sprig of jasmine in the buttonhole of my blazer, a white star with my favorite fragrance.

do you remember the night blooming cereus?  a flower that blooms once a year for a single night - a large ostentatious bloom with a scent that we could smell a block away.  when we were little, your friend’s parents cut a part of that cactus off to grow ourselves one year, and we potted it in a cement potter carved with angels.  it grew on our front porch at the house in huntsville until someone - a dog or friend of ours - knocked in off the porch into the lawn, squashing the plant.  we did not witness the night blooming cereus blossom until years after, while visiting uncle mike in birmingham.  on southside, the two old gay men who lived across the street beckoned us over at twilight.  i will never forget the fragrance of that flower or the luminosity of that pale blossom.

as a consolation, i suppose the honeysuckle in birmingham is growing.  driving down the interstate, honeysuckle cascades over the red, iron rich hills through which the road is cut.  we would always drive with all the windows open, and the scent of all that wild honeysuckle was surprisingly strong and sweet as we raced down the highway.  i think the fences at our old house in huntsville upon which the honeysuckle grew have been removed.  our parents thought the honeysuckle was a nuisance, but we loved those bushes, carefully tearing the flowers from their vines to tongue those droplets of nectar from stamen.  we told ourselves how sweet that honey tasted.

madre is moving back to huntsville and i would love to visit that city.  i would love to see monte santo mountain, and the old stone structures built there hundreds of years ago.  i would love to see maple hill cemetery and its stone angels and mausoleums and those banks of identical crosses for the unknown soldiers who died during the civil war.  i want to see the old house.  is the apple tree we planted in the side yard still growing?  i think our backyard fences have been removed, and the wrought iron railing around the front porch has been removed.  our roses grew up and through that railing; red, pink, fuschia; the yellow roses that always reminded me of our grandmother, and the yellow roses we would leave on his gravestone every year as in life he had always given our grandmother yellow roses for her birthday.

roses grow well in portland.  there are whole parks dedicated to growing roses, unimaginable varietals, plants with greatly varying color and scent.  we have magnolia trees, with large white blossoms to perfume an entire block.  and the cherry trees have blossomed, turning portland pink and white with flowers.  however, my favorite scent emanates from jasmine blossoms as i walk through the neighborhood.  the small white stars produce such a sweet but delicate scent.

this is not a substitute, and i do long to see portland, to visit our childhood.  and i wish i had a house here in portland in which i could plant roses, to be happy seeing them every day as i leave the house.  and jasmine, to smell jasmine all spring.

i miss you.

christopher

revisiting iran

as i argued in my last post, attacking iran to wipe out its nuclear program may be done without committing troops to the ground or beginning a new war in the middle east, and that action may be in the best interest for the middle east as well as international geopolitical stability, however there may be more to be considered.  obama is holding out, maintaining that it is not necessary yet for the u. s. to attack iranian facilities, that while he believes it necessary to prevent iran from possessing a nuclear bomb, this goal can be achieved diplomatically.

perhaps in my review of the situation i did not take into consideration domestic concerns.  at a time when gas prices in the states are high, almost $4 per gallon nationally, and the public suffers and complains, an attack on iran and especially if iran subsequently closed the strait of hormuz, gas prices could go higher.  i believe the american public does need to make sacrifices.  americans need to be more aware of their driving habits, to drive less in general, and sacrifice personal ease to share commutes with others and use public transportation.  however, consumer prices in general, particularly the price of food in supermarkets would probably rise considerably.  this would be terrible for lower and middle income families, especially as it seems america is already seeing some inflation in supermarket prices already.

and though i do not consider the impending presidential election to be sufficient cause on which to base foreign policy, the election nevertheless will.  how does the election factor into this decision?  republicans call for a strong military stance on this issue, supporting the israelis, courting the jewish vote.  and in the past this sort of stance may have seen great support from middle america.  however, after a decade of war in iraq and afghanistan,  the american public is wary of another conflict, especially as i think most americans believe that any operation in iran would be intensive, need to commit troops to the ground in that area, and would necessarily incur great cost in the midst of  a recession when the government deficit has ballooned monstrously.