okay. the part i've been avoiding...

the first time i realized i was a total pussy was after i'd come out of years of intense creative beat downs and hell. not this recent one. the one a few years ago after i slaughtered my writing career and toured a show.

after years of crouching in a mad fetal position, i showered, stretched, and met with dave eggers to see if he wanted to work together. we were writers, peers. when he was first starting out with his mogul/empire thing, snarky fucks in the weeklies would be envious and take him down. i didn't care what kind of guy he was or if he'd perfected the art of and "aw shucks" superiority. he's a fucking genius and he's supposed to be an asshole.

so i was his junkyard dog before we'd even met, and would write and defend him wherever i was. any other writer makes it with his work, and he's paying runway models to rub his nipples in the morning. eggers thought to start an empire. and i can always get behind any financial "fuck you."

we were supposed to check in as old pros, and i asked if they needed any help after the PGW bankruptcy had left them in the lurch. but he was fine, and checked his phone every few minutes. somewhere in there, he picked up the triumphant screenplay ("all witnesses eventually die") i'd repeatedly raped myself to write for years on welfare/foodstamps and he looked the cover over and asked,  "what did this take you? a month? my wife and i wrote a screenplay together in 3 weeks and it's being produced now ["Away We Go"]...."

after an hour-and-a-half of him name dropping and talking about how great things were going and checking his phone, i ended up leaving with a despairing wave of nausea for all of humanity that never went away and landed me in bed for 2 weeks.

the next time was more recently, a few months ago, when an old, dear superfreak friend from art school asked to see me in the middle of me trying to make this tour happen. i was raw and direct, and when he was milling around chinatown wondering where to take me to talk, i said, "you needed to have this figured out before you picked me up," and i wanted to go back to the car and home.

he got irritated and snorted, "what? are you some kind of princess or something?"

and i laughed and said in a low voice, "but _____, that's how it's gotta be."

and he looked at me a moment and saw i was serious and he about-faced and got super directed and walked me right to a cafe in north beach and sat me down and went to get us a couple of fluffy lattes.

for the next 3 hours, he told me all of his troubles and i could feel him, see him, like when you focus on a lover. and all i did was say how i saw things, and other ways, and he got thirstier and thirstier and more intense. he's an artist. knows me. so as soon as he saw the way in, he barged IN.

but he took, took. he didn't know how to stop. he couldn't. he was in a lot of pain. years of pain. he was lonely. he was gorgeous, one of the movie star gorgeous guys who thinks too much and ends up alone and you don't get it.

i still don't "get" it, even though it may be simple as pie.

but anyhow, after three hours of us driving around and he won't take me home, he's now adoring me and taking care of me and i'm trapped with him in a truck and he needs me and i feel like i'm dying and after awhile he's off fighting with the parking attendant and i'm calling james saying if i can't get home soon he needs to intervene and i'm scared.

so i finally get firm, i'm slouched in the front of the truck, and he takes me home and i had to sleep for a day and a half with james taking care of me.

i was embarrassed.

and then my friend wrote something like "what happened? that was amazing!" and i didn't know what had happened and he wanted to see me again but i've avoided him ever since.

i told him that he needs a lover. he has so much and if he adores a woman, she will be able to see him back and it's a loop, i think. but i said that james can't keep taking care of me when people take it out of me. it's not fair to him. that's what we need lovers for. because for my friend to give me back the energy i need, i'd need to let him in and take care of me.

but he doesn't know how yet.

you have to work up to this stuff. it's all baby bird stuff.

anyhow, so this is why love and attention can make people go insane.

i joke about the first few white guys freaking out, i was with after black men for so many years.
but i didn't really DO anything.
i'm not fake swaggering that i'm some secret great lover, because i'm not.

i think if you are a good lover, you begin anew every time.

i've been the most horrid lover when i'm performing and in control. that's easy.
like doodling the same doodle. there's no sweat, pain, growth.

growth is in the terror looked at with DETAIL, and that's when people crack.
that's when reality shifts.
that's when people go insane.
from too much true and real attention.

because when you look hard and long and lovingly enough, nothing or no one is inherently bad.

and then you realize all this pretend shit is a fucking waste.

but i don't want to change how i think/see/act, either.

every time i think "now i've got it," it's another illusion and i was wrong.

so now i'm shrugging about it all more.

but ever since i had to fight back for a reason to make and do art and CARE about it, i need to understand ENERGY now that MONEY can't be my main currency.

part of the reason i'm such an asshole is because i'll never, ever feel like he who has the cash is king. maybe i'm the "new boss same as old boss" other side of art, but i feel like all this terror and work i've done is worth way more than money.

fuck. i feel like i went out and brought back life.

i get the prometheus thing. i get all the old legends and tales of yore as if they were written yesterday by some loving grandmother or grandfather artist/writer/poet/philosopher, like warning notes left over the dishwasher for when i come home from school.

how to live this life above the fucking cubicles and see only the olivers and alexanders and katies and biancas and us all.

because i don't think at all that we're done being amazing when we grow up and agree to suck.

i think that's when mastery and creativity and newness is at its peak!

you can't actually accomplish anything of any massive amount to counter the shit out there when you're 8 years old.

"free to be you and me" is dying and bleeding in a gutter after being brutally gang raped by us all.

marlo thomas used to make me feel safe.

anyhow, i made a promise to myself or am listening to that old lady's edict in my head at age 8. i'll never let myself get old and boring and waste this go around.

but i'm also realistic enough to know what happens to such people.

i've tried to be okay with james taking care of me.
i thought i was a failure.
but i thought he'd try to control me with money.
he doesn't.

i didn't know people could be like this.

what blows my mind when i look back on my life, is that gloria and lucia taught me that we enable each other to exist as large and as beautiful and as alive as we can be.

yes, lucia had to walk the streets when she was kicked out at 14 and pregnant.

and she clawed her way back to herself and loving herself.
you could see it.
she emanated a sadness but a deep love and visionary ability to see the best in everyone and bring it out.

and yeah, i was only 10, so maybe there was a whole lot going on that i didn't know about.

but i can tell you from my old lady eyes looking back, that she was the real thing.
both of them were.

and i see james and i sometimes cry because i have everything and so much more than i knew.

because he is strong and surprises me with his new self every day.
and the bigger and more he is of himself, the more excited i get about him.

i've even started to reconsider this sex thing because he's gotten very strong and confident.

sometimes he grabs my neck gently and kisses me on the forehead.
(FUUUUCK!)

and sometimes he gets a blowjob every day and he fucks my head like a master because that's all he's got access to. he'll curl around it, grab my ears like handles, or pull it toward him with these massive hands that make me feel like a fragile egg.

but he's not mine.

even my former therapist doesn't understand.
everyone thinks i'm insane and that he's gorgeous, masculine, strong, open, etcetera.
they all want a turn at him!
but
i feel like i've been keeping him healthy and open for someone else.

he's too intense and you can't fuck with james physically without almost wearing your own groove into his skin. or you can waste him. (as we can all be wasted)

he's an intense, kind, passionate lover and a good woman deserves him.
i will ensure that no woman fucks with his head needlessly.

anyhow, so this is how i live.

and jeffrey is so in my work and art, i can't imagine doing anything larger than a sketch without him being involved. we are more like brother and sister in that we're not mushy or affectionate and we don't talk unless we're working.

but that'd all be chatter.

when jeffrey gets in a motorcycle accident or even goes to the doctor for a checkup, i get panicky because i couldn't imagine life without him around.

we didn't talk for 6 months and it sucked. but the moment i got a call from a producer, i had to make up with him because i can't do work of any epic size or scope without him.

he's an amazingly talented art director. but that feels so small compared to his ability to even envision and manifest things in his life.

and he loves so intensely. but he's an arm-smacking kind of guy so he'd HATE even knowing i was writing this.

james doesn't give a fuck what i write about him or us. he doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks. he's kind of like brad wyman that way.

but you don't fuck with jefe's privacy. he won't even tell me stuff because he doesn't want me to remember. but i KNOW jefe more than anything he could TELL me.

capice?

why does anyone read this stuff? it's so maudlin and serious. what are you all NEEDING???

i wish i understood what was going on out there.
or even in here.

i guess that's all we can ever answer if we're being honest.

and even then, it's still just a guess. a story.

but that's my next thing. to learn how to be like this, open energy, and not have it incapacitate me. so that's why i avoid people and run away more than ever. because i only know how to put my game face or fuck you face on, and i don't want to do that anymore.

it's a lie.

i think i lie a lot. more than i'd like.
it's these stories. they're dangerous. words and outlines can be dangerous if you believe they exist and aren't just approximations of feelings at the time.

i have no idea what i'm talking about.

lots of snot. i don't know if you're even gonna find any cashmere in here.

but all i can do is show you my raw humanity and hope that it inspires you to share yours during this plastic time when we need to remember how to live an analog life with all the pops and crackles of imperfection and decay.

i love james' wrinkles. i love his defiant muscles. he is beautiful. i am living with a david sculpture that philosophizes and loves me as a verb.

and all this after years of fighting but sticking it out because fighting with him was more fascinating than being alone without him.

and he's not even mine!

if this is the quality of my relationships
how can i ever fucking complain? see why i want to beat myself? my constant american ingratitude shames me.

but i won't end on shame. fuck shame.

so i'll try and not be ashamed of the fact that being so open has turned me into one of those narcoleptic goats who instantly passes out with my legs up in the air the moment i'm depleted.

x