100112 A person can only stay in panic mode for so long. Eventually, your philosophical swagger has to kick in. Wanting to smoke at the shop is so the old me. And the new me. But not the now me. And the now me is the one who matters. Megan said as we were coming home, “Why do the best songs always come on right when you’re almost pulling into the driveway?” Hey. I’m 42. I’m gay. I’m a writer. Okay. Let’s go. # THINGS I NEED TO FIX - My ass - My feet - My gut - My teeth I would have no problem dating a forty-something-year-old. Hell, I would have done so even in my thirties, maybe earlier. But he would have to be someone who was willing to do a little work to take care of himself. 100812 I love men. It’s still so weird to be okay with that. There’s so much shame under the umbrella of this truth, but then again not. It’s always been there. Every single normal Tuesday, every banana bread, every walk up the stairs to find room 234, every elevator, every stoplight, every convenience store, every time I said something to my dad, every time I wasn’t exactly who I was supposed to be, every other weekend, every pair of pants, every pair of roller skates, every blank page, it was always there. It’s always been there. Every radio station has been singing and saying it since the snoopy radio days. Since drunk at 15. Every time I looked the other way. Every time I stole one more look back. Every time I carnivalized the macabre flesh of the conspicuous female. Nothing against her, but there’s a quieter, a deeper lake. I live there. I dive in and breathe deep and suck it all in, deep in that lake, and I always have, and it’s time to let that be real again now finally. I love men. I love men. Wow. It’s where I live. It’s who I am. Who I am. I love all my little high school friends, I love my family, it will be weirdly fun to have this little dramatic “shocker,” but all that pales in comparison to the real. The real. The hot florida sun weathering the skin on the hands of the real. The red faced swarthy gutteral straining purple-headed real. God please fill me fuck me hold me down. The real. I’m not fucking dead yet you bastards. Not even close. Gulp remaining bigger than was thought. Until I’m dead you can fuck me. Cuz I’m here and I’m real. Brother, gay don’t even say it. And the sea. I am young there still as I remember it and the sun and the weathered birds. And the sea; god that looks delicious. Men, ships, and the sea. I am still there. Oh god the sea. It is so full. So relentlessly empty and full and full of salt. I love the sea and I love the men who go to and are from and part of the sea. As I am. I’m not afraid of women. 100912 Hideous but beautiful. So so flawed. Shambly, ever so slightly, ramshackle, a little faded, a little settled, a little extra, a few free radicals. A bit spent, a bit used, a lot leathern, rough, hard but yes, okay, obviously, also soft in just the right, just the right places, and those are the places where HE will let ME in and I will do the same for HIM, and it is a secret, a secret thing, I want to be among people who know secret things, or else alone. I’ve never been this born before. 101112 A loud classroom room made me a tiny bit sick. The dark, draped theatre made me coolly, quietly, thrilled; peacefully alert and wide open and ready for space. The shop (wood, metal, design) wing made me grin and get a little horny. The photo lab, when I saw an old AB Dick in there, made me smile, get nostalgic, and want to show the kids how to print something. The thrumming fans from the kitchen back of the caf made me citified and real and grounded. Hearing a guy blathering on his cel about some tech support issue made me realize i want to know about computers but i don't want to WORK in them. The anti-bullying posters, especially the one from a transgendered point of view, made me want to hug the world and be myself. Watching a tall, strong, bronze boy with a thin dark stache and not quite enough chin kiss his too-short-for-him girlfriend made me, well, it made me, well, it Well, the point is i looked at him. He was a magnet. Wait, is that the point? Anyway. I want to be physically healthier physically healthier now. Ready to work on diet, habits, exercise, because i have some time right now to start being born again, i get to be me again and i feel like im starting fresh. The first time i started fresh i wasnt a cynical hungover old man. So why should i be this time? Come on. Im young yet. Lets do this. 101212 why I don't go all the way out or why I always hang back. Because simply I'm afraid that if I go all the way out, the door will close behind me and I won't have the option of going back in. Which doesn't mean I'm some kind of crazy freak; it’s just natural human tendency to consider possible loss more heavily than unknown future gain. Quite unremarkably: it's safe inside, and I’ve felt a little old and tired. It’s hard to get up that energy to be the kitten again stepping out of the box. But it's what I'm going to do. The horrible exhausting old habit of comparing all my past fantasies events conversations & tendencies as evidence, as if I had to obey the rules as ostensibly laid out by some kind of scale-- It's really just a concealed version of trying to be who I should be instead of coming to terms with who I want to be and therefore am. It’s i’m looking for permission. Again. But 101312 i want to go. I'm scared to go. I need to go. I didn’t know I could go. And now the friendly animal voices are saying, go go, you know you want to. And for some reason I'm still waiting for permission. For some kind of Jedi badge of physical validation or proof. (That’s the values of the outside world.) It's so weird, for somebody who believes so strongly in personal freedom-- Why? What the fuck am I waiting for? *What could I legitimately think I really have to lose now?* I'm a dog. Nothing she did or could've done has changed that. But now I am approaching an honesty that before i could only idealize. And this dog is scared. But sometimes for a dog there’s only one way through. You’ve got to bare your fucking teeth, wag your fucking tail, and jump in. 101912 “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.” ― James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues 102112 Tonight I'm roasting the seeds from the pumpkins the girls picked out at Godsell Farm. Heather did an amazing job of separating and cleaning them. I stirred in some salt and let them sit a while, then dried them using a combination of paper towels and hair dryer, then stirred them with melted butter, pretzel salt, garlic powder, oregano, and freshly ground red white and black pepper. Then I spread them out on a sprayed baking sheet. I've got the oven at about 300, and I'm checking and stirring every ten minutes. Oh and Carol apologized "for the way things transpired" today, too. I thought that was pretty good of her. Michelle, of course, has said nothing. 102412 There is something so very young in the air tonight, literally in the air. October but it feels like spring, and not just spring but Spring: the candle-burning, secret homo-yearning, wide-open music of my youth. Why? What is it? Why does tonight smell different from any other night in the past thirty years? 102512 just masturbated for the 2nd time today, and it wasn’t a weak one, either; and I didn’t cry & I don’t feel depressed. It was a video of a hairy bear. I just imagined him kissing me, the inevitability & welcome intrusion and roller-coaster fear & force of it. Of him. Him. I think I’m enjoying this “phase.” Transitional periods have a special hotness. I feel alive. *That’s* what smells different about the air tonight. And it’s real. I did not invent it for a pathetic story. It’s happening to me before I die. There’s enough of me left. I’m building up still; not living in the past yet. 102812 trickortreating this afternoon with the mcdonalds. Nice. Harold poked me with a plastic fake-bloody knife and said, “Why are you so quiet?” The girls laughed and got tired. Celi had the crap scared out of her by some ghouls at the obligatory scary house on the block. But she did all right. They all did. They’re tough. Probably tougher than i ever was. Cici’s pizza buffet with holly & shane, after wondering if angie was uneasy having them in her house. I kind of hate shane’s sympathy. The way he said call us if you ever need anything made me feel pretty low, in that hypercozy smothered-by-a-blanket weird way. I’m now more unfortunate than the token family deadbeats. But who knows if they even are that, anymore. I could just use a little success, that’s all. Well? Go get some! [Insert list of excuses followed by rational rebuttals here. Get tired of that. Try to think of or do something else.] 102912 trying not to lose what peggy said, what i said. Have to find my people, join them, unmoor the boat, make the plane take off. How? Face the shame. Engage with life. Make a sacred contract. Writer’s workshop, be in a play, something else. Keep walking. Compartmentalize the time: 20 minutes doing this, an hour doing this, etc. Why could you not face the bs part of being a teacher? What discomfort and shame had you been successfuly avoiding that you had to face in that profession? How to stop avoiding so that you can be something, whether it’s teaching or something else? Keep going, the small steps, left right left right, you have started, just keep going--scaffolding. We build and learn. You are in a precarious place. But you can do it. Make the fantasy real. Somehow this tiny bright thread is real. Also she said these two words which I liked: *walking meditation*. Also what will my personal lodestone be when I choose not to do what I’ve done in the past (recruiting, often by largely accidental deception, a strong-willed woman to tell me what to do)? I saw ann’s new mug shot and then i had the dream (see file “i honor you”). I am still a highly sexual person, a human, an animal. Fucking someone, going thru the actions, is so backwardsly not the point. The authenticity will drive the connections. The energy will be generated & I will find with my people good ways to channel it. The prophecy of the airplane is coming true. It is kind of funny. Gay as in funny, not gay as in black-and-white or restriction or prison or proof. Gay as in free. People are sexual. My people are men and women. We are a healthy band of outlaws. Peggy said congratulations for having your midlife crisis, right on time. It is better than it sounds; to me it means: the space bar chisels softly thru the snow of this Until it hits a rock and then it sings, serrated, mad, ali ve! I’ ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m more alive now than I’ve ever been. Two little girls have climbed into my bed and are filling this space with warm cuddly breathing, like fireside dogs. The edge of the edge of the hurricane brings some halloween rain outside the chilly window glowing ghost 103012 maybe as writer matures and the *kind* of magic changes, the words themselves become less important, and the content becomes more? So too with sexuality, the content becomes more. Discovering gayness is not about exact reversal of polarity. It’s not cops & robbers. It’s a whole nuther country, my friend. Attraction feels different and comes on differently. Imagination is different, emotions are different. Astonishment and joyous “helplessness” are different. Acceptance is different. It’s a whole different instrument to learn to play. You’re still you, but you’re just getting to know you. Be good to yourself. Knowing more means deceiving less. Challenge your assumptions that your attraction would be an affront.