The Personal Pages of
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Journal
[Author's Note: On Tuesday July 7th, Danger-Boy requested that his real name be removed from the site. I have complied with that request, but have done no other editing to the pages in which his name appeared.] Monday June 29, 1998 11:00PM I’m published! The July issue of The Empty Closet came in the mail today. The column I submitted a few weeks back was there on pages five and six of the second section. The Empty Closet is Rochester’s gay/lesbian/bisexual news monthly. Now in it’s 25th year, the EC is New York State’s oldest continuously published gay newspaper. Depending on the response, both the editor and I are considering semi-regular columns. Whether that pans out or not, I’m feeling pretty good about having something in it. Back to the business at hand. Depending on your perspective, either the adventure begins, or the adventure continues. The hotel in Connecticut, made an error in the quote. Naturally this error was not in our favor. The monthly rate they quoted me for July went from about $950 to almost $2,100. "Oops", they said. "No thanks", said I. Surfing the net for hotels in Connecticut, I found one that quoted me $600 plus tax, roughly walking distance from the job site. I said, "Gimme a res number!" Let’s just hope it’s not The Roach Motel. On to the notebook PC. Notebook shopping hasn’t gone well at all. I’ll probably wind up taking my desktop system with me. As I was telling Danger-Boy, I’ve really missed writing over the past month or so. Yeah, I’ve kept up with events, but I haven’t explored thoughts and feelings. Somehow, I can’t see myself writing by hand for a month, or not writing at all. And I want to keep in touch with my net-friends. So how badly did it go? First, I checked at the place I usually buy my stuff. They don’t have any for sale, new or used. But they’ll rent me an ancient piece of crap with 16MB of RAM and a ˝ gig drive for $100/week. :0 Another place doesn’t rent them but they’ll sell me one and buy it back at the end of the trip. They’re expecting a couple of IBM Thinkpad 760s in tomorrow. I’m factory-certified on Thinkpads, so I’ll drop by and check ‘em out. On the other hand, $1,400 seems pretty steep for a used notebook. But there’s so many models and variations in the 760 series, and the 760 series has been made for a couple of years, so you’ve really gotta check out the specific unit before deciding. If it’s pretty new and well-equipped, that might not be a bad price. They’ll even take my desktop system in trade. By the way, if you’re considering a Thinkpad, stay away from the ones with the "M-Wave" DSP for the modem and sound, (they have a "D" in the model, for example 760ED.) Although it works, (only with the right drivers from the IBM website), it’s too much of a pain in the ass if you want to add a faster modem or a network card. On the other hand, some things are going well. We went to the junkyard this morning and got a radiator for the car. $40 and installed it right there in the parking lot in about a half-hour. Danger-Boy was suitably impressed with my prowess under the hood. Then again, swapping a radiator is pretty basic. On my car, there’s two bolts holding the fan to the radiator, two bolts holding the radiator to the rest of the car, and two hoses. After that, we knocked down about eight loads of laundry while I researched and negotiated hotel rates. By mid-afternoon we had everything done and headed for the beach. We had a couple of errands to run first, and I found myself driving down Park Ave. I still think it’s the prettiest street in town, and it started me thinking, "Damn. We’re gonna miss the Park Ave. Festival." Not that I have the room or the funds for more art. But it’s definitely the best festival of the summer, and only a block away. And on top of that, we’re going to miss Rochester’s Pride Weekend. I guess though I’d rather be working. Or maybe not. A weekday afternoon at the beach definitely changes your perspective on things. It wasn’t packed today like it is on the weekends, nor was it cooling-off and getting dark like when we’ve gone after dinner. Just a nice hot, sunny … well, day at the beach. I’ve really missed having weekdays off. That was one of the things that attracted me to this contract in Connecticut. Depending on the week, I’ll have either Tuesday and Wednesday, or Wednesday and Thursday off. One of the things Danger-Boy has been concerned with is, what is he going to do with his time there while I’m working? I’m concerned too. First, he turned down a job here in town to go with me to Connecticut. A job is important to rebuilding his self-esteem, and we can really use the money. Second, unstructured time is not a good thing for a recovering addict to have a whole lot of. It puts his recovery in jeopardy. So we came up with a couple of things. First, he’s going to look for work while we’re there. If nothing else, there’s gotta be a day-labor agency there. Every city has one. Second, he’s in charge of planning our time together evenings and on my days off. We’d each like to get some tourist stuff in as long as we’re there. Third, we’d like for him to get more of his poetry and song lyrics committed to paper, (and perhaps to the site.) As long as a PC is going to be there, maybe he can spend an hour or two each day writing. No matter what, we can’t let our schedules get out of synch like we have over the past couple of weeks. I was locked on a straight 8 to 5. He’s still trying to wean himself from being a creature of the night. He’d drive me to work, then go back home and sleep for a few hours because he really had nothing else to do. Then what would happen is by the time I’m ready for bed, he’s only halfway through his day. That’s not good for his recovery either. And it’s been the source of my fatigue for the past month and a half. Speaking of fatigue, I’ve gotta hit the hay.
The Adventure – Day 2 We’re laughing so hard. I sure hope this doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the trip. Well the laughing part would be okay, but the other part . . . There was a major thunderstorm this morning just after dawn. And the harder it storms, the better I sleep. Weird, huh? Quite a bit ran into the apartment before it woke me up. Maybe it was the spray from the box fan on the windowsill. Anyway, there was so much water running down the side of the building that it looked like I was standing behind a waterfall. The drain at the bottom of the ramp into the garage is plugged, as are the garage roof drains, which also overflow into the basement garage level. My parking space is in the basement. I understand there were several inches of standing water down there earlier. The stuff I took out of the trunk yesterday is soaked. Now, a couple of weeks ago, someone tried to break into the car by pushing a screwdriver under the sunroof. This ripped the rubber gasket. So now it leaks. Right onto my, er, ah, right onto the zipper of my jeans. So this afternoon we went out to run some errands. I had already packed my raincoat. And we had a repeat of this morning's storm. So we’re sitting in the parking lot at the Auto Club, waiting for the rain to calm down before I run in for a map of Connecticut. Then I remembered my umbrella was in the trunk. My car, being a hatchback, makes it easy to get into the trunk from the inside, just fold down the seats. I retrieved the umbrella. It’s ancient, and now most of the cloth is no longer attached to the frame. So, that’s out as an option. Then, the sunroof started leaking on me. We spent the next ˝ hour trying to get the thing to stop leaking, as the torrent beat down around us. Every time, just when we thought we got it, it would start dripping again. Finally, my crotch was thoroughly soaked, the windows were thoroughly fogged and there was no end to the storm in sight. So we came home, laughing all the way. It’s a short trip, and the windows were still all fogged up, and the raindrops on the outside mirrors made it difficult to see as well. Backing into my spot, I scraped the back of the car on a post, knocking loose a chunk of moulding behind the wheel. I hope this doesn’t portend further disaster.
Just couldn't take the apprehension tonight. That and Danger-Boy reminded me I should stop out and say goodbye to my bar-friends. So we went over to Muther's for one or two, then over to the Bachelor Forum. We ran into Vince-the-ex at Muther's. He's waiting for the other shoe to drop with regard to my column in The Empty Closet. I guess I didn't mention, the column I submitted was based on the entry I wrote on May 9th. He figures prominently in it, and so, his friends will probably be judging each of us on it. Most of them are AOL Queens and will eventually find their way here. I don't care. I just hope they gain some kind of understanding about us, and about how things could be if you let go of hate and anger. Things have not gone well for Danger-Boy tonight. We missed Debbie's phone call while we were at Muther's. You'd think you could hear a cell-phone in your shirt pocket on a weeknight in there. But we all missed it. When we finally did hook up, she gave him a real hard time about it, then she hung up without telling us where to pick her up. So she's missing out on his last night in town before we go away. I think it's a shame. But then again, I'm biased. I didn't run into Johnny like I'd hoped I would. Already he no doubt thinks I fell off the edge of the planet. We haven't seen each other in weeks. I still like him as a bar friend, and maybe more. It's a shame he wasn't ready for a lot more. But then again, I wouldn't have met Danger-Boy. I've made great sacrifices for him. And as far as I'm concerned, that score is settled. He's shown me a awful lot in the past few weeks. Yet, he feels he owes me enough to set other people who are important to him in this life aside, and come with me to Connecticut. I'm such a chicken-shit, I probably wouldn't have gone alone, and he knew that, and he knew it's something I should do. So if I wouldn't go alone, he felt he had to come with me so I would go. I can't thank him enough for that. I'm hoping we each can get a lot of writing in while we're away. Don't count on seeing much of anything new here until either the weekend, or mid-week next week, depending on how things go. We'll both be around though. By the way, I screwed up the dictation of one of his poems. I'll get the corrections posted with the next update. See ya in a few days!
Sunday July 5, 1998 Over the course of the evening Something is broken inside me. I’m not sure what it is, or if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. But I’m different that I was before. And I’m not exactly sure when "before" was. I’d have to know when it happened, that whatever it is that’s broken inside be broke. Maybe it was an unraveling that took place over a period of time. But I can’t say for sure when that period began or ended. Or even if it has ended. In any event, I’m unaware of when it happened, how it happened, what happened and why. What I do know is that right now I feel very connected to my body. My senses feed back to me the status of every cell. I’m flooded with information about my physical self. So maybe it's a good thing, for I seldom feel so connected to my body. I frequently feel detached from it. On the other hand, I feel disconnected from my emotions. So maybe it’s a bad thing. I’ve been wondering if I’m in a deep depression. That would explain why I can’t feel anything. But I’ve always been able to feel sadness, apathy and lethargy when I’m depressed. And I don’t feel any of those. Curiously, I can’t remember what my emotions feel like. I’ve been trying all afternoon. I know all the names. I can remember when I felt certain things, but I can’t remember what they felt like. I can’t even say that it has me frightened, for I’d have to feel fear to be frightened. I can’t feel it. I know that I should be frightened, but I’m not. Back on Sunday February 8th, I began that day’s entry with the sentence, "There’s a swirling maelstrom of stuff inside my head." It’s gone now. I have no idea where it went. But I know I can’t feel it. I find it strange because that swirling maelstrom is so familiar, so constant. In all my years, I can’t remember it not being there. But it’s not there. The dozens, sometimes hundreds of thoughts that race around in my head are all gone. What’s there now in their place? Nothing. An emptiness? No, I don’t feel empty. I’ve been trying for a few hours now to describe how I feel. All the words I can come up with have a feeling associated with them, and as I’ve said, I can’t feel anything. I feel nothing. Maybe an exploration of the past few days would help. I’m home now. Alone. In my apartment, at my desk. I’ve been home, and alone, since Friday night. The Connecticut adventure did not go as planned. I’m not sure if it’s detoured or has ended. My relationship with Danger-Boy is either badly broken or has ended. I’m not sure which yet. So you see, we have a lot of ground to cover. I’ve been thinking for the past few days, which would be the easier way to tell the story. I can go through everything at once chronologically, but each thread of the story may be hard to follow. Or I can follow each thread from beginning to end, but you might lose the relationship between them chronologically. As a starting point, I did make one journal entry by hand while I was in Connecticut. Let me transcribe it here, and see how it goes from there.
It’s getting on past 10:00 now and I should work on my resume. Tomorrow, I have to call Tek in both Rochester and Connecticut, go to unemployment, and see my attorney. Then I have to clean the apartment, pick up the pieces of my life, and see if I can find Danger-Boy. I can’t say that I miss him, because I still can’t feel anything.
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