{"id":138,"date":"2008-10-12T13:39:24","date_gmt":"2008-10-12T18:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=138"},"modified":"2018-10-31T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:37:47","slug":"sunday-archive-xiv-more-notes-and-drafts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Archive XV: More notes and drafts"},"content":{"rendered":"

A classic example of how the articles come together.\u00a0 Email the first paragraph to myself, then pick up whenever I get to where I\u2019m going.\u00a0 This, from April of 06, eventually became Small Nights<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

Wingman night out.\u00a0 Score chicks, score then hard, score them all night long.<\/p>\n

We were on codenames.\u00a0 Ghost Man, Merlin and me.\u00a0 Best outfits on, shoes polished, cash and carry.\u00a0 I had a doll on one arm, some strange little brunette who had crossed into the no-zone about twelve and a half minutes ago.\u00a0 Merlin, he was wise.\u00a0 He bought himself a dark corner and slammed the drinks down.\u00a0 Ghost Man \u2013 now, there\u2019s one for you.\u00a0 I\u2019d lost track of him several times as he faded on and off the dance floor, weaved to the bathrooms to vomit foul blood, returned with several women and pawned off the sad and sick to my anti-social camp by the bar.\u00a0 Merlin knew what Ghost man did not \u2013 I was, once again, about to be ejected for drunk, disorderly and wildly bitter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

——————<\/p>\n

Man, what was on my mind this day?\u00a0 From June 06:<\/p>\n

Has Circumcision Desexualized Me?<\/p>\n

Ever since my carefree days of wall-to-wall drunken sex (which would have been last Tuesday if I actually had someone to have sex with besides my housemate\u2019s favorite coffee mug, which I then replaced in the cabinet), I\u2019ve not responded well to blow jobs.\u00a0 This is one of those things that I\u2019m uncomfortable discussing with my peers because, contrary to what you may think, guys don\u2019t sit around and talk about this stuff unless it involves fucking the girl from advertising in the ass.\u00a0 Actual sexual problems don\u2019t come up\u2026<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019re talking to me.<\/p>\n

I was camped out at a pub in Northern Ireland, hungover and exhausted from an Easyjet jump that found me stumbling through Glasgow at 5am, on a filthy bus at 6am, and battling my way through the very Eastern European-chic GLA to the departure gate around 7am.\u00a0 Three beers in, sometime in the late morning after a long walk under the unexpected Savannah sun, it suddenly hit me that I was going to die.\u00a0 When my buddy arrived, unshaven and filthy, as all Ulstermen are, and in mid-rant with that aggressive accent you get in Belfast. Obviously drunk, he joined me and started in on round after round while launching a series of complicated thoughts at me, one of which was his opposition to circumcision.\u00a0 The mutilation of the penis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

———<\/p>\n

July, 2006.\u00a0 General angst.<\/p>\n

I feel that my life has been one, long crisis.\u00a0 Though these crises are common to us all — deaths, moves, poverty, injury, sickness — they’ve smashed into each other every year since I was 12.\u00a0 I’ve reached a point where the yearly crisis is not only expected, but received with numb resignation.\u00a0 I shrugged off my mother’s suicide.\u00a0 Well, tra-la-la.\u00a0 Just this year’s big show.<\/p>\n

I mark the beginning of this sad family tradition when my dad left us high and dry.\u00a0 He vanished and my mom’s already unstable mind went deep into illness. Never to heal.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t the sort of woman who came back from the edge. My grandparents, blaming themselves for mom’s obvious mental problems, sacrificed everything they had to support her and me through years of turmoil.\u00a0 Without the money from dad and the family business, what could have been a serious crash was cushioned thanks to the grandparents — a housewife and a schoolteacher.\u00a0 This cushion was the seed for what would, eventually, become a half million dollar debt against their house.\u00a0 Mom’s suicide in 2000 would be the breaking point, my grandparent’s ultimate failure, that would lead to Big Darkness and health problems over a slow, horrific six years until, finally, the clear finale of the Long Crisis.\u00a0 The grandparents forced to a nursing home and the house sold, every penny going to that half a million debt and the fees for the full time care my grandmother now requires.\u00a0 Twenty years of guilt and pain coming to an abrupt, cathartic end.\u00a0 Nursing home found, grandparents out, house emptied and sold all within eight weeks.\u00a0 Generations of junk hauled out of the dusty corners and thrown out, dissembled, distributed to those of us who still care about heirlooms and what our family once was.<\/p>\n

In the final hours, moodily walking the forested acre lot and drifting through empty rooms, it became clear to me that this was an ending.\u00a0 That’s something that life does not often give.\u00a0 With death comes the lingering feelings of loss and regret, the breaking down of someone’s life, maybe lawyers and probate, houses to sell and shit to box up, that corny knick-knack you put on the shelf that always brings it back.<\/p>\n

It began as a crisis.\u00a0 This major shake-up that stretched over two months and meant the loss of our family home, the departure of the clan leaders who would die for us, the breakup of our small, broken family, the end of our only refuge.\u00a0 It was a seemingly demented whirlwind decision to go to a nursing home seven hours away, ripping our dying matriarch from our arms, whipping the old homestead out from beneath us and revealing a debt that can’t even be imagined on a sober night.<\/p>\n

We crashed.\u00a0 Our minds began to dwell.\u00a0 We cried.\u00a0 We argued.\u00a0 We tried to make my grandfather see reason.\u00a0 We became unreasonable.\u00a0 Fractures began to show on the grim, Protestant surface of our life-hardened West Virginia family.\u00a0 This latest crisis was the worst of all.<\/p>\n

Then came those last hours.\u00a0 Then came that empty house, with only trash left behind.\u00a0 The crisis became transition.\u00a0 The receding floodwaters of crises past.\u00a0 What has gone on under the roof of that house for the last twenty years is, for the most part, a series of painful episodes that need to be shelved.\u00a0 For the first time, a stranger on my own property, I realized that change is possible.\u00a0 That what had been trapped under a roof had now been exposed to the open air, the sun, the wind.\u00a0 An ending.\u00a0 One motherfucker of an ending.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

————-<\/p>\n

Looks like I was writing to some ex girlfriend.\u00a0 Could be any of three or four girls.\u00a0 They\u2019re all the same. From July, 2006.<\/p>\n

Now, to revisit our weekend conversation, before your family decided to rattle your cage on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

I’d like to do something of a rulebook, especially in light of one of your concerns — “putting me through” the problems that come with you.<\/p>\n

First, in review.\u00a0 Where am I?\u00a0 I’m of the school that says embrace love.\u00a0 What the hell?\u00a0 Run, baby, run.\u00a0 And, for you, I have a deep and good love.\u00a0 It always has been, though it took ten years to even begin to express that.\u00a0 That’s expected.\u00a0 I’m a screwball.\u00a0 Oh, injury, as the poets say.\u00a0 But it’s taken me ten years to even begin to figure EVERYTHING out and find the true path.<\/p>\n

To address your fears that you’re meant to be alone, or you destroy relationships, or whatever, the best thing to do is set up rules.\u00a0 We’re in a unique position.\u00a0 We know each other — flaws and strengths, habits and reactions\u2026 On this foundation, it’s easy to rebuild something we did not have before, and many others have difficulty learning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

———<\/p>\n

July, 2006.\u00a0 I guess the above girlfriend pissed me off…<\/p>\n

These women.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you, I don\u2019t see the point anymore.\u00a0 The chase, the management, their swiss-cheesed brains, the emotional turmoil, the guesswork and games.\u00a0 How ever did the matriarchy in those ancient of days survive?\u00a0 With the women today, I\u2019ve come to believe that they never did rule the world.\u00a0 That the patriarchy has always been in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cNach, I\u2019m detecting bitterness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just exhausted by the endless pursuit of pussy, love, belongingness, need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs \u2018belongingness\u2019 a word?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 It\u2019s certainly not the right work.\u00a0 Belonging would do \u2013 \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cShut up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to wax Bukowski, then you should try to show some \u2013 \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, fine.\u00a0 Are we heading out or not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYep.\u00a0 Get us some chicks!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, god.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughed, \u201cJust kidding.\u00a0 We\u2019ll go out and get drunk and be mistaken for faggots again.\u00a0 Again and again and again.\u201d\u00a0 He swung the door open and stepped into the long, lonely, glaringly lit hallway of my apartment building, then he spun around and, with wide, haunted eyes, said, \u201cCome play with us, Nacho.\u00a0 Forever and ever and ever\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I don\u2019t want to come out into that hallway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the ghosts devour you, Nach.\u00a0 At least you\u2019d find belongingfullness.\u201d<\/p>\n

July in DC.\u00a0 Night falls on a 95 degree day dripping with swamp humidity.\u00a0 Things speed up slightly, the choked streets begin to run and our fellow pedestrians shake their heads clear and walk with a bit more confidence through the early evening.\u00a0 Windows and doors are open, bar and restaurant noise<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

———–<\/p>\n

July, 2006.\u00a0 Trying to remember what girl was in my life at this point.\u00a0 But, man, I hope she was the one who died last year.\u00a0 I started to clean up the below, but decided I should just keep the insane ranting style.<\/p>\n

Love.\u00a0 Companionship, kinship, power, ecstasy, fucking, melting, combining, uniting, strengthening, surrendering, lying, seething, sharing, forgiving, regretting, confusing, enjoying, understanding, joining, standing, falling, failing, succeeding, losing, gaining, believing, fearing, welcoming, needing, wanting, knowing, holding, breaching, building.\u00a0 Healing.\u00a0 Togetherness.\u00a0 I had love, in you, and ran.\u00a0 I felt it, shared it, knew it.\u00a0 Denied it, refused it, lied to myself.\u00a0 Then tried to replace it.<\/p>\n

For the last ten years, I\u2019ve sought women out in the hopes of making the connection that you and I had.\u00a0 That spirit deep love that defied our emotional anguish and suffered so greatly under our misguided youthful mania.\u00a0 Slowly, almost daily, I began to realize what we had.\u00a0 Like a book appearing in my mind one letter at a time, completed only after a six year long shake-up that began in the despair of my mother\u2019s suicide and ended in the powerful spiritual clearances of the past few months.<\/p>\n

There was Christine, the next door neighbor, a smile I could fall into, six years my elder placing her in the alpha position, eyes that understood.\u00a0 We fell apart calmly, politely.\u00a0 There was Stephanie, the witch, who took my cock and put it in her then turned cold and angry.\u00a0 There was Kirsten, who used me and left me for another man. There was Nicole, the old friend, who fell hard for me and tumbled into confusion and self-loathing.\u00a0 We last came together as the Columbia broke up, and that was the last time I had sex.\u00a0 That was when I realized that I was filling voids and creating unrealities in the hopes of living a false life.\u00a0 I saw a personal betrayal.\u00a0 Was I letting myself down in these women?\u00a0 Cheapening my own spirit by seeking connection with others?\u00a0 I entered a period of abstinence and I don\u2019t miss any of them.\u00a0 I turned my focus towards my personal projects.\u00a0 I finished a novel, and I built the house that has led me to grow, survive and succeed today.<\/p>\n

With each of those women, though, I did feel hope.\u00a0 Love was always possible.\u00a0 A lifetime on that cliff edge but still, even with them, afraid to step forward.\u00a0 And they, too weak, too bound, to break me open.\u00a0 Filling their own voids at my expense.\u00a0 Healing their own hurts with my irreplaceable strength and energy.\u00a0 Exhaustion began to define my life.<\/p>\n

They did not remind me of you, they were not replacements for you.\u00a0 On my path, they were experiments, attempts to understand how and why you and I became so linked.\u00a0 To a mind not taught how to love, you were a mystery.\u00a0 For many years, I pretended that you had betrayed me.\u00a0 My view was that you had cheated on and hurt me.\u00a0 I built a fictional universe where you became evil and cruel.\u00a0 I could easily put into words and pretend to feel one thing:\u00a0 Hatred.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t even room to idolize you, or try to replace you, because you became a bitter enemy in my mind.\u00a0 The final defense against what we had was to so thoroughly trod upon what we had that I warped it into darkness and negativity.\u00a0 I turned this love to hate and tried to cling to that.<\/p>\n

But I was aging.\u00a0 The distance grew between me and you and mom and dad and my younger self.\u00a0 The walls, as with any fortress, crumbled and decayed.\u00a0\u00a0 I was moving forward with my life and my dreams, I was learning new things and building new friendships.\u00a0 With each book finished, each CD listened to, each minor problem, each step taken, each laugh from a friend or loved one, the pain of my youth sloughed away.\u00a0 Again, letter by letter, sentence by sentence.\u00a0 With that shedding came simplicity.\u00a0 The understanding that all things must happen and all things can be survived.\u00a0 The false hatred I had built around you shattered.\u00a0 Though, still, what you were was unclear.\u00a0 You were not like those other women, you were greater.\u00a0 So false hatred became fear.\u00a0 By then, as I declared celibacy in the face of my early changes, you were (as you are now) unattainable.\u00a0 Though, as we opened communication, I wished then (as I do now) to come to you and be with you for the lifetime I was denying.\u00a0 Though that thought wasn\u2019t in my head.\u00a0 I speak now, looking back at it, and describe it.\u00a0 Then \u2013 it was confusion.\u00a0 For a long time, talking to you was torture.\u00a0 It was forcing me to face the feelings I had for you.\u00a0 But it was also dispelling hatred and lies.\u00a0 Inadvertent therapy.\u00a0 Even then, as our relationship grew again, and after I saw you again, I wasn\u2019t able to admit that I still loved you.<\/p>\n

What about the other girls stopped me from growing a new bond, and growing away from you?\u00a0 Now, I would say it was their emptiness.\u00a0 Their own specific injuries that had turned them away from the ability to function.\u00a0 The lack of a free spirit.\u00a0 I require a strong woman.\u00a0 Someone not just able to communicate with me, but also able to inspire me.\u00a0 This is, not necessarily, solely your domain and ability, and I am aware of that.\u00a0 Idolatry is not a problem.\u00a0 But wishing yourself replaceable, or fearing misguided emotional tendencies in what I\u2019ve said and how I\u2019ve lived, is an escape hatch.\u00a0 Since I\u2019ve used that escape hatch for a decade, I can only say that the water at the end of the chute is black and poisonous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

——–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A classic example of how the articles come together.\u00a0 Email the first paragraph to myself, then pick up whenever I get to where I\u2019m going.\u00a0 This, from April of 06, eventually became Small Nights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-archive","tag-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}