Birthday

As you all know, yesterday was my 25th birthday and I think I accomplished it rather well. Considering my brother (the middle child) didn’t call me, put me off a bit. No matter our feud with each other, we never failed to act like family when it comes to these “special” days. I love my family, and I don’t think I say that enough. I’m hoping to arrange something on Saturday so I can tell my entire family my plans for my future. I also want to discuss another thing I’ve been bottling up inside. I hope to tell my niece as well. If anyone needs to know about the difficult life on the path I’ve chose for myself, it should be her of all people.

Mother took me out for lunch. We ate at this Chinese place and I told her about the Peace Corps. She told me she wanted to do it as a kid. I saw that flame in her eye I once saw when I was a child. It was the same flame she had when she tried to go out for GED but succumbed to defeat. I’ve always wanted to be there for my mother in the way she was there for hers. I don’t think I’m strong enough though. A lot of my friends have seen my relationship with my mother is a lot stronger than they ever had with theirs. My mother’s been like a best friend to me in my youth. She still is in many ways. I know she wants me to grow up and let me go because all good mothers want that. But I can’t help but to feel that she can’t stand to face the fact that if I’m gone, that would leave not only the void of her son, but her friend as well.

I always had this plan that if I left for something like this, then Jyg would be around to pick up my slack. Now that it’s over between us, I don’t expect her to ever do that for me. Those who know me well should know I’m crying at this moment as I write. For those who don’t, I’ve learned to let go of my social stigma and allow myself the emotions most men bury inside themselves, or numb with alcohol. But now I wonder what’s going to happen when I’m gone? Sure she has the Kid and my nieces and nephews, my brothers, my grandmother, my aunt, etc. But who’ll be here when I’m gone? Who’ll make sure she keeps her appointments? I know I’m putting myself way ahead of what’s happening. I may not even be able to join. But that’s the problem I face with all my paths.

Forget that for a moment. Too depressing.

I got presents, one, actually, and the half of another. I bought myself the selected stories of O. Henry because I wanted to read “The Gift of the Magi” since I heard about it on The L Word. My mother, and Philosopher found this quite humorous, The Best of Best American Erotica 2008, the final book of its series.

Because I feel indebted to Susie Bright for introducing me to this wonderful world of (sexual) freedom - and possibly a world where a 58 year old (Catholic) mother can buy her 25 year old (Agnostic) son a book of “smut” with good conscience, knowing that she raised him both as a woman’s civil rights activist and an out spoke liberal humanitarian, though he’s too lazy to actually go out there and riot, but does support them in every medium possible through his writing and his art (ahem, meaning writing) - I shall read her story, “Story of O Birthday Party” first. Miss Bright, if you’re reading this, thank you.

Now now, let’s not give her all the fanfare. There were several people who helped make it possible for her to accomplish along the way, and there were many others who did the same. American Erotica is no longer the smut that we so righteously condemned it to be, but an artistic expression that gives us a certain freedom of who we will fall in love with. That is why I hold Erotica at its most highest peak.

But yeah, you’re all still a little freaked about my mother buying me the book for my birthday and all that I just wrote was nonsense. It’s not Oedipal so get your fucking minds out of the smut (ahem, Freudian) gutter.

And for those of you who wished me a happy birthday (ahem, Philosopher) thank you so much.

Tape Recorded Conversationalist

I’ve been watching the first season of The L Word because I’ve heard so much ranting and ravings about the show, so I thought it’d be good to watch. For a person that seems to be much despised in the lesbian community for his outspokenness and his effeminate behavior, I have to say that I really dig the show. However, as plot line and story movement, I’m assuming the first season falls under that cliché (some day my FireFox will recognize and correctly spell cliché) of all first seasons. The deep rooted relationship falling a part; lies spewing from people of infidelity, etc. etc.

The show’s really good, however (apparently, FireFox doesn’t recognize the combination of show and is, either). The characters are really nice portrayed, and where else do I get to see Eric Mabius playing something other than The Crow or a closeted gay man?
On to another subject.

I’ve been pondering another an earlier entry on Susie Bright. I made a remark on her writing, while only reading a few essays in the past. However, I was young and immature - I probably though Hemingway was a trite writer then, as well, but that has changed. And because I was a firm believer of first impressions, I never bothered with the writing again. I think, however, I’m going to ask a friend of mine if I can borrow the book I bought for her a few Xmases ago.

Now, don’t think I’m giving the writing a second try because I was embarrassed by [someone who may or may not be] Susie Bright leaving a comment on that post. It has very little to do with that. As a comment to hers, I mentioned liking the letter she wrote to New York Magazine and which was then printed in the October 22, 2003 issue (I wish I could link it for you all, alas, my search for it online has failed) - I read this, by the way, not in the magazine but in The Best American Sex Writing 2004.

I wanted to go see Adam today, but the sloth part of me fell over my body, leaving me crippled and in lots of stretching agony. Sadly, instead, I’ve just been around the house feeling sorry for myself, but not really doing that either. I’ve been too lazy to even read, so I resorted to watching television - here’s the shocker, The Girls Next Door was one of the shows! (And it reminded me why I can’t stand the show in the first place.)

More on the Sex Writing, fish baking, Wonder Boys, and a list of books

I think what got me into sex writing and the love of erotica, not just my early escapade with pornography, but also  Susie Bright. While I find most of her essays trite and boring, the books she compiles are awesome. The first book I ever read where she was the editor was, of course, one in The Best American Erotica series. It was the 2002 edition and I quickly fell in love with stories by Maggie Estep, Simon Sheppard, Stacey Richter, Gary Rosen, and Tsaurah Litzky.

I think what caught my attention with Maggie Estep’s story was this paragraph:

“Joe wondered why it was that tumors were always compared to fruit. He wondered if the nurse liked to have sex with fruit. Susan did.”

The beginning of the story had already hinted to the more than odd sexual preferences of Susan. But it was that line that, for some odd reason, that caught the attention of my 19-year-old mind.

The fact that “In Deep” was the first gay erotic short story I ever read that left me feeling all giddy inside helped Simon Sheppard. This book was the pathway I needed, like the porn when I was a kid, to a more mature level of sexuality.

Stacey Ritcher’s “When to Use” brought back the memories of sex. It’s short and reads like an instructional guide for the obvious womanly hygienic product.

It even inspired my at-the-time girlfriend to read. In the lines of something like, “If more books were written like this, about sex, I would read more often,” she confessed to me and a few of her male teachers who constantly asked her to read the texts. The girl wasn’t a moron, she was brilliant, though she did some silly things once in a while, but who can blame her? We all do them.

Anyway, I got off subject there. The difference between pornographic writing such as most of the stories found in the collection entitled Aroused and those found in The Best American Writing - though I can’t really say that for all the stories is that BAE stories have a more poetic charm to them and Aroused has more of a fuck me hard and fuck long sorta tone.

I don’t know, sex is sex and some of it’s great and some of it bad. The writings reflect that. I just love sex, what can I say?

Anyway, earlier, all that sex writing started to get me hungry. I started preparing fish earlier to bake, but I was tired of the same ol’ same ol’ fish. So I decided to use an old recipe I had for chicken, changed it around for fish and made that. It was a garlic fish marinate that I prepared. I was supposed to leave it for longer but “hunger gets what hunger wants,” right? I toasted two slices of bread threw them in the food processor with just enough black and cayenne pepper and enough seasoning to give the breading flavor. After that, I added just enough corn flakes to fill up the bowl (I have a small processor) and broke that up and dumped it in the bowl with the bread crumbs. I mixed it all up and then took out the fish and rolled it around, placed on it on the cookie sheet, covered that with foil because I was doing this in a toaster oven and not the actual oven, and baked for 30 mins at 350. I liked it and so did Jyg who got the last slice not too long ago for her lunch.

And now that I made that transition, the more I read Wonder Boys the more I realize that I’m more and more in Grady Tripp’s situation, minus the dead dog, the creative writing student, the being sorta Jewish and the pregnant mistress. Okay, I’m nothing like Grady Tripp, but what I meant is that one day he just woke up and his wife was gone. I guess that’s the reason why Michael Chabon’s stories capture my attention - they’re so three dimensional that you find yourself relating with them through out their adventures.

So I was reading the book today and I came across when Grady returns to his in-laws’ home for the Seder:

“I walked out to the driveway and started down toward Kinship Road, looking up at the mesh of branches overhead for signs of a blighted elm tree against which it would be kosher for me to piss. The air smelled cool and slippery like we bark, and although my wife’s refusal to let me share her nakedness, however reasonable, had hurt me - even though it mad my heart ache to think that I might never get to see my Emily naked again - I was feeling very glad to be out of the house, alone, carrying the happy clenched fist of my bladder inside me.”

It struck a cord with me. I almost wanted to cry, even though it was stupid to, because I feel that I will never hold Jyg or touch her in the way lovers do. With every fiber of my being, I’m attached to her. I don’t know if it’s because it has been five years, but it feels like something else. Of all the people in the world, I though I’d be the last to want to get married, and in many ways, I am. However, with Jyg, that’s all I wanted to do for a very long time. And I blew it by not going with my instinct. I only looked at rings. I only talked about plans. I never took action and I really just want things back.

Damnit.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a list of books I’ve read and enjoyed by authors I’ve met in person. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

• Flight and Other Stories by Jose Skinner
• The Magic of Blood by Dagoberto Gilb
• I Ask the Impossible by Ana Castillo
• El Paso del Norte by Richard Yanez

I actually got to speak to the first two and that last one. I only briefly met with Ana Castillo at a book signing, speaking to her as quickly as possible. However, I was a little disappointment that she didn’t know how to spell my name. Sadly.