Shaving My Balls With Chainsaws - - -> by Ryan

(20 Seconds) to Save the World.

2011-11-14T23:29:00.001-05:00

I am called upon, and I stand up in Speech 101 class with confidence. I’m confident, because I have my whole speech memorized. When Professor Oumano was teaching us how to make a preparation outline for our informative presentations, I didn’t have to pay attention because I learned that stuff in high school. I forgot to bring my speaking notes with me to the podium, and this is not a problem. Look at all the students looking at me. Look at my professor waiting with baited breath to hear my informational, pontificated intercourse. This is going to be awesome. I speak in a relaxed baritone, as if to create a sense of unified community as only I speak. I am you. I see head nodding. And I hear laughter from my audience of friends. I’m unconsciously funny. I remember to not say “in conclusion,” and it’s over, and I bow and await review - and then it happens. My Speech teacher says it sounds like I had trouble finding the main points. And there were grammar errors. And that I should buy a style manual. And that I need to go to S500 for Speech tutoring. I almost always wake up at this point in a pool of my own sweat and a pillow of my own slobber, which is good because that way it stops.

Fear is the primary dynamic at work in the classroom. Jane Tompkins, a professor and a former student, said it best when she described fear as a ball bouncing back and forth off the walls of the classroom of her nightmares, the walls representing the teachers and the students. In her essay, “The Dream of Authority,” Jane talks about the pedagogy of her elementary school life, and later, high school and college, where she was petrified by some of her instructors or mildly freaked out by others. She believes that out of that fear derived obedience, enabling learning. But there’s a price to the college price tag. The fear stays with you until the deal with it. And it wasn’t until Jane was instilling knowledge into other students as a professor when she fully realized why she was so frightened of her students in her dreams, and why it was so important to her that her students remained frightened of her - sometimes. Everyone is getting hit by balls. I’ve never been hit by the ball before, until my Speech professor tore apart my presentation outline.

Everybody’s pretty much petrified of Professor Oumano in my Speech class. In her class, you know a lot about something, until you suddenly don’t. Professor Oumano will assign you New York Times articles to locate and state the main points from, and afterwords she will leave you feeling like you don’t know how to read, which will come to you as a surprise. And you will understand it’s your fault, instead of hers’ for having some sort of main point finding mega brain. On the first day of class, she told us what she expected of her students. She told us that she wanted us to be Barack Obama-like speakers, to speak with a charisma and confidence to run a Presidential campaign founded upon social change. On the first day of class, I remember when all of us students were introducing ourselves. I spoke my name at the time of calling attendance with volume and bass, I described my life story in a quick and mannered 20 seconds of pure confidence and new beginning.

But it’s almost time to give my presentation in front of the whole class and the Professor for midterms, and I live in fear of speaking longer than 20 seconds. And if I speak too loud, what ifpeople hear me? Something else I’m concerned about: If I don’t transform into an Obama-like speaker, I will fail this class, and the federal government won’t to pay me to take it a second time, I won’t graduate from Borough of Manhattan Community College, and then I won’t be President. Tompkins, in her essay, speaks of the unfortunate imperils of one, young Steven Kirschner, and it is with him she associates - a pupil, a victim of unwarranted teacher meanness - even though she only rarely walked in Steven’s shoes. “He is the very picture of innocence abused,” she writes (3). In my own Speech class, I know one student who is repeating the class at exorbitant expense. “Don’t ever do a speech about abortion,” she says. I don’t question the fellow student’s advice. I accept it as knowledge.

Yet last week, just before midterms are due, something happened. During a hands-on lesson in hypnosis therapy meant to combat speaking in public, our genius Chinese classmate began to cry. She spoke of her parents, and how she was adopted and how her parents call her a bastard for being in community college, and of her siblings working as doctors and bankers at Columbia. Professor Oumano began to speak of being a single parent, of her parents making her believe that something was wrong with her and of how they believed their put-downs to be motivational. She spoke of putting herself through university any way she could, of her fears of speaking in a corporate setting as a pregnant young woman, of being a strong female professor. She spoke of her fears. Jane Tompkins spoke about this, too - about oppression. About laying open to an authority figure which frightens you into submission first and rebellion later (4). Tompkins cites this factor into her own path to becoming an educator herself, as well as framing her methods of teaching. She called the process “control” (4). “I do not know what earlier debasements the teachers at P.S. 98 were avenging when they screamed at us in the halls,” Tompkins writes, “but I know they must have been the object of someone’s vengefulness” (4). Vengefulness. That’s what I meant when I said “meanness.”

I think the fear ball, which for whatever reason in my head is colored red, is kind of a, “I hurt you, because somebody hurt me,” kind of thing. I teach you, because somebody taught me - they say. I’ve noticed a couple things. Thing 1: The innocent pupil in Professor Oumano’s Speech class, whom did the presentation last semester about her abortion, came back for more Oumano. She could have picked any other professor to take the course again with. This student might even become a professor, like Jane Tompkins, and join (3). Thing 2: I’m petrified of Professor Oumano because I respect her so damn much. It is because of that reason that not living up to my first 20 seconds remains utterly terrifying. Scientific studies which I have read in AM New York have concluded that more adults are scared of public speaking than they are of terrorist attack. I have to wonder, if I become President after graduating Borough of Manhattan Community College, will the terrorist attacks freak me out most, or will it be the press conference? Our professor told us that if we can pass her class, we can handle anything. I just want to deal with my fear of speaking in public and never talk about it again.

Almost Homeless / Coyote Fugly.

2011-06-21T02:53:00.005-04:00

Now I’m in New York and I’m almost homeless, and everybody’s telling me to get a job, so I will. For my first job in the Big Apple I will be hired to physically distribute the AM New York newspaper at my local subway stop. My wage will be minimum, my shift 6 to 9 in the morning, Monday through Friday and on Saturdays. I won’t talk about it to so many people. I’m not embarrassed, it’s just that if you say your wish, it won’t come true. I found this AM New York job from Izzy, my homeless and underprivileged youth organization’s volunteer employment specialist. Izzy helped me create a resume that showcases all my skills that I have, like conversating and closet organization. She made me lie and we said I was also good at food prep. And my brother made my resume look cool with cool fonts. Izzy’s job is to get people who have never had job experience jobs. I don’t want her job. Izzy has a pool of contacts, and a hit list of companies that she sends her clients to. I’ve never been a client before. And I wonder if I could put it on my resume.

Izzy told me that she doesn’t know if I’m strong enough yet for Macy’s so soon. She told me she really saw me selling merchandise at Yankee Stadium, because if I get fired I become eligible for unemployment benefits, but she wasn’t sure if I could get hired there. But I don’t want to get fired. I don’t wanna come home and tell Rick and Rick’s son that I got fired. She’s sending me to AM New York because she says they hire everybody, and that she heard there was a tremendous opportunity to move up quickly in the company. I wondered if I could trust myself and my ability and write fast enough for my own daily column in the AM New York. In the morning my brother and me are off to our interviews in Queens. It’s the night before, and I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m up writing. I want to record the thrill I receive of the newfound freedom of running to the 24-hour deli on 4th Street for Hershey’s Symphony at night and not telling anybody. Nobody knows. I’m scared my brother’s alarm clock won’t work, and I’m scared I’ll miss my interview and I’ll get fired.

My brother’s alarm clock woke me up. Queens is different than Manhattan, it’s like a warehouse underneath an overpass - the trains are in the sky. I’m entering the dark warehouse with my New York State ID and current Social Security card. I’m not really sure where to go. A man in a chair asks me if I’m here for the interview, and I say, “Yes, sir.” He points me to a big box of pencils and directs me to a back room past the trucks. I follow the line. There are a hundred of us. We’re in a big room with tables, I notice some people are more talkative and others keep to themselves. Some men are wearing suits. A lady comes and distributes W2 forms for us to fill out. She tells us that we have two minutes to complete the form. She shows us how, and some people have questions about how many people they should claim as dependents. I just claim myself. I’m grateful that Izzy showed me how to fill out my W2 last week. She’s my secret weapon. I just hope I’m doing it right enough in time. All of us move to the center of the warehouse. An older man with crazy hair moves to the microphone to speak in front of a mountainous stack of AM New Yorks. He speaks about the ethos of AM New York, to inform the people of New York City on the train, and why we are all here today. I think to myself that I can’t believe I’m here, that I’m really having my first job interview. I crave from deep within myself to be proud of myself, to be able to go back to New York and tell Rick that I got a job, and to tell my parents that I have a job, and that everything was different now and that I was a man. The older man on the microphone says, “You’re here because you want to achieve. You here because you’re selling drugs, you on crack, you just got out of prison, or you on the block.” After he spoke, he introduces another young woman who started as a distributor, but was promoted to district manager within a month. She will demonstrate to us how the paper should be properly distributed, and then all of us will have a mock audition. I’m getting scared. I’m looking at the audience. I remember from high school English 2 class that in my writing my homeschool high school instructor told me to consider my audience, speak to my audience. I don’t feel any different than the other contestants are, but will they accept me as their own? The promoted lady shows us how it’s done. And now I know. Within seconds her stack of papers has dwindled and dissipated and soon we are all holding a copy of yesterday’s AM New York and we don’t know how or why. The intensity and passion for which she speaks, “Get your AM New York right here! It’s free! 20 percent off at Macy’s inside! AM New York!,” was the mark of gifted professional. I just want to be her.

The old man tells of the AM New York vest. We are to wear it with pride as we were representing the company and it’s fellow men as one. The old man divides us by our boroughs. But only a couple of people here today I guess live in Manhattan, and everybody else is from Brooklyn and Queens, so he puts my brother and I with Brooklyn and the Bronx with Queens, and we are battling each other. One by one of us puts on the vest, are handed a stack, and just go. Some people aren’t very good. It’s just that they’re being too quiet. I remember what Izzy told me, that I would be hired if I just only be loud. It’s my turn. I walk to the front. The man puts the vest around my body, I’m handed my stack, I hear the bell, I don’t think, I just go. I feel like I’m jumping out of a spoon airplane into my cereal. I scream, “AM New York!! It’s free! Oh My God!!! 20 percent off at Macy’s!!! Get your news right here!! AAAHHHH!!! AM New York!!! AAAAHHHHHH!!!,” all the while stuffing papers to the hands of my audience. People are screaming. Oh my god. It’s 20 seconds later. That’s it, time’s up. And silence. I look down at my hands. Nothing. I gave away all my papers, I did it. I march up and return my vest. I begin to hope that my brother does okay, too. I watch more and more people do their thing, and some of them are better than me, I know, but I think I medaled. The older gentleman encourages us, “Move your product! Sell it! Push it! Move your crack!”

He divides us into East and West. He calls our names, and if he calls us, we made it, we start tomorrow. With every name, We cheer. We’re a family. Hello, 12. Hello, 13. Hello, love. But as spots are filled, the unchosen begin to become sad. My brother is not chosen. I am chosen. I make it to the second round, and then I’m cut. Hands are on my shoulders from friends I made. “You’ll get it next time, buddy.” “Wow, I thought for sure you would get it. You were really loud.” “It’s politics.” I wanna find my brother. I run into another one of Izzy’s clients who was really nice to me. He just got out of jail for selling crack and needed a shot like me. He didn’t get picked either, and he had all these kids to claim as dependants on his W2. I put my hand on his shoulder and tell him he was the best guy up there, and to try the Metro paper. “What about you?,” he asked. But for me, it was the open road. And that I wasn’t meant to be here. I find my brother. He tells me that the older gentleman approached him, and told him that he wants to see both of us outside before we leave and that he wanted to make us a lucrative offer. But the promoted lady steps up to the microphone and asks everyone to return to the center of the warehouse. She tells us that we’re all hired, and that we would be receiving phone calls within the week informing us of our designated subway stops, and that if we didn’t receive a call in week, to call her. The crowd erupts with joy, as my brother and me walk to meet the man in the parking lot. He puts his hand on our shoulders and offers us a flyer distribution job around Bedford-Stuyvesant. He tells us that he saw a spark in us and that he’s the head nigger around her, and he gave us his card to reach him. He says it’s his nigger card.

Could I have a nigger card?

It’s been a week. My phone hasn’t rung. I don’t call the AM New York promoted lady back because I don’t really want that job. I’m going to Times Square this afternoon to interview for a market research analyst position at the Universal Survey Call Center. Izzy says it pays minimum wage, but goes up to 7.50 after a month and 8 dollars after two. The thought of making 8 dollars an hour blows my mind almost to the point where I don’t wanna even think about what a job can pay me and get my hopes up, and possibly not be loud enough and be let down. So I rise in the elevator of the Universal Survey Call Center with optimistic enthusiasm. But I’m scared. I have to talk on the phone to be able to do this job. I’ve always been nervous about talking to people on the phone, I’m just really shy about it. You can’t see and frame a conversation around people’s expressions, and it’s harder to be affectionate. And I sound really country when I’m on the phone. I’m here now, I’m surprised and relieved to find out that there won’t be any practice calls during the interview and training process. The floor manager speaking to all 100 of us even told us if we were hired today, we would be assigned and begin our shifts within the hour. I wanted this job really bad, but I’m scared shitless after I found out about the Reading Test.

I am going to stutter, or read too fast, or read ahead. What if I just can’t read? What if I get hard words? I don’t remember being tested on my reading in my whole life.

I passed the reading test with flying colors, and I got hired! I am Just Hired. I tell myself just to stay hired. The reading test was only about the pronouncing of surnames of Hispanic California politicians. I have been calling people for over an hour now on a telephone with a cord and I am calmed that I am officially owed 7.5 dollars. I’m just in shock. Everyone who is unemployed is beneath me, it’s so hard to believe. My market research associates working with me at the call center are a cast of characters. There was this one man who introduced himself to me, we had both trained and were hired today. He has been in jail for over 30 years for selling drugs and has just been released, and this was the first job he got. Another guy I know shot the cop that killed his mother. And there was one lady who I met in the bathroom who might be a great undiscovered national talent. In my head I call her Susan Boyle. My brother never really understood what I meant when I called him on the cordwith phone and I told him that I got to call next to Susan Boyle today. My brother went to Bedford-Stuyvesant to see that guy, but it didn’t really pan out.

When you arrived to work at the call center, you were to immediately walk to one of the two computers in the corner designated for clocking in. You would enter your employee ID, and the screen would turn blue. If the screen would turn red, we had learned in training that it meant you are fired. Management was enforceful of clocking in on time. Senior staff would stand in front of the door after the scheduled start time of the shift and tell everywhere who arrived late that they were fired. I noticed the ones that disagreed could stay. After clocking in, we were all to meet in the lunch room. There were sheets of paper on the wall telling us our assigned seats for the day, but sometimes these were disregarded and sometimes you weren’t on the list. We all had to wait for placement, and sometimes the process could take hours. After placement, we then had to be taught today’s script as a group. I almost got fired one time for reading ahead. This is where we learn how to pronounce the Hispanic California politician names. Then we clocked in again on our computers and started dialing. We don’t start getting paid until we clock in this time.

Senior staff started as callers, but were promoted within the month. I got the sense that they thought we were beneath them. I don’t think anyone’s beneath me.

Once I pressed “enter,” the computer will call out, some person’s name will appear on my screen, I will ask for them, the person’s spouse will ask if they could do it, I will say no, and then I will began to read from my script while asking multiple choice questions. Do you strongly dislike abortions? Do you somewhat dislike abortions? Do you somewhat support abortions? Do you strongly support abortions? This was called “dialin’.” If I stop dialin’ for longer than 20 seconds, a staff member I call in my head Mean Patti Labelle, who sits atop an elevated platform like a lifegaurd house and can watch over all cubicles, will shout out, “Number 14C, why aren’t you dialin’!?” Managers listen in on the calls I’m making, and will pull me aside for performance reports, grading me on a 1-10 point scale. If I ever get under 5, I get fired. The most common comment I will receive I am told will be that I’m not doing what is called fighting refusals.

But I was constantly pulling from the fighting refusals guidebook that hung on every side of my cubicle. “Ma’am, your opinions will help improve products and services!” “This survey will only take a second, and then I will be allowed to stop calling you.” I felt awful. I knew the survey would take at least an hour. I was written up for saying “okay” after I had received every answer, because my manager said that it biased the survey by implying that I agreed with the answer. And there suddenly I felt another limb cut off. My only trick to completing a survey was to engage the person I was speaking with by making them feel like I was agreeing with everything they were saying. It sucked constantly agreeing with people in Pasadena who strongly dislike abortions, man. And today, I was talking to this one lady during my Chrysler survey and she was telling me how her husband sabotages her diet by bringing sweets into the house. The only times I had felt like I was taking a good, quality survey was when my dialer called a person who used to work at a call center. I could have kept them on the phone for a couple hours and it wouldn’t have mattered, and they would be so polite, asking me if I had any more questions. There were occasional moments of happy. I loved calling new Moms with husbands in Iraq, stirring supper on the stove and completing my survey with the phone on their shoulder, a kid tugging on their leg. They didn’t believe in abortions, but they were so sweet, and I hear in their voices that you could just feel their excitement for a whole world in their future. I love when people asked me where I was calling from, expecting a different answer than New York City.

But I’m sitting on a toilet pretending to poop and it’s reminding me of school. I do it all the time, wondering if my colleagues would maybe hit the quota. Sometimes, sometimes an hour after we had all arrived for our shift, we will hit our quota for calls to complete the scientific ratio of the survey, and then Mean Patti Labelle would yell at us, “Stop dialin’! Hang up on them. Stop dialin’ now!,” and we are to punch out and leave the premises immediately with no thank you. I have mixed emotions about taking home $7.50 from a day’s work. Rick says it’s not legal and that I should sue, but I’m sleepy. This is the hardest job I’ve ever had in my whole life. I tell myself to just stay hired, but it's so hard. And what I crave for most is new management. Like Scar says, I’m surrounded by idiots. And Rick was constantly telling me that I must constantly push myself for broader horizons. If I got a job, celebrate and immediately get a new, better one. My new job’s being a spa attendant at (Equinox). I found this position because my social worker who was fucking me at the time knew that another member of his youth staff was a spa attendant here, too, and saw that as an in for me and my brother. My social worker thought that maybe they would let us be unpaid interns, learning the ins and outs of a New York City business and having the ability of observing at a luxury spa on our resumes. He came with us to the interview on Madison Avenue, and that’s where I met Matt, who was impressed with my conversational and organizational skills and ended up offering us real positions folding towels, lifting heavy boxes, and taking out the garbage for 8 dollars an hour. I resigned from my position as market research analyst, and from the ground up, I was proud to earn the reputation as the most reliable and loyal spa attendant at the company’s flagship location. I got a Christmas card with money in it from the estheticians. I worked double shifts, lifted the heaviest of boxes with my bare hands, relearned homeschool high school Spanish 1 from my co-attendants, and was a regular face at the location nobody wanted to work at. I love coming home physically exhausted, instead of emotionally exhausted. It makes me feel like a manly lug, instead of a Mom. I receive no recognition or more money, so I quit.

I asked for a promotion at another location and got it. Now I’m a booker at the front desk up front, and sometimes, whenever everybody else leaves the room, I’m manager on duty. All my bosses have SAG cards.

Last summer, I noticed a flyer for the United States Census Bureau. My brother noticed it first, called the number, got hired, and he’s making $18.75 an hour going door to door filling out census forms for folks. So the hiring process for me feels as so official. First, I have to take a math test at an assigned government neutral place in your neighborhood. My brother tested at the library in front of Tompkins Square Park. I’m testing and training at a public housing project elementary school gym room in Loisaida. Gosh, I’m so nervous of the math test. I got a 96 percent! I’m sitting at the desk, looking at my potential future associates. I want to have sex really bad, and I’m looking for someone I want to flirt with. But the people around me are different from the ones who used to work at all my other jobs with me. They’re young, in there 20’s and 30’s, they bond over living in Gramercy Park, they had MBA’s, and resumes too, and they were unemployed. And they have been unemployed for awhile, I can hear the stories. They’re so stressed out about getting this job. And suddenly within me I felt it become very important for me to get this job. Please God I need this job. I can’t find anybody I wanted to have sex with, so I worry about if my parents registered me for the Selective Service. The lady says that’s what’s most important.

I think about what Rick said, about always getting better jobs. And more money. And how I needed to always get jobs for more money so that I can put on my resume that I have the experience of making more money. I thought about what it would be like to know that I’d be making at least $18.75 an hour for the rest of my life and how rich I would be. Starbucks and Qdoba and Chipoltle and Five Guys and organics. I got the job as a Census taker. Upon my resume it says I’m a Census Enumerator. It’s my second day of training. I’m very sleepy. I fell asleep during school for the first time in my whole life. Yesterday morning I walked in and sat down at a table, not at the back but not in front of the teacher. Seated at my table was an intelligent black lady who reads and lives in Stuyvesant Town, an older gay man who reads and lives across 2nd Avenue from me and who used to be in the Gay Mafia and who once attended a house party of somebody he said was actually named Gore Vidal, and a grad school age Brooklyn girl who lives on 14th Street and can cook her own dog food and who I think was a castmember on Big Brother a couple years ago but I didn’t want to ask her because I thought that might be in the past for her and I didn’t wanna bring it up again because she didn’t win the million dollars. I love my Census friends. I was secretly elated when, today at Census school, we all sat at the same table again and exchanged last names, as other students watch in envy of our bond. At lunchtime, my new friends gave me an apple, grapes, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. As new government officials, we were finger printed and took the Oath of Office together. I thought I didn’t have to give my fingerprints again after I gave them for the food stamps, but I did.

One student, whom in my head was named Rosanna Rosannadanna, is constantly trying to infiltrate, but we’re a secret society. It sucked when they split us up. Census enumerating was very serious procedural man business. We’ll have NRFU meetings at Starbucks daily with my crew leader, compounding and collecting more PII. Our teacher taught us that PII is an acronym, a word formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term. PPI stood from Personally Indentifle Information, like home addresses, Facebook profile pictures, dog food recipes, and social security numbers. Us enumerators were given PIP on every household we were to visit with the objective of collecting more. We are trained that, because of the nature of the Personal Identible Information, it is our responsibility that the PPI remained safe and confidential. I would often have anxiety when out in the field that in crosswinds 1.) My PPI would fly out of my hands, as I would go running after it.. 2.) That I would be hit by a car on the job, and the proper authorities would not know what to do with my PIP as the US Census Bureau is an independent organization from the state level. And 3.) My federal government identification ID badge would fly off the person in a crosswind as well, becoming me trustless to the citizens I served.

Even though I’m making $18.75 an hour, I spend more time folding towels at (Equinox) because I like doing the laundry and I’m making more friends here. And I know that’s stupid. But I’m not paying my own rent. And Rick’s too preoccupied with dying to run my books and yell at me. And maybe I’m too preoccupied with Rick dying to care about money right now no matter what Rick says. Rick’s kids tell me to agree with Rick. My crew leader called me in to a meeting at Starbucks and asked me to hand over all my PPI and my NRFU before he told me that 4th Street to Houston from 2nd Avenue to the Bowery had been successfully enumerated. A couple days later, my brother enumerated Rick. One more time.

Things have changed since then. I pay my rent, and I worry every month about if I’m gonna make it, even though I shouldn’t have to because, if I can’t, the City of New York will. I have a modest 10 by 12 apartment of my own, which I have broken the lease on by painting navy blue accent walls, but I lined the hardwood floors with AM New York first. Since my promotion to front desk at (Equinox), I am prospering, suddenly becoming the top seller at our Soho location where I occupy 75% of the shifts, and Pitbull asks for me by name. As I file my tax returns, I look back fondly on these experiences. I think about when I didn’t know what a W2 was, and I appreciate that I don’t know what a W4 is. But I wonder what’s to become of me. I fear promotions to manager on duty at (Equinox), then front desk manager of experience, then spa director of experience, then global director of training experience, then CEO, then I could never be anything less than a CEO - because it would be on my permanent resume. But I didn’t come to New York to be CEO, or take surveys on the phone, or take surveys at your front door. I came to New York because I wanted to answer phones at Hot 97, to answer phones for Hot 97. It all makes me think I should apply for jobs at Equinox. I go back to watch Coyote Ugly to see if I’m doing the right thing. It took me months to be able to afford my college application and my silverware drawer organizer.

Things have changed since then. I learned about quarters. I used to not respect change, but there is something about quarters that are power to me now. If I have quarters, I can wash my clothes at the laundromat, buy Insomnia Cookies on 8th Street, buy sesame chicken and Nissen noodles for a big supper, and buy dollar pizza on St. Mark’s Place and 6th Avenue and in Hell’s Kitchen, and falafels if I wanted to. I can buy all this stuff with dollars, too, but if I do, I’m spending money I don’t have. If you buy supper with quarters, it’s free, and it feels achievement. Things have changed since then. Rick passed away and two weeks after that my brother got into college. I thought that not being able to tell Rick must suck, and with a robust financial aid package in my very own hands and hopefully the same fate in store for me in a couple weeks, I can concur that it truly, madly, deeply does really suck to not be able to tell the one person you really most wanna tell, the one person whom you really want to be proud of me. I just hope there’s a point in going now. How daring and foolish of me to think that I can succeed in university, but I have to if I ever want to answer phones at Hot 97. Things have changed since then. I slip out at night for my secret job. Nobody knows.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you must say, “Fuck the rent.” It’s a special moment of clarity between you and yourself when it was the 1st of the month, and now it’s the 4th of the month, and you get your rent bill slipped under your door when you wake up to go to work, and you had the money for it on the 29th, and your holding it and you say, “I’ll pay this later. And if somebody calls, I’ll tell them I mailed it two weeks ago.” It happens because you’re pissed off because you’re friend died and you want a burrito, or because you wanna buy a frying pan, or because maybe you’re uncomfortable with physical money and untraceable money orders and have never bought stamps before and you don’t know how to fill out a check, or it’s because if you stop at the mailbox you might miss the train, or it’s because you wanna buy a fake fireplace from the Penney’s catalog for your apartment, or it’s because you think your apartment feels fake because there’s no cookie jar and you wanna buy one. I just stopped worrying about my rent, and I started exercising more. I don’t worry about if I’m stupid unless there are tests. I worry about money. I went to the movies today. I paid $13.50, so I got two quarters back. But I’m looking in my bluejeans and can’t find them, I think I threw them away by accident. And I feel like a stupid face.

Sometimes, when I’m booking a massage for someone, they won’t allow me to have a credit card number on file to hold their appointment, and I fight their refusal. I love my job now because I can just talk on the phone now, and I’m not so bad. One time, when I was in elementary school, I gave a girl my number and she called me, and my Mom listened in on our whole conversation. When I was working at the call center, I loved getting to wear my leather jacket. And one time, when I was a spa attendant, I stood at the finish line for the New York Marathon asking runners if they wanted a massage and that it was free and that we had 25% off facials. One night I was walking to the train with my friend from work Jason after work. And I was telling him about what the Head Nigger told me, and Jason told me that I should be a writer. I think about it, I wonder sometimes if I’m one of those guys that just isn’t meant to be traditionally direct deposit employed, a misfit, a writer. It would be such a adjustment for me to accept that, because I want a manly career like Tom Ford’s. When I was a spa attendant, before I was at the front desk, a girl named Mary was at the front desk. I didn’t really get to talk to her much, because I was always folding towels in the back, but she was super sweet, southern, blonde, and beautiful, and before I knew her name was Mary I called her Britney Spears. One day she got a better job and she quit. On her last night before she was leaving, I was giving her a pick-up hug goodbye, and she told me, “Ryan, promise me you will take care of yourself,” with enough sincerity to inspire me to go cry next to the dumpsters in the basement for little while. So I’m at the front desk. And I’m not making enough money. I wanna quit. Go on vacation.

Learn food prep. Everything I’ve learned. All the donations to my landlord. I’m so proud of. My four jobs, sometimes two at once. My own food/play money sometimes. But I don’t care, I still don’t have a husband.

Alabanza.

2011-01-17T00:12:00.005-05:00

I finally bought my cross and chain. I've wanted one for my whole life, it's so sexy on a man. But I can't help but not wonder if it's bad luck. Ever since I've started wearing my cross, I fell off a swingset and broke my finger, I tripped in Harlem and broke my face, I got pneumonia and drug-resistant staph, I fell over a barricade and produced a scare that will be there forever at Pride, I haven't gotten a promotion and am still folding towels, Jack fell in love with another guy, so did my brother, my dog died, and my friend Rick passed away.

Rick felt okay, and then he wasn't. The doctor said he had small cell carcinoma of the lungs, which the doctor says is the bad kind. I'm walking to the deli with Rick's son to buy Rick's diet Coke, Ciao Bella, and cigarettes, and he's talking to me like he cares about me and he's holding me back from traffic when we're crossing the street and he's telling me that Rick has two months to live, and he's telling me that I really need to find another place to live because he’s going to have to rent the place out in order to keep it. I don't tell him, but I don't believe him. I think it will be more like a month and a half, and that I'm about to feel something I've never felt before, and that I'm gonna focus on that instead of avoiding homelessness. All of Rick's kids start being nice to me and thanking me for helping out. I try to help out as much as I can, bring grapefruit juice upstairs for him, and do stuff. It's just like Rick is the new my Mom, it's easy for me. And it's what I know I know how to do.

It's my seventh night in New York City. Rick says New York is the centre of the known universe. Rick and I have just gotten back to the brownstone after a night of social events, and I've just dropped an expensive bottle of expired wine on the kitchen floor. I pick up the bottle neck and take it to Rick in his chair. Incriminating myself, showing my work. Rick tells me something witty I don't remember and says don't worry about it, and I go back to clean up the floor. I open the cupboard and find a mop. As I'm mopping, I say to myself, "I don't know how to mop." Rick wants to show me something related to the arts and he's calling me into the other room, but I say just a sec. I get on my hands and knees and start to feel for broken glass so the cats don't get hurt. Rick shouts, "What are you doing?" I say just a second. Rick says the cleaning lady will come tomorrow and it doesn't have to be perfect, and the cats will be okay. I project that I'm almost done, but I have internal doubts.

Rick says, "Ryan, what are you doing?"

When I get off work, I'll run up the stairs and tell him what I did today. Sometimes he'll be already gone to sleep, and I'll say to myself, "Well, that sucks." Sometimes he'll be gone to bed, and I'll run up some more stairs to see him. The weather is still appropriate for my combat boots and he knows I am coming and he will turn the light over the stairs on for me. He loves to listen to my Mom's voicemails at the end of the day. I save them for him. We'll listen to them and talk about what my next move might be. I'll remember one time he told me he needs to smoke to think. I'll think about all the cigarettes and Sunday Times I got for him. I'll remember the first time he asked me to go make him some coffee at the deli. Making somebody's coffee is scary and complicated for me, I can't even get my own right. Did you know that you can put milk in tea? I'll be so proud of myself that I might be doing it right and so nervous I am doing it wrong. Not that I think he would whip me or anything. I want to be good. I am so happy when he sips it and says it's good, but I buy the wrong cigarettes.

I'm going after work to see him in the hospital. I saw him once before, a couple days ago. I brought him his book requests and plugged in his Blackberry to charge for which he has developed a fondness for later in life. I'm looking at my phone and I'm looking for Rick's son's text to me. He texted me detailed directions to Rick's room, which I think is really sweet and also thoughtful. The social worker that I slept with called me before I got to the hospital. He told me on my voicemail that he had found out that Rick had been moved into the ICU. Boing things the social worker I slept with say go off my head, and I go to the Rick's room that I know. I peek inside, and there's someone else old in his bed and a different name written in removable replaceable marker on the door, and I don't understand. I don't like to see that, I ask the nurse. She tells me he's in the ICU, and I ask for very detailed directions. I'm told to walk all the way back, and there he is. He looks different. I'm not happy. He's getting chemo. There's an IV in his arm. That's how they do it.

I always thought that they put you in an empty room, somebody flips a switch on the radiation, and everybody runs away. A timer like in a kitchen goes off, and somebody comes back. I'm standing in the corner. I don't know if he knows me, and I don't know what to say. The nurse says I can say hi. I say hi. I cry. I feel for tubes, and sit on his bed with him. Now I'm laying next to him. He's watching Sex and the City. I tease him about it, and unable to laugh or choosing not to, he smiles at me. He's speechless. His eyes are closed. I whisper in his ear, "I know you can't open your eyes for some reason, but you have to take my word for it that you nurse is a hot gay guy with salt and pepper hair." He smiles again. I sob. The nurse asks me if I'm Rick's son. I say no, and he asks me how I know him, and I say he saved my life. The doctor asks me if I'm Rick's son, and I say no. I tell him he saved my life. Rick won't say anything, but I see Pride in his face. When the doctor starts talking to Rick about stuff I don't understand, I plant a kiss on Rick and get out of there. In the elevator I think about how the last thing I said to him was see you tomorrow, which is how I know how he's probably gonna die tomorrow. I get home and send an email to Rick's Blackberry. It says, "Everything is gonna be okay," because he used to say that to me a lot and I always remembered.

When you’ve never had any friends or family, nobody ever dies. It’s all so new.

This is my public face. I'm gonna lose it. I wanna talk to Jack now. I email him and tell him so. He emails me back and Jack's drunk and having sex with Sam, which makes me wanna get drunk. When I'm in Rick's house when Rick's in the hospital, I clean and make stuff look nice, and when I'm folding towels at work, I talk to God. I very rarely pray, because I feel like praying has the connotation of asking for something, and I very rarely ask God for stuff. I'm always looking at my phone to see if it's 11:11, because I've always felt like the 11:11 Gods are to be hit up constantly for stuff and they won't get mad or stop listening, but Big God I respect. Mostly I just like to talk to God. He's always been a friend and better than an imaginary friend. I prayed about Rick. Not that his cancer would go away. I never really feel like that's my business to pray about health stuff like that because I don't know the plan. But I just ask that whatever happens, that everybody's okay. I know that when I'm in the back folding towels with the cart and talking to myself that it probably doesn't look like I'm praying, but I am. When I get home, I put my boots in the closet. I used to leave them on the floor by the closet because I think that it looks that way less like I'm living here and like I can leave anytime but if I did I would probably be homeless, but I stopped because Caroline the cleaning lady told me that Eliza, Rick's awesome dead wife, hated having shoes on the floor and would want them in the closet. Eliza's in a vase at the top of the stairs to upstairs. When I'm not looking for a job or finding a place to live, I talk to her a lot. I tell her what I'm cooking, I ask her how to make stuff, I tell her that I really liked her new children's book, and I ask if I've been taking the family scarf and if I should stop. I wonder if she likes me.

Rick's son is being really great to me about granting me updates of Rick's condition every day that he's still in the hospital. I run to him and ask every day that I see him and he sincerely takes the time to tell me everything that he knows when I know that he probably doesn't have the time. One morning I am in couch bed and I hear Rick's son and his boyfriend come up the stairs. I sense a lot of relief in Rick's son's voice and I enter a childlike place and pretend like I'm asleep because I know that Rick just died. They keep walking up stairs to the next floor. I hear my brother's voice. He's walking right into this. He must have no Dead Sense at all. The guys come back downstairs and leave, my brother comes down and into the kitchen. I get out of bed and walk to the kitchen. Looking at him looking out the window, I ask, "What's wrong?"

For the next couple hours, I have a profound urge to see the body. It's like the last time I saw him in the hospital, he had to prove to me that it was still him in that thing, and I'm asking him to do that again this time. Or it's like I want him to hold me one last time and I don't care if he's alive or dead. I'm really sad that he's already cremated. The cleaning lady finds me on top of his bed again. I am so sad and she is, too. I help her get the house ready for the service later. But I've never had to host a service before. I don't know how to do this. And then I go to work. Because I know I can fold towels and cry.

It's a busy day at work because nobody's noticing that I'm not really folding much laundry and getting it out. Work's over and I go to the park and swing until midnight. I'm starting to go back to the house, hoping that everyone's gone, except Rick's son so I can tell him I'm sorry. I'm standing outside of the front door of the brownstone, looking up, and I can't go up there, because there are people up there, and I can't do it. I walk three houses up in the center of the block and sit down on the sidewalk behind some stairs, and I still allow for that feeling to come through, thinking I can't get believe I get to be outside after dark, sitting in a gutter in New York City, the centre of the known universe, and it's because of Rick. I'm getting up and trying again. I'm as far as the door inside without a lock that goes up to to his place. I listen. I hear laughing and glasses, and "All My Friends." I'm smiling, I think this is awesome, but I'm not ready for it. A sweet girl, one of Rick's son's friends, comes down the stairs and walks past me to leave. I tell her I just can't go up, and she's really sweet. She asks me, "Do you have a place to stay for the night?" I tell her I'm gonna be okay. I'm going to Walgreen's on Astor. I see Pringles and buy them. I walk the streets of New York City and eat all the Pringles. I love Pringles. I walk to Little Pakistan, Chinatown, Little Italy, and back home. I walk up the stairs and go in. Lots of people Rick's son's age and Eric's age look at me, no Rick's son. I go up more stairs and hide in a bed I've never been before in the guest room.

Everybody's gone now. I go downstairs. All the food's cleaned up, but some of it's not recycled. I dry the glasses they washed. I sort the cheeses, and there are so many organic pita crackers where the ants come. I put the kitchen table back. It takes me an hour. And when I'm on the floor wiping up, I'm just thinking. Ryan, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? I want the house to be like when Rick was here. After the cleaning lady came. But it's already different. There are two boxes of Kleenexes in the living room. What happened that must have been so bad that you need two boxes of Kleenex to satisfy the demand of one room? I put a box of Kleenex in the kitchen. I walk back and throw a bunch of Rick books on the floor. I think what bothers me the most is the flowers. There are so many flowers.

They're just stopped being stuff to clean at Rick's old house but the cat box. I started to delete all my Mom's voicemails after I heard them. Rick's sitting on the kitchen table in a small box and he doesn't really talk about the University of Chicago or say much of anything anymore, so I don't really like to think of what's in the box as Rick anymore, even though I still talk to whomever it is a lot. I just got courageous and found out that the thing on the mantel atop the liquor cabinet is Rick's wife and not the thing on the stairs to the bedroom, and I've been talking to an empty pot for five months. That's okay, I still think she heard me. There's still so much food from the memorial service left over, and the family said I can have it. It has turned into my lifeline. There's even a giant meat platter. Lots of people are asking me if I'm okay, can they get me anything. I always say food, to feed me. It's time to move now. I start doing ceremonial last time rituals. I'm going to Whole Foods. I'm going to The Cock. I'm going to this place on Broadway called Au Bon Pain. It's my favorite French restaurant. I remember my first afternoon in the city Rick put a stack of money in my hand here and said learn how to buy food with money, and I returned with macaroni and cheese and a smile. I loved my macaroni and cheese.

I'm leaving Rick's old house for my own place in Washington Heights in a couple hours. I signed the lease last week. I'm walking around looking at stuff. I'm playing with the piano loudly because I’m moving. I think I been staring at the Insane Clam painting that one of Rick and Eliza's friends painted over the toilet for four minutes, just trying to remember it so I don't ever forget. I'm emotional. But I think that a life worth living is a life looking back and being able to say "I was emotional." When I go upstairs and smell the bed, I begin to cry. I've been smelling the bed and crying all week. Forcing it. Rick smelled like the bed. I say goodbye to Rick, I pull the front door behind me and go. I'm on the train for awhile. I put my key in the door, and now I'm in my new place. My stuff's in the corner. The social worker that I slept with has a car and I waited for him to move my stuff before I told him that I hate him and that I never wanna have sex with him again. I don't have a stove. I have a big refrigerator. I have a tea cup that I drink Mountain Dew out of. When I'm cold I get a bathtowel. When I come off the train and walk home at night, I walk past fight clubs in front of the McDonald's. Up here every fast food place at night has a doorman. When I climb into my bed at night and look up at the sky, I hear glass breaking and gunshots and I sometimes see the Bat Signal. In order to be okay with this, I have to think about it like these are my young, downtown years. I think I have to love it all. I think I have to live in an alternate reality, where everything is beautiful. And I sometimes feel more like a man when walk. I walk from Harlem, to Spanish Harlem, to the Bronx, and back home.

I believe in independence. I believe that in a day and in a night, everything can change, and that people have destinies, and that people are supposed to do something, and that it's up to me to go out and make people give me my dreams. I grew up believing that I could do whatever I wanted to be. I believe in a series of choices. What ever happened to a man's right to choose? My mom called me and she asked me if I had happened to have kept the correspondence between me and Rick from when I was upstate and we were first getting to know each other. She told me that if I don't send her the emails, then she never wants to see me again, and I said no. She told me if she kills herself, it's my fault. If she dies another way, it's my fault. She told me if my brother dies, it's my fault. And she told me that my brother was going to college and it took me a year to fill out the paper work. I feel sad. Rick's funeral is coming, and so many people are gonna be there. They're gonna ask me what I've been doing since Rick died and I know I'm gonna tell them that I've been having a lot of sex and I’m making a frozen cum dildo in my freezer.

I'm at Rick's funeral at the Bar Association of New York and I been telling everybody that I making a frozen cum dildo. I'm scared that the family is going to ask me to speak for Rick's funeral. I'm scared because I think I'm the perfect person to speak for Rick's funeral. The last time I saw Rick's son after Rick died, he told me that Rick didn't save my life. And ever since he told that to me, I have been wondering every day who did. Who made that choice? If Rick wasn't responsible for me running away from my parents the first time, he was responsible for me singing "Let The Sunshine In" from Hair to myself when I was running away from my parents the second time, and I love him for it. I am walking into Rick's funeral and the lady gives me a program to Rick's funeral, and it reminds me of a Playbill. Some people walk straight up to me whom I’ve never known before and tell me that Rick was so proud of me. I would just like to say that I don't think what I'm writing right now and what you're reading is very good. When Rick was alive, I remember overhearing him talking with Jack, and Jack was asking Rick if I was writing about him because I had told him that I was gonna write a post about him and the week he came over to visit me and how I'm in love with him and stuff, and Rick told Jack that I was and that I was trying, but it would take a very long time to be finished for me because for Jack from me the writing had to be perfect. I think that's what I'll miss most about Rick. I made him fight hard to get to know me, and he did. He pushed me to be better every beautiful fucking day, but he knew when to wait for me. He thought I was worth so much. He was just a friend. I've been trying to write something that's worth him. When I had my old blog when Rick was just getting to know me, and I made all that stuff up about being in college, my favorite thing that I wrote was that I bought a tie, and I didn't know how to tie it, and I was stuck in gridlock on Interstate 91 in Springfield, Massachusetts with my girlfriend, and I got out of my pick-up truck and knocked on a guy's car window, and asked him if you could teach me how to tie my tie. And I'm so proud of myself for Rick's funeral for actually doing that.

I forgot to wear my cross one day and I got a promotion. I'm making a little bit more money now, but they took away my food stamps because. I’ve gotten much better at receiving anal sex and I’m doing yoga. I was having sex with this one guy and I was telling him about the 11:11 Gods and Big God, and he looked at me and made me feel stupid and I just left. I’m attending college in the fourth quarter. My relationship with my folks is bad. My Mom called me and she asked me if I felt like I should apologize for what I've done and I thought about it and I said no. She told me that I was a terrible, horrible person now, that she didn't know where her sweet boy was, and that New York City has made me into a monster, and that Rick stole her son. It infuriates me when she says that Rick stole me. It makes me feel like I'm stupid. I had no chance there. And then Rick showed up, and gave me this wonderful opportunity and safe place to be better. Rick didn't steal my Mom’s son. I just left. I'm supposed to be happy. I really believe that I'm supposed to be happy in my life.

You're so fucking special. I wanna be special.

2010-07-28T13:12:00.002-04:00

Have you ever fell in love with a guy who didn't want you back? Have you ever fell in love with a guy who you met in a situation you shouldn't have, and you met him online, and you lied a lot to him in the beginning, because you never thought that he would know your name one day and your address and fly across the ocean one day and have sex with you and that you would fall in love with him, even though you know you were already in love with him before you met him, but nobody else knew, and if somebody told you, "You can't be in love with him," you would get really pissed off at that somebody and wanna punch them in the face, and who didn't want you back? When I was locked up, I used to think a lot. Whenever I thought of something that was funny or felt good, I wrote it down in my orange notebook, and most of the stuff I wrote down would become a blog post. A section of my notebook was called "Jack Fantasies." This was where I wrote a bunch of fantasies about Jack or a faceless man I was assuming was Jack. The one that always meant the most to me was the one when Jack and me were on a boat in the water together at my request, and the sun was setting. We're in Florida. The space shuttle goes up, and I tell Jack, "Look. You see science, but I see magic. Who cares, it's cool." I always knew that I was wasting paper, writing stuff I could never post. Because it was embarrassing. Then Jack came over. When Jack came over, I hid my notebook and all my fantasies at the bottom of my suitcase of all my male underwear. Except that I didn't.

Rick told me that New Yorkers don't pick people up from airports. Fuck that, I'm Middle America. I bought my ticket. The man behind the glass at New York Penn Station tells me to go to track 4. The guy on track 4 tells me to go to track 7, and that it was express and would get me to the airport faster. It's so express that it zooms me right past the airport. The lady on the train tells me I can get to the airport from Newark Penn Station. The man behind the glass at Newark Penn Station tells me that I can't get to the airport from Newark Penn Station. He tells me to go to track 2. The guy on the train tells me I'm on the wrong train, and that this is an express train to Trenton. Every now and then in my life, I sometimes say and do things that are exactly like my Mom does. I politely ask the guy on the train if there was a quota of wrong express trains I had to be put on by NJ Transit officials in one afternoon before my ticket pays for itself, and I tell him about my observation that the only people that know where the trains are going are the people on the trains, and I never see them until the train starts moving which sucks. I call Rick because I can't call Jack because I can't make international phone calls with my service plan even when Jack's on the same train line as me just going in the opposite direction. Rick tells me with empathy that it might be best for me to meet Jack in New York City. I knew that that was the best thing to do for Jack, so I say okay and ask him to tell Jack for me. I get emotional on the train. I'm sitting in my seat of the train, I'm looking out of my window and seeing manicured lawns and red stop signs at four corners. And I don't know where I went wrong. This was supposed to be the easy part, and then I was supposed to get on something called the Air Train. I had plans. I guess I just think that Jack is flying from across the world to see me. I want to meet him halfway as much as I can. Even as much as baggage claim. I want to be the the first person he sees in America. He's at Golden Krust waiting for me now, it's over. I wanted to have sex with him. I wanted to have sex with him at the airport. I wanted to see him before he saw me, I wanted to get nervous, I wanted to go up to him and passionately kiss him. I wanted to see if I could passionately kiss him, I've never done that with any guy before. But I know I could. And I wanted to take him to the handicap bathroom which you can lock and have sex with him. I wanted to get there early so I could find the bathroom. I just wanted him to have sex with me.

Jack tells me to meet him in front of Madison Square Garden. I'm coming up the escalators, and I'm nervous. Jack and me meet. He looks good in real life. We go home and take a nap. We wake up and have hamburgers with Rick. I'm gonna be the last person to finish mine, I'm listening to Jack and Rick talk. Night comes, and Jack wants to go on a walk with me. I wanna take him to where I go at night, my hangout spot, but I ask him if it's okay first because it's 57 blocks north of us. He says yes, without me telling him where we're going. After work at night I always sometimes go swing on a swing. It's in a part of Central Park that's closed at night, a playground, so I have to hop some fences. And when I'm at the top of the swing, I can see Times Square. Jack and me are walking to it, but I didn't enter the park the way I usually do, I didn't enter at the big horse statue thing, and I'm lost. Now I'm found. We swing and talk. He starts swinging his swing next to me at a diagonal as a scientific experiment, and I start laughing, screaming, "Stop!" We talk more. I'm trying very hard to have an emotional moment now. Jack slows down, and gets up, and starts walking to the fences, so I think I should follow him and I do. We go home and I pull my bed out of the couch. I get nervous, and I tell myself to just relax. Jack's under the covers. I ask him if he's naked and he says no, so I get naked and get under the covers. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. We talk about stuff. I turn the lights off and turn on my side to go to bed. I close my eyes. This is a decision that I am making. He touches me with his hand. I feel him. He touches me on my back and down my arm, he puts him arm around my body. I scoot back closer into him. I rub my foot up and down his leg, I do this so that he knows that I'm right here with him. It all stops. He turns over and we fall asleep. Right before I fall asleep I touch his leg with my foot, just so I can know that he's really there. The next night we all go to an Italian restaurant to have Italian food. I'm in the cab with Rick up front and me and Jack and my brother in the back. I'm sitting next to Jack. I'm looking out the window at all the people in city. I get an idea to slide my hand under Jack's leg and rub his manhood, so I do it. I don't know if he likes it or not. Walking into the restaurant now, Jack tells me to sit across from him. I'm disappointed at the sight of a large, round table. The menu is in Italian, I ask Rick and Jack for help. I don't know what antipasti means. I get the same dish as Jack, except for dessert. We share ours. We come home and I pull out our bed. We kiss and touch, no intercourse. Antipasti.

So I begin to really worry that Jack wasn't having a good time. It's just that the week was supposed to be about me and Jack, and it turned into being about Rick and Rick's kids, what happened with my social worker, and just all this stuff. I ask Sam what to do to make Jack happy, because I'm trying to recreate Jack's weekend with Sam last year. I ask my coworkers at the spa I work at what to do. I lock myself in the tea storage room and cry, and I don't even know why. I just have so many emotions that have to get out. Before I have to go to work, I just get back and see my brother for the first time since yesterday, he tells us that he lost his virginity to a guy, and then I have to go to work. I remember at work being so scared that my brother and Jack were going to have sex. I run home. Jack and me go to Rawhide, Eagle, Viewbar, G Lounge, Barracuda, Splash, Vlada, and Therapy. Therapy is my favorite. There's a place on the second floor where you can dance or sit and watch other people people dance and sit, and they played songs like Man, I Feel Like A Woman and You Outta Know, and you can sing and nobody can hear that you're singing. I go over all the options in my head and I decide that I wanna have fun and I don't care if I look like an idiot because I'm already going home with somebody who's nice, and I'm pulling on Jack's arm, "Please, dance with me. I don't wanna try it alone. Please." I get him up but then Don't Worry, Be Happy comes on, and I'm like what the fuck, and everybody leaves and last call is called. I'm smiling. I think I like being out in Hell's Kitchen in the middle of the night with him. We're on the E train now. I keep stomping through cars in search of an empty one and trust that he's following me. I settle on one with a homeless person on the other end. I wanna have sex with Jack on the train. I rub his cock through his jeans. He takes it out, but he won't let me suck it. We transfer at West 4th Street. Both of us pee on the platform, just me and him. I'm smiling, I'm comfortable enough to do that and I really think I'm being with him now. Me and him get home. I'm standing in the living room watching him get ready for bed in his colorful underwear, and I feel like I have some big thing to tell him but I don't know what. He says, "Come on, let's go to bed," and I pull our bed out of the couch. He kisses my body and fucks me.

I fuck him in the morning. I like this, to fuck, more than I think I would and will process this at a later date. Jack brings me imported chocolates from his country. He shows me how to prepare them on Wonder Bread, and we eat in bed together one time. He shows me how to wear one of his cockrings. My favorite times with Jack were when we were at the house, him and me, and nobody else are. Then he sings. He sings in the shower when he lathers up with his concentrated foamy bathwash that he lets me use, and I sit on the stairs below the bathroom in my underwear and listen. He has a New Wave voice, from the 80's. I want to hear him sing Erasure's "A Little Respect" and "True" by Spandau Ballet. When we get back and nobody was home but us, he goes straight to Rick's piano and plays. He plays classic songs I don't know, songs by Radiohead and Muse, "Up Where We Belong," and "Imagine" by John Lennon. Sometimes I watch him play and go upstairs and cry, and I don't know why. And one time Jack follows me. One time I was alone in the house without Jack. I see some of his shirts in the drawer, and I rub them on my face and tears stream down my cheeks. I want to teach Jack how to play the piano version of Poker Face. I think that it's gonna be a song that I'm gonna like for a real long while, I want to share it with him. I want us to have a song. And I think he could play it. But I didn't know how to play it. It's just like why I showed him my swing. I want to make sure he leaves with a part of me. I want to give him everything. One day me and Jack go to the museum. I am scared I'm not gonna be able to contribute anything to the discussion because I'm dumb, but I think I'm doing okay. One day we go to the park. We walk and talk about stuff and I tell him what the title of this blog post's gonna be and we go all the way up to Harlem. I'm not wearing my glasses with him. When he tells me we're on Malcolm X Boulevard, I am so excited. I buy a chili dog. And now I want something to drink. We go in a store. I see Vanilla Coke, I think I am crazy and I am so excited. I'm so happy to share my happiness of the Vanilla Coke discontinuation lift with my friend. I wanna tell him, "This is Vanilla Coke. This is me," but I don't think he'll understand. He doesn't like vanilla coke anyways. He takes me to see the old church near Columbia that's not done yet. We sit in the garden for a little bit and look at the statues. It's really cool. He takes me into the church, and I'm comfortable enough with him to tell him that I don't like it.

I know that he is gonna want to go out by himself. One night he tells me that he does, and then he does. I have to work that night, but then I get off. I decide to go out by myself. I wanna go home and tell Jack that I can do it by myself. I wanna stay out long enough that Jack will be home when I get home. I go to Chelsea. I go to a sex store, and I flirt with guys I don't want who make me feel young and attractive. I go into another sex store across the street and price cockrings. I go to Subway, and I eat a sandwich. I sit next to the window, and cute guys look at me as they continue to walk. I go to my favorite sex store with the glory holes. I put 25 cents in, turn the thing, and then my gumball comes out. I pop it into my mouth, and the owner smiles at me, I smile at him as I walk out. I wanna go home. On the way home I find men's chocolates and that makes me think of Jack because he is a man and I buy them for Jack. I walk past the apartment building where me and Jack pee'd, too, and I start to feel very lonely and lonely for him. Jack calls me and asks me if I want to go to The Cock and I say yes. I get to The Cock before Jack does. I sit in a corner, but it's in the middle of the bar. Then Jack shows up, I'm really happy to see him. I tell him something like, "I want alcohol," and he buys me vodka and Coke's in between every other Coke. Jack and me are in the middle of the room kind of dancing. I kiss him, I touch him, I put my head on his shoulder, I suck his cock. I do everything I can think of to make him think that I'm a sexy guy. I'm sucking the go-go dancer's cock. A man pulls my jeans down and tries to put himself in me three times, and I slap him across the face and I tell him that he's a bad person. I'm watching Jack suck the go-go dancer's cock, and I think to myself that I want to be that guy. The go-go dancer puts his hands on our backs and tells us that we're a beautiful, open couple. I like hearing this. I like hearing that he thinks that I'm beautiful and that we're a couple. A bear comes. I say something like, "Umm. Umm," and he sucks my cock in the bathroom and Jack come gets me. A man named Peter comes. He's tall and picks me up. Jack talks to a black guy. I rub my face in the French man's chest hair. He says, "I want to leave with you," but I say I can't. He's says, "I want to take you to my home and make love to you," and I say no. Peter comes back and I ask him to pick me up again. The pretty drag queen comes up to me and asks me if I came when Jack was sucking me earlier. The bar closes and me and Jack go home, the black guy follows us home and we have a threesome on the stoop outside on the street with the front door, and then the black guy leaves. Jack and me go up the stairs, and I pull our bed out, and I go in the bathroom and throw up a lot. Jack and me go to Whole Foods in Union Square in the afternoon. Jack buys a salad and we go upstairs to find a good table. Jack tells me he'll share it with me, I go back downstairs to get a bowl and come back up and he lets me have most of the salad dressing. The table is square and he sits across from me.

I tell him I don't wanna ever go back to The Cock for a year. When we go back to The Cock on Wednesday, we see signs everywhere that say No Sexual Activity Allowed. I grab his arm and I tell him that I don't remember those being there. Jack gets scared about what happened, and I start to feel really bad. Jack's really scared, and I try to tell him about all the people that sucked him that I stood and watched so he won't be scared. Then I get scared and feel really dumb. I don't wanna bond with Jack over HIV infection. I just feel so dumb. I remember an MSN talk that I saw on Rick's computer. Rick asked Jack what he thought about my brother, and Jack said that my brother is better looking than me, but that he liked my innocence. And now I don't even have that. And I know that if Jack would have gone out alone by himself to The Cock, I probably would have gone swinging.

So I start to worry that I'm not having a good time. I don't know what to do with myself and I feel everything. Before Jack had come, me and Rick used to lay down with me on top of the covers and talk about plans and about how I would feel when Jack was here and what I would tell him and if I was scared. I told Rick that I was scared, and that I would tell Jack everything, and that I wouldn't hold back, because it's just easier. But after The Cock, I couldn't help but have regrets. I never really got to make out with him. I kissed him, but we never really made out. All I ever really wanted to do was be with him. I thought that Jack craved intimacy as much as I did. When we used talk on MSN and have cam sex when I was locked up, that's all he talked about with me. I have a dumb person's job, I'm a dumb person, I have no friends, my first kiss was with a 70 year old man, I can't drive, I'm 140 pounds and stupid 6 feet tall, I can't play piano, but I can be intimate. I know I can be intimate. It's just that nobody else does. And I wanted to be intimate with Jack. I wanted to give him that good part of me, that nobody else has ever wanted. If Jack had nobody else in his life that would be intimate with him than I thought that he would be intimate with me. We go to the park a lot. We walk past the boathouse where you can rent boats for 12 bucks. I suddenly want to be in a boat with Jack very badly. But I hold back. Jack tells me he likes ploosh animals, and that his home collection lacks an oddball bat. Me and Jack play a game about logic and it ends in a tie. Jack and me walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight. The train going down there is empty, and I know that it's all almost over, I tell myself that I'm gonna hold his hand on the bridge and I do it. I remember feeling surprised that he let me.

The next to last morning for him here, I wanted to do things. I fool around with my cock and his, but he's on his gayromeo.com profile and he tells me he's saving his load because he wants to go on a date for his last night. I say something like, "Oh, okay," and I turn over and make sure all the covers are over my face. He asks me if I'm okay after I stop pretending to be napping, and I say something like, "Yeah." He asks me if I am mad, and I say something like, "No." Me and Jack are in the house alone. I get on Rick's computer in my underwear and look up the FAO Schwartz website. I climb the stairs to take a shower. When Jack opens the shower doors and gets in with me, I have to leave. It's the shortest shower I've ever taken in my life, 15 minutes. Getting out of the shower with Jack is the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life. He knows that I've been begging him to take a bath or shower with me all week, and it hurts me so much that he made me do it. I come back in to brush my teeth. He asks me what's wrong, and I tell him something like, "I just think you're a fucking asshole for telling me you're saving your load for somebody else the last night you're gonna be here." His head was between the shower doors, it was all foggy and he was naked, and he told me he was doing it on purpose so I wouldn't look up to him so much and that guys in New York are a lot more muscled than in Europe and that he's already turned down 3 guys to be with me, and I don't look into his eyes and say, "Fuck you." I wipe off the mirror to see myself. The only guy that makes me feel hot is the only guy that can inspire me to look in the mirror with such disapproval. Jack stands in front of the door. I pick a can of Old Spice which Jack doesn't like the smell of, and Jack moves. I go to FAO Schwartz and buy Jack a ploosh bat.

Then we're going to the park, and I get emotional on the train about sleeping with my social worker. I feel so pathetic about doing that. I tell the whole train. I look at the floor of the moving F train.

I remember when me and Jack were walking to Avenue A at night so I could get pizza after work after Eric had sex. I remember him telling me how he thought of his friends as circles and each consecutive circle had an increasingly larger circumference, and he was a dot in the center, and that the circles that were closest to him had a trust between Jack more intimate than the outer circles, and that he said that I was one of his inner circles. I remember how much I liked it to sit in the red pizza booth across from this man and have him explain to me stuff. I remember asking him if he wanted my pizza. I remember thinking in my head about if it was more better that I was a circle or that he used to want to masturbate with me on Skype. I want to have both.

We kissed and touched all over the last night and morning, with some sleep and an arm over me in between. When he touched my body and kissed my back and neck, tears ran down my face when couldn't see, and the devil in my head said that I'd better enjoy it. I turn over and I touch him. When I touch him he makes little noises. I look at my hands touch his chest and arms and body, I look at his face, and I look back my hands. I kiss my favorite part of his body. He tells me he's scared because it doesn't mean as much to him as it does to me. But I was always more scared. Sex with him means more to me than him. I see magic.

I miss the way Jack made me feel when he touched me. I miss his arm, and how the pillow that he used that I use doesn't smell like Himalayan mist anymore. I use Axe Dark Temptation bodywash because it smells like his rubber bodysuit that he wore. I've woken up every single morning wanting him to be beside me, wanting to see my favorite part. I miss the little sounds he made when I touched him. I miss my best friend. But I can't believe that he wasn't only touching me to make me happy. He made me so happy. Jack tells me I will get over my misery, Rick tells me I'm gonna find someone to be my husband, and Caroline, the cleaning lady, found me in a corner emotional and told me I was acting like a girl. I feel this torch I'm carrying for him duct taped to my hands and I couldn't put it down if I wanted to. I have so much I have to say to him, but I don't know how to tell him. Like, I wanna tell him that if we made plans to meet up at a pizza place for supper after he got off work, but he was late or forgot and it was raining, I would stand in front of the pizza place in the rain until he remembers me. I would lay brick for him. I will be best man at his wedding to somebody else for him. I am a puppy. I'm dumb, I druel. I'm loyal. And I need to know that he hears me this once, so I can never tell him again. And that I'll never use West 4th Street station or hear "Up Where We Belong" or have vodka and Vanilla Coke the same way again. I think about a year ago when I just read his blog and he didn't know I existed and I tried to write some good posts before I let him read my blog and I was in love with some other guy on the internet. I've always been waiting for my rocket to come. It's in my notebook, I made it up.

The last day I asked Jack if he would please open the combination lock on his suitcase so I could place the ploosh bat in as a surprise. We get nuts, roasted ones. Rick calls me when I am trying to make out with Jack again and tells me to get a job. Jack buys slate at Crate and Barrel. It becomes really important for me for Jack to taste Krispy Kreme glazed donuts, a beacon of hope from the South, but the lady says they are sold out. Jack seems to enjoy his Boston creme and lemon thing, but I am so pissed. It's like McDonald's not having hamburgers. I really thought that this one was gonna happen. When we were carrying Jack's bags to Penn Station, it rains. When we were on the train to Newark, I cry a lot. When we got on the train, there were no two available seats together. I sit with someone whom I don't remember and Jack sits in front of me with someone. I remember leaning forward and him holding his hand back and me holding his finger the whole way. I don't care if this whole train thinks we're a beautiful, open couple.

I was surprised that saying goodbye to Jack was as hard as I thought it was gonna be.

Before he got on the plane, he bought food for me at McDonald's. I think the nicest thing anyone can ever do for me is feed me. But I am so sad. I remember asking myself what I was doing, following him to the airport. Why am I putting myself through so much pain when I don't have to? I didn't have to come this far. I didn't have to come to New Jersey. But I knew the answer. The answer was because I had to. Because I had no choice. Because he's gonna find somebody. Because I'm never gonna see him again. Because I'll see him again, but I'll never be with him again. I couldn't even look at him. I just sat across from him at my square table and looked at my Angus Beef sandwich we shared. I try to save my napkins for goodbye. When we say goodbye, he tells me I love you. I don't tell him I love you back. I don't know why. I don't even try to have sex with him. I kiss him and he lets me, and then he tells me to go. I go, but I stop and I turn around, but he's gone. I think of some more things to tell him. I want to tell him that he was my first. Just like I wanna tell Jay Brannan he was my first and not Yanni. I want to tell him to find some guy like him, some guy as good as him, and to not date dumb people like the Brazilian guy. I'm taking the Air Train the wrong way, and I'm a mess, and I don't care. I don't care if this whole train thinks my dog died. I'm at Penn Station now. There are still no glazed donuts. I don't remember where I go after that, but I know I don't go home. I don't know what I want. I'm in love with Jack, I care about him a lot. Why would I want him to love me?

No Scrubs.

2010-04-30T01:15:00.001-04:00

I don't like how they made the STD clinic be in Chelsea. I feel like Chelsea times should be associated with homosexual fun. It makes me feel like I'm being potty trained and like I'm being led back to the warm puddle I made to see what I've done. At least it's on 9th Avenue, I never go to 9th Avenue. At least the jock strap store is on 8th Avenue. I'm standing here and I see that the clinic is right across the street from the mission, the line is around the block for folks coming to get something to eat. I should go there sometime. Walking to the clinic door and facing it now, I say to myself that I'm just gonna look at hot people and not think about what I'm doing. I walk in and I'm proud of myself for knowing enough about the healthcare system to know to walk towards the cop behind the bulletproof glass first. I walk up to him and say, "Hi. Is this the... I'm here to...," and he points me to where I'm supposed to go. I go there, but I'm confused and I don't know where I go now. I see a girl who looks sweet also in the waiting room, and I ask her what to do. I sit down and begin to fill out my last 12 months / last 3 months card, and I suddenly see a lot of signs telling me what to do. I see the biggest box of New York City condoms I've ever seen in my whole life. I love New York City condoms, and want to jump into the box and throw them in the air and catch them in my mouth.

I am called by number into a room where a girl asks me my name a lot and then I can go upstairs. Now I'm in the real waiting room. I knew that this was the room where you wait, and then you know. It was different than I thought it was gonna be. I thought that everybody was gonna gay. And male. I thought that I was gonna be in a room full of concerned sex addicts, and that they would find me attractive. And when I sat in my seat in a place in the room where I knew most could read my vulnerability on my face and saw that a reality movie about AIDS was playing on the flat-screen television, I couldn't believe it and said so out loud and everybody laughed, which calmed me down. But the movie was from the mid-90's, and made me nervous again. I remember one of the lyrics to the rap in the movie was, "I walked through the valley of the shadow of sex." I start singing "Don't Copy That Floppy" in my head to myself, and calm me down again. There was a kissy couple in the front row to the movie, a guy and a girl. They were saying things like, "I support you. It's okay. Whatever the results, I support you," and they were almost having sex. A cub and a Latino sat in front of me, a gay couple not kissy. I just thought, "I wanna have sex right now."

The lady whom always wears gloves tells me what to do with this plastic cup, turkey baster, and tube, and shows me where the guys' bathroom is. The guys' bathroom is like an art installation of lipstick penis drawings. I pull my pants down and start, but it's hard. I'm scared I'm gonna drop my Patient's Bill of Rights in the toilet. I urinate into the cup, transfer to the tube, and walk back to the waiting room feeling proud of myself that I could do it myself. The Jamaican lady come gets me. She takes blood from my arm for HIV testing and also from my finger with the prick of a needle. It seems outdated to do it this way, I thought I was going to have a penis swab. I am told to wait 30 minutes for my HIV results and to check all my other results within 7 days online on mytestresults.com. The movie with the teenage girl who was in love with that boy who plays basketball and she gets chlamydia and has an abortion is on loop in the waiting room. The straight couple has splitten up, the cub is praying. And so am I. I'm so nervous. I've never been so scared about an HIV test which tests what I was doing 3 months ago when I was a virgin. I've never had an HIV test before. After last Sunday and what I did at The Cock, I've just been really reflective about stuff and me and things. I'm sitting here, in this room, and I think about how I'm in New York, and I'm having sex now, and I'm having an AIDS test. It's like I'm in a movie, it's like I'm in Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks. I think that this is another cool thing I get to do now, and that makes me feel better. And then the doctor says my number, and I decide to get up and acknowledge that that's my number, and I'm walking behind him, and then I'm talking to the doctor. And he's a doctor. It was different than I thought it was gonna be. I thought that the doctor was gonna be gay. I thought that I was going to be HIV positive. I take condoms and leave. I walk to 8th Avenue and skip down 8th Avenue. And then I see old St. Vincent's Hospital. That's where gay people go to die. I walk through the valley of the shadow of sex. I think I would like to die in St. Vincent's with everybody else, too, but not for awhile. From now on, I'm being safe, and only having safe sex. I'm never getting tested again.

The Food

2010-04-14T00:11:00.002-04:00

I remember sitting at this little table, and looking across this table at this guy that reminds me so much of this guy I know online and asking him what kind of bread and leaf I was eating. I remember that I ordered chicken, because I wanted good chicken. I remember sitting at this little table, and wondering how we're gonna fit the 4 courses on this table, but I saw when one course comes that another one goes away. I remember, although it was never enforced upon me, to my surprise feeling like I come from a clean your plate mentality, and stuffing my face with so many leaves, and worrying that I was not gonna be able to finish all my leaves before the chicken comes. I remember being in this big city for the first time in my life, being free for the first time in my whole life, I remember watching the people in the yellow taxis zoom by my window, sitting in a dark room, I remember saying to myself that I could do anything I want now and that it was all over, and I remember being so happy that I got to sit in the booth seat.

Before I got to the city, I told Rick that I wanted to eat a hamburger, that I lusted for Ronald McDonald. My Mom never let us eat hamburgers in fast food places because she had doubts about other people whom are not white cooking meat, so we were only allowed white meat things like chicken nuggets, and french fries. One time when we were homeless the first time, me and my brother ate nothing but Wendy's chicken tenders for two whole weeks. I grew to love taking my chicken nuggets or equivalent and fries back to the hotel and using the microwave and having my own ketchup bottle to use in liberal amounts. I love ketchup. I remember this one time before I came to the city when I was laying on my bed typing hopes and fears and dreams to Rick and I told him I would really like to have a hamburger. He told me he knew this really good hamburger place someplace, but I wanted a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Thinking out loud, I typed to him that one day I would be free and that I could go to Burger King or Red Lobster or the Olive Garden or the Cracker Barrel or Romano's Macaroni Grill or Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday and I eat anything or anyone I wanted. I could go to TGI Friday's and get steak fries. Rick told me he knew this place around the corner that makes Belgian fries, but I wanted to go get some cheese sticks at Friday's. I got a hamburger with Rick and my brother at McDonald's in Times Square and it was good. I haven't been to TGI Friday's yet. I don't why. I feel like the Belgian fries place around the corner satisfied some deep part of me.

Then Rick and me went to an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side, and were joined by nuclear genius Luke and boyfriend Henry. I noticed that there were no lights. I remember that I ordered chicken, because I wanted to have Italian chicken. Over the supper I decided that I really like hanging out with gay people. Over the supper I felt like it would be a good time to talk about my life story because Rick brought them for me to tell them, so I tried to tell my story good. I'm not very good at it, even now. I don't ever know where to start, even though my first year on Earth was similar my 22nd year, so I just try to say it from my heart and hope that it at least sounds sincere. But I always rush it, and just say that my Mom's nuts, I was never allowed to do anything, not even eat a Quarter Pounder, I met a man on the internet and because of him I could run away to New York, and I lost my virginity at the Eagle on 28th street. At the supper at the Italian restaurant with Rick and Luke and Henry was when I had my first margarita. And it was so good, and I wondered why McDonald's doesn't have margaritas. I noticed that Luke would always take the bottle of water and refill everyone's water glasses. Everytime one of us was running low, Luke would refill our glasses. I remember being really impressed by that and finding it very attractive. Then my brother ran away, too, and we went to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown with a gay man and another guy. The lights were really bright in there. I never had Chinese food before in my whole life. My whole life I've heard about the chicken flied lice. I thought it was gonna be like fried butterflies, but it was better than that. And this guy kept filling my glass up for me, too. I got to eat duck. It was all wrapped up, it reminded me of a burrito. Then we to the Greek restaurant in Astoria with the Greek guy who gave me $500 to buy clothes. I got to eat lamb. It was on the bone, it reminded me of a corn dog. Then my brother and me got to eat sushi and I ate the wasabi.

I remember one afternoon when Luke and Henry came over that Luke told Rick that it was bad for me that Rick was feeding me all this good food. That it'll be super hard for me to go back to the way I was, until I can get back to where I am. I remember going back home to Albany, and Dad making frozen chicken patties, brussel sprouts, and the Kraft blue box, and me taking it to my room to my bed to eat, and Mom screaming at me, and thinking, "This sucks." Two weeks later, I remember teaching myself how to order at Burger King, really trying to learn it and do it right, and how after you order you have to move left like the Soup Nazi. One day I'll be able to buy french fries from the Belgian place and take them home and microwave them and sit on my mattress on the floor and eat them with a bottle of ketchup, and it'll be my place and everything'll be okay.

Rick taught me how to make my own hamburgers. I love the taste of char, I like it well done, I like it black. I can't tell you how proud of myself I was for cooking raw meat and not dying.

Part 2 (The 2nd Day of the Rest of My Life)

2010-04-04T13:30:00.002-04:00

Rick kissed me for my first time. Rick is a 70 year old man whom met my rigid conditions for my first kiss, which are that you have to want to kiss me. For certain reasons, I don't really consider Rick my first kiss. The both of us were not outside, it wasn't raining, and there was too much tongue. Rick and all the other guys I've kissed since I've been here have been all about tongue, but I just want a sweet kiss. So I don't really feel like I've had my first kiss. I'm still looking for the right guy. The first day I was in the city, Rick invited some intellectuals my age to come over to meet me and to have some drinks. I didn't really know this was gonna happen until the doorbell rang, so I didn't really have much time to get nervous about jumping into intellectual conversation so fast. I just decided to be myself, and then there was alcohol. The top's name was Francois and the bottom's name was James. I don't remember how they know Rick or anything else, but I remember they were nice to talk to and they didn't make me feel stupid. This was back when I didn't know the difference between red wine and white wine, but I know things now. Red wine is red and the other one is white. Francois is from Germany or France. When we all introduced ourselves and shook hands and stuff, I remember he didn't kiss me on both cheeks or something like people from Europe do. If he would have, I might have considered that my first kiss.

I've had so many new experiences during my first week in New York that it's so hard for me to remember them all. I have flashbacks. I remember everybody's names. Francois, James, Luke, Henry, Simon, the guy that came with Simon, Rick. Rick says I'm one of the intellectuals my age, but I don't feel like I am. When I drink Rick's alcoholic beverages, I cough. It's worse when I smoke. Rick let me taste red wine, porter, port, benedictine, cream of menth, tokay, scotch, and a margarita. My favorite one was beer. And my first morning at Rick's place, after the night with my parent's phone calls and the benedictine, I discovered half and half. I really like half and half. I been looking for some role I could fill in the house, to help out and also feel less guilty, and I suddenly felt it was my role to make sure we always had half and half in the house. That first morning, I met Anita, the cleaning lady. Rick had told me that Anita likes to talk, and he was right. I really like her. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help, and she told me to finish my Frosted Flakes first. Finishing my Frosted Flakes was enough time for me to become shy, but Anita soon made all that go away because she's so nice and Latina. When Rick left, I walked around his house and looked at stuff and not touched anything. I always found myself in this spot where I was trying to remember everything I ever heard about New York City. I was scared if I broke something, I would end up in the rubber room. In magazines I've seen houses with rooms with walls with shelves with nothing but books on them. It's so palatial looking to me. It's usually called a library. Rick has a library in every room. Which book do I pull, to open the secret passageway?

*************

Rick reuses towels. I think that is really weird. I asked Anita about it, and she confirmed, most people dry off with their towels when they get out of the tub and then throw them over the bar to dry for next time. I said when in Rome, and I'm pretty used to it now. I don't wanna reuse washcloths, though, and my brother agrees with me. Only because I use washcloths to clean my ears out, but my brother said, "I clean my butt with washcloths. I don't know any other way." But I don't understand why anybody would be afraid to touch themselves. I also started getting into the shower and letting the water hit me directly on the face, as part of my new Be Sexy / Be Manly initiative, because I think a guy getting a shower in the face is sexy. Before I used to put a washcloth over my face and back into the water. I don't know what I was thinking when I did some of the stuff I used to do. I'm also using Old Spice now, I've begun using Dove Man body wash instead of the soap bar, and I've begun using Nivea for Men moisturizer.

I'm also trying to be naked all the time, because in my house I could never really be naked. In the morning, I always wake up, and roll over, and pull my jeans up, and I leave me like that, and then I come over and eat Frosted Flakes. But I don't do that when Anita's here because I get embarrassed. I raised myself on Raisin Bran, but Frosted Flakes are good, too. I've noticed that when Rick takes off his clothes, he leaves them on the floor. He stands, and undoes the buttons, kind of steps out of them, and leaves them on the floor where they fall, like a kind of lawyer skin I think. He wears a new shirt everyday. In the morning, he wakes up, rolls over, pulls the plastic off and puts a shirt on. I wonder if he amasses a collection of shirts, or does Anita pick them up and think, "Oh, garbage." In the city I learned about recycling. Anita me told that in the city you have to recycle, because the city opens your garbage and goes through it to make sure that everything that's supposed to be in the blue bag is in the blue bag and everything in the tall kitchen garbage bag is supposed to be in the tall kitchen garbage bag. And then I suddenly remembered all the guys I saw looking threw people garbage and thinking they were students. And then I wondered if you put a shirt in the blue bag or the white bag. I used to not know the difference between the blue bag and the white bag. I just thought one was blue and one was white. I thought that the last time I recycled was when I lived when my Mom's former best friend. I thought about that, and then I remembered the batteries, and then I thought at least Rick isn't one of those guys that refrigerates their batteries. He refrigerated my chili pot outside on the back porch overnight one time. That really surprised me, too. I was never that country. I was having sex with this gay gay once. I knocked on the door, I went in, we took all our clothes off, we had sex with each other him especially, and then he put his clothes back on. I thought that was weird, because I'm the one that's leaving. I asked him and he told me that he was putting his clothes on to go bed, which I thought was really weird. Because that's just not how I raised myself, I was raised that gay boys sleep naked. Not even in Rome would I sleep with my clothes on.

*************

My day was accented by corresponding with my older brother Eric who was back at my parent's home. I would read his emails from the frontlines and become very angry with my parents, and Rick would give me this new option to drink stuff. I remember Eric writing to me that I was not emailing to him enough. Everytime I ate something I would sit down and describe it to my brother, and my brother would write back with what my folks were saying, where he had locked himself, what my father was saying when my mother had left the room, and how my Mom thought Rick was a pedophile, and that Rick's kids are gay and they're going to want to have me become drunk and have sex with me. I don't remember what happened all day after breakfast. And then Rick took me out to eat to a really nice place. I was surprised by it's use of dim lighting. I would be reminded of this later when I went by myself to places in Chelsea called Rawhide and the Eagle. I remember sitting at this little table, and looking across this table at this guy that reminds me so much of this guy I know online and asking him what kind of bread and leaf I was eating. I remember that I ordered chicken, because I wanted good chicken. And then we went home, and Rick pulled my clothes off my body for me before I got in bed, because I had asked him if he would do that for me a couple weeks before I came because I wanted to know what it felt like, and I got hard - or maybe we did that before we had supper. And then I laid in bed and heard a lot of people talking and Rick breathing. And then I fell asleep. This was the second day of the rest of my life. Then I woke up in the morning, and I had Frosted Flakes and Raisin Bran, and I needed some batteries for my toothbrush, and Rick told me they're some in the fridge. Then Rick took me to see Hair, then a girl gave me a flower, and then I gave it to somebody on the street. Then I saw the Chrysler building. Then I saw this show with all these happy kids dancing to Beatles music which was way better than I thought it was gonna be, then I saw Yoko Ono. Then I saw my brother Eric, because he ran away, too.

Then we saw the Chrysler building. Then I saw a bunch of stuff, and it was better now, because my brother was with me, but I wasn't quite there. It was not real yet. I still had a wall up. Then me and Eric went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but we split up and I got lost and Eric got lost in art. I couldn't find cell phone service in the period rooms. Then we saw West Side Story, and I cried. I didn't cry all week. It's like I was seeing it, but I couldn't feel it. I finally cried. Then I saw the Chrysler building, and the Flatiron building, and the arch. Then I saw Angela Lansbury perform while I was wearing bluejeans. I met Angela Lansbury in bluejeans. Then I broke something. In New York City, I saw a man in high heels, and all the buses have billboards on the side of them for the new season of RuPaul's Drag Race. At no point did this surprise me. I just thought that this is what America is supposed to be like. And then Mom said me and Eric weren't emailing enough. After I cried, everything was different. I fell asleep on the C train like a real New Yorker. I heard the man say, "Stand clear of the closing doors please," and that was it. Home.

Part 1 (My First Everything)

2010-02-26T02:52:00.000-05:00

When the cops threw me against the car, put their hands on me, and cuffed me, one of the first things I was thinking about was I was wondering if this is how gay sex feels like. I got thrown against the car by the cops because I went up on a guy's porch and asked if I could please use his phone to call a taxi. I needed to call a taxi because my parents wouldn't drive me to the Albany train station so I could run away to New York City like I thought they would, because I told them I was gonna do that the day before and it didn't go very well. Mom went nuts. She said she would kill herself, then me, and then Rick before she would let me leave the house to New York or the library, and she said she would call the police to keep me here. Dad was screaming at me, too, and I couldn't do it. I said some stuff that made them feel like they won and went to my room to talk to my friends. My friends told me I had to go, but I couldn't do it. I sent out some I'm sorry emails, and pulled my covers over my head. I didn't even masturbate. I only slept until my parents woke up and started talking about me. And then they stopped and I fell asleep, and then they started and then I woke up again. In the morning, I pulled my iPhone thing out of my shoe and read an email from Jack, a guy whom I care a lot about, sent to me not so long after I sent him my I'm sorry email. I read his email and thought that I should go to New York City today. I'm gonna try again. I email my brother in the next room and let him know what's up. I start to put all the stuff I wanna take in a pile. My parents are asleep, and I'm in my underwear, so I can get back in bed if they get up. I start shaking. And now it's time to go. I throw my suitcase out of my window. I never unpacked it. I pull my jeans up and hug my brother. I sit my butt on the furnace under my bedroom window. I put one leg out, then another. I think it's gonna be a long fall. I turn around on my stomache and slowly try to back out of the window. And then I think just do it, and I vault myself out. I hit the ground. I'm out. I hit the ground running. I look to see if the neighbors saw me. I don't wanna embarrass my parents with the whole neighborhood knowing their kid's running away.

I pick up my suitcase and I start running. It's really happening, I'm free. As soon as I get down the driveway, I feel like my parents are after me. I become sensitive to all sirens. I think my parents would think I'm walking to Albany. I run in the opposite direction of Albany, because I am smart. And I'm two houses down from my own now. And my suitcase is getting really heavy. And then I see a little house, and it has a glow. And I get behind it, because I'm scared. I knock on the back door. A guy comes, and says, "What can I do for you?" I say, "Hi. I'm Ryan. I'm having a life crisis. May I use your phone to call a taxi, or can you call one for me?" He tells me he'll make a call for me. I say thank you so much and wait. The officers walk around and say hi. And there wasn't even any sirens. And the officer that I like asks me to come with him, so I say, "Okay. Let me get my suitcase first." The officers say whoa a lot and pull their guns out. And I'm just like, "Oh, shit. I'm sorry." And then I'm against the car, and I have to keep my hands against the car. And they ask me what's in my pockets. So I'm like, "Oh, let me show you." And the officers keep throwing my hands against the car. And I just say, "Guys, I'm sorry. I've never been arrested before. I suck at this." Then I'm in the back of the police car. I'm not free. When I was in the back of the police car, the officer that I like asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I'm running away from home, and I'm 23, and I know. He told me that was gonna take me back to my parents, and that I was gonna have to talk to them, and I thought aw, man. We pulled up the driveway with me cuffed in the back of the police car, and I tried to think about what my brother was thinking about looking at me in the back of the police car through his window. I tried. The guys talked to my parents first, for 10 minutes. The guy that I like comes back out, and takes my cuffs off. He tells me that he remembers my Mom from a couple years ago, and that something's obviously going on in this house, but that I have to go in there and talk to my folks. I talk to them for 10 minutes, and the guy that I like says that they're not hearing me and tugs me out of the house by my arm and puts me in his car. He tells me not to put all of my money in one place on me, don't walk down dark alleys, walk with a wide stance, and he drives me to the Walmart where the bus stops. The officer that I like wishes me good luck, and I'm out.

I'm in the Walmart. I'm walking down the aisles and turning and walking down more aisles, and getting deeper and deeper into the Walmart. And a smile starts to happen on my face, and I think, "No, Ryan, it's not time for that." But I think I'm free, and a little smile keeps sneaking out of me. And somewhere in the middle, I look at my Walmart, and I think that this is freedom. I'm physically exhausted. My suitcase with my life in it is so heavy. I don't think I'm emotionally exhausted. I think I could emotionally take a little bit more. And then I can realize I can buy anything I want, and I what I want is a Vitamin Water. Something with a focus on energy, something yellow. I buy a big one, and I drink it. I drink it in a way that it runs down my face. And now I think I should piss. I go to the bathrooms. I go into the men's bathrooms, so I think I'm doing good so far. I haven't been in a public bathroom in a really long time. I walk to the toilet, I put my suitcase down. I put on an expression so everybody knows that if they take my suitcase, I'll fuckin' kill 'em. I take a piss. And it's a motion sensor toilet, so I'm waving my cock and my hand around, but it won't flush. I walk away, and it flushes. I think I've conquered the motion sensor toilet. There's this moment when I'm just like, "I'm ready." And I walk outside the Walmart, I see the bus and I run. I run so hard my boots fly off my feet, and the bus driver sees me and acknowledges me. And some people are laughing, and that's okay because it's funny. If the bus hadn't have stopped, I think I would have left my boots in Upstate New York. So I run up on the bus, and I ask the bus driver man, "Are you going to Albany?" And he says, "Ain't no other place to go." The bus driver man seems to me like he's the kind of guy that's seen it all before and I immediately like him. I'm on the bus to Albany.

I'm on the bus, and I think about two things. The first thing is to tell everybody I come in contact with my life story, so they have a story to put with my face that looks like this. The second thing is to find gays, find blacks. Gays and blacks will help me. I find a couple of older gay guys who are a couple on the bus and I ask them if they can tell me where to get off. And they start to have an argument about where I should get off, and I thought it was sweet. I tug the string and I start to get off and the bus driver without really asking talks to me about how to get to the Greyhound bus station. I get off the bus, and I forget everything he says, but I remember his general hand movements and I follow them. And it is in Albany where I realize that I should start looking both ways before I cross the street and to walk with a wide stance. I get to the bus station. I'm at the bus station because my parents think I'm at the train station. I get to say, "I need a ticket to New York, please." And then I sit down and have a bunch of time to think about stuff. I get up to get a Vitamin Water. It says two bucks. I put two bucks in the thing that sucks the money, press the button, and then my Vitamin Water falls out. I've conquered the vending machine. Then I go back to my seat and think about stuff. I think about the pigeons that I walked past at the door that didn't care about me, and how cool that is. I think about how Mom told me I am gonna be killed or worse. I look around and see that I'm gonna be the only white person on the bus, and I think about how cool that is. How I'm going to a place where black people wanna be. A bus from New York comes and lets people off, and I see a Mom get off, and I hear her affectionately greet her son with saying, "Where Brooklyn at?," and I think about how cool that is. And then my bus comes to get me.

I tell everybody my life story on the bus. And on the bus, I feel a sense of... like, protect the white boy. I was already home. On the bus, I listen to strong black woman music on my iPod. And all the songs I heard were like they were for me. It was like Mary J. Blige was talking to me. I felt like a strong black woman. I really did feel like I was doing this for my kids, I was getting out so my one day kids could have a way better life than I had. I listened to strong black woman music all the way up to when I saw the city for the first time, in New Jersey. I started listening to "Jai Ho!" from Slumdog Millionaire. I saw the the city for an hour before I was in it. So I quite liked Paramus, and Weehawken was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. I noticed I was watching the city and tears were running down my face, and all the other black people were sleeping.

I'm walking through Port Authority Bus Terminal with my suitcase, and it's so heavy. I could have taken a suitcase with straps, but I didn't wanna dump out my Mom's hospital suitcase for my trip to the city, and this leather one matches my look. I walk past my first Duane Reade and my first Jamba Juice. It's so cool. I don't know what to do, so I go up the escalator because it seems like the right thing to do and also escalators relax me, and the lady at the top said go down the escalator and go left and walk for a really long time, so I go down the escalator. I'm outside and I'm like... "Whoa, New York Times building." I see the yellow taxis. I think about it. I knock on the window, and ask him, "Can I get in?" And then I'm in the taxi, so I should probably tell him where I wanna go, and then he goes. He drives so fast, and stops so fast, and honks so much. He drives through Times Square, and down 5th Avenue, past the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building and Gray's Papaya. He drives fast, and there it is and then it's gone. And now I'm at Rick's house. I tip the cab driver man, and he gives me change back which is weird. I thought I was gonna hang out on Rick's stoop for awhile to take everything in before I expose Rick to my raw emotions, but I just run up and ring his doorbell. The one on the top. And then he opens the door, and then I'm hugging this gay guy who's older than me who I met on the internet, and it all feels right. He took me upstairs. I showed him my cuff marks with happy in my eyes. We talked. It felt different than typing. Rick asked me what I saw so far. And he laughed when I told him "everything!" I can't tell you how it felt when I saw his fridge full of Vitamin Waters.

Straight jacket. / In the cadence of the young man's eyes.

2010-01-21T19:08:00.000-05:00

I been to a library once. My whole family went to one one time in the state of Massachusetts, so my Mom could use the computer to check the facebook of a man in her life so it wouldn't get traced back to the city we live in. I wore my black leather jacket, and I just sort of walked around, not making eye contact and sometimes accidentally making eye contact and looking at the floor, or the sky in a wood roofed building. I do still like the attention of girls. My new leather jacket makes me feel so good about myself and so hot, but it's new. I think girls are attracted to my leather jacket because it's manly, and I think it's manly because it's bad-ass, and bad-ass means I have protection to offer. That's why I like men. It's like how guys like big boobs because guys think big boobs have more milk. That's why I like big loads. My Mom was pissed off at me when I bought my jacket for my birthday. I think she was pissed off because I didn't want socks, and because all I wanted was a $30 dollar fake leather jacket, and because the boy is starting to wanna look like a man. I wear it wherever the girls are. It gives me a lot of confidence. It feels like my armor. I got it at Penney's. Then I discovered stubble. It feels like a better face. Then we went to Country Curtains that day for greeting cards, and I looked at candles. Mom and Dad got to talking to somebody, and laid down on a bed for sale. It's been a long time since I've slept in somebody else's bed. And Mom wanted to make a phone call, so we went to the Red Lion Inn, because they have payphones. It's cool in there, I remember wallpaper. I saw a guy in there. He had a leather jacket, and cool boots, and aviator sunglasses, he was from Germany, and his wife had big boobs. He was like the authentic German version of me, and he saw me. My Mom told my brother and me to stay with my Dad. My Dad walks slow. I saw a bunch of people taking pictures touching the giant pumpkin, my brother and me ran up the big staircase to the 5th floor and came back down slowly. It reminded me of the steel in my new boots, and how I like how I can feel my cock swing around when I wear my boxer briefs reminding me that I'm a guy.

When the guy in the car hit us on the way home, my headphones fell off my head. In my head I thought, "What I do? What I do?" And then I said a bad word, and in my head I got out of my car. I heard him say, "Dude, I'm sorry," and I thought, "Good. I don't have to open his door and pull him out." I said to him, "You wanna get rear-ended, buddy?" I called 911 and said, "I've been in a minor car accident. Get the police here before I kill this motherfucker!" I said to the guy, "You wanna get knocked upside the head with my cut, American cock? I'm gonna piss on you, boy." He asked me, "Can I move my car?" And I said, "No. I will fuck the shit out of you if you move your car." He said, "Please don't fuck me." I called the cop an asshole. And a car drove by us with their headlights off, and I said, "Hey! Turn your fuckin' headlights on!" I got the guy's name in the police report. I found him on Facebook, and I fucked his wife.

But that's not how it happened. How it happened was I rolled down my window to talk to the cop man, and he said to me, "You don't even know you're own phone number?" And I said to him, "No. I don't even know my own phone number." And I said to the EMT, "Why's he so mean?" At the hospital, my Dad was parking and he called my Mom an idiot and my Mom screamed at my Dad for six hours. While my Dad was parking, I remember thinking, "Thank God I'm wearing my new leather jacket." I filled out four pages of paperwork to get a hospital regulations book that I threw away. In the waiting room while I was seated between my Mom and my Dad, I remember thinking, "Thank God I'm wearing my new leather jacket," and also, "I'm gonna talk to a nurse today." I missed Grey's Anatomy that night. I got a male nurse. I love male nurses. He told me there's a TV if I wanna watch. I tend to prolong suffering for as long as possible, but after hour four I turned on The Simpsons. Fifth time I decided to go to the hospital in two years. After my brother was examined, my brother got a slice of pizza and a Pepsi from the nurse. My brother didn't feel like running around the hospital with me. The first doctor thought I was my brother. The second doctor who was cool came in to meet me. He did a bunch of tests about head muscles and memory that I passed. He wanted to see if I could remember his own phone number, and I could. He asked me, "You ride a bike?" I said not yet, and he said, "You look like you do." This was when I smiled, because I think it means I'm connecting. My leather jacket is bad luck. Everytime I wear it, I almost get into fist fights. It's not that I want to kick your ass, it's just that I want you to think I could. It's a nice thought to think that one guy could say, "There goes Ryan. He could kick my ass." It's a nice thought to think that my doctor maybe wouldn't let his daughter go out with me. I was signing myself out of the hospital, and the male nurse man asked me, "Can I get you anything else?" I told him I wanna hug, and with our arms around each other I said out loud, "Yeah. Fuck yeah."

I'm going to Manhattan in a couple days. Lots of stairs to run up. The first time I walk down a street by myself will be the Bowery. My Mom thinks me walking down a street in the town where I live and me walking around the big city is the same thing. My magic 8 ball thinks I'm crazy. I'm gonna stay at Rick's place for a little while, so we can take this friendship that we have off the computer. When I tell my folks I'm leaving that day, I think my Mom's gonna be in her chair in the family room. I'm gonna sit down on the couch wearing my leather jacket, my bluejeans, my boots, with my wallet with all my money saved up in my pocket, my glasses in my other pocket, and my suitcase next to me. I'll try to answer questions honestly. I wanna do this the right way. I know my Mom's gonna ask questions about who this nice guy is, I know she's gonna like project her questions at me, and I'm gonna have to be very careful with what I say instead of articulate. I can't say that he acknowledges me. That's one of those things that's hard for people to believe, how it feels for me when someone knows my name and says my name. When somebody says my name, it's the same feeling I feel when I say I'm going to Manhattan in a couple days. I love when a guy says my name when I'm having cyber sex with him. I never say that, because that's when people say to me that I'm very vulnerable. They're right. Please don't fuck me. I can say that Rick believes in me, and hope that they don't ask who doesn't. Because it's a short list both ways. I think I'm gonna take some punches from my folks about my emancipation. Then I'm gonna get on the train, almost have enough time to let myself feel like the man the world dumps on and that God hates me, and then I'm gonna run up some stairs and see some nice things. I wonder how that's gonna feel. I wonder if somebody might acknowledge me when I'm walking down the street and feeling it. Eye contact. I wonder if that's a bad thing. One thing I'm gonna tell my parents is that Rick means a lot to me, and I'm not giving up on my friends, unless they wanna. One day I woke up and felt this newfound want and need to protect my boys. If somebody ever hurts them, I'm gonna kick their ass. I wonder if my folks know. Jack told me that Rick walks slow, too. In the event of an emergency, I will pick Rick up and carry him to safety. A change has gotta come or else I'll never have school, then I'll never have a job that fulfills me, then I'll never have sex, and then I'll never have any money, and then I'll never have kids, and there won't be a name anymore. Somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow.

I bought my leather jacket because I saw Rick coming. It's hard for me sometimes to let myself have nice things. I decided that I would try to push Rick away from me at all costs, but if I failed and friendship happened, I wanted to look cool. I wanted to look like how I felt getting on a train to New York. Here I am. I used to write a blog where a made a bunch of stuff up, and the first thing I made up was that I got on a bus and went someplace. After I left, I wrote that I learned a couple things and made a couple good friends. And I don't know how I pulled that off. I don't know how Rick and Jack got to be my friends now. Now that I'm gonna do it, the goal feels more like just to survive, just like it used to be. And I think I could be tougher if I looked a little bit tough. And then I think about Rick's risk, and if his kids will hate me a lot or a little, and how his psychiatric friends advise against me staying at his place for a little bit because they think I could be a garden-variety sociopath, because I used to write a blog where I made a bunch of stuff up. I used to write a blog where I made stuff up, where I could write that I could do anything that I wanted to do. But there was stuff I wanted to write that I couldn't do. I couldn't ever write that I got on a train to New York and met my friend Rick, and that I told my folks today that I was in New York, when I was on a plane to meet my friend Jack. I have my new blog now, and I couldn't ever write this stuff before. I couldn't have ever made this stuff up, it's too good. I noticed that Jack and Rick have both told me that they really wanna hold me, more than they wanna do other stuff. I think there must be something about me that's so... I don't know how to say it. Holdable. One day soon I'm gonna walk up the stairs to Rick's stoop and I'm gonna see all these doorbells and I'm gonna ring one, and I'm gonna stand there in my jacket, and I'm gonna have this look on my face. And then he'll open the door, and then I'm all real. And I wonder if he'll hold me right away, or if he'll be a little scared. I'm gonna make the choice for him.

Fuck my folks and fuck my 8 balls.

My secret cam.

2010-01-08T13:50:00.001-05:00

I have a secret cam. A secret cam which makes me see people, and you see me. A while back ago, my older brother said to my Mom that he was saving up some allowance, and asked her if he could buy a new laptop with his money. My Mom scolded him for the audacity of the question. I mentioned that I was saving up for a laptop, too. Mom says we don't deserve laptops after we had the audacity to blog. A couple months later in October as a Christmas gift, my brother got a new laptop which my parents don't know you can talk to people with, and I got an iPod Touch 3G which my parents don't know you can listen to music with and also IM with people, watch porn, update my blog, and make free calls to 800 numbers with. I call my iPod Touch my iPhone thing. The first night I had it, I was chatting with Rick. I remember it being so important for me to tell him I was talking to him in my bed. I was reporting live to him after dark and from between the sheets. When my brother flipped open his new laptop, I was taken back at the glow, and I wondered if I could talk to people on this. If I could really do it, if I wanted to do it. I thought about if it would be better if I just let the guys use their imaginations. It is important for me for everybody to think I'm hot. What if they're hot, what if I stutter? I talked to a guy on Skype before a couple times, one way. Jack told me to download Skype, and he showed me himself, his house, him playing piano in his house, his British accent, and he waved at me. I really liked him for it, I thought it must have been weird for him talking to his computer, talking to me. It meant a whole lot to me to see his face, and it made me cry talking to Rick about it a night before I went to bed. He's real. The next time I saw him, I got to do some mushrooms with him. I took it as a compliment, I saw it as him having a vulnerable moment with me. It made me smile big, he looked sooo happy.

I had the cam in my possession for a couple days now. The first guy I talked to was Sam. I had just washed my hair and I was gonna skype with somebody. Mom was upstairs and Dad was eating supper in the family room. I had my supper in my lap. It was a date on my side. Sam was a wonderful gentleman and calmly had a conversation with me about my microphone settings. Then there was nothing left to do but talk. I say something. And then the computer says something back. And I'm like wow for a second. But then I realize I have to have to process wow a little bit later because the computer wants to talk to me. And then I think about how somebody in Ireland is talking to me. My Dad has been knocking on my door since he saw me with my hard cock in my hand a couple months ago, but he kept not knocking this day, and I had eventually had to cut the night short with Sam. I was a bad date, and I owe him a do over, if he'll have me. I can't believe I talked to somebody in Ireland.

And then Mom and Dad were at the doctor's office. I was home alone, with my brother. The next guy I talk to is Rick, a couple days after Sam. Rick had been telling me that he really, really wanted to see my face move, so I cleared my schedule. It was a Monday morning, so Rick was at the office. He didn't have a webcam, so he could just see me. It started out as kind of awkward, and it was all Skype's fault, with me typing, "Can you hear me?" But I fixed it. I got my chance to look into the camera and smile. It was the first time he ever saw me smile, and laugh at his jokes. He told me, "You look so happy, dude." I thought it would be weird for me to talk to my computer, but I was totally comfortable. I could totally do it for a living. I was talking to my friend Rick. Rick made requests to see me without my shirt, to see my feet, and my pubic hair, and I also showed him my dog. I'm real. Rick wanted to see what I had done with my pubic hair because he had had a conversation with me about me becoming a sexual being. I proudly showed him my work. My parents get back, and we go for a drive. I'm in the car now. I'm just kind of in shock. I've got my iPod in my ears. I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen has this song called "Outlaw Pete." I'm listening to the lyrics say, "I'm Outlaw Pete. I'm Outlaw Pete. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?" Tears chase down my cheeks. I'm smiling. My Mom and Dad are two feet away from me, and I think it's sometimes better when they don't notice me. For the longest time I've tried to pass myself off to my internet friends as a spirit. I am everywhere. I am God. But I am my body. I'm right here. It meant a whole lot for somebody to see me. I couldn't believe he got me to put on my dumb glasses for him. I decided in the car that day that when I see him on cam for the first time or meet him in real life one day, I'm gonna tell him that I love him. I ended up not making it, and now he knows. I got really car sick that day for some reason. I came home and got on my brother's computer and wrote this post this far. I think today was a good day for me.

I haven't seen Rick yet. I'm shy.

It's a couple weeks later. My brother and my Dad are decorating the Christmas tree. I'm in the bathtub. I always fill the tub up to about an inch before the water goes over the side. I pretend the shampoo bottles are boats. I cross my legs, and lay in my back, and I float. I'm bummed. I get out, my hair looks good. So I'm gonna skype with Jack for the first time. I talk to him. I'm not bummed anymore. What a great guy. I feel like that went well. I close the laptop, and lay back on my bed, and I float. I look up and see my November calendar, and it's December. I think that Jack must think I'm dumb now. I should have told him that it's November in America. Since then, I've done all of my camming with Jack. A lot of times when I sign on to MSN, Jack tells me to sign on to Skype, and I go fetch the computer. The first couple of times, I was so aware of lighting and seating position. The first time I got on cam with Rick, I even gave some thought to what I should wear, and I picked a tight white t-shirt to show a little bicep - because. But with Jack, I've been half-naked. I tend to stop caring if people can hear me and Jack talking, and then my brother comes in and tells me that the whole house can hear me talking about fucking and people named Fernando, Alejandro, and Jake. I do a lot of smiling with Jack, too. Jack often asks me what I'm thinking when I'm not typing or talking. Doctors are the only other guys that ever get to see me, and I wonder if Jack would agree with them in the examination room when they say I have an expressive face, "Like Goldie Hawn." Jack is so great to me when I forget to charge him up, and he dies until I can plug him in. He's never offended when I feel a parent coming to my room and throw my blanket over him or put him in the closet. He notices my haircuts, when my folks don't. I get more face time with him than with my parents. And everytime after Jack and me get to talk, I just think wow for about two minutes, and then I wanna go run and tell Rick that me and Jack got to talk for two or three or four hours! But then I worry if Rick will be curious like a friend and ask me what we talked about, and I don't know what we talked about because I don't remember because I just stared at Jack's face for two or three or four hours and I don't remember what we talked about. I would like Jack to have my ass for it's first time. I'm not in love with him. The only time I think I'm in love with him is when he starts talking about Jake.

New Year's Eve, we masturbated together. It was before midnight for me, and after midnight for him. I asked him if he could cum for me, and he could. It was the best thing I've seen on TV all year. I was looking at him, I kept thinking that it was looking like he was looking at me. I've never been masturbated to before in my whole life. That would mean the world to me. Jack told me he thought I was hot, and that he could fuck me. One time he screen shared with me, and I could see why he might think that because his computer makes me look hot. I don't think I've ever felt how I felt with him watching me before. I've never had to not use my imagination. I felt like an animal. I remember that he asked me if I was hard, and I wasn't. I was before and after he asked me. I asked him if he felt funny about it in the morning after, or if he had any regrets. He said no, but I think I do. I should have pushed it more. I don't know if I wanted for him to see my cock, because I wanna save it for a rainy day, and I don't know if I wanna cum for him, because I want him to do that to me. After he came, that was the part where I wanted to kiss him real bad. In that moment, I just thought, "Wow. Camming sucks." I should have laid back on my bed, and put Jack next to me and introduced him to my pillow. I should have rubbed my face in my pillow and gave it a good, passionate kiss, and I should have typed, "So I just kissed you." I should have put the cum on my hand on the stubble on my face and typed, "Think of it as yours." I should have a lemonade stand in the Spring so I can buy a plane ticket. He should see me in real life. So that he can fuck me if he wants to. And everytime I get a hard on now, I think I've got a hard on, so I'm gonna skype somebody. I have to stop myself.

I can't wait until it's me and Rick, in Jack's computer talking to Jack. Or Jack and me, in Rick's computer talking to Rick. Or Jack, and me, and Rick having a drink together some nice place sometime. Or Jack fucking me, and Rick watching.

I wanna taste the rainbow. / Broken open.

2009-12-12T15:42:00.001-05:00

I wonder what it will be like when I tell my folks that I like guys in a special way. It's like explaining to my folks where babies come from. I wonder what my Mom's gonna say. I love to talk about sex, but talking about it with your parents is weird. When I tell my parents that I'm gay, it'll be like saying to them something so small and saying something so big. I think when you like girls and you're a guy, you never have to say to your parents that you wanna stick your face in her pussy, or stick it in her ass. But when guys tell their parents that they're gay, the parents always imagine their boys bent over. Even gay parents, I think. I wonder what it's gonna be like when I tell my parents that I'm gay, that I wanna have the anal sex, and put it in his ass, and that I think incest is very hot when the players are not ugly and not me, and I wanna be pissed on, I like some dance music, and I'm banned from the military. By saying just two words.

One time a couple years ago, my Mom found my chat transcripts from when I was talking to this guy who lived in New York City named Angel about stuff. Like talking about gay stuff, you know? My Mom got upset about it, and she never found my chat transcripts again. I lost my cool that day, and told my Mom and my Dad that I was bi. My Mom and my Dad thought I was a virgin. I have since backed away from the bi thing, because I'm not. Mom said all sorts of stuff that morning. "Oh my God, our son is a bisexual!" and "It's because we moved up here. I never should have brought you to New England." I remember looking at my older brother's face looking at my father's face. I remember for the rest of that day it was like "go to your room" and "get your ass in here," and "go to your room" and "get your ass in here." My Mom couldn't understand what I had told her. I don't really know why I told her. I remember in that moment thinking I just wanted my life to be like how it was on an afterschool special on TV for just a second, and not like my real life. I've seen many afterschool specials and I knew how my parents should feel in the family room that day. I didn't want them to be right. I wanted them to be wrong in one way that I knew I could not question for myself. I was soo tired of thinking my parents could be right about stuff, and I wanted a vacation.

I even gave my Mom a percentage. I told her I was 74% straight. Later that day, Mom called me upstairs just me and her. Her bed is very high, and my Mom is a real woman, so she has to climb up. I usually help her up. For a couple seconds there, she was bent over. She said, "You probably wanna try this position, don't you?" She told me, "You will not be gay. You will not be bisexual. You will not be transgendered." My mind raced ahead. I always have to be ahead. I thought pansexual, omnisexual, objectsexual, asexual. I thought please stop talking, Mom. She said, "Do you understand me? You will not." My folks don't care about God, like I do, so I know at least they don't think I'm going to hell like I do. It was very important for me to tell my brother that I am gay. We usually have good talks while we're killing people on video games, but we hadn't played for a while. I walked in his room one night and said to him, "I want to play video games with you really badly right now." He told me that if there were no girls, that he could be bi, so that was good. My friends and my brother say my parents know that I'm gay, but I don't think they know. I've spent a lot of time with them, and I know them. I'm reading Out magazine, and they're gonna say, "Oh, it came with his Advocate subscription." I'm watching same-sex porn on the television, and they're gonna say, "Oh, he thought he was watching Saw." They walk in and I'm having a gay moment in my room. "Oh, he's just being silly." I've grown very specific about my underwear brands and sizes, and I give my Dad back-up instructions if they don't have my brand or size. "He's a style man."

I hate when Mom says I can't go around telling people that I'm bisexual. I hate when she tries to connect me with gay stuff. I love football. I really like Sarah Palin as an individual. I don't have gay voice. I love Manwich. I don't deserve this. I hate when Mom tries to have the man-to-man talk with me about sex. Mom wants me to find somebody I can trust to have sex with. "Somebody who's gonna understand," she says. She says I have to be in love. And ask that person for an HIV test before. She tells me to wear two condoms. And that there is no such thing as safe sex. But I don't wanna wait for the state to recognize marriage before I fuck a man. And I think I fall in love after sex. I wonder what my first time will be like. And the guy after that. And the guy after that.

***************

This was my plan. I'm in bed now, I'm alone. I get out of bed, pull my blue jeans on, and grab the keys. I look at the stove, and it says 3 A.M. I look into a spoon and see a 21 year old man. I don't know where I'm going. I don't want my roommate to worry, so I write a note. "Went out to get lost." Have you ever been on the metro train at night, and it's just you and two other people, a guy my age and a prostitute, and you kind of have the feeling that they're waiting for you to get off the train so they can have sex? I'm in my car now. I'm on a moonlit country road. I'm five cars back, and I choose to pass them all. Like my mother, I give fingers and honk. I could have been killed. In spite of this, I was listening to Tiesto or somebody and was in a pretty good mood. A black Infiniti car I saw at White Castle with cool red taillights passes me. I can not help but take it personally, it is a moment of refection. We race for miles. I want to pass him without looking with my hand over my face because I'm shy. He keeps going faster and won't let me pass him. I've never bottomed before. I hit the breaks and let him go. The cops catch him, two miles up I see. I pass him, drove slow, and pull over, and he does, too. I see him, he was a guy. The ticket is for $300. I'm standing beside the open road now, and I feel bad. I feel bad because I committed a felony, too. I tell him we (me and him, him and me) should get a drink, and I pay.

I follow him to South Central Los Angeles. We're at the bar now, I like sitting up high on stools. I tell him, "Oh my God, your biceps are so huge." He has tats and a cool t-shirt. No piercings, he tells me he took them out to look more professional. Were his glasses real? We don't talk much. I like him. He looks to me like the guy in TLC's "Waterfalls" video who got AIDS from that woman. We end up going to Shaft. That's like 47 miles away. A man that was wearing high heels fell down the stairs and I get pissed off because nobody helped him up. We're dancing now and the guy I was following pulls something out of his jeans. It's a little bottle, and he puts it to his nose and breathes it in. He offers it to me, and I say, "What's that?" He says, "It'll make you horny." I breathe it in. I get horny. We have some drinks I've never heard of. I remember looking into his eyes. I remember thinking fuck me or kill me, I'm sick of this. We go back to his place, it's like 2 miles. I throw my condom at him, and tell him to put it on me. He does it wrong, but I can fix it. We're having sex now. He puts his penis in my mouth, so I suck on it. I cum 4 times. It is like my butt is sucking his cock. He puts his tongue on my ass and I say, "Oh my God, are you serious?" I cum in his mouth. He cums in my mouth. We cum kiss. I'm having my first kiss now, it's sooo cool. I wipe his cum off my stubbly face with my hand and wipe it all over his stubbly face with my hand. Hands. Touching hands. Reaching out. Touching me. Touching you. I bend over. I'm laying on my back next to him and I feel weird now. Alone Times Square after midnight New Year's Eve. I'm looking at his ceiling fan, and I'm thinking, is this the big deal? Why aren't all guys doing this to each other? I thought men love to have sex. My face in his back now, my hand's on his stomache. He smells good. I think if I'd inhale him, I'd get sloppy and horny. Can he smell himself? I can't smell myself. Sometimes I wonder if I smell good, like all the other guys. I don't believe in cologne for the other guys, but I love good fabric softener. I can't see how hot I am either. I just can't. I make my hand into a fist, and I knock on his body. "Is this the part where I leave?" He tells me yeah, so I leave. I'm at my house now. I walk into my house in tears, shirtless, and I'm covered in glitter. I walk in crying. I've never given myself like that before, I just couldn't do it. I wanna give myself like that now to every man I see. That's my plan. My friends talk with me a lot now about having plans.

***************

Two guys will find each other at the bar. They'll clink beers and talk about A Rod, score white powder from a different place and go back to somebody's place to do what you do with it. I don't really know too much. They'll kiss and suck each other, then fuck, shower, shave each other, then fuck more. And they'll be hairy men, and go to sleep. And that's the part that keeps me up at night. I think about how the guys with mustaches go to bars with Eagle in the name, and meet each other, and go under each other's arms. I lay in my bed, and think about being naked under (his) sheets and looking at his back and the little wrinkles on his neck under his ear and closing my eyes and plunging my face in. I was looking for it one night on Craig's List. I told a friend about it one time. He said, "Well, you're looking in the wrong place. You want the Strictly Platonic board, not Missed Connections." But I thought that's for softball team makers. I want a sexual relationship where everybody loses. On his side of the bed. But most nights I lay on my back in the middle of my bed, watching the fan go around and around.

I don't know if I know much about sex. There should be a porn movie about what not to do. To teach me. But I would like to have sex sometime. I would like my first time to be with a guy. A guy with arms. That would be so awesome. Maybe a guy could teach me. I don't really know what it's gonna be like. I don't know at what point everything becomes in black and white and "Justify My Love" starts playing. Is the first time supposed to be with a stranger, like a threesome? Is it bad if my first date is also my first kiss, my first kiss with a guy, my first blowjob, my first fuck, first base, second base, third base, fourth base, and fifth base? But I know that gay guys fuck each other, and look for sex in the park, wear cockrings and buttplugs to work, want houses with white picket fences and a dog and a kid and fight for their rights and protest until they get them, and I'm telling you I'm not going, wear t-shirts displaying their HIV status, move into bad neighborhoods and paint stuff, and wear jock straps when they don't like softball. I know if my folks think I wanna be anything different, they've got another thing coming. And I don't even know if I'm gay or not.

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids in 3D

2009-11-09T13:41:00.000-05:00

For five years I have been writing a blog that was filled with lie after lie after lie. I used to be one of those internet people that just makes a bunch of shit up. I wrote about a life where I fell asleep on my neighbor's hammocks and fucked their wives and was the boy next door, but I wrote that when I lived in the middle of the woods. I always wanted to be the boy next door, but I was never given the chance. I wrote about the life that I wanted for myself. I wanted to know what life felt like, and I thought if I wrote it down, I could peer pressure myself into running away and making it happen. I thought, if you're method acting, then it's real, right? But it didn't work. I couldn't succumb to my own peer pressure, and I accidentally made some good friends. Which made me feel really bad. I wanna succumb and keep my friends. But I don't wanna make shit up anymore. I sent an e-mail to Rick exposing myself. I got naked. I told him everything, and then he had some questions, so I tried to make myself as available as possible to him so I could tell him everything else. Plus, I just wanted to talk to somebody. The first two posts on this blog are the last two posts from my old blog. They have truth. They're the first two things that I've written that I've ever been proud of, I consider them works of shining achievement. I better learn how to write better. As soon as sent my e-mail to Rick, I upchucked and felt myself get smaller. My hands felt smaller, my arms, and I lost two inches in height. I wanna have a blog where you see a part of me grow bigger. I want to escape. I want to learn how to become a freeman, who I say I am, and I want to show you me becoming that man. I wanna learn how to cook lasagna. I wanna stop cooking with pre-cooked bacon. I need love and help and a shot, I need you to push me, and I need you to know that I won't make shit up anymore. I have a New York Thruway map flipped over and hung in my window to the backyard that says "SEND HELP" that I wanna put in my front window.

My Mom has ways that she can feel and stuff that she can say, but nobody else is allowed to. One of those things is "mentally ill." It makes her really upset when she's described as that. My Mom's nuts. It's so hard for me to explain, and so easy for me to understand if somebody writes a memoir about their Mom who is nuts. I was homeschooled because she was nuts. I moved around to a bunch of states because she was nuts. I'm not really allowed to leave our house because she's nuts. I think Dad is nuts because he let her get so nuts and enabled her nuts. And I think I'm nuts, too, but I'm trying. I wanna run. Rick says I should learn to walk before I run, and by walk I think he means function, how to cook warm meals, and earn a living more than an allowance, but I just wanna skip it. Rick doesn't want me to jump. I want to close my eyes and leap. Everything I know I learned from a book I had when I was a kid about consequences and from the TV. On the TV and in the movies somebody always runs away at the end. But I wanna run at the beginning. I don't know if I'm ready for the world, but every accomplished man I know on TV says you aren't ready for anything until you are. I've never cashed my own check before, but sometimes I know I'm ready. In those times, I think if I can handle this bitch for 22 years, who is gonna fuck with me? I can call my Mom a bitch and you can't. But I don't know if I am ready. I'm kind of a mess. But I think I could be great media executive one day.

This morning, I had a dream where all my wildest dreams came true. I met all my friends in real life, I said, "I'm going to the library, whether you like it or not," and I ran away. And then I woke up. My Mom really resents how I think she's a bitch. When she found my first blog I wasn't supposed to have, she was soo pissed. She was very angry that she told me not to use the computer for talking to strangers and for sharing, and I did. She felt violated for me, and betrayed. Our computer sits on our kitchen table. She said, "I gave you the world sitting on that kitchen table." I've never believed that she was evil or mean. She's sick. It's so hard to explain how whipped I am to sane people. But have you seen it on TV when the mother golden retriever has her puppies and eats them after? The mother dog doesn't have rabies. That's the only way I know how to explain it. I just remembered our dog doesn't know what it's like to be off the leash either.

As soon as sent my e-mail to Rick, I upchucked and felt myself get smaller. My hands felt smaller, my arms, and I lost two inches in height. It felt like a death, a big oops, and I just said to myself, "Now what? What can I build now, for real this time?" Maybe Cool Ryan's not dead. Maybe he's just in a coma. Maybe I'm just in a coma. They say the truth will set you free, but is that really true? I think lying to my Mom and lying to you has kept me in a cage, and I'm not into the kinda thing. I remember sitting on the couch in the family room for supper one time, and Mom said, "My heterosexuality is a handicap, when you really think about it. I love men. But male bodies are ugly. Penises are ugly." I just sat there, without respectfully disagreeing, and I don't know why I did that. Lies are dumb, and liars are unpopular, but they're mistakes you have to grow from. Mom always tells me the story of how she was my age and in the front yard and she got in the car with the 6 guys to get away from her parents, and how she never told her parents. She had to go through that to be able to tell me now to never get into a car with guys.

I gotta pick up my shit and do this. Rick asked me why I still shave my balls. I shave my balls because I can never know if somebody's gonna climb through my window and wanna have sex with me, and because I like my balls. Not shaving my balls feels like a defeatist attitude. And nobody cashes checks anymore. It's weird never having sex, but it's not that bad. I think most people know my parts work. I'm just getting used to the attention. I'm dancing with myself. I'm young so I can still get away with being innocent. And I worry about what my friends think was made up and what wasn't. Like that picture was really me covered in cum. I worry about if my friends think how I thought about them was made up shit. It wasn't. But it's hard for me not to feel like an emasculated loser man. I don't think any amount of surprising "It's okay you made shit up" responses from my people could stop me from feeling like a fucking loser sometimes. I don't think that'll change until I start fucking husbands. I think about what Kanye says. Kanye says, "It's crazy when you go from Joe Blow to everybody on your dick (no homo)," but it's even crazier when you go from everybody on your dick (no homo) to Joe Blow. I don't wanna be the geek that sits around all day writing fan fiction for himself anymore. Some people ask me what I do all day, like my doctor. I say just like prison, I lift weights and do squats. I play with my guitar and try to write songs. I'm a "Blowin' in the Wind" or a "Karma Police" or a "Hey There Delilah" away from funding college. I'm trying. I never saw on TV what happens to the guys after they run away. I wanna know what happens after the guys run. It's my chance. Watch me. I just can't believe this is how it's gonna go out with my family and me.

My Letter.

2009-10-27T18:33:00.001-04:00

I'm not. I never drove around in the car at night listening to Fleet Foxes. I've never been on a motorcycle. Worst of all, I don't have a truck. I don't have a driver's license. I've never rode in a cop car. I've never rode a horse. I told you I was in a car accident last week, and that I hit my head on the wheel and then my headrest, but I was in the backseat and hit my head on the front headrest and then my headrest. I'm not a waiter. I don't have 4 jobs. I've haven't been allowed to work a day in my life. I've never touched a piano. I've never taken hip-hop dance classes.

My friends don't have friends. I've never stolen a Christmas tree for a friend. I haven't had a friend for awhile, since a year when I had many. I've never had anybody to call. I've never been to Manhattan, or Philadelphia, or Montreal, or New Haven, or Providence, or Boston. I've never been to El Pollo Loco or Jamba Juice. I haven't been to Mystic Pizza as much as I said I have. I've never hopped a fence at night. I've never slept on the beach. I've never wasted time on the beach by myself. A girl has never slept on my chest. I've never slept on a girl's chest. I've never been peed on. I've never been to a therapist. I've never been to a black church. I should go.

I never fucked a girl listening to the Doggystyle album. I've never had sex with another person, boy or girl. I've never kissed with anybody. I've never had seven minutes in heaven. I never sexualized Friendly's. I've never cried after having sex. I was never taught how to cook meat, except for the hot dog flavored water. I never sang in the aisle of the grocery store. I want to. I've never been allowed to go into a store by myself. I've never gone anywhere special with just my brother or my Dad, or my Mom. I never saw Titanic at the movies. I watched Final Destination 3 that one night by myself. When things are really bad between my family and me, I never run away. I don't have anyplace to go.

I live in Albany, New York. Gangsta's paradise. I never lived in Connecticut by myself. I lived in Connecticut on my blog so my parents wouldn't find me, and because when my family moved to Vermont from Connecticut, it was the first place I lived that I missed, and I told myself that I would get back one day. What was so special about Hartford was that it wasn't. Telling my parents that New York (City) was my dream, it just seemed so dumb to them. And "selfish" of me.

I don't even have hipster dork glasses. I've never worn a suit. I don't have a good pair of jeans that fit me good. I don't know what it feels like to wear Calvin Klein underwear. I've never asked a random guy to show me how to tie a tie. I've never been to college.

On my blog, I wrote that I had a really bad home life and childhood, and when I turned 18, I got on a bus and went to school and got out. But I couldn't. I been trying, but I can't do it.

I started my blog ~~four~~ five years ago, I think. I wasn't very happy with how my life was working out, and I knew I had to be the one to change it, and I knew that I needed a push to come from somewhere. So I started my blog to make something with my hands, and I thought in some dumb way that if I wrote what I wanted down, that it would happen. That acknowledging it would force me to make it happen. I wrote my blog as the guy I just wanted to be. I never in a million years thought I would get friends out of it. There were so many blogs, and never thought anybody would notice my amateur one. The first time somebody actually read what I wrote and left a comment, it blew my mind. I never knew what to do about it. I thought people could just read it and leave comments and leave. And then I got friends. The only way I know how to help you process all of this is by saying all the good stuff I wrote I made up and all the bad stuff really happened.

And all this stuff is happening now that I wanna tell you about, but I can't. I wanna tell you three weeks ago I was home by myself, and I was on MSN invisible, and you were right there. My family was out looking at a new house in the country to move to, and I just thought, "I'm moving again to a new place (#14) that's not a dorm," and just felt like crying. But I couldn't tell you that, and I didn't want to sign on and tell you anything else, so I just listened to the songs you've sent me. I can't tell you how bad I want to make love to a man now, because you'd ask me why I couldn't just go out and do it. And I can't tell you how much of a knife in my stomache it is for me to read Jack's blog now. I want what he has so much. He's had so many opportunities, and he's a sex god, and his mom believes in him, and his dad's dead. Man, and he's not making it up.

Before all this happened, you couldn't tell me that I was gonna be a liar - like my mother. I would have spit in your face. I would came back to this blog and write that I spit in your face. But that's what I am. I'm just hurting more people. I told you my real name because I wanted to give you something that was real so bad. The reason why it's so easy for me to write posts about you now is because you're real, and all the ways I feel about you I know are real. The reason why my blog is set to private is because I don't wanna do this to anybody else. When we first started talking, I saw you coming a mile away, and I tried to tell you that you couldn't get close to me.

I don't know what I can tell you now. My name really is Ryan. I really am 23 years old. That's really me in the picture I sent you. How I say stuff, how I want to say stuff, what I think about stuff, what I wanna do with my life, who I am. That's the real me. My voice is mine. I ask you to believe that, but I don't know why you should or how you could. I been trying so hard to do what you want me to do for me, but I can't do it. There's all these walls that you've never seen.

I hesitate to tell you so much of this, because I'm scared it's like I want sympathy or something. I don't. It's important for me to say this to you because, if you decide that you never wanna talk to me again (which is okay), I just want you to know what you've meant to me. Everything. And I'm gonna take all the stuff you've said to me with me forever. I think it takes one person to erase everything she's ever said to me, and you're the first. If you still mean it. You've been the only best friend I've had for a very long time. I've wanted to tell you that, too, but I couldn't. I'm so sorry, man. I'm soooo sorry.

RIP cool Ryan. June 2nd, 2005 - October 23rd, 2009. "Clutch first!"

Sometime.

2009-10-22T19:36:00.000-04:00

I'm going to sit down and write this. I think it's gonna suck. Not just what I'm saying, but moreso what I'm saying. I'm going to read this back tomorrow and not know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna be happy with it, but I'm gonna publish it anyway. My main problem with it is gonna be that it's not gonna be as good as my last post about Rick. I might surprise myself. It's almost midnight, and I'm in the kitchen waiting for my Pillsbury cinnamon rolls to finish. I used to have Pillsbury cinnamon rolls on Saturday mornings with cartoons. It's so hard when you're an adult now, and you're in control of the icing, and you know you could throw the rolls away and eat the icing tub. I might lick the fork. You wouldn't know about that right now unless I told you. I'm letting you see me naked. Me writing these days is like stuff in my life. I look forward and take forever, like when I take a shower. If you knew me in real life you might be surprised, because I run everywhere. I never walk to places or crab walk, I run. And I drive really fast. Lots of times I'm on the freeway, and the four right lanes are bumper to bumper, and the fast lane's open. Lots of times, I pull out into the fast lane, pass lots of bumpers, and then wait for somebody who understands to let me back in. And I don't know why everybody else doesn't do it, and I don't know why the bus driver doesn't do it, too. And sometimes I drive in the bus lane. Why can't I write faster? I feel like I'm like a snowy morning, or a nest full of eggs maybe. I like producing as a surprise. I wrote my last post about Rick so fast to me - four weeks. The last post about Rick worked, I think, because I think I showed all my cards. I'm gonna do that with this one, too. I'm gonna show you all my Uno cards.

I wanted to write this one two weeks ago, after I talked to Rick. I always feel like Rick makes posts appear where posts would never be before. We were talking about stuff, and I was kind of crying. Like I'm kind of pregnant. He didn't know it (because I won't let him meet me) until I told him. I was in the kitchen, and I was on my computer crying, and I found out Bounty paper towels are good Kleenexes. I don't think I've cried so randomly since I was listening to The Hold Steady in the traffic that one afternoon last month, or the VH1 Storytellers episode with Bruce Springsteen. I usually cry for reasons. I remember Mr. Springsteen was talking about how he finds lines all the time that he wrote that he wanted to change, but I think they're all perfect. I love "Born to Run." I remember Rick always tells me to write faster, to put out before I think it's okay, and that's how I'll get better at this. I wanna talk to a mathematician about it. I think I'm writing equations, and if they're not done yet, then they're wrong. And then Rick showed me his perfect squares, when the questions and problems all lead back to one thing. Rick wants me to learn how to ask relevant questions. I don't know what relevant questions are, but I might do it by accident and impress him one day. I do that sometimes. I feel like I trip and fall into wisdom, which I wonder if comes with age. Rick teaches me a bunch of new words and stuff to say, and he also teaches me what I should stop saying. I think he thinks I should stop saying "sucks" all the time, because he told me if I'm gay, I'm gonna suck a lot so I should find another verb. I'll try.

Rick wants me to do stuff that I won't do. He wants to meet me. He wants me to stop saying sucks. He wants me to repeat my good lines. I want him to fuck me, but we don't always get what we want. And I don't wanna be the guy that says the same shit all the time. My parents say the same shit all the time. That's the definition of insanity. Everytime he asks why I don't wanna go to his house and meet him tonight, or this weekend, or this month, or this year I say the same thing, which is why I want him to stop asking. He's starting to make my excuses for not meeting him now, my rules for myself, sound way dumb. My excuses for not meeting him now are as follows: I suck. I'm not dating anybody, except if you wanna have sex. I'm scared of friendships, too, because I'm a bad friend because I'm sad all the time. And I disappear. And then you get hurt. I'm really upset with myself right now. I'm no good. I'm bad news. I'm off limits. God, that sounds so dumb. I don't know why I won't go. I don't know why I was crying with him. I told him I homeschooled myself. I don't know, I'm not proud of it. I wonder if he remembered about when I told him about how my kids are going to New York City Public Schools. Everytime I tell people I was homeschooled, after they ask a bunch of questions and get a bunch of answers they don't understand, there's always a pause, and then they say "Oh.... Ohhhhh." If they say "Oh, Jesus" after that, I love them more. My first 22 years of my life I guess have kind of been like being born into a Tom Cruise marriage. There was a good 17 years there when I didn't even know I was miserable. Growing up how I grew, I always know what the extras are - the good stuff, and when you can almost see the big stuff. That's all I wanted. I never dyed my hair black. I never shot up my school. I was homeschooled. I'm trying to be all rainbows. Rick couldn't understand how nobody was around. I remember I graduated high school, I had a 4.0 GPA if you round it up and I was in two honor societies, but nobody noticed. I got one of those "My Child is in an Honor Society" bumper stickers, but Mom didn't wanna put it on the car. I put it on the back of my guitar case. I love walking around and riding the bus with my guitar case, but I don't always have the guitar in it. I am trying to make statements. I ride the bus when I'm not going anywhere. I was on the bus one time and I saw a young guy like me with a bumper sticker on his helmet that said "Proud Parents of National Guardsmen." I instantly wanted to be him. It was impressive. I thought his parents must be dead. And it made me think about how far you can go when you're alone.

If I'm myself, and I'm sitting in traffic, and I wanna pass all the cars with the breakdown lane, but I'm choosing not to, then who's wreck started the gridlock? It really grosses me out that I don't love myself because of my Mom, and my Mom doesn't love herself because of her Mom. It's the same feelings, but I hate how she words her's. She says love me, love me. I say stay away, stay away, stay away. I feel like that's an Enya song. And instead of blaming everybody else, I blame myself. I'm totally different from my Mom. I think I'm trying to write equations, or am I writing proofs? When I do proofs, I raise my hand in class or at home and I say, "I don't know. Help."

It makes me think about an episode of "Doug" again that I've thought about all my life, when Doug goes to Bluffsburg to see The Beats concert. But he gets stranded, and meets a truck driver lady in the diner, who tells him to clutch first. Clutch first. Clutch first. I knew what that meant when I was a kid, but I don't know if I know anymore. Everything got all fucked up later, and for the first time I let it touch me, hold me. And I was taught to drive automatic. If I was dropping you off at your hotel room in the city after a day of hot dogs and McCarren Pool before you fly back to Amsterdam because you are cool, and it was late at night and the streets were black and shiny because it had just rained but it wasn't raining now, and we were a little wet, and I was hugging you before you walked in and went up, I would probably have a vulnerable moment and whisper "I am so lonely" in your ear, and say oops. This chapter is not unrelated to me wanting to date somebody real bad. But I don't. I've been in relationships where I've been the guy. Relationships where I take care of the girl, and hurt people who treat her not good, and then we go to sleep and my arm's around her. I loved that. I want an arm around me now. But I don't. I used to want to take care of a girl, but I don't want that anymore.

I've been like this with guys before. The authentic Ryan is supposed to be asked once, and flies to Amsterdam for a weekend of hot sex and cries on the whole plane ride home, and that's not happening anymore. And that sucks. I'm the kid who's scared of public speaking, and picked a major which I would later find out was made of a whole bunch of public speaking classes. I got up there and I didn't think about what I was gonna say before I said it, and I said something I didn't know I was gonna say until I said it, and everybody liked me afterwords and it was over. What's wrong with me? Why am I losing myself? Why am I thinking? I drive over the Tappan Zee Bridge all the time and I see the Life Is Worth Living sign, and I drive right past it. I know that only I can prevent forest fires. If I was crying outside of the hospital because some guy got hit by a bus saving my life, and you were a cancer lady with a wrap on your head and came out and told me to get up, my authentic self would get up. If you then told me to get a life, my authentic self would turn and walk. But right now, I think I would fight you. I wanna turn the shower on hot, and get in with my clothes on and let the hot water go everywhere all over just to mess up my rules. It's not real leather.

Rick told me I was curious about what he looked and sounded like, and he was right, and what an upper middle class intellectual's world is like, which I don't know, and how his house feels like and what else he can give me. I do wanna meet him. I wanna go see him. I wanna find him. I don't want him to find me. I wanna make it to him. I thought it would be cool if I stopped at J+R Music and Computer World along the way, and gave him a digital TV tuner when I showed up. He told me he didn't have one. I thought it would be cool if he gave me books, then I gave him TV. How do you learn when you don't have a television? How do you know who to vote for? He has given me and attempted to give me so much, and it would make me feel better if I could do something for him. All I have to offer is my body. I am curious about if he has a mustache, and what kind of Steinway he has. The only one I know of is the L1037 concert one. But it would be okay if he doesn't have that one. I don't think he uses different forks for different foods. I used to have to do that when I was a kid. He wants to show me books when he meets me, but I want to hold him. But I don't. I want him to put whatever in my butt. I want to him to tie me up and blindfold me. No, I want him to blindfold me and tie me up. I want him to hold me. I want him to make me cum. I want him to MAKE me cum. But he's gonna read this, because I'm gonna e-mail it to him, and I don't want to make his no sex on the first date plans harder. I'm such a fuck-up. I'm such a young and confused fuck-up. I can't figure out what I want Rick to be to me. I don't know if I want him to be my Dad or my lover, or my friend or my friend with benefits. I wish he was my father, but I wanna be able to have sex with him. I've always thought the opposite of not seeing somebody was sleeping with them, so I wanna do that. I was thinking about this the other day. I was laying in the back of my pick-up truck in traffic in the breakdown lane, and I was thinking "inside of me" sounds like sodomy when you say it Southern. I don't even really know if he's hot. I know he's gay. I've seen a bunch of gay guys before. I wanna know what he smells like. I wonder if he wears Stetson. But I think he's too smart for that. I wear Stetson. I wonder if he'll like my smile. If we met, I think I'd be smiling after I finished crying. I wonder if my mouth feels good on his neck. I wonder if he gets up to go to the office in the morning and puts on a white button-down shirt, and then comes home and wears it all day. I wonder if he puts a sweater on top and lets the button-down shirt collar pop out, which I like when other guys do. I wonder what milk he likes. I wonder if he buys the blue cap milk or the yellow cap or the green cap. No I don't. That's stupid. I wish he would stop thinking about me. But I think I really, really, really, really like that he does.

He started talking about me growing up, how I was and right now I think. He started talking about adults who spotted something worth a damn in me who tried to take care of me, to get the doors unstuck and to show me good things, and that I wouldn't let them. He was very, very wrong for the first time, and I just started crying. I felt like "dude... no," and I said that, and I decided to tell him I was crying. I didn't even know why I was. "Because I'm asking hard questions. Because you have this awareness of how much time you have wasted. Because you really don't know how to get of the entrapped rut you are in." He was right again, and I just cried harder. I'm no good. I'm bad news. I'm off limits. He told me something like "I've never told you I love you. It's not a word I throw around loosely, but." I don't know how that sentence ended because the Christmas lights in my head shut off. I'm so scared he's gonna die before I meet him. I keep watching the news and people are dying. The ages are 74, 62, 115, 14. Mary Travers from Jesus, Mary, and Joseph died a couple weeks ago. I don't know who she is, but she was 72. Rick's 69. Rick says he's 69 fucking years old all the time. I heard John Travolta on the TV say that New Yorkers use fucking for emphasis. But ever since I've met him halfway I haven't felt like a suicidal guy anymore. I've already begun composition on my memorial service speech for his, which I hope he doesn't make me do. But I'll do it if he makes me do it. I walk up on stage or whatever and see a bunch of people who don't know me. I wonder if they wonder if Rick and I were fucking. I look out into the audience and I think, "Oh my God, Respected News Lady." The first thing I think of to say to them is "This is gonna suck." I wanna let them know that I am one of them, so I say "Rick made me watch Into The Woods." I don't wanna say the rest that I'd say. We often times don't tell the guys we love how we really feel while they're alive. Oops.

Has anybody ever seen the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back? How does she do it?

There is a pattern in my friendships for me to go poof. It starts with this feeling of impending doom, then there's this scene in slow-motion when I can dodge bad things, and I just sort of throw all my friends out of the moving car before I know I'm gonna crash. If all friendships must expire, then I don't wanna use Rick up now. I wanna save him for later, for when I'm a cool guy. But I think Rick disagrees with me. I think he thinks I could use him now. And I think he knows all my moves. I say don't get close, and I spill my guts to him. I start to turn away, but he won't let me. I think he is one of two people in my life who refuse to let me out of their lives. He makes me check in with him, but I don't think he makes me. I think it's just me. And sometimes, he puts my friendship impotence on himself, which I won't let happen. I feel like the phrase "stage five clinger" has a negative connotation, but I really, really appreciate this smart, eggheaded man. In spite of myself. I love how Rick rides my ass. I told him I've made up my mind, for now. He sent me a song about not making up my mind. I'm at war with myself. So what if I wait till I lose it. I'll lose, and then I'll knock on his door. I'll say that's it I quit I'm moving on. I'm gonna sit in the gridlock for awhile. Then I'm gonna run. I hope he waits for me. I hope he doesn't ever get sick of me. Because I'm worth it. Maybe this time I'll be lucky. Maybe this time he'll stay. Maybe this time, for the first time, love won't hurry away. He will hold me fast. I'll be home at last. Not a loser anymore, like the last time. And the time before. Everybody loves a winner. So nobody loved me. Lady Peaceful, Lady Happy. That's what I long to be. All the odds are in my favor.Something's bound to begin. It's gotta happen. Happen sometime. Maybe this time I'll win.

Therefore I Am.

2009-08-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

I wanna write about me writing. I need to write more. A lot of people say this to me, but I don't listen. I know this guy Rick who lives in New York City, and he knows about a lot of stuff that I don't know about. Over the last month we've known each other, he's told me to write, too. He's told me to write a lot. Rick has told to do a lot of things these days that I've done. I do most pretty much everything Rick tells me to do, so I'm gonna try this, too. I been thinking about this question a lot: Who am I but the heart I have inside my chest, and the old people who take a chance on me, and the smart people who show me how? Sometimes when I walk up and down the aisles at Whole Foods or when I look up at the clouds in the sky, I have a look on my face like I'm looking for something, but I don't know what. My friends disagree with me on this, but I think I don't know anything. And I wanna know about stuff. I wanna touch things and taste things and feel what it does to me. Rick says I'm so ignorant I'm inspiring, that I help him remember what he's found. When we first started talking, Rick told me a bunch of private stuff, and I told him some private stuff. Then he told me some secret stuff, and I googled him one time and I saw that the private stuff wasn't there. Then I thought that I could potentially ruin his life if I wanted to or embarrass him real bad, so I told him secret, private stuff. I strive for equality for everybody. If I go down, everybody goes down. Rick talks to me.

Rick says I'm full of ambivalence. I didn't know what that word meant, so I looked it up, and Rick told me that it was a good word for me to know. I've recently started looking up words I don't know, before I start using them. "Compunction," for example, is one of my favorite Southern words I don't know what means. I think it means girls, the for marrying kind. I think smart people have a word for that, too. "Daft." I have a bunch of favorite Southern words with "uhh" in them. When I moved up here, I just got kind of used to people using big words around me. I never questioned it, and I realize now that was wrong. Rick gives me so many words to look up. Rick gives me tons of stuff to listen to, too, and sometimes it's just advice. I trust him. When he messes up a word, I think it's a new word. Rick gave me a satirical comedic cabaret collective's music from England that's fucking awesome. He told me, one time the band came to the city, and he e-mailed them and requested that they put one of his favorite songs in the show - and they did! I didn't know you could talk to famous people. Rick's talked to famous people I don't know a bunch of times. And after knowing me for one day, Rick strongly suggested I watch the DVD production of Steven Sondheim's Broadway musical Into The Woods. Fearing being cut off, I listened. I found it in my mailbox and took it inside in my backpack. I didn't tell my friends about it, I wanted to be the first to watch it. Into The Woods is loosely based on a true story of Sondheim's childhood. It's about Bernadette Peters, who's a horrible witch, and Bernadette's daughter that she kind of adopted and made her stay up in the tower for all her life and all Bernadette's daughter wants to do is come down and be with the guy with the voice (at least that's what he wants), meanwhile Jack is out climbing beanstalks and having fun, and he loves his Mom. One day, Bernadette's daughter drops dead, and THEN the witch gets it. I don't know what to say about it, other than Bernadette Peters is a horrible person, and when I juxtapose with family life right now, I cried a lot at the end. Everybody sings at the end. I don't know if juxtapose is the right word. And then there was Edith Piaf, Jean Cocteau who died on the same day as Edith Piaf, some guy named Raymond Radiguet who hung out with him and Picasso, Tom Lehrer, Kurt Weill, and Brecht. Rick introduces me to new and exciting people that I don't know.

Like Mozart. Rick wants me to try Mozart, but he says I'm not ready. He doesn't know that I love Debussy and Muse. Rick's showed me new writers, and methods, and childhood psychological behavioral complexes, and music, and places on the map I have never ever heard of before, and they've been around since before the war. I found out that there was three partitions to Poland, not two. I learned that musical theater isn't just for gay men even though a lot of gay men enjoy and make it. And I found out that iPods don't have Broadway equalizer settings, and that Broadway shows sound best set on Hip-Hop. This feeling I feel is not unlike going to Little Mermaid's house or Fire Island. And it flows into other stuff. The other night I was babysitting a friend's little girls and those girls showed me the good songs of the Jonas Brothers. I just thought how did the music take so long to find me? And does other stuff go over my head? I thought it's amazing and good to be so young and to not know anything. When I was 17, I thought I knew everything. I used to say "I see all, I hear all, I know all" all the time. Maybe I have early Alzheimer's.

I used to be proud of myself for knowing who Erik B and Rakim were. That feeling hasn't gone away, I'm just more proud of me now. When Rick wants to show me something, he asks me if I know it, and then I say no, and then he shows me and most times I like it, but sometimes I love it. One time I hated it. Then I run back and tell this to him, and then he says I get it and then he says (and this is my favorite part) that that thrills him, and when he says that I hear a song in my head that's like I just leveled up in the Legend of Zelda. Now he skips the if I know it part and goes straight to the showing - if I write. I'm supposed to find him really annoying, but I just don't. I have this thought that one day I might be in his apartment because I can now only produce under his guidance. And I'm sitting on his couch (do people in the city have couches?) and I'm typing on my roommate's IBM ThinkPad , which has an important, typewriter feel to it. I'm wearing my writer uniform. I'm wearing good blue jeans, no shoes, no socks, no shirt, no watch, my thick and black framed hipster dork glasses. One of his kids walks through the front door, and I'm just like, "We're not fucking." Hipster dork glasses are my day look. Aviator sunglasses are my night look. I have to wear my glasses when I wanna read or write. You'd think I'd be wearing my hipster glasses all the time, but I actually never read. I have this vision of me playing on his piano like he trained me, and somebody knocks on the door, and I think, "Oh my God, that's the godparent of your kids Respected Famous Lady," and I get nervous and I get under the piano. I wish Rick was my Dad. I don't think he would think I should wish for that, but I do. I think he said one time that he hasn't been that great of a Dad, and I choose to disregard this information. He has better gay sex advice than my Dad. At least Rick told me he was gay. At least Rick's rich. That's not right, I don't really care about money. But at least I wouldn't have had to pay for and choose my college applications myself. He said something a couple weeks ago that kind of scared me, he said he puts a stick of butter in everything he cooks. I hope he doesn't die. My Mom's half dead and I don't even care. That's how nice he is. I'm already kind of putting Rick in the surrogate father role. I don't know if he's crazy about that. If I have surrogate fathers doesn't mean I want one, because I don't. But Rick helps me out, and says nice stuff to me and not so nice stuff when I ask for it. And I will listen to him. I wish I had two Dads.

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“To write one good short story, you’re probably going to write about nine bad ones. You have to enjoy the mistakes and failures and misfires and realize writing is all about one thing: trial and error.” Writer Joe Meno said that. Who's Joe Meno? I thought he was gonna say it was all about comments. I want to write. I sit at my computer in the morning. I want to write, but the words don't come, so I watch porn. Maybe I have performance anxiety. I see Robitussin Vitamin C drops in my medicine cabinet everyday when I get the lube, and I say to myself, "I am going to suck on one of those today." But I been saying that for the last 14 days. How hard is it to put something in my mouth and suck on it? What if I don't get my talent back until I get struck by lightening again? What if I'm like the dog pooping, and there has to be a light breeze and nice music playing for me to write? Did I hit my peak when I wrote my butt post last year? In school I had to write a poem. In all the school years including college there's always a teacher that makes me write a poem. In school, I had deadlines. I've studied poetry, and I've noticed common characteristics, and I applied those common traits to my poems. In my poem, I wrote four lines for every part, except for every other other part which had two. I wrote a bunch of really long sentences, and I put a bunch of commas in it, lines ended in the pattern of comma, period, comma, period, and so on. And I pressed the space bar at curious times - leaving my reader wanting more. And for the last part, the subject, I didn't know what I was talking about. The teachers gave me B's. I always got a B, I never could get better because I didn't know what I was doing, and all the elementary teachers said was "good." With my book, I know what I'm doing so much that nobody knows what I'm talking about sometimes. I don't study books too much, but I know what I want.

It amazes me when people who read books or teach people how to read tell me to write. My guy friend Evan told me to write a book, and he told me I was just like the guy in The Rules of Attraction. I've gotten called Sean Bateman a couple times, but I've never read the book, so I watched the movie. I was kind of upset about it. It seemed like Sean Bateman was a sexually confused asshole. But Evan said I was like Victor. In the movie, Victor flies to Heathrow, and goes from the ugliest hostel to the most beautiful hotel in the world. He buys CDs at Virgin Megastore, and follows girls with pink hair, finds out the Ministry of Sound sucks, goes to gay night at Renform, and finds the one girl who likes guys, and they suck toes and fuck, sees Big Ben and meets Paul Oakenfold, writes his Mom a postcard he never sends. And it rained a lot. And then he goes to Amsterdam, visits a sex show, visits the sex museum, drinks absinthe at a bar called Absinthe, lots of Van Gohs, and the Vermeers were intense. He ate intense waffles. He meets a girl who reminds him of Laura, cums on her, and they make small talk about AIDS, and he pretends to ice skate around Central Station while somebody plays the sax, and then he goes to Paris with the Kiwi girl and meets the model who tugs his cock at the Marriot Champs-Elysees, which is good. Went shopping, she gave him mono. He hears the bells in Cata Cruz. Rachel Lee Cook calls him a capitalist. He rides to Florence with the Polanski threesome people. Then there's a bomb! Rome's like L.A. with ruins. He was gonna fuck two girls, but he buys ice cream instead. He tries to fart and shits his pants. Masturbates in the shower. Jacks off on a girl who lets him. And then he's all Who Am I? What Am I? Am I like that for real? Evan thinks I would write a good book, and he works in a book factory. Goddamn, that's so cool of him to think. And the girl at the jail who said I was like The Catcher and the Rye. I've never read that. I've got it in my car, but I can't read it. So many people have told me I'm just like it. I'm scared it will change me.

It's not that I wanna be ugly writer man living in the Flatiron District with my hot model wife. I know that's not me. I am daft. I know I'm not gonna be R.L. Stine. I want it to be my second job, it's not that I don't want to write. I've put together the basic construction for four chapters of my first memoir in my head. Sometimes I can't write, so I just live. Maybe I have adult autism. But sometimes it comes out of me. I wrote a really great run-on sentence a couple weeks ago with commas in the memo place on a check, which was awesome. When that happens, I feel like God did it. It doesn't even feel like I made it, it wasn't me. It's too special. I don't even think I'm writing this, I think I'm possessed right now. I been writing my book in my head for about five years, while living my life, too. But my book lacks direction, which I think is a good thing. My book's sweet, but it's a little confused. My book is not ready for mass consumption. My book's got some secrets. My book has depressing first chapters, but you just gotta get through it. Some people burned my book. My book's hardcover, and somebody carved out the middle and hid keys inside. I think my book just wants to go on tour. My bed is one of my most creative places. The bathroom is, too. I been eating lunch in the bathroom stall since high school. Sleeping with me is no fun when I'm writing. I work all night at the Cracker Barrel flirting with people, and when I get home I wanna take a shower, fuck, fuck in the shower, and go to sleep and that's when I have a creative break. I smell the pillow and somebody's hair, and smile and think about stuff, and turn the light on and write stuff down. But sometimes I can't sleep, and then I can't write. I just think about other stuff, and it's all not good. I think about how they say men are bred to have sex with a bunch of girls because we're genetically programmed to spread our seed in order to reproduce and evolve. I think about those flowers I pick off the front yard and blow away. I think about standing on my front porch and just cumming on everything. I think about monogamy. I wonder if the flower feels it. It used to be so easy to not think, and just write, but ever since Rick has got me reading Mr. Kurt Vonnegut it's hard. What if I'm changing? That makes me scared. Excited and scared. I've never done anything like this before. I heard from my old friends what happened to the Thinker, that he thought himself to stone. I think Rick thinks I should suck cock because I've been thinking about it, so I'm gonna try that, too.

Sometimes I think. But I have trouble making my thoughts bigger. Like, I think about if Buzz Aldrin can still get it up. I think about how the marketing for Miller High Life beer is all wrong. My Marketing teacher said I was "really good." I think about the Shamwow. I think if it's a shammy and a towel, why don't they call it Shamtowel? I think about "Nothing comes between me and my Calvin's." That's like saying, "I'm not wearing any underwear." And I think about the Mega Millions lottery. And I wonder what's the point of buying tickets when it's not over 100 million dollars? Why buy tickets when it's just 12 million dollars? But I feel like everybody excepts everything to be long with me. And I think about Jenny McCarthy, and how great she is. I can totally imagine Jenny and Jim Carrey having sex. Do you think it's funny when they have sex? Or is it like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And I think about stuff I've already wrote about, like how I felt when I first saw the buildings. I keep feeling that feeling. I always try to write stuff that makes for a good record for the aliens after us. I always try to write like you wish I was your best friend. I end up writing like I wish I was your best friend.

It would be so cool if they let me write for New York Magazine. It's perfect because it's not sold in counties my parents go. I don't know if people do this, but I wanna write in the New York Magazine building. What happens when I have a deadline and nothing to write about? I'm going to write about having a deadline, having nothing to write about, and how that makes me feel. I have nothing, but I need something. I want that need to be felt in my writing, so I hope it does. It's pretty much awesome when you get back to that kid feeling of knowing that there's a whole big world out there. I've never seen any of it, but there's gotta be. It's like my talent. I think I just have respect. Nathan's Dad Georges invited me over to his house a couple days ago, and introduced me to his friends (whom are cool) as a writer. I almost decked him.

If Rick really wants me to put out, he should tell me my writing's awesome and he hates reading it and I have no voice. I just don't know how to get over the hump this time. I've done it before, though. I thought "I can't do it." I used to be able to not pee in front of other people, but I drank more beer and kept trying and got better. Now I pee in front of other people all the time, like at the club. And I used to be able to not cum in the shower. But then I got used to pussy juice in the vulva and now I love having sex with myself in the shower. I just have to get better, change. You know, "Man in the Mirror," and stuff. "And I used to be able to not cum in the shower." I write stuff like that and I worry about if people think it's bad grammar, but I'm going for cute boy with jacked teeth. I have good intentions. I think that's what Huckleberry Finn was all about. I wonder if my writing voice will translate well to French. I still can't pee in the shower. But I'll try. My favorite part of writing, my favorite feeling on Earth, is when I make something that wasn't here a couple weeks ago that doesn't suck and I wanna run and show it to people, like this post. Please don't say this sucks. Sometimes I write a lot and have creative breaks when Rick doesn't e-mail me for awhile, because I don't know why. I would never admit this to him of course, so I should probably backspace this sometime. I need to think of a new thing to write here.

Rick told me one thing that I've been thinking about a lot. He told me, "When a man is fucked, it is like finding yourself (me) in the bottom of a clear river. If you (I) panic and attempt to breath through your lungs, you will drown. If you relax and accept the fact that you are now a fish, you will breath like a fish and, like a fairy tale figure, will survive." I always have stuff Rick says in my head. I think, "Okay, so lie like a fish. I can do it." I think, "Just write. Just write. Work out your muscles. An actor acts, a cook cooks, a writer writes. Don't be ostensible. Taste cock. Extricate, extricate, extricate." One of my girl friends says, "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am. I am. I am," all the time, and I say that, too, sometimes. Rick says I'm so ignorant I'm inspiring, and that makes me smile because it makes me feel like I've got a lot to learn and I'm not done and I'm not old. "You've got a lot to learn" is the best compliment ever. And I now know that knowing is not the same as learning. It's like how I knew cum wasn't water-soluble. There's a whole lot of Rick in this post, so I'm gonna ask him to approve of it before I post it. I think he's inspiring. I wanna stop being taught just from fat lips, and I wanna learn by choice. Like Martin Luther told me, I wanna be the best bush I can be. I should let people taste me, too. And stop protecting them from me. And I wanna to start dating musicians again. No more sad songs written about me. So if you see me under the clouds in the sky sitting on the quad with my hipster dork glasses reading The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, don't judge me. I feel compelled to say "I haven't changed. I'm still me," but that's not what I wanna say. I'll let you know what I wanna say when I find me. I just don't have the words.