Currently Listening Defixiones: Will and Testament, Orders from the Dead By Diamanda Galás see related

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WOW I'm really bad at this blogging thing. It's been two weeks since I've written but that's because soooo much has happened. Okay, not really.

But I have been doing a lot of yoga and that's fun. I inadvertently went to a more spiritually oriented class the other day and the instructor kicked it off with the promise that the practice would change the color of our auras. "To what?" a homosexual asked me later. "Mmmm, kind of an off-white," I said. Speaking of off whites, there was a woman at the class who was that particular type of New Age person who sighs whenever she hears something she deems profound. So occasionally when the instructor was speaking, she'd coo, "mmmmm, mhm. I like that,"  in a fashion that suggested more cunnilingus than Kundalini. 

Call me square but I don't think that the students should talk unless they're called on. The class was intended to be meditative, but I couldn't maintain my focus for all her moaning. She topped it off by singing the ending prayer (yes, the class involved singing) so breathtakingly out of tune that it created a very strange and disturbing echo throughout the studio. It was like Diamanda Galas had snuck in for the big finale when we all had our eyes closed. I stopped mid-ohm and tried, oh how I tried, not to giggle or smile. It was a true test of control, which I suppose is what yoga's all about.

The other thing I've been doing is listening to my neighbors. I'm within earshot of three households of women under the age of 25. That's bad news for someone who gets paid for concentrating. They squeal on the phone a lot and sometimes use baby-talk. I'm not fond of baby-talk. I'm really not enjoying the current urban music trend of calling women "baby girls". What woman in her right mind would want to be called that? You can, however, feel free to call me Mr. Baby Girl. Maybe Sergeant Baby Girl. I might try that on gay.com.

Anyway, there's one neighbor in particular who could drive me to chew off my ear. She sits on her patio and smokes and talks on her phone. Because there's a fence between my bedroom window and that patio, I've never actually seen her. I know her hair color though, I heard her squealing one day, "No, Heather, I'm just as hairy as you are it's just that my hair is blonde." That's sound logic. One of her favorite things to say is, "Shut up, Heather". It's meant to be playful and facetious. I pray that someday Heather takes her seriously and hangs up the phone. On a more serious occasion the said neighbor got in a fight with her boyfriend and screamed (from what must have been inches from my window), "You're not listening to me!!!! You never listen to me!!!" Ahhh but you're wrong. Unfortunately, I do little else.

HIPS OR LIPS

             The gays pride weekend found me in a variety of different scenes in which the proud gays were doing their cruisings. I don't do the cruisings.  That's certainly not because I'm above the notion, I'm just fixated on one individual at this point. But even when I haven't been fixated I've been a terrible cruiser.  I just can't stomach the idea of interacting so closely with strangers, especially strangers who want to touch my penis. I don't do well that immediate intimacy, even if it's strictly physical. I'm the kind of person who rejoiced at the arrival of atms and voice-recognition telephone systems. I don't need the down-homey, country-folk, old-time ways of personal contact. In my mind, "strangers" should be just that. So on those occasions when a gay leers at me, I'm about as comfortable as an anorexic at a smorgasbord. And the way the gays do it is so odd. I guess it represents desire but to me that facial expression looks like a prelude to a mauling. It reminds me of those scenes from cartoons where a hungry character looks at another character and sees a roasted turkey in their place. On more than one occasion I've gotten motion sickness in the tangled circle of a sex club while trying to flee the piercing eye of some suitor.

            And as someone who lives almost entirely for the pleasures of conversation, the notion of silently disappearing into a dark corner with a total stranger is terrifying. What if they're Republican? Or a Dave Mathews fan?  I mean I know it's bad to be judgmental, but it's worse to be a judgmental without full access to the data.

            Along those lines, I tried the online cruisings for a while and that was a dismal failure. I couldn't face the fact that most members of our vibrant community would initiate a conversation with "Sup?" To be fair, I also couldn't deal with how swift and merciless the rejection was in the truck stops of the information superhighway. After a while I gave up on the opportunities for sex and began running little experiments in my local chat room. You would be amazed how many instant messages you can elicit with the simple phrase "Eastern European mechanic".  I also got kind of vindictive. There was this one guy who had rejected me once on the basis of a face picture I had sent him. He came biting at my bait again later when I had a new name and description. He asked again for a picture. I sent him a photo of a retarded man in a Halloween costume and messaged him, "Are you still up for it cause I'm ready to go?" He didn't respond.

            Pride: a deeper love.