The Return Of The Emotionless Robot

The first time my parents came to visit me at Torpor Heights boarding school, my dorm adviser told my parents that I had the sort of personality that adjusted well to change.  "Everything that happen.  It is like nothing to him.  Is just.  Day."  And, broken English aside, she wasn't wrong.

Wherever I wake up is where I am, and there's nothing that can be done about it.  Oh, I can make sure I'm somewhere else in a few minutes, an hour, a day or so.  But that's the future.  The present is completely beyond your control.  It's like the past, but harder to ignore.

In my current present, I'm sitting in front of a fan in the living room of The Yoda Louise Vader Memorial Cafegymtorium, which is the name I've given to the house I've been living in for the last year.  Tomorrow I work in both the comic book store, and at the bar.  Thursday I interview potential new roommates: a pair of friends from Mission Hill, a poetry reviewer (no shit) who already lives in this neighborhood, a "free-spirited artist", and a 21 year old gay kid on disability for psychological problems.  The last one is just like Sora, but with an income.

Any potential roommate has a lot to live up to.  My most recently previoused roommates: Don, and Ms. Gibbons  were roommates you're just going to have to read about to believe.  Not only were all our bills paid on time but we never had any epic battles over dishes or thermostats, and Ms. Gibbons didn't even steal my TV on the way out like that awful Thai tranny drug addict, Divine, that I lived with on Mission Hill.

"Frankly," Bacchus said, as he sprawled across my chest, "I don't know how you can trust trannies anymore."

I wrinkled my eyebrows at him.  "It wasn't the trannie part of him that stole my TV.  It was the drug addict.  Or possibly the Asian part."

It was Bacchus's turn to shoot a funny look.  Unfortunately, he was not gifted with the proper genetics for facial grammar.  "Then I guess you'd better keep an eye on me when I go home tomorrow."

Bacchus was the man of the moment.  It was the summer of 2008.  I was living in Somerville, and had spent the winter dating and then not dating and then dating and not dating Sora, among other people.  Spring had much the same feel to it.  And I spent July preparing for August, where I drove to Madison with Mazarine and did some poetry things, and some insafemodey things.  And when I came home, I found an e-mail reply to a hardly used personal ad that sounded promising.

Like all solid relationships, ours began when Bacchus pulled his car into my driveway at 2:30 in the morning.  We talked, made out, and tried, unsuccessfully to reproduce.  But we had enough fun that we tried it again a couple of times for good measure.

This ritual went on for a couple of weeks.  And while we confined our recreational activities to my bedroom, we often cuddled on the couch in the living room, watching American Gladiators with my roommates or just hanging out by ourselves watching the shadows charcoal the wall.

"I like him."  The least combative of my roommates, Byrne, said.  "He's a refreshing change of pace from Sora."

"How so?" I asked.

"I dunno.  I guess it's just nice that you're dating the God Of Wine now, as opposed to the God of Whine."

"I...ok."

The following night was the premiere of The Comedy Central Roast Of Bob Saget.  The entire household: me, Mike, Byrne, and the other roommate were all going to watch it together.  I invited Bacchus to join us, and about ten minutes before the show was about to start, I saw his car pull into the driveway.  I tried to hide my goofy grin when the front doorbell rang.  "The back door is open."  I said.  "I don't know why--" and I opened the door to see a Chinese man holding a paper bag.  I had been hoping to see a Vietnamese man holding a bottle of vodka.  "Huh."  I said.  "Wrong Asian."

Bacchus was in the kitchen, and he was trying his damnedest to give me a dirty look but his face was refusing to cooperate.

Byrne paid the Chinese guy n the front porch for his bag of fried food, and we all sat down for the comedy stylings of Jeff Ross, Greg Giraldo, John Stamos, Gilbert Gottfreid, and Norm Macdonald.  During one of the commercial breaks, Byrne excused himself to go to the bathroom when a series of explosions went off in front of our front door.

"HEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!   HEY YOU FUCKEN FUCKERS!!!  OPEN THE FUCKEN DOOR!!!!"  Then the crash of fists being drunk driven into our front door.  "OPEN UP!!!"

The room froze.  Bacchus sat up with a face that nearly expressed concern.  Byrne appeared in the hallway, staring at the door.  Mike let out a "What the fuck?"  And I, because the moment was now, and there really wasn't anything else for me to do but be present for it, stood up, and walked over to the door.

I just spent another weekish with my crazy, racist, grandmother, in which she pointed out that the spokesman for Allstate Insurance should be on a TV program because "he's a good actor...for a colored." Watching TV with her is the most frustrating experience that doesn't involve sexual tension. Every program is "nuts...who comes up with this?", and she has experience with every product they have a commercial for, and none of them do what they're supposed to do. And and and and and and and and. I wanted to throw her yappy little dog at her. And she's my favorite living person in my family.

Also, I'm waiting tables again. And my job REQUIRES ME TO DRINK BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER MY SHIFT, and I don't have to wear my fake breasts and give jello shots. After my excruciating final day with my grandmother, I went into work, and was asked if I'd like a shot. I said "Sure. Southern Comfort." I was asked "Sip it or slam it?" I said "Slam it" (stupid subconscious poetry reference), so the bartender handed me a pint glass filled with Southern Comfort. "Uhhhh. If I'm going to slam this, I'm going to need a serious chaser. Like a two liter bottle of Coke." "Done." So, I took it down in four back-to-back-to-back-to-back gulps. And THEN I waited tables. And then we closed the bar and did more shots.

I used to give my roommates, Celeste and Sir Trick, who were a couple, a hard time because every week or so I'd need to take a piss while they were busy fucking in the shower. When my boyfriend, Sora, moved in, I had to decide whether to take the high road, and not seek vengeance by long shower-fuck sessions, or take the low road, and see if we could make more noise.

For once in my life, I took the high road.

Apart from a couple of noise battles (when you try to prove how much better your sex is by increasing the volume of moans, shouts, and smack noises), we tended to let our sex remain private.

One afternoon, Sora and I were in the kitchen arguing over something stupid, and we heard the roommates getting it on. We ignored it. And after a half hour or so, Celeste came into the kitchen, with a huge glob of come on the front of her shirt. Sora and I contained most of our laughter, and didn't even say anything when she said "Oh my god, dude!", turned around, and ran into her room to change her shirt.

Later that night, after drinking enough Coronas to be declared official citizens of Mexico, Sora and I stumbled into our room for some loud, sloppy, lights out, almost sex. Because Sora had a nasty habit of falling directly asleep after orgasm, we had a standing/sitting/laying down agreement that I always got to come first. So I did. Once devoid of sperm, I knelt down to reciprocate, and Sora promptly rammed his cock into my nose. After the requisite name calling (I chose douchenozzle for this particular occasion) and ass smackage, I forged ahead with the fellatio.

Once he'd come, we made out for a bit, and then Sora decided to take a shower before he fell asleep. He threw a towel around his waist, and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He was too tired to hear the water running, so when he opened the door, the apartment was filled with all three of my roommates screaming. Sora screamed because he'd walked in on Celeste and Trick's shower sex, and Celeste and Sir Trick screamed because Sora's face and belly were covered in blood. Apparently, he'd rammed my nose harder than either of us had realized.

The next day we put memo boards up on our bedroom doors, and the bathroom with "Occupied" and "Vacant" signs.

Before leaving for New York, Ben and I were eating breakfast at our favorite diner, when he said: "You always order the Eggs Benedict, and you manage to get like three quarters of the way through breakfast without cracking the yokes. That's damned impressive."

Later that night, during a poetry event, Zuzu asks "Are you aware of how many times you mention Ben's name in a sentence."

"Only about once a sentence, thank you. It's just that I usually run said Ben sentences together."

My grandmother called today to let me know that my grandfather just got out of the hospital, and that my dad, who I haven't seen since...let's not speculate on that one...is staying with them for a while. So I'm going to Connecticut. Connecticut, place of my birth and adoption, where I nearly grew up, but for my father being transferred to Cape Cod when I was six.

Ben plans on arriving sometime early this morning, possibly giving him enough time to sleep before he goes to work. I leave at fuckall o'clock tomorrow morning, so that my grandmother can cook a meal large enough to cover the two years since we've seen each other: potato pancakes, waffles, bacon, and Eggs Benedict.

There's a variety of reasons why I haven't gone to visit them since I moved back from Arifuckenzona. They've been dealing with a sick relative (my not so great great uncle), selling off a house (my great grandparents'), and spending as much time waxing the floors of God's house as their local church allows. I've been busy with work, moving, writing, sodomy, and coming up with excuses why I can't go visit them. There's never enough time. But there's nothing like the possibility of imminent death to inspire family members to take personal time off from work to de-guiltify.

Before I go, I make a run to the grocery store to buy jello, soy milk, and rice. Things Ben likes that I don't. It doesn't occur to me until I'm back at the house that I'm hungry but I haven't bought anything for me. I don't know whether I neglected to buy groceries for me because I knew I was leaving tomorrow and didn't want to waste money or because I've never been good at putting myself before others. You're more or less than welcome to draw your own conclusions, just draw them with pencil because you may change your mind later.

Celeste calls during my walk home to let me know that yesterday, someone broke into the coffeehouse and stole the cash register. In addition to the physical presence of the register, they also got away with all the money inside of it. Approximately forty cents in pennies. Somewhere, there's a very winded, very pissed off thief. I'm presuming they ran, because it's hard to look nonchalant when ambling around Boston with a cash register under your arm or trenchcoat.

I'm tired now, but not sleepy. I've got a million things to write about, but can't seem to get them to lineup properly in my mind. I'm still hungry, but not motivated enough to go out and get something to eat. Tomorrow is a banquet. I will eat every bite that's offered, and with any luck, won't crack until the very end.

***

When I get back from Connecticut, and Ben gets back from New York, he is all apologies and duct tape band aids. He takes me out to the movies. We go to the Different Twist for dinner with Trick and Celeste. He tells us about his trip. "It was awful. I decided to try two hits at once, and I ended up spending most of the night outside, trying to talk to the rocks or some shit. When I came back in, I borrowed Lissabelle's cell phone to call you, but you didn't answer. Thank God. Anyway, I gave the phone back to her, or at least, I thought I did. When we were getting ready to leave this morning, she said she couldn't find it. So I cleaned the entire commune. Twice. No phone. I unpacked all my stuff, and repacked it, and unpacked it, and repacked it. No phone. She kept screaming at me and telling me what a terrible person I was. And I wanted to find the phone, not just to shut her up, but so I could call you, because I desperately needed to hear someone say something nice to me."

Trick coughs conspicuously. Apparently, Celeste told him about the I Don't Love You Conversation.

"Anyway, she had one of her friends hypnotize me, to see if that would help me remember what I did with the phone. I didn't. And when we finally gave up, Lissabelle put her coat on, and the phone was right there in her pocket, and the bitch didn't even apologize."

"Wait," Trick says, "you thought to get hypnotized in order to find her phone, but you didn't think to have her check her pockets. Why not just burn the house down and use a metal detector to find it?"

"Booooo. Anyway, we're going back next week because I was only able to get a dozen hits, and I have friends coming down to visit tomorrow. Oh, Celeste, can Safey stay with you while my friends are in town?"

I flinch. Trick flinches. Celeste rolls her eyes. "Of course. Did you think of, I don't know, asking Safey how he felt about it before asking me."

And he dribbles forth more apologies. And he pays for my pizza. And whatever.

At work, the next day, I am so far beyond overtired, that I strongly suspect the ASL sign for coma was invented to describe the way I feel. Ben calls the work phone around eight to ask me to bring him some food. I say "Sure thing, baby, I'll see you when I get home."

Things wrong with that statement:

1. Baby? What the hell?

2. Ben's apartment is not home.

A few minutes later, one of the new waitresses, Hill, taps me on the shoulder and says "Ben is on the phone for you again."

I decide to be funny, to go way over the top with the whole baby thing, so I put on my sexy phone voice and say "Hey, baby," (shudder) "what's up?"

"Baby?" Says Ben my boss, not Ben my future ex-boyfriend. "It's Ben."

And I say "Uhhhh....Hey?"

And when I weasel my way out of that conversation, David (my almost mutual infatuation partner), who's been standing around the corner the whole time says "Baby? Who's your baby?"

And I say, "No one. I'm just really drunk." And it's true, four Peachtree Schnapps, Smirnoff, Peaches, Chambord and Champagne will do that to you. But, given how stressful this week has been, the solution seems to be, drink more. So, after work, David and I take the T together, discussing everything but the word baby. I get off the T and head to Ben's house where we take loads of digital pictures, change our LiveJournal layouts, and drink Rated X liquor, thus keeping everything I've drunk, a fluorescent shade of pink. And while we drink and take pictures,we play En Vogue's Funky Divas album.

"This is so gay. You're not allowed to tell anyone about this." Ben says. "Especially not the part about how I got really into it and sang the lyrics in the most sincere way possible."

"Ok." I say. "I won't."

"I tend to dominate." Ben says. He has been doing most of the talking (I'd say three and a half blocks worth), since we left the coffeehouse where I work. "I have to tell my friends that it's okay to talk over me. I know I can be kind of domineering. And it's not just in conversation." His point is that we've been walking aimlessly around Boston, but he looked so purposeful that I hadn't questioned that he knew where he was going. "Where should we go?"

In the other direction. We backtrack two blocks, talking about the cow he had as a kid. And then we're in a liquor store, which seems like not just a good idea, but possibly the best id that's ever been eaed. "Do you like Miller High Life?" He asks. And, then, immediately "Wait, you don't like beer, do you?"

"No, but I'll drink it." Because I need to get drunk.

"Fuck that. Let's get something we'll both like." So it is that we end up with a four pack of tiny margaritas, walking back to his place, talking about old jobs and bad music. I am enamored of Ben in a way that I haven't been enamored before. He's hot, and smart, and funny, and we're so in tune that we both have written love poems/songs based on a phrase from a book that most people have never read. I should really want to fuck him senseless or climb into his bed and melt around him. And it's not that those feeling aren't there, it's that they're superseded by the desire to talk and listen to him. My inner whore must hate me.

It's not long before the margaritas are gone. It occurs to me that I didn't really eat anything, and drinking on an empty stomach can occasionally lead to bad judgment, but there's nothing to be done about it now. And we're talking about Lord knows what, and then "There's this guy I stalk on Tuesday nights. He hangs out at The Anorexic. We should go." So he gets dressed, and I lament my lack of foresight. It's jeans and my "God Bless America" t-shirt for me. The Anorexic is empty (which is truer than metaphor), so we decide to go to another bar down the street. Also pretty much empty. So we play video trivia. He, drinking High Life, me downing Southern Comfort and Cokes.

"Hey, I think that guy down there tuned my piano. He's kind of hot, and he's in this really cool band―"

"And I went to high school with him. Jack?" And it's Jack Marple, who lived across the hall from me my sophomore year. We shoot shit about performance venues, and his band, and the irrepressible Ben dominates the conversation, and kicks me when I mention that we only came out tonight so that he could stalk someone at The Anorexic.

Soon the bar is closed, and Ben and I head back to The Anorexic, which is open for another hour or so. The stalkee isn't there. In fact, there aren't many people there. We're both buzzed and talking about publishing and music, and I love his opinions and the sound of his voice, and I might be vaguely dizzy. Soon, I am following him back to his house because both the bus and the subway have stopped running, and I am way far away from home, and I think...hope...I left my backpack at his place.

I did. "Do you mind if I play you some of my music?" He asks.

Mind? Ben's music turns me almost fanboy. Some of the lyrics make me feel the way I feel about Billy Collins poetry: I shouldn't like them, they should be cliché, but they're not, so I do. And I'm not the sort of person who thinks someone is talented because I like them. When someone sucks, they suck, even if they're hot and I want to sleep with them. Even if they're just a really good friend. Ben doesn't suck. Is, in fact, hugely talented. "Your music makes it hurt to be alone." I say.

"Huh?"

And I am drunk, so I'm sure I'm not explaining myself properly. When I hear his love songs, and even some of his not love songs, I want to run my fingers through someone's hair, put my hand on their face and kiss them for hours. His is the kind of music you should hear with someone. And, technically, I'm with him. But even if he weren't using his hands to play his instruments, running my fingers through his hair or kissing him are not options. Ok, they are options, they're just bad ones. Not now. Not when both of us are so jaded about love and gay men. Not when I'm three Soco and Cokes and two margaritas over an empty stomach. Not. Not. Not.

There's a not in my stomach that I can't undo.

The computer lab where I check my e-mail plays a loop of about ten songs. Usually Eminem's "Mocking Bird", Destiny's Child's "Soldier", something by Mariah Carey (sometimes a new one, sometimes a classic...tonight it was "Emotions"), a 50 Cent track, and other assorted hip-pop. Tonight, I heard Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" seven times in there. Which is odd enough, but I'd heard the song on my way to work via someone else's loud headphones, and then again at work, sandwiched between Weezer's "Beverly Hills" and Nine Inch Nail's "Only". Why is BCN playing Aerosmith? I like it, but what the fuck? It doesn't fit in the playlist.

And the song...in 1998, after my first boyfriend killed himself, after I tried to recuperate by fucking as many strange men as I could meet over The Internet, I got kidney stones. While I was recovering, out of my mind on Demoral, I'd accidentally bought a plane ticket for a strange gay kid in Georgia. And we ended up roommates and sort of lovers, and it had been a huge mess. The thing is, I don't remember ordering him the plane ticket. I don't remember the car trip home from the airport. Whether he smelled like cigarettes even then. Whether he smiled. I don't remember the last thing he said when I put him on a bus back to North Carolina, a month later. But the day I woke up with a Demoral hangover, and a voicemail message reminding me to pick Elvis up at the airport, I heard the song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" six times between Hyannis and Boston.

I'm not complaining. Sure, it's pretty bombastic as far as Aerosmith songs go. Yea, it's by far their most popular song, without actually being one of their best. Still, I like it. It was a guilty pleasure in a summer of guilty pleasures, Elvis, definitely included. But the point is, the song. It was all over the radio that summer. So romantic, so winsome. I was on my way to pick up a complete stranger, a gay complete stranger, a gay complete stranger who was coming specifically to spend time with me, and this horrifically cheesy operatic rock ballad is playing all the time. It should have been our song. We should have been happy, and so in love we couldn't bear to be apart, especially when the government asked him and my father to fly into space to blow up that meteor coming to destroy the Earth. But it didn't work out that way. I ended up wanting to hurtle him into space dick first into the meteor. I was afraid his head may actually crack through it.

As soon as the relationship went bad, I stopped listening to the radio. I wasn't weepy, or violently angry. I was just afraid that if I heard that stupid song that should have been ours, I would have to climb inside the radio, shake Steven Tyler by the frilly things that hung from his sleeves, and say "Love like that doesn't exist you fucken asshole. And I know you didn't write that song, but fuck you for singing it and making me believe that sort of love was out there waiting for me."

By the time the summer ended, the song had completely faded off the playlists of the radio stations I listened to. Mr. Tyler must have known what the consequences of me hearing that song would be. So, for years, I'd banished that song to the part of my brain where Celine Dion and Meatloaf lyrics hibernated. And during those extremely rare times when I smoked a joint or drank to excess, I tried really hard to fry the cells in that particular section of my brain.

Tonight, the song is back with a vengance. During its seventh revolution at the computer lab, I look at the clock, and see it's about time for me to go catch one of the last buses of the night. I put my notebooks in my bag, and my skin starts to bristle, in a good way. Air conditioner in Miami on an August day bristling. I have this smile, like I know the world loves me for a change. This can only lead to disappointment. I'm thinking of picking up some pizza on the way home for my new roommate. I don't like her, and I'm fairly certain that she doesn't like me, but pizza makes friends of almost everyone.

I'm on my way out of the lab when I hear the hottest, most intriguing voice in the world saying "Baby" in a way so sexy, I have to turn to see who God blessed with such a power of inflection, and it's Ben.

Fuck home, fuck my roommates, I'm an asscat, and Ben's voice is a can opener. I follow him to a trendy bar down the street called The Anorexic. It's trendy in that horrid way. A room half-full of mismatched wannabe scenesters drinking their shitty beers and trying to look and talk cool. There's a lot of people wearing argyle socks on their arms, in place of sleeves.

"Do you serve wine here?" Ben asks.

The bartender points to the wineglass sitting in front of another customer. "No, he brought that in from next door."

"Is it any good?" Ben asks the guy with the wine glass in front of him.

"The white is ok." The guy says. "But I wouldn't drink the red."

"I guess I'll have the white then."

"Sorry, this bar only has one wine glass." The bartender says.

But his wisecrack is drowned out by the other wine drinker, who says "White wine at a bar? What are you, some kind of homosexual?"

"I'm the best kind of homosexual." Ben replies.

"Can I take you home and take naked pictures of you?" The other wine drinker asks.

"Sorry," Ben replies, tilting his head. "I'm gonna be famous soon. Naked pictures would be scandalous." And he pays for his wine, and we move to the other side of the bar.

We're about a minute and a half deep into a conversation about Ben's impending New York trip when Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" clicks on the jukebox.

"¿w-t-f?" I sign. "¿song everywhere ― s-t-e-v-e-n t-y-l-e-r dead?" And I have to be careful, because I made a joke about Nell Carter's death in 2003, and she had a fatal heart attack that very night. So I attempt to steer the conversation in another direction, but Ben is clearly the coxswain tonight, and he leads me down a different current of conversation, and soon we're walking out of The Anorexic, headed to a better bar. A guy he knows and is attracted to, who isn't me, is sitting at the corner table. While Ben and I discuss our various relationships with older men and younger men, his eyes keep darting toward this other guy.

"I don't want to date an older man." He says. "They're always going to go on about achieving my potential. And I already have an internal voice saying that all the time. I don't need another one."

I want to say I would never go on and on about your potential. You're an amazing artist, and sure if you worked a little harde....fuck. but I'm not quite that awkward, and I know his comment wasn't about me. Maybe it's the four rum and Cokes I had before I went to the computer lab, or perhaps the Soco and Cokes from the Anorexic, but I'm starting to get jealous of the way he's looking at this other guy. I make some lame joke about the guy who offered to take naked pictures, and Ben says he needs to take new pictures for his LiveJournal page. "I'll take your picture." I say. "I'll even make sure you keep all your clothes on."

So we're back at his house, me with his digital camera in my hand, taking picture after picture after picture. I hate the way I see a perfect shot, and the digital camera waits three seconds, thereby getting a completely different, never as good shot. Every picture is at the wrong angle, in the wrong light. "My face is too fat." Ben says. "My forehead is gigantic. Like that Pixies song. Gigantic. Gigantic. My big big head."

"Your head is not gigantic." I say.

"It is. I've totally got that great big gay guy head, where it looks like the guy's Godzilla sized head is in a battle with the rest of the body for supremacy, and the head is winning."

"You do not. Your head is fine. It's your jaw that's too cleft for your face." I'm being an asshole. His jaw is cute.

"I don't want to be cute." He says, as if I made the last comment out loud. "I want to be hot. My hair is too fuzzy duckling head. Look at it bounce. Why is my head so big?"

And I think, but do not say, because whenever I'm around you, I inflate it. "Your head's not that big. It's not like ten years from now I'm going to have to e-mail you from New Zealand, saying 'Dear Ben, I was in the ocean taking pictures of a pod of dolphins, and somehow your face is in every frame.'"

"I'll write back 'Sorry, I'm in the Australian Bush.'"

I was going to say he was in Cleveland, but I let it slide.

"I'm beautiful in motion." He says. "But I'm ugly in stills."

"You're not ugly. You're hot."

"Keep telling me that." He says. "Eventually, I'll believe it."

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"I'm tired." He says. "We've taken how many pictures, and only five of them don't suck. I'll hate two of them by tomorrow morning."

Rufus the Asscat hops on the bed. Ben grabs him into a super bearcat hug. "Oh, let's take a couple of me and Asscat. I love when you're holding onto a cat, and they know they're trapped, so they just tense up and wait for you to let them go." Ben says. "It's like --- OW!!! Fucken cat!!! Hsssssssssssssssssssssssst."

Rufus leaps from the bed and into the kitchen.

"Man, that's deep." He says, showing me his sliced finger.

"Hey, Asscat," I shout at Rufus, who is peeking around the corner, "how would you like to be drumskin?"

"You know he's thinking, how would you like to be a colander?, right?" Ben asks.

I laugh. My head falls onto Ben's bed. We scan through the pictures I've been taking one more time. I never captured him quite right. He's so beautiful, and these pictures of him are so pedestrian. I am the older man who wants him to live up to his fucken potential, as though potential were a goal and not a starting point.

I try and figure a way to work I love you into the conversation, but the playlist is high school memories and internet celebrity. Eventually, we wind into a discussion about exes, and he's talking about his HIV positive ex, and I'm rambling about Ryan, and surely I love you would fit anywhere around here. But it doesn't. It's too cumbersome. It doesn't match the decor. I love you is the perfect couch to sit on, but we're decorating the kitchen. So I say "Dear Ben, I am in my subconscious, taking pictures of all the men I've ever loved, and somehow your face is in every frame."

When I wake up, Ben is in the shower singing Nelly Furtado's "Turn Out The Lights". Nelly Furtado? I should be cringing. But it sounds sooooo...sooooo...sooooo right. I take a look around the room. In an ideal world, I am looking around the room from his bed. I reek of sex and alcohol, and probably his precious Galouises. In reality, I am looking around the room from the van seat he uses as a couch. He ripped it out of some van he was touring in back when he was in a band.

"Why haven't you slept with him yet?" Celeste asks, a few hours later, when we're at work. "Trick thinks it's because you're both tops. I think it's because you're a huge pussy."

She might be right. There really isn't a good reason why I haven't attempted to make a move with Ben, apart from the fact that I have the self-esteem of a slug in a salt factory, or a slut in a slit factory. No matter what I try to tell myself, I'm obviously enamored with him. I drop his name in conversations more often that I use the word the. So I decide that tonight, I'm going to make my move. It's been two weeks since the first date. I think he's hot, funny, a talented singer, hot, appropriately mean, hot, he has fuzzy duckling hair, and he's extremely hot.

I invite Ben to The Lizard Lounge. It's like romantic or something, our second week anniversary, and we're going to have drinks at the bar where we had our first date. After the fourth Captain and Coke, Ben writes Pussy Drink on a napkin, and sticks it to my sweating glass. I laugh, not just because I think it's funny, but because this is the least pussy drink I've had in a month. It didn't even come with an umbrella. I make sure the next drink I order is a Midori Sour. "Now this," I tell him, tapping the cherry toward the bottom of the glass with my straw, "is a pussy drink."

He sneers a smile at me. "Pussy."

I don't know if we're flirting. I don't think so.

"Do you want to come back to my place tonight?" I ask, hoping it doesn't sound like a weird come on line.

He raises an eyebrow.

"I just mean, we always go over to your house. I live much closer. We can stay until the bar closes. And tomorrow's Arbor Day or some shit."

"Columbus Day." he says.

"Yea, Columbus Day. I assume you don't have to work."

"I never work Mondays anyway." He says. And then, "Sure, I'll come over."

So we continue to drink. And drink. And drink. And then it's last call. And we're drinking.

"Do you have any more alcohol at your house?" He asks.

"Of course."

"Homeward ho!" He says. It takes me a few seconds to determine whether or not there was a comma between those two words.

About ten minutes into the walk, Ben says "So, I've been reading the stories you've been writing about me in your journal, and"

I wait for him to finish the sentence. There are several things Ben is good at. One of them is finishing sentences.

He doesn't finish the sentence. He says "Does this hill ever fucken end? My God. I hate this hill. I'm gonna break my damn ankle. I want to date a guy who would feel so bad about my ankle that he'd carry me all the way back to his house. And he's got to talk cool, too. I'm modeling the way I talk after the characters from Dennis Cooper's books. I love how LA they talk. I want to speak in soundbites that don't sound too forced. Like a famous person. I'm going to be famous, so I should talk like it."

"It's not too much further." I say. Relative to what, I'm not sure. "And if I wasn't so drunk, I'd totally carry you up this hill." Really, I would have. But it wasn't that much further.

"I was kidding." He says.

We are at the house. And for some drunk reason we start talking about vaguely sexual things and exes and "I could really use a margarita. Want one?" I ask.

"Sure. Don't make mine too strong, though."

I don't.

Intoxication being the subject of the week, we start talking about poor Courtney Love, which reminds me of the Robot Chicken episode that has an American Idol spoof called Zombie Idol, where dead rock stars come back from the grave to compete. A claymation Ving Rhames, straight out of Dawn of the Dead, pulls out his rifle and starts shooting, only to have the rifle snatched by Zombie Kurt Cobain, who turns the rifle around and shoots himself in the head.

"That show is awesome." Ben says. "I've only seen one episode, but it ruled. It had Optimus Prime and he totally had colon cancer, and at the end of the skit he turned into a coffin with the Transformers logo. I love that show. My friends...no one told me about that show for like six months. And that show was made for me. I told my friends that they failed at friendship for not telling me about it sooner."

"So do I get bonus points for bringing it up?" And before he can answer, "It's on in like 10 minutes!" Naturally, it is the one episode he's already seen. But we're drunk, and Robot Chicken is funny no matter how many times you see it.

But by the end of the episode, Ben is passed out in his chair. I wake him up. "Why don't you go upstairs? I have some writing to do. You can crash on my bed."

"Are you sure that's okay?" He asks when we get upstairs. He spread eagles across my bed before I can even answer.

Since there is no more room for me on my bed, I debate rolling him to a side, throwing my arms around him and going to sleep. It's not a sexual move, but it's a move. It's progress. I would be making progress.

Instead, I take the only pillow that's not resting under his head, toss it on the floor, and lay down. I spend hours watching him sleep, before I finally drift into the edge of unconsciousness. Just as I sense the last rational thought slip from mind, I hear Ben bolt up in bed, and say "Brain surgery. That's what he needs." And then he rolls over, and goes back to sleep. My Zombie Idol.

Bartenders know me best when I'm not drinking. And maybe that's the problem.

Judy at The Cantab says it looks like I'm starting to be less depressed. I had no idea I looked depressed. I thought that safe that hit me bounced off my skull without leaving so much as a dent. My eyes aren't puffy because I've been crying, I just haven't been sleeping well.

Amy at The Lizard Lounge thanks me for the book I gave her. When the check comes, it's about twice as much as I expected. "You didn't pay for your dinner last Saturday." She says. Which does explain the extra $20 I've had floating around this week. I apologize so profusely she has to shine the fog from between the two os in "I'm sorry" in order to see me. "Oh, don't worry about it, dear." She says. "You were so very into your writing that I didn't want to disturb you."

I have been so far from reality this week, I can't see it with the Hubble telescope. I can't see it with a far reaching pop culture reference. Reality is so far away from me, it doesn't even have oxygen.

"Are you working yet?" Amy asks me. And I'm not, not because I'm lazy or they're awful or anything, I just suck at making plans this week.

As Amy talks to me about her recent trip to Hawaii, I watch a quarter fall out of her hair and on to the pavement. It bounces once, twice, then rolls under a bush. This is bad. We're inside. There are no bushes here. I am in pretty desperate need of some sleep.

I'm debating whether to check my e-mail when Regie Motherfucken Gibson sits down next to me and begins talking to me about transgender issues, people claiming to be "multiples", and the politics of slam poetry. Slam politics don't interest me anymore. I am not transgendered. I think most "multiples" would shit their pants if they ever interacted with a real schizophrenic.

Regie is one of the greatest conversationalists in the world, but it's much more fun to talk about things we disagree about, and we can't come up with anything we disagree on. I agree that most people are bilovual, but the subject of bisexual poets disturbs me. We tell numerous stories about women who have an epiphany that they hate men, and then suddenly they're lesbians. Personally, I find that extremely belittling and bullshit. Real lesbians, like real gay guys are sexually attracted to someone of their own gender for the same reasons heterosexuals are attracted to people of the opposite gender. Phermones and chemistry.

Last week, I was hanging out with one of them open relationship slam poet people and one of her lovers. The lover was a kind of cute little bearded dude. He seemed smart, funny. But something seemed off to me. It wasn't just that he looked ridiculously young or that he kind of reminded me of an even younger looking Elvis. There was just...something.

Turns out he was a she. And, see, it's chemistry. I didn't know he was trans. Physically, he was very much a he. Mentally, very very much a he. To the point he spent time grabbing me inappropriately and talking about how much he liked to fuck guys. All this while his girlfriend was walking between us. My consciousness 100% believed this person was a guy. But my nose knew differently. It said, there is something off in the testosterone/estrogen quotient. It said "I am so not attracted to this very cute, smart, funny, person. And it's not just because he has a girlfriend."

Benny once told me how he picked up a drag queen at a club. It wasn't a Crying Game moment. He knew it was a drag queen, but "The dude was easily one of the hottest looking women I'd ever seen. The hair. The face. The body. Everything. Perfect. We went back to my place, he laid down on my bed, everything tucked carefully out of sight, and I...I just couldn't do anything. I wanted to kiss him, but then...I can't explain it. He was wearing perfume, and was everything girly, but my brain said "man" and that was the end of it. I couldn't be gay if I wanted to."

"So," Regie asks after I relay the Benny story to him, "the bisexual thing pisses you off too?" We're not talking about bisexuals in general, but women (and it's always only women) who take the mic and go on and on about their bisexuality. Women who have a bad experience with an ex, "go lesbian" for a few years, and then shut their homosexuality off like it was a movie of the week.

"It's bullshit. And I hate that people buy it." I say. "If a man were ever like 'Yea, I dated this girl in high school and she was a real bitch to me, so I decided to be gay.' he'd alternate between being laughed at and having the crap beaten out of him. Sure, if he were hot, most gay guys would probably fuck him, but that wouldn't make him any gayer than the Shania Twain and Ani Difranco t-shirts he'd no doubt start picking up at thrift shops in an effort to be more visible."

And then our conversation slips into slam politics, people pimping their race/gender/sexual orientation/blah/blah/blah. Later that night I catch The Body Count Slam at The Cantab. Two good friends doing some of their best work, but EVERY poem (with the exception of the cactus one) involves someone dying or dead. Mark Twain used to keep track of casualty figures in the collections of bad poets. I started taking down the notes last night. Four sexual orientation related deaths, two suicides, two overdoses, and a really mean archangel wiping out all of humanity out of spite. After the second tiebreaker between dead victim poems, I had to get out of the room.

Today I am back to playing e-tag with people who can't figure out what they want or what their plans are. Basically, I'm talking to better looking versions of myself. Forget strength, give me sleep, contentedness.

This month is an ostrich on a canoe. Midnight, June 30th/July 1st, and I am running to catch one of the last buses to take me to the last train between me, and Clarissa's house. Clarissa, who is moving the very next day, has offered me a bean bag and conversation. But first must come the bus. I am thinking "Future Fry Cook. Future Fry Cook." This may be the last time I ever take this bus, and wouldn't it be funny to run into him again.

Instead, I see a hot guy fidgeting under the T sign. "Thank God." He says. "There's another bus coming?"

I reach into my pocket and pull out a stack of bus schedules. Like a good magician's assistant, he picks out the schedule for the 101, which will whisk us to Sullivan Square.

"Wow." He says. "Are you always so prepared?"

"No, I'm moving, and I found my T schedules just as I was leaving the house." Tonight has been cast glances out of focus. Move out. Is this my suitcase? Pile of unmarked papers. Where is my cell phone? Do I have everything I need? Turn off the air conditioner. "Where are you headed?"

"Allston."

"Me, too." I say, feeling inappropriately closer to him. "I'm going to stay with a friend on Ashton Street."

"I live on Ashton Street." He says. "Weird."

And the bus comes, and we exchange horrible roommate stories. My Melissa Plummer stories are trumped by his tale of a roommate who stole all of his possessions while he was at work, down to pictures of his girlfriend and his underwear. He keeps looking at me like I'm his favorite pint of Ben & Jerry's, and I think, hmmm...maybe something could happen, I mean...pictures of his girlfriend. He casually drops his girlfriend so many times during our conversation, that I think, perhaps, I should pick her up.

I'm tempted to get off at the same T stop as him, and talk more, maybe exchange contact info, but I want food and stability and focus.

At the all night pizza/sub place, the frat boys are screaming obscenities at the guy behind the counter. "Fuck moo." Says one. I presume I have missed the context for this.

I order chicken fingers, and Cherry Coke, and contact info for hot guys who are as oblivious to drunken frat language as I am. Two out of three ain't a Meatloaf song.

Clarissa is tired, and chatty when I get there. I eat chicken fingers in her kitchen, let her cat chew my fingernails for me.

I want my own place. No more Landlord. A former and recurrent coworker has a friend "I think you two would get along great, but he's kind of particular about" and I don't care what he's particular about, I'm done moving in with particular people I don't know.

I know Zuzu. I know her particularities, and how best to mesh with them. So I head over to her house. Pup Ratzinger licks my eyes out, and nibbles off my nose. For once, I may have needed it.

For two days, we shop together. Mainly meaning, she shops, I assist as best I can. No one is selling focus or a way for me to move my suitcases, or a permanent place for me to move them to.

After Zuzu's, I spend time on Celeste's couch, playing The Vagina Game with her and Trick. It's fun, but I don't want to stay. I should be on The Vineyard this week, spending time with my Dad, but the people I'd planned on traveling with are having their own trauma. Little tragedies, like my own. I find myself longing for the days when I could turn my tiny grain of sand problems into beaches large enough for me to spread a blanket on and get comfortable. Melodrama seems just out of reach.

"I am so out of touch with the world." I tell Zuzu. "I focus on every day so precisely, that I have no concept of how to handle my future."

She pours me another Kahlua and Stoli.

Celeste, Trick, and I share a few Ginger Beer and Stolis.

I can't drink enough to sleep.

The band geeks are discussing how one of them got a 98% in band even though all he did the entire semester was sit between the two most talented trombonists and copy their arm movements. "I never once played a single note unless I was asked to demonstrate something solo. When I inevitably screwed up, I told my teacher I didn't work well with pressure. So I ended up with an A in the class despite the fact that I can't even play my instrument at all."

The pretentious know-nothing is discussing why he didn't like the night's poetry event. "Poetry is meant to be read on a page. Performance is sooo unnecessary. Because poetry should be like music. And the people performing had a guitarist, which is music, but it's not the kind of music that I like, so it's not musical. And anyway, the dick with two belts just cried the whole time while the other guy wasn't being as subtle as poetry should be. Poetry is meant to be performed, and I felt like I should have had paper in front of me to understand what he was saying."

I'm on the phone with an almost ex who says "I'm so bummed you haven't come and visited me. I'm hanging out with your friend Jud, and we're gonna go to this dance club in a few minutes, and I'm gonna get him drunk and let him fuck the hell out of me. What do you think of that?" And since I'm The Other Guy that the Know Nothing was talking about, and I wasn't in a very good mood to begin with, I tell him, honestly, "I'm not sure which one of you two to feel sorry for. You're both terrible in bed."

The guitarist is being smoked out by a trio of girls who haven't said much to me when I've stayed in their apartment. When they leave to go to The Dance Party (which turns out to be one semi-cute Latino guy playing bad reggae and not wearing a shirt), the Guitarist says "It's good to be in the band, everyone always smokes out the band. And since I am the entire band tonight, it's gonna be awesome. Did you see those girls? They think they're so much better than every one else who lives here. Especially the two conventionally pretty ones. They hang out with the fat girl because they think it makes them look hotter. But even though she's a snob and kind of a slut, the fat girl is much prettier than the other two will ever be."

I'm on my way up to the computer because, apart from the guitarist, there is no one downstairs yet that I want to hang out with. Aterisk (the dick with two belts), Erin, Casey, Brian, and all the other roommates who weren't cool enough to be part of the Snobs Smoking Out The Guitarist aren't back from the show yet. I'm nearly there when another girl I've never seen before says "I loved your show tonight." I give the obligatory thanks. "My brother has your CD on my computer." At first I'm flattered that her brother not only has my CD but has been playing it for his sister and saying how good it is. Then I remember I DON'T HAVE A CD. "My CD?" I ask. "Yea, my brother bought it in (location withheld until I raze it) from (name withheld until I pummel him into a little ball and kick him until he burns up in the atmosphere). It has the Math Poem that you did tonight, and five or six other tracks." So someone recorded one of my shows, and is selling it without my knowledge or permission for a profit. If I wasn't angry a minute ago....

After I've calmed down and written a fairly terse e-mail to Mr. Copyright Violation, I go back downstairs where everyone I wanted to hang out with has shown up, the Trio of Snobs has left, as well as The Band Geeks (now who's the snob Mr. Mode?). Asterisk is telling me about this guy we both barely know who "has a cock only about average length but it's wide as" and here he takes his tall Pabst Blue Ribbon Can and fellates it. This is my cue to wander to another conversation.

Over on the couches, which I will dub The Cool Corner, people are talking about other poets who've crashed with them. Steggy's name comes up as another good feature. And someone says "The first time Steggy was here, he was being all cool and really touchy-feely, and drunk...definitely drunk. And he turns to someone and whispers in their ear and the person shouts out 'BRIAN? BUT BRIAN'S STRAIGHT' to which Steggy replies 'I'm so confused, I've never seen so many gay seeming straight guys in my life.'" Amen, Steggy, wherever you are.

At 1 AM, Asterisk decides he wants pizza. He lets us all know by screaming "PIZZA!!! I WANT PIZZA DAMNIT!!!" So, I go and get the number of the local pizza place, which is, naturally, closed, it being 1 AM. Domino's is open until 4 AM, however, so I begin asking for the number for Domino's. This gets all of the Politically Aware in a tizzy because the owner of Domino's supports the Pro-Life movement, so no one wants to support them. Whatever. Every corporation has owners or prominent members who have political values you're probably going to disagree with. Boycotting them for that is inane. If you want to boycott Domino's, boycott them because their pizza sucks.

An hour or so later the pizzas arrive. While we're sitting in the kitchen, munching on slices, Screwface Mustachio (he wanted that nickname...don't ask) tells the story about how he lost one of his teeth during a stagefighting accident during a production of Cabaret. He says "I didn't really mind losing the tooth. It's kind of a manly thing to lose your tooth in a fight." "You didn't lose your tooth in a fight." I say "You lost it during a stage fight that was part of a musical. The only thing gayer would be if it got knocked out by a cock. Wait a second. Actually losing your tooth in a musical stage fight is gayer than losing a tooth to a cock. I could see how someone could lose a tooth while accidentally coming in contact with a cock. No one has ever accidentally been in a musical."

By about 3 AM, people start to head to their respective rooms. Asterisk follows a cute straight boy who doesn't even seem gay to his apartment. The guitarist and I each take a couch. Upstairs, Pretentious Know Nothing has returned to bashing on poetry, which he clearly has never been exposed to in his miserable, keg party existence. He is trying to impress some girl and make out with her. I know this because he's also discussed his "making out prowress". I envision him on stage between Asterisk and I, copying our hand movements and mouthing along with our poetry, hoping to get an A in Seducing Hampshire Students. I wish him all the luck in the world. And syphilis. I wish him syphilis, too.