And so

I want to carve a pumpkin and wear a scarf. I want to drink cider and eat candied apples. As soon as I come back from New Orleans, I think I'd like to make this happen.

Fall was always my favorite time of year in Portland. I remember the first year I moved there the trees turned into fire. I went home for Fall Break, and when I arrived back in Oregon the trees were inflamed and absolutely vivid. I honestly had never seen anything like it, and I remember taking photos and photos of every possible tree and every possible leaf I could. I walked around the Canyon, and I specifically "got lost" on Ross Island while sailing a couple of times just to be surrounded. The weather was crisp, the air smelled like earth and fireplaces, and the colors... the colors. The hills, the mountains, the leaves were all the color of warmth. I bought an orange sweater, a brown shirt, and red scarf. I tried to become what I saw, and I tried to blend into the forest. Even in the cold of college, and the missing of home, I felt warmed by my eyes and beauty such as I had never seen. Mountains capped themselves in white and leaves tipped themselves into orange, all the while I stood placid, I watched, I waited. Then one day I woke up, and it had all fallen.

Not much to say

"The Intro" by the xx is on repeat, and I'm mindlessly reading through blogs as I wait for the pills to kick in. I feel something, but definitely not the weightlessly heavy feeling I love and can never explain to people who have never felt it themselves. And I'm thinking about how much I just really wish I lived in London, or how much I wish I could switch lives with the people who write these blogs I am so addicted to. And I'm thinking about how they write so well, how their lives cannot possibly be quite as great as the say they are. And I'm thinking that maybe they find their lives dull and somewhat unsatisfying the same way I do. And I'm thinking about how much I would love for them to write books so I could write my grad school dissertation on something typical like their "style." And I'm thinking maybe I could eve make some stereotypical, broad stroke to apply their "style" to the gay community as a whole. And I'm thinking it's probably just all bull shit.

He's running his hands through his hair, and he makes the funniest faces when he retells stories about things that either annoy him or have no significance at all-- though I guess enough significance for them to be retold. I am interested, but he is not necessarily interesting. There is something almost too predictable and logical about what I know of his personality, and I wonder whether or not I can love him, luckily though, I don't have to.

I play with my fork and look into his eyes, and something strange occurs. I tell him I was in a play at Rice when I was in 7th grade, and I ask if perhaps he was there at that time. He tells me that he had already graduated. And the truth of the age difference sinks in, but for some reason I'm okay with that, and I think he is too. Aside from those strange moments where we realize that our timelines are completely different, I think we're incredibly comfortable. A good match, maybe, but I also wonder whether I want someone a bit crazier?

He casually mentions something about his personal trainer, and how it's great to run the Memorial loop because of the "eye candy." This makes me more uncomfortable than the age, and I have to ask myself whether or not this 34 year old-- or maybe he's 35?-- is a sexed serial dater who just wants to add someone 10 years his younger to his repertoire. But that's okay, maybe, and I find myself being okay with so much more than I ever have ever before in my life. And you know what, that's okay.

Two nights before that date, I was in a club on the dance floor with a coworker, putting my hands under his shirt and being incredibly surprised at the chiseled abs I find. I am wasted, and I think I step on his foot a couple of times. Then I suggest we go back to his place and hook up, though I don't say this out loud. This guy is nice though, and I know I would regret it anyway; so instead I just go home and go to bed. When I wake up to a disappointing Sunday, I am walking the dog and notice that there's still a longing, and I realize the last time I had sex was in Austin with that frat boy, and that makes me feel a little excited but also a little disappointed with myself at the same time.

As I sit in bed and read, make stupid vocabulary quizzes, heat up some soup, I realize the longing is not really for the guy I went out with on Saturday night. It's not really for the lawyer either.

London Preppy

I swayed unsteadily as I leaned out looking over the city lights. I was on a balcony and the sight of the capitol building, pink and sitting below me off in the distance, reminded me that I was in Austin. What floor am I on? What exactly am I doing up here?

I feel an arm around my waste and turn around to a tall guy that looks somewhat familiar. Slowly my memory falls back into place, and I remember walking with him, buzzing into this tower, and riding up several floors in an elevator. He says his roommate will be home in a bit, but that I can sleep on the couch.

We walk back in, and this stranger gets me a glass of water and a blanket. I lay down on the couch and try to retrace my night.

I left Kathleen to use the restroom. I saw Mitch. I couldn't find Kathleen. I left to escape the noise and try to call her. Blank. I saw Allison and I think I gropped Andrew. Whoops. He's a good sport though and surely knows it was in fun. Too drunk to get back into the club, just want to go to bed. I started to walk back to the hotel. Blank again. I am sitting on a bench, Kathleen hasn't called. I am now walking with this stranger.

I ride up the elevator, floor, floor, floor, 23, 24, 25. We get off. Blank.

The door opens and the lights flicker on. I am on the couch, where is the guy who brought me water? This must be the roommate.

Hi.

Hello.

Good night?

I guess.

Blank.

Where is the bathroom?

Let me show you.

Okay.

Blank.

"You can't tell anyone about this. Ever."

I am back on the balcony again. It is 3 hours since I first was out here and noticed the capitol building shimmering up the hill. I realize I need to get out of here. Again, I feel an arm on my back. It is the roommate this time, the boy who I just fucked in the shower, whose bed I left just a few moments ago for need of fresh air.

How old are you?
23. Yourself?
25. What do you do?
I'm a teacher. You?
I'm in business school.
So you're not gay?

No. I don't know.
I need to leave. This is all wrong.

As I walk back to the door, he mutters something I think might involve the words girl and friend. I have no idea. I don't care. I need to find my shoes. I've lost a sock.

When did my life become one of those famous blogs I read about trendy, glamorous, gay, 26 year old New Yorkers? And why does it feel so much less glamorous?

Your Mind Knows the Way Out

I am at war with myself. There is the part of myself that cannot let go, and there is the part that knows how this will end. That this is all just a broken record that we all grew tired of hearing long ago. And still I do things I know I shouldn't. I will still call, and I will still cling as hard as I can to something that sometimes seems further in the past than the statues in museums that are missing pieces. Unfortunately, I am in no museum, and my troubles are completely my own as they swirl around and fall over and over into a waterfall that never can really quite come out in tears. Instead it just rolls around and around in my head.

I am tired of feeling this way, and I am tired of all the destructive coping mechanisms I keep turning too. Getting wasted never makes me feel better. Sleeping with strangers not only doesn't make me feel better, it makes me feel cheap and worse. It's good to know that someone wants my body, I have my body, but no one wants what's inside. I keep getting used. "That's what people do." Using lines like these to gloss over a wound that only stings harder and harder as people try so hard to say the right things.

There's nothing to say. There's only time. And where is that? Where the fuck are you? Days and months are mere moments, and they're just not adding up. They're not helping, they're not distancing, they're not making me feel better.

Nothing is going to put my wings back on, and that statue in the Louvre--the one whose name I can't remember now because my mind never can quite seem to recall things I want it to, only those I don't want, of course--is just going to keep standing on its pedestal mocking mere mortals and their troubles.

I find I only write for myself these days. And sometimes it makes me feel better, and sometimes it doesn't.

I drove home and thought about slamming my car into other cars. Killing myself. Then I thought of the mess I'd have to clean up if I lived, the people I would hurt if I didn't, and then the smear on my driving record I would get for crashing a car with an expired inspection sticker. Regardless, I was clearly being overly dramatic.

So how can I be overly dramatic and not cry? What is wrong with me? Maybe my tears are spent on this one. "Sorry, Ray, let it go," my body says, "we're not giving anymore of ourself away to this one. He's spent. He's said goodbye."

And he says, "Goodbye."

I can live with these regrets, but I can't live with knowing I didn't do everything I could to stand up for love. I fought hard, and I lost. I keep saying there will be another battle, and there will, of course. There will be another war, even. But it just seems so far away when I realize I've moved back to a broken dream, and yet that dream simmers only blocks away. Daisy's green light was no less symbolic, and no less destructive.

I will just wait for everything to settle down.
"Your mind knows the way out this time. You'll be okay."
I hope.