1/9/16

Yesterday and today have been to of the coldest days that I have lived through in some time. It finally snowed Sunday night, which was lovely, but of course this was followed by two days of oppressive dry cold. However, to my credit, I have refused the urge to simply “nest” in the face of this arctic tyranny. Both yesterday and today I actually left the house, which is really saying something in weather like this! I finally returned one of the books I never read to the Hunter library and now I’m sitting at Shakespeare’s trying to figure out my next move. I was thinking of hitting up some galleries in Chelsea but something about being in that neighborhood sounds really unappealing to me. (Meanwhile: There is an elderly woman with snow white hair, and eye patch, an incredible white fur coat, and a small dog sitting at the end of the coffee bar that is making me feel incredibly intimidated--we exist in different worlds.) Again, I’m trying to walk around a bit more and eat a bit less, all the while checking Grindr in different neighborhoods to see how the gay hookup population changes throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. It actually kind of complicated process, interacting with Grindr. Once you get past the basics of the app’s own design quirks, you have to participate in the mental gymnastics that allow one to judge, flirt, lust, and fantasize while maintaining a real relationship with someone else. This is threesome hunting. Or is it? Am I allowed to keep talking to people after the tri-communal act is off the table? I’m not saying that I actively want to engage in these things but once the mental switch gets flipped you just start thinking more with your dick. In any case I’d rather not participate with these apps at all, or rarely, but when I see Chase using them I feel like I have to “keep up” in a certain sense. (Meanwhile: the fire department has entered this coffee shop and is holding up traffic on Lexington. No one that works here can figure out why they are here or who alerted them.) I get a little miffed when I know he’s on there (not that he wouldn’t stop if I asked him, but I don’t want to be a buzzkill) and then I try to be even more of Grindr whore. But again and again I just seem to fail at keeping up with the whole thing. I talk to people and begin to make “friends” to the point where the prospect of meeting up would feel awkward. When he makes an appointment I always almost feel like I’m going to shit my pants before hand. The hookups themselves have been really queasy events. But the fantasy beforehand, that’s the part that feels the most intimate and I feel has the most potential for being hurtful. It’s also gratifying in an intimate way to know that someone random likes you, even if you’re getting more than enough affection at home. Maybe there is another version of some performance element that appeals to me.

Every time I walk into the coffee shop someone is talking about writing something and it makes me, as a novice, feel incredibly under accomplished. Again, I am reminded that it’s important not to lose hope in this town. “Because that’s what it wants,” Chase would say. I just wish there was a Ouija board out there that could tell me what to do. Where I’m supposed to go or what the best idea for me would be. I wonder how useful this practice of journaling really is for me? I would like to eventually be able to record life events in such a way that I could find a through-line with which to write other stories. I wonder if writing to yourself is at all a case like reading for pleasure (or rigor), which is also supposedly supposed to make you a better writer.

Another note on the current condition of my life: I love my apartment. I love my boyfriend. I love my living situation. However, I do kind of miss having more time alone. Yes, I have all day to myself, but I’ve always been more of a night owl in terms of creative moments. It’s hard to create these conditions in my cramped space because of lighting and layout and also because every free moment when we are both home at night we want to have our hands on one another rather than our respective projects or ambitions. I wonder how much more productive I would be, now at a time when i’ve never really been happier, if my space or lodging was set up somewhat differently. If I had a place to go at home to get work done without offending Chase or having to resist the temptation to curl up into a ball with him and watch terrible TV (WHICH BY THE WAY I HAVE BEEN GETTING LESS AND LESS PLEASURE FROM EVERYDAY. WHAT IS THE DEAL?). It’s a long term goal to get to the bottom of this, especially with such looming creative deadlines like the Lundi Gras show right around the corner.