K


elly came by at 2pm, just after I had risen from my post-work sleep. She and I drank coffee together in the living room. We talked about things, and periodically she'd go outside for a cigarette. Angela also interrupts her socializing for cigarettes, more so than Kelly. It's a distraction.

But we all need time for our quirky little personal habits. Mine is checking my email, though doing so doesn't change the colour of my kisses. Still, I feel guilty in this situation to be diverting attention to anything so cold and ordinary as a computer. And then I feel resentful about feeling guilty. I become cranky, and start hating this whole new situation I find myself in. I'm told I should enjoy the attention and the slavery of sexual relationships, but the truth is I don't. Unless I'm given a ludicrously generous allotment of time alone, I become a horrible person.

As happy as I have been without a lover, without intimacy, any change in my life will probably have ramifications that make me less happy in some corners of my psychology.

Back when Leslie Montalto was my girlfriend, I had an enormous amount of freedom, but still I wasn't satisfied. Leslie was forced to dump me if only for her own personal dignity.

It's important to note that none of these "feelings" which I get from my lover in a relationship are ever explicitly mentioned. It's possible they exist only in my mind, though I suspect that they're in the minds of everyone raised in our particular culture. Whatever, it makes no difference. They affect me the same, and they destroy a part of me that needs to exist in order for me to be happy. As happy as I have been without a lover, without intimacy, any change in my life will probably have ramifications that make me less happy in some corners of my psychology. I think I can deal with loneliness; I certainly have a lot of experience dealing with it. The slavery of commitment, on the other hand, seems to me to be too great a burden to bear.

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I ordered a large deep pan pizza from Dominos and Kelly and I shared it while watching a marvelously wholesome old teevee western. There was no sex, but there sure was a lot of violence. And the Indians were uniformly bad. I have an appreciation for the kitschy polarities to be found in old formula movies.

I suddenly realized I had experienced no awake time by myself since Thursday night, except for the time I'd been at work.

I'm human, I enjoy being desired, I enjoy being more than friends. But going beyond that, when there suddenly appears an unstated requirement demanding that I focus all my attention on one person for hours on end, that's when I start to go insane. This began to happen tonight after I agreed to go back to Kelly's house for the night. I suddenly realized I had experienced no awake time by myself since Thursday night, except for the time I'd been at work. Normally in this situation, I'd go along with the program and just become resentful, hiding the resentment as best I can. But this time I decided to be honest. I told her that I am basically a loner and that I need lots of time alone, and that, after all, I couldn't go home with her tonight. I felt terrible to say this; I've never been so blunt with anybody before at such an early stage in a "relationship." But of course it was the best thing. Still, she looked very sad as she left.
For all you astrology buffs out there, it bears noting that she's a Cancer, just like Leslie Montalto.

I was left with a familiar uncomfortable tingling in my belly, the kind that always comes with these sad little conversations. But I also felt suddenly liberated. I went downstairs, where Matthew Hart and Angela were hanging out with a guy from Richmond named Nicholas.

The difference is that the feeling of being possessed is something he actually craves.

I'd never met Nicholas before, but he'd sent me email recently after stumbling upon my musings on the Web. It turns out that he actually used to date Angela back when he lived in Charlottesville.

I


t was a marvelous thing to be hanging out with friends, just friends. Angela was drunk and flirty, but I was protected in so many ways from real intimacy that playing along and being silly with her just felt refreshing. The thing was: I could stop any time and just go to my room and get away, no big deal. Such freedom is extremely important to me.

When Matthew and I discussed the sudden turn of events with Kelly, he didn't understand my thinking at all. He said he always likes to "have a chick around." The difference is that the feeling of being possessed is something he actually craves.

I knew instinctively to inspect all the windows near the dart board.

Half-gallon bottles of whiskey and gin were both in effect, and Matthew was pretty damn drunk. I came back to the living room from a brief mission to refill my glass and Matthew was looking at me sheepishly, singing "doo dee doo." I knew instinctively to inspect all the windows near the dart board. He'd somehow managed to throw a dart through a window pane and it had left a neat little hole and a few wispy cracks.

A


ngela had been invited to visit a friend named Claire who lives in a big mansion somewhere in the country outside of town. In turn, Angela invited all of us (which now included Deya) to join her. I decided to go, since it sounded like adventure, though I risked not making it back to my Saturday shift at Comet. We were joined at the Brick Mansion in the 'Hood by Sam, who drove his own car.

I found out later that my lovely chums had put sour gummy worms in my nostrils as I lay there.

I was rather drunk and fairly tired, so I slept for most of the ride.

Once we got into the house, quieted the enthusiastically barking dogs, and been introduced to Claire (a vaguely hippie chick with a subtle enchanting high-class English accent), I could get a sense of the sheer opulence of the place. It had a high vaulted ceiling, wooden grills on the floor heater vents, and a big fire place in the center of it all, connected to the ceiling by a thick black iron pipe. The girls (Angela, Deya and Claire) all sat in the fire place when they smoked their cigarettes. Around the great center hall were lots of little rooms crammed with top-of-the-line consumer electronics.

Several people went outside to jump on a trampoline, but I stayed inside to avoid the evening's chill. After drinking a few Budweisers, I covered myself with insulatory pillows and passed out. I found out later that my lovely chums had put sour gummy worms in my nostrils as I lay there.

At a certain point, Angela jerked me to my feet, flung me into a bed, removed my boots and wished me good night. I think she thought I was extremely drunk, but by this point I'd sobered up. I had to share the bed with Nicholas the Human.

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Get a sense of what I was like exactly eight years ago and one year ago today.

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