Another trick in the Upper Haight, and I come two days in a row. Actually it feels kinda good. He has the same Lush soap from London that Andee bought me, the kind that looks like what sea water should look like—only, if it did, I’d be scared. Afterwards, I’m enjoying the trees in the Panhandle, it’s just a one-block-wide stretch of green, but the air smells so much better. I need to spend more time with the trees. President Bush is on the radio, giving Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq, and I’m trying to eat but I can’t breathe. Bush says every effort has been made to avoid war, and every effort will be made to win it. It’s so sunny outside; my face is reflected in the computer screen.
THE GETAWAY CAR
Benjamin says to Ralowe: how can you talk about fatal strategy when you’re not suicidal? Ralowe says: how can you assume that I’m not suicidal? But can I describe my continuing jetlag bags—valleys of purple and reddish hues, sunset down from a cold cold mountain, rings of semi-precious—no, make that priceless—gems. Only the brightest moments for my raggedy bags! And my hands just feel great, five fingers of invisible bruises leading to nerves for arms. I call the phone sex line, the one where you just say hello, and someone hangs up on you. This one guy says I heard you laugh and I came. We talk for a while, and then I run out of free time and the phone cuts me off.
High on life doesn’t even begin to describe the moment abruptly cut short by the sight of a mouse scurrying across my floor. ’Cause really it’s just high—the music taking me, well not quite taking me, but facilitating my movement—there—to the heights, eyes up and up. But my travels are abruptly cut short by that mouse in my house; there it really is, peering out from underneath the closet door—a display of pure audacity. I want to find it cute, but it’s in my house—disease disease DISEASE! If I could just catch it, and release it into the woods, or at least some park—how did it get all the way to the third floor anyway? Wait—I live on the fifth floor.
Imagine the journey—I mean, it’s hard enough for me to walk up five flights of stairs, but this tiny creature made the journey of hope into a new world of unknown perils. How desperate is its rage? Metabolism so fast it can’t sit still, that’s what people say about me though it’s really just my brain, pain, say that again! I call Florence; she wants to know if I get enough protein. Yes, I say, I eat a lot of beans—with almost every meal. Florence says that’s right; I forget that beans contain protein. I say what do you eat? Florence says: for breakfast, I have a scooped out bagel with a tiny bit of cheese and I put it under the broiler. Coffee and I love it. Lunch: tuna. Toasted English muffin. Dinner varies.
Florence tells me about D.C.’s newly gentrified neighborhoods, she says oh these were the most depressed areas for fifty years and now look at them—new condos everywhere, block after block—and the best restaurants, you wouldn’t believe the restaurants, these were areas where you couldn’t even go. I ask about the people who used to live in these neighborhoods. She says oh, there was no one living there before, and if there was, then there shouldn’t have been.
Florence wants to buy me new clothes for my thirtieth birthday—something nice instead of that flea market look. And why don’t you take off those earrings, you are so handsome without them. I call Rose, who says: you’re so handsome without those earrings. I say: why don’t you talk to Florence about that. She says you’re right; I have been talking to Florence.
I ask about Rose’s art, she says oh there are two whole periods that you haven’t even seen yet, I won’t tell you about them because I want it to be a surprise. She tells me about someone who wrote to her for twenty years, sent these elaborate letters after she discovered one of Rose’s paintings, and even though they never met, she would tell Rose about absolutely everything going on in her life—the cancer, the failed marriage, the heartbreak. Rose didn’t tell her much. She wondered about that, because the woman always asked how she was doing. When Ed died, Rose told her, and the woman hasn’t written back since. She used to write every week, Rose says—I think I miss her.
I’m on a roll, so I call my mother. She says you know your father and I are in marriage counseling? I didn’t know. She says the therapist thinks I’m too harsh. I say I could give her some perspective, and my mother seems into it, I’m not quite sure why. Rue says the cool side of the room at Mission Yoga is only eighty degrees, but I don’t know if I believe him. I call the studio, they say there’s no way to measure the temperature, but it’s not as hot as Funky Door, where I used to go. I think of trying it out, until my sinuses take over, throbbing me into meditation, then onto the floor with my head on the sofa, into bed and then out of bed so hypoglycemic I can’t stand anything! Jaysen calls, echoing my voice—I say is this me? He’s in hysterics and I want to go there too.
I can’t believe my sinuses are still throbbing, it’s been weeks since I got off the plane so calm like maybe this time it wouldn’t be a disaster until wait, is that a hole in my head? Rue says you should go to the Oxygen Bar—are you kidding? On NPR: precision bombing, the new feng shui. Alex calls from New York, he was at the gym in the women’s locker room and two big guys followed him in—excuse me sir, do you have a problem? New York Sports Club on Seventh Avenue just above Christopher, the same gym that opened without a steam room so fags couldn’t cruise. It was the early ’90s, and I think people actually protested, but there’s no protest for Alex who has to say I’m a woman—even if he doesn’t believe it.
I go to the Oxygen Bar, but why does the oxygen smell like lavender? I’m allergic to lavender—or maybe I’m allergic to oxygen. That would explain a lot. Outside, this guy’s wearing sneakers instead of gloves, how creative! Which is worse: being wired when you’re tired, or tired when you’re wired? All day long, I can’t stop shitting: eat, rush to the bathroom, eat, rush to the bathroom. Next day, I wake up thinking I hate the world, oh wait that’s every day. Was there an earthquake, or was that a pigeon rushing under my bed?
Ralowe sees a sign at Mission and Third for the Museum of the African Diaspora, he says: everyone looking at me looking at the sign made me think about what it means to be one of those white people staring. Rue says the pollen count is really high today, so maybe that’s why I’m picturing a double-flip five floors down onto the cement floor of the demolished laundromat—see, just because the elevator’s not working doesn’t mean you have to take the stairs!
The roaches are almost gone, but now it’s the mice. In the morning, I hear them crawling through every plastic bag in the cabinets under the sink—any time but the morning, please, I really need some rest! The third week of jetlag is almost over, and my ride to L.A. from craigslist flakes—she’s a midwife; I wonder if she flakes on the babies too. I take a plane, does that mean I’m at the beginning of my jetlag cycle again? Did I really just turn thirty? Allison sends me flowers, but they’re kind of dried out and they don’t fit in the enclosed vase. The magic powder wakes them up, white daisies on my white table—they make me happy. Still haven’t talked to Allison—we’ve been calling back and forth for a whole month but it’s just voicemail city.
I’m wearing one of those impossible outfits on Upper Fillmore by the chiropractor—pink-and-red-striped shirt with an argyle belt and the red, white, and navy plaid pants that I never wear because they’re too baggy, but today it’s hot as fuck so I’ve gotta wear them. I run into Jeremy, he’s with Sarah and his new boyfriend, Sandy. He gives me such a sweet hug, and says you look beautiful. Afterwards I’m high, which gets me to yoga, where I hurt my back. But I feel pretty calm about it. Until I’m watching all the cars on Van Ness and it’s worse than the suburbs—because I’m not there, but they are, peering out at me like what is that? When the massage practitioner works on my hand, things fall out: deep worlds that make my mind go dark. Oh please don’t ever stop, please—but then it’s done.
Who knew that after yoga, I’d have a drug flashback. On the bus I’m so cold, eyes blinking and yes it’s that world where I’m beyond what’s going on around me. Just don’t l
et me crash—hot flash! I’m glad the pigeons love my black-eyed peas, because I wasn’t enjoying them. Rue says you don’t have roaches anymore because of the mice—that’s a lot of mice. Apparently, they chew so fast you can’t see their teeth, but why was that one I saw clear? Rue says you have to kill them, and I get tears in my eyes because as a kid they were my friends, all different stuffed-animal mice under my bed and maybe they’d keep me safe.
One of the few nice moments I remember about my father: he caught a mouse in a shoebox, and we took it to a park to release it. Tears in my eyes and Rue says you can’t kill anything, you can sense a roach’s sentient being, and he’s right—I’d rather move out than kill the mice, cute mice so innocent and small, gnawing away at my foundations.
Rue says there are mice in every building in the Tenderloin, soon they’ll be in your food—plastic bags with holes in them and shit everywhere, that’s how you get cysts—maybe you should get a cat and it’ll eat them up. Rue’s got that look in his eyes; he likes to watch a cat batting a mouse around until it’s torn apart, and I do like cats but not the litter or that horrible food, and certainly not the idea of them devouring torn-up corpses in my kitchen. I could put the litter box on the fire escape, but then the cat would climb down and get killed—wait I don’t want a cat anyway.
Rue’s addicted to Bikram Yoga, I’m trying to convince him to practice some other type, but he whines like a little boy: Mommy, I like Bikram’s. After he leaves, I’m getting high listening to the Miss Kittin CD that was in Muzik Magazine, it’s better than the rest of her shit because it’s some serious mixing, until—is that Joy Division? That’s taking it a little too far. No—it’s something else, worse. Not that I didn’t sit up many a night at least five years after Ian Curtis killed himself, listening to “She’s Lost Control Again”—oh wait, it really is some sort of techno mix with the melody from “She’s Lost Control,” which is sort of genius, maybe.
I go on a walk, to Union Square and then back—have I ever been this tired? On my way home, a trick calls—are you serious? The only other trick I’ve had in weeks was the double with the hooker who had stuffed animals attached to his sneakers. Whatever happened to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? Kayti’s worried about Oprah because of the Martha Stewart insider trading scandal, she sends Oprah an email: they’re after you next.
The mice are taking over my apartment, but at Original Casper’s Hot Dogs in Oakland, it’s more than just a hot dog, it’s a feeling. Late night drama: I get so nervous that I’m not going to be able to sleep, then I can’t sleep because I’m so nervous. Andee says there’s a scandal in her house, she went to do a nasal lavage and her half-filled bottle of distilled water was gone. She says: I think someone doesn’t like that I do nasal lavages at four in the morning. But there’s progress in Berlin: A TGI Friday’s in Alexanderplatz, and three times as many trendy shops on Kastanienallee—everywhere you go, alterna-yuppies with strollers!
Everyone wants to tell Andee the latest news from Iraq—see what your country is doing? The latest news is that they didn’t lock up the weapons factories, and people used the empty barrels to carry water—birth defects for the next three generations. But is that Chrissie pulling up outside? She says: I just got back from seeing Crystal Waters at San Jose Pride—are you serious? Jupiter is with her, she says Crystal Waters had backup dancers who did full splits, she didn’t have to do that to get paid.
The next day, there’s something wrong, like the molecules in the back of my body aren’t connecting with the front. I get back in bed at 7 p.m. and actually sleep, though it only helps for about a half hour after I’m awake. Meditation, medication, meditation, medication. I figure out why the mice are coming to my house, instead of some other apartment where it’s just pizza boxes and beer cans all over the floor. It’s ’cause of the flour under the counter, they’ve gnawed through the plastic and paper bags to get at what’s inside. Then they’ve also devoured the baking soda—flecks of black in the white wedding—oh no, it’s the toxic shit! Sponging up the flour and what’s inside it, I’m having nightmares about disease, even if it’s morning.
Magdalena says you’re so sensitive; it’s amazing you can get out of the house. Jens, Andee’s boyfriend, makes Andee watch The Day After, and then he talks about how it felt growing up fifty miles from the Iron Curtain, always worrying about mutual assured destruction. This woman on the bus is obsessed with her split ends, and so am I. But the new sliding-scale therapist doesn’t want me to eat in the room—don’t you realize I’m going to lose it? After therapy, I crave coke for the first time in a while—maybe a cocktail or two wouldn’t be that bad of an idea. Jeremy and I go to a movie about the anti-war protests—holding hands is still my favorite part. The movie makes me wish I could throw myself in harm’s way and not worry about a few bruises and sprains. Yoga: so many ways to hurt myself. But when I get home, everyone on the street looks so hot from five floors up. I’m the broken windmill at the end of the beach, so lonely I suck men in from miles away—to keep me company, right—company—that’s what I need: more company! A new mattress wouldn’t hurt either, then I wouldn’t have to wake up in a hole—help, dig me out!
What do you want to do—connect to the internet, continue working off-line, or exit the program? If only there were more choices. Chrissie comes over at 1:30 am: I’ll do anything you want—clean your house, do your dishes, type for you—I just need you to play me one song. What is it? “Mack the Knife.” Oh honey, I don’t have that. You don’t have Ella or Louis, Billie didn’t do it—who’s the fourth one—Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong . . . not Dizzy Gillespie—you know. I don’t know. That guy—the other one.
Chrissie says she’s in her Warhol drag: blond wig with a suit and women’s shoes. Did Warhol wear heels? At the Tibetan restaurant, Jaysen and I sit next to these two straight couples that talk about buying houses, and how hard it is to get the hang of it. One guy says something about being fertile and the other woman says no—you’re potent, she’s fertile. In my dream, I’m on so many drugs it’s ridiculous—I guess when I wake up, I’m supposed to think well, at least I feel better than if I did all that. Instead, I think: in the minefields, what does the golden wasp say to the golden butterfly?
I want that Christina Aguilera wig—bleached white dreads that fling quickly to the side when I turn. I’m complaining to Socket, on the corner of Valencia and Twentieth: I’m so over being a whore. But wait—seven hours later and I’ve turned three tricks: why would I ever do anything else? Just sit at home and count twenties, hello.
Here’s a snapshot of the glamorous life: this guy’s shit pouring onto my mint green sheet—um, I think you need to clean up. Afterwards, he still wants to get fucked—you can’t have your baby and eat it too! Aaron tells me about riding around Bremerton looking for drugs—for someone else—he only did one symbolic line, but there was no burning or anything. Kirk calls: was fatalistic the word you were looking for?
I decide to come in my food—Jeremy never did it for me. It’s 3 a.m. pasta, and I’m on the phone sex line, whoops I got disconnected. Over to the other one, and this guy can’t do it right, but I’m playing anyway. I shoot right into the pasta while it’s sitting demurely in the sink: scallions, string beans, bean sprouts, cilantro, lemon, tamari, rice vinegar—and come. I can’t really taste it.
Every day starts with the three d’s: disappointment, disillusionment, and devastation. Rue says he was done editing his video, and then everything went out of sync. He says: I spent hours and hours and hours and hours on it, and now I have to erase my hard drive and start over—I hate computers, but now I’ve based my whole life around them; I just want to go to the woods and eat bark—I went to get my blood test results, and I’ve lost a hundred T cells—I’m down to 483, a hundred more and the doctor says I’ll have to start thinking about meds.
Rue says everyone’s crazy, you’re completely crazy but at least you’re rational. I cook a pot of lentils, and every time I eat s
ome, I can’t think—I’m allergic to lentils and I can’t think. Chrissie says it’s yin and yang, what you get is what you take, are you going to the benefit for the Faerie Freedom Village at Pride? More repressed and less depressed, or is that more stressed and equally possessed? Ralowe says he came twelve times yesterday, all over the place—the bathrooms at UC Berkeley, downtown, seven times on the internet when he was supposed to be making music. On the radio: a guy who runs an animal shelter in LA talks about nurturing this cat dying of cancer, he says at that time they’re perfect because they know about here and beyond, and what we’re doing between the two.
In the morning, I always want more messages, someone’s voice to keep me company. I have a sore throat; I just hope it isn’t an STD because then the antibiotics will make me sick for weeks. Ralowe says they don’t do anything, but yes they do: they make me sick for weeks! I have some weird moment when I think maybe my hands are getting better; then they start to hurt. But the real emergency is that I’m beginning to get a tan line from my fire escape sunbathing—help, take me to the beach! Body image drama: I can’t exercise, so the only thing that makes me able to deal is a tan. It makes me look less flabby.
On the way to Whole Foods and there’s a chick chirping in a bush—where’s your mother? Oh there she is, little black bird swooping in with food and yes of course I’ve got tears in my eyes at this display of parental duty. But then the bird flies away again, and after the woman in the Mercedes stops staring at me; I put some food up on the mailbox so the bird will find it.
Originally, I started going to Whole Foods for the bargain shopping, you know what I mean. Though recently—ever since that security guard started following me around—I haven’t been doing much bargain shopping. Also, I get that panic attack every time, and I’m trying to calm my nerves, thirty years of not knowing how to relax my brain is too long already, right? So now I just go to Whole Foods because it’s the closest place with supposedly organic produce and I don’t want to hurt my hands too much trying to get home—although 40 dollars for eight items isn’t exactly calming, especially when there’s no work. Kayti leaves a message: she went to The Hulk and it made her think of the good old days; that hulk has really been working out. She says when are they gonna make The Dukes of Hazzard movie—I love that car!
So Many Ways to Sleep Badly Page 14