Crazy Love

Could you Love This Person?



(warning: spoiler, especially in the links)

Crazy Love: The marriage I will do anything to avoid.

One of the craziest love-abuse-marriage stories ever. Seriously. A reminder that at this point, falling off the 'crazy' wagon for me is a neutral-friendly email, and all those thoughts about flat tires and spray-painted windows and bottles full of piss and disemboweled abdomens stay in my active little head, while this world is really full of genuine wackos passing themselves off as human beings, and in this case, more than getting away with it. I feel like I'm crazy when I get to feeling like Mr. Tehn but actually I don't hurt people except for mutual consensual pleasure and money and have never once contracted anyone to throw acid at any of the people who get new shiny girlfriends. Not once. This movie may elicit some hatred of men, I must warn you, especially if you are susceptible to that anyway. Or it may just boggle your gender-neutral mind, completely.

Regardless, when Irene and I left the video store today I showed her the cover and she said: "Looks like you. Both of them."
And I don't deny it. In fact I feel like the above picture is an accurate portrayal of about 70% of my personality and internal image. I've got many little people living in this Mer-cat (including a beautiful and demanding Princess that hasn't held court in far too long; a nurturing Mommy who cooks, cuddles, and reads aloud; a dapper vintage cad with a foppish hat and roguish cane; and a little hobbling naked imp covered in snake skins and dried glue) but this double image of femme glamour and intense wacky creep makes up the lion's share. The Burt Pugach part of the picture reminds me a lot of R. Crumb, a figure I have taken to relating to more and more over the last year (but only mostly because I am a notorious pervert with similar taste in women). Note the -weeesque bow tie. The Linda Riss side is the fancy lady from my photo shoots, though in fact she was a very nice girl and a virgin until her 30's. We have similar eyebrows.

Though the resemblance goes a bit deeper than appearances, or more accurately, self-image.
So while the story of these people horrifies me, as components of the psyche, I am fascinated with them. More than that, I recognize them as my own. I relate to both the drastic obsession and the appeal of being loved fanatically. I understand the dark barbed lure of insanity, the seductiveness of passion untempered by reason. These days I channel that urge mostly into art and BDSM and also the occasional harmless rant in my living room. Not as romantic as a heroin addiction, but easier to recover from and probably more sustainable. This is a picture of boundlessness, in wanter and wanted. Rumi always puts it in terms of the lover and the beloved.

As usual I am, and want, both.

W4W and Me: You Defy Description

This past year, after each of two tough, but very different break-ups, I found myself turning to Craigs List as daily habit in my life. The first time, last March-June, I scanned the local Missed Connections forum daily, enjoying the distraction and entertainment, hoping to see myself reflected through another's desire (it's been a fantasy since I was 17 or so), finding solace in the hordes of other people lonely and hurting and strange and spewing. I don't own a TV, don't really consume any media except books and the two free weeklies (I am a bit embarrassed by being so poorly informed about current events and the like, but have yet to find a regular relevant source of clear, unspun news), wasn't watching movies, and no longer drink or smoke pot, so Missed Connections became my little escapism fix.

I almost never look at Missed Connections anymore. This time, it's the W4W section, which I've mentioned before. My roommate got me started on it and now I check it, generally several times daily, as a fascinating microcosm of the local gay/queer/lesbian/bi/trans communities. I examine the writing styles, and have learned general trends about what kinds of people write what kinds of ads, who is most likely a man trolling for sex pictures (a hot though amateur pic of a young, very femme girl in lingerie looking to hook up and exchange pics....NO MEN!-generally a dude), how more than any other category W4W is used as an online community/info center beyond just personals, and marvel at how much queers love passing judgement, policing each other and giving each other shit. Irene calls DVDs of HBO shows her "stories" like a grandma at home with Days of Our Lives, and W4W has become my stories. Oh right, and as of 2007, I occasionally get dates from there, though often when I'm not really trying.

When I was actually actively dating the last ex, I rarely perused W4W, and if I did I was usually looking for ladies who fit one or another of our fantasies, in the hopes we could find someone to fill out a particular role or gang up on. But despite, or perhaps because of all the trivial petty shit, name-calling and sizism and trans- and bi-phobic attitudes, beyond all of the ways it's so much like everywhere else in all the most mundane and embarrassing ways, it perfectly feeds my brain's craving for bite-sized pieces of fluffy, arousing, informative and occasionally soulful information.

And, I realize while writing this, although I often mourn the lessening of quality connections with empathy, compassion and sensory satisfaction between people that this world of cell phones and instant messenger and MySpace and blogs is weaning us from, I guess that the W4W forum also gives me the sense of belonging to an ersatz community, without facing the scorn of the Lex or running into my ex's or feeling invisible because of my generally femmey, weirdo presentation and male-oriented history and expansive desires. Being actually invisible can give you the freedom to be exactly who you are with confidence. It can also dehumanize people, inspire new heights of deception, and without accountability, bring out the worst.
Funny, that.

So this evening during my casual scroll, I came across a thread about a well-written ad. I love following the threads especially, they are a bit like anonymous exquisite corpses. So I went back and found the "OP" which is original posting in CL speak, and discovered it to be not only well written, but really resonant with many of my own feelings. So I emailed the poster and asked if I could re-print the ad here. She gave me her blessing so here it is for your reading pleasure. She is quite a bit older than me, and felt the age gap too significant to date, which was fine by me. But I feel the ad to be very apropos to what I am looking for.

My notes would be these:
1. I may put more importance on looks and interests than the author, though I have a very wide spectrum of what I find appealing in both those arenas.

2. I consider work to be anything on which you spend time, energy and hopefully some passion. In my (very privileged and also creative) world, work and finances are not necessarily corollary, though hopefully there is some of each.

3.Although I have practiced polyamory (much more difficult than the piano, which I gave up years ago) for about eight years, I am imagining my wife to be probably single. While I envision a poly marriage, with perhaps some periods of monogamy to help through rough patches, I want to get involved with someone who has the room not only in their hearts, but also in their bits and schedules to really fall deeply in love and intimacy, sometimes quickly sometimes slowly. To me this indicates someone who has had good practice with poly life, but happens to not have any super significant (in terms of romance and time commitment) partners at the moment. Perhaps some very casual, or occasional out-of-town lovers, but no relationships that would make her feel not single.

And here it is:

You Defy Description

Your looks and interests don't preoccupy me. What matters to me are your experiences, perceptions, and states of mind.

You know idiocy. What it is for you to completely screw up. Lose a chance. Miss a deadline. Blow a fuse. Lose your mind. Slip on a peel for real. Wound a lover. Lose your star. Sign a contract you know you’ll pay in blood.

You know many kinds of love. Romantic and silly. Unyielding and loyal. Coarse and exquisite, jealous and forgiving. Stirring-the-oatmeal love. Ancient, deep, recognition-love. Unrequited and tearing.

You know loss. Lover, family, goddamn body part stopped working, whatever it was. Crying in the shower. Getting through the days. Wincing away from the photographs, years later.

You know bliss. Music finding the heart of your ears. Touch. Image, sculpture, and narrative in visual motion. A glance, a smile, the simple phrases that wing the heart and make it sing. The body pushing against gravity to a great pleasure, to a finish line, beyond pain to submission, through silence to a timeless space of luminous ground.

You know surrender. To accept, in the big ways, that you’re not who you thought you were, or wanted to be, or thought you would become.

You know work. A steady hum. Combat and loyalties, crisis and crap, and even so, getting things done.

You know nature. Not just the elemental joy in rivers and mountains, kinship with that doe in the woods. Now, Being unconceals itself everywhere, you feel rapture in the concrete at Bush and Van Ness, a lost button, the rusty car hood.

You know connection. So you find it odd and hard to feel so much a-part-of-things -- not important, not unimportant, just a infinitesimal part of a whole -- in a culture peopled with many (not all) peripatetic, disconnected individuals, subjects who feel like objects, many of them scared and unhappy with who they are and what they’ve (not) got. You know you can’t hug total strangers, but sometimes you want to.

You have a job, a life, a family you talk to, friends. You have problems, you’re not perfect. You’re single. You’re thinking about “dating” and maybe in some moods you’re reluctant, in other moods optimistic. You’re more cautious than you used to be. You think if you meet the right person, something will click, there will be an opening of a sort. This frightens you a little but you’re willing to be open to it.

Me too.

If this post describes you, I have lots to learn from you. And maybe I have something to offer you. Though who knows? We'll never know unless we meet. -A.J Waterborne

*Prospective Brides Do Not Read*

Post-Footnight picture.

Not the most attractive time for SLWaW, but true none the less.

A story from last night:
Irene and I dress up for a foot fetish party. I haven't had a pedicure in a month but with all the hibernating and a couple of dabs of off-color polish and I can fake it. I almost break down in the car on the way to Dublin (!?) thinking about: 1. all the kinds of sex and relationships I've never had 2. not remembering where I put a good vibes gift certificate and a new compact. Obviously PMS was politely making itself known.

The party is surprisingly brightly lit and lucrative, apparently the lack of dimness I was counting on when doing my make-up in the car didn't deter the toe-hungry. It's more man than I've dealt with in some time, and while fun and distracting, I feel a little overwhelmed and start running out of things to do with my feet. They don't seem to care or notice.

Afterwards we're thinking about going to the Bump, an unfortunately named queer dance night at the Cat Club. Neither of us have gone, but I figure there is a small chance of getting laid there and at least it would be funny to invade the quipster space with our un-cool super-glam femmeness. After a double drive-by with no cute smokers or parking spaces outside, we say 'fuck it' and go to the Lex instead.

It's late enough that people are drunk enough to smile at us, and one cute and gregarious girl starts in with compliments right away. Which is shocking since usually the Lex is where we go to really externalize our internal feelings of alienation; when we want to be "out" but can't deal with anyone looking at or talking to us, we know we'll be safe there. I smoke an unnecessary cigarette to flirt and learn that girl used to be a sex worker. I give her my card and go in for a hug. When Amy Winehouse comes on, my heart threatens to explode, so we leave.

More pleasant than expected, for sure. But then I'm home alone again, Irene's holed up in her with Craigs List and her hot new shoes. I stay up later than relevant or sensible.
Ok, and here it is, the crux of the story: I get naked in my room, shivering and scrambling for my pajamas, but for a minute there I am, suddenly naked in front of my mirror. In single winter times, this is a far too infrequent occurrence. And you know what? I got PISSED.
I screamed : "I'm hot! WHAT THE FUCK!?"


Then I resigned myself to my cold bed and my angry dreams.


Funny how finally figuring out that you're hot can be spoiled by the context. I'm just having a kind of angry bitchy time. I do little gratitude rituals and sometimes remember to breathe, but dammit, I just want a hot fun exciting new connection, or better yet, someone to go test mattresses with me that's been in love with me for years. I'm impatient. It feels like my body is being wasted. I went to breakfast at a cafe today in my pajamas and a fedora and on the way home had a little tantrum, screaming: "Why doesn't anybody love me! WAH!" to the middle of Mission St. I know that's no way to get a wife or girlfriend or even an alley-fuck, and I know I am so blessed and so very privileged and live an amazingly beautiful, strange and fulfilling life, but right now, in the moment, its just one big ride in the Wahmbulance for me, and every meal is a wahmburger with a side of cries.

So I hope all you potential wives didn't read this, because I'm working on my attitude, though not as actively as I have in the past, and I just had an amazing weekend last week, but it wore off, and basically, what I'm saying, is this is not the pro-active, strong, woman with agency type of me that I'd hope you'd find appealing, but a pissed-off, can't wait for the year to be over, curmudgeonly couch-nester. And I don't want to attract people who are attracted, either in a fix-it or similarly bitter way to that. However, I would like to be with people that can understand and accept a holistic emotional spectrum, and realize that while this is me, yes, there is also so much that isn't this and it's ok, if not my favorite, to be all of it.

Anyway, wah. Fucking wah.
At least all of this spew got that awful picture off the top of the page.

No, really, could you love *THIS* person?

I figure, if we're going to be wed, you should see this ahead of time.












Today, I am full of hateful rage.




Also, Irene told me to tell any prospective wives out there that if we have a date I won't blog about it. Apparently that's what she would be worried about. So I promise I won't beyond saying "I had a nice date" or some such, unless you say you want me to, which I understand is unlikely. Don't worry about the hateful rage, it's not that frequent (except this year.)

Fucking Christmas music does not help.

*This post in honor of Ben Knoll.*