RandomCha

Andy & I just had a gigantic breakfast: sausage and mozerella omlettes, toast, hash browns, orange juice, coffee (Inteligentsia French Roast). I now feel like a whale. Andy has started on the first draft of his final paper. I am resting in my food coma before I hop in the shower.

Last night was interesting. While Andy worked on his paper, I went out to Specialty and rented a DVD, got some ice cream at Walgreens, came back home. The DVD was a mid-budget psychological thriller/character study/semi-horror film from 1979: “The Attic,” starring Carrie Snodgress and Ray Milland. I had never seen Carrie in anything other than “Diary of a Mad Housewife” (one of my Top Ten Favorite Movies). She plays an alcoholic librarian (!) who is being retired early; 19 years ago her fiancee disappeared on the day of their wedding and she’s been living in grief/denial ever since. She lives alone with her sadistic wheelchair-bound father in a big spooky house. And the attic door is locked …

So I got stoned, watched the movie and ate the ice cream. The film is surprisingly watchable. It’s got some quality to it: Snodgress and Milland dig into their parts with gusto, there are some nice visual touches (it was shot by Gary Graver, who was Orson Welles’ director of photography for his final few films), and it was mostly made on location in Witchita. Some pungent atmosphere. There are some truly weird uses of music and some off-putting monologues: while a corny country song plays on the radio very loudly, she fantasizes that the hunky blond sailor that she picked up at the movies and has just gone to bed with is her missing fiance. And I think it’s the only PG movie I’ve ever seen that shows a woman masturbating. Almost Lynchian.

I am addicted to movies, because even subscribing to GreenCine is not enough. I have to rent additional movies to suppplement the addiction. Tonight, when Andy has finished his work, I think we will watch “The Wild One”.

Yesterday I listened to the 12″ remix of “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer about 7 or 8 times. I don’t know why, but it’s mesmerizing. So simple, yet hypnotic. Can’t get it out of my head. Does anyone have a copy of “From Here To Eternity” by Georgio Moroder?

Today is our anniversary, Andy & I. On this day (more or less) in 2000, I told Zach that I was falling for Andy; Andy had told his own boyfriend Ken a few days before that. They had been together about three years. Andy fled to Indianapolis to stay with his dad and think things out. Being alone for that week was one of the hardest times in my life. Asking myself every five minutes or so, “What the hell have you done?” When Andy finally came back into town, Ken did not want him to stay in the apartment (they lived together). Andy had no one else to stay with, so that first weekend he stayed with me. He took the bus back to Chicago. It was dinnertime, so we dropped off his things at my apartment and walked a few blocks to El Jardin Cafe under the el tracks. Over chips and salsa and a few margaritas we stared at each other, hardly able to talk, not quite believing what was going on. When dinner was over we returned to my apartment, and it was like we were truly together for the first time.

It feels so long ago now. It’s wonderful to think about everything that’s happened in these five years.

Well folks … I have a computer again. It’s been a long, hard three weeks of enforced celibacy. The next few days will be a time of tech-debauchery the likes of which have not been seen since I was 17 and spent 8 hours straight surfing the net at the Denver Public Library.

Stuck at home, waiting for the computer tech to show up. Is it true what Brandon said yesterday, that I’m just cursed to be a magnet for bad customer service?

With the remote he turned on the TV but there was no sound, and he didn’t care what channel it was on. It was more just for the feeling of company. He put the remote down and looked at the coffee table. There were copies of Men’s Fitness and GQ and Out. The covers were so slick they were like mirrors. And he suddenly had the feeling that Lem would not be in his life much longer. “Golden Years” popped into his head and he replayed the guitar riff over and over and thought about the shiny magazine covers, Lem sleeping the sleep of the dead in the next room, the bread machine which was one year old and brand new, and his own job at Playboy Enterprises; the fact that the whole time he had worked there not once had he seen anything even resembling porn cross his desk. These were 4 am thoughts. Lem was hot, yet he never went to a gym and he had a subscription to Men’s Fitness. Now and then he vaguely alluded to lacrosse and that was all. He looked upon mainstream gay culture with distaste but he still had Out on his coffee table. The GQ was the only thing that made sense. Grant probably cared even less for any of those magazines but it didn’t matter. He realized he could not explain to himself why he found Lem so compelling. But it also didn’t matter. Or rather, it didn’t change things. He was just going to have to go down this path wherever it took him.

There was the sound of a train going by. So he wasn’t just living inside his thoughts after all, he was in the real world. There was an infomercial on. The set was a kitchen and the two pitchmen were fooling around with some gadget. He didn’t pay any attention to what they were doing but instead studied the set, the location. He thought maybe if he looked hard enough he could tell what it was like to actually be there. It strangely resembled Lem’s apartment. It looked like a staging ground for something.

Yes, 7.30 pm as usual, at Rob & Andy’s Pad. Those of you who haven’t submitted your pick, email me. See you then!

6.45am: get out of bed, wash face, browse the Reader
7.00am: help wake up Andy, taunt him about having to go to work today
7.15am: plug my iPod into the stereo; Andy says, “What is this, your Annoying Morning Music Mix?”
7.30am: make coffee
7.45am: drink coffee with the sweetie, eat Honey Nut Cheerios while he has the last 2 Pop Tarts
8.15am: buh-bye to Andy
8.20am: place Peapod order, check on my eBay, chat online, surf, yadda yadda
10.00am: go to gym
11.00am: shower & get dressed
11.30am: more surfing online
12.20pm: go to Osco (multivitamins, smoothie), Binnys (tequila, rum, creme de cassis, 2 bottles of wine)
2.00pm: get home, jump online, chat unenthusiastically
2.30pm: take nap
3.30pm: get up, have leftover Italian, half a p & j sandwich, watch some show on PBS
4.00pm: do some dishes, change lightbulb in hall, talk to Ben on phone
4.20pm: start writing in my blog, still not sure what the hell I will do with myself this evening while Andy goes to a birthday party, the honoree of which does not like me, and the gathering of people who will be there I tend to find a bit dull. Rent a DVD? (Old standby). Go out by myself? (Ooo, exotic, exciting). Why isn’t anyone else around?

… why I keep winning the Dunkin’ Donuts Sip Scratch Score! Sports Trivia Game? This morning before work I stopped by to redeem my last winning game piece (Free Muffin), bought a large coffee, and correctly guessed again. This time I won a Free Donut. I correctly answered the question “Which Phoenix basketball player set a playoff record by making nine three-pointers against Seattle on April 25, 1997?” The answer, of course, is Rex Chapman.

Pleasant evening. While Andy did schoolwork I sat in the living room and listened to Bud Powell and Lennie Tristano for awhile. I finished the read-through of the novel’s first draft, and I’m cautiously pleased. It’s enough of a skeleton already to build from. The characters are beginning to seem real.

After work today I’m going to the 2005 Undergraduate Exhibition Gallery of the School of the Art Institute at 2847 West Jackson. The exhibition runs through April 15th. An acquaintance of mine, Scott Nash, asked me to pose for his thesis project, a series of large-scale photographs entitled “20 Guys I’d Like To Fuck.” Who am I to say no to that? He shot almost two rolls of me and I have no idea which image he ended up choosing. I’m pretty curious.

Oh, and CRUNCH FITNESS update: I received a phone call yesterday from the Area Manager. He said that after getting a second letter from Lisa Madigan’s office they wanted to make sure I knew that my contact had been definitely, permanently cancelled. So, seven months later, I am TOTALLY FREE!

Now I just need to get my computer working again.

The tech actually showed up at 9.15 this morning: a good sign. However …

After a battery of tests which are too dull for me to go into, the determination is that the NEW motherboard, the one freshly ordered for installation in my computer, was DOA, A.K.A. defective. So, they are ordering ANOTHER new motherboard and (just in case) a new processor. Good to know that this little debacle is costing them a lot of money, since it’s been costing me lots of time. I spoke with the phone tech support after the actual on-site tech did and told her, “It has been two weeks already. If you need to overnight these new parts, then do what you have to do.” She said she would do her best.

Bottom line? 3-5 more days before anything else can happen. So they tell me.