1156

Tanioka is back in prison.
The PL is again in hospital, in a coma after yet another suicide attempt.

Angelo will make it, I hope, to the 27-year-mark on Monday
[yes, he's one year behind the Sleeptalker]
and that most admirable young man and I gave Angelo, prematurely, quite a birthday party.

In the early days at the Hacienda, if anyone had told me what would happen
on the penultimate Thursday of October 2003,
I would have thought them totally insane.

Despite the tight circumstances of this budget cycle, I had earmarked forty dollars for Angelo's birthday. In one of those "chance" encounters Dame Fortune loves to arrange, Angelo saw me at the mall late afternoon on Thursday. He was thirsty and hungry, so of course, I took care of that, but as always refused to agree to a "loan" of money. Eventually he went on his way. But when I was walking from the bus stop to the Black Hole, along came Angelo and the Sleeptalker (Dame Fortune is such a clown).

So we had Angelo's birthday party a few days early. I supplied two "papers", the Sleeptalker one. And Angelo, of course, managed to get an extra ten out of me by returning from a shopping trip claiming he could only buy a thirty-dollar bag. Oh well, it wouldn't be Angelo if he didn't manage to pull some kind of scam. I accept that now, but I love the young man and know that's just how he is (and was grateful to get away from the adventure with so small a loss, not that he didn't try to make it greater).

He also had his strange sexual voyeur fantasy fulfilled, at last. I was astounded the Sleeptalker agreed. He even went first, but I think he was so nervous about having a witness that he couldn't fully perform. Nor could Angelo. But it was most amusing and, when Angelo went on the second shopping expedition, the Sleeptalker did indeed "perform". Did he ever. I think that was the best yet. No, I don't just think it, it was.

To the breadth and height my soul can reach ... As Taylor Caldwell writes in the splendid Testimony of Two Men: "Desire was the least part of love, though it was its foundation, its earth."

Alas, the Garage may be finished as a party place. The Sleeptalker fell into one of his compulsive writing trips, went further upstairs leaving me and Angelo alone. Then two gentlemen from the Sheriff's department arrived. "What are you doing here?" one asked. "Just talking," I said (which, fortunately, was all we were doing at the time). The Sleeptalker no doubt heard the encounter and escaped, because we didn't see him when we left. Angelo wanted more, so I left him to whatever plans he had to get it and went to sit in the small park where I often escaped when the Hacienda was too rowdy with one of the Rocky Social Horror Club parties. Quite a few people sleeping there, but no hassle from the police who have a sub-station across the street from the park. At about four in the morning it began to rain so I went to GovSanc2 and sat on a bench reading until the buses starting running.

I don't know whether the lads really enjoyed the party. I think they did, but no doubt about it, I certainly did. Happy birthday, Angelo. And thank you for helping to make me a very lucky man.

1157

tell me I'm crazy, maybe I know ...

No maybe about it, though. Is it this hideous steamy Kona weather or the solar storm driving us to excess? More likely, in my case, it's just that the more I get the Sleeptalker, the more I want him. Four times within a two-week period is unprecedented so I should be more than content. Should be.

As always with the Follies, the day after the early birthday party for Angelo was a total wash-out, nothing to do but stay slightly drunk all day and wait until it was late enough to collapse in the Black Hole and sleep it off. The weekend wasn't much better, this sweaty weather not helping. On Sunday, the Sleeptalker appeared in the game, complaining about how bad the Follies hangover had been and also complaining about his host, as usual. Poor man lets the Sleeptalker sit there for hours using his computer while the Sleeptalker is thinking nasty things about him. I wonder if the Patron eventually gets a reward. Probably.

I gave the Sleeptalker the password for his recovered character, played for about an hour and then left. He was in the game again very early on Monday morning but disappeared for awhile since, as I later discovered, he was walking to campus. We played for awhile, sitting at computers next to each other, and then I took him to lunch at the Garden. Back to the game for a couple of hours, much longer than I ordinarily play, and then to the beach park for beer and snacks. I was surprised Angelo didn't come looking for us since he could have used it being his actual birthday to wheedle. Maybe the PL is out of hospital and was treating him somewhere.

Then the Sleeptalker offered the ultimate prize for sharing a pipe. Too soon, too soon. Well, for the pipe, certainly not for the prize. But I agreed anyway. He really has changed about sexual encounters, is far more mellow and relaxed which makes it even more of a pleasure, especially since he so obviously enjoys it, and he seems not to be suffering such angst afterwards like he used to (or maybe it's just buried in the overall ice hangover).

There's just no question about it, that man's body is the most desireable I have ever known.

That he's also a sweetheart, overall, can't be discounted either.

We separated, I spent much of night in the little park reading, then went to GovSanc2 to continue the book and wait for the buses to start running. He arrived at about 4:30 in the morning, said "I'm sorry I didn't come back."

I was sorry, too, wouldn't have minded spending the night in his company, but then we'd been together all day and most of the evening. Can I find a way to tell myself not to be greedy?

1158

On the surface he showed an adolescent fretfulness, but he yearned now to settle in some permanent fashion, at the first possible moment, the few remaining years left to him. He had no further inclination for repairs, rebuilding, modifications in the blueprints, or recasting of plans. His mind and flesh were incapable now of enduring any uncertainties. Quivering like a piece of fruit inside a dish of jello, he waited impatiently for the moment when the gelatine would kindly harden.
Yukio Mishima: After the Banquet

The high point of the week's reading. Such an elegant novel. I wish I could read it in the original language, but I'm too old and too lazy to learn another language.

Too old and too lazy, the theme of this Week of Solitude. Except for the usual exchanges with shop clerks, I've spoken with no one for a week, since that last party with the Sleeptalker. I think he's gone back to the country, since he hasn't been in the game, and I'm happy for him that he has someplace to escape when life becomes too heavy.

The game has been amusing, even with his absence. There was a fine party there on Halloween, the Boss Lady setting up a special quest with critters so difficult to kill it often took three or four of the most powerful players in the game to defeat them. I only died once, only got one "treat", a "Halloween mask", which isn't as good a piece of armor as it should have been, given the difficulty of getting it. But amusing ... as were several hairy-legged young men wearing dresses on campus. They all went for "clown drag". I guess it would have been asking too much for one to do a stylish drag number, might call into question things young men on campus don't want to risk. Otherwise, Halloween was nothing special, although it was nice that the Black Hole was about half-full that night (as much explained, no doubt, by the first-of-the-month welfare payments as by the holiday).

Lorenzo Carvaterra's Sleepers is such a brutal book. I'd like to see the film version sometime, but doubt it could match the book. My childhood was far from perfect, but a book like this makes me realize just how lucky I have been in this weird life.

This weird life. Uh-huh. I pondered on Thursday and came to the conclusion that I am not happy with this life. I saw three answers: 1) commit suicide. 2) change it. 3) reconcile myself to being "unhappy". After all, no one said the object of life is to "be happy".

(1) would be absurd, after all this time. (2), I have no idea. So I'll stick with (3) for the moment and see what happens, like a piece of fruit in a dish of jello.

1159

... like a piece of fruit inside a dish of jello

My mother was really very good at baking. Her pies were especially fine. Chocolate, lemon meringue, coconut cream, and most ambrosius (if there is such a word) pecan. But in the hot summer months her habit of having a dessert with every evening meal was usually fulfilled with pudding-from-a-box-mix or Jell-O, more often than not with a can of "fruit salad" tossed in when the stuff was half-gelled. Not very exciting stuff, but better than that over-processed mushy fruit salad on its own. Memory circuits activated by a phrase in a novel. I wonder if my life-long disinterest in fruit is related to eating that so-called fruit salad? The only fresh fruit we had: bananas and apples, the bananas being sliced upon dry cereal and the apples I never much liked.

Proust's cookie.

The fifty-cent cart at Hamilton is once again serving up unusual treats. That splendid Mishima novel was followed by Siamese White by Maurice Collis, a history of European traders in India and Thailand in the late 1600's, with a concentration on the Englishman, Samuel White and his fellow scoundrels. Then Paul Theroux's bizarre novel, Chicago Loop.

And now Kipling's magnificent Kim, certainly one of the long-ago influences on my desire to visit India and still capable of making me homesick for the place.

Kipling is underrated in these times.

In less profound, but occasionally amusing, reading, the local bloggers soap opera continues. I almost feel sorry for Cheyne. If he weren't such a silly boy so much of the time, I would feel sorry for him. His most recent heart-throb, Shigeru97 and that one's possible new love interest, Tin Foil Hat, both write about their meetings, although so discreetly "possible new love interest" is justified. Perish the thought that a Sleeptalker patron writes one of these things and if it did happen I surely hope I never hear of it because like Cheyne, I would know I shouldn't read it but probably couldn't resist. (And the Sleeptalker, of course, would no doubt be sure to let me know of it.)

It's bad enough putting up with him in the game sometimes when, as on Thursday, he's in make-Albert-jealous mode. "I hate charging someone when I really don't want to have sex with them," he said publicly, later boasted that it was the first day in the week when he hadn't smoked ice. He had also been in the game on Wednesday, in a very sullen, mostly-silent mood. I made the mistake of giving him some things when it would have been better just to have ignored him, so I did that for a time on Thursday. After I returned from feeding the felines and drinking my lunchtime brew, he started in again with his taunting so we ended up having one of those verbal tennis matches he so enjoys. They leave me with a dirty taste in my mind.

It is possible to deeply love someone and not like them very much at all sometimes.

1160

Once, a man exposed himself, right in front of me, at eye level. (I'd made the mistake of sitting on a secluded bench, on the grounds of the university.) He wasn't a tramp either, he was quite well dressed. "I'm sorry," I said to him. "I'm just not interested." He looked so disappointed.
Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin

"Can I ask you for a favor?" No, I said, but it didn't stop him. "Can you spare two or three dollars so I can get something to eat?" "Definitely not!" (Whatever happened to the "loose change" line?) Two mornings later, "Can I ask you for a favor?" Again, saying no didn't stop him. "I've been looking an hour and a half for a cigarette." "This one came from an ashtray. Help yourself." "If I find one in an ashtray, can I get a light from you?" "Go away," I said. "Are you all right?" he asked. Then he shuffled over to the next bench at the bus stop and repeated his hour-and-a-half yarn, actually got a cigarette and a light. I wish people wouldn't give money, or cigarettes, to beggars like that. Shouldn't encourage them.

The population of trashpickers and beggars has again increased at the mall, even in the early morning hours. I see several regulars who get off a bus and immediately start making the rounds of the trash cans. It must really annoy the security people.

Grubby has evidently been banned entirely from McDonald's. For some time they've allowed him to buy coffee in the morning but not to stay inside drinking it. Too many complaints about his horrible stink. Now he sits outside every morning but doesn't go in. Maybe he's hoping someone will take pity on him and give him coffee. Won't be me.

One major advantage of the rainy day bench, where I've been sitting most days at sunset time, is that not many of the trashpickers come that way and none of the beggars. There's one man who seems to sit in the area all day but wanders off once I get there, replaced at about seven o'clock by a woman who has arrived every day at that time, sits on a nearby bench, doing nothing (how do they survive without at least a book to read?). I wonder if she stays there all night. One of the funnier trashpickers walks by at least once, funny because he tries so hard to pretend he isn't trashpicking ... and ends up being more obvious than he'd probably be without the pretense.

I was reading some of the Tales from this time last year and was reminded of that delightful movie, "Groundhog Day". Only it's the year repeating itself, not just a day. Same ups and downs with the Sleeptalker, sweet intimate times followed by snarling ones, Tanioka in jail, the PL attempting suicide. About the only difference is that I spent more time with Angelo last year than I do now. I haven't seen him since the pre-birthday party.

The Sleeptalker has been in the game every day, playing for hours. On Friday and Saturday he stayed utterly silent, didn't seem to be really playing very much, just staying in a clan hall. He foolishly changed his highest-level character into a "pkiller", effectively ruining yet again a good chance at making it to the top. Aside from some remarks about how cowardly it was to hide in the clan all the time, no one said much to him and I said nothing to him or about him. On Sunday he was in a sillier mood, did say a few things after entering with "I've discovered I'm gay so I've just stopped in to say goodbye before I kill myself." I continued to ignore him.

The next day, when he appeared, I said I thought he was going to kill himself. "I was just pulling your leg," he said.

I'm most curious to see how he'll behave after Third Wednesday.

1161

If I took the bus each day to the little shopping center not far from the University, I could save at least 32 cents a day on catfood. Frequently even more, since they often have special sales on pet food. I'm sure that's the kind of thing most pensioners think of.

So be it. I am obviously not a "typical" pensioner.

1161a

Sun Nov 16 17:28:27 2003

To: I care

Well its been a pretty long time since ive been here.
Mudding and all, but its time for me to star getting serious again.
I need to get with my real life.
And matbe visit my familys new home. :P
See my brotyher that iI havent seen in awahile.
I will try to see you guys later.
just give me l;ike a month or so.
To get myself started off with my Real Life. :P
I will miss you alot cuz Ill be aweay .
But will always think aboout here. I will be back so dont jump on a plane,
and look for me :P.

wrote the Sleeptalker on the public noticeboard in 7th Circle

1161b

The decorations are up, carols are playing, winter weather has arrived. Ho, ho, ho. 'Tis the season to ... well, I don't know about jolliness but it is time to put long pants and a long-sleeved shirt on the shopping list. Once x no longer = 1, of course. This was the usual x equals time with its boring emphasis on dwindling cash. It didn't get as bad this round as it sometimes does, mainly because the Bad Boys were absent and I stayed out of the beach park. Paulo did find me at the Rainy Day Bench one afternoon but got negative replies to requests for beer and cigarettes.

The Sleeptalker's notice is rather bizarre in saying it had been a pretty long time since he'd been there because he played almost every day for hours. Maybe his meaning is that he has been mudding for a pretty long time (thanks of course to having found that very patient patron with computer). But the real story behind the notice he revealed the day before when he said publicly something like "my friend has asked me to leave because he's gay and he's worried people will think I'm gay." The Chinatown Patron is kind of late in arriving at that concern and most of the people who knew about their arrangement already think the Sleeptalker is gay, anyway. I didn't say anything. It's certainly the first time I've ever heard that line as a brush-off. I can't really blame the man, though. It is a one-room apartment and it must have been very boring to have the Sleeptalker sitting on the computer for hours, not to mention coping with his many moods when at the pipe.

Speaking of games (and addiction), Peter of Naked Blog mentioned an elegant French site for Mah Jonng Solitaire, a game I was very fond of years ago. Nice to have it back. I think. I've been playing it so much that when I close my eyes to sleep I see the tiles.

1162

It was almost worthwhile being angry with Comus for the sake of experiencing the pleasure of being coaxed into friendliness again with the charm which he knew so well how to exert.
Hector Hugh Munro: The Complete Stories of Saki

Said Jonathan Cainer: Don't go mad but do go just a little crazy. Extraordinary opportunities really are within reach now.

Would a "little crazy" have included jumping on the Sleeptalker when I saw him at the Black Hole as I was leaving Tuesday morning? He looked so incredibly beautiful. (The photos really don't do that man justice.)

I just gave him the American Indian "how" gesture.

I've got the flu, feel sicker than I have since the pneumonia adventure. Body all aching and wracked with pain, etc.etc.
Yeukh.

I like you as you are, just a nice-looking boy to flatter and spoil and pretend to be fond of.
You've got a charming young body and you've no soul, and that's such a fascinating combination.
Hector Hugh Munro: The Complete Stories of Saki

1163

The worst is over. The chills and fever have subsided. I hated that uncontrollable shaking, followed by sweating. Almost as bad was the pain in the joints. I woke up several times during the night with pain in the knees.

I bought some "multi-symptom night-time" medicine because I'd had a difficult time sleeping (not just the joint pains but also being unable to breathe through my nose). Then I made the mistake of taking two of the enormous capsules before getting on the bus to the Black Hole. Fell asleep on the bus, most fortunately woke up just a couple of stops too far, so was able to walk back. The "decongestant" aspect of this multi-drug is so effective I could just lean over the bench the next morning at the mall and let drops fall from my nose. (Sorry about that, a bit gross.)

My early morning playmate, whom I haven't seen in quite awhile, was there. Oh well, I ignored the rather awful fog that drug gave me and enjoyed him, and I suspect he enjoyed me enjoying him. Maybe the Fountain of Youth is also a cure for influenza?

No, I doubt anyone has ever suggested that "sausage and cream" is a cure for a virus-inflicted ailment.

It's berry-dropping time in the secluded grove. There are a few young men on campus who are quite obviously homosexual. Even though I am not usually attracted to that sort of man, there is one who has such a fine body I can't help but admire him. As he walked through the grove and I was admiring, a berry hit me right on top of my head. Will the campus trees kindly refrain from making editorial comments?

I saw Rocky in the mall. He has gotten alarmingly thin, looked almost as bad as Michael Jackson's arrest photo. Well, no, not even close to that horrendous image, but still worrying.

1164

I accept the concept of karma. What goes around, comes around, no matter whether within just one life or within a series of lives.

So I look at my current, miserable condition, examine the past, know I couldn't possibly discover the reasons, but ponder the possibilities anyway. It was at this time of the year, not long after I had joined the Army, when I got influenza which morphed into pneumonia. It was at this time of the year when I once again got pneumonia and spent months in the hospital. Were it not for my "pneumonia shot" supposedly still being effective, I would already have sought medical advice.

Wonder what it is about my karma which brings this nonsense along at this time of the year?

This time of the year.

I diligently avoided most of the 40th anniversary stuff, but listening to Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, when Garison did an elegant, brief elegy for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I couldn't stop myself from crying. A reader asked me to read some book about "decades" and tell her which of the events in the book had been meaningful to me. But I don't want to do it. The truly meaningful ones are the ones you really don't want to remember, the ones you wish you had never experienced.

I could tell you all the details about how hideously uncomfortable the past few days have been, but I'll spare you.

There was one bright moment in an otherwise lost weekend. I spent very little time on-line but did look in on the game on Sunday and the Sleeptalker was there, playing from the country. He said his nine-year-old brother was watching him play. How very odd. I don't remember him ever mentioning a second brother.

1165

A dietary chart of progress?

On Saturday I ate nothing at all. Even the thought of it was nauseating. I drank a cup of tea, a can of vegetable juice, one and a half beers, all of which came back up not long after it went down. I assumed it was a process of flushing the body. On Sunday, a cup of coffee and almost all of a cup of yoghurt in the morning, a baked potato in the late afternoon, one and a half beers (once again, I couldn't finish the sunset brew). On Monday, a cup of coffee, dried cereal and milk. A beer and a bowl of minestrone for lunch, a Subway BLT and a beer for dinner.

Yes, I guess that's progress. Of course, I'm as bad at convalescing as I am at being sick, maybe even worse, so happy days are certainly not yet here again. Brighter, though.

I was amused by an article in the student newspaper by a young woman suffering from a bad cold and her observations about the many "symptom relief" options. Quite agree with her, they make you feel "different" but not really better, maybe even worse. I gave up on that night-time stuff after three nights. It had me waking often during the night feeling almost painfully thirsty from severe dry-mouth and then stumbling groggily to the water fountain. Everyone probably thought I was staggering drunk. Somewhat better results from a cough syrup which combines a "suppressant" and an "expectorant". It did stop most of the night-time coughing attacks. The expectorant part of it is really unnecessary, though. Two cigarettes first thing in the morning work quite efficiently on that score. Now to endure a time of that ghastly first-hour-awake routine of hacking up the accumulation from the night. Oddly, and happily, it seems to be less from this attack of viral terrorists than it usually is from a routine bronchitis flare-up.

I saw the wretched RedEye in the supermarket on Tuesday. He isn't sure, but he thinks Angelo is back in jail. If so, it's the usual misdemeanor gig because he isn't listed on the judiciary page. Oddly, there's also no mention of Tanioka there, but if he had gotten arrested on a misdemeanor it would have cancelled his probation on the prior arrest and they may not make note of such things.

It was a relief to see that Cheyne found somewhere to live. We definitely don't need any more bodies at the Black Hole, especially at this time of the month. They were already making announcements by about nine on Tuesday night that if you didn't have a mat, you had to stay outside. Interesting contrast to the fellow who said on soc.culture.hawaii that the solution to the housing problem here is more "condominiums and townhouses". Yeh, sure. How about a bigger warehouse with more floor space for mats?

There was a wonderful dream about the Sleeptalker. We were cuddled together naked in bed, no sex involved, just being close together. (The chance of that dream coming true is about the same as odds on Lady Grey curling up in my lap and purring.) Nice dream, though.

Oh well, one thing I will be feeling thankful for on our national day of giving thanks is that he'll be spending it with his family.

the tales