Aimee Mann's Favorite Seventeen Candy Hearts

One of my friends from The Cantab Lounge has a show next week. Possibly to soften me up so I'd come see her show, or more likely because she's just a good person, she gave me a ride home from last week's slam. During the car trip, she gave me a Valentine's Day gift that she'd been holding on to, as I'd not seen her since January. The gift? A plastic heart filled with little candy hearts.

I'd forgotten about the heart until tonight, when it fell out of my jacket pocket. Being slightly hungry, and in major need of a sugar rush, I opened up the plastic heart, and poured out its contents. The bag contained seventeen candy hearts, and they all said the same thing: "Wise up"

I'm a crush you with my teeth, you sarcastic little bitches. Then I'm going to lay in bed, reevaluating my life.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/109558.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 7: Returning A Bottle Rocket To Its Shelf))

Dmitri is on the phone with the airline. It's snowing. And while the snow looks heavy from inside the house, I know it's not heavy enough to ground him here for one more night. Dmitri is leaving to return to his what passes for normal life. Landlord has offered to drive us to the airport whenever Dmitri's flight leaves.

"Hello?" Dmitri asks, signaling he's finally through the robot barricade and talking to an actual living person over the phone.

I stare at his bags because I think this will make him more comfortable than if I were to stare at him. I hate it when most people look at me while I'm doing something uninteresting. And because I'm neurotic, and Dmitri is neurotic, I just assume he feels the same way, so I stare at his bags, then his shoes, then...his ass?

In the days before wireless phones, my mother used to tangle the fuck out of phone cords during nervous conversation. She always had to be doing something with her hands. Her nervous behavior, and my father's ascent into obesity are just a few reasons I'm glad I'm not biologically related to them. Of course, my birth father was a rapist, so maybe obesity wouldn't be so bad.

Rather than tangle the cord on the phone, Dmitri is playing with his pants. As he giggle something about "So you can't tell me whether or not the plane is leaving?" his pants ride just low enough for me to make out a few inches of crack. I hope this is a signal. The snow will pick up. The pants will come down. We'll soon be making out, and I'll be running my fingers down that crack and...look at the bags, Safey, look at the bags.

He hangs up the phone and repeats the conversation that I just half heard. He's impossibly cute.

Whatever we talk about for the next hour must be fleeting because all I can think of is want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss. Then, it's time to head to the airport. Landlord gets the car running, we grab all of Dmitri's bags, and head to the car. We should be at the airport in...wait, we're headed in the wrong direction. Maybe Landlord is helping me kidnap Dmitri. This idea would intrigue me, except that Landlord is a sixty-something year old guy who likes to go to foreign countries and pick up young boys and do...whatever he does. I don't share well. But we are not on our way to the airport, we are clearly at the T station. I am tempted to say "This isn't the airport", but this week has gone particularly bad in every way except for Dmitri, and I'd rather just spend some time on the T with Dmitri anyway.

want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss Talk about nothing. want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss

And we're here. The airport. Dmitri is leaving. The lady behind the counter won't let him bring his bags carry on this time, so he checks them. I want to say how sorry I am that my friends let him down (because I'm used to them letting me down, that's no big deal to me, I let them down just as often). I want to say I wish we'd had more time. I want to kiss him, and follow him to the gate, and on the plane, and back to Chicago. I could move my life to Chicago. Steggy is there. Dmitri is there. I know loads of people in Chicago, why I could...kill myself rather than move again. I'm no longer a satellite in search of a planet. I am a star, and someone will make their orbit around me.

And it's time for him to go, and we shake hands. A handshake. We met because he liked the way I wrote about being a complete whore, and the only physical contact is a handshake? I'm so far off my game, I'm playing patty-cake.

His plane takes him home where his Mutually Exclusive Hookup Partner will soon become his Boyfriend. They'll make forts out of blankets and play video games. I'll be at home playing solitaire.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/115804.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 6: Crush Crash))

I want the phone to ring. A trumpet flare or a sitar version of "Stay (Faraway, So Close!". I want the phone to ring, but only if there's a guy on the other end. I want the phone to crawl across the floor, lovingly nuzzle me, and say "It's for you." There's too many qualifications, but still I want the fucken phone to ring. It does. "Hello?" Please be Dmitri, please be Dmitri.

"Hey, it's Dmitri," He laughs. Lucky fucker is drunk. "Where do you live?" I give him directions for the cab ride back. An hour and a half later, he's sitting on the couch next to me. He tells me about $4 bottles of water, and finding "(his) people", hot guys who excitedly dance to Kelly Clarkson. I want His People in bed, but they must wear headphones in public. He heads to bed after "The Oblongs". I also decide to crash.

His whole visit has caused me to crash into contemplativityness reflection. After a delicious homecooked meal of fettuccine and Jiffy blueberry muffins, I stack the dishes on the table.

"You're so NEAT." Dmitri says. "Wht would you do if I made a mess?" He grabs a pile of Landlord's papers and scatters them over the floor.

I shrug. "Wait for you to pick it up." I say, knowing his OCD will kick in, and he'll be compelled to unmessify the floor. A few minutes later, he does.

I really want to kiss him, and it's bugging the fuck out of me. I'm supposed to be a top, the control guy, but I find myself wanting to wait hand and foot on this nudge. He's adorable and everything, but he's not that hot. Am I becoming a Middle Man? A "top" guy who waits for a "bottom" to tell him how to do everything? Shoot me yesterday.

"I'm bored." He says.

We go to The Trident to meet Clitty for lunch. I'm almost out of cash, so I have this long internal dialogue about cashing my check. I scan through some books while Dmitri paces. Like all of my other friends, Clitty is late. I locate her via cell, and determine that Dmitri and I have enough time to shop on Newbury Street before Clitty will show up. First stop, Diesel, where Dmitri spends over $100 on a t-shirt I could get at Garment District for $5. I taunt him for being a Fag. Then we go to the Hello Kitty Store. I no longer have the right to taunt anyone for being faggy.

Clitty is waiting when we get back to the cafe. Our server is hot but completely incompetent. Clitty and I are discussing whether I should cash my check when I hear Dmitri breathing heavily...into a straw...that's bent into his left ear. "It sounds like an airplane." So I'm in crush with a four year old.

I turn to Clitty to mock him, but she has MY straw bent into HER ear and says, "This feels sooooo good." Clitty needs to get laid.

In an effort to reclaim some semblance of normalcy, I start talking about asses. Clitty asks to see Dmitri's (because she's clASSy, mot socially obtrusive). He would have turned red, if his skintone allowed. He stood up and walked away from us. Due to his baggy jeans, I couldn't yet comment on his ass.

After Dmitri charmingly overpays the bill, we head to Central Square to cash my check. It's snowing. On the bus, Clitty and Dmitri serenade me with a Brittney Spears song. It's cute, weird, and incredibly out of tune.

The banks are closed, so we have to go to a Western Union to cash my meager checklet. Not having my ID, I sign the check over to Clitty. The woman behind the bulletproof glass says she's not allowed to cash it because it's now 3rd party. She does anyway, so I go across the street to buy her a flower. Dmitri chastises me for jaywalking, and Clitty finally realizes "You have red hair." This, after months of trying to tell me I don't have red hair. Chicks are dumb and colorblind.

After Western Union Lady has been flowered, and Clitty has left for a haircut, Dmitri and I head back to my house for what may be the last time. Unless the snow gets so bad, his flight gets delayed. Please, let it snow harder.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/114747.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 5: Why I Missed The Dance)

Just because a guy wears a hot pink shirt and leather pants, doesn't mean he sucks cock. But in this case, it was a pretty good indicator.

It's a Thursday night in Boston, which means Campus Gay Night at Club Manray, so odds are that the three hot guys in the outrageously Gay outfits do, in fact, suck a little cock now and again.

"I call the one with the long hair." Clitty says, as we carry our pizza over to a booth at HiFi.

"Given." I say, trying to decide which of the other two I'd rather molest. Actually, I probably won't be molesting anyone. Knowing me as well as I do, I'm pretty sure I'll just watch them out of my peripheral vision as they grab their French Fries and take off for Manray. But they don't leave with their French Fries. They sit down. NEXT TO ME and Clitty.

Clitty, being her remarkably socially obtrusive self, starts a conversation about blah blah bah, who cares, I'm not listening to her, I'm focused on them. Pink Shirt talks about why he likes Manray, how cool he is, and other things that make me happy that Clitty has called dibs on him. "I mean, I don't know what you call it when you like a bunch of chicks, but only one at a time---"

"Serial monogamy." I offer.

"Yea. That's totally what I am, a serial monogolist. But right now there's this girl I'm kind of seeing, but she's going to Maine right, and then like, we're gonna break off for three months, and then we'll see what happens."

"That's so wrong." Says the moderately cute guy in the mesh shirt and eyeliner. "If you love someone..." he drones on and on about love and society and other things that only someone completely awful in bed can care about.

The third one, the blond guy in the hoody, just sits back and takes it all in, occasionally smiling to himself. I decide he's the one I should obsess about, which means he's probably straight.

Eyeliner drolls on "...I mean I have my social security card, my birth certificate, and my worker's ID card, I just can't afford to get my Driver's License yet. They'll let me in, though right. I mean it's not like I want to drink. I'm twenty. I just want to see what happens there. We drove all the way from Cranberry Lake."

"Whereabouts in Cranberry Lake?" I ask. And he describes roughly the neighborhood I lived in about six years ago. And they're all in their early twenties. It occurs to me, I was probably their camp counselor ten years ago.

"We should invite them back to my house for a few drinks." Clitty says while Pink Shirt and Eyeliner argue about "their band" and Hoody suppresses a smirk.

I mouth no, and prepare to leave.

This is why I always miss the exciting nightclub life. There's always a reason: I'm too old, I'm too tired, my hair's too long, I'm not in the right mood. Even when Dmitri was in town, I was actively coming up with reasons not to go dancing with him when a legitimate reason fell in my lap like burning hot spaghetti sauce: Celeste.

I had told all my important friends: Clitty, Cali, Zuzu, and Celeste, that Dmitri was coming into town. Cali had offered to take me to meet him (which she failed to do), Zuzu had agreed to meet us at the aquarium (which she failed to do), Clitty said she'd hang out with us on Newbury Street (which she did, but she was late), and Celeste suggested we go to The Good Time Emporium, the local Chuck E. Cheese for adults. I'd been really clear with all my friends that I wanted my nights free to spend quality time with Dmitri. And, no, that didn't necessarily mean sex, just that I didn't want to spend one of the three nights he was in town doing anything that wasn't Dmitricentric. These were his nights in Boston.

Unfortunately, a week or so earlier, I had helped Celeste film an animation project, and we hadn't quite finished. When she asked when we could finish it, I said "Before Dmitri comes to town, or after he leaves." So, of course, the only night she could get equipment was the first night of Dmitri's visit. The night we were guest listed at a club that wasn't Manray. Guest listed. Guest listed. I'd be stupid not to go out clubbing with a hot gay that I was crushing on when we were on a fucken guest list.

So I'm stupid.

Celeste and her friend that Landlord dubbed Goth Girl, showed up at 7ish. Dmitri was supposed to meet a friend at the Dyke Coffeehouse at 8. He offered to walk while we started the animation project, but I was all kinds of pissy, and didn't feel like making him walk. I had given up a night of dancing with him to shoot this video, Goth Girl could damn well drive him to the coffeehouse. On our way, we picked up some vodka so that Dmitri could "ready himself" for his first time ever at a Gay dance club. Then we got lost. I mean Lost. It's really simple to get from my house to the coffeehouse. I'd walked it at least a half dozen times, but I'd never driven it, and with all the one way streets in Boston, we somehow managed to overshoot the coffeehouse by several miles.

Now, I should explain, this was THE THIRD TIME we'd been lost since Dmitri showed up. Somehow, I managed to find the abandoned warehouse/art gallery easily, despite never having been there before. But the Aquarium, where I used to be a member, completely eluded me. Coming out of the gallery, we walked back to the T, and I asked a cab driver how to get there. He pointed vaguely into the distance and Dmitri and I began walking that way. The completely wrong fucken way. We were, in fact, on the wrong side of Boston Harbor. Asshole cab drivers and how much I hated my friends became my favorite topics for the rest of the week. I don't remember the second time we got lost because I was probably still talking about the first time.

Once we realized we'd overshot the coffeehouse, Dmitri called his friend to tell her he'd be late. This was fine, as she was also running late. He took a swig of some Skyy, I tried to be comforting, he exited the car, and Celeste, Goth Girl, and I drove back to my place.

I should point out here, that I didn't really know Goth Girl. For all I know she's a wonderful person who was just having a bad night, but I do know that the two of us were not feeling much love for each other that night. I was quietly fuming over missing the dance club, but wanting to be a good friend to Celeste, and Goth Girl was angry because I don't drive in Boston, so my directions are from a walker's perspective. When walking, one is completely oblivious to one way streets. I told her a block in advance that we should take a left at the next Dunkin Donuts. Unfortunately, neither of us saw said Dunkin Donuts until she was speeding by it. The next four lefts were one way streets going the wrong way.

When we get back to the house, we were being polite in a way that underscored how much we really weren't liking each other. We filmed for what felt like days. On the way out, Celeste referenced a dingleberry, and instead of just saying "Penguin Lust", I let it get under my skin. I assumed she was pissed at me, or she wouldn't have brought him up.

Fine, I gave up a chance to dance with my cute crush on his first night in town so I could exchange catty digs with a friend that I was doing a favor for.

I went back to my room to pout, when I realized something very troubling. I couldn't find Dmitri's phone number. Dmitri was out at a club in an unfamiliar city with some chick he met over Livejournal. I had no way to contact him, and if he lost his cell phone or had some sort of weird emergency, he had no way to contact me. I was mid-freak out when the phone rang. "Hey Safey, it's Celeste, did I leave the videotape there?" She did not. If we spent all that time filming and being snippy with each other and she'd lost the tape, I was going to go to Church and take communion just so I could once again renounce God and embrace Agnosticism. She ended up finding the tape. God was spared my re-rejection. For the moment.

I turned on Adult Swim and resumed pacing. If I stopped moving, I'd fall asleep. If I fell asleep, and missed Dmitri's call (assuming he had my number), he'd never find his way back to the house. I am the worst host ever. I hate my friends. I hate my irresponsibility. I hate Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I hate that it's past two o'clock in the morning and I don't know where Dmitri is. I hate that I just shifted from past to present tense. But that's how focused on self-evaluation I was, time shot everywhere around me. Every tiny little failure in my life, not the monumental life changing ones, the stupid shit, was bopping around my head. Fuck. Dmitri's family didn't even know he was in Boston. If he was kidnapped, gang raped and murdered by a bunch of drag queens, what would I do? I didn't know his family or his friends, what, was I going to leave a comment in his boyfriend's Livejournal: "Hi, you don't know me, but your boyfriend was kind of staying at my house the other night, and he was gang raped and murdered while he was out at a club. Ummm...do you want me to mail you his iPod?"

I stared at the phone, willing it to ring.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/113811.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 4: Dmitri Responds To Part 3)

So, it's interesting to be writing about someone who actually reads this journal on a regular basis. I have tweaked the order of when things happened during Dmitri's visit in order to make certain points, but otherwise, I'm trying to be as honest as I can about his visit. So I e-mailed Dmitri and asked what he thought of the last post. His response:

The old woman at the aquarium didn't say much of importance, it was all just facts about the sharks. The one dumbass woman was all "VY DON'T DE SHARKS JUST EAT EVERY-TING?" and the old woman explained how little the sharks eat or how they feed them and they usually just DON'T EAT AT ALL. God, how stupid. But then WE had the idea of listening intently so that we could go down to one of the floors and repeat everything as if we just HAPPENED to know everything there was about tiger sharks.

My criticism (of your last post)? Only one.

I HATED ROCKHOPPER PENGUINS THEY'RE AWFUL VILE AND TERRIBLE LITTLE BASTARDS! I do NOT like having a parallel made to such STUPID birds.

Their hair was TERRIBLE, the noise they made was ridiculous, they all took turns, but didn't go in any specific order, and there WAS a conflict. The one chick wanted to make her noise and this guy took her place so she started squabbling and making a big mess until she silenced the other guy. And THEN she didn't even go! What a bitch! I hate Rockhopper penguins and their little SOCIETIES.

haha, remember the one fucker rockhopper penguin that LEFT the rock with the others and stood with the other, quieter, better penguins? THE PENGUINS ON THE MAIN ROCK STILL RESPECTED HIS RIGHT TO MAKE NOISE DURING HIS OWN TURN.

and what the hell did i say about sharks and turtles?

Also: I fantasized about throwing one of the huge fish up in the air, letting it slam on the ground, and then stomping all over it to secure my dominion as Top of the Food Chain.

You also didn't say anything about GETTING LOST and having a taxi driver give you WRONG DIRECTIONS and you bringing it up in every conversation no matter the topic. DON'T GET ME WRONG, I thought it was cute how you fixated on things that bother you to the point where you can't talk about anything besides how annoyed you are at taxi drivers.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/113545.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 3: On The Inside Of The Glass)

If I were a gerbil, my water bottle would be filled with Cherry Coke. If [Data Embargo] Dmitri were a gerbil, he'd be doing commercial modeling for Habitrail. If I were a gerbil, and Dmitri were a gerbil, we could have the kind of hot, kinky gerbil sex that doesn't invoke the urban myth of Richard Gere and an Emergency Room visit.

I'm not a gerbil, and neither is Dmitri. We are two humans who met through Livejournal, decided to hang out in person, and decided that a trip to an art exhibit would be fun. we hadn't anticipated that said "art exhibit" would be inside a warehouse that gave off serious Freddy Kreuger vibes. But there we were, on the wrong side of a swinging door. On our side of the door: wood chips, a fake hanging water bottle, large fake gerbil turds, a bowl full of water, another bowl full of stale crullers that were supposed to look like gerbil food, no other door, and the windows were barred. On the other side of the door, ominously approaching footsteps. Footsteps that never materialized into another human being.

During our moment of fear, I should have wrapped my arms protectively around Dmitri and maybe kissed him. I didn't. The two of us just sort of wandered around the giant cage making jokes about how bizarre it was that this exhibit was held inside a seemingly abandoned warehouse.

While I kicked fake turds, Dmitri swung on the giant bird swing, the only part of the exhibit that was out of place with the whole Gerbil Cage Mystique. I've owned several gerbils in my day, and never bought a trapeze swing for any of them. Gerbils would make shitty acrobats.

From the lifesize gerbil cage, we made our way to The New England Aquarium. We were supposed to meet Zuzu there in the early afternoon, but like just about all my friends that I'd made plans with during Dmitri's visit, she failed to show. So we went in without her. On our way in, our photograph was taken. I would have liked a photograph of the time we spent together, but their photo looked like shit, I hated my hair, and they wanted like a bazillion bucks for a cheap ass picture that we hadn't been prepared for.

After making our way through the jellyfish exhibit, where Dmitri proved his skillz at video games by defeating a jellyfish game designed for six year olds, we arrived at The Giant Ocean Tank. As we circled the tank, Dmitri said some rather insightful things about sharks and giant turtles before jumping back about five feet and letting out a rather loud "Oh, gross!"

I imagined that if I looked hard enough, I'd see an amputated bloody hand floating in the tank. Then, I remembered how Dmitri felt about other human beings, and realized he'd be overjoyed to see that the Aquarium was feeding human beings to the fish. "What is it?" I asked.

"That fish. It's so huge and ugly. I hate giant things." I made a mental note not to show him my penis, then I made another mental note that I didn't have a giant penis, and we would both be safe should penis presentation time ever arrive.

At the top of the tank, an old lady was telling a young mom and her brood something interesting about sharks that I fully intended to remember and write about, but the goldfish part of my brain has since vanquished. Dmitri and I discussed how unhungry he was after the traumatizing giant fish situation, and headed back down around the tanks to check out The Penguin Pool.

For those of you just joining this journal, I love penguins so much, I am tempted to write I <3 Rockhoppers the most. Maybe it's the punk rock hair, maybe it's the way they honk for attention, I don't know. But it was at The Rockhopper exhibits that I had my first revelation concerning my feelings for Dmitri. Rockhoppers are incredibly territorial, and, while sociable, don't appear to be overly friendly. While we watched, one of the aquarium employees was moving around the pool doing something scientific. The Rockhoppers were taking turns honking at him. One would spend ten seconds "singing", then another would begin. There was never any overlap in the honking, and there as rarely a second between one penguin's honking and another. They were cute, obnoxious, and loud. Like Elvis. Like Alex. Like Dmitri. Nothing at all like MAMIP or Liam or Ryan; they were Magellanics.

I thought I'd passed through my Rockhopper phase, now preferring a less needy guy who loved me more than the attention I lavished on him.

Don't get me wrong, I am not and was not in love with Dmitri. I love his writing, the way he thinks, the way he blows into his own ear with a bendy straw when I accidentally stop paying attention to him for ten seconds while Clitty asks me a question. I think he is mentally and physically amazingly beautiful, but I wasn't in love with him. I was just terrified by how easily I could have been in love with him if the scenario was a little different: say, we lived in the same city, or if I wasn't spending so much of his visit brooding over my irresponsible friends, or if he didn't have a boyfriend. I may be a naive, lust hungry, easy target for falling in love, but I have enough self-control to never allow myself to be in love with someone who is in a relationship already.

"He's not your type." Clitty said well after Dmitri had left Boston.

"What is my type?" I asked in my vaguely annoyed tone of voice.

"I don't know. He's so Young. Don't get me wrong, he's adorable, and really sweet, but don't you think you'd be happier with someone older?" This from the thirty-eight year old, currently lusting after eighteen year old breakdancers.

"He doesn't write like he's Young. And, I mean, he does act Young, but he's so self-aware. I act Young all the time. It's what keeps me from being a depressed misanthrope like you."

Wisely, the topic of conversation changed at that point.

So what if he was is seven years and seventeen days younger than I am? He's...not available, so why bother finishing that particular line of logic?

"Do you want to go dancing?" He asked me, the night after our gerbil excursion.

The answer was Yes. I've never been a club kid, never spent much time at Manray or any of the clubs in Provincetown, but I've always secretly wanted to go, and now I had the opportunity to be guest listed at a club where I could dance with an insanely hot, nerdy, meglaphobic gay crush. So why didn't I go?

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/113357.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 2: Claiming Dmitri's Baggage)

Dmitri wears Diesel shoes. His shoes match his outfits flawlessly. Not in that pink shirt, pink sweatpants, pink shoes sort of way. His outfits are often from different stores, are different colors, and different styles, but they are, unquestionably, matching styles. They're unquestionably hot.

Having left a majority of my clothes in Pieceofshitdeserttown, my outfits are uhh...well, not outfits. And my shoes? During the last snowstorm my shoes got the toes kicked out of them. My feet didn't actually stick out of the toes, but I did look like a homeless person from the ankles down. I wasn't completely aware of this until I was actually on my way into Logan airport to pick Dmitri up. What I did know was that one of my many unreliable friends had flaked out and, as a result, my hair cut had never happened. I was a long-haired, homeless shoed freak in a non-matching outfit when I arrived at Logan. Late.

I buzzarded around Baggage Claim and the arrival gates about four times. His flight arrived at 10:45, and I had arrived at Logan at 10:47. I am tempted to blame this one Unreliable Friend #1, but I should have known that she wasn't going to show up or even bother to call me to let me know she wasn't going to show up, because she is one of my friends, and as I have learned this week, my friends are unreliable. If they say they're going to meet me somewhere at 6:30, they may or may not be there by 8:00, and odds are, they won't call to let me know they're running behind. I've been moderately aware of this for a few years now. In fact, I've caught some of their unreliableness. This is what happens when you belong to a community of people who advertise events starting at 7:30, but don't actually show up until 9:00.

I was cursing Unreliable Friend #1 for not giving me a ride to Logan (she was catching a flight there an hour after I was to pick up Dmitri, so I wasn't asking her to go out of her way) while I buzzarded. I was on pass number five, when I turned around. Dmitri was behind me. Apparently, he'd been following me for a turn or two. I'll probably want to kick myself for using Elvis's word, but the only thing I can think of to describe Dmitri is kyoooooot.

We took a bus, then the T, then a bus back to my place. Most of the trip home we followed/were followed by The Man in The Red Jacket. a mysterious stranger who had apparently been staring at Dmitri from the time he left Chicago. Creeeeeeepy. We ended up losing him when I got on the train going in the wrong direction. He did not follow us when we got off, and switched to a train going the right way.

Once Dmitri was unpacked, we went out for Indian food. On our trek to the restaurant , Dmitri began his one man show. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but I'm going to. When he was done berating me for not bringing a granola bar with me when I met him at the airport, he began making fun of my shoes. He then made several attempts to kick pigeons who had the misfortune to cross his path. When I crossed the street at places that were clearly not crosswalks, he let out a high pitched squeal, and ran across the street like a Muppet with its fur on fire. If he hadn't told me about his Mutually Exclusive Hookup Partner, I would have taken him right there in the street.

Our conversations deserve a post of their own, a la Drunken Conversations at Hampshire College. Dmitri is easily the Most Interesting Conversationalist I've ever met. He talks in and out of Gay so effortlessly, unlike most of our contemporaries. While Dmitri was on his cell, chatting with a Gay friend about dancing plans, I was on the phone with the guy who created the PE(s)T exhibit, a giant gerbil cage. The person sounded incredibly Gay. He expressed an interest in being at the exhibit when Dmitri and I arrived. I imagined him spending an infinite amount of time explaining"his vision" and the "metaphorical ramifications of a gigantic gerbil cage". This was not something I looked forward to.

Dmitri and I were discussing how Gay our phone partners had sounded when we arrived at the address of the exhibit. It didn't look like any art gallery I'd ever seen. In fact, it looked like exactly like the sort of vacant warehouse where serial killers rape, torture, and kill young art patrons and grind their bodies and incorporate them in their next "project". I sensed we would be the basis for an upcoming "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit". Dmitri vocally agreed with my inner-monologue, as we opened the heavy wooden door that led into the obvious trap art gallery. The stairway was filled with face shots of all the other unsuspecting people murdered on their way into the gallery.

Over the phone, The Artiste had said that his exhibit was on the third floor, the sign said it was on the fourth floor. I made the mistake of believing the artist over the sign (I spend lots of time with artists, I should have known to follow the sign), and Dmitri and I got out at the third floor. Someone in one of the little cubicles was either pureeing a human flesh smoothie, or vacuuming up the clues from the last murder. We quietly returned to the staircase and made our way to the fourth floor.

At the end of the long hallway was a set of bars that could only signify a gigantic gerbil cage, the place you lock up prisoners, or both.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/106397.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 1: A Bundle Of Nerves)

Like most members of the animal kingdom, I am a bundle of nerves. Strike the right one, and I'm yours.

So far in my sensual history, I've fallen in LOVE with three people: Ryan, MAMIP & Liam. All of them sweet, and willing to do almost anything for anyone. One was straight and easily spooked, one gay and easily spooked, the other, completely unable to cope with his sexuality. But love is so overrated.

The guys I fall in LUST with get on my fucken nerves. In our first conversation, Elvis's voice was like a cat in heat being rubbed claws down on a chalkboard made of aluminum. Of course, I was Demoraled out of my mind, at the time, so I invited him to fly up and visit me. Worse, I spent money I didn't have buying his ticket.

Just about every guy I've found hot is either a spaz, a compulsive liar, a dingleberry or a user. Dmitri doesn't appear to be any of these. Annoying? Well, yea, but in SUCH a HOT way. The sort of annoying you want to get up real close to and kiss, and throttle so that the annoying tongue slides into your mouth.

I haven't been this nervous in quite a while. In six hours, I head over to my friend Cali's for a haircut. I'll give her a couple of books to take to one of my friends in Ireland, and then we'll drive to the airport, where she'll be heading off to Europe, and I'll be meeting Dmitri and taking him home.

Yep, for the first time since Elvis, someone is coming from out of state to spend time with me. Unlike Elvis, however, this is a very short term platonic visit. Three days, two nights.

So why am I so nervous?

I really like Dmitri. He's funny, smart, hot, and while he's not A WRITER, he happens to be a very talented writer. Much more talented than most of the "writers" that I know. He's also cruel, needy, and sarcastic. Three attributes which, against my better judgment, are HUGE turn ons for me.

So, in the week since I've known he was coming, I've been calmly trying to thing of fun things we can do on my...ahem...extremely limited budget. I've also been leisurely getting my room organized, and attempting to not freak out Dmitri, who is also a bundle of nerves. For the first few days, I successfully remained unfreakedout. Then my computer crashed. Then my TV crashed into my computer. Yesterday, I walked a mile into the evil sleet storm that hit Boston. The sleet was so hard, the discman I was holding was skipping. Today, on my way to work, I missed the bus I was aiming for, but the bus didn't miss me, slamming a HUGE puddle of slush first on my left side prompting me to say "Ohhhh gross." which allowed my mouth to be open just wide and long enough to get a mouth full of yummy Somerville slush. These are all wonderful signs.

So now, I'm in freak out mode. Straight Roommate leaves for Kaleeeeefornya in four hours, so he's hogging the washing machine, so I can't even finish my laundry. I tried doing it yesterday, but Landlord was doing his. The day before? Straight Roommate. Fuckers. I was going to borrow Zuzu's car to do the Logan run, but it won't start. I left my tips at work. The first time I wrote this entry, I tripped over the power cord and....yea.

I'm hoping that I get all this bad luck out of my system BEFORE Cali starts cutting my hair. I'm also hoping that Straight Roommate gets off the phone soon, so Dmitri can call. Right now, he's really getting on my last nerve.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/105938.html

Penguin Lust, Unrevisited

There's no conceivable reason why ACDC's "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You" is stuck in my head. No one around me recently has sung or referenced that song, no one has rocked (or appeared about to), and I have not seen someone salute anyone since I shaved off my Hitler mustache in the mid nineties (I'm kidding, I'd never shave off my Hitler mustache...I mean, I've never had a Hitler mustache).

All week long, the wrong things have been popping into my head: that horribly catchy Maroon 5 single, Manamana, the word "phlebotomy". At work, a softspoken man was trying to order a raisin scone, and I kept hearing him say "bra strap, bra strap, bra strap" over and over.

The crazy quotient in my life keeps escalating. My mother called last week to tell me she heard an ad for a job on the radio that would be perfect for me: bag checker at Logan airport. When I tell her that I'm not the least bit interested, she asks if I'm content to bag groceries for the rest of my life. I've never worked in a grocery store in my life, but now I'm considering it just because I think she's prejudiced against supermarket clerks.

Yesterday, she called and asked if she could visit on Saturday. Just as she hung up, Zuzu called and suggested driving to New York City on Saturday to see a poetry event. When I reminded her that Dmitri is going to be in town on Saturday, and that he might not want to spend ten hours of his visit in a car, I realized that the real issue was that I didn't want to be trapped in a car for ten hours with Zuzu, Dmitri, and Zuzu's latest "boy toy", a guy who, within the first five minutes of my first conversation with him, brought up both how easy it is to murder someone AND how complicated his life has been since he was released from the mental institution.

Today I received an e-mail from someone saying that they were removing me from their friends list because I mentioned in an entry that I don't like cunnilingus. If you've read enough of my journal to decide to add me as a friend, and you don't realize that I'm not going to be a huge proponent of cunnilingus, I just don't know what to say except: "Penguin lust."

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/105323.html

Craisins

Tonight's fortune cookie (What? It's left over from last night. It's not like fortune cookies aren't already stale.)...so...tonight's fortune cookie says "Although it feels like a roller coaster now, life will calm down."

Oddly enough, tonight's fortune cookie, despite being from the same place, is a different color than last night's, and this one doesn't have any Chinese translations on it (last night's informed me that the chinese word "tang" means "sugar").

But, back to the fortune. I'm not sure I want my life to calm down. Ok, I don't ever plan on doing anything like a Foam Party again, and I doubt I'll ever meet another guy via a dating site, but I do have a friend visiting from out of town, and I'd hate for him to be bored. Don't get me wrong, I don't anticipate the visit being anything you're going to read about (unless he brings penguins, then I'll be erecting a monument in his honor [author's note: this is the first time in the history of this journal that "erect" has been used in a non-sexual manner]).

But, back to roller coasters. Apparently, when I was a kid, I used to love rollercoasters. At some point, one of those amusement park staples made me puke. And since then, no roller coasters for me. When I was nine or ten, my parents tricked me into going on "Thunderbolt Mountain" at Disney World. Man, they paid for that. I cried like a fashonista at a Phish concert.

Eventually I learned to appreciate fast, non-rollercoaster rides. I've gone white water rafting a few times, and I don't even want to contemplate how many tickets I've spent on The Gravitron at various fairs. But I hate fucken roller coasters. So if my life is a roller coaster, well...maybe a change is in order.

But, back to not boring people. I've discovered the ultimate conversation killer: craisins. Any time you're talking with a hot guy and you want to cause an uncomfortable silence, just mention the word "craisin". It's definitely going to be my safe word if I ever do any bondage play, which I'm never going to do, because I'm boring.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/103827.html

Smiles

Tonight's fortune cookie says "A smile is your personal welcome mat."

Now you know why I sit on so many guys' faces.

(insert rimshot here...no rimjob jokes please)

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/103315.html

Suds, Studs, And The Kindest Buds

The invitation said "Sunday night suds and studs party. Call Jack for more information."

I was intrigued. I assumed (wrongly, of course), that a s&s party was some sort of beer thing; hot guys with Harpoons and Amber Bocks. Hot guys in skimpy clothing would be walking around with a variety of specialty beers, flirting with the ugly queens in order to get them to buy more beer.

I hate beer. I don't particularly like ugly queens, or false flirtations from hot guys in skimpy suits and bowties. Still, I called the number on the invitation and asked to speak with Jack.

Jack explained how wrong I was about a suds and studs party. He had rented a gym after hours. At 2 AM, any guy with an invitation and the special password can come into the gym. They are to head immediately to the locker room, where they take off all their clothes, and have their "bikini area" covered in foam.

The foamer, surprise surprise, was a hot Brazilian kid with a bikini that revealed that he either had an enormous cock, or he had stuffed his suit with a Beanie Baby. I had little doubt, looking around the locker room, that Gilmar would be the hottest guy I'd see all night, and he wouldn't be going home with me. But I'd already decided that I wouldn't be going home with anybody.

"How about I just play doorman?" I asked Jack.

A disparaging term for female genitalia was muttered in my general direction. It wasn't the first time, I'm sure it won't be the last.

I watched the various entrants get sudsed and make their way to the shower area. All the partitions had been taken down, creating the perfect Nazi gas chamber ambiance. Well, it would have been the perfect Nazi gas chamber ambiance had the room been full of anorexic men and children. However, the room was filled mostly with grizzlies and orcas. Clearly, I was not the only person in the room without a legitimate gym membership.

Remember, I like chubby guys as much as I like slimmish guys, and I'm not completely averse to obese guys, but I felt really uncomfortable being both the youngest, and one of the most in-shape guys. I should never be the hottest guy at a party. It's a position I've never held in my life, and have never wanted to hold. After all, being the hottest guy in any given situation would mean that there really aren't any hot people at the party. I'd much rather be the most Interesting guy at the party, or the least likely to be molested by a creepy stranger covered in foam.

I was so glad I didn't have to pay the forty dollar cover charge to get in. Jack had invited me for the experience and waived the entrance fee, under the conditions that I write about it, but not give either his name, or the name of the gym we used. He was also kind enough to give me Gilmar's e-mail address. Jack is now my favorite fag in the world. Well, except perhaps for Gilmar or Dmitri. What can I say, I'm fickle.

"You want to go out and smoke?" Gilmar asked.

"I don't smoke." Haven't smoked a cigarette in three years.

"Not a cigarette." He smiled. And with a smile like that, I would have gone out and smoked a cigarette with him. But he didn't want to smoke a cigarette. So what then, crack? Pot? I haven't lit anything on fire and stuck it in my mouth since I lived in Pieceofshitdeserttown. "Some cock."

I've never lit cock on fire period. Well, maybe with friction.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm kidding." He smiled again. Bastard. "I don't think I've seen you at one of Jack's parties before. Are you one of his boys?"

Boys? I'm not a boy anymore. I reverse Pinnochioed years ago. "No. He uhhh...he knows me through my writing."

"Oh. So are you..." Single? Famous? Sporting an erection? "gay?"

"Yea."

I'm gonna be picked up by the hot guy. I'm gonna be picked up by the hot guy. I'm gonna--

"Cool. Every other guy I've met at these parties is some skeezy old guy who looks at me like a piece of meat." Hey, I didn't write his material. If he wants to speak in cliche, it's his right as a hot human being.

The bottom line is, Gilmar has only been in Boston for two months (he's from the exotic world of Barnstable, Massachusetts, proving that the world I live in is entirely too small..send in the Disney animatronics), and wants a gay friend with no romantic interest to show him around Boston. I'm gonna be the platonic friend of the hot guy. I'm gonna be the platonic...wow, that's not nearly as fun to say. Maybe the rhythm is off.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/102827.html