244-248
249-252
253-256
who could ask for anything more
257-259
260-262
the tail end of the tiger
263-267
268-270
271-275
276-279
280-283
tales from the year of the rabbit
venus and jupiter in aries284-287
288-290
291-293
294-297
gods and monsters
298-299
300-302
303-306
307-309
the kindness of strangers
310-313
314-318
319-322
323-325
244
I fell in love again on Thanksgiving Day, this time in the old-fashioned All American way, with an image on the Silver Screen. Brad Pitt in "Meet Joe Black" is the Cat's Meow, the Top, the smile on the Mona Lisa, etc. etc. Scratch everything I've said about good-looking men. He wipes the slate clean, eliminates all competition.This despite the fact that the holiday began with a special surprise treat. As every night this week, I'd stayed at the Cloisters, took an early bus to the mall for senior coffee. On my round of the ashtrays I spotted Mondo sitting on the bench outside Nieman Marcus, the colorful cars of Santa's Train parked in front of him. "Waiting for the train?" I asked. He smiled, said no, just hanging out. He was planning to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for the free holiday meal later, agreed it was likely to be a much better option than IHS. He asked if I planned to go and I said no, a friend had invited me to the annual Thanksgiving Buffet at Sizzler's. Somewhat ironic to be invited to a meal on one of the few days when there are abundant choices of free feasts available, but any foray outside the nomadic community is a welcome interlude.
The weather had been uncertain but cleared so, after chatting with him for awhile, I left Mondo and went across to the park to shower, wishing a little he had joined me but on the other hand not all that keen on a first naked encounter with him in a slightly shivering cold shower. Once again I felt that slight tinge of regret over abandoning the sushi job which had pestered me now and then all week. With Wednesday's wages, I could have taken Mondo to breakfast. But one reason I had quit the job was just that. The only reason to endure it would have been having pocket change to spend on young nomad lads, but I would have spent even more of it keeping myself in a drunken stupor in order to get through it, so I told myself yet again I'd made the right choice, again demanded that the part of me who wants to play Sugar Daddy should shut up.
The week had been a dreary one, partly because of that nagging voice, but also by again being flat broke, no money for food or beer, no energy or inclination to hunt carts, not even the sense to go for Krishna food on Wednesday and thus ending up so hungry that night at the bench I ate half a dozen sugar packets while the Gypsy Boy's cat sat and looked at me, probably wondering what on earth I was doing. You aren't the only one, I thought.
I'd tried to just lose myself in the game, succeeded in doing so for much of the time, climbing to Level 53. Level 69 is the highest, a peak which no longer seems so unattainable. The Sleeptalker had been absent on Monday, but spent all day Tuesday playing on campus. We had a few brief exchanges in the game, times when his characters got into trouble and I was nearby and offered the needed assistance. Once I even got a thank you for it. But we didn't speak at all out of the game even though he sat for awhile at a terminal right next to me. He prefers to play on one of the web terminals (where access is supposed to be for thirty minute segments only), but someone had finally bumped him by using the available sign-in sheet, so for that brief time I had him sitting very close to me and I had to admit my affection and desire for him has not lessened at all, no matter how much I keep the damper on it or how much I dislike his twisted attitude in the game. Despite the enjoyable interlude of physical proximity, I wasn't unhappy when he returned to the web terminals. He arrived on campus again on Wednesday and again we had no contact outside the game. He was still there playing when I headed off to the Cloisters that evening.
There have been some wonderful long cinematic dreams based on the game, the text and the computer-generated characters brought to life. I've even been taught some things about the game from dreams but, oddly, the Sleeptalker has not once made a dream appearance in those sequences or otherwise. Neither has Brad Pitt, alas.
And after that shower on Thanksgiving morning, it was off to Kahala Mall to meet Helen R and to fall in love with Death. I have to look far back in memory to recall a screen image which had that great an impact on me. Dean in "Rebel", Delon in "Christina", Belmondo in "Jules et Jim", Gibson in that sweet early film of his about the retarded young man. Of course, it was Pitt as Death I fell in love with, unlike the young lady in the film who fell for his mortal persona. Death, with those deep-gazing eyes -- lucky actors to get paid for standing and gazing into them. Even luckier, the young lady who got to undress him, button by button. What a delightful film.
Then it was off to Sizzler's. It is not often I am guilty of one of the Seven Deadly Sins, that of Gluttony, but I confess, I was indeed guilty on Thanskgiving 1998. Utterly stuffed, I bid farewell to Helen, bought the bottle of beer she had so kindly provided for as a dessert, and went to watch the sunset at DeRussy Beach.
Thanksgiving. Thanks for friends like Helen R, for the Sleeptalker and Mondo, for places kind enough to provide sheltered benches, for this beautiful island, for the beer and the sunset, for that wonderfully charming image of Death.
245
The latest public attack on me and the Tales comes off as one long jealous whine, pathetically transparent and banal. It did give me cause to contemplate again my use of the term Urban Nomad, as opposed to Homeless. The author of that wannabe-blast confuses Nomad with Wanderer. Nomads shifted between known valuable hunting/gathering areas, only striking out into unknown territory when the need arose. Wanderers do just that, whether on a more or less specific pilgrimage or just simply moving from place to place, perhaps never returning to the same spot. In the urban context, it's rather difficult to be a true Wanderer on such a small island, but there are a few of them here. I've spoken with them and they all seem to share a deep desire to resist putting down roots of any kind, no matter how temporary. And they seek aloneness, unlike the Nomads who are quick to form buddy relationships and everchanging groups. And there are, of course, the Homeless, those who are so not by choice. There may be exchanges between the Wanderers and the Nomads, as the former spend a night or two in a Nomad camp, but there is less interreaction between the Nomads and the Homeless.I am criticized for not being a Wanderer but that was never my intent. Had it been, I would have left the islands. Perhaps when Social Security provides that regular monthly income I shall embark upon a phase of wandering through Asia and Europe. "I love to go a-wandering, my knapsack on my back ..." Yes, I can imagine strolling across Germany humming that song. In the summer.
Another point of attack which perhaps merits comment is that I am violating people's "privacy" by writing the Tales. The author is evidently totally unaware of the literary form called a diary or journal. That form necessarily "violates privacy", one's own and that of anyone who comes into the writer's life. The major players on this canvas called the Tales are aware I am writing about my life and consequently about them. The Nomad players know they have been given nicknames and in most cases know what those are, just as the ones who spend time online know how to read the Tales if they cared to. The only objections to being mentioned in the Tales have come from Householders. In one rare case, there was legitimate reason for it. In the majority of them, though, the only reason they object is because they do not want to leave themselves open to the kind of trashy attacks on Usenet which have become so dominant a part of that public medium.
The Nomads are not concerned with "privacy". Indeed, most of them go to great lengths to avoid it. I'm in a minority by occasionally seeking moments and places where I can be entirely alone. There are Hermits, of course, like those men who live alone in the hills around UH-Manoa. To climb up there and disturb their solitude, to make them a part of the Tales, now that would be violating privacy.
Thoughts from the secluded grove on Friday evening where I fled after an afternoon at the mall, an afternoon immersed in that Great American Orgy, the day-after sales. The most puzzling aspect, of what was essentially a horror show, was why everyone was in such a hurry. Hordes of people, laden with stuffed shopping bags, rushing madly from store to store as if the dollar was going to be devalued at any minute or the shops suddenly become totally sold-out, nothing left to buy. It was amusing, in a way, and perhaps if I'd been in a happier mood myself I would have enjoyed the spectacle. As it was, appalled is the more apt term.
I stayed for the arrival of the Krishna truck, ate half of the heaping plate of food and put the rest in my casserole for later, then with a sigh of relief got back on a campus-bound bus. UH-Manoa, an oasis of sanity in a world gone mad.
Oh yes, it's holiday season again, all right. Over the river and through the woods.
246
Jonathan Cainer had predicted a "dramatic" weekend with a "fairy tale ending". Quoting his prediction on the title page of the Tales, I added a remark expressing doubt. Unless a smile and a wave from that handsome Prince Mondo qualifies, Cainer was indeed wrong about the ending. Now "Panther and Mondo lived happily ever after" is more like it. Oh well.There was, however, a truly beautiful episode of this strange life on Saturday. Sitting in Hamilton Library in the morning, I noticed a young Japanese fellow I'd not seen before. He noticed me noticing, so I told myself to behave and concentrated on the game, failed to see when the young man left. After a lunch break in the secluded grove with a Hurricane, I returned to the library and the game. Then I went out to sit on a bench for a smoke break. That same young man came out and sat on the bench beside me. All the other benches were vacant so he clearly wanted company. After some idle chitchat, I asked him where he'd gone to school, a usual local question. But he wasn't local Japanese! I told him his English was so good I'd just assumed he had been born here. He said many people made that mistake here, explained that his father had worked with Americans in Yokohama so he had learned English very early and had spent his childhood with American playmates.
I don't recall just what led up to it but he said he had been feeling lonely. Beer being such a great eliminator of inhibition, I told him I couldn't believe such a cute guy didn't have lots of friends. His friend (singular), he said, had gone to Maui for the long weekend but he was too broke to go along. The conversation was accompanied with much direct eye contact and exchanged smiles. Having made a very interesting discovery on campus earlier in the week, I decided to be bold and asked him if he'd like to have a shower together. He laughed and said, "sure". Fervently hoping the place was open on a weekend when the campus had been so deserted, we walked to it and found it open.
That was certainly one special hour. I would most happily have fallen over dead after bidding him goodbye, was so exhausted from his wonderfully energetic affection it didn't seem far to go.
That more than made up for all the crap that has floated through my life recently.
The pension check arrived. I went to get it, cashed it, bought a new bracelet to replace the one which had broken during the shared shower exercises, and got quite drunk on Saturday night, alone in the secluded grove. If three-quarters of the check hadn't already been hocked, I'd probably have made it an even bigger party. But it had been, some of it postponed repayment from October, so it was all gone by Monday evening, before the new month arrived. Que sera, sera. Being broke in December is a lifelong habit.
As "drama" went, I suppose the most dramatic event of the weekend was hearing that my place of sushi hell had closed up shop, the dread conveyor belt already removed, nothing but an empty room, bare concrete floor. Wow.
The game entered a new phase on Saturday when I was inducted into the Guild of Rangers. This brought a shower of gifts from fellow guild members and some highly enjoyable in-game conversations. In fact, I did little actual playing, so busy with all that. Poor Sleeptalker. It has long been his ambition to be invited to join a Guild, so it must have been an unpleasant moment for him, logging in to see Guild of Rangers next to Reting the Avatar's name. When I got to the library on Sunday, he and HighLevel were there playing. HighLevel is now only three levels above me and we exchanged greetings in the game as peers. I took my smoke breaks at a neighboring hall, partly to avoid their company, but HighLevel followed me on one of them and we had an interesting chat about the game as a highlife. I had no exchange with the Sleeptalker in or out of the game.
When I got to the Cloisters just after nine all the benches were taken, even most of the better-sheltered floor spaces were occupied. It had been a day of unceasing strong gusts of wind, something which gets to be quite annoying after awhile. Sitting in the park earlier, waiting for shower-washed shirt and socks to dry, a branch was blown from a nearby tree, missing me by inches. It wasn't heavy enough to have done any serious harm but certainly would have scratched me up had it fallen a foot or so further and on top of me. The internal jukebox aptly cued up "Someone to Watch Over Me". Evening's arrival added frequent downpours to the continuing wind, making the idea of a night on the floor even less inviting, so I went to the hacienda for the first time in over a week.
The Big Local Dude and his lady, the Airport Refugee, and Rossini were there, along with a few men I'd not seen before. Rossini walked over and asked for a smoke. Tobacco had been a problem all weekend. With the campus almost a ghost town little was available there and despite the mobs at the mall, the competition and the constantly busy cleaning army had kept the ashtrays mostly empty. I grumbled to Rossini that I'd only found a few snipes, he begged for one nonetheless so I gave it to him, thinking the lazy slut could have taken time to do his own snipe hunting. Maybe he decided to do just that because he soon strolled off. Mondo arrived, looking fine in yet another new expensive shirt, quickly settled down after that greeting smile and wave and, alas, as is his winter habit, completely covered himself in a white sheet. Oh for the days of summer, of shorts and bare brown chests. The Sleeptalker arrived after I had fallen asleep, then I was awakened again when Rossini returned, the Sleeptalker woke up and they started yakking. I dug out the earplugs, blocked their chatter and went back to sleep.
I was very surprised the Sleeptalker didn't show up on campus Monday, the last day for the monthly bus pass. He had been worried about how he'd get one for December and I had considered buying him one, even wickedly fantasized getting at least a look at his naked body in exchange. Just as well dumping the sushi job put an end to that line of thought.
With my fancy new armor and weapons, I got far too ambitious in the game and was quickly reminded by some of the computer-generated characters that I'm far from invincible. The Sleeptalker, playing from the State Library, finally made it to Level 40. I congratulated him publicly, the only person playing who did so. If there were a Most Unpopular Player award, he'd surely win it. My overly ambitious playing meant no progress at all for the day but it was a lot of fun and that's the real reason to be playing, along with the welcome hours of escape from "reality".
I made a trip downtown in mid-afternoon before heading to the Krishna feast. The Gypsy Boy was standing in front of me in the waiting line and we talked about his handsome cat, whose name is Cat. Shades of Holly Golightly. He apologized for Cat's recent meowing one night at the Cloisters and I assured him I got so much pleasure from watching Cat's nocturnal romps that I hadn't at all minded his vocalizing, had just wondered what it was he'd wanted. The Gypsy Boy said sometimes Cat just wants attention and if he can't get his master awake any other way, will yell in his ear.
The plate was, as usual, heaped with food and I ate so much of it I decided I might as well finish it off. This body must wonder what the hell is going on, empty for hours and hours and then stuffed. As it turned out, there was no need to save any for later since a large plate lunch box of chili and rice was abandoned on a campus bench, most of which was still in my casserole on Tuesday morning. I'd been so full from the Krishna feast I'd returned to the secluded grove but could only finish half the Hurricane I'd bought on the way, enjoyed the other half before heading down to the Cloisters where, happily, there was a vacant bench.
That, I thought, would be the last Hurricane for awhile but checking the beergarden on Tuesday morning, I found not only a flask-full of Heineken but two one-dollar bills neatly folded. That used to be the final beergarden on the morning route from the hacienda to the mall, but the cloisters routine makes it the only one. Fortunately, it has always been one of the best.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to ... Tomita-san? Well, he only has two classes this semester, both on Thursday morning with his fishmarket job in the afternoon, so I guess he has decided the traditional Thursday lunch at the Garden is not such a good idea. Reese and his buddy, Brown? I don't know, they've both been absent for weeks. Rocky? Still "staying with friends" and I've only once seen him strolling through the mall. Gregory? Also unseen for weeks. The Cherub? I've spotted him a few times on campus but he no longer stops by the library. My speculation is, he decided to clean up his act, cut down on the drinking ... or maybe he just decided an old Beatnik is best appreciated via books, not reality. And who could blame him? I miss him. I miss them all. In this life the young men come and go, speaking of Michelangelo.
Hmmmm, no, I don't think I've ever heard them mention him.
247
I slept at the Cloisters on Tuesday night. It was cold and windy.I woke up just before five o'clock, walked over and caught the bus to the Foodland stop where the Number Five bus used to arrive to carry me on to the mall. They changed the route, so it doesn't stop there anymore. Just like the Milk Train.
So I walked down Keeaumoku Street.
There was what appeared to be a dollar bill on the sidewalk. I picked it up.
It said ONE HUNDRED on it.
I can't tell you how many times I examined that piece of paper in the next hour, and I still didn't believe it until I went into Foodland, bought a spool of white thread (need to sew up the seams on my deteriorating UH polo shirt), some Twining's English Breakfast teabags, a Sheba dish for the Cat, a pack of Pall Malls and a 24oz can of Foster's lager.
The cashier gave me four 20's and some coins.
Please, don't wake me up. Not yet.
It was a VERY good day at Manoa Garden, for me, and for Bryant the Bartender.
248
I had gotten utterly twisted over money on Tuesday, was down to one twenty dollar bill and a few coins. But the twenty was earmarked to repay a loan which had provided my working/winter shoes. I didn't so much want beer, I wanted to sit at the bar in the Garden and talk to people. I wanted it so badly I was starting to get genuinely furious with myself, said sheez, you're getting to be like the young nomads who can't stand their own company. Finally I gave up the battle and asked for an extension of the loan which was kindly granted. Off to the Garden. Along with the regulars was a fellow who was on an around-the-world trip, had gone to UH and so was spending a couple of days here reliving old memories. It was a most enjoyable couple of hours, fully satisfying that itch for conversation.The discovery of that piece of paper on the sidewalk Wednesday morning set off a huge internal debate. I sat with hotcakes and my senior coffee in a state of shock. You just don't find one hundred dollar bills laying in the middle of a sidewalk, not in the real world. Ah, but you do. Once I completed that mostly-sensible shopping expedition and was assured the piece of paper had been genuine, then the debate really got going.
Options ranged from the ultra-sensible, like finally getting a State ID card, to the not-very-sensible-at-all like buying a bus pass for the Sleeptalker. I soon got fed up with all the voices urging one thing or another, said shut up, it's a gift from the gods. Party on, dude.
Had the weather been more pleasant, I'm sure a totally different scenario would have resulted. As it was, I stayed on campus (instead of heading to Duke's), alternating between the library and the Garden. Bryant was thoroughly shocked when he arrived to see me sitting at the bar eating a big roast beef sandwich. After lunch and a couple of beers, I went to the Campus Bookstore which was having its two-day Christmas Sale, thinking I'd buy a new UH-logo shirt. The only one they had I liked would have been almost forty dollars, even on sale, so I scratched that idea knowing exactly what would happen later. And sure enough, when I got to the bench at night, some little nag said man, you should've bought that shirt since you spent that much at the Garden anyway. I knew it. Nothing to do but grin.
I tried to get Kory K to share in the good fortune, offered to buy him beer after work, but he begged off due to the weather. The round-the-world fellow was at the Garden again, so we sat outside and talked for awhile, barely sheltered by the big umbrellas. Then I returned to the library for another session, resisted the temptation to ask the Sleeptalker to dinner or for drinks even though he'd been quite pleasant in the game all day.
By evening the weather had gotten even worse. Only that day when Hurricane Iniki brushed by have I seen such vile weather here. So it was back to the Garden again for an evening session, including dinner, followed by one more visit to the library and a wait for the downpour to decrease a little before making a dash to the Cloisters. The Gypsy Boy said, "that's very sweet of you" when I gave him the Sheba treat for Cat. No, not really, if I'd really been sweet I would have bought Cat a case of the stuff.
249
The party's over, but it surely was fun while it lasted and the Grand Finale was perfect. I was sitting at an outside table at the Garden when Flash walked in with a Hawaiian lady I'd never seen there before. It was his mama. Ah, so that's what it is that makes Flash more than just a handsome young black man.Well, I owed him for a lot of good times and jugs of beer, and it was a pleasure to repay him. His mama is as delightful as he is, we were joined by young ladies, fellow fans of Flash, from time to time and he loved being the center of attention. I loved watching him love it.
The party's over, but thanks again to the Angel who made it possible.
250
Well, the party wasn't quite over but it certainly had to shift gears. It has always been my habit when I have money, the folding paper kind, to use very few coins, pay for everything with paper and stash the coins for the inevitable time when the paper runs out or becomes scarce. It was a habit my nephew dearly loved since the resulting coinbox provided a great source for arcade quarters. When you pay for a large beer at the Garden with a five, the change includes three quarters. I must have bought even more of them than I realized because when I reached into the backpack I pulled out a handfull of quarters without emptying the pocket.Money, money, money. Surely one of the most misquoted "famous sayings" is that "money is the root of all evil", when, of course, it's really "love of money". I've never loved the stuff, but I surely do love spending it. What I don't love is that Fifth Voice, the Nag. He had a heyday on Friday, wouldn't shut up all day. Most of his lectures start out with "you really should have ...". Well, I didn't, so shut up already.
Of course, he was right about some of the things. I should have kept that twenty (again) tucked away instead of spending it on Flash and his mama, I should have bought one of those electronic lighters like the one Kory gave me last year. They are such sensible lighters for the "outdoorsman". That I actually intended to do, but completely forgot about it until it was too late. I should have bought a couple of books, because I finished The Black Book on Friday evening, sitting in the secluded grove with a Hurricane while the almost-hurricane winds brought branches crashing down all around me. I should have bought some international-rate stamps to send off holiday notes to folks in England. Etc. etc. etc.
Well, I didn't. And I didn't do laundry either, another "should have". Not likely to use the quarters for it now, though. They'll all go on beer.
From the grove I could hear the band starting at Manoa Garden, so walked up to listen for awhile. It was an excellent, hard rocking band whose weird name I've already forgotten, but the lead singer (in the style of Joe Cocker) just tried too hard. He should have smoked a decent joint and settled down a bit.
Waiting to catch a bus downhill, I decided I'd go to the hacienda for a change, stopped by 7-Eleven for another Hurricane. Mondo was asleep under his white blanket (not a sheet, as I had originally thought) and I took the bench beside him. The moon was beyond beautiful, appearing now and then through very fast-moving clouds, and I enjoyed the beer, the moon and clouds, and Mondo's shoe-clad feet, the only thing showing from under the blanket. Then he started pulling the blanket up around his shoulders until his legs were uncovered. I was thinking of getting up and rearranging it for him when he woke up and did it himself, said hello and congratulated me on reaching the title of "Ancient Avatar" in Seventh Circle earlier. He had his usual early-month Marboros, didn't offer me one, so I didn't offer him any beer, and after smoking he snuggled up under the blanket and went back to sleep, leaving his head mostly uncovered. Something else as fine as the moon to watch. And it was fine too, as always, to sleep beside him.
Earlier I had gone to the beach for the Krishna feast and chatted with a young man who has the ambition to skateboard in every state of the union, has been at it for two and a half years and only has seven more states to go (in the Dakotas region). He had hitchhiked, and skateboarded, all the way down from Alaska to San Diego before coming here, plans to return to the mainland in March and set out from Seattle to complete his odyssey.
Encounters like that are even more fun than spending money.
251
Oh, the party wasn't over at all. A handsome prince took care of that. Maybe he wouldn't share his Marboros, which were all gone so he had to ask me for snipes, but he was happy to share a far, far better couple of smokes.The library closing at five on Friday and Saturday evenings always leaves me at something of a loss, unless I've been invited to spend the time with some specific entertainment, so on Saturday I considered going downtown to see the annual switch-on of the seasonal lights and hear the music which had been promised. But the weather was not pleasant, so I stayed at the mall. Shortly after my arrival there, I discovered a plate lunch box which had been abandoned on a ledge, kindly left with a fresh napkin on top of the container, held together with a rubber band. It contained something which was neither beef stew nor beef curry, but something in between, along with a scoop of rice and one of macaroni salad. It wasn't very good, really, but it was filling, and it certainly was thoughtful of someone to leave it like that rather than tossing it into the trash.
Peace on earth, good will toward men ...
I've been hit twice with at least echoes of that mysterious thing we call "Christmas Spirit". The first time was passing a lot of newly arrived Christmas trees. Ah, that evergreen smell, so alien in these islands. And then on Saturday, after enjoying that meal no matter how bland, I found a candy cane. It was wrapped in some almost indestructible shrink-wrap material, but when I finally got it open and tasted it ... childhood revisited for a moment. Sweet.
Earlier I had reached into the coin collection, as yet uncounted, and realized I could definitely have an afternoon Hurricane with the promise of another that evening, and I walked to 7-Eleven, bought it, and continued on to the hacienda. Mondo was asleep under his blanket already, a stranger had, alas, taken the bench next to him. All the benches on the inner row were occupied, so I settled on an outside row bench with its broader view of the moon and stars, the still fast-moving clouds.
Mondo woke up, waved, and came over to ask for the snipes and to offer the shared smokes. Gott sei dank, that was the finest I've had in over a decade. Still alive and gone to heaven. Mondo is a delightful smoking companion, as well as bar buddy, shared a few smiling exchanges of conversation and then got up with an absolutely perfect grin on his face and went back to his bench. Yes, I agreed completely.
I can't say a Tchaikovsky string quartet would have been my favorite music for the moment, but I'd had the great pleasure of the weekly hour of American theatre music already, so let it play on, watching the sky and beating the Nag to the draw. "Dude, what you really should've done ... was give that damned piece of paper to Mondo and tell him to buy as much of that greenery as it could." Absolutely right on.
The radio then moved on to some ethereally tedious medieval seasonal music, so I went station hopping and stumbled on some tracks from Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album. That was more like it.
Nope, the party not over at all. But maybe on Sunday, when there was that strange sensation of knowing the tipped bottle was empty and no way to get another one.
Maybe ...
252
For awhile it looked like Dame Fortune was going to send me off to the bench on Sunday night without dinner, and the Nag said you should've followed your original inclination and gone to IHS for dinner, never mind the grim surroundings, could always empty it into your casserole and eat it elsewhere. But then at the last tourist trolley stop there was an abandoned large plate lunch box with barbecued ribs, chicken long rice, and the inevitable rice and macaroni salad. Someone to watch over me, even if probably a Japanese vistor who had decided the food was inedible and had barely touched it. If so, the visitor had not been far wrong, but a hungry man makes a very kind restaurant critic. The meat was tough and over-cooked, the rice so solidly sticky it was difficult to break off bits from the scooped lump, and I'd forgotten how much I dislike chicken long rice. But it did the job, I got to the bench feeling not at all hungry.For the third night, I went to the hacienda. Rossini was on Mondo's usual bench and since the one next to him was the only remaining one of the inner row, I took it. Mondo arrived shortly afterwards and took the one in the outer row at my feet. He had a 7-Eleven bag and took out a large packet of beef jerky, started to open it. Rossini jumped up and rushed over to get some, without being asked. Mondo and I exchanged smiles behind his back, and I settled down to sleep, insulated with three shirts, shorts over my head, and a towel across my chest. Winter wonderland.
The beergarden hunt had yielded more than a pint of Budweiser on Sunday morning, along with a pair of Nike slippers (the kind with a broad strap rather than thonged) and a copy of Ron Hubbard's massive sci-fi novel, Battlefield Earth. I studied his Bible of Scientology, Dianetics, thoroughly in the late 60s, reading it several times, but had never encountered his fiction. It's a surprisingly good yarn, well told and thoroughly engrossing. Several times during the day I had difficulty deciding whether to continue with it or return to Seventh Circle, and especially enjoyed reading it with that last bottle of Hurricane in the secluded grove in the early afternoon.
That bottle almost didn't happen. The continuing unpleasant weather is making laundry a great problem, and I seriously debated using the quarters for the laundromat instead of the beer. I had wisely been advised to buy a couple of pair of socks when I got the shoes, as I had only been carrying one pair to use at night, and since I still had one clean pair, the beer won. Dirty clothes aside, that of course also raised the old problem of senior coffee money, but 21 cents turned up on campus and then on Monday morning, the best of all shopping carts ... one that a person mysteriously returned to the "corral" but hadn't bothered to collect the quarter. Weird, but most welcome, senior coffee ensured for Tuesday as well, and the beergardens had yielded another pint of Budweiser, plus a can of Bud Lite.
In between library sessions and reading, I stopped by to see the annual art sale staged by faculty, alumni and students, all or most of the proceeds going to the materials fund for the art programs at the University. It was an amusing collection of work, some of it so boldly derivative it could have been an exercise in forgery. There was one delicious little abstract canvas I especially liked. If we'd have had that painting hanging in our New York studio, everyone would have thought it a Hans Hofmann, and a very good one. I was not much surprised to find more interesting work from students than from faculty, but the main feeling the collection gave me was an echo of my continuing appreciation for the work being done by the art department here.
Cainer had said I'd get a valuable message on the weekend. The only message I note is that marijuana is a far superior drug compared to alcohol, but I've known that for over thirty years. I just wish the Powers That Be would wake up and smell the grass. Otherwise, perhaps the main message is the reminder again what creatures of habit we are. From the time I first got a modem, thirteen years ago, multiplayer online games and public discussion groups have been a habitual part of my life, first Bartle's MUD2 and the local BBS forums, now Seventh Circle and the Usenet newsgroups. Seventh Circle is a delightful stand-in for the superior, but too costly, MUD2, but I have my doubts about Usenet and whether it really plays any valuable role in my life at all.
It was the first weekend in a long time with no contact with the Sleeptalker. HighLevel had said he'd started sleeping at IHS, and I suspect the Sleeptalker is doing likewise, along with Rossini-2. With the cold, wet, windy weather, it is a sensible choice and, no doubt about it, the Sleeptalker's absence makes the cloisters a far more peaceful place to sleep.
I went up another level in the game, now with the title Eternal Avatar. Considering how many points it is to reach the next level, "eternal" may not be an exaggeration. That advance makes me the second highest player in the Hawaii contingent. What a useful thing to add to my resume.
253
It was a surprise to pick up a newspaper, even a student-produced one on campus, and see a photograph of one of my bar buddies, quite beyond "surprise" to see the headline beside it announcing he is dead. The thought instantly came to mind of a day, over a year ago, when I joked with him, "if I ever come to Manoa Garden and you aren't here, I'm sending out the Marines." Such a young man, a professor at the University of Hawaii, originally from England, involved in some fascinating research about which Ka Leo O Hawai`i discreetly only hinted. I shall do likewise.I had to smile on Wednesday morning, shivering in the cold water of the showers at Ala Moana Beach Park, a naked Japanese man standing a few feet from me, when I thought of the lurid portrait of me some folks have been trying to paint recently on Usenet. Yeh, sure, life's just one great erotic thrill after another, I can't imagine why it has taken me so long to realize it.
254
Thursday morning, just another gray and dreary morning in paradise. Oh for a day of sunshine from dawn till sunset ...I stayed at the cloisters, got there early enough to grab a long bench before they were all taken. Like the hacienda recently, it's always a full house but the cloisters is a little more spacious, feels less like being in a submarine, bodies packed closely together. Despite a peaceful night's rest, I felt absolutely awful when I woke up and, after a much longer absence than usual, that dumb chest pain returned. I walked very, very slowly on my way for senior coffee, was never happier to reach the entrance to McDonald's.
The coffee helped a lot, physically and mentally. I get a lot less caffeine now than I have at any time in my life, but I don't notice any craving for it, doesn't seem to be particularly important ... except those two cups of coffee in the morning.
I was having dinner with Helen R at the mall on Tuesday evening and while talking about my slight concern about the Sleeptalker, realized I didn't know what day of the week it was. I'd gotten concerned because he hadn't appeared at the hacienda or in the game since Saturday, an unprecedented absence from the game. But he finally appeared on Wednesday and even though we had no exchanges in the game, it was a relief to know he's all right.
All my children. Young Bobby has switched shifts at McD's, works in the evening now, and another sweetie has taken his place in the morning. One of my favorite morning people has disappeared this week, too. He's a taller-than-usual, slim local Japanese fellow, the Painter, always dressed in narrow-cut white workmen's trousers and a white tee shirt with his employer's logo on the back. I've been enjoying waiting for the bus with him nearby for weeks and was sorry when he didn't show up on Monday.
Lot of little, probably should be irrelevant, things combine to make this a very much less than satisfactory week. The weatherman says there are some pleasant, sunny days ahead. I hope he's right, outer weather and inner weather.
255
Seemed like old times. The campus went on Finals Week schedule on Thursday, library open until midnight every night, but after a day of alternating between Seventh Circle and Battlefield Earth I called it quits around six and went to the mall. Shopping cart heaven, as I suspected it would be when I noticed how empty the "home corral" of the things was outside the supermarket. Within an hour I had enough quarters for a bottle of Hurricane and Friday morning's senior coffee, so topped up the tobacco supply and headed off to 7-Eleven for the beer. A fellow from Fairbanks, Alaska was waiting for a bus and we had a pleasant chat about his (first) visit here and the differences between life here and that in the Far North.When I got off the bus at the hacienda, I heard someone say, "hey Albert!", turned around and it was Rocky. "I hope you've got some beer," he said, "but then you always have beer." Hmmmm, I wish. Still, even if it was my only one of the day and I had considered just staying in the park to drink it all by myself, this was Rocky, a true Hero of the Tales, no way I couldn't share it with him. A quiet thanks to Mondo for declining to join in.
So we settled down, Mondo on the bench behind me and Rocky on the one at my feet. Rossini and the also-long-absent Plato arrived and surprisingly immediately settled down as well. Yes, it really is the Sleeptalker who is the catalyst for the loud gab sessions there, and he was missing, although he had been in the game all day.
Once again the place completely filled up, even the few spaces on the floor, and some young man took the shelf on the wall at the head of my bench, again evoking an image of bunk beds in submarine quarters.
I was up very early, so walked slowly toward the mall, felt an urge when passing it to check the breadbasket. Since it had been such a nostalgic evening, might as well add that long-neglected ritual, I thought. Lucky impulse, since there were two whole loaves of that yummy wheat bread and three large baked potatoes. The birds of the secluded grove and I had an assured lunch. If only there had been more than half a flask of beer to go with it ...
256
Publication of the Tales is temporarily suspended. I said publication, not writing.257
Dame Fortune continues to smile on me and those dear to me. I must have done something in my last life to acquire so much merit because I certainly haven't in this one.The Sleeptalker made the First Day of Winter an absolute delight. He had found a bus pass (tip of the hat to the Dame) the week before and we had spent Friday together on campus, in and out of the game, repeated again on Saturday when it was my turn to visit his usual habitat, the State Library. Early on Monday I was sitting in Hamilton Library, felt a pat on my shoulder and looked up to see the Sleeptalker grinning at me. Another delicious day together, again in and out of the game. We had planned to leave in time for the Krishna feast but both got so engrossed in the game we didn't notice the time passing and it was too late to get there, so we played on until the library closed at five. For some strange reason, IHS had scheduled its "Christmas dinner" that evening, so we decided to go there.
The usual system there is to stand in line and be handed plates of food, then sitting wherever there is vacant space. But for the special event, we were told where to sit and the food was brought to us. They had halted the line just after the Sleeptalker got in, so he was sitting at a table across the room from me. But in the chair next to me was the Painter! I hadn't seen him in a long time and was delighted, whatever his reason for being there despite having a full-time job. The delight was soon increased when Mondo entered and was directed to sit at our table. The food was decent (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos and those always weirdly tasteless frozen "mixed vegetables") but the amount was rather on the sparse side and I certainly could have eaten a second plate with no effort.
The Sleeptalker said afterwards he planned to stay at IHS, as he has been since the weather turned cool, Mondo was just going to "hang out" (as usual). I said I had to go to the mall because I didn't have a quarter for the next morning's coffee, had to find a shopping cart. Mondo offered to give me a quarter but I said, no, no problem, am sure to find at least one cart. So I left them, walked through Chinatown and caught a bus. Helen R. was on the bus! She kindly supplemented the meagre portions at IHS with some McD's McNuggets and fries, adding the perfect dessert for both "dinners", money for a Hurricane. Ah, the joy of that liquid ...
As I write, sitting in the setting sun at Ala Moana Beach Park, two zebra doves do their territorial dance, raising their little tails like peacocks, bowing to each other and making agressive cooing sounds, the same dance used for courting. These two were serious rivals for the space, though, and proceeded to chase and peck each other, downy feathers flying. I played Peacemaker and broke it up.
It occurred to me, while thinking of what a strange and significant influence the Gordon Biersch brewpub has had on my life, that this period of often-rampant alcoholism began when that establishment opened at the Aloha Tower. Now it has uncannily and indirectly re-entered my life. First the Snorer got a job in the kitchen there, then the Sleeptalker, and finally, Rocky!
I was pondering that, sitting on a bench waiting for the bus and sipping the Hurricane from my flask when three police cars pulled up, blue lights flashing. Whoooaa, a bit of overkill for one old dude drinking beer at a bus stop! They were not, however, interested in me but in some motorist they had for whatever reason been pursuing and had brought to a halt right beside me. I discreetly tucked the rest of the beer away until reaching the hacienda. Shortly after my arrival, Mondo and the Sleeptalker came walking up the path, Rocky arriving after he got off work at Gordon Biersch.
The Sleeptalker and I took the two benches facing each other, Mondo on the bench at my head and Rocky in front of him. Who could ask for anything more ...
Now and then I would wake up during the night and deeply cherish the pleasure of watching the Sleeptalker sleeping, delighting in his living up to his nickname by clearly saying things every time he shifted position, getting my heaviest polo shirt out of my backpack and covering him with it, rewarded by watching him cuddle up under its added protection from the night chill. He stirred when I retrieved it before leaving and thanked me for the loan. I rubbed my hand through that wonderful bear-fur hair of his (for the umpteenth time since it has grown back) and said "don't be late for work". He grinned, promised not to be. How I do love that man.
And the pattern continued. Rocky, Mondo, the Sleeptalker and me on those four benches, positions varying according to time of arrival, even including a night sharing the facing benches with Rocky. The Sleeptalker is evidently also happy with the renewed Rocky Social Horror Club since he gave up staying at IHS and arrived each night after work. Seems like old times, good times.
But what a treacherously difficult young man the Sleeptalker is. He seems to have about a six-hour limit on being sweet and charming, then is compelled to erase the memory, restore his tough guy image by being an utterly unreasonable brat. Even though I know the pattern so well, it almost always catches me offguard and after the resulting blow-up, I remind myself, sometimes with the help of these Tales, of the hours of my life his friendship has made special. If only I could better anticipate the moment of switch and remind myself then, I might be more successful at finding the appropriate response to his tantrums. In the most recent case, after a delightful day together, later sitting on my bench at the hacienda, him deliciously shirtless and in shorts, sharing my beer and my cigarettes (I am not unaware of that absurd use of my), he refused to either turn off the squawky little radio he had borrowed from Mondo, switch it to a non-rap station or move to another bench. It was a repeat of an evening on campus when I walked off and left him and the Cherub in order to escape similar sound pollution. I took the radio and turned it off, again asked him to leave my bench if he wanted to listen to it, he got very angry, threw his cigarette into our flask of beer and stomped off. I fished out the filter, threw it at him and amazingly hit him square in the middle of his beautiful bare back. The Big Local Dude chuckled quietly behind me and the Sleeptalker left the hacienda, didn't return. Sigh.
Did I enjoy his company so much I should have put up with his brattish insistence on the "music"? Was it wrong to think he could have considered those "my's" ... my bench, my beer, my cigarettes? Questions of a thousand dreams ... answers in this case probably yes and yes. In any event, I decided not to let this one drag on as they usually do, went to the back door at Gordon Biersch the next evening and asked if he was working. He came out, I said I was sorry to have been such a grouch, and he hugged me. All's well that end's well, and that was a fine ending.
Readers who kindly protested against the temporary suspension of the Tales gave me cause to further think about the decision, but it was the Tales themselves which brought me back to the land of prose via HTML. Since I'll have more time off-line than usual during the three weeks of UH Winter Break, I decided to print out the Tales for re-reading and any final editing or revision. Reading those early ones is both fun and informative, the events and my state of mind sufficiently distant from current being and thinking that it is almost like reading about someone else. Almost.
In some ways I look at that person from a year ago and think he was actually in better shape than I am now. Part of that, I think, is because the early days of this new lifestyle were an "adventure". Much of what has become routine was then novel and fascinating. But certainly part of it also has to do with what seems a looser, more free and more intimate relationship with the environment. In recent weeks, even months, life has perhaps become too much involved with other people. People are no doubt more important than grass and trees and ocean, but I may have let the scales tip too far, just as they have been tipped too far in the direction of on-line life since the trip began (and long before that).
On-line life is often fun, interesting and challenging, whether in the fantasy worlds of multiplayer games or the less friendly zoo of Usenet or the often delightful email friendships. But it can also become demoralizing and depressing, and continuing to participate when it reaches that stage is absurd. When the game gets stupid because of little brats throwing tantrums, time to quit for the day. Same thing applies to Usenet, but the antidotal quit-time needs to be longer, even permanent perhaps. With email, it's easy ... just slam the brats in the filter file that dumps their mail into oblivion without being seen.
As for time spent on-line writing the Tales? Hmmmmm ....
Yes, for me it has been time well spent and documenting this drastic change in lifestyle has for the most part been fun to do and has accumulated into an (again, for me) entertaining and valuable personal history. There is, of course, no compelling reason to carry on the activity publicly, even some reason not to do so, but the feedback from readers has also been valuable and often most pleasurable. So they continue ...
Two friends and readers kindly offered shelter for the night before Christmas, one suggesting it wasn't "right" for me to spend that night on a bench. Say what? 364 rest of the nights a year a bench is just fine, indeed a luxury in these winter nights of crowded sanctuaries when late arrivals make do with a cold, concrete floor. Why should the night before Christmas be any different? So I went to the hacienda, stuffed with good food, after an evening of equally good company including a delightful Jewish husband and wife I'd not met before, happily bought beer and cigarettes on my way and shared them with Mondo. The first Christmas Eve since Manhattan I'd spent in mixed company (speaking in Judeo-Christian terms), my first Christmas Eve sleeping next to Mondo. Who could ask for anything more?
I could have asked for a more pleasant early Christmas morning. Gray drizzle, all sources of morning coffee closed. A Jack-in-the-Box which advertises itself in neon as "open 24 hours" refuses now to serve walk-ins at their drive-in window, the only thing open before six in the morning, so they are open 24 hours to people with wheels only. "Merry Christmas to you, too," I grumbled at the snotty manager who is the reason I stopped going there months ago, and walked on through the drizzle to Ala Moana mall, caught a bus to Waikiki and got my senior coffee from the more hospitable Jack there. McD's everywhere were closed. They must have had a very good year if they could so blithely ignore hordes of Asian visitors with no cultural or religious reason to care about Christmas.
The weather changed, the sun was shining on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day, so I stayed in the park until sunset, shifting to a shaded spot when sunburn threatened, and then went to Gordon Biersch. Mikey V and Kevin Murphy. Who could ask for anything more?
And, of course, there's a little brat still thriving in this old man's body. "I like old men," said the Sleeptalker. Sweetheart. Neither of us like the little brats, though, his or mine. So scratch that "project", which mercifully no reader asked about, and instead work on killing the little brat. My little brat. The Sleeptalker has plenty of years to deal with his. My time is running out.
258
Give me a glimpse to build a dream on, and my imagination will make that moment live ... give me what you alone can give, a glimpse to build a dream on ...Okay, the original words are "kiss", not "glimpse", but no need to be greedy. He did promise some time ago that I could look but not touch. Finally got to look. I almost wished to be disappointed. I wasn't.
The final week of 1998 got off to a fine start at the airport on Sunday morning, quaffing "super-sized" Bloody Mary's and enjoying a fine "Ali`i" breakfast with Deb and Tom and Helen R. during the now-mainlanders' change of planes from an incoming Maui one to an outgoing San Francisco one. They surely do make decent Bloody Mary's out there, helping maintain a long tradition of bidding farewell to folks with a vodka-soaked stalk of celery.
Then Helen R. and I went to see "Prince of Egypt". Except for one fascinating sequence where the wall paintings came to life, I was very much disappointed in the film which I'd looked forward to since seeing the handsome poster a long time ago. The poster was the best thing about the film, the music was the worst and was used to extreme excess. The only other thing I can think of to say in the film's favor is that it at least didn't resort to Disney-like cutesy stuff. The camels didn't sing.
I took a bottle of Hurricane and headed to the hacienda. Mondo was there already and I grabbed the bench next to him. But, alas, out came that dreadful little transistor radio which had already caused the static between me and the Sleeptalker. Mondo went under his blanket, but the squawky sound continued and, worse, he kept switching stations. He didn't have it all that loud, but I could still hear it despite my radio with earphones. I moved to the most distant bench, then checked the time and realized I could still get a bus to the cloisters, so left and did just that, happily finding two carts to return as I walked through the mall. As the Big Local Dude's lady said, a pity Mondo couldn't have gotten a radio with earphones.
It certainly seemed like the coldest night of the winter thus far. This beautiful island has very little in common with the island of Manhattan but does seem to share the winter weather fact that utterly clear night skies promise a chillier than usual time. Those beautiful clear skies were supposedly going to depart on Monday but the clouds didn't roll in until early afternoon and brought little rain, letting the Sleeptalker and me move back and forth between the game and life outside it. The outside part was much more important to me, the in-game part to him, I'm sure. But the balance was fine all through the day and with the library closing at five, I got the lion's share when we ended up spending all evening together drinking beer and talking about all and everything.
Each time a dangerous junction loomed ahead, I managed to veer our direction off, avoiding that usual switch to bratdom (on either side) and we strolled off together at the end of the evening like happy bar buddies should. He got on a bus to IHS and I lingered awhile on the beach to think about the day and especially the evening, thanking my lucky stars for the pleasure of his friendship and his enticingly sweet, exceptionally kind flirtatious escapades.
No, I really didn't fall in love with the wrong one at all.
259
I fell in love with the right one. Is there ever any other for the person doing the falling? I don't think so, the heart has its reasons and they don't always appear sensible to the brain, or whatever it is which is the Seat of Reason. Hmmm, interesting figure of speech.But in this case, even Reason agrees it is the right one because I can't imagine there are that many young men who can be so kind to old adorers, or have the uncommon good sense to know how far out to step to give pleasure and how to then pull back, with kindness.
The penultimate year of the 19xx's ended not with a bang (although there were more than enough of those) or a whimper (despite my tendency to do that on Wednesday). It ended with a deep sigh. Perhaps on a less personal level, it's not difficult to understand how the 20th century inspires just such an ending, so I was only practising for December 31, 1999. Opposite to what had been expected, the New Year's weekend turned out to be far more difficult than the Christmas one and my attempt at coping was based, as usual, almost entirely on consumption of alcohol. In huge quantity.
The difficulty had its origin in that delightful drunken evening alone with the Sleeptalker. We both stepped out too far that evening. He quickly pulled back and I tried to do likewise. I think he had an easier time of it, but I could be wrong about that. He has the far more complex problem of latent homosexuality (or at least bisexuality) to deal with. But I think we both have a possibly absurd but nonetheless very real burden of guilt.
A reader said "he's just taking advantage of you". I don't believe there is really any such thing in a willing relationship between two people, far less possibility when there is love between them, even if one-sided. From a less abstract, more concrete view, no, still I cannot agree. If anything, he seems to firmly resist doing any such thing, makes it something of a point to be scarce whenever he knows I have money. And when I do, I happily spend it on him. (I haven't forgotten that, as I noted, absurd use of "my" recently; that was after all the basis for my apology.) No, if he really were out to "take advantage" of me, he could do it big time. For him I would sell those English stocks, sort out the problems that impede a return to bourgeois life, take a job in an office and live unhappily together with him ever after, or at least for a few years. I'm lucky he's an honorable young man. But I surely do wish the Christians hadn't so twisted his mind.
Jonathan Cainer's astrological observations about this time have been right on the mark. Among my holiday reading has been a continuing re-exploration of Robert Heinlein's works and in his brave and invaluable retrospective collection, Expanded Space, he takes sharp aim at astrology and the I Ching. In the case of the I Ching, I think he is utterly wrong but only because he doesn't understand its true operation, regards it as just another mumbo-jumbo system of soothsaying. With astrology, I don't know, as I've admitted before. There is no denying, however, that a few astrologers, Cainer foremost among them, somehow consistently analyze trends and moods of the time and offer sound advice on dealing with them, often too specifically relevant to be just random general philosophizing. After I ask God why in hell's name he created the mosquito, I'll ask if astrology is valid. In the meantime, I'll go on being grateful for perceptive practitioners of the method, Heinlein notwithstanding.
One of the greatest problems with being in love, especially when it is combined with sheer lust and desire, is that no one else will do. Good fiction helps the mind escape for awhile, masturbation (very) temporarily relieves physical craving, but what ironically turned out to be a time of abundant opportunities for sexual encounters helped not at all. Indeed, couldn't even get it up, as they say. Oh well, if you can't get pleasure yourself, the least you can do is your best to satisfy the other. I did my best even if my heart belongs to one Portagee-Hawaiian-Filipino (as he recently described himself in the game). Even while busy washing socks and tee shirts in the shower, I paused in my chores for a young Korean lad who wanted to play. I saw him later in the afternoon, smiled and gave him a little wave. "You're bomb," he said. I believe in current jargon that indicates he was pleased and I was happy for him.
It was beyond my powers of imagination to pretend he was the Sleeptalker. I try to comfort myself, and the Sleeptalker, with the experienced knowledge that it will eventually become less obsessive. Maybe by the end of the century ...
There is one man with the power to at least temporarily exorcise the Sleeptalker. There are no doubt quite a few, but I don't expect Brad Pitt to walk into the showers at Ala Moana. So rephrase that, there is one man in my life with the power. I saw him for the second time on Saturday. The first time I saw him he was naked. As yes, Hermoine, I remember it well. Maybe the third time I'll get lucky and I won't even have to pretend it's the Sleeptalker.
The thing is, though, I'm falling apart. An old ship, battered by more than half a century at sea, cast adrift without an anchor, with no mission. Even in the relatively quiet ocean of life on Oahu, an old ship adrift and purposeless eventually starts to come apart at the seams. Or so it would appear.
I sat very late on Saturday night at the cloisters, drunk as a skunk, a towel over my head, country music in my ears, and had a good long cry. There's nothing like country music when it comes to crying, except maybe the last act of Boheme. No particular reason to cry. It was a very good year. If I live long enough, which is doubtful, I might look back at 1998 and think of it as I do now of 1972, 1988. Very, very good years. Any reason why 1999 shouldn't join the list? Aside from the statistical unlikehood, no. But there is the slight problem of falling apart. If the ship wrecks, can the broken boards be tied together, make a raft to keep afloat? Or does it do a Titanic and sink quickly to the bottom?
No, the Sleeptalker isn't taking advantage of me. I'm taking advantage of him ... or at least I'm being utterly unfair to him. I love the young man. He hasn't had much of that in his brief life and what he has had seems to have been as selfish and unfair as mine. It's enough to make a grown man weep.
259a
After a Sunday alternating between the park and the mall, I went to the hacienda for the first time in a week. The Sleeptalker arrived with a bunch of people, including Mondo and Plato, sat with me and talked about the game. I told him I had really missed him and was happy to see him, and I meant both. Several of them decided to walk to the 7-Eleven but I declined the invitation to join them, switched to one of the benches facing each other since the Sleeptalker left a tee shirt on the other to claim it. While he was gone I left a Ralph Lauren polo shirt in exchange for the tee shirt and put it on, fell asleep happily and didn't wake up when they returned although I did a little later and lay there watching the Sleeptalker sleep, cuddled under the polo shirt. As I was getting ready to leave in the morning, he woke up and said, "where are you going?" "To get coffee." I rubbed my hand through his hair and said, "see you in the game."He quit the job at Gordon Biersch. If it had been some other restaurant, I'd apply for it. I'm not looking forward to this long winter month of being broke.
260
A reader congratulated me on my "bomb" rating, but worried that I was throwing gasoline on a fire. I wasn't aware my sex life was still being discussed on Usenet. Gee, a legend in my own time.The reader was though, I think, sincere in echoing a couple of worries, one of which has been a constant insincere concern on Usenet for a year now. The first concern is that I'll get busted. Ha! I think it would be deliciously funny to get sent to jail for having sex. I could write my very own De Profundis, see if I could do a better job of it than old Oscar.
The second concern is more serious, worrying that young children might be exposed to something that would harm them for life, or at least give them a premature education in bizarre things adult human persons enjoy doing.
Neither is at all likely. The old shower houses at Ala Moana Beach were large and spacious, had a dozen-or-so showers in an open space with benches for drying and (forbidden) nude sunbathing. The new ones are tiny and seem almost to have been designed with intimate tete-a-tetes in mind. The shower is a two-person room at the end of a corridor, with a drying/changing room between it and the entry. The design makes it possible to see from the change in the light entering the building when someone is approaching, even before they get to the actual entry, much less all the way back to the shower room.
Who could ask for anything more ...
I spent much of the first Monday of the New Year playing Seventh Circle, with several delightful exchanges with the Sleeptalker. There's very little food to be found abandoned on campus during Winter Break but I did come across a big juicy apple to supplement a Cup of Noodles I'd been carrying around for an "emergency". Two readers had made gifts of McD's gift certificates which had kept me supplied with hotcakes every morning but the last of those had gone for senior coffee on Monday. I didn't want to leave the game early enough to make it to the Krishna truck, so decided to play on and go to IHS instead.
I got there after the first mob had filled the place and so joined the line of folks waiting for space to open up. The Sleeptalker had evidently eaten already and was standing outside talking to two other players of Seventh Circle, looking very handsome in the Lauren shirt. I got impatient waiting for the line to move, so decided to try my luck at Ala Moana instead, chatted briefly with the Sleeptalker and went on my way. I told him I needed to get a couple of quarters for one last Hurricane. Hey, can just bum them off people, he said, and started asking the guys standing around if they had a spare quarter! What a place to do it. I laughed and told him to stop it, assured him I hadn't gotten too lazy to push back a few shopping carts.
As it happened, no food readily turned up at Ala Moana, but I did find three carts almost immediately. I was feeling very tired, weary of the mall (too many hours there during this Winter Break), and even though I would have welcomed the Sleeptalker's company, I really didn't feel up to the whole Social Horror Club routine, so got the bus back to campus, buying that last Hurricane on the way.
A friend had given me Anna Quindlen's One True Thing, a touching novel (if it is fiction) about a young woman giving up her own life temporarily to be with her dying mother, and I finished that with the beer and a whirlpool of thoughts about families. I'm most grateful I escaped watching my parents die (assuming my mother has by now, which is by no means certain). I'd found an unexpected plate-lunch box with some tough but edible beef and ample rice, so didn't have to go off hungry to the cloisters bench after all, a blessing since my head was already messed up enough without adding actual hunger to the mix.
As for Usenet, no, I'm not going to take the reader's suggestion that I should "keep up" with what is being said about me. There's no point in reading something like alt.culture.hawaii unless one is going to participate (and from the way that newsgroup was going in the past few months, no point in reading it at all). And there is certainly no point in worrying about what people say, have more than enough voices in my own head to deal with.
261
"How do I love thee, let me count the ways ..." Nice stuff for its time but the Language of Love now goes like this:me: Taking off now, might see you later.
him: Come to [the hacienda]. I miss you.
me: Sweetheart! :)
him: :) !!
Ah, those Brownings had nothing on us.
So of course I went to the hacienda. Ye gods, what a night. When I got there, Mondo, Plato, Rossini and a young blonde newcomer were sitting on outside benches surrounded by beer bottles, empty and full. Plato handed me a Bud, Mondo added a Sol to the collection. The Big Local Dude was sitting on a distant outside bench glowering. Rocky arrived, sat for one beer and then went inside, sprawled on a bench and put his headphones on.
By the time the Sleeptalker came strolling up the path, everyone was fairly drunk and mellow, things were quieting down. As always, he stirred it all up again. I kept urging him to keep the volume lower, with no success. Then I'm not quite sure what happened because I was talking to Plato, didn't see what the Sleeptalker did when he went inside to Rocky's bench. Whatever it was, the BLD thought the Sleeptalker was trying to put the make on Rocky! They had a heated discussion which got everyone sitting up and watching, then the BLD hauled off and slapped the Sleeptalker. I risked getting the same treatment by moving in between them, urging the BLD to chill out. He backed off, I sat down again, but the Sleeptalker just wouldn't shut up so their argument continued. Mondo walked off down the path and I soon did the same, then changed my mind after walking about a block and went back. The BLD had returned to his distant bench, the Sleeptalker and Plato were back to drinking beer.
I went over to the BLD and told him I understood how he felt, agreed with much of what he'd said about the place being a welcome sanctuary for sleeping and not a place to party. He was feeling very unhappy with himself for having slapped the Sleeptalker and we agreed that wasn't a solution to any problem. I went back and sat on the bench with the Sleeptalker who asked me to sleep out there on the bench beside him. I didn't notice the time but it must have been almost midnight when we finally settled down to sleep.
All too soon, I was awakened by the Sleeptalker and Rossini yakking away, looked at my watch and saw it wasn't quite five in the morning. Sheez. I wouldn't have blamed the BLD if he'd gotten up and slapped both of them. I picked up my backpack and walked off without saying anything.
I sat outside McD's with my coffee and thought, if I had a room with a bed in it, I'd crawl under a blanket and sleep for days ...
262
Oh, that kid. After the unprecedented fuss he caused at the hacienda on Wednesday night, he created a major uproar in the game on Thursday. In fairness to the lad, I don't think he was entirely at fault in the squabble at the hacienda. The Big Local Dude knows the Sleeptalker and Rocky are long-time buddies, really had no business butting into whatever goes on between them and was just using it as an excuse to vent his annoyance with the beer party (which certainly wasn't only the Sleeptalker's doing). I don't know what he did in the game, though, because I was taking a midday break and he hadn't appeared earlier in the day. When I got back, he was playing, his main character had been silenced and there was a big debate underway between his (few) friends in the game and those who were calling for him to be permanently banned.One of the two guys who actually run the game got fed up when the Sleeptalker kept entering the game with his other players and mouthing off, and banned the terminal address from game entry. I got involved at that point, explaining it was a public library terminal, used by many other players of Seventh Circle and it was hardly fair to block their entry just because the Sleeptalker was misbehaving. The Boss lifted the ban but warned players who know the Sleeptalker that if pressure weren't put on him to chill out, the address ban would become permanent.
He doesn't know the Sleeptalker, I fear. Trying to "put pressure" on him is always totally counter-productive. I explained to the Sleeptalker that the Boss certainly could technically make the ban permanent and wondered how he'd like all the other players grumbling at him if it happened. That was as far as I'd go with the campaign, left it to the other State Library players to pursue.
This first week of the New Year has been boringly ordinary despite the Sleeptalker-inspired fireworks but I had a feeling on Thursday evening that some kind of a corner had been turned, perhaps a delayed "inner Solstice" where Wednesday had been the longest night of the year and the Light was slowly returning. That would be most welcome; the candle to help me get through the Dark is running low and flickering.
263
The Sleeptalker decided on Friday morning that he was "too dirty" and had to go "home" to Momma for a shower and to wash his clothes, thus ending an extraordinary week when we were together, night and day, from Monday through Thursday. During the day we stayed on campus, playing Seventh Circle. I took breaks to search for tobacco and food, the Mama Bird image foremost in my mind. He played and played and played, and when I returned with provisions would take a break to smoke and eat and drink and talk, about the game and about his life.And about our friendship. "You're the coolest dude I've ever known," he said.
When the library closed at eleven, we walked to the Cloisters and he took the little bench, I put some cardboard on the floor beside it and slept there, our heads about six inches from each other. And I was happy, very happy, despite the certain knowledge that it was a time out of reality, that it had to end, and that I'd feel very lonely when it did.
Meanwhile, before this four-day fantasy began, I wrote:
"How fortunate!" said the Dalai Lama in "Kundun". He was referring to the gift of an elephant from Nepal but given his fascination with an antique hand-cranked film projector in his youth, I suspect he'd share my similar reaction to DVD. How fortunate, indeed, like a science fiction tale come to life. In the late 40s I was captivated by news in magazines like Popular Mechanics about the invention of magnetic recording tape. I desperately wanted such a machine and was convinced as a child that it was possible to will something into existence, spent much time trying to make one of those miraculous recording devices materialize. What they say about will power must be true; the machine never materialized from thin air but those early yearnings resulted in a life with very few gaps in ownership of a tape recorder. From a reel-to-reel single-track tape recorder to a little silvery disc which contains an entire film ... the stuff fantasy is made of.
And how fortunate, too, that my first encounter with this new technology was my ninth (tenth?) viewing of "Kundun". I don't think I could ever tire of seeing that beautiful film.
That very special Friday evening started the last weekend of UH Winter Break at a peak and it was downhill all the way after that. The weather was beautiful, though, on both Saturday and Sunday and I spent a lot of time at the beach park in between hunting forays at the mall. Mid-afternoon on Saturday I made the mistake of going to the State Library. The day had been fairly pleasant up till then, few shopping carts but a generous food supply including an unprecedented abandoned set of hotcakes from McD's. Judging by the bag, someone had ordered two breakfast sandwiches and hotcakes, and after eating the sandwiches had decided the hotcakes weren't needed. How fortunate.
The Sleeptalker was at the State Library, of course. All terminals were occupied by people (like him) who didn't look likely to abandon them before the five o'clock closing, but he did take a break to join me outside for a smoke. He was wearing new suede sandals and a new tee shirt in a very nice shade of bright blue, told me his "friend" had bought them for him. I suspect the "friend" was the Raccoon, a young Filipino cutie who is steadily employed and has been around again after a period of absence. He and the Sleeptalker seem to have an on-and-off best-buddy relationship. The Raccoon arrived shortly after we'd gone outside, chatted for awhile and went into the library.
The Sleeptalker was eager to get back to the game, I declined his offer to let me have the first terminal to be vacated, said I could survive without logging on and was going back to the mall, might see him later. I was thoroughly, utterly irked with myself because I was feeling so jealous over the Raccoon, especially after hearing they'd spent Thursday evening drinking at Gordon Biersch. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, I hate more about myself than my tendency to fall victim to jealousy, with or without any real reason for it. [And later, hearing the entire story, I saw there was even less reason for it, since the Raccoon actually loaned the Sleeptalker money to buy the things.]
I grumbled at myself, told the mind to just shut up about it, spent a couple of hours utterly at war with myself. It easily qualifies as the most stupid evening I have spent in more than two years but I did manage eventually to shift location, won the battle so to speak. But what a stupid waste of energy.
Then, even though I knew it wasn't a good idea, I went to the hacienda. Mondo and Blondie and Plato were there, the BLD and his lady absent. Everyone not part of the Rocky Social Horror Club appears to have found somewhere else to shelter. Not even the long-time Airport Refugee appears at the hacienda anymore. Little wonder. If it's not a lengthy gabfest or beer party, it's that wretched little radio of Mondo's, and that thing came out again, Blondie borrowed it and was playing it very loud. I left, headed off to the Cloisters determined to resign my membership in the Club once and for all.
Strange prelude to a beautiful week ...
264
You'll never miss your water till your well runs dryNo, you'll never miss your water till your well runs dry
I never missed my baby till he said goodbye
A friend and reader, with her usual sardonic style, said she understood why I hang out with the Sleeptalker but wondered why he hangs out with me. I put the email into her folder to ponder awhile and, after several vodka-and-cokes, asked the Sleeptalker himself. He just smiled, said nothing.
Why should he have said anything more after "you're the coolest dude I've ever known"? That's the supreme compliment of my long life, three decades later superceding "the most important American artist since Jackson Pollock." I was going to say that was sheer hyperbole, but I'm not entirely certain of the meaning of that word, and the Random House Dictionary of the English Language doesn't have it (!). In any case, it was exaggeration, based upon a future which didn't happen, and partly because I understood clearly I could never hope to be in the same league as that American Master. Only partly, though. When I made paintings and sculpture, I did it because I was having fun doing it, I never took it as seriously as my fans. I was enjoying myself, having fun. When it stopped being fun, I stopped doing it.
I "had fun" this week like I haven't done since 1972, 1973. Those weeks, magic magic weeks with the Dutchman, that so special time with Deepak in a cheap Old Delhi hotel. But even those treasured times didn't come close to the intimacy of the four days with the Sleeptalker. We ate from the same plate lunch box, we drank from the same glass, I even let him use my toothbrush. I've never experienced that kind of intimacy with anyone before ... and I realize (oh, do I) that having sex with him was absent.
It taught me that "having sex" isn't, after all, the most intimate thing between two men. Maybe sharing a toothbrush is.
But I did dream of having sex with him. A first. I rarely dream about him, but one night at the cloisters, in my dreams he was naked, said "I know how much you want it, go ahead." Oh Lawdy, I wish he'd say that in "real life". I think. The weird (and no doubt perceptively significant) thing about the dream was that I realized I didn't really want it.
I realized it again on the Black Friday when the Sleeptalker went off to shower and wash his clothes.
Kory K asked, "you in mourning?" Yes, dressed all in black and dark gray. "If I could get some white iron-on letters," I said, "would put LOVE STINKS across the front of the tee shirt."
Then I drank some beer and went to the Playroom for the first time this year, had quite an amusing time with a Japanese fellow, did my best to give him what I'd give the Sleeptalker if he'd let me.
And realized I didn't really want it.
What a piece of work is man.
265
In the game on Saturday, the Sleeptalker totally ignored me. I said a few things to him (including congratulations about his main character having been unsilenced) but he said nothing in reply. Okay, say no more. Then suddenly he started talking to me.I got very drunk. Again. And I went to the hacienda because I wanted to see him. The bench next to sleeping Mondo was vacant so I took it. He woke up, I offered him some guava juice and vodka, he smiled, declined, and went back to sleep.
The hour of American theatre music was an absolute treasure. Ethel Waters and Lena Horne. Tell me he's lazy, tell me he's slow, tell me I'm crazy, maybe I know ... can't help lovin' that man of mine.
And he arrived. He woke me up, sat beside me and took his shirt off. I hugged him, rubbed that beautiful body of his until he gently made me stop. Wonderful. But naughty of me. I mustn't get too drunk with him.
He was, as usual, being too loud so I suggested we move to an outside bench. We talked for awhile about the game and then, no idea why, he left. I went back inside and slept by Mondo.
Sunday morning was magnificent, a clear blue sky, earth at its best. What an incredibly beautiful place this island is.
265a
I didn't eat at all on Saturday or Sunday, was so weak on Monday morning I couldn't walk from the hacienda to the mall, had to catch a bus. Weak and sick. The Sleeptalker had gotten sick on Wednesday, complained of a sore throat and fever, and my turn finally arrived, very sore throat and the shakes. Probably it's flu, not just a cold. I got my senior coffee, took some aspirin and went out to Magic Island and sprawled on a bench in the sun, very grateful for the continuing beautiful weather.I'd stayed in the park Sunday morning, too, was meeting friends for the matinee performance of the play, "Island Skin Songs". I thought the play so boring I couldn't stay awake, finally gave up on it and left.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at the outside bar at Gordon Biersch watching the harbor and enjoying, as always, Kevin Murphy's company. By the time I left I was so drunk I went into the men's room, threw up, and sat there for some time wondering if I could make it to the hacienda. If you're going to kill yourself, I told me, at least find some quicker, easier way to do it.
Finally I did manage to drag myself to the hacienda, took one of the facing benches with Mondo at my head. Rocky arrived, took the bench beside me. All peaceful and quiet until about 1:30 when a Social Horror I'd not seen before arrived and woke Rocky up. Yak, yak, yak. I moved to an outside bench and went back to sleep, not entirely sure if I was sad or relieved the Sleeptalker hadn't appeared.
As the holiday morning continued I began to feel steadily more awful, alternating rivers of sweat with shivering, a decidedly queasy stomache, and a strange irksome tendency to get cramps in the feet and lower legs. So I spread my towel on the grass and lay there wishing I'd at least just fall asleep. It's the sickest I've felt in years.
Later, walking through the mall, I ran into Helen R who kindly bought me some food from the Orleans Express. Although I only had Bourbon chicken and mashed potatoes, I felt utterly stuffed. And utterly sick. I took the bus to campus and sat in the secluded grove and waited until the four hours passed and I could take two more aspirin.
This kind of miserable illness certainly makes one appreciate the blessing of generally good health. It also takes the mind off other things, including booze and love. I have to do something about both those things, after this damned virus goes away.
266
"It doesn't much matter what happens today," said Jonathan Cainer, about Wednesday. That is surely THE message from him I love the most, after a long, long time of reading him.It never does, Jonathan. It doesn't really matter. The hideous trap we all fall into is thinking, now and then (all too often) that it does really matter.
I want a friend. I think, all things considered, a young male person would be the best candidate. Problem with that is, I'll then convince myself I want his body.
As in the present opportunity ...
Getting so physically ill you cannot read, listen to music, barely even move, is a wonderful opportunity to think. And to dream. When awake, I thought. When asleep, I had the most bizarre dreams they continually woke me up, so there were some nights of very disturbed sleep.
I'm not sure why it was my favorite, but there was one in a house (of my mother or maybe Frances) with a little Christmas tree in the window. Over it hung a beautifully elegant squared lantern, kerosene evidently. I kept trying to light it, turned up the controller, then finally gave up. Suddenly it flared into life, the entire lantern was ablaze and it melted, fell like a comet.
When I got well enough to read again, I resumed Hermann Hesse's wonderful Demian, which I haven't read in decades, finished it, and returned to yet another re-reading of his Magister Ludi, and came to that supreme line ...
What I am seeking and what I need is a simple, natural task, a person who needs me.
In the game, the Sleeptalker is that person. He will ignore me totally for hours, then need something, and ask me for it. I know the game better than he does now, know everything he is likely to need, and make certain I have it.
Things aren't as simple and easy in "real life".
267
Moments when I have felt a twinge of regret over this drastic change in lifestyle have been few, far fewer than I had expected, but they appeared twice in this strange week near the end of the Tiger. And for very different reasons.This bizarre virus, which by Friday morning had completely disappeared with no trace of having been, had me feeling so utterly miserable it was impossible not to long for a bed, the privacy of an enclosed space, the luxury of a soak in a tub of steaming hot water. I survived the week with "sponge baths" in that welcome place with hot water on campus, couldn't have faced the prospect of a cold shower at the beach, or even the journey to the beach once I'd gotten to campus the first time. But indeed there were moments of wishing I'd never given up the role of householder.
The second "fit" occurred after two days with excellent lunchtime music at Campus Center, provided on Wednesday by John Cruz and his brother, Guy, and on Thursday by Willie K. Both musicians were a major part of my life in the year before leaving householder status, both kindly greeted me with seemingly real pleasure to see me again, echoing my own feelings about them. In the evening after the special gift of that New Year's hug from Willie, I thought how silly I've been to let local music slip so much from my life, wondered if, after all, the ability to participate, to support the musicians I admire so much, hadn't made the drudgery of an office slave worth it. It's a question I leave open because I know my thinking on the subject right now is as much, or more, influenced by thoughts of the Sleeptalker than those of supporting local music.
I don't think I'm ready now, or am ever likely to be ready, to return to an office as a full-time employee, resume the burdens of paying rent, phone bills, etc. etc. But I understood those moments of regret well and enjoyed the nostalgic reveries over the "good old days", even while reminding myself that in many ways, these are the good old days. No doubt in the future, if I live that long, when increasing age brings more and more physical problems, increasing fragility and decreasing energy, I'll certainly consider these the "good old days", I feel sure of it.
When that small dividend check from my English shares finally cleared, I collected the money and went immediately to the supermarket to fulfill the pledge I had made to myself, buying packets of instant coffee. That freed me from the need to travel from the cloisters to the mall each morning for senior coffee, so I slept later than usual (welcome during the sickest days especially) and went directly to campus, brewing my own coffee and enjoying the dawn hour before the library opened. I drank less alcohol this week than I have in any week since this trip began, again partly because of the illness. It was a bizarre feeling to walk around with half a litre of vodka for three days without the slightest desire to drink any of it.
The last of the money was tucked away for a Hurricane during Willie's gig. After he finished, and the beer was finished, I really wanted another one, a sure sign I was shedding the influence of that virus. I asked Kory K if he could spare two dollars. He refused, quite rightly, and then in a recurrence of what seems an especially uncanny synchronicity, I found two dollar bills, neatly folded, laying in the road. During the week the Sleeptalker was on campus I had asked Kory for the quarter needed for a Hurricane, that time he gave it me, and returning from buying the beer, I found a quarter in a vending machine. Weird.
Finding the two dollars, I started to walk downhill for the beer, stopped myself and said, you'll enjoy that more as a nightcap. And was right.
Waking Friday morning, after a windy and chilly night full of dreams about flying (both in machines and with no mechanical assistance), it was a joy to feel the absence of the virus, a special gratitude it hadn't evolved into the expected runny nose cycle, a return to "normality". If that word can in any way be connected with my life ...
268
Notes from Saturday night: It could happen to you ... A trip to the library ... You took me by surprise ... You came to me from out of nowhere ... Wait until it happens to you (Peggy Lee). Ah yes, "I'm Michael Lasser" socked it to me big time with the hour of American Theatre music, an hour of songs about suddenly and unexpectedly falling in love. I do wish he wouldn't say "I'm Michael Lasser" so often, but otherwise that radio program is a national treasure, as is The Prairie Home Companion which precedes it. This week's News from Lake Woebegone was so deliciously wry it made me laugh aloud several times.I had spent much of the day in the game, having fun teasing the Sleeptalker after finally mastering the method of sending descriptive messages into a location. "Reting kisses Lolo's toes and quickly runs away" really got him going. Flirting in virtual reality is much safer.
How I'd love to add the Sleeptalker to the list of Life Size portraits ...
When a guide is needed, a guide appears. I don't remember who wrote that but it certainly seems an accurate, perceptive statement. A new entry on the dramatis personae list: Eric. He becomes one of the few players whose real name I use. I can't think of a nickname for him. He came along, from out of nowhere.
After a brief, hesitant preamble which I originally mistook as a prelude to asking for money, he asked "do you know the Hippocratic Oath?" and when I admitted to having heard of such a thing, asked if I thought it was "good".
That easily qualifies as one of the most extraordinary first encounters I've ever known. I suspect this young man has a role in this pantomime I am creating, perhaps even a major one.
He has such cute ears. (Slap Panther, stop it, pay attention to what the young man is saying!)
And what a range of topics. Rudyard Kipling, land surveying, a child chasing his shadow, forgiving oneself for "sins", How to Win Friends and Influence People, geology, touch typing, fathers, Prince of Egypt, H.G. Wells, black widow spiders, medication to tame anger, the Hawaiian god of wind, birds of prey, archery, learning another language, the similarities between all the "holy" books, etc. etc. Absolutely dizzying. Once in awhile those cute ears were more an anchor for me than an object of desire.
He said, finally, he was going to a church service, we shook hands for a second time, and he started to walk away, stopped, asked "do you think mythology and science fiction have something in common?"
I like Eric very much. Very much indeed.
269
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 14:37:02 -1000Newsgroups: soc.culture.nepal, soc.culture.indian, alt.religion.hindu, soc.culture.indian.delhi
Subject: Re: NEPAL SHIV SENA.....three burnt to death
SB asked:
: But howcome we Buddhist in Bhutan do not like the we Hindus
Perhaps because the "Buddhists" in Bhutan have failed to listen to the message of Lord Buddha, just as some "Hindus" have failed to listen to the message of Lord Krishna?
Just as multitudes of "Christians" in the West have failed to listen to the message of Lord Jesus.
It's really very simple, as They all told us. All a man has to do is listen.
270
"FUCK you, Reting!" said the Sleeptalker in the game as he was forced to log-off since the State Library was closing. Monday, bloody Monday.When I read Cainer's forecast for this week, I told Kory K I wished there were a pill which would let me sleep for a week, and a place to take it. He felt the same way about the forecast for his week.
On Sunday evening I had my second encounter with that technological miracle, DVD, watching "2001". I don't know how many times I have seen that film, several times while under the influence of LSD. It was good to see it again after a decade or so.
Then I went to the hacienda for the first time in a week. Mondo was the only member of the Club there, already asleep under his blanket. A young black man I'd not seen before had, alas, taken the bench next to Mondo, so I settled on an outside one next to the Big Local Dude and his lady. It was windy and cold.
Wind is the biggest natural enemy in this beautiful place. Rain, even heavy continuous rain, can be a nuisance but shelter can be found. When the wind is both continuous and erratic, it cancels out the advantages of almost all outdoor sheltered places. The cloisters has almost no protection from wind, the hacienda, too, opens directly to the gusting trade winds.
But it was quiet, so I put on an extra tee shirt and snuggled up under my towel. The black fellow was listening to a radio with headphones, drinking from some hard liquor bottle (I couldn't tell what it was), but everyone else was asleep. Occasionally he would say something, probably more loudly than he realized, and it kept me from falling asleep even after I put in the earplugs. It became more and more frequent, and then he started "singing" along with his music. The BLD got up, went over and asked him to keep it down. He did for a short while, then started in again even louder. The BLD again spoke to him, more sharply. Silly fellow was too drunk to get the message, and when the BLD spotted him pissing in the corner (inside!), he grabbed the guy by the back of the shirt and escorted him to the exit path. Everyone was sitting up watching, Mondo looked over and saw me, waved. Everyone settled back down except, apparently, the BLD, because the drunken fellow tried to sneak back in and was promptly re-evicted. Poor guy could hardly walk, staggered off down the road. If he hadn't made such an obnoxious nuisance of himself, I would have gone after him to help him find a place to collapse for the night, and I felt a little guilty for not having done so.
I moved over to take his vacated bench since it was on the inside row and more sheltered. The BLD said, "hey Albert, cigarette butts!". Oops, had forgotten to pick up the two under my first bench. "Ah yes, thanks," I said to the Resident Cop, and retrieved my litter.
Windy, wet morning. Monday, bloody Monday. Senior coffee at McD's for the first time in a week, too. Then to campus.
The Sleeptalker was in Raging Brat mode in the game. I kept quiet, said nothing. Then he started making public remarks which included me in his tirade, so I quit and took a couple of hours break, sat in the secluded grove in the occasional light drizzle, drinking a welcome Hurricane. When I returned to the game, he was still in full rant, everyone telling him to shut up (and more strongly worded suggestions). I made a few sharp public responses to his continued jabs so he ended up totally isolated against a group of people who were otherwise having fun and just wished he would buzz off. Fortunately he had no choice at five o'clock, and the rest of the evening was quite amusing in the game, and useful for Reting's advance since a few highest level players had been irked by the Sleeptalker's crap aimed at me and helped me out with getting some better equipment. Nice, but I would certainly rather have had a pleasant day with the Sleeptalker in there instead of any better equipment or sympathy.
The weather was utterly vile all afternoon, gusting wind and horizontal rain much of the time, and it continued that way all night. When I got to the cloisters, all benches were taken, so I took a spot on the floor, after saying hello to Cat and the Gypsy Boy. Some fellow walked over and told me that was his usual spot. Well, that little bench is my usual spot, I said, but someone has it. First come, first served. I could have yielded and just moved to another piece of floor, but what the hell. Strange young man. He introduced himself, shook my hand, and went off to talk to the Gypsy Boy, ended up sleeping about three feet further along the wall from me.
I woke up around two in the morning and saw my little bench had been vacated. Hallelujah! Moved to it and had a few hours of more comfortable (albeit far from real comfort) sleep.
Where or where is that seven-day sleeping pill ...
271
Strange the way the mind files things, often distorting them in the process. I remembered Cainer as having said in Thursday's message that the next couple of days would be sweeter than I could imagine and told a reader I thought he underestimated my powers of imagination. However, re-reading his message, he said only that I'd be surprised by how sweet the next couple of days will be. Hmmmm. At least I assume that means the worst of this week from hell is over.Of course, it's pension check time and its arrival will certainly add a small dose of sweetness. Even sweeter would be an increase of about ten degrees Fahrenheit in the night temperatures. The coolness, again combined with frequently gusting wind, made Wednesday night one of the least pleasant of the winter thus far even though the winds during the day had lessened considerably and there were even lengthy periods of sunshine.
I'd wanted a Hurricane all day but sixteen cents in my pocket put that desire too far out of reach, especially since I had no patience or wish to sit at the mall for hours trying to find enough abandoned shopping carts to finance the brew. The Sleeptalker was very pleasant and talkative in the game, a direct contrast to his recent behavior in there. Maybe Gemini folks are just naturally schizoid? Ample food turned up on campus throughout the day so, all in all, there was nothing to complain about, not really. Winters of our discontent are even more so when there's no real reason for the lack of contentment except slightly chilly nights and a shortage of beer.
Much of Thursday was spent in the game, the Sleeptalker again being very chatty and friendly. He said he wanted to visit campus again soon. "That would be fun," I told him. Then word came that mail had arrived (albeit not yet the fabled check) so I went downtown to collect it, stopped in the State Library to say hello to the Sleeptalker but he had left. Thanks to a little melon that fell from heaven, I bought a Hurricane and returned to campus to enjoy it. Light rain drove me from the secluded grove, so I sat in a sheltered spot and listened to a conversation at the next table. A young lady was fretting over not having heard whether she would be accepted at a law school in the fall, made it sound as if her life would be over if she failed. "What will I do if I'm not accepted!" she wailed. "Kill yourself," I muttered silently to myself, relieved when they finally moved on and left me to contemplate my own problems.
At the cloisters I greeted Cat and the Gypsy Boy, one of the regulars went off to buy Cat some food, and the Gypsy Boy shared some bread and a huge bag of large strawberries with us. An absolute sweetheart of a lad I'd not seen before joined us. I had grabbed my little bench when I arrived, so returned to it and chatted awhile with an older fellow who was sitting on the next bench waiting for a meeting to end, since he prefers sleeping on the floor in an adjoining area. We talked about the silly woman who arrives very late each night and tries to get men to share their bench with her. He thought she was on the make, I just think she's crazy.
But then, I'm both.
272
A battered old ship, cast adrift ... The image came to mind many times during the turbulent week ending the last January of the twentieth century. The turbulence came more from inner than outer storms but it is the inner storm which has the strongest effect on the drifting ship. The outer hours, the miserable, cold wet winter hours will pass.Spring inevitably will arrive, the Easter Bunny of the Year of the Rabbit will hop into view with baskets of colored eggs and chocolate. But sometimes the inner darkess makes it seem the storms within will never cease and the soul grows weary.
Mental energy this week has been split between two points of focus: the Sleeptalker and The Project. The Project I am, as yet, only writing about semi-publicly; the Sleeptalker most readers are probably weary of hearing about.
"You will be surprised by how sweet the next couple of days will be." Yes, Jonathan, I would have been had you not led me to expect it. My wonderfully schizoid friend, the Sleeptalker, made it so. An even more treasured friend, because in my madness I still can perceive a true Gentleman, helped more than he knew this time. It was a turbulent week ending with indeed sweet moments on Friday and Saturday evenings with the Sleeptalker.
I want to be honest with my readers (and myself). Confession is good for the soul, reminded one of them. I think that's one of the more true cliches, it was certainly one reason I converted to Catholicism in my youth. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned ..." Oh my, where would I begin if I were to enter one of those little booths now?
The first time I went seriously to a psychiatrist, of Jung/Laing discipline, I was so appalled by the prospect of the long, long task of relating My Story, I wrote down what I thought the relevant points and mailed it to her. Wasn't good enough. Confession via indirect method doesn't work, in psychiatry or Catholicism. Or on the World Wide Web, no doubt.
"I think you're itching for an adventure," wrote a reader.
I think you're absolutely right, gentle reader. And I think it's absurdly adolescent of me to be doing so, as juvenile as my wonderful friendship with the Sleeptaker. "You can suck my cock for two beers," he teased on Saturday night. I bought him one.
What more of an "adventure" do I need than this crazy dance with a 23-year-old lad whose sleeping face gives me such great pleasure? On Saturday night we shared the facing benches at the hacienda after an evening of beer and delightful banter. He was snuggled under a blanket Rossini had given him, so I had only his sweet face and bear-fur hair to contemplate when I woke and saw him there a couple of feet away from me.
Earlier I had explained to him the significance of the object I wear around my neck on a chain. It's an antique Chinese opium locket, a little casket which the landowners gave the farming peasants. Each morning they would fill it with opium, helping the worker make it through a day of grueling labor. The Dutchman gave it to me. The Dutchman and the Sleeptalker, the two great loves of my life (never mind living with two others for more than half a decade each).
One reader continues thinking of the Sleeptalker as a "plate du jour" despite the blatant evidence of these Tales. One day this week I went back in this time machine and read the early accounts of his appearance on the stage of my life, so many months ago. "Faun, Satyr." A brat, a sweetheart. Gemini.
But I can't have him exclusively. Even if I went the whole nine yards (what does that mean?), got a job and an apartment and gave him a key, I'd still have to share him with the Raccoon, Rossini, Mondo (never mind the Sleeptalker thinks Mondo is a "psycho"), etc. etc. The Sleeptalker has more "best friends" than anyone I've ever known. And, of course, there's his mother. He talked more about her on Saturday evening than ever before.
What an incredibly fascinating young man he is.
But he can only be, I realize, a peripheral part of my inner life (no matter how delightful a periphery). At the core of this currently in-crisis existence is a vacuum waiting to be filled. If Nature truly abhors such a thing, Nature will fill it. With something.
Should I just wait and see what that something is, or should I attempt, however feebly, to suggest possibilities?
All a man has to do is listen.
273
The Sleeptalker arrived on campus Monday morning ... with the Raccoon. I'd be delighted to see any one of the Club members on campus, but the thought of the Club itself on campus is a major nightmare. So I wasn't really very happy to see the two young men, even if one is such a major part of my inner life right now.The odd thing is, there was not the slightest hint of the jealousy I'd felt about the Raccoon so recently. In fact, I realized that he is actually jealous of me. I don't know if he's gay or not, but he certainly takes his "best buddy" relationship with the Sleeptalker as seriously as any gay lover would and it's impossible not to sense his jealousy over sharing him. That thoroughly amused me, and I went about my so-called life on campus without spending much time in the library.
There was a highly unusual shortage of food on campus, nothing at all turning up at lunchtime. So I took the bus to the mall, intending to visit the Krishna truck for the first time in weeks. Alas, no truck, and no line of people waiting, so they must have once again shifted locations and the regulars knew about it. How unfortunate.
When I returned to campus, the Sleeptalker and the Raccoon were gone. I didn't care, was even somewhat relieved although also slightly puzzled by my indifference. Don't tell me I'm getting so utterly bored that even the Sleeptalker will cease to matter ...
I had stopped in Rainbow Books because I wanted to get Hesse's Narciss and Goldmund and a copy of the I Ching but they didn't have the Hesse book and the only Ching they had was some new translation which didn't look worth the six dollar price tag. So I bought a Hurricane and went to the secluded grove to continue a second reading of Demian.
Finally two large slices of pizza turned up. I had been thinking I'd have to either return to the mall or commit the horror of actually spending precious money for food.
After playing the game for awhile, I went earlier than usual to the cloisters, knowing there were no meetings being held on Monday evenings, and planning to just sit and listen to music with another Hurricane. Spot (so-named because of his fondness for his "usual spot" on the floor) came over to my bench and sighed because there was no one there yet to talk to. So much for a quiet evening of listening to music. Instead I listened to his (rather dull) story, trying to be nice. I was happy to learn the Gypsy Boy's real name, enjoyed Spot's account of life in the two main Oahu jails, and was flattered when he said he liked it best when I got the bench nearest his "usual spot" because he feels safe sleeping with me as a neighbor, but the rather pathetic tale of his love life and his attempt to find a job, etc. etc., were tedious going.
I wish Eric would appear again.
Ten dollars of the fabled pension check left, a new record. I don't think I've ever had that much of it left as late as the second of the month.
274
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 17:54:55 -0500 (EST)From: A reader
Why are you bored? Does your life have a central purpose? If not, then you drift. This implies lack of self-direction, which produces stagnation when averaged over time and space.
You are bored because you drift, and vice versa.
What next?
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 15:54:58 -1000 (HST)
To: A Reader
: Why are you bored?
I have no idea.
: Does your life have a central purpose?
No.
: If not, then you drift.
As I have said in the Tales.
: This implies lack of self-direction, which produces stagnation
: when averaged over time and space.
: You are bored because you drift, and vice versa.
: What next?
I have no idea.
Maybe the Sleeptalker really is my Tadzio ...
He walked from the State Library to the UH campus on Tuesday because he "needed to talk to someone".
I was that someone.
275
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 08:12:19 -1000 (HST)To: Kory K
::: Looking for you?
:: Uh-huh.
: but why?
Because he needed someone to talk to, like I said. [g]
It certainly was a sweet night, curled up together on a piece of cardboard ... sigh. If that boy weren't so silly about not giving up his body, I'd be at the temp agency looking for work.
: umm... isn't tomorrow a bank holiday? *G*
Lord, I hope not. He's hungry. I need beer.
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 08:37:06 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
: Silly old man.
True words, my friend, true words.
:: Lord, I hope not. He's hungry. I need beer.
: Me too.
You spent the night sleeping a few inches from a body you can't have, too?
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 15:46:47 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
: he he he... Had a meeting with the big boss. I'm back now.
Most grateful you were.
This is absolute nonsense, but every minute of it is one of the most treasured moments of my long life.
He is going to disappear eventually today. Gave him a dollar for bus fare to do it. I get a nice, quiet, LONELY (thank heaven) sleep tonight.
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 15:51:41 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
: you're a sucker... a big one.
Oh gawd, I wish. [g]
But in the other sense of the phrase, yes, I know that, too. The heart apparently has its reasons ...
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 16:24:00 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
He did WALK all the way from the State Library to UH to spend some time with me ...
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:12:22 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
Kissed his toes.
irl
"go ahead", he said.
Thanks, Kory.
Apologies for grossing you out. [g]
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:15:42 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
: he's a sucker too
L* said something about a "symbiotic" relationship. [g]
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 08:06:05 -1000 (HST)
To: Kory K
: you suck on him and he leaches off of you.
All the lonely people, where do they all come from ...
271
Strange the way the mind files things, often distorting them in the process. I remembered Cainer as having said in Thursday's message that the next couple of days would be sweeter than I could imagine and told a reader I thought he underestimated my powers of imagination. However, re-reading his message, he said only that I'd be surprised by how sweet the next couple of days will be. Hmmmm. At least I assume that means the worst of this week from hell is over.Of course, it's pension check time and its arrival will certainly add a small dose of sweetness. Even sweeter would be an increase of about ten degrees Fahrenheit in the night temperatures. The coolness, again combined with frequently gusting wind, made Wednesday night one of the least pleasant of the winter thus far even though the winds during the day had lessened considerably and there were even lengthy periods of sunshine.
I'd wanted a Hurricane all day but sixteen cents in my pocket put that desire too far out of reach, especially since I had no patience or wish to sit at the mall for hours trying to find enough abandoned shopping carts to finance the brew. The Sleeptalker was very pleasant and talkative in the game, a direct contrast to his recent behavior in there. Maybe Gemini folks are just naturally schizoid? Ample food turned up on campus throughout the day so, all in all, there was nothing to complain about, not really. Winters of our discontent are even more so when there's no real reason for the lack of contentment except slightly chilly nights and a shortage of beer.
Much of Thursday was spent in the game, the Sleeptalker again being very chatty and friendly. He said he wanted to visit campus again soon. "That would be fun," I told him. Then word came that mail had arrived (albeit not yet the fabled check) so I went downtown to collect it, stopped in the State Library to say hello to the Sleeptalker but he had left. Thanks to a little melon that fell from heaven, I bought a Hurricane and returned to campus to enjoy it. Light rain drove me from the secluded grove, so I sat in a sheltered spot and listened to a conversation at the next table. A young lady was fretting over not having heard whether she would be accepted at a law school in the fall, made it sound as if her life would be over if she failed. "What will I do if I'm not accepted!" she wailed. "Kill yourself," I muttered silently to myself, relieved when they finally moved on and left me to contemplate my own problems.
At the cloisters I greeted Cat and the Gypsy Boy, one of the regulars went off to buy Cat some food, and the Gypsy Boy shared some bread and a huge bag of large strawberries with us. An absolute sweetheart of a lad I'd not seen before joined us. I had grabbed my little bench when I arrived, so returned to it and chatted awhile with an older fellow who was sitting on the next bench waiting for a meeting to end, since he prefers sleeping on the floor in an adjoining area. We talked about the silly woman who arrives very late each night and tries to get men to share their bench with her. He thought she was on the make, I just think she's crazy.
But then, I'm both.
276
A Midwinter Night's Dream. And the end, I think, of a particular phase in the dance with the Sleeptalker.On Tuesday morning he had gotten into big trouble again in Seventh Circle. The Boss finally zapped Lolo, the Sleeptalker's main and highest character. He said he had "deleted" it, but I tried later to create a character with the name and was told it already existed, so I suspect he has just put it on ice. As I told the Sleeptalker later, it really wasn't that much of a surprise ... what else was the Boss to do after so many warnings, silencings, temporary bans, etc.?
The Sleeptalker was much distressed and left the State Library, walked to UH, strolled into Hamilton Library. "I needed to talk to someone," he explained, when we went out for a smoke break. Talk, but not listen, alas. The lad is so utterly self-engrossed he hardly listens to anything or anyone, and so obsessed with on-line life he has almost no "real life". His passion for Seventh Circle has now been joined with an addiction to www.chatting.com, one of the most depressing things I have ever seen on-line. I did go through a phase of enjoying IRC but never had the misfortune to find a channel with a collection of sex-starved unimaginatives like that on www.chatting.com. The Sleeptalker, of course, is right at home there. Starved for sex but so totally repressed, getting it on-line is the only safe option.
We stayed at the library until the eleven o'clock closing and he was the last one out of the place. I told him as we were walking downhill that it would be wise to find some cardboard since all benches would be taken. He ignored me. I found a box and broke it open, flattened it. We stopped by 7-Eleven to pick up a Hurricane and went on to the cloisters. All benches were indeed taken. It was very windy and quite chilly, so I picked an isolated, relatively sheltered spot and spread out the cardboard. We sat together drinking the beer. He had noticed one of the meeting rooms at the cloisters had an unlocked door, so decided he was going in there to sleep. I told him there was a night watchman and he would certainly get caught, but as usual, he wouldn't listen. So he got caught and was promptly evicted.
I moved over on the cardboard leaving about half of it vacant for him and gave him the large plastic bag I'd been using to cover my legs. Like so many local people here, he tries to pretend winter doesn't exist and walks around in shorts and a tee shirt. Not so bad in the daytime when the sun is shining, but damned stupid not to carry at least a sweatshirt if you know you're going to be sleeping outside.
It was, of course, absolutely wonderful to be sleeping so close to him. At one point he woke me up demanding that I stop "touching him" ... my hand was up against his hairy leg. I tucked myself into a tighter ball and went back to sleep. Then I woke and found he had moved closer, was almost cuddled up to me, with his face only a few inches from mine, so close I could feel his breath. Sweet, indeed.
The game site was down all day so he stayed non-stop in www.chatting.com, taking breaks to share beer and burgers I borrowed money to buy at lunchtime and more beer in the late afternoon. He had a Sony Walkman he had borrowed from an un-named friend and was concerned about returning it, since the friend wasn't on-line and there was no way to get word to him. It was going to be a long walk, he said, so I gave him a dollar for bus fare, relieved that he wasn't going to be staying with me another night.
Relieved, instead of sorrowful? Yes, I was tired. His delightful flirtations, always more mischievous when slightly drunk, were wonderful and I thought actually kissing his toes was the crowning moment of our weird "love affair", absolutely perfect in the context of our on-line/off-line friendship. Reting and Lolo. But I was feeling more like Albert than Reting, old and tired, weary of the dance, the tease, the desire that won't be satisfied, and no doubt wouldn't be even if he let me have his body.
Mid-evening I asked what his plans were. He was so wrapped up in the chat stuff he barely listened. I left and went to the cloisters, getting myself another beer on the way. The benches were all taken, even that early, so I returned to the spot we had shared the night before and put down some cardboard, opened the beer and turned on the radio. Boring Brahms and his First Symphony sent me station hopping and I was so grateful it had ... an hour of Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from 1987, the best I've ever heard from Dylan.
Beer and tears and Dylan and a search for the way to exorcise the Sleeptalker, or at least one aspect of him, from my thoughts. The search continues.
276a
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 10:34:13 -1000Subject: Not just symbiotic
: Sick symbiotic. That was my phrase.
My error. I was under the impression "symbiotic relationship" in psychiatric terms made the "sick" redundant, but checking the definition I see it can be either detrimental or beneficial.
I think my friendship with the Sleeptalker is both, and it is up to me to eliminate the detrimental aspect of it. If I cannot do that, then I have to find a way to end the friendship without hurting the lad.
: I just read the most recent Tales. As a friend, I am saddened.
: Things are getting worse. I think you're aware of it. I wish I
: knew the remedy.
That makes two of us, although I don't share the degree of your pessimistic evaluation based on the Tales. I printed out the "tail end of the tiger" series and read them in the secluded grove earlier and smiled over how upbeat they were compared to "reality". But I also sensed a turning point having been reached, perhaps assisted by my more complete knowledge of events and thoughts.
That evening on cardboard with the Sleeptalker inches away was as close as I am ever going to get to him physically. To think otherwise is to delude myself with fantasies and desires which will not become reality. That is what I must exorcise, as a beginning.
: I don't know what even to suggest that you do, but it's clear to me
: that you need to do something. You've become both obsessed and
: self-absorbed.
Being "in love" is being "obsessed", probably one of the toughest obsessions, whether it's being in love with another person, or with God, or with some ambition, etc. There is nothing to be done about it but find the proper path to walk through it, whether it's a temporary "affliction" or a lifelong one.
: I don't think you've been really sober for days.
That is not an unusual thing for the few days after the pension check arrives, but in fact, I was only really smashed on Sunday. Three 40oz bottles of beer in one day just doesn't eliminate sobriety. I wrote not long ago that I mustn't get too drunk with the Sleeptalker, and didn't forget it.
: That little part of you that stays rational seems to have departed.
That it was ever here is an illusion, dear friend.
277
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 15:57:48 -0500 (EST)From: A reader
This dialogue sounds like the old ELIZA program [ggg].
Let's try another tack: Are you happy drifting?
Heh. My nephew used to get so angry at "Eliza" he would sit at the computer spluttering and fuming.
One memory evoked by your mail. Another was that afternoon in the Himalayan foothills when a Swami asked, "are you happy?" and I said, without thinking very carefully, "yes". For years I thought I had lied to him but more recently I've come to think it wasn't a lie at all.
Happy? The dictionary says:
1) delighted, pleased or glad, as over a particular thing
2) characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy
3) favored by fortune, fortunate or lucky
Okay, certainly I am "happy" under terms of the third option. No question about it.
"Happiness" is not something I seek or expect to find and, as with the Himalayan example, it seems to me that I usually don't recognize I was in a state of happiness until years after the fact.
So my answer, after considering it (and sleeping on it, as they say) has to be: "I don't really know". As I said in a recent Tale, I sense a vaccuum at the core of my being, a newly arrived one at that. What has been there in this more than a year of nomadic life? Probably in the early months, that sense of adventure I've also mentioned.
The challenge (and it's a more considerable one than I realized) of "doing nothing" is a challenge I've failed. Unlike my young friend, Mondo, I cannot long sit on a bench and just watch what goes on around me, be "happy" with that. Some known avenues for ending the drift and once again steering the ship are equally unappealing to me, spiritual disciplines like meditation and perhaps, too, intellectual ones like study.
For the past few days I've been thinking I really should read Immanuel Kant. I gave up on it in my youth. That the idea occurred to me at all suggests I should follow up on it. Or is that a case of dealing with profound boredom by immersing myself in it, seeing just how far I can go in intensifying the experience? (Sorry, Herr Kant, I'm just joking ... I think).
No, I don't know if I'm "happy", and I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter.
278
Reting the Supreme Questor. On Friday, Reting finally climbed to the highest level in Seventh Circle, the first Hawaii player to do so. Hoop-dee-doo crescendo. The glory will be short-lived because they will soon be adding new code to the game which will increase the levels from the present 69 to 100, a sensible move since they have so many devoted players who have made it to the top and have nowhere else to go with their character. Unlike Bartle's MUD2, "immortals" are only appointed there, so achieving the highest mortal level brings none of the special privileges and abilities acquired at that stage in MUD2.I stayed on-line, mostly in the game, from just after eight in the morning until one in the afternoon, not even taking a smoke break. Unprecedented.
It would have most excellent to have had a beer to celebrate my dubious achievement but I only had a dollar and nine cents left. One silly corner of my mind mutte