I wanted the notebook to be for short stories as I’d had success with poetry-only notebooks. The stories stalled out. After a period of mourning I decided to switch the notebook to diary. Prose is prose.
I liked the job at the campus library. I was doing well in my classes – Spanish, Biology, Political Science in the Fall, Creative Writing, Spanish, Death & Dying in the Spring.
I was finally dating. I fell in love. Or wanted to so badly I imagined I had. It’d seemed to me all my love affairs had been one-sided (unrequited!) and here was a boy who wanted me! Or not. I got to write moony giddy diary entries about him for a few days, then philosophical fuck-him diary entries when he called it off. I also found myself the unrequiting one. Hard as it is to say no, it’s easier than being said no to. Funny thing, in two instances (or four?) I fixed up a boy who wanted me with another boy who wanted me … and these dates, I got reports, were not disasters.
Lots of new people coming into/going out of my life. Visits to Marin, SF, as well as the usual SoCo haunts. I joined efforts to create community institutions for gays & lesbians in Sonoma County, mostly because I was under 21 thus could not go to bars (the main gay meeting places) and, after I attained my majority, because bars were boring, dark, smoky, and loud. I kept up with a pen pal in Alabama and another in Oregon, having found them through Alyson Publications’ young gay penpal service.
I broke my arm for the first time. I refused to say, “I broke my arm.” I would say, “My arm got broken.” I was at a gay rollerskate night and tried to keep up in a group skate, though I knew I couldn’t, ended up being thrown off the end of the chain and, as I fell, tried to stop myself with my left arm. I guess I stopped. The bone cracked and I wore a splint for a few weeks. And in another more serious incident an old friend of my mother nearly choked to death in her kitchen. I performed the Heimlich maneuver. Have you ever done it for real? Did it work for you? Me, it just felt like I was abusing the poor woman – nothing popped out of her throat. She collapsed to the floor. When the paramedics arrived they said she had been getting enough air. She would survive.
Yes, I was getting along better with my mother. I wasn’t around the house so much, for one thing. And I could contribute a bit of money to expenses. And I wasn’t so fucking depressed. Depressed people are no fun to be around.
Now that I again had money coming in I started buying used records, even went to a couple live shows. I’m no big fan of live shows, tell the truth. They’ve got a high noise to melody ratio.
movies:
Peggy Sue Got Married
Aliens
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Blue Velvet
Nobody’s Fool
Swiss Family Robinson
Little Shop of Horrors
Personal Best
Moby Dick
Animation Celebration
Burglar
Where the River Runs Black
Walkabout
TV:
Town and Country music videos
Rocky & Bullwinkle
music:
Bronski Beat
Joan Armatrading
Talking Heads
David Bowie
Bonnie Hayes & the Wild Combo
Paul Simon
Prince
General Public
Thompson Twins
David Lindley
Depeche Mode
Pretenders
Simply Red
The Clash
Club Nouveau
Romeo Void
Bruce Cockburn
Grace Jones
Howard Jones
Culture Club
Camper Van Beethoven
REM
B-52s
Love Tractor
Limbo District
Pylon
I-World
ABBA
2 comments:
I've performed the heimlich twice. Once on the night you just mentioned (and yes, it really didn't seem like we were doing any good, her husband's mouth-to-mouth seemed to be what kept her going) and once at Taco Bell on one of my supervisors. At his request. He was clutching his throat and miming the manuver and pointing at me. I jammed my fists under his ribcage and out came the offending food.
Your second example sounds much more satisfying.
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