You Should Post Some More

“You should post some more,” she tells me, running her fingers through my hair. “People’ll start thinking you’re dead.” Y’should post s’more. People’ll staht thinkin’ ya dead. She lilts the words, just a little, her light Georgia accent not nearly strong enough to drawl.

I’m sleeping. I know it. She is the girl in my dreams, for a long time the only one and even now the only one who stayed. Not a muse, she is my friend and I suppose my sometime lover, a private blessing born somewhere deep in my subconscious mind. It’s been eight years since I last heard her voice aloud. Really it belongs to Evette, to the girl I loved in high-school, to the girl who taught me to love myself, but my girl-dream kept it for me and made it her own.

I turn my head a little in her lap, kissing at the palm of her hand before I open my eyes again. The summer has tanned her since I saw her last, but only just a shade, and the light brings out the dark, ruby fire in her auburn hair. “Tybalt doesn’t want to play today,” I murmur.

“I think you’re just happy right here,” she laughs, slipping her hands away, and her warm, black jeans press against my cheek. I don’t deny it, don’t even try, just make happy meowling noises up at her. Writing something means waking up, at least, leaving her behind again. She comes and goes as it pleases her; it might be months before I see her again. Part of me always worries that, one day, she might not come back.

She knows what I’m thinking, though, and she lifts my head, bending over me to press a kiss against my lips. “How long’ve you known me?”

“Seven years.”

“And I’m always here for you.”

Heck of a Way to Say “Hello”, Isn’t It?

A high-school buddy just recently sent me an interesting email. She’s doing a fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, volunteering to be locked up “behind bars” until her friends raise some unspecified amount of money for the cause. Charity is an important part of a complete and responsible membership in society, and even though the MDA spends fifteen cents of every dollar on more fundraising and seven more on administrative overhead (compare to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, who spend nine cents on both put together), I do admire her dedication and willingness to help. My friends can usually count on me for donations to their causes.

That said…

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot…

It’s New Year’s Eve, the day of closing chapters and fresh new beginnings, the day of regrets from the closing year and bright new hopes for the one yet to come. For me it’s a day to take stock of the worst of myself, to find the things I must improve. That’s another post, though, for another year perhaps; as the song goes, it’s a time to remember old friends, especially the ones we haven’t seen for a while and hope we’ll meet again.

I’m listing a few today; to each of these people, it’s been at least a year since we’ve spoken; to each of these people, I’d like to speak with you again.

This post is one part message-in-a bottle, one part game. I’m listing four names here, four people I haven’t been able to reach in at least a year. I invite you to add as few or as many of your own memories to the list as you’d like. If I’m very lucky, some people may reconnect here.

If any of you are reading, You Are Not Forgotten. If any of you are reading, I’d like to speak with you again.

Alisha Found!: Five and a half years ago I was in high school (Class of 2002) and Alisha was a casual friend, an artsy girl from the Pacific Northwest who baffled me and always had interesting stories to tell. She helped me with some of my first steps out of the awkward, science-and-numbers shell I had as a kid, but when we graduated I lost touch with her. The phone number she wrote in my yearbook serves as a fax line to a real-estate company now. Probably she wouldn’t recognize me today (from that far back I don’t think I would recognize myself), but I think she would approve. She’s made it very difficult for the high school to find her. I knew there was a reason I liked her.

Melody: Melody was a student at the California Culinary Academy when I met her, back in September 2003. She wore a fairy shirt and a hemp necklace, and she carried a case of cooking knives beside her. I don’t remember how we started talking, but I do remember her as a very intelligent, very well-adjusted girl, one of the most pleasantly memorable people I’ve ever met on the BART and probably my happiest memory connected to the Folsom Street Fair (where I was headed when I met her). She’s doing well for herself, I’m sure, but once or twice a year I wonder how exactly her story goes.

“Banwynn Oakshadow”: I’m not sure actually if the link goes to the right person. The Banwynn I spoke to was a writer when I spoke to him last; we talked for hours on the phone and planned to meet at cafe sometime in Berkeley, but life intervened and he moved away. It’s been years, though, and hobbies fade away sometimes.

RienCat - Erin’s a generally wonderful but highly unforgiving person, simultaneously savage and refined, cold-hearted and as comforting as a warm blanket on a cold day. She generally despises the political left, but we seem to get along just fine. It’s really hard to explain how she makes all these things balance and work out as well as she does, but the effect is staggering. I have a love-hate relationship with talking to her about my writing, mostly because half the time I talk to her, I wind up throwing out huge chunks of text and writing them anew. The problem is, like most frustrating things about her, it’s worth it. I miss her a little more every time I think about her.

Memories of my Grandfather

On Monday I visited my mother’s father, my Gung Gung, to pay my respects.

I don’t actually remember very much about him; I was five when I saw him last and he was buried thirteen years ago. He was a giant for a Chinese man, six feet tall even in his old age, and from stories I believe he was a kind and dignified man, if distant and bound by tradition. My mother tells me that he never held any of his grandchildren that came before me, only rarely held those after, and that I must have been his favorite from the way he indulged me when I came to visit.

I don’t remember this, though, because all adults are giants to five-year-olds and by the earliest I remember my cousins were already (I think) getting too big to hold. More than anything I remember that he smoked quite a lot, what brand I never knew, and that he kept a can of peanuts at his desk. It was always the blue Planters can, honey-roasted to give them that crunchy, candy-like shell. In Hong Kong this is not a small thing; they are not very easy to find. I remember never having them before, but I liked them when he shared, and I buy a can once in a while even today.

That’s all. He was distant to my cousins and my sister doesn’t remember him at all. In fifty years, the best first-hand memories of my Gung Gung will be the blue Planters can of honey-roasted peanuts. In a hundred there will be none at all.

I didn’t have very much to say to him, so I brought a can to leave beside the incense and oranges. That seemed like the only thing to do.

Wanting More

Val called me his Asian prince, and I never doubted his sincerity. His tribute-gifts were black silk sheets, and I would stretch out in them each night, imagining that their soft caresses were his own, quietly talking to him, spilling my words to him through the ether, a slow, sensuous seduction from a thousand miles away. Later, when I bought toys, to warm the cold nights, priceless bringers of pleasure in glass and stone and soft, fleshy silicone, I would share their joys with him, whimpering into the night as I writhed there, feeling the comfortable fullness and the tiny droplets of sweat beading their way over my flesh, disappearing into the all-consuming blackness of the sheets.

I don’t remember how I met him, or when, only that it was very long ago, and that I had not yet learned the hunger for men. Somehow we seduced one another, like heroes of old, two horsemen, each circling the other, endlessly jealous of the other’s smooth, effortless movements, until anger and fear bled into lust and admiration, and the four became two and the two became one, just as earth and horse and man and steel once blended into one seamless force of dangerous beauty. We talked for hours across the ether, staving off the loneliness of the world with our desire. He taught me to love my body, wiping away my shame at the soft-edged, almost-girlish curves, and I loved him for it, returning his quiet tribute in bright Kodak color and regal, epic language, my best imitations of the hot, just-barely-innocent styles I adored best.

I dreamed much more, then, still the quiet, beautifully confused dreams of the late-blooming child, and I often dreamt of him.