Desiring Much and Nothing

I am uncertain of my relationship to desire. I hung out with my good friendster Marek today on a couple of different occasions.

The first was over a couple of loads of our laundry and the second was over a six-pack of Bass Ale. On both occasions we discussed vulnerability. We discussed heartbreak. How it sucks. The life out of you. Flattens you beyond anything remotely recognizable. Renders you less of everything: use, heart, humor, soul. For a while.

And then one day, you may realize that you're not necessarily without those things any longer, though you may be a little gun shy concerning what else may be lurking around the corner. Romantics (company I used to keep) would say that if you don't put yourself out there, you're not gonna find much in the way of anything. I suppose. But fuck. Who wants to get trampled on? Criticized? Broken? Fucked? Again and again. Desire. How often will it fail me? Overwhelm me? Accompany me? Does it trick? Hide? Lie? (I do know that it's now the theme of our magazine's second issue. Of course the first one isn't anywhere near fruition.)

The desire I have right now doesn't have a name. I don't understand it. And it's because of my tenuous relationship to vulnerability. I'm not sure how to achieve this open, vulnerable, state of mind. And I'm not certain of the patience of people to hang out while I learn.

Interestingly, this is where I'm blocked. I mask my emotions in most every situation, especially here. Or so I've heard. (Anyone want to counter that sentiment, feel free below.) Another element is fear. The fear of exposing oneself. Ok, myself. My emotions. The fear that someone, she (whoever she is), will flee at the first sign of what's inside me. So my self-imposed task has always been to keep it all inside, in turn distance myself by trying to either fix everything I can or divert attention -- the uncomfortably sensitive kind -- away from me.

The difficulty, uncertainty, I am facing now is to undo my comfortable, though not comforting, task at hand. Baby steps. And this brings me to the end of this confessional.

Now for some distance?  How about those Spurs? I found a ticket stub from a game I went to between the Clippers and the Spurs in 1989. There were actually people who called me a fair-weather fan. Once he saw the look in my eye, he took it back. But that still didn't stop him last Friday from telling me that I had a morbid demeanor. That I carried death around with me. Yeah. That's what I do. School starts next week. And it turns out that after a couple of conversations about post-structuralism and gender, I am freaked out. But I have no choice but to throw myself into my proseminar next week. We'll see what happens. Be sure you'll have weekly reports. I'm sure fights will break out. I hope to catch them all on camera. I'm hanging out with Erin and her girlfriend tomorrow night. She's bringing the copy of "The L Word." Can't wait. "Sexuality is fluid." Yeah. Sure. But where does love fall? Out.