I have such enormous amounts of free time at work. It's an odd tale of corporate waste, fiefdom building, and flying under the radar, none of which I'll get into now. I try to use the time for my own enrichment, furthering personal goals and bettering myself, etc., having long ago abandoning the ideal of doing company work on company time--there IS no work, do you understand that! But such undirected, goal-less efforts are not sustainable, I've decided. There has to be a well-defined goal. So I read online news, read and write personal email, space out, walk to the restroom countless times a day, and just generally waste time. I DO have things I could do of a personal nature, like write in this blog, or work on my web page, or something else fun like that, but it seems just beyond the pale.. too much even for my highly compromised work ethic. But today I'm writing in my blog... at work. I won't post it at work, but I'm writing text which I'll post when I get home. There it is.

My life has become so removed from the world of work. I don't think about work; I don't care about work. I'm certain this will all change when there's no more work to go to every day. But for now, I don't think about work. I stand in the common lunch room, or the "learning center" as it's officially called, and I warm up my mid-day meal as I look through the sheet metal lattice work shielding the room from the hallway outside. I watch as people enter and leave the building, each presumably pursuing their day's activities with more purpose than me. And I return to my desk to eat, putting my headphones on to listen to Bartok piano music while I cast about for something to pass the next half hour.

Lately I've been amusing myself with personal ads. Well, plus email. I put an anonymous profile up on a site devoted to helping horny gay men find each other for quick, tawdry (or not so tawdry) sex. It was an idea given to me by a friend I've been corresponding with. He put up such a profile for amusement, to see what sorts of responses he'd get. So it seemed like a fun thing to do. And it has been. My headless, naked torso provocatively placed to ... well, provoke. I've gotten many inquiries. The vast majority are discarded out of hand, or out of email "in" box. It's amusing, but mostly it, together with the long stretches of unfilled time, have merely served to heighten my longing for male companionship. I want a boyfriend, I suppose, but I'd be happy enough for now with a good male friend with some physical contact. So nothing too interesting here. A horny gay guy. But what troubles me, as it often does, is how much time I waste pursuing it in some way. If I had real work to do, it wouldn't figure so prominently, and I wouldn't spend ... waste, the time. There are so many things I'd like to do, should be doing. Why am I wasting time reading lame email from middle-aged horny men? The answer is obvious... I'm a middle-aged, horny man. heheh

I’ve been going to gay volleyball on Tuesday nights. Does that pairing seem odd to you? A sport… a SPORT… requiring quick feet, coordinated hand-eye movement, athletic prowess, and skilled ball handling – that paired together with a large cross-section of gay guys. It seems an unlikely, and frankly, ill-advised coupling. But it’s been some of the most fun I’ve had in a long while. Every time I show up I have a great time.

I tend to play at the third-tier net, the overflow net. The first two nets are set up immediately, at the appointed hour, and all the regulars show up to play there. These are the serious players. As time passes, however, late comers arrive -- those irregulars who have neither the advantage of regular practice, nor, clearly, the desired level of commitment. As more of those types show up, a third net is set up. I play with them.

Oh, sure, occasionally a skilled player will fail to get a spot in the first two nets and wander over, but easily a majority of the players are mediocre at best. We’d pray for mediocre most of the time. No, typically, we get the swatters, flailing their arms about through the thin air of poorly timed effort, apologizing almost reflexively, as if a habit of genuflection borne from years of embarrassing gym class performance and childhood ridicule. They apologize to the group, mutter phrases of chastisement to themselves and look nervously around for signs that others may be loosing patience. And honestly, sometimes there is some of that, but never hostility. Sometimes someone will plead with the opposing team, “Can we interest you in a 7th player?” Or someone will ask, “Are you familiar with what the ball looks like?” “You know, you ARE encouraged to move in this game.” “Does your elbow bend?” etc. hahah Gay guys are funny. Of course that’s a generalization, but so often there will be a couple of guys in the game that just keep making the most hysterical jokes.

And watching these guys can be so funny. Imagine the guy in gym class who had the most girly throw, recall the most outrageous queeny voice, or the swing of hips as some guy runs for the ball, the frantic dash for the inbound serve and a girly swing of the arm in a hopeless effort that never had the conviction or expectation of success. These guys don’t expect to succeed and are astonished when it happens. Picture the guy who prays that the ball doesn’t come his way—that’s ever guy on my team. Well, perhaps an exaggeration, but still, you get the point. Playing with these guys is nothing but a constant stream of ‘Oh shit’s and ‘Sorry’s. Oh shit, the balls coming my way, followed by sudden movement meant more to convey the appearance of effort than to achieve real success, and then the closing “Sorry.” If it was a repeat offense, he may get a razing by the others, but otherwise maybe a “That’s ok” or “Good effort.” I love these guys.

Sometimes guys are not so timid or apologetic. Some joke about their ineptitude. Throughout one game a guy who was having lots of trouble kept shouting to the opposing team, “Brian’s moving to the back court” or “Brian’s rotating to the front,” I guess just to make clear where the weak link was. One guy kept explaining that he couldn’t get the ball in time due to the weight of his enormous cock. Heheh

The worst player is John. By all indication, John should be a decent player. He’s fit, trim, perhaps in his late 20s, dark skin, maybe of Indian decent. He’s very happy, cheery. But he has no, truly NO, athletic ability. John never wants the ball to come his way, yet he plays faithfully every week (and poorly, I might add). John IS the weakest link. He tries, but not really. He feels guilt for his ineptitude on the court, yet he’s undeterred, unmoved by it all. Well, he’s moved, dislikes his performance, but is hopeless about getting better, and honestly, not too concerned, which I like. He mutters “Oh shit” when the ball comes his way, and laughs when he misses, and he WILL miss. But he’s the sweetest guy there is. I’m always happy he shows up to play.

One time a few weeks ago there was a vendor pushing a new soft drink. They had cute young teenage girls handing out free drinks to people in the park. When they came to the volleyball nets, all of these guys swarmed around to get their free drink. They were playfully joking with the girls, tittering like young girls themselves. The girls liked it, liked the guys and their silliness. At one point a guy asked one of the girls, “Do you have a brother?” hahah The girl laughed, delighted by it all. I liked it too.

"We are all of us obliged, if we are to make reality endurable, to nurse a few little follies in ourselves." -- Proust

I don't know why I include this little quote, except that I read it tonight at the gym and liked it. I intend to include some passages from the volume of Proust that I'm reading now, as every time I sit to read Proust I think to myself, wow, that was a wonder passage. But they are longish, all of them, and I don't want to type tonight. So I offer you just that little aphorism tonight.

What I did think I'd include is a scrap of fiction I started a few years ago and recently came across on the file system of my hard drive. I think it must have been an attempt at a new "style" or something. I'm not sure where I was going with this, though I have my ideas based upon the notes to myself at the end (which I've discreetly removed). It run into trouble when it begins to read like a cheap Penthouse Forum letter, but it might be saved from that and made into something, if I were inclined, which, of course. I'm not.

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Twyla and I make a really good couple...at least that's what I think. I remember when we met, people were saying, "You two really stand out ." At first I thought they were making fun of the way Twyla dressed. My friends can be real jerks sometimes. I mean, yeah, she likes to wear lots of jewelry and stuff. So what? When James got his nipple pierced, did I say anything? James and his stupid skater mentality--all the green fatigues, bullshit, and reefers. He's 29, for christ's sake..... But then Jean said one time in one of our heart-to hearts that she thought we were good together. I think Jean likes Twyla for some reason, like they're both spiritual outcasts of the feminine world or something. Or it could just be that, like everyone else, she thinks Twyla is always secretly waving at her. I mean, Twyla is always wearing all of those damned bracelets and things. Seems like hundreds, but probably not. She's always got her wrists cocked upward to keep them from falling off. It looks like she's some sort of penguin or something. Sometimes she looks as if she's waving at you, if she turns her head to you just right..... But Twyla's not really that friendly.

One time Twyla and I were walking to a Red Apple a few blocks from my apartment. She had her hand in my back pocket, which I always liked. She was going on about something and I wasn't paying much attention. But when I looked up, I saw this guy who looked really familiar to me, pumping gas into an old green hatch-back compact of some sort. I stopped for just a second to look back at his face again and then walked inside, trying to think of how I knew him. Then it hit me--it was Russell Sorensen from my high school days. Russell was one of those shy, nerdy guys who didn't have much going for him....not a bright kid. Always wore pants that were entirely too short for him. His hair was always really greasy, and he had a disturbing fascination with guns, swastikas, and the para-military. But I liked him. I always wondered what a boy like that does as an adult. So there he was.

After Twyla paid for her wind-up bubble gum and quart of orange juice and we headed back outside as he was coming in to pay. "Hey, Russell?" I asked. He looked up and after a slight hesitation, grinned and said, "Robert Parker?" I grabbed his hand and shook it, both of us grinning like idiots. It was good to see him for some reason. But Twyla didn't even stop. She headed for the curb and sat down, as if to say "Go ahead. I'll wait here until this little thing has passed." I couldn't even introduce her properly. It pissed me off a little. That was when I realized... Twyla is not very friendly.

Yesterday I was at work talking to Jean about her plans for the holiday weekend. Jean's been with the company forever, and I love talking to her. We've been friends ever since I started. She's in her early 50s, I think--dresses in the most unflattering combinations of lycra-based pants and men's flannel shirts, even in the summer. She's got the most enormous set of monster hips you'll ever see, though barring those, she might be rather well-figured. She has one of those figures which was probably once good but has since gone terribly wrong. In her white trash, hick southern accent, which I adore, she was telling me about her camping trip last year with her daughter, Julie and some of her other family. Julie....Julie. Julie is a complete knock-out beauty. A brunette with long hair, a perfect face, and the most delicious body I've ever seen. Each time I've seen her she's been wearing some sort of a sports outfit with a sports bra showing the most gorgeous set of breasts--perfect, full, but not large, nipples poking out nicely. A girl with those breasts could command any guy. Funny thing is, I imagine that's what Jean looked like 30 years ago, before things whet so wrong. Now, besides her mega hips, she has huge udders which even the flannel can't fully contain. I don't really know much about Julie except what I've seen of her when she comes in to work to pick up Jean. But she IS pretty hot.

Jean and Julie had gone to an old campgrounds they always go to near a small lake just a short drive north. The men had gone fishing early in the morning, leaving the women to enjoy a quiet day to themselves. About noon or so Julie puts on her bikini, spreads out a lawn chair in the sun, and lays down to work on her tan. From the very outset of the story Jean is snickering, can hardly contain herself, and I can't for the life of me think what's so damned funny, but I start laughing along with her. The camp site, she continues, was pretty secluded, covered by the small trees and brush, not much foot traffic, etc. "Ok, I got the point, it was isolated," I'm thinking as Jean's talking. So Julie is lying there and the rest of the women are talking, when Julie decides to take off her top--just takes it off. She wants to tan her boobs, as Jean put it so delicately . The rest of the women just laugh at her....no harm, since there's no one around but a few voices from the closest neighboring site. A little later, though she pulls down her bottom and rolls over to tan her ass. They tell her she's crazy, but still, what's the harm. But of course there is harm. Minutes later a frisbee flies right beside Julie's chair, with a teenage boy chasing after it. Before Julie can cover herself, there's the kid....stopped dead in his tracks, staring in disbelief at what he's seeing. Julie's embarrassed to death, and everyone else is hysterical with laughter. By the time Jean finishes the story I've got a giant boner and can't get the image of a naked Julie out of my mind. Twyla....if only she were more interested in sex.

My stupid kid brother Jeremy was telling me the other day about his boner theory of love. According to him, if you don't get a boner for your girlfriend at least once a day just thinking about her, she's a waste of your time. I don't give this test a lot of credence, though. I mean, what kid Jeremy's age isn't going to get a boner thinking about any girl, any time? He admits that, by his own theory, he's been in love with every girl he's ever dated. Jeremy's current girlfriend, Kara, is a very cool girl who seems to know how to handle Jeremy.

A few days ago I was over at my parents' place. I stop in occasionally to say hello and hang out. At 24, Jeremy still lives at home. Poor bastard. He has no plan....there's no plan, or at least that's what my Mom keeps saying. I'm not sure any kid ever has a plan, though. He'll leave when the opportunity presents itself, just like every other kid with a BFA from a mediocre midwestern liberal arts school. Jeremy and Kara seem to get along great, and that's amazing mostly because Jeremy can be such a difficult person sometimes. Actually, he's a great kid, happy, intelligent, still innocent in many ways. But he's still a kid...and he still hasn't grown out of the tendency to be a know-it-all. He's been like that ever since I can remember.

Anyway, as I walked into the recreation room where Jeremy and Kara were watching television, I immediately heard them arguing, or mostly Jeremy arguing and Kara just wishing the whole thing hadn't come up. Kara, slouched on the end of the sofa with her head turned away from Jeremy, eyes rolling in disbelief, says to me as I walk in, "Jason, tell your idiot brother that flax is made from a plant, not from an animal."

"What?" I ask--a normal reaction to what seems an absurd topic for dispute.

"Jeremy insists that flax is made from an animal. He's wrong, of course; everyone knows it comes from a plant, but he won't let it go." I see Jeremy gearing up for his defense, another protracted explanation of why this issue has become the cause célèbre that will split a 24-year old kid from his beautiful young girlfriend.

I look at Jeremy: "You've got to be joking? You're arguing over flax? Flax?"

"Just tell us who's right."

"You think I know the origins of flax? No. Just look it up, if it's so important."--the obvious solution.

"I tried but I couldn't find a dictionary. You think Twyla would know?"

Did I think Twyla would know? No, I didn't. And frankly, I was stunned that Jeremy would think she did. I didn't think he had a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. Would confirmation from Twyla about the origins of flax satisfy him? Well, yes, he was hopeless when it came to arguing--any evidence, no matter how flimsy, to advance his position, was welcome. Still, I wasn't going to call Twyla.

"Jeremy, who cares? Forget about it."

But Kara had the final word.
[finish]

[add in bit about conversation gaps]

Yesterday James called me up to ask me if I'd help him move an old entertainment center cabinet out of his living room and into the bed of his pickup truck. James is a fanatic about music. He spends all his disposable cash--sometimes even his not-so-disposable cash--on cds. Apparently now he's moving onto hi-fi equipment, speakers, cd loaders, equalizers, whatever. I'm not sure where he's getting the money for this, but I didn't ask.
"Dude, can you come over? I thought I could do this myself, but when I attempted to make an attempt at it, I nearly broke my back. No way am I doing this alone."

"James, did you just say 'Attempt an attempt?'" I ask, knowing he's completely unaware of what he says most of the time. James spouts at the mouth...he spouts--an accurate description. Words flow from his mouth like an unordered parade of seemingly unrelated ideas, but when it's all said, meaning reveals itself somehow.

"What are you, my grammar instructor? You coming over or not?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

I have a pair of shorts which I wear around my apartment at all times. They've been designed such that you can't tell which is the front and which is the back. There's no tag, neither side is larger than the other, and the pockets seem to work either way. Damn them. Every time I put on my frickin' pants I feel like I have to solve a mystery. Surely there's a right way and a wrong way to put them on. Anyway...

I've been feeling numbness in the fingers of my left hand for the last week or two, off and on. I thought for a while it might be the start of a carpal tunnel problem, since it seemed to appear in the late evening, which I believe to be good indicia. My mother suffers from the same symptom, among others, but much worse. Well, I've been feeling it at other times during the day, so I've dismissed that diagnosis. That leaves just one other explanation... Surely it can be nothing less than .... MS. hahah Always jump to the worse scenario, of course. I'm not even sure numbness is a symptom of MS, but why let such considerations get in the way. This raises an interesting question, though--now that I have MS, what should I do? I guess it all depends upon the swiftness of its progression--can't jump to any conclusions here without doing a little homework. But taking a pessimistic view (of course) ... what to do? I think I'll leave that for another day.

I was thinking of the approaching fall--Labor Day and how it marks the end of summer in our minds if not on the calendar. Everyone says they love the fall--"It's my favorite season. blah blah blah." Please. That allegiance to autumn is always betrayed by the inevitable "But I hate to see summer end." What we love about fall is the melancholy it evokes. There is a depth of emotion in the fall that draws us inward. It's raining lightly at the moment, has been much of the day--slightly cool, very quiet. It could easily be a rain in June, but we all know it's a fall rain, and so it has the tint of melancholy to us.

It's been a quiet day, which I love. But on the quiet days I seem to wind myself up into real aggitation thinking of all the things I'd like to accomplish. I won't bore you further with the litnany of things. Despite it all, I think I just want to lie on the couch and read a little, but mostly nap until bed time. I want to nap.

This melancholy is not simply the vague, ill-defined melancholy of fall. It's supported.

Ann has predicted my sudden demise stemming from the close proximity of my toaster to the sink--my electrocution from a freak, but not entirely unpredictable, accident involving tangled toaster and can opener cords and a sink of dirty dish water. Perhaps I'm sealing my own fate by mentioning it, but it does render moot the whole MS thing. One thing I'd want to do, however, given a prognosis of MS, is to listen to all the music I have in my collection. Will my habit of toasting a raisin English muffin in the morning while washing dishes rob me of that, I wonder.

Not all melancholy is created equal. The exquisite melancholy of the Versailles gardens during grey skies and a summer rain is one thing. The melancholy of diminishing horizons and viable alternatives is another. Perhaps that is called depression. hahah Well, I don't really feel depressed. But I do have a sense of being boxed in. The doorways opening to rectangles of white light have been replaced by a patchwork of faded drapes converging upon a nondescript beige. Incandescent has replaced florescent, and I'm being jostled about inside a dusty old lamp shade. I'll come to rest in one of the slots, but one gets the feeling it doesn't much matter which one.