2001-01-10 - 01:34:44

I�ve been thinking alot about New Years and tripping on time again. I trip on time A LOT. This year, i�m going to write a book. Isabel Allende says a page a day and in a year you�ll have a book. Ok, well i�m gonna do it. And instead of holing myself indoors with my depression and hibernating to do it, or spending my time trying to untangle my social life and ignoring my writing -- this year -- this year I�m going to do both. Write a book and figure out my social life and figure out myself. Maybe the book will be crap, maybe it will be worthwhile, but regardless, it will be MINE.

I went to the Metro last night and spent time with David and Pauly. That�s really the only reason i go to the metro, i mean it is a gay man bar -- i go there to see my friends and I know they�ll be there on Monday nights because Pauly is the producer of a tv show filmed that night, plus I have tuesdays off so i can get trashed. And i did. And I had a great time. The guest on the show last night was Blondie, who is a poet and who crushes beer cans with her breasts (she once taught me to do it too! The main rule is not to use Pabst Blue Ribbon cans) and I took Yun with me to cheer her up and all the queens fawned all over her, of course -- Yun is so glamourous - She says herself she is a phenomenon. And she is.

So I was talking to David (he�s 31) and he was saying to me that in the years from ages 22 to 26 he changed so much every year and he learned so much. He says he doesn�t feel 31 at all and that time seems to go faster with age. I am in the middle of those years right now, i feel like each day is a new discovery and i am so different from the Hillary I was a year ago and the year before. David said he�d seen how I changed too. We got to talking and I mentioned that I was on a quest for enlightenment and he said that he believed that about me and that�s why I was his friend. I know he�s choosy and could really hang out with anyone - i admit it does flatter me that he wants to hang out with me and i have such a good time when I�m with David and Pauly because they�re so full of joy and life and positive energy, and yet they�re so real. David is a wise soul. I tear up sometimes when I think of the old days, when David was wild and he took care of me and Jim at Tripps. I think he�s still looking out for me. I�m hoping Pauly does get a job with me because it would make me feel good to be able to help do something for them in repayment for the love and friendship they have given me.

So hanging out with David always makes me think about my life and making the most of it while I�m young. I make mistakes sometimes and sleep around a bit and David helps me put it in perspective -- everything is totally acceptable and your �mistakes� are just part of who you are - David is an example to me that you can get older and wiser just by living, just by really living and seeing and taking out of life as much as you can.

I also got a kick out of Blondie last night. She has been working at the Clairmont stripping for 24 years. And at her age, she was on that stage last night still shaking it and with such a positive attitude, dancing and reading poetry and man i think if Blondie can keep it up, despite the hardship in life I know she has seen, well then what�s stopping me? Nothing.

Another driving force to really keep going and creating in my life is Jim. I saw him and Larissa for New Years. And Jim said to me that you�ve got to do it. Talking about doing things mean nothing. Its doing that means something. Jim can be a little cut and dried sometimes, a little harsh -- but he�s right. Jim is another strange wise one. He doesn�t always seem insightfull, but his voice is the voice of my conscience when I�m alone - there are many things he�s said to me in the time that I�ve known him that I didn�t listen to when he first said them but that rang so true later. And i guess that in the same moment when I feel endearing towards him, as if he were my younger brother, i feel a strange power in his words to me as if he were my older brother -- I take what he says to heart and I do seek out his respect. Hmmmn question to self: what am i still seeking from Jim and why? i will think on this later . . .

So I saw Jim and Larissa for New Years and had a great time. The first day/night was the best -- Larissa and I went to Venice beach and spent the day talking and it felt so right -- it was 85 degrees in the middle of winter and being with her and talking like that was what I was missing in my life. That night was Jim�s birthday and we met him at the plane with a champagne bottle balloon and a dozen roses, and then we went back to their place and showered him with presents and Jim who is so wonderfully verbal about his feelings got drunk and told us how much he cherished us both and trusted us and how we were his closest friends. And of course we all echoed what he said -- i trust jim and larissa closer than a brother and sister, i cherish them to my bones and it is always good to tell each other.

The next couple of days were lovely and we went to the zoo and to the beach and their neighborhood gay bar and it was a good time and the weather was so addictive and friendship like that is so addictive. I didn�t want to leave. At one point Larissa offered for me to move there with them and for like 5 minutes I was so elated - I had it decided and planned out in my mind to get there as soon as possible, i really would move in with them in a heartbeat. But then even before Jim or Larissa discussed it I knew in my heart that I couldn�t go - because what they have there is a love nest and I don�t belong there. It would be a different life for them and they need some space to just live together and love on each other and I know that.

Larissa told me later that she�d talked to Jim and he�d pretty much said the same thing to her --And she was teary and she asked if I thought we�d ever live together again? The way she said it made it seem like she doubted that - I guess I�d always taken it for granted that our lives were intertwined and we would live together again soon. But after I thought about it I realized -- there are no givens in this world. We may or may not ever live together again. It made me sad. We are really feeling more like grown-ups lately and grown-ups live with their lovers or go off and do their own thing, grown-ups don�t pile their college friends into an apartment.

Larissa said she thought I was acting very needy for attention and approval. I know she�s right - I�m starved for touch and affection and positive feedback that living with them before provided and so when I saw them I was hungry for it -- And no matter how much attention someone shows me it doesn�t ever feel like enough to me. I was very lonely staying with the two of them, seeing them so affectionate with each other and being on the outside of that. And I can�t seem to go two weeks without starting up some kind of love affair in my mind at least here in Atlanta . . . because i love to be touched. I guess this is something wrong with me that I should fix . . . because I don�t want to always feel unsatisfied with what I have and I don�t want to appear needy or clingy to my friends and I don�t want to chose lovers just for their warm bodies and attention to me.

On the otherhand, there are somethings I really like about myself that I don�t want to change, that I wish others in the world would learn to posess and I don�t want to give up. I don�t want to give up being so intense. i don�t want to give up loving from the first minute I meet someone. i don�t want to give up my idealism. I don�t want to give up having affectionate friendships where we express our feelings and our caring for each other and where we don�t have standards of appropriate behaviour. I don�t want to give up being a lover of people and putting that love out there and I don�t want to give up seeking it from others, because that is what life is about to me--- in this small cold world i believe in fostering as much love and affection as possible.

So having said that I will now dish on the new man i just met - Dan. Dan works in a bookstore because he loves books. He reads voraciously and is soooooo intelligent, some of our conversations have just been fabulous. He's also handome, well-travelled and very easygoing. He went on tour for with the Grateful Dead for 4 years !

I first met him last week and we were hanging out with Leslie and Chrissie and they went home but we stayed at the bar for more drinks, then went back tomy place for more drinks, then it was the wee hours of the morn and I told Dan he could crash in my bed since he had to work early in the morning and we were drunk. So we slept fully clothed but holding hands and it was so innocent and special.

We had another date this weekend and we went out drinking with Leslie and Chrissie (at first to Dotties where me and Leslie and Chrissie got to cage-dance like go-go girls!) and after drinks we went back to his place . . . and spent the rest of the night and the next morning naked and , for lack of a better term, fooling around -- and it was so wonderful - Dan is like a kindred soul under the covers, i have never been with anyone who was so simpatico with my kissing and touching style, it was just so quiet and right and intense and gentle and passionate and WOW. After we got out of bed and hung out with each other the rest of the evening it was kind of awkward, we did end up having sex later that night and it was awkward too -- I was really self-conscious and not in top form. So he�s supposed to call me any time now to go out tonight . . . and I�m really looking forward to seeing him again, and hoping this time I won�t act like such a goober. This guy is smart and he�s handsome and he�s chill and he parties and he listens to willie nelson and jazz and he�s moving to California . . .

There�s just something about California . . .