Things to do in bed with George Clooney.

- I'm writing this just after midnight. I would've written it sooner, but the whole holiday weekend thing has thrown me off. I mean, I forgot what day it is. So, a few minutes ago, I was on my couch watching one of my favorite movies, thinking that I should blog about the film the next time I do a "Things to Do ..." list. Then, I realize the next list should go up immediately. So the lead item on the list should be the movie that reminded me to write the list, I guess. And that movie is OUT OF SIGHT, Steven Soderbergh's 1998 crime-caper-romance-comedy masterpiece starring a suave, fast-talking, sexy-as-all-hell George Clooney and a beautiful, talented, interesting, intelligent, top-of-her-game Jennifer Lopez. (Trust me, it's good, and she's amazing in it.) The movie also stars Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Catherine Keener and Albert Brooks, and, because it's based on an Elmore Leonard novel, it has this wicked cool Tarantino feel to it. It's maybe Clooney's best performance, if only because he's charming in the movie, and Lopez, whose shotgun-toting federal marshal character was given a spinoff television series called KAREN SISCO, hasn't been as good in any movie since. As often as I watch OUT OF SIGHT, which is available again on DVD after a couple years, I'm always surprised by just how clever it is. The opening bank robbery's great. The trunk scene alone is worth the price of a rental. And the central caper is twisted and clever. So, because it cheered me up again, I highly recommend you watch OUT OF SIGHT if you've not seen it. And, if you've already seen it, watch it again.


- OK, so the reviews I've read for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST are about what I was expecting. I'm still going to see it. I didn't mean to suggest I wasn't enthusiastic, for Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow is a fantastic character. And Keira Knightley's great lately. I'm just nervous that the movie won't have a plot as focused as the last one's. Plus, I'm scared that they might try and have Orlando Bloom emote. (I didn't see KINGDOM OF HEAVEN or ELIZABETHTOWN, guys. Did I miss anything? My friend Jenipher says that, unless he's Legolas, Orlando Bloom sucks.)


- When is A SCANNER DARKLY coming to Atlanta? After watching Richard Linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED last week, I'm more excited about this animated Keanu Reeves futuristic thriller than ever. If successful, the Philip K. Dick adaptation might be scary good.


- So, since there's a heavy dose of criminal movies on my list this week, I think I should go ahead and recommend KISS KISS, BANG BANG, a very funny caper movie starring Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan that I watched this week. It was made last year by Shane Black, the guy who wrote LETHAL WEAPON, but it only saw a limited release, probably because it's ridiculously hard to categorize. It's based upon a pulp fiction detective novel. It's sorta gay-themed but not schmaltzy. It has ridiculously good, quotable dialogue. The girl in it is hot and funny. It's satire of Hollywood. It's self-aware. And it's violent. And the three leads are really good in it. I was surprised.
- Before my bank account went haywire this week, I managed to buy the new Panic! at the Disco album called A FEVER YOU CAN'T SWEAT OUT. Some songs on it are really catchy, but it has yet to completely grab me. Still, I like the one song I bought the thing for. It's more panic than disco, and I was disappointed.
- Someone told me that the last HARRY POTTER book may come out exactly one year from today, and the date seems like a marketing dream. Get it? The seventh book on 07-07-07. Anyway, that's just a rumor I heard.
- I saw that Fiona Apple's coming to Chastain in August, and I want to see her. Her last album is a regular in my car stereo.
- Some friends of mine went with me to THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA over the Fourth weekend. The movie was really good, and I had a lot of fun with my friends. Still, a situation from the outing has stayed in my mind, and I hope that my friends don't mind me taking a question from it. My friend's boyfriend was invited to come to the movies with us. A week before the movie, the two of them broke up. Still, my friend said he wanted to remain friendly despite the end of the romance, so the ex tagged along to the movie with us. Everything went smoothly, for my friend was way cooler about the situation than *I* would've been. Still, there were moments during the outing when I kept my eye on the ex to see that he didn't pull something shady or mess with my friend. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: What's the oddest or most awkward run-in you've had with an ex? Are there exes you're still mad about or mad at even years later? Any particularly dramatic bad breakup stories? Do you find it difficult or easy to maintain friendships with your exes?

Fireworks.

Went to Scott's for a Fourth of July barbecue. He bought sparklers.

Notes on an unwritten nothing.

Step One: Decide that you're going to write.

OK, done.

Step Two: Decide what you're going to write.

A soap opera. A mystery. A dysfunctional family story. A story of a guy struggling with adulthood, trying to make it. A sexual comedy. Something with a makeover in it. Something with good dialogue. Somebody should get shot/burned/hit with a car. Stuff about religion. Maybe a musical. Should be something I know about but should be fictionalized. Characters first, then plot just happens to them. Modern but key and resonant. Something original, something fun. Pick a small issue to address. Don't try for a magnum opus.

L-I-V-I-N

OK, yeah, you guys were right. Great movie.

Matthew McConaughey. Parker Posey. Anthony Rapp. Rory Cochrane. Joey Lauren Adams. Jason London. Wiley Wiggins. Adam Goldberg. Nicky Katt. And Ben Affleck behaving like a jackass megatool. I loved it.

Once again, Richard Linklater is my hero.

I may have to try drugs now.

Reefer madness.

After work and armed with some birthday funding, I headed to Best Buy (which has prices I love but a staff that I despise) to try and find the Criterion Collection edition of DAZED AND CONFUSED to immediately rectify the apparently giant mistake I made by not watching it over a decade ago.

So I go to the new releases, then the comedy shelf, then find a salesman shelving a giant cart full of DVDs. (I'm amazed he didn't run from me, lest I actually require assistance.)

I asked him if the Criterion edition was available. He walked to the shelf, showed me only the fullscreen edition of the original version and told me that they were out of it.

"It would be right here if we had it, so I guess we're out," he said.

"Um, can you check?" I asked, forgetting where I was. He returned to his GIANT CART FULL OF DVDS, though he didn't think to check the computer or look on the GIANT CART FULL OF DVDS for it.

No, he ignored me.

I found a $10 widescreen edition, not the Criterion, and figured it'd suffice if I just wanted to watch the movie.

Having saved money, I then looked on the salesman's GIANT CART FULL OF DVDS. (I'm practically a customer-service nuisance at my store. I ask EVERYBODY if they need help, and I actually try to help them and get them out the door.)

I didn't find the Criterion edition on the cart. I did find the first season of WEEDS on the cheap, and I'd been curious about that show. I love Mary Louise Parker, even if a hairdresser I met told me that she was a pain.

So I considered it and picked it up.

When I got to the cashier's desk, the blue-shirted worker looked at the two DVDs I'd brought up, then looked at the bags under my red eyes, my three-days-unshaven face and my untucked shirt. (I've not been sleeping well lately.) Then she looked again at the DVDs and smiled big at me, saying, "You have a really good night, sir!"

It wasn't until I called Lupo that I realized why she found me so funny.

"You bought DAZED AND CONFUSED and WEEDS together?" Lupo asked. "Having a theme night?"

I hate Best Buy.

NOTE: Oh my God, the workers at Best Buy are so STUPID! I just checked, and the street date for WEEDS isn't until JULY 11! I swiped it off that fool's cart and got it early!

Things to do while revisiting Brideshead.

- All this week, I've been watching the 1981 BBC miniseries for BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, and I swear to you up and down that it's one of the best DVDs (if not the best) that I've ever seen in my life. I started into it because it came recommended to me by friends. I watched the first episode a couple times, shocked at how gay the whole damn thing seemed to be. I mean, it was on PBS, and people LOVED it. No one who recommended it to me told me that it was completely homosexual. But in the first episodes, Charles Flyte, an Oxford student played by a young, pretty Jeremy Irons, speaks of falling completely and utterly in love with this rich, brilliantly dressed, beautiful, foppish kid named Sebastian, played by Anthony Andrews. Andrews looks like a sullen, blond Jude Law. The whole thing is set in the 1920s, and Sebastian's supposed to be from this really religious family - except the family doesn't seem to care that he's a 19-year-old boy who wears a pink suit and carries a teddy bear, sunbathes and cuddles naked on the mansion roof with Charles, professes his love for Charles constantly and even takes Charles to Venice so that they can cuddle in gondolas together. Apparently, in the '20s Britain, I could've just made out with guys constantly or paraded around naked with them, and people would've thought that we were just good chums carrying on. (Now, when I do that, people call me a slut and tell me to put my clothes back on.) BRIDESHEAD fucking rules. Great acting, great clothes, great story. It's based on a classic Evelyn Waugh novel. It even has Sir Laurence Olivier in it. Drama, drama, drama! It's way better than QUEER AS FOLK, for QAF wasn't all about being gay - while pretending that nobody was gay. I keep queening out and yelling things at Jeremy Irons onscreen, like "GIRL, don't break up with him, even if he is a lying drunk! HIS CATHOLIC MOTHER IS A STONE COLD BITCH!" and "NO, DON'T FUCK YOUR BOYFRIEND'S SISTER, even if he is a lying drunk! YOU LOVE HIM, NOT HER!!!" The show is 11 hours long, and I am hooked.
- I bought my mom the latest Stephanie Plum mystery today, even though it's been out over a week. Janet Evanovich's latest is called 12 SHARP.
- I bought Dashiell Hammett's THE GLASS KEY on a bargain table tonight. I've not read any Hammett before, and that's a situation I should rectify.
- PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST seems to me like the sort of movie that I should be going apeshit over, but the mood hasn't quite hit me yet. That first movie was so good, and Johnny Depp was so good in it. I just don't want them to spoil it.



- A new Guster album, GANGING UP ON THE SUN, came out two weeks ago, and they're one of Lupo's favorite bands. My favorite song of theirs is called "Two Points for Honesty," but it's off one of their earlier albums, LOST AND GONE FOREVER. Very good band.



- Lupo sent me a couple birthday presents this week, along with a lovely card. One of the gifts was the Criterion Collection edition of SHORT CUTS, as directed by Robert Altman. Lupo asked me today what I thought of the movie, and I admitted to him that, when I saw it in high school, it left me with this "Huh?" feeling. I'm eager to try it again.



- Lupo also expressed outright shock when he discovered this week that I've never, ever seen Richard Linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED, which Lupo said was one of the best films of the 1990s. I told him that I never saw it because all the frat boys and stoner kids worshipped that film every week at Georgia Theatre when I was at UGA. My first day as a freshman on campus, I went sober to see PINK FLOYD'S THE WALL with a group of drugged-out friends on my first day at UGA, and I spent the entire night confused while the drugged-out kids had a great time. After that, I figured that stoner kids couldn't actually like something coherent and good, so I avoided DAZED AND CONFUSED. (Besides, it had Milla Jovovich and one of the London twins in it, so I thought I wasn't missing much.) Since I now love Richard Linklater and since Lupo says I should, I will try this again.
- Earlier this week, among friend, I compared an affair that I was considering to Charlotte Rampling's Nazi fetish sex in THE NIGHT PORTER. I'm not saying that, in my actual love life, I wanted to dress up like a Nazi stormtrooper and engage in some Holocaust-inspired fornication with a new friend, but the comparison seemed apt at the time. (Don't ask, really.) Anyway, though, I imagine that some of us, at least, have had romances that reminded us of movie romances or moments in life that felt like a moment from a movie. Maybe you were hanging out with a friend of the opposite sex and were suddenly, like, "This is so WHEN HARRY MET SALLY." Or maybe you were chasing your wife with an axe, then stopped and said, "Oh my God, this is so Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING." Catch what I mean? THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: When did your life feel most like a movie? Ever behave the way a movie character did? Ever say something, then realize you'd heard the dialogue on the big screen before? What's your best "This is just like that movie ..." moment?

Test.

The site was down. The site's back up.

Things you'd be proud to do.

- It's Pride in Atlanta again, and I'm working at the bookstore during the parade and throughout the weekend again. So I'm missing it, even though I've only ever been a marginal attendee at the Park. (Last time I was there for it was, ummm ..., two years ago.) But my friend Steven is new to being out, so the event is important to him. Steven's blogged about Pride for a week now (like I have about my birthday, which was terrific). Even my usual Pride companions Larry and Brad have skipped out on Pride this year to go to Europe, not that I blame them. Actually, if there's one thing I'm really going to miss about Pride this year, it's that I'm not going to get to see my friend Matt perform with the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus. If you see them perform at all this weekend, cheer for Matt. He's the cute one in the glasses. Oh, and the Names Project's AIDS Memorial Quilt display is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, which I actually could attend. I've not seen quilt panels (the whole thing is too big to display anywhere) in a decade, so that'd be good to see. The Quilt is a beautiful, moving, sad thing to see.


- Is it wrong that I actually think the gimmick of Adam Sandler's CLICK may be worth the price of admission? I'm trying to remember the last time I actually enjoyed seeing Kate Beckinsale in a movie. (Her high-camp performances in PEARL HARBOR and VAN HELSING do not count. They were not intentional. And, don't even mention it, Kacoon, I thought that UNDERWORLD sucked.) It may well have been a decade ago. Beckinsale's like Rachel Weisz without the talent.



- This week I watched MY LEFT FOOT, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and AUDITION. Seeking a common theme, I discovered that they all featured - to a degree - people with severe mental problems and/or disabilities finding love. Of course, MY LEFT FOOT and THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA were sweet tearjerkers. AUDITION, meanwhile, is a sick, sick Japanese horror movie featuring this crazy-ass deranged psycho bitch who giddily lops off men's limbs with piano wire, keeps them alive yet deformed in her apartment and feeds them her own vomit. The last 15 minutes had me screaming at the television set. The course of true love never did run smooth.



- Hey, you know Brandon Routh, the guy who's about to play Superman. Yeah, I used to watch him on MTV's UNDRESSED and ONE LIFE TO LIVE. So, for those of you who develop a crush on him in the next few weeks, I saw him first. I have dibs.
- My friend Steven and I have arranged for a group outing to see THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA in the next couple weeks, and I am in the middle of the Lauren Weisberger novel right now. The trailer for the movie seems to play like a single scene of the film, so you can watch it without feeling as though the movie's being spoiled or that all the best jokes are being given away. And Meryl Streep looks fantastic. So I'm devoting this week's question entirely to her. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: What's your favorite Meryl Streep performance? Love her or hate her?

Not Born on the Fourth of July, 1976.

Fittingly, moments after turning 30, Benjamin thought back over the story of his own birth.

(Well, um, Benjamin actually thought over his mother's version of the story, told to him several times throughout his childhood. His father respectfully disagreed with this version, which is one of the many reasons why his parents are now divorced.)

"You were due on July 4, my perfect Bicentennial baby," his mother would narrate. "But, at the end of May or beginning of June, I had these contractions and told your dad that I was in labor. So he freaked out, put me in the Firebird and sped me to the hospital, and we got there and waited and waited and waited. For hours. But you never came, and the contractions never got any worse. And eventually, the doctor came to see us, and he told me that it was too early for me to be in labor."

"Way too early," Benjamin's father would interrupt if he were there to hear her tell this story. But she would ignore him and continue her version.

"Anyway, the doctor said that false labor was common, particularly with first-time mothers, and we shouldn't just head to the hospital every time I felt a little pain," she said sweetly to her boy. "He called it 'a little pain.' That's a typical male chauvinist response, son. When you get older, you should never say anything like that to your wife."

After the dramatic pause for his father's scoffing ended, Benjamin's mother told the story of his actual labor.

"So about three weeks after the first trip to the hospital, I start feeling these contractions again, and they keep coming and coming," his mother said. "So, of course, I told your father that I thought we needed to go to the hospital."

At this point in the story, she would glare at Benjamin's father.

"And you know what your father did, Benjie?" his mom asked.

No matter how often he heard this story, Benjamin never dared answer this question, for it was the best part of the whole story.

"Unlike most men willing to listen to their wives and eager to see their firstborn son for the first time, your father told me that I was just having another false labor, that it was still too soon!" she said dramatically. "Then you know what he did, Benjie??? You know what he did while I was in horrible, horrible pain???"

Benjamin often knew the answer to this one but didn't dare interrupt his mother as she mustered indignance.

"YOUR FATHER WENT OUT AND MOWED THE LAWN!!!!" his mother yelled everytime she got to this part. "WHILE I WAS IN PAIN FOR 45 MINUTES, HE FIRED UP THE RED SNAPPER AND MOWED THE GOSHDARNED LAWN!!!!"

At this, Benjamin's father would usually mutter under his breath, "Well, the baby didn't come for eight hours. I had time."

"When I FINALLY got your father to come back into the house and convinced him that I was serious, we went to the hospital in Marietta," Benjamin's mother continued. "And, as soon as we got there, your father started to fill out the paperwork, while I had to go to the bathroom. So, ever the genius, he told me to go ahead and kept filling out forms."

At this, Benjamin's father would start telling the story.

"So I'm filling out forms when the orderly and nurse come rushing up to me with this wheelchair, asking me in this frenzy where my wife was," his dad said. "So I told them she went to the bathroom. AND THEIR EYES GOT HUGE!"

And his mother resumed telling the story from there.

"And this shocked nurse comes running into the bathroom to get me, telling me that I'm not allowed to go. I end up in this wheelchair while people are yelling these questions at me about my water breaking," his mother said.

* * * * * * *

The baby wasn't born perfect.

The remainder of this story, surrounded in some family legend at this point, is unusual. Benjamin, two weeks' premature and underweight at 4 pounds and 11 ounces, was taken from his mother before she got to look at him. He was immediately placed in an incubator. He wasn't expected to live. The soft spot on his head was severe, for touching the baby on the head for just a moment would result in a handprint lingering for a moment on his. The baby bumped his head on his mom's thigh bone on the way out of the birth canal, which caused a birthmark on his forehead. (Originally, his mother told him that the birthmark was caused by Benjamin's giant brain, but his father eventually told her to stop saying that to the child.) Photos suggest that Baby Benjamin's left arm was shorter than an adult index finger.

Over the next couple days, Benjamin's mother was told that it would be a miracle if her newborn son survived at all. She was told that, if the baby lived, he would suffer from severe disabilities and mental retardation, his quality-of-life non-existent. They gave her little hope.

She thought her son was special. She took Benjamin home when they let her, cuddled and sang to him. She took him to the Methodist Church and had him baptized. Members of the congregation liked to hold him, for he smiled a lot.

And, on a random day some months after he was born, while his mother was singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" to him, Benjamin sang "Ee-I-Ee-I-O" back to her.

If you ask her, Benjamin's mother will tell you that her baby sang it perfectly. (Of course, before having the baby in 1976, she was a music teacher, so this was a point of pride for her.) She sang him a verse, and he sang the vowels back in perfect pitch. She did it again, and he did it again.

And if she had to pinpoint it, that was the moment she most believed in miracles.

30 going on ...

For the record, at the moment of midnight on his 30th birthday, our hero Benjamin was sitting in a movie theater, watching Lindsay Lohan and Meryl Streep sing over the end credits of his favorite filmmaker Robert Altman's A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION. Benjamin liked the movie. Benjamin usually likes movies where Meryl Streep sings, though he didn't like that conjoined twins movie where she did the BONNIE AND CLYDE-inspired duet with Greg Kinnear. Benjamin usually likes movies where Lindsay Lohan sings, too, though he is less inclined to admit that to anyone.

At 12:05 on his birthday, Benjamin was standing in the lobby of the Phipps Plaza AMC movie theater, staring at the clock on the wall and pushing buttons on his cell phone. At 12:06, he left a message for Vickye, one of his best friends, for she'd told him it was OK to call around midnight. Of course, she didn't immediately answer the phone when he called. At 12:07, he called his drowsy-sounding friend Scott, a man that Benjamin used to call "Snapshot" when he was interested in nicknaming people, and announced to Scott that he'd reached 30 and it didn't feel so bad.

"I made it!" Benjamin shouted over the phone, only half kidding. "I survived my 20s!!! And they really sucked!!!"

Then Vickye called him back, and he clicked over to make essentially the same announcement to her.

They talked for about an hour, during which she said that she was coming to terms with her own approaching 30th birthday - which occurs exactly two months from today.

"Vic," Benjamin asked her later in the conversation. "What was the best part of your 20s?"

"That's a question that requires some thought," she replied. "It sounds like one of your blog entries, one that ends with a survey question."

"I should be able to write an answer," Benjamin said. "I've been contemplating 30 for months."

Trying to answer his own question, Benjamin thought back on the last decade of his life. He thought about how he spent his 20th birthday, which involved his mom forgetting to call him to wish him a happy birthday. It also involved him forcing his friends Amy and PG to spend time with him, for he didn't want to be alone. Amusingly, at one point on his 20th birthday, Benjamin ended up as a guest on his friend Travis's college radio call-in show, where our hero bitched about getting older until all four of the show's listeners called in and told him to shut the hell up.

This, sadly, was a theme of Benjamin's 20s, one he didn't hope to carry with him as much into the decade before him.

Benjamin, just now, concluded that he couldn't evaluate his last decade of life in that way, even if it would provide an answer to a really good blog question.

Life is life, Benjamin thought. Given good and bad, you cope, learn and hope to grow.

The gambit.

The week that Benjamin, our hero, turned 30, he purchased his first chessboard. He thought it was pretty. It was polished cherry, and it folded so that he could carry it around in the brown leather briefcase that he'd always intended to use more often. The chessboard reminded him of one that his grandfather owned. (Of course, his grandpa only used it for checkers.)

The chessboard seemed to Benjamin like the sort of prop that a distinguished man should own, the device of a man who knew where he was going. The briefcase struck him with the same notion. Benjamin, upon turning 30, had no idea where he was going, and that frightened him. He never expected to be this aimless. Somehow, the chessboard and briefcase provided him with comfort. His reasoning was funny. It seemed to him more likely that he could become the man that he wanted to be if he had the right props, even if he didn't know how to use them.

Thus, the chessboard was a birthday present he gave himself, along with a beginner's book on the game. More importantly, on this very page, he wrote down to himself what the board was for. He thought that writing it down might keep the board from being another whim purchase, that writing it down might stop him from continuing to be the same aimless guy he already was.

Lots of things happened the week Benjamin turned 30. The chessboard wasn't even the first. He just bought it for himself so that he could have a tangible reminder of his plans. He intended to accept himself more. He intended to change. Benjamin wanted a life of embraced possibility.

So what if he wasn't very good at chess?

Things to do the week I turn 30.

- Yep, come this year's first day of summer, my Gemini-Cancer cusp ass escapes the tumultuous twenties. And I've decided to do a number of things about it, during it, for it and about it. This is good. This is really good.
- After a most excellent trip out-of-town toward people I felt connections with and a job search that is bearing more fruit than any other search I've attempted in six years and a slow dance with a cute guy have shown me that I still have lots of untapped potential happiness within me, I have decided - brace yourself - to like myself and enjoy the funny little things that I do.
- My scarce writings of the last month have reminded me of the "mental regression" chapters in FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON. This shall not continue.
- Went with my friend Dena to the launch party for Emily Giffin's really good new book BABY PROOF, a chick lit novel that dares to have its heroine not want to have kids with Mr. Right. The party and its crab puffs and Amaretto Sours ruled, though it was very Buckhead Betty. We walked in, amidst about 100-150 fans, and Emily saw me and took the time to give me a personal hello, which impressed the heck out of Dena. And then Emily's dad told me to call him by his first name. And then her husband and I debated how damn good the new book is. And then her cute, well-dressed St. Martin's publicist named (cough) Stephen (cough) said to me, "Oh, you're Benjamin! She talks about you a lot. It's nice to finally meet you." Anyway, Dena went home after the party, where she read the first two chapters of BABY PROOF, and ordered all Emily's paperbacks to read.
- Five of my close friends are in Europe now, so there will be no cool, butter-creme-frosted cakes this year. I wish I could say that they took me with them so that I could finally see Paris, but there's always next year. Actually, I have the rest of my life.



- THE LAKE HOUSE actually sounds really interesting, and I (ahem) like Sandra Bullock in romantic movies. It has a better premise than Keanu's SWEET NOVEMBER, and it's based upon a supposedly sad Japanese movie. And it's my birthday week. So yay. (One time, my friend Vic and I saw Sandra Bullock stumbling around drunk atop a float at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.)
- I've been coughing at work everyday. I think I'm allergic to my job. Either that, or I've followed the Emily Dickinson stereotype and become a writer with tuberculosis.
- I can't decide if I should read RABBIT, RUN or some other book from the New York Times' list of the greatest books of the last 25 years. It's either RABBIT, RUN or the new Nick Hornby novel about suicide. I keep waffling, but I think I should read something deep.
- An ink pen just exploded all over me. I am naked and speckled blue.
- I don't want to see THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT. I've actually never seen a F&F movie ever, even though I think Paul Walker is hot. Frankly, I feel old just knowing that funny-voiced kid from SLING BLADE and Lil' Bow Wow are both driving age.



- Saw THE OMEN with my friend Kacoon, then lied and told her that Damien reminded me of her little boy. About THE OMEN, though, Mia Farrow RULES.



- I will leave my job. I will leave my job. I've gotten in the habit of humming "I'm Checkin' Out" from POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE to myself. I like that song. Speaking of Meryl Streep songs, has anybody here seen my hero Robert Altman's A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION yet? I really want to see it, and I know nothing about Garrison Keillor. And it's not just because Lindsay Lohan plays Meryl's daughter in it.
- I didn't get to tape THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA off of PBS this week. Did anybody tape it? I really want to see it, and I'm afraid Tony Award-winning lead actress Victoria Clark won't come with the touring company to Atlanta, even though she's not exactly famous.



- Oh, did you see LaChanze won a Tony for THE COLOR PURPLE? I met her when she was doing the show at the Alliance in Atlanta. She came into my bookstore to buy an Alice Walker book that she'd ordered, but her order didn't come in. Stalling for time while trying to track the book, I asked her if she'd seen THE COLOR PURPLE at the Alliance. She said that she was in it. "Who do you play?" I asked. "Celie," she said. I freaked the hell out, asked her about the show, told her that I'd heard really good things about it from friends. She showed me a piece of purple jewelry that Alice Walker had personally given her. Now, she's got a Tony. I haven't written the Great American Novel yet. Heck, I've not written a good American sentence in a while. Anyway, good for her, for she was nice. And my moment will come.
- On my actual birthday, my friend Vic and I are enjoying a rare evening alone with one another. She got me tickets to see CHICAGO at the Fox. I think it's got Peterman from SEINFELD, the guy who lost DANCING WITH THE STARS to Kelly Monaco, in it. The show and the time with my friend is gonna be great, and I'm really excited about it. She and I haven't been to the Fox alone together since we saw THE NUTCRACKER there in 1998, I think. We love the Fox.
- I miss my blog. I miss you guys. I want to reconnect with people I enjoy. I want to be happy. It is my goal.
- Of the summer movies I've seen so far, I found X-MEN: THE LAST STAND to be the most satisfying, M-I:3 to be the most mindless, THE DA VINCI CODE to be the most boring and talky, CARS to be the most disappointing and POSEIDON to be the most stupid fun (even though the gay Richard Dreyfuss character totally should've hit on every hot, drenched guy in that upside-down boat ... and it really, really needed Shelley Winters in it). I've not seen THE BREAK-UP, though I was told to avoid it. I want to see AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. I'm excited about SUPERMAN RETURNS on IMAX, that movie MONSTER HOUSE and, of course, SNAKES ON A PLANE. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: What do you think of this summer's entertainment thus far? Any good movies? Any good TV? Any good European nations you've visited on your honeymoon? What are you looking forward to?

Things to do at a gay wedding weekend.

- As previously reported, my best friend Lupo is getting married - yes, it's a legal, actual marriage - to his boyfriend Kenn in Northampton this weekend, and, thanks to funding from my mother and a prostitute friend, I'm going to be in attendance. If I'm able to find an Internet connection anywhere and can find any inspiration in the proceedings, which I should because the days will likely be filled with true love and alcohol, I will buckle down and blog for you guys. Karaoke is planned. I've been invited to give a toast. And Lupo's gonna wear some cool new clothes. So, for the first time in a while, expect something from me.
- During a meeting in the conference room of my office wherein we discussed another change of our daily work schedule, something that happens every three months, I looked out the window and contemplated hurling myself and my wheeled office chair down three floors. I think it's time I leave that damn place. Last week, a co-worker essentially yelled at me for not being a good worker, called me into a meeting with a manager and then started crying when the manager suggested she'd gone too far. Since that confrontation, I've been advised by management to "let it go, forget it happened and continue to improve the work I've been doing." I should let it go. I should let it go.
- I had a date with a guy last weekend, and I actually had a lot of fun with him. Given my luck at spending time with people I actually enjoy, of course, I'm still waiting for him to call me. It's only been two days since I tried to initiate a phone call, so it's still reasonable that he'll call me. Tell me that again on Saturday when he still hasn't called. Like the last one. I shouldn't write that, for he might read it. But nobody's been reading this lately.
- I didn't end up going to XPT this year, for I was busy having some sort of breakdown. Nonetheless, I'm sure that the guys down at the Center for Puppetry Arts put on an excellent show.



- My friend Emily Giffin's new book, BABY PROOF, is excellent, and it comes out in bookstores on June 13. Seriously, if you like smart chick lit, check it out. I'm going to the official book release party. Yay!
- The bookstore has cut back my hours in June to one day a week, even though I'm considered a very good salesman by management and co-workers. They say it's not personal. I'm the one music seller with another income, and other people need the paychecks. I depend upon my supplemental bookstore paycheck, but I can make it work. Hard times.
- I have to figure out where else I should send the essay that the Oxford American rejected. I haven't written anything new in ages.
- I turn 30 in less than three weeks.
- I've been listening to Sia, The Fray, the Matthew Sweet-Susannah Hoffs cover album, the soundtrack to WICKED and some songs by Macy Gray lately.
- I have to go pack. And find my way back to the laundromat sometime tomorrow in between my two jobs.
- I've had an odd cold for over a week now, and some odd bruise has arrived on my forehead.
- I can't believe I just wrote all this. I'm fine, really. I think I just really, really, really, really need a vacation from my annoying job (which I now do without distractions like the Web or such for hours and hours and hours), from my empty apartment, from my messy car, from my prostitute friend, from Memorial Day barbecues where my stepbrother tries talking to me like he doesn't know why I avoid him.
- Miss Gibson was in Atlanta this weekend, spreading beauty, joy and culture to all who encountered her. I miss London, which I only saw for a week but would love to see again.
- I'm going to go watch BUFFY episodes. Both parts of "Becoming" may cheer me up.

I hate my job.

Once again, I want to leave my job. Once again, I'm going to bitch about how unsatisfied I am.

Oh well. No, I'm not. I'm just annoyed.

Guess what?

As expected, The Oxford American rejected my Waffle House essay. So now I have to come up with a new place to send the essay for consideration.

According to the magazine's handwritten note on the rejection slip, the essay had "some good parts - but also overwrought in spots."

Thank you, Oxford American.

The me that got away.

So it's evident, I would hope, that I've not been blogging nearly as much in the past couple months. I mean, I did my reading, and then, almost immediately after that, the regular blogging just stopped. It stopped because I wanted to work on other writing. It stopped because I got in trouble at my office job for excessive Internet use. It stopped because I wanted to move forward from the "Things to Do ..." list, even though I enjoyed writing it and knew that was what the majority of my regular readers were coming here for (because it was the only feature on this site that I actually promoted and the only featured that appeared regularly).

Something has happened to me, and I don't know how to explain it. I've lost track of who I am versus who I want to be. I don't know what I should be writing about, and I don't want to just spin my wheels writing the same shit anymore. I want progress and change, and I don't know how to get to that - except to stop what I've been doing.

I should probably go back to therapy, but I have bills to take care of before I can even consider doing that. Plus, I don't really want therapy, and I'm being particularly stubborn about that this time around. My problem here lately, so much as I can pin it down, is that I'm not supposed to be this guy that I am.

I'm not supposed to be unmotivated. I'm not supposed to be such a mess. I'm not supposed to be unsuccessful. I'm not supposed to chase after the 40,000th bachelor who didn't want me. I'm not supposed to not know what to write. I'm not supposed to be a guy who can't write a resume. I'm not supposed to have constantly sore legs or a swollen-looking face.

I didn't used to be this guy, in fact. I used to carry much more promise than I now do. I don't even really recognize myself anymore. I'm rude, and I'm kinda mean. And I believe a lot of the bad things I say about myself, like that I'm "no one's type" or that I actually should apologize as much as I do.

What's happened to me? What's going to happen to me?

Some guy last week seemed to actually see me, actually like me, actually be attracted to me. He kissed me, and I hadn't realized that I'd not been kissed in ages - and I mean really kissed, by someone who looked at me as someone of beauty and wanted to be there in the moment.

My back hurt all last week. One night I went without sleep. I've regained the ability to cry, and it hits me at odd moments when I'm considering odd details. I was sick this weekend with a fever, and I felt relieved about the opportunity to just stay in bed.

I don't know what's happening to me. The blog's still up. Thank you for reading it.

This isn't an attempt at "Woe is Me." This is something of a cry for help, I guess. I need help. I mean, I have my friends, but I just didn't realize how lonely I had become.

The perfect read.

This week, at my writing class, guest lecturer Melissa Fay Greene gave the group a lot of advice, but I think my favorite bit of it was deceptively simple. Greene said that what she tries to do, when she's trying to come up with her next book, is imagine her perfect read, the sort of book that she would love, love, love to arrive on her doorstep at that very moment so that she could read it immediately. Once you have that perfect read in your head, Greene said, you have the book that you're gonna write.

Now I work in a bookstore because I love bookstores. I've been a bookstore loiterer since I was 8, when I forced my then-single mom to take me to the children's section of the closest Waldenbooks once a week so that I could peruse masterpieces like SUPERFUDGE. I met Jenipher, one of my best friends ever, because my parents used to abandon me at her B. Dalton every Friday night when I was a teen, before I learned to drive. (This week, I found an audiotape that Jenipher once made me during high school. On the tape over an orchestral score, Jenipher performed her own dramatic readings from SCARLETT, THE FIRM and Danielle Steel's MESSAGE FROM NAM. It's priceless.) Eventually, I worked at a Borders one Christmas, which was fun, and now, partly because I went out on a bad date with a music manager in 1999, I have worked at Barnes & Noble for over six years.

My love of bookstores has caused me some difficulty. I love the stores, oftentimes, more than the books I get from them. I'm a whim shopper, even now when I no longer have space for more books, DVDs or CDs. On my days off, I still feel the urge to go to a bookstore and browse the shelves. If I'm in a bookstore other than my own, I'll still walk along the shelves, realphabetizing sections and straighten displays. Not working, I'll still slip into "salesman" mode and recommend merchandise to people.

One time, giving a lecture to my fellow booksellers during a training meeting, I told them that the best way to become a good salesman was to become a good customer, to understand what you like and why you like it, to keep up on what's new and trendy, to follow articles, to read constantly, to experiment with new books, new music or a different sort of movie. I wasn't just advocating familiarity with the merchandise. I was suggesting a love of the merchandise. I'm so in love with new books that I can identify clearly what they smell like. I actually read about a tenth of what I buy in the store, which is impractical and dangerous. At the same time, my shelves are cluttered yet impressive.

Of course, the dilemma with the Greene challenge, to picture the sort of book that you want to read and write it, is particularly difficult for me, a whim shopper who surrounds himself with books. I'm always on the lookout for that perfect read, the book that will introduce me to a new way of thinking, a new optimism, a renewed sense of the romantic, an unconsidered viewpoint and/or something that will just make me laugh or cheer me up. The perfect book, when I've found it, fits me like the best pair of shoes. I read it slow, to the point of studying it, and I don't notice the hours that pass while I read it. It's been THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH. It's been THE SWEET HEREAFTER. It's been RAMONA THE BRAVE. It's been THE PRINCESS DIARIES. It's been 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD. It's been THE END OF THE AFFAIR or AFTER THE FIRST DEATH or THE CATCHER IN THE RYE or THE RAZOR'S EDGE or GENERATION X or even BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY. It's the story that speaks to you just when you need to hear it.

I have only vague ideas in my head about the "perfect read" I've pictured as my answer to Greene's question. I see themes I would like to see addressed, characters that deserve a story and merit a voice. I don't see a plot yet.

Still, I like this challenge. I'll let you know what comes of it.

Interim.

I just don't know what to say.

Incidentally ...

My company-ordered Webless workdays have been really, really productive. I treat my tasks each day like I'm on a game show, and I feel like I win everyday.

(Please, for all that is good and holy, let me sell a damn story soon.)

We play requests.

Someone asked me to write a love story, and I think the last couple blog entries have been rather downbeat. So I'm working on it. I'm going to write some sort of love story - which should be interesting considering how I just bashed love and sex, essentially.

I'll let you know how it goes. Or you'll see.

Make no mistake.

A friend has informed me that the below post, though written well, will stop me from getting laid ever again. While I was writing it, I wasn't concerned about that. Really. Truth be told, I don't much concern myself with where my next lay is coming from. Fucks just tend to happen, don't tend to matter much and don't tend to last. (Tonight I saw one of my old ones sign on to Yahoo! Messenger, for instance. I recall him being a nice enough guy and a pretty good lover, so I considered saying hello for a moment. Instead, I came to my senses and deleted him from my contact list. I don't really want reminders that he's out there. That chapter's done.)

Anyway, I was only really concerned about the piece being descriptive, about it communicating and reflecting my mood in that given moment. Forgive the high-mindedness, but I only wanted it to be true and good. I've not written anything true and good in weeks, and I just wanted some reminder to come to me that I could still do it. (Hawking essays you wrote three years ago, though rewarding, can bum you out if you've not written anything new.)

I asked my friend - who only wanted to protect me while I was "openly vulnerable" because he loves me - if he understood what I wrote. He said he tried to understand it, but he kept getting distracted by the imagery surrounding my toenails.

Tonight, I clipped my toenails and watched THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, which regular readers may recognize as my ritual to cheer myself up. The bank account's low, the apartment's messy, I'm low on gas, I watched porn that Brad gave me, did nothing to find a new job, did nothing to lose weight, did no laundry. I only wore my new shoes outside to fetch my cell phone from my car. It's mostly pathos, a Sunday without ambition.

The weather was nice today. Other people would've gone to the park. I waited to do something until the only thing to do was watch THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. I am not in a good mindset. I am not a good man.

The suggestions behind the below post - not the post itself - are the things I would be wise to rid myself of. I want to rid myself of my frequent notion that things can't get better, that effort won't be rewarded, that depression is standard, that I deserve clutter, that lackadaise is somehow an honest reaction to perpetual disappointment.

I need a soul cleansing. I need ambition again. I need life. I need movement. The combined ups-and-downs of this April have put me in a rut.

I told my brother that I was molested, and it didn't seem to change anything.

I had a really great reading that reminded me I'm capable of doing more, yet I'm unsure which direction I'm supposed to go in.

I got into trouble at work, which led to "tough love" conversations with friends that revealed I'm more than willing to just continue suffering through. I'm passive as a defense mechanism. I don't change, for change would require effort, effort would mean risk, risk could mean danger, danger could be bad, etc.

I am stuck, past, present and future-tense, waiting for something to happen TO me. I make jokes. I have pessimism rooted in the marrow of my bones, protecting me from good and bad.

I have an attitude problem. And I can't find any solutions to it that don't seem fake. I'm not the sort who puts on a smile for long.

To the friend who loves me, I love you too. I'm sorry we've been trapped in this circular argument for years.

Sizes may vary.

After dinner with my cousin at an O'Charley's, my ill, scratchy-voiced mother suggested that the two of us, alone for the night, use the hour afterward to do some sort of shopping before the stores closed. Even though she was beat after babysitting my cousin's son for the day and has been suffering from laryngitis and allergies all week, she wanted to take advantage of my visit and not go directly home, even though the stores were about to close.

She suggested Ross or Marshalls. I asked if we could go to DSW.

She asked why I'd want to go to a shoe store, of all places, and I pointed to the well-worn, torn-soled, two-year-old pair of black Steve Maddens at my feet.

My mother can cope with a messy house. She can't cope with messy clothes.

"Oh my God, why are you wearing those in public?" she asked me.

I put them on without socks this afternoon when I left my apartment, I told her. I was only walking to the rental office to pick up a package, so it didn't seem necessary to dress up for the occasion.

But my day's activities had ballooned from that one task. I got the package. I jumped in my car. A phone call to Kacoon put Duluth in my head, so I headed in that direction. Thinking about Duluth led me to think about the Steak & Shake there, so I suddenly had a destination and a chocolate milkshake in mind. Arriving in Duluth, I called my mother in Buford to see if she had the photos from my reading (and to see what her voice sounded like). She told me, just barely, that she could print them out for me at her house. And she also told me that she'd been babysitting my cousin's son all day and that my cousin was arriving soon to pick up the boy. And she told me that my stepdad had gone fishing for the night. Then, she coughed and coughed. So I got back on the expressway in Duluth and headed toward Buford.

It wasn't until Mom and I left O'Charley's that I noticed I still had on my bad shoes. These shoes were my once-fashionable, once-expensive, once-favorite pair that now had holes in the leather and worn-out rubber soles that caused me leg pain. These were the ones my co-worker Shalewa mocked for a couple months until I stopped wearing them. The leg pain didn't motivate me to abandon the shoes. The mockery did.

(Seriously, my shoes were so bad that Shalewa probably would've written an apt, inspirational folk song about them if I'd suffered through them at work much longer.)

My gait is uneven. My body is disabled. My feet are pigeon-toed, thus oddly calloused and two different sizes. My toenails, like every other detail of my day-to-day life, often suggest unattractive disarray. My footwear generally has a limited shelf-life.

When my mom studied the shoes on my feet, she kinda flipped out, albeit at a minimal volume.

"Those are RUINED ...," she squeaked. "Tell me you haven't worn those to work."

"I haven't worn them in weeks," I said. "I just put them on when I ran out of the house today."

She cleared her throat.

"Really?"

"Mom, I promise," I said. "I've been wearing the Rockports. No one's SEEN ME in these shoes in weeks."

* * * * *

My mother, like most people, is mortified, on occasion, by glimpses of how I live. My apartment, my car, my desk at work all suggest I'm a scattered mind and/or a glutton for punishment.

My car, though, is the worst. The floorboards and seats of my "white" '96 Saturn are buried in garbage, old mail, CD jewel cases, books, boxes and baskets. At this point, a team of archaeologists would be required to help me clean it. Some friends ask me if I have the bodies of old boyfriends somewhere in the back, underneath the clutter. Passersby wonder if I live in it.

I'm personally ashamed of the car, sorta. I park far away from buildings so that no one realizes it's mine and judges me. But I also consider my messy car, in some ways, a character trait and am, thus far, unmotivated to dig through it.

Another co-worker at the bookstore once asked me about the messy lifestyle. I defended my mess, using an anecdote about a known gay writer.

"I read somewhere that Quentin Crisp kept a 'famously filthy' apartment," I said.

He was appalled and said, "You consider QUENTIN CRISP a role model???"

* * * * *

My right foot is an 8-1/2. My left foot is an 8. Thus, I usually buy a size 8-1/2 pair and cope.

But, in the store, Mom kept insisting that I try on a Size 9, offering up that shoe sizes are merely a suggestion and not gospel.

"Companies vary," my mother rasped, dangling a laceless pair of brown leather Diesels in my face. "Just try on the 9."

"No," I said. "It has to be an 8-1/2. I don't trust it otherwise. And, besides, those don't have shoelaces."

"They stretch to fit your foot," she whispered. "Why do you need shoelaces?"

"Because I like tradition," I said. "And I don't like loafers."

She argued that they weren't loafers, that they were trendy "laceless sneakers," but I don't trust anything that doesn't have laces. It took me forever, as a kid, to learn to tie my shoes. It seems rude to just throw away all those hours of practice.

Besides, surviving Velcro and the Nike Air Pump, I feel I've outgrown shoe gadgetry. (I feel like I should make a Maxwell Smart reference here, but I can't think of one.)

I eventually found a pair of cool, suede, light-brown Skechers in my size, and my mom told me to try them on. I thought of my feet.

"I'm not wearing any socks," I said. "Let's just buy them."

"You can put on the temporary socks," she rasped.

"Temporary socks?"

"They're right there," she said, pointing to a box on the shelf. It looked like a tissue box, but it was filled with wadded-up, brown hosiery feet. I'd seen one before, but I had never used it.

"This just seems weird," I said, considering the hosiery. "I've not done drag before."

My mother rolled her eyes at me and said she was heading toward ladieswear.

I slipped the stretchy material of the hosiery over my feet, hoping that the vicious shards that I consider toenails wouldn't cause them to immediately run. Surprisingly the footies were light and airy against my calloused skin, as though God (or Leggs) had painted a protective glaze over my feet.

I immediately fell in love with the idea of male hosiery. Once, during an "experimental phase" in college, I kept my legs shaved for a couple weeks. The act itself was ridiculous, but the resulting bare legs made me feel daring, confident and attractive - until girls in the dorm started prank-calling my room and offering me bottles of Nair.

My moment with the footies reminded me of a simpler, more beautiful time and reminded me that my body image could change. I tried on the shoes, then switched back to my beat-up shoes while we rang up the new ones, and I've kept the glorious footies on the whole time. (Please, no one mention to me that this is either gross or bizarre. Trust me, I've considered these things.)

I've kept the footies on all night. I find odd comfort in the heavenly latex. I was wearing them when I went home with my mother. We made chocolate milkshakes and watched THE GODFATHER until Al Pacino left the gun and took the cannoli, then Mom fell asleep. I wore them when I went shopping at Wal-mart. I wore them during the ride home. And I'm wearing them while typing this.

Tomorrow, I should maybe seek some new job. Tomorrow, I should maybe clean my car. Tomorrow, I should maybe make the most of this odd, momentary confidence I'm feeling. Tomorrow, it is only definite that I will go back to wearing socks. It is practically guaranteed that I will put on my new shoes.

Because I know myself, I know that my old Steve Maddens will not go in the garbage. They will not be destroyed. They will linger in my apartment. Heck, I will probably wear them again someday, out of some old ritual or some old habit.

They hurt my feet, but they are how I see myself.

Things to do when you have more time.

- I am on the net less these days.
- I need to blog less, anyway, and do some actual writing.
- Fear not, I will still blog. I want to keep up my "Things to Do ..." lists.
- I just can't focus on the list again this week.
- My regrets to all.

The triumph.

(This is the glass elevator that Lupo and I rode up after I finished my reading. It wasn't until we were on the elevator, traveling all the way up, that I remembered I was scared of heights.)

So, yes, my reading was a success. It was a success because I was able to get through the whole thing in front of a group of people without collapsing. It was a success because the stage was set up the way that I wanted it to be. It was a success because Lupo gave me one of those good, lingering hugs that he - and only he - can give me, a hug from someone who you feel like you haven't seen in ages who you can't wait to reach out and touch. It was a success because my father sent me an e-mail after it, saying he was proud of me and impressed at how I behaved through the whole thing. It was a success because profs there encouraged me to submit my work to The Oxford American. It was a success because I got to look at Vic right at the moment that I read a sentence in it that only she knows is all about her, which is a moment that I'd played out in my head. It was a success because it's just really, really fun for me to read that story to people, and I think my fun shows when I read it.

When I read my story, I read it better than anybody else ever could, and the rush I get while doing it is comparable to the first time I found out I could jump rope. When I read it, my heart beats fast, and I'm doing something that I doubted I could do better than I thought I could do it. It's not Hemingway, but it's mine. And, with it, I can make people laugh. I can put the picture of a Waffle House, of all places, in their heads and make them think of their own stories of such places. When I read it, I feel like I'm good at something, that I'm where I'm supposed to be, and that feeling matters to me.

I've been bragging a little (OK, a lot) since Friday because I made strangers laugh, because I received a lot of comments at the panel Q&A and handled the questions well.

Friday was a really great day.



(This is me and Syd.)

Thank you.

To everyone who showed up at my reading on Friday, thank you very much for making the conference a success for me and for making me feel supported. It was a really great day for me, and you all probably have heard or received individual thanks from me.

To those of you unable to attend, I will write about what happened here when I wrap my head around all of it and when I receive the hundreds of photos that my mom took. (I think she had me pose and big plastic smile with everyone in the room. Usually, as she was doing this, Lupo was standing right behind her and the camera, laughing at me.)

I think I may title her entire photo series according to what she told me to do, "Here, Benjie, stand here in your suit with your program ...," "Stand here with your father and brother... ," "Now stand here with your classmates ..."

(This morning, Mom called me up to brainstorm ideas for the one-man-show that she's "always" told me that I should do, usually when she wants me to make fun of someone who's annoyed her, like I'm her comic hitman. Of course, she never wants to hear my ideas. Instead, she just tells me what she thinks is funny and tells me I should "come up with something" about that.)

My hope, going into the conference, was that I would get a chance to do the sort of program that would really entertain my regular readers and friends who've supported me, in addition to gaining some new attention for my work, and I think that it was as successful as I was hoping for. Additionally, I appreciated the opportunity to tallk about my class at the Margaret Mitchell House and acknowledge my writing professor in front of a group of her peers, and I hope I made them proud while bringing more attention to our fledgling program. I think I maybe did.

Anyway, I really want to look forward from this event more than reflect on it, though it is a great memory, so I'm going to start working on some new stuff, maybe for the blog or maybe just long-form essays.

Things I didn't write when I had other things to do.

- I'm just sorta gonna pretend that I have a list this week, and that it mentions things like the Dixie Chicks' new single and upcoming album, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING going into wider release, Mary Higgins Clark doing a signing at the Margaret Mitchell House this week and such.
- Because I presented Friday at my academic conference, the one written up in the newspaper, I thought it more important to rest and prepare for that than to actually do my "Things to Do ..." list.
- Sorry for the inconvenience.
- Happy birthday to a guy named Stuart, whom I've never met.
- THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Um, what do you think this week's question should be?

My essay reading.

OK, so you've probably heard me talk about this to death already, but here goes:

WHO: Me.
WHAT: Reading that Waffle House essay.
WHERE: The Marriott Marquis, Marquis Ballroom, Salon One.
WHEN: Friday, April 14, 2:30-4 p.m.
WHY: The joint national conference of the ACA-PCA. My panel is "Southern Literature & Culture VIII: Southern Memoir and Personal Essay."
HOW MUCH: It is $5 for a day pass to the conference, which will allow you to attend panels like mine.

The conference website is here. I cannot find information on parking and what-not, but the website does provide some information on that sort of thing.

I look forward to seeing anyone who wants to attend.

Mental note.

Write about the Saturday you just had later, once you've wrapped your head around it:

* Saw midnight movie, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, with Roger from the bookstore. Decent movie.

* Slept late, delaying lunch with brother Dan. Eventually met up with him and his pregnant wife at Ruby Tuesday. After trip to salad bar, began to explain to Dan how our stepbrother molested me when we were teens. Dan was very good about listening to me, told me that I needed to do whatever I felt was right and that, if telling him was the thing to do, then so be it. I kept asking if I was being stupid, unsure of how exactly to talk about this at all, let alone at a Ruby Tuesday. Dan called me "different." At one point, Dan made a very insightful analogy to golf. MUST REMEMBER DIALOGUE.

* Spent day with dad, Dan, other family at campground. Saw Dad's Airstream for the first time. Cousins were visiting from Montana. Didn't really participate much in conversation. Too busy thinking.

* Opera Guy from bookstore called me up, told me he'd broken up with his boyfriend, told me he was going bowling in Chamblee. Since I was driving from Lake Lanier, I joined he and his friends bowling. He's very flamboyant. His friends were a batch of 23-year-old heteros. At one point, Opera Guy grabbed his straight friend's ass while the friend bowled, but Opera Guy was traveling at such a velocity that he grabbed the ass, then tripped, then fell into the adjoining lane, then slid partway down the lane, then couldn't stop laughing long enough to stand up. Opera Guy is kinda cool.

* Opera Guy's friends typed my name into the bowling alley scoreboard as "BENCH."

He asked me, "Are you a writer?"

I attended the Stephen McCauley signing at the bookstore, and it was intimate enough for the small group of fans to have a conversation with the author.

I asked him how he got his start, whether he was "discovered" or if he had a pile of rejection notices somewhere.

He told the story of writing THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION as his graduate thesis for Brandeis and how his advisor forwarded it to publishers, then he asked me if I was a writer.

"Yes," I said, kinda mortified that I had become the "How'd you get your start?"/"Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?" question.

I always feel like those kids who ask for career advice on INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO are blood-sucking, attention-hog vultures. (Incidentally, at that Patricia Neal Q&A in Athens a few weeks ago, Neal was asked for career advice and told this eager, chipper, aspiring actress, "Don't do it! It's too hard, and odds are that you won't make it!" That was great.)

Anyway, McCauley asked me what I write, and I told him that I was presenting an essay at conference this week.

"What's your essay about?" he asked me, even though there were six other people in the audience there who probably didn't want to hear me talk about my essays.

"Well, it's an essay about this one time I saved a Waffle House from closing," I said. "And I have another essay floating around about my worst kiss ever."

Someone else in the group explained to McCauley what Waffle House was, using the following brilliant sentence.

"It's like an International House of Pancakes, except with waffles," the man explained. "And it's really Southern, and it's open 24-hours-a-day."

"Yeah," McCauley said deadpan. "I figured that, since it was named Waffle House, it served waffles."

He asked me if I had a copy with me of either story, and I told him that I unfortunately didn't. He told me that was a shame.

"OK, so tell me about the other story," he said.

"Um, it's about the worst kiss I ever received, and it's just floating around at some places," I said, then mumbled an apology for going on too long.

"It's OK," McCauley said to me. "I asked you."

And we smiled at each other.

So when the Q&A ended, I decided to take some initiative, and I went to the front desk and grabbed some business cards.

I was the last person to get books signed. I had my copy of THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION signed, and I had McCauley sign a copy of his new one, ALTERNATIVES TO SEX, for Lupo. I told him about how Lupo called me up last week and told me he was excited over his new McCauley arriving.

At that, I sounded a little nervous, but I kept talking to the author.

"Um, thank you for asking me about my essays," I said, considering that I was maybe talking more about my work than about his. "Were you serious about wanting to read them?"

"Yes," he said. So I gave him my e-mail address, and I told him to contact me. He put the address at the front of one of his manuscripts atop his brown backpack.

"I'm on the road for the next month," he said to me. "But, if you don't hear from me within a month, just send me an e-mail through my website."

Then, he repeated the words "through my website," like it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever said, and rolled his eyes.

"It's OK," I said. "Everyone has a website now. I have one."

Then I offered up my hand and told him that it was nice to meet him.

And Stephen McCauley shook my hand.

Even though he might not have meant it, I'm going to send him my stuff. Because he did ask about it.

Disbarred.

My friend Larry called me up just now and recommended some new bar named Amsterdam to me. He said it would be the sort of place I would find "interesting." I asked him why he thought that, for I don't think I've been to a gay bar in over six months.

"You go to Burkhart's," he said to me.

"I've not been to Burkhart's in months, and the only reason I went there, really, was because my friends work there," I said.

The last time I went to a gay bar, Larry was with me. It was the middle of the afternoon at one of those giant-video-screen places with the deafening music. I am no longer attractive enough to consider it a good thing that I'm the most attractive man in a room. Thus, the experience was dismal.

Taking under consideration how I got drunk on New Year's and ruined Larry's bathroom rug, I'm kinda anti-bar. I just don't really enjoy it, whether drinking or not drinking.

I've heard Larry's new bathroom rug is really nice. I don't know, though, if it's absorbent.

Things to do as a has-been gets "lucky."

- When did Josh Hartnett stop being famous? Was it PEARL HARBOR? (That would make sense. That movie brought everyone's stock down, even mine, and all I did was watch the thing.) Maybe it was HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE with Harrison Ford, which only succeeded at being excessively boring. (More like HOLLYWOOD CAREER SUICIDE.) Anyway, his latest attempt to regain notoreity is the con movie, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, which opens in theaters this weekend. It co-stars, startlingly, Lucy Liu, Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman, and friends who've seen it tell me that it's good. (Reviewers appear to have a different opinion.) I suppose Hartnett deserves another chance at fame. I mean, it's not like PEARL HARBOR was his fault.



- Former child star Joseph Gordon Levitt has shown surprising depth and talent in his last couple projects, particularly MYSTERIOUS SKIN. His latest independent movie, BRICK, opens today at the Landmark, and its premise sounds sorta cool. It's a high school take on '30s detective noir novels, like Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON. Levitt plays an outsider kid who starts to investigate criminal gangs at his school after his ex goes missing.
- Tonight at 7:30, gay author Stephen McCauley will do a reading from his new book ALTERNATIVES TO SEX and then sign books. McCauley's a very good writer, and I read his novel,THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, in the '90s during a rare collision in my "I'm going to read books about gay people" and "I'm going to read books that are about to be movies" period. (Vic, at the time, said those were the only sorts of books I read. Unfortunately, McCauley's really good book was turned into a pretty bad Jennifer Aniston movie that managed to miss the point of the book entirely. I'm going to the signing tonight with my worn copy of OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, hoping he'll sign it for me.



- Dear Hollywood: Pardon me, but who in the fuck greenlighted the new movie BENCHWARMERS? Who the fuck thought that putting the individually annoying Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder TOGETHER in a movie would be a good idea??? Movies like this seem like they were designed as a joke, a film that will show in Hell for all eternity. Sincerely, Disgruntled Moviegoer.



- Antonio Banderas stars as an inspirational, inner-city dance instructor in TAKE THE LEAD. The previews make it look like the ballroom, non-Catholic version of SISTER ACT 2. I suppose there are worse movies out there, like BASIC INSTINCT 2, but what is the appeal of this? The dancing? Antonio Banderas looking old? The smart-aleck, rebel, ethnic kids everyone's given up on ... who learn to believe in themselves?



- I checked the movie listings, and, sadly, it looks like this week is your last chance to see LARRY THE CABLE GUY: HEALTH INSPECTOR in local theaters. Frankly, this title just baffles me. Is he supposed to be a cable guy AND a health inspector? I can suspend my disbelief for movies about alien invasions and decent politicians and such, but I just can't grasp the idea that this idiot would be hired by a cable company or the state.



- Last night, as it often happens, some customers came in and started talking to me about old movies. After the usual check to see if I was a "real movie fan" or not, they proceeded to talk to me about the '50s melodramas directed by the brilliant Douglas Sirk. The only one they'd seen was Lana Turner's fabulous tearjerker IMITATION OF LIFE, which is rightfully one of the favorite movies of every woman and gay man I know. Sirk's movies were always these rich, beautiful, over-the-top soap operas that critics either consider stupid or brilliant. (Shalewa told me last night that she was able to watch IMITATION OF LIFE all the way through without crying, which prompted her mother to ask her, "Are you HUMAN?") For the customers, I recommended Sirk's WRITTEN ON THE WIND, a drama about an oil magnate's twisted family starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and a nymphomaniac Dorothy Malone. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson, is also available from Criterion Collection. Of course, director Todd Haynes filmed a mock Sirk film a couple years ago, and it's equally as cheesy and fabulous. That one's FAR FROM HEAVEN, which starred Julianne Moore as a '50s housewife torn between her gay husband (Dennis Quaid) and her black gardener (Dennis Haysbert). Not only does Moore have to figure out what to do with her love life, she also has to cope with what the neighbors might think. It's a really good movie.
- Next Friday at 2:30 p.m., I will be reading my essay, "Prayer of the Waffle House Faithful" at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta. My presentation is part of the national joint conference of the American Cultural Association and Popular Culture Association. According to the website, if you pay five bucks at the door, you can come to the panel, which will feature essays on the Southern experience. Thus far, a lot of my friends have told me they would come, and that really excites me. I think this reading is going to be something special.



- My friend Michael, who works at TBS, alerted me to these LORD OF THE RINGS promos they're airing. Seriously, check them out. It confirms everything you've ever secretly thought about Sam and Frodo's bond.
- Thanks to iTunes, I've been able to listen to Natasha Bedingfield's song UNWRITTEN without having to undergo the shame of owning such a CD. Of course, I like the song because it features my favorite thing, a writing metaphor. (For that same reason, I also like Elvis Costello's EVERY DAY I WRITE THE BOOK and Cake's SHADOW STABBING.) Anyway, I know Natasha Bedingfield is overdone pop, but I can't help liking that song. Its book-as-metaphor thing wins me over. For obvious reasons, it speaks to me through the cheese. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: So, if your life were a TV show, what would be your theme song, and why? Heck, if your life were a TV show, what kind of show would it be? Sitcom? Daytime drama? Failed pilot?

Deborah Norville looks pissed today.

My father often uses the term "shit-eating grin." I thought about that while watching INSIDE EDITION a few minutes ago.

The show's host, Deborah Norville, fired from NBC's TODAY after taking Jane Pauley's place, was forced to report about her replacement Katie Couric's historic ascent to the anchor chair of CBS EVENING NEWS.

Yeah, Deborah's a professional (and a fellow UGA alum), but I could see through that smile.

In her head, Norville was probably thinking, "Shoulda been me ... shoulda been me ... Instead, I'm on this tabloid show ... I hate you, Katie Couric, you bitch!!!"

Frankly, I think the Couric move is kinda great. Still, since Elizabeth Vargas hasn't co-anchored ABC's news program in months, does that sorta kinda make her the first female anchor of a network's evening newscast?

Ah well. I've seen Katie Couric yell at Ann Coulter on TV before, so I'll be tuning in.

"What kind of creature wants you to eat it?"

I just got back from SLITHER, and, yes, it was sick, gross, disgusting, over-the-top and occasionally scary. Even dogs and cute children aren't safe in it. But it was, also, absolutely fucking hilarious.

It takes a moment for it to get started (as smalltown cops guess how fast a bird flies), but, once it gets started, the movie absolutely rules.

Expect me to quote it for the remainder of my life.

To explain that one character is a lesbian, a cop says, "Margaret packs a box lunch."

Looking upon a valley full of gutted dogs and mutilated cows, another cop pontificates, "I'm guessing this guy don't have one of those Puppy-a-Day calendars on his desk. I mean, I'm just sayin', it don't look like he's an animal lover."

Anyway, I want to see it again this weekend. Someone, anyone please come with me. This shit is more fun than mocking Britney Spears in CROSSROADS.

It has nudity (including a scene featuring an incredibly obese man having an encounter with an alien that has to be seen to be ... properly digested), extreme gore (including a scene where a woman gives birth to alien worms, sorta), the genius Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Fillion.

SLITHER rocked. Fuckin' great. Potential cult classic.

Notes on an unfinished nothing.

I tried writing fiction in college. One piece, titled "4:19" because I was too dumb to actually realize what that meant, was creepy yet well-received. It was a five-part story, written as a serial over e-mail, and it actually gathered more readers as it went along. I thought I might be able to do something again like that, but all future attempts were seen by readers as boring and such, including the detective story I had in my head and the criminal story and the gay romance story. None of them worked. So I stopped really doing more than dabbling in fiction. Better to be a decent essayist, I thought, than a really, really bad fiction writer.

So I have stayed safe, writing about things that happened to me or overanalyzing moments. I have tried to keep things mostly funny, occasionally serious or deep. I still have in mind the idea that I could maybe write fiction ... but I would have to get it just right.

I'm in my class, yet I don't take risks and use the class for what it's good for. I don't break out as often as I probably should, using the class to actually learn how to do things better. Writing something tedious or boring tends to, well, crush me. I like my reputation, however much I deny it or however confident I manage to sound while saying this, as someone whose work is generally quality, the sort of stuff you'd want to read.

I was going to read a book this weekend. I only read a chapter. I was going to write a story this weekend. I ended up sorta showcasing an old, failed one. I was going to do my laundry, and I ended up sorta doing it and sorta playing WORLD OF WARCRAFT at Kacoon's house during a six-hour visit to her apartment.

If something's going to happen with my writing, I'm going to have to actually, eventually, inevitably write with the focus others would give to a job. I have to write it the way that I would write a dissertation, devoting focus and time and energy and study.

This is my project. This is what I'm doing because I want to do it. This is my life's work.

And I need to start doing it, actually, eventually, inevitably, and I need to practice the things I'm afraid won't be good. I have to do the hard work on stuff that I'm afraid might be bad. I have to break the mold I've established for myself and "my work."

I have to go back to London. Or, barring that, I have to write again with my London mindset. It's time to try something new.

Of course, in writing this, I'm resorting to old methods to discuss a new direction.

Is that progress?