New York, One Gay Date At A Time

Book Review: Perfume

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

I have just finished reading a masterpiece, or very close to one, I’m still bathing in the gloriously mischievous ending as I write this. I an author, one hoping to achieve greatness in magical realism, I have now been won over by another. I have found a peer.

Perfume is the story of a murder most sadistic and magnificent, at times I felt like I was watching Six Feet Under. In other moments I knew I was reading a poet at work, someone who instinctively knows how to string words as they create the allure of smell. Patrick Suskind has written Perfume with the utmost sensibility and understanding of pleasure, from words and of smell. He has crafted Jean-Baptiste Grenouille to be at the same time saint and mad man.

This novel creates just that, the sense of smell through words, its immaculately researched and true to turn of the century Paris, in all of it’s stink. Ultimately the story is about love and what turns a monster into a glorious criminal. It is about the human need for love, I couldn’t stop wondering about the path Grenouille was set upon and with such certainty accepted because he knew no other road to take. He reacted to the human need to demolish each other. The main character is, at the same time loveable and horrific. I felt immersed in the era, I was thankful for our current times of apparent “civility”.

I can go into much detail about the book itself, it’s rich with plot and memorable characters, yet I’m sure the guys over at Amazon have done better then I possibly could. I was simply addicted to this book and have instantly fallen in love with the author. I hope you can pick up a copy; the book will not let you go. I have dishes in the sink that are just now allowing themselves to be washed.

I found this book while poor on a Barnes and Noble table. I like to read when I’m impoverished. The novel was recommended by my most ardent editor, who assured me it’s a must read for someone “that writes the way you do.” So I’ve read it and I’m in love.

Get it from Amazon. I’m sure you’ll love it, even if you aren’t’ into the morbid subject matter of murder most foul, you’ll be blown away by the shear prowess of the author.

Entertain Yourselves

I've resorted to meaningless very hot boys to entertain. :-) I need my camera again. I want my digital camera, I'm going to start taking pictures of random hotties on the street. Maybe, I think I want to be Andy Warhol when I grow up.

The hot pic of Matty comes from Dude Tube.

Spring is Coming/Here

The advent of spring is always a huge event. It’s short shorts weather after all. The moment that all gay men wait for. The true passages into spring, when tight tee shirts are flaunted and the winter worked bodies come out to play. At the exact same time, all of Jersey and Long Island seem to spill into the city, especially on the first few days of warmth.

I often have mixed feelings about the dawn of spring, especially when the good days are always mixed with the dreary ones. I like checking out cute boys, besides I need to go the gym more often, it motivates me to think I was once beautiful. In any case, I will join the gym very soon. I promise.

It’s always fun watching the men pass each other. I love the catcalls to. When men want to just scream at other sexy men, we’ve been held in all winter and now want to emerge.

Spring is the unofficial hobby of love. Once I get money again, I’m sure to get out there and hit the bars. I’m sure to have fun flirting. I’ve already begun to impassionedly hit on hot waiters and bat my eyes at men that sell soda.  Hell it’s spring after all. Time for the me to actually find a husband, maybe, probably, not really. Sigh.

Chris Beckman on the Subway

As I've stated before … I'm completely oblivious to celebrities until I run into them and find them somewhat interesting. Such is the case with Chris Beckman. Earlier yesterday as I was milling around, providing emotional support for a friend’s trip to the Apple Store, I spotted Chris Beckman on the subway, mind you I didn’t know it was him at the time. The man had a truly forlorn look. His look was filled with subtle indifference and was unusually, strangely oddly ... even, perfect. Down to the last details of his torn jeans.

I’m always weary of perfect men, those that take too long to get started in the morning and find themselves at the gym every day. In any case, I was going to blog about it, one way or another before I realized he was on the Real World and an odd little gay icon.

I randomly open a Time Out New York (TONY) and on the second page is the boy on the train staring right back at me. He's also wearing a blue denim shirt, without the trim. Strikingly similar. Strikingly odd. I verify with my best-bud; it is in fact the boy on the train. I walk puppies (because I'm house sitting again) then I start my research. Thinking that the name of models don't appear on ads. Then I saw it, in the upper right hand corner, my jaw drops. I have subtle shakes. It’s Chris Beckman.

First I have to say that he is much hotter in person and has a vapid aura. Other then that. I don’t have too much to say about meeting him, I didn’t even want to talk to him, I sort of wanted to drink his image and make up a story as I like to do with most hot men I gaze on. Yet I can’t help trying to share the memories I’ve had off Chris Beckman, the stories I’ve heard of strange parties and up to no good moments. This quintessential pseudo-gay celebrity isn’t that great for the gay cause. 

A while ago, I was being chassed by an uberwealthy sugar daddy, one that believed he could buy anything he wanted and I was exposed to some very strange videos of the two of them in a very very compromising position. I’m still trying to make the memories go away. In any case, the forced unaware sculpted perfection got to me. It’s strange; he looks so different in person then in the ads and on TV. I’ll have to give him that, he’s gorgeous, yet the person underneath, let's just say his tastes are vastly different then mind. I would love to be proved wrong one day, yet I doubt it.

Starbucks Speak

I don’t understand why I haven’t mastered Starbucks speak after all these years.

Between all the Venties and Lattes and between all the various teas I’ve drank. I still can’t master the art of ordering at Starbucks, I don’t really have this problem normally. I mean, for me, a person that drinks tea and coffee with skim (nothing to fancy). It’s quite basic. Yet finding just a peppermint tea or Raspberry tea at Strabucks is a serious problem, it’s mired in blends that just sound sexy but don’t have the flavor I’m looking for.

First one must decode the tea selection. Such as Passion means raspberry then Calm means peppermint, the barista will inevitable look at me in a strange way because I have not readily mastered this art. It seems that every other New York has on the other had.

I also have a strange fetish for teapots. I strangely love them in all their forms, recently tea shops have had attracted me with hand blown pots. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been sucked into the Starbucks machine because I refuse to take it for more then it is.

Lots of Learning

I've been trying to break some old patterns for a really long time. Its strange how having to scramble makes one most aware of themselves and their own mission in life. I know these are grand thoughts. Yet everyone’s encouraged me to stand up. I’m trying to find a way to recap my Celexa quitting experience because I’ve never had such a body and emotional hijacking before. Where a drug has totally taken over my life, if I had known the drug itself was so so powerful I probably wouldn’t have gone on it in the first place.

I remember having to fill my first prescription. A whilley gray haired pharmacist leaned over the counter, whispering that he had samples he could give me to tide me till the next day. I thought it quite odd that this man sounded like a drug pusher. Looking back I understand that he was just trying to care for me.

I don’t quite know how to explain what happened. I’m still trying to put into words how such a mind numbing traumatic experience could be so life affirming – how having chemical induced thoughts of suicide can be liberating, how the paradox of being free is synonymous with just being trapped.

Ultimately I understand why people stay on anti-depressants for a while. It’s damn hard to get off them. For me, I think it jump started my system. It did much good for me. Though I’m not planning on doing it again.

I sort of wanted to write a post about how to survive Celexa Withdraw because there isn’t much info on the web about it. Ultimately it did pass, the experience like an odd little firestorm dream. It was forgotten a day after, maybe my mind quickly shoveled the thoughts and memories away. I won’t know for a good long time.

All I can say is the words of many that have emailed me. “This too will pass” and it has. My home environment was very important to me. My friends as well, because each moment felt like it would last forever.

The most amazing thing; is that my edge is back. I’ve been putting off my real writing for a while. The more Celxa I took the less I had of a spark. So everything is connected and now that I’ve regained myself and am stronger then ever, I look forward to the future and being the artist I know I can be.

The Mall

I’m currently in a mall. Actually, I wrote this post in the food court of that mall. I uploaded to Typepad from a coffee shop on the first floor piggybacking on the Apple Stores wireless network. I'm surrounded by white tables and branding, I wonder to myself how much of this building, this monument to cool and commerce is devoted to branding.  I’ve come from New York to the Palisades Mall in West Nyack.

It actually took me about four hours to find my way to a place about twenty five minutes (as the crow flies) yet that will be another post on another day, when I am not as traumatized from the experience of renting a car and being a passenger in that car. Again, I’ve reinforced my belief that I will never understand map-quest directions or have the wear-withal to drive, want to drive, touch a steering wheel or generally have anything to do with the thing we call cars.

There are actually people power walking and pushing babies in strollers before the mall even opens, it’s sort of surreal.

The Palisades Mall is probably like every other mall in America. They all seem to have the same stores, yet in pristine air tight climate controlled conditions. I feel very comfortable here. I guess South Park and various comedies have actually done enough to convey the feeling of being trapped in a mall.

I honesty feel like a tourist in this suburban place where everyone looks the same. You can honestly feel the buzz of anticipation as the stores life their iron curtains. Not many stores have doors; they mostly seem pointless in this flawless environment.

More and more I appreciate being in New York, it seems like a city well aware of its flaws. It seems more honest to be walking in Soho hunting for a bargain and something cool, instead of having the store convince me of its cool factor. That’s what I felt like when I walked by the Abercrombie and Fitch (read about the store on Fifth) and every store that wanted to be like it.

I’m walking around trying to grasp the mall culture and I’m also trying to find something that I don’t want, among all the bright reds and primary colors of the brands I’m all too aware of, and I can’t. I can’t find something that is not carefully placed for immediate social consumption. I’m sure this mall like every other has waves of teenagers that converge on it during weekends. I myself grew up near one of the largest malls in the country, the mammoth Del Amo Mall. I remember jogging my head trying to find something to do other then go to the mall on weekends. I couldn’t.

This strange experience, one that is now strange to me – the mall experience, is now nothing I look forward to. I’m actually shocked by. I like being a New Yorker.

Soon the Chilies and TGI Fridays will open, so will the Cheesecake Factory. I’m probably going to kit on some hopefully cute bartenders later. I’ll ask them how they fell about not only working at the mall but shopping at the mall. I want to know, because truly, just from this building leading to it. Highways built to funnel lots of people into a concert brand box. I wonder a few hundred years from now, when these ruined buildings no longer have their appeal. What will happen to them? Will they be eaten by the hills or simply be a place where people hide. There are so many possibilities for the mall.

Then I Awoke

At 6:32 PM yesterday. I started smiling. It was a strange experience. One that happened almost instantly as the last of the drug lost its hold on me – the last few moments of a dying Afrêet. I was on the subway and started mouthing the lyrics of the Madonna song on my iPod; then I did a little dance and was happy again. The haze that I've been swimming in this past month, lifted.

I was formally introduced at a party last night as “perky” I haven’t been introduced by that word in ages. So yes I’ve regained myself. Even though the day outside is gray. I’m not even inclined to notice. 

I’m going to take it easy today. It’s my body, it still aches from its ordeal. I also have some fun post ideas, finally. So this blog will be back to normal in no time. Yet I’m including a new section because I think it’s important to keep stuff on-line and noticeable. I'm also going to do a recap of the experience, one that I hope never ever to repeat. It was quite strange, when all is said and done I've found it truly interesting. There isn’t nearly enough information out there on anti-depressant withdrawal.

Even though I'm dirt poor all is right with the world.

 

1 to 3 more days left

So yeah, I hate Celexa, when this is all done, I'm actually going to write a post on the entire experience. It's like all the good it's done for me has now been erased.

I'm so broke and the last few days of this drug seem to be the worst. Yesterday I had an anxiety attack buying potatoes. Buying potatoes. Who has an anxiety attack over buying potatoes and chives? I made really great mash potatoes later though. Yet it was strange being indecisive over which potatoes to buy.

PS. South Park rocks. :-)

2 to 4 more days left

So I've just decided that there is nothing I can do but accept the fact that I'm going to have this drug in my system just a little while longer. I'm looking forward to getting my life back. It's better today yet I've realized that I shouldn't step out of the house for the next few days. I just can't, I have to hide.

Yesterday, I looking back on it, it was quite funny. My best friend has been there with me. I was invited to a little networking event, before entering I was hit by a bought of indecision which lead to a moment of spontaneous crying. For everyone that knows, in real life, that action would be very strange, I'm know to have strong control over my emotions and needless to say, not cry randomly.

I really really really hate the guy that invented Celexa right now. it's like the drug company doesn't want me off the drug. I feel like it's hijacked my body and emotions.