daisies and daffodiles

wherein our hero discusses his romantic fantasies and revels in his inner little girl.

there's this boy, you see. he works at my gym. which is a whole other can of worms which i won't get into except to say that the locker room is like a diet coke commerical gone wild. anyway. back to my boy.

well, he's not my boy. in fact, i don't know much about him. he has beautiful eyes. he's from the midwest and has the boy-next-door shit down pat. he has a light dusting of hair on his chest (of course i looked when we were in the sauna together).

and, he never talks to me. i try to smile. i say hello. i nod when we meet in the elevator. (i even gave him the sultry look in the locker room--maybe that's what did it. okay, no more sultry looks).

of course, as i am crunching on the swiss ball (all the while remembering to exhale on the contraction) i imagine finally talking to him. i am witty, of course. and urbane, but not too much. he is overly friendly and a little self-depricatory. we laugh. we talk some more. we end up making out on his sofa. i come visit him at lunch time and we share a soy berry smoothie with whey. i take him to fashion openings where we make fun of the models. he takes me to art gallaries where we make fun of the art. we go to the beach on fridays and sometimes, late at night, we go to the standard for french fries and pizza.

by this time i'm usually on a mat in up dog. and i inhale and exhale--which is just another word for sigh--and the fantasy ends. and he still doesn't talk to me.

matthew | archive |

a monk's life

i'm tired of superficial relationships. i'm tired of sex. i'm tired of unrequited desire. i'm tired of love. i'm tired of people.

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in another life

we used to drink red wine, though we were too young. we would discuss varieties--though we shouldn't have had experience enough to know the difference. lisa and i would talk about wineries in the napa and along the coast--places we'd been but had only sampled the cheese and grape juice. though on those crisp new english evenings, up on the fourth floor, we sampled some in spite of our status.

we laughed about the pretention of it all. of people spouting ozimandias, of chemists and musicians and computer science, of senator's daughters and royalty. and we laughed at ourselves, because we were silly and because deep down we knew there was some flaw, some awkward talent that meant we belonged with the rest of the freaks.

we drank red wine and laughed at each other and watched harold and maude and listened to the cowboy junkies and lit candles. and we were afraid. afraid of what life would be. afraid of being free. afraid of old institutions and new questions. afraid of being alone.

we were children really. we cried sometimes, we were brats and threw tantrums. we shared like kindergarteners. we dressed up like adults and played at the social season.

i'm so much older now; probably not wiser. many of my questions have been answered, replaced by other ones. they never go away, they just change. some nights, i feel like i am back in that room with the skylight and candles and christmas lights and postcards with nude women and feet on the wall, slumped on a futon drinking red wine. but tonight i'm listening to the music by myself.

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hear the whippoorwill

blue moon
you saw me standing alone.
without a dream in my heart.
without a love of my own.

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lorelei lee has left the building

madonna is a dead horse.
please beat her.

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the foul and the fingering

for all of you fans of vin diesel, i'd just like to let you know: he is unabashedly heterosexist (with an emphasis on sexist), he sings of key, he cannot dance, and he has bad breath.

oh, and he can't act.

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welcome conventioneers

hello and welcome. now that you've seen my nether regions, please come inside and enjoy my neuroses.

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wheat

as a child, one of my favorite movies was woody allen's love and death, wherein wheat as an existentialist metaphor plays a tiny role. in fact, i wrote a short story--a pastiche if you will--about dining with mister allen and wheat. the story eventually garnered me a scholarship to a small liberal arts college, which i rejected--an act for which i will be forever indebted (literally) to the world's wealthiest university,

but i digress.

i have a friend, cassondra. we work together. we go to movies together. we talk about sex and celebrities we've seen naked together (in both senses). and we go to the gym together. which is why for the past week we have been dieting together. we are on the frighteningly atkinsesque "no processed carbs after sunset" diet. which means no grains, no refined sugars, and limited alcohol. it is utter hell.

i'm not quite sure why we are dieting. we both feel fat, but neither of us is; we're both rather thin. and we go to the gym four or five times a week. but in a city which not only spawns our cultural obsession with ripped bodies but houses its spokesmodels, you can never be too toned. and every time i think we're being stupid, i catch a glimpse of someone's imacculately shaped midsection or well-defined arm and i want to go purge.

which doesn't mean, of course, that i haven't already cheated. it is the staff of life, after all.

matthew | archive |

baptism

i keep my window open almost all the time. i can because i live in southern california and that, along with yoga and soy milk and berry smoothies, sustains us in our quest for nirvana. my window sill is wet today from the rain, but the sweet smell of water mixed with flora is aphrodisiatic.

i suppose there was a time in my life when i hated the rain. when it came after me with a vengance, when it taunted me day after day, relenting only when it was two cold to rain and snow instead took its place. a time when weather was something to be conquered rather than to which i would submit. but in my childhood, and once again, i smile upon the light mists and heavy droplets of rain just as i smile upon the reflecting sunlight across the multitude of waves in the bay. to be wrapped up infront of a fire drifting off to the sound of percussive pounding of the roof, or to dodge puddles and miss, or to kiss under a dripping tree, feeling the soft warm of wet skin.

these are my tiny pleasures. these are the memories, the senations, the bits of living which sustain me, which bring me joy and connect me to my past. my little mnemonics, my little prayers.

matthew | archive |

et n'oubliez pas...

je vous aime et je vous embrasse
je n'ai été qu'un météore ...

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paging doktor freud

i am not skinny. i am svelte.
i am not short. i am well-proportioned.
i am not immature. i am youthful.
i am not late. i am fashionable.
i am not forgetful. i am nirvanic.
i am not quiet. i am pensive.
i am not shy. i am prudent.
i am not pedantic. i am exacting.
i am not lazy. i am contemplative.
i am not different. i am original.
i am not neurotic. i am self-examining.


matthew | archive |

rites of spring

it once was a convention in the social world that one does not where white shoes during the fall and winter seasons. and i'm sure there are neighborhoods in new york and boston where wearing white prada loafers in january would bring scandal. in los angeles, the coming of spring is probably hard for outsiders to note. we wear white all year long, there are no spring showers (that would be winter), and the ten degree change in weather is not noticible to those used to such things as "snow" and "weather".

but there are subtle changes. most noticibly, the appearance of thongs (the sandal, not the undergarment) ushers in the summer months. and with the thongs come pool parties, trips to the beach, mojitos and margaritas, sunday morning brunches and evening parties. the swallows return to san juan and the tourists return to hollywood and highland.

i went to the reopening of size on sunday (which is just like player, but the bartenders wear different shorts). it seemed like half of west hollywood was there. i saw vince, but was too shy to say hello. i however was not too shy with the bartender, and was perfectly buzzed by the end of the evening. (just don't tell my sponsor).

matthew | archive |

calendar

last night i went out with the fabulous econ chick, the second in what appears to be a long line of dancing queens from caltech. we hit smack!, which i'm sad to say has fallen upon hard times since it once was at felt. after waiting foreeeeeehhhhhver for my credit card, being overcharged, and having to endure the tired and unwitty jokes of a waiter (whom i've met several times and whose birthday party i'd attended, and yet he still doesn't recognize me), we hoped the train (and by train, i mean my car {see the post from below}) to robertson and santa monica, home to the freshest meat and fish this side of chelsea. seeing as how econ chick hadn't gotten her lesbian on in a while, we went to the fishmonger's, namely here. there were a lot of hot girls, and quite a few hot guys too. with ec unable to touch alcohol (or girls) for a while, and me my timid little self, we sorta just stood on the outskirts talking about life, love, and michael jackson. but not in that order.

tonight i will be having cocktails and then probably barhopping through the usual haunts. its become a little too predictable for me, but then there is comfort in repetion. and doesn't everyone want to be somewhere everyone knows you?

matthew | archive |

atomic theory

gone are the celestial spheres. angels no longer push the moon and direct the stars. the hosts of heaven have been replaced by the pull of matter and the forces of fission and fusion. hurtling forward through space, the planets travel their eliptical orbits, pulled in all directions by the sun, by each other, by the milky way, and by other galazies. constantly coliding with space debris, awaiting the moment when the sun will envelope them all.

and deep within my chest, chains of amino acids bend and twist, colliding with lipids and glucoids. sometimes they bind and sometimes the split, creating new chemicals, constantly changing, repilicating, moving, building and destroying.

and such is life on all levels, even for us higher organisms. we may feel like empowered individuals, but we are just obeying inertia, pulled in all directions by the natural forces of the universe. sometimes we miss each other, and sometimes we collide. we split and rend and rip and join and build and disolve and meld. we are in constant motion, indifferent to creation and destruction. and we will all end in a bonfire of pure energy.

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dream a little dream

when i was little (it was before my 5th birthday--i know because we were still living in our first house), i was watching donahue and he was discussing the ever-so-important issue of male stripping. and it was then that i began my obsession with becoming an exotic dancer.

it wasn't until i was all grown up that i realize that i didn't want to be a dancer, i just wanted to lay naked next to them while they gyrated. and nowadays, the glamour of being an unemployed artist overshadows the sophisticated lifestyle of a chippendale.

which doesn't mean i don't still have an odd fascination with dancers. i'm not one of those boys (like some friends i could mention) who obsess over go-go boys; my interest is more anthropological. like, where in the world do they buy their underwear? i've certainly never seen sequined ass-less bikinis at barney's. and why does the blond guy at mickey's always look like he's shadow-boxing? is that sexy? should i do that to pick up guys? i feel that this is an area of americana which has been sorely underexamined.

matthew | archive |

too too solid flesh

i've been far too serious over here lately. which is not so true in life. as cassy says, i'm a little hooker. so, here i provide a list of places, compartments, vehicles, and other abodes wherein my flesh has melted in another's arms (or mouth, as the case may be).

bedroom, shower, steam room, kitchen, balcony, living room, chevy z24, fly loft (hasty pudding), bermuda, beach (lakeside), office (hasty pudding), prop room (loeb drama center), honda civic, back yard, staircase, light booth (various theatres), dinner table, the factory (main dance floor), an alley, on stage, 8000 sunset, west hollywood park, malibu, molholland drive, ....


matthew | archive |

days go by

the sun still rose on saturday. as it did on sunday, and yesterday, and today. and as it will tomorrow and for tomorrows to come. it will die one day, but its life is far to vast to be comprehended by our brief presence. the ocean still flows south along the coast, and the winds still travel east. the weather cares not for human events. spring is unfolding all over the northern hemisphere.

i know i was in a way prepared. but beginings and ends, however predictable, are always a shock. i am relieved, but i feel guilty for taking some comfort in the event. i am sad, because i will miss you. but i will also keep you--the memory of you--for all my days, and for that i am grateful.

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