Sharing a bed

I'm 25 and I can probably, if I think hard enough, remember each and every instance in which I've shared a bed in my adult life. These situations are memorable for a specific series of reasons: a) the beds were usually shared after sex, b) I have never lived with a partner, c) the instance inevitably causes an interruption in my sleep cycle, and d) ergo sharing a bed is not consistent with my comfort level.

I have shared a bed with two people in the last two weeks. Jessica, with whom I've shared a spare few beds, napped with me briefly on Wednesday afternoon. She talks in her sleep, wants to be close, and is hot - preferring lots of blankets. The next night I shared a bed with my new fuckbuddy. He's little. The action is very intense. We started curled up together, naked, without blankets. After a while, we pulled some blankets up. I didn't sleep well because my arms kept falling asleep, either because I was folded up on them, or he was. Luckily, I had to hit the gym at 6:30, so we didn't share the bed for too long. The second night we shared a bed, last night, he fell asleep sort of under me, and I was able to turn over and find my own sleepspace. It turns out he sleeps very hard, and I can rub my morning boner all over him and he won't budge. It turned out to be ideal, although he preferred to sleep for a long time, and I had time to feed the cat, fix a huge breakfast, eat the breakfast, smoke, blog, read blogs, and finish a lot of coffee before I went into the bedroom and woke him up (in a very kind way). I did this both times: I left the bed, did my own thing, my new morning thing, then went back to bed to help him get up.

I can't imagine a life like this. The life where a man is in my bed. He might wake me up, of I might wake him up, but he's always there. I understand it to be realistic: if I wanted to live in San Francisco or New York and have a great partner (both life goals, in the works), there's no way we could have separate beds without infidelity. I once often stated that I desire a man that gets down to business then retreats to the other side of the bed, but I'm coming to understand that that man is more likely to retreat into fond memories of a certain night spent. The man that wants the other side of the bed is the man that wants to be alone. This man, he's like me, except I don't want to be this man. Perhaps I'm not not better off alone.

Sharing sordid details about men like me

None of this was true one year ago, just as I graduated from college:

Men like me wake up early.

Men like me go to the gym more than three times a week, religiously.

Men like me are perfectly happy alone, single.

Men like me don't get involved in other peoples' relationships.

Men like me eat responsibly.

Men like me make it to the farmer's market every Saturday morning.

Men like me are able to keep a plant alive.

Men like me drink lots and lots of water.

Men like me save money.

Although, some things will always be true:

Men like me drink rosé as long as it's crisp and dry.

Men like me set the table and light candles for certain dinners alone.

Men like me cut and arrange beautiful flowers and put them on the kitchen table.

Men like me spend money on impulse.

Men like me try to star in karaoke night.

Men like me become dangerously self-absorbed.

Men like me don't feel right until they look right.

Men like me choose very strange people to love.

Anyway, I feel like a lot has changed, and I'm not sure if this feeling is obvious to anyone but me. I'll ask around.

Sharing a building: Part 2

Shirtless, in short shorts and my Reebok pump-up sneakers, I strode around the building quickly to unload some garbage. Either fortunately or unfortunately, I ran into some older or otherwise out-of-shape neighbors moving a large buffet up one story. They had a very daft plan to lift the heavy wooden piece straight up, nearly six feet, to the front landing. I agreed share my ability to move large furniture, for otherwise there might have been injury, certain death, and a loud noise. Once moved, the furniture's owner showed me her new and old apartments, and I learned about what the kids like to do in BFE Ohio. I like being friendly with the neighbors, but I will continue to ask, "how much is too much?"

Sharing good-byes

Farewell to Ben Kegan.

On September 15, 2007, I had the pleasure of sharing a position with Ben, a volunteer hosting gig for a dinner party at Bob Tobin's house. We were helping Bob host a charity dinner. Right before the guests arrived, we were asked to take our shirts off so we wouldn't dirty them while we were moving chairs and tables. Bob: brilliant! It was awkward, really. Ben was shy. He was nice and such, but shy or reserved or some such thing. We worked together well; this happened before I had been a server (I was working for Starbucks at the time), and we had the same level of service experience. I took to mixing strong drinks, and Ben took coats and seated guests. Eventually, we were sitting, eating, and drinking with the guests. We volunteered to stay behind to clean up a few things, but all we really did was pack up some bottles of vodka, and walk over to the event wrap-up, at the art center. During the walk, we knew each other, in the moment, drinking from the same bottle, in love. There, we ran into some other donors, lots of professors, and a few friends. I had a conversation with my economics professor, met her husband, and came off as wildly drunk. Bob took the picture above, and in that flash it was over. He was no longer a lovely person I had just met, he turned out to be brilliant and confusing, to be beautiful and distant. The night ended, I was alone again, and it was never the same. He made me nervous. I couldn't talk to him without being something outside myself, a something-I-am-not.

I ran into Ben two times in the last two weeks, the first to welcome Bob back for his recent visit. I couldn't help but mutter that it was awkward, mostly because it was, but also because I had nothing else to say. I can't figure out how to tell someone I love them without reason. Our last meeting happened this evening when he came into eat. Apparently this was his last night in Walla Walla. I said good luck, but I wanted to tell him to carry my love with him. I can't carry it with me much longer, and I think I'll let it loose in a stream or channel somewhere nearby. It could find him, but it probably won't.

Sharing a building

In the fall of 2005, I was enrolled in college, purportedly to graduate after the next semester. Unfortunately I was falling behind. It took me three semesters to finish the two-semester intro to liberal arts class on the western cannon. I failed math classes, english classes, and philosophy classes. I was pretty much a loser, especially since I had no real limitations to my performance: I was interested and capable, I had very stable living situations, and all the support I could ever ask for (financially and otherwise) from my family. I was probably just selfish and lazy with a sense of entitlement, but I sold myself on the idea that I wasn't presented with enough challenge, that school politics were an impediment, and that I had all the time and money to do as I chose.

But that semester, I took a seminar on the late Foucault, an underrepresented chapter in the theory of the philosopher around whom I had built my world view. This presented a real challenge: the readings were long and dense, the class discussions were narrowly focused and intense, and the scholarship that was demanded of us was very advanced. The other students were mostly philosophy majors, and with my focus on gender studies (however relevant), I had the formal instruction for rather simple social criticism and minimal deconstruction. Foucault, the "saint" of queer theory, demands as a basic requirement, the ability to place oneself squarely in the middle of ones words, as the subject of the topic of subjectivity. Worried I would have to be too honest, I began to fail.

The professor, Julia Davis, gave me every opportunity to succeed. She even extended the deadline of my final paper until three months after the semester had ended. I failed even then to produce anything. Well, something. It was something weak, saying, really, nothing:

Communities of Thought: Anti-Universalizing Discourses of the Late Foucault

Throughout my studies in identity politics, Michel Foucault comes up again and again, acting as the “Saint” of queer theory (Halperin), and generally the bastian of postmodern identity. I am suspicious as much as I am inspired by this move. I wonder: is there something universal, an all-encompasing clue to how one might think of one’s self in relation to themself? Certainly, no such prescription exists, and even if it does exist, Foucault himself was the first to deny it (interview). So then, there must be something that brings us back to Foucault, some proclamation to which we can attach ourselves, which makes his interest in Greek and Roman culture urgent to us today.

In my reading, I was able to attach myself to the idea of the community of thought, the plural world views that according to Foucault “flourished” in the late Greek and Hellenist Epoch. Without unified or centralized philosophical structures, these communities of thought determined for themselves the mode, scope, source and nature of the subject of ethics. Each thought community had its own method for philosophical training, its own standard for philosophical excellence, even its own style of habit. 

So bad that it is embarrassing. I can't get into the head of the mind that wrote this, although I suspect he was doing his best to bullshit under duress: this is indeed the worst circumstance under which to bullshit.

I am interested in a project of sharing that which I have previously kept silent. I had too much pride to admit my failures, although they were many. Foucault may respond that this is an act of confession, a feeble rationalization, a substantiation of the normalization of transgression. This, however, is a project that will help me catch up with myself, a process not towards liberation but towards self care. I intend to give great attention great and terrible accomplishments and failures, overcome guilt, and achieve the power of self knowledge. 

This former professor, and in retrospect, champion for my potential, lives upstairs now, sharing a deck with my best friend, looking beautiful, and addressing me with a startling openness. She called down to me this morning from her patio, and the sun shone upon her, and I smelled of sweat, smoking a cigarette, carrying garbage. I have the degree, no one can take it away from me, and it certainly doesn't matter that I failed a class and disappointed myself. Now, she's just a person with an interesting life, still a champion for my success.

Sharing is caring.

Don't hate me because I share. If you read this blog, you will be shareorized repeatedly. It might make you sore.