joe.

The neighbor’s computer has a screen saver of male models, mostly naked. The various displays on his monitor are visible from my back door–he leaves it on all the time–but I have never noticed the boys before, just colorful morphing designs. This is the guy who said hello to John when he and I were leaving my house the other day. The same neighbor who has never noticed me.

Maybe I should go back to John as a lover. It would not be impossible to make that happen. Then at least my neighbor, who–by tonights revelations seems to appreciate naked men–would be envious. And that is the kernel of success in catty gay circles; to make them (who ignored you) jealous because of your boyfriend, whom you wear like an ornament on your ego.

The beautiful Summer is coming. The giant dogwood outside my kitchen window has been in bloom for a week now, dropping delicate white petals like spring snow all over the back yard. Soon the best of the boys will strut their glories in the warmth of their admirers and the sun. But I am older, closer to the end, and not so comfortable on youthful expeditions conducted on the European plan–plenty of bed but no meals. I hunger for the self I lost, exchanged in brief arousals with smooth, tanned young men; and I fear the man who will follow the troubled stirrings of my night and bring me back to bed.

The date on disk says 21 October 1999.

Hm.

I once asked somebody I trust at work, “What is wrong with me?” I was wondering if the general dislike of me (that I sensed from all the people I don’t like) was real or if I was just paranoid. It was real. He said, and I am paraphrasing, “You can’t keep your mouth shut.” He had often–without me knowing–done damage control among the people I don’t like after my comments had incensed them. He had gotten fed up doing it. He no longer did damage control for me.

Huh.

I have a friend who is angry. He vents his anger by way of any situation which is handy. He makes racist remarks which often works for him this way. He’s really pretty generalized in how he spews anger. But the racism stuff is usually what gets him in trouble.

In his anger, I recognize my own. It has long since ceased having any connection to its origins. And yet it remains, like a hard blind boil, spawning multiple separate eruptions, but never itself opening up, emptying out, and healing.

Hmmm.

So, what do I do with this? Keep my mouth shut? Well, yes, according to both the Tao Te Ching and the advice of my trusted friend. I could explore the canals of each of the remote eruptions as they happen, probing back to the one originating abscess. That would be painful. Or I could bind the eruptions, when they begin, and force the rage back in on itself. That would also be painful, and probably impossible. Or possibly fatal. How exactly it would be fatal I do not know. I just think it might be.

Does this mean that if the wise men’s words had forked lightning, that they would go gentle into that good night? Not necessarily. But Dylan Thomas does seem to be encouraging rage–at least at The End. And I don’t think he agreed with the Tao Te Ching that far better is it to keep what is in the heart.

So. What is the point? I know there is a point, I just am not clear about what it is exactly. I have asked the higher-ups for help with this. I am waiting.

Maybe their answer will be that there is no point. Maybe the lesson of all the rage and the rude remarks, of all the anger and the injustice that caused it, of all the words and all the literature in all the languages of all the world, maybe the lesson of everything is that there is no justification, no reason, no purpose–and no point.

Could it be that simple?