Extraordinary how potent music can be. I left out "cheap" since I happen to be listening to the marvelous box set of Handel arias composed for particular eighteenth-century superstars, put out by Nick McGegan and the PBO during the mid-nineties. So it's not cheap. It's countertenor Drew Minter (like buddah, that voice) singing songs written for the legendary castrato Senesino.
And I was all set when I got home tonight to write a grumpy and terrifying entry on how today was "the first day I knew I was no longer young" or some big pile of angsty crap. More evidence, as if I needed it, that I am still resolutely young. For crying out loud, I'm 23, I'm good-looking, I'm relatively healthy, considering how little I do to keep myself in any kind of shape, and, while I may not be god of the Cambridge/Somerville social scene, I've got me friends and me hangout spots, and -- cheer up, it may never happen.
Well, a mildly depressing thing happened last night. I went to one of those "special gay chat rooms" to hook up with some random guy. (Back story on this includes such concepts as "I'm unloveable" and "lovable or no, I don't get my fair share of play.") Found somebody who wanted to chat. I was clever. I was fun. I kept him rolling on the floor with laughter, blah, blah, blah. Minute I sent him my picture, he's like "you're just not my type" -- which is probably a fair statement for him to make in such a situation, even though it made me feel a little worthless. I happen to be a fairly girly-looking guy. I could try to butch up, but, frankly, I wouldn't look as good. Surely somebody out there likes effete snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals?
I went to bed stewing on this a little bit. Read part of a novel which involves lots of young people being successful in business and having organic farms and having lots of very interesting sex, and reassessed my life according to its inability to live up to my imagination, reading habits, or malformed sense of what is desirable. Of course, my life paled in comparison to literature. I slept.
Woke up this morning to a big-ass pile of laundry needing doing -- this was made more pleasant by Lene Lovich's "New Toy" and the first few chapters of Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis". Also by the fact that it was very suddenly the kind of day where one didn't have to take a sweater if one planned to be out past dark.
Went into Cambridge in newly clean clothing, sat in the common, ran into some friends, went to a fabulous recorder concert with my boss, sat in the common more, stalked around Cambridge, etc. My friends had vanished. I tried calling to see if they were still in the square, to see what they were up to. No answer on one phone, and then the other person's phone cut off quite suddenly in the middle of ringing, as if he'd seen who it was and turned his phone off rather than speak to me. A terrible, terrible way to tell somebody you'd rather not speak to him just that moment. And so easy to take harder than it was meant to be.
I've had to take a lot of kiss-offs in my life, but rarely as concentrated as in the last two years. Part of it is a set of rather callous and insecure friends, whose faith that I will be patient with practically any sort of social rubbishing on their parts is, frankly, overstaying its welcome. But it's built into the persona at this point now, that I'm somehow the kind of guy who can take that kind of shit, and that, therefore, such shit should be given to me to help me reach my full potential.
Ugh, I hate thinking about my friends. For the most part it's perfectly fine until I start thinking about it and then the cynic in me can't help making all the connections. I will chant to myself, as I drink my next beer in the face-on-the-table-asana, "I will not think about my friends".
Went home. Drank lemonade, which, unfortunately, is reminding my tummy of the run-in (sorry about the pun) it had with sour mix the other night (vide supra). Ate whole-grain bread and organic apples, which helped.
However: the day's pr�cis had included, among other things, looking fabulous all day long, making witty banter after the concert, and meeting a gorgeous shirtless stud on the common and taking him home for immoral porpoises. Well, I went to the concert. I can't vouch for looking fabulous, since I'm not sure I smelled too fabulous after a day walking around in boots.
I guess other people were learning People when I was devoting all my time to French and Literature. Huh. The infuriating thing is that there are, I believe, people who've done relatively well at both.
Does anybody have any pithy advice?