They want me to be working, again. Fuck them! I partied until five o' clock last night, you see, which was when the orgy broke out and I decided to sign a non-proliferation treaty with myself [so I went upstairs alone and thus have lived to tell the tale]. It all started so innocently, as a surprise birthday party thrown by herself for SLB, where (predictably) the web of spit-exchange was tangled and the taste for intoxication prodigious. And then somebody had the bright idea to start kissing people and it all went so wrong.
Which is to say that I didn't have a sliver of a chance of enjoying myself in that crowd. Don't misapprehend me: there are a few queer men in my circle of friends. They may very well all have girlfriends -- indeed, they all seem to date exclusively within the female persuasion -- but their homosexualistic credentials are nonetheless unimpeachable. It's not that. It's that the queer boys of V*rs**ll*s are already contested enough turf that I'm not inclined to stake any sorts of claim on them, even the sort of brief vacation which starts when one runs out of wine and ends with brunch. Not that I won't screw my friends' boyfriends (a little of what you fancy does you good) -- it's that I'd rather spare myself the trouble of entangling with their amorous obsessions. More to the point, a perfectly innocent gin-soaked kiss would tinker with an already delicate balance of competition into which I would much rather not project myself. Particularly since I checked the Rules of Order and, there in 11-point Waldbaum it says that I always lose. As a note, it suggests that the Speaker shouldn't even recognize the question of who might kiss back.
I also will not stoop to address the question of certain other gentlemen's veiled suggestions of bi-curiosity (or, more commonly, certain gentlemen smiling blearily and asserting that they're nearly drunk enough not to notice who they're fucking). -- I've taken that particular service off my business card, although I'll still do it for a fee.
So there sit I, at four in the morning, surrounded by the kind of people whom I might find attractive in a club, except that hardwired into my ear with the volume turned up is the radio edit of twenty-four months of social commentary about the Boys of the Massachusetts Rainforest, their failings, their mysteries, their little acts of unforgotten meanness. . . And I'm trying to juggle gracious hospitality, ethical circumspection, a boyscoutly desire to fit in with the general tone of the evening [Team Players join in the Group Sex!], not to mention that burning bitch-in-heat feeling one gets after there's enough booze in the bloodstream. And again, and for the first time in earnest, the cry of "Orgy!" goes up.
Quick! Which Alastair wins out? Our old friend Savage Cynicism, of course, who before he drags me bedwards and alone to "knit the ravell'd sleave of care", incites me to put on a chain of the cruellest, the bitterest, and the most deliciously hopeless anti-love songs I can possibly muster [figuring prominently: Going to Marrakesh and Falling out of love (with you). In retrospect (and my defence) it can be safely asserted that few people noticed and of them none was quite sober enough to care. Yet it was a maliciously-aforethoughted attempt at emotional sabotage. What a vile person I am, so quick to share unhappiness with everybody! I am, of course, immensely proud of it. Triumphant and wearing the mask of Momus, I retired to my chamber.
Unfazed, the revellers betook themselves to the futon mattresses and made out in various states of arousal and nudity until seven in the morning.
* * *
So the short story, the relevant one, is that the whole thing seems gravely moot now. There I was, my judgement impaired up the wazoo, completely incapable of being inappropriate even when it was expected of me. Of course I made the most prudent decisions, but having made them, I missed the point of the exercise. So what do I do with this bloody great albatross?
Did I mention? There was a big party at my house last night and I had a lot of fun. I got to use my new coffee maker this morning for the first time, and it's very shiny and new. My boss wants me to write customer support emails today. The task fills me with revulsion, as if all the symptoms of my nonexistent hangover had been transfused into my sloth and irresponsibility.
Music (borne on no particular relevance): the Lucksmiths' Smokers in love; Violent Femmes, Add it up; the 6ths, Yet another girl; Belle and Sebastian Waiting for the moon to rise.
NB: the "queer men" discussed in this entry are fictional, based entirely upon certain characteristics culled from gentlemen of my acquaintance and then redistributed to a herd of similar but by no means identical men. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is a rare demonstration of phenomenal writerly skill on my part.