Grayson 1

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Dear Diary:

I've always had mixed feelings when a semester ends. On the one paw, no more papers to grade, no more timetable to hold me so strictly to the demands of a clock, no more (yaaaawn) faculty meetings. T'other paw, no audience for my special brand of humor, education, and humorous education; no clear and simple excuses to bump into someone on campus and meet a new friend; no one to wave to across the Quad, to smile at and be smiled at back. Leo Buscaglia used to walk the University of Southern California campus and greet everyone who crossed his path. He undoubtedly held the Guinness Book of World Records for hugs; he probably held the record for causing smiles as well. I doubt I'd top his record at either, but I wouldn't mind being a contender.

It's been a good semester, though. I got to try out the SATPOR course at the high school level, and the principal wants me to come back this fall. I am but one professor, at one high school, but there may be a means of turning it into a standardized AP course, something that could be reproduced by others at other high schools. If I can develop it properly, matching up outlines of lesson plans to that idiotic "This lecture fulfills this Official Crumb of Required Learning" garbage that public schools have to adhere to, then it could be rolled out for testing at other schools. I'll have to talk with Beth about that; she knows more about grants and packaging of education than most of the tenured professors. That could mean knocking down that damnable 95% illiteracy rate in high school grads. My experimental group of 15 yielded some good papers; if they follow on to college, I think they'll do well.

There's one student in particular worth watching: Robert Willowdale, although he prefers to be called "Robbie." Just finished his junior year, and he got an "A" out of me for his work. This was not due to the leniency that I allowed the high school students overall. Let's be honest: Many, if not most, papers written in high school are atrocious, and we let them get away with it because we want them booted out of the system as quickly as possible. Even students with an "F" overall average are allowed to graduate high school, just to be rid of them. So my intention was to grade not injudiciously but with allowances for the general lack of rhetorical discipline that makes college English 101 and 102 classes largely about remediation.

Our young Mr. Willowdale, however, seems to be an exception to the rule. His papers were a little formulaic, structurally (let's be honest - high school is where you learn about the "five paragraph theme," and it's difficult for most people to get away from that format), but his opinions were strong and backed up quite well by citation and reasoned argument, using the tools that I taught the class (the very purpose of SATPOR). A little help with opening up his rhetorical style, and he'll be writing top-drawer papers in his freshman year at college, if that's where he's headed. I have no idea what he might want to major in, but I suspect that he'll go far, whatever he chooses.

It's probably immensely vain of me to think so, but I have to admit that the young rabbit did seem to have a bit of a crush on me. He was very attentive, talkative after class, seemed to enjoy my company. He did once ask me if I wanted to go with him to the local burger joint for a shake, and I declined as gently as I could - that whole potential for favoritism by spending time with a student thing. He took it well, without the adolescent embarrassment that such a moment might have predicated; his apology was (forgive me for using this word) adult, based upon an upbringing that had taught him self-worth and personal esteem. I didn't have the opportunity to meet his dam and sire, but if Robbie is anything to go buy, they must be splendid examples of parents.

Planning to meet them, are you, Grayson?

Bah. Truth told, I'm probably just indulging my fantasies. A lonely old fox can have a great many of them, this one on the impossible situation of a very nice-looking rabbit who's far less than half my age... Grayson, Grayson, whatever are you thinking?

I'm thinking of Goethe, of course...

_How, in the light of morning,

Round me thou glowest,

Spring, thou beloved one!

With thousand-varying loving bliss

The sacred emotions

Born of thy warmth eternal

Press 'gainst my bosom,

Thou endlessly fair one!

Could I but hold thee clasp'd

Within mine arms!_

"Ganymede" is a beautiful poem about a beautiful legend. The myth of Ganymede tells of the single most beautiful male ever born to the world, and that Zeus fell in love with him and sent an eagle to bear him up to Mount Olympus, where he would become Zeus' lover and cup-bearer to the gods. This enraged Zeus' wife, Hera (he did rather make a habit of pissing her off), and she placed Ganymede among the stars, near the water-bearer Aquarius. And just to remind us mere mortals of the dangers of the old being seduced by the charms of the young, W. H. Auden put the mockers on that very effectively with his depressing poem of the same name:

_He looked in all His wisdom from the throne

Down on that humble boy who kept the sheep,

And sent a dove; the dove returned alone:

Youth liked the music, but soon fell asleep.

But He had planned such future for the youth:

Surely, His duty now was to compel.

For later he would come to love the truth,

And own his gratitude. His eagle fell.

It did not work. His conversation bored

The boy who yawned and whistled and made faces,

And wriggled free from fatherly embraces;

But with the eagle he was always willing

To go where it suggested, and adored

And learnt from it so many ways of killing._

If you weren't bummed prior to reading that more-or-less Petrarchan style sonnet, you probably are now. From a strictly analytical sense, the octave and sextet don't follow a traditional rhyme scheme, and you could make various observations about that, but it is at its root Petrarchan style, and it's also deeply depressing. Zeus' gift of love to the young pup was rebuffed; the eagle, sent as messenger and transport, was actually more exciting to the youth than was the love of an older god. It's rather like some rich old fellow buying a Ferrari for his young would-be lover, and the yowen spends more time with the car than the benefactor.

Perhaps I'm lucky that I can't afford to buy anyone a Ferrari.

Also, perhaps I'm hoping not only that our young rabbit friend did not have a crush on me, but that I don't have a crush on him as well. Talk about "jail bait," not to mention various "moral turpitude" clauses in my college contract. I don't think the university gives a damn that I'm gay, but to involve oneself with a student is a huge no-no that has nothing whatsoever to do with age. I started worrying about it around the middle of the semester, so I took the paranoid precaution of photocopying the buck's third and fourth papers, both before and after making my comments and mark-up. If anyone has a questions about favoritism, I have no problem offering a the work to a committee for review.

What concerns me most is that I feel foolish having such feelings at all, especially for someone so much younger than myself. I'm staring down the barrel of 43, which is "middle-aged" by anyone's definition and "ancient" in terms of gay culture. (I think they've reserved "decrepit" for somewhere around 55 or so, after which you become something akin to "mummified.") Doing the math based on my estimates, I think I'm nearly three times Robbie's age. I know that he's gay, as he's "out" at school and very much involved with the on-campus LGBTQ organization. I've been out for years, so that's not an issue either. He read One Last Landing for the course - apparently, his mother gave it to him - and that's a gay love story woven into a space opera. (Ya gotta love Robert Heinlein for inspiration.) He gave it quite the critique, in fact. I won't say that I wasn't deeply pleased by his observations, but again he wasn't (you should pardon the expression) "sucking up." I'd put that paper in a head-to-head competition with any freshman (and many sophomore) paper that I've graded over the years. It was flattering, but it wasn't flattery; he backed up his arguments very well. (He also pointed out a plot hole of planet-sized proportions that I missed.)

I guess he's not one of my students any longer either, come to that. The semester's over, the grades are in, and unless someone wants to make a stink based on the idea that I was promised that an "A" grade would result in epic delights after school's end, I think I've got my scholastic bases pretty well covered. This leaves me with no excuses other than the damnable statutory rape laws of the Common Law, which I and so many other species would still consider crap, but it also gives me a comfortable "out" (the puns are unceasing today).

The point of all this diatribe is actually manifold. Even if Robbie did have a crush on me, I needn't respond to it, and almost certainly shouldn't. Even if I had a crush on Robbie in return, I'd be risking my professional and personal life to act upon it. And even barring those things, what the hell am I doing thinking about someone so young?

What the hell am I doing thinking about anyone...

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Dear Diary:

I received a phone call last week from my publisher. Kim Dickinson is not a relation to Emily, but she is nevertheless an Angeline to be reckoned with, in the literary world and otherwise. When nearly every other publishing company in the country has been absorbed or destroyed by the Six Ugly Step-Sisters of Time-Warner et al, she has managed to keep Discerning Multifaria Press alive and well for these past fifteen years, through the devastating combination of canniness and outright ferocity inherent in the best of her species (a wolverine is not to be toyed with). She flatters me by saying that it's due to my work and the fans who buy it so loyally. The truth is that Kim has several good authors in her publishing house, and it's a tribute to all of them that they're able to keep this small and noble house going in the face of mega-coporations mass-marketing to the lowest common denominator of even lower taste and ever-shrinking intelligence in this benighted land.

...whatever am I doing, standing on this crate labeled SOAP...? How odd...

Kim had telephoned to ask if I was being idle this summer or if I had been considering writing another book "for her" (as she so charmingly put it). We chatted idly about some ideas that I'd been working on just as idly. Displaying that same cleverness that I mentioned a moment ago, she asked which one of the ideas had a particular interest for me. I hedged, gently teasing her that I was aware of her tricks and cajoling; she laughed and informed me that it was "literary flirtation." I reminded her that I'm gay, she reminded me that she is also, and we meandered down the lanes of our mutual lack of romances of late. We didn't get maudlin -- she won't allow it in herself, and therefore not in her friends either -- but it served to remind me that a great love story simply isn't in the running for My Next Novel (Insert Title Here). I asked her for time to think about it further, which she willingly granted, and I set about playing with a few plots I'd had on the back burner, wondering if I could generate a sufficient treatment for (not to mention sufficient personal interest in) any of them.

One strange aspect of writing, at least for me, is the intersection of art and craft. There is much in favor of waiting for the muse to strike (which, in my case, usually means with a large open forepaw across the muzzle, just to get my attention); in the throes of artistic intercourse with my muse, words can flow by the thousands in a day, making me miss meals... which is something to complain about, so far as I'm concerned. Food is another of my passions, and I indulge in it with sensuality approximating erotic abandon.

There are images in that statement that I refuse to entertain.

Craft, however, is also a vital part of writing. Anything from ten-minute warm-ups to forcing rants of a minimum of 500 words, just to string words together. Writer's block is a genuine phenomenon and not merely petulant griping of writers who simply don't want to work today, or tomorrow, or next week. One trick to getting around it is to write anything else, just to prove to yourself that it's not an issue of not being able to write at all, but that the words themselves are on temporary strike. You reassign them to other duties until further notice. The only danger in this comes under the category of certain writers who have written literally millions of words that really don't bear seeing the light of day, much less topping the best-seller lists because of the... no, don't make me get out the soap box again.

The difference to be split, it seems to me, is between producing myriad words for profit and failing to produce anything because your muse is too bloody precious to be bothered with mere words, especially today, whatever that day might be. At the very least, my work needs a reason to be, something important to me, that I want to communicate to whomever might wish to hear my particular story. Kim is no mercenary, or she'd have sold out to the Ugly Step-Sisters years ago. I think she respects me as a writer and artist, and she also knows not to push too hard. When I commit to a contract, I fulfill it, so I won't give her a treatment for a book that I wouldn't make good on.

I'd made mention of this conversation in an email exchange with Robbie Willowdale, with whom I've enjoyed a genial back-and-forth since semester's end. Young Robbie expressed interest in my creative process (eminently flattering to any writer), and I vouchsafed some ideas about writing up a descriptive outline, or treatment, for a novel. I also mentioned that I had a few ideas for books, but that I was unsure which would be the better choice for me to devote my time to. He rather charmingly volunteered to read them, to help me decide which one to work on next. There's a temptation to let him do exactly that, if only to have fresh eyes on the process. He's read One Last Landing, after all, and he made some good observations about it. He's also mentioned that he's started reading Stories Made of Starfire, my collection of tales inspired by Flare Starfire's music. I certainly can't question his taste in literature.

I'm making myself proceed with extreme caution, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is being metaphorically in my cups. The rabbit is a sweet distraction, and I appreciate the attention, but I'd do well to keep myself carefully neutral in all this. Early writings are secretive, in their way, and it's not best to let them out of the nursery too soon. Perhaps I can word it that way, to let the yowen down carefully.

I admit to being curious about which one he'd pick.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Dear Diary:

There's a saying that it never rains, but it pours.

A few weeks ago, I got a call out of the blue from Max, to ask if I'd meet him for some coffee and beignets. He said that it was partly to offer yet another apology for reading the unfinished manuscript, and partly to ask me if I'd finished it yet. He meant it as a jest, and I took it as such, so coffee seemed like a good idea.

We did indeed meet (on Sunday, in deference to his shop hours), and we talked about the novel, how little I'd worked on that particular story, and then how much we had in common in terms of our reading lists. He's quite the classicist, as I'd discovered before, but across a wide range. His choice of writers spans American, English, French, German, and Russian; he's eyeing Borges, so we could add Argentinian to his list. His choices in style and subject matter cover romance, comedy of manners, tragedy, and existential, whether as poems, cycles, sagas, short stories, novellas, or novels; his range of taste extends from the beginnings of the 18th century to the modern day. If I had my way, I would give him at least a Master's degree in literature. That would be his second, as I discovered - he already has a Master's in computer science, which is a language (and talent) of its own. Let's just say that our afternoon coffee lasted well past the usual hour dinner, for either of us. As strange as it may seem, we both seemed reluctant to suggest either to part or to go somewhere to eat together. I daresay neither of us really know why, consciously. Only after I got home (to a nearly empty cupboard - I ended up having cereal for dinner) did I understand that coffee is one thing and a meal is something else. The first can be casual; the second could be a date.

If I were to count the coffee as such, I'd have to admit that it was one of the finest "first not-really dates" I've ever had. Maxwell is a veritable gold mine of information, informed opinion, wit, experience, and humor. He is also the cover boy for every imaginary issue of Total Stud Monthly that would never be produced. The bear is huge, and I'm speaking only of what can be seen in casual situations. If he has other characteristics often attributed to his species, then the word "huge" probably still applies.

I want it understood that I am not what is colloquially known as a "size queen." However, when a friend of mine once opined, "More than a muzzleful is a waste," I replied, "Darling, it's not my muzzle I want him to fill."

Perhaps it's just my paranoia working, in both cases. After all, I've since had a few dinners with Max (wondering how he survived school with a full moniker of Maxwell Lynnwood Tobias Boudreau hanging on his shoulders); he's engaging company, good to be with, and we've had a fine time. And one would think that he invented the term "bear hug," not only because he's a bear and good at hugging, but because there's something incredibly comforting about being wrapped up in so much muscle. No offense to Linus and his blanket, but for security, I'd take Max any day of the week. And yes, I've given more than a bit of thought to the idea of finding out what that hug would feel like if I got to feel the fullness of his pelt in the bargain. Only a soulless lackwit wouldn't wonder if he felt as warm and fuzzy as his hug.

Along with my fears of being too lonesome to think properly about any kind of relationship, I also find myself wondering if there's pity involved, on his part.Another Lonely Knight was little more than self-indulgent drivel, at least so far as I've been concerned all these years. It came about not long after Patrick had left me, not merely for someone else, but to marry a female (of all such silly things). I tried to like her. I really did. I tried to admit that perhaps he'd be happier with a female. I tried to forget things like wondering if she'd passed her herpes on to him on purpose, while he and I were still dating (I never caught it). I wondered why she would feel the need to have their marriage certificate mounted, matted, framed, and hung over their bed. I wondered why the sexuality of our relationship was always being advanced by him rather than me; after all, once I'd broken the ice enough to give him his first male-induced climax, I never asked anything more of him than those simple pleasures, yet he advanced to reciprocation, of several types, and later insisted on having me penetrate him. I wondered if he'd ever asked her to strap on a dildo and have her way with him (I rather doubt it). I wonder if he ever found himself another indulgent, caring, stupid male to treat like a play-toy outside the bounds of his marriage, or perhaps if he found a string of them. I had recently discovered, by accident, that he is indeed still alive, still with her, that they still had no offspring, and that he was "still happy and still very much in love" with her. I have no way to tell if it's truth or fiction, and I suppose, in the long run, it doesn't matter.

Another Lonely Knight came out of the time after Patrick left me, a long period where I blamed myself for everything that went wrong in the relationship. At that point, I felt that I was to blame for anything and everything around me. I blamed myself if it rained when the weatherman said it would be clear and sunny. I blamed myself for Princess Diana's death, for the election of Dubya, and for the fact that we still hadn't discovered cold fusion. If my books weren't selling, it was because they were crap, and I was an idiot who could no longer fool anyone into thinking that I was a worthy storyteller, a valuable teacher, or a tender mentor. If my friends were having a bad time, it was my fault, and I withdrew from them so that I wouldn't make it any worse. When I withdrew from them, they prospered, being happy in their lives, thus convincing me that a long-ago "friend" was right when he described my love as "toxic." I was ready to take a job as a speed bump in a fast-food restaurant parking lot.

Sensing a little self-doubt here? Yeah, Patrick, thanks a bunch. My remaining friends told me that the breakup wasn't my fault, but my heart still wanted you, and every thought, word, and deed in those last months turned me into a complete meltdown of a fox. I've never wished the experience of rape upon anyone, and one reason for that is Patrick - who raped my soul as he slowly let my body go and my heart die. It wasn't that he left; it was how he left. And that's where that self-pitying, unfinished work of "fiction" came from. Allan Ginsberg had Howl;_this should have been called _Whine._Actually, the original title was _Analysis of the Production and Decay of Strange Particles, based on some loosely-applied definitions of the quantum physics terms quark, strangeness, hadron, and strong interaction. Ultimately, the first draft was too close to home even for me, and I scrapped it and tried working on a genuinely fictional description of the (yet more puns) elements of the relationship.

If anyone does publish my memoirs, we may have to sanitize that a bit...

Hindsight is always 20/20. Being with Patrick would have been calamitous to both of us, but at least he was able to have the support to keep chasing his dreams. Granted, his dreams went from being a science geek, to being a therapist, to needing a therapist, to yet another field entirely (I think he's making video games now, and playing them is what he was always good at). Luckily (or perhaps by contrived design - a wholly sociopathic action), he had his handy-dandy, science-geek, grant-winning wifey to pick up the bills, pave the way, and keep him warm in bed, since after all you can't catch herpes twice. I had to figure out, alone, any reason to think my millions of shattered pieces worth reassembling, much less finding enough of them to glue together in the vague shape of a fox. I did it, and I can't complain too loudly; I'm still publishing, I'm teaching, and I'm actually liked. Despite my attempt to lay waste to my own life after the bastard left me, I kept going. I'm even reasonably on an even keel.

But I'm still not at all sure that I'm worth another fur's time, love, and effort. That bit of Patrick's legacy is still with me. Over the past several years, I've tried a few cautious forays into the world of dating, and it never went well. Perhaps it's just me, but if you "go on a date" in the gay world, there's an expectation that it will have only one of three outcomes: You never want to see each other again; you have a slap-and-tickle between the sheets and _then_never see each other again; or you make a second date with the implication that you're actually heading toward a meaningful relationship, and to make any suggestion otherwise (whether on or anytime after the second date) means that you've "broken up." Do straight furs go through this, or do they have their share of "drama queens" as well?

Tactfully, I will say nothing of Patrick at this point.

It's been very different with Max. He seems to have no agenda. And as I say, maybe that's because of what he read, but I don't know that. I hate that it is his very transparency that makes me suspicious. I can't outright reject him anyhow, not if I ever expect to keep my computers working. And that lousy joke aside, I really can't reject what hasn't been offered. We really could be "just friends," as the old cliché has it. He's wonderful to be around, and he seems to ask nothing more of me than my company. I'm the one with the fur-petting, muscle-worshiping, is-it-true-what-they-say-about-your-species-being-gifted fantasies in my head. And yes, there's more there than the merely physical. I've already outlined that particular list, and I keep adding to it, a bit at a time. It is, I hope, a benign sort of hobby.

There's another something that's got me curious now, however. I got an invitation in yesterday's mail, from Robbie Willowdale. Our email chats have been fine, although it has reinforced my theory that perhaps there really is a crush involved. He's never once been suggestive, inappropriate, or otherwise naughty (am I relieved or disappointed?), and rather like Max, he's been good company. The young lapine is quick with a joke, has some interesting observations about the zeitgeist, and he has flattered me further by completing his reading of Tales Made of Starfire - an original edition, if I'm any judge, as he says that he's borrowed it from his mother. I've mentioned before that Robbie is gay, out, and proud (as I am of my Oxford comma there). The gay content of the various stories wasn't of concern, although he did ask how many might have had some measure of autobiography. Like nearly all writers, I put some bit of myself into every story... some stories get more than others. The perceptive little beggar knows more than he's letting on, I daresay.

Robbie wrote quite the email about the Tales, almost enough to be another paper for class. He wasn't the least bit fawning or toadying, yet managed to convey what I would call a love letter in the form of a review. I hesitate to ask him to post it to various book review sites; I'm not generally greedy about publicity and positive reviews, although it's the sort of thing that might help boost sales. I may find that he'll get the idea to post it on his own, somewhere. If not, that email is still a keeper.

This latest communication, however, was not an email. This was an invitation, sent through the post, with stamp, address, and the whole nine yards. I found it in my mailbox yesterday along with bills from all those porn sites that I visit. (Yes, that's a joke. I seem to be doing a lot of deflecting today.) It's an invitation to a Fourth of July cookout on that evening, which is but a few weeks from now. Properly put, the invitation is from "The Willowdale Family" as a whole, but not knowing his parents directly, I have to assume that it was young Robbie's idea. I have no other plans at this point, and the listed menu (which was also open to a bring-something-to-share offer) sounded quite good indeed. It didn't hurt matters that he added the note "Mom is a fan."

It would be churlish to say no, don't you think?