Rebecca

Content note: This post contains sexual topics and sexual health concerns.

—02.15.2001—

Rebecca and I have fun. We smile at each other across cubicle walls. We sneak off for coffees and kiss in remote, untrodden corners of Ghirardelli Square. We feed the seagulls at lunch or lay in the grass at Aquatic Park among the tourists and office workers, me faking like I’m going to take her pants off.

I give her the first part of this journal to read in an effort to present her something of myself. She says she likes it. And that’s the way it goes for a while...

—02.27.2001—

A bird died practically in my hands last Friday evening. I don’t take it as a good sign.

The events of the last few months will fit within a single paragraph. In November, after my one-man graphic design studio, L-Dopa, made only a sluggish restart, I took a job as a creative director for a well-funded internet startup called CustomDirect. They batch custom apparel orders from small-to-medium-sized retailers so that those retailers have access to the same economies of scale that larger ones do. Jon asked me on the phone how much Satan worship was involved. I replied that there was a fair amount.

So the bird... Last Friday evening, as we were all finishing up our day, I took the Zappy, our ailing electric scooter, out for a test run around the block, or more accurately, around the corner, because that’s as far as it got. After it conked out I carried it up the stairs leading to our building in the heart of Ghirardelli Square. There, in front of the office door, was a pigeon, a quite clean and noble looking one, lying on his back, head bent to one side at an uncomfortable looking angle, breathing heavily.

I stroked its chest and examined it for injuries but found none. Then I went inside briefly to drop off the scooter. When I came back out and looked at it again, it tried with great pains to stretch its wings but only got as far as a stiff representation of a heraldic eagle. Even that was too much. It was its last gesture. After that its wings collapsed again and it closed its eyes and died.

I remember reading somewhere that in ancient times birds were thought of as messengers from the gods, as they occupied the space between heaven and earth. Apparently shaman, soothsayers, and the like, studied the freshly removed entrails of these intermediaries for clues as to what the future would hold.

I told Rebecca that I saw it as kind of a foreboding omen and she asked “How do you know it was a sign for you and not for CustomDirect?”

“Because I found it. It died in front of my eyes”

“Yeah, but it also died in front of the office. How do you know it wasn’t a sign meant for the office?”

“Everyone was gone. If it had been a symbol for the office it would have died during business hours.”

“Hmm, I see. Well, what do you think it means then?”

“I think it means that my creativity will die if I stay at this job.”

Call me superstitious, but really, how much clearer could it have been?

—03.04.2001—

I’m tired of the person that I am: not happy, living for others, or at least not for the full version of myself. I’m happy on the outside sometimes, and often genuinely, but then that candy eggshell veneer wears thin and exposes a soft, wet, tender, unhappiness that glistens like a wound.

Change! Change! Change! But where to? Into what? Maybe some more time alone is in order. Time to think. Time to learn. Time to wrap myself up like a caterpillar and turn into something else.

——

Life is like a river isn’t it? We have ideas, revelations; we see truths, but unless we make them fast somehow, anchor them to us, they float away and get lost in the flow of the everyday. How can one keep track of a kernel or two of truth when the days rush by as they do?

—03.06.2001—

It’s 4:30 a.m. Something’s wrong. Continental shelves fall into swimming pool seas. This scene is viewed through the widest wide angle lens, everything is far-away-so-close, floating in outer space.

Ever since sleeping with Rebecca this weekend the tip of my penis has been a little sore. This has been accompanied by a slightly sore throat. I’m worried. An old textbook of mine describes the symptoms for Gonorrhea: burning sensation in the urethra, sore throat after oral-genital contact (of which there was none in this case).

My reading light is on. It’s now 5:00am. Rico, our cat is curled up next to me, quiet, content. Whatever it is, it’ll be ok. Whatever it is, I’ll have it checked and treated. In the worst case scenario—well, I don’t even want to write about the worst case scenario, but it’ll be OK whatever it is. I’ve been known to be a bit of a hypochondriac before. Maybe it’s nothing.

——

You know, whatever the next thing is, whatever the next era will be, I have a feeling that the standards will be quite high. I have the sense that those of us that aren’t prepared, aren’t up to the task, that are lax, that don’t follow the true path of our hearts, will fall away. I hope I make it through. How much time have I wasted? How much risk have I exposed myself to for nothing? If it were all in the pursuit of a grand dream, then fine, but at the moment I feel like I’m just marking time.

—03.10.2001—

It feels good to be writing again after being away from it for so long. I saw Rebecca on Wednesday night. On Thursday we both called in sick, not completely without reason. Mine was that I was feeling sick. Her’s was that she wanted to spend the day with me.

So we made waffles, had a nice breakfast, went for a walk, laid in bed in each other’s arms, kissing, madly at times, finding pleasure, and collapsing. In the afternoon, as the sun strode across the bed, we were still there. In the evening I made us dinner and then drove her to the Lower Haight for her copyediting class.

You know what’s funny? Rebecca is now reading the first part of this journal and wondering where all of the juicy bits are. Now she’s in one of them, well in a mildly juicy retelling of a juicy bit anyway.

You know what is not funny? To enjoy someone’s company, yet at the same time have pangs, though not quite founded in fact, about one’s own mortality. To fear death.

It’s Saturday and I still feel a little out of it. I went to the UCSF medical center today to try and see a doctor but the wait was two hours. Sitting in a room full of sick people for two hours wasn’t where I wanted to be, so I left. I don’t want to write about this anymore.

——

OK, one more thing. Maybe I’m getting carried away. If it were anything like Gonorrhea or some other standard STD, it would have manifested itself by now. If it were something worse, I wouldn’t have noticed anything this quickly. I think that eliminates everything.

Still, I should be more careful. How many girls have I been with since I got back? Four? No, five? Sheesh—Five!