Dinner with Eliza

I feel as though I should write. Tonight I had dinner at my friend Eliza’s house. I took the train down to the cool part of Chicago. Her apartment is in a three story house; she has two roommtes. She cooked gnocchi with broccoli, lemon zest and red chili flakes. It was superb.

I don’t want to say “it was weird”. Maybe I made it weird. I’m not sure. We’ve known one another since we were six. That is, three-quarters of our lives so far. In some sense, last I knew her and she knew me we were different people. On my dresser in the bedroom I am sleeping in at my mother’s house there is a photo of me and Eliza together; we’re ten, dressed in ski gear; we smile as children at the camera. On that trip she slept in a tiny closet while I got a full bedroom. I don’t know what that means but it’s truth. At about that age or maybe younger she wiped the snow off the swing for me with her glove which got all wet. The first time we had dinner alone together with each other she and I were in fifth grade so about eleven. I anticipated/dreaded/ruminated the event before/after/during. What did that mean?

Almost a year ago I sat down and began to write a memoir of my sexual life and its disorders. Some of it’s interesting, but I need to piece together the fragments. I don’t know whether a narrative is possible. Eliza features prominently; I haven’t betrayed her yet. Will I?

As long as I’ve known her I’ve been in love with Eliza. In the third grade I wrote a personal narrative where I called her “my girlfriend”; in my illustration we were holding hands. I didn’t invent the story; fiction was strictly prohibited. Her father took us to a football/soccer match. He drove us to the stadium and we sat in the back seat. There were candies on the seat between us: teardrop chocolate kisses. “Would you like a kiss?” Words mean more and less.

FLAME ON

I’m not sure how to step a gap: here is a mystery. When two people who are in love are in the presence of another or an other that impedes their communication their not speaking is communication. They direct to the other other an utterance whose surface is towards the other but whose meaning is for the lover. So they can address one another as lover and not as other because there is another other there to be other for their discourse. But when alone together they only have each other and are other to eachother and lover. In short: when you want to kiss them and think they want to kiss you but your mutual uncertainty means that you both wait on the other waiting on you until you get tired and part awkwardly. But negotiations take time and really it’s about bodies acclimating from deep dive: pressure drops slowly to avoid nitrogen bubbles in the blood.

Bubbles in the blood but I’m embarassed and our bodies slide off one another without touching like magnets turned the wrong way ’round. Maybe I smoked too much and maybe I’m tired: is stream of consciousness/quasi-automatic writing still possible? Let the network spin. And so we sat next to each other on the couch and I got as close to her as she wanted and touched her gently but she seemed unsure. But I don’t know because if I talk about it what will she say? She must know. So maybe I talk about it directly: “that was weird, right?” But if it was weird it was because of me and I’m not saying that to be neurotic. But it’s rich ambiguity and we’re negotiating. I suppose the message was “not never, but not now” and I said “me too” because she was waiting for something and I was waiting for something but what? Bodies to adjust to the atmosphere.