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PARTISAN REVIEW
calm, quiet, and dull situation, this presents tremendous struggles
for me. Just the physical aspect is hard and nerve-wracking. Just
building it correctly with him. He was very subtle, very responsible,
he doesn't seem to deal too much with what's all right as is. I really
do believe he'll like it when I'm done. I feel that he does already.
Anyway, that's what's new. Things are fine. Everything is good. My
teeth don't hurt, I see 20-20, and I keep not killing myself out of spite.
Suicide is remote and out of reach. And such a lure. A lasting, soft,
sweetness without any pain forever. I sit on the toilet in the morning
lured toward that. Oh, I fight, I fight, but basically it's a very little
struggle against very heavy odds. Just a couple of thousand milli–
grams of something, and that's it. Life is weightless, really. You can
just bump yourself off like you're some kind of thug hired to do the
job. For years I've been trying to do myself a favor and get unfucked.
Sunday afternoon I'll get unfucked. Tuesday morning I'll get un–
fucked. I'll get unfucked in 1995. That's what the astrologer predicts
and she must know. She. I can't talk to women. I can't cry with
women. I can't fight with women. I can't get past some superficial
barrier that's not even important. I had lunch with some woman just
last week. I didn't understand a word she was saying. I think I upset
her by admitting that I wasn't of the opinion that men and women
were in fact alike. I told her they had practically no common denom–
inator at all. Which she couldn't bear. Fuck her. I scare women
away. I believe they see my little excitements as dangerous. Prowl–
ing, cruising, looking to get laid. Lusting after detestable parties.
Caught in the mess of a lover who can't leave his wife. Hanging
around all night to find out what's going on. Hopping rides home.
It's not all as gamey as I make it sound, but still I am impelled to
these risks. I like women because they
are
women, but they don't
matter to me at all.
It
has to be a man for me. At eighteen I had all
the shoes I wanted and five fur coats and hats, not like the girls you
knew at eighteen - workhorse students, brave, courageous, academic.
School wasn't me. I detested every second. I wanted to be out of
buildings as soon as they put me in them. I never did homework,
was never in class, never passed a test or "handed in" a thing.
If
I
wasn't sitting in the teacher's lap and she wasn't kissing me when
class was over, what good was school? I wrote him eight letters all of
which weren't right. I didn't know what was right until this morning.
Last night a total daze and blur. Blasted because I was so terrible.
He is so far out of touch, interested only in what I'm not. Months
and months on my flaws . Telegrams. Reading lists. His evaporating
