9/16/00 4:11 PM
It's gotten cold out. Now writing
form my laptop in the room next to the master br, which smells a bit of cat pee
when left unaired.
----- and ----- are in town. Probably for the night. I will have company. ----- is coming too, at around 9pm tonight. Whoever she is....
Thursday: obtained results of HIV test (negative). Celebrated that night. And again the following morning. And again this morning. Just a little; she had to run.
We both have been getting up earlyish, and going to bed early too. ----- needs as much sleep as I do! So we probably aren't getting quite enough. ----- was grumpy last night but played a good sport. We met at 5:30 at the dance space for our second Salsa Pre-Intermediate class together. I must sadly report that I felt very underqualified that second time (the first time, too, though not as severely, partially because ----- was my partner for the entire duration of the class). I felt OK about the warm-ups, but the sequence we were to learn that day included some very quick successive turns for the man, which were not only formidably difficult to learn but also led to intense dizziness on my part, forcing me to stop about halfway though the class and sit out for the remainder. I was also self-conscious about the fact that I was sweating intensely from the beginning and probably had vile breath from nonstop coffee drinking that day; this was not how I wanted to present myself to the womenfolk with whom I was expected to practice these menacing and intimate movements. The idea of "leading" a dance partner is still strangely intimidating to me (see dream journal entry sometime in July).
But let me retrace my thought-steps here to the beginning of the day: I got up with -----, took my vitamins, worked on the ----- project, went on several short walks to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, rode the exercycle for 20 mins @ 2x resistance going a minimum of 18 mph, then walked to the train station, getting on board the 4:04 train. I stopped in the big Starbucks at Astor Pl and read from Gullberg before making my way to the dance space.
When the dance class was over, I was terribly hungry, and we went off in search of a restaurant. I could feel a little tension between us and I wasn't sure where it was coming from until K kindly let me know she was in a bad mood. We settled on Lhasa, a Tibetan restaurant on, I believe, 2nd Ave., which was very good. At least mine was; -----'s noodle soup was a little on the bland side. As ----- wasn't feeling so well I volunteered to drive us home, which, were it not for my sincere love and affection for this woman, I would seriously regret. It was strictly bumper-to-bumper all the way through Manhattan, and busy busy all the way to the Hutch. I hate driving in such conditions and have taken great pains to not be forced to do so (i.e., not owning a car, and choosing to live in a city that does not require such ownership). We stopped at CVS on the way home and picked up some Ben & Jerry's.
During the night I dreamt heavily,
as I have been doing for the past several weeks, though scarcely a detail can
be recalled upon awakening. I awoke this morning with the knowledge I had
dreamt that ----- had left me to run off with a rock musician (how ironic), and
that I had been relieved to awaken and find her still next to me in bed.
In the dream it had been painful to lose her, but not devastating, and I think
shortly after that I was gettin' down with some other females in an
Antioch-like setting; truly hardcore imagery... It definitely felt like
"back to school," which is a major theme for me at the moment.
I feel the need to find a balance in my new lifestyle between discipline and
spontaneity. Too much regimen; failure. Too much spontaneity:
failure. I have listed the activities I believe are important. I
would like to perform these with great discipline and live the rest of my life
in complete freedom of style. Today I meditated as soon as -----
was gone, finished off the S project version 1.0 (yay! it's now shippable!),
went twice for coffee, the second time also going shopping for ingredients for
an Indian meal I may or may not cook tomorrow afternoon, did again 20 mins on
the cycle, and spend a little time writing this.