girlsarestrange.com

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

-Jack London

During college, when the world as it is known within tiny high school walls breaks apart and becomes a fragmented universe of New and Awesome, it’s easy to obsess over silly things. My own list includes Ayn Rand, Easy Mac, obscure bands that were so obscure I can’t even remember their names anymore, and overly self-indulgent films like The Rules of Attaction. On the other hand, it was also during these years that I found Belgian beer, Thai food and Saul Williams.

Saul Williams is an amazing poet, performer and writer. Between cheesy microwaved noodles and daft tunes, I read Said the Shotgun to the Head, a poem he published in book form. To this day, one section of it stands out clearly in my memory:

Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again – the first kiss of the rest of your life.

The first time I read that passage I felt like making out extra-passionately with every dude I passed on the street. Oh, how easy life would be if I were a tad sluttier. Instead I waited months until a guy I really felt like kissing came along, only to have him tell me that I kissed too much.

Can you believe that? Too much kissing! Who knew there could be such a thing? Certainly not Saul Williams.

The next guy I kissed came really close to Saul’s description. In fact, it was probably spot-on, but in the end so many terrible things happened between the two of us that I can’t reflect on our kissing without replacing the thousand fleshy envelopes with a thousand stinging nettles.

The last guy I really kissed kissed was the exact opposite. After it happened, nothing happened.

The kissing itself was good. So good that I forgot to breathe. So good that I felt the urge to press his hand to my chest so we could laugh at how fast my heart was beating—but didn’t. Did I see a vision of Mother Mary riding a unicorn? No, but maybe I would have if we’d had more than a few minutes of make out time.

And then again, maybe not. A good friend of mine once criticized our tendency as humans to push every connection we make with others in the direction of the soul mate pool, as if liking the same hobbies, foods and colors automatically means a lifetime of blissful companionship. She argued that sometimes a connection lasts for only as long as the two individuals are in the same room, and forcing it into a place that it just isn’t meant to go only serves to deform and ruin it.

I can, unfortunately, speak to that last bit from a place of too much experience. Realizing that the way two people get along in a friendship doesn’t always translate over to a relationship hasn’t been an easy thing to digest, but it has opened new freedoms.

The good kissing guy will always be the good kissing guy because that’s all we were. Kissers. It was like a hit-and-run with tongue, and I don’t have to worry about  nettles because there isn’t enough material to grow such drama. I kinda like that, and I wonder if Saul Williams wrote his loveliest of love poems after a succession of one-night stands.

In any case, if I had the guts for it I would tell all the guy friends I mistakenly thought I could date that I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a tease or a ruiner of friendships, it’s just that I’m as confused as the next person when it comes to working out this whole life/dating thing. Then, as if it could ever be appropriate to do so, I would call up the good kissing guy and say, HEY MAN! THAT WAS SO YUM! THANKS!

To all the boyfriends I’ve ever had: thank you for grudgingly agreeing to grow out your hair. These little around-the-ear flippies are the worst, and I vow to never force them on anyone again.

GPOYW – Daly City, 2004

Gene: Hey. So one day…
: can you post an awesome picture of you and me on your website
: and make a post about how awesome we are?
: so when you get famous…
: I can be like, HEY I WAS ON THAT SHIT

Chelsi: Sure, I can do that

G: Thanks

Angela and I are back from Cannes. This time there are no words for everything I saw, no words for everything I felt. Luckily I have heaps of bad quality footage, Windows Movie Maker and John Mayer.