is strangers; there are so few in my life these days. Almost no one is strange to me. Yes I have ‘hooked up’ with a couple of strange men who I would never want to see again. They were very strange, for sure. But strange means something else; there is an allure; it is the unknown. I am listening to some music right now that seems to me the most beautiful music in the world, at a time when I can do nothing at all but write. God help me if I ever come to hate writing. That’s not possible is it? But what kind of curse is this, when — something that I love so much — I am forced to do all the time, because -- a) there is nothing else to do, and -- b) I will go mad if I don’t. I’ve tried to stop writing this claptrap, but to no avail. For writing, too -- when I leave it and come back -- is strange, frightening. Not now. So there are almost no strangers in my life and I am bereft; I am the opposite of those of you who are so happy to be with your loved ones for these extended periods of time. (We will talk about my ‘loved one’ soon -- but not in the manner you might think.) So I was on the GO train, where all the strangers wear masks — masks that say: ‘do not come near me.' And those who wear them proudly are saying: 'I do not wish to be touched, ever.’ That is a shameful thought — so at least when you wear your mask, wear it with shame. Well in the bathroom on the GO train is a sign —I read it often. With that sign, I experience what Shakespeare calls misprision; a felicitous misunderstanding, a beautiful mistake. I pee often, when I’m on the GO as, again, there is nothing else to do, and it gets me out of my seat. And when I am in a toilet all by myself yes — I do the unthinkable, I take off my mask! (Don’t tell anyone!) So above each toilet on the GO train is a sign. The sign says: ‘Ne jettez pas corps d’etrangers dans le toilette.’ My French is very bad. I read this as 'Don’t throw the dead bodies of strangers in the toilet.’ My failed apprehension is much less interesting than the actual meaning, which is 'do not throw strange objects in the toilet.’ What a disappointment! Before I was beguiled, shocked and amused at the notion that the powers that be might somehow be obligated to remind people not to stash dead bodies in a common commode. I had no idea — I really had never imagined -- that murder was so frequent on trains, Agatha Christie aside. For isn’t that, after all, fiction? To think of all these masked figures, hurrying home, carrying, inside their Walmart bags — not toilet paper — and in their hockey packs — not hockey gear — but dead bodies — and all of them blithely entering the GO toilet quite ready to stuff it all down that serene, mirrored metal basin which constitutes a proper public facility, only to be confronted by a sign, and being so moral, in this way — even as murderers — that they politely obey, and stash the body somewhere else. But alas, the sign is not about strangers, or strange bodies. Is that because we have erased strangers from our lives? After all it is nearly impossible to meet one, even more impossible to have sex with one. And therefore, now -- who will do us kindnesses? Here I refer to Tennessee Williams’: “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers." I'm always amazed that people find that line sad or moving, because Blanche is talking quite specifically about blowjobs, without, of course, actually mentioning them. Tennessee Williams once said that his only real joy in life was to have a beautiful young man ejaculate on his chest (I wish I could think of a way to put that more poetically, but that would just be silly, wouldn’t it?) Because it is only from those we love that we should expect cruelty — certainly not from strangers. I mean as soon as one becomes intimate with anyone, one risks being confused with their parents, or some errant sister, or the inevitable uncle who molested them. But with a stranger one is free from all that — for the stranger has nothing to hold against you but his body, which you will cherish, for a time. The music that I have been listening to is ‘O Mon Bel Inconnu’ which means ‘Oh My Beautiful Stranger’ (I can translate that!) and it is an operetta, or actually a French musical, written by Sacha Guitry with music by Reynaldo Hahn. All I’m going to tell you about Reynaldo Hahn was that he was Proust’s lover. But the music! And the story of ‘O Mon Bel Inconnu’ is a simple tale of yet another wondrous misapprehension. A man finds letters in the lonely hearts column of the newspaper from his wife, his daughter and his maid, so he invites them to visit him — without telling them who he is— to a villa in the south of France This is (you guessed it) my story --which means I’m going to tell you now about my lover. I haven’t said much about him, but recently he said I could, so here goes. My lover is a stranger. Yes, it’s kind of like marrying a monster from outer space, and certainly he often seems like one. He keeps secrets from me — sometimes momentous ones — and constantly surprises me, and he often is angry with me, and then quite a different being altogether. I don’t think I will ever know everything there is to know about him. And I’m fine with that. There is a very odd bird in our basement. It’s made out of — straw, I think? And it wears sunglasses and a hat. It’s his very odd bird. I asked him about it once. He was in a mood, and he kind of spat at me: ‘I can’t be bothered to tell you, it’s too complicated!’ There are lots of other details like that about him that I will never know or understand; but unlike the lover who wants to know everything I’d really rather be left in the dark. If your lover is not a stranger than I wish you much joy, really; I do hope the relationship goes on for as long as I have been with my lover (21 years). But it’s going to be a challenge, because you are going to have to find things you don’t know about him to keep it interesting. You might — and probably will — say I’m trying to make lemonade out of lemons, or that I have 'intimacy issues.' Maybe. But I would like to think that when I look into my lover's eyes there is an eternal mystery -- and that’s absolutely the way I want it. Well there you go. I was hoping never to turn this blog into a love poem, but that’s what happened. You don’t have to worry. It won’t happen again.
