hopeless. I was going to write a blog recommending suicide. But I can’t do it. Just now I went back to Dorothy Parker’s poem Resume, hoping for some insight, but I got caught up in the polysemous nature of language (a big problem for me). All I could think about was the line ‘nooses give’ — her argument against hanging yourself. What’s lovely is that ‘giving’ is such a nice thing, and even nicer in this context. But what’s also lovely is her lackadaisical lack of enthusiasm for life, which is what I have presently but am not used to having. Frankly all I have to look forward to -- besides writing this -- is getting drunk on weekends and eating too much food. I can easily see why people gain weight and OD on drugs — so there’s no need for me to recommend suicide as an alternative to lockdown; it’s happening all around me anyway — slowly or quickly as the situation permits. Last night — well I don’t know how to describe it. He's a film maker, but mainly a cameraman, and he looks a little bit like Iggy Pop. Please don’t imagine me having sex with Iggy Pop. Although a friend of mine did have sex with Iggy Pop, apparently — I think it happened before her sex change. At any rate she told me once about an incident in bathroom stall in Detroit. Those were the days. The highlight of my evening was when my friend and I, (yes I shall call him my friend? even just because he was generous with his private parts, but it was more than that, really) we watched a punk video which was so gloriously inept and hilariously appropriate: You’ve Got to Fight for the Right to Party — never have the Beastie Boys seemed quite so relevant. The video was very badly done in that 80's way —the girls' hairdos were odd, and the boys were trying to be sexy, and they needn’t have tried at all really. There was a lot of pie throwing. So anyway, I rented a room in a guest house for myself and my paramour. I got there first, and when I opened the door it was absolutely fabulous, only 80$ a night, and after I climbed three flights to our little love nest I was impressed not only with the cleanliness, but with the elegance -- of the bathroom. There was a balcony so my paramour could smoke, and it was nice to shove open the doors and let in the night. When my paramour arrived (paramour is definitely better than friend) we drank and watched sad, bad old videos together on the ‘Retro’ channel. The most surprising thing he said was that he was very much an extrovert and sometimes scared people away with his aggressive behaviour. I saw none of this, and wonder now if perhaps he had imagined it, or perhaps he was aggressive only not with me, or perhaps what other people call aggression I quite enjoy. It happened exactly as I hoped it would, we got to know each other (for I hardly know him, or only knew him hard, or more accurately, semi-hard) and I really do think he is a nice guy; that is not aggressive in the way that I know aggression, not driven or competitive or tortured. He was not exactly zen, but just, well, there. And he did travel to the ‘Sky Gilbert place' for a moment, but I deftly redirected him: ‘I haven’t read any of your books...’ he said, and I said it didn’t matter, because it doesn’t, it isn’t my books that I wanted him to be paying attention to at that particular moment. We got down to it gradually in the kind of way I like to, which means chatting and getting drunker and revealing things and then beginning to take off clothing. But there was really only one thing to get to, really, and that was me committing the act of fellatio upon his person. (How’s that for euphemism?) That lasted for most of the rest of the night. I left and he slept there. I’m trying to get it to happen again next week; it’s my coping mechanism. I’ve shown you mine, will you show me yours? It’s either this or suicide; I’ve chosen the easy way, I think. So I’m not going to recommend suicide. I can’t do it. Instead this is now going to turn into a plea. I’m going to try and keep at least some of you alive, the ones that can be kept alive during lockdown. What I’m going to say now I don’t even believe myself. Yes, I do. I must cease being ironic immediately -- and just tell ‘the truth.’ You must live because — why? I think mainly because we don’t really understand what living and consciousness is, it is, as far as I know, God’s experiment. By that I mean whoever or whatever (I’m not big on God) is running things took a startling turn with human consciousness. Whatever we are — and I’m not quite sure — there is probably nothing else quite like us in the universe, and we were not meant to be, nor are we necessarily a terribly successful experiment. In other words, matter — life — was not meant to think about itself; because if it has consciousness of itself, it immediately gets worried and anxious and bored, and wants to have sex with guys who look like Iggy Pop. Consciousness is, in this way, not entirely practical at all really, because you cannot think about yourself, you cannot imagine yourself, because when you die you don’t think anymore, so what it is you are experiencing now, when you are alive? It’s a quandary. But the reason you must stay alive, and I sincerely wish that you do -- despite the fact that the whole universe right now is conspiring to kill you — is precisely because, meaning, it's because it's all so essentially hopeless. that you must live. There is something heroic in that, there always have been, you have to give people credit for living their pretty senseless lives, and suffering so much, and still managing to love and produce poetry (because poetry is love really). The present suffering will be over, I guarantee it. Even as I say this I don’t believe that. But we must. We will be let out of our homes, we will hug and laugh and dance again. Yes we will. Until then I would recommend you do absolutely anything you can to survive. Anything. Yes drugs, yes alcohol, yes yes overeating, yes seeing people you are not supposed to see. And touching -- do it! -- touch them — because that touch might keep you alive, and who knows how long this will last? I can’t imagine why I’m trying to keep you alive. I don’t even know you. But I see you daily, trudging down the street, your mask dangling forlornly from your ear, and I do identify. We have no idea of why or wherefore we persevere, but precisely, for that reason and that reason alone, we must.
