What's Missing Is

Was weeping again last night. In between bouts of baisers and baiser. That’s kissing and fucking. T and I have been going at it. Ever since I got back from New York. Much more than at other points of our common life. Looks like that thing I was talking about. ‘Member? I had to do some searching. But I basically had it right. “Heavy heavy shit we carry around with us all the time forgetting it's even burdening us.” We’re over that. We’re celebrating its being gone. Remembering its burden. And so we’re fucking around a lot.

Mostly one on one. But we did go to the movies with B this weekend. No fucking around. But, as you know, it’s related to previous fucking around. In nice ways. We had a drink on a rooftop café overlooking a canal afterwards. That was nice. Though we were all ambivalent about the movie. That everybody’s liking. “Conte de Noël.” Everybody French is in it. Deneuve. Amalric. Devos. Great actors. Doing very good acting. But so bourgeois. Fantasy of French people. Working-class but fluent in German philosophy. Nice fantasy. Big house. Complicated psychoanalytic situations. Several really great scenes. Anyway. Still no tinkle-dinkles to be seen when B’s around. Tonight he’s taking a picture of my face. He’s done other faces. Boys. He calls them. “Les garcons.” Amongst whom we. T and me. Some of whose faces he’s taking. In a picture. When he first mentioned it to me. He told me it was about forgetting of self. Getting that moment. When the self is forgotten. I like the idea. And some of the pictures are great.

So no sex with B. But several times over with T² and W². Over the weekend. Ending with a funny story. Perhaps indicative of things beyond itself. So. Sunday. Movies early with B. 1:00 screening. Phone-call from B at 12:50. “Au secours!” Him saying. Meaning. “Help me!” Because he was late. Afters. Drink and chatty chat chat. After that. Tea and North African pastry with R and M. Bemoaning socialists. Americanizing rampantly. At a moment when. What does that mean? What risks does it involve? R and M sorting books. Because moving. R to US. Sad for us. M staying a year longer. Meaning. My pecs can continue blooming. Because M and I chatting. Talking, even, sometimes, too. While working out.

Afters. Complicated text exchanges with T². Because one likes to think technology works. But. They at Cox. Local trendy pretty boy bar. We late. Aiming for 9. But sitting down for sardines and salad and rice at home only at 9:10. Having to call mothers. 10:30 before taking risk of going to Cox. Because no message received from T² confirming presence at Cox. Me wanting to see them. Again. Because we’d seen them Thursday. At Cox and then at their place not far off. And then Friday. I made stuffed calamari. And afterwards we rolled around and did lots of other things, too, until W² started getting worried they’d miss their last metro at 2. Saturday was Animal Collective. (Yea! Already covered in blog). So no T² and W². But me wanting. To see them again. So. Sunday 10:30. At Cox. No T² and W². Lots of other garcons. In various states of post-weekend disarray. Couples squabbling. Boys drinking and drunk. T and I. Waiting. Me calling. T²’s German cell-phone. Expensive. Getting T². T² saying. Auf deutsch. “Where are you? How long have you been there? We’re coming! Don’t move.” T and I. Not moving. Standing. Sitting. Waiting. Wondering. What in the hell they were doing. Thinking knowing. Exactly what they were doing. Half an hour. Maybe more. Them arriving. With? S! Met in sex club 10 days previously and seen and heard in opera chorus since then. And now. Walking down street behind T² and W². Not knowing any more than we, T and me. That he was why we were waiting. Sit down for drinks and chatting and civilized patter and caresses and smiles. Planning. Maybe a visit to Stuttgart in the Fall. That’s the funny story.

But I started by talking about weeping. You know. That sometimes happens in between bouts of baiser. Getting there where that or laughing can happen indifferently is no doubt one of the reasons I keep fucking. Because the world exists. Again. Differently. Once you let yourself go through that. “The Letting Go.” That was B“P”B’s previous thing. “Strange Form of Life” and all that. This one. Same thing. Just more of it. And more reassured. No need for fancy madrigals. Just “Lie Down in the Light.” Just what he does. Liking it all. But now especially. “What’s Missing Is.” Has to be sung. Has to be heard sung. To hear that what’s missing is. It is. And it’s “some kind of pillow, some loving willow, some care once denied, now dissolved inside.” That’s already fucking good. To hear what’s missing is. But then there’s also. “What’s plenty is.” And what it is is “One God, six tongues, five breaths, four lungs.” Don’t know how I feel about one god. But you also have to hear the bridge. He and his band just playing it. Playing what’s missing and what’s plenty. All of that swelling. Ebbing and flowing. Before taking us to “What’s rhythm is.” And what’s rhythm is “plenty of things missing.” It’ll get you if it catches you in the right light. With a chord change in relation to the other verses on the “missing.” And a shift of B“P”B’s voice into its graver, less heady tones. “Plenty of things missing.” Are in turn. “Steps taken, lips kissing, new harmony on an awesome scale.” And, just as you think he might have gone way too far out of the world with his harmony, he adds “meat against meat.” Finishing up with its being “under sail.” And no tidy final chord to tie it all up. Just letting the song float off “under sail.”

Me thinking. Today in the metro. After some time on the couch. What was I consecrating? Realizing. What I was consecrating. What keeps me dancing. What gives these phrases. Their rock and roll. Their punctuation. Their eventually annoying pat-a-tat-tat.

Rhythm. Plenty of what’s missing.