Journal Project #3: "Should You Feel Inclined to Censure"

When we left off last [time], the hideous dragon had carried the maid to his cave by moonlight. He gnashed his teeth, breathed his fire, the earth quaked, and we trembled in fear... (Anyone who gets that reference should just marry me right now.) Okay, seriously. When we left off last time, I had been in Milwaukee for about five months. I was juggling three different guys, all of whom I was convinced were amazing at first. I was discovering that life on my own isn't as easy as I had thought it would be.

January 27, 1997
....So I had a bad [technique] class. Then I go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and see a hideous, ugly face looking back at me. Certainly that can't really be me, I think. Oh, but it is. No wonder I can't find a decent guy to date. I scare them all away. One look at me sends them screaming in the opposite direction. I'm sure I'm only fooling myself about N. too. Why would someone like him be remotely interested in me? N. could have just about anyone he wants. Why am I infatuated with him anyway?...I'm sure I'd be much too dull for him, too quiet, too reserved, too innocent, too skinny, too conservative, and too ugly. Am I being too hard on myself? I don't think so. Maybe instead of telling myself I'm not ugly etc. I should just admit that I am and learn to live with it. If I admit that I am boring and ugly then I couldn't possibly be disappointed from trying to be otherwise and failing. I couldn't be disappointed when all the nice guys pass me up...Deep down I know it's stupid to writing all the down...but it is how I feel. I've never considered myself to be good looking or talented. It's kind of scary to feel like I'll never be truly happy... I'm such a loser. The only life I have is in my fantasies. Grow up, Justin.


February 6, 1997
...I have too many things on my mind without having to worry about this...freako stalking me. Why can't anyone good like me? Oh, I forgot. My face scares them all away. So only gross people are attracted to me. It's a curse I'll have to learn to live with. You don't suppose there might be a beautiful person out there who is attracted to trash like me, do you? I guess it's not very fair of me to judge humanity like I do....It's just sad that beautiful people can have anyone they want, and people like me only have dreams and fantasies. And a hope that someday Bryce will find me.

February 23, 1997
I am home [in AZ] now... It was so wonderful to surprise my mom... [I hadn't told her I was coming.] I'll give you details about  the audition [at Ballet Arizona] later. There is something else I want to tell you about. Shortly before we left Milwaukee I found out that this guy, F., was going to be here. I met him in Yuma. I only saw him once because he was dancing in Pittsburgh at the time... After class, F. [and other friends] and I went to the bagel shop. That's when I got a good look at him. Hair like silk. Eyes as blue as the sky and as deep as space. A perfectly shaped nose. The reddest red lips, smoother than you can imagine. Beautiful teeth. Beautiful eyebrows. And the most beautiful fair skin that it drove me crazy not to touch... The other night I invited him to go to Chris and Alberts' with us to eat dinner, watch movies, and spend the night... We met at my house and E. drove us all there. Dinner was wonderful! (He sat next to me at the table.) The movies were wonderful! (He sat next to me on the couch.)... One by one people started going to bed... He was lying on one couch and I was lying on the other. We talked until 7:30 in the morning! I have never been so high... It's cool to find someone who is beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside... Looking in his eyes filled me with a feeling I can't describe....

March 18, 1997 [back in WI]
So much wonderful news! Yesterday was an incredible day. For a couple weeks, dancers have been telling me that I am being watched and that the artistic staff wants to use me. However, according to union regulations, they can't use me [a trainee] before a company member. And there were a couple apprentices who weren't cast in anything. So yesterday the artistic director offered me a contract for the rest of the season! They couldn't cast me as a trainee so they promoted me to apprentice. I was so shocked. It happened out of the clear blue... After I got off the phone I didn't know what I was more excited about: getting promoted or talking to F. Crazy huh?...

April 2, 1997
On March 27 I got another letter from F. It was such a sweet, sensitive letter... He said, "My relationships with men in the past have been based on lust and it was very easy for me to see how they were wrong. I'm confused... I'm starting to really care about you and I think about you a lot and it doesn't feel wrong." You can't imagine what I felt when I read that...

April 10, 1997 [in AZ after the ballet company's season was over]
... [F. and I] found a covered picnic table and poured the wine. We talked and ate and drank for quite a while... We played on the playground toys for a while. Then I sat down on a platform to look at the stars. He climbed up, laid down, and put his head in my lap. It was so peaceful and serene. I got chills through my body to think about the weight of his head on my thighs, and to see his beautiful face. He lifted his hand over his head and put his hand on my leg. I put my hand on his arm. It was wonderful beyond anything I've ever imagined. I felt like I could reach up and touch those constellations we were looking at... After about two hours we decided to talk in his car because it was getting pretty cold outside. Again he put his head in my lap. His hand was "exploring" mine, and mine his. Fingers caressing fingers. I put my head on his and breathed in the scent of his hair and felt its cool softness with my lips... He lifted his head and kissed me. From that point we basically kissed for two and a half hours.

April 12, 1997
Thursday night one of my worst nightmares came true... After dinner...F. and I went back to my house. I invited him in and we sat down and started talking. We were sitting very close, holding hands, etc. I kept thinking, what if my mom comes out here? But then we started kissing and making out on the couch... After a bit he laid his head on my chest. We stopped moving at all and just lay there lost in each other's arms. All of a sudden I heard a click and saw light through my closed eyes. I cracked one eyes open and saw my mother who had just turned on the porch light and was looking outside. I immediately shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep. She turned around, saw us lying together, and walked back to her room. My whole world suddenly crashed and fell to rubble. The near perfection and joy I had felt mere moments before had become memories of something that had happened years ago. I sat up and told F. that my mother had just been in there. (He couldn't see because he was lying on his stomach with his head down.) I was totally sick to my stomach and felt like I couldn't move. F. kept apologizing. After he left a couple minutes later, I felt more alone than I've ever felt. I felt like because of my irresponsibility I had lost my mother and F. all in one night. I "slept" on the couch--if you can call a night-long anxiety attack sleeping. The next day my mom didn't speak to me until 2:00 in the afternoon... We talked a bit more about everything and got it all taken care of. We gave each other a big hug and said I love you.

April 28, 1997
[This entry came after several moody, emotional entries in which F. had cancelled plans several times and was clearly distancing himself from me.] ...There was a part of me that believed he wasn't trying to to distance himself from me, but my crumbled heart was telling me that he didn't like me... The next day I waited...and waited...and waited...until about 5:00 PM when I finally called him. He said he had been driving all day and had just got back an hour ago. And that he didn't feel like going out. This of course meant that I wouldn't get to see him before I left [to go back to Milwaukee].... He said he would keep in touch. And that's where we are now. Keep in touch. Later I realized how foolish it was to think it would work.... In the mean time I will continue to meet and date people. But I will never again become so enamored of someone that I'm not thinking clearly and becoming way too emotionally attached. It only causes me a lot of unneeded stress and anxiety.

May 30, 1997
Earlier this evening Julie went with me to the Gay Pride Festival. Something kind of cool happened that couldn't have happened at a better time....We walked to the tent where the various vendor booths were and leisurely began browsing through the gay pride paraphernalia. We passed by a cute blonde guy and our eyes met briefly. He was slightly shorter than myself, boyish face, glasses, baseball cap. Julie and I continued on and a few minutes later we passed him again. Again, our eyes met....Julie had to use the bathroom really bad so after quite a bit of prodding and coaxing she got up to use the portable bathrooms that she so despises. What I hoped and feared would happen, did. He came over to the table and said, "Okay, I'm going to do this." He said this was something he never did, but his friends (who were straight) convinced him to do it.... I was so flattered that someone would come up to ugly me and start a conversation. He said, "If I give you my phone number, will you call me?" I wanted to say, "Hell yes!" but I refrained and said, "Possibly..." I told [Julie] the whole story and she advised me to be very careful and not to get all worked up over this. She knows I have a tendency to become all too quickly infatuated with a person.... I think it's very safe to say that nothing major will come out of this....

June 10, 1997
I got home from Idaho a couple days ago...My dad introduced me to the wonderful world of the internet. I became addicted and was on the computer for hours and hours at a time. I did make a couple friends on it though. One of them lives in Tucson and I will supposedly meet him next week. I just found the whole thing so fascinating. To be talking back and forth to people all over the country--and the world--is totally amazing.
     I called K. [the guy I had met at Pride] a few hours after I got home. Almost immediately we clicked. We laughed and teased each other...Not too long into the conversation, we kind of decided that we were going to date. We even talked about semi-long-term things like me going back to Milwaukee. I realize that sounds weird but I'm telling you, we clicked. I know that this was a person I could really like and maybe even fall in love with....Somehow, and i don't remember how, maybe I blocked it out, he told me that he is HIV+. My heart sank... I told him it would take more than that to scare me away. I told him that as far as I knew him now, he is worth the "trouble"... For some reason I kept waiting to hear him say, "Just kidding." It still seems like a dream.... [We went on our first date the next day.] When we got back to my house we sat in the car for an hour and a half and held each other. It was so much different than it was with F. [He] and I didn't do nearly as much as F. and I did, but I felt about it than I did with F.

June 14, 1997
...I could easily tell him I love him and spend the rest of our lives together. I'm just afraid of opening up. With the way things are going, I wouldn't be at all surprised if within the next week our "vows of love" will be out in the open...What's cool is that I skipped over the infatuation stage. Looking back on past entries and remembering past "relationships," they were all based on petty attractions and fickle emotions. I can't tell you exactly what they were, but I can feel enough of a difference in my relationship with K. to know that they aren't here. The feelings and emotions are honest and real... This is the first time I feel real. This is the first time I feel like the other person is real...

June 20, 1997
I write this entry with a great deal of fear and trepidation. My relationship with K. is turning out to be much more difficult than I had imagined it being... I haven't talked to Julie in a week because she is upset about me dating K. She called my house (when I wasn't home) on Monday all distressed and worried. She got my mom worried but wouldn't tell her anything. So then my mom made her tell her what was going on. Needless to say, she wasn't happy... [They] are only seeing negatively. They don't see it in any way as being a good thing...
    K. and I are talking about the possibility of him moving back to Milwaukee with me. I know we've only been dating for two weeks, but this is something we can really see happening....

July 13, 1997
So I took off my rose-colored glasses and saw that things aren't as ducky as I thought. I like K. a great deal, but he likes me much more than I like him. When I really examined the prospect of him going to Milwaukee with me, I didn't like it at all... He wanted to look at rings and get my ring size. That is what first made me say, "Whoa!"... I feel terrible because I know he's in love with me. Every time we do anything (sexual) I worry about getting HIV. When we finish I lie there almost nauseous worrying that I caught it... We haven't necessarily done anything unsafe. The very thought of the risk being there terrifies me.

July 20, 1997
[This entry comes after seeing F., the guy I was so obsessed with for so long, in case your'e getting confused by all the letters, at a store while shopping with K. All the old emotions were still there. He told me he had been offered a contract with Ballet Memphis and would be leaving soon. He said he wanted to get together before he left. He was dating a girl at that time.] ...I also came to the painful discovery that even if F. did know he wanted to be with a man, we would not work for each other, at least not right now. I feel very intimidated by his beauty. With it, he holds an incredible amount of power--and he knows it; although, I doubt he would admit it. Women are attracted to him. Men are attracted to him. If he wanted a boyfriend or a girlfriend he could have...almost anyone he wants. You can imagine how I, being ugly and undesirable, would be a little self-conscious around someone so beautiful....