August 2007

August 29, 2007

Here, verbatim, is the voice mail message I just got from my very funny heterosexual brother:

"Hey, Faustus, it's your brother. I'm calling about something specific. What is with you gay people and these, like, weirdo signals and shit? Have you been following the Larry Craig thing? It's like, crazy, the tapping the foot, and the--and the bag this way, and it's crazy stuff. I mean, I don't know, man, I just feel like, how many times have I accidentally been in the gay bathroom and I gave the signal by accident? It's--it's a weird thing. Anyway, I just wanted to discuss it with you briefly. All right, bye."

Posted by Faustus, MD at 02:08 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

August 26, 2007

Last weekend, after we had sex but before we got out of bed to leave for the movies, E.S. and I had the following conversation:

E.S.: So what are you doing for the rest of the day?
FAUSTUS: Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll go to the movies with a hot guy.
E.S.: Lucky you. I'm going to the movies with some schmuck.
FAUSTUS: Well, you get what you deserve. (E.S. tickles FAUSTUS's ear, which he knows FAUSTUS hates.) Stop that!
E.S.: You get what you deserve.
FAUSTUS: No, I meant that you get what you deserve.
E.S.: And you get off scot-free, is that it?
FAUSTUS: Exactly.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 03:20 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

August 25, 2007

An interesting dilemma:

I'm writing something in which it makes sense for me to use the past tense of the verb "sleepwalk."

The easiest approach is of course to treat "sleepwalk" as a compound verb the first element of which is a noun and the second element of which a verb, like "babysit."

And yet "sleepwalked" looks and sounds and feels so totally wrong.

I feel an incredibly strong compulsion to understand "sleep" here as a verb, which makes no linguistic sense, since at least off the top of my head I can't think of any compound verbs both elements of which are verbs, but still. In this theoretical idiolect I generate the past tense "slepwalked." (I tried "sleptwalked" but that was just barbaric.)

Of course I could get around the whole problem by using "somnambulated," but where would be the fun in that?

Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:36 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)

August 20, 2007

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I might soon have an exciting piece of news to share.

I do.

A quick look through the archives of this blog will make it clear that I haven't been posting nearly as much for the last couple of years as I did before that; there was even a time, indeed, when I made daily posts. I am desolate to have slacked off for so long, but it's been for a good reason, which is that I have been spending my creative energy elsewhere, in writing a book.

A book that has been accepted for publication, I have just learned, by Broadway/Random House (the same people who published my first book, Gay Haiku, which you must immediately buy and read if you have not already done so).

The new book has taken me so long to write because it consists not of 110 more short poems but of nine long-ish essays, à la David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, David Rakoff, et al.

The book is called Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever. There are essays about knitting, casual sex, cheerleading, teaching aerobics, musical theater writing, dating, gay summer camp, go-go dancing, and a surprise topic I may or may not choose to reveal in advance of the book's publication, which is scheduled for June 2008.

I am very, very pleased with the manuscript, though I'm sure I'll continue to edit it until the printers yank it out of my hands.

But, man, it was easier when I only had to come up with 1,870 syllables.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:34 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (0)

August 19, 2007

I'm sorry, but when did we enter a universe in which anything but derisive, incredulous laughter would meet the idea of Israel's expulsion of Darfurian refugees?

Posted by Faustus, MD at 02:05 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

August 09, 2007

An internal monologue I wish I could do over:

Oh, yay, the mail is here. Let's see if I got anything interesting. Bill, bill, bill, junk, bill, junk, junk, gosh here's a Netflix DVD! I wonder what they sent me. Hmm, Sophie's Choice. Gee, I forgot I had even put that on my queue. But I'm glad they sent it, because I always hear people talking about what a good movie it is and I've never seen it and now I'll know what they're talking about! Plus, I've been in kind of a funk for a couple days so it'll be nice to have a good movie to cheer me up.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:25 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

August 08, 2007

During the play I also mumble incomprehensibly and cut myself with scissors in a desperate bid for attention.

Then I go onstage.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

August 07, 2007

The play I am in opens on Saturday afternoon.

I was going to write a post suggesting that if you lived in the New York metropolitan area and wanted to see a fun show in which I make out bare-chested with another boy you should come to the Players Theater on 115 MacDougal Street (just south of West 3rd Street) at one of the following times:

Saturday, 8/11: 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday, 8/14: 5:45 p.m.
Tuesday, 8/21: 9:15 p.m.
Wednesday, 8/22: 5:15 p.m.
Thursday, 8/23: 3:00 p.m.

and that you could buy tickets here.

However, I seem unaccountably to have gained fifty pounds since Thursday, so I have to write about something else instead.

I'll let you know when I think of a topic.

In the meantime, my plan is to eat nothing between now and Saturday. My original plan was to eat nothing between last night and Saturday, but then I saw some M&Ms.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 07:20 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

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