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Z.A.N.M.A.T.O

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Blog Entries posted by Z.A.N.M.A.T.O

  1. Z.A.N.M.A.T.O

    Real Admiration

    By Z.A.N.M.A.T.O,


    entry
    This week I read for what must have been the fiftieth time Jorge Luis Borges's "Garden of Forking Paths." Like a lot of people on this website, I am an aspiring creative type. When I'm in the heat of a project, I often revisit certain artistic touchstones. They are reminders of what can be done and even guidebooks, if one knows how to read them, on how to do them.
    So, knee-deep into a new project, I revisited the Borges and was again dumbstruck. The story is only a little north of four thousand words, yet in that space it manages to make some interesting observations on racial and national identity, to stage a critique of the discourse of history, to meditate on ethical decision making, to tell a gripping story--and then it takes all that and throws into the middle of it a theory of time that anticipates developments in theoretical physics by about a decade and a half (the story having first appeared in 1941).
    And the atmosphere of that story--it's like a weeb's wet dream. Listen to this:
    "It was under English trees that I meditated on that lost labyrinth: I pictured it perfect and inviolate on the secret summit of a mountain; I pictured its outlines blurred by rice paddies, or underwater; I pictured it as infinite--a labyrinth not of octagonal pavilions and paths that turn back upon themselves, but of rivers and provinces and kingdoms... I imagined a labyrinth of labyrinths, a maze of mazes, a twisting, turning, ever-widening labyrinth that contained both past and future and somehow implied the stars."
    It's the kind of image that would quickly turn into camp or caricature if evoked by a less talented writer. Somehow Borges--and this is really his trademark--manages to embed absolutely batshit crazy ideas seamlessly into an otherwise realistic setting. When you step outside after reading Borges, all of a sudden real life looks as crazy as you realize it always has been.
    If you do any kind of creative writing (though I hate that term), there's always this weird moment where you shift from reading something you admire to trying to write something of your own. "I have access to all the same words. Why do the words behave so beautifully when he or she uses them and yet so stupidly when I use them?" There's something unsettling about knowing you have everything you need to do something but not being able to do it.
  2. Z.A.N.M.A.T.O
    I've decided to deflower this blog with a story, so you can get to know me a little. Perhaps some of you, especially the anxious gay youngsters still waiting for "the one," will even find it useful. It's the story of how I met the guy I suspect will end up being the love of my life.
    I should start off by saying that I'm awkward as hell. Some of you are no doubt thinking, "join the club," and remembering that one time your joke was greeted with silence, or that time you and a stranger had a courtesy stand off in the supermarket, each gesturing the other more and more insistently ahead in line. Those are nowhere near my magnitude of awkward; those are charming by my standards. I'm the type who doesn't know what to do with his eyes or hands. If I try to do something involving a tool in front of someone, some cosmic force makes the tool explode in my idiot fingers. I fear I will one day well-meaningly and absent-mindedly tell a double-leg amputee to put his best foot forward. I sincerely wonder if I'm actually wading in the shallow end of the autism spectrum (ask me to memorize something), or if having a sociopath father and a learning disabled mother just made me poorly socialized.
    In any case, it should come as no surprise that for me to have any shot at romantic involvement, every variable has to be just right. If the wind comes from the west, if my neurotransmitters pause their civil war, if Mercury leaves retrograde, then maybe, just maybe, I won't immediately projectile vomit Gatorade onto whatever misguided sucker asked me out.
    A few summers ago, however, I had a period of time where I was feeling fairly decent about myself. I was several months out of a dead-end relationship; I was decently fit; and I was reaching out to new people more than usual. I like to use Grindr mostly to make friends. I grew up in a town where I seemed to be the single quota-filling gay guy, but now I live in something like gays' natural habitat, so I'm enjoying all the gay friends I can make. It beats all the awkward, one-and-done meet-ups of my late adolescence, where every encounter felt simultaneously hostile and desperate.
    I was living alone that summer and would often just message guys to come over and watch television or play video games or eat with me or go for a walk. I never had ulterior motives, which isn't to say a bunch of dicks didn't end up in my apparently hospitable mouth, but friendship sincerely was the main goal.
    On the day I met my now lover, my needy mouth had a different, even more desperate desire: cheeseburgers. About once a month I'm struck by a vision of a cheeseburger and suddenly it seems like the most noble, divinely inspired creation. And sexy too: the lingerie of lettuce, the orgy of partially identifiable condiments, the money shot of grease running down my chin. Nothing can come between me and a cheeseburger once I have burger lust.
    Which is why the first message I sent to him was: "do you want to get burgers with me?" No greeting, no preliminaries, no suggestion of anything naughty. His profile pictures didn't show his face, but that was fine because I didn't care what he looked so long as he could a) eat a cheeseburger or b) be contented to watch me eat a cheeseburger.
    My first impression of him was that he was short and strange-looking. At first I solved the problem of not being able to decide if I found him attractive by aggressively avoiding eye contact. But once we were settled at the restaurant I had no choice but to do my best impression of normal people, and I did find him cute, though I noticed he also seemed to be dodging my eye. In fact, I began to notice that he was in the same league of awkwardness I am. Sure, he was a little more composed than me, a little more put together, but I was the one who kept conversation going, out-talking him three-to-one that first hangout. I actually felt rather cocky around him; I felt like I could really be myself, like he could see through my armor plating of awkwardness to the ideal vision I have of myself, and that he approved of what he saw.
    He followed me back to my apartment, saw I had a full-length weighted keyboard, and asked if I played. I played for him part of a Liszt piece which I would say is obscure by the philistine standards of the average twenty-something American twink, but he nevertheless correctly identified it as "Un Sospiro," which impressed me. Some months later he told me it was at that moment that he decided he was going to suck my dick that day, which he did less than an hour later. I returned the favor, surprising none of you.
    I'll talk more about him and how our relationship developed in future entries (this one has gotten out of hand), but if anyone reading is single, lonely, and a little worried about how, if, and when they'll meet someone special, then I just want to point out how stupid and contingent this life-changing encounter was. I just wanted a cheeseburger. I went into what ended up being retrospectively upgraded to a "first date" confident and at ease because I was only thinking about how hungry I was. If you are awkward like me, that might be a good strategy: charge single-mindedly towards whatever makes you happy and see who comes along for the ride.
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