the other 'L' word

Eve, with her hair ponied and her sweater tightly hugging the contours of her upper body, brought over to my apartment the entire second season of Showtime's The L Word on DVD.

I hadn't even seen the first season. I had no interest in seeing it, because I felt that it was going to be a gay version of Sex & The City, a show that (quite frankly) I've never been able to stand watching for more than a small eternity.

Eve has always flirted with lesbian chic, even back in the halcyon days of our schooling. My attitude towards her openly bisexual tendencies was one of sincere bemusement: I never really believed that she was into girls at all. I have never personally witnessed her do anything beyond flirtatious socializing. I am quite used to seeing girls kiss, whether it was out of drunken passion, bold daring, or sensual femininity.

This is not to say that Eve hasn't had encounters with girlfriends and lovers of the same sex. But it's not my business, otherwise I think I would've factored into the equation somewhere down the line.

It doesn't bother me, that's for sure. In fact, like most red-blooded males, the notion of lipstick lesbians and femme dykes getting it on... well, I don't think I need to elaborate any further than that.

Would I like to be a part of such an event? Yes, just as much as I would love to win the lottery or win a date with Angelina Jolie. But I don't torture myself over it, because I know that the odds of my ever being a part of some lesbian tryst with Eve and another girl are exactly the same as winning the Lotto or dating Angelina.

I think I should mention at this point that Eve and I haven't been having sex. Sure, we've been touchy-feely, and we've shared a bed or two in the past month or so... but she has shut me down in the sex department. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that I'm a horny bastard who is never satisfied, and she wants me to value her for more than just toe-rattling sex.

Yeah, I think that might be the reason...


*/*


So Eve brought over the DVD set of the show, and introduced me to one of the more entertaining and erotic cable TV shows in recent memory. I realize that it is merely a soap opera that bares more flesh than the norm, but the stellar acting from the ensemble cast makes up for the melodrama.

And then there's Shane, played by Katherine Moenning. Eve and I both agree that Shane is the most bad-ass character on the show-- on any show, really --and that she is a Goddess. I like Shane because she is a straight-up gangsta mackette when it comes to picking up fellow lezzies, while Eve probably sees her as a role model.

When Eve came by with the goods, I warned her: "This is going to get me extremely horny. I can't be held responsible for my actions once things start rolling..." And of course, there were multiple scenes of girl-on-girl action spliced in between the plot and dialogue. We got through roughly six episodes before Eve went home for the night.

I behaved myself. I was a perfect gentleman.


*/*


The reason why I bring this show up is not to drool over hot girls in panties touching each other delicately... I can always write about that.

No, the reason is that there was one episode featuring Sandra Bernhard as a college English professor. One of the show's leads was applying to Bernhard's character's writing class, and Bernhard kept on ragging on the poor girl's writing.

"You have no imagination. You aren't writing fiction. You don't write-- you journal. You haven't transformed it into fiction yet. Talk to me when you learn how to be a writer first..."

(Obviously, I'm paraphrasing here...)

And then I thought about this blog, and how I have become accustomed to journaling instead of writing the lush and dense prose that I used to employ in my first primal bloggings. I deleted half a million words because I thought it was too excessive. I have tried since then to radically alter my approach to writing in order to understand how to write in a blog.

Well, now that I've been blogging for some time, I think I know what it is that I want to do: I want to write, not journal.


*/*


I recently had an encounter with a girl I met on My Space. She is a writer, and she actually went out of her way to meet me at my work one day. She wanted to know if I was full of shit for claiming to work at a radio station.

I was surprised to see this petite curly-haired redhead named Lana standing in the lobby. She just barged in and told the receptionist that she had an appointment with me.

We discussed music and recording (Lana used to be a assistant sound mixer), and then we started talking about writing. Lana makes her living by writing, and I asked her how I could get a writing gig for myself.

"Well, what kind of writing do you want to do?" she asked me.

"Uh, I want to write fiction... characters... literature."

"Well, I'm a journalist. I don't write fiction. I can't help you there. But, if you know how to transcribe, I can get you some gigs, possibly."

"I can type 56 words per minute."

Lana looked at me as if I were some sort of writing anomaly. She was attractive and well-toned, but her face was hard and suspicious. As a New York transplant, she is probably inured to phonies telling her whatever they think she wants to hear.

"Fuckin' A. No shit?"

"No shit. How about you?"

"Oh, well, I type like an old lady. One finger on each hand. It takes me hours to transcribe my interviews sometimes."

"I type with one finger also. And I'm fucking fast."

"Well, if you're not bullshitting me, maybe you can help me meet this deadline I've got in December. Help me with this and I can definitely help you out later on down the line. I can't pay you shit, though."

"I understand. Just keep me posted. I've got a lot of free time."

Nothing is set in stone obviously, but if she is for real, then she will find out soon enough that I am for real as well. If I get some sort of job assisting her with her assignments, it could turn into something lucrative in the future. Or it could not.

No one knows for sure. That's the beauty of it all.


*/*


I walked Lana to the elevator, and she turned to me and said:

"Well, as long as you don't stalk me or hit on me, I think we won't have any problems."

You have to understand something here: In the spirit of pure Jungian synchronicity, I actually saw Lana about a week before she visited me at my work. I was walking to my car and saw her strutting towards the parking lot. I instantly recognized her from her online profile, but she was talking on a cel phone headset and didn't even see me as she passed me by.

I e-mailed her the following week, and told her that I worked in the Sherman Oaks Galleria building. She explained that she worked out in the 24-hour gym in the mall. I replied that, since we'd never met before, I didn't think it would be right for me to walk up to her and startle her by revealing who I was. She replied by saying that I was smart for doing that.

So when she walked into the elevator and said what she said about stalking her and hitting on her, I was ready with a response:

"Yeah, well, don't worry-- the last thing I need is more problems."

We shook hands, and the elevator doors closed.


*/*


And now I think about Sandra Bernhard's advice, and Lana's aggressive lessons, and Eve's alluring teasing, and I realize that I need to get back to that original seed, the root of my desire to novelize and turn everything that happens to me into a work of art.

I am not content to simply catalogue the events of my day. I want to alchemize it all and shape it into a monument to the eternal, the infinite...

I want to indulge in that other L word, the one known as 'Literature'... I think I'm done with journaling. I was never really good at it anyway-- all of my early attempts at keeping a diary were always foiled by two things: inconsistent chronicling, with boredom setting in after a month or two; and a tendency to embellish upon the truth via artistic license.

Tonight, I will go over to Laurie and Daniel's place, and talk about the novel I wrote, the one that needs to be edited, the one that has become a labor of love for me, the one that I used to have partially linked to this blog before Laurie suggested I take it down for protection's sake.

I think it's the only thing I can do at this point.