simple is best

i've decided to restructure my communication techniques, my time, my relationships. i'm taking myself off facebook, gaydar and other sites where i can meet, message, chat, and waste hours of time. i'm deleting unused email accounts. i'm renegotiating my availability. it's what i've been blabbering about for a long time, but now is crunch time.

it's also about prioritising relationships. i never phone people anymore. the online people tend to get the most of me, because they're easy to manage. they're boxes of text that come and go. they're quick ways to say hey, i still exist and so do you. they're temporary ego devices where people can say nice things without having to look into your eyes.

i want more verbal and physical relations with bodies and gestures. i want more non-digital, uninterrupted conversation. i want more time to study.

my time offline has been a struggle. but one week in and i'm feeling good about it. it's like losing an arm to remember that you have legs. and this weekend i spent a lot of time walking. leaving the house, being social, chatting to new people.

like the boy who was seeing the dj, but also had a boyfriend. he told me how he intends to leave his boyfriend soon, he will relocate, he will find a new home for his dog. he spoke of his job in surry hills. he showed me photos of the dog he will soon give up.

like him, the other boy on the couch had taken acid and had much to say about the nature documentary that was in its 6th screening that night. he liked the part where the bat was dying. he had his sister's 10th birthday to go to in the morning. he was studying some kind of medical science, and moving back to the inner west soon. we kissed on the couch. he was 22. i felt naughty. but he kissed nicely. he showed me photos of his cat.

there were other chats. and there was a lot of annoying stuff too. like my friend who seems to want more than i can give. demanding and potentially lustful. it scares me.

he, like Paris, makes me turn towards mark. after text messages from each of them on this morning's bus ride, i decide that 'simple is best'. a phrase on a badge, a slogan of MonokuRo pig, a personal joke, a sydneybuses epiphany.

ipod shuffle gave me that final song from shortbus. i thought of mark, our conversations about that film, our weeping in verona cinema darkness. 'we all get it in the end...' is followed by patsy cline's crazy. another film, another time, another mark and me moment. i reach my desk, i transfer money for his broken tooth, i go back out for coffee on the grass with Paris.