July - December, 1999

July 15, 1999

A few visits to Pakhtakor, the sweet, sometimes bitter taste of anonymous cum. What is it about this ritual that attracts me so? Tasting a straight Uzbek lets me partake of his rigid but manly traditions which the West (and gays) have lost (or parody). It also lets me cast aside my shame, gives the adrenaline rush associated with the thrill of danger, transforms a sordid, foul smelling shit-hole into a fleeting cathedral of ecstacy. To be more prosaic, it's convenient, the sine qua non of anonymous sex. But then that all changed two weeks ago with my birthday.
"Is there love after love?" It seems so. O brought his Uzbek flame, Aiub to my birthday party. His rugged, warm smile, quiet self-confidence, compact solid body, swarthy, weathered face with the usual thick wiry Uzbek black hair quickly won me over. I hoped against hope that he would be at Yahya's birthday a week later. I wasn't too sanguine, as O told me in passing that he was already sure that Aiub was playing the field, and he didn't love him. O is rightly jealous, as I could sense the sexy vibes that Job (yes, the Biblical metaphor for suffering!) was sending my way at our brief meeting. I urged O to stick with Job, to be generous with his translator's wealth, all the time wishing myself in his place. Meanwhile, the thrill of the anonymous chase waned.
When they showed up at Yaha's, I was overjoyed, and J angled to sit by me most of the time, bumming cigarettes, which we smoked at the open window, joined by a politely intrusive O. J's foot on mine sent electricity through me, and I managed to arrange to meet him on the pretext of a swim in the Anhor canal mid-week. That accomplished, I took my leave from the increasingly drunken fest, where it turns out J and a latecomer both fucked a very drunk Yahya, much to O's distress. My guilt at cuckolding O is consequently very low (O related how he spent the previous night with a cop to try to make J jealous which struck me as pointless, but further lessened my guilt worries.). That gave me time to settle on a quick trip to Chimgan, supposedly with Rashid, but in fact to consummate my burning desire.
I feel torn because of M, but the constant surging of my cock and solid erection with (the thought of) J means something. Sex with M has become a chore - also a source of guilt for me, but again, what do I do? I told J that M is dear to me as a friend, but all the posing (I didn't dredge up Tolik, though he's definitely the pudding) has turned me off him as a sex partner. J is a typical Uzbek bi - sexy, manly, with the requisite family, and a 'top'. Our rendezvous in Chimgan was great sex, though I stupidly lured him on what I thought would be an easy trail, but which turned out to be treacherous, and he almost came to serious harm. To save himself from catapulting down a slipperly shale slope, he ended up having a rock land on his wrist, suffering a big gash and a swollen arm. Though we still managed the supreme act afterwards, that knocked some sense into us and we returned cowed the next morning. I've been in turmoil since, and await our tryst tomorrow at a cheap hotel hungrily. It's as if he pumps me full of life and me - him, as if we possess each other in all our differences, making a beautiful, powerful whole.
What will happen now? M constantly notes my lack of interest, though he still crawls into bed with me once a week. I already stopped trying to come, though if he catches me with an erection, I can perform frottage with a fantasy. I can't abandon him - we've been through too much, and J, for all his passion for me, is a bi - a roving one at that, needing to use sex not only to show his mastery over other males, but to support himself. This I'm only too happy to help out with, unlike O, but I don't want to hurt either O or M. 'It's beyond our control,' as the standard line goes for adulterers.
Meanwhile, I'm disgusted by what's going on out there - America on an orgy of spend (a negative savings rate - the first time since 1933), flexing its muscles (Kosovo, the inexorable revaluation of the dollar), the obviously fucked environment (the hottest years on record, combined with the coldest and rainiest summers here). Life isn't a having and getting, but a being and becoming, I constantly remind myself. My sexual highs are on a completely different plain than anything money could buy. Even an assignation at Pakhtakor is worth more than a new (unnecessary) pair of fashionable jeans. I can't imagine buying into the 'buying into.' My only regret is that I can't put more of my 2 cents worth into the stinking brew. (Even our language is more and more monetized.) Teaching English and a bit of journalism seems like a cop-out.

August 1, 1999

True love is hard, and I don't necessarily mean THAT. After Chimgan, we haven't got it together, not for want of wanting on my part. He did rush to meet me one day to tap me for 1500 sums - his mother, wife and kids descended on him for 3 days. Our constantly cancelled meetings drove me first to Blue Cupolas after meeting with MSF Canadian staff at their first anniversary. The cupolas just happened to be on my way to the metro, and there just happened to be a sexy young guy casually sitting on the railing near the bus stop. I stopped for a smoke, eyeing him. He casually looked back and forth. I finished my cigarette and after waiting a few more minutes, decided he might just be waiting for a bus after all, and slowly sauntered off. Not having lost all hope, I turned around, to see he had started off slowly in the other direction, though looking back at me. I changed my mind, and found him on a bench 50 meters past the stop. I sat down nervously. He asked the time in Uzbek and then asked if I was hanging out, also in Uzbek. Somehow, we ended up walking sort-of together, I finally understood he wanted me to buy him some cigarttes. Before I knew it, we were casually walking away together, avoiding a suspicious policeman, and were soon in a dark disused apartment staircase. The rest is history. Bakhtyor. My first totally Uzbek experience. What a boost for my plodding along with this #%*^ language! His promise to be there the next night (and (blush) a number of subsequent nights) at the same time proved to be as valuable as many other Uzbek promises, including J's.
A midday cancellation by J - I drifted to Pakhtakor to find my warhorse Valera waiting for me. A crazy was jerking off in the can, and V refused to come in, so I hung out at a distance outside. After probably ten or more trysts with V, I still can't figure him out, so I let him make his intentions clear. He sauntered off to an outhouse conveniently located close-by and unused (except for the likes of us). After our tryst, he enthusiastically took up my offer of a beer, and I heard a disconnected and wild story of his life, which mostly centered on his 90 year-old grandfather in Kishenev and his military service in Afghanistan, where he was wounded.
Another no-show of J's led me back to good ol' Pakhtakor one evening at 6:30. A tall, attractive young guy just preceded me into the can, and was thrusting his erection at me a minute later. Rustam enjoyed acrobatics, hanging from the stall, thrusting his head back, and moaning enthusiastically. Afterwards, he approached me outside and we walked and talked for a couple of hours. New to this and frightened by the implications of his desire and the extent of it, he nonetheless agreed to come over to 'teach me some Uzbek', which he did, complete with moans of ecstasy. M met him when he came over, though doesn't seem to suspect anything. Rustam's third lesson, yesterday, left me cranky. He took forever to come, and the moans and protestations that "I can't take it" paled after the first few minutes. I had a fine erection at first, and could have come easily several times while he kept moaning and twisting. His climax was an anti-climax, and the cum tasted just a bit nauseating (I shouldn't have come). I fear that will be our last time, though indeed the lessons are good.
When J phoned this am, there I was - free. But I felt sexually dead after Rustam yesterday, the puncturing of my fantasy of V the tough, silent partner, and all the disappointments with J. Rushing to accommodate him feels slightly humiliating now, not magical as before. When a rendezvous fell through yet again, I was even relieved, and went off to buy some piano music from an impoverished piano teach, Valeri Mikhailovna, from the Conservatory. Scarlatti, Handel, Haydn, Liadov, Mayskovsky, Goltz, Heller...
Whatever happens, I feel that I must rely more on myself. Depending on M, then being disappointed with his cruelty, alternatively domineering and then prancing behavior, and finally betrayal left me feeling wounded and alone. My tentative promiscuity, seeking that fix out there, however fleeting, isn't much better. But now I can see the whole age-old array of relationships opening up before me in my mature years: 'true love' and a kind of marriage (M), boredom and a lover (J), a bit of the old anonymous and promsicuous sex on the side (Pakhtakor), and always the unrequited 'could-have-been'(the buses). And I can't fault myself for not getting out and trying. In fact, when I got angry at being stood up by J, I summoned up some Buddhist philosophy: 'let it go' and just enjoy him if he comes through sometime. I shouldn't cling like a leech. That is hardly alluring. And in the meantime, hustle.
When I submitted to our once-a-week ritual tonight, M said with a sad smile: "You never come anymore with me. I'm just an attendant for you." However, of all the possible partners today, I would have chosen him, if only because the feeling of humiliation is less with him. The only way I would want to be the 'top' would be with a smaller guy, a non-existent young teen who wants to 'fool around', i.e., nothing too serious, to minimize the guilt, my solid barrier erected long ago and still in place. Recently M made fun of my low standards in life as a so-called journalist, musician, provider - "Like in bed, so in life". Expecting this (who knows better than me my unending string of failures in life?) I came back with: "Yah, and I surround myself with destructive people who encourage this. After all, I'm a masochist."

On the political front, I saw a retro 'Old apartment' program on 1990 where the economist Shmelev was interviewed about Shatalin's 500 day plan to try to save the Soviet Union by absorbing the empty money through controlled inflation and beginning the economic restructuring by closing the really bad industries. He claims that the economy would have suffered a 20% decline, not the 50% decline that Yeltsin's free-for-all allowed, that people would not have been impoverished, and a ruling elite of criminals would have been prevented. Sounds great, but what about the hardcore, unreformed Stalinist CP. They inspired a putsch even without that radical reform plan.

On the dope front, James Taylor put it well: "I always thought of taking drugs as playing superman - going into a phone booth, making a quick change, and voila, omnipotence. After 20 years, I finally realized I had spent the whole time in a phone booth."

August 21, 1999

I sense an underlying schizophrenia these days around the world - on the surface, the world seems to be on a wild shopping spree, with computer-led growth promising consumer bliss. But then occasional articles even in the FT and Sunday Times - various pleas to forgive the massive 3rd world debt; a counterculture blast of globalism swamping poor countries, encouraging environmental devastation, wiping out culture; a profile of Chris Grimshaw, a 25-year-old urban anarchist, Oxford educated, who organized J18 in London, June 18 being an international day of protest to coincide with a G8 summit in Cologne; reminders of McLibel, the longest suit in British legal history; CONSTANT reminders of species going extinct every few minutes, acres of rainforest wiped out every second, the greenhouse effect going through the roof...
I feel like my only sensible option is to fuck the world, fuck as much as possible while I still retain some sexual attraction, and try to create art, be it at this keyboard or the one behind me, perpetually out of tune though it is. The music I bought recently from a poverty-stricken music teacher keeps me sane - Bach, Scarlatti and Haydn especially. It seems that humanity has gone downhill steadily ever since then.
But maybe the post-generation-X will pick up the torch of revolution. An Utne article - corporate culture jamming challenges us to take on the monolithic economic system, demanding true costs, demarketing, dumping the corporate 'person' established by an 1886 US Supreme Court decision, demanding a 'Media Carta' of free access to information for everyone (Internet should have SOME positive social use), hammering away publicly at the doomsday machine of global capitalism... I don't know.

As for my sex life, I keep M at bay as much as possible, and if today is any indication, it doesn't do him much harm. Twice a week intensifies his pleasure, and given that being active with him is more or less pointless, my rationed jacking off with a good erection is far better than nothing. I hang out at night when I can at the Blue Cupolas bus stop, hoping against hope to find Bakhtyor again - my first fuck entirely in Uzbek, but not much luck since then.
As for Job - I alternate between thinking he's a shallow, promiscuous, untrustworthy bi, or someone sent for a higher power to force me to be independent, to challenge me to be active, manly and in control. He has phoned several times, and finally I dropped everything one afternoon and beelined it for O's apt, where we had a wild half hour. He wanted to call a friend to join us but I demurred. While sex with M is a recognition of our bond or commitment, sex with J is a sacred male ritual, requiring an omnipotent God-like figure penetrating a yielding worshipper. It is uncomfortable to stay around him after orgasm - he's more like an holy incarnation than a real person for me. I don't want to hear him fart or otherwise be reminded that he suffers the same earthly problems I do. Not a stable relationship, but one that gives me an erection whether or not I want it.

September 8, 1999

Inspired by Notes & Queries and Dr. Zhivago to think about art and the meaning of life.
At the beginning, Lara rediscovered the meaning of her life [in the countryside]: "It was to make sense of its [nature's] wild enchantment." Near the end there is a lovely passage when Kararovsky takes Lara away, leaving Zh behind. His emotional experience was so intense, he felt that nature had come alive and was comforting him with its beauty and vastness, a kind of pathetic fallacy, a kind of example of meaning or purpose IN nature (nature comforts and teaches us, revealing its mystery). After hearing some pompous revolutionary speeches, Zh slips away, thinking "How intense can be the longing to escape from the emptiness and dullness of human verbosity, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labour, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!" Bits of meaning to be contrasted with the meaninglessness of the soulless pursuit of abstract revolutionary aims.
Variations on this: exploring self awareness, the very search for the meaning of life, to achieve joy or peace (through worship), or existentially, to make your own meaning through living.
Yuri realised that art has two constant, two unending preoccupations: it is always meditating upon death and it is always thereby creating life. Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it so that every work of art, including tragedy, witnesses to the joy of existence.
I like Tolstoy's simpler explanation that art is the attempt to convey one's feelings to others through words, music or picture.

I suspect that my tortured life, unsettled and with little 'achievement' to look back or forward on, has the bright side that I'm freeing myself from the shackles of past karma. Perpetuating yourself through achievement and offspring really is just creating ties to the material world which will continue to hold you in later reincarnations. My mindless pursuit of others' orgasms is a redirecting of procreative energy to nonprocreative ends, be they spiritual, artistic, or plain empty. Is this a step towards Buddhahood? It doesn't look like it, but what else is new?

My student, the doctor at UzBAT, Dr. Fatulla's grandmother died at the ripe age of 91, so I had him tell me about his family tree. He possesses a sheepskin manuscript which he claims dates to 1127 showing his descent from one of the disciples of Mohammed himself, on his father's side. For 20 generations, his ancestors were lawyers, judges and political advisers, but the revolution changed that. His grandfather, Sagdulla Kasimov, was a leading judge in the post-revolutionary period, friends with the Prime Minister Khodjaev and Gensec Akmal Ikramov. He refused to tow the Soviet line on splitting up Turkestan into the 5 republics, and called for a Soviet federation rather than a union. He was shot in 1929, and his wife changed the family name to Sagdullaev, which is in fact the traditional way to show one's lineage in Muslim society. She hid the book and brought up their only son to be a doctor, deciding that there would be no more politicians. Dr. Fatulla's brothers and sisters and children are all doctors. Interesting that the intelligentsia was able to survive in some way, despite the convulsions, so many of them pointless and vindictive.

October 27, 1999

I had a minor (in more ways than one) epiphany, sitting on a bench at Blue Cupolas last Saturday. A very young, gangly teen appeared out of the blue and politely asked to bum a cigarette. 'Could he be looking to be picked up?' I thought incredulously. He was quite clean-cut and innocent looking, tall and thin, a bit knock-kneed, but not fey, and certainly not a prostitute. As is usually the case for me, my interest only slowly picked up. After a short stroll, he returned to a bench next to me but out of sight. He was not brazen, but not a shrinking violet. 'What if I walked over and chatted with him?' I thought. Somehow it's much easier to start a conversation with someone that age. They are automatically respectful and interested.
I went to the loo and spotted Rustam1. We had a bit of a go, but it really is a bit terrifying trying to do anything in that space - so easy to be caught. Outside, I met O and we chatted, and I saw the kid talking to Fedya. 'Enjoy,' I thought ruefully. Suddenly my desire for him clicked in and I could feel blood rushing to my cock. What a high to undress this innocent, yet eager boy, fill him with my maleness, which is what he craved from me. YES! I felt empowered.
After almost 3 years of being fucked by M, I feel drained of self-worth. I never found it easy to be active with M, his bulk, his taunts, his refusals. My fantasy of being a man to this boy, and of exciting him and awakening his own maleness now possesses me. I would not expect him to only be passive - I would swallow his cum, masturbate him, like my last affair - Rustam2 - whom I met at Paktakor and who came several times here ostensibly to teach me Uzbek (which he did). Though he played the cool active and demurred when I touched his anus, he enjoyed my frottage and wasn't at all squeamish when I came passionately on his stomach. In fact, my newly awakened desire to fuck started holding his ass up as I sucked him and rubbed my cock against it. His Uzbek macho instincts wouldn't let him be fucked, but I could tell he wanted it.
Dr. Fatulla came to my rescue when M showed me polyps on my asshole. I vaguely remember one small one which I always thought was a residual hemorrhoid, but now there were three, two rather large, and it was irritating. Fearing the worst, I went to the polyclinic, but the prissy women doctors wouldn't even look, taking my word and suggesting I burn them off with impossible-to-get cream. When I told Dr. Fatulla, he immediately drove me to the Cancer Clinic, where the chief doctor is an old friend and classmate. He took a few minutes from a more serious operation, proceeding a few feet away on another table, and cut and electro-zapped them. They turned out to be benign, 'due to excess irritation' according to the surgeon (suggesting what-do-you-think to me). That meant no fucking for a month, I thought with relief, but it meant substitute oral sex, which M is slow at and I find an unpleasant grind with him. More and more, I dread sex with M, though now that he's just walked out, I already miss him.
Yes! I had wanted to confront him with my needs since my minor epiphany, but dreaded that too, with good reason, as it turns out. The night of the epiphany, M spent 2 hours, till 1:30am chatting with Valentine, a gay model who I am sure is quite attractive (to M, especially with me being a sourpuss these days) and who is attracted to M (with good reason). He called last night when M and I were entertaining Yahya, and M went into seduction-voice-mode and tuned out. After 5 minutes, I suggested that this was rude (I had downed 100 grams of vodka and could feel the alcohol-induced belligerence).
That was yesterday, and this morning, a minor altercation blew into a fateful storm:
I answer the door bell at 7:30am: "Who could that be?"
I opened it to a garrishly made-up middle aged stout woman with poofed, dyed blond hair and bright red lipstick, who glared at me: "I'm your neighbor below. Drain your bathroom radiators of air to let the water flow." And she abruptly turned without a word of greeting.
M tried but the valve was rusted shut, as all the other valves here were when we moved in.
E: "What a drag. The rads didn't work in the last place either. I must be a jinx," looking up the word for him. "You don't have a word for that in Russian - only 'someone who brings misfortune'."
M: "Who cares? It's not our responsibility to fix the valve."
E: "Yes it is, just like the other valves. Besides, in the winter, we'll want to dry things on them. It's much more sanitary when we're using the same towels to dry our hands and mouths." I have been nursing M's flu for 3 days now. "Can you look after it?"
M: "Do it yourself if it's so important. I'm not a clown to be pushed around."
E: Choosing what is clearly a bad time to talk about sensitive issues, I criticized his tone of voice and compared it with the way he spoke with Valentine. "You speak so tenderly with him, and I bet you don't use 'she' and taunt him the way you do me."
M: "Sure I do." But his eyes told me I had hit a vulnerable spot.
E: "You know I don't get turned on anymore with you. It's because of you acting fey. Would you like it if someone was fucking you all the time and then turning around and acting like a woman?"
M: Again "Yes." But more bulls-eyes.
E: "No. I know what you like. A big hard cock," I said, vindictively but hurting.
He got up, angry and hurt, and started to dress. 'Now I've gone too far,' I thought. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. I just wanted to air what's bugging me. It doesn't come out so diplomatically in Russian." He continued gathering up things, put library books on the table, calmly saying "These should be returned," and left.
What a shitty morass life has become. It was all so Elysian at the start.
Yahya was comforting, and I found a letter in the ggbb email conference that finally addressed my festering problem, if only indirectly, so I sent the following email off, more just to put things into writing, than in expectation of any pearls of wisdom:

Dear Dave,
I read your message on the ggbb conference (Oct20) about the internalized homphobia in bb relations (the passive partner loses self-esteem) which is right on and would like to get your feedback on my situation. My own internalized homophobia prevents me from doing this right away in the conference.
My situation is a bit unusual - I'm a North American (45) living abroad in Uzbekistan with a younger local fellow (31). I'm 5'9" 145 lbs vs M's 6'1" 190 lbs, and not surprisingly, it's always been hard to be the active partner with M. He overwhelms and made it clear from the start that he preferred to be on top (some latent internalized homophobia?). I'm a bit complexed anyway, not able to conjure up an erection at will (egghead?). However I really loved him and wanted a long-term relationship, so I have gone along, though more and more I feel the need to be the active partner. It's hard to contemplate this with M and over time I've lost the desire to try with him. But I like him in many other ways, so I'm willing to go along.
What really bugs me is that he likes to use the 'she' pronoun when talking with other gays, and play at being fey. I find this demeaning and many times confronted him. "It's only in fun," he would say. "Don't take offense."
This morning, I finally said "Imagine if you were being fucked by a guy who is often playing these fem-type games. Would you like it?" He protested again that it is all in fun and that he wouldn't mind. I told him that I no longer get aroused with him because of that. He would like sex every day and I can only tolerate it a couple times a week, and find I'm fantasizing other scenarios even when we have sex.
I guess it sounds like a deadend, but I haven't met anyone else here that I would want to live with. I suspect that most relationships have their sexual problems, and I would like to work on this relationship rather than chuck it. We've been together almost 3 years.
How do you feel about my(+M's) problem? Am I being too touchy? Does your partner (or do you) joke around at being fey? Is my problem with this just internalized homophobia?
I would like to discuss this whole issue with the conference sometime in the future, but feel a bit too sensitive about raising it myself at this time. In fact, my partner and I had a fight when I tried to discuss the issue this am and he walked out.

Now I'm writing in my diary again, which the routine of the last year has pushed aside. Will M return? Will he demand to go his own way or some such compromise? Will I revert to living alone? Something's got to give.

December 31, 1999

I wrote a feuilleton which I must find an outlet for somewhere. You are a start, Diary!

A dazzling November day, granny's summer, as they say here. The Tien Shan mountains larger than life across Independent Square, cheerful with their new coat of snow. As it was 20 degrees C and not too windy, I decided to have a walrus dip in the Anhor canal, water from the mountains that flows through Tashkent in a maze of man-made canals.
The regulars - Slavic retirees have staked out their spot on the bend in the river which provides a sunny spot with some shelter from the wind.
"Hello, Canadian. Haven't seen you in a while," said Sasha.
"Canada?" said another Slav, grey-blond but very trim for his 50-plus years. "What ever possessed you to come here? Everyone is going the opposite way. Lots of Ukrainians left for Canada at the end of the war."
"It's always better wherever we aren't," I quoted him a Russian proverb, which pleased them both. "How true. You know that makes me think of an old friend, dead now, God rest his soul. He was taken by the Germans to work in Germany during the war and had the choice to go to England or Canada, because you weren't supposed to work for the Germans. They called you a traitor and didn't welcome you."
"Sure they welcomed you," said Sasha ironically. "Right into a labor camp."
"No. My friend decided to come back. He never went to prison, but he spent his whole life keeping one step ahead of the KGB. That's how he ended up here from Kiev, via the Urals and Siberia. He had to leave Tashkent once too, but returned to die here. He always said that the best treatment he had were when he worked for the Germans. Square meals and they didn't overwork him." How strange, I thought. A society that spent so much time trying to keep track of such an insignificant person, decade after decade, just because he agreed to work under the Germans for a few years. And think of the waste of his life afterwards: constantly tearing up his roots at the slightest hint that the KGB was close on his trail.
Such fellows as Sasha and his friend are simple folk, with no pretensions or wiles. That's clear after exchanging a few words. What impresses them are 3 square meals and a roof over their heads. No wonder the Soviet Union collapsed, full of counter-revolutionary ghosts that it conjured up itself, sapping its erstwhile supporters of their strength and will to live. And what do we have to offer in its stead? Glossily packaged goods which they have little hope or need of. Thin stories of achieving success through self-promotion.

Fear that my computer might crash in the treaded Y2K epidemic forces me to make an update. Well, M DID return; in fact, the next day. His needs are much the same, but he DOES make an effect to at least jack me off when I get aroused. It's much more companionship than sex that ties me to him. I dream much more of PaulB than M as a soulmate, but it seems unlikely to me that I'll ever have another relationship where I am as important to someone and where I genuinely like him as this one, so I'll stick to 'the devil I know'.
While he was gone, I realized that he's there to make me (or someone like me - a patron) happy. I'm sick of people asking "What does M DO? He still doesn't have a job?" Just having someone like M beside me gives me some self-esteem. After all, I'm WORTH taking care of! He doesn't seem to need a strong material goal, though he dearly wants to earn money to buy an apt. The other interpretation of him is that he is paranoid of the outside world and is hiding behind me. Originally M had a fantasy of me ("his ass") of total possession. I had a fantasy of M as all powerful/ controlling. Both visions were unreal. They're gone. Dead.
We have a modus vivendi, though with fairly regular quarrels. I can't do anything around the house properly it seems. M smothers. I feel that he is subconsciously castrating me, as was mother. But I instinctually act the same way by trying to tie him down with money. Is struggle endemic to m-m relations? Am I just re-enacting my neurotic relationship with mother?
Quentin Crisp just died and I copied out a provocative quote: "Gays aren't real people. They are on the outside looking in. But at least it's a good view. You can stand back from the (straight) rat-race and see more clearly."

Job phoned out the blue in late October, and I agreed to a clandestine trip to Namangan. It started in a shack in a poor makhalla in Tashkent on a Friday night where we managed to fuck, and went downhill after that. There had been terrorist attacks on the road through the pass a week before, and we were stopped at least 6 times on the way on Saturday, and I was almost pulled out by an over-eager cop. The weather turned to heavy rain and snow in the mountain pass, and when I awoke Sunday morning and dressed, my wallet was in the wrong pocket and my last $10 missing. I blew up at Job and then got scared. I was helpless without his help to get back, and depended on his goodwill in light of the dangers of travel through the pass. I calmed down and politely asked to go immediately. He got me a ride, but when we got to the pass, the huge line-up told us the pass was closed. apparently several cars had become snow-bound and their passengers froze to death. Things were not looking good.
My fellow passengers were a mix: a brother and sister Imur and Sveta (Russian-Uzbek metis and Sveta's Tatar husband Tarik. Sveta was friendly, slow in expression but warm. I decided to cast my fate with them. They were simple construction workers, trying to get to Tashkent to buy train tickets to emigrate to somewhere deep in Russia.
No plane, no train, no idea when the pass would be open, though I dreaded all the police. I had about $6 left in sums and my passport. We finally learned back in Namangan that there was a train from Andijan, farther down the valley, which traveled through Tajikistan, which in the past had been attacked by THEIR bandits and was not guaranteed by the Uzbek authorities. It was to leave at 6pm and arrive in Tashkent the next morning at 7am. Not my preferred way out, but they were eager and we took a taxi to Andijan, an hour and a half away, hoping that we could squeeze tickets out of poor train conductors.
It all worked out, though there were desperate mothers with screaming children and 18 people in the open sleeping cubicles where only there are only 6 places. Tajik border officials didn't even stop us. I felt like kissing the ground when we arrived in Tashkent. It all felt like God twitching his little finger and letting me have a taste of his medicine for silly gringos flirting with amoral 3rd world types.

Another feuilleton.

Getting there is half the fun, right? How about, getting your TICKET is half the battle? (The other half being the battle with airport security and the overnight bus trip to TO.) Naively thinking I could go to UzAir office and calmly book a flight home for Xmas (NO phone bookings, no credit cards, please), I got a rude shock when I entered the airline ticket building at 11:00 am, and saw a noisy frantic crowd of 20+ people, milling around a tough-looking security guard.
I lost my nerve and decided to come in the evening, hoping the crowd would be less. Same story at 5:00 pm. After waiting 20 minutes without any noticeable change in the line, except for a mysterious short man in a large bowler hat and a waxed moustache, who entered and exited the door at the sufferance of the muscled security guard, I finally left the line, wandering disconsolately along the series of wickets which seemed to serve no purpose across from the door to freedom. Despairing of ever leaving the country, I asked at one counter about getting a ticket and was told I must wait in the line. However, hearing my accent, and having a heart of gold, she quickly checked on the computer that 'yes there is a flight on such and such a date, and it will cost... 210,000 units of currency.' (The price, posted in dollars, changes with the Central Bank rate each Monday.) She also advised me to come at 9:00 am sharp the next day.
A rush of adrenaline told me that I had struck gold. This glimmer of humanity had provided the wedge to pry a precious ticket out of the inscrutable bureaucratic maze.
But first I had to brave the black market bazaar the next morning at 8:00 am - very cloak and dagger - and changing $400. The changer is a sweet little ol' lady who fronts by selling chewing gum and cheap cigarettes in a God-forsaken corner near a rundown Stalinoid apt block. She had us walk around the corner and went to find out the daily rate and gather enough to change this amount. She then instructed us to go in the rear entrance of the apt bldg and knock on a certain door. She arrived soon and dumped a massive pile of bills on the bed in the apt and we sorted out about 260,000 sums - Marlen and I figured it weighed about 4.5 kilos. I'll let you calculate the per lb cost. The day before the rate had been better, but by the next day, it had fallen further, so we figured we did all right. We rushed to the airline office and within 1.5 hrs I had my ticket to NY. It cost about $320 (+ a lot of b.s.&t.).
Now the other half of the battle - starting with getting through customs without my declaration which somehow I managed to enter the country 1 1/2 years ago without getting, stating how many dollars I was bringing in. Upon leaving, one must present such a declaration and fill out a new one showing that you are taking LESS dollars out of the country. You must not earn dollars while here. All this of course is complete nonsense, but facing a slavering Doberman board guard with a marginal IQ an hour before departure, and trying to explain convincingly that you are a true patriot and don't know what color a dollar even IS is not a lark.
Given that you are successful and still have your precious few greenbacks somewhere on your person, you can now relax till you reach JFK, the end of the Silk Road, after which you must navigate your way to the Greyhound station and survive the dreary (long and winding) Asphalt Road to TO. Home sweet home. As I said buying the ticket was half the battle.

I psyched myself up for the hours in NY. I tried out a sleazy movie house on 3rd Ave, where a fairly attractive metis fellow followed me into the can in the basement, felt my cock, decided it wasn't hard enough, thanked me politely and walked out. 'Not my place,' I decided and walked back to the video store with 'buddy stalls' that I had found so entertaining last time. This time, I realized that the attractive young blacks massaging their cocks hanging around on the second floor were hustlers, and when I stepped into a booth, one followed me right into the booth (supposedly forbidden) and unzipped. A huge beautiful member came into my ecstatic mouth. $30 well spent. In a daze, I returned to the bus station and arrived in Toronto the next morning in good spirits.
3 weeks of seeing friends, reading and absorbing gay videos. PB hinted that I was in repressive Uz because I'm still living out my repressed sexuality, but everyone seemed to think I looked well (thought only gay Bruce, friend of Rebecca's, commented on M's good looks).
NY on the way back December 24 did not disappoint, though neither of the 2 blacks I invited into my booth came. I met the second, Rob, tall, lanky, graceful as only basketball-playing black guys can be, outside afterwards and we had a hamburger and parted. He looked 20 but was in fact 30 with 3 kids that his mother was looking after, his wife having disappeared. I saw him 15 minutes later on my way back to the bus station, and he haled me like an old friend. He declined a Drum cigarette ("Looks too much like the real thing") and asked me if I liked coke. I demurred, saying it made me too aggressive. "Why? Do I look aggressive?" he beamed. It was clear where my $20 had gone in the meantime. Merry Christmas, Rob!

A terrible depression over the past few days. I had strep throat, which left my head spinning. Adding on some grass oil and melatonin one night gave me nightmares of losing my sanity. Enough to put you off dope for good. Somehow, my feeling of comfort from dope has gone. The constant opprobrium from M for any smoking makes me reluctant to smoke when he's around. Is it time to give birth to something more publishable than you, Diary? Stop hiding? A Reformed doper's guide to Marx & Lenin?