Mar 5, 2010

Mixed Signals

Reading my blog, you'd think I'd be happy about this but I ended up freaked out.

When making my plans to come into NYC I posted on Facebook that I needed a place to stay. I got two offers - one from an old friend in Brooklyn and another from a writer/film geek in Manhattan. The Brooklyn Friend could offer me a couch for free while the Manhattan Film Geek offered up his queen sized bed for $50 a night. I opted for the bed.

The Manhattan Film Geek (MFG) was slated to be out of town the days I was in town so he'd have his roommate let me in and give me a spare set of keys. His roommate would take the couch while I took the bed. Sounded like a bargain to me.

As the weeks went on, things started to change as more notes came in via Facebook.

MFG told me that he would be back for the dates I was in town. Jokingly I asked if we'd be sharing a bed and told him that I'd love to be cuddled.

He wrote back and asked me if I'd enjoy a long, luxurious blowjob.

I wrote back and told him that in the parlance I'd be considered a "bear."

He wrote back and told me how much he loves bears.

My last comment was that this trip was looking better and better.

If you listened to my conversations with most of my guy friends you'd think that we were raging queens. We're always throwing shade about sucking dick or getting buttfucked. Little did I know that MFG wasn't joking around.

I found this out when I got to his Manhattan apartment and he greeted me with a tight hug and warm kiss on the cheek.

If MFG had been a different guy or if I was in a different headspace I might have been happy about this development but, instead, it was a predicament. I suddenly felt the age-old excuse on my lips, "I'm not in the mood."

It's not that MFG wasn't attractive - he's a nice looking guy. It's just that he exuded an air of insanity; a manic energy that just put me off of him immediately as both a potential lover as well as a friend.

After the hug, MFG got a phone call from a film producer in Italy and, suddenly, we were off to the races. I sat on his couch, cooling off from my long walk from the subway station, and watched him make a series of phone calls and send email and Facebook updates all afternoon. As time ticked by I realized that he was far more into setting up a screening of some films in Los Angeles for this Italian producer than into doing anything with me. I was grateful. I was also hungry. He kept saying, "Just one more email and we can go to lunch." Four hours later I finally got my coat on and left.

I headed downtown to meet with a fellow writer and attend the Cinekink film festival. After a few hours of films and a day of travel I looked forward to going back to MFG's pad and getting some sleep. I started to leave the Anthology Film Archives only to find MFG waiting for me in the lobby. Oh, shit.

He and a friend were hanging out, waiting for me. We shot the shit for a bit before MFG finally agreed to leave. That began what I have since referred to as "Mr. Toad's Wild Walk." We went from Second Ave and Second St over to Avenue A back over to Fourth Avenue back to Second back to Fourth and up to Fourteenth Street where MFG's friend too the "L" to go home while we took a train up to 42nd Street.

As we went down the stairs to the station I managed to twist my ankle fairly well. When we stopped at 42nd street I didn't realize that we had a mile to go before I could sleep. We walked from 42nd and Park (Grand Central) all the way to 51st and 10th with MFG talking and acting as a manic tour guide the entire time -- pointing out what nearly every building is and what the past five businesses to own it had been. He especially discussed the former movie houses of old, even dipping into the lobbies of numerous buildings to show me entrances and architecture, waxing about the glory days of skuzzy NYC before the Giuliani clean-up.

Limping along; one ankle twisted, both feet blistered, I finally had to yell at MFG saying, "Listen, son, I'm from Detroit. We don't walk. We drive everywhere. Now, get me back to your place so I can get some fucking sleep."

That slowed (but didn't stop) the tour.

I ended up bunking on MFG's couch while he and his roommate shared the queen-sized bed. As soon as the lights went out the noise started -- not the expected New York city noise of sirens and honking horns but the scratch scratch scratch of their pet chinchilla running mad circles in his wall-sized cage. I'm glad that the chinchilla was at least in a cage as it could easily get lost and die in the mess of the apartment.

I don't know why I was so surprised the next morning when I got up to shower only to find that the bathtub was a nightmare of mold and mildew. I felt far more dirty after my shower than before it. That's when I vowed to find a new place. Somewhere without an amorous, manic host, somewhere with a bed, and somewhere with a clean shower.

I hopped onto Hotwire.com and scored a four-star hotel down in Soho. It was more than $50 a night but my sanity was worth it.

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