I worked on various webpage items for 4.5 hours. So many old pictures. So many old memories. But enough for now.
The sun is blazing through the windows.
So many Trump headlines. War. Threats of annihilation. I don’t have the energy to spare too much time thinking about it all but it’s always there in the back of my mind. I have the luxury of letting it live in that space.
Tired.
I’m going to see if I can fall asleep with some Aaron cuddles.
Wake me when it’s over.
“A Penny For Your Thoughts…”
I went to bed around 9pm last night. I awoke at 2 am from dreams that I was rewatching a previously forgotten season of Doctor Who run by Steven Moffat which instead of the usual Christmas Special had featured 7 various specials that all seemed very far removed from one another but when viewed in their entirety formed a complete whole that illuminated and complimented each installment as part of the greater whole. It was both fascinating and annoying. When I woke Aaron wasn’t in bed. He likely accidentally woke me when he got up for a moment. I had a stomach cramp. I tried going back to sleep but soon realized this wouldn’t work, so I got up.
I started drinking smoothies about a month ago. For decades I’ve been eating ice cream on a nearly daily basis. My stomach is partially paralyzed and it is not uncommon for anything I consume to come back up. This began in August of 2001. Since then, ice cream has become a favorite because if it makes a second or third appearance, it is not sharp – it doesn’t hurt me. It is also often still cold and pleasant, which can not be said for many other foods. It made sense. But it was also not healthy. Now I drink smoothies which, when featuring the right ingredients, have all the benefits of ice cream but far less of the unhealthy elements. I compared the statistics and the changes were drastic. Far less sugar, sodium, cholesterol, but far more protein and fiber. And I’ve now been eating fruit every day for over a month. That’s pretty amazing.
Perhaps I should watch the new Daredevil, but I don’t feel quite awake enough for that. Perhaps in a while. Or maybe I’ll be tired enough, and comfortable enough to get back to sleep? Time will tell.
It’s 3 AM now. I will likely either work on my site for a bit or possibly a viewing order, which will end up here in future. Writing like this it seems strange that I went for so many years without doing so. I suppose my Facebook posts filled that void, but I didn’t always feel comfortable there and I suspect what I wrote was either self-edited or when seen in full, just more evidence that I never truly felt at home there.
“So kiss me, my darling stay with me ’til morning”
I’m still thrilled to be back in this space. Goth boy. But trying to decide all the things, coming up with solutions, mostly on my own, is exhausting. I’m traversing all these new obstacles that didn’t exist the first time I had a website, or if they did, I was blissfully ignorant. I had no idea that anyone would actually pay attention to my little piece of the internet or that anyone would care what I had to say or how much skin I showed, but they did. And I’m trying to get back to that freedom while also being responsible and considerate and mindful; respecting boundaries that I honestly never considered nearly 30 years ago when this journey began the first time. The growth I’m describing pleases me. But it’s far less easy than it was before. But I can do this.
I uploaded more collages to my gallery, more poetry and artwork. I added plugins to include music in my posts. I looked into some kind of age restriction for my site, though a lot of that information seems contradictory and I’m also not sure if I should age gate the whole thing or just my photographs? I mean, my writing is really fucking graphic…and I’m so fucking tired right now. I slept a little under 6 hours last night, but I’m used to more. My body wants me to sleep and I hopefully will soon, but I wanted to write this and take a shower to get the sunblock off of me.
Age restriction(s). Visitor counter(s). Perhaps a plugin to include Google Sheets / Google Docs? I also need to create pages for my non-poetry related writing and my viewing / reading orders, movie reviews, etc. But I probably won’t get to most of that until I have more of my poetry ported over, at least my writing from 2011 onward. And I’ll ask Mark about the website stuff that I don’t quite get. That’s a lot but it seems like something worth doing and something I can accomplish.
I was planning on watching the new episode of Daredevil: Born Again (S02E04 “Gloves Off”) tonight, but I’m just too tired. I’ll try to watch it tomorrow. Season 3 of Euphoria begins this Sunday. I was caught up by the time Season 2 ended but that was over 4 years ago, so I don’t remember it very clearly. Eric Dane’s Cal Jacobs will be featured, which will be odd since Dane passed away recently – and other cast members have died since the end of Season 2.
Oh! And the pain that Aaron was having that led us to the clinic yesterday is possibly to do with stress and was helped in part by a visit to his chiropractor. Aaron found another office that seems promising in our neighborhood and will given them a try on Friday or Saturday but his usual chiropractor is at 50th Street (Manhattan); this would be much closer. Hopefully he continues to improve. He and I have been together for about 14.5 years! Crazy.
Okay. I need to keep this short. I need to sleep. And I need that shower.
“Top Ten in the Charts of Pain”
Yesterday was productive. I got tons done on the new website. It’s fun and a bit of an obsession right now. It can be relaxing but I have to remind myself to step away from the computer and get other things done and to take breaks so that I don’t get totally burnt out.
I got away yesterday for a not-so-fun reason. Aaron was in pain and told me he was going to CityMD. I had just eaten so I needed to sit still for a little bit but soon dressed and joined him at the clinic, which is just across the road from us. They let me back to see him just as he was about to have an EKG, which appeared normal, but they instructed us to watch out for certain signs and if we see any of those we are heading to an emergency room. He’s taken the day off of work today.
Later I watched the first 2 episodes of the new Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord series. It’s a little slow, as this is a new beginning, but I enjoyed most of it. We know Maul of course, and we’ve met Rook Kast in passing, but most of the characters and the world is new, so I’m okay with it taking a little time to get going. I wish the entire series was available now, because I would have binged it over a couple of days. I’m curious to see where this goes…
My gripes are few. The new world, the planet Janix, looks so similar to Coruscant, that if I hadn’t been paying attention, I’d have thought that was the setting. It makes sense that Maul would be on a different world as he’s avoiding entanglements with the Empire, but most worlds in Star Wars look at least a little different, and this looks exactly the same. Maybe there were visual cues that I missed. I also didn’t like the ends of the episodes. The cliffhanger moments make you want to watch the next one, which is the point, but again, if this was released all at once I’d be happier with that model. And then the pace, as I said, is a bit slow at times – or, more accurately, the faster paced stuff often didn’t matter to me, because I didn’t feel very invested in most of the new characters. There are already signs that this will likely change fairly quickly, but for now it feels problematic; trailers and posters have revealed later appearances by several known characters that will likely help with this.
I think this might be great in time. I’ve been wanting to re-watch The Clone Wars for several years now, not having seen most of it in over a decade, and with The Bad Batch and the Star Wars: Tales shorts in place, this could all be a lot of fun. But I’m currently watching so much stuff that this will have to wait for now. Hopefully someday!
Later I also continued on with my first time through The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (S01E06 “Udûn”). I hadn’t watched any episodes in over a week and was worried I’d have lost interest again. I’ve tried twice before to get into this series but this time has been far more rewarding and I’m 2 episodes further than I’ve ever been. And this episode was fantastic, filled with multiple events that I had anticipated but had assumed would happen in the season finale but we still have 2 more episodes to go! There were also several surprises and my theories about this or that character are developing and changing with nearly every episode. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to get into this series but I’m really glad that I have. It’s also nice knowing that I have 10 more episodes as Season 2 aired over a year ago, and that Season 3 will include a time jump, which suggests that Season 2 will have an ending that won’t drive me crazy. I hope. lol
I only meant to stay up a little to see if I could update a few more items on my site but I ended up staying up past 4 am, listening to From the Choirgirl Hotel, the Tori Amos album released in May of 1998 and which I often listened to when building the first iteration of this website in the fall of that year. I eventually had to call it quits after working to exhaustion – and I knew I needed to sleep before my therapy appointment today. I slept for 6 hours. I had relatively intense dreams but they’re finally fading now. I woke with a migraine, which hasn’t happened much lately, for which I’m very grateful. I had a smoothie (with coffee) and took a small dose of pain medication.
“Not as long as yesterday. Yesterday was 24 hours.”
I slept well. I don’t remember the details of my dreams but I believe they were pleasant. Yesterday morning I had nightmares but I always do when I sleep without medication. I have an addiction to sleeping pills which I’m constantly struggling with, but if I don’t need them, I try not to use them, and for the first time in a long time I have extra pills in the bottle as a near the end of the month, rather than less, which sometimes happen due to my stomach rejecting things and having to take more.
I’m still jazzed about having a new website. I’m amazed I even have a journal to write in as I’ve gone years without doing so. I’m struggling a bit with finding a shape for everything that I want to see here, but it’s constructive. The world has changed so much. I have changed so much. So what works in Gothboy 2.0 will be different with what I ended up with the first time through, but I hope the heart of it still remains.
Speaking of which. I may eventually transport all my old blog entries here. I could do the same with Facebook, though it doesn’t sound like much fun to me. There’s so much work to be done, but I’m enjoying it for now. I suspect it will become tedious, but having everything in one place would be nice. And maybe I’ll be smarter about how I do that this time? We’ll see.
I wish there was a field to fill in what I’m listening to and what I’m watching and reading. My old blog had that but it was tied into Amazon. If someone clicked on what I displayed and purchased a copy I got a tiny bit of money. Often less than a dollar. And that was rare, but it was nice to have that info there. Maybe it would encourage me to finish a book now and again, which is something I’ve been struggling with for about a year.
I can’t believe this is real. I’m writing this and it will appear on my website. On gothboy. That was another life. I’ve not been able to post anything here of substance in something like 15 years? But it makes me so happy to be doing so now!
Gothboy 2.0: Go!
I’ve been meaning to get a new website up and running for ages. I tried multiple times. Aaron even hired this or that person to design one for me. There were consultations and discussions of payment, content, etc. but in the end everything failed.
Until now.
I’ve been working on transferring poetry and art from Facebook. I liked Facebook a lot in the beginning and it improved even further before it all went to shit. Politics. Drama. Censorship. But it’s become my main outlet and connection to so many people. I’m hoping to change that. And I also just desperately need something to pour my creative energy into, and this may be it. I’ve made so much progress in this last week. So much more than anything I’ve tried in years. It feels good.
April 4, 2026
“Things Like That Drive Me Out of My Mind”
I got Aaron to watch the 1997 film “The House of Yes” a long time ago. It’s a favorite of mine, based on the 1990 play “The House of Yes: A Suburban Jacobean Play”, by Wendy MacLeod.
Yesterday, knowing my love of the film, he took me to the Mannes School of Music to see a workshop of a new opera adaptation of the same work, which was a fascinating experience. The performers were students; they were all great. And I got to meet many of the creatives in passing. I also spoke briefly to the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning Michael R. Jackson, who wrote the book, music, and lyrics for “A Strange Loop”, which I had loved when we saw it on Broadway – but I didn’t realize who he was until after we left. No. I talked to him about John Carpenter and the film “They Live”, which was on a shirt that he was wearing. lol
Years ago, also in part based on my love of “The House of Yes” but also my fanboy crush on Ewan, Aaron also took me to see “The Real Thing”, a play that then starred Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Cynthia Nixon and Josh Hamilton. I met them all briefly after the show and they were delightful; we got all their signatures on our poster – and I told Hamilton that I was a huge fan of “The House of Yes”, in which he played Marty – and thanked Ewan for “Velvet Goldmine”. <3
Sex Part II: Killing Questions
It’s nearly ten years later
when a misspoken quote from a movie review,
ironically for 1985’s “Consenting Adult”,
inspires a stranger to ask me:
“What could you have done sexually, at such a young age?”
That’s a really personal question to spring on someone without even saying hello, but I directed them to my previous essay on the topic, and reading it over for the first time in a long time, I realized that it has indeed been nearly ten years without another entry.
As for what I wrote back then, I actually still like it. I’m satisfied that most of it holds up quite well, with the possible exception of something I wrote about damnation, which was entirely factual, and yet not wholly representative of the truth. It was no lie when I said “I knew early on that I’d rather be who I was and be damned, than live a lie and be saved”, because I longed to be known for who I was. And I came to know that it was far better to be truly known and hated rather than be loved for what I could never be. Love without knowledge is the worst kind of torture. It is illusory, false. It is hatred disguised as acceptance.
What I wrote was entirely factual. On the surface, this assertion seems profound, honest and almost suggestive of heroism. Don’t heroes stand up for what is right and speak truth to power despite the personal cost of doing so? But there are layers of meaning there, which can now be peeled back and examined. Analyzing the substance of those statements brings significant conceptual interpretations to light. Vital and astute characterizations which must be acknowledged if we are to move forward. For there is a profound depth behind those words which I feel to the core of who I am, which could not possibly be expressed via those words alone.
The words were factual. I thought about those things. I said those things. But the words always felt a bit hollow to me. I stood up. I spoke. I spit facts at those who would see me be something other than what I was, but I never felt like I truly existed in any kind of actual gay reality; feeling more like a fan on the sidelines than the star of my own show; a placeholder while the the ones before me were buried, and until the ones who came after had time to fill my spot. Coming of age in a conservative household during a life threatening sexual pandemic was like living in a crucible which burned away everything that wasn’t legitimate, with only essential elements surviving the conflagration that ensued. The problem being that fear in such an environment was a lifesaving gift; a substantially required skill, an indispensable all important necessity for my survival. Eventually the fire died. The smoke cleared. And I was myself. Gay and afraid.
The fire made me what I was, but it also altered my behavior, my ability to act on my physical instincts, in ways that still reverberate to this day. I tried to tell myself that if I became infected and died it would be well worth the sacrifice to be who I was, who I wanted to be – that if the combination of truth and lust led to my annihilation, so be it. I knew many others who felt this way and acted accordingly. I read books, watched movies and loved music that celebrated this philosophy of conviction leading to self destruction; which seemed a greater cause, a higher truth of purpose which was both beautiful and horribly tragic. Except I couldn’t ever quite convince myself that the end justified the means, which prevented me from acting on what I was thinking and feeling, making me feel like an abject failure and a complete and total coward.
Others cruised, hooked up, fucked their brains out, and many, many of them died. Growing up in that tiny village, I was literally surrounded by family, but could ask them for nothing. There was no internet. There was no bulletin board for little gay boys growing up in my neck of the woods; no source for reliable information that might spare me the fate that I feared so very much. I was gay. But I couldn’t enjoy it because I couldn’t relax. I waited. I read and studied. I educated myself as best as I could and I managed to stay alive. But if I was cruised at a record store or the county fair, I never followed where these men wanted to lead me, and where I desperately wanted to follow. And I’ve been told that this is understandable, commendable, impressive & smart, to prepare for the future so that the present couldn’t kill me, and I get that, but to my way of thinking it also feels like this plan of action was a failure on my part; I stood in line and waited for the ride to come, but when push came to shove, I couldn’t ever bring myself to just close my eyes and leap.
Part of me knows that my guilt and shame aren’t that simple but that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s complicated. The feelings of my own inadequacy and loss are there despite knowing that my fear more than likely kept me alive, back when sex could kill, and often did. And no one, except apparently myself, could blame me for my reaction; not to a plague that wiped out most of the generation that came before me. And maybe I could fully embrace my seemingly insufficient carnality, were it only a symptom of my past, like a bad dream that has faded into the light.
I suppose that my dilemma is that all of that which came before and served to keep me alive has never eroded, despite the circumstances that inspired my responses having long been cured or defeated. What good is a placeholder after the place has been filled by countless others who have no fear of something they never experienced? That I’m aware enough to ask these questions suggests possibilities, but is that awareness also part of my problem? And whatever the answer to that question, for what can I use my awareness so that it better serves my needs and wants? How do I harness what I have, to achieve what I lack? I can’t help wondering, if I were to be infected now, would that make my denial in the past that much more pointless and my present all the more tragic? Or has my survival somehow balanced those scales? Do I strive to finally conquer the fear that saved me or does it simply forever haunt my existence with its often unwanted but factually useful protection? Am I even capable of feeling one without the other?
Ask me again in a few years.
Written by Jason Wright
April 2, 2026