Tag: Janice Jeffrey

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“He’s Gone”

Various pieces by artists inspired by The Drowning Girl.

I slept well again, thankfully. I didn’t go to choir last night. I had a bit of a headache and I’d already been out and my stomach was iffy. I did get some packing done. And I sent a digital copy of Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Drowning Girl to my new friend Linda. On the one hand, I think that Linda might love this book, as I do. And on the other hand, I know that sales help Kiernan, who is struggling to pay some bills right now. So this seemed like a good idea. I love this book so much and I’ve probably gifted it to at least 7 people over the years, which is not something that I typically do. I’ve given copies to Mollie Baker, my sister Janice, my ex-gf Jennifer, my cousin Katie, Aaron has listened to the audiobook. I’ve also recommended it countless times. I know my friend Isaiah Pittman is trying to read it. It’s so inventive and it moves me, and if I like you, I’ll probably recommend it to you. And anyone who loves the book might want to check out her collections, “To Charles Fort, With Love” and “Houses Under the Sea”, which both feature stories that tie into the novel. There are likely others, but I’m kind of pressed for time at the moment and I don’t want to ramble for too long! Suffice it to say, that if you’re reading this – and I honestly don’t know that anybody actually is, then I highly recommend The Drowning girl and Kiernan’s work in general. You can find more of her work on her Amazon page (which I don’t get any money from – I just think she’s worth reading) and I’m sure there are other links that would help her even more. I should just ask her.

And it’s the morning of a travel day. We won’t be leaving the apartment for about 4.5 hours; we like to get to the airport a couple of hours before our flights, just in case anything goes wrong. Our flight to Orlando boards around 5pm and we should arrive by around 9pm. Then it’s about an hour to our house. And we’ll likely get inside, try to get settled and go to bed soon after. So, hopefully I’ll be in bed in about 12 hours.

Today’s song quote title comes from “He’s Gone” by Saint Etienne, from their 1994 album Tiger Bay. An acquaintance of mine with really great taste in music, Steven Rink, posted this song on Facebook when he was moving from New York to the West Coast and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. I’m not headed for the West Coast today, but I’m leaving New York and so it felt appropriate.

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“All The Things You Do To Me We Could Exaggerate”

I walked .02 miles to a local grocery store. I picked up a head of cauliflower, some mushrooms and the waffles that my dietician recommended. After I took that home the weather was so lovely that I changed and walked to the park. When I go to Fort Tryon Park, I love to sit in this area called the Linden Terrace, where I often call my grandmother as I take in the view of the Hudson River and New Jersey across the river. On my way to the park I had a resurgence of this pain that I sometimes get in my ankles / shins. I sat on a bench just outside the park and called my sister, Janice, who I spoke to for about 20 minutes, eventually walking into the park and continued to chat with her. There were so many squirrels in the park today, many of them approaching me in a way that I’ve never seen before; I assumed that many people feed them and this was confirmed by my friend Nathan later. Walking to Linden Terrace from our apartment is exactly a mile. I felt good and the pain had gone. I took a longer, more scenic route home, so I’m sure I walked about 3 miles today. And that’s me being out 13 days in a row.

I passed this woman feeding pigeons on my way home. 05-15-26.

I traded texts with Janice and Nathan. I had some nice moments with Celine and Aaron. And I just chilled for the rest of the afternoon.

Aaron is taking me to a Stonewall Chorale party tomorrow that will feature a talent show in which none of the performers can sing as their talent. I’m reading a poem, but I’m not sure which title I’ll pick. I’ve narrowed it down to a few, but I think it will depend on how the audience seems. Really, I’d share all of them if I could. Not because I think I’m an amazing writer, but because I have a very hard time deciding anything! lol

I’m staying up a bit later tonight to get some stuff ready for that and I haven’t really gotten ready for bed yet. If I get to bed by 1am I should be fine.

Today’s title quote is from “Rebirth of the Cool” by The Afghan Whigs from their 1992 album “Uptown Avondale”.

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“I knew then it would be a life long thing…”

I slept well. Another morning of Aaron cuddles. We spoke to Mary Ellen, my sister Janice and my grandmother Frances for Mother’s Day. And I went for a walk. 8th Day outside in a row! I walked to the grocery store for salad dressing and picked up a few other items, all healthier than I sometimes do, and I wasn’t even tempted for sweets or chips. That’s not always the case. Aaron cleaned up a bunch of stuff that only he could do and we just seem to be having a nice day.

My haul from the grocery store. 05-10-26.

On my walk, I listened to a mix of Tori Amos songs, and I put on the Tori shirt that Sean gave me 25 years ago. It was just 10 minutes or so of giving him a moment. It was nice. Respectful. Healing. Sometimes I need to do that with people I’ve lost along the way.

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“I’ve forgotten how to dream my own dream”

I had a rough evening yesterday. I was already a little sad when I wrote yesterday but I wasn’t sure why. I had listened to the new Tori Amos album. Later, in the shower, I realized that Sean Mobley would never hear this album, despite him enjoying her music even more than I do and it hit so hard that I wept, which I don’t often do when I think about Sean. I get a little down sometimes when I think about him, but I seldom shed tears. I’m not sure why. But I was exhausted. I took a sleeping pill and went to bed early, frustrated that I didn’t feel up to expressing what was happening. I spoke to my sister Janice on the phone and then called Grandma for a quick goodnight.

Around then my sleeping pill kicked in and everything is a blur, but I appear to have eaten a bit, which annoys me. I don’t remember what happened and that always bugs me, but I did sleep very well. When I woke up around 5am I came out to the office and wrote a poem about Sean and the new Tori album. This is the first poem that I’ve written since creating the website and having a place for it to go without posting it on Facebook, which feels good. I might share this with Sean’s mother. She’s always been very supportive of me.

One of the things that Janice and I discussed last night was death. Death and our mother. Dreams we have of her. When Janice dreams about her she knows in the dreams that mom is gone, but in my dreams I don’t usually know. She’s also usually not the focus of whatever dreams she appears in. Janice says she also dreams about our grandfather quite often, but I don’t think I do at all. He died a year ago this month.

I listened to more Tori and worked on organizing the photos I’ve used in the collages in the my photos section to help prevent me from reusing the same photos when the whole point is to contrast old and new with everything given a new spin. I should have been doing this all along but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to go about it and I’m still not sure that what I’m doing is the best, but it will do for now.

I went back to bed for some Aaron cuddles but I was feeling restless and left after about 40 minutes. I’m hungry and should eat soon, but I’m not sure what I’m going to have. I’m just hoping for a productive day. And if I can get outside that will be 5 days in a row. It’s very sunny out right now, which is an improvement on yesterday’s overcast sky. It should be about 65, which isn’t bad.

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“And do you feel scared? I do…”

Aaron’s endoscopy went very well yesterday. He had another endoscopy 3 months ago and they discovered he had an ulcer which they’ve been treating with medication and therapy. Yesterday’s procedure revealed that the ulcer is gone! This was a wonderful outcome. And the wait time for the procedure was greatly reduced this time – we were essentially in and out in about an hour.

I traded texts with Glenn, my nephew Jon and my cousin Ariel. Glenn was concerned for Aaron. Jon and I were talking about Daredevil: Born Again. Ariel invited us to her graduation party, which will be held in Michigan, despite her living in Georgia. We’ll see how that plays out. I also later traded messages with my old friend Flordeperla, who was a co-worker at Starbucks in Manhattan.

He was a little groggy after and I was dealing with another migraine. I always have lots of migraines, but this time of year, when we get far more rain, it’s always the worst. I went to bed relatively early, hoping that I’d wake up early this morning to get some work on my site done, headache free. Part of that was true. I woke up early. And my headache isn’t as bad as it was.

I have gotten a lot finished! But it’s in a draft stage so nobody can see it yet. It’s part of the Star Trek viewing order section. I also uploaded a bunch more LGBTQ+ movie reviews from 2024 yesterday.

I’m not sure what’s on my agenda for the day. It’s very sunny outside this morning. The weather says a high of 63 this afternoon. Maybe I’ll get outside. Aaron has a trip to Philly planned this evening. Maybe I’ll go out then? Or maybe I’ll start my new Star Trek book? I’ve been having a lot of trouble finishing books in the last couple of years. I was doing really well; I was re-reading The Wicked Years in hopes of reading the sequel trilogy for the first time, but then they announced 2 new books, set earlier in the timeline and it killed my interest. I figured I’d wait a bit for those and then do the whole thing again. And I’ve stumbled over everything since then.

The new Trek book is a sequel to Star Trek: Picard, set during a time-jump in the series finale (S03E10 “The Last Generation”) the book has been described as continuity porn, filled with references to various Star Trek episodes from multiple series and films – which sounds like just the kind of thing that I might enjoy at the moment. So, that’s definitely an option. Plus, as the book features Seven and Raffi, we have our LGBTQ+ representation right there. Nice. But who knows if I’ll finish this one? I’ve wanted to finish everything I’ve started in the last few years; I didn’t begin anything with the intent to stop reading, so we’ll see how it goes.

Oh. And I spoke, briefly, with my sister Janice before I passed out. She tried talking to me about her conspiracy theories about 9/11 but I told her I couldn’t listen to it. 9/11 stuff gives me nightmares and always has. I imagine it would likely be worse now that I’ve lived in Manhattan for nearly 14 years. I wish she had more time to relax. She’s always so busy, even on her days off. I love her. She can make me laugh like almost nobody else. Aaron is good at it too. I’m feeling sleepy again and might go back to bed for a nap. I actually didn’t sleep very long last night. I was in bed quite early but it took me a long time to get to sleep and then I was only out for about 5 hours.



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“You got those Caravaggio moves”

I did try working on several viewing orders for my website but I was undermined at nearly every level by formatting issues. There’s a certain way that I like to work and it simply isn’t made easy by WordPress or the theme I went with, and it’s too late to turn back now. So that was unsatisfying. I ended up uploading a dozen LGBTQ+ movie reviews, which inspired me in passing to revisit Derek Jarman’s “Caravaggio”, which I was shocked to learn that I didn’t own. I quickly acquired a copy and re-watched it, enjoying my time with the movie.

I was very tired. All day I was tired and nearly slept. When it came time for bed I slept without taking any drugs, but I didn’t stay asleep. I had eaten a bit more than I should have yesterday and I had acid reflux, which thankfully doesn’t happen often. I’d had many vivid dreams in the few hours that I slept, involving theme parks and oral sex. Upon waking, I was reminded of my first visit to a theme park, Cedar Point in 1985 – and how my PTSD relationship to food first presented to the world as an eating disorder and how much this shamed me. I didn’t eat anything all day save a small box of Nerds – the cherry & orange variety that later went away for some reason. I later learned that I did not have an eating disorder, though I definitely suffered from disordered eating. I had to do an interview on the topic in 2013 to qualify for a surgical procedure. Finding anyplace that would do this interview was very difficult because they generally only saw women, but eventually a found a sympathetic center that made an exception for me. The interview was very thorough and very painful – which is a quote from Terry Hatcher from an interview with her on Inside The Actors Studio, which has always felt like an apt description of my experience and so I’ve used it every time I describe it – but this is the first I’ve ever explained the origin of my expression. She was talking about reporting sexual abuse, and essentially, this is what I was doing as well. In some ways it was liberating, but mostly, it was just horrible. The woman who interviewed me was sympathetic and supportive. I don’t know her name but I’ll always be grateful for her tact. She was amazing.

Trading pictures in text conversation on April 27, 2026.

I briefly traded texts with Michael Eisinger, who I hadn’t spoken to in a long while. He had gone for a long walk, more than 6 miles. It was 70 degrees out and he was loving the beautiful weather – I believe he lives in Maryland? Meanwhile, I was indoors all day. It wasn’t quite 70 degrees in New York.

We did not go to Aaron’s pool game. He had told me early in the day that he wasn’t going, which disappointed me, but by the time the gametime rolled around, I could barely keep my eyes open, and so I likely wouldn’t have gone anyways.

I have two Star Wars: Maul episodes to watch, but like last week, I don’t feel like it right now. I might save them for next week and just binge the last 4 episodes of the season, but I’m not married to that idea. If I feel like watching them at some point, I will. It’s that simple.

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“I’m Awake Now”

I tried working on my website a bit more yesterday but after the productive morning everything I tried just confirmed that I needed to take a break. I showered, shaved and dressed. I decided I wanted food and ordered online. I walked to the store and back. I tried one more time to get something done on here but again, I knew it was time to stop. I ate, put away the leftovers and played some Zelda. I also had a conversation with Mark Adams about his recent birthday, last week’s “Daredevil: Born Again” episode, which he thought was the best of the series to date, and our old adventures for Shawn Foreman and Sean Mobley (whom he had totally confused for one another) – and my now somewhat extensive experience with cruise lines.

I was growing tired and between 9 & 10 I started getting ready for bed and was asleep when Aaron got home. I woke as he was getting into bed and trying to get settled – he closed the door really loudly and kept moving constantly, so he kept waking me up. He also kissed me. Which now that I’m awake, I appreciate, but when I’m sleeping, and people try to be affectionate with me, my sleeping brain does not accept these things and I was mostly just annoyed that he’d woken me up again! lol I did get back to sleep though. I dreamed that I had cancer, or they believed I had cancer. I wasn’t sure I trusted my doctor and others who were there definitely thought it was a hoax. The treatment was going to be extracts from eggplants, liquified and blasted up my ass. I wonder what that could symbolize? lol I woke around 5am and was out of bed by 5:20. I had a smoothie and looked at the news.

I want to work on my viewing orders but I have yet to find a format that I really enjoy for my website, even if I’m excited about the things I want to convey. I’ll give it more thought. I also want to give some thought on what my next essay should entail. And I have so much more to upload here.

I wonder if we’re going to Aaron’s pool game tonight?

This Goo Goo Dolls song was featured in “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare” (1991), which I saw in theaters (in September), by myself, while my sister Janice and her fiancé saw a pre-video premiere re-release of “Dances with Wolves” (1990); their movie was significantly longer than mine so I had to wait in the car for a very long time! lol


During the Nightmare on Elm Street sequel, there is a statue which says “The Children Will Endure”, which stuck with me after the movie. I had long been having erotic dreams; homoerotic dreams, and I latched onto the “The Children Will Endure” and wrote a bunch of poems with “Children” in the title, most of them named after different songs, with the poems being disguised / coded retellings of my dreams which were sexy enough to feel like I accomplished something but were secretive enough to share without feeling like I’d actually outed myself. “The Children Chronicles”. Reading those things now, I’m mostly just happy that I don’t have to hide such things anymore, but a few of them do capture the imagery that in my dreams haunted me daily. I like to sleep. I like to dream. And some of these dreams are as treasured as my waking life.

“The Children Chronicles” ended, more or less, with poems written about friends I’d made while staying in Mercywood Hospital from March – April of 1992 after a non-existent “suicide attempt” (I had a scratch). Most of these friends have been lost by now, but I sill remember them fondly.

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“Our Church is the Dancefloor; I Put My Faith in the Beat”

I wish there was a club nearby. I’d really like to go dancing, but I suppose I can do it in my apartment. The music is better here anyways.

Another mostly great day. Work on the website. I got outside to get some food. As I mentioned earlier, I watched the new Daredevil: Born Again episode and it being really good made my mood that much better. I had a brief but meaningful text exchange with Jennifer Clemente. Oh! And I spoke to my bio dad David Wright who was out to dinner with my sister Janice and my nephew Jordan, who I also spoke to briefly. I was working some stuff out so I couldn’t chat for long, but it was nice.

And then in another surprise, my other dad, Doug reached out on Facebook messenger. I’d not heard from in months. He doesn’t keep his phone on him so I don’t get to talk to him much, but it was nice hearing from him. I wish he’d reach out more often.

Anyways…I’m going to keep listening to my goth music playlist while I dance around the apartment and get ready for bed. lol It’s that kind of day.

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Walking Away

Some days are harder than others.

Some days his voice is so loud
that I can’t hear or feel anything else
without turning myself inside out.

It never lasts for more than an hour or two
(often times less than that)
but in that time he makes sure
that I have his undivided attention.

This can be problematic
and disorienting
when I’m in public.

Our communication can never last for long
because I don’t have the reserves.
It’s too all consuming to sustain itself.

He doesn’t like to be ignored
and I don’t do it on purpose
but it takes a lot of energy
and skills that I’ve not yet completely developed.

And paying attention to him can be dangerous,
but so can ignoring him. Clearly.

Sometimes he wants me to throw all of my food away.
He’s jealous, I think.

Some weekends, everything I plan on
falls apart because of him.

The way that I’m falling apart,
but seldom admit.

Every day that I don’t cut is a victory.
I know this.
But it doesn’t feel like the truth.
It feels like cowardice.

If I could just cut him out of me…
I’d be dead.

That’s the problem.

I think I’m beginning to hate him.
Hate myself.
Because he’s keeping me prisoner.
I missed the party on Friday,
the opera on Saturday,
the walk in the park today
because of his need…
and my aversion.

These feel like failures or defeats,
but is it a failure if it keeps you alive?

I try to talk myself through it
but my feelings are complicated
and often contradictory.

I don’t think anyone around me understands
and why should they?
It hurts being so alone though.

It’s just him and me.
Like when she abandoned me. Us.

There are people that love me,
which is incredible really,
because there’s a big piece of myself that’s missing.

He’s completely disconnected from me
and when that connection is made
the spark of that moment is blinding…
but nobody gets to see it but me.

Or maybe I’m wrong and people do see him,
or the absence of him?

Maybe people love me because of him.

I don’t really know.

All I know is that he’s closer to me today
than he usually is
and I’m alone
and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Time to go for a walk.

Written by Jason Wright
March 29, 2015

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