Death Diary: On Denial and Daily Grief Rituals
(Previously: On Dommes and the Paradox of Submission)
October 13
“That this death fails to destroy me altogether means that I want to live wildly, madly…” (Roland Barthes)
Texting with a friend.
She thinks we’ll fuck, but is afraid of ruining what we have. I’m afraid of that, too. I don’t want to become obsessive or weird or jealous. I don’t want to lose her. Or for things to become fraught.
We have such a beautiful symbiosis. Why alter it to satisfy a carnal urge?
Because I love giving in to my carnal urges.
Because lust is a language and I am fluent at speaking in tongues. Because she’s beautiful and touching her would be beautiful.
But not now. Maybe not ever. It’s a precarious time for both of us.
—
Last night, sadness embalmed me.
I was with S. We hiked Claremont canyon and she told me about the guy she’s seeing, the one who precipitated our breakup (I’m guessing).
We ate fondue and warm olives and drank delicious, fussy cocktails at the Claremont Hotel and I wanted to call it a night, but she wanted to keep going, so we took a Lyft downtown and every bar we attempted to go was closed, and yet I ignored this, too.
Don’t go looking for omens—you will find them everywhere.
Eventually we found a bar that was open and I texted the Domme and invited her to Corgi Con and she laughed but didn’t say yes, and meanwhile S thought I was sad about her and I kept telling her no, it wasn’t that—though I am still mad at her for dumping me at my birthday party—but then she pulled me into a bear hug and said how much she missed me.
“Really?” I said, genuinely surprised, because she’s barely talked to me all month.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes!”
October 14
The fastest way to heighten pleasure is to deny yourself pleasure.
I knew this before, but I am really knowing it now.
October 17
Haven’t heard from the Domme in days. I’m not entirely giving up, but, well.
October 18
Date last night. A geneticist. No spark, but she’s sweet. A tiny redhead.
I realized that if I’m not attracted to someone, I’m completely at ease around them.
When I am attracted, my nervous system goes haywire, as if I’m about to give a speech to a thousand people. I can’t eat. My stomach fists itself. Hands and feet turn to ice.
Curious.
As I was drifting off, I started fantasizing that a friend and I were in bed chatting. I was teaching her how to heighten tension.
Close your eyes, I said. Then waited. Shifting slightly in the sheets. Hovering over her, but not touching her.
After some time passed, I asked her: Did your breath quicken? Does your skin itch wondering where I might touch you?
“Yes,” she said.
I went on, still not touching her.
How might I do it? Maybe I’d lightly caress the hairs on your forearm. Maybe I’d lift your shirt and place a hand, cold, on your stomach. Maybe I’d place my face so close to your neck you could feel my warm breath coating you.
And then I stopped the fantasy. Denied myself even imagining touching her.
October 19
Anxiety is horrid, because you’re not really battling anything, except your own thoughts.
—
When am I going to stop thinking/writing/saying, “No word from the Domme still.” It’s been a week.
Not long.
An eternity.
I have a date with a married woman on Tuesday.
October 20
I dreamed my dad was a ghost whom only I could see. I was with a friend and saw his reflection in a mirrored window and got so excited that I started talking to the window like a crazy person. I told my friend and she didn’t see him, but I just kept right on—continuing to translate between the three of us.
I cried randomly yesterday thinking about him.
October 21
I wrote a sex scene for my erotic novel that takes place in a confessional. It serves no narrative purpose. Only sex for sex’s sake. I’m happy with it, except that prior to writing it, I was looking for something I had written about you—our sex—which prompted me to re-read The Sad Journal and get (unsurprisingly) (monstrously) sad.
What a shitty time that was. It’s still shocking to me how bad it got with you in so short a time. Our honeymoon phase was a blink.
And I was so weak, so desperate to be loved by you at all costs.
I’m happy to be free of that toxic situation. Sometimes though, when I think about the sex especially, I become wistful.
You wrote beautifully about desire, longing, lust. You excelled at grandiosity, when you wanted to. Though mostly it was talk.
I wonder when I’ll stop being angry with you. Maybe never. Our endings were all so unsatisfying. But who cares? An end is an end is an end, as Gertrude Stein might say.
Writing this novel makes me remember the good parts, though. The intrigue, the flirtation, the possibility so brimming you could drown in it.
But writing erotica while my body is full of grief feels immensely strange. I have cried and cum at the same time before, of course. But this is different. Worse.
In my erotica, I seduce myself. Play every role. I submit and dominate and torture and tease. I do this when I fantasize, too.
S used to tease me about it. “It’s so authorial,” she said. “You can’t not play god, can you?”
October 24
I told my therapist about a 27-year-old who is sending me unsolicited nudes and she asked me to ruminate on why I “continue to fish in the shallow end of the pond.”
It made me laugh. Am I not allowed a small, pointless joy once in a while?
October 25
The absence of him fills every room I’m in.
I started a daily mourning ritual. I set aside 3–5 minutes, usually in the morning, to think about my dad (and cry).
I’m doing this because I realized I was unintentionally suppressing my grief. Pushing it away. Distracting myself.
I didn’t think I was. It’s such a learned habit though.
The pain pricks you and you turn from it. You think about something else. You ignore it, and it goes—not away, exactly, but somewhere else—and then you move on, or feel like you have.
As I do this ritual, what continues to shock me is how swiftly the tears come. All I have to do is devote a tiny bit of attention to my sadness and my heart becomes a river.
I am hoping this lessens with time (thus far it hasn’t) but for now I’ll take the tears as evidence of my love. And keep going.
October 27
I dreamed about you. You were supposed to meet me at Starbucks but vanished. I woke up feeling shitty. In real life, you were always vanishing.
And I was chasing you into my own open grave.
October 28
I dreamed my dad was alive and more youthful, the way he looked when I was in high school. I was behind him and hugged him hard, recognizing, somehow, the rarity of this kind of dream.
It was sweet, then it was over and now I’m crying.
October 31
I dreamed I was in “school” and a hot, slightly (10 years) older woman was teaching me about anti-colonialism on my bed.
I told her my dad died and she hugged me and I could feel that she wasn’t wearing a bra and as we pulled away, my hand lightly trailed the curve of her breast, which she allowed.
That’s all that happened, but it was so visceral. My hand palming her breast through the thin fabric of her shirt.
—
I reread the journal entry about the night I met the Domme. (She still hasn’t called, of course.) (And she won’t.) (And one day I’ll stop writing about it.)
But that feeling. I’m glad I got to hold it briefly. To fill my mouth with its vibrant color.
November 1
The weight of the week has covered me in bricks.
I have a date tonight and don’t want to go but am forcing myself to.
November 3
I dreamed the Domme emailed me to ask me to do something with her and it made me so happy.
Oy, save me from this clinging, shrink-wrapped heart.
November 5
I dreamed that two LA-femme, house-wife types were fighting by slowly peeling each other’s faces off.
Apparently, it represents “unbearable sensitivity,” which, yeah.
But please, gods, let me fixate on a worthier cause than my loneliness. Let me go outside myself and stretch thin as a balloon and roam the atmosphere, a shiny beacon of curiosity and love.
November 6
I got a motherfucking press release about your book.
When we were together all you did was run and now you will not go away! The irony is not lost on me.
I’ve blocked you on every medium and still you appear.
I didn’t read the release. But, you know, congrats. I’m glad you finally finished it.
Also, every time something upsetting happens, I have this horrid tendency to list all the things that are going wrong in my life, compounding the bad feeling. Making it worse.
Why? Why make a present of this suffering?
November 7
In Mourning Diary, after his mother dies, Roland Barthes talks about enjoying his life bitterly, as if his grief can contain no traces of happiness—as if suffering is the truest measure of how much we loved the person.
I relate to this so much. My suffering saturates. It houses me.
Sometimes I feel that prolonging suffering offers proof of my aliveness. Look at all I have borne for you. And would gladly bear again.
What a thought.
