james · shultis

almost 6 months on testosterone. things are changing every day. it's fast, it's a drip drop down. none of my friends are even on this anymore.


signed,
jameson

how permeable he has become underneath all of this. he can’t take it some nights. some nights he is driving, others he is standing still in front of the mirror, shaking his head, tousling his hair, what better thing to do. what better thing could he do on a night like this, everything hanging somewhat strange in his perspective. he sees it all and he’s scared, he’s shaking with cold feet on a hot, humid night sometime in july. it’s hard to breathe, and he’s been coughing since late june, losing his voice. he likes the way it sounds, it’s familiar, like he’s come across himself again, side of the road, stranger shaking hands with stranger and suddenly they’re old friends. coffee on saturdays. but right now, right now he hates this feeling of not knowing the difference. not knowing which way this part of the road turns, he hates being ambiguous, but he is. here are the specifics: light comes into his eyes early, seven am early, and he turns to face the cold white of an unslept pillow next to his own, he touches it fast and notices the impression his hand makes. he hates this. and he’s in his childhood home, in an unchildlike mind, wishing he would have cleaned the apartment before leaving, said goodbye to the cat, drank less, ate less, worried less, but he’s already here, already ready for sleep, and underneath all of these thoughts, all of the updates from old friends he talks to drunkenly at four in the morning, he remembers that solids become liquids become gas become air in the night and he is radiant, he is beautiful in those seconds before sleep.

slow down. it's spring. it's april. it's a year since her, eight months since i've been in this city. it's fucking beautiful.

boys in so many parts of this place that make me happy. dancing until 4 in the morning to come home to someone else's bed, my own, some street i've never seen, and i can only smile and watch the rest of the morning sweep away my face.

in january i met a beautiful boy, cayden, we're bros now. i don't know what it means, taking a break, something. it's good being free again. i forget that i flirt so much. but hopefully shit will come together, i love him like whoa, so you know, it would be nice, if things come together.

besides that, we're taking a road trip down south or north or to the coast pronto. we'll get lost somewhere for 5 days and take pretty pictures. i think we might check out durham or south carolina's coast, or visit maine or just drive and get the fuck out of the city.

ps. i go to the doctor who will prescribe me T tomorrow. wish me luck. i haven't told everyone yet, those of you i don't see often, or that live on the left coast. i need to tell her, hopefully before she reads this. i think i'm most worried about her, but it's really driving me out of my head, this body, this body, and i can't let some shit in the past hold me back. i'm too smart for that.

i think these are the most recent photos of me. that i have anyway. astor place. 2006. we got bored waiting fer the train. james loves making silly!

this is my narrative for my expository writing class. i edited it to make it a shorter for lj, but here it is:

when i leave this is what i say
by, james shults
I’m used to being in the dark I guess. Could see the bullets fly over Broadway if I had a telescope and those buildings weren’t blocking my view from Brooklyn. The sky will do. Strange ocean quality to it at midnight, at winter, and this is the best time to say I love you. I’ve said it more times than I’ve meant it.

Driving through California, and all I wanted to do was make it to San Francisco by morning, but she drew her legs up on the seat, sighed and looked at the ocean, saying maybe another time; we had only ten hours to go, driving from Seattle, and we were so fucking close. But the way her face shined silver and her eyes met mine, I had to say it.

The pacific coast was flying while she slept or I and there were mountainous islands in the water. Their sides stacked and packed with crustaceans and barnacles. We made friends with a toy-like crab, took pictures of it and set it free. Saw sand dollars still gray and alive on the ground, threw them back in the ocean so they wouldn’t get sold to tourists at the roadside shops we so often stopped in. Stopping because there was nothing else, and looking at baskets of seashells was better than another five hours straight on the road. We’d steal plastic dinosaurs from them and decorate the car.

More hours on the road, and we arrived in Arcata, California, where her family was. There was a bell that would sound everyday at noon downtown that was the same as the alarm used in air-raid drills back in the forties. I ducked for cover as we made our way to her aunt’s house, and oh the things we do for those we love, sleeping so quietly, barely touching on the pullout couch in the living room, and this was supposed to be vacation? But it was, and her aunt fed us until we were full, and we laughed, and it was good, but still, I couldn’t shake that I never did get to drive her to San Francisco.

We flew there five months later however, pretended we were married. I meant it real bad when I said it then. Love became surreal. We literally felt euphoric when we heard the mention of the word. We were so in the moment we realized nothing else, we saw nothing else, love was blind, but in those moments, it didn’t matter; running around Castro with all the queers and we were home. Open arms all over. The coffee was as good as in Seattle, not the diesel fuel I grew up on in Jersey. There were so many colors: murals and flags and street cars that shined most spectacular. Everything moved. Even the bums had an air about them, knowing somehow, that although they were broke, it was summer and it wouldn’t be cold for long.

With her, I could’ve kept exploring the city forever. Love makes you lose sense of time when you’re in it. Seasons change and you can only mark them changing with the alteration of the sheets on the bed. Winter and there’s a comforter, woolen knits, flannel; summer and there’s a thin white cotton sheet and throw pillows, beautiful pastels of orange and green.

The west didn’t ever seem to get dark. Perhaps that’s why I missed New York so much and left her for it. Perhaps it’s because we are all scared of commitment, that when things get too comfortable we run and hide. Love drives us to do crazy things, things we might look back on and say to ourselves: what the fuck was I thinking, there was no reason to go anywhere, you always want what you don’t have, stupid. I was running to where I thought was safe, familiar, but in reality, she was safe and familiar, I failed to see this so I said I love you and she looked out the window and cried as I pulled out of the driveway and I didn’t know how it would feel when I came back, if I ever came back, how she would hold me and say love and make all the other words I memorized in the dictionary useless: secret, cynicism, zygomatic arch, Republican, conundrum, Godzilla. Maybe I’m giving her too much credit. Have I really turned into someone completely different now that I’m gone? No, she just isn’t here and I’m more careful when I say I love you.

I want to go back; we always want to go back. Why do we torture ourselves, knowing it’ll only lead to trouble, to restless nights of no sleep, of memories we aren’t quite ready to relive? But I want to see those empty streets in Olympia I gave love to, led her eyes-closed to dinner, gave flowers, got bruises from riding my bike in the rain after I broke up with her and fell and just sat in the road crying wishing she would kiss it better. Maybe I’m a masochist, so I go back.

When I go back, nothing is the same. We forget how time can go on with or without us. I forget this. She is skinny, cooks with less garlic, and has new postcards on the walls, a new apartment. She hands me a stone she collected on the beach and tells me it reminds her of the dark. I wonder what she means. She never used to speak in metaphor. It’s red and heavy in my hands. Red like the desert sand when I went to Arches in Utah and felt like it was a southwestern sort of Valentines with all these shades of pink and red and rocks that were shaped like hearts and arrowheads. Dark was never those things for me, and for her? Why does this rock represent dark for her?

I slept in her bed and promised myself to not fall in love again, but I did because I had to, because I was still in love when I left. Fell in love with her because she knew me and wasn’t scared when I cried out in the dark from a nightmare; I said I love you and meant it but I left and hid in the dark, back to Brooklyn, back to black. Old habits repeat themselves, scared boy running again because there’s a possibility of it not working out. Here now, I live with all of these words as secrets, my love’s a secret, what I so wanted, tried so hard to forget, secret, except to you, but really, what I do is secret now I guess.

my dog died. i thought i'd just put it out there. i have a poetry workshop this morning and i'm not gonna use this poem, but it's one that i wrote.

"poem number one"

i was told to write a poem
a poem
write a poem
and all i could think about,
is that my dog died.
dead dog on a night like this.

this night.
what do i say?
nothing to say.

my mother cried to me on the phone.
muffled breathing words.
and she read me a poem
only a poem
and she cried cried on the phone.

told to write a poem and all i can see are pages ripped up in the garbage can.
i wonder if You did this.
wonder, but you are gone.
dead dog.

well i started school!!! it's beautiful. i love it. my schedule is pretty much, the best. i switched out of this english literature course because i couldn't bear beowulf and donne and milton and chaucer right now in my first semester back, i think that's for the best. so... i switched into a ceramics course!! i haven't done pottery since high school but i'm gonna sweat at it. it's a 3 1/2hour class, with open studio time. i can hear those wheels turning already!

here's my darn awesome schedule.
mon. WORK 2-10pm
tues. class: intermediate expository writing, cultural anthro, poetry workshop.
weds. class: same except minus poetry and plus creative writing workshop, then later...CERAMICS!!!
thursday. WORK 2-10pm
friday. same as tuesday! then WORK.
saturday. class: creative writing @ 11am then nothing!
sunday. WORK 1-9pm

it's rad.

anyway, i've decided to just keep going to school through the summer. i'm going to do my requirements for my major, which is that damn literature course, i'm also going to do my GERs. including math and a history of some sort. i'll probably do classics. i need a language too, so i'm going to take an intensive italian course in the summer and then in between summer and fall semesters, i'm going to go to italy, either by myself or with someone pretty.

it's all set. i would have gone to durham in the summer, but i'm sure i'll go someday. i feel really good. and i'm writing often, but i'm sure you never expected anything less.

oh and ps:
this entry really doesn't convey how happy i am about starting school!! but those who know me, know i'm fucking ecstatic!!

today i thought about how easy it is to keep up with how someone is doing via the internet. i thought about disapearing today. the weather was perfect. raining the way i like it to. i love the fucking city. i love brooklyn and all its imperfections. they're right there no matter what. they never hold back the truth, hide it behind similar words.

olympia is far in the distance. when i dropped him off at the airport, earlier than planned, weight was lifted almost instantly. i don't know quite why. i couldn't take care of him like i used to. in the back of my mind my common sense was telling me things i didn't want to hear. that he was gonna hurt me. the whole fucking thing was gonna come crashing down. it did. for a second.

for that one second i could only see her and every memory everything i've held sacred trying to keep me warm. for that one second. i missed her and was for that one second screaming in my head, wondering why she missed me. then common sense reappeared and assured me this will pass. that matters of the heart will pass. and they do and they have and it's always better.

i know now at this very second, there is so much light in me. shining like a fucking dream. i'm better. i'm not skirting around this like each of us has before. we are all guilty. and now i'm saying it. this shit has been fucked up. to some extent, it still is. i miss olympia. i'm in love with it, i love her, i saw children and puppies and cooking dinner and naked workouts in front of a mirror watching law and order listening to damien rice the postal service but i'm all the way out in brooklyn. and i needed this. i need comfort. i need this city and how gruesome it can be sometimes and know that it won't change. that my first love, this fucking place, is still my love.

i've realized that the new year will bring so much for me. will make solid many of the things i've wanted for myself. adventure, happiness, self-sufficiency, glamour, love. i see things working out in the strangest of ways, when i hear solace through the walls on a sunday morning from the tabernacle next door. gospel music and good cheer. i see dreams when i sleep. they are beautiful nothings and i wake up smiling.

tonight i decided to go out. always out on wednesdays. now always out to vox pop. www.voxpopnet.net it's 1022 cortelyou rd. off of the Q. in flatbush, bklyn. fucking easy to get to as i figured. i stumbled across a songwriters forum that happens one wednesday every month two weeks ago, there's another coming up on the 21st i'm siked. but tonight tonight...

the guy's name is troy soriano and he wrote the independently published book which is still in the making entitled: "my blue year in a red state". it's a docu-novel about how he decided to move to nebraska, the reddest of the red states after bush was elected in 2004 to figure out why people voted for him, who they were, what they thought about, etcetera, etcetera. he talks a lot about race. which reminded me of evergreen and how people are always striving for conversation but always pushing their leftist shit all over the place instead of listening. pretending they understand. (this isn't always true) but goddamn sometimes they just keep talking.

he tries to make conversation. he knows he can't push himself onto people. being that he is already a minority. one being he's not white, he's latino, two he's queer, and he's a democrat, obviously. so people are probably not going to like him. he knows this.

what i found to be most interesting was his slideshow he presented. two slides stood out to me. the first being a billboard which read: "this is gods country" with two american flags. this was the first thing troy saw coming into omaha. he asked: "which god?" and "who paid for the sign?" the second was a poem by rumi hanging in an experimental art gallery in the downtown, a line read: "forget what you know" "listen" i find this to be something we should all think about. forget what you know. forget. and listen. i think this will make progress, not discecting each and every move the administration does, what we do, but finding out why, and what we would look to do differently or what we find constructive. ask questions, but don't destroy. listen. find a new way to look at the situation. say: "mr. bush is an interesting man, he's not what i'd call a friendly neighbor but..." and whatever. see where that takes you. i want to have a conversation and not a debate. people want to be listened to, give them that.

well i'm really happy. really. i wrote a lot and i'm getting a raise tomorrow. fuck yeah.

we all know that home isn't about geography, it's about where you find love and where you're life is. mine is in olympia and brrooklyn. it's a hard split, 3000 miles and it takes 4 days if you hurry by car, 2 months running, and about 6.5 hours flying. the latter is what i've reserved for the october 29th. i'll be in olys arms for a week. old haunts and i'm thinking about a horseshoe tattoo on my sleeve.

these past two months have been a little insane. i'm insane maybe. love is far away and i'm running like crazy to my job every day. 5 days a week plus maybe a day overtime. i manage to make about 1400 a month which is pretty decent. people look for that in half a year sometimes.

the road trip was good. there was bros and hoes all the way to nyc. minnesota, where i lost my gold star, canada full of nothing and vaginas in regina, it was lovely all in all. i drove all the way from chicago to new jersey by myself, while kylen slept and twitched and laughed and cried. it was b e a utiful.

well peace out cub scouts and lovelies. i'll be home soon.
jameson

i've been following ghosts since i was sixteen. they don't exist. each of them takes a unique shape. red and gold and blue. each shining, halo, fluorescent outline, eerie motion picture quality.

i know each through a chapter in my life. all of them i run from. the scared little boy i've grown to be. taking comforts with strangers, old railcars and roads leading to nowhere.

i find myself in the east. being blind and severely confused i seek refuge in a place that has become a ghost town of memories and old bus schedules. my hands are worn from work. palms splitting to keep the mind at rest.

this will have to be how it is. writing to keep these ghosts occupied. to keep them away from what they can't touch. i wonder if there's a remedy.

it's what we've always wanted:

ain't she a beauty. too bad i don't move into my apartment until the first of october, or else she'd be mine. i'd name her, abble the tabble, you know like scrabble.

the city is bright and pretty. i'm reading/writing a lot and have been in my head for the past week and a half since he left. it seems so much more peaceful in the streets compared to my thoughts like racehorses. i think i need someone who i can bounce ideas off of, besides people thousands of miles away. it'll happen i suppose. there are many cute girls and boys and much time. a date or two can never hurt anyone. it'll be fun and keep my mind occupied.

what else? i started work about two weeks ago at this place here:

i work as the produce boy/cashier/muscle who loves to eat the food we find to be unsellable, meaning it goes to "food not bombs" or "city harvest" or it just happened to look like a good james lunch. it's lovely.

oh yes. my address is as follows:
j. shultis
1462 bedford ave. apt. 4r
brooklyn, ny 11216

it's perty. i get my own living room and bedroom. the kitchen has black and white tiles and my roommate is a cute professor/writer/coparent/catlover/queer/visualartist whose name is lesley/lester. perfect yes. i move in the first, so no mail till then.

i started listening to mirah again tonight. i like cowboy songs.
"you're so far, lone star, so tell me all about you're celebrate past, so tell me how long you're gonna last here in texas texas texas, cause you're as big as texas texas texas"
and...
the artist formerly known as prince. "purple rain" "little red corvette" "when doves dry". he's gorgeous...in a weird andro/pixie/glamrock/sequins sort of way, if you know what i mean.

OH PS!
for those of you looking for some company, and are in the city, i'll be your man. chivalry at it's finest, unless you'd like to do that.
cute huh?

well here i am, back in ole new york/new jersey. my heart has been pulled in so many directions this summer, this year. i miss people and places as i always have, miss driving on the bus to downtown over the bridge to see the crest of mt. rainier clear in the distance. there's this strange feeling of loss and fufillment, i've had it before, it's the feeling of forgetting to remember, of flying or driving to somewhere new that has familiar street signs but different faces.

tonight i am wanting something steady to lean on. people from out west are distant and even telephone conversations are garbled. people here in the east fall asleep too early too soon and work long hours. i see a beautiful woman with a streetlamp halo around her head, heels in her hands, walking barefoot to a train, she is lovely, she who works so hard.

ascared still,
but everyone is.

i'm here until the 21st of august. i have no idea about italy, i wish i did. it would be beautiful to have two weeks there. i could turn on the stove and you could cook dinner. i think i'll get started on the list of things i like/love about you, it would make you smile. before you went up the hill, that would have been the right time, i thought about it as i was walking past the pump house and it made me not ascared. i looked up ascared and afraid, you were right.

i like it here in the east. if i could draw a heart around it, i would. i want to run around grocery stores with you.

ps.. write me:
j.shultis
camp hoover
po box 52 route 521
middleville, nj 07855

so it's on. new york city is being taken over in a year, by then you will all have forgotten, but by then i'll be a quasi mayor/president/student/writer/somethingorother in the city and be smiling lots. hunter will have a place for me in its big/small city university of ny heart.

my plan:
(1) i'll write a medium sized fantastic book all about the people i've met and loved and kicked in the crotch.
(2) get challenged and made to feel like shit because my writing isn't what it should be by a professor and then prove him wrong after i learn and make my work better. getting told that your work is good is not constructive, make me cry GODDAMNIT! not you though.
(3) find a pretty apartment in brooklyn, live there.

(4) save an abandoned puppy and become best buddies with it.
(5) actually have a reason to own a yearly metrocard.
(6) have an actual affair with the city, not a long distance one.
(7) smile some more.

so there you have it. i have a year to make a beautiful garden.

DISCLAIMER:i'm scared of this all also. i just need to enjoy the people i'm around, all of them. i don't know what she thinks of this, we know that things are not right, or maybe they are and we don't see them, or they will be when i come back, or not. i want a lot from her, i think she sees this. he sees this also. remember what you wrote me with your red pen, i think it too.

you would think i would write them off, both of them, all of them and just start over. you're thinking he's crazy, he's holding on for something that is destined to hurt him. you're saying he can't save the world and his friends, he can't fix them, this i've realized, i've smiled about this.

today was beautiful in the city, in new jersey. i'm sure the sun was trying to make up for its bad days, trying to make me tan. i had pancakes and left for the train, read and thought about what i was going to do to keep myself busy. perhaps smile, that seemed nice, count how many people would smile back, i think i recieved 6 or 7 within the first minute or so.

seeing people was good. i missed bettie, i missed them all. i ordered 2 pickles at the diner, that was 40 minutes ago, my stomach hurts blegh.

your task today is to make funny faces in the car, in a bus, waiting for something, whenever and whatever you feel do it, make yourself smile. take care.

today i am in the east and there's not a smile on my face. some part of me wishes i would've stayed another week in oly, i could have been in my head there in a place familiar. today there are only distant memories and bad coffee. my grammer is bad, sentences with words which don't exist. i'll write more or less, look at my typewriter with nothing to say, and watch sitcoms to remind me of all the drama i've left behind. it is only this summer day however, the next one may be better, i should really write disclaimers about these entries.

i had a dream last night, in my room, and it wasn't terrible, i slept and i held on all night. my dream: i watched things fall from the sky, my back flat against the asphalt. mostly i saw them out of the corner of my eye, guess i'm blind to the things that are staring me in the face. you crossed my mind from time to time, or maybe just stood still and watched me. i liked it being so simple, usually my dreams are, but for 1 1/2 years you haven't been in them. strange, but comforting.

i remember some nights, i doubted you ever really happened, i thought you might have been one of my illusions. now i've got sweaty palms and empty daydreams, and that emptiness is comforting. there's no room for disappointment when you have no expectations, and everything can be as simple as a rooftop with strangers or flying a plane back to the east, your door, mine.

here i am, june, my month, and all i can see is a postcard picture of italy and lemonade.