I’ve been out of the blogosphere for a week, and what a week it’s been. Mostly I was on a self-imposed editing exile to finish the final *final* edits on The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasies, an exile where I go over the whole thing like a little monkey looking for fleas, finding last-minute typos and checking URL’s, etc. The only frustrating thing is that in this stage, it’s in its "galley" form, already through layout, and I can’t make any major changes that would upset the formatting. Like add this nice new women’s sex toy site, Girls’ Night In. I did update and spruce up my cunnilingus and fellatio pages; the design is simpler and there is more information, and external links. If you have recommendations for more, do let me know.
Life has been like a crazy tornado. I’ve gotten lengthy and aggressive emails in all caps from certain best-selling sex authors, had cool conversations with a very helpful, sweet and funny Anka Radakovich, enjoyed a pleasant lunch/porn watching afternoon with Carol, hid in a foxhole while Fleshbot declared a War on the War on Porn, interviewed with a London TV show getting serious about having me on, and saw my best friend blowing out of town amidst a bizarre trail of debris.
That would be Thomas. Last week marked his final days at GV, and I could only sit and watch the chaos, with a mixture of sadness, resignation and apprehensive amusement. On Wednesday, his last day, I was waiting to go on the radio for Sirius Q’s Derek and Romaine Show, and Thomas asked me to hang out with him while he shredded all the evidence, er, I mean, all the sensitive documents. He had two stacks of file boxes, one as tall as me, three mail bins he was sorting ancient files into that were labeled in dripping gothic letters, and still the place was a disaster area. I found some weird archaeological stuff from the ghosts of GV’s past, including bizarre S/M pictures of a long-ago former video buyer. Were they promo pics of some kind? Yikes. I left them on Carol’s chair as a present.
That scene didn’t compare to Thomas’ “yard sale.” In fact nothing compares to it. I was all excited about a Thomas Roche yard sale — I mean, this is the guy who lectures about necrophilia to sex ed students, has a ponygirl, and writes handfuls of crime, Mafia and S/M novels a year. This had to be good.
But it also had to be Thomas, my lovingly neurotic best friend who kept a candy jar of anti-depressants on his desk. I cannot describe the scene I walked into but I will try… In a seedier part of SF’s Mission district, I came up the Victorian apartment stairs, around the corner and there, in the hall, leading up to the open door, began the piles, the boxes and the trash bags — and all the trash. Just inside the door were Thomas and a sexy little Suicide Girl — and the mouth an avalanche, or perhaps some kind of freaky postmodern barricade, knee-deep of Thomas’ stuff.
Somehow the cute girl (not Ponygirl) had been suckered into helping Thomas shovel piles of crime and sex books, garbage from when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and piles of notes, receipts, bills, and porn into garbage bags. I asked if I could come in; the reply was a happy, "If you can!" I stumbled into his apartment hallway, bruising my shin on an overflowing plastic bin and tripping on a few boxes, all of which left about four available inches to squeeze though the hallway. Books were piled to the ceiling along the entire length of the apartment’s north wall. It was an event. It was mind-blowing. I mean, I’m a minimalist in my house; I love the clean, modern look. I could only watch.
I went into the livingroom/bedroom and surveyed the piles on the floor and bed, accidentally stepping on a blanket on top of a box on top of a lamp, crushing the lamp. I didn’t think he would notice. The entire apartment was littered throughout with loose change and antacids. I sat down and noticed the boxes and boxes of porn. Really bad porn. I took a visual inventory of the room: a case of Girl Scout cookies, and one empty box of shortbreads next to the bed. Where was the Girl Scout? I shuddered. One box of disposable gloves. Random high-quality S/M toys scattered to the four corners of the room. A giant box — Stratego: The Star Wars edition. I shuddered again. A Kegelscisor on the floor, along with a copy of Gun Digest Book of Assault Weapons, How to Host a Murder, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plastic Surgery. A shredder sat silently next to the bed, an obvious accomplice of some sort, resting in a nest of empty Bite Size Dorito bags.
There was an industrial chain lying over a few boxes, ending at the floor next to a pair of panties. Suicide Girl asked, “Thomas: Throw these away?” “No! They’re sentimental, I cut them off someone.” “They’re dirty.” she wrinkled her nose. “Ew,” I concurred. Thomas and SG picked about the room, going back to the kitchen to shovel more trash. I eyed the regulation white straight jacket hanging on the closet door, considered the implications, then let my eyes wander back to the floor amongst the stained copies of Writer’s Digest, the unopened package of black Bondage Tape, and the entire contents of The Godfather 1 and 2 complete disk sets at random intervals. I admired the Holy Bible on the bookshelf among all the Mafia books. A drawer yawned at me, sticking out its contents: a Voodoo doll, a copy of Lez be Friends, a Goodfellas video, and many obscure vitamin bottles.
I didn’t know if I could help. Actually I knew I couldn’t. I really just wanted to hold myself and rock in a corner, except I couldn’t *see* the corners. I abjectly found an empty coffee cup and set out to gather all the loose change while heckling the pair and teasing Thomas about his porn choices. At one point I lifted a half-eaten Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups package to scoop up a few pennies, and out popped a straight razor. I survived, but decided it was time to get back to editing my book, no matter how dangerous and amusing Thomas’ life had become – but of course I was not allowed to escape empty-handed. I took one overflowing box of porn (“Just *one* box?”), was forced to take sixty cans of Budweiser (even though I don’t drink Bud), two barely-sipped bottles of whiskey (no force needed), and a strawberry iMac — actually, the first computer I ever owned, that I sold to Thomas several years ago.
I am pretty sentimental about that iMac. But Thomas, though he is now in LA, is not gone forever. First of all, he left every single one of his twisted little bookmarks on the iMac’s Explorer. Some are the kind you’re afraid to click on because you just know the FBI will move you a bit closer to the top of their list, know what I mean? And, of course, I gave him a key to my apartment, so he always has a couch to crash on when he’s here. But I better not find any Girl Scouts forgotten in the cushions when he leaves.
