And suck it does. Ted's perving on some man's cock--something I can totally relate to, since Brian's cock has a starring role in most of my fantasies. But come on, does Ted *ever* get any actual, flesh-and-blood action? Everyone says he's pathetic because of it. Yeah, he's pathetic, but it's not exactly because of the whole virtual action shit. He kinda reminds me of Manet; both of them did some groundbreaking work in their chosen fields but ended up watching as the next wave of young talent went farther, got more famous and took most of the glory. Maybe if Ted would just...reach farther, branch out, go somewhere new. I think he's afraid to, though. He suffered so much at the beginning of his online sex fantasy thing that now, he's comfortable there. He endured the torture, the humiliation and the mockery and now it's just another too-soft, too-comfortable sweatshirt. That's why Ted's pathetic. He's stuck in something that's not doing anything for him and isn't going anywhere either. It's enough to have one of those things plaguing your nights, but both? Man, move on. Just.move.on.

And besides, Ted shouldn't ever sit next to Emmett--any curator worth his salt would claw his eyes out before hanging Manet next to one of Dalí's later pieces. Emmett's outfit of the day is something Brian might refer to as LSD a la mode. Emmett was always some sort of Dalí painting--flashy, psychedelic and just a wee bit out in someone else's unconscious's left field. Some days, he was early Dalí--that 'hey, look at me' phase, with his hand up in the air waving for your attention. Then there were days like today, where he didn't bother with formalities and just grabbed you by the throat in those surprisingly strong hands and shook you til all you knew was that damn Emmett had arrived. Glenda-the-Good-Emmett verses Wicked-Emmett-of-the-West. Days like this, I feel like one of the Lollypop Kids, and maybe Debbie's been sneaking 'shrooms into the cannoli.

And mmm, Debbie. She's a good cook, but tonight's usual repast is sitting in my stomach like wet clay. Oh, it tasted fine, but she's doing her shouting thing again. Debbie's my own personal Warhol, a self-contained dichotomy of convention and audacity that doesn't bother asking if you want an explanation. She's by turns the strangest thing I've ever seen and the most ordinary person in the world. One day, she's a better gay man than I am, and the next she's every mother hen I've ever met. She's tacky and tasteless, an armchair made out of recycle tires and decorated with Astroturf. Incredibly original but often a bad idea anyway. It's not surprising then that if you take a walking Warhol and impregnate her by a drag queen, you get a comic strip--Michael.

Who is currently engaged in an actual intellectual conversation with Ben. I'm so fucking glad they can't actually procreate. Somehow I think the crossing of a comic strip and a mandala would be some sort of neopolitical anime strip featuring giraffes and grenade launchers. Ben's calming, at least in small doses--right up until I want to scan him into a computer and mess that too-neat-design up utterly by injecting some fucking uniqueness. Pattern for as far as the inner eye can see. It drives me nuts after about five minutes, but then again so does meditation.

God, I'm horny.

Watching Mel and Lindsay always softens me right up, though, and tonight is no different. They're like Bob Ross and Bob Ross's evil twin, hung side by side in some vacation-resort gallery. Happy little clouds and steel-toed trees, dancing merrily along utopian streams of mid-priced red wine and bungalows in the suburbs. They scare me; class a la Target and mass consumption revolutionaries bundled up in Ikea-branded post-hippy chick sentimentality. Bring the American Dream to the queer world, my ass. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting the same things everyone else wants, but... The thing is, we *have* most of that anyway. There's no need to repackage it with a rainbow flag on it just for the sake of doing it. We all wipe our asses with fluffy white paper and I don't need mine to be queer friendly. I want good health insurance, not a neighborhood association that caters to someone's desires for biweekly parades espousing my cause of the week. And no fucking fluffy happy reinforced aluminum clouds. With leather.

Gus is cute, though. And so like Brian it's scary. Some days I wonder if there's actually any of Linds in him, past a few physical features. If anyone could find a way to procreate without anyone else's genes involved, it would be Brian.

I could spend days, or maybe years, finding Brian in the work of every major artist of the last thousand years. I don't bother, though, because it's much more fulfilling to just find him in my own work. He's always there, even when I'm drawing something completely unrelated. Still life? He's there, in the curve of a vase or the shine of apple skins. Landscapes? No fluffy clouds, just the harsh angles of his frown carving jagged edges into ravines. He's a muse, my muse, and for that reason he's everywhere. He's the paper I draw on and the charcoal I draw with, and I'm fine with that. There's nothing derivative about Brian, which is why he's my muse. I could fuck anyone else, so it isn't that. He's just... everyone else at this table lacks that core authenticity. Even Brian has his facades, but underneath it, he's all Brian--not an amalgamation of things he sorta wishes he was. There's no superhero, or diva or ice queen dancing and posing behind his eyes. Just Brian. He stands there, a flesh-and-blood human in the midst of all these paintings, looking a little bored and a little pissed and a lot amused by the cacophony of life swirling around his beloved Prada boots.

Some day, I'm going to draw that picture, or maybe two versions of it. One with him and one without--the blank space where he used to be a glaring testament to what he brings to this group. There's a name for it, but I don't think I'll be saying it any time soon. Giving breath to that thought isn't my place.

Yet.