Random Notes From a Weekend

It’s always a little bit strange to write about things like this, but late on Friday night I had the best sex I’d had in ages. It was a totally random thing, but he turned out to be my absolutely ideal body type: slim, smooth, shorter than average. He was a dancer, with a lithe, tight, beautifully proportioned dancer’s body. He was incredibly passionate and sweet. And each of his little biceps had a vein running up the side, which I love. It was such a great experience that I actually wasn’t eager for him to leave; I even invited him to spend the night, although he politely declined. And apparently today he’s leaving for Martha’s Vineyard for a month. Anyway, it was what it was, and it was a wonderful experience.

Actually, I was such a homosexual on Friday night even besides that. I felt like staying in, so I made myself some dinner, plopped down in front of the TV and watched “Providence” followed by about half of the Daytime Emmys. Have I mentioned that for several years I was a devoted “Days of our Lives” fan? I’ll have to write about that sometime.

On Friday evening I also finished Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which was beautiful. The book wonderfully evokes New York City before and after World War II, and it touches on several themes I find personally meaningful, the most obvious being the history of comic books. Have I mentioned that for several years I was a devoted reader of DC Comics? I’ll have to write about that sometime, too.

I needed something new to read, and I’ve been pressed for cash lately, so this morning I went to my bookshelf and picked up Battle Cry of Freedom, which I bought several months ago in hardcover at the Strand for ten bucks. It’s supposed to be the best one-volume account of the Civil War. I’ve read the first chapter so far, and I love it. It’s actually one volume in the Oxford History of the United States; last summer I read the most recently published volume, Freedom From Fear, by David Kennedy, a history of the Great Depression and World War II.

Have I mentioned that I’m a big American history buff? I think I’ll write about that now.

I’m in love with the narrative sweep of American history. I think this is the most optimistic nation that’s ever existed on the face of the planet. Our nation was founded on optimism — people sailing west to leave their old lives behind and start anew. This optimism is built into our geography; the West, that great safety valve, a basin of bottomless possibility. It’s always felt kind of strange to me — a Jew whose grandfather emigrated from either the Ukraine or Belarus, I’m not really sure — that I’m so in love with nineteenth-century, pre-Civil War American history in particular. I can’t really trace my ancestors further back than about a hundred years, and yet the antebellum United States has always seemed to me to be this lost era, sort of like the United States between the two world wars.

I’ve always enjoyed history in general. I think I’ve often used it as a means of mental and emotional escape; when things are rough in my life, I can delve into other eras, and my problems don’t seem quite as significant anymore. But there’s always been something special about American history in particular. I looked forward to my A.P. American history course even before I began taking it, and it turned out to be my favorite class in high school. In college, where I eventually majored in history (after a fruitless year and half of interesting yet ultimately useless pre-med courses) , my favorite course wound up being American Intellectual and Cultural History to 1865. When I was in school in Virginia, I used to love to hop in my car and drive along the back roads of Albemarle County and the Shenandoah Valley; I fondly remember a summer afternoon when I took a spontaneous road trip down to Appomattox Courthouse.

Part of me has always wanted to leave my existence — to slip its surly bonds and escape permanently into another era, a place where I could begin my life over again, with none of the old baggage; a place where I could be a new person, live a new life, have a blank slate, fresh, glorious, optimistic. For that reason, American history has always seemed special to me.