VACATION PART 1: August is the Cruelest Month
"Seedy solipsism," anal sex and its discontents, the Bad Vacation movie, The Vacation Man, Beautiful Twink music, the CW's Supernatural
This is Part I of a five-part series. You can read Part II here, Part III here, Part IV here, and Part V here.
I’d devoted a Saturday evening in mid August to a man who has kept me at arm’s length, on and off, for over three years now. His predilection for anal sex late at night, after three beers, meant that I would spend the following day shitting out cum, catching up on sleep, and dodging a hangover. So when a crash of thunder woke me early on Sunday morning, I closed my eyes and thought: good. It seemed the weather that day would be bad, which meant I wouldn’t feel so angsty about wasting a summer day indoors. I fare much better during the winter, when I can do whatever I’m doing indoors without the weather heralding the passing of time, a life wasted. It’s better, I think, to stop resisting the waste, to revel in it like the “seedy solipsist” of Samuel Beckett’s Murphy who sits in his apartment all day every day willingly, happily, tied to a chair—his project in life.
Unfortunately, when I woke up, the weather was beautiful.
Third Beer Man took his leave, as ever, on Sunday morning, announcing that he was going to the beach that day (without me). I calculated the number of opportunities remaining in August for a trip to the beach with Third Beer Man (unlike Beckett’s solipsist, I cling to hope)—this day would have been the last chance. He was booked out the remaining two weekends: one would be spent visiting his father, and Labor Day weekend would be spent on the cape visiting his mother. I wished him a good day at the beach, trying to affect nonchalance.
What would I do today, he asked, half-interestedly, reflexively. I told him I had plans to go to a fancy cocktail bar followed by a visit to an “immersive, interactive art exhibition”—a date planned by a Younger Man I’d been seeing casually since January. I so rarely go on Real Dates that whenever someone makes the effort, I’m moved. I feel the need—like a Beautiful Day—to go out and experience it, even if the activity isn’t really my thing.1
I lied to him and said I was meeting old coworkers. It was a lie I told for my benefit, as I preferred to believe that it would not please him to know that I am seeing other people. I also worried, pointlessly, that this information would discourage him from Choosing Me. He does not know, nor does he seem curious about other relationships in my life, my futile search to find someone to replace him. He declared that it “sounds bad” and said, with enviable, aggravating indifference, to “have a good time.”
The last two weeks of August loomed before me threateningly: it promised to be hot, barren, sexless, and filled with loathing for the circumstances of my life. Lately, I've been chewing over how much it costs to sustain my life—not a lot but still too much—and resenting the fact that I must sit at my computer all day, producing infinitely disposable product, just to have enough money for emergencies, to pay a slightly-less-exorbitant fee for medical care, to retire when I’m too old to enjoy it. To spend my one little life at work just so I can wake up, with a roof over my head and all of my teeth (for now), and begrudge doing it all over again.
I thought: if I must be so preoccupied—to the point that I’m constantly thinking of death—with my (largely) existential problems, I’d like to be preoccupied in a beautiful, different place. I wanted to be like the characters in the movies I’d been watching—summery Rohmer films, Visconti’s Death in Venice, Godard’s Contempt—whose vacations (if not relaxing) inaugurate a shift, introduce necessary catharsis into their lives for better or for worse.2 Perhaps a change of scenery would help me get over my self-pity, self-loathing—clear it all out of my system—before fall really clobbers me with its signature spectacle of Time Passing.
And so I considered going on vacation.
I hit up a German artist I’d met a few years ago in New York during the Frieze art fair. This man, L, is a painter a few years older than me, and recently divorced with two young children. When we first met, he’d just separated from his wife. I took long lunch breaks during the workday to see him at his hotel, the Jane, which has galley-like rooms, and shared bathrooms down the hall. Throughout the week, we’d split a plate of fruit and a sleeve of cookies from the supermarket after having sex on the very narrow bed, sweating in this room with no air conditioning. Then I’d visited him in Germany last summer, having appended that visit to a trip to Scotland for my friend’s wedding. He enthusiastically welcomed the idea of paying him another visit. The timing was perfect, he said, as his ex-wife would have the children the week of my visit.
****
Saturday / Sunday
I forgot to pack melatonin, so I didn’t sleep a lot on the plane. I spent most of the time reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey—a good Bad Vacation book, I thought.3 My arrival in Frankfurt was stressful. Because my plane was delayed leaving JFK, the airlines rebooked my connecting flight twice, resulting in a half day spent at the Frankfurt airport waiting, wondering if these setbacks were cosmic signs that this was all a huge mistake. If the agent at the gate in NYC hadn’t required me to check my carry-on, I could have taken the train directly to Ulm, would not have had to wait an hour at the Munich airport for my bag to be deposited at baggage claim.
L greeted me warmly outside of the baggage claim, even though he’d had to wait for me for hours. He’d spent the day at the Brandhorst Museum, biding his time since my arrival was so delayed.4 He’d got a new car since last year, a yellow Mini Cooper—his sons, he said, picked it out.5 We drove back to Ulm, an hour away, discussing the changes we’d been through in the last year (him: finalized his divorce, sold his house, moved into a new apartment in the city center, had two solo shows; me: moved into my own apartment, got a better paying job, burned out, no significant romantic developments) and chewing on the bretzel rolls he picked up at the bakery.
L is tallish, thin, with wavy hair worn short. His brow and cheekbones are prominent, bony. I love the skeletal aspect of his face; he looks, to me, like Wittgenstein. He was tanned from summer afternoons spent by the river with his sons. His eyes are blue-gray. Their lightness always catches me off guard: if I attempt to make eye contact, the blue-gray eyes startle me as they flash from his recessed eye sockets.6 I find them so appealing, glinting there, I have to force myself to look away or I’ll stare forever.
His apartment, on the first floor of a very old building, is large and beautiful, with old details (like wide doorways), its spaciousness accentuated by high ceilings and tall, street-facing windows which let in a lot of light in the morning.7 The enormous living area is an open floor plan, which includes the kitchen, the dining area, a sitting area, as well as his studio. At the far wall hung a large painting in progress, a colorful, thoroughly abstract piece—a slight departure from his signature Abstracted Landscape paintings—surrounded by a drop cloth, a work table, cans of paint.
I dropped my stuff at the foot of the sofa in the sitting area and stood embracing him as he kissed me. Did I want a house tour, or a shower, he asked, or did I want to have sex first?
It had been raining all day—would rain for another few days—so his bedroom was already darkened, appealingly gloomy. His bed was now queen-sized, an upgrade from the twin he slept on last year during his separation. I laid there trying to remember, to take everything in. I was already feeling melancholy, like the present was already escaping me, as it is wont when I’m on vacation or whenever I’m aware that I’m enjoying something. His sheets and his clothing, the general environment of his home, smelled like the cologne he wore (an accessible Bvlgari that smells like dryer sheets and neroli), linseed oil, coffee, laundry, and, faintly, of tobacco.
The sex was good, if a little urgent and quick. His style is traditional, sensual—he loves to kiss, to hold me, and stroke my body—not at all like the rough sex I typically seek out. But I like it—this kind of sex, too, feels touristic, a departure from the norm.
Afterward I stared at a large painting hung by his bed, admired his use of an opaque, pastel violet to lift the negative space between tree branches, the way slivers of red underpainting emerged along the contours of snowbanks. I imagined the movement he’d made with his hand to obtain certain gestures in paint upon the canvas. I would stare at this painting from the bed all week. I also fixed my gaze upon a framed etching on the opposite wall—not his, I don’t think—of a nude woman reclining on a sofa. The languor in her form echoing my own.
***
I was tired but it was too early to go to sleep, so we drank some coffee and went out for a walk. It was still drizzling and the air was cool outside—fall temperatures—so I borrowed a lined raincoat.8 As we walked through the city center, memories of my previous year’s visit came back to me—here was an old square at the bottom of a stepped street, where we visited a small gallery; here was the historic water tower and the walking path along the canal; here was the small techno club that was the last stop at the end of a long evening. Recognizing these places delighted me—I couldn’t believe that I’d managed to return so soon. I’m always wistful when I’m traveling and consider the possibility that I may never see a place again.
After walking for an hour, we walked into a restaurant specializing in Bavarian food (and, randomly, pizza) for dinner, one of the few places in town that was a. still open in August (many restaurants were closed for vacation) and b. open on a Sunday. Because I’d been eating straight carbs for the last eighteen hours (pasta with a side of bread on the plane, a croissant in frankfurt, a roll in the car), the idea of having Bavarian food (more carbs, with cheese) did not appeal, especially if I planned to shit anytime soon. Here we have the Beautiful Day syndrome, vacation edition: should I consume experiences that are location-specific because I am there, or do what I actually feel like doing. I ordered geschnetzeltes—spaetzle with sliced pork and mushroom sauce—and mostly ate the pork, with two glasses of riesling.
We discussed Contempt, L’s favorite Godard. I told him I’d seen it in the theater, finally, and found the experience stressful but captivating. He’d picked a side—Michel Piccoli’s—and found Brigitte Bardot’s contempt toward her husband “sudden” and confusing. I, of course, sympathized with Bardot, and found her anger reasonable, if poorly expressed. I offered that they both failed to listen to each other during the agonizing argument scene in their apartment, temporarily regaining closeness only to latch on to some tangential grievance, each party straining to affect nonchalance, missing multiple opportunities to reconcile. This, he half-joked, is what marriage is like. I couldn’t relate, I said, having never been married, my longest relationship topping out at three years. But I’d had conversations like that: claustrophobic, centrifugally charged, each party circling the Issue but never getting closer to the heart of the matter, instead spinning outward and away from one another with stunning force. Don’t get married, he advised. It’s not worth it.
*****
When we got back to his apartment, L rolled a spliff—a bedtime ritual. We passed the joint back and forth as L scrolled through youtube, queuing up songs to listen to. He played a sad acoustic song about unrequited love by a new artist (whose name I will not recall) who sounded like Thom Yorke and ANOHNI. I found the lyrics and the melody trite, but the vocalist had a haunting falsetto—I’ll give him that. I googled the musician as I was sitting there—he was a model-turned-singer, very beautiful, a Lebanese Timothee Chalamet. Beautiful twink music.
Isn’t this great, L asked rhetorically, and continued: he’d had a romance this spring with a colleague of his at the art school where he teaches. She was younger than me, he said, so beautiful, and was a pianist who taught music at the school. The only music he listened to these days was music they listened to together—this Beautiful Twink song included. He’d discovered a lot of new music through her. He seemed to be in reverie. She had, he muttered, such great taste.
I struggled with my jealousy for a moment, but I managed some vague complimentary remarks (“his voice is crazy”...”I love the minimalist production”...).The music was inoffensive and forgettable, the sort of music that sounds like ersatz versions of better music that already exists. The kind of sound you might find in a music library under Suburban Coffee Shop.9 But I felt sidelined, listening to this very mid music, slightly high, and witnessing this man retreat into his memories of another girl. So I checked out, too, fell silent, listened to the lyrics and leaned into their romanticism, let myself feel moved by the minor chord progressions, like listening to sad music on a train just for the effect.
L was still not ready to fall asleep after we smoked two spliffs. Sex, he said, was out of the question as he couldn’t get hard when he was stoned. (This did not, however, stop him from making a fruitless attempt to fuck. It’s the journey, not the destination, I suppose.) Would I care to watch some TV in bed with him? During his divorce he was so tired all the time he’d only had energy to watch American TV, which helped him fall asleep, he explained. It became a habit. The Affair, Supernatural, and Vampire Diaries were among his favorites.
Piqued as I was by jealousy, I was now wide awake, so I picked Supernatural, a CW TV show from the 2000s about a pair of very hot brothers who go around posing as FBI agents and hunting demons—self-appointed extra-state vigilantes and Christians with active imaginations and a thirst for blood (of all things vaguely queer). I did not find this show relaxing—it was so badly written and acted, so campy and repressed that it intrigued me.10 But L fell asleep after two episodes. I put the ipad on the side table and closed my eyes, wondering if I should try to cuddle him or not. After all, I traveled all the way here to experience a kind of closeness I wasn’t getting in NYC. I decided against it: I never sleep well while holding someone and wasn’t sure if he would welcome it, being so rapt by his memories of the Younger Woman. And after all, I was tired and the goal was to sleep.
PART II of III (due out sometime next week): In which L swipes on Tinder in front of me while I’m talking, exclaims that he Found Me, and swipes right. A post-sex debate over the value and purpose of marriage (and the differences between the German and the American tax systems), if not for love. A trip to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the lessons of still life paintings and Rubens’ rendering of flesh, his use of zinc white. A dinner in a basement restaurant in Munich, in which I let my feelings show and the tone of the vacation shifts irretrievably. ANYONE ELSE HAVE A DINNER WHERE EVERYTHING WENT WRONG AND NOTHING WAS THE SAME? Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy: soundtrack for your Sad Girl Walk.
*****
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
I love a movie with a Bad Vacation in it. In which someone goes away hoping for relaxation or change and gets More Than They Bargained For. Second favorite movie trope after a Dinner Party. I’m keeping a running list of Bad Vacation movies and books — please contribute your suggestions here !
Jensen Ackles is the hotter Supernatural brother, imo.
More on the “ARTECHOUSE” to come lol.
Rohmer’s The Aviator’s Wife, featured a woman (memorably portrayed by Marie Rivière) adrift, unhappily employed, living in a tiny Parisian attic apartment with faulty plumbing, freshly heartbroken from an affair with an unavailable man (the titular aviator, a married man) and half-heartedly engaged in a relationship with an eager younger man. A bit on the nose.
Brigitte Bardot, in Contempt, summarizes The Odyssey thus: “the story about that guy who is always traveling.” Also: highly recommend Emily Wilson’s translation, which uses language that is refreshingly plain, unpretentious. It feels contemporary. It reminds me of a joke a friend of mine used to make about Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation, in which Cool Hot Jesus (Willem Dafoe) addresses the apostles as “you guys.”
At the Brandhorst he saw a Nicole Eisenman and Cy Twombly show. Traveled all the way to Germany only to find more New York in Germany.
Sure.
Not unlike Samuel Beckett’s eyes in color photographs. I keep forgetting that his eyes were icy blue and arresting in that craggy face. I have a type.
He pays the same amount in rent as I do for my hovel in Harlem.
There’s a part of me that’s still very much a teenage girl who relishes any opportunity to borrow some man’s jacket.
Is this a European man thing? Listening only to anodyne music? I once dated a Danish man whose taste could only be described as Jose Gonzalez Radio. And an Austrian man who could only listen to, like, Kygo remixes of better songs. However, I can only conclude that this is a failure, on my part, to pick men with good music taste. Not Europe’s fault. (Not entirely.)
I could write another piece entirely on Supernatural. As a friend pointed out subsequently, it is the subject of much gay twincest fan-fiction. In one of the episodes, the Hot Brothers battle a man (aggressively normal and straight, calls his wife “babe” in the least convincing way) who is secretly a rougarou / develops a taste for human flesh. This leads to the brothers having a debate over whether or not this man’s demonic tendencies can be suppressed, overcome. (The pretty, intuitive emotionally intelligent brother argues yes, the hotter, arrogant, fascist one is not willing to take the risk). If this isn’t a pray the gay away gospel…