february 4 2026



a rewatch inspired by alot of thoughts i have had today about my first time sleeping with a trans woman, around the time i was 19 or 20 (and not out). it makes me sad that the only way i could reach out to trans women was on cl personal ads. you checked my id before we did anything; i think i carried the posture and general ignorance of someone in high school for years after i had graduated. none of the (much older than you, probably 22 or so) men i had met on cl cared when i was 17, crawling into some motel out off roosevelt or north avenue. (google maps + my intuition seem to suggest the du wayne motel as a site for a lot of these interactions). you seemed to care though. and we really struggled to actually have sex (your little 90s era coupe didn't help matters). it is a feeling i struggle to describe, to have seen trans women and not know why i wanted to cry in their lap. and listen to their industrial music on a phone speaker. (some things never change). and to turn a 30 minute "i work 3rd shift, please fuck me in my car at 8:30am" thing into like four hours of us driving from one spot to another.

my own private idaho is a film about looking at a thing (the love of a boy, a mother beyond a photograph, 4 orders of extra crispy french fries) about knowing that you want that thing very badly, being unable to put to words (or even understand internally) that you want that thing, and knowing that no amount of asking for that thing will get you that thing. (except for the french fries). i spent about an hour today (not the first time) trying to dig up our craigslist exchanges in old email addresses, to no avail. i dont know what i would find there (not an email, with cl's anonymizing efforts). maybe a name, or a date we hung out or anything. i want to say to you that i was crying when we should've been having safer sex (thank you, by the way) because i wanted to connect with you the way i have been able to connect with so many women in my life since. i hope you got off the 3rd shift and maybe played some shows. (i owe you a coffee).

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