FOUR MORE DAYS!and glad it's NOT four more years...

FOUR MORE DAYS! Yesterday afternoon I went for a long walk with a friend I hadn't seen in far too long, and found that in crossing even just the INTERIOR boundary of coming out completely to myself, everything between us looked different. And I realized that I had placed myself permanently on the other side of a divide with him, a divide I was sorely tempted to cross -- suddenly I wanted to express my affection physically, and saw that there were more issues here than I had thought I was headed into. Well, there is still the question whether this is really the NEW ME or just another minor blip in the Drug Wars...

I had friends over last night, lured them into my clutches with the offer of Chinese vegetarian food and free beer... In the process of frying a pound and a half of bean curd sliced to melba-toast-size for "Two Sides Yellot" and trying NOT to cover myself with hot fat, I managed at one point to pull a bunch of squares that had started sticking together too close to the edge of the pan... a second later, the whole top of the stove was awash in hot fat, and all I could think of was: STOVE FIRE! HOUSE BURNS DOWN WITH GREEDY BASTARD INSIDE! WIFE RETURNS TO SMOLDERING ASHES! So I poured soapy water into it and went back to frying. There was a Valdez event on the floor which I also doused with soap while somehow not burning what was in the skillet, and I don't even want to know what happened to my sweater. Luckily my guests arrived an hour late, so I was more or less ready, even though it meant we didn't eat until 8...

I was on my "good behavior", which means that I don't mention that I am negotiating to come out, or even need to, but somehow things slip out that then need to be explained somehow, so our poor friends waded into the whole question of our having a "rough time" with all the patience and understanding of professional caregivers: she is a psychiatric nurse, and we batted around the statistics from Depression League Football until almost 11 pm, by which he was showing serious signs of curling up under the table and going to sleep --- I guess there's a limit to how much of Other People's Problems even a near-perfect pastor can take. She feeds off my mania, which is a lot of fun at the time, but a little creepy in retrospect. They did the dishes, can you believe it?

Sartre may be correct that hell is other people, but they also are the nearest promise, the clearest glimpse, the closest echo of heaven that we get on earth. And for that promise, that glimpse, that echo, I am profoundly and humbly grateful.