QUITE a WEEK #3...

OK, that was weird.

The Regular Boy Friend was all sweetness and light. It was kind of puzzling that the mad-man of Saturday night had morphed into this person so concerned that I was not freaked out about the previous weekend—which on some level, of course, I am. I had even wondered how much I knew about the RBF and whether or not I should worry about driving him to our restaurant in case he should turn violent in the car... but then, by now you know that I do tend to worry. Anyway, I decided not to fuss about any of the arrangements we had made, but just let it all play out. I picked him up, we went out, we ordered food, we shared it, he said he felt weird talking about our "arrangements" in a restaurant, so we took a walk out into the "country" on the edge of town, and watched the sun go down [all the while, I am sure, both thinking that we were looking straight at the Goat's little house in the woods, so many miles away...]

Well, here's the joke. I had tried to calm the Goat when I called on Monday, pouring oil on troubled waters, not because I have any particular claim to higher wisdom, but because I basically don't feel I should let people get away with outrageous statements of any kind, and the repeated, sweeping "it's all over" declarations were beginning to get to me. So I suggested that he breathe deep, wait a day or so and get back in touch with the RBF and see if everyone still felt the same way.

What do I find out tonight?

He sent an e-mail THAT NIGHT apologizing for his forgetting about the schedule, and offering to get together, so now of course the RBF is all sweetness and light, and worried about how I am doing. And they have a date for after the fateful second weekend [i.e., mine] to try to sort out where they are and how they go forward. [Maybe I should have gone into couples counseling...] The hitch is that all this good will hinges on the RBF's having been reassured that he comes first, which was ALWAYS the issue. So the next time it appears he doesn't, we're right back to Saturday night. I can't wait.

As I said to the Goat, "open" always seemed to me to be code for "let's PRETEND that it doesn't matter." I have yet to meet a human being to whom it didn't matter, myself... including Isis...

This is how dreams die, I guess. People dig a hole and kick them into it...

My major gain from this whole affair? The RBF labeled the Goat and me "friends with benefits" rather than "fuck-buddies," which is not only evidence of a certain broadness of mind, in his calmer moments, but a handle I can live with. There are a lot of things I can't live with, as it turns out... Actually, it's crazy for me to accept "friends with benefits," when the whole story of the last three months is my complete inability to keep from tossing my heart overboard after my body. But I guess it does as a cover story, especially if the RBF can live with it...

So, I can relax and coast into the weekend without greater worries than whether or not I have the right food in the house to keep the Goat happy. Actually, over our last three one-night stands we have traded addictions: he exposed me to certain antipasto pickles, and I exposed him to a certain goat cheese... Sometimes I think it's the little things that count. The house is already cleaner than it has been in some time [OK, since I moved in] most of the lumber-room aspect has been tidied up [but boy, the back porch is a REAL lumber-room], and if I can get my act together, I will even MOP the kitchen floor before he gets here.

How house-proud is that? Just the Inner Girl trying to put one or two of those seven veils back on, I suppose...

Well, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, say I. There is still that nasty part of me that would pay cash money to be a fly on the wall at their meeting next week, whether it's kiss-and-make-up time or it turns into the Night of the Long Knives. And then there is that even nastier part of me that sort of, on some level, still wishes that they will not kiss and make up. How evil is that? And that in spite of all the new perspectives offered by the thought of having to take the Goat on full-time and wondering whether it would work, and what it would be like,

and, and, and...

Just born perverse, I guess. Polymorphous perverse, as our Freudian friends say.

sigh
.