THIRD TIME PAYS FOR ALL... BEFORE and AFTER...

I was really bummed by the collapse of my dream weekend here with the Goat. I had just been anticipating it for so long.

But that wasn't my only problem:

I knew I had stepped onto a slippery slope by doing the dance of the seven veils, sending him dribs and drabs of my heart-sore doggerel, and I knew I had crossed a line onto a MUCH steeper slope by sending him the full edition. I was sailing a little too close to disaster on the one hand (what if my emotional extremes put him off?) and to extortion of feeling, or of a similar declaration of feeling, on the other. Not good ground for Mr. Morality to take a stand on, but all's fair in love and war, right?

Well, mirabile dictu, it turned out that despite all my hand-wringing [and when am I going to be able to stop writing that?], he was still talking to me. Just not about coming in out of the woods to see me. His Regular Boy Friend had just come out of the hospital, and the Goat was dancing attendance. It wasn't that I felt I could argue with him; I knew where his loyalties lay. Though I struggle with the reality of being the "piece on the side," I do know that's what I am.

I don't like it, but I do know it. I was still trying to figure out how I could stay friends with all concerned without getting in "over my head."
[Where, to the tell the truth, I had been for MONTHS now.]

My heart was still rather sore, and of course it found utterance in rhyme.
[Anyone know of a "treatment" for this "syndrome"?]
Here's the first attempt:

A compliment, a sad request, behind them both: who knows?
A peevish look, a sly behest, demands for time alone?
Are we friends then, or enemies? God knows how I will guess,
But I've sailed into unknown seas, succumbed to subtle blows.

His claim is older, truly earned, and he's had time to hone
The skills I lack, for which I've burned, to make "no" into "yes,"
To turn around that ship of state, that ship I freely chose,
A choice that, sadly, seals my fate, my joy of late undone.

Oh, we will meet, if I will travel -- not so far, I guess --
And I will answer, will revive, shed sadness with my clothes.
Find reasons for new hope to bloom, find hope to make my own:
Find heaven in an upper room, find power I'd possess.

And I will taste each moment, let each hour bring its delight,
And learn to live without regret a month on one short night.

Second attempt:

What joy to think that he would grace my home as well as heart,
Come to me, bring that ugly face to make my own face beam,
Come to my side, come to my arms, and enter that embrace,
My home prepared, my heart on fire, alive in every part.

But my fond hopes are trumped again, as always, it would seem,
The face I long for turns aside to seek another face.
That heart I longed for in such pain has sailed right off my chart;
So home and heart here mourn the waning of a waking dream.

We will still meet, if not meet here, and still I'll seek that place
Where his embraces crush all fear, as they crush flesh and heart,
Where each hour brings its blessing, each in turn to reign supreme,
Each yielding to the next, incessantly dispensing grace.

Let me find joy in what's ahead, though others' claims go first;
All love worth living finds a bed; half bad is far from worst.

OK. As I told the Goat at the beginning of the rhyme wars: it's Not Art Yet. But it's what wells up within me and keeps me from doing what I need to do... like work with deadlines. Although a blog comes in awfully handy for that, as well...

Where was I? Right:

What was I going to do with all the food I had in the house? I tend to keep too much food in the house anyway; part of it is the comfort of a well-stocked larder, and part of it is that I am still mentally shopping for a family of two or three or five, not a lone Troll who tends to eat the same three easy-to-prepare things in endless rotation. [And I probably have a life-time supply of some staples as a result...] I had also bought more things because he was coming, and what's a special occasion without too much food? What to do? Why, pack it up and schlep it all out to the Big Woods, of course. Which I did. And I learned a lot.

I learned that a lot of what I am willing to eat is below the Goat's cut-off line, if not beneath contempt [non-organic chicken, for instance] and that I have vices which he resolutely avoids [drinking before 5 pm, for instance, which I have been known to do "on special occasions," and which in and of itself has been known to mark a "special occasion," thus getting the ball rolling, so to speak]. I learned that I eat too much when I am at ease just as much as when I am nervous and feeling out of place -- nerves are my usual excuse, anyway. And here's the strange thing:
I was at ease. I felt completely at home.

It was, as always, going to be good no matter what.

And it was. I am not any surer of where I stand, mind you, and as it begins to take on the lineaments of reality -- we have now spent more than 75 hours in the same place, which is light-years beyond where we were quite recently -- all sorts of new questions arise. When it was a bolt out of the blue and I couldn't believe it, my heart was thrashing around looking at all the moral issues as it went over the edge, but I didn't have to actually try to picture what a future might look like. Who knew if it had one? Well, three one-night stands may not make that much difference, but I feel that I have to look at the reality of things a little more closely, hope that I can look at them a little more clearly.

Actually, it's kind of sad that I can look at things a little more clearly. It means that things are settling down, which means that the incredible highs of the last months are probably gone. Well, somewhat. The sex is still mysterious and hot; he really turns me on, though what turns him on doesn't particularly turn me on, always -- I sort of hate to say this, but it rather resembles some of the sex back in the days of my, ahem, marriage. Maybe that's just life. Or maybe I am just doomed to look at sex with a jaundiced or distanced eye. Or maybe I'm not good at anticipating the needs of others. Maybe I'm just a self-centered SOB. Maybe... oh, to hell with it.

Here's the weird thing: less than a year after leaving home, I have gone from married man to other woman. I am knee-deep in a fairly typical gay-relationship situation, where I am sleeping [and HAPPY to sleep] with someone who is "committed" to someone else who really walks on the wild side; if I am the Alien, he is the Predator. The longer I don't have to deal with all this too directly, the happier I am. It's all a little too casual for me to feel completely at home.

But I have declared myself. After weeks of carefully not sending the Goat anything that made my vulnerability or need Too @#$%-ing Obvious, I went and sent him the full set of poems. That was really like taking all my clothes off in public [remember those disaster dreams from grade school?]. I was basically admitting that I need him, need his attention, to survive. That was pretty dumb.

But at least he didn't blow me off. And he was really sweet to me last weekend, in spite of my bringing a ton of food most of which wasn't quite up to par...

You know what the problem is? I don't really care what he needs, I'll try to give it to him, as long as he is willing to give me the time of day. How Inner Girl is that? I believe I have said before that it makes me absolutely crazy to be half fifty-five and half fifteen, but that's where I'm living. The problem is that one is aware at fifty-five, as one is blessedly unaware at fifteen, of what a ridiculous figure one is cutting. "One," my ass: what a ridiculous figure I am cutting.

So, we ate, we @#$%-ed, we listened to beautiful music, he managed to sleep in spite of my snoring... I had a wonderful time. Oh. Here's the new wrinkle: he wanted to set up the next meeting, and I was the one with the obligations. HA! and we settled on a weekend less than a month from our last tryst. Oh, my God, seventeen days to go, and counting. Rumor has it that he will actually drive to me this time. I don't know why it makes such a difference to me, but it does. Maybe because it makes me feel a little less like a charity case... or maybe because it makes me feel like it's worth it to him to make the effort...

Well, the long and the short of it is that there is a new count-down calendar on the front door, and no more free-lance work to pretend it refers to, unless I make some up... so I may have to start admitting what I'm looking forward to. That may yet prove to be the best policy, however much trouble my honesty fetish may have already gotten me into... or not... You never can tell with people, can you?

This weekend I have to stand in for my boss, and spend a day being one of the official spokesmen for do-gooder gays in Massachusetts. How bizarre is that? Well, at least I know I am one now. Gay, that is, not a do-gooder... The following weekend my second son graduates from college, and I get one of the most amazing gifts I have been given in the last year: Isis asked the Boy what he wanted her to do, and he said he wanted her to stay and have lunch with us [my mother and me] after the ceremony. It will be the first time in ten months that she has spent more than five minutes in my presence, and I am so grateful I can barely see straight. I mean, I knew my children were better human beings than I was, but this is really almost too much to bear. Sometimes the joy comes so close to pain that it is overwhelming.

Or is that just a leather-guy experience? (sigh)

So here I am, sitting in the cat-bird seat, as James Thurber said.
And loving it. I wish you all someone just as hot to drive you just as crazy.
It's made a big difference in my view of life, however long it may last...

Hang in there, guys.
I'm with you in spirit.
It's just that at the moment, I'm somewhat preoccupied with [what else?] me.
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