GOAT PEOPLE...

At the risk of becoming even more boring to my dwindling audience than I already am, I have to say that I am in love with an only-somewhat-domesticated Goat.

But he has his points.

He is taking me on with all the highly visible faults I broadcast to the world at large, as well as the less widely broadcast faults that arise as soon as I feel comfortable enough to stop censoring myself for "public consumption." He is taking me on a road-trip of monumental proportions, as we attempt to find common ground despite thirty years of almost opposite experience. And then there are the actual road trips, out to P'town so I can absorb gay beach culture and out to the West Coast, ostensibly to visit his family, but also to allow a dog-leg to San Francisco, where he spent the wilder years of his mis-spent youth.
A not-so-sentimental education...

I, on the other hand, am his worst nightmare:
his parents. I am exactly what he ran away from back in the Mesozoic era, when he lit out for the West Coast, shaking the dust of New England from his Birkenstocks -- or whatever it was that we wore before Birkenstocks. [My memory fails me]. There is a weird symmetry to this, for all my talk of asymmetry: I married a woman who superficially resembled my mother, but who in all the important aspects -- temperament, soul, what have you -- was the spit and image [spitting image? I've never been sure] of my father. The Goat, on the other hand, bears an almost uncanny resemblance to my father [no surprises there: what else was the immediate electric shock about?] but in all the important aspects strongly resembles my mother, whom he finds "cool." Since I would murder my mother if I lived with her, this trade-off has caused me some serious second thoughts.

Time will tell.

But here we both are, back in our old stomping grounds -- and how bare-assed embarrassing it has been to have an actual career, have it collapse, and wind up back where I went to high school, in a job I could have gotten with a high-school diploma -- and somewhat worse for wear, in both cases.

Maybe that's what we have in common.

Well, like Jessica Rabbit, I can happily answer the question, "What on earth do you see in him?" with a heart-felt: "He makes me laugh." He also makes me happy. So on some of the important levels, he resembles my ex-wife as well as my parents...

There are also creepy ways he resembles my ex-wife, some of which I have detailed before [a tendency to deny the unpleasant, a foolish commitment to the endless process of grilling meat, etc.] and some of which arise to haunt me on a weekly basis. The main thing is that he is very nice to me, and in spite of my natural tendency to sarcasm, I do my best to be nice to him. That does involve a fair amount of teasing, but I only said I did my best. Not that I was nice to him.

I mean, I am still me...

Last weekend, aside from discovering that I was coming down with poison ivy and trying to be a good sport about having been "volunteered" to work the alumni tables at the mass Prospective Student event -- many of the PS being the offspring of alumni, though much is made by the alumni that one can no longer count on getting one's offspring into the school, as used to be pretty much automatic -- I spent some time sitting out on the deck of his little house in the woods, listening to the leaves fall all around, and generally enjoying not being at work. That was very pleasant, though of course not something I could expatiate on with the Goat around working his buns off...

Then there is the on-going dance with the Little House in the Big Woods, which the Goat has fairly accurately described as "a hovel," but which is for sale for the price of a real house in any sane market. This is not, however, a sane market. I made a bid for it based on what I perceived to be the dangers of some of its outstanding weaknesses: an antique septic system [antique enough that no one seems to know exactly where it is], a well that is completely lost to human memory, although there is a rumor that the well-head is capped and hidden under the driveway. The bank that repossessed it and is obviously eager to shed its possession -- every clause of every piece of paper they issue contains the phrase, "Time is of the essence" -- has not deigned to respond to my offer, but as it came accompanied by money, it is my understanding that until they do deal with me, they can't deal with anyone else.

Well, we shall see. The only real problem, aside from buying a pig in a poke, is that I probably have the money to move into it, but not the money to fix anything about it. So there is a distinct and not very appealing possibility that I could wind up in the position of the last owners: out on my ass, with my toiletries still in the medicine cabinets while the house is being shown to heartless buyers like myself... This is why the One I Call Ruth suggested that I think of renting. She is probably on to something. If only I could listen...

This just in:

I had been pining over the fact that the Far-Flung Voice had not been heard from for a while. I hadn't even seen his icon on-line, which was a pretty major change from previous practice. But tonight I managed to snag him, and while it wasn't possible to actually talk, due to his not having a mic handy, or kids in the house, or something, at least I got an update on what is going on in his life, which is a lot. It never ceases to amaze me how similar our lives are, "we" being the BlogBrothers, and yet how differently each of them plays out. The FFV is working a multitude of jobs, paid and unpaid, and now looks fair to acquire at least some degree of custody of his three children. That would re-arrange his furniture pretty thoroughly.

It's like Bigg's life; it makes mine look so neat and tidy and, well, OK, boring.

All the things I worry and whine about fall into perspective with a resounding clang when confronted with the reality of what coming out and leaving home has meant for most people.

So, along with the Toasted Bear's correspondent, I will plug David Steindl-Rast's "Gratefulness: the Heart of Prayer," and admit that, while I am terrible at prayer, I am getting pretty good at gratitude. I was doing OK even before the blessings began to fall like rain. And now I just have to keep counting them. It's holding on to the attitude when you can't see the blessings that is the important thing, and that I will probably be working on till the day I die.

Hang in there,all.
I luxuriate, hanging as I do.
I hope you find some aspect of life that lets you do the same...
C