Friday, November 02, 2007

LOST WEEKEND,
WEEKEND FOUND...

The trouble is that the Goat's life is basically opposite to mine. He has [quite accurately] said that I am the most underemployed person he knows, which may be why he seems to have no qualms about my quitting my job and moving to an area where I know almost no one but him. In any case, he is constantly on tap for classes, afternoon work crews, and evening events, and has acquired a tendency to need complete solitude as a result. That, and his tendency to really take time off when he takes time off makes perfect sense to me. Hence my [relative] lack of qualms about my quitting my job and moving to an area where I know almost no one but him -- if I want to see him, I have no choice. I do need to find out sooner rather than later if this is The Thing, and it seems like there is only one time and one place to do it: there and now.

While I am past the point where the thought of seeing him only once every week or so makes me run mad, I do feel that he is my chance to find out if I can in fact live with another man, and now is my chance to find out whether I can in fact live with him. A number of veils have already been dropped in our little dance: he is turning out not to be able to withstand my snoring any more than anyone else has been able to, in spite of ear plugs... and I will be joining his other lovers in sleeping in another room from now on. So you could say the "honeymoon" period is over; I am torn between feeling that it hasn't come yet, and that things just keep getting better and better. Call me confused.

In the middle of the endless to-ing and fro-ing of our relationship, now comes something almost incredible: four days together, one after the other. We did manage it once over the course of the summer, but it was still bound up in his life. This, although most of two of those four days was spent getting all the way out to the tip of the cape, was Time Away for both of us, and it was, as my children used to hate to hear me say, like "a week at the sea-shore."

We arrived in time to have drinks with our hosts, who live in P'town year-'round, and who were off to various parties that promised to make Spooky Bear Weekend one for the year-books. We sat in delighted solitude in their Very Nice House, drinking wine and feeling like we had pulled one over on the Powers that Be. Then they returned from Party Number One, and we all went out to dinner together.

OK. Baby's first trip to Provincetown. The restaurant was doing a Hallowe'en thing, with the staff all in High Egyptian drag, and a sprinkling of drag queens going from table to table chatting up the guests. No harm done, but I was just as happy that they chose to chat up the Goat and not me. The place was jumping, and as in all places with more than two or three people talking, I could hear almost nothing. Luckily the table for four was rather... cozy, so I could hear everyone at our table, which is not always the case -- I did have to cup my ear to hear what our waiter was saying. We had been given invitations to one of the Leather Events that evening, but decided to pack it in and spend the time alone together... Our hosts also bailed out of the parties they had been scheduled for [well, at least one of them did; the other seemed to still feel the call...]

The next morning, once we were up [not too early, mind you] and we had established that our hosts were up, we joined them for a late and lengthy breakfast, which was great. It turned out that the party they had gotten us invites for and which we had passed up was usually an orgy. Once again I felt like things had fallen out my way. I have nothing against orgies, if that's what people feel they need, but my concern is with the organ pumped full of blood all day long, and it makes a poor companion at an orgy. So, needless to say, do I...

The wind was whipping across the Cape. We went out to the beach and walked for a while, then found a sheltered spot in the dunes where we snacked on things vaguely resembling lunch, and Yours Truly fell asleep snuggled up against the Goat. Talk about the Perfect Day. When we got back, we saw our hosts off to Boston, and went out to look for dinner. Another early night.

The next day was less windy but decidedly cooler, so it amounted to the same thing... We went walking in the dunes, and spent an hour or more crossing an increasingly lunar landscape till we reached the ocean, stopping to reconnoiter some shacks in the dunes on the way. We sat and watched the waves and listened to the surf till the wind finally outdid the sun and we got COLD. Then we sought out a sheltered spot that was still in the sun, but the wind and the lengthening shadows got the better of us, and the Goat's attempt to sun-bathe came to an, ahem, bitter end. Nice idea, though. That night the Goat cooked, and we got seriously stoned.

He had brought cookies, and I had brought some chocolate he likes, and after other activities, we lay around eating both. I awoke the following morning with vivid memories of the dessert -- I lay in something not far from a stupor while the Goat fed me bits of his cookies and chocolate -- but could not for the life of me figure out when they had happened. Until I got a little guidance from people with more resistance to THC, I felt I had no memory of the previous evening at all. Imagine my surprise to discover that all the things I remembered so vividly had actually been part of the previous evening...

That day, after a late breakfast, we cleaned up, washed the sheets, and got ourselves on the road in time to get back at something resembling dinnertime. Left to my own devices, I would schedule my entire life around meals.

What does that say about me? Hmmmmm...

It was hard to leave him. And the fact that we did not in fact eat the same food at quite the same time, while perfectly logical under the circumstances, did cast a pall over my pleasure. It is the sharing of food that makes for most of the enjoyment, at least to me. I drove home in the dark, and managed to make it without running over any pedestrians, roaming deer, or state troopers, who were out in force...

What can I say? I got very little work done, had a wonderful time, and can't help the distinct feeling, once again, that things do just keep getting better and better. Please, God, let that go on a little while longer. I'm not sure how I would deal with this coming to an end, which I realize is as likely as not. Well, I will look not to statistics but to anecdotal evidence: our hosts in P'town have been together twenty years. I could do that, but from his past experience, the Goat is good for four years. So, in the best of possible worlds, wish me luck in 2010-2011...

At the same time, the tenderness he shows sometimes completely overwhelms me. As does his insane belief that I am attractive. It is one of his best features.

Well, I have had my taste of the good times.
Is it impossibly piggy of me to wish for more?
C

2 comments:

  1. I'd work on controlling the snoring.

    Otherwise, why even think that you're moving in TOGETHER?

    ReplyDelete
  2. OK, Wise Guy:

    He has ear plugs and I'm wearing what are delicately described as "nasal strips."

    Any further suggestions?

    T@C

    ReplyDelete