Thursday, January 10, 2008

PARBOILED...

Well, I am home sick today, feeling like a New England boiled dinner, and will be almost certainly deprived of my trip south to see the Goat this weekend. I have been through one of my periodic bouts of panic about him and where we actually stand, though I guess his response to my sickness and [probable] cancellation of the trip should put my mind at ease, but it doesn't... quite.

We made elaborate plans to get together last weekend [when, in retrospect, I was already coming down with Whatever-This-Is, but thought it was just a passing head-cold] to celebrate his return from warmer climes. I had all sorts of little presents and surprises for him: Christmas cookies and candy which he had missed by being gone for three weeks, New Year's Eve paraphernalia lifted from the Ocean View People's party [OK, our party], and a complete edition of all the Goat Poems to date. There are over three hundred of them now, which frankly surprised even me... time flies when you're having a good time.

And it was a good time. In some ways, great: no squabbles about how much time I spent being dragged around to see people I didn't know from Adam, no rushing to fit anything in before one of us took off for someplace new, and, perhaps most importantly, I found out that it is not just the "goodbye" nights he does well. It's a good thing I hung my self-respect out to dry a while ago. because we are definitely moving beyond what I had always assumed was my comfort zone.

I wake up in the middle of some act and part of my brain is saying: "How did I get here?" and another part is saying, as it certainly has historically: "Push me." [My new mantra, guys: be careful what you wish for...] Well, to give him credit, he allows these little plateaus where we get used to things, and then comes another push. A little mind-boggling, but nothing, oddly enough, you don't get used to. Some Goats are just born pigs, I guess...

I was telling a German friend about this whole process, and he laughed: one of the big leather parties in Berlin is apparently named PiG, and they print up millions of T-shirts as a fund-raiser for it. Sounds like an item of clothing that needs to hit the further reaches of the Bay State soon.

Anyway, these little pushes always bring the revival of the Little Voice in the Back of My Mind which says: Are you just being played for a sucker? Is this some elaborate cherry-picking enterprise? Am I going to wake up some day the poster child for gullibility in the Bay State? do I really know this guy? [The answer is: no] and do I have any idea where this, and he, are taking me? [no] and why don't I care? [so far the ride is well worth the price of admission...] I have to admit that it bears the tiniest resemblance to the way pimps turn their "new girls" into marketable merchandise, and that is not a resemblance I can cozy up to. On the other hand, I am the guy who selected the One-Man Slut Phase out of an entire state's worth of guys...

As my dear friend the opera queen says: Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

I am beginning to think that I am getting pretty good at taking the jokes, along with everything else; it just induces vertigo if I think too much about what is going on, and how extreme the contrast between this year and last year seems to be, on every score. The bottom line is: I'm happy now, and I sure as hell wasn't then, so I guess this is what I want. Though it does make me wonder sometimes.

I had my little moment of panic after last weekend, and when I called today to let him know that I was doing a pretty good imitation of boiled meat, and would in all likelihood not be coming down, he sort of nuzzled and squeezed me over the phone, and then waxed rhapsodic on the virtues of Eytan Fox's Yossi and Jagger, which I had sent him before Christmas, laying it on rather heavily about how much it reminded him of us. That is a noble sentiment, though not one I can really join in: both of those guys are pretty much gods, and at least one of us has muscles of clay, not to say silly putty... Oh well.

Anyway, I decided to hang up the panic for the time being. I still can't figure out which half of his forceful utterances on major topics [for example, should I come to visit on Friday nights or not?] I ought to be listening to. There are generally two, and they generally conflict; if I complain that I can't figure out what he means, he accuses me of not listening. I am listening, all right, but the things I am hearing don't add up. I have tried to make this case, so far to no avail. We all like to keep the rest of the world guessing, I suppose, but it does make it rather hard on my "poor nerves."

Well, as the Goat himself says, I wouldn't want to have a boring boyfriend.
For the record, I would settle for just a little more boring and a little less confusing... Some of us are just easily confused.

Hang in there, all.
It's what keeps the world going 'round.
C

1 comment:

  1. Here is hoping you are feeling better.

    Your post piques one's curiousity to say the least.

    ReplyDelete