ONE MORE WEEKEND... II...

I ran into town again tonight to attend a wine-and-cheese event hosted by one of my [sometime] afternoon employers, to send off the folks who were ending their studies at The College and thus their local jobs. It was a bittersweet event. I was delighted to see everyone -- including, much to my surprise, the Hockey Player with the Ears who had been such a trial to my composure and self-respect last year-- but there was a sense of doom also, as all these vital, energetic, young people took off for their first jobs, while I was busy wrapping up my last one and generally feeling like I had more than one foot in the grave.

The host was not my boss, but one of the office managers, a person I have long suspected of being "family," which was clear not only from the presence of his boyfriend [spouse-to-be? who knows, these days] but from the nearly aseptic cleanliness of the apartment, and the fact that everything was either gray or white and lined up with precision with something else. It was like an ad for somebody's idea of "gracious living." One of the departing students opined breathily that it was "swank." I suppose it was, but the word that came to my mind first was "sterile."

I guess people who live in squalor shouldn't throw dust bunnies, but it did occur to me that I could no more reciprocate the invitation than I could fly to the moon -- they would have to adopt what are coyly known as "universal procedures" (rubber gloves, masks, etc.) just to sit down on my couch... and that's before they get into the kitchen. Am I going to get my gay card revoked? Not according to the Goat, at any rate. He says I enjoy it too much to have any doubt.

These guys did not have a single bookcase -- my great failing: it's the only way I know to "decorate" -- and the only visible books were four coffee table books set rather severely to one side of the wide-screen TV. And at least one of them [I never got to speak to the partner-spouse-BF, and was a little conflicted about wading into a discussion, the more so the later it got, and the drunker I got] is connected to The College. You wouldn't know. Or maybe they just have an agreement that books is what Francois [oops -- a real name -- should I erase that? No, I don't think so] does on company time and not at home. Who knows?

There was a magazine on the table open to a long article on internalized homophobia, which I would, if some twenty other people hadn't been there, have thought had been put out to let me know what they thought of me. I am glad that I am bailing out soon, and moving down to Goatville, because I am rapidly reaching the point where I can no longer smile and mouth all the platitudes of the LGBT consensus -- I have always found Groupthink intolerable, and its group enforcement more so, but as long as I am working in its cotton fields, I have to keep my mouth shut. Come fall, with my feet in another pond altogether, I will be free to speak my mind.

I think.

Until the Goat hears me, and lets me have it for giving him the opinions of the straight world in his own apartment again. Here I am, officially on the wrong side of the tracks, and everyone seems to suspect me of being whatever they mistrust most. As my friend the Opera Queen says: "@#$% 'em if they can't take a joke."

As usual, the guys tended to be polite but evasive, and the gals a little too effusive. My hosts seemed a little put out by the fact that two of the girls seemed actually happy to see me, though maybe it was just the fact that I got waylaid on my way to thank my hosts for inviting me.

Oh, well.

Maybe I'll wise up when I'm sober.
But I don't really think so.

I wanted to call the Goat on my way home and ask for his commiseration, but then I realized that he isn't home. He's off on a student trip, exposing little minds to culture and otherwise catering to the needs of people who [or whose parents] pay some $200 a day for his attentions. Not a pay scale I can match...

sigh

Hang in there, all.
C