MORE of the SAME...

I know that you are all getting tired of this topic, but it continues to astound me how closely the Goat and I seem to be aligned [as the Chinese fortune-cookie ending goes:] "in bed." Saturday nights are usually the points where this is brought home to me in no uncertain terms, and this Saturday was no exception. It was mind-boggling. Who knew one could generate that much heat and not set off the smoke-detector?

I keep wondering where this part of me was for the first 55 years of my life. Well, we all know the answer to that question: under wraps. I knew only too well what was going on out on the piers, in the backrooms, in the trucks in the meat-packing district, and all the other bits of NYC geography that had become the subject of the gay knowledge grapevine that had shoots in every other city in the US, even in the rinky-dink precincts of my so-called Big City--and even of the leather knowledge grapvine, though the Goat claims that anything remarkable or important about leather happened in San Francisco first, and in his corner of the West Coast second.

But, as the Goat also points out, if I'd waded in to the melee then, I would probably be dead by now. I'll take alive over dead any day. But there was no way to know that then; it was just a question of knowing what called out to me loudest. But it's one thing to know what represents temptation to you--and to know how people who show up in it unexpectedly get talked about, as I heard only too often--and it's quite another thing to wake up one day and just give temptation its head, as the saying goes. It may be my imagination, but things seem to just keep on getting better. At this rate, when I do die, I am going to die very, very happy.

We were even able to talk about the future today for the first time in a long time; Son B's upcoming wedding had put a lot of issues out of bounds for a while, but had also crystallized things for the Goat. The non-invitation had made him question how much he belonged to my family [bad] but had led him to actually spend time thinking over the last few weeks about a lot of the issues he has been finessing before then, or putting off until they landed on the front burner all on their own [good].

Such as:

What is going to happen when he retires? how far away would he be willing to move? I have to say that after what will be at that point two years living in several places at once, I really want to find a place we can both fit in within a reasonable travel time from the work that I do have. Short term. And it probably means several years of being ready [or at least willing] to move around a bit--I've got some eight years of work left before I can join him in retirement--if I live that long... He went through a lot of forced relocations out West, and that's one of the reasons that he is so tied to his cabin in the woods now. But today he seemed willing to at least contemplate moving a couple of times to allow us to be together wherever I was working.

That sure sounds like progress to me.

But to return to the opening thought of this post: the really nice thing is that what is sauce for the goose seems to be sauce for the gander--or at least, they both seem to get what they need from the sauce they're cooking up--or in--together. What a gift to get so late in life. Not exactly a free gift, but a great gift nevertheless...

Hang in there, guys.
It beats the alternatives.
C