Pen and Ink

No more poppy bagels.

Last week I wrote about a recent visit with my doctor, who commented on my weight.

While shopping for a new wardrobe is infinitely more fun than going on a diet, I am saving money for other purposes, which shall be revealed in time.

So I'm doing the diet thing. Again.

This time, I have company, as A's doctor wants him to drop a few pounds.  He decided last week that we would both do Weight Watchers Online.  Again.

I had joined earlier this year, but I just wasn't motivated.  Now, I'm motivated. The easy iPhone app helps out a lot too.

Monday marked my first week on the program.

Drum roll, please...

I lost five pounds last week! But I'm sure my friends behind the counter at Dunkin' Donuts are noticing that they are selling one less poppy seed bagel every morning.

Is that right?

I knew it would not be pretty.

As I pulled into the parking lot for my semi-annual visit to my doctor, just to get results of blood work, a fear came over me. Not that the tests would be bad, but that I would have to get on the scale.

After two weeks on a Mediterranean cruise and, for the most part, abandoning what little self-control I have when it comes to food, I dreaded the magic number I would see.

The nurse put me on the scale, one of those old fashioned doctor scales with the weights.

He started at 150.  I chucked and said, "you're gonna need more than that, honey."

I was right. It wasn't pretty.

My doctor came in and looked at my vitals.  Then she looked at me.

"Is that right," she said, pointing to my weight.

"Yeah, 'fraid so."

It was up quite a bit from my last visit six months ago. 

Then she moved onto my blood pressure, which, ironically, was way down from the last visit (not that it is ever high to begin with.)

"I don't normally recommend this," she said, "but gaining weight has helped your blood pressure. I guess it works for you."

Despite that little bit of humor, she gave me the eye. 

"Yeah, I know, I know.  I have to lose it, most of my clothes don't fit."

She replied, "It's cheaper to lose it than to buy a new wardrobe."

Yeah, but not nearly as fun.

Just like a fern.

We were at the end of the interview process for a communications manager, down to our final three candidates.

Her resume came in very late, but then again, our human resources department posted the ad in AdWeek later than they were supposed to.  Most of the resumes, I just tossed.  But this one, with cover letter and resume printed on two different paper stocks, stood out.  I kept it aside.

The search fizzled, as sometimes happen.  So I pulled out the late entry and thought, "why not?"

I called Dorene in for an interview.  Spencer, my boss, was looking for a brilliant writer. As a dentist, you wouldn't think he would care. But as an academic dean, he did. He very much appreciated the written word.

We met and had a productive conversation. She gave me a writing sample, an introduction page to the student catalog for a computer sciences department at another university.  It blew me away. She compared computer sciences to the frond of a fern.

It was noon when she left. I remember, too, that it was a Friday. After her departure, I hopped in my car and drove to Spencer's private practice, where he worked on Fridays. Usually I would tell his wife I was coming over, but I didn't even bother to call.

I sat in the staff office, waiting for him to finish.  He walked in and I handed him the fern piece and said, "Sit down and read this."

As he read, a slow smile formed on his face.

"If she's as good as you say, I'll hire her on the spot. Get her in on Monday."

Monday came along and Dorene showed up at the appointed time. I brought her in to meet Spencer. Ten minutes later I was summoned to his office.

"I just offered Dorene the job and told her she has 24 hours to decide. Please take her over to HR so they can tell her about benefits."

I escorted a shell-shocked Dorene to HR and the rest was history.

She joined our team, one of four people sharing a three person suite.  We both had own own offices, while Trudi and Bev shared a very small space. 

For some reason, which I don't think either of us ever understood, we came to dislike each other. It wasn't open warfare or the such, but we just didn't get along.

Then dynamics changed with our relocation to an office suite as spacious as our former digs were tiny.  Suddenly, Bev and Trudi, who got along famously in the old office, started fighting.  And Dorene and I came to adore each other.

Go figure.

Dorene's one of the most creative people I've ever met. That writing sample was no fluke. Everything she put her hands on was brilliant, including an unpublished novel, a copy of which I still have.

She left the job after a couple of years, and we would be in touch from time to time.  When I finally took a new job myself, I brought Dorene in as a communications consultant to revamp all of our marketing materials.  As ever, she did a brilliant job.

But, as often happens, we lost touch with each other. She and her husband moved to Seatle, and then back to Boston.  There would be an occasional peep, but little more.  I heard through the grapevine that she developed breast cancer (this at a very young age of 38).  Despite a brief phone call, we didn't have any communication.

Last year, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, she found me and we reconnected.  During my last trip to Boston, we spent several hours together over lunch in Harvard Square.

Catching up with each other on Facebook and over lunch, I learned that the breast cancer, after a tough battle, went into remission. And then it metastized.

At lunch, she was full of life and hope and dreams and sunshine and determination.  I didn't dare think it at the time, but I knew that she would need it.  And that our wonderful winter lunch together would probably be our last.

It was.  My lovely friend Dorene passed away on August 25 at the way too young age of 45.

A momentary unease.

Sitting on the new ottoman in my newly-redecorated family room this morning, I was sorting some papers and putting them away in new boxes in the cabinets of my new bookcases. (Are you seeing the theme here?)

A feeling came over me, a momentary unease.

All of this is new.

I think maybe this started yesterday afternoon. I was going through papers on my desk and the tons of crap in the closet of the study. With Cary moving into the house this fall, there is a lot of reorganization (and purging) to be done.  I pulled out envelopes of pictures, sorting through them to find pictures of my previous homes to show Andy.

Of course there were pictures of Mike, of his family, of my family. There were old friends and acquaintances, the names of some I can't even remember.  They're the past.

I think the ghosts of a failed marriage are coming to haunt me.  So much of my past life is gone. Yes, I'm in the house that my ex-partner and I bought together.  But most of our jointly-owned furniture is gone. 

Virtually everyone I see in my daily life had nothing to do with my previous life.  True, there are dear friends who go back many years. And here I sit, wearing a ring on my finger again after four-years of nakedness. It's all joyous and good and positive.

But when I stop to think about it, intentionally or not, it's astounding and just a bit unnerving. 

Then again, that's life.

Joey.

Way back when, I think it was about 1985, I met a guy named Joey.

We worked together at a store called Huckleberry Finn (long, long since gone) in Wayne, NJ.  He was out as a gay man, but I was still finding my way.  We hated each other, for reasons I was never quite sure.  We just didn't get along.  He'd do a display in the store, and I would change it.  I would do my own, and he'd change it when I wasn't looking.  (Ah, youth.)

We ended up working together for a couple of years.  Eventually, I came out to myself...and to him.  I'll never forget the night.  It was a Saturday, and we were both closing.  The one or two other people who worked with us left, but I kinda hung back to talk to him. 

"I knew it!" was his response when I delivered my news.

We chatted, really having our first-ever friendly conversation.  During that talk, I revealed that I had never been to a gay bar.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun," he exclaimed with delight.  "Next Saturday, after we close the store, we're heading into the city."  (For the uninitiated, when you live in North Jersey, "city" refers to one place and one place only.)

True to his word, the next week we hopped in the car after dropping the store gate and made our way to the West Village.  Our first stop was Uncle Charley's (long-gone) on Greenwich Street.  It was an S&M bar (stand and model), but friendly enough.  From there we hit Marie's Crisis (happily, still there after a zillion years) on Grove Street.  It's a wonderful subterranean piano bar that is still one of my favorite haunts in NYC.  We ended the night at Trax (also long-gone), a mega dance club in the Meatpacking District.

It was a tour of the various types of gay bars and certainly a good introduction to that world.

From that evening, we hung out quite a bit, often with Lisa, our store manager (part-time dyke, part-time fag hag).  In short, we became friends.

Joey was really my first gay friend (other than Martin, of course).  He was also the first person I knew who was HIV positive. 

At the point I met him, he had been positive for a couple of years.  Remember, dear readers, that this was 1985. The drugs that keep so many people alive today were a good decade away.

We eventually lost touch with each other once I moved to Boston and settled into my life there.

Fast forward about 12 years.  It's 5 a.m. on a cold, rainy September morning, with a hurricane about to hit Boston.  And it was the first day of the Boston-New York AIDS Ride presented by Tangueray (that "presented by Tangueray" part was drilled into our heads; there's nothing I can do about it). 

I was standing under a tent, trying to wake up and be perky as one of the media spokespeople for the event.  Across the table, a figure comes and stands in front of me.  I look up and see someone staring at me with a dopey grin.

"Oh. My. God!" we both shrieked.

Joey!

As we yammered on, catching up with each other, the only thought going through my mind was, "Oh God, I'm so glad he's still alive."

I had thought about him during the previous years, really not sure if he was still living.  Now I had proof that he, in fact, was, and not only that, he looked great.

As things would have it, we lost touch again. 

Fast forward another 10 years or so, and along comes Facebook.  And a very special friend request last week.

I'm not religious, but thank you God for keeping this wonderful person alive and thriving.

Where's the gnome?

John came to the house last night. It was his first visit in months, and definitely his first since A moved it.

In his charming, exuberant, boylike manner, he started walking around.

"What's new? What's changed?" he inquired in his endearing way.

He walked into the bedroom and looked around.

"Where's my gnome picture?"

(Two of the walls in the bedroom are a gallery of photos of friends and family.)

A couple of years ago, while introducing John to my former hometown of Boston, we passed a store on Newbury Street.  On the front steps was a plaster gnome figurine.  It was cute, with hands in a prayer like position.

I had John sit next to it and assume the same pose while I took a picture.  It used to hang on the wall in the bedroom.

In response to his query, I said, "I took it down. A isn't comfortable with the idea of ex's."

There's been quite a bit of conversation, in fact, about the notion of being friends with one's former partners.  A and I have talked about it and on numerous occasions, Cary's joined the conversation.  We've explored it in the abstract. And we've talked about our real life examples.

Is it a gay thing?  Do straight people do this?  Perhaps it's a gay thing, because I think gay men draw different distinctions between sex and love than most straight folk do.

I've even posed the question to myself. 

"Why are you still friends with John, even after you broke up?"

"Because I want to," is always my response.

We talked about it a bit last night, and he brought it up again today in a phone call.

"I think the reason that we can still hang out is that so much of our relationship was based on friendship."

He hit the nail on the head. 

We became friends from the beginning, largely because we both love the theater.  And by this point, we've seen so many local productions that we can talk easily about the local scene.  I can't do that with anyone else.

Romantic relationships often end.  It's a fact of life. That article in the Times yesterday illustrated that so well.  But does that mean you have to throw the whole thing out?

If two people are mature enough and reflective enough about their situation, they can remain friends without hindering new romantic relationships that either might start. 

I've always believed that it's important to find the good in everything and everyone. Including relationships.  And it's important to hold onto goodness. It makes life worth living.

Behind the design.

One of my favorite little indulgences is the Home section of the Times. I look forward to Thursdays and Sundays, and always save this section for last (even after Arts & Culture on Sundays, if you can believe it).  It's fluff, to be sure, but I enjoy it.

Amidst the fluff today was a very poignant piece that was intended, originally, to be about design, but became about the people who live in that fabulous house.

Called "After the Breakup, What About the Lake House," the article opens with a birthday party at a country home of a gay couple in New York. The party was supposed to be their wedding, but after the dissolution of the five-year old relationship several months prior, it became a different party.

The story of how Brad and Ben met, their lives together, and their breakup was quite candid.  I learned even more after reading Brad's blog (which I've added to my blogroll because I happen to really like it, this story aside).  It was an unusual look at the lives of the people behind a design story.

The story and Brad's blog posts really hit home, reminding me of the emotions of the ending of my own 17-year relationship four years ago. For the past week, Mike's been on my mind.

A and I are making a lot of changes to the house that Mike and I once shared.  We're planning a desperately-needed remodel of the kitchen (part of my four-year old campaign to rid this house of the color pink).  And we've bought some furniture to replace an aging sectional and to provide practical solutions to the loss of my study once Cary moves in.

As I was looking around the house the other day I thought of Mike.  I thought that if he stopped by now, he probably wouldn't recognize the place.  Within a few months, virtually every piece of furniture we had together (save the coffee table in the family room) will be gone.  Landscaping has been changed, new lighting installed, paint colors changed, my burgeoning photography collection installed where jointly-owned art once was hung.  Hopefully by the spring, even the outside colors will have been changed.

This is all good, of course. A and I are building a life and doing these things together, much as Brad and Ben from the Times story did. 

Yesterday, I received an email out of the blue from Mike. It's been months since we had any contact. We've had an issue with the ADT security system (it's still in his name and my attempts to get electronic bills sent to me have failed, so we were six months behind in payments).  His email talked about the problem and how to fix it. 

But there was no "hi, how are you, I hope things are well."  Just business-like without an ounce of warmth.

OK, so I was the one who ended things and should expect any more than the civil parting that we had.  Nonetheless, I was bothered by it.

Where am I going with this?  I guess that amid the hopefulness, the springtime feeling of a new relationship and positive change in my life, there are still melancholy moments of "things weren't supposed to happen like this."  The Times article heightened some emotions that I had crept into my consciousness. 

But dealing with emotions is a good thing.

* * * * *
If you want, check out a slide show, narrated by the Brad and Ben, that accompanies the article.

Pops goes a great memory.

I spent some time (OK, a lot of time) tonight on iTunes.  I downloaded some new things (George Winston's Linus & Lucy; Jaimee Paul's At Last, and Stacey Kent's Breakfast on the Morning Tram), made some new playlists, and imported some of my CDs.

It's amazing the power that one song can have.  Some songs evoke emotions, while others transport us to particular places and times.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I accidentally clicked on "Sleigh Ride," as recorded by the Boston Pops, conducted by Keith Lockhart.

Instantly, I was standing on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston in front of the incomparable Symphony Hall. It's a few weeks before Christmas, and I'm with my parents and my ex.  The evening was a surprise as their Christmas present.

We'd taken them to dinner at Ciao Bella on Newbury Street, where we had great window seats to watch the passersby doing their Christmas Shopping on the frigid cold Friday night.

From there, we drove to Symphony Hall. Mike dropped us off and went to park.  I walked my parents into the building and my father immediately figured it out, with a grin on his face.  My mother, however, needed some clues (actually, she needed to be hit over the head with it.)

When she figured it out, she gave me a big hug.

The dinner, the concert...the whole evening was the best.  And listening to that song tonight put me on a "sleigh ride" right back in time.

Lighting the night sky.

In keeping with my "Toys R Us" theme from the previous post:  we went to see the fireworks tonight over Fort Lauderdale beach with my friends M and Z from Boston.

It's such a simple thing.  We drive to Galleria, park there, walk the block or two to the beach.  Then sit in the sand, watch the display, and then leave.

So simple, but so satisfying. 

Toys R Us kid.

It's amazing to me how smart kids can be...how perceptive and intuitive they are.

In a couple of recent posts I've referred to "A."  Well, "A" is my new partner. We've been together for about three months now but it feels like three years...all in a very good way.

We've taken a couple of big plunges over the last month. 

I'm generally a pretty cautious guy in some respects, but I threw caution to the wind when A and I decided to live together.  (Yes, it's a very lesbianic thing to do, I know.)

The bigger plunge, though, came a couple of weeks ago when I met A's kids for the first time.  There are three of them. 

I don't dislike kids, but I have no paternal insticts and have no desire to have children of my own.  But A's kids are welcome in my life.

They came for the weekend and of course, I was nervous as hell.  Two of the kids are teenagers, and they are a whole special breed.

I decided to just be myself and let things happen as they will.

On the second day we were out driving somewhere and I was talking about something or other.  A's son D was sitting in the back seat and totally pegged me.

"You're just a big kid, aren't you?"

Wow.  Kids are smart, because he's absolutely right. "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys R Us kid."  Big time.

(Oh, and his youngest daughter declared that I am "awesome."  I wonder if making her favorite breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes and bacon had anything to do with it?)