Life is immensely satisfying all in all. I've accepted the fact that I have a Ph.D. kindof vaguely. The faith is stronger when it comes to making a real salary beginning in June. Beyond what I wrote about previously, you could say I bought a pair of skates for someone. My thought is it could potentially make them happy in that fine fair medium of kicking ass and looking cool: roller derby. I've seen it once. Come to think of it, I should drag some people out to see it again. We've actually got some good teams here in Madison. I know they'd would fit in, and that would be great.

Along those lines, I've been re-getting to know all of my old friends. I had lunch with Lisa near the zoo last week, followed by a casual stroll along walkways through the marshy woodland reaches of the nearby lake. She's had a really tough time of things being a single Mom of two without much social support. She related how she'd been a teaching assistant for a human sexuality course, and that she had her students do an assignment writing a mini-script for a feel-good porno. I have a link and a request to read 'View from Behind'.

I like salacious amusement.

She also explained that she'd been involved with some folk from the Inferno and it hadn't gone so hot. It's a hit or miss community that way, and I suppose I was monogamous or just too into dancing to really get into personal relationships there. Anyway, she's looking to move to Oklahoma because her mother wants to buy her a house. She's the ultra-possessive type and apparently wants to keep her daughter in the state in perpetuity, but Lisa literally has nowhere else to go. If I magically had a second house I'd rent it out cheap, but all I can offer is being social. So before she leaves in 6 weeks, I figured we could hang out and talk or go to the Inferno on a few Saturdays. That seemed to cheer her up; she needs it.

I also just had lunch with Megan today at Indie. She and Lisa had a falling out, unfortunately. Megan is married to a woman doing her B.A. in New Orleans. She's got a plan to finish things up here over the next year, find a job in Baton Rouge at the university, and get to be with her wife. Although we rarely get together to talk more than once a year, Megan is one of my favorite physical world people. We inevitably discuss just a bit of research, but mostly current events, politics, and gender identity roles.

I love talking about the latter for hours on end. It's refreshing to get her perspective on what relationships are like in the queer community, and various things about hetero-normative relationships that strike us both as odd. I've largely realized, for instance, that dudes just getting all up in the business of women is the equivalent of using 'what's up' as a conversation opener. It is a superfluous cultural signpost leading either to 'nothing much' or some useful approximation of meaningful human contact. Or that regardless of the woman's actual personality or inclinations, or my own mindset, there's a tension about how much I as the possessor of a cock want to subjugate or otherwise control person what all has a pussy. The science of fuck has these prescribed, antiquated rules. It's useful to better understand these so that, again, some meaningful relationship can be had that's not predicated on assumptions, made-for-TV bylines, or going through the motions just to bust a nut in an otherwise meaningless lie. Or so that I can take them to such a ludicrous and ironic degree that I just laugh my ass off at the fun, damned foolishness of it.

I went to Brian's birthday party at the Prime Quarter. I had filet mignon because it was relatively small and suddenly I'm aware that beef has trans fat in it--which almost kills my voracious passion for the fucker, but not quite. I was slathering cajun spicing and salt on texas toast with a 50 oz. beer in my hand, talking to this guy Craig about inconsequential shit. He said he was derived from hillbilly stock. He had the flannel overshirt, the characteristic undershirt, and those breathable baseball hats. I liked the man immensely. He apparently goes to the Inferno often. Told me a story about how he'd been drunk as fuck, got to the urinals, was doing his business, and some dude in the next urinal looked over and initiated thus:

"Wow that looks pretty good. Mind if I have a taste?"

He flashed his vessel and waited. Craig gave a sample and the dude downed it.

"Oh that's pretty good!" he exclaimed. "Y'want a taste?" Craig laughed that he may have been drunk enough to pee into a stein, but not enough to drink it. We laughed. The Inferno is a magical canker sore of wonder and ripped fishnet curiosity.

There were the usual suspects at the steakhouse. I talked with Jamie about his research and congratulated him on his first paper. I exchanged some words with John, who apparently had read my latest paper. Of course I reflexively talked about how the weakest section had been redeemed in a subsequent publication. I don't know, he was less weird 4 years ago. Now he just irritates me, like we could have a lot of research to talk about but he just stays cagey and non-talkative. I can hate me the FUCK out of some people--I mean wish painful death sort of fuck--and I'll still talk to learn something. That's what separates us and the serial rapists hiding in their off-white vans, inhaling menthol through a gas mask while masturbating to Prime Minister's Questions from the House of Commons with the Beach Boys shifting lazily in the background.

I don't know if I'll see Brian again soon, but we've been meaning to do something.

I also saw Anne. She's one of those people who are the genuine article when it comes to be wholesome and just sweet. I don't mean bitches who smile while they talk all the time but secretly plot to excavate your dick with a chainsaw while pouring red ants all over you. I mean genuine positive regard that just surprises you. Allegedly we will confer over coffee about recent life stuff.

There's not not anyone else I want to back in touch with around here. Xtian and Becky are sweet but they never initiate pro-social activities, and a married couple + single guy sort of outing never happens. Hell even when I was with Emily it was not easy to set things up. Still, I should make an effort.

For a small while there I kept running into Hillary. You long-termers know who I'm talking about. For others, the basic gist is thus: in roughly early 2005, I was at a party with one of the more popular couples. She walked in. We made eye contact. We talked for a little while and she left. Later, with much alcohol, I was amazed at myself for not getting her number. It turns out she got mine, she was/is married and we became best friends, and things just gradually got more fucked up the more time passed. As my friend Rachel can attest, she just got downright possessive--you know, like when you have that 'break glass and get dick in case of emergency' sort of friendship with a guy? You know what I'm talking about.

It ended up being that she was too caustic and just emotionally nasty for my taste. We haven't talked in 3 years. But anyway, she's a resident at the hospital and I do occasional run into her. Just as we agreed on previously, we have achieved a complete disconnect. Like Erik and I were up viewing the emergency hospital helicopters, she and her friends ask him to take a picture, and at no time is there any hint of our knowing one another.

Which is good. That friendship while ultimately useful was just. Weird. And awkward. Pleasant sometimes when we could be human-beings instead of vying for who was dom for no good reason. But fundamentally weird.

In polar opposite contrast, I've been talking with an old friend I've known for 7 years. We've always gotten along well. Sometimes it would be upwards of a year before one of us contacted the other, but it was always entertaining to hear of each others' exploits. Granted, that person almost always had me beat. I'd think about them while I was still dating Emily. I'd feel odd about it because I've never cheated on someone, but she did come to mind late at night sometimes, and I'd just regret that I hadn't been with her. And I'd think to myself, "y'know in a completely different set of circumstances, she just makes sense. Granted she lives in a different state, and we are very different people in some ways--but fuck it, it could just be a good thing."

Fast-forward 2 years and change. I'm occasionally taken back by how much I feel for this person. I'm used to dictating my emotions to myself. Granted, I've known them a long time, and I'd occasionally think about them, but when things clicked it made this big impact on me. I feel some trepidation admitting that much because we never really talked about those sorts of feelings. And I hate any semblance of perceived weakness. But it's quite nice in a way because, for a long while, we just had a friendship. And for whatever is happening now, that friendship really built on our mutual attraction. I know she's not local, but I guess one day my mind just went--"she makes sense." She does. I trust her. I love her. I just do without qualification. There's never been anything conventional about how we relate. It just works.

It's given me a sense of inner peace.

I don't know what might happen, but I had been down, and despondent, and frankly very worried. Like: "what do I do now? No one I know is single without a metric fuckton of mental or actual baggage, and I am distinctly of a non-traditional mindset re: mating, and conventional femininity found on dating websites just makes me gag, so what road map do I make? Do I just go to quirky social venues and hope someone is well-adjusted enough not to wax poetic with metal in the night near my person? Am I destined to fuck bar queens and poets and eventually young impressionable female scientists because that is the only realistic option left for a family? Because that is just fucking creepy."

I don't feel that way anymore.

As cliched as it sounds, she gives me faith. Again, I don't know what the hell will happen, but I'm happy.

I really am.

previous - next