Heat Wave

Today at 4:00 p.m.

Disaster Averted

Whew! I'm all better now.

Abe was up early and had to move my car so that he could get into his stuff in the garage. He asked me to join him for breakfast at a local restaurant before we went our separate ways. I got into my car and GAH. I was hit with a wall of that awful scent that's showing up in deodorants more and more. Even in this heat (about 90° then), I opened a window and blasted the air conditioner.

When we met at the table in the restaurant, I took his hands across the table and looked gently into his eyes.

"You must never ever again wear that deodorant you have on."

He blinked. "Why?"

I reminded him about the last time I was enveloped in that odor. I do not want to be catching that vile smell in my house OR my car. He said he could barely smell it, but he promised me he would throw it away.

Luckily, he wasn't in my car for long, and the scent is almost gone this afternoon. Dodged that bullet.

UPDATE! DEFCON FOUR! It wasn't him! I have a car from the dealership as they try for the FIFTH time to fix a leaky gasket in the convertible roof. It is the same car I had at the end of May. The odor is still there, and it had transferred to our clothes! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! It is back to haunt me! Truly, this stuff is a weapon. It seems to dissipate during the day when air is moving through, but I'll bet it's back this morning. Kill me now.

Blogger Confirmation: This is Me...Online

I had the great pleasure of meeting fellow blogger "This Is Me...Online" this past Tuesday. She was up from Arkansas to visit family very briefly and took some precious time from her tight schedule to see me. We met at the downtown mall so that three young teens she had in tow could have something to do while we talked.

We could easily have gone on for hours. "Meo," as I like to call her, and I have a lot in common—except she's sweet. She has stunning blue eyes and an easy smile. We laughed and chatted and wished Rox could have been there with us. (Road trip!) We had barely begun when the time whizzed by and she had to take her crew to the Children's Museum. I give them credit: they were very patient.

Meo is number 17 on my list of Internet friends made personal with face-to-face visits. This is a lot of fun. Who's next?

Cultural Imperatives: Gay Authors

I have been asking my gay friends to name “must reads” for anyone who wants to understand the modern gay world. I have read dozens of books, but now I’m getting into gay history with such authors as Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Justin Spring, Armistead Maupin, and most recently Paul Monette.

Monette wrote Becoming A Man: Half A Life Story, a memoir of boyhood growing into a man who finally finds love. The journey to that love takes the entire book; only the final few pages give us any hope for Paul. It is a story of internal struggle and external posturing, trying to be what the world wants him to be. It is only when Monette realizes the fallacy of such expectations that he becomes capable of the love he so desperately wants. It is a familiar theme.

I’m finding so far that many gay men my age have a dark view of men. They lived through a terrible childhood, being told by the world in those innocent and tender years that they are at best “intrinsically disordered.” Ushered into a new era, they celebrated the years between 1969 and 1981 (Stonewall to HIV), which became a brief nirvana that crashed around them with countless funerals and bitter memories of lost hope. I wonder at any gay man’s ability to live through all of that and survive healthy and whole.

Monette’s memoir is bleak. Is it a template for most men of his era? I continue to read (currently a collection from the Violet Quill) and learn. If you have a recommendation for me, by all means let’s hear it.