The Death of Imagination

So let's talk about boys a minute.

Unsurprisingly, the Sout Sider was all mouth and no trousers. I called him last week, he said he was lunching with a friend but he'd call me after that, and I haven't heard from him since. But we might cross paths again because his friends have been wonderful. The young'un chatted with me via Messenger so I invited him and his boyfriend for Bear Night Cocktails. They came, they enjoyed themselves, they ingratiated themselves with my pals and got invited to a housewarming I'll be going to this Saturday.

That was a good get-together, btw. Besides them, it was all usual suspects except that one of the neighbours stopped in with a coterie: Two college friends in town for a funeral and her best gay friend. They all stayed for one drink and bugged except for the gay friend, who hung around, flounced, and then came back to shut down the party. I thought he might head over to Touché with me (everyone else peaced out); instead he sucked me off in the hallway. It was fun, but it always makes me a bit sad when someone has to get blotto to have sex with me.

I thought about turning in at that point but I needed another hour or two to sober up before bedtime anyhow so I popped over to the bar for about an hour-and-a-half. It was worth it; small crowd but I met some fun newbies, including a couple of young transplants from Sacramento and a white-bearded crusty who did his durnedest to sweep me off my feet. If I hadn't've been tapped out, I might've stayed and had some fun.

The weekend didn't go too badly. I got to the clinic right when it opened on Saturday morning and was out again within 20 minutes. The nurse strongly counseled me to take the antibiotics on a full stomach and as someone who tends to have tummy troubles even with doses that don't bother most people, I listened. In fact, I blocked out the rest of the day just in case I felt terrible and it was a bit anticlimactic when I didn't.

She also warned me not to drink, which made hosting cocktails seem pointless. But I did have a couple of friends say they wanted to come over and hang out anyway. Having been cooped up all day, I was glad to have the company. Even though I wasn't motivated to do a full cleaning, I felt energetic enough to at least put the dining room to rights. They ate most of the lebkuchen stars I'd bought for this gathering, which was helpful.

Despite a reasonable bedtime I once again slept badly and sleeping in didn't help. Still, I dragged myself to the birthday brunch for Sad Cub. He seemed really appreciative (although that could have been the bottomless mimosas talking). I was glad Jigglypuff and leiny were there to bring up the level of social awareness. The whippersnapper I was sat next to had no conversation and spent a good part of the meal reading comic strips on his phone.

After that, Jiggly was off to the ER to get his persistent fever checked out, leiny and I had parties to go to, Sad Cub went home, and the rest went to check out the dollar store. I swung by the house to feed the cat and return a few messages, discovering in the process that the skank from Touché I'd hunted down on FB to give a heads-up to had texted back. So that was another good deed accomplished.

At the party, one of the host's dogs had a complete conniption when I walked in. No one seemed too put out, so I figured I wasn't the first that happened to; I certainly wasn't the last. I immediately plunged deep into conversation with someone I remembered vaguely from FB and made such an impression that he avoided me for the rest of the night. I also made the name of one of the new guys I met into a topic of conversation so I'd be sure to remember it. And lest the hosts forget that I'd attended, I was also the last to leave.

As per usual, nobody offered me a ride or invited me to come with them so I skipped along singing to the El and rode it to North Chinatown. I wasn't sure where I wanted to eat so naturally ended up by Train Phở, where I noticed a new opening. The server said they'd been in business less than a month and the menu looked interesting so I gave it a shot. Their special weekend appetiser was bánh cuốn, which is essentially rolled fun noodles with ground pork. I didn't expect it to come with big slices of chả lụa. (I figured I'd just feed those to the cat when I got home but he wouldn't touch them.)

It was all the dinner I needed after three hours of snacking but they had an interesting chè with green tea jelly and longans, so I asked for a serving to go. One of the owners brought it to me and asked me three times if I had ice at home to add to it. (She was worried if she mixed it in now the syrup would become too diluted before I ate it.) I assured her I did and complimented her commitment to freshness.

The weekend was something of a mixed bag. I guess it always is, but a couple of situations brought into focus my dissatisfaction with various things, particularly my friendships.

Friday night I was worn out by poor sleep so I just stayed in and did laundry. When I got a request to chat from Liver Laddoo, I thought he was calling to console me. Several minutes into the call I realised my mistake; he just wanted to talk about his date the following evening. I kept hoping he'd pick up on my disinterest but he never did so I started counting the minutes until I could end the call without hurting his feelings.

Finally, about twenty minutes in, we started talking about funerals and cremations. He told a story from his childhood about witnessing his grandather's traditional Hindu cremation. Finally, I began to get interested in the conversation. When he said he didn't think he wanted the same thing for himself, I told him. "Tell your family and put it in writing." He began to get uncomfortable at where our "banter" had led to and I told him, "If banter is what you want, you should've called one of your other friends." The call ended soon after that and we haven't spoken since.

The experience left me agitated enough to text three other friends looking for someone to vent to. One was a therapist and, in thinking of him, I was forced to remind myself that a therapist is not a psychiatrist and vice versa, so I shouldn't expect a friend who's the latter to be particularly sensitive to my emotional needs. LL is used to prescribing medicines for the violently mentally ill; he's not spending a lot of time drawing them out to learn what emotional support they need--and it shows.

I had a similar though less explosive experience with Pepperoni. I couldn't figure out if he hadn't offered condolences because he just didn't know my father was dead (because Facebook's algorithm is capricious and you just can't assume anyone has seen anything you've posted, no matter how many "reactions" it's netted) or because he couldn't be arsed. Turns out it's the latter. Not surprising, given his callow age, but a bit disappointing all the same.

And then there was the wine-tasting on Saturday afternoon. Again, I didn't assume most of the people there had heard about my dad. Our hosts, for instance (one of whom has given up FB completely), were a bit shocked when I casually mentioned it after everyone else had left. But I knew some of them did and I expected some acknowledgment--a longer hug, a word of sympathy, a vague invitation.

It was a sobering reminder of where I stand with that particular group of friends. Unsurprisingly, when I tried asking around about what people were doing later (having made the effort to leave home I wasn't in a hurry to head right back), I got put off. So I ended up accepting my straight neighbours' invitation to dinner and promising myself I'd go out afterwards.

I am still recovering from the weekend.

Mostly from Saturday. Sometimes the conversation at cocktail night is so good we lose track of time, but I don't think we've ever lost track of it the way we did this last time. Falling back didn't help; a couple folks were surprised to look at their phones and see it was only 1:30 a.m. when it was the second time that night it was 1:30 a.m.

Upon reflection, I can see a number of distinct phases. One starts with the arrival of my college friend Guge and two of her high school classmantes, all of whom were coming from a memorial service for a fourth classmate. One of these is a gay man who's on the spectrum and--apparently--hot for me. The other helped me coordinate Monshu's cremation and memorial service.

It was she who had the idea to tell real-life ghost stories and the gay guy had a doozy. I lowered the lights, lit a skull candle, and he told about seeing a ghost in the restroom of a local restaurant when he was seven. "It was a just a void," he told us. At the time he'd been panicked, and of course none of the adults he told believed him.

The next day, he discovered that it had followed him home.

For nearly ten years, he saw the mysterious floating shape intermittently, never talking about it to anyone. When the cats where in the room, they would watch it, too, confirming to him that this was more than a figment. Then finally, one Christmas morning, his father said something to his mother which revealed that they'd been seeing it all along, too. The whole family had and had never spoken of it. He wept with relief.

None of them ever saw it again.

After the women left, things quieted down for a bit, but predictably veered more toward the sexual. This only intensified when a new acquaintance from Wichita arrived with a drunk friend in tow, and they were all thirsty. It got raunchy; this is one of the only times ever I could imagine this gathering mutating into a sex party. And talk got real. We went from sexual positions to discussing the evolution of the notion of the gay community.

To complicate things, the Scouser who I'd nailed back in July was there and I really wanted to nail him again. Ultimately, it looked like the only way to swing that would be to escort everyone to the bar (Ghost Boy kept insisting) and double back--which we gladly did, but it added at least another half hour onto an already long evening. By the time he left, it was nearly 4 a.m. CST.

Maybe I could have slept in more, but after about five hours, I was itching to start on the day, since it was a pretty one and I had plans. I left about 12:30 and made terrific time to Pilsen. At ten to two, Nuphy and I met at the new crepería attached to Panadaería Nuevo León, where the portions are enormous.

It's a bit sad to see him navigating with a cane these days, but at least his mind still seems plenty sharp. We had plenty of time to talk as we made slow progress down 18th to the museum. The crowds were huge but thinned out massively by 4 p.m. By that time, we'd managed to find and lose everyone in our group at least once.

bunj was there with e., who sadly couldn't stick around. innerdoggie and tyrannio made it, too, along with lhn and prilicla. It was an outing like we haven't had in years and, despite my tiredness, I enjoyed every moment of it. Pilsen is a feast for the eyes and spirit and we made our merry way to the restaurant (Nuphy took the bus and beat us there) stopping frequently to comment and investigate.

The restaurant--a new place Nuphy wanted to try--wasn't all that. It advertised itself as a cocktail bar, with a huge list of margaritas and mojitos, but after bunj tried to order one of the latter, they announced that they were out of mint. The interesting array of tacos was tasty, but the sauces were tainted with unnecessary jalapeno and my duck was cold and overcooked.

But it all hardly mattered. We chatted away about food, death, and everything in between. It's amazing to me the comfort level you can have with people that you've known for nearly three decades; as I gazed around the room, I felt a twinge at the thought of each of these beautiful people departing the world forever.

But for now, they're all here, and Day of the Dead was a timely reminder to keep doing things with them while they are. Normally a Sunday after a big night out is an emotional nadir for me, but the lift I got for those hours together carried me over it and even lasted into the next day.

To help sort through my thoughts before making my remarks at the service on Saturday, I've been posting reminiscences to Facebook. This is the unexpurgated version of my draught for yesterday. (The parts I omitted are those between curly braces.)

All brothers fight. Well, maybe there are exceptions, but it was commonplace in our generation at least. Mark was only a year older than me, which brought us into conflict a lot. A year makes a big difference physically when you’re young so I always lost.

I can’t remember what started this one argument when we were in elementary school but it ended with us dividing our room exactly down the middle with masking tape. Even the dresser was precisely bisected (because I guarantee M. got out a ruler and measured).

Even our pets fought. He had a gerbil named “Fred”; mine was called “Chipper” because of what she did to paper. After researching how to do it properly, we carefully introduced them to each other with the goal of having them share one aquarium.

It worked at first but one day we awoke to find Fred laid out stiff with a bloody gash. Shortly after, Chipper died without a mark on her. We decided it was a murder-suicide. Our garter snakes died, too. At least, that’s what I said. M. maintained that they were only sleeping and what really killed them was my unilateral decision to toss their bodies into the gangway from our second-storey window.

Eventually I figured out that the only way to best him was not to fight at all. M. had a short fuse {(like our father; I, like our mother, can carry a simmering grudge till Judgment Day)}. If I taunted him until he struck me first, he’d be the one our parents would punish. [Kids, don’t ever do this to someone; it’s shitty.] This became less effective as we got older and Mom and Dad expected us to settle our differences without their intervention.

The last time we fought was the only time I beat him. It was 1991 and I was back with the family after a year abroad. Back then he was prone to violent outbursts due to his disease and at one point got too threatening {towards our mother} for my comfort. I pounced and put him in a wrestling hold. He tried to laugh it off afterwards—“You had me in a full nelson, didn’t you?”—but I didn’t find it funny.

Fortunately, we eventually found more effective drugs. For the last three decades of his life, he was the least aggressive person I knew.

Of course there's a lot more I'm leaving out. My reaction in '91 was informed by the fact that, a few months earlier, my older brother had a violent episode which resulted in the cops being called to my house. He'd been arguing with our mother (who was the locus of his rage for the first several years of his psychosis) and ended up grabbing her in such a way that her ear piercing tore and she started to bleed. Bourgeois to the core, she worried about getting blood on the couch so my brother decided to get a knife and slice himself in order to get more blood on it. So it was with this in mind that I tackled him when he was yelling a foot from her face.

The other big omission is the fact that, at some point in our teens--and even before his psychotic break--the "fights" crossed the line into real abuse. I remember one particularly dreadful day when my parents were out and he was raging at me and my sister, who were both cowering in the living room afraid that if we tried to move he'd hit us again. Something similar happened a few years later at our place in Clayton when I was lying on the couch and told him to "hypospaz", outraging him further, which suggests to me that there were more times that I'm forgetting if not actively suppressing.

It's not a pleasant thing to bring up when someone passes, but all of us leave a complicated legacy. I've never really dealt adequately with the terror of those years but maybe it's something I can work on now when I start grief counseling.

Speaking of my psychic state, I did get out of the house on Saturday. An acquaintance was having a gallery show that I know he really really really wanted folks to come to and I used that as leverage. It was totally worth it on its own merits; I knew he was creative and had good technique, but until this show I never knew he had such range. I was very tempted to buy a few pieces. There were exactly 666 of them, so I'll need a return visit to really take them all in properly.

From there, I had a birthday party to attend. The invitation said "snacks" so I went and had a walleye dinner at Glenn's. I needn't have bothered; the honoree is lace-curtain Irish from upstate New York and had prepared enough food for a small army, which we were not. When he offered me CostCo brand whiskey, I half-jokingly said, "I'd take something better if you got it" and he opened up a bottle of Angels' Envy. For party favours there were mini bottles of banana-infused cognac his partner had made.

When I was well in my cups, I texted bunj, saying "I know it's a selfish thing to say but I hope you end up speaking at my funeral and not me at yours". He floated the suggestions that we both write our eulogies in advance and seal them up, but knowing someone had done that, how could you not be tempted to peak?

I spent a lot of time with the moon this weekend. The Mid-Autumn Festival fell on Saturday, but the astronomical full moon was Friday, so I went to the shore both days.

Friday I'd intended to go alone, but I unexpectedly heard from Sad Cub and invited him to join me. He met me at the jetty at the southern end of Pratt Beach. I'd decided to run home and feed the cat first and took a wrong turn approaching the beach, which started a block farther north than I'd remembered, so I got there a little harried. There were quite a few people out moon-viewing as well, but it was pretty calm and quiet overall.

Before we parted at the shore, I broke into the box of mini mooncakes from Sheng Kee Bakery via Super H Mart. As usual, the flavours of each one were stamped on the cakes but my character-reading skills are so rusty I could only guess at half of them. I had to look up the name of the one we ate later to determine that it was jasmine and I was baffled by the one with "jujube" in its name until Patchooey came along and told me the first character represented "longan".

On the way back home, I stop by the Potbelly where a guy I know is the manager. He's a mission kid who grew up in Taichung, so I figured he'd like to share a mooncake with me. He did. When I asked him what was his favourite, he rhapsodised about a variety unique to there which incorporated crystalised honey.

I probably would've stayed in all the next day (and potentially watched the moonrise from my neighbour's porch) except that I'd already made plans to meet up with bunj in North Chinatown. We went on a brief fruitless hunt for "snow skin moon cakes" and then ended up getting bánh mì from Bale, which we took to the breakwater south of Foster Beach.

Unfortunately there was a concert going on at Montrose Beach and the EDM carried perfectly across the calm water. But the weather was perfect and we found a nice sheltered spot near the navigational marker at the eastern end of the beach where the trees blotted out most of the light from the city. Unlike the night before, we saw the moon almost immediately and it was spectacularly orange.

He and I sat there and talked for over three hours. I never did get around to asking him much about his recent trip. Instead, after a little catching up, we slid into a discussion of gaming and then there was no stopping us. He talked about his current game and gave recommendations for systems and scenarios we might want to try if I manage to get our gaming group running again.

He also tipped me to the fact that I'd been mentioned (albeit not by name) in a couple of princeofcairo's podcasts, in particular for all the work I did researching Breton folklore. Those were the heady days when I literally taught myself to read French so I could milk Sébillot for legends and lore, much of which ended up in the Ars Magica Armorica game which PoC was running and it made me nostalgic all the next day.

Saturday may have been the most up-and-down day of all last weekend. It's certainly the one whose impact has lingered the most, which is why I've been putting off writing about it.

It started out on low ebb with bad sleep and one of the most hideous dreams I've had in ages, twinning my fear of disease and disfigurement with my fear of abandonment. It's hard to explain exactly, but several of us were infected with nanomites by some mysterious bad actors. Somehow I managed to leak details of their code to experts who could use them to overcome the infection and, in retaliation, the bad actors caused them excise parts of my cranium and vital organs.

I pleaded with the experts to save me but they said the information I had could only be used to prevent future attacks, not to undo the one on me. For some reason, nobody considered taking me to a hospital; they just left me to my fate. Then, out of nowhere, "Monshu" arrived (I knew it was him even though the resemblance was vague at best) and I asked him to just stay and hold me until I died.

After that, I tried to get back to sleep but it just wasn't happening. I debated with myself whether to go to the townhall meeting hosted by my new alderman and eventually convinced myself to go. It was the right choice; the meeting was extremely informative and better-run than I'd anticipated. (Amazingly, there wasn't anything I would call a typical ranty non-question.) I had a terrific conversation with his head of policy, who happens to be the son of a favourite former coworker, and I left energised about local government.

To keep the momentum going, I stopped in again at Uncharted Books and had another chat with Tanner, who showed me a Nietzschean children's book they'd recently gotten in. I'm still considering getting it for my nephews. I hungry and craving something sweet so I betook myself to Bongo Room and had french toast that was essentially bread pudding on the back patio. After that, it was a stop at Independent Spirits to get the wine for Sunday's gathering. I got the same beardo as last month and when I told him we'd only placed second, he responded, "We can do better than that!" (How am I going to break the news to him?)

Then I got home and everything took a turn.

A couple weeks ago, one of the neighbours asked me what I thought of trimming back the smoketree and I told her absolutely not. I don't know if she conveyed that to her partner or not. I do know that when I got home that day, it had been hacked down to fraction of its size. I don't think I have to explain here how furious that made me. No one was around, so I texted both of them to ask what the hell? (I phrased it more diplomatically.) She responded that she had no idea; he said, "We just want things to look nice", which was as good as an admission of guilt.

We haven't spoken since. I replied to the effect that, since we're not all going to agree on what "looks nice", we should talk to each other before making significant changes--something I would've thought went without saying. I got a one-word reply. I didn't run into them the rest of day Saturday and since then have seen them only in passing and uttered pleasantries.

In the meantime, I've thought way too much about how to explain to them why this upsets me so. I've crafted a half-dozen different arguments, trying to single out the approach most likely to succeed. But if there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that all your argumentation is moot unless the other person is willing to show goodwill and listen. So far, they haven't shown any signs they are.

It hurts especially because, unlike with the couple upstairs, I felt I had a real rapport with them. I know we didn't see exactly eye-to-eye on the landscaping, but we'd spar about our differences in a friendly way and ultimately find a compromise. But they didn't trust me enough to do that in this case; they apparently decided (correctly) that I didn't share their vision so they waited until I wasn't around to carry it out. It feels like a betrayal and I don't know if our budding friendship can survive it.

At the moment, I was especially upset at being--yet again--robbed of sleep. I'd hoped for a nap so that I could more fully enjoy the block party that afternoon (which I felt especially in need of after the Friday night fiasco) and I was doubtful I could calm down enough. In the end, meditation and CBT (and cat therapy!) got me to where I needed to be to doze maybe a half-hour.

And I did enjoy that party. The weather was breathtakingly perfect. I brought fresh longans I'd snatched up at Tai Nam on the way to the wine store and people gamely tried them, rekindling the debate on how much like semen they tasted. I had at least one great conversation with a newbie and got to introduce Diego and his boyfriend to a recent acquaintance I thought they'd hit it off with and they did.

So ultimately a great day. But it had the potential to be a nearly flawless day and that was squandered due to my sensitivity to the thoughtlessness of others. I regret this and yet I can't imagine being free of it entirely. I wouldn't recognise myself in someone that indifferent, that hardened.

Sometimes I wish I could google my own thoughts. On the way to work this morning, I thought up an oblique opening for this post which I was keen to use, but I soon got distracted and forgot it and no amount of reviewing my morning is leading me to the spur that prompted it. At least my browser has a search history.

I'm sore all over but most of all on the soles of my feet. Eight hours of standing will do that to you. It was more time than I'd intended to spend at Market Days, but first I fell in with some pals and let them drag me around. Then I made some new friends and let them drag me around until finally I ran into an old trick in town for a visit. When it was down to just him and me, that's when I realised I needed to get my ass home.

So if I didn't see the full range of friends I was hoping to, I at least had a good time with the ones I did see. Including Pasillero. I think I'm getting better at spending time with him together with our mutuals. At first it was hella awkward because we have a lovely casual intimacy developed over the past year which we can't really indulge in in public but we've been together enough times in the company of others to give our rapport plausibility.

Yesterday, it turns out, was his third anniversary with his partner, who he met at the Lotto booth. It's long gone, but it stood in front of Mañanitas. Shortly after the Macy Gray set, the rest of the party bagged and I suddenly became a third wheel. As Pasillero and I surveyed the departing crowd, he said, "The one in the Handsome Bastard t-shirt is cute." "Um, yeah," I retorted, "that's why I've been checking him out for the last half hour!" It was all the hint I needed.

Long story short, it was six hours of heavy flirting but no making out, let alone going home together. I have his number and now a cute video of him playing with his cat. (We've spent more time texting each other about our cats than about what we'd do on a date.) Whether or not it comes to anything, I had someone to dance to an 80s cover band with and that's the sort of pleasure I've learned to be content with.

If I'd really wanted to take someone home, I could have brought back the old trick from El Paso. (I had a name for him here but I can't remember it and searching didn't work.) But then he wouldn't have left until morning and I knew I was getting little enough sleep as it was. We may yet get together this evening. Alles ist sowieso Ersatzbefriedigung.

Last night I had dinner with a fellow widow and we brought the conversation to a close talking about visitation dreams. He had an odd one recently where his husband returned and let him know he approved of his new boyfriend. Of course, a discussion like that so close to bedtime is inviting my subconscious to send me another. In fact, I got at least two. One is some vaguely-remembered claptrap bout the Isle of Bute (which happened to come up in conversation Saturday). The other was much odder: a Monshu dream without Monshu.

I'd just gotten back to my one-bedroom apartment and was sitting in the living room taking off my shoes when I was struck anew by the fact that Monshu wasn't there and wouldn't ever be there. I looked around at the cluttered space and the phrase "the walls reflected back his loneliness" drifted through my head while I considered the fact that I really needed to clean up some of the clutter that had accumulated since Monshu's death--despite being simultaneously aware that this was not an apartment we'd ever shared. Then I woke up.

The widow is someone I've vaguely known for years, probably through the Square Dance Cult. He only opened up to me about the death of his partner very recently and it sure is instructive to know that, fourteen years on, he's still dealing with some of the same things I am. Running to him at the beach was very fortuitous, because he happened to be with an online friend from last October who I hadn't yet met in person. He didn't join us for dinner, but he did give me a ride to the restaurant, which gave us more time to chat about Delaney.

The beach was busy but light on bears; I had to widen my gyre to find these. They were camped next to Campfire Daddy, who was with a few friends of his own. I made out with one of them, which was an unfortunate decision for multiple reasons, not least of which was that his beach towel was soaked with light beer. I blame the absence of Pasillero, who's spending a week in Toronto for his birthday.

It may have been there were more people I knew there earlier, but I'd committed to games with the gang and special guests (an out-of-town friend and a fuckbud) and didn't get there until nearly 6 p.m. They managed to pick two of my least-favourite games--One Night Werewolf and Seven Wonders. When it was my turn to pick, I chose "Superfight" based on the name, but it proved to be something much dumber than I expected. (I should've known JB wouldn't play a game that actually had mechanics for fighting.)

I know I say this every other week nowadays, but I really think I've reached a point of overextending myself socially. Saturday I checked Messenger and saw that a new person had accepted my friend request. The only trouble is I don't recall sending any such request. My first reaction was: Is this some kind of new scam? Is there a way of hacking FB in order to friend you without your consent?

But I looked at his profile and he seems real enough. We have 15 mutuals, there are pictures of them with him, and his profile says he lives in Chicago. But I don't recall ever meeting him, let alone sending a friend request. So I did what seemed sensible at the time and sent an apologetic reply asking, "Where did we meet again?" No response, so I'm still in the dark, but I guess we'll run into each other again somewhere?

Oh well. I made yesterday a beach day and met a bunch of new guys anyway. But the one I spent the most time with was Hildy, who looks so changed I didn't recognise him at first. Still cute as a button, though, and almost flirty with me. We took a couple dips in the water together and during one of them he confided in me that he didn't really find me handsome until I cut my hair. Pretty much everyone seems to feel that way, so it doesn't bother me to hear it (even if it does make me think slightly less of the complimenter).

I gobsmacked him by reminding him that it'd been five years since we met. He's still just shy of 30, so that's like a huge chunk of his adult lifespan. Since Necessary Evil ended, we see each other very sporadically and generally don't have a great deal to say. But he confided some other things in me which made me think that we might have some unsuspected points of commonality.

It was as close to a perfect summer day as you ever get in Chicago and the beach was packed for at least 30 meters from the water. Several friends said they were there but in the crowd I must have missed them; I only found Pasillero because a mutual friend saw and grabbed me. His husband was there so that made the task of concealing our intimacy even more burdensome. It makes me value even more the rapport I once had with Rubeus where the two of us could flirt openly without discomfitting our partners.