So…I may have ended a 30 year friendship yesterday.
I've known Mark aka "Bunny" since the early 90s. I don't remember the circumstances of our meeting, but I do know we shared a mutual friend who undoubtedly introduced us, and that shortly after we met we shared a singular evening of making out—without it going any further in that department.
We share a common sense of humor and have viewed the world pretty much through the same lens—politically, philosophically, and intellectually—and while we've disagreed on certain things over the years as friends often do, those things have been inconsequential and we've both just agreed to disagree, let them slide and moved on. Did I mention we are both fiercely stubborn?
Anyway, we were texting yesterday and this happened:
I have not responded, and have no plans to.
I agree that Biden's lukewarm response to Israel's naked aggression and genocide against the Palestinian people has been appalling, but if Trump is ever allowed to regain power, he's already announced that he plans to give Netanyahu free reign to do to the Palestinians what Hitler did to the Jews 90 years ago. The irony of this whole scenario does not escape me.
Yes, the current situation in the Middle East is absolutely horrible. My heart aches whenever I think about what's going on. But at the same time it could beso. much. worse.
Yes, Biden will undoubtedly carry California but every damn vote counts regardless.
I guess I'm kind of weird in that in addition to keeping friends' and family's birthdays in my calendar, I also keep note of their passing. (It probably stems from having lost so many to the ravages of AIDS in the 80s and 90s.) Today I noticed it's been thirty six years—thirty six years—since my friend and mentor Kent Kelly departed this planet.
I was set to raise a glass and wax poetic about what Kent meant to me and how he influenced my life, but realized I'd already written extensively of our quirky relationship several years ago, so if you're interested go check that out. I guess that only leaves the raising of the glass and maybe posting a couple additional pix…
Not me this time, but my late friend Steve Golden, spinning at Hotbods in Phoenix, spring 1983:
And in a more relaxed state of mind…
He always thought me silly because of the number of photos I shot of him at work in the booth, but now, some 39 years (!) later, I'm so glad I did. Yeah, I was new to 35mm photography, never did really get the exposure right, and a lot of the shots are out of focus, but I'm so glad I took them. But that last one? Chef's kiss…
That's what happens when you go poking around to get some tea.
I mean, it started innocently enough. I realized I hadn't seen a coworker in another department for a while and also noted he hadn't logged into our work chat app for months. He was still showing as an active employee, but I was wondering what was going on. Instead of doing the normal thing and just asking one of his colleagues—or going upstairs to see if he was actually around—I online stalked him, and that led me down the rabbit hole of despair.
I knew he was at least on track to get married last summer. Photos of him and his lovely bride are still online, but no updates on the wedding site since May. His Instagram was gone as well. That led to an outright name search on Google, and it led me to a multitude of "people finder" sites that post basic personal information—and of course a lot more, if you're willing to pony up some cash. I have never been willing to do that, and especially not for this guy, but out of curiosity on the same site where I found my coworker, I put in the name of a dear friend with whom I'd shared an apartment building in San Francisco and had moved to Palm Springs a few years ago. Rick suffered a fire just like we did, and he was absolutely verklempt that a portrait I'd done of him in drag (as Miss KC Dare) had been lost in the conflagration. We'd been in regular contact prior to the fire, but afterward it became spotty.
I'd tried reaching out a few times over the past 18 months, suggesting that I do a new (versus just a reproduction of the original) portrait using an entirely different photo. I never heard back from him. I finally called his cell about six months ago and was greeted by "this number has been disconnected."
That's never good.
I didn't know anyone else whom I could call to check on him, and quite frankly, with everything else that's happened during the intervening months, it fell off my radar completely.
Well today, after I'd filled in his name and did the search, it returned the usual name, address, age…with the addendum that their records indicated he was deceased June 2020.
Well fuck.
I'd known Rick since shortly after I moved to San Francisco (the first time) in 1986. I don't remember what brought the two of them together, but Rick and Dennis, my ex, became fast friends and partners in crime. Rick provided a lot of Dennis' care when he was stricken with AIDS and—working in healthcare as he was—helped him navigate the increasingly confusing hurdles he was faced with. A sweet, generous man who—despite an obscenely overstuffed closet (a girl can have too many dresses)—opened his home and heart to me while securing a place of my own the last time I moved back to The City.
RIP, Miss Dare. You are sorely missed, but I know we'll meet again.
"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. Goodbyes are necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments—or lifetimes—is Certain for those who are friends."
Despite the fact we dated for months and knew each other for years afterward. I do not have a single photo of Philip, and can only vaguely picture him now.
We met the night of the gay pride parade in 1988.
That evening, after grabbing dinner with friends, I decided it was time I venture into some of the Castro bars and see what sort of trouble I could get into. My first—and as it turned out, my only stop for the evening—was The Detour. It was a dark, hole-in-the-wall place with chain link fences, throbbing dance music, half naked bartenders, and that night was full of some very good looking menz…
It was there I met Philip. As I recall, he came up to me. He was quite drunk, but I was still flattered that such a good-looking man (inebriated or not) took an interest in me. We talked for a bit, and agreed to meet at his apartment after I'd run back home and let my houseguests who were ostensibly in town for the parade know I'd probably be out for the remainder of the night.
The houseguests were not there. This was a decade before the first cell phones, so there was no way of tracking them down. I left a note, grabbed my trick bag (contact lens case, solution, toothbrush and toothpaste) and drove up to Philip's apartment.
He lived on Van Ness, probably somewhere near Clay Street. (I have long sense thrown out address books from that period and a quick Google Streets perusal didn't come up with anything definite.) What I remember most about his place at the time was the elevator was old. It didn't even have a door in the cab, just an open metal accordion gate. Philip had a large studio apartment that was done to the nines. I learned soon after that he was an interior designer—and it was evident. Unfortunately our tastes were very different. That alone should have been a red flag.
I stayed the night. We dated for a few months thereafter until one evening we were scheduled to get together and we had a blowup over my refusal to come pick him up to drive him back to my place, where we had planned the 1988 equivalent of "Netflix and Chill." (I was in the middle of putting a desk together and he had indicated earlier in the day he would take a bus down.)
After that, we didn't speak for months. We reconnected by accident later that winter and got together occasionally for some recreational activities when the need arose. It was nothing serious, as we both realized that we were fundamentally different in so many ways. Philip also drank a lot. Eventually this became a problem in the bedroom and things just—pardon the expression—petered out. We remained friends, however, until his death in 1992.
The reason I bring all this up is that he popped up in a dream the other night. Well, not him specifically, but rather that I'd found a photo of him—and being a dream, it was not just a simple photo. It was like a little video on a credit card. It was damaged, and while he was doing something extremely campy as I remember, it still warmed my heart to see him again.
Traditional wisdom says that you should be able to sense when a loved one has died.
I'm here to say that's a lie.
I found out this evening that my dear friend Floyd passed last October. And before you ask, no, it wasn't COVID. It was his heart, and he went in his sleep.
Floyd left behind his husband Ron, with whom he'd shared his life for the last 40 years and many grieving friends, myself among them.
Floyd and I met January 28, 1983. Despite it being a Friday night I wasn't planning on going out. As I recall it had been an exhausting week and I wanted nothing more than to simply stay home and unwind.
But I stepped outside that evening, saw the most incredible full moon rising above the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson, and something told me in no uncertain terms to go out. There was, as they say, magic afoot.
My destination was The Fineline, a relatively new dance club on Drachman Street. I'd been there with my partner Dennis, numerous times, but since we'd split up a two months earlier and he took off for Austin, this was one of the first times I'd gone there by myself.
And hell, I was young and in a state of perpetual hormonal arousal, so why not?
I'd been working out (believe it or not) since Dennis left and I was feeling good about my body and the way I looked. I radiated a certain amount of confidence and it didn't take long for Floyd and I to gravitate to one another. He was there with his partner, Ron, putting a damper on any thoughts of immediately scampering off to get nasty. But Floyd assured me they had an open relationship and while nothing would be happening between us that night, he was definitely interested in getting together. We exchanged phone numbers.
Later that same night I met Lee, a friend whom I've written about before, thus cementing the magic of that night in my life.
Floyd called me the next morning. We had phone sex. Floyd was a dirty, dirty boy and I loved it. We hung out a lot in the weeks that followed. As we discovered our shared taste in music and culture, a genuine friendship and affection bloomed between us. That's not to say the physical attraction waned; if anything it remained constant, and over the years we became infrequent fuck buddies, all—somewhat surprisingly—with Ron's blessing. Even during my San Francisco years we remained in touch, with Floyd traveling to The City numerous times on business.
Floyd and your host, Marin Headlands, 1993
After I returned to Phoenix and made it through the cancer ordeal, I started driving to Tucson to visit the guys on a semi-regular basis. I had a new car and if for no other reason I needed to reconnect with the friends who knew me best while putting my life back together.
Floyd and I called each other Dolly (from our shared love of Personal Services.) I'd call him up and say, "Dolly, I need to get out of town for a while. Are you and Ron free?" and depending on the answer, I'd hop in Anderson and make the 90 minute drive south. I remember one insane Saturday when I drove down to help with some computer issues, brought his PC back home to repair, and then returned it later that day.
Floyd did the same sort of spontaneous trips north, and one of my favorite memories were the two separate times he (and a few weeks later with Ron) came up to Phoenix and we shot photos at Arizona Falls.
Floyd and Ron, Arizona Falls 2008
Shortly before Ben and I left for Denver, Floyd and Ron fell on some very hard times. They both lost their longtime jobs, were unable to find work, lost everything they'd built together, and were forced to move in with Ron's sister. Through it all we stayed in touch, they stayed together, and when they'd gotten back on their feet and Ben and I moved back from Denver, talked of a weekend visit but it seemed life was continually getting in the way and one thing or another always prevented it.
When it finally seemed we were going to be able to coordinate a visit, COVID hit, killing our plans again. I last spoke with Floyd in September, when he called to tell me that Abe, a mutual friend from our University of Arizona days, had passed.
Floyd, Ron, Abe and I used to joke that when we got old and retired we'd buy a big house together and disgracefully spend our twilight years like the Golden Girls.
The best laid plans of mice, men, and queens…
Though we went through periods when we didn't see each other, or even talk much other than an occasional text or email, Floyd was one of those people in my life I just knew would always be there…and now he's not. I think that's why this has hit me so hard. His impish grin, that devilish twinkle in his eye, and his extensive…vocabulary…will be so sorely missed. More than with any other death that's hit my life (and yes, sadly that includes my parents and my first partner, Dennis), I feel like a part of me has been ripped out and there's nothing but an empty hole remaining.
As I get older, it's becoming more and more apparent to me that you need to tell the people you love that you love them every damn day, because they can be taken from you at any moment.
This is so true, especially in the days before cell phones and digital photography. On those rare occasions when I want to remind myself of what a truly horrible person I was prior to my cancer diagnosis and start reading through my journals, I run across names of men I had dated and were absolutely obsessed with—but for whom I am totally unable to conjure forth a mental image.
And it's not just the dated-but-ultimately-went-nowhere guys in my journals. I had friends in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s—good friends—for whom I have not a single photo. I at least retain somewhat of a memory of their faces and their smiles, but it saddens me I have nothing tangible to refer to. Was it the cost of the film and the developing? Possibly, but I don't honestly know. I have tons of photos of other shit from those years, but for some reason the people closest to me are totally absent.
I bought a film/slide scanner the other day. Why I didn't do this years ago is beyond me. I've started going through my box of negatives and slides and I'm running across photos I'd forgotten I'd taken because I gave away the prints long ago. These are among many I'll be posting as time goes by. My friend Marty Kamner (1953-1995), taken June 1988:
I took these as part of two separate photoshoots we did in the quest to find a photo I could paint a portrait from.
I spent the better portion of yesterday with my friend Cindy. We met ten years ago when I was working at the hospital.
You know how once in a blue moon someone enters your life and from the very beginning you know they're going to be someone special to you? That's Cindy. We bonded almost immediately.
As I mentioned a couple days ago, when she learned I'd been laid off, she offered to hire me to set up her daughter's tech and help her retrieve photos from a bunch of old hard drives.
So mid-morning I drove out to her house thinking we'd just dive into it. But she had other plans. "Let's just sit and talk for a bit." She wanted to know exactly what happened so I described (to the best of my knowledge) what had gone down and she said, "Well there you go. You stuck your toe out of your box and they cut it off." She then went on to say that her own experience in healthcare—and she assumed it was the same, if not worse—in government work, taught her that most of the people who work in those fields are perfectly happy to work inside their own little boxes, never deviating from the proscribed script. Considering that "think outside the box" has become such a corporate cliche, the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance when confronted with what actually happens is absolutely deafening. Do NOT think outside the box. Stay in your lane and don't deviate. And WHATEVER you do, don't make anyone else look bad—ESPECIALLY if they're higher up the food chain and you know more than they do.
That certainly describes my experience since moving from Config and Deploy to PC LAN support eighteen months ago. Instead of "continuous improvement," the motto at that place should be "If it's broke, don't fix it."
Interestingly, we both feel like this is ultimately going to be a good thing. I was ready to quit more times than I can tell you over the past six months, but never did anything about it because I hate interviewing. But frankly the reaction to being shot down a second time for finding a solution to an ongoing problem was my breaking point and swore that was the last time I was ever going to share anything with the team. Fuck 'em.
"You've only got a few more years in the workforce," she said, "You shouldn't be miserable every day for those remaining years."
We both admitted a hard-to-describe feeling that something good is coming from all this. After the initial shock, disbelief, and panic wore off, unlike other times when I've been laid off, I'm actually feeling pretty positive about the ultimate outcome.
Or maybe I'm just whistling past the graveyard, but I refuse to go there.
I remember many years ago telling another friend (who has a much more reactive, rather than proactive personality) that if you know changes need to be made in your life and you don't do anything about it, the Universe will step in and make those changes for you.
Whoopsie.
"You teach best what you need most to learn." ~ Richard Bach, The Messiah's Handbook
I don't exactly remember how Howard and I first crossed paths, but it must've been through our respective blogs. I do know however, that we only met in person a few years ago when Ben and I lived in Denver. Howard was a member of Monkey's Uncle, a small local improv comedy troupe, and seeing their live shows was always a joy.
We've known of Howard's illness for quite some time, but being a cancer survivor myself, I've been in denial, hoping against all odds that he'd pull through it as I did. Howard, however, had a different type than I did and had no such illusions. This past January he posted the following on his blog:
I'm going to be uncomfortably honest and real right now. So much so that I'm not posting this to social media and you may just want to click somewhere else (SQUIRREL!) on the internet. I was not looking forward to 2017. As much as aspects of 2016 were horrible, the new year brought with it a hard, stern look at my mortality. Or in summary:
There's a chance I won't make it through 2017.
No, I'm not suicidal. Please do NOT worry about that. I will keep fighting.
I'll let you catch your breath now.
As you may or may not know, I've been fighting Stage IV melanoma since the beginning of 2015. After two surgeries and four chemotherapies, I'm running out of options. All that's left is trials (if I can get into them due to being HIV+) and a treatment so intense I'll be in ICU for a minimum of 5 days. The trials are a shot in the dark. The treatment works for only 10% of patients. The good news with the treatment is, if it does work, I'll be in complete remission.
The problem is those are pretty much the only options left and I've been told seven months is my worst-case scenario. Since I've not received any treatment for 8 weeks that seems the clock is technically down to five months.
Add to that the pity party of what I'm pretty convinced is me being out of "love" luck, too. Man, what does it take to convince a guy to just cuddle on the couch and watch a movie? I could get laid 10x easier.
I may be down when you see me and these are the reasons why. It's hard especially since I tend to gravitate towards being jovial, happy, and optimistic. I don't necessarily want to leave because there are still so many beautiful and wonderful things out there, but I also have to be honest with myself.
We all gotta go.
And now you have gone, my friend. You will be missed. I shall miss your wit, your smile, your exuberant sense of humor and your thirst for life. And I will never forget that sweet, unsolicited, off-the-wall comment you made one time after I'd posted a photo of myself from the mid 80s: "I don't know about anyone else, but I'd make out with you."
And I find that harder to wrap my head around than the fact that he's now been gone for more years than he'd been alive when we met.
Steve Golden, 7/18/57 – 1/23/90
I'm a part of that subset of Boomers who didn't have to go to war. Too young for Vietnam, too old for the Gulf. Hell, we didn't even have to register for the draft when I came of age.
But that doesn't mean we didn't still suffer the loss of war; a silent, yet deadly war we fought in the streets, in hospitals and the halls of Congress that easily ripped as many of our finest from us as armed combat on foreign soil.
I guess I'm kind of weird in that in addition to keeping friends' and family's birthdays in my calendar, I also keep note of their passing. (It probably stems from having lost so many to the ravages of AIDS in the 80s and 90s.) Today I noticed it's been thirty years—thirty years—since my friend and mentor Kent Kelly departed this planet.
I was set to raise a glass and wax poetic about what Kent meant to me and how he influenced my life, but realized I'd already written extensively of our quirky relationship a couple years ago, so I guess that only leaves the raising of the glass and maybe posting a couple additional pix…
As is my tradition every December 1st, I remember…
Kent Kelly
Ken Cohen
Steve Golden
Dennis Shelpman
Jim Hagen
Chuck Krahe
Marty Kamner
Michael Nelson
Jim Nye
Kevin Ohm
Rick King
Ron Aiazzi
Grant Neilsen
Ric Hathaway
David Koston
Kim Holstein
Russ Alvarez
Ben Walzer
Ken Borg
Harold Gates
Jim Girard
Keith Roseberry
Tom Farrel
Peter Whitman
Chuck Mayer
Richard Gulliver
Scott Woods
Bobby Farina
Brian Lea
Fred Sibinic
Steve McCollom
John Trapp
Philip Ruckdeschel
As we sift through the rubble of Tuesday's devastation, I fear one unreported casualty of Trump's election is the destruction it is causing in relationships. The sheer divisiveness, the gaping rift this election has opened in the country has caused many a difficult discussion and unfortunately, I suspect, the dissolution of more than one long-term friendship.
This hit home on Wednesday when I received a text from one of the few real friends I made during our tenure in Denver, a guy I worked with at DISH; someone we'll call Kasey.
The text contained an image of Chelsea Clinton's face with the caption that said something along the lines of, "With that face, receiving oral from her would look like anal."
This wasn't the first time Kasey had sent me a rude image. We constantly ribbed each other—at work no less—by exchanging IMs that would probably have gotten us both fired if we'd ever been caught. Kasey would send me animated gifs of jiggling boobs, and I'd return the favor by sending him pictures of hirsute chests, each of us responding, "Ewww! Gross!" We had many lunchtime discussions over cheap Chinese food about philosophy, our place in the universe, our supervisor ("La Chupacabra"), and the untenable positions we found ourselves in at work, forming an unlikely bond that managed to survive even after my departure from Colorado. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that as a friend I came to love him (Ben called Kasey my work husband), but I hold a definite fondness for the guy and admire and definitely care about him.
Anyhow, I texted back and told him "Not cool, man—especially in light of yesterday."
He responded, "Wow…Mr. Sensitive over politics!" followed by, "I voted Trump. I didn't think he'd win!"
I was gobsmacked. How could this guy—a pot-smoking Colorado native who regaled me with tales of his absolutely wild youth growing up in Littleton, vote for someone who seemed to be the antithesis of who I thought he was?
I was speechless. I didn't even know how to respond. Several hours later I sent him this, which probably summed up the sense of betrayal I was feeling at the moment:
His response? "Bold. But isn't that the same type of ignorant rhetoric—just from the other side? Honestly my political affiliations aren't strong either way. Bad presidents come and go. Life goes on."
I didn't immediately reply. I needed time to gather my thoughts. It was clear to me that Kasey (who has never displayed an ounce of racism, misogyny or homophobia for as long as I've known him) didn't really understand the importance of what had just happened to our country. And being a straight, white, married male in a well-paying job, life for him under a Trump regime probably would go on as it always had. That point couldn't be argued.
While I was mulling my response, I ran across This Is Why We Grieve and realized it summed up exactly what I wanted to say. I emailed it to him, adding, "I'm sending you this because I was truly and deeply saddened when you told me you'd voted for Trump. You are a dear friend and a valued part of my life, and I could never shut you out, but I want you to understand what half the country (at least the half who bothered to vote) is feeling right now and why."
I was hoping this might give him some idea of why this is such a big deal; that it's not just politics, that it's not business as usual, and why quite frankly, I'm feeling more than a little betrayed by someone I considered a friend.
I received his response a few hours later. I read it and immediately deleted it. It stung even worse than his initial texts. I don't remember his exact wording now, but he was justifying his conservatism (where in the fuck did that come from?!) and in essence what I'd sent him was just left-wing garbage.
I guess this answered the question of how this man could vote for the anthesis of who I thought he was. Despite our many deep conversations over the years, I didn't really know him at all.
One of the great truths revealed to those of us who have lived long and colorful lives—and which should be impressed upon the young even though they probably won't believe it—is that friendships come and go.
Stop and think of five people who you consider your good friends, your "squad" in today's parlance. Now think of how many of those five have been consistently on that list.
In your twenties, you think that the people you hang out with will be there for you for the entire journey through life. If you're very lucky, when all is said and done, maybe two or three will still be there as you loose your mortal coil. The vast majority however, will have disappeared either through attrition, misunderstandings, or simply by drifting away.
This is a lesson that still stings when I think of that one particular friend in Tucson whom I've written about before. But I realized while going through my address book recently that I have dozens of names and phone numbers listed, but precious few of those names are of people with whom I have active, ongoing relationships.
I guess you could call them zombie friendships.
Interests change. Passions ebb and flow. You'll always have that one friend who knows where all the bodies are buried (and who probably helped you dig the holes), and one or two who you can call on a whim to meet for coffee and no matter what they're doing they'll will put it on hold to rush out and meet you. Then you'll have the casual friends, the third-party friends-of-friends, and the work friends who you don't mind spending 8 hours a day with but wouldn't dream of seeing after hours (but who occasionally transition into that first or second group). Then there are the internet friends—some of whom you feel closer to and seem to know better than the flesh-and-blood buddies sitting across the table from you.
One of the advantages of having our contacts in electronic form these days is that we're not reminded quite as often of this unending churn happening in our lives. It's easy to delete names of anyone you're no longer in contact with and years from now you'll be hard pressed to remember who they were (although it's an admittedly difficult thing for me to do; I still have info for people I worked with five years ago, even though I know I'll probably never reach out to any of them ever again).
It's not as quite so easy to forget the souls who have passed through your life if you have a physical, hand-written address book. When I pull out an old flip-up rolodex I have from the 80s, it saddens me to look through it and realize how many people I've lost contact with, and—having lived through the AIDS decimation of the 90s—how many of those people aren't even alive any longer. But yet I hold onto it, if only to keep their memory.
I think that's one reason that as we get older we treasure the friendships we have even more than we did when we were young—especially the ones that have spanned decades—because we never know if they'll last another week, another year, or until our dying breath…
Something I wrote almost ten years ago. Sometimes I need to be reminded…
Several years ago, emotionally adrift after being forced to relocate to Phoenix and only months thereafter receiving a cancer diagnosis, I was beginning to feel that—if not literally (because even then I wasn't going to cede my body over to a clump of cells less than half the size of a pencil eraser), then at least symbolically—my life was coming to an end. Everything had a "been there, done that" quality to it, and while I still had my long term support groups in both San Francisco and Tucson, I'd yet to make any new friends in Phoenix. I was beginning to wonder if was even worth the effort to try because at the time my long term prognosis—while good—was still not guaranteed. And furthermore, exactly how I was going to pull off meeting anyone with a plastic tube in my throat and a badly mangled self-image shadowing me everywhere I went was totally beyond my comprehension.
Fortunately, time does heal all wounds, and after a year or so I'd finally made peace with the plastic tube and everything it represented. My self-image was still pretty much in the toilet, but at least my hand wasn't resting on the flusher any longer.
After receiving another year or so of positive reports from my doctor, I started realizing that yes, maybe my life really was going to continue, and that—coupled with a permanent job offer—started me thinking that maybe I could return to the land of the living and start making plans again.
As I began to end that self-imposed exile, it became abundantly clear that in many ways, my old life had ended in 2003. I look back on the Mark who existed prior to those events, and I scarcely recognize him. I know it's me, but it's like peering back through a past life regression—and to be honest, a whole lot of it wasn't pretty. But still I am thankful for the Mark who came through that crucible and has grown from it.
Now that I was actually able to think about the future—about having a real, viable future—I started wondering what I still had to accomplish; what I still wanted to accomplish. And I also started wondering who were the still nameless, faceless souls that would unexpectedly come into my life and accompany me on this strange journey.
Out of nowhere, Cindy—one of those souls—entered stage right about a year ago, and until tonight over shared Mexican food, I'd all but forgotten what an absolute joy it was to cross paths with someone and suddenly realize you're not meeting a stranger for the first time but actually reconnecting with a long lost friend.
Last weekend Ben and I flew down to Phoenix for our very belated wedding reception. Since we got married under the friends/family radar a year ago, we both thought some sort of celebration is due—not only for ourselves, but also for those same friends and family.
He somehow got me on an airplane.
Since the vast majority of the people we wanted to share in our special day lived in Arizona, we decided that Macayo's in Phoenix would be our venue. Since we haven't had really good Mexican food since we moved to Denver, this was a no-brainer.
Obviously, we went for a Doctor Who theme, but only the die-hard fans got the fez…
Bowties are cool.
I think everyone had a good time…
Besties. I love these women.
We had to run a few errands the next day before we left…
Feels like home.
And of course we had to visit one of our old (and hopefully future, in 2-3 years) stomping grounds…
Then we met a few of our friends at Lolo's Chicken & Waffles for brunch before heading to the airport. Absolute heaven…
It took nearly seven years, but I finally met fellow blogger Erik and his husbear in person tonight.
Erik and Robert are on a semi-cross country adventure to Las Vegas and they made a small detour through Denver to meet up with Ben and I.
It was fun, but much too short of a meeting. Ben and I had been talking about making a road trip next summer down to Pea Ridge so Erik could ink both of us; I think it's now a definite plan.
As I lay awake this morning at 3:30 am—yes, again—I started wondering what causes two people, who have been friends for decades, to drift apart.
Tucson, January 1983: I had just arrived home on a Friday evening after stopping to pick up some groceries after work and, looking to the east, saw the most beautiful full moon I had ever seen rising over the Rincon Mountains. I had originally intended on staying in that night, but a little voice popped into my head that kept saying, "You really need to go out tonight."
For once, I heeded that little voice (because it would not let up) and later that night, I met Lee and Floyd, two very different men who ended up entering my life and accompanying me on this strange journey far longer than I think any of us had ever anticipated.
I will save Floyd's story for another time.
I had been introduced to Lee a few weeks before that night by a mutual friend, but we really didn't click. (To be honest, I think I just blew him off; I was no doubt in hot pursuit of some piece of ass and didn't want the distraction. I could be quite a prick back then.) Anyhow, I don't remember what caused us to gravitate to each other that night, but we struck up a conversation. The one thing that still sticks with me is that one of the first things he said was, "I didn't think you liked me."
Ouch.
I apologized, and clarified that no, I didn't dislike him at all. Our conversation sort of stumbled along after that until I happened to mention something about my first (life) teacher, and Lee's interest immediately picked up. We soon discovered that we were both on a spiritual journey of exploration, and became so engrossed in our conversation that we ended up closing the bar. While there was no physical attraction, the next night we had dinner and ended up back at my place—where we continued the previous night's conversation until nearly 4 am. And thus a friendship was born.
Lee and I, April 1983
Lee arrived at a time in my life when Dennis, my first partner, and I had been on an extended separation. After Dennis's return to Tucson from Dallas in June of that year, I came to think of us as The Three Musketeers. When Dennis and I did finally split for good (remaining best friends until his death in 1991), and I got together with Bernie, my second partner, we became the Four Musketeers.
Lee was part of our grand migration to San Francisco.
Babe in the Woods, December 1985
While he remained several years, San Francisco never really agreed with Lee, and after nearly a year in Denver, I can now finally understand where he was coming from. Some places just don't fit, and for Lee, San Francisco was one of those places. He returned to Tucson in the early 90s.
Ten years later, after I'd returned to Phoenix, Lee stood by me through my cancer treatments, driving up every week to provide welcome relaxation assistance by way of some Reiki sessions.
But then something happened. Late one night, after one of our final sessions, his car broke down in the dark between Phoenix and Tucson and he was stranded by the side of the road until a good samaritan happened by with a cell phone and was able to call for a tow.
I think this spooked him to the bone, because since that happened in late 2003, I was unable to get him to ever come north again.
Still, we would get together whenever I went south (which was happening pretty regularly for a while), and things were as good as ever between us.
I should note that Lee is not the big tech nerd that I am. He has a computer, and for a while we were emailing back and forth pretty regularly. But he started using it primarily for online gaming, and soon my emails were going unanswered. I asked him about this and he explained that there was now so much spam in his inbox that he didn't even bother checking it any more.
Okay. A hundred different ways around that immediately sprang to mind, but from his tone I could tell any solution to this was going to be more trouble that it was worth to him.
Lee doesn't have a FaceBook account. He doesn't Tweet. Hell, as far as I know the man still doesn't even have a cell phone.
The last time we spoke—about 18 months ago—everything was fine. All the old connections came flooding back and he wished Ben and I well on our upcoming adventure to Colorado. Since that time I've called and left messages on his answering machine, but they haven't been returned. My last ditch effort at staying in touch has been snail mail. I've sent a couple letters since we've been in Denver, but still I've heard nothing back from him.
I know he's still alive. Bernie certainly would've let me know if something had happened to our dear friend, so I'm at a loss.
I have no way of knowing if he ever reads my blog, but did I happen to post something that so annoyed him that he's cut me off after all this time? Did my relatively newfound Atheism betray all the years of our spiritual questioning?
I just don't know.
Maybe it's just one of those questions in life that will never be answered.
Russ and I both emigrated from Arizona to arrive in—and subsequently depart from—San Francisco at approximately the same time, yet didn't actually meet until we both ended up working for the same company in the same department after our respective returns to Phoenix. Witty, intelligent and possessing a wicked sense of humor, Russ was one of the few people I trusted enough to call up and vent with, knowing full well that anything I told him would not go any further. The sharing of our similar, yet amazingly different histories in San Francisco was always a source of wonderful stories and—despite those differences—continual amazement that our paths had never crossed [in some alley or sex club]. He shall be sorely missed.
Steve Golden, 7/18/57 – 1/23/90
