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RIP

Floyd Meeks, 1958-2020

2020 just needs fuck right off.

Now.

Seriously.

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.

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Not Resettled Yet, But…

…we’re on our way.

Saw this place last week. Put in an application and got word yesterday that we were approved. Documents are being drawn up today. It’s at the upper edge of our financial comfort zone (and frankly may be renting above market value for the area), but we both really like it and hope we can call this place home for many, many years to come.

3 bedrooms (including one downstairs that can be converted to Ben’s sleeping quarters when the time comes for his knee replacements), 3 baths (overkill, but whatever), 2-car garage, laundry, nice patio area, and NO yard maintenance.

We have friends who live in this development, and we’ve always wanted a place there, but I wish it could’ve happened without all the drama of the past three (has it only been three?!?) weeks. Sometimes however, the Universe has to deliver a kick in the backside for your to overcome your inertia…

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College Life

Hey boy…

You don’t have to sit there by yourself with that thing tenting your shorts. It’s a university library. You know there’s a restroom somewhere in that building where you can get it taken care of, right?

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A Realization

That graphic has been sitting in my downloads folder for weeks. When I originally ran across it, the message resonated, although at the time there was really nothing in my life it directly pointed to.

Oh, how things can change.

I realized this morning that emotionally I’m going through the same things with the loss of hour home as I did when I received my cancer diagnosis in 2003. It came out of nowhere and totally changed the direction of my—now our—lives. At first it was disbelief (although not totally), and then anger. Once a plan of action was in place, I felt somewhat better and was able to wrap my head around it, but not knowing where things were ultimately headed or the final outcome was still overwhelming at times.

The shock of the fire has for the most part worn off, but we’re both dealing with the anger. As I mentioned in my last post, “Fuck James” has become our go-to phrase for pretty much everything at the moment and will unlikely remain so for many, many months as we begin to heal and rebuild our lives.

Right now it’s a waiting game to see what the insurance company comes up with and how many of our items are actually returned from restoration. We’ve started looking at new digs (and actually applied at one place), but we’re discovering that while places may be available, in the age of COVID it’s not just a matter of walking into a leasing office, seeing a place and signing a lease. EVERYTHING is done by appointment, and so far only about half the places we’ve contacted have gotten back in touch with us. (This waiting period is akin to the time between my diagnosis and when I actually started treatment.)

Once we have secured a place, we can get out of the hotel, but what will we sleep on? What will we sit on? And since the leasing agents we’ve spoken to want us to move in sooner rather than later, this poses a real challenge.

Yes, if we secure a place we can go ahead and buy a few pieces of furniture in anticipation of reimbursement by insurance, and frankly I’d rather do that with my available credit than sending it down a black hole of continued life in this hotel, but until we actually sign a lease, nothing like that can move forward.

Additionally, we’ve been told we aren’t going to be receiving any of our items from restoration until after the first of the year, so it’s not just a few pieces of furniture we’ll need to acquire to begin resettlement. It’s bedding, towels, cooking utensils, dishes and silverware. All things we wouldn’t have had to buy if it were not for the short-sighted “I can fix anything” mentality of our former landlord.

That’s where the anger comes from.

Fuck James.

Our friend Cindy, who along with her husband, went through this herself many years ago and was not nearly as lucky as we were, tells me that eventually things will get better. She says that it will be fun to shop for new things once we have the insurance money in hand, and I tend to agree with her in that limited regard. But even buying new stuff promises to be a pain. I’m not looking forward to putting furniture together again. Or organizing a new house.  Or essentially having to move when we had no desire to move at all. Or any of the thousands of other things that will need to be done over the next six months.

Fuck James.

On the other hand, these are things I know we have to go through, as painful as they may be; the same attitude I had when the radiation treatments began ravaging my throat making eating even the softest of foods was unbearable at times. (One of the reasons god created Ensure, my doctors told me.)

Eventually, things did get better. I made it through the crucible and onto the other side. My throat healed. I received a clean bill of health from my doctors, and life went on. I didn’t want to get cancer, but looking back on everything now, it was obvious that changes needed to be made in my life, in me, and that was the catalyst necessary to bring them about.

Hopefully the same will happen as Ben and I travel through this crucible. I think we both sensed that change was needed, but at the same time we needed a bitch slap from the universe to bring it about. Hopefully this journey—much like my cancer journey—will leave us better people when we emerge from the other side and years from now will ultimately allow us to look back on it and see it as—if not necessarily a good thing—at least a necessary one.

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Goodbye, Friend

Well, it’s done. There are a few items remaining on the property that we need a truck for, but yesterday was my last trip to this house. (Ben and his friends will be removing those items next weekend.) The restoration companies (one for hard goods, one for clothing and linens) came out earlier this week and inventoried, packed, and removed everything that was salvageable from the house. The contents will be cleaned and restored and returned to us wherever we eventually resettle.

We hit the place after they had finished Wednesday evening and retrieved anything else we wanted to keep that they had deemed unsalvageable. For instance, they took the vast majority of my books but curiously left others that were completely undamaged.

We are somewhat fortunate in that with my anal-retentiveness, I’d scanned and saved receipts from many of our big-ticket items which will make getting money out of the insurance company that much easier.

Lately the most common phrase to leave my lips is “Fuck James.” (James being our landlord whose negligence while sweating the water lines to the new water heater caused this disaster.) Every time I have to buy something that didn’t need to be bought, every time I have to throw myself out into public after nine months of COVID isolation, I mutter “Fuck James.”

All this could’ve been prevented if he’d only used a heat shield up against the wood when he was welding.

To be honest, there were a lot of things we grew to dislike about this house; little annoyances cropped up over the years that became sort of a running joke. (Like for example who puts the refrigerator directly opposite the stove, preventing two people from working in the kitchen at the same time?) Counter space was abysmal; the bathroom horrifically small. And the back yard…don’t even get me started.

But it was still home.

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