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Mostly Narrative Freewriting #9: Fall ’21

Survived Widowhood Season #6. The day itself was full of driving and Pokemon Go and doctor’s appointments. The MRI was more tolerable this time because I knew what it was going to be like. Plus Darling was with me the whole day. He’s an amazing boyfriend.

Spent what would have been Kevin’s 59th birthday venturing around LA with Darling, meeting up with Sweetie at a Goodwill near his work. We really need to move in that direction. I’ve got one of two places I can opt to work in the not too distant future. I’m not opposed to a train commute–I’d finally use the hotspot data I’m paying for. I need space from the land of my birth, even though it’s enjoyable having my family so close. The needs of those under my own roof come first.

Work’s continuing to be productive, and my efforts have been recognized in a tangible manner.

I do miss Kevin and Golden Ears. The more I grow the more I wish I could talk to both of them about it. In Kevin’s case, the growth is due to his absence.

Plus, life with Sweetie and Darling is not the drama-filled mess that Triads are supposed to be. It’s a good household, and all we have to do is be ourselves. That includes doing what it takes to co-exist in this day and age. Contrary to the “soul mates are the ideal relationship” and “jealousy means you love the person” and “exclusivity is the key to happiness” notions popular today, it’s easier to be in a relationship with two men than it was trying to maintain an Amour Fou relationship with one man!

Maybe I’m jaded, maybe I’m still bitter that I should have known better but deep down I know it wouldn’t have made any difference. I mean, if I really think about it, Grinner really tried to warn me on a few occasions, and Ka was the one who came up with the waveform analogy for my relationship with Kevin (he said sine wave, but sawtooth is more accurate. I just had too much invested to walk away. Never can say goodbye to Amour Fou,though, until it’s gone for good.

I’m very much enjoying playing Pokemon Go. It’s kind of weird jumping into that world as a newb who could recognize (but didn’t know the names of) the popular characters because of their presence in the popular culture of my teens and twenties. I just wasn’t the demographic. I’m still not that great at it, and owe my Level 37 status largely to all the tips I’ve gotten from Sweetie and Darling.

Sometimes I remember 1998 in bits and pieces. The tandem skydive, when I touched Kevin’s parachute with my toe as we both admired the great view. (I’m not sure if I’ve ever really tried to articulate that experience. It left me speechless, and the sensations and sights were overwhelmingly wonderful. Oh, and roller coasters were boring for a few years afterward.) My “office setup” in the corner of the bedroom with my shelves and my triangle desk. Working while I used my cool multi-CD player to shuffle through large bits of the Steely Dan catalog thus far, falling in love with it the more I heard. I think I really only knew the album Aja before that. Plus The Nightfly. Old school nerds with pre-OSX Macs and (only) four cats living the working at home hermit life.

Then I realize that was half my life ago. How much time has passed since then. Some things are the same–I’m not entertaining the idea of marriage, even though I’m in a long-term relationship. I’m working to establish myself in my new line of work (making roughly the same amount as of late, but with benefits and retirement!). I still get high and write on a computer while listening to the same music. I’d still love to make money writing the stories in my head, but I’ve finally settled on the stories after toying with the plots and characters for like a score of decades.

The cats, synths, and the soulmate are gone. Those were the gold, I guess.

When you lose someone significant, you start to think of time as “when they were alive” and “after they died.” It sucks.

Speaking of articulating life experiences from “when they were alive”–I don’t know if I can ever really describe some of those darker moments. Maybe in a film montage to Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed” or The Who’s “Cousin Kevin”? Those are the songs that come to mind, even though the action won’t exactly mirror the lyrics. I guess articulating all that–even if I just write it out as a script–would require opening cans of worms that are sealed nicely, thank you very much. I’ve dealt with a lot of it, but there’s still all those snapshots in my mind’s eye that may never go away. I could probably do a great job describing one of them, but would that do more harm than good to my soul?

Wasteland Weekend was amazing, as usual. Even more so this year, as it was a smaller crowd and it had been 2 years. It was nice to leave normal life behind for a bit to go spend time with my dirt family. Can’t wait for Neotropolis to finally launch next year! I already have visions of a jazz lounge and I gotta figure out my Portal Object.

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