the great thing about this blog

[text]

[actually, lemme start again, because there's nothing particularly great about this blog]

the great thing about blogging

is that, for the first time in my life, shit's getting written down.

in the past, i'd get lost in a reverie, work some things out, come to some conclusions, vow to myself to take up the thread again at some point in the future and work things out some more.

problem with that strategy is, it's just like tom clancy once said: "if it's not written down, it didn't happen."

and he's right--the minute you move on to the next thing in your mind, those things that previously held your attention in such seemingly indelible ways tend to fade away (in my case, very quickly), until all you're left with is mush. and then, next time you take up the thread, you have to start all over again.

and that's what i've always done--gone back to an old memory, trod the same ground over and over again and never gotten anywhere new.

which is why i've found this blog to be useful; these days when i write about something that happened in my past, i take it about as far as i ever did in my mind--only now i have an actual written record to look at later, and to build upon. as a result of this process (and with the help of certain people who read, comment and email me--you know who you are), i'm actually figuring out new shit, and making connections i never did before.

take the story of david in my previous post, for instance [and if you haven't read it yet, not only will the picture of that glorious '72 caddy up there not make any sense, little of the following will either].

noblesavage opined that it would've been a stronger piece if i'd gone into all my feelings of longing and unrequited adolescent love during that time. i chose not to do that for a couple reasons: first, because there are already many such stories out there, by far better writers than me; and second, because, even though i've gone over that period of my life countless times in my mind, i really didn't understand my feelings much better now than i did then.

until i wrote it down the other night and came back and looked at it later, and some things made sense in a way they hadn't before.

see, at 15, i was a kid who had (a) from the age of about six (when i first realized what was up), systematically set out to eradicate any and all signs of sissy from my affect; and (b) from age 10 through 13--and starting with my father--suffered through the sudden and tragic loss of several key people from my life.

in the course of so doing, i had learned, from (a), that being yourself was wrong and could give you away; and from (b), that loving somebody could end up biting you in the ass and, as such, was to be avoided at all costs.

so i was pretty much well on my way from open, happy kid to emotionally shut-down adult by the time david walked into my life--and what a can of fuckin' worms his arrival opened up, lemme tell you.

see, it's one thing to have an unrequited crush on someone from afar who'll never know you're alive; it's quite another when he's your straight best friend and crashing in your bed on a regular basis. trust me on this--i've done it both ways and there's really no comparison.

[and, to refresh, remember that in my short life i had learned the following two things about emotions: (a) showing people who you really are is dangerous; and (b) caring about people is painful because they'll fuckin' leave you.]

so i learned to--what was it they called it when bill could "love" hillary but could only fuck gennifers and paulas and monicas? oh yeah: i learned to "compartmentalize"--to stuff my erotic and romantic feelings about david behind a little partition that only opened in the middle of the night when i'd wake up--defenseless, shields down--with him all warm, softly snoring into my ear and smelling like only he could smell. and sprawled, trusting and oblivious and unconscious, half on top of me in his t-shirt and boxers.

lemme tell you, it was torture (torture i wouldn't have traded for all the tea in china, but torture nonetheless).

and the rest of the time? hell, we were best friends like any other best friends. david and i were there for each other during a tough time in each of our lives--god, we had so much fun just driving around, hanging out and doing nothing--and i wouldn't have traded that for all the tea in china, either.

here's the bottom line: if i had to do the pleasure/pain equation as far as david's concerned--the dual-edged sword that i believe comes into play in all aspects of life--it'd probably come out pretty much like this:

downside: considering the gay = pain lesson i learned from that time, david's probably a big reason i put off coming out until i was 34, and am thus the emotionally-stunted wreck you see today.

upside: seeing as how so many of the gay men of my generation who came out young are dead now, david's probably a big reason why i'm still around to bore you with this shit.

it's all in how you look at it, i guess.