since you asked

the following is a long, rambling answer to a short, pointed question.  i'm posting it here because this is where i keep such things now, secure in the knowledge that nobody'll ever find 'em.

as for the old drivers license above, i found it when i was packing to move, remembered how much i hated that photo--the ugly boy with the w.c. fields nose.  god, we can be so dumb when we're young.



did i ever tell you about st. patrick's day 1985, rob?  i spent that evening at hall's in austin, steve kuzi by my side; by that time we were a fixture in the place--the buff, burly protector and the scared-wabbit newbie.  that night would be different, though; towards midnight, drunk off my ass, i broke away from kuzi for the first time ever, wandered off on my own, found a cute boy who had tried unsuccessfully for weeks to catch my eye, walked up to him and asked his disbelieving ass if he wanted to give me my first gay kiss.

the next two hours were a happy blur; word spread quickly that the new guy was off his leash--i must've gotten two or three dozen first gay kisses that night.  it was probably the most fun i've ever had in a gay crowd (with the possible exception of that time at sunset street fair when your friend jonathan and i drunkenly three-way made out with that really hot guy at detour that i ended up going home with--you remember that, right?).

next time i walked into halls, i was back to my usual sober, shut-down self, welded at the hip to kuzi, not looking left or right.  people eventually got the message, left me alone.

paulo murillo, that perennial weho man-about-town (check out his blog--it's a hoot), opines that there are basically two kindsa fags:  those who are invited to the party and those who aren't, and that most fag-bitchy bitterness originates from those who are wrecked to find themselves in the latter group.

while i think there is much truth there, being the social type that he is, ol' paulo could never understand someone who would trash his invitation unopened.

*     *     *     *     *

i've always been that way;  while there are many things i would change about my high-school years if i could, joining a clique would not be one of 'em.  while in college, my idle fantasies about hanging with those intoxicatingly-cute fraternity boys in their polo shirts and tony lamas evaporated the first time i attended one of their parties.

and you remember my first and only circuit event--white party 1993, right?  i enjoyed the drive to palm springs with you, and throwing back a few with your friends in our suite, but as for the actual party itself, lemme just say that as soon as that godawful music started pounding and those shirtless, manicured, meth-addled faggots started writhing, i couldn't cut one outta the herd and drag his tweaking ass back to his room fast enough.

my heart has always been a lonely hunter, rob, and now here i find myself, having put in twenty-three boy-chasing years in a city that's never been home, sitting here by myself.

your question--why, at my age, i'm still "fetishizing youth"--misses the point; i could never fall in love with any of the boys i sleep with, nor most of 'em with me. my heart, if it ever falls, will fall for an equal.  i don't seek out the young; i seek out the unruined--which, in this town, anyway, seem to be one and the same.  i'd love to find a man who could challenge me to give it up for him, but i've never let myself learn how; in the solitary circles in which i run, most of the guys anywhere near my age are far more fucked up than i am.

i've often wondered how differently things might've turned out for the boy in that picture up there if the coin had landed tails instead of heads, and he had ended up on the east coast instead--maybe he'd have found that fabled faggot algonquin round table, which is the only clique to which he's ever wanted to belong.

or maybe that's just a cop-out--whatever; i gotta take my vitamins, catch some zzzzz's.  

it's gonna be a busy week.

luv, 

me