Got back from Boston and found
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onmouseover="return overlib('the tempest-raising comment',CAPTION,' j o e <sigh>', HEIGHT, 15, LEFT, BELOW);">a comment from joe. I thought, either I wrote this and forgot (dementia), or... I couldn't imagine what else. Then, two lines in: Ah ha! And I wanted to faint. Oooo-wheee, baby. Joe! The other Joe, the one with a hell of a story, a cut-the-ribbon, christen-the-boat, stain-the-sheet and smash-the-glass story. The one who... Well, maybe we can go into the details later on. The point is that I returned from my reluctant excursion to Boston, and received an invitation to Cologne. Germany.
I can't escape life, apparently. At least not yet.
I remember when cologne was something you gave on Father's Day to that man you couldn't love—or were afraid to love—because you were a boy with a difference, and you knew most of what you felt toward other males was 'wrong' and you weren't really sure which feelings were OK with Daddy, and which were not. It was cute for the straight boys to want to marry Mommy; it was not cute for me to want to sleep with Daddy. So we gave cologne.
Somewhere long ago I noticed Cologne was also the name of a place, so long ago in fact that I thought they named the place after the toiletry. And I thought that was odd. It was among the first in this lifetime of many misconceptions on my part.
Joe. Wow. The strong fumes of our past are flooding my brain—his wet mouth, his once-familiar taste, the intoxicating scent of him. And the absolute clarity of his intentions, which cut through and scattered that nebulous fog-cloud that was me. Joe loved me, but I... Well, let's just say I wish I had more substance then. I was a misty summer evening and he a brilliant noonday sun. We played and played, chasing one another around the days—so few days—and we tried to stay, we tried. But showers fell and darkened the teary sun, and a cold wind cut the lonely night to shreds. They seperated, but not without knowing that once, in a glistening twilight moment, the night and day were one.
And wouldn'tcha know, I mean, isn't it ironic that long after I stopped applying expensive potions from tiny vials to strategic locations on my body (which could, in the past, precipitate a shallow, but none to shabby encounter) that today the necessary proof of my substance is to simply show-up in Cologne.
Forgive the bad pun, I am falling asleep. Good night. And good luck today at the hospital, Joe. You will definitely be hearing from me.