I am trying to find every reason on earth not to write a word here (or anywhere, for that matter, since here is the only place I write lately, if I write).  And I have found almost all of them—reasons to not write, I mean.  Here is a partial list.  Review access logs; go to the bathroom; check e-mail; make coffee; muse on the potential of various scripting tools to do wonderous things with access logs; drink coffee; check blog to see if anyone has commented (I am a comment-whore); visit sites that link to me; visit sites that sites which link to me link to; visit all the usual sites; drink more coffee; go to bathroom, again; give passing thought to numerous pressing responsibilities; review more access logs; take the top off my scanner and rearrange all the lighting in my apartment so that I can scan my face; post the resulting image to blog; go, late, to work.

Do you think it is easy being a mute blogger, with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder and a spastic bladder, trying to hide from life while living—all without any Ativan at all?  Yeah, you're right.  It actually is pretty easy being me, all things considered.  (Oh, that's another one.  I can listen to NPR instead of blog.  Add that to the list.).  I mean, I could be like Yasser Arafat, with tanks and bulldozers trying to knock down my house—not to mention short and ugly.  Or I could be like Margaret Thatcher, with not only bad hair, but also too old to talk.  Instead of being just figuratively paralyzed, in my hopelessness and fear, I could be actually paralyzed like Christopher Reeve (who, by the way, is actually quite a Superman in his real life).  Or I could be dead.  A condition which, despite all the frightful dark imaginings that seem to recommend it, would probably disappoint.  If everything—and I mean everything—disappoints me now, what on earth (or anywhere else for that matter) would make me think that I would find happiness in being dead?  Nonsense.  I would find disappointment in death, not because there is anything wrong with the experience itself, but because there is something wrong with my disappointment detector. 

My 'disappointment-detector' is like an unplugged TV.  I turn it on, and get nothing but a smoky black image, and conclude (quite prematurely) that Light no longer exists.  I am thus disappointed.  No matter that my conclusion is illogical; I am able to see the device which is telling me that Light has abandoned us.  And no matter that there are things like windows; though they are somewhat less entertaining than TV used to be, they still tend to indicate that Light is continuing on.  But the fact that Light is not gone from my life is somewhat more painful than the alternative.  I cannot explain exactly why this is.  The reason is not explained by the over-simplifying phrase 'misery loves company.'.  On the other hand the problem is not so complex as to be unsolvable, though it often feels that way.  The best way I can explain it is to say that the loss of my magnificent life, which was lost long ago (the reasons for that are another story entirely), feels like it is survivable only as long as I pretend that there is no magnifence anywhere in life.

There is, indeed, magnificence in life.  That makes me cry.

And here am I, wringing out these tears and discovering these truths in one of the most un-original and un-novel of forums, a weblog.  Magnificent.

In about six hours I have to be back at work.  Right now I am feeling an awful lot like the way I feel when it comes time to do something which I have promised I will do.  The longer I wait, the less likely it becomes that the promised thing will happen.  So here's the quick and dirty conclusion to my nostalgia over Peter:

I think the bike on the roof stunt got Peter fired, but because he was close friends with many of the people I worked with—and who knows, maybe because he actually liked me—he and I continued to cross paths, a lot.  Peter was a sailor in the deepest parts of his heart.  He shared with me his plan to live on a boat, not on a houseboat like a shoebox on the water, but on a sleek, big seaworthy sailboat.  As he shared this with me, late in our acquaintance, I was aware that it was his own mythic plan, expressive of worlds more meaning than the mere details contained.  This was Peter's vision for his place in the world, detached from all that would have him lead a conventional life, yet plunging bow-long into a more dynamic, more threatening, more invigorating life.  He shared with me his personal mythology for engaging life more fully than he had ever been taught, and I believe he achieved it.  He was an absolutely capable person around whom I always felt secure; there was no challenge he could not meet, no goodness could occur that would not glint more brightly off his soul than any other, and there was no visible end that I could see to the mirthful kindness in his eyes.  Peter Wiedenman made a place just for me in his myth of joyous life; he told me that I would have a place with him on his sailboat when he got it, and he told me that he had intended to make no such place for anyone, until he met me. 

Such precious gifts I walked away from, pretending I did not recognize their value.  The absolute, non-erotic, spiritual beauty of generous souls like Peter has more than once scared the shit right out of me.  But worse, it scared me on a level too deep for me to know, for long before I met Peter I had chosen not to feel such depths, and to function in a superficial safe zone, unmoved by deep currents.  And even as he was loving me in the way he did, I was aware enough of its significance to carefully keep my distance from it, and to maintain the scrupulous pretense that I didn't even know it was there.

Peter's father had a heart attack in California one day in that summer of 1988, and Peter got on a plane, not knowing if the man would be dead by the time Peter arrived.  He came back weeks later oh so subtly changed, with just a twinge of skepticism, or maybe a slight little hint of fear.  His father survived, but I think in the ordeal Peter realized that certain relationships will never be what they could have been, and certain people will never reach that mythic place he has prepared, even when it becomes real.  I think Peter knew when he returned that some men will forever be victims, no matter how much he loves them.

Sail on, sweet Peter, over whichever shining sea you have chosen, while here I publish another whiney post, and get...

More coffee.