It’s amazing what you can do with Google. Earl is downstairs watching the Eagles game and every once in a while I can hear shouts of sports ecstacy coming up the staircase. I’m glad he’s enjoying himself. I like to watch football, but not on television. Honestly, I have a hard enough time watching it while sitting in a stadium and keeping track of everything. Trying to keep track of what’s happening on a 27-inch TV is way too much work. π
So I’m busying myself up here exploring nooks and crannies of the internet with Google. I have “safesearch” on whenever I search on Google, because frankly, I don’t care if Vera wants me to show her tits on her webcam when I’m searching for software downloads. I find it amazing that you can put in people’s names and find out so much. I put in my name first, and came up with all sorts of posts I put the usenet (the newsgroups) back in 1989 and 1990 when I was working for DEC. That was kind of weird. I printed one out for Earl (it was about the TV show Isis) and his comment was “You haven’t changed a bit.” I guess in some respects I haven’t.
Then I started plunking in the names of people I used to work with and once in a while dated during my DECcie days. Surprisingly, Mark is now an accomplished musician in a band in San Francisco. He was very strange, much like myself, and others in the Digital gay group BGLAD wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Me? He was just my type.
Then there’s Marcus, who is still all political, living in Washington, D.C. now instead of Boston. He was the oldest guy I ever dated, he was 40 at the time, I was 22.
There’s Derek – who’s an accomplished software engineer in New Hampshire. A nice guy, but a lousy kisser. And he used an electric razor, which is a definite deal breaker with me. (Long story). Come to think of it, I think he was an accomplished software engineer when I dated him. I guess I didn’t notice.
Ah, yes, Buck. Who worked in the building next to mine. A very fine looking man, who took me to the movies my last night of living in New England. I didn’t really give myself the chance to get to know him better, but he seemed like the wild type. He dressed in leather and had a military haircut (remember it was 1990 at the time) and seemed like he could be wild. I couldn’t find out much about him on the internet. You wouldn’t believe how many guys go by the name Buck in Boston.
So then I looked up my old roommate from this area and found him working with the Empire Pride Agenda. How very good for him, I sent him e-mail suggesting Earl and I meet him for dinner sometime.
I suppose this walk through my past was all started because of something that happened this afternoon. Earl and I went through a hellish hour of grocery shopping at the local Price Chopper. Now, we both hate Price Chopper with a passion, but decided it was close and to give them “one more try”. Oy. Not only is the store horribly outdated, over crowded and populated with Italian women with big hair and furry coats (and I’m not talking about their jackets), but they have the worst self-serve registers I’ve ever seen.
Anyways, while we were shopping, we ran into an old friend of mine, Melissa. Melissa and I worked together at the Association for Retarded Citizens back in the early 1990s, when I first moved to the area. We were both single and we both worked the same shift, Tuesday 12 noon to Thursday 3 p.m. (straight through), only at different community residences. We’d go out on Thursday nights together. Melissa is probably the only woman that I ever had even an inkling of a romantic feeling for. After a while, a few unfortunate incidents transpired and I quite coldly quit talking to her, for about a year or so. After I was an absolute bitch for a year and went out of my way to ignore her, we started talking again (why she started talking to me again I’ll never know) and then poof – I was determined to get into radio (which she supported), determined to make a doomed relationship “undoomed” and then she went and did her thing… exploring what she wanted and such. I’ve thought of Melissa often and wondered what she was up to. I’ve always wanted to tell her that I was sorry that I was such a wench towards her during a difficult time. And here she was, standing in front of Earl and I in the milk department, with her gorgeous nine-month old baby and seemingly long-time partner. She looked beautiful and I was so happy that she had found her path. I couldn’t really tell her that I missed her and was sorry for all that had transpired, because it really didn’t seem appropriate in the middle of this hideous grocery store. But I suppose there was some closure as that I knew she was doing o.k.
So I’m babbling. Earl was a little surprised at how “rocked” I was by running into Melissa. So I had to explain the whole thing to him. He’s so patient with me. But this little meeting has me re-evaluating my lot in life again. Do I want kids? I don’t know. Do I need a new career? Perhaps, but where to start at 34 years old? Should I just give in and declare myself insane? Probably, but not likely.
He’s just come up to tell me that the Eagles won against Atlanta – 20 to 6. I suppose Philly is celebrating right now. π I look over at him as I’m typing this, and he tells me, again, how much he loves the iMac I bought him for Christmas. And then he tells me that he loves me. I never thought I would have found someone who could understand me. I’m glad I did.