Funerals, Bomberos, Dirty Water, a DDT soldier, and a Dr Ray headache

Today is one for the blog, but let me just say, first of all, that I am sick and damned tired of homophobic anyone but especially homophobic priests and bishops who neeed giant tattoos on their foreheads that say: I'm a homophobe; praying for the sinner, hate the sin. Sick to DEATH that there are only TWO known priests in the entire Diocese of Panama who'd ever be seen in a gay bar, pride parade, or anything--not to mention a priest or a bishop who seems to give a flying fuck about the HIV/AIDS/SIDA that is killing people in this country--and if they DO give a flying fuck, then what good is it if they're not speaking out and DOING something. I, for one, must not be a good enough priest or a good enough Christian because while I DO pray for those homophobes, my hot Irish temper makes me want to say REALLY REALLY MEAN things about how mean they are and mostly call them noncarinighomophobicchickenshitratbastardcreeps. I don't know how much longer we will be here, especiallly after this blog, but I vow that I will spend the rest of my time here being as verbal and visible as I can, even to getting that AIDS ribbon tattoo I've always said I was going to get-and VERY visible! Today, 1030AM and one of THE biggest funerals this town will ever have was scheduled for 1PM-ish with viewing of the body (I know, I KNOW, Episcos don't open the coffin but no one apparently told any Episcopanglicans in Panama AND there are no funeral homes in ALL of Bocas so bodies come straight from the closest hospital morgue/cooler. Knowing Panama, I am always hoping for dry ice but there are things even I don't ask;like, for example, unembalmed bodies above ground in some pretty flimsy-looking houses of the dead. Don't even think about it. If the water wasn't drinkable already from cooties in it anyway, all over the Province, (one can't even rinse a toothbrush in Bocas water and one really needs to close one's mouth in the shower to prevent really nasty stomach cooties from getting you!), seeing a burial/graveside service would send me to the local store for bottled water anyway. But it was 1030 and we, at the rectory, have had no water for five plus days now. I've lost count my hair is so dirty. Tomorrow I try the clean tank of rainwater, boiling it on the stove, bathing, and washing my hair in it.I'm on my secone extra large bottle of witch hazel and my feet look like Ngobe feet, not a bad thing unless one is trying to seduce a husband and one's usual soft feet feet like some alligator hide before the processing into Pradas! Or maybe more like armadillo Surely it must be cleaner than the stuff from the water company. The padre HAD to have a shower; he NEVER smells, even after getting all sweaty, and he was stuffy smelling and his fine, chicken beautiful baby hair was plastered to his skull. It was nasty. So the grandfather of the dead 25 year-old, dead as a result of a tragic truck accident, who happens to be the chief of the firefighters/bomberos, had to be called to send over water for the padre to take a shower. Mind you, this is water that would put the fire out if your house was burning down, but Sweet Jesus, it was his baby darling grandson and his priest had to look good and even though the water was dirty, rank-smellling,and pretty foul, it was water and it was received as if it had come from the cleanest glacier in the world. Who canNOT love the bomberos? They are hunks--and now if we could just get a Lesbian bombero (closeted or not), I'd be a happy camper because I KNOW, deep in my heart of hearts, there is at least ONE gay bombero--otherwise, what good would the whole uniform thing be? And at least they are not homoerotic in THEIR uniforms; they are simply hunky, like any fire-fighters, maybe the last group of truly magnanimous people in the world--sure, sure, we know there are dirty politics in fire houses and throughout the system but one's heart and clit can't help but jump a little at seeing all those young, gorgeous menand women who broke our hearts during 9-11. I am no cop-lover, I can tell you, in spite of being a nurse; I have pretty much disdain for the whole process, especially in Panama and in the US. I can llive with bobbies without guns but I DO remember it was the Crown who sent the armored trucks and all sorts of military power to The Six Counties so there goes that theory of police without guns--especially when one remembers Bloody Sunday.Okay OKAY, so they were soldiers and I have disdain for soldiers, too. If we didn't have any soldiers, we wouldn't/couldn't have any wars and I may be a purist but it is just right and I'll say it again, what the fuck is the Church doing when the Crotch of Semper Fi is recruitiing like mad and it often works--and people say the Church has too much ritual. Now I don't know of any other group of folks with MORE ritual than the US military--look at all those homoerotic uniforms--don't ask, don't tell indeed--who HAS to ask, just look at the uniforms, stupid! And this ritual is based on murder and violence. And we say, we dont support the war, we support the troops. Well, at some level I understand that and I understand poverty's desperation, etc etc but again, I repeat, WHAT THE FUCK IS THE CHURCH DOING TO RECRUIT PEOPLE, GIVE THEM AN EDUCATION, AND FIND A PLACE FOR THEM TO WORK WITHOUT KILLING PEOPLE? Bring back the Beguines, a tiny reference to Cole Porter. But no, the Church is so mired in the mud of antiquity and bullshit and in turning out boring and cookie-cutter priests who wouldn't DARE disturb the status quo, that we can't begin to have sucha vision. I am eternally grateful for the independent churches who are slowly starting to shake up the status quo and long may they wave their rainbow banners and I am honoured to be one of their clergy. And yes, we have a military nurse in our congregation and I love him but I don't love his being in this stupid war. Sorry about the tirade and tangent. It's oonie on a rant. So back to yesterday's madness. Just at that very second, the whole world seemed to show up, only one of them I wanted to see: one was the bishop (NOT the person I'd wanted to see; in fact the person I was hoping to avoid now and forever--I'd prepared myself for a handshake but I was saved by DDT. More in a minute. The religious education director showed (he got a hug and a HUGE kiss 'cause he's true--he's probably homophobic, too but I don't want to ask because I love his other politics too much, I'd hate to have him on THE LIST for the tattoos, too. These folks weren't supposed to show up at the house, but show they did. I was attired in my oldest, coolest, thinnest cotton nightgown--the one so soft that it magically absorbs the eternal sweat and then whooshes it away in the merest breeze. PB would die as I was wearing not a stitch of undies. I do not care;it is hot and there were unannounced people in my house. The MOST unannounced person was wearing a SERIOUS breathing apparatus and carrying a big ole gun thing full of DDT and some sort of nasty petrochemical in which he DDT is dissolved. It seems we have Dengue (two cases of sicker than hell folks in the hospital already and who knows how many declining at home b/c they can't get to or afford a hospital) and that requires that EVERY home and every hard MUST be poisoned. I'm screaming NO NO NO NO about the gatos and since The Terminator was coming in anyway, I locked him out, put on some scrubs, got the kitties in their two in one carrier and got them to the car with the windows closed and the a/c going--after sedating them with Calms Forte while they were INSIDE the carrier--no mean feat as they HATE the bishop and were running to hide from him and they were outside and so was he and they were hissing and spitting and I wanted to be doing the very thing except with claws. THEN I had to run next door to be sure the baby was not in the house, so we threw her and her mom in the truck, too. Her family had planned her escape and were on their way. If they were going to Changuinola, personally I don't know the difference between DDT by crop-duster or DDT by one human, going house to house. Everyone runs around to find "THE BLAME" for Dengue when there is an outbreak. Yesterday it was the neighbor's boat full of water and the alleged drainage ditch-of which you do NOT want to hear, smell, or see, growing misquitoes like Chiquita grows bananas. What would it take to get rid of every banana in all of Panama without hurting a human, a gecko, a bee, a butterfly? AND speaking of which, how do geckos and my precious butterflies and dragon flies respond to DDT? Do they get killed, too? I'd go outside but it's raining today and there will be LARGE mudpuddles for enough days to begin growing misquitoes.OF COURSE, Dengue could NEVER be the responsibility of the government other than to kill us and expose us to DDT and Lord knows what else? We can't manage to fill up the potholes large enough to disappear a Volkswagen. Sweet Jesus, we've got enough rocks. This entire town was BUILT AND CREATED as an evil port and was built out of rocks and a wee bit of dirt. If it were cooler and beautiful and one could ear beatiful, sweet Irish voices, one might think one was in Ireland,but alas! one is in the hell hole of ugly Almirante. It's like the Pascagoula of MS in Panama. And getting to actual Beauty is practically impossible here. It takes hours and lots of money. The rebuilding and alleged restoration and outstanding debt (who knows where the money goes in Panama? even in the Church? I want to know where the bishop gets all his money to travael? Are the churches outside Panama paying so he can come for a day and say the pretty words and look gorgeous and seduce everyone and then leave with nothing done? Just to return to Panama for maybe four days a month. Perhaps I exaggerate; maybe it's six. But from a man I once trusted (estupido)--never trust a bishop should be the first rule of being an Episcopalian and I once was and have never been fond of them; they always seem slimy to me. But I thought plusJulio was different. Nope, same old, same old, just in a prettier package. But you still have to wonder about gayness with gold lame vestments. COMe ON, PEOPLE! Now, one must know that just before we arrived in this sweatbath of dirty water, no library, no theatre, no music, no intellectual stimulation--my mind is a total blank of idiotic Panamanian madness of constant bitching and Lord only knows what the nightly plastic fires have done to my body! But not three years ago, at the last big doo-dah funeral in which a church that holds less than fifty was filled with 3 to 4 hundred and there sat or rather, there lay the body. I'm glad I wasn't there b/c I'd have been obsessing about dry ice and one must remember usually the dead one has been dead for 3 to five or more days. OOh, ick and I'm a hospice person but disintegrtion and rot is never something you want to have anything to do with--we are SUPPOSED to be horrified by it; it reminds us that, honey, it ain't dust to which you originally return--it's fly-blown messiness that drips and leaks. So in the middle of the funeral, the ancient, termite eaten floor gave way and the body began seeking its own level of DOWN.. With all the superstition around here, it's a wonder St Jorge still has anyone to darken its door. I am afraid that when i heard that story, i burst into wild laughter--obviously there are NO hospice people in this country. I still find it hilarious. I am afraid i wouldn't find it hilarious at Mrs Brown's grandson's funeral until my 2nd drink. i love her so much, so much I couldn't even go to the funeral cause we have to save the water for the padre's showers. And I am NOT bathing in smellly, brown water. I mean what IS the point? Hopefully the sumbitch bishop won't be here tomorrow so I can live all day in my nightie, staying cool with two cats and cover reading a trashy book until I've had enough coffee to get me outside to work on the plants. I have planted lavender in Panama, which is THE most stupid thing anyone has ever done. I SHOULD have given it to my friend up in the mountains and if it comes up out of the ground, I will do that. In true Panamanian style, everything happens at once. In a third world madness that beats any NYC frenzy you've ever seen when stuff all happens at once and everybody goes into this gringo-like frenzy when minutes before it was all moving thru molasses. I don't get it. I'm a Celt; what the fucking hell am I doing here? Some penance. Yes, I KNOW, I was the one who started this go to Panama stuff. And Kenny took up the cry. How could Julio fool BOTH of us? Next bishop? I introduce to the cats first. Here's the nice thing. The DDT blaster emptied the cat bowls of their water, turned them upside down and covered them with thick towels; he also threw out their cat food and did the same with their food bowls. I was so touched. I did not know this until later AFTER Kenny's shower and after the bomberos left and I didn't even get a chance to thank him; I was too busy cussing the US and DDT. Here's someone who might even like or respect cats. The ministry of health people carried on over the gatos so they get pluses and we got no dengue demerits, thanks be to God I'd not cleaned out the bird waterer and bird bather and put in rainwater. The funeral started at one-ish and I've not seen cars going to the cemetery so I guess they are still in that teeny little packed church packed with people outside and the bishop still preaching-he can go on for 2 plus hours once he has a captive audience. I want the gong show.I thought the purpose of being an Episco was having a priest or bishop who was smart enough to sum it all up for you in under fifteen minutes. 12 is perfect; 10 is heaven. I've even heard three minute sermons that drew standing ovations. I thought the whole point was to get to the Table, which IS the point of the Mass, for X's sakes and then to get to the Bloody Marys and Mimosas and wine. Give me sweaters and thick wool socks and SAD lights and Vitamin D and every new antidepressant on the US market that MIGHT take this depression away someplace in cool, cold, windy, foggy Ireland, the home of my DNA and WITH the RCs. Yes, I'd become an RC in Ireland. How could I not? There are no more Wolf Tones, Maude Gonnes, and Yeats. I'm so ready to be outta here I could scream. I hope to NEVER see another tropical anything for the rest of my life. Remember we love Amsterdam in January! Just a totally disgusting day in a place I'd never call Paradise. Gimme the mountains and the cold and a fireplace and covers and the Ngobe and being three hours from PC NOT 12! My nails still have not chipped. But in spite of wearing a charcoal/coconut MCS mask I still had THE worst MCS/Dr Rhea headache I"ve ever experienced. I'd been swilling tons of water and Vitamin C yesterday but it took an ounce of olive oil and three hours plus Naprosen to even make it tolerable--from a 10 to a 7. This morning's poisoning number is a 5. I'm putting limon juice in my olive oil today. After all my bitching, I MIGHT could be convinced to return to the US if it were San Francisco and I never had to be hotter than 75 degrees more than about 7 days a year. I hate heat; why am I here? Besides, how does one ever known when it's the solstice, sitting on top of the Equator. I've lost my sense of time and even the Church calender is not anything I can remember because there are no seasons, just eternal heat. Honey, I've been in hell and I prefer Dante's version of being in ice than in this hot horrensous heat and humidity. Besides I need friends and movies and Rainbeau and Michellle and nail polish and a place where I do not HAVE to wear crocs just to keep my pretty shoes--either expensive or cheap as dirt--intact because I'm standing in 4 inches of rain for an hour waiting for a taxi, not to mention mucking through the mud here in town and taking worm and parasite treaetments every 6 months because I know what's in this alleged soil. Willl someone just pleasae GET ME OUTTS HERE!! I'm having a gringa meltdown. Maybe it will go away but the last straw was K's not having his ordination paperwork done and he's been ordained for 2 years now. There is no excuse for that irresponsibility with the excuse of "finding someone who does calligraphy." Just fill in the damned form, man, and get on with apostolic succession. Sheesh. And I WOULD like Church and Church in many forms with Quakers and Jesuits and Buddhists--all liberal--- and protestors and activitis and CODEPINK and Rainier cherries--organic. It matters not to me if I ever eat another pineapple, papaya, or mango again. I'm done. Could I just please have some radiccio and no more of this horrible Panamanian music? That plays even on Sunday morning and LOUD. It's too rude. And in a RC country, too. I"d like to tell them they are surely going to hell. This isn't even music one could fuck by, the seond best thing to do on a Sunday morning.

Panama Nail Polish Crisis

It may seem a little thing to many, something non-importnat. Well, all those folks would be wrong. And I know many will understand my plight and be pastoral. Here for the first time in my life, I have strong, growing, almost long REAL nails--my very own. As I have a great collection of red nail polish (Revlon Red, otherwises known as "screaming whorebitch red") is my favorite color). I have other colors, too, but they react the same. But there is some sorta climatic problem--or something-- here that prevents the stuff from staying on my nails for more than one entire day, even my LEFT hand, less used, as I am mostly right-handed. It doesn't matter, it seems, how much great, powerful base coat I use, how many coats of paint (2 to 4), then the strongest top coat I can find. I do ice and oil quick-dry and patiently sit and wait for all coats to dry. And even if I do absolutely Nothing in two days, the stuff starts chipping in the weirdest places. NOT chipping in the usual spots where one uses fingers and nails to open soda cans or knitting (I let thestuff dry forever; do all the things right, etc), the polish starts chipping. I do not understand. What is wrong? Is it the heat, the humidity?. Even if I use polish, base and top coats purchased here in Panama or from the US, the damned stuff doesn't stick. It is the most amazing thing.) Now, in the great scheme of things, it's not the Middle East crisis; it's not the need to impeach George Bush, i'ts not the atrocities of Chiquita and the homophobia of the Episcopal Church madness here--and every other church besides. I realise all of that. But in all this heat, in spite of it, I have great nails and I can't get polish to stay. It's a girl thing and it's important in that way as a priest of a gay church, the ONLY liberal gay positive church in the entire country! Is it an unconscious wish to take back my Pax Christi vow of nonviolence and slonk all the homophobes in the kneedaps? Maybe peacebang can help. Ill have to ask. But I want pretty sexy nails and it ain't happening! I'ts bad enough to have to bathe in dirty water, or to go without water for days (I've found that a total body bath in witch hazel on cotton swabs cleans one well enough but the topic of baby fine chicken hair that needs to be washed and can't be is another issue), or to be without power for days when Diablo Chiquita bananas have to be processed, the damn polish doesn't stick. I've tried cheap polish; i've tried expensive polish like Chanel. It doesn't seem to matter. Sure, makeup sweats off in my lap (bare essentials is the ONLY thing that seems to work for more than an hour) and spary on tanning products sweats off or washes off in the dirty water, But one woud think perfect nail care would produce results. Is there something I dont' know? Anybody got any suggestions? I've having a crisis here. And never mind toenaiil polish; I can understand that it all chips and falls off walking around in dirt and rocks and muddy water growing Dengue. But FINGRNAILS! what Is he answer? Totally disgusted--- not your usual missionary position is having a HUGe girly crisis! Enough is just enough! Living in a land without Quakers, Jesuits, UU's, and pagans is bad enough, but this is ridiculous! oonie in Almirante Thanks to peacebang's helps for the female ministers was just such a boost in understanding, I can't help but feel better.

4 August, 1976

Yesterday was Tommy Goodman's birthday. For many of you who know me, you've heard at least SOME of the "Goodman stories." Tommy was the first love of my life, my first passion, my first obsession (after chocolate), and the first person and especially man who gave me permission to be who I am; he is also the man who broke my heart and irrevocably destroyed much of my trust and all of any hope I'd ever had. Isn't this pathetic? But you'd have to have been there, in the magic year of 1976, when I first saw this darling little two year old by the pool of my apartment wearing this darling little bathing suit with fish swimming across the front and with "FISH" written through the swimming school. Then I looked up and saw his father. I was engaged at the time to a man in Salt Lake (who'd moved there to work, a plan I'd conspired to get him away from his very VERY sick parents. But a story for another day.) Without another thought, I went upstairs to my apartment, shaved my legs, took of my engagement ring, and went downstairs to meet my fate. You know, sometimes you just know. Now being a 22 year old virgin is a tedious thing but to be the lover of a 22 year old virgin, DES daughter who desperately wanted children and couldn't have them, and to be the lover of a 22 year old virgin who gave up ALL her trust to you is a scary thing. And yes, 31 years later, I still remember his birthday because that was our first date, my first drink of alcohol--Campari and if you can love cough syrup, you can love anything! I still find it refreshing on a summer day; hmm, everyday is summer here; I should drink more Campari! I was well and very blonde and very buffed (I swam every day and did yoga back before it was popular and did lots of exercising)--and very beutiful. T, being basically shy, chose an intermediary to ask me out before he came over to talk. Now I'm a voice slut and THIS VOICE made me wetter than the water I was in. I thought I'd dehydrate right there on the spot. I fell. Free-falling into love that knew not a boundary. Stupid. But I was so naive and such an innocent and such a spoiled only child. And, yes, God knows, Goodman loved me, too. I don't know; maybe he still does. I only wish today, fat, ugly, ill, and miserable in Panama's endless heat that we could at least talk, not necessarily be friends--although that would be heaven--but that he'd somehow communicate with me. I at least hope John P or someone calls me when he dies, if he dies before I, because I will need to grieve the loss of the body of this man, who was basically a chicken-shit coward, who sold out for his exwife, Caroline, from whom he was divorced at the time, a woman with huge breasts, almost magically fertile, who counted out loud to 40 during sex and if he was not done--too bad, but whose father and family had scads of money and she, too, was the only child. While I was white trash poor but younger and prettier,even without the huge boobs and fertile uterus. One look at me and suddenly the child who'd been her toy of an ugly divorce starting to appear at any day, any time; she'd just call and ask if Tommy wanted August for an afternoon, an overnight, a day. And I knew I was in trouble--because this was the same woman who'd had to be taken back to court so Tommy could see his child more than once a month and only for a few hours; as it was, he only got to see him every other weekend and WOE! beyond to T if we were 3 minutes late returning August. At Chirstmas, he asked me to marry him and I said no. (stupid, perhaps at the time). But Caroline's dad had died and I could sense T smelling the money and I knew that I could survive losing him THEN but ten years and three little girls later (if that had ever been possible; turns out it wasn't; and therefore I'd have broken his heart and who knows what dreadful atrocity would have destroyed our marriage), a divorce would have destroyed me. I don't want to bore you all with years of stories and tales of magic. And then destruction. But yesterday and today, wherever you are Thomas E Goodman, AIA, I want to thank you for teaching me that taking out the garbage can be an adventure, killing roaches with your Gucci flats is magical, and going to the 7-11 is the greatest fun in the world. You gave me something special--the permission to be who I am. Lord knows, I acted an utter fool and maybe could have had you if I'd not been so stupid in all my acting out. But some things are not to be. So I closed my heart until 1998--well really it first opened just a crack on Easter Day of 92 when we, Tommy and I, sat across from one another at St Andrew's and you introduced me to your new wife and I discovered that I REALLY LIKED HER, liked her more than you and SAID SO. How, my dear, did you explain all that? It does not mean I didn't have to leave just after communion and run down the street keening at the top of my lungs and keen for two more hours until I'd gotten it out of my system and I don't think I've cried for you ever since. But it WAS magic. It was magic having such great friends, Chuck and Joe, John and Char--the magic of companionship where you love the friends as much as you love the beloved. It was magic, making models of buildings and sticking in the trees, going to the Walter Anderson Compound in Ocean Springs--- and the bar with the wild and wonderful paintings; sailing and the Yucatan, and fucking in Eames chairs, and the first night of loving with "I Want To Marry A Lighthouse Keeper" playing on the reel-to-reel (only serious lovers had reel to reel in those days, as I recall. But maybe I'm wrong.) You were a marvelous lover and a giving one. Your bubble baths and pitchers of martinis after a long evening of work were always appreciated; when you dried me off, put me into one of your shirts, and tucked me into bed. Yes, I had a magical love of my 20's for less than 2 years, a Delta man, who really was a big coward and I say this so lovingly, even after you practicallly destroyed me (and I allowed you to even with all the therapy) after giving me who I am, the who I am who proved not good enough and unacceptable to you. Devastating. But sometimes what and who I miss the most are the friends--Sambo and Jackie (Sambo, God rest his soul. I still have a busted coccyx from whacking my back in a V when I hit the water while crossing the wake zooming on water-skis. I think of him every day. Oh, and Suzanne and Bob. And especially Chuck and Joe, and John and Charlotte. And all the magical car trips and adventures in light and buldings.) But in the middle of all those 18 years it took me to heal and all the AA meetings I attended because I was addicted to you and your pipe tobacco, I had one prayer: if God gave me a great love of my youth, wouldn't God please send me a greater love and Lover and greater passion of my middle and old age? And you know what? In 1992 and then for l in 1998, that prayer was answered--another Delta Man, my beloved Kenny. I'd not trade him for ten Tommy Goodman's even if I had the chance to do it all over again. I've lived through a lot of pain and heartbreak and unbelievable stuff of nightmares and horrors and some really scary stuff. And much of the pain and heartbreak I brought on myself because I had no idea how to handle the pain of my soul and heart. I've also had many wonderful adventures and experiences in Beauty. It brought me back to the Church, the only thing I'd loved more than Goodman and the Church broke my heart even more. How about that for irony? But I live with a good without being sappy man, a generous man, with a wicked sense of humor, a felllow activist, who may not have the same taste in architecture and wouldn't know Maier from Pei and doesn't drool over Eames chairs (that's only because he's never had the chance to have sex in one! But maybe we're too old.) He likes my mother's kind of furniture: antiques and Eastlake and San Francisco beautiful whorehouse uncomfortable furniture. But he had great taste and he loves me and I adore him. We are happy and we've had a painful and horrible 3 to 4 years and we've survived and our love is deeper and stronger. There are no old wife skeletons in his closet to come out and haunt me and I mostly feel pretty safe, as safe as an only child without her parents and no close relatives can feel when she thinks that she, one day, might have to live WITHOUt THE TRUE LOVE AND PASSION OF HER LIFE, when she's old and fat and falling apart. You'd never have survived that, Goodman, I don't think. No stomach for it. I am happy even as much as this place and this institution has broken my heart. I have love. I still have no hope but Eliot doesn't swear by it and anyone who wrote CATS who doesn't swear by hope is fine in my book. But I have faith; I have a loving bishop who is trustworthy; I have work to do that I love; and I have Love, an extraordinary lover and a leather sling! Menopausual sex is different and we are learning how to make it as hot as pre-menopausal sex. We just need some real cold for really great, really hot sex. And that will happen, too, I believe. For I have years of grand memories already with Kenny. Years of being best friends; years as lovers; years as husband and wife, man and woman. It just gets better. Kenny has Integrity and Great Courage and I admire him tremendously. Those things I could never say about Goodman. Even though singing "Chatanooga Choo-Choo" is a fond memory, too, and I still love the song. Desperado can still make me cry a wee bit but sometimes I can smile. And if I hear it, I HAVE to play "The Pretender" to take away the ache. Now my love songs are happy, beautiful Van Morrison and opera and Irish music and Hallelulah, which is an aching ballad of life's mistakes--and that I understand. But a house filled with beautiful, wonderful, loving music is better than Desperado anyday. So there. NAH! Sadly, even as much in love as I am, there is a part of me that is still closed and precious and me and safe. I don't know if I'll ever be able to open that place of TOTAL trust again; maybe I shouldn't. But I sure would like to learn how to do that some day with Kenny because it would be the TOTAL GIFT. You destroyed that, TEG, and I let you. Goodman, I hope you are as happy as I. I hope your life is good. I hope you think of me fondly sometimes. I remember all the wonderful dancing and dancing and dancing--anywhere, anyplace, to anything on the jukebox or in the house or on the street. I still have ONE gift you gave me and I love it early, a scarf. I hope you remember that you were loved by a beautiful young girl with stars in her eyes and a ferocious Irish temper when hurt. Thank you for giving me gifts I can give myself and can give to Kenny because he deserves even more love than I can give him and that's a lot. But, hopefully, we'll have time to learn how to love more and more and better and better. I wish you all the best and HAPPY BIRTHDAY. You were 30 on our first date; I was 22 two weeks later. We'll all do the math. And Kenny, if you read this, know that are loved more than I have ever loved anyone or anything, even the Church, although it took me a while to see and understand this one. And I have Plus Rusty and St Savior to thank for that, for giving my soul a home and a life as a priest, my firsts calling in this world. My second and equal calling is as your spouse, your life-partner, your friend, your Lover, and soul-mate. I have been blessed with two great loves and the greatest of these is the one of my middle years. I have great friends and now have a best friend with a spouse who I call my brother-in-law. Our other couple friends are Robert and Ann,who have taught us so much about love and life and God and Church and laughter and good food and good wine. I have a son by marriage that I adore who has a wife I love so very much. That child was loved by my mother and is the apple of my eye and the mango of my heart. We used to say we'd adopt a child when Kenny was 60 but I don't think I want to share him with all the headaches of nights without sleep and old parents who will die early and leave her alone--I know that tune and it is awful. Thanks be to God, whoever and whatever that is, for the life I life in a wild place with a wild and wonderful man. I am so blessed. It was all worth it.