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.