Journal entry, post tax season 4/16

4/16/98 We made a quick quick dash down to the lake to visit the ducks which was a concession to me, for Neil has a midterm today, and needs to study. He lectured me on the pitfalls of poverty consciousness, when I said I was yet another grand in the hole from paying my taxes. He said,  You just got a $2000 job. Think of it in terms of more, not what you haven’t got. He’s right, but I am the the pessimistic optimist. I’ll believe it when I actually have the contract signed. He said remember when I sent you $2000 and I said your stress level rise to meet the occasion? It wouldn’t matter if it was $25,000. It’s still outside, a mental image of fuck you on the inside. It rises to the demand. True, that.

We celebrate with a salmon dinner. I dropped him off to study while I shopped for dinner and I felt like I’ve been given a reprieve on several accounts for I love being here and nearly having convince myself that we could become platonic friends, until we went down to the docks where he grabbed my jeans at the waist, sticking his hand between my cheeks left me over the edge, a rather familiar gesture for a man who professes interest no interest in my body. I didn’t let on, poker face as I was. Another time he remove the hot mitt from the stove mumbling about pilot lights and possible fires. A year ago I would’ve been pissed off at him, but this time I smiled knowingly, my back to turn towards him. Allow him his neuroses and quirks, for it to is a part of the the process. Be not attached. No gain.

It’s taking some time to restore the balance, but we are once again normalizing our relationship through established rituals, whether it be domestic like what do you want for dinner, or offering nurturing massages. Seeking the balance between the giving and receiving will always be our biggest chore in task, he had to give a whole lot more to me to get me through my taxes, as I had told him it would be so, then he had expected, but he did come through to the nitty-gritty end.

After dinner, our first outside since the range weekend, though we also had breakfast outside yesterday as well, he went to Berkeley to study, asking if I’d call some of the old Ulster gang, to see Romeo and Juliet at TheatreWorks, a play he had auditioned for. A lovely long chat with Lorcan whom I like very much, but he is a bit shy, and Jane Bark, Vito Orlando, and Allison Tassie, a real telephone night. Jane said you didn’t come to my puja, my housewarming. Neil said you were busy I said I had left him, having been fed up with our non-relationship on Ash Wednesday. I left him for the season of Lent. She said Ash Wednesday was a good day to leave. It was appropriate she said. He seemed a bit down, she noted. I said denial was buried in his name, and he wants to just be friends, and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left.

Everyone seems to take it in stride that Neil and I are having a relationship, that he thinks it’s nothing more than friendship, but we all know better. Where do we go from here? I’m obviously a big part of his emotional makeup, as he is of mine. He’s afraid of definitions, and commitments, yet he desires the wife and kids thing, as an abstract. But, this is my home, this is my bed, we’re still sharing. Don’t rock the boat. See how long it will go on like this for he made the concession that we sleep together only this once for I am so fragile and I’m so vulnerable, when will he kick me out? Loose strands of my hair become a metaphor, turning up in the domestic arrangements, blankets, pillows, sinks, rugs, to claim residency.

The pearl is my oyster, I misread an ad for watches. If they carapace of the watch is the oyster, and the mechanism, the heart of the pearl, where does that leave time? For time allows nacreous intentions to grow between the shell and the quivering flesh. A conversation form Easter Neil wanted to know whether or not aphrodisiacs work and was there anything to it? Mostly in the mind of the beholder says Tom, but if you believe, it will work. Oysters seem to be a real-time honored aphrodisiac he concludes. His libido is raging and he can’t seem to find the right woman though he’s desperately searching.