Saturday, March 07, 2009
A birthday
A's birthday is today. I resided next to A for 13 years. We occupied the two small second floor apts in a four family house on a dead end street in Linden NJ. We shared the fire escape, had the same view out the rear windows - a magnolia tree & a park. She lived with J, & they had a very comfortable place. Their bedroom was at the front, a living room in the back with a sofa, & a small kitchen. Our bedroom was at the back, the kitchen was a little larger, & my artist girlfriend needed the other room for her huge metal desk & steel storage cabinets. My record collection was also in there, & our clutter spilled over into in an attic room. Our place was less comfy & more centered around the kitchen table. Before the attic got filled up with junk from us & A & J, we had a party up there. Good party, too. One of the guests got drunk, danced too energetically, & went crashing through a thin wall to the eaves. At the time, he was involved in probably the most intense one month romance I'd ever seen, the kind that ignites fast, goes supernova over a weekend, & burns into a cinder. They're fun to watch, but they damn near incinerate you when you're in them.
J & I were with women other men tended to fall in love with. Both women were Pisces - sign of the fish, both raised as strict Catholics, both cohabitating to the disappointment of their parents, but very different. Mine had a cool mysteriousness, Neptunian in the planetary sense, & it was years before I realized that she wasn't hiding much; it was an illusion of watery depths, the manipulation of surfaces, waves, ripples, reflections. She was a pond. I'm not knocking it - it made for some terrific, unusual art. A was warmer, more sensual, more talkative, she decorated her environment & herself better, & she had a closer relationship with the ocean. My girlfriend, for all her musicality, had a poor sense of rhythm. I loved dancing with A. A & J reached a point where they decided to grow up for each other. Once they did that, I knew they'd always be together.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
J & I were with women other men tended to fall in love with. Both women were Pisces - sign of the fish, both raised as strict Catholics, both cohabitating to the disappointment of their parents, but very different. Mine had a cool mysteriousness, Neptunian in the planetary sense, & it was years before I realized that she wasn't hiding much; it was an illusion of watery depths, the manipulation of surfaces, waves, ripples, reflections. She was a pond. I'm not knocking it - it made for some terrific, unusual art. A was warmer, more sensual, more talkative, she decorated her environment & herself better, & she had a closer relationship with the ocean. My girlfriend, for all her musicality, had a poor sense of rhythm. I loved dancing with A. A & J reached a point where they decided to grow up for each other. Once they did that, I knew they'd always be together.
