Friend

I saw you the other day. Just for a moment. You came around the corner with that silly grin on your face. The smile all the way in to your cheeks. Your boyish appearance.

But I knew it wasn't you. You weren't that young when you died. I was at your funeral. I carried you.

Just for the briefest of moments, I didn't miss you, and missed you, at the same time.

Worming Horses

Yesterday I wormed a few horses. It's really rather anticlimactic, not near as fancy as it sounds, and really doesn't involve any worms. It's just a matter of a plastic syringe feeding a paste to the horse.

But still, who would have thought I would ever . . . . .

The Messengers of Death

"It was at the time when Emile Pencenat was digging his own burial plot, Sunday after Sunday. He had obtained permission, although there was no precedent for this kind of thing. The town council was not impressed by this whim, but could find nothing that formally forbade it. Moreover, there was a lack of men willing to do the low-paid work of looking after the field of the dead. Finally, to clinch the decision, Emile Pencenat had declared:
'I'll sweep your cemetery myself; I'll throw out the dead boquets; I'll weed the grass around the graves, and I'll even pick up the pots of chrysanthemums blown over by the wind.'
How could they resist the offer of so much free work? They didn't even ask him why he insisted on a separate burial place, when there was a spacious and resoundingly empty family vault, because everyone was only too aware of the reply to that question: it was to avoid sharing eternity with his wife Prudence, with whom he did not get on.
Besides, he didn't like that plot. It looked like a Protestant mausoleum in the middle of the Catholic cemetery. It was sharp-edged, forbidding, and to make matters worse, it had a mean and parsimonious view of eternity that made the afterlife seem quite unattractive. As it happened, Emile Pencenat was fortunate enough to imagine the realm of the departed in a happier light - when one has gloomy thoughts, all the more reason for them to be flowery: if it were possible, his tomb would be a small-scale copy of an eastern potentate's ceremonial tester bed swathed in gold-fringed theatre drapes. The whole thing would be dominated by an opulent canopy and surrounded by a festooned balustrade with columns. . . .
. . . On rainy days he spent his time in his shed sculpting cherubs' heads, with which he hoped to enliven the pink marble columns around his masterpiece. Not that he had reached that point. He didn't know yet where he could get pink marble, nor how he was going to pay for it. But he'd only been thinking about digging his tomb for a few months; in fact it was since his retirement, when he was wondering anxiously what he could do to lessen his boredom. And so he had plenty of time to make enquiries, he thought.
Pierre Magnan

It's not promiscious if it's travel

There have been times during my previous career in the gaming industry when I traveled a fair bit for work to different conventions that catered to people in my specific field. And occasionally on those trips, I might be prone to . . . entertain, or perhaps be entertained by, a gentleman. And by gentleman, I mean someone I might have just met a few hours prior who was attending the same convention.

I never thought of them, the evenings or the gentleman, or even myself for that matter, as promiscuous. After all, we were usually in NICE hotels, and I could always track the guy down within hours should I need an affidavit of my whereabouts. He was someone that I would most likely see again in a few months at another convention. He was a professional person, much like myself. And besides, we were generally in the same age bracket and so might think of these evenings in a like way - pleasant and enjoyable, with a modicum of respect. There would be no promises of future dates at upcoming conventions, ala Alan Alda's "Same Time Next Summer." But there was also no reason to be anything less than polite the next time we saw each other.

One such gentleman, let's call him . . . well, let's just call him Gentleman. Handsome, tall, and with a belly. A belly doesn't turn me off. A grin can turn me on.

Our first evening happened together in an odd location. I kept wondering what in the world there was to do in that town, and how we ended up in that hotel. But alas, I ended up in his bed one evening. An enjoyable time was had by all. But I somehow left the room thinking that I had not had a stellar performance. I felt like I had let him down. And that thought would occur to me any time I would think of him later.

A couple of years passed and we ran into each other again in some other town, this time in a much nicer hotel. (The kind with glass elevators - always a sign of a nice hotel.) Several "boys who like boys" were in attendance at this function, and after checking in I called his room to see where all the boys were going that night.

I admit that I might have harbored the slightest hope that over the next few days we might have an encounter. But I would in no way begrudge him if his circumstances had changed and no such occured. But I was pleased when we did find ourselves in the same room.

And approximately 2 hours later, I was woken from a serious nap by the ringing of the cell phone I had been recently assigned by the employer. One of my employees asked me, "What are you doing?" and I answered honestly something like, "Well, I was sleeping after having sex." She laughed, asked her question and let me go back to sleep.

During that convention, we had the most enjoyable time together, but no more private time. I remember confiding in him that I felt like I had let him down the last time, and that I really tried to be better this time. He laughed and said he didn't recall it that way at all.

And that's exactly what he should have said.

Bad Guy

So I recently called the hometown florist to order some flowers for a birthday present. The gal answered the phone and I said something like, "Hi, this is SoandSo. I used to have an account there, and I need to order some flowers."

The lady on the line said, "I don't see you listed" and I said, "Well, I haven't ordered anything in a while" and she said, "You're probably a bad guy."

Pause

"This is Felecia."

And I was in love all over again and missed her so much!