Out of all my many and varied relationships, there are only two which I regret not being able to follow through on. The first and most important being the second man I was ever engaged to, Larry, from whom I ran like a scared rabbit when I couldn't see myself married to anyone, much less someone from a really nice family, and be expected to live a really nice life. That makes no sense, does it? Well, I don't really expect it to.

The other is my friend G, intelligent, funny, and, yes, kind from time to time. A philosophy professor with a couple of Harleys, a Triumph (I think), and, at last count, about 9 other motorcycles. The majority of those have been purchased in the years since I left Green Bay (he is one of the few folks I have actually managed to stay in touch with, mostly, I suppose, because he never moved).

I am honored to have been the first person he wrote to upon acquiring a computer sometime in March of 1997. He talks about rebuilding the front end and clutches on his Harley, about severe budget cuts at the University, about fending off my ex-ngb, who wants my address, and his ex - who is thinking about getting back together with him because she is afraid of AIDS.

He invents a new syndrome he calls FAIDS - Fear of AIDS - and fears it may affect more lifestyles than his own.

We came close - but not quite - mostly because I refused to leave Seattle once I got here. But if I had - how long would that have lasted? With my record - and his - .........

"Everybody has been doing pretty good around here. Nobody is in jail at the moment..."

Oh, lordy. Is that where I got that idea? You know, when someone asks you if everything is all right, or if somebody is doing all right, and everything is about as fucked as it's ever going to get, or it seems that way, and the person they're asking about is whoofing up crack cocaine and hasn't come out of the house for weeks except to score, and you say, "Oh, yeah. Things aren't too bad."

What you're thinking (what I'm thinking, with my fingers crossed behind my back) is "Well, they're not dead or in jail, as far as I know, so things could be worse."

I'm looking at the address these letter were sent to, and remembering when I first came to Seattle and ran into JR. He was staying with a buddy in the U. District, and I stayed there with him for a couple of weeks. The house was run by a middle-aged gay guy who looked like a sumo wrestler. Rolled up in a sleeping bag on the dining room floor. The house was full of young art and music students from Cornish. Rumors were rife. The sumo guy's prize possession was a huge samurai sword that he kept hanging above the fireplace.

A year or so later, when I was going with the bartender from the Blue Moon, he told me a story about pissing off some guy down the street from him somehow, and the guy coming out of his house and chasing him back down the street with a samurai sword. David lived a few blocks north of there.

Small world.

Seems to be a pile of letters here from the ngb. He wasn't actually a really bad guy. Just hurt and lonely and confused, and one of those relationships I am not at all proud of. There are so many things I can't regret about that period of my life (like all those wonderful names and stories), but the pure fact of the matter is that I fell in lust with a motorcycle (a '49 panhead) and a way of life. The guy who went with it was available, but definitely one of the walking wounded, and I should never have given him hope for a future with me when I knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to happen. He was a little short of stature, a little short on intellect, had a face only a mother could love (puckered with road rash scars from a motorcycle accident that had him sliding down the highway on his face), and so little self-esteem it hurt to see him. I was tall, blonde and a university graduate, and when I chose him because I wanted to be part of that "family" of people, and because he had a cool bike, and because nobody else wanted him, I gave him something he should have gotten from someone who would truly love him. That wasn't me. And then I took it away.

Another letter from the ngb (no good boyfriend, if you've forgotten what ngb means). The headbanger guy. He talks about Ron and Chris's wedding, so maybe he stuck the matchbook in the letter and that's how I got it.

Another name - and how could I forget this one. Toad.

Toad lived on an old run-down farm out on the edge of the back of beyond. He had so many tickets for speeding, drunk driving, driving without a license, driving with no brains - whatever driving tickets anyone could ever get on a motorcycle, Toad had 'em. A lot of 'em. Probably went to jail for at least some of 'em, too. But you could get away with a lot more in the 70's. Finally, he just gave up riding the motorcycle and got a horse. "Like to see 'em pull me over on a horse!" he used to say.

Anyway, I think that was Toad. Maybe it was Rat. Seems like they were brothers. Rat and Toad. It was one of 'em anyway.

Letter from the ngb. Nothing in particular strikes me, except breaking a little bit of sweat on the old forehead (or is that a hot flash), that he never did catch up with me, although he assures me that he still loves me very very much and that he wants to come out here and support me (more sweat on the old forehead). So - rather than reminisce more about my old love life, I think I'll just regale you with some names, because no matter how much I may regret some episodes in my life in some ways, in other ways there is simply no other way I could have met people with names like these, and that's worth something in itself. Let's see - there's Gramps (I think I've written about him before), T. Bear, Bruiser, Kraut, Kike, Puke, Dusty, Ma, Buttfly, and Buzzard. Just off the top of my head, anyway. Oh - Legless, but I never knew him. I just heard the stories.