Now another letter from Teresa - the family I worried about a few posts ago. Written in December of 1985. I must be living in the house of the 300 pound crazy man by now, but it's sent to the house of the crazy samurai gay guy in care of an old friend of JR's - but I got it somehow. This letter almost makes me homesick for the Midwest. She asks if we have lots of snow and cold (NOT). She asks how is Christmas and how was turkey day. They were both a little strange that year. I don't remember Christmas, but Thanksgiving at the house of the 300-pound crazy man was a hoot. I seem to remember a flotilla of us cruising up to the QFC for Beer Beer, which was the captain's favorite drink. There was M andyke the junky sax player (he's straight these days), Paris and his dog Merlin (my lover at the time - Paris, not the dog), John (what's your favorite note, he'd ask the jazz musicians), a few other assorted denizens. I think there was a turkey. That may have been around the time I was thinking of painting bars on the bedroom window and started calling the living room the "day room".

I didn't have much good to report to Teresa. Which is probably why I stopped communicating.

Letter from the NGB. Sounds like he's giving up on me. Which was a good thing. But he writes me a poem:

You may break the vase
You may shatter the glass
But the scent of the rose
Will forever last
The scent of the rose
Lingers forever.

Now, I know I could probably make a great deal of fun out of that, but frankly, no good head banging boyfriend that he was, I'm not quite up to it. He was human, too. And he loved me. And I never loved him. We should all have taken better care with each other.