When I planted it, I also planted one in a normal ground based pot that is doing much better. I have about 20 tomatoes on that one.

I’m so excited to have my salad tomorrow.

It was a one-night stand. His roommate, a friend of mine, brokered the deal in a very casual manner. “You should fuck Wade. He’s fun.” Its true. I am. And B found out just how much fun I am on October 09, 2008 and again on October 10, 2008, and if I remember correctly, 3 times on October 11, 2008 and so on until… well I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

It was fun. Pure passion fueled sex. We fit together physically. We fit together sexually quite well too and that is all it was supposed to be. Fun.

I wasn’t looking for a relationship. He wasn’t looking for a relationship.

Communication was limited to the arrangement of rendezvous times and intercourse directions. The majority of our communication consisted of grunts in sweaty encounters and quiet good byes as I dressed to return to my beloved Stella.

All the while, there was something much larger than both of us looming in the background that would slowly change, for a short while at least, how we looked at each other and interacted with the world around us.

Prop 8.

The night of the elections, when the United States elected it’s first non-White President, Californians succumbed to fear based marketing tactics and voted to ban currently legal Gay Marriages within the state.

That night, after attending the rally at City Hall together, where we held hands for the first time in public, we went back to his place and held each other. Neither of us wanting to be alone. In the days and weeks that followed, we began to develop more of a fully formed relationship. We attended rallies until we couldn’t emotionally handle them any longer. We would sit in the dark of his room (post amazingly passionate sex) listening to the speeches and chants below.

I wonder now that Prop 8 has been overturned, and I reminisce on when it was enacted, how much of our relationship was a result of those emotionally charged days. Did we cling to each other in desperation? Did we use each other for comfort in an ugly time?

B and I are no longer together, but my love for him has not diminished since the first time I uttered those three words and he responded in kind.

So is this closure? Prop 8 enacted / overturned… Wade and B in love / apart…

I’m going to pass on the celebration tonight. I’m very happy for my brothers and sisters that we’re a step closer to equality… but I’m going to reminisce about those cold foggy nights, holding B’s hand in one hand and a candle in the other as we cuddled together, just the two of us against the cold, the fog, and everything the world was throwing at us. I’m going to find my comfort there. I’ll celebrate another day.

As many of you know… I work in air cargo. When I see a story like this (click on photo for story), where a plane catches on fire mid-air and crashes, I know most likely there was some dangerous goods cargo on board that wasn’t handled properly. I instantly run through my mind in an attempt to recall if I have any customer’s cargo on that flight.

Luckily… so far… (knock on wood) I’ve never had this happen to any of my customer’s cargo. Other than the truck that caught fire and burst into flames after being sideswiped by a drunk driver many years ago, nothing like this has happened on my watch. That truck… an artist’s entire exhibit was enroute to a new gallery. I’m still waiting on that claim to be paid out…

Tonight, instead of getting all worked up again, like last night and the night before, I decided to take a walk and grabbed Stella, the most amazing dog in the world, and together we headed out into the night. We walked to the opposite side of the lagoon where earlier in the day I saw the rides from a travelling carnival parked in the lot. It brought memories of my earlier days, back in that area south of Buffalo when every summer, the travelling carnival would visit town and set up in the parking lot behind the shops on main street. It seemed so foreign to me. So exciting. The idea of living in a camper and travelling the country roads, entertaining the young and old alike really caught my imagination. I dreamt of running away with them as Cher did in her blockbuster song “Carousel Man”. I envisioned myself taken by the scruffy dark-haired muscular man running the tilt-a-whirl, made into his lover and happily forced to follow him from town to town.

As I said, it really captured my imagination, and my imagination since the age of about 13 was all rather sex focused so I won’t go into the sordid details, though perhaps I should.

I’ll hold the memories of the carnivals and the dangerous men that worked them. I was awash in those memories as Stella and I wandered through the night. Out of the apartment, avoiding the noise.

The rest of the afternoon was unusual for me. Was he going to take me to a nice fancy meal at a fancy restaurant? Was he going to pimp me out to someone that liked slightly doughy, pasty white guys in button down shirts and dress slacks? Was he going to propose to me?

I settled on the latter and was convinced I would be a blushing fiancé by the end of the evening and proceeded to contemplate my upcoming married life. Would I say, “Yes”? Would he get down on one knee? Would he slip a ring into my wine? Not sure what to expect or even how I felt about the whole thing… I decided that my answer would be a resounding “No”. I would be steadfast in my denial of his requests. “You haven’t earned it yet,” I’d declare, while feigning sorrow, like a mid-century Hollywood starlet.

I would eventually give in and we would hug, perhaps kiss and definitely fuck once we returned home. The morning after we would talk about it, make plans, set a date, only to realize that thanks to the hateful, bigots in the small towns of California, and the huge amounts of money flooded into the state by religious organizations that preach love but act on hate, we could not be married and would have to settle for that second class status of “domestic partnership”. We’d make the appointments with the lawyers and draw up all the paperwork needed to protect each other should something happen. You know, all those things that come simply by saying “I do” and signing the civil marriage certificate denied to us.

My head was reeling at all of these thoughts and I was about to slip into the post prop 8 depression again, looking around the office wondering who voted yes and who voted no and how their beliefs have affected my life and the life of the man that I love.

As it turns out… he had tickets to Wicked. Wonderful tickets to Wicked. Row J, center tickets to Wicked. I’d never thought that I would ever see that musical. When I lived in Chicago, Tom teased me about seeing it but he and I never settled on a date to commit. In 5 years, we never found a date that fit. Fast forward to last spring, when the BF had tickets. Good tickets. We were supposed to go. I was excited, but didn’t show it since I was afraid of jinxing it. Well… it so happened that those tickets were for a date about 2 months after he and I broke things off, for a variety of reasons.

I was convinced that Wicked was one of those things that I would never experience, like visiting Abu Dhabi, climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, or heterosexual intercourse.

So yes, I was surprised. I was swept away by his sweetness and I thoroughly enjoyed the production. It was a wonderful date night and an unexpected date night. And it was totally worth it to be dead tired the next day.

Click on image for slideshow.

just remember… my birthday is coming up…