Sunday, October 22, 2000

Today is Head of the Charles, an annual international rowing
competition held on the Charles River.  On about this date in 1966,
Cynthia was at the BU boathouse with a girlfriend.  They were there to
watch a member of the heavyweight crew, her brand new boyfriend.  They
had not done the big O thing yet--but it was due soon--maybe that
night if his boat won their race.  Two men come up to Cynthia and try
to get her attention.  One of them is head of the MIT track team,
Peter Close.  The other man is a friend of his.  They both try to get
her attention.  Only one of them managed.  That one suggested a wager.
If his team won he'd take her out to dinner.  If her team won he'd
take her out to dinner.  It was a very cold day.  She was scantily
dressed and said she'd have to go back to her dorm and change into
something warmer.  But the offer amused her and they met later for
dinner.  The almost boyfriend and member of the heavyweight crew was
never seen again--although there was at least one angry phone call
from him.  Apparently he was disappointed in her behavior.  So this
Peter guy and her started "dating".  Especially when he went out of
town with the track team.  Then she'd go out of town to keep him
company.  About a month later the other of the two guys who tried to
impress her called and said, you know he's a married man don't you?
She didn't know that but told him it was over even after she gave him
an opportunity to confess to lying.  She said it was goodbye.  He
called her six months later to say he'd moved out from his home, wife,
and two kids, and would she like to have dinner to clear things up.
She said yes.  All the rest is many more stories that couldn't
possibly fit in on this day.

Yesterday I spent the day at DER learning to use a digital editing
system.  Sandeep had me and another student.  I'd not gotten enough
sleep from the night before and spent much of the time drinking coffee
and slapping myself, metaphorically speaking, awake.  One more session
with him and I'll be able to do the whole thing by myself.  His
student heard about the course from the Art Deadlines List.

Just watched a Hitchcock movie, Rear Window.  Its about this older
guy, a photographer, and his younger girlfriend and their contentious
relationship.  He likes to watch his neighbors from his rear window.
Anyway, a bunch of other stuff happens and they catch the murderer.
Good flick.  Highly recommended.

Why are their contrarians.  Cynthia often thinks of me as a
contrarian.  That my being this way is motivated by others.  My
contention is that nature creates contrarians via the gene pool.  For
any species, a small number of individuals in that species, need to be
programmed to behave in a way very different from all other members of
the species.  This helps insure that alternatve behaviors will be
available to adapt to very different conditions from the environment
in which that species developed and evolved.  Its a kind of gene pool
insurance.  Set aside a part of your population that can adapt to
novel situations, unusual challenges.  That way, even if the majority
of individuals in that species perish, there will be others who found
different avenues for coping that enabled them to survive.

Yesterday, Saturday evening, we ran up the Danehy Park hill ten times,
did 100 situps, almost 90 pushups, and watched Cassady try to catch a
number of rabbits.  No luck for her--but lots of exercise.

A new found friend, Joyce, continues to thrill me with her words.
More:

      http://artdeadlineslist.com/gallery/joyce

A new set of photographs arrives in my mailbox:

http://photoworks.com/photoworks/default.asp?P1=12176285&P2=19588999&P3=0

Thursday, October 25, 2000

I really liked the way all of this came out. On reading it, some
essential things about the reality of our relationship, how I actually
experience it, or feel about it most of the time, seem to have been
caught in these few paragraphs. I like that we wrote this on my Bday.

Tonight I don't think I will be home for dinner. The screening for the
South African Partners film doesn't start till 7:30- followed by a
Q&A. Since we're sponsors-I think I should stay till the end. If you
don't go out - there's plenty of stuff in the fridg, poke around.

Wednesday, October 25, 2000

Today is Cynthia's 55th birthday.  I got up earlier than usual this
morning to see her off.  She had some sort of expectation of me and
when it appeared that I'd have no surprise for her, or big plans for
the day, she got upset and started to cry.  We sat and talked.  Her
mood improved and she left for work.

A bit later I got this message:

You are right. The present, rather astounding (to me) condition of my
body is indeed a gift. I would never have come this far without your
guidance, encouragement and partnership. I look at myself in the
dressing room mirrors and am pleased, perhaps more pleased with what I
see than at any other time in my life.  To be able to say this at my
age is a source of narcissistic pleasure. Beyond the sleek body is the
pain free body. How long ago was it that I was mired in a sea of
depression and pain thinking my body had forsaken me?

So now I am pain free with enough energy to find new existential
reasons to cause myself pain.

I think I'll forego the flowers and gifts tied up with ribbons and
stick to the gift of your sweat and time invested in running up those
hills at Danehey Park. The pleasure I get from those moments, looking
for meteors, the endless conversation interspersed with the rythmn of
our physical effort, I have the sensation that we have stepped outside
our life, time gets suspended, and there is some distance from the
flow of events-assessements, analysis, we become observers of our life
together, from the hill in Danehey Park.

WELL!...  I can live with that.

Since we often end up running after dark now, I've suggested that we
lie back at the top if the hill and watch for meteors.  Even in the
middle of the big city, with all the lights, one can see quite a few.
Its nothing though, compared to what we watched some years back out in
the middle of the plains in Wyoming, or on a beach in the Canary
Islands.  This is highly recommended whether you use the hill at
Danehy Park, the plains of Wyoming, or a beach in the Canary Islands.

DP and I had planned to go running yesterday.  But she ended up
working late and we didn't do that.  Cynthia, earlier in the day,
thinking I'd be out running, had made plans with Robin for a birthday
dinner.  He was going to be free yesterday evening as his Jackie would
be picking up her mother and the two of them would be going to the
Cape for a week.  However, the Mother cancelled at the last moment,
and that didn't happen.  So Robin had to cancel their dinner date.
Cynthia got home and discovered I was not running and asked if we
could go--this being a second night in a row for us, as we normally go
only every other day.  So I agreed to that but we would not do the
usual routine, and she would, in spite of her considerable pent up
frustrated energy, go along with that.  So we did--and watched for
meteors again.

This evening we plan to attend a public meeting, sponsored by the
Society of Motion Picture Technicians & Engineers (SMPTE), about video
streaming on the web.  Its in Watertown Square.

And then there was our discussion about love between bouts of exertion
to get up that hill.  Love.  The way people bandy that term about
you'd think they actually know what it means.  She wants to know if
this one knows who is in love with who and if I'd told them yes or no.
Of course I talk about this with women as they are especially
interested in it.  Do you love anybody, I ask.  Practically before I
can finish that sentence, she blurts out the same question for me.  I
asked first, is my response, and then I wait.  We walk down the hill.
Its quiet.  Nobody says anything for a few moments.  I venture: a man
who loves a woman would never press her to answer that question.  More
quiet.  We approach the bottom of the hill.  There's a slight pause.
She has to do some sort of funny thing with her feet where one is
placed higher up the hill before she can begin.  I stay even with her
for much of the way, then let her have a slight lead as we approach
the top. I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO THAT, she says, with conviction.
A man who loves a woman would, from time to time, let her beat him in
a race up the hill, I suggested.  She goes on about reading my mind.
Perhaps.  We don't get the question settled or answered.  Definitions
are welcome.  Send them to the above email address.

Its such a beautiful day out that Cassady and I are going for a walk.
You will just have to wait to hear more.

October 27, 2000 -- Friday -- at work

So the prelude to fencing this week was working out some form of chest
protection.  I've got a lot up there to protect, and having it poked
was not so fun last week.  Rhy said she was going to order chest
protection in advance of this week's class; I asked her to order me
some too; and then all hell broke loose at her office and it didn't
get done. So earlier this week I looked around, realized that I didn't
see anything out there on the market that was (a) calling my name and
(b) likely to get to me in time for Thursday's class, and I decided to
improvise.  With cuir bouille, which (for those of you who are not up
on your medieval armoring skills) is a way of taking leather and
making it hard by immersing it in hot water.  What you do is cut the
shape you want, but larger than you need; immerse it in hot water
until it becomes soft and stretchy, and then drape or stretch it over
a mold.  When it cools, it hardens into the shape you've molded it to,
and it thickens somewhat and gets harder.  So that was my plan: make
shaped tit protection out of boiled leather.

Have I mentioned that I never had never done this before?

The first part of this process involves me taking off my shirt and
going through my kitchen cabinets looking for the right size mixing
bowl to serve as the mold... which requires me to stick all the mixing
bowls, one at a time, on my chest while trying to decide if they
provide enough coverage.  Fortunately, there was nobody around during
this process.  Then having found the right bowls, I had to measure the
circumference of the outside and cut a circle of leather big enough to
fit over it, allowing for some shrinkage.  I ended up with a huge
circle of leather, so big it wouldn't fit in any of my pots except the
dye pot.  So I ended up draping it mostly-in a big roasting pan,
because there was no way I was using the dye pot.  Home-made boiled
leather chest protection is weird enough without it being dyed a funky
blue color.

OK... here I am in the kitchen... big roasting pan full of water
heating on the stove, tit-sized bowl (and another to fit over it to
help with the molding process) beside the stove on a towel, circle of
leather about yaaaay big soaking in the sink ... here I am lowering,
gingerly, said circle of leather into the boiling pan of water... here
I am trying to wrestle it around with tongs as it slides in one side
of the pan only to stick out the other side, all without splashing
boiling water on myself ... here I am as my nice round circle of
leather proceeds to shrink, deform itself into a lopsided oval, and
get squishy and floppy like a big brown jellyfish ...  here I am
trying to yank a boiling-hot jellyfish down around the edges of a
slippery, wet glass mixing bowl, all without scalding myself anywhere
important.  Shame there was no video, this was so ridiculous I could
blackmail myself.

Now, the most amazing thing about this whole process was that it
worked, sort of.  Sure enough, I ended up with a leather bowl shape.
And it was hard, oh boy was it hard.  When the time came to shape the
edges and remove all the extra, it was like a piece of wood.  I
couldn't cut it with an exacto boxcutting knife, I had to score it and
break off pieces with my heavy pliers.

So the time comes last night to get dressed for class, and I put on my
sweats and socks and sneakers and then one sports bra (to protect my
tit from the inside of the "armor" because it was rough as sandpaper)
and then a second sports bra (to hold the "armor" in place) and then I
skootch the armor down in between the two layers and I have one flat
tit (because it's got two sports bras mashing it down) and one
ENORMOUS rock hard tit that goes "thunk" when you hit it.  So I pad
out the flat side with a thick wool sock that'll catch some of the
impact if anybody manages to clip me on the offside and, as an added
benefit, equalizes the sides of my chest, except that one side goes
THUNK and the other ... doesn't.  By which time I have filled this
sports bra to the point that it is so tight around my chest that I
keep imagining I'm having an asthma attack.  Nope, not asthma,
spandex.  Just overstressed spandex.  And then I put my black
tee-shirt on over top and here I am, fencing girl! in black sweats and
a black T and the oddest looking monobosom I ever hoped would somehow
go unnoticed.

Rock-hard monobosom makes your seatbelt ride up on your neck.  Just
saying.

Saturday, October 28, 2000

Cynthia has just left to spend the day with Robin.  There's a bright
sun and a good day to draw in his studio.  That's one of the things
she will be doing.  Just before she left, with a hurt look in my eyes
and on my face, I said, you're leaving us (me and Cassady), aren't
you?  Adding, its another man, isn't it.  Yes, she said, almost
laughing.  Then I went on to complain how she still hasn't drawn any
pictures of me, or Cassady, but always this other guy!  So I go into
the front room, lie down on the couch, hang my tongue out, unzip my
pants,... well, you can guess the rest.  You're on, tomorrow, she
says.  Its the pristine environment of the front room.  She doesn't
want to mess it up with charcoal from the drawing.  Its just noon.
She expects to be back in time for dinner, around 6 or 7.  It all
depends on how long it takes for sex, doesn't it, I ask.  Well, that
too, she says.

Last night I had an intense dream about Friedrichshof.  A group of
people came here and we found a place and started living in a group
and integrating life, work, etc.  I had the usual trouble integrating
myself into everything.  Extremely vivid and intense.  The feeling
atmosphere seemed thick enough to cut.

Saturday, October 28, 2000, part 2

She got back a couple of hours later than she said, but I've forgiven
her.  Back from the drawing session at Robin's studio.  He prepared
another birthday party for her.  Huge mound of boiled shrip with all
the sauces and lemon juice and so forth.  Gave her a fancy new
artists portfolio for carrying drawings.  Inside is a portable drawing
table.  They had wine.  It was warm.  He did every pose she wanted.
Four drawings today.  Not just charcoal on paper.  Ochre plus.  Flesh.
He gets to keep the one he likes best.  She wonders where he hides
them from Jackie.  He's confessed to feeling guilty for his fantasies
about me and Jackie being dead.  What that means is that he'd
have Cynthia for himself--and not have to deal with Jackie anymore.
He wonders if Cynthia and I have a "prenuptual agreement".  We are
not married so that's not possible--but we have thought about what
we would do if either of us dies first.  I'd eventually give Cynthia's
daughter half the value of our property.  Cynthia would bury me in
the back yard to save money on the funeral and keep my half for
herself.  That was a joke.  About me and Jackie being dead, Cynthia
says that he, Robin, would probably go first, then her (Cynthia) and
Jackie and I would be stuck with each other--the worst possible case.
He's hinted that there will be something for her in his will if he dies
before her.  I've suggested we kill him and get the money now.  That
was a joke.  I'm going to photograph the drawings and see if we can
sell them on the web.  She hints that they had some of their usual
old fashioned, home-made fun.

Monday, October 30, 2000

We ran yesterday using our new high-tech running equipment.  There
were snow flurries and 35 degrees and a wind on leaving for Danehy
Park.  The effort was about the same as on other days but the high
wind and low temperatures went NO sweating during the entire outing.
The balance was just right.  10 times up the hill, 110 pushups for me,
a few less for C, and 100 situps for both of us.  During the course of
the day the sky slowly cleared and a bright sun was shining on us low
in the sky.

Last night we had dinner at K's house.  She wanted it to be a birthday
dinner for C.  Six people attended.  C & me, K & M, and CO, and old
friend of K's, and his day-old girlfriend.  They held hands and
touched often during the evening.  I remarked on this.  It made them a
bit self conscious.  Cynthia remarked afterwards that they didn't seem
to be able to keep their hands off each other.  She's 44 and has two
girls, 8 and 9, lives in Arlington, as does C.  Her arms were covered
with bruises.  Something to do with a karate tournament yesterday.  A
very nice gal.  I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.
And, ok, its true, a bit too much of the plum liquor ended up inside
me and I was a smidgen more outgoing than usual.  And the jokes about
K's dead cat, and letting Cassady chew on the corpse, were just JOKES!
There is no way we would let Cassady eat a dead cat--unless it was
microwaved first.

I called Cynthia at work this morning since we didn't speak before she
left.  Sleep had one of its tightest grips ever on me this morning.
Usually I wake up once or twice while she prepares to leave and we
talk a bit.  There was something in her voice and I made a remark
about it.  She said nothing at the time.  But then I got the email
below:

Email from Cynthia to Richard:

We have a good by, farewell, adios dinner on Wednesday for O and B at
John Harvards in Harvard Square. I had forgotten that I had arranged
it as J was doing nothing to acknowledge the kids years of dedicated
work for him. I hope you can be there too.

You mentioned my voice this morning-it was the residue of a bad dream.
In it, DP tells you that she would love you and have your children if
you would agree to leave me. You decided that it was really a chance
to raise children that you never had the chance to do before and that
the urge and the desire to have a new life with a younger attractive
woman was too good to refuse. You felt bad about it but you tried to
explain it to me and hoped that I would understand. I got sick but
there was nothing I could do about it. That was the dream.

I fear this because as we have spoken of so many times, biology
rules. I am not so narcissistic to imagine that a situation couildn't
arise which would cause you to take another road.  Stuff happens. You
would make a great father and you never really had a chance to enjoy
that part of your life.

End of Email from Cynthia to Richard

Yeah, right--in my dreams.  She always forgets my experience.  I plow
ahead in life and resist all kinds of pressures.  Whether its the
opportunity to have casual sex or resisting the draft during the
Vietnam War or the pressure of my former church to repent and conform.
Precipitous actions like that are not my way in this world.  Cynthia
is actually the more likely person to do that.  She's the one, of the
two of us, who takes those kinds of sudden jags and detours in life.
She is more likely to leave me for R and his money.  The only way a
woman would take me at this stage in my life is if she was completely,
totally, stupidly in love with me.  Or if I suddenly got a lot of
money.  Certainly DP is a woman I've thought of having children with.
But without a lot of money my chances are about as good as the
proverbial snowball in hell.  She admits that maybe this dream has its
origins in her own history of tortured twists and turns.  Perhaps
she's looking for some reason to leave me for R.  She can see how
pliant and willing he is.  On Sunday he hinted at things that she
might find tempting.

And today I'll be having lunch with the previously mentioned young
wench and temptress.