It was our 24th Anniversary.

It wasn't very good. I guess it's all in the way you look at it, really.

We went out to Ziegfields on Friday night. That was good. We danced, shared good laughs and old memories of dancing on that same dance floor 24 years ago. Plus Puck was there, as she had been in the beginning. We made it to bed with no hard feelings. I assumed it was going to be a hot night (between the sheets), but I guess that due to the late hour, about 3:15, and that there were other people in the house, it didn't happen. I had hard feelings then.

Saturday was good. I don't remember any harshness. I took Rolf to the National Arboretum for the Orchid Show. Puck and Lori came along - actually they drove. It was nice, Rolf and I were very tender towards one another oohing and ahing over the flowers. We went out to dinner, just the two of us, after sharing a bottle of champagne with Puck and Lori at the house. On the drive to the restaurant, Rolf asked me why I thought B.Emmy (he lives downstairs) acted so worried when he couldn't reach us on the phone. I said that I thought he thinks we might be breaking up. That seemed to give him pause. I asked him pointedly if he was sure he wanted to stay with me, and I made reference to my anger at him caused by his abusive behavior, and he said "Of course."

None-the-less, dinner was tinged with remorse. It was lovely. And it was lovely to be there with him. It was a tender evening with him and his beautiful smile. It wasn't terribly late when we got home and we got into our pajamas and watched MAD TV and Saturday Night Live. I must have fallen nearly asleep there, because the only action that happened between the sheets upstairs was me falling quickly into dreamland. Oh, no. I think I remember that he was looking for his fingernail clippers as I was flipping through a magazine. When he couldn't find them, I apologized and said I thought I had put them away. To which he said "Why don't you get your own fucking pair." And I told him to "Go to Hell." Oh yeah, that's why there was no sex.

Sunday morning I had to go to the early service at Church. (I'm going to the United Church of Chirst now, by the way, where attendance is about 20% gay.) After church, I brought a light brunch back for everybody. There are five of us there this weekend as SMJ is away. d'Ohgy was being a nuisance with her whining. I was going to try to get her to play outside, when Rolf started bitching at me to take her for a walk. With "you stupid idiot" inferred, he said "You know she's got the mind of a two year old, and she thinks you're going to take her for a walk so you're just being cruel. . . " blah blah blah blah blah. With a "fine and fuck you," d'Ohgy and I got out of the house for a while.

Sometime later, in the early afternoon, after walking the dog, I had run some errands; he had returned from the gym. With a lecherous gleam in his eye, he was kissing me and we were laughing. He said that he thinks he hasn't been "in the mood" because he hasn't been working out. "Whatever" I say. "Maybe later . . ." and he has suggestions about how we could have a hot time . . . to which I said "Whatever it takes." Why the fuck did we let that moment get away? (It is very odd that he hasn't been interested. Usually I am the apathetic one.)

I don't know what exactly happened next, but at about 2 I went shopping with the girls. They had been over to sign the lease for the apartment they found, and now they were eager to buy a bed so they could get started on their new life in DC. We get home at about 4:30. Rolf and his friend Nick, along with B.Emmy, are watching the Redskins game. It was fun to be there, mostly, with these other folk, because while I just sit there afraid and appalled, they all make fun of Rolf when he is acting so absurd. How so. . well, it's as if he's got a radio show, some kind of liberal Rush Limbaugh, or Gay SportsTalk host - high energy bashing of anything and anyone that doesn't agree with his point. The more they made fun of him, the more of a freak he became. His eyes were bugged out, I even imagine that his hair was standing up like Einstein's. All this is in hindsight, because at the time it was all in good fun.

At a break when Lori has gone up to make dinner, and Nick has gone out to smoke, while I was sitting on the couch next to Puck; I told Rolf that I had been meaning to ask him if there were any pots that I could sell at the yard sale. (I'm having a yard sale this weekend. I'm trying to get rid of a lot of stuff, and my goal is like to get rid of a third of everything.) Well, he absolutely flipped his lid. With Puck and B.Emmy staring back at forth at us, he shouted at me, and shouted explanations to them as to how it was that I got rid of all the extra pots before we moved from the old house such that when we moved we had to find plastic pots to put plants into that we were moving from that house to this house and just where did I think I was going to find pots anyway it's not like there are just hundreds out there littering the lawn but yeah whatever just go ahead and sell whatever the fuck you want to.

My mind went to another time. Another time where I was just too stunned to speak. Although I've reacted the same many many times to situations such as this, dumbfounded (as if I suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and who's to say I don't you jerk,) I felt like I was reliving a horrid moment that he wasn't even at. I may have been in high school, a senior. B.Emmy had a friend, Michael Greer, who was performing upstairs at Mr. Henry's. It was last minute and rush-rush as we zoomed from Woodbridge to Capitol Hill. The place was packed when we got there, and there were not two seats together. I was taken to a seat at a table, that was shared mostly by one large party. They had been there for dinner, and one of them was very very drunk. As soon as I sat down, and said "Hello" he started shouting at me, spewing such invectives that it still hurts my heart to remember them. A handsome blond, with straight hair and black eyes, college age - but still a generation older than I was; saliva splattered from his mouth as he pointed at me saying : "You are nothing but pure evil, the devil incarnate. . ."

How I wish I had said "You're right!" And thrown a flaming cocktail in his face. But I did nothing. A gentleman in their party sat on my left. He said something to my accuser that quieted him, and he offered some comfort and apology to me. My revenge, simply, was that I stayed and I had a great time.

The words were different, but the malice was the same. As Rolf yelled at me and his audience of Puck and B.Emmy, it felt like he was saying I was pure evil because I wanted to sell some of his extra pots. I said nothing. Puck stood for me this time. She said "Hey, he's not on the football team you're fighting against." He was deflated when the other's came back. I stayed for the rest of the game. Then while checking on line to see what time "Desperate Housewives" came on, Rolf came to me and tenderly and quietly said he was sorry for the whole pot thing.

Just as quietly and tenderly, I said: "Get away from me."