Without you

The bright and wonderful spring.

Emotional highs; Forever Plaid, so much fun. Easter Dinner: Rolf and I cooked for my family, delightful. They are doing well. Mom continues with chemotherapy. It has not been difficult; the doctors say it is having the desired effect.

Emotional lows; beloved Ziegfeld's closed. We had a week’s notice. On our final visit, we stepped onto the dance floor and, remebering our first dance together, right there, twenty-five years ago; I started to cry. We stopped trying to dance just stood there, hugging each other among all the dancing young men that will never understand the depth of our loss.

It is surreal that we are mourning the closure of a gay night club; and it is even stranger that the world goes on. It is a death; yet it is not. There were deaths; many, evidenced by the missing faces of those we had danced with over the years. While we watched all the cute young things revel in the closing weekend party, we cried for the dozens of men, our age and older, who weren’t there because they are no longer here. And we cried with gratitude for the safety, smiles, and fun we had growing up there. I started going there when I was 16. For twenty-seven years, I considered a club to be my friend, family, and home. And I just can’t believe it’s gone.

Azalea’s are in bloom in our yard. Poison ivy burns are healing on my legs and arms. I’m helping K. with her wedding. (She says all her girlfriends are gay men.) I may be the Matron of Honor. She’s 58, he’s 48. She’s a geek, he’s a quadriplegic. This seems so strange, but there will be two less lonely people in the world.

Life goes on.

Without you.