Men 2 Boys

Well that wasn’t fun at all. And it was a great reminder to me that I just don’t understand men and will never understand men. And that most of the time, like right now, I don’t much care if I ever do!

Backtrack. Jeff came out and was here for a week. Remember how I said he’d been in Manila for months? Okay. Where Jeff works now is a start-up. He’s been calling it his “end-down” because he’s kind of over the hill for start-ups, which are a kids’ game (he says this, not me!) and this is his last shot at one. I couldn’t tell you what they’re trying to do, because it’s all Martian to me. But Jeff things they could make a lot of money, and getting in on the ground floor and being so critical to it, he gets stock or a percentage or whatever. If this works, he says, maybe he’ll be able to retire someday after all.

So they had to hire a bunch of people to work on the program and stuff, and it turned out that they were getting them somewhere in Manila. And he had to go there and get it all set up and everything. And while he was away, he subleased his apartment to his old company, who had some programmers in from India for training and needed a place for them to stay. Apparently this is how the computer business works, with people hopping all over the world. This is why Jeff was staying for a week for a change, because he wouldn’t get his place back until August 1. I told him he could stay for the whole month of August, if he wanted to rent it out another month, or even longer. He’s my best friend in the world, after all.

He got here straight from the airport and looked like someone recovering from malaria or something. Which he wasn’t – he was perfectly healthy. Only even skinnier than usual and pale and grubby looking, because he’d been working almost 24/7 all the time he was there. Can you imagine going to Manila and never going to the beach? And he’s not a great traveler, so all he wanted to do was take a shower and crawl into bed. Which was fine with me.

Only it was the same day Horst was leaving and he’d dropped by to say goodbye on his way to the airport….did you ever feel like you were a revolving door??...and he was sitting with me in the living room having a glass of Green Mountain “Summer Wine”, which is a light white blend with a really nice kind of flowery taste. Okay, I’m getting way off the track. Thing is Horst is sitting in my living room when Jeff arrives, and bam! Now I need to make it absolutely clear here that Horst and I have not started anything. We’re friends, that’s all. Like Jeff and I are friends, only newer. But as soon the two of them were sitting in the armchairs glaring at each other, I felt like a bone between two dogs. I couldn’t exactly throw Horst out and he was leaving in another hour any way, so that was that. It was horrible. Every stupid little comment anybody made was like a stick of dynamite.

Now at some point, Horst had told me he used to have our poster on his wall when he was 12. Hey, I was only 19 at the time myself at the time, so it’s not exactly The Graduate! It was that one when I had the Louise Brooks bob and lived in that vintage silk lingerie I used to find down at Antique Boutique and Screaming Mimi’s. It was sort of my Sally Bowles look, if you remember, kohl and all. I’d found a few copies of the poster in my stuff, and as a kind of joke, I’d autographed one for Horst and so I brought it out to give him. I had it in a tube of course, but he had to unroll it then and there and give me a big kiss. And Jeff turned all kinds of purple. Then Horst had to go, and gave me another kiss and a bear hug – and until you’ve been hugged by a former wrestler you don’t know what a hug can be – and even shook hands with Jeff, both their eyes narrowed like hand to hand combat.

As soon as the door closed, Jeff lit into me. I swear, Uncle Harry never yelled at me that bad when I was first dating Robbie! And for what? Hanging out with a friend? While he was over in the Philippines, by the way, and believe me Ed and Leonie, and even Gene, were getting pretty sick and tired of me hanging around them all the time. I know I shouldn’t have yelled back. I mean the man had a ton of jet lag. But I was so pissed at being talked to like a naughty child, that I just let him have it back. He stomped off and hit the shower – I could hear the water – and then I heard the bedroom door slam. I figured he’d sleep it off, but the next day he was still pissed off. And I was too pissed off at that to apologize. I mean, I hadn’t done anything wrong and would have apologized just to be nice except he was so mean to me! And Horst calls from Vegas, and he’s making snarky comments about Jeff, so here I am pissed as hell at Jeff and feeling like I have to defend him…and also sad that Horst was maybe turning out not to be such a sweet guy after all.

This is getting too long. Okay. Let’s just say we couldn’t just sulk around for days. But neither one of us would be the first to cave. So we ended up being very very polite and all “no whatever YOU want to do” and everything like that, and it was just awful.

Jeff went back to the city yesterday. I spent all day today alone in the house, just listening to the quiet and it was wonderful. Sigh.