Okay, so I overreacted a little. I guess I don’t give up so easily. Not lately.
Bearbait and I were over at Prometheus’ house last night. The three of us had rented a movie, popped some Lightly Buttered popcorn, and were enduring an amazingly long series of previews. There was one rather dull-looking movie where the narrator was droning on and on about how “Life for Bill and his brother Charlie had always been fairly normal…” and then the music changed, a shimmering sound indicated for us a shift in mood; “…until one day Love Walked In…” and some woman walks through a gate in their fence.
I turned to my friends. “It’d be really great if someday Love just Walked In. You know, I’m just hanging out minding my own business and it just walks in.”
My life would not make the best movie. I suspect that most people watching would fall asleep or demand a refund, waiting for Love to walk in. I’m still waiting. I’m learning a lot about patience and forgiveness and this may be making me a better man. But sometimes I’d rather not work so hard. I’d like a little instant gratification, a little sexual healing. Some wild behavior that could be videotaped and sold on late-night cable for $19.95.
And characteristically I am being vague and coy about all this. Because I am working hard, and I am becoming a better man, and because this involves another person. If I were an even better man I might keep all of this off the Internet. But it’s the only thing I can concentrate on lately, and if I didn’t say something it would turn into the elephant in the living room and I’d keep writing as often as I have been lately, which is to say almost never.