I was looking at my blue painting last night. It's a large canvas, probably 36 x 40, midnight blue and black, with gold flecks. It's an abstract; its black swirls look vaguely like a hissing cat.

It was painted by B, a friend of mine in Colorado. I met her and her husband P in the Vegetarian group (Yes bloggies, I tried being veggie for a while. It hasn't worked out too well, I was tired all the fricken time, especially after I began working out). Anyone else who has seen the painting wrinkle their nose at it: I guess they don't think it's very good. But I think it's good and I like it. I like it because: It reminds me of our friendship; it reminds me to keep focused on creative outlets (like B does with her painting); and it reminds me of the Colorado night sky -- the kind where it's cold and deeply clear, a million stars rising up like a halo over the massive and darkly shimmering chest of Pikes Peak.

B painted it when she was high on peyote. I think it's called something like "New Years' in New Mexico".

B was attacked after they moved to Denver, and she sort of lost it. She and P lived among slowly deteriorating conditions there for a year, before moving back to their native Canada and now live in Calgary. I'm supposed to visit.

Guess what! Hairybuffolder called me last night. I had left him a voicemail cancelling our theoretical date from last week. (I also left a cancellation message with xboy.) Hairybuffolder apparently is not so easily deterred. He asked if I wanted to go see Blue Orange at the Ensemble Theater, and I said I couldn't: I'm going to Rochester. So, he's going to call me again next week.

I should have said: Sorry Charlie I'm not interested. But Nooooo, that would be too simple. I guess I will meet him, but I will have to clarify that I'm not interested in dating -- or not. Maybe I'll start a conversation out with: You know, I have Trust Issues... Then he can reject me and I can whine about What Almost Was.

Actually, I'm not being fair to myself. I already told him I'm not interested, and we've already chatted a few times in the past and he still wants to do something. So, what's the harm in making a new friend? Even though I don't think we have much in common -- well, do I have much in common with a lot of my friends?

I've been thinking about what I could do to tackle Trust Baggage. Visualize myself in a fall and having someone catch me? It's so weird, because if I meet someone as a friend, there is none of that. I trust easily.

While blogsurfing a bit earlier today, I came across a group of blogs of gay, with-it folks, located generally in large cosmopolitan north american cities. Here's a few things I noticed: Some of them don't get laid as much as I did. (Although some of them do, far more often ha ha!) Some of them obsess about meeting people (OMG, there's like this cute guy at the gym and he looked at me today!) not unlike me on certain days. And some of them have vicious little fights and jealous spats with their friends, carried out on their blogs -- which all link back and forth with each other.

I'm very lucky indeed. I can't imagine fighting with my friends, it happens so rarely. I had a fight with C in Colorado about 18 months ago: We both had dated the same guy. I had a misunderstanding with G in the spring; he didn't like our discussing Astrology, which he doesn't believe in. (Mercury must have been in retrograde that day.) The last fight even before that -- and this was years ago -- was with DJ. I ran into him at the Uintah Gardens King Soopers and we had been chatting pleasantly enough, but then he followed me out into the parking lot: "Can I ask you a personal question?" his face all squinched up in anger, "Why'd you break up with me?"
"Why did I break up with you!? Why did You break up with Me!" Ah, the webs we weave...

I'm probably due for a fight with a friend any day now. Come to think of it, why haven't B and P written me!?!?