eric

I was supposed to get myself in bed early tonight, and yet, and yet. O glowing screen, how can I resist you?

Back not too long ago from Eric and Grant's exhibit at the Diefenbunker. Shelley and Steve and I drove out to Carp, gave our congratulations and hugs, toured the exhibit, listened to speeches, drank German beer and ate sausages before going on a mini-tour of the place.

The exhibit is unsurprisingly great, and the Diefenbunker is crazy interesting. Between the two of us, Steve and I took a bazillion pictures. Many of mine are of Machines From the 70s, which is a category of machines that I love.

I almost took a picture of the clumsy looking brutally right-angled brown and cream and orange calculator, and then thought, What am I going to do with a picture of that calculator? and walked on by, looking at this map and those notes scribbled on the white board, around the desk, where I looked up and saw Steve taking a picture of the calculator.

But that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I really don't know a lot of history, and I particularly don't know a lot about Cold War history, and I particularly don't know about Canada's role in, or preparations during, said period of time.

And that I now know more.

The other point of this post is to tell you that if you've never been to the Diefenbunker you should go, and you should give yourself lots of time to watch the video interactives that are a key part of Cold War Berlin: Life at the Breaking Point, if only because Grant worked really really hard on them.

If, one year ago, you had told me that Eric would come over to my house for dinner and that we would have a relaxed and laughy time of it, I would have

Well, I don't know what. Crossed my arms instinctively around my gut like you'd punched me? Frozen stiff and started crying and sipping air? Burst into hysterical laughter?

But there it is. We had a lovely time.

He and I were supposed to go for a beer last night. But it was one of my after-work skating nights, and you know, after I spend more than an hour walking and skating and walking, I don't want to leave my house again until the next morning.

I also really wanted to make vegan crustless quiches, so as to use up some silken tofu I'd bought but not used for my last lez meal. What I did not want was to be eating the leftovers for 5 meals in a row.

So it felt a bit weird and I almost didn't do it. Eventually I threw caution to the wind, hit send and thus asked him if dinner would work.

It would, he would bring the beer, he would see me at 7:30.

I spit-washed a small stain on my shirt, made sure there was nothing between my teeth, and started blending up some tofu.

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Every time I try to write out how I feel about this, the nuance gets lost in the channels between my brain and fingers.

Let's just say I'm thrilled. In an entirely, and unconflicted, platonic way.

I didn't think we could pull it off, and that makes me a little giddy. It feels like we've pulled the rabbit from the hat, the wool over someone's eyes. I mean, sure, we made noises about staying friends, but it was the early days of a break up, and people will say all sorts of things. I wanted to believe we could, but I didn't, not actually.

We've been inching towards friends for a while now, since last July, in fact, when he was not long home from Berlin. I saw him getting a coffee at Umi, and instead of running the fuck past - what my feet desperately wanted to do - I took a deep breath, went in, and said hi. It was totally weird, and it took a while for my breath to expand into my entire chest again.

Each time we've seen each other since, it's been a little easier, less awkward. Last night was the final proof to me that the wool, it had been pulled.

He was here in my space and we had an excellent gab. The conversation flowed. We laughed a lot. We talked about the graphics he's going to do for my next dirty zine, and it was only slightly strange to be talking abstractly about sexual stuff with someone with whom I'd once been quite concretely sexual.

Whatever frisson of connection my brain was making between the person at my table and the person I'd imagined him into last winter washed out before coming directly to the surface. A shimmer a few inches down, maybe, now and again, before it spread back into the deep.

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As 7:29 flipped over to its next minute, my doorbell rang.

I always did enjoy that.

On some avenue in Chicago, probably N Milwaulkee, CT looked down at me and said, "You've got a thing, did you know? You don't like to be on my right side. Even if you end up on my right side, you switch over to my left as soon as you can. No matter what."

I did not know.

Or rather, I did not know I was still doing it, 10 months later.

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On one of our early walks, Eric dropped behind me and popped up on my other side, my right side. I did a quick twist towards him, raised my eyebrows.

He explained that he was monocular, having lost sight in his right eye a few years ago. Having someone on his right side, while not a huge issue, was just not that comfortable, forcing him to turn his head almost completely to make eye contact.

I took that quite seriously. Partially, it just seemed polite, what I'd do for anyone. Partially though, I wanted to stand out for him as someone thoughtful and nice. Not completely altruistic, you could say, but the result was the same. Seemed an easy thing to do to make someone you liked a helluva lot more comfortable.

Even so, at first I'd forget. After a block or two, one or the other of us, usually me, would start, drop back, and pop up on the other side, grinning.

After a while, I almost never forgot. It just felt natural to have a solid presence on my right side.

A little while after that, no matter who I was walking with, if the usual presence were an absence, I'd feel a wee frisson. Not quite anxiety, but on that continuum. A little rock of salt in your boot, not hurting, but making you shake your foot to shift it somewhere less poky.

The closer the person was to Eric's height, the more pronounced the absence, the more jagged the rock, the more quickly I switched.

Eric and I stopped walking together pretty abruptly, but I kept on with the habit. Not that I was was trying to keep on with anything else: it's just that I'd long stopped noticing the pokes. There was just one smooth unnoticeable cascade of feelings and reactions that lead from frisson to flipping sides, which had created its own indelible string of neurons snaking through my subconscious.

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I had a rare trip to the Hartman's yesterday, in that I didn't run into anyone I knew, or even recognize, till I was nearly done. I came swooping around the corner to head back to the olive bar, and nearly literally ran into Eric.

We were both almost done. I just had a few things, but stayed behind him in line anyway, forgoing the express lane to chat and catch up.

I'd say it was lovely, but it wasn't even that, really - it was just normal. Or rather, it was the kind of lovely you get from running into someone you don't much hang with but is always a pleasure to see. How's school, your loan came in?, yeah, the diagram on the interac machine is totally stupid, sandwiches are for boys, i know!

We paid for our stuff, left, both quite weighed down and slow on the greasy shifty-snow sidewalks. What are you up to tonight? oh, you know, visiting with the kgrf, midnight!, really. And we got on to the topic of his glasses, which made me think about his eyes, which reminded me.

I was on the wrong side.

My first thought was to switch, but seeing as how the sidewalks were narrow and slightly treacherous, seeing as how we were both laden like pack horses, seeing as how we hadn't much further to go, I just left it. I didn't need to be extra special triple nice anymore. He'd be okay, I was pretty sure, he wasn't going to die.

But my habit? Finally, it had. Just faded away, without me noticing.