A few good things about getting old:

I'm about to hit 60, and one thing is for sure: Things have pretty much worked themselves out! 

Everyone I was yearning for or wondering about over the past 40 years has, thanks to the Internet, been revealed! Either they've died, or become a used-car sales-person, or an office-lady, or the wife of a beer brewer. 

The one "powerful man" I slept with for about 8 months back in the early '90s is now an 80-something retiree. His wife often posts Internet photos re their anniversaries. 

He used to look like Elvis. Even when he was 50-something. Beautiful lips and nose, and bright eyes. You can see from the below picture that he still is bright-eyed! :)

He once told me, "I don't love my wife." He also once tried to get me to check in to the hotel he was staying in for a State event in Austin, while his wife was in a room on another floor. I drew the line at that. I also once drove the 200 miles from Austin to San Angelo to be with him overnight. His wife called in the morning while he was in the shower: I was cool---did not pick up the phone.

One time on Tax Day, I made him a couple of tuna-fish sandwiches and sat with him for hours while he did his taxes.

My fellow Leo, Brian---with whom I attended a poetry-writing class at UT-Austin and then was neighbors with and then co-edited a lowly lit magazine with, and attended bi-weekly writers' meetings with in the early '90s in Austin---is now a nationally renowned magazine editor! 

This guy is a saint, and his wife is very lucky! There are very few people who are just NICE, and he was! We came from the same part of Texas and had the same birthday. Never any sexual relationship, but always a close intellectual relationship. In fact, he wrote a recommendation for me to get into grad school---though he had absolutely no qualifications to do so! I also feel bad to this day for his throwing a party for me once I got home from graduate school in San Francisco: Since he didn't allow smoking in his apartment, I spent the whole time out on the balcony (though in my defense, I didn't know most of the people he'd invited to MY party). Brian was also very kind to me in another respect: He recommended me for/got me a job when I desperately needed one after I got home from grad school in San Francisco, when I was floundering. 

I also feel badly for not being able to write a poem for his wedding, which he asked me to do: I did not have a feeling for the relationship... I wasn't envious of his bride, but I just did not know her, nor did I have a sense of their relations. Again, I feel I failed him. He'd done so much for me, but I could not write a damn wedding poem... I'm sorry, Brian.

And I must add a final thing about both growing old and about Brian:
I will always remember when a friend and I were walking along Town Lake one day. All of a sudden, a young man came tumbling down the hill above, with a "Whoahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He arrived at our feet---it was Brian! :)