Jupiter Rising

I'm sitting on a lounge chair at a clothing optional resort in Palm Springs.  We're "social distancing" (which is an annoying phrase but conveys useful information), and it's outdoors with enough air circulation, so the risk is pretty minimal.  It's not a big place, and almost everyone is being good about the rules (a few people have to be reminded to back off a bit once in a while).

Right now - 11 pm, about 85 degrees - there are a few different "couples" floating in the pool, a few more sitting around the skirt on lounges spaced about 8-10 feet apart.  No one in the hot tub, though a few people have been in it in groups of up to three at various points (including me, by myself).

Antares, to the south, is about at its zenith for the night.  Vega's up and over my left shoulder, Arcturus over my right, and Altair is hanging out to the east.  The moon hasn't quite set yet, and I'm half-waiting for Jupiter (and maybe Saturn) to poke up over the bushes.

In an hour, I'll be 43.  Other than being prime, it's not a huge deal.  It doesn't mean I'll have any less homework due on Tuesday, or any shorter of a drive home on Thursday, or anything really.  Part of me thinks it'd be nice if there were someone for me to be in the pool with; I've been hit on by a few of the other single guys here, which is kind of refreshing (one thought I was mid-20s, which I haven't heard in ages), but I'm not "feeling it" with any of them.  I'd rather have a friend to just hang out with and maybe cuddle up to even without sex than some few-night stand that seems entirely sex-based.

Someone literally said to me, "If you're single and you're not here to have sex, why the fuck are you here?"  I suppose that pretty well encapsulates my conflict with much of the gay community around here.  Another guy mentioned he's "39 and wanting to settle down" - an half an hour later was sticking his finger in some guy's ass (unwanted, which caused a minor amount of conflict for a bit).

I've always felt like I'm trapped between worlds.  As a teen, I had a series of dreams involving this guy named Peragin whose face I can never remember, even when other parts of the dream are crystal clear.  One of them centered on the idea of being "AC/DC" in his words - of not being one thing, but not being the other, and never quite fitting with either.  The analogy I use most is being fluent in a language but lacking any knowledge of the culture, so while you can converse, the jokes and subtleties all go over your head.  Being in the world but not of it.

Oh men, it must ever be, that we dwell in our dreaming and singing/ a little apart from ye.

Oh well.

The old man just poked his head above the bushes.  Next up should be Saturn, though I'm not actually sure how bright he is typically.  Jupiter's easily one of the brightest things in the sky, now that Luna's below the hills.

Anyway, enjoy Pride, however you celebrate it, if you do.  If you don't, enjoy your Sunday, the last Sunday in the first half of the year.  July 2nd actually starts the second half.  And if you happen to be out at night and can see the stars (or things that look like stars), come up with a name for one and wave at it for me.  They get lonely up there, and I can't watch for them all.

Waiting for the day

One thing I've realized is that I have a lot of problems with physical contact.

I was never abused or hit.  I think my grandmother once told me (as a teenager) that even as a kid, she and my parents had only ever spanked me once; normally just knowing I'd done something bad was enough punishment (which... indicates other issues, but later for that).

I do have sensory issues, in the sense that I've had heightened sensation for almost every sense.  Not in the Daredevil or superhero sense - nothing so useful.  It's probably just related to my ADHD, and I'm sure I've talked about it before.  But it means, among other things, that I'm very aware of physical contact and touch.

But that's just a small part. Most of it is, really, because of high school.

I came out as gay as a Freshman in high school.  I didn't really have any major negative reactions (in fact, it was mostly positive, albeit very lonely).  But one thing I internalized very quickly was that I "had to" behave in a way that couldn't ever be considered as compromising for another guy.  I mean, "everyone" knew I was gay, so anything I did with or around guys had the potential to make people think the other guy was gay, and I both didn't want to put people in that position and didn't want guys worried that I would.

So, I essentially went totally hands-off, physically distant, and as un-suggestive a possible.

It was just the start of the whole "hugging" thing, at least in more-liberal SoCal, and guy friends would often greet each other with a hug or a shoulder squeeze or whatever.  I rarely even shook hands.

I went through extra effort to try and use restrooms that either only had one urinal or that no one else ever really used, just so that I couldn't ever be thought of as trying to "check out" anyone else.

I explicitly avoided changing in the locker room whenever anyone else was in there and would often just walk home (track was last, after school) and shower and such there.

I don't know that most people noticed.  I had one old high school friend comment about it decades later, but he was a close friend and, so, perhaps more attentive to such things.  It also fit into the general "calm, cool, brainer/geek" reputation I had, so maybe that led to people not really thinking about it.

But the truth is that I am a *very* sensual person.  I love physical contact with other guys.  Not sexual per se - I mean, sure, fun and all - but even just giving someone a massage, someone's head in my lap for a movie, whatever.  I see guys - straight, gay, whatever - being able to do "bro" stuff and I love that they have that freedom, that it can be so casual.

But 30 years of practice is hard to break.  If I *do* get to the point of actually trusting someone, like really trusting them, then it's all-in and I'm relaxed doing anything.  It's like a switch flips in my head.  But until I get to that point, there's this barrier in my head that I always throw up.  And that of course makes it so much harder to get close to people.

It's something I need to work on, though I don't exactly have much of an opportunity to do so - especially now during the quarantine, but even in general.  Too many other walls in the way usually, not all of them mine.  But still.  To quote an old George Michael song, "All these insecurities that have held me down for so long; can't say I've found a cure for these, but at least I know them so they're not so strong..."

Momentary lapse of reason

Please note, I'm not writing this as a pity session.  I'm not looking for sympathy or anything.  I'm mostly putting this here because it is, in fact, pretty close to shouting into the void.  One doesn't expect the void to shout back, just to shout out and let the void absorb it.

There's this vintage photo posted on Reddit the other day.  Shows two guys in lifeguard shirts, seemingly from Coney Island or somewhere similar, and the back has a note dated 1949 that is pretty definitively a love note.

You see things like it pop up all the time: little things from the past that seem to float the message, "yes, there was love, even when it wasn't obvious"...

I keep looking at it over the last few days.  Not because the guys are cute - I mean, they are - but because of what it signifies.  And because I know it's something I won't have.

That's not to say I haven't been there.  I've had moments in the past that are snapshots in my mind.  A face laying in my lap in a back seat as streetlights flash by.  Walking down the boulevard holding hands during Pride weekend.  Hearing a song come on the jukebox, and turning to see him smiling as he comes up the stairs towards me.

But the truth, the real honest truth, is that I haven't had anything even remotely in the same class in 20 years, almost half my life.  And given where I am, what I'm doing, and the specifics of my life, I'm not likely to have it again any time in the near future.  There's a certain kind of attitude and approach, a certain kind of no-strings, just-enjoy-the-moment that is the core of how I approach romance but seems completely alien to anyone over 30.  Maybe that means I'm childish; it's not unreasonable.  Maybe it means the rest of the world is just too serious.  Maybe it's just that I haven't looked in the right places or hung out with the right people.

It's just a momentary bit of loneliness.  It doesn't hit often.  Maybe it's being magnified by this whole quarantine, though to be honest my life hasn't changed all that much since the quarantine started.  I'm not going to give up my longer-term goals or change much of how I'm doing things at the moment.

It'd just be nice, you know?

Keeping on keeping on

So, it's been a while.  Almost a year, actually.

For better or worse, not much has changed.  Current GPA (overall/upper/major): 3.68/3.6/3.55.  Which means, so far, I qualify for the Exceptional Student Admissions Program (ESAP), which means guaranteed admissions to the master's program and slightly easier admission as a PhD.  There's no such thing as "guaranteed PhD admission", since that's kind of complicated, but more on that later.

Still working 28 hours a week.  Nothing much changed there at all.  The boss I have who didn't really "get" what I do has finally started to understand and is now all gung-ho for me helping out in all sorts of different areas.  I suppose that's better than not being valued at all, but we've creeping closer to the time when I won't be here any more (whenever it ends up being), so this just means she's starting to panic a little.

One thing that has changed since last time: I'm working in a lab at school.  Actually, I'd just started when I made my last post (March of last year), but I was only working on a paper at the time and wasn't sure where it was going to lead.  I've officially been physically working in a lab since late June, and I'm actually playing with some cool equipment and doing a few basic experiments.

Interestingly, I got the position primarily because of my "medical" experience (which is largely non-medical, but I at least know the terminology).  The PI and his new postdoc were looking to start up a branch of his existing lab that focused on a specific technology, and the medical applications are more easily monetized than some of the other; I was the first student they brought in, mostly to help on a long lit review (which is apparently in the final stages of publication now), and my background working at the hospital plus all the papers I've co-authored led them to decide to give me a shot.  I'd also talked to the PI previously, so he at least recognized my name.

Now, I mostly don't want to be working on this specific tech in the future; my interest is in propulsion (which the PI's lab also does), and this isn't really useful for that.  But PI knows this.  In fact, he and I had an hour-long talk last week, both going over the current stuff we're doing in side of the lab I'm on as well as talking about my future.  And he all but guaranteed me a position as a PhD candidate in his propulsion lab, including Graduate Research Student standing and funding, so long as I keep my ESAP qualification.  I'll still have to do my GREs, of course, and it's a year away anyway, but that takes a fair bit of stress off my shoulders.

One thing that also hadn't changed: I'm still pretty isolated.  I mean, there are a few students in classes that I am friendly with and who I've shared a few classes with, but no one's ever expressed any interest in hanging out outside of class or anything.  Normally, working in a lab would at least lead to more interaction there, but while there are 30-something people in the *other* lab, I'm literally the only one in the lab I'm in most of the time.  The postdoc I work with is a nice guy, generally speaking, but he's a Chinese national with very specific ideas about how things work that kind of rub me the wrong way sometimes in addition to the language barrier.  I also don't think he knows I'm gay, though I've hardly been secretive about it, and frankly I don't think he'd react well to the news if he did (not badly, necessarily, just not well).

No dating prospects what-so-ever.  I had Tindr and something else on my phone for a few months, and even popped on Grindr (though I then decided that I had zero interest in that crowd and haven't launched it since).  But, really, I'm too old for college students (and frankly wouldn't want to date most of them anyway), and most guys my age think someone who is an undergrad in their 40s obviously has something wrong with them.  Neither of those is likely to change much even when I switch to grad school; by the time I get out, I'll be near 50.  Given how little I dated before complicating things with school, I'm probably not going on any dates at all for the next 5 or 6 years.

I haven't even gone on one of my gay-cations recently: over summer, I was working in the lab almost non-stop getting the paper ready and helping out with some interns we had, and since then I've been either in school, sick, or just not really wanting to spend the money.  I may have to book something for spring break just so that I can get out a bit.

To be clear, I pretty much knew this was going to happen; it's part of the costs I knew I'd likely have to pay to go to school, back when I considered it 4 years ago.  I still wouldn't have changed that decision, and I'm still willing to pay it to do this.  It just might be nice to not have to.