Common Sense	Common Sense Archive

Every morning, while I am doing my cleaning at work, the mailman drops by with my bundle of, mostly, bills. He is a pleasant man, nicely turned out in his postal uniform. We always say "Good morning" to each other and I thank him for delivering my mail. For almost every day for the past two and a half years, this small event has been as predictable as any other daily ritual. I find comfort in such regularity--a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless in this tumultuous world.

One day, he did not arrive at his anointed time. Hours later, the mail was delivered by a new and considerably different mailman, a fellow who seemed to have physical difficulty negotiating entry into my place of business. Where was my regular mailman? Why did I miss him? I feared I was morphing into a Blanche Dubois-type situation, specifically in the scene where Blanche invites the young man who comes calling to collect for newspaper delivery into her abode. Blanche is lonely, near the edge, and the young man clearly matches her profile for sexual partners--funny, isn't it, we get older but our desires stay fixed. Why is that?

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The missing mailman got me thinking about all the small things that structure and support our sets of expectations in everyday life. You expect the toilet to flush, not overflow. You expect the lights to work, the lock to open, the computer to boot up, the coffee urn to be full--and hot! When little things slip up, aren't there, don't work, it gets to seem like an augury of system failure. We carefully construct our world piece by piece--or at least I have--and when it changes, things get scary. Some people deal with flux much better than I do; as I get older, I like the assemblage that is my world to be stable. The rest of the world--particularly, for some reason, since the advent of the current administration in Washington--seems like a Beta Release of an unpublished Borges novel.

At a recent literary event, for which I was the bookseller, over 100 people showed up. Many were from my cohort and it was nice to see them--some age well, some don't look as well as they did, etc. But, of course, the sight of them made me ponder on all the missing ones. There are so many! Sometimes I can't remember who's dead or alive--not among my first circle of comrades, but the ones who moved to other cities and dropped from sight, until you hear of their deaths. What I hadn't really anticipated was the extent I would still be hearing conversations with many of the gone-missing--even having new ones. But I still chat up my dead cat every day; it's part of the glue that holds everything together.

I think one reason I want to hold on so strongly to everything as it is--and take alarm at the slightest change--is that there is a kind of tipping point in life in general, and gay life in particular (depending on your personality type). There is a time when you stop adding new cards to your life's Rolodex; on the contrary, there's that unpleasant yearly ritual where you spin through and pull the ones no longer operative. Is it because when we are young we are promiscuous in making acquaintances--and with age comes the natural weeding process? (I try to recall if I've dropped more people than I have been dropped by!) Or are the young overly picky and the aging open-armed? I recall the comment by the British author J.R. Ackerley regarding his homosexual history: he recalled that when he was young, he was extremely picky in selecting sex partners, but once he hit 50, he'd take just about anyone he could get. What is the algorithm of availability--any combination of twos?

Then there is the concept of Age Appropriate Behavior, pretty hard to nail down in this culture. When I was a mere slip of a lad, with a fake ID and a taste for cocktails, I would be admitted to the big new gay dance bar and carry on. (It was a big deal back then to have clubs where same-sexers could openly dance together.) I recall that every time I was there, I saw a gentleman who I assumed was in his 50s or older. He was partially bald, had white hair, wore a tight white T-shirt and tight white Levis. The joint was usually packed with under-30s. I made an assumption of why he was there, and, projecting myself into the future, I wondered if I would be doing the same thing at his age (haven't tried it yet). I also wondered if he made out. Presumably he did, as why would he return on a regular basis if satisfaction were not attained? But, of course, this was the Sixties, and you could pretty much do what you wanted, and that was that! I was glad he was there. It demonstrated inclusiveness, and as a young gay man I was drawn to those older than I, though not this individual. Picky, picky, picky.

To round out this story, I should inform you that my regular mailman did show up two weeks later, and we said "Good morning" to each other and I thanked him for handing me my bills and catalogues. I was smiling when I saw him and he noticed this: "I was on vacation." My world was, once again, as one.

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com