idle talk over a paintbrush

My man Jason and I had a talk yesterday. He asked: how is it downtown? (He recently bought a house with his partner, not too far from where he works – west of Middleton, which is pretty west, if you know Madison).

I could not lie. Great, I said, it is great! All last year I kept coming home to a big empty house and before the night was out, I would be bummed to the core. My thrill would have to come from seeing the plumber arrive early at a neighbors’ house as I would try to second-guess which of their toilets might be leaking.

These days my sense of isolation is gone. I left it somewhere there with the sagging gutters and chipped roof shingles. Toilets and plumbers are not the thrill du jour anymore.

Longing, I smelled longing in the air. Jason, who is possibly the best color guy on this side of the Polish/German border, is not one to complain so he kept quiet. Very quiet.

He painted and snipped (did I detect a sniffle?) and I watched his talented hands do such beautiful work even as the elaborate tattoos on his trained, muscled arms seemed to sag in a dispirited kind of way. We stayed in our comfortable silence --- a favorite way to be, very intimate, very “I understand you” kind of thing.

When we spoke again it was about the condo boom downtown, about trips to big cities – topics that had the big E (escape) written all over them.

A year. I give him a year. He wont stay away longer than that.