Париж (для Артема)

08/22/2017 ~ Harlan Didrickson

Я зателефонував Артему за три дні, перш ніж я збирався полетіти до Парижа. Я сказав йому, що зустрічусь з ним у готелі Peninsula на Єлисейських полях на сніданок і що він повинен піти напередодні в готель напередодні, провести ніч, і я зустріну його там після того, як я приземлився. Не хвилюйся, я казав йому, як я швидко попхаю в машину в аеропорту DeGoulle і пробираюся через місто з закритими очима, тому я не побачу дюйма красивого міста без нього.

Артем жив у Зальцбурзі, тому це був хмель, стрибок і стрибок для нього, щоб дістатися до Парижа. Я думаю, що ми могли б познайомитися в будь-якій точці Європи, але я думав, якщо я знову збираюся закохатися, я збирався це зробити у самому романтичному місті у світі. Я не був упевнений, що саме Артем точно думав, але за згодою зустрітися зі мною в готелі 3 вересня я думав, що будь-які метелики, які він відчуває, я теж відчував. Врешті-решт, хто дійсно би стрибає на міжнародному польоті або європейському потязі, щоб зустріти іншу людину і ризикувати бути скинутий у Париж, або ще гірше покинутий?

Але це не Артем. Артем відрізняється. Артем – це людина його слова. І хоча він чарівно сором’язливий, він має цей сміливий низький центр емоційної тяжкості. Ви бачите, Артем – чесний, надійний, веселий жокестр; Справжній слухач, чиї міцні плечі завжди були доступні для тих, хто потребує доброго вола; Чарівна людина, чия чарівність проникає через образи, які прикрашають обкладинки деяких глянцевих журналів Європи. Але за вишуканою красою його пронизливих блакитних очей – така глибока співчуття, що ви не можете не допомогти, а стрибати з високих вилиць і вислизати головою в блакитні очі, блищиті сонцем; Ці очі стирали моє вагання, і я зачепив головою дурень Артема, стукаючи в двері до своєї душі; Вставати в дощ, що викликає сумніви, смуток і невпевненість; До живота до шведського столу життя і візьміть, що перший збиток, який знає, як і Єва в саду, спокуса найслабніше, перш ніж прийняти цей перший укус.

Тому я вирішив літати в бізнес-класі у випадку, якщо вся ця експедиція потрапить жахливо не так, і мені довелося швидко звільнити улюбленого і улюбленого Парижа. Пізніше цього тижня Артем запитав мене в своєму делікатному українському лайку: “Чому ти приховуєш свою ставку?”

Я повернувся на обличчя до нього того раннього ранку, в нашому прекрасному ліжку, доторкнувшись до щоки, натягнув кінчики пальців через вії, змусивши його миготіти і хихикати, і сказав: “Я боявся. Біль, що я відчував протягом декількох тижнів, був звивистим. Моє бажання для вас ходить глибоко в моєму серці, як товста жилка міді, і я ніколи не був так загіпнотизований у моєму житті “.

Loving Men-Paris (Artem Stories)

08/21/201708/26/2017 ~ Harlan Didrickson

I called Artem three days before I was to fly to Paris. I told him that I would meet him at the Peninsula Hotel on the Champs-Élysées for breakfast and that he should go directly to the hotel the day before, spend the night, and I would meet him there after I landed. No worries, I told him, as I would quickly hop into a car at DeGaulle airport and make my way through the city with eyes closed so I wouldn’t see an inch of the beautiful city without him.

Artem was living in Salzburg so it was a hop, skip, and a jump for him to get to Paris. I suppose we could’ve met anywhere in Europe, but I thought if I was going to fall in love again, I was going to do it in the most romantic city in the world. I wasn’t sure what Artem was thinking exactly, but by his agreement to meet me at the hotel on September 3 I thought that whatever butterflies he was feeling, I was feeling too. After all, who really would jump on an international flight or European train to meet another man and risk being dumped in Paris, or worse abandoned?

But that’s not Artem. Artem is different. Artem is a man of his word. And while he is charmingly shy, he’s got this courageous low center of emotional gravity. You see, Artem is an honest, trustworthy, funny jokester; a genuine listener whose strong shoulders have always been available for anyone needing a good cry; a bewitching man whose charm oozes through images that grace the cover of some of Europe’s glossy magazines. But behind the exquisite beauty of his piercing blue eyes is a compassion so deep that you can’t help but leap off his high cheekbones and plunge headlong into his sun-glistened azure eyes; those eyes erased my hesitation and I burrowed headlong wooing Artem, knocking on the door to his soul; to stand in the pouring rain of doubt and silliness and uncertainty; to belly-up to the buffet of life and take that first nibble knowing, just like Eve in the garden, that temptation is sweetest right before you take that first bite.

So I decided to fly in business class in case this whole expedition would go horribly wrong and I needed to vacate my beloved and beloved Paris in haste. Artem asked me later that week in his delicate Ukranian lilt, “why did you hedge your bet?”

I turned to face him in that early morning, in our lovely bed and touched his cheek, drew my fingertips across his eyelashes making him blink and giggle and said, “I was scared. The ache I’ve felt for weeks has been tortuous. My longing for you runs deep in my heart like a thick vein of copper. And I haven’t been so hypnotized by anyone in my life.”

Dark and Swarthy (Artem Stories)

08/19/201708/26/2017 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 2 Comments

It was his photograph which first caught my attention. I had been hastily responding to text messages on a dating site, surprised by my alleged popularity. I hadn’t even reached out to him but found myself responding. And then I saw his photograph.

For years and years I’d been attracted to the Northern European type: blond and blue-eyed; pure and gentle and open. But since the crash and burn of my very longterm relationship, I’ve found myself hopelessly attracted to men of the dark and swarthy variety. I know you know the type. And in case you don’t, let me describe it.

Delicious.

Piquant. Savory. Succulent.

Now do you know the type? The type that at first looks deep and dark and delicious, then nips at the back of your lips like cayenne pepper; the thick full lips which peek out from behind a well-trimmed beard that sits low on high cheekbones; soft and dark cross-grained hair that begs to be finger-combed; a lithe throat that empties in to two distinct pools of the clavicle which are the perfect touchdown for feathery kisses; the chest that’s hidden from sight, yet branches off in both directions, both east and west, to the identical twins of shoulder caps, then down the arms, past the rapids of thick veins on the wrist, to the delicate hands which often tilt my face to meet his gaze; cascading down through narrow hips and onto a pair of lusty thighs which appear like glaciers that scrape to his knees and follow down to his rope-like calves.

Just like that. Better, exactly like that.

And yet, when he first reached out to me, he, this stunning man, called me handsome.

Shame and Regret: The Sting of Social Stigma

06/02/201706/02/2017 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 3 Comments

First posted in August 2012 Shame And Regret: The Sting of Social Stigma has more of a wallop five years later than four years earlier. We as a race must get something out of persecuting the disenfranchised and marginalized friends, family’s, lovers, idols, and heroes. Maybe we ought to look inside ourselves and find that kernel of fear. Then erase it. And then get back to being compassionate brothers and sisters.

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Why are we ashamed by what we do? We do what we choose to do because we stand to gain something. Yes, some people are forced, say at gun point, to compromise; some are coerced through drugs and alcohol; and yes, some actions are purely altruistic (ashamed of philanthropy?). It’s my opinion that consciously withholding or denying or lying about our actions is caused by fear. Not a generic fear, but a two-tier fear. The first tier-fear: judgement by others is beyond your control; but the second tier-fear: consequence sits squarely in your lap, and which, by the way, you’d already equated as a potential cost of your unprecedented action. We all know this simple truth: We have absolutely no control over the actions of others. That said, we can remove the first tier-fear: judgement by others; we now find ourselves staring down the steely barrel of culpability: we encountered a situation, measured consequence against benefit, and toed the line or stepped across it. So shame and regret were considered well before we pandered to our hunger, thirst, or warm body (emphasis on warm).

The best possible precursor to a mental illness diagnosis was, until 1973 its own mental illness: homosexuality. Coming out as a gay man taught me the valuable lesson that there will be people who can’t distinguish between my sexual orientation (which places me in a specific group) and who I am (in general terms) as a fellow human being. Having learned that lesson years ago I was well prepared to face similar discrimination based upon my mental orientation, i.e. mental illness, e.g. bipolar disorder. And yet, what is there to be ashamed and regretful about? Don’t carry the burden of Shame or wear the shackles of Regret; never apologize to anyone irritated by what you have, especially if what you have is a medically recognized disease.

Recently I conducted a thoroughly non-scientific giddy-up poll which asked: What diseases do you think you’d be ashamed to admit having?

Answers? Anal warts, vaginal herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea. . .what? Anal warts? Venereal diseases? According to our non-scientific poll of middle-aged men and women, they said that carrying a sexually transmitted disease is the only other human affliction besides mental illness that they would be ashamed of having and which also carries with it a damning social stigma. STD’s are the result of risky and unsafe sexual activities engaged in by choice. Does mental illness really belong in their company? Really?

Shame and Regret are burdens that those who choose to remain ignorant and judgmental should shoulder.

Not me. Not you. And certainly not the neighbor, best friend, Richard Dreyfuss rdreyfuss2
parishioner, bowling buddy, Ryan Phillippe, prom date, recipient of the first kiss, Girl Scout, Teddy Roosevelt (yes, really), Girl Scout Leader, Sinéad O’Conner, full back, Metta World Peace ,
mettapeace offensive line coach, movie star, Burgess Meredith, Opera Star, Ronald Braunstein, famous orchestra conductor, infamous commuter train conductor or any one of the other 25% of our world’s population. How about the other 75% of the world’s population loosen the reins of their prejudice.

My Moral Corruption

04/21/201705/03/2017 ~ Harlan Didrickson

“How you said what you said was simply enchanting,” were the first words he ever said to me.

“I was awake, I was always awake,” were the last words.

And between these two bookends were almost thirty years of an on-again/off-again relationship which redefined the term love affair, and which did very little to boost my self-confidence. Instead this. . .entanglement. . .often followed a beachpals dreadfully antagonistic and well-rehearsed sequence of deplorable behavior: Vanish, spot, affirm, invite, tempt, yield, pity, agony, masquerade, endure, discredit, and pluck. And each incarnation ripped yet another piece of moral character from me until sometime in the early nineties I concluded that we were no more to each other than a dealer and an addict, and he was always, always willing to deal, not out of compassion for me, but to satisfy some dark hunger, a craving, maybe a need.

Like anonymous chunks of an ice shelf, we broke apart and drifted away from each boy-in-bush other. I finding love and partnership and success in Chicago. He and his art landed in New York. It wasn’t his drawings they placed atop acrylic pedestals. For dollar bills he ignored their probing fingers; for five’s he forgot their foraging. We never discussed the activities associated with higher denominations but he emphasized they were few and far between (“even for someone that looks like me!”), a thinly veiled plea for adoration of which I ignored and which subsequently produced a stifling silence as though the bridge between us had been washed away by indifference.

He enjoyed a modicum of success with a small band of go-go-boys that played the voyeuristic circuit of Greenwich bars, and infrequently out-of-town gigs took them to South Beach, Atlanta and, of course, Chicago. But by that time his mother had passed, his baby brother didn’t want to farm, and his father sold all three hundred acres, outbuildings, and the triple-generation farmhouse and moved into town, So when he was in Chicago it was all business; most of it public, but private parties were viceprisoner hands down the most lucrative (and dangerous). His last trip to Chicago was a bona fide performance, secretly cast by the Chicago Vice Squad who raided the place and arrested the lot and charged them with indecency (the cheek dividing string of his g-string was 0.25″ too narrow to entirely cover his anus). I was called and took clothes and cash and bailed him out of jail. As the sun started to peek above Lake Michigan we were driving north on Lake Shore Drive when he said, “You know, I think it’s time to hang up the g-string.”

“Really?” I asked in disbelief, knowing (from years of personal experience) that posing whether still or sparkling was his only talent.

Staring out the window he replied, “Yup! Problem is. . .” Here it comes, I thought. “Problem is, the cops kept it as evidence!”