New Beginnings

I went home and waited by the phone. Well, not literally, but almost. Giddy as a schoolgirl. It certainly made exploring the Wilshire "Miracle Mile" a little more fun. But one then two days went by and no call. Should I call him? Would that be too obvious? What if he didn't like me as much as I did him. Could I've read the signals wrong?

Mr. Self-Confidence of 1994, huh?

But finally on the third day he phoned and we set something up for the next night which was Friday. He gave me directions to his place downtown and with much trepidation, excitement and, ah, crap, I was nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. But at least he was interested, thank God.

Got to the address and made my way to Figueroa and 3rd, past the guard in the little house (fancy-schmancy I said to myself), into the elevator and up to the 15th floor. Down a hallway that seemed to go on longer than the endless one at Disney's Haunted Mansion until I reached his door. (Seriously it was a trek from the elevators to his place - curse of the corner apartment). First date jitters overtook me as I knocked on the door, but when Randy opened it, it was as if we were standing again in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard (or it was for me) and I felt safe.


NICE little one bedroom. Forest green living/dining room walls. White sofas with big pillows and one of the oldest portable television sets I'd seen in years opposite. But out the window was the most spectacular vision - downtown Los Angeles all lit up. So many individual office windows each shining like a star in the night sky. Spectacular. I sparked up a cig and after apologizing for the odor wafting in the apartment I leaned out the window and made the mistake of looking straight down. Vertigo anyone? Randy told me that it was okay, he like the smell of the smoke. (How sweet of you to say that you adorable, lying, little man I thought to myself.)

After a bit more small talk and such, we, well (you seriously don't expect me to tell you what happened next do you? Let's put it this way, I didn't make it back to my place for a week except for grabbing changes of clothes.) And in those five or six days, we managed to cram a six-month courtship because I immediately found out the severity of Randy's AIDS illness the next morning. (Maybe because he'd thought I'd hit the door running if knew beforehand.)

Randy was only thirty-three and had been postive then full blown for ten years when we met. He had about six T-cells and three to six months to live (according to his doctors). In fact, he'd gotten his viaticle settlement (cashing out personal life insurance early, the amount determined by length of life left - people invest in you dying before they lose money) the day we'd met. And the thing he'd made me feel in his arm? A pic line (tube running up a vein into his heart) to pump medication that he carried around in a little fanny pac he wore. Medication that he needed to live, survive, exist.

And none of that mattered, well it mattered, but it didn't. So I'd have to make some adjustments, learn to deal with certain issues and facts. Compromise. Oye. That I hadn't done in a long time. After all, my last serious relationship had ended almost seven years before with just lots of sleeping around till now (kinda kidding otherwise I wouldn't be a member of the club).

Was it easy, hell no. But for Randy, I'd do anything. And all along, it never crossed my mind about him checking out any time soon. We'd not beat this thing, but certainly make things last longer than six months, most definitely.

Now before I start getting any lectures here, Randy moved just as fast as I did, because he'd soon made plans for us to head up to Portland Oregon to visit his sister and her family. We'd gone down to Laguna Nigel to make sure I passed muster from one of his oldest friends (she took that picture of us) and one night he comes bouncing onto the couch trying to size my finger for a ring. However, being the old-fashioned girl (admittedly a trampy one) but still old-fashioned, no commitment, no ring. So we were at an impass on that for the moment which is okay cause hey, I'm meeting family. That certainly says something doesn't it?

And we kept our respective apartments though I was spending many night over at his place. Certainly much easier than having him deal with my two female roommates. He wasn't working, living off his early retirement (and being in trust account setting up, he was a smart cookie and had planned for this). However I needed to earn a living . Found an agent and was tempting in the advertising/media industry in graphic design - worked for some of the biggest ad houses and movie studios. Who knew they had agencies for that - certainly not in Florida or anywhere else I'd lived.

Our days were filled doing stupid touristy stuff since I'd never lived in LA before. (Only as far as Palm Springs for a year and then only managed to get to Hollywood once in that time.) We did the Queen Mary Tour, Huntington Museum and Gardens in Pasadena, Universal Studios, Farmers Market, Tar Pits, driving Mulholland Drive at fast speeds (he loved doing that and scaring the bejeebees out of me) when I wasn't working and I could say yea or ney to any job I wanted so life was wonderful and soon it was time for our Pacific Northwest Christmas.