Sunday May 14th
Spent a wonderful Mother's Day with the family. Mom complained about her case load at the law firm and Dad wanted to show off the latest violin he was crafting. Claims he will be better known than Stradavarius some day but only after he is dead of course. Both asked me the same question they have been asking for the last ten years. "When are you going to find a young man and settle down?" Gave them the same answer. "When I find the right one." Didn't tell them but I think that Ross is finally noticing me. Didn't want to get hopes up. Mine or theirs.
Monday May 15th
Doctor Belasario made it official today. I am going on the dig at Singh Chun. What makes it even more marvelous is that Ross is going too.
Thursday June 29th
We've been in base camp nearly a month now. Work has been slow and boring. Nothing important is happening. Sarah says not to worry. That the little bits of data that we are finding will eventually help us to understand the complete picture. I hope she is right. Nothing is happening either with Ross. It looks like a long summer.
Monday July 3rd
I can't believe it. Ross asked me to celebrate the 4th with him.
Tuesday July 4th
Had a wonderful 4th. Ross and I took a jeep out into the desert. He said he had a surprise which turned out to be a gunny sack filled with fireworks. I asked him if he'd ever done this before. He got that little-boy afronted look on his face and said of course he had.
Neither of us realized how much more powerful Chinese fireworks were than their tamer American counterparts or how fast their fuses could burn. The first rocket nearly singed the hair off his eye brows and he had no better luck with a "Vulcanoe". It fell on its side, its sparks touching off the whole sack. We huddled together there on the hill while rockets and pin wheels flew around us. Neither of us was hurt but Ross was so upset that I had to suppress my giggles.
Later back at camp, he produced some old sparklers, saying these were really all he'd ever used as a kid. I told him they'd be wonderful and they were.
Saturday July 15th
We had our second date. The jeep had broken down again and we couldn't go to Pol Lai for dinner like we'd planned. Instead we ended up walking in the hills above camp and talking for hours about our families and our friends.
Ross loves his friends so much, I can't wait to meet them. Chandler and Joey sound so funny. Phoebe, Ross says, marches to a different drummer, but after he described her, I feel she is more intelligent than he realises. Rachel has had a lot of bad breaks but always seems to keep her chin up. They all sound so wonderful.
I am sure he will love my friends: Alexi with his Russian bluster, Taneka and her love of all things African, Judy and her mania for anything from the peace generation (she and Phoebe must get together sometime), and Walter who can program in seventeen languages but not remember where he left his car.
Saturday August 5th
We finally made it to Pol Lai. Ross asked me if I would show him how to use chop sticks. I told him I'd been hoping he could show me. That night we shared our first kiss. I have never had feelings as intense as this before.
Thursday August 17th
By mutual agreement we avoided the after-dig bull session tonight. We spent the first hour kissing and caressing each other. Ross had me so aroused that I was ready to take him but he drew back. He was reluctant to tell me what was wrong but I wouldn't let him walk away. Finally, he broke down and told me about the end of his marriage and the doubts it left inside him about who he was and what he could do as a man. I held him and told him it was all right and that I didn't need a stud, I needed him as he was. He broke down crying and told me he needed me too. I haven't told him yet, but I love him.
Sunday August 20th
Today was a work day like any other. We are preparing to close the eastern wing of the dig for the season so no one had any time off. Sarah and I were filling out our final reports on the number 7 siftings from level 12 when Ross burst in the door. He seemed put off by Sarah's presence and at 55 she can be very formidable. Finally she looked at him. "Young man, we are very busy here. Please come to the point." Just then I dropped my pencil and reached for it, so I was below the table when he blurted out. "I love you." Sarah smiled. "Thank you, young man, you just made my day." I looked up in time to see the horrified look on Ross' face just before he fled.
I needed no urging from Sarah to catch up with him. This is the happiest day of my life.
Saturday September 16th
The dig is finally closed. Sarah gave me permission to leave early so I can be with Ross. She seems to have taken as much delight in our romance as we have. We still have not done it, but I can wait. I want it to be truely special when it does happen and I want Ross to be happy for his happiness is my happiness. I know I sound like a sap, but it's true.
Saturday September 30th
We returned to the states. It was so good to be home again. I met one of Ross's friends, Rachel, at the airport. She was much prettier than I thought she'd be. She also seemed upset about something. She tried to talk to me in pidgin english like I was some foreigner. I am not sure I like her, but she is one of Ross' dearest friends and so I will make an effort.
Saturday October 7th
Have met all of Ross' friends and they are just as he described them except for Rachel. The looks I see her giving me make me uncomfortable. I don't think she likes me.
Wednesday October 11th
I got to meet Ross's son as well as he ex-wife and her lover. I was prepared to hate them but found them both charming and warm people. Ross' son is a delight, but could anything created by Ross out of love be less than that.
Thursday October 12th
Rachel and I finally had a talk and she explained why she was having difficulty dealing with me. It sounded so logical, yet somehow I don't believe it. I can always tell when someone is bullshiting me and tonight I feel I was fed a car load of it. For Ross' sake I will accept what she says but I'm not going to turn my back on her.
Saturday October 14th
I took Ross to meet my friends. He and Walter hit it off right away as I knew they would. Alexi was a little cold at first but Ross surprised him by quoting some passage from "War and Peace" in Russian. Now he and Alexi have a date to go drinking some night at one of the russian bars. I hope Ross likes vodka. Judy and Taneka told me to not let this one go. I don't plan to.
Ross still has his problem but I keep loving him and gently helping him. He is softening and I am sure it will happen soon.
Thursday October 19th
IT HAPPENED!!
I never knew it could be so wonderful.
The evening started out really strange though. Ross' weird-friend Rachel kept his friends hanging around our place until all hours of the night. All I wanted was for them to leave for I could sense Ross had finally worked his courage up. I even gave her a broad hint when she tried to get me to talk about myself by telling her in excrutiating detail about my early childhood - as if I could remember all that from thirty years ago. It was like she didn't want us to be alone. I was really beginning to ha te her, but after what happened later, I'm so happy that I can't hate anyone.
Afterwards we held one another close and pledged to love each other forever. I told Ross that someday I wanted to have his children. He was deeply moved and that was when we did it the second time. That time we didn't use the condom but since we both have been AIDS checked and were mutually agreed on creating a child, it didn't seem to matter.
Saturday October 28th
A whole week without Ross. How could I stand it? It was more than made up for when I got back from the trip the museum sent me on. Ross definitely doesn't have a problem anymore. We are talking about getting our own place. Ross suggested we find a cat. A cat will be wonderful but a child will be even more so.
Tuesday October 31st
Ross had a wierd experience that he had to tell me about. He met a young man through a mutual friend of theirs and there seemed to be some confusion about whether they were both gay or not. Turned out the young fellow wasn't. Ross was upset that somebody thought he was gay just because of his looks or mannerisms. He felt it was just as stupid as racial prejudice.
He also said that one of the woman he met was a dead ringer for his ex-wife's lover and that it had been all he could do all night to not comment on it. I told him if he read that in a book or saw it on TV he wouldn't have believed it, but that in real life coincidences happen. He seemed greatly relieved and we made love until the first light of day.
Thursday November 2nd
I called my mother and dad and told them about Ross. They want to meet him as soon as possible. I think I will try and talk Ross into going for Thanksgiving.
Thursday November 9th
Today was very strange and I have this feeling that something is wrong but I can't put my finger on what it is. Ross was all enthused about going to get the cat and then we were going to look at apartments. However between the time I went to get the car and he came down, he changed; he acted like someone had slugged him in the head with a sandbag.
All the way to the shelter he never said more than one word and that is unlike the bubbly Ross that I have come to love. At the shelter he couldn't decide on any of the animals even though I was extremely taken by a little tortoise shell with long hair. We finally left without getting the cat which mewed piteously. Again he said no more than one or two words and wouldn't meet my eyes.
Saturday November 11th
No it's not just a feeling. Something is horribly wrong. It's like a wall has fallen between us.
Ross has not returned my calls. It is like I don't exist for him. I tried to see him but he wasn't in. His friend Chandler said he didn't know where he'd gone. Monica was no help either. I did see Rachel as she went down the elevator and she gave me a grin that left me feeling cold. What has happened to Ross?
Wednesday November 15th
I finally decided to take things into my own hands. I went to the little cafe where Ross and his friends go. Ross acted shocked and his friends tried to act as if nothing were wrong, but I knew better even though I kept that stupid grin on my face. The way Rachel sat close to us it was if she were moving towards Ross like a knife. I could hardly concentrate on the song that Phoebe sang for us. It sounded like she tried to put my name in it. It just reinforced my feelings of forboding. I told Ross we had to talk. He promised we would and soon.
Saturday November 18th
I have made no entry for three days. It is only now that I feel I can gain cartharsis by writing. I am alone and my heart is dead. Ross left me for that little bitch Rachel. I can finally say it. He left me. He left me after pledging undying love. Now everything makes a horrible kind of sense - Rachel's actions towards me and the coolness of his friends whom I had been told were so wonderful.
I regret none of things I said to Ross or the crockery I threw at him. The bastard deserved it all. He used me and I told him he had. You don't pledge your love to someone and then when someone else becomes available dump them like the remains of a cold meal. I still feel used and soiled.
He told me that in time I would get over the pain and that he was sorry but he couldn't help how he felt. My reply hurt him when I coldly asked him how he'd felt the night his wife told him she was leaving him for another woman? When he didn't reply I told him "congratulations, you bastard, you have now hurt someone else as much as you were hurt." That was when I turned my back and wouldn't listen to his explanations anymore.
Tuesday November 21st
I finally told my friends what had happened. Judy and Taneka held me while I cried. Walter was enraged and wanted to punch Ross in the nose. Surprisingly it was Alexi who calmed him. I would've thought it would've been the other way around.
Walter left mumbling something about taking Ross' internet address and doing horrible things to it with email. I didn't ask what and I don't care.
Later Alexi and Judy came to my cold, empty apartment with a couple of bottles of vodka and we stayed up all night drinking. Surprisingly it was something that Alexi said that gave me the means to place my life in order. He told me his favorite American novel was "Gone With the Wind" since it was the most Russian-like novel he knew of. He told me to remember what Scarlet said at the end of the book and I would know what to do. He was right.
Tommorow I will go back to the shelter and I will save a little tortoise shell cat. Tommorow I will go to a doctor and confirm what the drugstore pregnancy test is telling me. If it is what I think it is, I will worry about it tommorow.
Thank God for friends like Alexi, Judy, Taneka and Walter. They give us the strength to face all our tommorows. Thank God for friends.