My Blue Castle

So here it is, August the 1^st.

Fifteen years ago last week my best friend Jymm died. Today he would have been 44.

I wrote a tribute to him last August first.

I never got to say goodbye, so I like to try and mark the event somehow. There are fewer and fewer people, I suspect, who even remember that he was once on this planet.

I’m not sure what else I can say that I didn’t already say in that first post.

I was wondering the other day what he would have thought of Torchwood. I don’t remember what kind of tv he liked. I don’t think he was ever home long enough to watch tv. But I’m pretty sure he would have LOVED John Barrowman. He had a weakness for the pretty boys.

He struggled so with never feeling able to be himself. It sounds completely wacked to say that part of me is glad he’s dead. But of course that’s not what I mean at all. But, but … in so many ways he’s better out of a world that never really wanted him in it.

I do not ever remember seeing him in drag. It’s odd how much of that part of his life he kept from me.

I rather imagine his Sybil Flame was like Ethel Merman on crack … big, loud, brash, and red-headed.

Someday I’m going to get a third ear piercing and put a little ruby stud in and wear it always. Of course I’ve only thought about doing that for fifteen years now! Welcome to my life of procrastination!

If my life was a Victorian novel he would have been my beau died young.

If my life was an 80s movie of the week, we would have gotten married, and he would have slept around and we’d have had a terrific row until the third act death bed reconciliation.

The reality was far messier and there was no third act deathbed reunion scene. In some ways I am glad. I would not have known how to say goodbye.

I never really have. I don’t really want to. And if it’s true that everything on the internet lives forever, then I will never have to. And he will live on and on somewhere in the ether.

Happy Birthday Jymm. I hope there are really great cocktails where you are. I will love you always. The one great truth you’ve taught me is that love never dies. And that’s a far better gift than those two pink-eyed hamsters!

Thank you for loving me.