MARCH COPS, CONFUSION AND TOO MANY NOTES (or boyfriends?)- 1985

MARCH 12, 1985

Tuesday

Today is Denise Williams’ birthday. She is 24 years old. It’s also Girl Scout’s birthday. I remember weird things.

(2021 comment - While planning our SG '79 40th reunion, I found out that Denise had died a couple of years ago from cancer... I so would've loved laughing with her and reminiscing old times!)

I just wanted to talk about my weekend. It was a very busy and fun time.

FRIDAY - DeeAnn called, before my lesson, and told me that the poker party was on at her house at 7:30 Saturday night. I could’ve killed her. The last Saturday I asked her about it and she said that she didn’t know for sure but Courtney would be in town and they would probably do something with her. It sounded very iffy. She said she’d call and let me know for sure. She never called. Well, I took that to mean no party. So I had called Troy and made plans for Saturday (since the last Saturday ha gotten messed up.) Anyway, on Friday, the night before, she calls and tells me like I never thought it wasn’t going to happen. I told her I had plans, but the more I talked to her, the more I said I’d try to be back for most of it. She said it started at 7:30 but would probably last until 2:00 a.m. or so. So I said okay.

I had voice lessons at 6:30 (Judy told me that she always looks forward to my lessons because I have a neat personality) I loved that! I was already in a great mood but this really made it. Afterwards, I went over to Robert’s house, visited with his Mom and Dad, played with the computer - then we went and saw Fantasia. I loved it except for the jerky drunk in the audience who kept saying “Far Out” and “Wow that’s great!” over and over. We had a really good time. We laughed a lot. (2021 comment - If I remember correctly, Robert’s dad gave him quite a bit of money and told him to treat me well. All my gay guy friend’s parents just loved me….)

SATURDAY - AT about 1:30, Troy came and picked me up and we went to Ft. Worth to the zoo. This is the first zoo built in Texas. It was really good. A whole lot better than Marseilus -Dallas (or however you spell it.) There was a complete amusement park there but we didn’t ride any rides. I wanted to - but Troy didn’t. He said he’d be glad to watch me, but it’s not the same. Oh, somewhere in there we were listening to Jimmy Buffet’s tapes and Cheeseburger in Paradise came on. It was really popular in 1979, my senior year. We sang it loudly with drums (our laps) and he sang solo and I sang backup. That was great fun. We rewound it and did it again. Afterwards, it was around 5:30, we drove all around and ended up in the Ft. Worth Stockyards. That’s where all the tourists go, there’s real saloons and everything is Western. It’s a lot of fun and I had never been there before. Troy has only been in Texas for about three months now and he knows where more things are than me. We ate barbecue in a place called (I don’t remember) and listened to a band. After that, we went into a saloon called Filthy McNasty’s and Troy taught me how to sit at a bar, order a drink and act like a real cowboy, and here he’s from Illinois. But he sure knows a lot about cowboys. He said he wishes he had never set foot in Illinois. He would have liked to been born and raised here. Anyway, we had two drinks here and laughed and teased a lot. After we left this place, I remembered DeeAnn and asked what time it was. It was 7:30 on the nose. Since I was tipsy and still thoroughly enjoying Troy, I wasn’t near ready to go home. From there, we went to his apartment. He plays the guitar and we sang and picked (he picked) and we listened to some tapes a friend of his made for his journey to Texas.

The tape covered all popular songs that were popular when they were good friends in Illinois. Things from Neil Diamond to Saturday Night Fever to some country and comedy routines. It was a fun tape. After all this, I looked at the clock and it was 9:30 or so. He asked if I wanted to play backgammon and I did so I decided then to blow off DeeAnn’s party.

After that, we played Trivial Pursuit which lasted until about 2:30 or so. Troy won. We laughed a lot.

I stayed until 4:00 a.m.; I was home by 5:00. He had kissed me that night (a lot.) This is the first real kiss I have had since Barry.

MARCH 28, 1985

Thursday

I haven’t written (or should I say typed) in a long time. To quickly summarize what has happened since the 12th.

Troy hasn’t called since the day I spent with him. I thought we had a good time, but I truthfully am not too upset about it.

Friday, two weeks ago, the 15th, I took off the day and went with Mom and Dad to pick up Sam and Mary, some of my very favorite people in this world (my cousins) from the airport as they were on a flight layover from about 9:30 a.m. until about 2:30 p.m. We picked them up, hurried down to visit Nana (Mary is Nana’s niece) then made it back by 1:30 p.m. It was a harried day, but very much worth it. They were really excited that I had gotten off work just to spend a few hours with them.

Last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I took off from work. On Wednesday, I went by to pick up Margaret from school and then went to Arlington and spent the afternoon with Mary, Holly and Caroline. It was a lovely day.

That night I went with Robert to see Beverly Hills Cop for the second time. That is a really good movie. Not only just funny, but quite clever. Anyway, being a weeknight, there were only about six people in the theatre (including us) and guess who walked in? Barry and Randall. I pointed at Barry, (as in saying “Hey! How are you?”) He saw me and he hardly acknowledged me. They sat about four rows in front of us and I hollered at Randall. He said “Janie, how you doing?” He was very friendly. (Probably friendlier than he had been in all the time I’d dated Barry.) So I said “Ya’ll come up here,” and they did. Randall sat to my right. We talked and visited AND laughed a lot. I told them that I was on vacation and Barry said “Oh, what have you done?” I told him about my day with Margaret, Mary, etc. He asked how they were all doing with a special smile (he really loves those kids) and I told them great, except for Margaret’s broken foot. He was very concerned about that but when I told him it wasn’t that bad, he was relieved. After the movie, we went out to Robert’s new car and showed it off. Randall bent down to look inside but Barry remained on the side. I looked at Randall the whole time and found it hard to look at Barry. Things are funny.

On Thursday, Kevin came by at 10:30 a.m. and picked Mom and me up. From there we went gallery hopping. That included antique and art galleries. Mom bought a beautiful 1875 table. (2021 - she later referred to it as the Mozart table). We went to lunch at Pepe’ Gonzales mexican food. At 5:00, Dad met us at Highland Park Village Theatre and we saw Amadeus. This was my third time. Mom and Dad absolutely loved it. We all think this is about the best movie ever made. It IS a truly wonderful movie. In every sense. It was the perfect movie to end a perfect day. I felt truly cultured. After the movie, we all went to Michelino’s Italian Restaurant for a perfect meal. Lovely, Lovely day! (2021 - to the last day of my parent's lives, they constantly talked about the wonderful day with Kevin Q)

March 25 was Oscar nite and Amadeus went off with quite a lot of awards including Best Picture and Best Actor to F. Murray Abraham. Both Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham were vying for Best Actor. It also won Best Direction.