I wonder what ever happened to....

I figure we all have had interesting acquaintances that we wonder about occasionally, maybe extremely occasionally. As in, I haven't thought of this guy in years..

I was looking through Huffington Post and idly clicked on some ridiculousness (or maybe not, if you think about it) about gays and acting rolls, versus straights and acting rolls. And my brain pulled up a memory of when I lived in a renovated flophouse in Venice, the St. Charles Hotel (with a St. Mark's bar at the ground floor) back in the early seventies. It was promoted as a place for artists, and that's true, it was, at least then. I got into it with an artist/scientist I worked with, as the studio rental for a room was reasonable per month. Somehow I remember $50., but that might have been my half. She pooped out and I was the one to spend time there, eventually got a suite of two rooms to myself and moved there. Big change from my stable apartment in lower westwood.

That was when I got over my fear of Venice (roll up your car windows) and into my anti-girlfriends who only cared about hair and nails period.

A couple of people in that building ended up as good friends - one a woman from Goa whom I still think of with joy re her enthusiasm for life, and another, who became my first gallery partner. But there were others in the building, which brings me to Jay. I don't remember his last name, and wouldn't print it anyway. I only talked with him a few times.

Jay was a careful person - I was happy to be invited to see his studio. It was all white. Every single thing, floors, walls, items in the room, window room to the Pacific Ocean. I don't remember what he wore. He might have broken the white barrier. He was gay. This was '74. As it happened, I had had a gay boyfriend but didn't know it then, being still devastated re our breakup. (I was preternaturally stupid, but with cause)

So, one day I visited Jay, I think by invitation to meet a friend, a smart sort of woman, and they were very clear to me. She had plans to seduce him, prove something. I can still picture the room - all white floor to ceiling and the three of us talking, her toying, his playfulness with recalcitrance.

That was all probably a half hour of my life.

So, it's 35 years later. I wonder if these two survived, but I don't know their names.