I want to write more here. I need to write more here. And not just about wrestling as wrestling but about wrestling as life.

And so, I'm going to write a series of sketches--about people I know and people I've imagined, about situations that I find myself in or imagine myself in or witness others finding themselves in (or being in without realizing), about dreams and dreams, about my life and the lives of others, about wrestling I've done and wrestling I've imagined, about things I believe and things I don't believe and things in the vast middle between these two.

I doubt that I have many readers here, but if you read and would like to contribute a comment, please do. If you would like for me to post something for you, send it to me at wrestling-life@hotmail.com.

Rarely does it fail that when I get a little downtime from work and life my mind turns to wrestling. I can spend hours thinking, writing and surfing wrestling. What I can't do, of course, is spend hours wrestling. Those opportunities come few and far between, but I tend to enjoy them when they come along.



I recently received a note from a bodybuilder/wrestler that I've been aware of for awhile now. He looks like he'd be fun to wrestle, but I hesitate to contact him. Something tells me that he's just out for himself and what he likes. I don't mind that if it happens that what I'm interested in becomes a consideration as well. I don't know if that would be the case here. So I'll think about it.



Meanwhile, I've been thinking about a former friend that I never got a chance to wrestle. We had a conversation about wrestling one day at lunch, but it never led to our considering actual wrestling with each other. Of course, I thought about it a lot, but I don't know that he ever did. I want to say that he did, but I don't know. Anyway I came across a couple of pictures that got me thinking of him. He's the guy facing the camera here, and I think that my former friend decked out in a pair of black trunks would look a lot like this. Unfortunately, the guy with his back to the camera doesn't look anything like me, so I don't get that easy picture of myself wrestling my big friend.



But I do get the opportunity to see a hint of my favorite hold being applied to this stand-in of my imagined opponent. Again, the man going for the head scissors here doesn't look much like me at all, but I can easily imagine that the big man about to go down in the hold is the guy I wanted so much to wrestle and never did. As I've said here before, I'm sure, I have several men in my life that I'd like to strip down and wrestle. If we were kids together, a good backyard or pool match would be more likely than not when we are together. But as we become adults, regardless of our interests, the notion of doing something like this--of wrestling for fun and the pleasure of the friendly competition--becomes so remote as to exist only in a memory or a dream.

This past week I took an annual trip to Wicked City. The place put on its best face, as usual. It smiles and tells us of its history, its great deeds, its love of justice and truth. I'm sure you know the place.



This is a wrestler who lives there. A friend of mine. While his mask appears to make him dark and dangerous, he is, unlike Wicked City, at heart good and gracious. We didn't wrestle this trip. We had our reasons, chief of which, I think, was that neither of us is particularly interested in wrestling just now. We'll have another opportunity to get together in June. Maybe we'll wrestle, maybe not.



He recently got involved in the entertainment industry--a gay porn company that wanted to feature wrestling and fighting in its films. Of course, he got burned by the company, which is to be expected when dealing with entertainment folk. Anyway, we watched one of these films that he'd been involved with, as the writer of the screenplay and choreographer of the wrestling scenes. This was porn, as I say, so the sex was the object, not the wrestling. Generally nasty stuff, and while I appreciated sharing my friend's enthusiasm for his project (the wrestling, not the sex, which he doesn't seem to like watching either), I don't have any interest in such films for their intended purpose.



I'll stick to wrestling . . . if I ever get back to it.