Journey vs. Destination

If you're like me (God help you, you poor thing), you've always been a destination kind of person, not much interested in the journey.

I know not where I lost interest in the journey, but I did. Early. Obviously. It was, therefore, with only the greatest reluctance that I began to "accept" the premise that the 12 Steps of recovery were not, in and of themselves, "events" but, rather, that each of them was, in it's own way, a sort of metaphorical journey along the road to recovery.

An unending road, so it turns out.

I got a phone call last night from a young fellow in the program and I reminded him in the course of our call that I'd been doing this for 9 and a half years now, with no end in sight. He didn't seem much interested in knowing that and he reminded me of how I was in my early days.

I wanted 20 years of sobriety in 20 minutes and didn't understand why I couldn't have it. After all, I was smarter than just about everybody and I had certainly suffered more than everyone else, so I was obviously much more willing and prepared than most to achieve "instant sobriety."

Bzzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts.

Every time I look at those 12 Steps, either in our literature or hanging in a big poster on the wall of a meeting room, I am astounded by how much my understanding of them has changed over the years.

It was easily up to year 2 or even 3 of my sobriety before I got a clue that the Steps were individual journies and not individual destinations. Each of them would turn out to be an on-going, unending, process.

I didn't just admit that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable one time and that was the end of that. I've had to admit, every day of my recovery, that I am powerless over alcohol (no matter who is drinking it) and that unmanageability is going to be a hallmark of life from now until the end of it. I control nothing. I take actions and let go of the results. I am not in charge, nor do I get frustrated by the fact that I am not. There is a Higher Power and I'm not Her. It's pointless to be angry at God. God does not care how pissed off I get. It's none of my business what other people think of me. It's none of their business what I think of them. Therefore I must practice restraint at all times. Restraint of pen, tongue, e-mails, facial expressions and audible sighs.

I must always be about the business of cleaning up MY side of the street, not everyone else's. And mostly importantly of all, I must acknowledge MY faults to others, try to pass along what I've learned in recovery and at all times try to practice these principles in all my affairs.

Getting sober is easy.

Living sober can be a real bitch.

Are we there yet, Daddy?

Paging the Beaver and Abe Lincoln

You've seen those commercials for a sleep product. Abe Lincoln and the Beaver are having a heart-to-heart chat with some poor schlub who can't sleep and telling him about how much "they miss him" because, since he can't sleep, he can't dream.

Oh, and there's usually a deep-sea diver in the background, brewing a cup of tea or something.

Well, I was awakened at 4:00 a.m. this morning by a dream. A very vivid dream. Sometimes it doesn't pay to get a good night's sleep. Sometimes we dream about things that are unpleasant. I don't know what triggered it. But I had what we in 12-Step programs call "a drunk dream."

In it, I'd been sent to Los Angeles on a business trip for the firm (but I had to use MY credit card to charge everything... knowing full well that they'd play the float on my back after I handed in my expense report). That wasn't bad enough. Somehow or other they'd managed to resurrect my late mother, the heavy-hitter, to accompany me on the trip. I've come to forgive mom over the years, but I doubt it would be a good idea for the two of us to be alone in a strange city with an expense account. I'm pretty sure I'd need a cocktail after flying across country with her. Needless to say, in the dream, it wasn't long before I found myself in a restaurant, ordering a drink without a second's thought as to the consequences. As I finished that drink the waiter came over and whispered to me that my guest, the person I'd been sent out there to meet, would be a few minutes late.

It was then that I realized that I was thoroughly buzzed off of the first drink and was in no condition to meet him. Worse, it dawned on me, only then, that I'd have to start "counting days" again when I returned to my home group.

I felt disgusted and afraid.

I woke up. I was relieved... and afraid.

It's been 9 and a half years since I've had alcohol. And this is how powerful the obsession and addiction are and remain, even after all that time.

We have a saying (as I'm sure you're tired of hearing me say) that goes "Once the cucumber has become a pickle, there's no going back."

It then falls to the pickle to avoid getting pickled for the rest of it's life.

You can't imagine the relief I felt, sleepy as I was, that the pickle was only dreaming and that, given a choice, it will remain so... just for today.

The Whole Truth, Truth be Told

Memory is awfully convenient. I'm a real artiste at having it serve my purposes, whatever they are.

For example, I've always sworn up and down that I'd never slept with a woman.

Well, that's not completely true.

See, I was sitting in my 12-Step meeting this morning when another gay man started to share about how drunk he used to get... so much so that one time he woke up in bed with a .... gasp... woman.

And I was sitting there just nodding my head in identification when all of a sudden it hit me. "YOU DOPE" I said to myself, "YOU WOKE UP IN BED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY IN 1977 IN SEATTLE WITH DAVID W. AND ROBIN W." (not related), all of us naked as the day we were born.

About an hour after the meeting I remembered that it wasn't New Year's Day, but rather the morning after a rather wild night of drinking, sometime in the late fall of 1977, when this happened. David and Robin were part of a crowd I had joined in the summer of '77, after I'd jilted yet another boyfriend who'd served his purpose and I'd started hanging around in gay bars and discos once again.

The point of this is that even after nearly 10 years of sobriety, the truth is still leaking out, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes with a bang. Like today.

Then I started wondering what motive I might've had for denying such a simple thing for all these years. Was I afraid of it for some reason? Did it make me feel "less gay" to acknowledge it?

Sexual identity is a fluid thing. Look at the Larry Craig's and Roy Cohn's of the world. "I AM NOT GAY, I JUST HAVE SEX WITH MEN" is their mantra. Because to them being gay means 1) shacking up with a guy and 2) decorating the shit out of the place for the holidays.

Ergo sum, they are not gay because they shack up with women who do the decorating for them (Larry Craig -- I don't think Roy Cohn ever shacked up with anybody).

But me? The act of having sex with a man identifies me (to myself) as being gay. I do not decorate the shit out of the place for the holidays (I barely run the vacuum as it is) and I am not (currently) shacked up with a man. [CLARIFICATION: It is not merely the act of having sex with a man which defines me to myself as being "gay"... it is equally as important to understand that men have been and are the sole objects of my desire and also have been and remain the focus of my romantic feelings.]

Therefore, I can only and logically and in total denial state that I must be straight.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

And I am Marie of Romania.

Absolutely Fabulous!

I nearly started to feel jinxed today. Bev tried to hang me with being responsible for the death of her friend, Michele (Yes. She was kidding). But that didn't matter. In some sick, twisted and perverted little corner of my mind, I WAS responsible. Because I AM THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!! ... when I'm not busy being lower than whale crap at the bottom of the sea.

I have a friend in recovery who will celebrate his 1st year of sobriety tomorrow. Yesterday morning he stormed out after a 12-Step meeting, convinced that he was going to "resign" from the Program.

He showed up this morning and shared about it. He's lucky that he has people around him, myself included, who remind him that it's perfectly natural for him to be particularly crazy around this, his anniversary time, and that we've all gone through it AND continue to go through it every year around the time of our sobriety birthdays. God, around my anniversary every year I start to feel like Mr. Spock being drawn home to spawn in whatever episode of the original ST series that happened in.

I have another friend (again, in recovery) who is under the gun at work and at school right now. I had to point out to him that he's feeling anxious and under attack because it goes to the heart of his disease ... his perfectionism. Alkies like us are fine as long as nothing ever goes awry. But we are capable of taking even the most insignificant personal criticism and turning into the worst year of our life because, of course, we're perfect... or should be... and we know this because we do everything else perfectly... mostly.

He'd forgotten that he's afflicted with terminal perfectionism. It brings down many a drunk who cannot tolerate the slightest hint of failure.

My blog title yesterday was "What's Wrong?" and, of course, nothing was. I was just alone in my head with my thoughts ... not a good place for a recovering drunk to be without adult supervision.

Thank goodness for 12-Step programs and the friends people in recovery make in them. A few minutes spent every day speaking with another person in recovery, sharing our experience, strength and hope with each other, is the key to right and stable thinking. As is working the Steps and going to meetings.

And so, today (and JUST for today), I am absolutely fabulous!

And so are you!

What's Wrong?

Nothing. Today, so far, has been an absolute dream. So was this weekend. Perfect weather. It's been the longest "Indian Summer" I can ever remember. We've only had a very brief cool spell, and that was a week or so ago and didn't last long.

I'll try to keep in mind just how enjoyable it was when the water is lapping at the windows on the 27th floor of my office building on Third Avenue in a couple of years... after the Arctic completes it's meltdown.

No matter, though. By then we'll all be engrossed in WWXIV (between Melanesia and the Portuguese Alliance).

Even this morning's commute into Manhattan went off without a hitch. And THAT'S weird, believe me! Wednesday is coming, though, and if the last 3 catastrophic Wednesday's are any indication, I'm sure the New Jersey Turnpike Authority probably has something up it's sleeve for this week, too!

Sorry. Sometimes I "project the wreckage of the future" as we say in 12-Step programs.

I'm always leery of the other shoe being about to drop. I try hard to be a "glass-half-full" kind of guy, but there are times when it's just easier to expect the worse and to be delighted when it doesn't happen.

I heard a woman share at a meeting recently that "things look fine until I put on my FEAR goggles, then everything looks like shit!" Boy, did I relate to that!

Nobody is about to die. I have no debilitating conditions (well, the diabetes is kicking my ass, but I'm not at death's door (yet)). My bills are paid, I have food, clothing, a roof over my head and a car and the dogs aren't nipping at my rear end.

So things are not only not "wrong" they are, in fact, great.

So how come I don't feel great?

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Addenda:

I think I know one reason. It just dawned on me (I'm so thick sometimes) that the Repuglicans have finally stopped bashing gays (wouldn't want to get too associated with the Matthew Sheperd killing, after all) and have started bashing what gays want, instead.

It's a subtle distinction, rather like it's no longer okay to string up black people, but it's still okay to string up their rights.

I guess I'm a little dispirited because I'm staring down the barrel of 60 and yet I'm still forced to live in 1954.

Long Week....

I blogged last about taking Tuesday off to see Dr. Pancreas. Then, yesterday, things got hectic at work and I didn't have a chance to post anything. It's all I can do to find some time to scan read my dear friends' blogs, skipping all the bullshit savoring every detail.

I kid, but the fact is, I'd rather read my friends writings than write my own. It's like cooking, I can cook, but thank God I don't have to! Nothing bores me more than sitting down to a meal I've prepared, even though everyone raves about it. Okay, I've seen it, I've tasted it and I'm ready to toss it about the time that we're all sitting down at the table (or I'm mousing on the "Publish Post" button) to eat it (or read it).

Now, however, I find I've gotten a reputation. People are actually starting to read me regularly (God love 'em! They must need professional help.) So now, of course, I feel obliged to post ... and to be witty and charming and full of bon mots and stuff like that there.

But I'm sure there were times when even Noel Coward got tired as shit of being Noel Coward.



Sigh. They don't make queers like they used ta.

Before I wander much farther afield, I'll close with this for today:

The internet has brought me a bounty over the years ... of a few good and dear friends and one or two outright scoundrels.

I'm happy to report that the scoundrels have all scuttled back under the rocks they inhabit and the beloved friends continue to be a part of my life every single day. No matter where they are.

I am truly blessed and grateful to appreciate their love and to be able to give them my love in return.

Have a great weekend! I'm going to see some movies ("Elizabeth", "Rendition" and "Michael Clayton" are on the short-list).

Dr. Pancreas

If you're traveling to D.C. anytime soon you might find this to be of some use.

I took the day off yesterday for my thrice-yearly visit to my endocrinologist, whom I call Dr. Pancreas 'cause it sounds close to Dr. Pangloss, a character in Voltaire's "Candide" who preaches a philosophy of "All's for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

Dr. Pancreas took one look at me and instantly determined that the bellyful of gila monster venom I was shooting twice a day was having absolutely no effect on either my weight or my A1C, so he instantly ordered me to stop taking the stuff. This meant, of course, that I had to deal with MegaDrugCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of MyUselessHealthPlan, LLP, because I had just sent them some scrip to renew my prescription for a 90-day supply of the poison-pen injectors and I needed to stop them from sending it and billing me a bajillion dollars for same.

After wandering in voice-mail wildnerness for 20 minutes and pressing "Zero" 87 times before a human being finally came on the line, (Lydia LovelyVoice, "I didn't understand your last response. Let's try it again!" (ZERO.... ZERO, ZERO, ZERO, ZERO, ZERO).

So I nipped that catastrophe in the bud. No Byetta. Meanwhile I have about 300 disposable "sharps" which attach to the pens that I have no idea what to do with. I don't know any junkies who get their shit from their dealers in disposable pens. Keeping them is no use. If I ever have to go on insulin the needles are too fine to allow the insulin to pass through them.

After seeing the good Doctor I went down to Hamilton (where the post-office that had the anthrax scare is located) to go to the movies. I want to see the new Cate Blanchett/Elizabeth I movie (I'm a sucker for costume period-pieces). The theater was closed. It was too early (don't they open at dawn?) I got an early lunch (soup and a salad) at a nearby Bob Evans' (eschewing the greasy breakfast specials). I went back to the theater. It was going to be another hour before they opened.

I gave up and started for home. I made quick trips to Tarjay, El Banco de Coca Cola, Super Fresh and Blockbuster.

Okay, I admit it, I rented "Transformers." Okay, I admit it, it sucked unless you're an enormous fan of Shia LaBoeuf. I watched it. I napped. I had a light supper consisting mostly of some chicken. I yakked on the phone to a couple of other recovering drunks. I turned in around 9:30.

Not much of a day, really, unless you count the visit to Doctor Pancreas. The good news is, I don't have to see him again until February!

The Streets of Philadelphia

I've always loved Philadelphia. I grew up just down the road apiece in Wilmington, Delaware. In my day you could take the train from Wilmington to Philadelphia for about $2.00, round-trip. I think the fare to and from New York was six bucks. That's when the rail line from DC to Boston was the Pennsylvania Railroad. Just before the advent of Amtrak.

The oldest part of town is over by the Delaware River. That's where you'll find the roots of America. Between 5th & 6th on Chestnut Street, lies Independence Hall. To this day it never ceases to stun me when I see it and recall the dramas that unfolded in that very building where this monumental and precious dream of ours was born. Nearby is the Liberty Bell, and the Betsy Ross house. If you have any breath left in your body, the sight of these sacred patches of earth will take it away.

As a teenager I'd regularly run away to Philly for a Saturday excursion. I used to take myself to the Franklin Institute, which is a great place to introduce kids (and adults) to complex science by means of simplistic demonstrations. For a real treat I'd ride the trolley out to the old Arena at 46th & Market every winter to see the Shipstad & Johnson's Ice Follies. Yeah, I was queer for ice skaters as a kid.

It also became a tradition with me to come up to Philly every year the day after Thanksgiving (keep in mind, I was 14 or 15 years old) to do my little Christmas shopping at the main branch of John Wanamaker's Department Store, on Market Street, across the street from City Hall with the statue of William Penn standing on top. The store had a wonderful pipe organ that would play concerts all afternoon during the holiday shopping season. Those where the days when department stores were owned by families and they had a sense of "community" with the people who patronized their stores. The same went for Lit Brothers and, of course, Gimbels Department Store.

There used to be a statute that no building could be "taller than Billy Penn's cap" atop City Hall but that got rescinded in the Reagan years and there are skyscrapers everywhere in Center City these days.

In the middle 70's Philly became my "cruising grounds." I was in college at Delaware at the time and Delaware didn't have any really good gay bars to speak of, and no discos at all. A bunch of us would get all dolled up at least once a month and drive up to Philly to hit the bars and discos, of which there were plenty. I had some good times in those days.

Despite all the changes over the decades, the town retains much of it's Colonial charm. The streets are, for the most part, narrow and paved with either brick or cobblestone. There are gaslights all over Center City, reminiscent of the Victorian Era. Then there is the Academy. That's what the locals call The Academy of Music. It's the oldest continuously used concert hall in the United States. In 1938 (on its 100th anniversary) it was commandeered by the Disney people in order to record the Philadelphia Orchestra for the soundtrack of the movie "Fantasia," conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

Rittenhouse Square is the poshest of the posh neighborhoods (well... it and Society Hill). On the south side of the Square are numerous apartment buildings, private residences and The Ethical Society. And that's where we had our roundup this past weekend. I saw a bunch of old friends and got to make some new ones (no, nothing romantic... boo, hiss .... but only time will tell).

Sunday afternoon I had brunch with one of my oldest friends, a man who was a college roommate of mine. We were joined by his wife, youngest child and a star border who recently moved in with them. It was wonderful to reconnect with them, to catch up on all of our lives, to relive some priceless moments and to speak of our dreams and plans.

In fact, it was a wonderful weekend to reconnect, period. With people, and places, and warm memories.

Sometimes I forget that I have warm memories. It's all too easy to dwell on the painful ones.

It's October 15th already? Jeebus, and I haven't even sent out my holiday cards yet!!!!!

Off to Philadelphia

Oh, me name is Paddy Leary from a spot in Tipperary
The hearts of all the girls I'm a thorn in
But come the break of mornin it is they who'll be forlorn
For I'm off to Philadelpha in the morning

chorus 1:

With me bundle on me shoulder, faith, there's no man can be bolder
I'm leaving dare old Ireland without warning
For I lately took the notion for to cross the briny ocean
And I'm off to Philadelphia in the morning


There's a girl named Kate Malone sure I'd hope to call ne own
To see my little cabin floor adornin
But my heart is sad and weary, how can she be Mrs. Leary
When I'm off to Philadelphia in the morning

When they told me I must leave the place I tried to wear a cheerful face
To show me hearts deep sorrow I was scornin
But the tears will surely blind me for the friends I leave behind me
When I'm off to Philadelphia in the morning

chorus 2:
With me bundle on me shoulder sure there's no man can be bolder
I'm leaving just the spot that I was born in
But some day I'll take the notion to come back across that ocean
To me home in dear old Ireland in the morning
========================================

You may have heard this song in the British version of the Titanic story "A Night To Remember". Or not. It tells the story of thousands of young Irishmen and women who fled the poverty and famine of home to seek a new life in the Big (scary) Cities of the US. My own grandmother, who came over slightly later, in the 1920's, was convinced that the streets of New York were, literally, paved with gold.

The sentiments of the song still resonate with me because I know the hardships they faced when they got here. And how they struggled to give their children and grandchildren better lives than they had.

But I digress. I really am Off to Philadelphia ... for the weekend. It's time for another Roundup and I'm booked into a chic gay B&B. I won't be home until Sunday afternoon and, hopefully, will be able to give you all a full report then.

Until then, behave yourselves.

I probably won't.

Fred

I managed to get home last night in time to join a bunch of other recovering drunks in giving a big sendoff to one of our prodigies, a young man I'll call "Fred."

Fred arrived to us six years ago, fresh out of college and jail, to begin his post-baccalaureate work at a minor liberal arts college in New Jersey called Princeton. In Chemistry.

He whizzed through his Masters (amidst meetings, 12-Step work, more meetings, service and working with others) and plunged into his doctorate work.

Yesterday he successfully defended his dissertation to the faculty and was awarded his doctorate.

Today he leaves for a Western State to begin working for a privately held company that does super-secret work for the nation. He'll be up to his eyeballs in security clearances by the end of the year. We'll probably never see (or hear from) him again. If we do, even accidentally, he'll probably have to kill us.

So there we were, about 35 of us, jammed into a Thai-fusion restaurant out on Route One, giving "Fred" the Big Goodbye (he has to start work on Monday). There were "joke gifts" and serious gifts and a big poster that all of us signed to remind him of us... and of how far he has come from being a broken-down-wreck of a college student, hung up on alcohol and booze and barely able to remember his own name, to a brilliant Chemist about to embark on important work in the Nation's Interest.

Who would've thought it possible? When we first start getting sober most of us cannot conceive of a world where we are welcome, a world where we have something to contribute, a world in which we have a life that's actually worth living.

"Fred" has that life now. And it's a life any of us can have, if we just put down the booze and become teachable.

"Fred" is a miracle.

And so is every recovering person in the World.

Pileups

Wednesday is rapidly becoming "Pileup Day" on the New Jersey Turnpike. A tractor-trailer overturned up near the George Washington Bridge around 5:30 this morning prompting one cop to comment, "It used to be Dunkin' Donuts, but now it's Krispy Kreme."

There were also two separate auto pile-ups somewhere along 495 between the exit from the Turnpike and the helix down into the Lincoln Tunnel.

We were a half hour late getting into town. I jumped off my so-called Madison Avenue bus and ran down into the subway outside of the Port Authority in the hopes of catching an uptown E train to the east side faster than the bus would make it. It worked, but that was about the only thing working this week.

Last night, after work and for no other reason than it "was Tuesday" downtown subway service was virtually non-existent on the E train. It took me 20 minutes to get to the Port Authority. Luckily, bus service was as bad as subway service and I was forced to wait another 35 minutes for a bus home.

It just keeps getting worse and worse.

It's almost bad enough to make me want to blow a grand on a tailor-made interviewing suit, another couple of hundred on a fancy-schmancy resume writing service and to start putting myself out there... a lot closer to home than I work now.

Almost.

Tomorrow.

Promise.

Fear of Economic Uncertainty

In my 12-Step program we have these things called "the Promises" which are a list of character traits that will come to us as time goes by. One of these "gifts" will be, so the literature has it, that "fear of economic uncertainty will leave us."

It's certainly been true in my case. I've talked here before about how, when I first got sober, I had (what I thought was) a mountain of insurmountable debt which would never disappear. How wrong I was! Not only is it gone, but my credit score has gone from "deadbeat" to "give this kid a basket of cash!"

You would think that I learned an important lesson here, that it's okay for me to spend a few $$$ now and then on something that might be less than a "must have" and more like a "I want!"

But nooooooo. Not me. I've been wrestling for weeks now over spending $180.00 for a really nice Spring/Fall Melton wool bomber type jacket that's chic and good looking. I go so far as to fill up my on-line basket with the goods and proceed to checkout. I even fill in the name and address fields on the Purchase Page.

But then I get cold feet and click the "Emergency-Close" white "X" in the red box in the upper right hand corner of the browser.

I'm a wuss.

I was also lusting after a 48" Sony LCD-HD tv at BJ's the other day. It's down to $3,500.00. I can do that. But then I think, "hey big spender! aren't you supposed to be buying a CONDO?" Well, yes I am. Drat it.

It wouldn't matter if I made a bajillion dollars a year, either. I'd find some reason to procrastinate spending on things I could easily afford.

It's just part of me, I guess.

In some ways, I still haven't lost that old "fear of economic uncertainty."

Maybe next year.

AugTober

Hot enuff fer ya?

It's sure as hell hot enough for me and I LOVE summer. My fellow blogger, Jake over at NoFo (and his huzband-to-be, Justin), had a heck of a time during the Chicago marathon yesterday, along with 100's of others, until the race organizers finally called a halt to the damned thing.

Now Chicago's weather has arrived here in NYC. It was hot last night. I had the a/c blasting in my bedroom all night long. I was still hot. When I got up it was hot (the house is an old Victorian, so only select rooms have window units). The bathroom was like an oven.

I can take this weather in July, but it's the middle of October, fer cryin'-out-loud, and although I'm no great fan of winters in New Jersey, I do the like the certainty that when the weather gets wearisome, no matter what the season, it will change in just a few months. But these days I'm starting to wonder.

===================================================
I sat down at my desk this morning and my cellphone immediately "dinged" to let me know that somebody had sent me a text-message. Someone, who shall remain nameless but she's spending today with her mother and cousins, had awakened in the dead of night (as is her wont) and, in a fit of boredom, couldn't get her iPod to reboot and wondered if I'd send her the instructions for rebooting it. I located the instructions (all 4 paragraphs of it) and realized that it would take me an hour to key it into my cellphone. Throwing caution to the wind I called her (6:30 a.m. PDT)and talked her through it (thrown the little switch on top. Hold down the "Menu" AND "Select" buttons simultaneously for about 10 seconds until the Apple logo appears. Lather, rinse, repeat if necessary. By then, though, her mom and cousins were up and they were all apparently ready to dive into the sauce (so I believe) so it was pointless to try to have a coherent conversation with any of them. These so-called "Cousins Days" of hers seem to me to be little more than excuses to get hammered and to card-shark the hell out of each other.

I hope they're having a good time today. (They usually do!)

===================================================
Whilst websurfing this ayem I came across an item (the Huffington Post?) about Bob Novak (remember him? Valerie Plame's outer?) saying he'd alleged that most of the Republican membership of the Senate (and probably the House, too) had always known about Larry Craig, not just that he was gay, but that he was a notorious tearoom queen, too.

Not to be outdone in terms of co-signing Larry's denial bullshit, another item alleged that Idaho has proposed to induct him into their Hall of Fame. I only wish I were kidding.

Apparently the Roy Cohn Memorial "Whatever the fuck it is that I am, I'm NOT THAT" Club in Washington (and Idaho) has a huge charter membership on both sides of the partition, er, aisle.

Bulk Buying!

I tend to take giant baby steps forward in life. Let it never be said that I was particularly adventurous.

In January I finally broke down and got a cellphone! (woo-hoo!) And I recently joined a discount warehouse chain (BJ's).

As I feared I would, I fell in love with the joint the first time I got an eyeful of the Charmin Ultra Mega 48 roll-pak. At long last, a lifetime supply of toilet paper in one plastic wrapper. I was ecstatic to find that I could buy a month's supply of hamburger patties in one package, buy trailmix bars in 35 bar boxes and get enough Ivory bathsoap and alcohol-free Crest mouthwash to last a year.

Unfortunately, in order to get all this crap into the house, something had to go. And go it went. I found that buying crap in bulk is the only way I have at my disposal to help me overcome my natural proclivity to be a pack-rat.

Oddly enough.

Look, I know it doesn't make any sense, but it would if you lived between my ears.

So now I've got enough soup (Progresso) to float a battleship, cans of tuna (Bumble Bee Premium All-White Albacore in Water!) to reconstruct the fish, Hellmann's Mayonnaise to make a potato salad the size of Milwaukee (if I were allowed to eat potatoes) and Liquid Plumr to unstop every drain in town.

My theory is that it never hurts to be prepared.

After all, you never know when we're going to have an unusually lengthy ice-age!

The Work Week from Hell - Who's Lurking Out There?

I didn't get a chance to post much this week. It was the work week from hell. Every day I'd arrive at the office fresh from my morning 12-Step Meeting, conveniently located across the street from my office (unless some DODO had crashed his 18-wheeler on the Turnpike in the middle of the night AND, due to budget restraints and cutbacks, it took 9 hours for the 8 year old with a wagon to clear the wreckage) only to log in and face a barrage of overnight e-mails from the 3 lawyers I work for.

And they never said, "Hello! I hope you had a good nights rest." They usually began with "print the 32 attachments and get them to me ASAP." Now the 3 people I work for NEVER talk to each other so they have zero idea of what my workload is really like. All they see is THEIR shit and neglect to multiply it by 3.

By 5 o'clock yesterday my eyeballs were bleeding from all the revisions to various corporate documents I'd been making all day. It was not a good day.

I hate to bitch about the office because, frankly, it's usually a walk in the park compared to my old firm (and by far a better deal than being a corporate vice president of a major Wall Street brokerage house, which was another former gig), but this week really got to me.

The commutes from hell, both ways, several days this week, didn't help.

But it's over and TGIS. A little down time is going to be lovely.

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I've mentioned before that I have a little widget on this blog ("Sitemeter") that sort of keeps track of who visits the blog. No names, of course. This isn't "caller id." But it does give the city & state and, sometimes, the name of the sponsoring organization. Most of them seem pretty innocuous and I'm pretty much able to figure out who is checking in from places like Davis, California and Washington State (Hi Bev! Hi Alan!).

I even have some lurkers (people who routinely observe but never comment). There's a law firm in Los Angeles that provides me with a regular reader. Somebody in Bangor, Maine checks me out daily. This week I even had a drop by from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (right after I posted my glowing compliments of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, surprise, surprise).

But it never occured to me until this week that under the current Fascist regime in D.C. a number of those unidentified, yet oddly consistent readers might very well be "fronts" for intelligence gathering groups in D.C., such as the NSA, doing a little "data mining", looking for subversives here at home (I AM, I AM! It's my intention to do everything within my legal power to see that the Republican Party gets it's ass kicked in the next elections and I'd like to see you try to stop me! NEENER, NEENER, NEENER!!!)

Or maybe not. Maybe there are just some people (gasp) who actually derive some yuks from my stuff, or who identify with my wacky world weary witings (sic). When I'm alone with my thoughts it's like being in a bad neighborhood. After dark. All alone.

Weekends used to be made for Michelob (well, they REALLY were made for Chivas because I never liked beer), but nowadays they're made for restoring some semblance of sanity to my life.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

More good news to post, but that'll have to wait for now.

Love to you all....

Been a Long (been a long, been a long) Day.

Name the show the lyric in today's title is from and win absolutely nothing but my undying love and affection. And that should be good enough, you greedy pigs.

Yesterday certainly was a long day. I awoke at the usual time to find out from the smiling bubble-headed bimbos and bimboys on WCBS-TV (NY) that somebody had done something and there was a giant pile-up that had started at 3:30 a.m. on the Turnpike (northbound -- of course) and it was going to be several hours before they could get the mess straightened out so we should all shake a leg getting out the door.

Unfortunately, about eleventy-bajillion other commuters heard the same thing at the same time so that water pressure in Mercer County dramatically dove as everyone hit the terlets and showers at the same time.

My usual one hour commute took exactly 2 hours and 45 minutes. That's to travel a whopping 52 miles.

Lance Armstrong could've bicycled to New York faster.

This is hardly a rarity. This hardly comes as "big news" to the jerks who run the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. These are the same jerks who, when I suggested they install "anti-rubbernecking barriers" the length of the Turnpike, informed me that "they were looking into it. California has had them for years, but I guess nobody had figured out yet how to make a lot of easy money by skimming the project of millions.

To round the day off I didn't get home until 7:30 (lawyers get inspired at 4:45 p.m. daily. Never before).

It was, indeed, a very long day.

Downwardly Mobile (Not a New Cellular Service from Verizon)

I admit it. I've been downwardly mobile for over a decade and a half now. My best year ever, financially, was also the worst year ever of my life. 1994. I made a bundle that year, mostly because I got fired in May and was immediately taken back, as a consultant, for the remainder of the year. I'd be embarrassed to get specific with numbers, but it was a hefty (low) six-figures.

A year after that I made nothing. And that continued for another two years. I was just blowing the principal I'd managed to acquire working on Wall Street.

Today I make a respectable chunk of change, although nothing near what I used to make.

But even at that, it's sometimes tough to make ends meet (and to continue to put aside a hefty percentage of my gross every year into my 401-K).

My friends all have a pretty good idea what my situation is. And they all know about my storied past on Wall Street (God knows, they've had to hear it often enough).

So imagine my surprise when one of my closest friends in my 12-Step home group, a man I respect a lot, stopped in the middle of Third Avenue at 60th Street this morning to announce to me that he'd like very much to go into business with me.

I have never been afraid of hard work, nor have I been afraid of plunging in and learning new things. But I HAVE been afraid of success for my whole life. I spent the 80's doubting my good luck and convinced that it was only a matter of time "before I got found out and the axe fell on my neck." Even though that never happened (we alkies love to live in 1) resentments and 2) irrational fears.)

Could my Higher Power, whom I recently asked to hit me over the head with some good stuff, be pointing me in a direction She'd like me to go?

Is it possible to reverse the Tides of Fortune?

More will be revealed.....

Reaching Out

Ever since I got sober I've had more than my fair share of well-meaning friends who were "noodging" me towards dating. Oh, not during the 1st year of recovery, when such things are frowned upon (no distractions), but later on, in year 2, 3 & 4 (up to 9, where I am now). I've mostly ignored their good-natured comments, hoping that the surprise of a "non-dating gay man" would eventually lose it's cachet and they'd move on to greener pastures.

Alas, it was not to be. Several friends in particular (although not my Sponsor) have niggled and badgered and cajoled and generally made pains in the asses of themselves over the fact that I keep running away from golden opportunities to get laid and/or married.

These are mostly straight men who think gay men get laid all the time and they just can't understand why anyone would turn down getting laid when the opportunity presents itself since they're married and almost never get laid.

I've tried to explain to them that I'm in no big rush to repeat any of the mistakes of my past regarding boyfriends, and that I have certain, few, requirements regarding any potential fuck-buddy/husband material. First and foremost being, NO LAWYERS.

I've gotten better about all my other previous requirements. I no longer insist on the age thingie (the same age, or nearly so), economic thingie (okay, we can be about 20% apart in terms of income) or height thingie (I've given up on hoping to meet another 6'4" hunk like me -- JUST KIDDING).

Still, my friends have pushed. One has gone so far as to "set me up" not with a boyfriend or a date, but with a telephone conference with another gay man who went through something similar in his recovery, until HE found the boyfriend of his dreams, and they've lived happily ever after for the last 15 years. So I did spend a half hour on the phone with him yesterday afternoon, and practically the first words out of his mouth were, "there's NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU", which were very reassuring because I am starting to feel like some kind of a freak. He had a similar childhood and he talked about his trust issues and how they kept him on the sidelines for a long time, too. Mostly, though, we talked about how hard it is to restore trust in others and to "un-do" a lifetime of habits acquired in self-defense as children (shutting down, isolating, running away, unfinished projects which fulfill the prophesy of unworthiness). It was a very nice, very revealing conversation and we finished by me asking if it would be okay if I called him again sometime. He was very gracious and said yes.

I saw the friend who arranged this telephonic tete-a-tete this morning. I told him that I had spoken with his other friend yesterday afternoon. He wanted all the details. I told him they were none of his fucking business. I love seeing the looks on people's faces when I set boundaries with them for the first time. They go into shock.

I love my friends.

They're crazy as shit, but I love 'em.

Aging Gracefully (yeah, right)

My hero, Jake over at Nofo, recently blogged about having had lipo done. He looks fab and apparently took up jogging - now marathoning - to keep his new, boyish, figure. His breathtaking and refreshing honesty about such a personal subject impressed me so much that I wondered if I still had time to get some restorative stuff done to my face and midriff.

Then I saw the above photo posted on TMZ. Somebody has developed a bad case of Michael Jackson's disease (My Name is Carrot Top and I'm a plastisurgi-botox-steroid-aholic).

I read someplace yesterday (I never remember my sources for the really good stuff) that George Orwell, of all people, once opined that people "get the face they deserve by the time they're 50." (He wouldn't know. He had the good sense to die when he was 48.)

So I immediately ran into the bathroom to have a good, middle of the day, look.

Honey, I don't know who I pissed off but ain't nobody deserves to see what I saw staring back at me.

My friend Jan once confided to me that one morning she'd stepped out of the shower in her fog filled bathroom, sans glasses, and momentarily forgot about the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. "Mmmmom???" she stammered.

I could relate.

Miscellaneous Friday

The last time I checked, Generals and everyone else in the military... and in elected offices, for that matter, are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

They are not sworn to uphold the religious literature of their choice, nor are they sworn to uphold any particular religion-based value system they may have been subjected to as children.

I am at a loss, then, to understand which part of the Constitution General Pace was upholding when he mouthed off to Congress the other day, reiterating his personal beliefs that homosexuality is immoral and that that was reason enough for the DADT policy.

If he believes, which he apparently does, that his personal beliefs trump the Constitution or the will of Congress, under what set of rules does he think this? By virtue of the fact that he's at the top of the military heap, therefore what he thinks and believes goes?

Or, perhaps, it's just a personally-held belief that he's right and everybody else is wrong.

I can think of a few other people in D.C. who feel the same way. Some of them occupy the White House. Most of them are unrecovered drunks. I wonder if General Pace enjoys a few cocktails now and then? Or more?

====================================
Follow-up to yesterday.

Like all dysfunctional families everyone in the office has chosen to pretend like nothing happened. Ah, there's nothing like an elephant in the living room to remind me of my childhood!

====================================
The Dating Game.

My friend Alan, who blogs over here, and often posts here, astonished me by expressing his opinion that I'm on the verge of dating again. AND, he added his belief that I'm a catch.

From your keyboard to God's ears, Alan!

There is an adorable little investment banker who's started appearing at my morning 12-Step group recently. Too bad he's taboo for the 1st year of his sobriety.

Have a great weekend, all! I know I will.

Workin' for Da Man

There's an old joke amongst people in the legal profession:

Q: "Why don't law firms have decent HR Departments?"

A: "Because they'd have to fire all the partners."

I mistakenly circulated an email to the entire firm today, wondering if anyone knew of a decent "watering hole" over around Penn Station. I quickly got a response from our ostensible HR lady, who just happens to be married to one of the firm's partners, telling me to not do that again.

This was followed, within minutes, by a general email to the entire firm, asking us to remember that we're professionals, that the email system should be regarded with...., etc., etc., etc.

I can't begin to tell you how many emails I've gotten from colleagues over the last year wondering if I wanted to buy Girl Scout Cookies, Avon Products, Holiday cards, or forcing me to be an innocent bystander to "good natured banter" amongst the people who own this place, i.e., the partners, that went on for days about lousy golf games, who got drunk at the partner's annual outing, etc.

The Golden Rule.

Them's that has the gold, rules.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Boyfriend

Here is a photo of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swapping spit with a devoted voter and/or boytoy. Note the demurely closed eyes of both gentlemen. That's because they're both imagining that the other is one of the virgin's they hope to deflower in paradise.

As I pointed out yesterday, though, the mullah's get to deflower their virgins here and now. It's good to be the mullah!

Anyway, I wish the camera had pulled back a little for a "full shot" of the gents. I'd like to see if either of them has one leg "cocked-back" in the full "lost in his arms" position.

I wonder how they would look dressed as a nurse and a soldier, in Times Square, on VJ-Day?

Frankly, though, I've seen better porn in a William Higgins video (and that ain't saying much -- Wm. Higgins always specialized in dumber than shit SoCal Bimboys who never did a thing for me). But enough LA-bashing. Back to the Iranians.

We are being whipped into a frenzy of hatred towards them, just as surely as we were whipped into a frenzy of Iraqi-hating a couple of years back.

But that's a subject for another post at another time.

For the time being, know this. Gays are dying out there for no other reason than that they refuse to kowtow to religious fundamentalism.

Here. There. Everywhere.

Defend yourselves. Learn to shoot a gun if necessary. Don't put up with anybody's shit ever again.

You have just as much right to your place in the sun as anyone else does.

Denial is just a River in Iran!

"My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short." Armistead Maupin

They string gays up in Iran. Unless they're mullahs. In which case they get "the pick of the litter", and, apparently, they get to exercise something which used to be called "droit de signeur" (the "right of the lord"[of the manor]... to deflower a virgin [on her wedding night]).

When I was a kid I was definitely into "daddies" but I'm not sure I wanted some antiquated priest slipping me the tongue in front of all my classmates.

Mostly, though, what I think is happening out there in the world is that there's a social disconnect between people who engage in male-male sex as a matter of preference yet who are married husbands and fathers and identify themselves as "straight", and those who reject any trappings of heterosexuality and who identify themselves as "gay."

There's the famous story of the handsome Iraqi soldier who expressed his sexual desire for an equally handsome American soldier and didn't understand the American's outrage since, according to Arab tradition, "girls are for babies and boys are for fun."

It's not just overseas, of course. Larry Craig is another example of someone who, apparently, likes to "get a little" on the down-low while passing through airports, but who is horrified at the thought of being characterized as gay. How could he be gay? He doesn't live in a loving relationship with another male. He doesn't decorate the shit out of his fireplace mantle every Christmas. Gay guys do that. He's not gay.

And since the vast majority of human beings are not exclusively gay or straight (in fact it's only about 8% of the total population, 4% hardcore gay, 4% hardcore straight), and everyone else falls somewhere along a sliding scale in the middle, no wonder most people don't like to be pigeonholed into having a label stuck on them that, in most cases, makes them feel uncomfortable.

I "got it" pretty early that there was no sliding scale for me, and that there never would be.

I can be very understanding in that regard. Too bad that the 92% of the population out there who get to pick and choose won't cut me the same slack that they give themselves. No matter where they are.

Fairy Tales Can Come True - They can Happen to You...

if you're young at heart..... (I'm partial to the Jimmy Durante version of this song).

Jimmy doesn't really have anything to do with what I want to talk about today except that he, too, never let anything get in the way of his dream of becoming a great entertainer (let's face it -- he was no Caruso).

I went to the theater Saturday night here in Manhattan. It was at one of those little theaters all in one building on West 42nd street, between Dyer and 9th Avenues.

Beforehand a bunch of us had dinner at Chez Josephine, next door.

The occasion was the New York premiere of the musical version of Albert Innaurato's "Gemini" which had been a hit B'way comedy in the late 70's-early 80's.

Albert, unbeknownst to a lot of us, had met up with my former college roommate, Charlie Gilbert, somwhere along the way and the two of them began to think of ways to musicalize the show.

Charlie is a world-class composer/musician and is on the faculty of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Charlie was a prodigy when I met him. He was a college junior at the age of 18 and I was an old man of 24 (and a freshman). We shared digs at a house in blue-collar suburbia for a year before he finished his undergrad degree and went off to Carnegie-Mellon to garner a masters. We nicknamed the place "Toad Hall" because the yard was lousy with all these little tree toads.

Charlie knew more about more different kinds of music than anyone I'd ever met. During the two years I lived in Toad Hall I was exposed to classical, jazz, opera, operetta, musical theater, rock and R&B. About the only kind of music none of us had a taste for was country, but I think that was simply because none of us had ever been exposed to it.

Anyway, we all went our ways, keeping in touch now and then, over the years. Charlie married a lovely woman he'd met in grad school whom we all adored. They produced two beautiful kids, now both fully grown and striking out on their own.

But the real point is that Charlie never lost sight of what he wanted out of life.

I could never compete with Charlie in terms of talent. The man has it, in spades. But he also had a vision... a dream. And those are two things I should've had, that I never learned how to get.

I never cease to be amazed at people who can make plans and then carry through with them. People who have a vision. People who have a dream.

I spent a part of yesterday feeling a little sorry for myself over what I perceive to be all my lost opportunities in life.

I don't begrudge anything to Charlie. God knows, he's worked hard over the years ... and to the best of my knowledge, he's enjoyed every minute of it (I worked hard too, and was miserable most of the time).

One of the gifts of being an ACOA is that life often seems like a slog rather than an adventure, and more a source of annoyance than of joy.

P.S. The show was wonderful, and I know a thing or two about musical theater. I would love to see it come back to Broadway in a full-blown production that runs for years.

Wacky Shit from All Over!

Jesus Died on the Cross So Kathy Griffin Could Win the Emmy!

(best headline today!)

The Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee spent $90,440 for a full-page ad in USA Today that condemns Kathy Griffin for her jokes about her Emmy rather than using the money to feed the hungry or to do something like, ya know, like Christian, with the money.

Personally, I’d like to know where a pissant theater company, anywhere, gets that kind of bread to blow on bullshit ads rather than putting on actual productions. If you ask me, them getting that kind of scratch was the real fucking miracle.

The Senate passed a bill condemning MoveOn.org for the Betrayus ad (thereby sending a clear message loaded with irony to the rest of the world about our double-standard regarding free speech.)

No matter how you slice it, domestic partnership versus full-blown marriage is still the same old “separate but equal” baloney that kept blacks in their places for nearly a century. But bullshit is bullshit despite the window-dressing of bigotry wrapped in religious fervor. (I've yet to see these same folks who blast gays condemning people who eat shellfish or pork… or who sleep with their wives during their “unclean” times, despite the fact that all the injunctions come from the same historical source).

But the enlightened Renaissance Man in Sacramento obviously disagrees.

And why am I still not hearing people demanding that government get OUT of the marriage game altogether?

Yom Kippur starts at sunset today. To all my Jewish friends, may you have a Blessed and Serene Holy Day of thoughtful introspection.

And for all my Gentile friends, tonight is one of the two best nights of the year to do anything (movies, eating out, theater). So get your asses in gear and make plans!

Mazel Tov, everybody!

A Gay Lolita

"Okay," some folks have asked me, "if you knew you were gay when you were six, name some of the people you had childhood crushes on?"

Alrighty, then. Time to visit the vaults. Only one of them was a real, everyday person to me. The others were all actors on tv.

Age 6: My 1st grade schoolbus driver, Frank. I wanted to be alone with him, but I didn't know why.

Age 7: Clint Walker aka "Cheyenne." Hunka-hunka furry, burning love. Again, I wanted to be alone with him... somewhere else.

Age 9: Will Hutchins aka "Sugarfoot." He was dreamy and soft and, well, kind of gay. Not at all like that Bear I was in love with at age 7.

Age 11: JACKPOT. Gardner McKay in "Adventures in Paradise." Man, did I want to be alone with HIM on that 3-masted schooner, somewhere in the South Pacific where nobody would ever find us. Forever.

Age 11: Peter Palmer in the movie musical, "L'il Abner." I sat through it 3 times on one Saturday afternoon. When I left the theater a blizzard had hit us and I had to slog home through 9 inches of snow. He later made a guest appearance on the Tennessee Ernie Ford TV show and I still remember what he sang. How gay am I? He really was a dreamboat.

Age 12: Sigh. Another dreamboat with a deep voice. Tom Tryon as "Texas John Slaughter" (a Disney series, no less!). I had seen him earlier as the monster/alien husband in the Grade-Z epic, "I Married a Monster from Outer Space", but I forgave him for that once I fell in love with him.

In all that time, sorry to report, I never once wanted to be alone with any woman I saw on tv or in real life.

Ergo sum... honey, I'm so gay I poo rainbows.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Nowadays.

Well of course it is. Homo Sex is a threat to national security, naturally. Or unnaturally. Probably just as big a threat as Osama. Or Milk Duds. Or something.

And Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.

Is it just me or are the crazies out in force these days? George W. Bush's Iraq War now appears poised to last until I'm dead. Hillary's trying to flog yet another healthcare plan that doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. Some student in Florida got tased by the cops (and don't think for one minute that I believe HE's as pure as the driven snow, either... I smell a great big, publicity driven rat behind that story). And tased? Puhleeze. In my day the National Guard invaded your campus and shot four of your classmates dead for shit like expressing your opinions regarding war. Tasing is for pussies. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young will NOT write a memorable song about some publicity-hound getting tased.

Meanwhile, President George W. Shitforbrains forces generals and ambassadors to kiss Congress's ass on his behalf.

Greenspan finally starts spilling the beans. So does Rummy.

Over half the people under 30 think that the US and Germany were ALLIES against Russia in WWII (what the fuck planet have they been living on?)

Some dumbbell on The View thinks the world is FLAT.

The Senator from Idaho may like to suck some cock or get butt-fucked on the DL now and then, but he is MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT GAY!

And denial, apparently, really is just a river in Egypt.

Sometimes I wonder when Jeebus is finally gonna come and get me out of this madhouse?

The End of the Gay Ghetto

Joe of JoeMyGod posted a piece yesterday about the slow death of the gay-bar scene throughout America. He raised some good points about a loss of a piece of our gay culture and history.

But it also signals the beginning of the end of the ghettoization of gay people. For better or worse. And you can feel either way about that, and that’s fine.

When I came out, a process that I started as a teenager in the early 60’s, all I wanted to was to “fit in.” I wanted to be like everybody else (except for my family, who were drunks and idiots). I wanted to meet other people “like me” but I didn’t want to have to skulk about in back alleys in search of dark, unmarked, bars in order to find them. I didn’t think I should have to do that.

I knew that God had made me, that God didn’t make garbage and that I was no “mistake.” I also seriously doubted that some Jewish virgin had squeezed God’s baby through her Poo-nanny. So that was the end of me and Catholicism and the beginning of me and my fabulously queer self.

Eventually, though, I did skulk down back alleys into dark bars in order to find others like myself. I even had a lot of fun in those places. But they were always redolent of “shameful hideaways” where out-of-towners from Pissant, Utah, on the prowl in the Big Cities of the East and West Coasts, could get a little same-sex nookie while “on a business trip”, secure in the knowledge that the wife and/or hubby remained safely tucked away back home, where they belonged. Out of sight and definitely out of mind … for the evening.

And for that reason, these joints also often smacked of self-loathing. I never knew how self-loathing I was until I started looking at my past behavior as a gay person and in terms of all my destructive addictions. Booze, drugs, cigarettes, rampant sex… all of them overindulged in to the point of doing serious physical damage to myself.

Then I got sober. And I started peeling away the layers of denial about what I’d done and the reasons why I’d done it. And I saw the self-loathing that lay beneath it all.

So, if we’re moving to a “post-gay” world, where we’re as common as the next door neighbors and it’s just as cool for gay people to cruise each other at the supermarket as it is for Hets to do it, then so be it. I embrace it. In fact, I believe the whole point of the “movement” over the past 38 years has been to get us to this point.

When I sobered up and started feeling better about myself it seemed that my need to constantly reassure myself of my inherent worthiness started to disappear. I began realizing just how cheaply I’d sold myself into the bondage of addictions in the past.

I hope I’m sober enough now to recognize it if I ever start killing myself again.

Triangulation

I had a good time at the roundup. I saw some recovering folks I know from meetings all up and down the east coast. There were some really good workshops on Saturday on everything from "Dating in Recovery" to "Roles and Codependency."

Growing up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic family really gave me a boatload of false ideas about relationships. One of the biggest was that they were fearsome things, easily destroyed and that one should never express one's feelings regarding them.

When you're Irish and Catholic that leads to communication via triangulation. For example, if I was pissed at you I would never tell you about it. That would be far too confrontational and combative and might piss you off, which would never do because I'm the only one entitled to be pissed off in our little dyad.

I would, however, share that information with our 2nd cousin, Delia, who lives in Detroit. My thinking would be, "Delia has a cooler head... she'll be able to dispassionately pass along my pissed-offedness to you without pissing you off in the process." I would expect her to mediate the so-called issue, to resolve it with you in MY favor, and to get back to me with the results.

Don't laugh. This is how my family operated.

Regrettably, it's how I continue to operate in some areas. I'm much better now about setting boundaries with people. I'm fairly certain that the world won't end if you get pissed at me, so I'm willing to risk it.

But it also spills over into my ability to interact with people I'd LIKE to have a relationship with, including potential romantic partners.

Example. I find Mr. A attractive, therefore I will throw myself at Mr. B in the hopes that A will get jealous enough (or interested enough) to come over and say hi. It would never occur to me to go say "hi" to Mr. A because he might laugh in my face and say, at the top of his lungs, "HI? As if I'd ever marry you!!!" Or something to that effect.

You can see how socially disabled I am.

That happened this weekend. I found some tall guy very interesting. Naturally I never spoke to him and every time he looked at me looking at him I pretended I was looking at something or somebody else.

And, of course, I immediately started chatting up some nearly insane person sitting next to me, who was thrilled at the attention and was probably mentally renting a U-Haul for the big "move-in" next weekend. With me.

After 9 and a half years of sobriety I'm STILL trying to learn how to be a teenager.

The Philly Roundup is October 12, 13 & 14th, just three weeks from now.

Maybe I'll have better luck next time.

Or not.

New Jersey Roundup!

Some of you lovely folks who really should get hobbies might remember that I went to the Rehoboth (DE) Roundup last winter, over President's Day weekend. Well, it's the start of a NEW roundup season already.

In a few hours I'll be heading out all the way across Route 33 from Hightstown, NJ, through Freehold (home of "The Boss") then to Route 18 and finally to beautiful, out in the middle of fucking nowhere, Tinton Falls, NJ for the newly resurrected New Jersey Roundup - 2007 Edition. So no more postings this weekend unless I get real ambitious Sunday night, after I get home.

The Rehoboth Roundup was enormous (+400 attendees), well organized, great workshops, plenty of fun activities and GREAT speakers from various 12-Step programs. If our first NJ roundup in many years is half as good as that, then there is hope that it might continue on again next year.

Roundups are kind of like websites. There comes a time when they sort of "go viral" and suddenly become enormously popular (like the P'town and Rehoboth and Miami Roundups). Word of mouth actually accounts for a lot in terms of building popularity for them.

Next month is the Philly roundup, which I'm also looking forward to attending.

So, naturally, I've spent the morning cleaning the bejeebus out of the apartment at home... just in case. Oh, alright. Just in case I meet Mr. Right and he wants to move in this weekend.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

As you may also recall, I got some definite interest during the Rehoboth Roundup and I'm kind of hoping that'll be true this weekend, too. The big difference being that this Roundup is happening less than 40 minutes from home (Rehoboth is a good 2 hour drive from where I live), so it's more likely I'll meet someone who is GD (geographically desirable) than it was in February.

Yeah, I know that sounds crazy. Hey! I'm a drunk! (recovering)

Now if you'll excuse me, the toilet definitely needs a shave.

xxxooo

Lies and Whispers

It's that time of the election-cycle (by which all things in the US are truly governed) when everyone who hopes to lie their way into higher office set about to "re-align" their stands on just about everything (divorce, abortion, me) in hopes of capturing the hearts and minds of the largest possible number of voters (idiots).

It also leads to the need for really big lies, such as the half-assed crap like we heard on Monday and Tuesday from Frick and Frack (Petraeus and Crocker) on the subject of George W. Bush's War in Iraq. Time is running out and they know that the best they can hope for is to stall until it's some Democrat's problem.

They're no fools. They're out there taking the heat off Bush now because they know that there'll be a PAYDAY for them in the future in return for being good little soldiers now. All they have to do is sincerely lie to Congress. They don't even have to be convincing. All that matters is that, when the time comes for THEM to run for office, they'll be able to claim that they were good soldiers and true patriots and they honestly believed the bullshit they were saying at the time and, therefore, we should vote for them.

Truth means nothing in our country. Spin is King.

Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels knew this.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

I believe that we have a conspiracy of fools and liars running the country these days, funded largely by self-serving, egotistical institutions that have zero interest in serving the public good or upholding the true values upon which our nation was founded. I believe that politicians (and the left and right-wing think-tank flacks and corporations behind them) are out to do two things... to get these politicians elected and then to get them re-elected. Period. After which they will do their best to serve the money behind them.

Over the decades my life has been dragged through the mud time and again by people who couldn't care less whether I lived or died. I was merely collateral damage to them in their war against each other. And every American of zero note, such as myself, is as expendable as Kleenex in their battles against each other.

When I witness, as I have this week, the spectacle of Washington running amok and doing what only Washington can do best, lying, cheating, stealing, backstabbing and posturing, it makes it very hard to care about anything or anyone other than myself.

I think I need to speak to my sponsor.

Best Headline Yesterday (9/11 Anniversary)

"The only thing flying around the Pentagon today is bullshit." Wonkette

There was a time, many eons ago, when I wanted nothing more in life than to be outfitted with a Hasselblad camera (2x2 format) and sent into the jungles of far-flung places by the National Geographic Society. That time was called "High School" and I don't have many fond memories of it (I doubt that few actually do), so jungles sounded like a fine idea to me. Needless to say, God and my family had other plans.

The other thing I wanted was to be a big Broadway star. That didn't happen, either.

However, I did manage to become a big fish in a small pond at the University of Delaware between the summer of 1973 and the spring of 1976. During that time I managed to finagle my way into over 19 productions, everything from big "main stage" flapdoodles all the way down to teensy shows at the Student Center cabaret named Bacchus (after the Greek God of wine and alcoholism).

The other day I posted a picture of myself in our summer theater production (1974) of "Damn Yankees."

Today, for your edification, I post the above photo from our Winter Session (U. of Del. - January, 1974) production of Mr. Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan," "fan", so-called because I have the hots for her.

It's a Victorian fluff of a nothing about, well, about Lady Windermere and her fan. Well, actually two fans. One is a literal fan which she inadvertently leaves at the home of a bachelor gentleman (me) who is her "secret fan."

It's loaded with high-falootin' English talk, tons of famous Wilde bon mots ("My dear, the only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about!") and ravishing costumes, as evidenced above (that's me on the right) decked out in the height of 19th Century Evening Foppery.

The gentleman to the left, whose name I do recall (and he was actually quite a looker under all that makeup) shall remain anonymous. However, he is a famous chef these days somewhere in the East and you may have actually seen him on TV at one time or another. And that's the end of that. Don't bother pressing, I shan't say another word. My lips are sealed.

Besides, I don't think he's out to his mommy yet. Or anybody else.

Anyway, I hope you get some sort of perverse kick out of watching me cruise down memory lane.

G'day, Possums!

I See Dead People

It'll come as news to nobody that today is the sixth anniversary of the occasion of a bunch of Islamic Martyrs, hopped up by the thoughts all those virgins they were going to get in Paradise, hijacking a bunch of planes and flying them, at flank speed, into the WTC, Pentagon and earth of western Pennsylvania, killing thousands of people.

I've already blathered here about my whereabouts and doings that day (I was in NYC - my brother and I engineered a breathtaking escape from the east side to the west side along 53rd street and fled north along the West Side Highway and out to New Jersey over the GW Bridge).

Others had breathtaking tales to tell of harrowing escapes from near certain death, or heartbreaking tales of personal losses. Not us, though. The biggest loss I experienced that day was the death of Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the FDNY. Not because he was a priest, nor because he was a chaplain. I mourned his loss because he was Irish (and proud of it), gay (and proud of it) and a recovering drunk like me (I was proud of that).

But it was later, on TV, in magazines and on the internet, that I got to see real close-up photos of deaths, either after the fact or as they were about to happen (i.e., shots of "jumpers" from the towers). Those deaths weren't particularly heroic, but rather horrifyingly desperate, born out of a total lack of any other available options.

It was not hard to develop a somewhat morbid fascination with the events of that day. They had funeral masses all day long, every day, for weeks on end at St. Patrick's Cathedral, just a few blocks south of my office building. I still smoked in those days and every time I went outside, there'd be ANOTHER funeral procession lining up to march down Fifth Avenue (I got real sick of bagpipes during this time and I usually love bagpipes).

Eventually, though, they ran out of body parts to mourn and bury, and the rawness of the events of that day faded (although it took weeks for the plumes of smoke from the great pit where the towers had stood to finally stop).

And then, somehow, six years went by.

Yesterday I took the day off to attend the funeral of a 2nd cousin in Philadelphia. Father Al was 81 and he'd been in poor health for some time. For me I didn't experience a sense of loss at his passing so much as I sensed that the last tenuous threads of that part of my family were coming undone. I became desperate to attend the funeral in order to try to reconnect with that part of my tribe.

I'm very glad I went. I saw my childhood sweetheart (yes, a girl... we were androgynous little things at age 8-9) and told her I was sober. She then confessed that her mother had died of alcoholism, along with the kid we played with across the alley AND his father. I spent a lot of quality time with relatives I never even knew I had. It was a long, exhausting day. I couldn't have imagined a nicer sendoff for Albert than for his extended family to get together to celebrate life.

It's nice to remember the dead, but I'd much rather celebrate the living.

Ah, Show Biz

Click on photo in order to (as Joe of JoeMyGod says) "embiggen."

Some people have asked me why I have such a teensy picture of myself in my profile. Well, up until this past winter, frankly, it was the most recent picture I had of myself. Yes, yes, and I was semi-disguised behind sunglasses, too.

But after a year of blogging I've decided to rummage through the pictorial trunk and see what else I could come up with to give you, Dear Reader, a couple of yuks.

I've already posted the picture of myself in boot camp, which was pretty scary. I looked like an anorexic miler.

But after the service I started to fill out a little and did some college theater. I have a bunch of photos of myself in various productions there, but this is my all time favorite photo of me (I'm the tall one, 2nd from the left) in my all-time favorite show (Damn Yankees). I loved singing barbershop quartet with the other guys (2 of whom I'm still in touch with). We did it in summer stock, on a nightly rotating rep basis, along with "Death of a Salesman" and "Hotel Paradiso." Let me tell you, it was confusion every night in the dressing rooms trying to figure out if we were supposed to be depressed or overjoyed.

To this day the closing night of Damn Yankees remains one of my most cherished memories of my college years. By then the show had developed a following in our college town of Newark, Delaware, and the place was packed with DY groupies who anticipated every joke and gave us rousing ovations after every song. And the more they loved and gave to us, the more we loved and gave to them. The intense feelings of euphoria poured across the apron of the stage in both directions that night. It was magical.

It was especially flattering to me because some fan kept stealing my headshot from the company bulletin board in the lobby throughout the run of the show. I think we had to replace it 3 or 4 times.

I had bigger roles in my 4 years of stage acting, certainly more "important" roles in Shakespeare or Chekhov, but none of them ever gave me the sense of joy and satisfaction I got from playing "Smokey," a member of the quartet, in "Damn Yankees."

Service

One of the tenets of faith in 12-Step sobriety is that, ultimately, we get clean and sober in order to be of service to others. In fact, we say that our "primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety."

Everything else in our lives becomes... not unimportant, but certainly secondary to our sobriety. It has to be that way because without our sobriety (first) we wouldn't have anything else. We'd lose life partners, children, careers, fortunes and health if we started using again.

Sometimes that "service" we render to others takes the form of one-on-one sponsorship of a newcomer. A sponsor's job in recovery is, simply, to lead the newcomer through the 12-Steps of recovery. It's not to be "the fixer." It's not to be mommy or daddy, or Dear Abby, or Bank of America or Triple AAA. But it is to share the sponsor's "experience, strength and hope" regarding their own experience with the Steps. Period.

And sometimes that service comes in the form of serving in some leadership function or another. Here's where it gets tricky. We have no President or Chairman of the Board or, indeed, much "management" at all, to speak of. As we say, "our leaders lead, but they do not govern" and anyone, anyone at all, can be "recalled" from a leadership position at any time simply by means of a "group conscience." These positions are always an honor to fill.

Back in May I was elected by my home group to lead a Friday morning beginner's meeting here in Manhattan. This was the third time I've been elected to this post over the past seven years. The length of the term is six months. I have a co-chair and we alternate Fridays from July 1 through December 31.

For reasons nobody quite understands (God?) this Friday morning meeting has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 7 years. This morning (my turn) we had 75 people turn out for it. We ran out of time before everyone could "share." When I see that this is going to happen I try to pick out newcomers in the crowd to call on because they are the most likely to drink. The old timers might cop a resentment over not being called on, but in the immortal words of my sponsor, "screw 'em if they're that overly sensitive."

He's right, of course. He always is (he also monitors this blog - "LOVE YA, BRO'!"

I look forward to Friday's meeting more than any other in the week. When I sit up in the front of that room and see the looks on the faces of people who are trying, like me, to get better... when I witness their struggles and their losses and their victories, small and large, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and with a profound belief in God and in miracles.

For any day that 75 alkies and druggies don't pick up a drink or a drug is nothing short of a friggin' miracle.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

More later, but for now....

The Unbearable Yuckiness of Being

My life, for the most part, is one unending string of serene moments. That's been the case ever since I stopped drinking ... and suffered through the first couple of years of sobriety.

Whenever life got disruptive, even for a little while, it generally involved some interaction I was forced to undertake, or to endure, with my biological family of origin.

Things had been pretty quiet on that front for a few years now until a phone call came on Monday evening from my aunt informing me that her first cousin (and my late mom's), the family priest, had passed away that day.

Albert (his name) had, by all accounts, started out in life as a prissy little thing who loved dressing up... like a priest. I remember comments being made about how he was always holier than everybody else and would walk around with a rosary draped over his hands. They packed him off to seminary when he was 18. I can actually remember attending his ordination in Connecticut even though I was only 4 at the time. He was then sent off to Puerto Rico to do his time as a parish priest somewhere in the mountains (no cabanas or beach boys), coming home only occasionally to preside over baptisms, weddings and funerals.

In time I became an altar boy and celebrated mass with Albert a couple of times at the local parish church.

But eventually I outgrew Roman Catholicism (when I grew pubes and realized that they were wrong about me) and I once shocked Albert by playing "The Vatican Rag" by Tom Lehrer for him. Things were never the same between us after that.

We lost touch for years, others kept up the family cohesion. Eventually he got reassigned back to the states. In 1995 I copped a giant resentment over the fact that he wouldn't come home from Pittsburgh to preside at my mom's funeral. I ran into him and his brother, Victor, at my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary a few years back. Albert had had a foot removed because of diabetes and his brother now helped him around.

After that we started exchanging Christmas cards every year. His were religious but not odious, mine were secular but respectful. We'd both jot a short note to each other expressing our sincere wishes for the health and happiness of the other in the coming year and that would be the end of that.

And now he's gone.

The family (his brother) won't have much to say about the funeral arrangements. The Order he belonged to will pretty much dictate policy in that regard. And trying to find out their plans is like trying to pull sanctified teeth.

Meanwhile, I'm forced to interact on a nearly daily basis with a bunch of people I really don't have very much in common with these days. They tend to be racist, bigoted, homophobic, alcoholic, drug-addicted (legal), co-dependents who love to live their lives as self-inflicted victims. I've been thinking that they'd gotten even nuttier in the last 15 years.

But I was telling this to a friend of mine in recovery earlier today and he said, "Maybe they're not any crazier than they used to be. Maybe you're just a helluva lot saner."

And all of a sudden I was overcome with a feeling of yukiness. How am I supposed to love these people when I can't even stand to be around them anymore?

Fantasyland!

When I was a kid, watching the grand opening of DisneyLand in Anaheim in living black & white on channel six out of Philly (ABC), I was enthralled to find out that they had various "theme areas" to the park. There was Frontierland (because Davy Crockett was a Disney franchise), Tomorrowland (with it's sleek RocketShip), Adventureland (with it's Pirate Ship) and Fantasyland. When my imagination turned, as it often did, to the subject of my rescue, when the Knight in Shining Armor (my father) rode in to rescue me from the clutches of the Evil Queen (my mother), he and I were then always torn between riding off into Tomorrowland or Fantasyland. Generally, though, we came down in favor of Fantasyland.

I got enabled (a lot) by people who wanted to control me over the years. The adults with whom I lived while I was raising myself, the Navy, some well-meaning but totally controlling friends in college, lovers, bosses, et al. President Shitforbrains got enabled a lot, too, by the finest politicians and institutions that his daddy's money could buy. Eventually I hit a bottom and had to face a lot of realities, real fast. There's nothing like waking up in a jail cell on a Sunday morning with a DUI and no bail to get your attention.

And there's nothing like a quick trip to Iraq to give Assahola Bush a slap or two in the face, regarding the "real life" he's been ignoring for years now.

There's a wonderful piece in The Huffington Post about it today. Go check it out, here.

It's a funny thing about Fantasy. It can be whatever your pea-sized brain needs it to be. Whatever serves your immediate and unbending, unyielding, needs. Fantasy. Great word that. It implies a total denial of current reality.

Speaking of that, one of my favorite moments of all times in the theater comes in "Angels in America" when a doctor confronts Roy Cohn with the truth about his disease. Roy absolutely, vehemently, denies that he is "gay." Oh, he may have had sex with men, but he is not gay. He threatens the doctor with ruination if the doctor even utters the thought that Roy might be "gay." Roy sums up his feelings about it thusly, "whatever it is that I am... it's NOT THAT!"

And that was the end of that. Oh yes, he took it up the butt from a string of handsome young men (proteges all), but he was NOT THAT.

Pacino was (well, wasn't he always?) over the top in his performance of the scene. But he definitely captured the essence of what Cohn was all about. Absolutely controlling and dictating what people even thought about him. Or, at least, he tried to.

That's why, slightly later in the play, as Cohn lay dead of AIDS in the hospital, one of the most breathtaking pieces of sheer theatricality I have ever seen in my life occurs when the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (played by Meryl Streep in the HBO production) steps out of the shadows to say Kaddish over his corpse. It brought tears to my eyes and spoke volumes regarding the subject of forgiveness.

Anyway, Dubya is a lot like Cohn. Controlling. Pigheaded. Absolutely Right and everyone else is absolutely wrong. A dictator. Cruel. Self-centered. Egotistical. Completely unsolicitous of others unless he's gonna git sumthin' outta it.

There are two types of people in his world. Himself and all the little people.

He should only be so lucky as Roy Cohn when the time comes for someone to say Kaddish over him.

And speaking of denial, see also the latest on Larry Craig. He's still hiding his queerness behind his children. As though he were the first gay guy to get married and sire kids as beards.

My Big Fat Sober Life!

I got way too busy to blog yesterday. They closed the office early and lawyers, being lawyers, they like to cram as much crap into Fridays as possible (because they don't do a friggin' thing all week), so that meant cramming even more crap into even less time than usual.

I had dinner with a friend of mine last night. A(nother) nice straight guy, divorced, with a 12 year old, pubescent daughter who has definitely taken a turn to the dark side (paging Darth Vader). But I never turn down a home cooked meal, if I can help it. And it's fun to watch hormonal teenagers in action and to wonder how I managed to survive my puberty. I think I postponed it until I was 20, which helped in the houseful of drunks I grew up in.

I crashed early but I was up at the crack of dawn today to shop. Tomorrow is my friend John's annual Labor Day Picnic, Ice Cream Social and Tractor Pull, which I wouldn't miss for the world. It has gotten to be a dubious habit of mine to bring my world-famous "Kitchen Sink Salad" which starts with loose spinach (a pound), Hearts of Romaine (chopped), crushed walnuts, shredded carrots, sliced red bell peppers (cleaned), red onions, mushrooms, mini-cubes of cheese, grape tomatoes, mandarin orange slices, croutons and tossed with a combination of Caesar and Ranch salad dressings (Maries).

I have to put it into a couple of those disposable aluminum oven roasting pans in order to transport it over to Pennsylvania for the party. It takes about an hour to get there and I like to keep it in the fridge right up until the moment of departure.

Anyway, it takes a fair amount of time to assemble the ingredients and to pre-prepare some of them, such as chopping the lettuce then washing and rinsing it and then stowing it in plastic bags in the vegetable crisper overnight.

The party will start at 2:00 p.m. (EDT) tomorrow, but I'm the coffeemaker for a Sunday morning 12-Step meeting, too, and I'll have to run over to the town hall tomorrow morning to get the coffee going, then come home and finish assembling the salad.

Oh, yeah, and I have to stop and pick up a sponsee I'm taking to the picnic with me, too.

I'm happy about all that. I'm really happy because some new shoes I ordered showed up yesterday. A pair of Sperry Topsider deck shoes and (be still my boyish heart) a pair of Jack Purcell low-top gym shoes which take me right back to my miserable youth! But Lord, I do love those sneaks!!!

Oh, and I've been sharing at my meetings about this being the 10th anniversary weekend of my emotional bottom, when all I wanted to do was die.

And my phone has not stopped ringing since yesterday with calls from people in recovery telling me how glad they are that I didn't get my wish that weekend 10 years ago.

I'm glad, too.

Have a lovely holiday, everyone!