Huggy Kissy Touchie Feelie

Saturday was a very odd day. I was, as usual, overbooked. From 10:00-11:00 a.m. I attended a 12-Step Meeting in Princeton. 11:30-12:00 p.m., I got a haircut in Princeton. From 12:30-3:00 p.m. I helped friends move a 10-ton color tv and matching credenza, from 4:00 -6:00 p.m. I saw a Beatle's Tribute show (which was FABOO) in New Brunswick, from 6:00-6:45 p.m., I tried to get OUT of New Brunswick (Rutgers had kicked Pittsburgh's ass and everybody in the state was in-town to help celebrate), from 6:45-7:50 p.m., I drove like a bat out of hell 65 miles towards Willow Grove, PA, from 8:00-9:15 p.m. I was at another 12-Step meeting, and from 9:45-10:45 p.m., I drove home.

Collapse.

But something very odd happened that evening, at that 2nd meeting. First of all, there was a miracle when somebody I've known since childhood, and whom I'd given up for lost, resurfaced at the meeting. I was very grateful to God for that.

Secondly, and this was the truly bizarre part, some seriously good-looking men in recovery suddenly got very huggy-kissy, touchie-feelie with me after the meeting! Well, three seriously good-looking men. But that's more action than I've had in 20 years, believe me! I don't think it was a full moon. I can't believe these guys magically took a sudden interest in me. I really can't believe they can't do better!

And yes, I really do think that little of me.

Maybe it's because the holidays are coming and everybody is looking to "settle down" for the winter.

Whatever is going on, I hope it doesn't stop anytime soon. I kind of like all of this sudden outpouring of affection for me, no matter what the cause.

BioRythms & the Bermuda Triangle

If you're as old as I (is anyone as old as I?) you remember something from the 60's-70's called "biorythms" which charted 3 different cycles of something that governed your love life, career and something else.

Well, I'm convinced that I'm bottoming out on my chart these days. One of my sponsees has picked up (booze), I seem to be bleeding cash these days, the holidays are coming and I'm just feeling "blah."

Now watch how I turn all this around in the next few paragraphs.

I mention the holidays because anyone in recovery will tell you that we are now entering what's known in the business as "the Bermuda Triangle" of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, into which many an alcoholic has sailed, never to be seen (or heard from) again.

It's at this time of year that many 12-Step Clubhouses have around-the-clock "Alk-A-Thons" which are continuous meetings during the peak of the holiday season. They're generally packed. I tell my sponsees to not even THINK about "going home to see the family" unless they are well-armed with two things... 1. a meeting list (for wherever they're going) and 2. a getaway car.

People who are new in recovery, still steeped in egotism and thinking that it's "all about them", will often refuse to be prepared to duck out and go to a meeting because "someone might notice." They never minded, of course, when people "noticed" that they were falling down drunks, but God forbid anyone should notice that they're trying to get better. This is the insanity of the disease at work. It WANTS them to stay put and be uncomfortable until they can't stand the pain anymore and might, just might, pick up a drink. Nothing would please the disease more.

I remember how fragile I was, way back when I was new in recovery and trying to survive those first "drinking holidays". I was (literally) afraid of being "struck drunk" when some emotional straw in me snapped. Fortunately, that didn't happen. And I did get hold of a meeting list and a getaway car. And I got over my fears, and excused myself when I needed to do so, and returned when no one really noticed and I got better.

And so did everyone else.

All things considered, it could be worse. I could be drunk. Thank God I'm not!

Shakespeare was Right!

Somewhere in Richard II or III or one of them Bolinbroke's or Lancastrians or someplace, the scheming, conniving SOB of a usurper to the throne utters the line, "the first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers."

Now that's always sounded like a fine idea to me. Oh, I don't have anything, per se, against them, aside from the fact that most of my adult life has been consummed, one way or another, by them.

Let me explain. I met the future ex in 1979. He was a lawyer. For MegaBank here in NYC. He was 19 years older than me and I instantly wanted him for my daddy (caretaker, protector and ATM). 15 years later I was enormously successful on Wall Street and a falling down wreck of a drunk. That's how happy I was with the lawyer (he had control issues). When I left him I said to myself, "well, THAT'S THAT. No more friggin' lawyers."

Bzzzzt. Wrong. Thank you for playing.

My next flingette was with some flack in Hollyweird who, whenever he wanted to avoid talking about something that made him uncomfortable (like how much money he owed me) would resort to saying, "Oh, I can't talk about that now. I'm up to my ASS in lawyers out here." And that would be the end of that discussion.

When the money, and he, were finally gone and I hit bottom and skidded into 12-Step recovery and slowly crawled back out of the hole I'd dug, towards the light...

God said, "He needs to be taught a lesson. I will give him a job... working for lawyers."

And so I do. And so I HAVE, since 1999. Over the years I've made my peace with working with them. Hell, I've even made my peace at sharing space in 12-Step meetings with them.

But today God went right over the top. At the end of the meeting this morning, Mr. "X", an attorney who actually has a year or two more of sobriety than I do, pulled me aside and, sotto voce, asked me if I would be willing to serve as his "interim sponsor." He said that he liked what I have. That's recovery lingo for "I see things in you and your behavior that I would like to emulate."

I've had to sleep with them, get taken to the cleaners by them and work for them.

Now they expect me to help them get sober.

What next?

What Would You Do?

if your phone rang late at night and it was a guy who had shined your shoes for you when you worked on Wall Street 20 years ago?

Well, if you're me, you let him go into voicemail and go to bed wondering what he wants. So that's what I did.

I spoke with him today and he wants to have dinner. At first he wanted to do it tonight. I managed to put him off until tomorrow. Yes, he's gay. We established that 2 decades ago. And he's Brazilian and he was adorable then (well, so was I!). But he's been in a relationship for 15 years now, so I know it's not about sex. I told him my Wall Street days were long finished and that I made a living, barely, as a legal secretary now. That didn't seem to deter him. I finally said I couldn't be out late because I had to catch a bus back to New Jersey -- and he offered me the use of he and his partner's guest room tomorrow night.

Well, anyone who went to all the trouble of a) calling my ex and getting screamed at by him and b) looking in the White Pages in New York AND New Jersey until he found me, obviously is someone who really wants to see me.

I just sent an e-mail to my sobriety counselor bemoaning all this and wondering, aloud, "why God is doing this to me?"

After all, I didn't get sober to have a life. I got sober to be miserable until I die which, some days, can't come soon enough to suit me.

But I've agreed to see him. And so I shall. I really have no excuse for turning this into something negative (aside from being an alcoholic -- because that's just what we do).

Seriously, though .... if someone dropped out of your sky after 20 years... what would you do?

Car 54 Where Are You?

I've been MIA for a couple of days. Hence the obscure cultural reference in the Subject Line, above. If you weren't around in the very early 60's, you'd have no idea what it refers to. Suffice it to say that it comes from a time when JFK International Airport was still called "Idlewild."

I've gotten into this rut where I don't post over the weekends because I'm having way too much fun going to 12-Step meetings and shopping at BJ's afterwards.

I blew over a hundred bucks at BJs this past Sunday. I bought a 2-year supply of Ivory bathsoap and a year's supply of Gillette Mach 3 razor blades and about a year's supply of shaving gel to go with it. I also bought two 35 count boxes of Trail Mix bars, a 1 pound block of Havarti, 2 1-pound bags of Ruffles potato chips (bad JoyZeeBoy!) and some other crap I don't really need.

Oh, and I placed an order for two pumpkin pies to take with me when I go to Baltimore for Thanksgiving (OUT OF TOWN ALERT!). I hate to arrive empty-handed as a houseguest so I'm bringing dessert and (shhhh) I also bought my hosts the DVD of "Ratatouille" which we all saw on Cape Cod last summer, and which my friends really enjoyed.

So who has time to post anything? Well, my friend Bev does. Apparently at 30 or 40 websites, under various aliases, all day, every day. No wonder the woman never sleeps.

Habits come in all shapes and sizes, whether it's posting or shopping. Obsessions. Compulsions. Call 'em what you want. I got 'em. My friends all have 'em.

On a slightly different subject, you may have noticed a little logo down at the bottom of my blog for something called SiteMeter. It keeps tabs on who drops by here. Oh, it doesn't name names, but it does tell me the name of the server and/or IP address and the city, state and country of origin. It also tells me if the viewer got here by "googling" or searching for something.

And I have to tell you, one of the most popular phrases I ever posted here, based on how often it turns up in people's net-searches, is from an old song entitled "Young At Heart." It seems especially popular among netcruisers in Central and South America. Don't know why (there's no sun up in the sky...)

Anyway, the particular verse that seems so popular goes:

"fairy tales can come true
it can happen to you....
if you're young at heart"

The song was originally sung by Frank Sinatra. It became a giant hit for him and was subsequently used in the movie of the same name. It was released in 1954 and starred Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Gig Young and Ethel Barrymore. It's a fluff of a nothing movie, a remake of 1938's "Four Daughters". Basically it's "good girls go for bad boys." But the song stuck.

And as I've previously mentioned, the best rendition of the song, I think, was by the late, great Jimmy Durante.

So, "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash.... wherever you are!" (Another obscure cultural reference. Look that one up yourselves.)

p.s. Today is my post number 300! Would somebody like to run 26.5 miles back to Athens to let everybody know? No? Wimps.

Veteran's Day - 2007

I am a vet. A wartime era vet (VietNam). I did not see combat, but I took my chances along with everybody else. I didn't run off to Canada, although I could've, and with the blessings of E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. where I was employed at the time I was drafted. They offered me a transfer to DuPont of Canada, if I'd chosen to do so. I declined.

I didn't get some rich relative (of which I have none) to "buy me" a place in the National Guard or the reserves.

I didn't run. I got drafted. I enlisted in the Navy instead. I was on active duty from 1968 to 1972. I climbed the corporate ranks of the military, too. I went from E-nothing to E-5 in 2 years and change (that's the equivalent of a Sergeant in the other services). My quarterly ratings were always in the top 5 percentile. I was Sailor of the Month and Sailor of the Quarter in my divisions at the Naval Air Test Center and I graduated first in my class in Aviation Electronics School. When my enlistment was nearing it's end an unending string of Chief Petty Officers and Officer/Pilots walked the deck with me, trying to convince me to re-enlist.

In short, I was a model sailor and a valuable military asset.

There was only one, teensy thing wrong with me as far as the government was concerned. I was a homosexual. They didn't know that, of course. But I did. I endured 4 years of listening to derogatory comments about queers and living in fear of "being found out" at any time. But I kept my secret because I had goals ... to fulfill my obligation to the nation and to collect my hard-earned VA benefits once my enlistment was up.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed, finally, a bill outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. They dropped the trannies in order to "git'er done." I hate politics, even as I understand the necessity for it. Both sides must come away feeling as though they have something to show for it.

So the poor trannies got thrown under the bus. As someone who has been thrown under the bus any number of times, I totally understand how they must feel today.

At any rate, the bill is progress. We live in an imperfect nation with imperfect leaders who govern imperfectly.

So this Veteran's Day (Sunday) I intend to keep in mind two heavily put-upon underclasses in this nation of ours. The closeted men and women who proudly wear the uniforms of our armed forces and our transexual citizens whose only crime was to feel compelled to heed Shakespeare's admonition to "thine own self be true."

I am truer to myself today than I have ever been in my entire life. And yet, there is much work remaining to be done. And that goes for the country, too.

Peace, everyone.

Coach USA-Suburban Transit, Academy Bus Line (follow-up)

I neglected to mention one other exciting little glitch in our perfect mass-transit system in New Jersey.

The dispatchers in New York are all employees of Coach USA/Suburban. The dispatcher at the 8-A Park and Ride is an employee of Academy.

They have no means of communicating with each other NOR can they communicate with the drivers of each other's motorcoaches. Therefore, if an Academy bus doesn't show up in New York, the dispatchers there have no idea where it is or, indeed, if it's even going to show up (this is for the evening commute back home to New Jersey).

The reverse is true during the morning commute into the city. The Academy dispatcher hasn't got a clue as to the whereabouts of the Coach USA/Suburban buses.

Furthermore, when you have the gall to ask them about it, you get a curt response that's tantamount to "go fuck yourselves."

I will not rest until I have brought these bastards to their knees.

Coach USA-Suburban Transit, Academy Bus Line

You can bet your bippy I won't be extolling the virtues of the above-named companies today.

In fact, they suck. And here's why they suck.

Coach/Suburban has a monopoly on bus service out of Exit 9 of the New Jersey Turnpike to and from New York City. This monopoly was granted to them because they bid, and won, a contract from the township. That contract has severe penalties built into it if Coach/Suburban fails to perform. They must be on-time. They guarantee X number of seats will be available within X amount of time during both the morning commute from New Brunswick to New York AND during the evening commute from the Port Authority building in New York to New Brunswick. It's a pity I don't commute out of Exit 9. My life would be perfect if I did. Unfortunately, I commute out of Exit 8-A, another 12 miles or so down the turnpike.

In the 7 years I've been making an evening commute out of New York I have observed, time and again, the dispatchers in New York deliberately CANNIBALIZING buses from other service areas in New Jersey SOLELY for the purpose of fulfilling their contractural obligations to the New Brunswick riders... often leaving riders to much further destinations (8-A Jamesburg and 8 Hightstown) high and dry and awaiting a bus that won't be pressed into service on the High and Almighty New Brunswick run.

Their primary competitor in New Jersey is Academy Bus Lines. The only problem with Academy is that it has no accountability to the riders whatsoever. No contracts, no nothing. In fact, they just plain don't give a rat's ass if you get to work or get home from work at all.

Their attitude is one of condescension, as though we, the riders, should be fucking grateful that they showed up at all. Today's morning Academy bus, number 1804, arrived with a rotting supply of 3-day old fruit and cold, half-empty, coffee-cups, jammed into the mesh netting of the seat backs at the back of the bus. This bus had clearly not been serviced for some time and actually posed a health hazard.

Oh, and it invariably arrives late these days, mostly because the driver has been coerced into stopping at Dunkin' Donuts to pick up coffee for the dispatcher at the 8-A park and ride, who is too lazy to stop and get his own.

The problem with both of these companies is that they're both subsidized by New Jersey Transit to operate their routes. Subsidized up the ass. By taxpayers. Like me. On top of which each rider (from my stop) has to shuck out 90 bucks a week (yup, 9 bucks a trip) to get to and from New York. That's Four Thousand One-Hundred and Forty dollars ($4,140.00) in POST-TAX dollars I (and all the other schlubs on my bus) pay to Coach/Suburban and/or Academy every year. Throw in another Three Hundred and Eighty-Five dollars a year to park ($385.00).

This is just the tip of the crooked iceberg in New Jersey. Only an idiot wouldn't realize that both of those companies GREASE every politician in the statehouse in Trenton in order to assure that they retain the most-favored nation status that they enjoy; and shutting New Jersey Transit out, thus insuring gluttonous profits for the two, privately owned bus companies.

It's a shame. It's a disgrace. It's a major pain in everyone's ass.

And nobody does a fucking thing about it.

Opinion Flambe

"Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and everybody else's stinks. "

Old 12-Step Program adage.

I made the mistake yesterday of posting an opinion over at JoeMyGod regarding cellphones and cellphone blockers. The blockers are, of course, illegal in this country, but they are NOT illegal in several foreign countries where suppliers will be more than happy to ship one to the States for a small fee. Because so many people are completely insensitive to how annoying their cellphone usage is, I support the "zap the mothers" faction who want to make the blockers more readily available here in the States.

Well, I touched a nerve and got mildly burned in the process. It was pretty tame, really.

But it brought back memories. I'm a survivor of CompuServe's old Section 17 of the "Issues" forum which ran over there for years. We had plenty of flame wars there, usually when some radical right, born-again, bible-thumping jerk, who'd been given a computer for Christmas, logged into the internets and went trolling for queers and lezbeans. They'd find us and zoom in like so many diver-bombers (in fact, that was their nickname, "dive-bombers"). The problem was they really weren't much fun to spar with because we were all a bunch of over-achieving Mensa refugees who liked to hang out together, sharpening our claws on each other until the unwitting dopes arrived. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

They wouldn't last long because a) we were smarter than they were and shot holes in every argument they posited and b) they fainted when they got their first month's bill. It cost a f*cking fortune to belong to CompuServe in those days, based on connection time (we insiders used an off-line reader program called "TapCis" which would log you in and quickly upload any posts you might have and then, just as quickly, download the latest posts and then log off).

One time we were cordially invited by the good folks over at the US News & World Report forum to "drop by" and engage someone from the Colorado Family Council, or some such crapola, on the subject of equal rights for gays (this was right after Colorado had passed some cockamamie law banning the granting of "special rights" for homosexuals... which was shot down a year or two later by the Colorado Supreme Court).

But there was a dark side to all this verbal sparring. When we got bored... or when there wasn't anybody else to fight with, we would occasionally turn on each other and start to devour our own young, as it were. I was guilty of doing this. I'm sorry for my behavior then and try real hard not to get into "flames" these days if I can help it.

These days, when I find my blood-pressure rising over some trivial subject or another, I try to remember that somebody, somebody who had a momma and a poppa, might not see things quite the same way I do.

We have another saying in 12-Step programs:

"Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?"

Most of the time these days, I opt for happy.

Cawfee Tawk!

Well, I have coffee. Whoop-di-goddamned-do!

I also have a coffee table. This had been a subject of some doubt for most of the year since starting late last year I'd buried it under piles of paper that I had every intention of "getting around to" sooner or later.

Well, it's later, so I attacked the stacks yesterday. I spent nearly four hours going through each and every scrap of paper. There were my discharge documents from the hospital after my quad-bypass surgery in 2004. There were co-payment receipts from doctors. There were invoices from CDW (a new disk drive), Best-Buy (a cable modem) and various crap from other places.

The shredder got a thorough workout and I filled nearly 4 medium sized trash bags with paper confetti.

This is one of the biggest problems of living alone. It's too easy to succumb to the temptation to "just let it slide" (whatever "it" is) for awhile. Like a year. Or two.

Quentin Crisp, one of the Stately Homos of England (God rest Her Soul) once said (and I concurred) that "dust doesn't get any thicker after the first two years." Still, it never hurts to run a dust-rag and a vacuum around the place every once in awhile.

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On another note, this one musical, I found a new British Pop-Goddess over the weekend. 19 year old Amy MacDonald. Her big hit right now is entitled "Mr. Rock and Roll."

I hope you enjoy her and it.

I’m Dreaming of a Cuisinart Coffepot…

My mind is made up. And it only took a week. Less, actually, since I’ve only been mulling it over since Sunday.

Tonight, after work and on my way to my Friday night LGBT 12-Step meeting in Princeton, I’m going to stop at BB&B (Bed, Bath & Beware!) and get that matte black Cuisinart coffeemaker. I hope you didn’t really think that all my blather here last Monday was the final word on it did you?

The fact that it only took me five days to decide this is actually progress for me.

It only took me eleven years to decide to leave my ex, and then another four to actually do it. Guilt and fear are powerful motives for doing… or not doing… anything.

It took me about a month to decide to buy the Toaster I drive (the Honda Element). I’d shopped for cars probably for about four or five months prior to that. I was torn for the longest time between the Honda and the (Toyota-produced) Scion, which also has a boxy model.

And some people say I have a fear of commitment!

HAH!

(p.s. I’m torn. Should I get my hair cut tomorrow morning, as previously scheduled, or should I get my oil changed instead? Decisions, decisions…)

(p.p.s. Go see a movie this weekend. Try the one with John Cusack. I know a little bit about it. The story just about broke my heart.)

Rollerena: Diva, activist, skater, legend.

The first time I heard of RollerArena (later, Rollerena), I was fresh out of the Navy and the closet and running up and down the east coast, in the fall of 1972, attending various gay lib functions at sister universities to the U. of D., where I was the President of the fledgling LGBT group there. It was said that Roller showed up, like Batman, only in a tattered old wedding dress, eyeglasses that looked like Barry Humphries castoffs, and roller skates, at anything that smacked of political gayeity or just plain fabulousness.

The first time I saw Rollerena was on a streetcorner in Greenwich Village, around Christmas of 1972, when my then boyfriend, for my Christmas present, had gotten us tickets to see "Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill" which was playing at the Theater de Lys (later renamed the Lucille Lortel theater), on Christopher Street. I was enthralled as Rollerena whizzed by, tattered train dragging in the slush, holding a magic wand like Glinda's, waving it over the crowds on the sidewalk, bestowing his Queer Blessings on us all. Roller was street theater. Roller was Guerilla gayness. Roller was my Hero(ine).

One rumor had it that by day he was a block trader at a brokerage house (Wrong. He worked at a city agency), but by night he became the doyenne of dramatic faggotry. It was known that he was one of the darlings of Studio 54 and could be found there many nights of the week. But he wasn't just a disco diva. No, no. This public display of fabulousness had a serious, political purpose behind it.

The next time I saw Roller was in the summer of 1973, at the NY Pride March. I've blogged before about what disorganized messes the Pride Marches were in those days (and a helluva lot more fun than the pre-packaged ones they stage today). Roller didn't remember my name, but he remembered my tallness or something, for he came flitting over to greet me where I had joined the congregation from Rutgers (to say "hi" to a bunch of my fellow radical faeries from that fine institution of insubordination). He, as were we all, was charged by the electricity in the air. In those days civil disobedience was one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs around. ("Hello, my name is Chance? Wouldn't you like to give Chance a piece?")

I continued to hear about Roller over the years, even as I drifted away from my gay lib roots. Sometime, probably in the early 90's, I thought about Roller and wondered whatever became of him. But in those pre-internets day, there was no easy way to check up on him.

Then, on a whim, this morning I googled him.

There's a nice little article about Rollerena here. You should read it. Rollerena is an important part of Your Gay History!
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HOT FLASH!

Rep. Richard Curtis, the Washington State Closet Case I flagellated here yesterday, has resigned (surprise, surprise).

It's also rumored he's in the market for a good divorce lawyer.

Another (yawn) Republican Queer

I'd usually launch into my Claude Raines imitation from "Casablanca" about now ("Gambling?? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!")

But even that seems trite at this point.

Some asshole rightwinger, married with children, self-loathing closet case from Washington State (on the left) has gotten caught (in lingerie, barebacking) with some manwhore (on the right) during some Repuglican conclave, somewhere.

If you're surprised, raise your hand! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

If you want to read all the gory details, click here.

In other news...

Still obsessing about that damned coffee-pot, only now I've managed to drag some of my friends into the funfest.

For Halloween this year I'm pretending to be normal. No one will suspect a thing.

I spoke at a 12-Step meeting at 7:30 a.m. this morning. I was told, early on in my sobriety, that I would always have to be willing to go to any lengths to protect my sobriety and that I was never to say "no" to the program. So I said yes. Sometimes I wonder how coherent I am at 7:30 in the morning while still nursing my 1st cup of coffee after a 50 mile bus ride from central NJ into Manhattan.

We have to be quiet for awhile... they're filming scenes for an upcoming Law & Order Criminal Intent episode in our boardroom today.

My stomach is gurgling, it must be lunch time.

Have a great Halloween everybody!

The Passing of Being "Other"

Nice front page article in today's NYTimes about the disappearance of gay ghettos all around the country as more gay people get (more or less) permanently joined in holy deadlock and move to the burbs where they have 1.9 gaybies, 2 Jack Russell terriers and His and His SUVs.

Not to mention the gayest restored Victorian in town. And a garden that's to die for.

And they garner the enmity of every red-blooded, straight, married-male in town who is constantly nagged by the wife "Why can't OUR place look that nice? The boys have invited us for brunch on Sunday. Wear decent clothes. I don't want you looking like crap, like you usually do."

There was a time, of course, when if you grew up in East Jeebus, or South Bumbutt, you spent your formative years YEARNING to escape to "the big city" be it on the west coast, or the east coast. Without a shred of evidence to support the idea, you just knew, deep down inside, that somewhere "out there" were others like yourself.

Not at home, though. In fact, we LGBTs are the only minority on earth that spend our formative years with nothing to identify with. When a black child comes home at the end of a day he or she generally has some black people to identify with. LGBT kids come home to a bunch of heterosexuals. The miracle is that more of us don't kill ourselves than already do.

So, if you were like me, you couldn't wait to escape. And escape I did. All the way from Wilmington, Delaware to New York City (about 126 miles from one end of the NJTurnpike to the other). And I did by way of Seattle.

Don't ask. I needed a change of scenery.

What surprised me most about Seattle, after I got over the 10 months of yearly darkness, was the huge gay community there (this was 1976, after all). By the fall of 1977 mayoral candidates came into the gay bars to press the flesh.

At the same time, in SF, the Castro was bulging with a burgeoning queer population. As was Greenwich Village, Key West, West Hollywood and The Big Easy, New Orleans.

When I moved to NY in the spring of 1978, you could barely walk down the sidewalks of Christopher Street on a Saturday night from Seventh Avenue to Hudson Street without having to step out into the street several times, due to the congestion on the sidewalks.

And then things changed. And people started dying. And bookstores and bathhouses started to close and people got scared and got into relationships and lived together "happily every after."

And the ghettos started to dry up and disappear. Christopher Street moved uptown, to Chelsea. I don't know what happened everywhere else. I no longer was everywhere else.

What happened, at long last, is what happened to every other immigrant group that found it's way to these shores. We started to assimilate. To move to the burbs with our gaybies and lovers and terriers and trucks.

And suddenly, the straight guys started hanging over the fences getting home makeover tips from the lesbians who moved in next door.

And the ghettos started to disappear. And the Evangelists started to look more and more like the dessicated dinosaurs they truly are.

Ann Coulter Nailed in WeHo Gay Eatery!

Please ignore the above photo until later on, when I get around to actually talking about it.

Before you read anything else today, read this about Ann Coulter:

Ms. Coulter was nailed, and nailed good, dining in a West Hollywood Swishery called Murano last night. There's photographic evidence. The place is owned by two dykes. She was called on it and feigned ignorance of the English language. The owner's were appalled but insisted they "had to serve her."

As the article points out, she's clearly a hypocrite who says outrageous things, probably causes unwarranted deaths amongst gay teenagers, and clearly demeans bunches of people merely to make enough money to dine out with her favorite peeps, gay people who can actually stomach her blatant hypocrisy.

Please read the article. I hope you'll be as appalled as I am. Why somebody doesn't slug this bitch is beyond me.

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Weekend Update.

My brother and I went to see "30 Days of Night" about vampires in Barrow, Alaska during the annual month of darkness up there. It got flayed by the press but my bro' and I are afficianados of the horror genre and we both agreed, it was pretty good and gave us some good frights. This isn't Anne Rice territory. They aren't beautiful nor seductive. They're evil and violent. You've been forewarned.

Then came Sunday morning and catastrophe. (You may now refer to the above photo). The Braun coffeemaker died (that's not a Braun, obviously). After 13 years of faithful service except for 3 years when it lived in my brother's garage while I got sober. I'd already ground the beans and filled it with water. It wouldn't start. Luckily, I had a little spare one that made about exactly 1 cup at a time (I brewed two cups).

So I became a man on a mission Sunday afternoon. To find THE coffeemaker of all coffeemakers. I went to Linens & Things, Best-Buy, Bed, Bad & Beyond, Target and the supermarket.

No dice. Oh, I saw plenty of perfectly suitable coffeemakers, any one of which would've been fine.

But here's the problem. One of my major character defects is indecisiveness, brought about by a fervent need to be "told" what to buy so that when it doesn't work out, I have somebody to blame for it other than myself.

Wait, wait. Let me explain. I don't know how to be decisive. In fact, it pains me to be decisive. If you ask me "Where should we eat?", I'll hem and haw and drag my feet and say, "Oh, why don't YOU choose?" That way, when we both hate it, you can't blame me for your lousy decision! But I can blame you. It's important that I'm always right and you're always wrong.

Brilliant! No??

Look, I'm a recovering drunk and believe me, not exactly a hot-bed of mental health.

I even called everyone I know and left them voicemails asking for advice. The recovering drunks I called are on to my tricks and called me back with "pick the damned thing out for yourself." My earthling friends earnestly offered advice regarding coffeemakers, none of which I intend to take.

I know the one I want. I saw it at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's the Cuisinart model I posted above. It's metal (indestructible), heavy-duty, and bound to last until I die (which is my goal when purchasing any appliances or automobiles).

So next Saturday, after I get the car serviced and my hairs trimmed, I'm trotting my buns right over to B, B & B and plunking down $80.00 to buy myself a coffeemaker that won't give up the ghost after a measly 13 years.

And if see Ann Coulter I'll be sure to throw a scalding cup in her face, where the damage won't be very noticeable.

I'm tired of fucking two-faced media whores like her.

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?

========================================================
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?

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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!

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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.