Oh, Ya Got To Have Friends!

She's the one who started it all. The Divine Ms. M, Bette Midler, in the fall of 1972. Her debut album. And the cut that still resonates in my head to this day is the first cut of the "B" side, "Friends."

And I do. Have friends. After my hideous experience at NY/Presbyterian hospital last Friday a friend of mine, who just happens to work there, took me out to keep me company until I crawled back in from the figurative ledge. This same friend had already told me that I would come and stay with him and his wife after my surgery until I was well enough to travel home from New York to central New Jersey.

And it didn't matter which New York hospital I used. I would still be welcome.

Then on Sunday, out of the blue, a friend of mine from Baltimore called and announced that he and his partner would "love to have me come and recuperate with them" if I chose to have the surgery done at Johns-Hopkins. How many people have friends who would invite them to come and be an invalid with them, for however long it took to get well?

I have friends like that.

I don't remember ever doing anything to earn friends like that, but I seem to have 'em.

Oh, and here's the kicker on all this. Yesterday morning I called a surgeon's office at Mount Sinai and made an appointment to see him this coming Friday morning. He's performed over 1,000 prostectomies using the "da Vinci" robot. This morning, at my daily 12-Step meeting, our "guest speaker" was someone who worked in medical administration --- for a doctor who specializes in cancers.

Take a guess.

Yup. We spoke after the meeting. She works for the guy I'm seeing on Friday. The paperwork (and insurance) is all being taken care of.

I am being taken care of.

I've got friends.

Eleven Years

Yesterday was my 11th sobriety anniversary. In fact, it was exactly Sunday, March 8, 1998 that (so far) I had my last drink of alcohol.

In fact, that last drink was AFTER I'd gotten out of jail that morning. Yes. Jail. On a drunk-driving charge from Saturday night. I awoke that Sunday morning in a cell, my clothes piled neatly on the floor ourside of my cell... safely out of reach (lest I do something stupid, like fashion a noose from my trousers). It took most of the last $220 I had in my wallet to get out of jail that morning. I still had part of a 1.75 liter bottle of rotgut vodka back in my small room at my brother's house, where I'd spent the previous 3 months sleeping on a paper-thin mattress on the attic floor. I polished it off before I passed out for the last time. I hated myself and wished I were dead.

Two days later I attended my first 12-Step meeting, at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, March 10, 1998.

After that there were court dates, a loss of license for 6 months, fines, insurance surcharges, court-mandated attendance at something called IDRC (Intoxicated Driver Resource Center) and, finally, court-ordered attendance at 12-Step meetings for the next year.

By the time the court got around to that, though, I'd already been attending meetings for 3 months. In fact, I'd gotten my 90-Day pin the day before my first court appearance.

11 years later... during which there've been no police, no courts, no insurance surcharges and, most importantly of all, no court-mandated attendance at 12-Step meetings (I run to them of my own volition these days).

I've come to realize a lot of things in those 11 years. I've come to realize that there is a God and that I'm not him (or her). I've also come to believe that there is a plan, which is not my plan and that God, frankly, doesn't give a rat's ass about my opinions regarding that plan, but that my job is to show up for that plan and to do my best to implement that plan. It makes life so much easier when we stop trying to be God... and get rid of that massive chip on our shoulders because we are not God.

I have loving friends and family. For a long time I didn't. I like being around people today. For a long time I didn't.

I go to a Step meeting on Sunday mornings in the sleepy little town of Plainsboro, NJ (home of the non-existent Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital where House practices being a medical jerk). My sponsor goes to the meeting with me. It allows us to have some valuable "face-time" every week. He gave me my 11 year piece at the meeting yesterday.

I love my sponsor. He's my best friend. He puts up with a lot of crap and neediness from me. He thinks I'm a good friend, too. He's told me so. We're good for each other. He and his wife have taken good care of me over the years. They've been there for me with all my medical crap over the years. I would take bullets for them.

So today I start my 12th year of sobriety. I started it the same way I started my sobriety on a dismal, friendless and hopeless Sunday morning in 1998.

One Day at a Time.

I Didn't Make It.

We tried. But my friend, "H", passed away Friday morning. After some last-minute teleconferencing with my friends in New York, we decided to press ahead with our visit and offer what aid and solace we could to "H"'s surviving partner, "S."

Again, we had decided in advance that we would do our utmost to make this weekend not about US and OUR loss, but about our fond (and mostly funny) memories of "H."

Because "H" had an entire different life after 1998 than the one I had known between 1977, when we met in Seattle and 1996 when my life started falling apart and H & S were living in Seattle and had no idea, H had developed a whole new set of friends ... mostly academicians. H had gone and gotten a doctorate while I wasn't looking and was an associate professor of literature at a major state college here in the east.

Believe me, it came as a complete surprise to his "new crowd" that "H" had once operated an adult movie theater in the seamiest part of Seattle.

Or that "H" and I had once recruited another friend of ours, a guy named Ed (who was the trashiest slut we knew) to escort us for our virginal trips to "the baths" in the fall of 1977.

H & I were inseparable buddies in the summer, fall and winter of '77 until I left Seattle to move to New York in March of 1978. It's hard to believe that we managed to squeeze so much life into such a short period of time. But with all the exhuberence and endurance of youth, we did manage it. In those 9 short months we became BFF's. Or so we thought. When the time came to say goodbye, we both dissolved into tears at the thought of being thousands of miles away from each other.

But I did move -- and both of our lives continued and "H" eventually moved to New York a year or so later. By that time I was getting involved with my ex and it was clear to both H and me that our "drinking and disco days" were now a thing of the past.

I wouldn't give up that time we had together for anything. Despite the fact that he was 8 years younger than me, "H" opened my eyes to many things and helped to polish what was still a diamond in the rough (me).

So though I didn't get a chance to tell him goodbye... it doesn't matter. In fact, there is no "goodbye." What I got instead was a rekindling of all kinds of fond memories of my youth that nothing can take away from me. "H" is still very much alive, and still 21, in the only places that matter.... in my memories and in my heart.

I love you, H. I always did and I always will.

-R

We're Havin' a Heat Wave

Sheesh, is it hot out there! It's usually along about day 3 of eastern heatwaves that the whole infrastructure starts coming undone -- from burned out power lines, blown manhole covers, fires, subway outages and buses breaking down with overheated engines and totally dead air-conditioning systems.

But, so far, so good. The only major transit outage so far is the PATH trains (Port Authority Trans-Hudson Railroad). The electrical grid seems to be holding up with only occasional "brown-outs" to indicate that ConEd is re-balancing the system.

I turned in at 9:30 last night and it was lights out at 9:45. I slept like a baby with the fan blowing full blast on me, and the AC on low. By dawn, though, you could've hung meat in my bedroom (no comments about "hung" and/or "meat", please) so it was a shock to walk out into the rest of the apartment when I got up this morning.

============================================

My friends from New York and I have made reservations to stay at a hotel up near where our friends "H" and "S" live. The plan is to spend the long 4th of July weekend with them.

I got more information about "H"'s condition on the overnight news wire (e-mails post-midnight). He had been battling liver cancer for years and it had been in remission for some time. However it recently recurred and, eventually, it spread from his liver to his spine.

I've asked God to grant "H" the grace and strength to endure whatever God has planned for him -- and to grant "S" the strength to endure the unendurable when the time eventually comes.

I've also asked God to help ME to be a friend among friends, to keep my head, to avoid drama, and to keep the focus entirely on the people who need it most right now, my friends.

Stormy Weather

It's hotter'n hell here in the east. It has been since last Saturday and it shows every intention of staying this way for another day or two.

Up above is a shot of the crowds at Robert Moses State Park, on Long Island, over the weekend.

I had a sort of date Saturday night with a guy in my 12-Step program whom I've been interested in for years (he's taller than me!!) and he's been sober for about 27 years now. However, we had a chaperone, a fellow who is new to the area and was looking for something to do Saturday night, so he invited himself along with us.

We had dinner first and then went to see and hear the New Jersey Gay Men's Chorus perform up north in the state. It was broiling in the church where they were performing. But that didn't matter. They performed with brio, sensitivity and a real feeling for the material. They even managed to find a mezzo to perform with them (a REAL lady). Their rendition of the Habanera from Bizet's "Carmen" was breathtaking and they captured the flavor of a group of [straight] men enthralled by the gypsy cigarette girl who ruins men's lives, Carmen. The melody of the chorus is absolutely haunting and even though I'm not an opera queen, it is one of my favorite arias.

We didn't get home until way past midnight. Not that it mattered. It was still over 80 degrees in central New Jersey at that hour. I cranked up the a/c in my bedroom, and slept under a sheet. And nothing else.

That's the "weather" part of the subject of today's post. The "stormy" part starts now.

I had an e-mail today from an old friend of mine. He informed me that he'd gotten a phone call over the weekend from another friend of ours, "S", informing him that the "S's" lover, "H", a man we've known for many decades, has been sent home from the hospital to die of pancreatic cancer.

My emotions are all over the place. I first met "H" in Seattle in the summer of 1977, right after I broke up with my lover number 2. "H" and I quickly became drinking and disco-dancing buddies and were pretty inseparable every Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons for the next 9 months or so... until I moved to New York in the spring of 1978.

Eventually "H" moved to New York too where we rekindled our friendship. "H" acquired the boyfriend who called us over the weekend and, in time, we all settled down in various domestic partnerships. Eventually "H" and "S" moved back to Seattle where "H" finished his degrees, eventually getting a doctorate. After that he became a college professor, first in Texas and later in Connecticut.

When I broke up with my partner of 15 years, in the summer and fall of 1994, S&H had long since moved away and, by the time they moved back to the northeast, I was at my bottom in central New Jersey and they, by default, remained friends with my ex.

I have to admit that I've always had a touch of resentment about that, since my ex wouldn't have known any of these people if it hadn't been for me. My ex wasn't terribly lovable and was woefully lacking in certain social skills.

Anyway, that's all water over the dam now. Now my friend is dying and I want him to know that I love him, that even though we haven't been a part of each other's lives for many years now, I have always loved him and I will miss him terribly when he is gone.

Life is short, people. Real short. Go do something you've been meaning to do but have kept putting off. You never know.

Gastric Bypass - The Saga Continues

I'm leaving work early today to attend my second session of the Bariatric Surgery Support Group down home. I have to attend these things, once a month, for a couple of months as part of my pre-certification process for having my gastric bypass done (still hoping for an August date).

The holiday weekend coming up is almost an afterthought. On Tuesday I'll be taking the day off to visit the nutritionist in the morning (9:00 a.m.) and my internist/pulmonologist in the afternoon (2:00).

Somewhere in there I need to get an oil change, drop the laundry off, spend Saturday afternoon, evening and Sunday morning with some friends of mine who live in Queens and try to get some rest.

And rest EASIER I shall. My brother and his neighbor did, indeed, show up last night to pick up the 10-Ton Sony TV from Hell. After much "oomping" and "ouching" it was down the stairs, out the door and loaded onto the neighbor's truck.

It's their headache now. I just hope they have a piece of furniture that'll hold it.

It does weigh 160 pounds, after all. About what I weighed in my junior year of high school.

I'm told that I may count on losing up to 85 pounds after the surgery. It might not be quite what I weighed in high school... but it's awfully close to what I weighed in college.

And wouldn't that be loverly?

Tires, Stitches, Greening America & Mommie Dearest

I took one look outside last Friday morning and decided to call in well ("I feel great -- I won't be there!") Actually, I knew I was going to blow off work by the time I left the office Thursday night. The weather was forecast to be shitty and it didn't disappoint.

I was seeing the eye doctor at 4:30 to get the giant stitch in my eyelid removed, so that gave me the day to kill. So I went in search of new tires for the car.

My Honda Element came with Goodyear Wranglers -- the biggest pieces of crap it has ever been my misfortune to own. They lasted exactly 32,375 miles. I do NOT recommend them.

I wound up at Sam's Club at 10:00 a.m. in a driving rain and found out they only had one set of tires in stock that would fit my car. And they did not come with any guarantee.

The $600 government rebate was burning a hole in my bank account so I crossed over Route 1 and dropped into the Firestone store. They had a lovely set of Bridgestones which were, frankly, less than I expected to pay and which came with a 60k mile treadlife guarantee. They were installed in a thrice and I was once more safely on the highways of New Jersey, in a monsoon.

The only movie of note which opened over the weekend was that trashy Vegas thing, which I decided to skip, so I killed time at home until it was time to see the eye doctor.

I'd spent all week thinking that he'd put two stitches into the incision. But I was wrong. It was one, giant, stitch, tied off at both ends of the incision, with the majority of the thread hidden inside the lid someplace. He snipped the ends and yanked it out and my eye, VOILA!, looks nearly as good as new (well, I no longer look like I'm winking at everybody, thank God!).

Saturday I drove up to northwestern NJ to personally inspect the construction site of a new home being built by really close friends of mine. It was amazing. It's huge. About 5,000 sq. ft. The ground floor is entirely his company -- he's an industrial designer. The upper two floors are the "living levels" of the house. It's constructed entirely of concrete slabs and industrial steel. Utterly fireproof. It's also green to the point where they'll always manufacture more electricity than they use (and will, eventually get a paycheck FROM PSE&G every month for the surplus juice they sell to the grid). The house is heated and cooled geothermally. They dug down 100's of feet to get to the permanent temperature line. Cooling tubes are embedded in the concrete slab floors and walls. The cantilevered roofs of the house and out-buildings will be totally covered with photovoltaic cells. There'll also be a wind-powered generator, about 100' tall, to crank out some power on cloudy days.

I spent nearly an hour there before I started feeling like a third-wheel at the construction site, so I left. I'm happy for my friends, but sad that they will be living so far away from me now. This couple has been there for me through thick and thin over the last 10 years, and I love them dearly.

I know I'll always be a welcome guest up there...

Sunday was a beautiful day, but....

I'm nearly 60 and I still have "issues" with my long-deceased mothers (my birth mom and her mom, my grandmother). You'd think I'd be able to move past all that by now.

It's amazing how we let people live, rent-free, inside of our heads. Even years after they've long since died. I guess I'm just one of those people who love to run a Hotel du Pain inside their head. Or at least feel compelled to do so.

I hope you all had a pain-free Mother's Day. I didn't.

Cash & Prizes

I started to get sober 10 years ago, a week ago last Saturday. That's a lot of sober time. It also represents a period spent mending a lot of fences (and erecting a few new ones, too).

I got an e-mail this morning from a guy I've known since October of 1971. I think we probably liked each other a lot back then. I remember thinking, in those days, how nice he was and how I wished I could be a part of his inner circle of friends. But my disease took me elsewhere and even though we'd maintained a very loose contact with each other over the years, I never had that close friendship I would've liked to have had.

That all changed after I started getting sober. And that e-mail he sent me detailed, in a very short paragraph, how much I've come to mean to him in the last 10 years.

It made me so happy that I started to cry.

When I wrote back I tried to find the right words to let him know how grateful I am that by getting sober I've been able to finally get something I've wanted for years. To be his friend.

For the last several years he and his life partner, and another friend of ours, have vacationed together for a week or two just about every summer. My emailing friend and I tend to be early risers and I love spending a quiet hour or so with him every morning, sitting out on the screened porch, or on the deck, or somewhere overlooking the beach or water, just drinking coffee and yapping about nothing, something, everything.

The best gifts I've gotten in sobriety are the gifts of love and friendship. Anything else is just "stuff."

For an alkie like me, it takes a long time to come to appreciate the really important things in life. I'm grateful that I "got it" before it was too late.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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).

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!!!!!

!!!Baby's First Birthday!!!

Today is the first anniversary of JoyZeeBoy - The Blog.

I haven't been a daily poster and for that I am truly sorry. If there's one thing I've learned in sobriety, it takes constant, daily attendance at 12-Step meetings in order to get and to stay sober.

And it takes constant and daily posting to learn what a crappy writer I really am. Not to mention pompous, pedantic, petulant, pedestrian and, at times, downright pubescent.

But I procrastinate.

Sometimes I feel like I'm flying when I write. The words come out so fast I can't keep up. This especially happens when I'm writing about where I was in my drunkeness compared to where I am now or, really, anything to do with sobriety. Sometimes the words have to be dragged out, especially when I'm really pissed about something (usually a politician).

Sometimes I hit the "Publish" button and when I check it out on-line everything is perfect. Other times I have to edit and re-edit the piece until it finally makes some bit of sense.

And sometimes it's just hard to think of anything to write about. That's when I feel really "less than." I feel like I should always have something to say, something to contribute. But when I find myself feeling that way I try to remember that I don't share at every 12-Step meeting, either. Sometimes it's enough for people to just know that I'm there.... rather than where I used to be, 10 years ago.

I don't have a huge readership. I know a handful of my regulars (Bev, Alan, Steve & Luke) but other regulars I don't know at all. I just know that they're from Maine, Missouri, Lancaster (PA) and Los Angeles. But I appreciate every one of you and hope that sometimes I say something that makes it worth your time taking a look.

I got the impetus to start writing this because of Bev. Sometime around the turn of the century I hit bottom and she started her daily blog, "Funny The World" which, if you haven't read it, you should.

I started reading her daily postings about 4 years ago, then I started to read Steve's blog, "Living in the Bonus Round", and things just took off from there.

Now I'm an internet junkie (being a good alcoholic I do a lot of "transferrance" with my addiction(s)).

But I don't regret a single word I've posted here all year.

Until, of course, they come to haul me off to Gitmo because I think President Bush is an incompetent jerk.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, EVERYONE!

Now where's the friggin' cake?