Cat Zen Space

Remembering Pat on World AIDS Day

2010-12-01T02:28:00.000-08:00

Patrick has been on my mind lately, so it seemed inevitable that the picture would surface without much effort.

And there it was. A picture of Patrick and me.

There were originally three men in the picture before it was cropped. In addition to Patrick and me, another man named Bill was also in the group shot.

I am the the only man in the picture who did not contract AIDS, the only one still alive.

What is wrong with this picture?

I mean, besides my hair.

On the day this picture was taken, no one had heard of AIDS. We were working in Patrick's office. He was the lobbyist for the Florida Gay Task Force. At that time, Patrick was the only full time lobbyist in any state working for gay rights.

This picture was used in an article in The Advocate, a national weekly gay newspaper. Florida had a gay lobbyist, in part, as a reaction to Anita Bryant and her quest to repeal gay rights legislation in Miami that had caught national attention.

Anita didn't want gay school teachers molding impressionable minds in Dade County. She went on TV and told us that God didn't create Adam and Steve, He created Adam and Eve and, well, that proved it.

In retrospect, I think we owe Anita a debt of gratitude. She made a big deal about something a lot of folks didn't even want to think about, much less talk about: Gay people walk among us!

Her activism gave rise to activism on the other side, which lead to the Florida Task Force creating a lobbying office in Tallahassee, which lead to Patrick being hired as the lobbyist. Otherwise, Patrick would have never come to Tallahassee and we would not have become friends.

Thanks, Anita.

I searched through my journals—those spiral bound, blue lined angst repositories where I recorded whatever was on my mind, most often with a blue Flair pen—for references to Patrick.

Sometimes I just want to go back in time and throttle myself. "Listen, you big haired, self-absorbed nitwit," I want to scream. "Take better notes! In 30 years, I am going to want details. It is bad enough I can barely read your handwriting, but let me tell you, in the future I am not going to care one bit that you think your Irish Literature professor is boring…"

As if I would listen to myself even if that happened. So my notes are, at best, sketchy.

This is the first mention of Patrick in my journal:

4/15/80 Gay Rap Group: A new person—Pat from San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Miami. Definitely a neat person, and alas I am smitten again.

Let me stop here and explain to the young people in the audience that in the vernacular of the day "Rap Group" had nothing to do with music. "Rap" was slang for "talk". I think it was something the hippies cooked up when they were tripping on LSD. "Hey, let's don't just talk….Let's Rap!"

So, a rap group was like a support group and on this particular night, Patrick was there. We liked each other instantly. I like that in my first entry I describe Pat as being from three places. He was that kind of person, a wanderer. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, but had lived all over—Miami, San Francisco, New York.

Another journal entry:

4/19/80 Pat is in Tallahassee as the lobbyist for the Florida Task Force. Yesterday evening he stopped by and I went to the Mikisooki Land Co-Op where he lives with a married couple, their child, a young woman and her German boyfriend who she doesn't sleep with, in a dome shaped house that is really extraordinary. Pat cooked dinner (omelets and spinach) and then we went to campus to see "Last Tango in Paris."

Pat obviously appealed to my Bohemian instincts even before I realized I had any.
Here's a good description of Pat from my journal:

4/20/80 I really like Pat. He is so genuine and good and honest. He really has a refreshing outlook, very healthy view of things. He also has a beautiful laugh which causes attractive crinkles around his eyes.

I worked as a volunteer in Pat's office. I remember that periodically he would take a break and meditate.

We handled the details for a march on the capital building in Tallahassee. Troy Perry, the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church came for the march. He and Pat spoke on the steps of the phallus shaped capital building. I remember thinking, "I love this guy, but Pat is no public speaker."

It was because of Pat that I almost got arrested. He took me to a nude swimming spot out in the middle of nowhere. I guess it was a lake, but not a terribly big one. There were several people there. Patrick was the only one I knew. This was my first nudist experience. Alas, it was cut short when someone from the Sheriff's office drove up. He told everyone to get dressed or get arrested. We all chose the former.

Patrick was the only roommate The Boyfriend and I ever had. After we returned from San Francisco in the early 80's, Patrick decided to move to Jacksonville. As I recall, Pat was something of a tight wad, but I always knew he had money. He could afford to live alone, but he didn't like it, so he always had a roommate. I think he lived with us for about a year before moving on. I think he moved to Tampa after that. Wherever it was, I am sure he didn't stay long.

Patrick was someone who always called me on my bullshit. More than any friend I have ever had, before or since. A virtue, I suppose. Still, he often pissed me off, but I still loved him.

It is funny the things you remember. Even though he didn't drink and had never been an alcoholic, Patrick went to gay AA meetings to meet guys.

Finding the journal entries from the first meeting with Patrick was pretty easy. Entries about Patrick after that are more difficult to locate. Patrick was a bit of a vagabond and he moved in and out of my life for several years.

Sometime around 1995, Pat called me out of the blue. He was living in Los Angeles. He wanted to see me. He was sick.

I was shocked that Patrick had AIDS. He was the first person to discuss safe sex with me and that had been right after the AIDS crisis hit the news in a big way. I believed he was practicing safe sex and was, therefore, safe.

But he wasn't.

We discussed me coming to visit, the treatment he was receiving. "I want to see you," he said in a way that sounded more desperate than I wanted to accept. The tenor of his voice said, "There is a deadline, I just don't know what it is."

I called Patrick a week later and was disturbed to find he did not remember our conversation from the week before. He sounded weak and disoriented. I decided to check back later concerning coming to visit him. Now hardly seemed like the time…

But time really was the issue.

When next I called, there was no answer.

Then his phone was disconnected.

Patrick was gone.

Except, no one is ever gone. Patrick was part of my life. I remember him with affection. I have a photograph. I can hear his voice in my head. Pat lingers, and I am grateful.

Patrick was on the staff of the AIDS Project of Los Angeles and is remembered on the Names Project AIDS quilt on a panel dedicated to their staff members who died.

Patrick is not the only friend I lost to AIDS. From San Francisco, there were my co-workers, Micky and Richard; my friend Konstantin, a fiercely radical activist and writer, who I met after writing him a fawning fan letter. From Jacksonville, there was Chuck, Glenn and Ronn and so many others. Too many.

Konstantin's Names Project panel from the AIDS quilt.

But Patrick was the closest friend taken by AIDS.

Now I have friends who are living with HIV. Not lost, but encumbered by a disease we all hoped would have been defeated by now.

When all is said and done, World AIDS Day isn't about a virus or potential treatments or even about politics. It is about people. People who are surviving and people who have passed on—but people who love and are loved by others.

World AIDS Day, December 1, is a reminder to never stop caring about these people.

I miss you, Pat.

Working Out with Billy Joel

2010-11-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

It is early and the sun hasn't yet made an appearance.

I am at the gym, engrossed in the elliptical machine.

This is pretty much what I look like on the elliptical machine except I am marginally older (ahem) and not quite so Asian.

I am skiing in place, pumping my legs, listening to Billy Joel on my MP3 player.

NO, it isn't an iPod. I am not a tool of electronic consumer goods.

I am a cheap bastard...

Billy Joel is one of those singers who was right there, writing the soundtrack of my life during some really key moments...Virginity was lost...certain drugs might (or might not!) have been taken...Billy was right there...

I try to focus on Billy and on the workout.

I try to ignore the array of televisions. The sound is off but the images are right in my line of vision. Those images are like a vortex that yanks at my eyeballs.

I work to resist the sucking force of the television screens...

Television totally sucks. I mean that literally...

TV 1 is broadcasting an episode of "Angel."

I have never actually watched that show, but because it is shown on a cable channel early in the morning when I tend to be at the gym, I am pretty sure I have glimpsed nearly every episode by now.

Something I have learned about "Angel" is, if you watch long enough, David Boreanaz is liable to take off his shirt.

TV2 is on ESPN.

ESPN is a cable channel that covers the various sports people in America like to watch. I am not really a sports fan, so I have no idea what these people are talking about. They often interview athletes or, as I like to think of them, men who are paid to play with balls. I know there are women athletes who are also paid to play with balls, but I don't see them as often on this channel. What's that about?! Also, they often run sexy men's deodorant commercials. And razor commercials in which shirtless hunks transform the shaving experience into a studly magical adventure. I find I like these commercials...

It's like some pornographic magazine
And you smile...

TV3 is on Fox News.

For some reason this is the only one of the TVs that includes closed captioning.

Let me just say, I find closed captioning to be a major rip off. Have you ever turned it on? The deaf are getting screwed, that's all I have to say about that. From where I sit (or ski, when at the gym...) the people who type this stuff are the laziest people in the world. I swear sometimes they just fall asleep on the job and their lazy heads hit the keyboard and the next thing you know you're reading:RHHHHHHHHHHWODc pusfpqu -9rutg-9&*^%$*%( 248503by

WTF?

Anyway, the Fox News network has this morning show called Fox and Friends.

In the name of full disclosure, let me just say, I don't like morning news shows with the whole chatty group of so called news professionals and an assortment of couches. I find it annoying.

I don't like Good Morning America.

I don't like The Today Show.

And I most definitely don't like Fox and Friends.

All that chatting and coffee drinking on TV. Do we need that? Really?! I don't think so...

Besides, even with the sound off, I can tell that "Fox and Friends" is one snarky program. It stars this one guy who always looks really smug. Then there's this other some guy who would be good looking if his eyes weren't so close together so no matter he says or does, he looks really dumb. These two losers are always accompanied by an interchangeable series of blond women, all of whom most certainly can trace their lineage directly to Eva Braun. Apparently the thrust of this whole show revolves around two themes: 1) Hating the guts of every Democrat who ever lived, and 2) Endless interviews with people who are doing nothing more than promoting more drivel on this so-called "news" channel.

Smug Guy, Eva, and Guy Whose Eyes Are Too Close Together. With friends like this, I'd rather be alone.

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard...

If these people are "Fair and balanced" then I am "young and thin."

And I most certainly am not...so I ski faster, waiting for a sexy deodorant ad or (Dammit) for David Boreanaz to take off his shirt!

I am preoccupied with a conversation someone recently had with me involving a conversation they had with someone else.

It would seem that a certain woman revealed that in her opinion I lack compassion and, moreover, I am WAY past the time when someone thinks about having children.

Oh, really? For your information Ms. Generation X, I hear my biological clock ticking with a most hearty beat!

No, wait...That's just my heart rate all elevated by all this skiing in place....

Never mind. Carry on.

Am I mistaken or did this woman just imply, neigh, as much as say that I am lacking compassion?

Screw that! Who cares?! Am I mistaken or did this woman just imply, neigh, as much as say that I am post-menopausal?!

Oh, really? For your information, my boys swim just fine. I could knock up three, four women this weekend if the situation called for it....

WAIT!!!!

David Boreantaz just took his shirt off....

One moment....

Do you like your life?
Can you find release?
Will you ever change?
Will you ever write your masterpiece?

OK.

So the likelihood of me knocking up anyone is pretty remote.

Damn remote. But still...the hormones are flowing, baby!

Sure, I am old enough to be David's ~~father~~ ~~older brother~~ some what older brother, but the hormones are flowing!

So STFU!

(I make a mental note to ask some young person I might encounter what STFU stands for...and I keep skiing...)

I'm sure you'll have some cosmic rationale
But here you are in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look but inside
Where we all respond to
Pressure!

What I find most vexing about getting older is that I don't really feel "older" in any real sense. You young people (those of you under 45...) you'll hear this repeated often. All I can say is, Heed the word! Your brain is still stuck in whatever time zone you left it in last (emotionally speaking.) Your brain may be dressing up as Elvis or James Dean....or The New Kids on the Block...

And your mementos
Will turn to dust
But that's the price you pay
For every year's a souvenir
That slowly fades away
Every year's a souvenir
That slowly fades away...

As near as I can tell, our bodies and our brains are way out of sync.

I rarely meet anyone who will cop to their "real age" until they read the list of Grammy nominees and then they are all, "Who are these people?!" And then they blame the Grammy people and not their own brains...

As it should be!

At least that's the way I deal with things...

You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for...

I went to the doctor recently after a 3 year lapse...Blood has been drawn...Tests are being run....Soon, a man will stick his finger up my ass...

I remember when men used to buy me drinks to get me to go along with this sort of shenanigans and now I am paying a co-payment to Blue Cross Blue Shield for this very same privilege...

None of which proves I am post-menopausal, by the way...

That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about
The way the lights went out
And keep the memory alive...

Ski! Ski! Ski! Ski in place!

I ignore all of the televisions...and I notice that the sun is rising.

A new day.

Who can ask for more?

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
Sinners are much more fun...
And only the good die young...

The Vision Thing

2010-03-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

"Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives."

- Plan 9 From Outer Space

I have been thinking about the future lately. What lies ahead? I think this was triggered by a 401k meeting at my office which convinced me the best retirement plan is to die young. When I was younger I think I thought I would be dead by now.

So much for goal setting and long term planning.

I think it is only natural that we want to know what is going to happen in the future. From Nostradamus to Madame Cleo, people have always looked toward prophets and psychics for advice about what is to come.

The Amazing Criswell

The quote at the top of the blog was delivered in the film by the Amazing Criswell, an American psychic who is famous for making outlandish and inaccurate predictions. He predicted that the world would end on August 18, 1999. It didn't. Yet in March 1963 Criswell went on TV and predicted that President Kennedy would not seek re-election in 1964 because something was going to happen to him in November 1963.

In the movie Ed Wood, Criswell, as played by Jeffrey Jones, admits that he is merely a showman. However some who were close to the real Criswell quote him as saying, "I had the gift but lost it when I started taking money for it."

Jeane Dixon

Another famous psychic was Jeane Dixon. She allegedly predicted the assassination of President Kennedy as well. She also predicted that World War III would begin in 1958 and there would be world peace by the year 2000. In retrospect it appears that Jeane was more hype than prophet--although she did make a fair amount of profit during her life. I remember when she passed away someone made the joke, "Didn't see that coming did she?"

Books about Biblical prophecy are very popular. Hal Lindsey who wrote The Late Great Planet Earth about the End Times foretold in the Bible has been making a good living off of his "the Antichrist is on the way and Jesus won't be far behind" books for 30 years now. One of his books was called The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon. (Apparently it is a very slow count down. Maybe they started it at a million.)

Then there is the Left Behind book series. There are something like 100 volumes, plus spin-offs like movies, board games and for all I know, chocolate bars. Any way you look at it, End Times Bible prophesy is big business. Why else would someone have felt a need to do a remake of The Omen?

I remember when the psychic hotlines were all the rage. Celebrities who hadn't worked much in a long time hosted infomercials extolling the wisdom of calling Psychic Friends for sage psychic advice. I am not sure who it was that decided to market these hotlines by using has been and never was celebrities. I mean who would look at La Toya Jackson and say, "Yeah! I want to get advice from whoever is telling her what to do!"

I went to a psychic once. She was a middle aged Southern lady of some renown. She once predicted a plane would crash and it did, so the FBI followed her around for a while. She insisted she was psychic but her flaw was that she wasn't so good with time frames. So when she told me I would get a promotion, it didn't necessarily mean I'd get a promotion any time soon. It meant I would get one eventually. And you know what? Eventually I did! Are you getting goosebumps?

I don't mean to suggest that I am a total skeptic. Truly I'm not.

My college girlfriend was into both astrology and the Tarot. When we first met (when we were still "just friends") she did a Tarot reading for me. She told me that I would soon (as opposed to eventually) meet someone who would change my "lifestyle" forever.

After we became involved, she consulted her astrologer in Miami about me and was told to beware because a high percentage of Virgo men born in 1958 are gay. Soon thereafter, I met my boyfriend, took up the gay "lifestyle" and proved the astrologer was correct--at least about this particular Virgo born in 1958.

Besides psychics and prophets there are people who are visionary, who without any claim of special powers or without using a Ouija board, can imagine things that are coming in the near future. I guess sometimes it is just a matter of seeing which way the wind is blowing.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol predicted that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Given the 24 hour news cycle, reality TV and the Internet, he is dead-on correct. William Hung, the runaway bride, Octo-Mom and all those Real Housewives come to mind.

Andy didn't say how famous mind you, he just promised we'd all have 15 minutes of fame.

If you haven't had yours yet, just wait.

Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky gave us the prophetic 1976 film, Network. I highly recommend it. This movie foresaw network news packaged as entertainment, and predicted reality television decades before it became all the rage. Chayefsky thought he was being outlandish and satirical.

Or it could be that he just saw what was coming.

It could be that some people are born psychic and some people just have a keen eye. Maybe we just want to believe someone can predict the future so that the future doesn't seem so scary and, well, unpredictable.

I don't know if I really want someone to tell me what is going to happen in my future. No matter how good it is, eventually something is going to go awry. No need to get depressed about it in advance.

However, a psychic really might be helpful with retirement planning. I wonder if any of the people who are handling my money at T. Rowe Price are psychic?

Maybe a better question is, who do I have to consult to get some winning lottery numbers?

Ordinary Things

2010-03-14T09:42:00.001-07:00

Missed Connections

2010-03-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

Have you ever encountered someone in passing and wished you could see that person again? Maybe it was someone you brushed up against at a club or exchanged polite words with on the street. It could be someone you made eye contact with across a subway platform. You know, the whole "some enchanted evening, you might meet a stranger across a crowded room" thing?

Later you find that you can't stop thinking about that moment and wish you could make that connection again.

What to do? How can you reach this person who slipped through your fingers like a ghost?

The solution? Place a Missed Connections advertisement on Craigslist.com or in your local newspaper.

I am fascinated by the Missed Connection personal ads. They seem crazy and romantic and even a little bit cosmic to me. I find them irresistible.

I have a friend who also finds them irresistible.

Every week when she gets the latest issue of the local weekly paper she turns to the missed connections ads.

"Is someone looking for me?" she asks out loud in the voice someone might use when consulting the Magic 8 ball.
After she has read over the ads, I ask, "Was anyone looking for you?"
"Not this week," she sighs.

In truth my friend checks the missed connection ads with the same level of seriousness she checks the Horoscope column. For her it is a moment of wistful fun but there is still a whisper of possibility…

In that same paper my friend checks every week there is an ad that has been running for about a month. Perhaps you can see why it caught my eye:

I saw you at (a local topless bar and grill) You: hot, tall, white lady; I think you're in love with me. We talked about you going to nursing school. I'll help you fund it. Me: short, big, white guy in tank top with Jheri curl mullet.

I have to wonder if the lady in question has seen this ad. If so, why hasn't she responded? He is pretty sure she's in love with him after all. The hot, tall white lady needs to jump on this one. Let's face it. Short, big, white guys in tank tops with Jheri curl mullets don't grow on trees.

I have another friend who placed a Missed Connection ad on Craigslist after locking eyes with a terribly handsome man in a restaurant as she was walking out the door. Amazingly enough, the man in question actually responded. They got together a few times. Ultimately it didn't work out. He looked good on the outside but….

Let's just say the last time they saw each other he bit her. Not in a good way either. The man actually bit her.

I guess some missed connections are better left missed.

Yet even though things didn't work out for my friend, I still see each of these ads as a tiny monument to hopefulness.

The missed connections ads frequently tell a story—sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometime lurid, and sometimes even a little scary.

Here's a local "man for man" missed connection ad:

Wandered into the bathroom at the exhibition hall and saw you leaning back at the last urinal by the wall...I tried not to look, but just couldn't resist your incredible good looks and your huge c*ck. I've never seen one that big! You were on your cell phone and holding your huge c*ck with your right hand. Once you finished, you shook you c*ck a few times at me and then continued talking on your cell phone in the handicapped stall. I wanted to follow you in there…but there were others in the bathroom. I'd love to run into you again...please respond to this email and let me know where we can meet.

Wow. There's a lot of c*ck in that ad.

I think we can all agree this ad is appalling. Why would anyone talk on his cell phone while using the bathroom? Was he raised in a barn?

On a somewhat different note, here's a man for man missed connection from Washington, DC:

You are damn hot. I'd like to get to know you. I see you taking metro daily at Dupont. I am your secret admirer. I even take the orange line just to follow you…

Think about the story this one tells. Every day this man waits at the Dupont Circle Metro station where, instead of catching the train he should be taking to get to work or school, he follows the subject of this email onto the orange line train. He does not make small talk or even speak to the object of his affection. He rides until his beloved disembarks. Then he has to backtrack and catch the train he should have caught in order to arrive at his original, intended destination.

This story is a gentle reminder that the only thing distinguishing a "secret admirer" from a "stalker" is a restraining order.

I love the variety of emotions expressed in these ads. Some of them are almost poetic:

Am starved for human connection; you once fed me.

Here's poignant one from San Francisco:

Nevermind.
I saw you, but now you're gone.

And here's a troubling one from San Francisco:

Saw you standing there in your piss soaked panties. We might as well hook up and make it a fun time.

Some missed connections seem nearly hopeless. From London:

About a year and a half ago we met at the UCL locker room…I lost your number, tried to just move on and not think about it, but you keep popping into my mind. Would love to meet you again sometime… You will probably never get this, but just in case.

You have to wonder why he didn't jump on the lost number situation a little sooner. This one is a missed connection within a missed connection. I fear it will take a miracle to bring these two together.

But it could happen. That is one of the things that makes missed connection ads so fascinating—anything is possible even if it isn't likely.

Sometimes people use the Missed Connection ads to make contact with someone with whom they already have a relationship. I guess they just aren't sure how to take things to the next level.

Here's an example:

I think you're great. Just what my Mom would love for me to take home. I love the way that white coat looks on you. Your smile is so comforting. It's so embarrassing that you have to treat my feet. I hate it and I love it at the same time. Do you have a girlfriend, Dr. Lee??

Gee, I hope things work out for the girl with the foot issues and Dr. Lee, don't you?

Here's another one:

Dear Bipolar Girl at Work
So I'm starting to suspect that you read the "Missed Connections"…I've noticed a slight change in the way you act towards me. The way you smiled at me makes me think that something is up... Anyways, I hope that you are reading this because this is how I really feel about you. The truth is that I can't get you out of my mind and I love having you there.... I want you to know that I do care about you and I hope everything is going good in your life outside of work.
See ya tomorrow...

You can't help but be curious about what happened at work the next day.

I see these last 2 ads as an adult version of the junior high note-passing brand of courtship:

I like you. Do you like me? Check one:
( ) YES
( ) NO

There are times when I read the Missed Connection ads and think: Gee, you already had your chance. Like this one from Chicago:

You ate my nachos, I ate your pretzel.
You took my picture for me, spit on my arm, and left just before the game ended to meet your friends. Wish you had asked me for my name, or number, or both. But you can email me now.

Spit on his arm? Help me understand—this guy was able to collect DNA from some gal but not her name or number?

As far as I know no one has ever written a missed connections ad about me. Sorry to say, if they did I missed the ad and, well, we never connected.

Maybe I should take matters into my own hands like this missed connection ad from Portland:

I read this daily to see if someone wrote about me.

Don't you realize how bored I am at work, and could use something to read?

Do my white teeth smiles, charming retail flirting, sarcastic sense of humor, and snappy fashion sense need go unappreciated by craigslist readers?

For god sake write about me!!!

Actually this gives me an idea. How can I expect anyone else to be looking for me if I haven't found myself yet?

Perhaps I should consider the metaphysical possibilities of the Missed Connections ads.

Being in the throes of a midlife crisis and all, I am perpetually in search of myself. Then, just when I think I've found myself, I slip through my fingers like a ghost.

Who am I anyway? Am I my resume?

I've been to paradise but I've never been to me.

Oh sure, generally speaking, wherever I go, there I am. But sometimes it's like I am a million miles away…

What about those days when I am just not myself?

Last week at the gym I made eye contact with myself in one of the mirrors while I was working out. Was it my imagination or did I have "a moment"…and then some sweat dripped into my eyes and I turned away. Can that moment be recaptured?

When I ride my bike on Sundays I sometimes catch a glimpse of myself in the windows of the buildings that I pass but I am too shy to say hello…

What to do?

What else can I do? I placed this Missed Connections advertisement:

I see you riding your bike most every Sunday morning. You--40 something man with blond/gray hair. I love your Keith Haring t-shirt. Me--similar to you in many ways. You seem to be searching for something. I hope it is me.

There, that should certainly catch my attention. Maybe I'll connect with myself soon. I know the odds are slim but there is still the whisper of possibility…

So tell me: Do you read the Missed Connections ads? Have you ever placed one? Has anyone ever been looking for you? What happened?

My Overdose

2010-02-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

It began innocently enough. Doesn't it always?

I got into my car after working out at the gym. Still a little breathless and all hopped up from the "natural high" of the endorphin afterglow from exercise, I reached into my backpack to extract the vitamin supplements that I take after working out.

That was my intention anyway.

But my mind played a trick on me see? It was a mistake I tell you.

Somehow I reached for the wrong bottle, took out a pill, and tossed it into my mouth. Then I took a swig of water and swallowed.

Then it hit me, "Oh my God, I've overdosed on my blood pressure medication!"

I am supposed to take one pill a day and I took one before I left for the gym. (I don't want to stroke out on the elliptical machine now do I?) Now I had taken one after my work out as well.

Just an innocent mistake, I swear it!

My mind raced, "What to do?"

"Induce vomiting," came back the reply. That's what it says on all the labels!

I leapt from my car and ran back into the gym.

"Can I help you?" asked the chipper young woman behind the reception desk.

What is the best way to induce vomiting? What do all the warning labels say?

"I need mustard!"

"What?"

"I need mustard!"

She looked around behind the desk in an attempt to be helpful. "Sorry. I don't have any mustard. I have a Powerbar, would that help?"

"I don't think so…" I replied.

"Gatorade?"

I gave her a panicked look and ran to the men's room.

I stuck my finger down my throat. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing.

I should have known my lack of gag reflex that serves me so well in certain, um, situations would come back to bite me on the ass one day.

I simply could not make myself vomit.

I guess I can scratch bulimia off of my list of potential weight loss plans.

There's nothing to do but face the fact that soon I will be tripping on my blood pressure meds.

Somewhere in the twisted recesses of my brain the song White Rabbit by the Jefferson Airplane begins to play.

One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small…

I return to my car. I need to quickly drive the quarter of a mile to my office before the meds kick in. Those drug warnings don't caution against driving or operating heavy machinery for nothing.

I lock myself in my office and sit down. Got to think! Got to think! Once the drug kicks in no telling what will happen!

I know! I'll just keep the door closed and locked all day. No one will notice. Except…. Damn me and my "Open Door Policy!"

What was I on when I implemented that cockamamie idea?

Maybe I should just admit to everyone that I accidentally took an overdose of blood pressure medicine. But who would believe me. Accident? I can hear them scoffing now.

No. I have to somehow maintain and pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary…

But can I function while I am tripping on blood pressure medicine? I have visions of people asking me how I am today and me responding in a strangely slow voice, "Oh man, my blood pressure is so low…"

What is it about overdosing on pharmaceuticals that makes me think of the 1970's?

7^th grade Health class: I was hoping the class would be more about sex and not so much about the dangers of cigarettes and drugs. I get it! Drugs are bad. Now can we see pictures of naked people? But no, the teacher just wants to talk about topics like "gateway drugs" and such.

Gateway drugs?! What was it she said? Something like marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin…What if blood pressure medicine is a gateway drug to something else? Like maybe cardiovascular drugs?

I start abusing this stuff and then I'll be wanting antithrombotic drugs, maybe even something antiarrhythmic. God forbid I start using that antianginal stuff—Nitro glycercerin! Then things start blowing up—just like those meth labs I read about in Time magazine.

I am starting to feel…something. Am I getting "high"? Or, considering the nature of the drug I have taken, am I getting "low"?

What if after today I have a craving to get "low" everyday? I'll start doubling up the dosage. Then I'll develop a tolerance so I'll have to add a third and fourth pill to my sinister vasodilator cocktail. Then I'll go through my prescription two or three times as fast. When Walgreens won't give me a refill I'll have to start getting my blood pressure drugs on the street!

And the ones that mother gives you

Don't do anything at all…

I flash on an image of myself in one of those seedy neighborhoods with drug dealers on every corner you see in anti-drug commercials. As I walk slowly down the sidewalk, the dealers who loiter on the bus benches and under the lampposts mutter in my direction,

"Crack?"

"Horse?"

"Meth?"

"Lisinopril?"

I lock eyes with the seedy dealer.

"Oh, the dude wants to get low," he says with a knowing chuckle.

I shudder in an attempt to shake off this prophetic image. It is just like they taught me in junior high school. I should have made more of an effort to pay attention.

Go ask Alice

When she's ten feet tall...

I remember the book Go Ask Alice. All the kids in my junior high read it. It was supposed to be the real diary of a high school girl. Later I learned it was actually one of many novels written by an adult named Beatrice Sparks as a cautionary tale for teens and then marketed as a true story.

A few years ago James Frey took that same concept and applied it to adults. Look where that got him.

Meanwhile Go Ask Alice is still in print and is still taught in schools as a true story.

There's a lesson here:

Make up whatever you want, just don't piss off Oprah.

The Movie of the Week version of Go Ask Alice came out in 1973. The movie includes the memorable line:

He's getting high just talking about getting high, and you're getting high off of his high, and I'm getting high
off of your high. And it's one big contact high.

In the movie, William Shatner (after Captain Kirk but before T.J. Hooker) plays the clueless father of the protagonist—a girl named Alice. When Alice's grades start to slip and she starts hanging out with glassy eyed kids who look like refuges from Woodstock, it never occurs to her parents that their daughter might be experimenting with drugs.

It is safe to say they are the only parents in 1973 that wouldn't have leapt to that conclusion.

All of the parents I knew at the time were extremely paranoid about their kids doing drugs. If you so much as looked at your mother sideways she would start in with the "Are you on drugs?" If you looked sad, happy, mad or tired, one of your parents would inevitably query, "Are you high on something right now?"

Not so William Shatner and his made for TV movie wife. They didn't figure anything out until it was too late.

When logic and proportion

Have fallen softly dead…

Still, Alice's drug problem wasn't really the fault of the parents. It all began when someone slipped LSD in Alice's soft drink at a party. From there life spiraled out of control—more drugs, promiscuous sex, drug dealing boyfriends, running away from home and living on the streets.

After hitting rock bottom Alice seeks assistance from a priest played by Andy Griffith.

She's lucky he didn't throw her in the drunk tank with Otis.

Andy reunites Alice with her parents, she kicks her habit and things start looking up. Then someone slips her drugs (again!) while she is babysitting. When Alice feels the stuff kicking in, she locks herself in a closet in order to protect the baby.

For a moment I wonder if maybe I should lock myself in a closet. When I remember that Alice in the movie freaked out and hurt herself trying to claw her way back out of the closet and wound up in the hospital, I think better of the closet idea.

Where's Andy Griffith when I need him?

And the White Knight is talking backwards

And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"

After getting out of the hospital, Alice really cleans up her act. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. I don't want to spoil the ending in case anyone wants to rent this or read the book but let's just say Go Ask Alice has a sad ending.

That ending seemed a whole lot sadder when we all believed Go Ask Alice was a true story.

Go Ask Alice, like Reefer Madness before it, is intended to scare kids straight. It actually worked on the kids I went to school with—no one at my junior high used drugs.

Everyone waited until they were in senior high school. Some even waited until college.

Remember what the dormouse said...

I guess by now you've figured out that I did not die from my reckless overdose of pharmaceuticals since dead men do not blog.

Despite the all of the warnings I received in junior high school, I did what so many children of the 70's would do---I turned to another drug for help.

I decided coffee was the answer.

If caffeine elevates blood pressure then I figured drinking more coffee would give that extra pill something to do. Apparently it worked.

Let this be a lesson to us all.

Feed your head!

Flirting with the Clueless

2010-02-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

I got my haircut on Saturday and I swear the woman who cut my hair was flirting with me. Of course this didn't occur to me until sometime on Tuesday when it suddenly hit me—"I think that stylist was flirting with me!" I suppose the flirting can be considered to be less than effective if the flirtee doesn't catch on until 3 days later.

It really wasn't this woman's fault. I am sure she is a very competent flirt. I am just a little slow sometimes.

According to an article on romantic-lyrics.com, women are more subtle about flirting and most men need "a larger clue" to figure out what's going on. In other words, as most of my women friends tell me, men are clueless.

The woman who became my college girlfriend had to take her top off before I got the hint that she was trying to seduce me. Even then I wasn't sure if maybe she was just feeling a little warm. In my defense, she was a tad more worldly than I. Let's just say, I was a bit worldlier after that evening, I tell you what (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge! ) At the time I was hoping that evening (and the nine months to follow) meant I was straight. As it turns out, I was just bi-curious. But I learned a lot from that experience.

I am now aware that when a woman introduces her breasts into the situation you'd better pay attention because something is up! Word to the wise.

The hair stylist may have just been making conversation. I mean, she didn't take her top off so maybe I misunderstood the signals. She was talking about my hair, my "beautiful hair" and running her fingers through it as stylists will. It got all tussled in the process she said,"now I get to see what you look like when you first get out of bed…"

A more alert man—a heterosexual man on the prowl—OK, A Guy, would have seized this opportunity to say something suave like, "oh baby, if you really want to see what I look like when I first get out of bed maybe you should spend the night sometime."

I thought of that comeback on Tuesday. Not that I would have actually said that to her. I already share a bed with my boyfriend, my dog and my cats. There just isn't room for another person.

You may think the fact that I am gay makes me extra clueless in determining whether or not a woman is flirting with me and you may be right. However, I am proud to report that I am an equal opportunity dullard when it comes to being the object of flirtation—I miss clues when men flirt with me too.

July 25, 1979. My relationship with The Boyfriend was newly minted. He was in Jacksonville and I was in Tallahassee attending the summer quarter at FSU. We did not at that time have an exclusive relationship.

I was taking a creative writing class that met in the evening. One of my classmates was a young man we will call "Jeff." As a matter of fact "Jeff" is his real name. (What are the odds Jeff is going to read this blog and recognize himself after 30 (ouch) years? And if he does, "Hey, Jeff—email me!")

If you have never taken a creative writing class this is pretty much what it entails—the students write stories. Your story is either duplicated so everyone in the class gets a copy or the story is read to the class, sometimes by the professor and sometimes by the student who wrote it. Then the class critiques the story. This can be a scary process.

I generally liked the stories Jeff wrote and he generally liked mine. One evening after class, Jeff invited me to have a few beers with him at a watering hole close to the campus. We will call the bar "Poor Paul's Pourhouse" for that is what it was called. Not only that, but as far as I know the bar is still there.

I would like to mention that the drinking age was 18 at the time. Another reason the 70's was such a decadent and wicked time. Not only were college kids taking illegal drugs they could also drink alcohol legally.

Good times.

I don't remember a lot of the details of that evening but what I do remember has haunted me all of these years.

Jeff was an attractive man. He had long, thinning brown hair (I'd wager by now he is quite bald) with sun bleached blond highlights. Jeff had a great tan—not a George Hamilton scary kind of tan but a nice healthy tan and good skin.

I remember Jeff wore these weird mesh slip on brown shoes without socks. He usually wore shorts. Of course it was summer and if you have ever been in Tallahassee in summer you know that it is wicked hot so who doesn't wear shorts?

Jeff also touched me when he talked. I don't mean he moved me, I mean he put his hand on my arm or my shoulder while speaking. I don't always like that but I liked it when Jeff did it.

We drank beer and talked about life and writing like we knew what we were talking about. I learned that Jeff was from Jacksonville Beach. His parents divorced when he was young, he had some issues with his mother, he wasn't very athletic, he was lonely, he was a writer.

I found I could relate to Jeff.

At one point Jeff looked around the bar, sort of waved his hand and said, "There are a lot of attractive women here," or something to that effect.

I responded with something lame like, "Yeah."

I had not been out of the closet for very long. I had not yet marched on the capital building or done volunteer work for a gay rights organization. That would come later. At this moment in time I had come out but it wasn't something I was all that comfortable talking about.

Then Jeff said, "What kind of women do you like?

Blond women? Dark haired women? Do you like women?"

There is was, Door Number 3. That's the one I should have picked by simply answering honestly, "I love all women, but not the way you mean…"

It is all too clear to me now. However at that moment, in a noisy bar crowded with college kids on a hot summer night in 1979, I was not prepared to open that door. Instead, thinking of the girlfriend I had recently broken up with (OK, technically she broke up with me but that's another blog...)—the one who had to take her top off to seduce me, I answered, "Dark haired, I guess."

I don't remember what Jeff said after that. I assume he told me what kind of women he liked although it was clear he did not have a girlfriend. Or maybe the conversation drifted to other topics. We were English majors so perhaps we discussed literature. ("How about that Great Gatsby!") On second thought, maybe not.

I lived about a half mile off campus. Jeff shared an apartment somewhere with a graduate student. I did not have a car. Jeff had a pickup truck. (Well, he was from Jacksonville Beach…) Jeff offered to give me a ride to my apartment. Again, memory fails me. I am not sure what we talked about on the way there.

I guess it was late. I had a roommate and perhaps I did not want to disturb him. For whatever reason I did not invite Jeff up to my place. Instead we sat in his truck and talked some more.

Somewhere along the way Jeff pulled out a cigar. No, that isn't a euphemism. It was an actual cigar.

A big cigar. Jeff didn't light it, he just played with it, passing it between his fingers. "Have you ever smoked one of these?"

No one had ever asked me that question before---at least not about a cigar. "No."

"It is so big," Jeff said. "It feels so big in your hand and between your lips. You can play out all of your homoerotic fantasies with one of these."

I know. I know. This is where a more alert man—a homosexual man on the prowl—OK, A Guy, would have said something suave like, "Dude, if you want to play out your homoerotic fantasies we won't be needing that cigar but we will be smoking!"

Isn't that a cute comeback? It took me thirty years to come up with that one.

Instead, at the time, I just laughed. As did Jeff.

Eventually I went upstairs and Jeff drove away. We saw each other on campus, we had classes together, we even happened upon one another outside the governor's mansion one evening at an anti-death penalty protest but we never got together again outside of class.

My last memory of Jeff happened shortly before I graduated. I was at the pool, attempting to get a tan. Jeff wandered over. I was sitting up on a towel, Jeff was wearing a pair of shorts. He squatted down as we spoke. He told me he intended to join the Peace Corps after graduation. I couldn't help but notice, as he squatted in front of me, that the leg of his shorts opened up affording me a very clear view of the fact that my friend Jeff had gone commando.

Thanks for the memories, Jeff.

Of course I don't really know what was on Jeff's mind. After all, it was Freud who said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

The hair stylist from last Saturday was probably just being friendly. She does, after all, work for tips. I remember this bartender who used to flirt with me and he wasn't trying to get me into bed. (Oh, actually he was. Bad example.) All I am saying is, sometimes people are just friendly.

I used to work with a woman who was convinced that scores of men were flirting with her all the time. She would read erotic significance into the most mundane, polite small talk. She even decided someone had parked his car in a certain spot because it was close to a window in a room she often worked in. That was more than 15 years ago. As far as I know that woman is still single.

I guess it is better to be someone who misses a flirtation or two than someone who imagines a flirtation where none exists. It is the difference between living a life filled with little surprises versus living a life of ongoing disappointment.

And just in case you're wondering…yes, that was "a look" I gave you…

So tell me—are you a good flirt? Do you notice when people are flirting with you? Any flirtations that got away you'd like to share?

The Unbearable Niceness of Being

2010-02-07T08:17:00.000-08:00

"Too nice is neighbor's fool"
Dutch proverb
"It's nice to be nice to the nice."
-Frank Burns, M.A.S.H.

Who among us has not been amazed and appalled by how mean and rude some people can be? We all hate rude people and everyone says that mean people suck.

But what about the nice people?

At the risk of sounding cynical, I must confess, I have long believed there is such a thing as "too nice." Maybe that says something about the world we live in or maybe it just says something about me.

How nice is too nice?

There's nice and then there's "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints nice." You may think I am mocking the Mormons but I am not. I have been to Salt Lake City and let me tell you there is no one nicer than a nice Mormon. Think Donny and Marie. Could anyone be any nicer than Donny and Marie?

Now that's a good nice. It is, in fact, the final edge of nice.

Venture too far beyond that edge and you encounter another level of niceness altogether—a kind of mutant niceness, if you will...

There is a Starbucks near my office where I hardly ever go. It is a place where mutant niceness dwells…

The first time I went there was the Friday before Memorial Day. I had taken the day off work but I went to the gym that morning and in an effort to reward myself I went to Starbucks.

Nothing says, "Great workout!" like a triple venti latte and an orange cranberry scone.

I think Jack LaLanne used to say that when he wasn't pulling semi tractor trailers with his teeth or firing up the juicer.

The smiling woman behind the counter took my order and, as they always do, she asked my name so she could write it on the cup with that eyebrow pencil looking implement.

Once I told her my name, she seized upon it like it was the key to happiness. Saying it sure seemed to make her mighty happy.

Customer Service experts will tell you to use the customer's name because everyone loves the sound of his own name.

Me, I can take it or leave it. In fact, when I hear my name used too often it begins to sound funny.

You know, like what happens when you say a word like pistachio or ulterior over and over again until it loses all meaning and just begins to sound like funky gibberish?

That's what happens when someone says my name too many times.

Then I start thinking, "Bill?! Who names a child Bill? What the Hell were my parents thinking?!"

Now the Starbucks lady seemed bound and determined to wreck my name forever.

"Thanks, Bill! And how is your day so far, Bill?"
Why does this sound like a trick question? "Um…great?" I respond hesitantly.
"Bill, that's wonderful! Do you have any special plans for the day, Bill?"
"Why, no. No, I don't."
"Bill, that's great!"
I pulled out a $20.00 bill to pay her.
"Oh, Bill, they don't let me handle money!" She put her hands up in the universal "what can you do?" gesture.
"Um, OK."

I carried my plate with the scone and wandered around to the barista who was making my order. While she was steaming and foaming milk, she looked my way. Clearly she had read my name on the side of the cup.

"Hi, Bill. How's your day going?"
Oh jeez, the nice third degree again!
"Good…"
"That's great, Bill. Here's your triple venti latte. I hope you enjoy it, Bill!"
"Thanks. Who do I pay?"
The first uber-nice woman piped up, "No one, Bill. We just wanted to make your day better!"

The Starbucks' staff's obsession with the quality of my day was both heartening and troubling at the same time…

The last time someone I hardly knew was this nice to me they were actually attempting to draw me into some kind of pyramid scheme involving Tahitian Noni Juice and ten or twenty of my closest friends.

You can see why I am gun shy.

Still, I was grateful for the free scone and steamed milk coffee beverage, even if I had to endure unbearable niceness to get it.

I returned to the same Starbucks this past Friday. Different women were on duty but the nice vibe was in the air…

"Welcome to Starbucks! What can I get for you today?"
"Just some coffee and hold the Tahitian Noni Juice." I replied.
"Pardon me?" My sarcasm had confused the nice lady
"Triple venti latte." I said quickly.
"What is your name, please?"
Oh Lord. I just wasn't up to hearing the sound of my name spoken over and over again.

So, for the sake of sanity, I lied.

"Tim," I replied. "My name is Tim."
"That's great, Tim! How is your day going so far?"

That trick question again!

I wondered what she would do if I replied, "My day is a steaming pile of monkey doo doo, if you must know!" Of course, I'll never know how she might have reacted because what I actually said was, "Fine, thanks."
"That's great, Tim!"

She couldn't have looked happier if she had just won the lottery. In theory I should be pleased that a stranger cares so very much about how my day and I are getting along but I can't help but be suspicious…

Unlike her colleague from a couple of weeks before, this gal apparently did not want to make my day better, as she was more than willing to take my money.

I circled around to the barista's station. She was pulling levers and turning dials like a scientist in a science fiction movie operating one of those devices that bends time and space. Any moment I felt as if we could all be thrust into an alternate dimension.

She looked at me.

Maybe she pushed the right button and everything shifted. It could happen. I have no idea how an espresso machine works.

Or maybe it was just because all this niceness brought to mind similar moments in the past when I have encountered someone who was this nice. When I've seen this kind of niceness before it usually means someone is about to try and convert me to one religion or another. Usually it is an obscure religion. The major ones have pretty much given up on me...

"How is your day going, Tim?"
"My day is going fine, thanks." I respond.
"Tim, that's wonderful. My day is going great too. And do you know why?"
I shake my head.
"Because, Tim, I have embraced Zoroastrianism."
What do you say to that? "Um, OK…" is all I can muster.
"Tim. have you accepted Ahura Mazda as the one uncreated Creator?"
"Can't say as I have…"
"Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail. Then, Tim, the universe will undergo a cosmic renovation and time will cease to be—check it out!" She shoves a pamphlet in my direction.
I pick it up. "Zoroastrianism and You" reads the cover "That sounds really interesting…"
"Read this. If you have any questions, my number is on the back, Tim."

I feel a little funny.

"Tim? Tim? Tim?"
For a moment I am annoyed. Someone is calling Tim. Why doesn't this Tim answer?
"Tim, your latte?"

There is no pamphlet. Just coffee and steamed milk in a cardboard cup with the name Tim scrawled on the side.

For a moment my warped vision continues. I see myself knocking the cup from her hand. "I'm not Tim!" I scream as I run toward the door. As I make a hasty retreat I can hear both women calling out in unison: "Have a great day, Tim!"

Instead, in reality, I am just standing there.

"Tim, are you okay?" asks the barista. The woman from behind the counter has come over too.
"Hey, Tim, are you alright?" she chimes in.

"I'm fine." I say as I take the cup from the counter.

I have a moment of realization. It really isn't fair for me to disdain these overly nice people just because of a few bad experiences with painfully nice people.

It just isn't, well, nice.

Latte in hand, I headed for the door. Just before I opened it I turned back to face my nice tormentors.

"Thanks." I said, looking into the concerned faces of the two Starbucks employees.
"You're welcome, Tim" "Have a great day and a wonderful weekend, Tim!"

"I will, I replied. "And thank you for being so nice."

Adventures in Mass Transit

2010-01-31T14:54:00.000-08:00

Because of car problems, two weeks ago I began taking the bus to work. Despite the inconvenience of not having a functional car, I feel real pleasure in knowing that I am doing my part for the environment.

On my first day back in the mass transit groove, the bus is late. It finally arrives and as soon as I get on I can tell this driver is going to be trouble.

"So, did you watch the game yesterday?" she asks in a voice that can only be described as "chipper."

I am of the belief that chipper is for chipper/shredders, not for human beings.

I am a morning person. Shoot me, but I am. Still, I don't want to make small talk with strangers in the morning and I sure as heck don't want to talk about a subject I know nothing about whether it is the gross domestic product of East Timor or, as in this situation, "the game."

"No," came my miserable reply.

Not content to leave well enough alone, the bus driver responds as if I had just confessed that I have learned to move about my day without breathing oxygen:
"No?!"
She just can't believe her ears!

From my vantage point, I can see there is a little sign admonishing the bus driver not to talk on a cell phone while driving.

There is no little sign warning the driver not to eat grits while driving which may explain why my bus driver is, indeed, going ahead and having herself some grits while she is manipulating that big steering wheel.

The little bowl has a Krystal logo on it. Uh huh.

That would explain why the bus was late. The game obsessed blond lady made a stop at the Krystal before swinging the bus back toward town and my stop. Service at Krystal is abominable, but I guess when a gal needs her grits things like adhering to an established and widely published bus schedule just goes right out the window.

At the next stop, as the grits lady slows down to admit an older gentleman decked out in attire celebrating the Florida Gators, she says, "I bet he watched the game!"

The man navigates the bus steps carefully, as he is walking with a cane. He is wearing a cap with a cross on it that reads "From the Manger to the Cross."

He is also wearing an iPod, so he does not hear her when she says, "Did you watch the game?" He sits down without acknowledging the driver's query and opens up a book entitled "Strengthening the Inner Man."

The driver's desperate need to talk about this "game" as she calls it, is getting a little sad.

"Someone please talk to this woman about the game!" I scream silently, but no one seems to hear.

It is a silent scream, after all.

At the next intersection the bus driver tosses the empty little Styrofoam grits bowl into the trash receptacle next to the fare box, stops the bus and asks out loud,
"Do I turn here?"

"I don't know," I reply. "I have never ridden this bus before."

I am sure by now she must think me a total waste of human flesh:
Didn't watch the game.
Doesn't know the bus route!
Why doesn't this guy just die?

A woman with a foreign accent pipes up, "Next corner. Turn at the next corner."

It is about this time a curious phenomenon begins. The bus is apparently rigged with some sort of talking GPS unit, so that a prerecorded announcement plays when the bus is reaching certain destination points.

"Now approaching San Marco and Mary Street," a cheerful woman's voice announces. The only problem is, we are by no stretch of the imagination at that particular intersection. We have miles to go before that will happen.

While she is driving, the driver who can find no one to discuss football with her, continues to study a typewritten page of what I can only assume are directions for this bus route.

"Now approaching Rosa L. Parks FCCJ Station," says the cheerful GPS voice, erroneously announcing the end of the line. Fortunately none of the passengers are listening, or someone might have tried to get off and change buses in the middle of the onramp to 95.

Bus riding: Day 2

This morning the bus driver is an African American male. He looks a little sullen and that is a good thing because sullen people rarely try to make conversation.

Oddly, I notice that every time the bus makes a left turn, the horn gives out a little blast.

The canned announcements regarding upcoming destination points is apparently disabled.
Maybe someone figured out the disembodied voices were hopelessly lost and merely confusing the passengers and therefore no help at all.

However, just before the turn that would take me to my stop, while the bus waits at a red light, the disembodied voices begin speaking again. This time they aren't giving false geographical information. Instead it is like a little radio skit with appropriate bus behavior as the theme.

"Hey, you can't open that here."
*Sound of soda can being opened.*
"What? Why not?"
"There's no eating, drinking or smoking allowed on JTA."

Quickly, it goes into a second scenario:

"Hey, stop disrespecting us with your foul language!"
"What? I'm sorry. I didn't know I was offending anyone."
"You know there's no swearing allowed JTA."

Are you f*ing kidding me?

If they are going to do radio plays, I'd like it better if they offered something with a little more zip to it.

How about something like:

"Hey! You can't smoke that here!"
"What the f*k?!"
"You know there's no crack, meth or pot smoking allowed on JTA---Wait! What are you doing? You know there's no knives or guns allowed on JTA!"
BANG! BANG!
*Sound of crack pipe being lit followed by the sound of someone exhaling*

Now that's good radio theater.

Bus Riding: Day 3

There is a woman situated in the sideways seat across from me. She puts on glasses, pulls a small Bible from her purse, squinches up her mouth in a dead on imitation of Ernestine the Operator, and peruses the tiny Bible. I expect at any moment she will start snorting and reading aloud from the Bible, "Gracious hello…For God so loved the world (snort, snort!)"

Bus Riding: Day 4

Oh my God, there is a genuine gypsy woman on this bus. I know it is not politically correct to call people gypsies, but I swear she looks like she stepped out of a Wolf Man movie, except she is carrying a chartreuse purse. I bet there's wolf bane in that purse.

I glance around and take in my fellow bus riders. None of them looks very happy.

There's the ruggedly attractive man with the tattoo of a snake wrapping around his right arm. He has tattooed barbed wire wrapped around his neck and has a teardrop tattooed at the corner of his right eye.

What must life have thrown your way to make you decide that you require a permanent teardrop placed on your face?

On his left ring finger there is a tattoo of a black widow spider. Makes you contemplate what this fellow thinks about the institution of marriage…

This tattooed guy, who is wearing a "Git Er Done" cap and a scowl, doesn't look like he is happy to be riding the bus at all. I doubt the environment figured into his decision to take mass transit. Not even a little bit. I think maybe his pickup truck is broken down, or maybe he has a DUI and a suspended license…I am almost certain he never saw "An Inconvenient Truth" nor would he be caught dead driving a Prius.

The gypsy woman doesn't look happy either. In fact, she looks like she might be planning to put a curse on someone any minute now. She clutches her purse and frowns.

Even Ernestine the Operator, engrossed in the Holy Bible, looks a little miserable.

I am getting the impression that the gypsy lady's purse is the greenest thing about this bus ride---and it is chartreuse. I am pretty sure all of my fellow mass transit riders are on the bus, not to save the planet, but because they have no other choice.

I am pretty sure I'll keep riding the bus even when I get a new set of wheels.

It's the green thing to do. Maybe I'll even start riding my bike to work…

My love for the planet swells in my heart…

Then my mind wanders, as it always does.

I notice an advertisement above the tattooed man's head:

"Using a condom is something everyone can live with" and there are two men pictured in the ad.

Are you allowed to consider the possibility of man on man sex while riding JTA?

"Now approaching..." The disembodied voices are back and they are no longer lost.

This is my stop…

Depression City, Girly Town

2010-01-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

Recently my hometown, Jacksonville, FL, received the dubious honor of being named one of Business Week's 10 Unhappiest cities in the U.S. We ranked at number 6. That means only 5 cities are sadder than ours.

You have to wonder, just how jacked up does a town have to be to make this unhappy list? From the Business Week article:

These were the cities that saw the highest depression and suicide rates even while the Dow Jones was climbing to 14,000 and Countrywide Financial was considered a respected mortgage lender. Why? Blame a variety of reasons, from divorce and crime to lousy weather and job loss.

According to this article, Jacksonville has a Depression rank of 2. Or, as I prefer to put it, we are #2 on the Depression-o-meter. We are number 9 (number 9, number 9, number 9) for suicide and number 7 for divorce rate. (As if divorce is automatically an unhappy thing!)

While those figures kind of surprise me, the only thing surprising about our Crime (property and violent) ranking (23) is that it isn't higher.

People love to kill each other in Jacksonville, that is just an established fact.

I wager if I click on one of the local TV station's websites right this minute, I will find a headline about someone or a group of someones being murdered or beaten or, at least, robbed. Let me just see...One moment...

Wait...Teacher Sent Naked Photos to Teen...That was in St. Petersburg anyway and as much as I do not support this type of behavior, I am sure seeing his teacher naked is not going to kill this teenage boy. Of course, I haven't seen the teacher, but...What is up with these nasty teachers these days anyway?

Hmmmm...Here's a local story...some guy was arrested with 17 pot plants in the back of his pickup. He told the police he was moving them to protect the plants from burglars...See, burglars are a real problem.

I rest my case.

While I am looking for news stories about local violent crimes, what do I find but the news that Jacksonville made yet another list.

This time it is the list of America's Manliest Cities.

This designation was determined by those arbiters of all things manly, Mars Snackfood. You know, the candy people.

They looked at the 50 biggest cities in the nation to determine which is the manliest. What did they base this on? The number of professional sports teams, popularity of tools and hardware and the frequency of monster truck rallies.

Cities lose points for having too many home furnishing stores, (because real men don't furnish their homes?) high minivan sales and high numbers of beauty magazine subscriptions.

We're not really happy with our ranking on the Manliness-o-Meter. Sadly, Jacksonville only ranked 21 on the list of 50.

We're the sixth most unhappy city and only the 21st most manly. No wonder we're depressed.

Oh sure, we can take some comfort in knowing that Portland, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit and Cleveland ranked higher as Unhappy cities and therefore suck worse than we do.

But that is small comfort when we also have to adjust to the certainty that Nashville, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Cincinnati, Denver, St. Louis, Columbus, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Toledo, Memphis, Richmond, Columbia, Orlando, Dayton, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Cleveland and Detroit are more manly than we are.

SLC?! Are you kidding me?! Jacksonville could beat the crap out of Salt Lake City with one hand tied behind our collective back!

Nashville ranked #1 on the manly scale but they were #8 on the sadness scale. What do they have to unhappy about? Nashville is the most manly, isn't that enough?!

New York and San Francisco did not rank at all on the Unhappy list but, according to Mars Snackfoods, NY and SF are at the bottom of the manliness meter--SF is #48 and New York is at the bottom at #50.(Los Angeles is number 49.) Perhaps someone should convince the men in San Francisco, LA and New York to fiddle a bit more with some tools so they can redeem their image.

Just a suggestion.

While I like manly things as much as the next guy, (*snorts and hikes up pants a la Barney Fife*) I am really more concerned about Jacksonville ranking so highly on the Unhappy scale.(*wipes away a tear*)

To be more manly, all we have to do is buy more tools and more tickets to sporting events and monster truck rallies. (Check, check and check!)

To be more happy we have to lower unemployment, violent crime, divorce and the suicide rate. That kinda sounds like hard work to me and hard work only makes me sadder.

It's a vicious cycle, isn't it?

Why do the Mars people care which cities are the manliest anyway? They make candy bars, M&Ms, Skittles and Whiskas cat food. Those aren't exactly the most masculine products in the store, you know.

In my experience, depressed people are liable to throw back some Snickers. So, Mars should be a lot more interested in the unhappy cities than the manly ones.

Real men don't eat Skittles, but sad people eat everything!

Despite my concerns, I try not to let these lists color my thinking too much.

After all, I have to live in this miserable girly berg, so I try to make the best of it.

Even so, lately I find myself gazing out of my office window, taking in the skyline of Jacksonville and looked down on the people below.

"Oh, you sad, sad, unmanly people," I mutter, as I wrestle with a giant bag of M&Ms...

After the fire

2010-01-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

A few months back I encountered a house that had burned. I felt compelled to take pictures and these are some of the images I captured and manipulated.

I Know I shouldn't talk to strangers so why won't strangers shut up?

2009-11-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

I learned a lot of valuable life lessons in elementary school. For example, I learned how to "duck and cover."

This was a drill to make us ready in case the Russians dropped an atom bomb on Florida. You just crawl under your desk and put your hands over your head. Apparently this will protect you from the blast and subsequent radiation. Or so I was lead to believe at the tender age of 6.

Happily, I haven't ever had to use that lesson. But I am ready if it ever happens.

Another lesson I was taught in elementary school was don't talk to strangers. They even showed some movie where this strange man tries to lure children into his car. He's waving candy in the air and salivating, as I recall.

Of course, it has been awhile since I saw this particular film.

The children in the movie refused to get in the car and ran away. Good for them.

I really took this lesson to heart. To this day (except for that brief period back in the late 70's that I prefer not to talk about) I will not get in the car with a strange man.

Granted, the offers have pretty much dwindled down to nothing lately, but on the off chance it might happen today, I know what to do.

I won't talk to strangers.

Not so The Boyfriend. Maybe he was out that day or he maybe he is just a rebel at heart but he will talk to anyone.

How annoying.

This particular Saturday found us at Ted's Montana Grill. The restaurant is located in a new anti-mall called The Town Center.

It is not, by the way, in the center of town, so already they are lying, but we like the place anyway. I say it is an anti-mall because there are a boatload of stores there but nothing is enclosed.

It is like walking in a little village that was founded on the principle of unbridled consumerism.

Apparently this is the new trend—create little villages of shops and restaurants, throw up condos and hotels around the perimeter. Maybe no one will notice that when it rains or the temperature dips below 30 or above 95 they could be a lot more comfortable if only they were shopping at an enclosed mall. "No, that's OK, this is more trendy!"

The weather was great on this particular Saturday and we elected to sit outside. At the table next to us were three girls ranging in age from 11 to 14. Sitting with them was a large man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jesse Ventura. My first impression: "Weekend Dad."

Jesse was pontificating in a tone I found condescending even though he wasn't talking to me.

"That is why I am the Dad. My job isn't to be your friend. My job is to provide guidance and discipline. Being your friend is her job and her job and her job," he said pointing one by one at the other three girls at the table.

I am not one to make snap judgments about someone.

Actually, I am. Instantly, I hated this guy.

The waiter for Jesse's table came out to take their orders and Jesse informed him that he was required to answer a quiz question posed to him by the girls.

The question was, "Where were you born?" The young man volunteered that he was born and raised in Jacksonville.

Jesse responded with, "I'm sorry." Ouch.

The Boyfriend was born and raised in Jacksonville. I was born in Alabama but pretty much raised here. It is OK for us to make fun of Jacksonville but not someone else.

"Why don't you have a hick accent?" Jesse asked.

Why don't you drop dead? I wanted to interject. I bit my tongue. I could tell The Boyfriend was listening too. He looked annoyed. The waiter stammered out some answer, I'm not really sure what he said. How do you respond to a question like that?

"Really, I have nothing against Jacksonville except everyone here is so intolerant," Jesse said.

He had a point. I was feeling a little intolerant right that moment myself.

After our waiter had taken our order we were sitting, enjoying the beautiful day, people watching and anticipating the arrival of our lunch when all of a sudden:

HONK!

It was a bicycle horn.

HONK!

The girls at Jesse's table giggled. It seemed they were surreptitiously passing a bicycle horn amongst themselves under the table.

I looked at The Boyfriend. Not only will he talk to strangers he will also happily tell strangers about themselves—including all the sordid details, if he feels so compelled. Children honking a bicycle horn would certainly be the sort of thing that might get him going.

"I hope that stops soon," The Boyfriend said quietly.

Apparently the point of the game was for the girls to pass the horn around under the table, HONK it and then Jesse would guess which one had it. They all seemed to find this great good fun.

The people on the other side of their table were not so amused. When their waiter came out they asked to be moved inside. They made a big enough deal about it so that Jesse and the girls knew what was going on.

"Hey, they're just kids. Kids are supposed to have fun!" Jesse called after them. They were escorted back into the restaurant. Jesse said, "I don't see any signs that say No Honking!"

His waiter came out. "Are there any rules about not honking?" Jesse asked him.

"Um, no. Honk all you want," he replied. I guess he was hoping Jesse was a big tipper.

I don't see a sign that says No Honking." Jesse repeated. "I don't see any signs that say No singing either so I just might sing. I don't sing very well but I love to do it."

I don't see any signs that say "Don't stab the guy at the next table with a fork" but I have the restraint not to indulge myself no matter how much I may want to.

The honking resumed. Thanks for encouraging them, Jesse!

Not content to repeat, "I don't see any signs that say this is a No Honking Zone" to the general air, Jesse turned to us and asked, "You don't mind if they honk, do you?"

There was a pause. I looked at The Boyfriend. Since I don't like to talk to strangers it is generally his job to respond when we are addressed by a stranger in some collective fashion. At the same time, I know that if he is irritated enough, he might respond with something like, "Tell them to honk all they want as soon as you shove that f*ing horn up your fat Jesse Ventura-looking ass!"

There was no telling what he was going to say next. The words, "He's gonna blow!" echoed somewhere in the back of my brain. I was ready for anything.

The Boyfriend opened his mouth to speak. I winced. "It's OK. Within reason."

"Within reason?" Really? This is a restaurant. Is there a "reason" for a bicycle horn to be on the premises? Sometimes I cringe over the things the BF will say to a stranger, but this time, I couldn't help but feel a little let down.

"It's OK, Within reason" That's the best you can do?

From this moment forward, Jesse decided we had become great, good friends. In short order we found out that he was, indeed, a weekend Dad. He lives in Chicago and comes to Jacksonville every weekend to spend time with his daughter.

Jesse was one of those people who feels a need to make it more than obvious to you that he is a-okay with the whole gay thing. I mean, that's swell and all, but it isn't like we were sporting big "We're Here, We're Queer, Get Used to It" buttons or anything like that. We were just two frumpy middle aged men trying to have lunch. We were making absolutely no effort to "represent."

Jesse, however, felt a need to represent the gay-tolerant people by sharing with us how much he enjoys the Logo channel on cable. He then proceeded to talk about several gay indy films he had just loved. I didn't have the heart to tell him we saw those same indy films (thank the Goddess for Netflix!) and, frankly, they were kind of lame.

Just because it's gay doesn't mean it's good...

I couldn't say that. Jesse was just feeling so "gay-friendly" chatting it up with us, it would have broken his bleeding heart.

I fear he may have even thought we were bonding.

Before I knew it, Jesse was sitting at our table, leaning in with his best, "it's just us guys here" fashion. Talking about gay Indy films lead to him telling us a personal story about his step son. We will call him Sean.

It seems that Jesse always knew that Sean was gay, but the boy's mom was in denial. I don't have to tell you by now that Jesse was 100% supportive. Things came to a head one day when Jesse found some interesting sites listed in his Internet history. Now, Jesse is a tolerant, open-minded man, but apparently not so open minded that he himself actually visited gay porn sites on his computer. When he brought this to the attention of the boy's mother, she was in total shock.

Not so, Jesse.

"Let me tell you what I did," he said with a twinkle in his eye. I couldn't imagine there was a way to stop him anyway.

Jesse ordered a very special cake for Sean, which he sequestered in the kitchen one evening before taking the family out to dinner. After dinner, he took the son aside and told him what his Internet browser history had revealed. He told the young man that this evening was in celebration of him.

Then he took the son into the kitchen and showed him the cake. It had "Happy Coming Out, Sean!" on it.

Written in rainbow icing.

I may have made up that last detail.

"It is up to you, Sean," Jesse said in that annoyingly earnest voice of his. "We can take this out to the family and slice it, or you can keep it to yourself. Whatever you want to do, son…."

Sometimes life is like an independent film you'd see on the Logo channel and, apparently, this was one of those times.

In true gay Indy-film fashion, young Sean took up his cake and delivered it to the family. As he sliced the cake into perfect squares (but of course), Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out" began to play on the soundtrack…

Or maybe that was just Jesse, queuing up the CD player…

It was a beautiful story, but I realize now it would have been really funny if, at that moment, I had turned to Jesse and said, "Why are you telling us this? We're not gay!"

But I didn't.

Still, I was glad when Jesse decided to migrate back to his own table with his young daughter and her friends.

They ate lunch in their designated personal space, just as we ate lunch in ours.

Soon, they paid the check and got up to leave. Jesse smiled and waved goodbye.

Wait. Did he actually wink at us?

As they walked away, I thought, God bless the tolerant people. Just don't let them interrupt my lunch.

I knew there was a good reason to never talk to strangers.

If only they wouldn't talk to me...

Conversations in a Chinese Restaurant

2009-11-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

It is Saturday and we are eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Due to some acoustical anomaly, I can hear the conversations going on at both the table in front of me and behind me.

Behind me are two women; one is older than the other and I deduce the second woman is the older woman's daughter.

At the table in front of me are two men. The man closest to me has his back turned and I can't hear anything he is saying. His lunch companion is facing my direction but I can't see him because his friend's back blocks my view.

Apparently this man goes on a lot of cruises. "The buffet was outstanding," he is saying. There is something about his voice that seems familiar, not so much like he is someone I know but more like maybe I have heard him do voiceovers on TV or something.

Behind me the daughter is reading fortune cookie fortunes aloud, "You will go on a short journey and encounter many pleasures."

"In the bedroom." I chortle under my breath. I never get tired of that joke.

"What?" says The Boyfriend.

"Nothing."

I hear her read another fortune, "Time waits for no man but love conquerors all."
("In the bedroom.")

"With stops in Ixtapa and Manzanillo." (I know that voice…)

Then The Boyfriend starts talking about electronics or botany or automotive parts or some other not very interesting thing. "Something something alternator coil something something battery temperature…"

"Uh huh," I reply dipping the battered chicken into sweet and sour sauce.

I hear the woman behind me reading another fortune, "You will have good luck and overcome many hardships"
("In the bedroom.")

"Sailed into Grand Turk," the voiceover guy is saying. (Where have I heard that voice before?)

"Why do you keep saying, in the bedroom?" asks The Boyfriend. Concerned the woman behind me might overhear, I feel I really can't explain right now. So I lie. "I'm not," I say using the same voice I would have used to respond to him if he had suggested I was eating batter fried unicorn.

This seems to satisfy him and he goes back to whatever it was he was saying, "Torque converter something something something…"

The lady behind me is reeling off one fortune after the other. They must have bought a whole bag of fortunate cookies. I can barely keep up with the "In the bedrooms."

"He who hurries cannot walk with dignity"("In the bedroom")
"The shortest distance between two people is a smile" ("In the bedroom")
"Love is like paint…(In the bedroom)It makes things beautiful if you spread it…(In the bedroom)…but it will dry up if you don't use it." (In the bedroom!)

"Something something catalytic converter something…"

I fleetingly wonder if I should feel guilty about not hanging on every word my long time companion says. Then I remember early on in our relationship there was an incident wherein I called him on the fact that we had had a conversation about a particular topic and when he didn't remember anything about it, it was obvious he hadn't been listening to me.

His defense? "You told me about that at a time I wasn't prepared to listen."

That's right. Because I did not confirm his listening readiness, it was my fault. Well, I can play that game too.

So, there is no guilt. He is talking about mechanical stuff at a time I am not prepared to listen, so it is his own fault that I am tuning him out.

"Nice accommodations," the cruise guy is going on, (Why do I know that voice?) "Balconies and an open bar." (Sounds like a dangerous combination to me.)

"You have a strong and sensitive personal nature" (In the bedroom)
"Something something something ball joint something oxygen sensor" (In the bedroom—wait, wrong conversation!)
"Cape Liberty…There was an ice sculpture of a swan." (Think, think, where have I heard that voice?)

Somewhere between "You understand how to have fun with others and to enjoy your solitude" (In the bedroom) and "Something something output current" it dawned on me.

I know where I have heard that voice before!

Have you ever seen one of those interviews on TV when the person who is being interviewed doesn't want to compromise his identity so the TV people digitally alter his appearance and his voice? This guy sounded just like one of those digitally altered voices.

Maybe, I conjectured, he is in the witness protection program and the government has digitally altered his vocal cords. It could happen.

I hear the women behind me move their chairs and I speculate correctly that they are leaving. As they walk past our table the younger woman turns to the older and says, "Follow your dreams and you will have a most pleasant journey." I realize she isn't reading a fortune. Maybe she never was.

The Boyfriend has apparently exhausted whatever the hell subject it is that he was going on about. He pushes his plate away and we make the silent agreement that we are ready to go.

As we pass by his table on our way out the door, I take a glance at the digitally disguised voice guy to see what he looks like. This is what I see:

Somehow I am not surprised.

We go out the door, passing the two women who are standing and talking. The younger woman is saying, "An open heart is like a rose—both are most beautiful when fully open."

I mutter one last, "In the bedroom" as I open my car door.

The Boyfriend and I pull out of the restaurant parking lot and head toward home.

"Next time, lets have Mexican," I suggest.

My Mind is a Blank Book

2009-11-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

This blog sort of reminds me of one of those Andy Rooney segments on 60 Minutes when Andy brings out dozens of disposable razors and then provides pithy insights into each one of them. "Rubber grip? Just how weak do these razor manufacturers think I am? Why I remember at the Battle of Normandy, we shaved with broken Coke bottles and spit..."

Unlike, Andy, I don't want to talk about disposable razors.

No, I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart.

One afternoon not too long ago, I ducked away from my office during my lunch hour and went to Barnes and Noble. Not to look for a novel or the latest non-fiction bestseller, but to commune with the blank books.

Yes, it is not at all unusual to encounter me in a bookstore thumbing through books whose pages are completely empty.

When I say empty, I mean empty in a good way.

There is something hopeful about a bound book of blank pages. It feels like a handful of potential. The breeze the pages make as you thumb through them carries a whiff of creativity.

I am not sure when my love affair with the blank books began exactly. I remember, I received a 5 Year Diary when I was seven years old. You know the kind---it was brown and had a little lock on it. The kind of lock that bratty brothers have been picking for eons, just so they can read their sister's diary and then blurt out her secrets during family dinner which in turn causes sis to run crying to her room screaming, "I hate you! I hate you!"

Fortunately, I am an only child. Actually, I have a sister, but she and I are both only children. That's a topic for a different blog.

The point is, there was no one with an inordinate curiosity about the content of my little diary. That's just as well. I was 7 years old. How juicy could it have been?

All I ever remember about writing in that book was I had a bit of challenge with the whole "I before E" thing so one time, to avoid the whole sticky issue, I used the word "pals" instead of "friends."

Isn't it odd the things you remember sometimes?

Blank books became a big part of my life when I started high school.

In December 1974, I bought a one-year diary at a drug store. It had a black cover and one lined page for each day of the coming year. I wasn't earnest about writing a page each day and then on some days, having teen angst and all, I had a lot more than one page I wanted to write. So I would continue what I was writing on one of the previously skipped pages. These passages are painful for me to read now. It would be one thing if I could read them and laugh and say, "Boy have I changed since then!" But in all actuality, I am still just a troubled adolescent trapped in the body of someone pretending to be a responsible adult. Don't tell anyone I told you.

Actual high school journals

Here's an excerpt from October 10, 1975:

"Last night was total Hell. I won't dwell on it because things are going well today…"

Well, we've all been there, right?

In the back of this book, I wrote down the name of every book I read, month by month, throughout the year. I even had a rating system.

Books I liked best included In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan, Watership Down by Richard Adams, and apparently (although I have no recollection of reading it) Liza! By Parish and Ano.

Now being sold on ebay

Yes, Liza!

Don't all boys typically read unauthorized biographies of Liza Minnelli?

What are you trying to say?

I had a one-year diary for 1976 too. It was red. With this journal, in addition to tracking the books I read, I listed the movies I saw as well. Some of my favorite movies of that time include Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, and Lucky Lady.

Yes, I am aware that Liza Minnelli was the star of Lucky Lady. What is your point?

That was the year I graduated from high school. When I went to college I abandoned the Day to Day Diary and switched to a spiral notebook for writing my journal.

At college the teen angst turned into college student angst, which is teen angst with a bit more philosophy thrown in, along with drugs and, eventually, sex.

To illustrate my point, here is a poem I wrote in my journal back in 1976:

Sitting at the bus stop; no friends in sight

my funeral could be held in a teaspoon
and no one would have to stand.
or at least it seems that way at times.
it's not that I want to be important
no, I just want to know that I matter.
look at it rain,
and I forgot my umbrella.
there are enough drops in the rain
to fill a teaspoon again and again.

Oh, brother…

I have been keeping a journal ever since. Fortunately, for the most part, I gave up writing poetry long ago.

Sometimes I think I just keep a journal because it gives me an excuse to shop for blank books. Over the years I have used a wide variety of blank books.

I love the bound sketch books they sell in art supply stores and I've used volumes of those over the years. I used to create title pages and collages in them. Here's an example from 1989:

Here is one of my favorites. I bought it in San Francisco in the early 80's.

I would love to find another one like this but I haven't been able to. If you know where I can buy one, please let me know.

Here's a really cool blank book that was made in Nepal.

Pretty little pen killer

Unfortunately I didn't like writing in it because the pages were so thick and absorbent my favorite pens kept dying while I was writing.

Here's a blank book I bought at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. It is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY. The cover is embossed with Egyptian symbols

and here's what the pages look like:

Lately I have become partial to magnetic flap journals. Here's the one I am currently using. A friend gave it to me as a gift: (Thanks, Terry!)

I have a lot of blank books but let me end this with one I found on that trip to Barnes and Noble that I mentioned earlier. Can you believe this was on clearance for $5.00?!

A Catwoman journal. I had to have it.

I know….. Not Liza! gay, but pretty damn gay. That's what you're thinking.

You're just jealous.

I will close with the final lines of a poem I apparently wrote in 1975. It is called Labarith. It goes on for two pages and I will spare you most of it. But the finish seems appropriate here:

If my life is a poem
The words are my friends.
But this poem like all others,
Must eventually end.

(Unlike my obsession with blank books...)

So tell me about your relationship with blank books or some other inanimate object that brings you joy....

The Truth About the Gay Agenda

2009-11-07T06:28:00.000-08:00

The political season is upon us. Never mind that it has started obscenely early this go round, the bottom line is--it is upon us.

As politics begin to heat up, I am sure you will be hearing someone blathering on about "The Gay Agenda."

The great gay 80's duo, Romanovsky and Phillips joked about the Gay Agenda.

"As if gay people could agree on anything for one moment."

They speculated that there were gay people across the country with memo boards with a list labeled "Queer things to do today!"

They were, of course, joking.

Perhaps those of you who are not gay have wondered, does this Gay Agenda actually exist?

In fact, it does.

When I first came out in the late 70's the Gay Agenda was slipped under your door while you slept. It was printed on a mimeograph machine—white paper with purple letters.

Some people think the association of gays and lesbians with the color lavender came from the combination of the colors usually associated with the genders—pink and blue, being mixed to make purple.

Common misconception.

It was those early mimeographed Gay Agendas that are the real reason.

Before those mimeographed sheets I am not sure how The Gay Agenda was disseminated.

In the early 70's celebrities like Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly broadcast the agenda in code on game shows. I remember watching Hollywood Squares and Match Game when I was in high school and thinking, "there's more going on here than meets the eye," but I couldn't be sure.

Now I watch old clips of those shows and think, "but of course!"

I don't know how people got the Agenda before that. You'll have to ask someone who is both gay and older than me.

Like, maybe, Plato.

The first Gay Agenda I ever read was simple and reflective of the times:

>End job discrimination
>Don't let them say you're crazy or sick
>Fight Anita Bryant
>Make love often

About that last bullet point—what can I say? It was the hedonistic 70's. Gays weren't the only ones making a lot of love.

The 70's also gave rise to the Feminist movement and Lesbians were right on board with that one. I remember reading The Gay Agenda one morning with its references to "sisterhood" and "equality" and thinking, "Where would we be without the lesbians?"

None of the men minded the mention of "sisterhood." Gender bending terminology was common in the gay subculture of the time. This carried over from more closeted times when gay people changed the pronouns when speaking in polite company to protect themselves. A man might say, "I went out with her and she's a catch," when his date was really another man. It seems kind of pathetic now but remember when this started people could be arrested for dancing with someone of the same gender.

Imagine the penalty for those two same people having sex with each other...

In the early 80's the mimeographed pages were replaced for a while by copy machine print outs.

I heard someone high up had Xerox stock. I can't prove that, so don't repeat it. I just know I missed the smell of the freshly mimeographed page.

There's nothing like that new mimeograph smell.

Then one day in the mid-80's an unmarked box arrived at my door. I knew it had something to do with The Gay Agenda.

Sure enough. There was a fax machine inside. That's when The Gay Agenda started arriving via morning fax.

Those were heady times.

The Gay Agenda of the mid-80's was reflective of the dominant issues of the day:

>Take care of each other
>Fight Jerry Falwell
>Play safe
>Cuddle often

Cuddling was real big in the 80's. Some men wore stuffed teddy bears in their back pocket to indicate they were into cuddling.

It was sometime in the mid-80's that certain religious and political leaders got wind of the Gay Agenda. I don't know how it happened. Maybe one of the faxes went awry, maybe there was a spy somewhere. While they began to squawk about the existence of the Agenda, they never seemed to get the content of it right.

It seemed to be their agenda to misrepresent our agenda.

Their version:

>Indoctrinate the young
>Force public schools to teach the homosexual lifestyle
>Take over Hollywood so all TV programs and movies are just homosexual propaganda

Our version:

>Convince gay teens not to commit suicide
>End gay bashing in schools
>"Dynasty" rules!

What can I say? It was the 80's.

The Gay Agenda was delivered by fax until the advent of the Internet. (Goddess bless you, Al Gore.)

Daily emails soon replaced daily faxes. It was also around that time that something startling began to appear on the agenda:

>Legalize Gay Marriage.

For an old timer like me, this was quite revolutionary.

When I was in college I joined a gay rights march on the capital building in Tallahassee,FL.

A group of gay men marching on a phallus shaped building (complete with testicles) is an irony that was not lost on me.

All we wanted back then was an end to discrimination in the work place, so we wouldn't get fired from a job just for being gay.

Actually, I think we're still working on that one...

It never occurred to me we would be pushing for the right to marry in my lifetime.

The Agenda I received this morning looked kind of familiar.

That's not surprising. While it is true that the Gay Agenda does exist, the truth is, the heart of it doesn't really change much:

>Take care of each other
>Play safe
>Cuddle often

Wait. Is that the Agenda or my To Do list?

The final bullet point:
>Check the batteries in the smoke detectors

Well. that's just good advice for anyone.

If Richard Simmons Can Do It, So Can I!

2009-04-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

I think role models are a wonderful thing. I just don't think one should aim too high.

Think about it. What is the point of choosing to emulate someone who is way smarter, stronger or more talented than you are? You're just courting dashed dreams with a side order of squashed hopes.

Think of all of the disappointed young people who, after aspiring to one harebrained goal or another, ran crying to their mothers, "I'll never be smart like Stephen Hawking!" or "I'll never be a famous writer like Ernest Hemingway!" or "I'll never be a champion cyclist like Lance Armstrong!"

Only to have Mother reply, "Of course you won't, dear".

(And she wonders why I don't call.)

Aspiration can mean a strong desire for achievement; an ambition, but it also means the act of breathing in. You do too much of either and you're going to hyperventilate.

I learned a long time ago that too much aspiration is a bad thing. Aiming too high is a one way path to heartache and disappointment.

Keeping these things in mind, I have very carefully searched for the ideal role model for me. I am proud to say, I have chosen Richard Simmons.

Richard has many admirable qualities. He's just so energetic! Where does he get all of that energy? If you've ever watched Richard on TV you've probably noticed your own energy level subsiding every time Richard opens his mouth. I know I have. That's the feeling of Richard Simmons sucking the life out of you.

If Richard Simmons can do it, so can I!

Richard Simmons is an enigma. Take his sexuality, for example. Very mysterious. Who doesn't love a mystery?

Richard wrote a tell all book in 1999, but refused to talk about his personal life in the book. When a reporter asked him about his sexuality at a 1999 press conference, Richard (do his friends call him Dick?) responded, "Look, I'm not your average man in his fifties. My persona was always what a man was never supposed to be: outrageous, gregarious, crazy, silly, funny." Later he added, "You have to understand I was not ever close to men."

Uh huh.

Way to keep em guessing, Richard! Color me mystified. And impressed!

I can't believe I wasted all of that time and energy with that whole "coming out" thing when instead, like Richard, with a few deftly worded phrases, I could have just confused everyone forever.

From now on, when faced with an important decision like whether or not to reveal my sexuality, I will just ask myself, "What would Richard Simmons do?" (WWRSD?) Whatever answer comes back, that's what I will do.

Mystifying Richard Simmons

If Richard Simmons can do it, so can I!

I think Richard Simmons' most admirable quality--and the best reason to select him as my role model, is the way he conducts himself in airports.

Richard was in the Phoenix airport in March 2004. Another person in the airport--clearly an annoying man if ever there was one, saw Richard and called out, "Look, Richard Simmons. Drop your bags, lets rock to the 50s!"

Richard walked over to the man and said, "It's not nice to make fun of people with issues." To drive home the whole "issues" point, Richard then slapped the annoying man right in the face.

I so know where Richard was coming from.

People who hang out in airports are really annoying. They speak loudly into cell phones. They don't discipline their children. They fall asleep and drool and snore. They occupy the bar stools way too long while I have to wait to be seated in the only decent bar at BWI.

Someone needs to slap the whole flippin' lot of them!

A few years ago, while I was waiting by the gate to take a plane home from a particularly grueling business trip, I found myself sitting back to back with a couple who, for reasons known only to them, were reenacting, from memory,whole scenes from the movie Coal Miners Daughter. Complete with accents:

She: I ain't getting in that thing. It looks like something from Mars!

He: Girl, what the hell do you know about Mars? I bet you ain't never been outside the mouth of this holler.

She: I know I ain't getting in that thing. If you like it so much you can walk me home.

He: Oh, Loretta, them pies ain't the only thing salty about you. Wait a minute, I'm a comin'...

On and on it went. I didn't wait around for the singing parts.

Damn, I wanted to slap those people.

I should say, I actually like that movie very much. I just didn't appreciate the version performed by The Gate 28 Players.

Another time I was waiting for people to disembark from a plane so I could board. A mother was dragging her screeching four year old down the jet way. As soon as they got into the terminal, the screaming banshee of a kid threw herself face down on the carpet, shrieking at the top of her amazingly powerful little lungs. The mother, in a bizarre act of anti-parenting left the child there and proceeded down the concourse, leaving the rest of us to enjoy her child's unwavering high pitched wailing.

I am of the opinion that unattended screaming children in airports should be treated like unattended packages--men in special suits should spirit them away and discreetly blow them up.

Or, at the very least, faced with someone else's screaming child, I should be free to slap somebody.

Now that I have him as my new role model, I know that if Richard Simmons can do it, then so can I!

I think you can see why I have warmly embraced Richard Simmons as my new role model. It will mean big changes, but nothing too big.

I can't wait to introduce the new "Richardized" me to my friends and colleagues at the office!

Casual Fridays will never be the same again!

I can only imagine what this will do for my career!

The Dog Who Ate Mother's Day

2008-05-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day is something of a struggle in my house. My own mother passed away a few weeks before I graduated from college, so my Mother's Day obligation is limited to one mother: The Mother-in-law. She and I get along just fine. The struggle is getting my Significant Other to participate in the whole Mother's Day ritual.

Don't get me wrong, the Sig loves his mother, he is just not a fan of Mother's Day.

"It is a Hallmark holiday," he will say, as if he has hit upon a truth of which few of us are aware. "It isn't a real holiday."

Which begs the question, which of the red-letter days is a real holiday? Christmas? Not if you don't believe in either Jesus or Santa Claus (and Sig does not.) Easter? Same as previous, only substitute Easter Bunny for Santa Claus.

Hallmark Holiday or not, on Saturday we did the requisite shopping and were prepared when Mother's Day dawned. After lunch on Sunday, we decided to gather gifts and card and head for Mother-in-Law's house.

My Significant Other has a nephew. About a year ago, two men with a gun woke The Nephew in the middle of the night. They robbed him of cash and a few DVDs, but mostly they robbed him of his sense of security. So he went to the pound and picked out a big ornery dog.

He named the dog Boone. Boone does not like the Sig or me, and on the few occasions we have been at The Nephews house, Boone has been less than cordial. I am not generally afraid of dogs, but I am pretty sure Boone means business.

Recently, The Nephew found another rental house in another (safer) neighborhood, but the landlord does not allow dogs. So, The Nephew left the dog at the home of his mother and his grandmother, his grandmother being the Sig's Mom and my Mother-in-law.

The trip to The Mother-in-law's is a brief drive. We pulled into the driveway, hopped out of the car and immediately heard the loud and cacophonous barking of Boone.

"I forgot about that damn dog," the Sig started to say. He was interrupted by the physical eruption of Boone, as the dog pushed open the screen door and lunged in our direction. We took the most logical course of action: we jumped back in the car.

Boone ran around the car barking, generally telling us about ourselves, with an occasional snarled threat and much fervor.

Soon The Mother-in-law appeared in the doorway. She came out on her front porch, stood at the edge of the porch and in an insistent but quiet voice said, "Boone. Boone. Come here." The dog did nothing of the kind.

I doubt Boone could even hear her over his own barking. "Boone. Boone," she quietly reiterated, "Come Here." There was a little more emphasis on the "here" but really, not particularly effective.

Boone must have realized that he was now a free range canine and instead of wasting his time on us, decided to take off down the street. From my vantage point in the car I could see him happily digging up a neighbor's lawn a few doors up.

"That can't be good," I thought. Soon Boone came loping back, barking all the while as if to say, "You'd better keep your ass in that car!"

During all of this, The Mother-in-law continued her plaintive but pathetically understated cries of "Boone.Boone. Come here," without ever stepping off of her front porch. While she is not exactly an athletic woman, she can walk and I was sort of wondering why she didn't make more of a physical effort. I was, however, in no position to quibble about her dog catching abilities, no matter how critical I felt.

As Boone went loping past, heading in the other direction up the street, the Sig ventured out of the car. "He's chasing someone!" he reported.

I did not see the hapless pedestrian, but apparently Boone chased a man who had attempted to walk down the street. When Boone came back the other way, toward us, the man who had been chased retreated to his own back yard, which borders on the side of The Mother-in-law's yard.

Chased Man began to shout, "That's the second time that done happened to me! I got a gun! If that dog does that again I am going to get my gun and shoot him!"

The Neighbor on the other side of The Mother-in-law, who I did not know was even involved in this situation, called back to Chased Man, "It's not my dog! It belongs to the lady next door!"

"Well, I am going to shoot that dog!" Chased Man called back.

Being neighborly, The Neighbor replied, "OK, I'll tell her."

About this time I decided to slink out of the car. "Hey," The Neighbor shouted at me, "That man is gonna shoot that dog!"

"It's not my dog!" I said. "He doesn't like me either."

Then the Chased Man started up again, "Hey, hey, that dog done chased me. If he comes around again I am going to get my gun and shoot him!"

By this time my Sig, not the most patient man in the world to begin with, shouted back, "He got out. She's trying to catch him!"

"Well, I am gonna get my gun and shoot him!" Chased Man ranted.

The Sig exploded, "Go ahead! Do us all a favor! Go get your damn gun and shoot him!"

I couldn't see Chased Man, but I was pretty sure at this point he had indeed gone back into his house and I was thinking, "Hmmm. It is entirely possible that a gun will soon be introduced into the situation."

This suddenly had all the earmarks of the kind of dumbass tale of homicide the local news channels lap up with a spoon:

"Mothers Day Massacre! Man is shot over argument about a dog! Film at 11!"

While I sat in the car pondering the pros and cons of potential widowerhood, The Mother-in-law, in between quiet cries of "Boone. Boone. Come here," went into her house and called The Nephew.

Meanwhile, The Significant Other inched his way onto the front porch. Boone came back and stood a few feet away from him, barking his brains out. The Sig picked up a small step ladder to wield in case Boone decided he wanted to take this fight to another level.

The Mother-in-law returned to the front porch and resumed her fruitless but consistent, "Boone. Boone. Come here."

I stayed in the car wondering, "Can I get a blog out of this?"

After a while, Boone seemed to lose steam. He stopped barking and slowly wandered over to The Mother-in-law. Apparently all of those quiet cries of "Boone, Boone Come here," finally bore fruit. She put Boone in the house and sat down on the porch swing.

Alas, the entire adventure had taken a toll. She opened the Mothers Day card, but with trembling hands. She was truly appreciative of the gifts, but I couldn't help but see that the whole dog incident had put a definite damper on this Mom's special day.

Of course The Nephew arrived after the problem was resolved. (There is never a nephew around when you need one.) He gave his grandmother a gift card to a seafood restaurant and then he was off.

I couldn't help but think the best gift he could have given her was to take that dog off of her hands, but I held my tongue.

Since the Dads on both sides of our family passed away years ago, we are off the hook for Fathers Day. Thank goodness. I can only handle so many Hallmark holidays a year.

Spam Is The New Poetry

2008-02-09T05:21:00.000-08:00

I have been having some weird e-mail experiences lately.

At work I discovered an all day event on my Outlook calendar that I had no recollection of accepting. Mine was the only name on the appointment. It read John Smith NLM Important Don't Forget. Clearly I have already forgotten and therefore will not be attending this all day event.

I don't even know a John Smith.

What does NLM stand for?

Your guess is as good as mine. No one I work with has any idea what it means. The appointment happens tomorrow. I will keep you posted.

A more poetic exchange is coming to me via my AOL e-mail account. Most of the time these emails show up in my spam folder and when you weed through them they are come-ons for online pharmaceutical sales. Even the subject line tells you that:

From Me with Flonex

Listen to the body of the e-mail:

Good day.

look

to bring Grav Bent here, sheadded in the same light and

course non-alcoholic since his traveling this entire

Simple child of nature that you are, Inskipp said,

Uh huh.

This was followed by a handy chart telling me the cost of various drugs such as Viagra. (Who told them I needed Viagra, who? That's a cruel lie and you know it!)

Then there is the one entitled I like Tetracycline?

Apparently there is some doubt as they have included a question mark.

I like tetracycline when I have an infection of some sort and to treat certain diseases (again, who is spreading this vicious untruths about me to the online pharmacies?)

This one has another poetic and mysterious message:

Good day.

look

Well, well old chicken-hearted revealed at last. Rough and

he had never made a sound.

concealed compartments or drawers built into your steel

Is it just me or does this have a certain e.e. cummings meets Richard Brautigan thing going on? I especially like concealed compartments or drawers built into your steel. I think we've all felt like that before, haven't we?

There is one called Do You Like Protonix? that has a bit of a sci-fi bent to it:

Good day.

look

read the code words carefully, shaping them with his

equidistant. What was more important was the fact that

Get the Communications Officer in here at once, I shouted

They had me at equidistant. That one gives me chills.

This one is my favorite:

Good day.

look

removed my earlier bathing desire. There was a deep

would have penetrated it by now. With this realization

the beginning. It was different from the feeble animal

I like the way the poet is so polite and always begins with "Good day."

From there this particular poem takes us on a journey into the spam writer's soul.

Apparently he had thought about taking a shower, but has since had that notion undone is some fashion. Perhaps the water has been turned off? He does not say except to note, "There was a deep."

An aspiration to penetrate something is followed by the realization that "the beginning" was different from the "feeble animal."

How come the pharmacist at Walgreens never speaks in Haiku?

Now Let Us Speak of the Penis

2008-01-31T14:16:00.000-08:00

I appreciate that my readers are a mature and sophisticated crowd, so I am sure there won't be any immature tittering when I announce that the topic of todays blog:

The Penis.

I heard there is a play called The Vagina Monologues. Since I don't know what it is about, I will leap to the conclusion it is about a talking vagina. If it was a musical, I would assume it was about a singing vagina but as far as I know, there is no music in that show.

I don't believe there are any shows about talking penises, although I did once see a musical called Naked Boys Singing. It was about these naked boys. And they kept singing.

I also saw a DVD of a show called Puppetry of the Penis.

All I can say is, don't try this at home! Take my word for it...

I get a lot of mail about the penis. Well, not just any penis, but specifically mail about products that will allegedly improve my penis. I am not sure why these mailings get sent to me.

I am told cookies placed in certain websites will trigger certain emails. Buying certain products by snail mail will put you on the mailing list of other products involving certain regions of the body.

I am reasonably certain these mailings are somewhat random and not because someone from my past has filed a formal complaint. At least that is what I tell myself.

Randomness would also account for the mailings that promise me creams which will enlarge my breasts--a project, by the way, which I have no desire to undertake.

Some of these penis related mailings promise to enlarge the penis--sometimes with a pill, sometimes a cream. More frighteningly, sometimes there are devices involved. Scary looking devices. I wouldn't put the tip of my index finger inside some of those contraptions, much less another more delicate appendage.

I received something via U.S. Mail recently that both amused and astounded. If I may, let me quote the brochure:

Now! Instant Hard-Ons On Command Every Time You Want One! Yes! Huge, Rock-Hard Erections 4, 5, 6, Times A Night No Matter How Many Times You Come! (up to 6 times a night!)

I don't know about you but that pitch left me in dire need of a cigarette and a nap.

The brochure goes on to promise that this product Makes every love-making session a sexual marathon!

Again, I am getting a little winded.

The brochure goes on: Great for Women Too! Turns Her On, Turns Her Up. Turns Her Into A Sex Hungry Tigress of the Boudoir!

To which I reply, you go, girl!

Besides excessive use of the exclamation mark and some serious capitalization issues, the thing that struck me the most is the way this product is delivered. It is packaged like, and is ingested just the same way as, a Listerine Breath Strip. You pop open the little plastic container; slip it on your tongue and it melts in seconds. The brochure promises, Not only will this great formula help super size your erection, it will also freshen up your breath with the great taste of cinnamon.

Wow. Rock hard erections AND cinnamon breath. No one will be able to resist my charms now.

Which lead me to a wicked thought; wouldnt it be fun to switch this product with somebody's real Listerine Breath Strips? Like, maybe somebody at work who was about to make a big presentation to a bunch of executives?

It made me think it could be like an episode of Bewitched if Bewitched had been a little dirtier:

Poor Darren has an erection that won't go away. He has a permanent tent in his suit pants and Larry Tate is about to blow a gasket because Darren has to make a pitch to a big client. I can see Endora hovering nearby, chortling, "Durwood has a woody!" while Samantha sighs with exasperation. Uncle Arthur pops in, "I think I can take care of that for you," he says to Darren. "What?" Darren asks desperately, "You've got a spell?" Uncle Arthur chuckles with a leer, "Who said anything about a spell?!"

Please don't misunderstand, I am not making light of erectile dysfunction. I am sure it can be quite heart breaking. I just don't think cinnamon breath strips are the most viable solution.

I don't know how many times I've seen this in movies and TV shows (but not in real life, thank God!)--a man and his partner (usually a woman) are in bed together.

The man looks distressed. Something like, 'someone just ran your puppy through a blender' distressed. The partner either looks annoyed or excessively sympathetic.

The man whines (in that way only men can whine) "This has never happened before!!" And the partner, even the annoyed looking partner, says something along the lines of, "Gee, thats OK. Don't worry about it."

I think the more appropriate response would be, "OK. This never happened before. I understand. But for your information, this sort of thing does happen to most males at some point in their lives. Meanwhile our good time has turned into your pity party. Why don't you use your imagination and figure out an alternative plan here?"

No one ever does that, but I think they should.

As the great '80s gay singing duo Romanovsky and Phillips sang:

Penises are cute

But they're not logical

The have no IQ.

Don't let them make decisions for you!

To that I add, when the little head isn't doing the job, use your imagination!

But back to the breath strips.

I have some serious concerns about this product.

After a while don't you think the flavor of cinnamon might become hardwired in your brain and become synonymous with erection? That seems possible. Someone offers you a stick of Big Red and then pop! Instant erection.

That could be inconvenient. For example, I understand a lot of people chew Big Red in church.

On the other hand, maybe love making isn't going so well and your partner turns to you and says, "Is there anything I can do?" "Yeah, babe," you reply, "Do you have any Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal?"

So there could be an up side too.

My biggest concern is, even if the cinnamon hard-on breath strip is THE GREATEST VIRILITY BREAKTHROUGH EVER ACHIEVED BY MEDICAL SCIENCE, I'm worried that if I am with someone who smells a bit too much of cinnamon, I might be tempted to forget the whole sex thing and run to the mall for a Cinnabon.

I seriously need to stay away from Cinnabons. I start eating one of those and I just can't stop.

Some things are just plain addictive.