Check out the below website if you want to see what hate looks like.
June 2005 Archives
I took Gaza for a long-ass walk in Griffith Canyon, and enjoyed the side of him that has become more prominent since I’ve had him back. He used to be a dog’s dog who wanted nothing more than to play with other dogs. Now he’s more of a man’s-best-friend dog, who loves to be the navigator on a hike, exploring potential trails and checking for danger ahead. (After all, you never know when there’ll be a squirrel with a gun lurking behind a tree.)
At one point, as a trail deadended, I flashbacked to myself at 7, asking my Dad if he thought anyone had EVER been this far before. I remembered how he used to wake us 5 kids up at dawn, literally, on Sundays, back in Rockville Maryland, and take us for a hike on the C&O canal. We would wear 5 identical red sweaters knit by my mother (she had no time for patterns) and scramble up the leaf-laden slopes bordering the path. I remember one delirious autumn morning where there was just enough cover to afford a literal cushion as we sledded down the slopes on our rumps. My father would birdwatch and my mother would watch us, invariably holding all of our sweaters as it warmed up. We would always end up at Great Falls on the Potomac, arguing over our favorite indentations in the rock formations, marveling how nature had fashioned bucket seats for us to enjoy the spectacular view. (Funny, I never remember hiking back, but I guess we had to because that was where the car was).
On the way back for the park, I got a call from my friend who hired me a lot back in April to watch over his ex-wife in a law firm as she goes through papers as part of a divorce battle. So I’ll be “working” on Tuesday, a term I put in quotes because all I do is read the entire time. And yet the prospect of getting paid for anything puts a spring in my step. I need the sense of purpose as much as the dough.
To that end, I made 3 copies of the book draft, and will be distributing them to trusted eyes for input. I flipped through what I wrote while copying. It’s different on paper than on the computer. But I think I’ve got something, I really do.
MCO 2005
Well, I was so pleased with yesterday’s entry that I sent it to two editors. One a friend and one the editor at a magazine where I worked in the 90’s, letting them both know I’m looking for freelance assignments.
Then this morning I went to breakfast with a new friend. I was even more excited than if it had been a potential boyfriend (not that I would mind, but he is attached). I need to network and socialize more, and this guy had a fascinating background and also spoke French and writes music and was all around just a doll.
Then I went to Bronson Canyon with Gaza. This is where I had dropped off the alleged Brazilian Porn Star. Gaza and I explored around, but let me tell you, it was quite a feat for her to have started over there and ended up where she met me… I suspect I was the target of a setup. Saved by my lefthanded sexual orientation, once again!
I got a call from the vet about Gaza’s lump. The lab results told us what kind of cells make it up (spindle cells) but not whether they are benign or more serious. For that they need a bigger portion and the doc said we might as well remove the lump altogether. I don’t quite understand why we just didn’t do that in the first place, and save me the lab costs. Instead, it would cost me an additional $300, and I just don’t have it right now. The doc said she thought it could certainly wait until I do, as long as I keep an eye on the lump. It certainly motivates me to make some money, but again, thank God the total will not be more than $500, because as I shared, that’s where I have to draw the line.
Ironically, my friend David got a call from his brother last night, who wants to borrow money toward a $3000 operation on his dachshund. I’m sorry, I love animals, but I think that that’s just wrong. You can transform a lot of human lives for that kind of money.
MCO 2005
On Monday, Salman Rushdie called. “Believe me, I know what you’re going through. When I was in hiding it was just like prison. I couldn’t go anywhere, all I could do was write. And then they lifted the fatwa and I was ecstatic. I had so taken my freedom for granted, and vowed never to do so again. And guess what? Within 6 months I was just as depressed as I ever was. I don’t even remember that period in hiding as being so terrible. Part of me enjoyed all the attention. You know what I’m saying?”
On Tuesday, Joyce Carol Oates was on the phone: “Listen if being published equaled happiness, I would be in nirvana. I write 8 hours a day, longhand, because I can’t do anything else. Between you and me, sometimes I turn on a soap at lunchtime, and wish I was one of those actresses. Heart-breakingly beautiful, and able to just say the lines instead of come up with them. Not that what I come up with is on the same level, but when you write as much as I do, you have to wonder. Can you produce that much and maintain quality? Or am I just an output machine?”
On Wednesday, Woody Allen dropped by: “I hate to admit it, because we were on a panel together and completely disagreed—oh, maybe that was Cynthia Ozick—but Joyce has a point. I’ve made too many films to be covered in one semester, and there isn’t one critic—not that I read them—who says they’re getting better. Meanwhile I’m still asking the same questions I’ve always asked: ‘What’s the purpose of life? Why are we here? Why can’t I stay attracted to the same woman for more than a few years?’” Before he slunk out, Woody cautioned: “Oh, we never had this conversation.”
On Thursday I got an unsigned fax from a major celebrity: “Cheer up. At least you don’t have to arrange elaborate public love affairs with starlets to cover up the fact that you like to sleep with men. I sold my soul to the devil for fame and now I can’t get it back. Do you know how many people are on my payroll? Count yourself lucky. It’s a very risky business, this success thing.”
On Friday, Al Gore emailed: “You think you go down that ‘if only’ road? You should come over for poker night at John and Teresa’s. I wish I had stayed a journalist. I would have made a great anchorman, and had all of the glory and none of the sense of failure.”
On Saturday it was Peter Jennings on the line: “Gore is right, up to a point. All the glory won’t do you much good if you lose your health. What’s eating at me is that I still want a cigarette. You’re damned no matter what.”
On Sunday, the Lord appeared, looking exactly like Cher. She simply slapped me across the face. “Snap out of it!” she ordered.
I told her it would help if I could summer with Tennessee and Somerset in Key West or Cap d’Antibes. She said she’d have to talk to the Big Cahuna, and called Oprah.
MCO 2005
People anonymously send in their secrets, on postcards, posted by the blogger.
It's absolutely fascinating and addictive.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
MCO 2005
This morning I decide to mix things up a bit and take Gaza for our morning constitutional to Griffith Park. It is not far away but I wanted to pick up some groceries afterwards so I took the car.
We do our little foray in the wild, and on the return path, a buxom young lady with a Brazilian accent and two sweet dogs asks me a question.
“Excuse me, but is there an easy way back to Bronson Canyon from here?”
I should know this, but I don’t. In fact I think it’s pretty far, back over a few hills on a winding path
“I came with my girlfriend and she went running down a different path and I got turned around and came out here. She’s probably waiting for me at her car over there.”
I offer the use of my cell phone.
“She didn’t bring hers. Do you think I could get a cab around here?”
“Maybe if you walk down to Los Feliz, but I don’t know how they’d feel about the dogs.”
“Oh boy, I’m in trouble. My friend is gonna be worried and pissed.”
I absolutely assume that there is zero chance she will accept, but I offer anyway.
“Would you like a ride back to where your friend’s car is?”
“Oh, would you do that? That would be so nice of you.”
I figure she either can tell I’m gay or just senses accurately that I’m completely not dangerous.
So we walk to my car and chat amiably. She asks if I live close by, and what I do, and I say I live in Hollywood and am a writer. I figure it’s safe for me to ask her what she does.
“I make movies. Porn films.”
“As an actress?’
“That’s right.”
She is so utterly matter-of-fact about it I am somewhat taken aback, particularly as it strikes me as the most blatantly provocative scenario imaginable--had I been a straight guy.
I ask her where she’s from and she says “Rio” and I say, “ah, a Carioca!” (that’s what Rio de Janierites are called.) I expect her to be impressed by my worldiness, instead she shares that she just flew in from Miami, where she’d done a film. “It’s so crazy, so much partying…but my God the men in South Beach are gorgeous.”
I don’t know whether she is coming on to me or talking to me like a girlfriend, but decide to emphasize the latter, and tell her: “I think Brazilian men are the best looking in the world. I’ve dated a few of them.” There. Now I don’t have to worry that she is worried that I might attack her.
We get to the other parking lot. She doesn’t see her friend, but sees her friend’s car. “She must be looking for me. I’ll just wait for her here. Thank you so much.”
“Well, I’m just glad you could sense it was safe to ride with me.”
“Oh I would never have ridden with you if you didn’t have a dog.”
It’s true that I don’t think many sociopathic rapists have sweet friendly dogs, but let’s be honest, has anyone ever done a study on this?
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Sofia” she tells me.
“I’m Marc. Have a very good day.”
“Thank you, Marc” We shake hands. She and her two big breasts and two sweet dogs get out of the car, and I drive off.
On the way home I start to wonder. Maybe there was no “friend.” Maybe she couldn’t immediately tell I was gay, and thought I might be a rich screenwriter with a house in the hills who would invite this homeless porn star over for lots of coke and a place to sleep. Maybe I didn’t imagine a trace of a sigh when I told her about the Brazilian men I’d dated, maybe instead of feeling safe she was disappointed. Maybe she tried the same ploy on another guy with a dog, but instead, she’d be looking for her “friend” over in Griffith Park.
Or, maybe she was telling the God’s Honest Truth, and the Blog Goddess sent her.
MCO 2005
A friend called me with an extra ticket for the King Tut Exhibit, so off I go this afternoon to see pretty, shiny things.
It's a fitting tribute to my brother Luke, who would have been 49 today. He didn't like pretty, shiny things in a materialistic sense--he could care less about that stuff--but he was certainly one to latch on to the next pretty, shiny idea. Every next thing was always going to transform a whole bunch of other things. For a doctor, he sure believed in a whole lot of potential cures for AIDS that didn't have a prayer. And a lot of spiritual systems that he'd get very fired up about and then seem to feel he'd integrated into a big system. He didn't sense contradiction in the way most people do, at least the way I do, but that's sort of what made him so unique. A Western-trained doctor who'd as soon ask you your astrological sign and advise eating lots of garlic as he would prescribe the pill all of his colleagues were prescribing for the same ailment.
I actually wouldn't be at all surprised if he was a high priest in the time of the Pharoahs in King Tuts time.
I was most definitely a scribe.
MCO 2005
Dear Marc,
Here is your horoscope
for Saturday, June 25:
Talk about a great date night -- with the right person, you can make an astounding connection that's intellectual, emotional and physical all at once. If you don't have the right person, you just might by night's end.
What I have planned, so far, is to take Gaza and David's dog to "Pet Pride" in West Hollywood Park this afternoon. Any secret admirers can track me down there. I mean, let's face it, you're NOBODY in this town until you have a stalker.
MCO 2005
I got another letter from my ex-cellie, Mike Stiltz.
He's such a nice guy, he really is. But he is NOT getting much mail and he REALLY is dying for some.
I would SO appreciate any one reading this to drop him a line.
Thanks.
Michael Stiltz
V-31062 D14 15U
P.O. Box 8103
San Luis Obispo, CA 92403-8103
THANK YOU.
MCO 2005
I’m feeling somewhat better waking up today. Although I napped and diddled and daddled too much yesterday, I did do some cutting and pasting on the book and started on an introduction that will set the whole thing up. I’m thinking of titling it “Redwood Blues,” and confining it to those last 4 months at Chino, (in Redwood Dorm). I’m also reaching out to a few fellow writers (including my sister), asking them to read the first draft and getting some advice, and that feels good.
I tell you, the Internet is such a blessing (witness this very blog as evidence) but it also is SO intimidating. “The Best 101 Websites for Writers” for example. I could easily spend a day using and pursuing the information on almost every one of those sites. Picking and choosing between them is a part-time job alone. This sort of task, more than anything, is what sends me to bed with Gaza.
I didn’t hear from the Vet yesterday, and figure no news is good news. As opposed to NPR, which, thanks to all those signatures, had its cuts restored. The right wing in this country is scaring the hell out of me. I really start to wonder if we are not headed for a theocratic dictatorship, or civil war. (Wounded tigers tend to attack). What kills me about Bush’s sagging poll numbers are all those among the new doubters who voted for him in 2004. What exactly do they know now that they did not know then?
MCO 2005
The article below was initially written last year as a blog entry, and then rewritten a month ago for Being Alive, but describes rather well exactly where my head is today. I’m going through one of those uncomfortable patches again where I find it very hard to stay disciplined or driven or even focused. I am easily distracted, I procrastinate. I feel overwhelmed by choice and paralyzed by indecision. I feel extremely frustrated that I have an article a month that comes out in Being Alive, a blog on which I post every day, and another article that came out all over the country, and yet I’m not making a living writing.
I certainly can’t imagine doing drugs or drinking to find the illusion of immediate purpose, but I confess I would like be reacting to decisions instead of having to be proactive. I want an agent or editor who feeds me assignments, and I want my work to attract that agent or editor, I don’t want to have to promote myself to get the work.
I am above all annoyed that I am whining, particularly given where I was a year ago. And I am overwhelmed by the desire to sleep, which feels completely physical but I’m sure is largely psychosomatic, as sleep is temporary relief and escape.
I’m sorry to be such a pill, but that’s how I feel today.
MCO 2005
This just came out, part of Being Alive's special issue focusing on Crystal Meth.
$171.00 to have Gaza’s lump aspirated. Believe me, it was much more painful for me than for him. The vet should call me tomorrow to no doubt tell me it’s nothing to worry about. Maybe their lab also has a service that helps one file for bankruptcy.
I guess my brother’s position makes sense. Either it’s going to be nothing serious, in which case you spend the money to little good purpose, or it’s going to be serious, requiring a definitely unaffordable solution (like surgery). Well maybe if one hadn’t spent so much money on stupid-ass cigarettes, one would have had the money, wouldn’t one?
It was just enough to light a fire under my efforts to become the new Norman EMailer. I realized that all the post-release blog entries did not fit into the book, that I can write a brief epilogue for the curious if necessary. So the pre-release content is now ready to be looked at and shopped around. Just as I had to bite the bullet and edit the 300 or so pages that it comes to, I have to start systematically making inquiries and collecting my first round of rejection slips and unreturned phone calls. Boy do I hate this part, but what writer ever born does not?
I also have to get systematic about trying to get freelance writing jobs, and horrors, other kind of work as well. All this from one little lump on my dog. It wouldn’t be the first time sheer, unadulterated fear of not being able to pay one’s bills (without turning to one’s Mom yet again) finally gets one to do what one is most reluctant to do, like make a pest of oneself.
My Dad was in sales for years. No wonder he drank.
MCO 2005
This morning I’m taking Gaza to the vet because he a) hasn’t been since I last had him, b) has some lumps on his side that feel like something more than fatty deposits or cysts. I’m not going to jump to any conclusions, of course, but I am a bit concerned. But when I think of how many Southern African children with HIV, for example, $1500 could save, I find the prospect of spending even that kind of money on surgery or medical procedures on a pet difficult to justify. At the same time, most decent vets contribute a fair amount of their income to pro bono work with animals, and I am a passionate believer in the greatness of pets and the need for humans to treat them with respect and protection. And it’s almost impossible to imagine having the courage to put Gaza down if he had something treatable. Where does one draw the line, though?
Again, I’m jumping the gun, painting all sorts of ethical dilemma scenarios because I am a drama queen and a worry-wort. And will be one angry brother if I find out these lumps could have been dealt with cheaply and easily if Gaza had been taken to the vet when I was in no position to do so.
I take Gaza to Runyon Canyon every morning, and upon returning here, I’ve found that we both take a long ass nap. I can’t help it, I literally can’t keep my eyes open at the computer. This bugs me, a mile hike or so should not wipe me out like that. Hopefully as my body gets used to it, I’ll stop being such a woos.
MCO 2005
I find it rather strange that I just woke up from a dream I was smoking pot—something I stopped doing years and years ago, without even trying to—and yet I haven’t had I cigarette smoking dream. Something, helas, that is still desirous for me. But it will stay in the realm of desire. As Mammy said to Scarlett O’Hara about Ashley Wilkes: “Wantin’ Ain’t Gittin’.”
Yesterday, two delightful parties in envy-inducing houses, including some refreshing dips in a pool. Then Sunday night movie catch-up at David’s. We saw Hotel Rwanda, which was as inspiring and distressing as anticipated, and an episode of “Queer as Folk” which I haven’t seen since the beginning, being Showtime-less. Flawed for sure, but I definitely see how it could be addictive.
This week. I will keep plugging along on the book, shortening post-release entries as I transfer them from the blog. I really can go on, can’t I? I’m realizing it is best to keep these down to manageable bites, at least if I want you to be able to catch up without having to commit an hour at a time. In that spirt, I bid you Good Morning, and I’m off to walk the dog and spend an hour with my peeps.
MCO 2005
Last night David (aka The Merry Widow) and I went dancing. It was fun to get in our favorite jeans and tight t-shirts and just plain have a good time, without it being a 6-hour, multi-drink/drug/men extravaganza like it was in the days of yore. Two drinks for him, one conversation for me (it seems I am a dead ringer for a man named Nevin, I got an affectionate hug from a well-muscled stranger from this very pleasant case of mistaken identity) and 20 minutes on the dance floor for both of us, and boom, we were having late night burritos and discussing retiring together in Argentina. David and I had a moderately successful marriage “blanc” (a French euphemism for a sexless union) years ago, and we still laugh as much as we did back then.
In fact, as we drove home, David pointed out a restaurant where he had last had dinner with Larry, before Larry died: “The Flying Leap.”
I can’t even blame it on cocktails, but I couldn’t resist adding.
“And then he took one.”
David laughed so hard he almost had to pull over.
He’s thinking of become a tango instructor. God knows he’s had enough practice with me.
Off to Church and two celebrations of 10 years off the sauce. (No, not barbecue sauce). Don’t worry, I’m not leaving Gaza alone, he’s getting babysat by his Uncle Mike.
MCO 2005
Last night I dreamt I was smoking again. Well, more precisely, I dreamt I woke up and found a half-smoked pack of cigarettes, and remembered having smoked the night before. I tried to decide whether to finish the pack before I stopped again, or whether to try to stop again right then and there. Of course I was unable to throw away the half-pack of cigarettes.
It is those tell-tale signs that remind me that I am fundamentally different from a “normie.” I have been washing and putting away old pieces of my wardrobe given to me by my brother, and have been a tad nervous about finding a little glassine bag in an old pocket. No, I would not consume anything found, but I would have difficulty throwing it out. Just like the cigarettes. I still equate drugs with having value, which is a bit easier to understand if you imagine my coming across an unopened bottle of wine. (Brand: “Pandora’s Box” no doubt.)
I realized, preparing to go to a you-know-what last night, that I still have a distorted view of leisure time. I find it hard to imagine that anyone else wondering what to do with their Friday night would not have the prospect of consuming some alcohol in the picture, even if only with dinner, or after the movies. And for urban gay men in particular, going out to cruise or dance, it is a small minority who don’t “enhance” with booze or drugs or both, at least in my experience. But that’s just my experience,
I know that the vast majority, straight or gay, does whatever they do on a Friday night without the need to “enhance” it with anything. I find this completely foreign to me, almost a sinful waste.
Clearly, where I do choose to go, I am in the right place. Yes, I still need to remind myself, even more so as I fall under the delusion that I am “cured.” Recovery is an lifelong process, not a journey that ends.
MCO 2005
I realized that Gaza just turned 8, which is roughly 56 in human years. He has mellowed considerably in the year and a half since he was last mine. He is just as affectionate but much less likely to engage other dogs in play. He also doesn’t show any flashes of protective aggression that used to be occasionally problematic. He used to bark at homeless people, and anyone he deemed suspicious. So far, there’s none of that, and he waits quite patiently here or in the car for me when I must “meet.” I guess he got used to much less attention, as my brother worked all week, and it was just him and Wolfie at home all day. But he sure licks up all the affection I can give him.
I’ve been finding it necessary to edit the post-prison blog entries as well for the book, although I am leaving them unchanged in the on-line archives. In the book I have to go for readability, in the blog, for authenticity. I have been also mulling over a title. I’m thinking of “A Year in Purgatory.” (I would have gone with “A Year in Penance” if “Penance” was pronounced “Peh-NONCE” as in Pro-VENCE).
One of the things that reads okay in the blog, but not so well in the book are topical news references. Referring to Fallujah when everyone has just seen it on the news is one thing, when read about a year after the fact, it’s just dated. Here’s an example of something that I’d like to talk about today but wouldn’t read well a year from now. I saw a report on ABC News (from the BBC reporter) about the devastation Mugabe is wreaking on his own people in Zimbabwe—literally a destruction of the habitat of entire towns and villages deemed part of the opposition that is equivalent to a man-made tsunami. Where the hell is the U.N. and why does Bush have nothing to say on the matter? What about his crusade against tyranny? Can you imagine how much more we’d care if Zimbabwe was sitting on oil fields?
I will be housesitting on July 4th weekend and am arranging to have friends in town come by and catch up on all the movies unseen for the previous year. I thought that was a good plan to allay my fears of getting the 3-day weekend lonelies, and Gaza can enjoy a huge yard.
MCO 2005
We just had an earthquake, a 5.3, centered in Yucaipa (in the Inland Empire--again, close to where I was in prison) but wow, I could feel it, and so could Gaza. He actually woke up from his afternoon snooze, got up to inspect for damage, and then went back to sleep on the couch.
I'm a bit rattled this time, because as has been well reported, the West Coast has had a spate of 'em of late. I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering if this is an indicator of some sort. Is The Big One on the horizon?.
One of my first thoughts was: "This is no reason to smoke." My second thought, however, was: "Damn, if I get killed by falling debris next week, I'll be really pissed that I quit!" There are 4 or 5 times a day where I REALLY miss it.
I take some comfort in thinking that at least I really did enjoy smoking. It would be depressing if I had spent all that money on something I didn't even like doing. In truth, I've enjoyed all my addictions, up until the bitter end. I will never quite understand those who keep drinking and drugging and smoking way past the point where they're enjoying any of it. Which doesn't mean that because you enjoy some of it, any of it is worth the high price paid--and I don't mean the financial cost, either.
Gonna have to wash the dog, and think I'll dry him by taking a walk to the Hardware store and getting me an EEK! (Earthquake Emergency Kit).
MCO 2005
I can’t manage to leave Gaza alone here yet, I suppose it’s guilt for having been the absentee father for 15 months. I also fear for his being bored, and I don’t think he wants me out of his sight either.
So last night I dropped him off in David’s backyard while I went to a meeting. David warned me he was going shopping and taking his dog with him, but I figured Gaza would still be happier in the yard than alone in the apartment. However, when I got back, Gaza was not in the yard, but sitting patiently in front of the house.
So, no unsupervised visits to David’s yard, although it’s a mystery how he got out. What was no mystery is that he had to have gotten a tad close to a skunk. I coated him with baking soda back home, as I just couldn’t face giving him a tomato-juice bath indoors. And David tells he has something called “skunk-off” that works well on his dog.
I will be stopping by to get some this morning. But better hop in the shower myself. I guess I’ll find out if it rubbed off on me at my a.m. meeting and no one wants to sit next to me.
It tough being a parent. But I’m so proud of my baby for not running off after he got out. It seems he wasn’t about to leave the spot where he last laid eyes on his Dad. How could you not love that?
MCO 2005
P.S. No, I didn't smoke over it, but I DREAMT that I smoked.
I signed the petition, and thought blogging it would reach more people than my emailing it. (I owe NPR such a debt for keeping me sane my last months in prison. And last night I watched a series on the history of slavery one could only find on PBS.)
Hi,
You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it's actually true. (Really. Check at the bottom if you don't believe me.)
Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS:
http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch.
The cuts would slash 25% of the federal funding this year—$100 million—and end funding altogether within two years. The loss could kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," "Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships.
Already, 300,000 people have signed the petition. Can you help us reach 400,000 signatures today?
http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
Thanks!
P.S. Read the Washington Post report on the threat to NPR and PBS at:
Day 3 sans cigarettes.
I'm in mourning, I really am. Maybe posting this poem from the bowels of my website, written two years ago, may constitute part of the grieving process. Or just an a-propos excuse to throw some poetry at you.
The Gaza (as I like to call him) is adorable, of course. I drop him off at David's for a few hours every day, and last night when I went to "A Night of Noel Coward" unexpectedly, dropped him off for a reunion with my friend Mike, who was his very favorite Uncle.
I didn't get much writing done yesterday because I needed to unpack and hang the art my brother brought down with the dog. My place is much more inviting now. I also found myself napping twice. I daresay the body is feeling the lack of nicotine. But I am really determined. I had years of resisting depriving myself of anything, like that was sort of a sin if you weren't going to be around long. Probably just a justification for doing what I was going to do anyway, but in any case, that's dead and buried--not me. Time to say no to short-term gratification say yes to longevity and its contents (pronounced con-TENTS, as in Civilization and its Discontents, without the Dis.)
MCO 2005
Well the trip up to Santa Barbara went very smoothly, though I’m sorry it ran a bit late and we weren’t able to eat with my brother and Fumi. We had stuff to unload and I wanted Gaza to get acclimated both here and at David’s, where I will drop him off a fair amount of time because of the big yard and David’s dog Tess. Today, in fact, I dropped Gaza off there for an hour this morning and when I returned, the four of us went to a private dog park David belongs to down the street.
Gaza took a while to warm up to me again. I thought he’d be way excited to see me, but my sense was that he knew there was a major change coming, because of all of the boxes in the truck, and he was pretty anxious. On the way down he started licking me though, and has stuck very close ever since. When I left him at David’s this morning, David said he waited at the door for me the whole time, and was all excited when I came back the way he wasn’t at all when he first saw me. I guess he’s forgiven me (I spent a few minutes apologizing before we went to sleep together on the futon last night).
I’m imagine the cat people are rolling their eyes at all this while the dog people are nodding sympathetically. There may be a similar split between the smokers and the non-smokers. I am 2 days now in the latter category. It’s very hard, but I am concentrating on the extra money in my pocket, the clean air around me, the minty breath, and the inherent pleasure that comes with freeing oneself from an unhealthy addiction (as opposed to healthy ones, like eating, sleeping, breathing and writing.)
I am getting some interesting reader mail from the Pride Guide article, including one from an old friend. I will alternate responses with unpacking and sorting some of the other stuff my brother brought down I had in storage. Mostly art, and some clothes. I now will have no excuse not to break my final addiction: thrift shops. I truly have everything I need now.
MCO 2005
This is Gaza, the studmuffin dog that will be back in my arms by 2:30 today. I will always be indebted to my brother Steve for taking care of him for so long, as well to his girlfriend Fumi, for all the time Gaza was able to spend with her dogs, and for bringing him down in her truck.
As for the watch, it's mine. It stopped at exactly 8:34 this morning. What is rather bizarre is the way the numbers on the watch-face just peeled off. I have never seen that. And I didn't knock it against some surface or anything at all. (I do hope I'm not going to get a phone call telling me something awful happened at exactly that moment, but if it does, at least I've documented it.)
Anyway, Pride was fun enough, as these things go. I confess the highlight, for me, was leaving, as I saw that everyone was handed a Pride Guide, (if they hadn't already picked one up.) I had to resist the temptation to buttonhole complete strangers and say "66. The article on page 66." (All right, I did do it, once, because the guy had it open and was flipping through it.) I did not demur from letting anyone I ran into who I already knew know about it. The hardest part was not picking up discarded copies. (Okay, I did that too, three times, but I needed them for myself). I did not, however fish a copy out of the trash. (Really).
I'm going on 11 hours without a cigarette. It's hard, but I'm going to make it. As I shared with friends this morning, "I will not give emphysema to that dog." I think they laughed because the way it came out (quite unwittingly) sounded so much like Bill Clinton's famous "I did not have a sexual relationship with that woman." It's a bit sad that I'll do for my dog's health what I wouldn't do for my own, but hell, whatever it takes. It was suggested, as far as smoking, that I make Gaza my higher power. Hence the title of this entry.
MCO 2005
A friend sent me this funny ditty:
Due to the popularity of the Survivor shows, several southern TV stations are joining together and are planning to do their own, entitled "Survivor: Southern Style."
The contestants will start in Alabama, travel over to Georgia and on to South Carolina. From there they will head up to North Carolina and over to Tennessee. They will! ll then proceed down to Mississippi and Louisiana. Finally ending up back over in Alabama.
Each will be driving a pink Volvo with New Jersey license plates and large bumper stickers that read:
I'm Gay,
I'm a Vegetarian,
NASCAR Sucks,
Go Yankees!
Smoking is for Idiots,
Hillary in 2008,
Deer Hunting is Murder
and
I'm Here to Confiscate Your Guns!
The first one that makes it back to Montgomery alive, wins.
Wow, we just had a not insubstantial earthquake! Not enough to do any damage, (here at least) but enough to wake me up! I have turned on the news and an awaiting a "special report" because if I am far from the epicenter, than whoever was close to it I imagine felt a lot!
I personally enjoy earthquakes. And they always seem to happen on Sunday mornings. (Well at least this one and the famous Northridge shaker in 1994). Ironically, (well kind of) I experienced that with my ex, David, who I spent some of yesterday with and will be going to Pride with today. That quake was extraordinary. Our TV fell over, and tons of glass broke. It was 5 in the morning, and David was a deep sleeper who initially thought the shaking was a misbegotten attempt on my part to initiate some dubiously timed pre-dawn nookie. Soon we were up like everyone else, bonding with our neighbors, comforting the dog, and waiting for aftershocks.
Okay, the special reports are coming on T.V. A 5.6 shaker, centered in Riverside County, rather close to Chino Prison! It lasted about 10 seconds, (as opposed to about 45, for Northridge). Like everyone else, I wonder if this is just another moderate one we feel about once every 2 or 3 years, and/or a harbinger of The Big One that has been threatened for years. If anything, it is a reminder that any day could be, if not your final day, your last day before a period of chaos and destruction during which you might want nothing more than running water or electricity to be turned back on (Sounds like a run-of-the-mill day in Iraq.) Earthquakes are very effective suppliers of instant perspective. If only to remind you to get one of those disaster kits!
Yesterday the party I went to was fun. I also had 2 celebrity sightings yesterday, but I can't tell you who or where for reasons you'll just have to infer. Last night I went to a bar, which I don't usually do anymore because it's generally not the best place for an alcoholic to hang out on a regular basis. But with Pride weekend there were a whole lot of people who don't usually come out either, and I was able to reconnect with a few old acquaintances who were glad to see me happy and healthy and free. One of these was a real sweetheart who I use to flirt with on line regularly during my using days, but never did anything about because he was a "normie" and I was stuck in my addiction. So we re-met, as it were, and I would bet it's not the last time.
Today I will watch the parade and enjoy the Festival with David and friends. By the way, his lawyers wrote a kick-ass letter to his late lover's family asserting his palimonial (my word) rights to a much larger chunk of Larry's estate than that which the family proposes to leave him. He has a very strong case, as he was absolutely essential to the growth and success of a real-estate operation that was a mess when he met Larry and highly profitable when Larry died. I remember the countless times David could not get together because he had to help collect rents or screen tenants or interview managers, as he not only speaks Spanish fluently but is much more adept with people than Larry ever was.
David’s experience is another reminder why events like Gay Pride celebrations, however frankly annoying (at least to this old dog) they can be in their circus-like atmosphere and disco-beat cacophony, are still essential as an assertion of our community’s visibility and presence. We've come a long way, but not nearly far enough.
I just hope an aftershock doesn’t throw Paris Hilton off her Grand Marshal float. (On second thought, maybe that would be a good thing. None of us can imagine why she was chosen for this role in the parade. Talk about silly and shallow. I guess Nelson Mandela was booked.)
MCO 2005
I wrote this back in prison, but my sister wisely didn't post it, as it needed substantial rewriting.
It's another memory piece about my family. Certainly I must have some of the details of what happened years ago wrong, but I think I remain true to the spirit of her life.
Some Don’t
My Aunt Nancy died of a broken heart. But the real tragedy was that she lived with one.
My grandparents adopted her when she was two, in 1938. Research my Aunt Cora did after Nancy’s death uncovered that her parents were a couple of modest means who were killed in a car accident, leaving several children behind. The other children were distributed among relatives, but Nancy was given up for adoption. Times were still tough in 1938, the relatives probably did the best they were capable of doing.
Still, for a child that young, the reason her parents, and any older siblings, suddenly disappear would make little difference. It is certainly easy to imagine that Nancy experienced the rupture as a rejection of the most profound kind. Even if she didn’t, so fundamental a loss at that age could only have inflicted a deep psychic wound.
My grandmother’s maiden name was Hazel Beebe. She was an imposing woman in her bearing and manner; a nurse who joined the workforce during the first great wave of women to do so, when World War I temporarily drained the U.S. labor force and loosened as well the social restrictions that kept proper middle-class girls at home until marriage. For a time she worked for the Anheuser family (of Anheuser-Busch) and even nursed its ailing patriarch in a private railroad car all over the country.
Eventually she ended up working at Bellevue Hospital in New York, and it was there that she met my grandfather, Russell Conwell Olmsted, in 1919. He was not recovering from war wounds, but injuries suffered in a grain elevator accident in Cuba. According to my Uncle Donn, the residual pain from the injury was to plague him for the rest of his life, and that chronic pain may have been a contributing or definitive factor in his suicide in 1942. No one really knows for sure.
In any case, my grandparents had 3 boys in a row in the 1920's, and Hazel wanted a little girl. Given Russell’s suicide a few years later, I can’t help but wonder that something was amiss in my grandparent’s marriage and perhaps, by adopting a little girl, my grandmother was trying to seal the fissure before it became an open breach.
Certainly, any tension within the marriage was well hidden from the children. Still, the trauma of her father’s suicide when Nancy was six could only have driven her farther into the arms of “Mother.” (My grandmother was never a “Mom” or a “Mama.” She was “Mother” to all of her children To my two sets of cousins, she became “Grandmother,” only to my brothers and sisters was she “Grandma”).
I have a photo of Nancy at 4 or 5, one of those pictures taken at a portrait studio. She is truly a dead ringer for Shirley Temple, with curly hair and a completely endearing grin. I haven’t come across many other photos of her from the decade that followed, but it could would well be they survive in photo albums that were passed on to either of my uncles. The next photos I am aware of are those in her high school yearbook, which we inherited.
Nancy looks every inch the 50’s teenager. She also appears to be smack dab in the middle of the pack socially and academically. She was a pretty redhead on the shy side whose principal extracurricular activity was softball. Her brothers were long since out of the house, married and in different parts of the world. There is no indication that she had any serious beaus, or any college aspirations. It was just her and my Grandmother in their Harrington Park, New Jersey house, and after graduation, a bookkeeping job for Nancy.
I don’t know how or when she met Eddie, but I suspect it was at this job. And it occurs to me for the first time, as I write this, that this well could have coincided with a dose of freedom for Nancy when her mother sailed to South America in 1956 to meet my mother and welcome the birth of my elder brother Luke. (My French mother and American father had met in Austria in 1951, and after a long, complex transatlantic courtship, she’d married him in Chile in 1955, where he worked for a shipping line)
Nancy would have been just 20 when my Grandmother left, and one can easily imagine her being especially vulnerable to the attentions of a handsome older man at work. Perhaps by the time she realized he was married, she was so far gone she thought a love like theirs could overcome everything.
Grandma came back from Chile, of course, and two years later, so did my parents. After a year’s sojourn in Denver, where my father sold encyclopedias door-to-door and my mother gave birth to me, my parents settled in Hazlet, New Jersey, very close to Nancy and Grandma.
As I reconstructed the story from my parents years later, by 1959 Eddie was an accepted fixture in Nancy’s life. Yes, it was known that he was married, but he was supposedly in the process of getting a divorce. Eddie must have been a pretty slick number to overcome the objections my grandmother must have had to their relationship, but evidently he did. A wedding date was set, the dress was chosen, even a cake was ordered. Then “suddenly,” Eddie announced there was glitch delaying finalization of his divorce. The wedding would have to be postponed.
By that time, fate had brought not only my father but his brothers as well back to the New York area. They pooled their suspicions, and decided a visit to Eddie's house was in order.
Eddie wasn’t home. But his wife was, along with three kids that had ever been mentioned by Eddie. It was complete news to his wife that she was in the middle of a divorce. The brothers had no choice but to tell their sister the man she loved was a liar.
Years later, when my father told me the story, he didn’t detail what it was like for Nancy to hear the news. He didn’t have to. One only needs to have been crushed by a first love to have a sense of it. Except in Nancy’s case, Eddie ended up being not only her first love, but her last love as well.
If you don’t count “Mannix,” that is. For reasons that are a little foggy to me, but probably because everyone concerned thought it was a good idea that Nancy get a little breathing room from Grandma, she came to live with us for a year of so in the mid-60‘s. We had moved to a great house in Rockville, Maryland, that had a basement that stayed delightfully cool in the summer. There Nancy had her own space, where she could watch baseball and her cop shows, (“Mannix” being her favorite,) and chainsmoke her Kents.
With 3 nephews and 2 nieces, and a big brother and a big sister-in-law to pass the time with, I’m sure the yawning chasm of her empty social life was a little easier to tolerate than night after night alone with “Mother.” If Nancy was unhappy, we kids certainly didn’t know it, but of course at that age kids have little concept that being a favorite aunt would not be more than enough to fulfill a young woman barely 30. Nancy was affectionate, and laughed a lot. But it was a nervous laugh. Even at 7 or 8 I noticed.
I also remember once, for some stupid, stupid reason but quite unconsciously, I joked with her that she wasn’t a “real” Olmsted. My brother Luke chewed me out afterwards, as he reminded me Nancy was adopted. I was horrified that she might have thought I was referring to that. But how could she have thought I was referring to anything else?
My brother made me apologize. My brother seldom ordered me to do anything, but when he did, I obeyed. I still can’t understand why I made that “joke.”
My mother tells the story of the one date that Nancy went on during that period. She remembers nothing at all of the man, simply that Nancy pleaded with her that she and my father come along. At the drive-in Nancy and her date could not hold hands because Nancy had my mother’s in a vise grip. That’s how nervous she was. Unsurprisingly, there was no second date.
Eventually, Grandma sold the house up in New Jersey, and she and Nancy rented a ground floor two-bedroom in the brand new, futuristic-for-1967 community of Reston, Virginia, right across the Potomac from us. Every Sunday, Nancy, in her 1964 Rambler, and with her beloved shaggy white dog Dusty, along with Grandma, would drive over from Reston to Rockville for Sunday dinner. Afterwards we would all laugh at “Get Smart” and “Hogan’s Heroes” (although my mother, having lived in occupied France under the Nazis, found some of the lighthearted buffoonery of the Nazis in “Hogan’s Heroes” a little hard-to-take.)
Grandma slipped and broke her hip around this time, and a few months later, in January 1969, she had a heart attack and died. Six months after that, my father got a job in New York, and after several months of commuting to Maryland and back every weekend, finally decided to uproot the family for a permanent move.
When we all finally piled into the car for the trip up to New York, I remember Nancy driving behind us part of the way. She had come from Reston to say goodbye, and then, would peel off when our routes diverged. I remember hearing my Dad say “Geez, your Aunt’s going through hell right now.” I had a very annoying habit of contradicting and questioning almost ever assertion my Dad made, and this was no exception. But I think I understood well enough how lonely he feared she would be. I just didn’t want it to be true. So I argued with him that it wasn’t. And of course I had no idea then that us leaving was probably an extension of one giant pain she’d felt her entire life, a pain that had gone from intolerable to something she had learned to live with, just as people learn to live with a missing limb or no hearing in one ear.
Aunt Nancy stayed in Virginia, and found a pair of best friends in Don and Betty, who were overweight and chainmoked but very good people. They became Nancy’s surrogate family. She came to visit once or twice a year, and once my sister and I spent a week visiting her in Reston. But even we could see her life was very small, consisting of. Don, Betty, Dusty and a low-paying clerical job. If she ever dated, certainly it never went far enough for her to mention anyone to those closest to her.
One Saturday afternoon when I was 14, I decided to experiment with some oil paints I had discovered in the basement. I created something abstract with autumnal colors, but the more I added to it, the more perfectly hideous it became. Suddenly, my father came into the little back room where I was painting. Before he could open his mouth, I launched into a monologue about finding these oil paints and I hoped it was okay that I used them and I can’t figure out if it’s kind of cool or kind of ugly, and then I finally noticed that my father was white as a sheet and I shut up.
“I just got a phone call from Virginia” he said in the shakiest voice I ever heard from him. “Your Aunt Nancy is in the hospital.”
I was never clear on the hows or whens she had started suffering from terrible abdominal pain, but she either called an ambulance or one was called for her, and she was rushed into intensive care. That’s pretty much all we knew when we drove down to see her a few days later. One by one we were allowed into the hospital room to briefly tell her we loved her, while she squeezed back a reply with her hand.
I think the official diagnosis was pancreatitis, and certainly her lungs, which had endured 20 years of smoking, did not help. But when Nancy died a few days later, the doctor requested we allow an autopsy because the pathology of her illness was so unclear. Her body just seemed to give up.
Most of us grieve death because of what is lost with the life, the joy their presence gave us, as well as the loss of the joy they experienced in living. We mourned the loss of Nancy’s presence in our lives, but we didn’t mourn the loss of joy for her, because she experienced so little of it. I think Aunt Nancy also grieved for her life, as she lived it, though she doubtfully could have, or would have, articulated it while she was alive.
I don’t believe in Hell, but if I did, I’d imagine a special place in it for Eddie, and men like him who call a sparrow from her nest and then clip her wings as she perches on a branch, only to push her off of it.
Some sparrows survive the fall and learn to fly again.
Some don’t.
MCO 2004
So I'm on the phone with a friend who lives about 15 blocks away who tells me: "If you have trouble hearing me it's because there are helicopters and police swarming all over my building." I immediately turn on Eyewitness News, and sure enough, a chase has just come to an end right in front of my friend's apartment. Fortunately, as I watched, (reporting to my TV-less friend on the phone,) the guy gave himself up, and was handcuffed and walked to a squad car.
Ah, Life in Hollywood.
MCO 2005
Well, I have completed editing all the blog entries up to my release from prison. The rest of the book will be the post-release entries up until my first meeting in the program whose name I dare not speak (too much, at least.)
I was remembering a book I read in prison called “Rational Recovery,” which is sort of A.A. for Atheists. I have to say it was very helpful at the time, though, in retrospect, transitional, as personally, I can’t imagine a fulfilling sobriety that does not include a spiritual path. But the author has more in common with AA than his rejectionist pose would care to admit. In the program, (and this is a matter of public record), members of the group tend to refer to “my disease” as an independent entity against which they must do daily battle. In R.R.. Trimpey employs the concept of “the beast” of addiction. Frankly, I can’t find much difference between the “beast” and the “disease.”
Beast or disease, either is concerned first and foremost with its own survival. The abuser is sort of like host to a parasite. I am finding that the healthier I get consciously, the more my beast, or disease, seems to look for ways to re-assert itself, in some very subversive ways. One of these is in dreams.
Last night I was on the lam, one step away from the police, and using all sorts of methods of evasion. I can’t remember if I was using again, but I have had those dreams as well. On the one hand, I think these dreams constitute an exorcism of sorts, at the same time they can also feel like the beast is looking for any means possible to get my attention, laying the groundwork for a coup d’etat. The dread I experience in the dream is followed my immense relief upon waking. I don’t know what the end result is exactly, but my gut instinct is that it is more cathartic than triggering.
We are coming up on Pride Weekend. I'm going to a party (mixed—sober and not—but mostly sober) for the HIV+ tomorrow afternoon, and shall go dateless. As as happened so often in the past, having all these coals on the fire sometimes simply results in a bunch of smoldering embers. This is perfectly okay with me, as I remain unsure whether any serious involvement is a good idea, and it’s fun to go to a party with complete freedom to flirt, even though I guess that makes me just a shallow, West Hollywood sitcom character in some people’s eyes.
Guilty as charged, then. (I’ve always thought Gay Pride is most fun when you do something to be ashamed of! And with the festival being awash in the Pride Guide article, I can paraphrase Celeste Holm in All About Eve: “I’m just a gay journalist. The lowest form of celebrity.”)
MCO 2005
My parole officer seems to be getting more adept with the computer, but I didn't tell her about the blog. If she reads either of the articles I gave her, she can discover it for herself, like everyone else. So if you're reading this M. Smith, hi! Sorry about that crack about you not turning on the computer, but you gotta admit, a few months ago every time you tapped a key you acted like it was about to explode!
The first Thursday of the month was last week, and I was supposed to see my Parole Officer, and for the first time ever, I plum forgot. (Not doubt because of the three-day weekend that preceded it that threw me, and evidentally, a few others as well.) She was very nice about it, and we rescheduled for today.
So off I go to see her this morning instead. I may have something to say later, but will probably wait until tomorrow. I figure the last entries were plenty enough for a few days anyway. I may even close them entirely. [I DID] As much as I stand by everything I said, I don't like the energy that comes with such an expression of anger. As Mark Twain wrote:
"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to practice neither."
MCO 2005
This is an ad I made up for the dogwalking/petcare service for a new friend, Rohanne.
If you live in LA and she could be of help to you, do call her.
MCO 2005
I've been realizing the degree to which I've dealt with relationships in the past the same way I got drunk or high.
That is to say, I pushed for immediate gratification in them, whether physically or emotionally. I needed to know very soon if we were going to be lovers, friends or just tricks, and wanted some sort of resolution in one of these directions promptly. I rarely was able to just get to know someone, and allow things to go or not go wherever naturally, on their own accord, without pressure from my end.
These days, I have been experiencing the pleasant sensation of dating without an agenda. If it feels right and comfortable to get horizontal, we do, if not, we don't. If we don't right away, that doesn't close the door to going there later. If we do, that doesn't mean we have to do it again or decide not to do it again. I'm finding myself comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. I'm not even uncomfortable with finding myself somewhat attracted to someone with whom I am otherwise just friends. Sometimes it's not clear for a while what kind of relationship is the truest expression of the chemistry between two people. I don't need to close any doors, I'd rather keep as many doors open as possible.
I really like being single. It doesn't mean having to be lonely, and it doesn't mean having to be a slut. You can be honest with those you date without having to tell them everything either. When and if the chemistry is "right" for something major, I figure this will be clear enough, and I don't have to work trying to determine an outcome when I really don't know whoever I'm trying to determine it with well enough to do so. I don't have to get drunk on relationships.
I'm hoping I've broken the old pattern of spending the first 6 weeks finding nothing but reasons this person is for me, and the next 6 months finding reasons this person is not for me. It's no fun being in a relationship that as soon as you get into, you are trying to get out of.
Vive l'in-between.
MCO 2005
I confess that when my date yesterday had warned me it had been 8 years since I last saw him, I was a little nervous that Two-Ton Tessie would show up. (Bad, bad, politically incorrect Marc!) Not so. NOT so. He was a visual delight as well as delightful company. We had a great brunch and saw a wonderful movie, "Mad Hot Ballroom," and then enjoyed the Tonys here over spaghetti. An old friend of mine from New York, Craig Lucas, did not win for best book for "A Light in the Piazza," but it was good to see his face when his nomination was listed, and I was happy to note the play itself garnered a fair amount of wins in a host of categories. (I'd love to get in touch with Craig again, but my old email address for him seems no longer current).
A different pastor than usual at the MCC Church spoke yesterday on Gay Pride, Rev. Keith Mozingo. He was extremely funny and insightful, documenting his own personal journey from a Pentecostal tradition that condemned homosexuality to personal transformation and self-acceptance. It was one of those times I wish everyone I knew could have heard him. I really love that Church, and happily, I think I can report what went on without violating any anonymity! (The service is even filmed for cable).
No new fan mail (yet) today, helas. C'mon people, don't you know an insatiable ego when you see it? Though Mr. TTTN (Two-Ton-Tessie NOT) said some really nice things about the blog, among them that when he first read it, he was up till all hours perusing it, finding himself unable to put it down. (I should have told him holding the computer monitor that long wasn't the easiest way to go about it, but he's certainly got the arms to do it.)
Tee-hee.
MCO 2005
I recieved a request for the "La Grande Bouffe" photo. Far be it for me to hide my ugly past. (Like I'm gonna start now.)