June 2006 Archives

So I take Gaza to the vet for his skin irritation, and discovered he brought back fleas from my visit to the desert on Memorial Day. No big whoop, today he gets a bath and Advantix. Unfortunately, the vet found 3 smalls lumps, and aspirated them to send to the lab, resulting in a bill that was $220 more than I could afford. Well, comfortably afford. Paying it would bring me right back to square one, spending the semblance of a cushion I've put together, some of which I was going to spend on this upcoming 4th of July weekend visiting my niece and nephew in Disneyland and putting them up on Saturday night and Sunday. So I cancelled the tests.

After all, either the tests would be negative, in which case a waste of money, or positive and requiring removal of the lumps, in which case I'd be looking at a surgical bill in the many hundreds for sure, something I definitely can't afford, at least not without borrowing it or wheedling it from my Mom. This to buy maybe an extra year or two of life for a 9 1/2 year old dog, in essence so he can make it into an old age where he gets to be beset by all of old age's concomitant woes. How many old dogs just stay healthy and vigorous to the end, then magically go to sleep? Almost always there are long periods of lethargy and incontinence, illness and pain. In a pack of wild dogs, you don't see any really old dogs Predators give them some pretty awful deaths at the first hint of infirmity. It is a gift that humans get to facilitate different ends for their pets.

I adore Gaza, and he has had, and has a very good life (Even when I was on drugs, I was an excellent Dad. Never missed one walk.) Every single day he gets a huge hike, and gobs of love and affection. But he is not a child. $1000 could save the livee of many children. So could what I spend on dog food, but there is a difference between sustaining the life of young dog who is active and joyful, and prolonging the life of an older dog past the point that nature has intended. (By the way, I feel the same about human beings. We spend a fortune on this country on the last few years of life because of our irrational fear of death--or loss--and I think it's very misguided allocation of resources.)

That said, I fully admit that it's intolerable for me to think of having to put Gaza down, but I'm pretty sure even if the lumps turned out to be serious, this is not something I have to worry about in the next six months. I'm preparing for the eventuality and would not prolong his pain just to defer my discomfort. When you get a dog, you accept one day they will more than likely die on you, and this is part of the deal. But I knew this guy once who indebted himself to the tune of $6000 on surgeries for his older cat, who died anyway. That, to me, was obscene. (In my nephew's film they were Vietnamese peasants who died because they couldn't afford $200 surgeries.)

Speaking of sphinxes--I'm referring to cats, not Vietnamese--I forgot to mention that Bob Newhart was in the waiting room when I went to get my thumb looked at by the specialist. I swear to God, when I was ushered into the back, he looked up, over his bifocals, and said in his trademark stutter: "Uh, er, uh...I...I...was here first."

I just shrugged, as if to say I had no control over it. I later fantatized about having said, "Need a new hand, Newheart?"

MCO 2006

Dear Adam:

I got your name from the website as the legislative assistant for the Ad Hoc Commitee on Recovering Energy, Natural Resources & Economic Benefit from Waste for L.A.

After a while surfing through the maze of information on the various websites for the city, I still have no idea whom to address about some very basic concerns about which I would like to do more than complain. I would be very thankful if you respond or could forward this email to those who might be able to help.

I live on Loma Linda, between Harvard and Seranno, in Little Armenia. As anyone can see, this neighborhood, like most of the residential areas of Hollywood (which falls under Los Angeles administration, yes?) is abysmally trash-strewn. Though a bit less recently.

After despairing at the horrific state of the neighborhood on my daily dog walks, I decided to do something about it. I take a trash picker along with me when I walk my dog, in the neighborhood and up in Griffith Park. I'm happy to say the improvement is noticeable, and it seems to inspire people to litter less when the street is already clean.

But it is a drop in the bucket. It is clear to me the City of Los Angeles must do much more and I have a host of suggestions--and questions, because I am sure I'm not the first to have considered these options. First, I would like to understand why in my apartment building, and all of those in the neighborhood, there are no recycling bins, and why this cannot be changed. Or do these private companies that pick up the trash recycle on site? Secondly, I want to know if it is feasible to propose the banning of restaurant take-out circulars that create an unbelievable amount of street litter. Likewise the bargain coupon classifieds thrown into driveways and the car insurance promotions stuck under car wind shield wipers.

I would have to admit that the residents of the neighborhood bear most of the blame for the situation, routinely littering their car trash and cigarette packs without seeming thought.. They all leave large articles like broken- down couches, beds and TV's on the street, where they remain for weeks and even months. While acknowleding that residents should be taking the trouble to make the necessary calls to get these items hauled, is it so impossible that the city institute regular sweeps to pick up debris? There are literally mini-toxic waste dumps at certain corners, as trash piles up. It is unsightly and unhealthy.

There is a dearth of public receptacles, and those there are are often overflowing. Is it really impossible that we can't get more, and all picked up more frequently, particularly on heavily traveled streets like Hollywood and Western?

Why are offenders doing community service never used to pick up trash in some of the worst littered neighborhoods? (If they are, it is certainly rare--except perhaps in the middle of high tourist strips).

I would personally like to contribute a public relations idea for a Campaign for A Nicer Neighborhood (C.A.N.N. ) But exhorting and educating the public (particularly the immigrant community) through the media, email and mailings would require new resources or at least some redirection of present resources.

Again, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. All I know is that the systems in place are not working well. A walk of a few blocks in any direction below Franklin will reveal streets overflowing with garbage. I don't expect everyone to pick up trash when they walk their dog, but I honestly believe with some minimal adjustments we can make marked improvements in an area that greatly impacts quality of life for everybody--particularly in this era of global warming where getting green is a matter of life and death for the planet. (Clearly, the trash also clogs up the sewers and pollutes the oceans.)

I'm hoping you will know to whom these concerns should be addressed, and ask you to circulate this to the appopriate council members or their staff, or can answer some of the questions directly.

I thank you for your time.

Marc Olmsted

What I didn't say is that my trash-picking is what has caused by thumb problem, called "trigger-finger." It resulted from squeezing and resqueezing that handle. So I got a painful shot of corticosteroids in the joint and am now using the trash-picker with my left hand, which is sort of a pain, as I am completely right-handed. Sometimes I end up just using my hands, but that can be unsanitary, and the bending over is tedious.

This has become really important to me. It's an opportunity to be of service several times a day, and it's a visual manifestation of the possibility that one person can actually make a difference. It's like I'm getting the streets sober. And I truly think civic pride is one of those can't-miss issues that transcends the red state/blue state political divide. Is there anyone who is pro-littering?

Sign me Lady Bird Johnson. (For you youngsters, she started the Keep America Beautiful campaign of the mid-sixties. She was the President's wife. His name was Lyndon Johnson, and he came after Kennedy--the one who was assasinated. Please tell me some of this rings a vague bell?)

MCO 2006

It's funny how something like a anniversary or a birthday can get you thinking about life, but the thinking happens on a subconcious level, and then, suddenly, a few days or even more later, conclusions about it come to the surface.

I'm referring to the lessons I've learned from the grief process--this provoked by my late brother's would-have-been 50th birthday.

1. There is nothing wrong with grief. Our instinct--this is particularly developed with alcoholics and addicts--is to avoid or medicate pain, because, obviously, it hurts. But as much as it hurts, you need to ask yourself what the alternative is. Would you really rather be someone who could lose a spouse or a brother or a lover or even a treasured pet and not be grief-stricken, even devastated, by it? I've found that when I completely and unapologetically choose my grief as a reflection of the depth of my affection for the departed, that I can get through the grieving process sooner. Which doesn't mean thinking about them can no longer make me sad. It does mean that I don't make the grief even worse by resisting it or trying to alleviate it, because in that case, though it's more tolerable in the short run, its longevity is extended.

2. There are no incomplete lives. When people die young--as is the case with 90% of everyone I've ever grieved--on top of the personal loss, the tendency is to focus and concentrate on the life not lived, and to grieve over that. You shift from remembering the half-full part of the glass that was their life, to desparing over the emply half that was supposed to be the rest of their life. But isn't that a projection on our part? Can't we instead view that person's life as complete, just as it was? It had a beginning, middle, and end, just shorter than we expected. Said otherwise, the glass was full, not half-full, it was just not as tall as we thought it would be. For whatever reasons--my best guess is that their souls learned, or taught us, what it needed to this time around--they had to move on to whatever comes next. We can't know for sure why, but we can accept their time here as leaving no unfinished business.

Perhaps this is just an elaborate way to minimize the grief I felt, for my brother and so, so many others. Instead of booze or drugs or forgery maybe I'm trying to get relief via somersaults of thinking. But I don't think so. I have lots of scars, but they are scars, not open wounds. Any residual grief is no longer acute enough to need managing. But I can still find myself wallowing in the what if, and this way of thinking of it allows me to close that door, except inasmuch as it's fun or comforting. (I know, for example, Luke would have loved the Internet--but that's just another way of saying I knew him.)

No matter how long they're not, I think we can acknowledge all lives as being complete just as they are. Like a finished portrait.

MCO 2006

Well, I have 4 words for Bush's reaction to the New York Times publishing information about the SWIFT Transaction Surveillance Program- RI-DIC-U-LOUS. The idea that any terrorist would not have been assuming that the "Great Satan," who, in their view, already controls and runs the world technologically via the CIA, would not be (trying to) monitor every inter-Arab financial transaction is absurd. It's so clearly the first thing any intelligence agency would do, as would be data mining of phone call patterns. But just because they already assumed this doesn't mean that they can't do math. They have been able to figure out, as any 12-year old could, that the sheer volume of transactions is so huge that the risk of being found out is extremely small--nothing that can't be handled by a minimal amount of subterfuge.

But the idea that they're going to read about such a program in the New York Times, and go: "Oh, that didn't occur to us, we better switch tactics!" is beyond laughable. If anything, I imagine they suppose a much greater degree of competence and efficiency than that which is actually the case. If Bush et al. really want to make sure our intelligence gathering is up to snuff, they should have stopped the witchhunts that have forced the dismissals of dozens of gay Arab-language linguists from the Pentagon under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (Another miserable failure). We can't translate or monitor the wealth of information we already have! All terrorists need to do is speak in a local dialect and chances are, even if their suspicious conversation is overheard, they'll be no one to understand and translate it in the time required to act on it.

If anything, what the Government should be doing is spreading misinformation via the press to exaggerate our capablilities. Big bogus machines should be set up at the ports, portrayed as capable of scanning every container coming in--even if that's a complete lie. That might give any potential terrorist pause--not to mention those who smuggle in illegal aliens. Disinformation should be similarly "leaked" to The New York Times that pilotless drones are monitoring the U.S. Canadian border, and that surreptitious surveillance has been instituted at the country's vulnerable chemical plants, reservoirs etc. Fake terrorist "plants" should be arrested and put on trial in big shows that wild-eyed plots from homegrown Al-Qaeda offshoots are being foiled--just to intimidate "real" plotters into thinking it is too dangerous to act. (The fake plotters could be secreted into Witness Protection after the press forgets about them.)

This administration exhibits an abysmal level of creativity and imagination on all fronts. Watch Thomas L. Friedman's "Addicted to Oil." The Chinese are paying more attention to how to solve global warming than we are--through some innovative initiatives that are mind-numbingly simple. This adminstration won't even admit we have a problem.

And now, after denouncing the "cut-and-run" Democrats for meekly suggesting drawdowns, that is exactly what is going to happen anyway. I thought we were going to wait until the situation on the ground improved? Last I looked, there are just as many car bombs going off in Iraq--among other daily tragedies that contiue unabated. Could it be Rove has calculated exactly how many troops we need to get out of there in time for the November elections in order for Republicans not to take a hit?

Then watch how 2007 is about declaring victory and getting out in time for Bush to try to salvage a legacy. Watch for terms like "insoluble' to be bandied about, or for a return of a secular strongman (hey, Hussein's available) to impose stability through dictatorship so we can pretend to have left Iraq put back together.

Nothing of interest on a personal note to report, except I definitely have got to see the surgeon about my thumb. Oddly, one of the only times it doesn't hurt is when I type, so I'm afraid you won't get any break from my ranting and raving.

MCO 2006

Today my brother Luke, who died in 1991, would have turned 50.

Even though I am 13 years older than he was when he died, he will almost remain my older brother.

MCO 2006

So this weekend the suction cup comes off the left side of my treasured trash picker, and then the nut and bolt comes off, rendering it useless. I got another one this morning, but ever the boy on a budget, I of course would rather have not parted with the $10 it cost for a new one. Well, I didn't have to.

Walking the dog this morning, I found a $20 bill! Where? No less than in the driveway of the apartment building of my arch-nemeses, the Armenian smokers who toss the empty packets of Davidoff, Parliament and Capri cigarettes I pick up every day! I'm going to assume the bill fell from one of their pockets, as they pulled out the last cigarette from the pack, and then threw it to the ground thoughtlessly.

I had the most interesting psychic moment. I was having one of those intense initial conversations with someone who it feels like is going to be a new friend, and out of the blue, I found myself saying, "I'm getting music from you. So much music--" as if I was some sort of seer he was consulting, telling him about what I sensed. And he said, "well, that's interesting, my degree is in music composition and theory." I reallly can't remember ever having quite the same spontaneous pre-sense, except when I guessed a friend's new Jetta would be silver. Wouldn't it be cool if this is the first of many such moments? (Except, knowing where I've gone of late, I'll probably see endless apocalyptic visions.)

Heard from Joy Behar on "The View," as the women discussed a new study that finds people say they have less close friendships than they did 20 years ago: "Well, when you're best friend is a blog..." Everybody laughed, and I don't think they would have if there wasn't a grain of truth to it. Of course, nothing delights me more than to think some of my readers might view me as a friend, (though "best" is certainly exaggeration for comic effect) even if we've never met, or they've never even emailed me.

Any why not? I feel very close to some of my favorite authors. Still, loyalty to a favorite blogger is a risk-free proposition. Make sure you're not neglecting anyone in your sphere leading a life of quiet desperation. The principles of anonymity constrain me from sharing much about a new buddy who I don't think has received a pinky's worth of unconditional love in his life. I decided to "see" this person, who is invisible to most because his presentation lacks most socially marketable qualities, and the gratitude and appreciation for being "seen," and reacted to, is intense. It was a challenge for me, but now it feels really good.

MCO 2006

The problem with feeling connected to the planet is that reading the newspaper can make you feel like shit. I picked up the L.A. Times today to read that Greenland is melting twice as fast as computer models predicted. Interestingly enough, the phrase "global warming" is not used, only "climate change." Mmmhh, do you think the deniers might be able to "hear" the facts if they are not attached to explanations for it involving human activiity? I get the distinct feeling that when Bush-Cheney et. al. feel their attachment to free enterprise and the "American Way of Life" is questioned that they take it personally, and of course react defensively. The message they hear is that they are heartless materialists, they feel condemned for what they see is merely a healthy belief in individual merit and energy, as well as market forces that naturally regulate and modify the economy in positive ways. They see man as annointed by God to exploit the earth, they seem to believe that poverty is always a result of a lack of hard work and initiative. Of course that's what white men born into privilege and power want to believe--that they earned it, and anyone could do the same if they followed their "right" way of thinking and acting.

Then the second article notes that the American civilian death toll would have to be 570,000 to equal the proportionate loss in Iraqi life since the war began. And that's an undercount. I wonder how many American will absorb that fact, will think about what that means.

Thank God for the World Cup. There is so much joy and energy and passion emanating from that, it almost gives me hope. But no matter how gooey and Goddish I get, I am afraid that I revert back to my basic, fundamental nature. I am a heart, a realist. And my basic take on the world is that, realistically, the outlook is not good.

So, what does this mean for me as an individual? If I just worry about the quality of my life and experience, aren't I engaging in exactly the kind of profit motive me-ism (see above) that got us into trouble in the first place? And if I throw myself into trying to change things for the better, aren't I just helping rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, living out final years where I forego a great deal of personal pleasure for politically correct behavior that will make zero difference because it's just too damn late?

This, of course, is somewhat academic, as I don't have the resources to live much differently than I do. But my roommate does, and I find myself wavering between suggesting he continue his conservative investment strategy, or pushing him to book us on a cruise and buy us an apartment in Paris. Sometimes I think the smartest thing we could do as far as enjoying these last few years would be to stop taking our AIDS meds, and live like hedonists until we fall apart--just in time to avoid seeing the world drown when the seas rise 21 feet.

BUT, that's sort of how I lived in the early 90's, when I had money (not from selling drugs, from selling my life insurance), was certain I had less than two years to live, and travelled and drank and generally lived rather like the above fantasy. It was fairly fun, but overrated. I get more pleasure out of days spent writing a good couple of pages, helping someone stay sober, and being a good brother, uncle and friend. So if this is what my last years look like, so be it.

Though I still want to live in Paris. It's inland--and might be beachfront property soon enough.

MCO 2006

This is one of those days where I feel quivering with possibility. Everything interests me, and I want to do everything. I feel overwhelmed with ambition. I want to relive vast portions of my life, so that I could now be a professional soccer player, a marine, a history professor, a pundit, an actor, a priest. I experience waves of thinking that anything is still possible. I can meet an extraordinary man (actually, I've probably met him--he just has to realize that he's crazy about me) move to Tuscany, and fund that orphange in Honduras, the one that produces the next Ghandi or Martin Luther King because the teachers are trained to be kind. I will explain what happened to Atlantis and my witty speechwriting for Al Gore will land him the Presidency and save the world from global warming. I will find the time to learn Aramaic, Hungarian and Portugese---just for fun. I will make a movie. I will win a Pulitizer. The list goes on and on.

When this happens, I tend to dismiss it as an attack of extreme grandiosity. But sometimes I wonder if instead what I am experiencing is a diminishing of that line that separates me and God--as manifested by the world, all of its people and our common experience and history. After all, isn't it an illusion that we are even separate from each other? No, I don't think I'm on the verge of Nirvana--and hopefully not death (where the separation permanently dissolves) but I think I'm moving farther away from that place of isolation and self-centeredness that marked my addiction and closer to that sense that we are all living the same lives--inside our head. These "attacks" may simply be signposts, marking my trajectory.

Of course these sort of tingly sessions of communing with whatever are transitory. And leave me pooped.

I must to nap. Even the World Cup will have to wait.

MCO 2006

Well, the advantage of not having ads on my site, I guess, it that when I plug something, it's something I can personally recommend.

I saw the above show, Nocturne, last night. It's stars one actor, a very close friend, Michael Cormier. He's quite good, but the direction, by Rob de Rosa, to my mind, intentionally highlights the absolutely beautiful writing by Adam Rapp. You can tell when Michael does some other characters that he could play the protagonist with more bells and whistles, but exercises a restraint in order to frame the words for maxium effect.

The result is an entirely engrossing hour and 10 minutes--just the right length For 15 bucks, it's a great way to spend an evening. So for all you local readers, please consider going.

Yesterday I did two weeks' worth of church bulletins on the computer, and today I will volunteer for three hours at the marriage equality office. I really enjoy this volunteer stuff. It settles a part of me that needs settling. The guilt part I guess. It's much easier to work on my own stuff at 100% when I feel like I've done something for the world first. I can't even imagine walking the dog without my trash picker upper--I've now taken on keeping "my" blocks clean as my personal responsibility. I can't quite figure out how it contributes to a lessening of global warming, but it does, unquestionably, render the neighborhood easier on the eyes, and that's good for the soul.

MCO 2006

I can't believe what the Republicans are doing with their "cut and run" attacks on the Dems. Are Americans really so stupid as to fall for this blatantly political tarring and feathering? This reworked "you're soft on crime" machismo? I don't know why I'd expect otherwise from a populace (well half of them) that thinks it's perfectly okay that there are as many guns as people in this country, who thinks bilingualism is some sort of contagious disease, and who voted twice for a President who is clearly no brighter than a captain on a second-rate lacrosse team at a party college. If "the people" fall for more of this crap from the sound-byte hogs in D.C., they deserve what they get. This is Vietnam circa 1973. We will be forced out of Iraq, they will have a terrible civil war, and something ugly but workable will eventually rise from the ashes--probably a dictatorship. There is too much oil money to be made for there not to be a system that emerges for someone to profit off of it. It's that simple.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, was the country we should have poured money and troops in. We had a friendly populace and a genuine enemy (the Taliban), we could have made a fairly workable democracy and transformed the country. Instead we did a half-assed job there and the Taliban is resurgent. If there was oil to be had you can be damn sure we would have "accomplished the mission." Instead we concentrated all of our resources in the wrong place, and we will be forced out eventually of both countries, licking our giant's wounds, remembering our fallen while barely acknowledging the hundreds of thousands more of "their" civilians maimed or dead.

And then, in 20 years, the generation being born there now and in the last decade will rebel against their oppressive, ultra-religious parents, and just as the young Chinese and Vietnamese (and perhaps the Iranians soon), will chose to do whatever is necessary to get into the middle class and live like Americans. By then, of course, global warming will have rendered all such yearnings rather unlikely to be fulfilled. I do not see a happy 2025 either way.

Boy, you'd think with such glum prophecizing that I didn't get laid last night. Oh, but I did. As in waylaid, i.e. not laid by the person I thought I'd get laid by. Which puts it all in the category of one of life's little unexpected surprises.

Not that this last-minute substitute will lead to anything, but that's okay. I've sort of embraced the state of pleasant anticipation, of never quite knowing what's around the corner.

MCO 2006

This is a review of a very important new book; "The One Percent Solution." If you don't have time to read it, take from it one tidbit. Within Washington power circles, Dick Cheney's nickname is "Edgar." It's for Edgar Bergen, the ventriliquist who controlled George Bush. Oops. I mean Charlie McCarthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html?th&emc=th

I'm back in the rhythm of my routine, trying to maintain that vacation bounce. Got a date tonight with Mr-Parking-Lot-Kiss. He doesn't seem to be aware of the blog and I think I will keep it that way. Something tells me this is gonna be an ongoing thing, and I want to be free to talk or not talk about it. (Note to self: There's a definite screenplay to be written called "Bloggers in Love." PLK is not a blogger--at least to my knowledge--but isn't there a wealth of possibilities with a love affair between two bloggers who don't think the other one knows they blog?)

I found out the pain in my right thumb is not carpal tunnel. The doctor said it might be arthritis, but more likely sounds like nodules on the bone that need scraping off surgically. I'm going to try anti-inflammatories for now, and if they don't work, may have to go under the knife.

And I don't know who the hell in my neighborhood smokes so many damn Parliament cigarettes, but for crying out loud, are you INCAPABLE of not throwing them in the street for me to pick up every single dog walk? Listen buddy (or whatever that is in Armenian) those recessed filters will not protect you from lung cancer, nor from me if I see your sorry ass tossing an empty pack into the street. You stand warned.

MCO 2006

(After getting the whitest smile flashed at you by the possesor of the greenest eyes, the squarest jaw, and the most olive-skinned complexion you've ever seen)

You: So, what's your name?

Him: Marcello (not his real name)

You: Italian or Brazilian?

Him: (impressed) Brazilian. (Most people would think he's Italian, because of the name, but your well-tuned ear for accents recognizes the distinction)

You: So, are you watching the World Cup?

Him: Oh, yes, I love it!

You: Me too. Do you watch it for the men or the game?

Him: A little of both! We love soccer in Brazil!

You: Did you catch the Australians?

Him: Tell, me about it! Hot! The Croatians too!

You: (quoting our own blog entry) You know what I love about soccer--as opposed to American football? When they get a goal, it's about joy and celebration. With American football, it's about showing that you beat the other side.

(You do a lilttle imitation of a swaggering touchdowner. He laughs. You talk a little more about where you both are and how often he comes there, so you try can figure out when and how to accidentally run into him again. Then...)

You: Hey, Marcello, how much did it cost to get that cleft inserted in your chin?

Him: (major grin) Oh...it cost a lot.

You: (conspiratorially) It was worth every penny. (wink, wink)

The End. Or the Beginning, if you're really, really lucky. (Nyah. God is nice, but not that nice.)

MCO 2006

Well, it's been about a perfect vacation. I've always suspected that if my sisters and I had the luxury of the ideal set up--two big, beautiful houses 200 yards away, gorgeous weather, cars to drive and plenty of things for the kids to do, that we'd get along just fine. No doubt one can't begin to measure the impact of Sober Marc versus the Old Marc on the proceedings. Hell, even my brother-in-law and I got friendly. Both brothers-in-law.

I really needed this to affirm what I knew intellectually but was wavering on in that place where my disease still occasionally rages. What everybody else knows beyond a shadow of a doubt but where alcoholics must inevitably do battle. That pernicious illusion that we would be or were happier or more satisfied when we got high. The somehow life is something you need relief from. That the joy you experience with no artificial enhancement somehow counts less, that somehow you are cheating yourself from life's complete satisfactions by not indulging in mood-altering substances.

I shouldn't speak for others, actually, but these are all thoughts I still wrestle with. I'm pretty sure I'm in good company, although I do think I articulate these ideas with a particularity that is not quite "average"--not to say it's "better." As I have noted on more than one occasion, this brain is my greatest friend and worst enemy.

Although when I put said brain to the service of others, it can be quite companionable. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't study to be a therapist, because it's not at all uncommon that I seem to be able to offer a perspective on a problem that creates an almost immediate shift in someone who's in uncertainty or conflict. God knows I've had enough practice on myself. How you look at things is really much more essential than the thing itself.

My sister has also shared with me some teachings that have given me some helpful perspective about happiness and its acheiving. I'll share some of it in dribs and drabs, suffice to say for now that I am embracing being exactly where I am, with all of its concomitant uncertainties, and concentrating on aligning all my energies toward the goals I want to achieve, mindful that on any given day, the universe sends you plenty of signposts worthy of your attention.

By completely owning that I am in the process of writing the memoir, enjoying being there "in the gap" and embracing the incompletion of it, I am feeling completely energized in making it priority #1 upon my return. I'm feeling the done book pulling me towards its completion. I just had to really "get" that it is, indeed done, just as Michealangelo's David lay perfect inside its marble block, awaiting only the sculptor to chip away what was around it.

I'm also reading Mary Karr's "The Liar's Club." The perfect inspiration--a big, fat, recommend.

Also inspiring, that World Cup. Notice how when they get a goal, the players explode with joy, rather with the triumphant swagger you see with American touchdowns. It's about celebrating, not dominating. None of this "I kicked your sorry ass, look at me." The World Cup is all about "I love you guys, and I love this game!"

I'm definitely moving back to Europe one day, I swear. If I can get the Australian players off my mind. Ouf! Talk about about square-jawed athletic mens! (Yes, the plural is intentional, it's funny, dammit.)

MCO 2006

How absolutely sweet it was to get a card from my little niece like the one she gave her father. Explained my sister: "Oh come on, you're a father in so many ways." It's true that I've had a glimpse this trip of how I might have been had life unfolded differently. I have to say that those qualities normally associated with Fatherhood do not feel foreign to me, had I been born heterosexual I am quite certain I would have fertilized a brood. And been paying a lot of alimony--I imagine I would have had at least two wives before I got sober. So, on second thought, a toast (of sparkling cider) to unclehood.

Speaking of which, boy did I feel the proud uncle yesterday. My sister (sine qua non in the Mother department) did a superb P.R. job and the result was a completely full Guild theater for the screening of the film. Since the earlier version that I saw, my nephew Keir laid in an enhanced score by the marvelous Joel Douek, and Tim Malieckal finished another round of pace-tightening edits, and the result is a truly professional film that completely sustained one's attention and also truly placed the viewer in Vietnam for 80 minutes. Bravo, nephew, and Dad, Alex, the film's protagonist and a much finer surgeon (and person) than he gives himself credit for, I think.

Last night my sister and brother-in-law had a group of friends over to fete their son's success over empanadas. What a nice, nice group of people. The whole evening had a wonderfully European feel to it, complete with lots of wine imbibed in a completely civilized manner. As I enjoyed my conversations with the eclectic crowd, I also had to keep a parallel conversation going with myself in my head, along the lines that I was NOT more charming when I drank, and that while I may have stimulated more pleasure molecules, I paid for each dearly in overly emphatic proclamations or insistence on domination by humor. (It was oddly empowering to do something that in the past might have been ascribed to having a few too many; I halted the proceedings to announce the passing around of a card for my friend Mike in prison, to which everybody, pleasantly buzzed, happily added their John Hancocks. I forgot it can pay to be the only sober one.)

And even if I had masked the extent and the quantity of my consumption (I'm referring to the pre-crystal years, by the way, I barely drank when I was high on meth) I would have downed enough to suffer quite the hangover. Instead, after a another night of vivid and sometimes disturbing dreams, I woke up reminded that waking up itself is plenty enough of a hangover. We hardly need to make it worse with a real one. And I did the thank-God-I'm-sober prayer, grateful I didn't have to ask my sisters if they thought I should apologize to so-and-so, or seek reassurance that "they knew I was kidding, right?"

There's a lot to be said for being 100% present to your experience, there are entire Big Books written about it in fact. And my sober brother-in-law reminded me that it takes a while to rewire your brain. I'm thinking my tendency to examine my present-day exposure to social drinking with comparative scenarios about my own past is part of this rewiring process.

Today is going to be a mishmosh/hodegpodge of this and that. Most important activity is that I give my little niece and nephew some more funny uncle memories to barely remember when they are older. Yesterday was "The Treasure Hunt" and the "Tickle Toll." Today I'm aiming for "The World Cup" and "Pool Monster."

MCO 2006

I forgot to plug the website for my nephew's film.

http://www.asthecall.com

I have an ulterior motive in doing so. He borrowed a lot of money to make the movie, and has a matching grant to help pay it back. So if you are so inclined, a contribution would be greatly appreciated, and the website has a place for you to do that. Otherwise, it's a lovely website on its own merit, designed by Keir's girlfriend, Emily. She's exceedingly cool, and visiting here as well. I also contributed--I penned the synopsis.

Yesterday we had homemade pizza and took a hike to the Rio Grande, discovered a hummingbird's nest with two teeny tiny babies in it, and watched the sunset against the Sandia mountains. I met some cool neighbors of my sister's and gave the kids rides on my shoulders. Yesterday I went shopping and to visit a roomful of anonymous strangers that had been very supportive of me when I first got sober, right here, 18 months ago.

Last night my tummy started acting up and it gave me nightmares. This morning I'm having rice for breakfast and skipping my HIV meds. I will not have diarrhea while traveling and that's that. I cannot risk having an attack on the plane.

My nephew is summoning me to play. I hoping to get him to go watch the World Cup at my sister's, who's house is 200 yards away. My other sister is out buying goat feed.

I am exceedingly grateful to no longer be the uncle who found an excuse not to visit, or once visiting is either a bit louder than charming on a few too many glasses of wine, OR just OFF, because I was crashing, or trying to secretively maintain, or all in all trying to compensate for being high in the recent past. I am still an extrovert by any means--believe me, this personality needs no "enhancing." If anything I need to practice restraint--I tend to be quite a talker and my wisecracking borders on the compulsive--even if fairly amusing more often than not. Luckily, bit by bit I seem to be getting better. My brother-in-law, himself ten years sober, says I'm a completely different person. I prefer to think that I used to be different, now I'm the same.

MCO 2006

The article appeared on the Front Page of the Albuquerque Tribune about my nephew's film. I thought I'd post it JUST in case there's a few Albuquirky denizens who aren't doing anything tomorrow at 1 pm.

But of course, I'm a very proud uncle. Keir just got back from India, where he was filming this documentary on tea, and has been regaling us with stories.

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_4779775,00.html

MCO 2006

I'm at a foreign computer so don't feel comfortable arranging a side by side of this GOAT and ANN COULTER, but I find the resemblance self-evident. The only difference is that the goat is alot sweeter. She's in the enclosure that is the front yard, in that New Mexico, ranch kind of way, along with another, kid goat and a donkey named Stormy. As part of her house-sitting duties, my sister has to milk the mommy goat twice a day. Thank God for this carpal tunnel in my thumb. It doesn't stop me from typing but hurts like hell when I try to squeeze that teat. (Teat-squeezing not being a speciality of mine.)

Anyway, the trip is delightful so far. I am THE new playmate, of course, of my adorable niece and nephew, who require my attention.

MCO 2006

My Horoscope today:

Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22)

Whatever common sense you had is temporarily gone. You may feel like you are out on your own with no guidance. All you have is your next whim, so don't try to suppress these powerful creations of your imaginative mind. However, this doesn't mean that you should act on every fantasy as if they were real.

Well, I'll just say yesterday that I had quite a kiss in a parking lot and I'm looking forward to returning from Albuquerque.

And looking forward to my trip. I'm off to the airport. Will no doubt blog once or twice. Ciao.

MCO 2006

That little email from the Sheriff yesterday not only made my day but got me thinking. I realized that I have planted a lot of seeds in sobriety, and I can't know how or when or whether which ones will take root. All I know is that if I keep watering 'em (like the blog), slowly but surely some are going to sprout and grow.

Drug addiction is the enemy of patience, and it takes a while to recultivate it, especially when you're a gay man over 45 with HIV for 20+ years. I want results NOW. And a year and a half is not, in the great scheme of your life, a long time. I've gotten a lot more done than I give myself credit for, and have started alot of good things going. In fact, I realized that I've probably already met my next great relationship, but it will only be in retrospect that I will see that during this time we were engaged in a slow dance, getting to know each other bit by bit, until, at one point, things gell and become something else.

This is a comforting thought that relaxes me about this issue. I just need to be the best Marc I can be, and trust that eventually someone I really like is going to appreciate and want that. And if they don't, so be it. I can't help it if God then chooses to smite them down with his holy wrath for rejecting one of his chosen, can I?

I am completely in love with the World Cup. With some or the individuals playing more than others, admittedly. But these are some of the best athletes in the world, and they really are a pleasure to watch. I feel sort of retro-dorky, remembering when my French cousin asked me back in 1974 if we watched the World Cup in the U.S., and I didn't even know what it was. (Actually, until very recently, I thought it was ONE game, like the Super Bowl. Speaking of which, it's so nice to see a sporting event that makes that overblown battle of violent refrigerators paltry by comparison).

Oh boy, I've just blown off my (American) football fan readership. All one of you. Get over it.

MCO 2006

P.S. Speaking of blowhards and their lackeys, notice how Bush this morning was trying to advance the narrative that the problem with Iraq is we defeatist naysayers who are undermining the effort? And then that bend-over Press Corps. Why doesn't someone ask him what he'll do in a year if nothing has improved, or gotten worse?

You may vaguely remember an entry I wrote at the beginning of March http://www.marcolmsted.com/blog/archives/00000681.php in which I advocated for a system in jail in which inmates could classify themselves as "N" for Non-violent, and be housed with other inmates who made the same agreement.

I forwarded it to various powers-that-be, and sort of despaired of ever hearing anything as the months went by. Well, Jeff Prang, a West Hollywood Council member and Special Assistant to the Sheriff, who I buttonholed at an event, finally forwarded it to his boss. And this is what he heard back:

From: Jones, Sammy L. (Chief)

Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:18 AM

To: Prang, Jeff

Subject: FW: What to do about jail violence - Marc Olmsted

Jeff, I really like this article. For once, a legitimate suggestion as opposed to criticism. I will bring it up at my next division staff meeting.

Isn't that cool?

MCO 2006

So I'm walking the dog and thinking, hell, maybe I should commit to a much more traditional view of God. You know, someone you can have a personal relationship with, who you actually believe looks out for you--if you have faith. (This is the big conundrum for me. If God is all powerful and all loving and wants nothing but the best for you, why should it matter where or not you believe in him?) Then I think that kind of endless parsing may not serve me well, maybe I should just do what seems to work for an awful lot of people--and I'm not talking bible-thumping types, I'm talking legions of people I personally know in recovery who swear it's how they stay sober and successfully negotiate life.

Of course I still consider this highly personal and almost embarassing to share, but I did throw out a little prayer, asking God to show herself in some obvious way. Which I immediately took back, because it seems so extraordinarily literal, and small-minded. Then I'm thinking if God can listen to 6 billion prayer simultaneously, that's a pretty big God, and before I can finish that thought, I notice the above floral display in one of the gorgeous gardens I pass daily walking the dog.

Coincidence? Certainly. But maybe coincidence is where God lives.

That's the God. Now the Bad. Read this article in Rolling Stone on how Bush stole the 2004 election. What is really shocking is how the mainstream media--and John Kerry--completely rolled over and played dead in the face of more than enough evidence that something was amiss, to put it midly.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Now the Ugly. I sincerely pray that Fred Phelps (the anti-gay crazy who pickets military funerals because America tolerates homosexuals) falls in love with Ann Coulter and becomes her stalker. And every time she calls the police, they totally ignore her. And she ends up shooting him with a legally obtained handgun and is convicted to die, and her sentence is upheld by Scalia, Thomas and Roberts, who also uphold her death by legal injection administered by untrained prison personnel.

To paraphrase a blues musician I heard this morning on NPR, "I don't know if I have a personal relationship with God. But I do know I'm on intimate terms with the devil."

Wink, wink.

MCO 2006

I've learned not to conduct my love life via blog, because, although I have so specific proof that it has caused me problems, I also have not heard one man tell me he realized though the blog I really liked him and it gave him the nerve to call. But IF I was still hoping someone would do exactly that, I would share about someone who told me I was a "hot man" this morning. I have made it clear the feeling is mutual, and gave him my number just in case he thought I was just flirting. He has not given me his, so the ball is in his court. I'd bet a big wad of cash that he is attached--this seems to be what attracts me and what I attract these days. Which is very frustrating, as you know.

So P., prove me wrong. (Or so I would tell him IF I was talking about this stuff on the blog.)

Contrary to recent habit, I made working on the memoir the first writing I did this morning, and I am now taking a break from what is turning out to be a productive clip. This relates to the last paragraph because the man in question is fairly successful, and I realized that I need, in my own mind, to feel I can offer to someone a ballpark reciprocity in the professional or financial success department.

Hell, I need this whether or not it attracts a man. I need it for my sanity. I gotta get my ass in gear and get something published, or I need to get a job. Period.

So, break over, I'm back to work.

MCO 2006

Well, last night I had an extremely vivid dream in which I was getting a ride in a car driven by a neurotic woman in her 50's who cried a lot, and who drove, speeding backwards. It was nervewracking and scary, but here's the thing--she was going in the right direction, that's to say headed to the correct destination (which I can't remember, just that it was where I needed to go.)

I take it as a reminder that what's important is where I am actually headed, not necessarily where I'm looking. It's actually important for me to keep one eye on the past. I can't afford to forget where my choices have taken--and not taken--me to. Plus it's what I'm writing about in the memoir. Living in the present is admirable, but I think it should be distinguished from living in the moment. Perhaps the semantic distinction is arbitrary, but what I mean is paying attention to one's experience in the here and now must and should compete with memory of the past and planning for the future. I lived way too much in the present when I was on drugs, and the perpetual movement in my life was all circular or sideways, not forward. I even wrote a poem about it. http://www.marcolmsted.com/projects.php?filter=poetry_writing&page=14&view=1

Today I'm dividing my time between a mishmosh of short, near and long-term gratifications. Sprinkled amidst, I am enjoying World Cup Soccer. Yes, I plead guilty to a combined allure of beautiful men and the sense that the whole world is watching--even more than the Olympics. And lo and behold the game can be pretty exciting. Being a geopolitical brute, I also enjoy fantasizing who would win in a real, physical war--a game my brother Luke and I used to play. "Bulgaria vs. Morocco? Venezuela vs. Pakistan?" etc. etc. (I've said before, and I'll say it again. All the men in positions of political and military power in the world should go home and give their jobs to their wives and girlfriends for one month. Watch how fast the world would settle its difficulties.)

Then, tonight, the Tonys. Between hot soccer players and top-notch theater, I'm in Gay Heaven. (You'd think I'd be going to Gay Pride, underway in West Hollywood--but God save me from the crowds. Let the young'uns see and be seen).

MCO 2006

So about 20 years ago, I got sober for a year and a half, alcohol being my drug of choice at the time.

I am now 18 months sober this time around, and I confess that I have been having a difficult time of late. It's not that I'm actually about to pick up anytime soon, it's that the idea of it seems like part of the solution instead of part of the problem. It feels utterly illogical, inauthentic, and foreign to who I am to be a person who doesn't have a Bloody Mary before dinner, wine with dinner, and the option of a few beers when I go out to a bar. Oddly, I haven't been thinking of hard drugs at all---meth does still seem insane, thank God. The reality though, is that if I drank, even if I managed to do so relatively "normally," the risk that I would pick up a drug if it was offerred would rise exponentially. And since I recognize that, it is plenty enough for me to continue to do the right thing. But extremely unpleasant to be swimming around in that red zone where insobriety even feels like an option.

That's the mental part. The physical part manifests itself by a preoccupation with smoking. After seven months without, it's all I can do not to stop at the 7/11 and get a pack. I know that this is completely psychological, and yet it feels completely physical, like I quit 2 days ago.

The spiritual part is a complete detachment from any sense of God. I feel drawn back to my own sense of self as an atheist who likes to artifically alter his conciousness and doesn't understand why he can't.

Yes, I know exactly where it led. I'm don't have anmesia, I'm in denial. The worse part of it all is that I can't ascribe it to a reaction to anything stressful going on. Things are really fine, even if the sex/love life could be a bit more interesting, to put it mildly. (It's still better than active heartbreak, for sure).

This is why I started this entry with the acknowledgment of the upcoming anniversary of my relapse 20 years ago. I don't know exactly why or how this works, but there seems to be a pattern-setting mechanism with addiction and sobriety. One's disease seems to panic at the idea you will break past an old boundary, however ancient, and turns up the heat.

Luckily I'm going Albuquerque next week, so drinking or smoking is out of the question. But I got used to not thinking about it, and am irritated that it's on my mind. I'm volunteering more, going to plenty of meetings and gonna spend some time with some inspirational literature.

The truth is recovery is a process--a never-ending one. Sometimes the freedom it gives seems like the opposite, and I feel claustrophic and constrained, as if I'm giving up something by losing the medicated haze for concious clarity.

It's not a choice well-supported by society. Look at the World Cup. An opportunity for completely "natural" excitement and joy, and yet the vast majority of its viewers feel compelled to enhance the intensity with alcohol.

So what? What does that have to do with what the right choice is for me? I know, I know. I'm just hoping being honest about the way I'm thinking will lighten the load at present.

MCO 2006

So one of the pastors at my church passes on the most heartwrenching letter from a (supposedly) gay Federal prisoner, an Animal Liberation Front activist, confined because of his crimes to defend the earth and its creatures through any means possible. He claims to be an ex-Reverend himself, with an M.F.A in poetry, abandoned by his friends and family since his incarceration. And the kicker, the victim of multiple gang rapes, forced into protective custody, his faith in God perpetually challenged. He just wanted someone to write to.

I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Until I thought, mmmhh, this sounds like a high profile case, maybe there's some news reports about it. Frankly, I was hoping to see a picture of some hot man. Instead this is what I found:

http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_the_news/White_Supremacy/Cottingham_anthrax_hoax_040825.htm?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_the_News

In case you don't have time or patience to check it out, suffice to say he's a white supremacist con man who was no doubt hoping to milk some bleeding heart liberal queer like me. Who should, given my history, know better. In retrospect, everything about his letter was just so...well, to quote Birdie in "All About Eve"; "Everything but the hounds yapping at the heels."

I was frankly relieved, my hands are sort of full writing to my legitimate prison pen-pal. Which is not to discourage anyone from reaching out. But be careful. If it sounds too sad to be true, it usually is. Con men work on the premise that people are vulnerable to thinking they alone are the only thing between the supposed victim and disaster, the sole potential savior in a situation. My grandiosity makes me particularly vulnerable, I've always tended to play God, to think myself crucial or irreplaceable.

Which doesn't mean one should go to the other extreme, and think oneself to have no impact or to make little difference in anyone's life. But unless you're the parent of a minor child, or someone's spouse or primary caretaker, it pays to maintain some perspective about how truly indispensable you are. And to someone you've just met, unless you're in a lifeboat and they're in the water, you're probably not the one person who can save their life.

MCO 2006

Isn't it weird about the older we get--and closer to death--the more we tend to hew to the familiar? The less willing we are to deviate from our comfort zone, from our routine. You'd think young people would be more risk-averse, because if something happens to them, it could ruin their whole life, whereas, if something happened, say, to a 55-year old, you have around 20 or 30 years max or so, and possibly much less, left to ruin. Plus you have much more experience, so are much less likely to screw up.

I finally uttered the words "middle-aged" about myself. You never really think you're going to get here, do you? On the one hand, I don't feel anywhere as stodgy and "old" as my parents were in my eyes at the same age, on the other hand I'm sure if I could have seen myself now, at 20, I think I would throw myself off a bridge. Correct that, the seeing wouldn't be too much of a problem because I'm actually much better built that I ever imagined I would be. But certainly I would be horrified at having not accomplished so much I was sure I would accomplish. Of course then, by way of explanation, I would have to tell my 1979 self about AIDS, and that's when I would have thrown myself off the bridge. Thank God we can't see the future. Could we bear to face it if we knew what dreadfulness it contained?

I still find it so hard to face some of my past. The dreaded Cringe Factor. Not the obvious regrets, like, say, becoming a drug dealer and going to prison, but the stupid little ones no one but me even remembers. That stupid remark at a dinner party, the hurtful thing I once said to someone I cared for, the time I made a fool of myself etc etc. I'm amazed at how powerful it can still feel to evoke such moments.

This morning my little sister sent me a memory piece she wrote about our childhood cat, who, sadly, crawled into the garage one winter day and couldn't get out. We scoured and scoured the neighborhood, and hoped she'd been taken in somewhere. Only in the spring did we find her skeleton in the garage.

Almost 40 years later, I could KICK myself for not thinking to look there. (It was closed, in winter. Somehow she got in, but couldn't get out--it never occurred to me.) It kills me to think of that poor creature, who I used to let in every night from my room on the back porch, meowing, hungry and cold, and not being heard.

MCO 2006

The Republicans are so stupid. Don't they realize the best way to encourage successful traditional marriages is to encourage gay ones? My logic is quite simple. If you are so convinced that your heterosexual union is inherently superior to a homosexual one, aren't you far more likely to do what it takes to not get divorced when Messrs. Stuart and Ethan Smith-Jones live down the street? Wouldn't you be invested, as a matter of principle (and competition), in making sure the straight divorce rate is lower than the gay one? You'd stay together just to show 'em!

This, of course, is exactly what the social conservatives are afraid of, that gay marriages will prove just as durable as straight ones, perhaps even more so. How embarrassing would that be if the gay divorce rate was even lower than the straight one? And you know what makes it even worse? In the long-term gay male relationships that I know, it is fairly common for there to be a recognition that men are not so well suited to sexual monogamy. There is--not always, but more often than not--some sort of agreement along the lines of "don't ask, don't tell," or "always tell," or "bring him home and share" or "only when you're out of town." Even when there isn't a official permission, any couple who has been together for a while will very rarely break up over an infidelity. Can you imagine how irritated straight men would be if they saw gay men having the kind of relationships they can only dream about? Domestic harmony AND occasional nookie on the side--allowed? (And don't tell me husbands being unfaithful is rare, or even the exception to the rule. Someone is keeping millions and millions of prostitutes in the money, and it ain't single men.)

For all the blowhards decrying how gay marriage weakens the overall institution, would even one of them assert allowing the lesbians down the street to tie the knot would somehow weaken or threaten their own marriage? Not a one of them. Well, if you're so secure in it, what are you afraid of? Why don't you go ahead and "prove" statistically what you contend is the natural order of things? If gays are truly as ill-suited for stable and healthy long-term relationships, why don't you let us go ahead and fall on our faces?

You are chicken, I say. Buk-buk BUK, buk, buk, BUK!

MCO 2006

If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the

wings of a vulture - that is immortality enough for me -Edward Abbey,

naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Oh, Great. Now I can't even get cremated.

MCO 2006

I can't manage to come up with anything that I'm content with--it seems like a jumble of inconsistent and incoherent attempts to be cogent and insightful when I feel anything but. And yet I can't not express myself.

Sounds like a job for poetry. So I'm just going to put this out there, hot off the press, without rewriting it to death or judging it. Whether or not you like it does not determine my worth as a person. Hell, I don't even know if I like it, it's just what came out.

Inflation

I’ve been reading the fauxtobiography

of Marie Antoinette,

and let me tell you

she was so unfairly maligned.

Married off at 14—14!

to a man who hated being King,

who just wanted to pick locks,

and study botany.

What a curse are those roles in life

thrust upon you

instead of freely chosen.

Like sometimes

Great Beauty

from which invariably

people are likely to ascribe

traits to the bearer they wish him or her to have

that the bearer may or may not possess

engendering a sense of being a fraud

in those who feel they fall short

of the assumptions.

Some curses are more subtle than others.

For example,

which is worse?

Not believing you are capable of great things,

when you are?

Or believing full well that you are

and never achieving them?

Sometimes I wonder if

acting “as if’

is no better than printing money

and calling it wealth.

MCO 2006

Sometimes, I just have to put the art in articulate to convey what's going on with me.

And yet, I couldn't really begin to tell you what these two montages mean, or how they apply to, or express my life at the moment.

Plus, let's admit it, my entries are a little long. So, at if a picture equals a thousand words, then I just saved you and me both some wear and tear on the eyballs and on my increasingly painful carpal tunnel in my right thumb.

MCO 2006

I just saw Al Gore on "This Week With George Stephanopoulous." Inevitably on the post-Round Table, Claire Shipman dismissed commentary that this is the "new" Al Gore, "if only he had been this way in 2000" yadda, yadda, yadda. I thought it was funny because I have actually not heard any journalist say that this time around, but about 4 lamenting all the other journalists who supposedly are calling him the "new Al Gore."

I agree that he is remarkably consistent. He may have been a tad professorial at times, but that begs the question, why are Americans so anti-intellectual? Why do they vote for clearly stupid men over clearly smart ones so often? I mean Reagan over either Carter or Dukakis? Bush over Gore or Kerry? Clinton has been the only one to escape this curse in the past 20 years--just barely. He had the singular ability to be one of the smartest men in any room and still come off as remarkably down-home and folksy. Why are Americans so prone to vote for style over substance? So WHAT if Kerry changed his mind? Who doesn't? ALL THE TIME?

I suppose this is a downside to an otherwise admirable American egalitarianism. Many Americans don't like clearly smarter men to lead them because when they find it hard to understand complex solutions to complex problems, they feel talked down to; ergo stupid. They rebel against the perception that "so and so thinks he's so much smarter than me"--even if, the truth is, he is. I think they vote for the Dubyas of the world because they like the idea that anyone, indeed can be President. It fuels the notion that all you need is a good heart, some faith in a Christian God and free enterprise, and you can do a competent job of running the country.

Well, that really isn't true is it? Our best leaders--Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., to name but a few, let's throw in Churchill for good measure, were all VERY well educated, towering intellects. Excellent writers, all, by the way. Dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Hussein? Never made it past high school. Mediocre intellects make for mediocre leaders.

Gore is a smart, smart man. Has the American electorate learned the hard way not to hold it against him?

MCO 2006