November 2006 Archives

When I am in the house, I am invariably at the computer, which I why I should be completing my 17th novel. (Although I was thinking if I counted the pages of the blog, I am on my 3rd 700-page book. This comforts me.) However, I manage to spend a great deal of time not working on what I should be working on, because 90% of writing is rewriting, and rewriting is hard, and I tend to find ways to delay sinking my teeth into that on a daily basis. The blog entry must be written, the New York Times online must be perused, every email must be answered, and then I will still grope for something I can do that I can rationalize as having been worth doing even if it meant deferring completion of the main creative effort of the moment another hour, or two, or three.

Sometimes it is definitely worth it, like applying to be a NY Teaching Fellow. Sometimes I'm not sure, like the above creation, which took about 3 hours on Photoshop. And sometimes it's something like surfing the net to improve my foreign language skills, which I'm pretty damn sure qualifies as just plain procrastination. Healthier than cigarettes and cheaper than thrift shops, but still procrastination.

Now, whether then writing a poem about said procrastination falls into the category of art or more procrastination, I'm not sure. I like to think it's

The Art of Procrastination

My roommate is watching

Modern Marvels

(an episode about citrus production)

and he remembers a fruit tree

in his grandmother’s backyard

where he grew up

and he asks out loud:

“What’s ‘kumquat’ in Spanish?”

And for the next 20 minutes

I take it upon myself

to discover the answer to this question.

Now

I venture to say

had I chosen to ignore it

that my roommate would have forgotten

the question

minutes after asking it

and that I could have survived well enough

for the next decade

and probably the one after that

without knowing

the answer

myself.

But had I not been so willingly distracted

I would have had 15 more minutes

to agonize over a particular paragraph

of a particular project

that annoyingly refuses

to write itself

demanding my constant attention

like a baby

with colic.

So at least

I say to myself

If I am going to procrastinate

I will do it well

I will savor it

like a “naranjita china”

(or little Chinese orange)

from my roommate’s

grandmother’s

backyard.

MCO 2006

Dear NYC Teaching Fellows Applicant:

Thank you for applying to the NYC Teaching Fellows program! You will find out late this fall whether you are invited to interview. If you are invited to interview, you must sign up for an interview event in the following two weeks and be prepared to submit one unofficial copy of your transcripts from each college or university attended at your interview. Please check My NYCTF at http://www.nycteachingfellows.org/my for future status updates.

We appreciate your dedication to New York City's children and thank you for the time and effort you have devoted to the application process.

Sincerely,

NYC Teaching Fellows

So basically, after yesterday's blog, I did a little research and discovered the NYC Teaching Fellows Program. It's designed for people with a BA, often later in life after they've done other things, who are attracted to teaching but intimidated by the credentialing and bureaucracy involved. It's the type of program lots of states have put together to deal with the teacher shortage.

I'd actually applied to teach in New York back in the 80's, before this sort of helping program existed, and the Board of Ed. lost my entire file. And then 4 or so years ago, I made an appointment for an orientation with the LA Teaching Fellows organization, but I was just too afraid to go. I knew damn well there was no realistic way for me to follow through on it without getting sober, and that seemed an impossibility. I couldn't imagine functioning without meth.

Boy that's insanity for you. Now, of course, my perspective is precisely the opposite, I've gone from soberphobia to soberphilia. And though the possibility of teaching in a "high-needs" school remains daunting, it's about 1/10th as scary as it would have been had I not gone to prison, where I successfully navigated through crowds of men who used to be the kinds of kids I might be teaching. I know almost to a man they regretted bitterly not having applied themselves in school, but even more than that, they wished some teachers had looked past the hostility and posing to see the positive potential within them.

Perhaps I'm in for a rude awakening, but it's hard to imagine any awakening ruder than prison. And, of course, I still have to get called, and to make it through the next steps. But here's hoping this summer is spent in an intensive teacher training in NY, and in September facing the music at P.S. Wherever-the-Need-is-Greatest.

And if it doesn't happen, if they don't "clear" me because of my record, or any other reason, then it's just not supposed to be. This important thing is that I'm putting myself out there, and that feels great.

MCO 2006

If you have the patience for the small print, you'll recognize the text from an entry from last week. I guess you'd call it a prose poem. The art, by the way, is a combination of two different works by the artist Edward Hopper. (I love Photoshop. I need to play on it at least once every three weeks, it's such therapy.)

Oh, Google, how I do love thee. I just popped in a question that occurred to me, and found out that being a felon does not necessarily disqualify me from teaching, as long as I am honest about it and pass the clearance process. I'm pretty sure that I could get enough references and testimonials to reassure almost any review board that I'm completely "reformed."

The thing is that for public high school, I'd have to get a temporary certification, and then eventually take courses to teach permanently. And I'd probably be placed in a "challenging" school, which I think I would have loved if I was 28, but at 48, frankly, I find daunting.. Still I'm not saying no, and will investigate it when I get back east. However, what I would really love is to teach at a private school that doesn't require extensive certification, just competence. That way I could teach more than one subject, and not necessarily have to take extra courses. I could quite easily handle French, English and/or Social Studies, and certainly first year Spanish and/or Italian as well. And I could also play Drama Coach, Drug Counselor and overall mentor.

However, my resume, with the last 10 years on disability, is not going to land me an interview anywhere. However, if I can talk face to face with a headmaster or a committee, and perhaps take some written exams to prove expertise, I guarantee you I will be seriously considered.

So I'm thinking that just maybe one of my blog readers might know someone in a position to get me looked at by a private school, preferably in the area of New York City, the Berkshires (Western Mass) or Nashville, TN, but I'd frankly consider anywhere within a couple hours flying time of those three places, so basically the entire eastern third of the country. And I think this blog is better than any resume, don't you?

Perhaps I am being hopelessly naive, between the gay thing, the poz thing, and the ex-con thing. But what could epitomize better the cliche than "it can't hurt to ask" than asking this? What are you gonna do, write me mean emails telling me I'm an idiot to even think there a possibility this could happen? Hell, if an Austrian bodybuilder can become Governor of California, I sure as shit can teach high school. One thing about teaching is that even if I never got published, I could feel good about what I did with my life in a way that I could retire at peace with my contribution to the world.

So, here's hoping this wild, wacky, magical internet has a surprise in store for me as well as some kids who won't be able to imagine what 10th grade would have been like without Mr. Olmsted. If you can help me out, please email me at makemarc@aol.com">makemarc@aol.com.

MCO 2006

P.S. This is very funny, re: Bush and "Civil War" http://borowitzreport.com/

P.P.S. Considering becoming a foster parent? Adoptuskids.org

I just heard an interview with a freelance journalist, Nir Rosen, (with impeccable, on the ground credentials) about Iraq and the Middle East. I recommend anyone interested in an astute analysis of the situation give it a listen http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/27/1447216.

His bottom line is that Iraq is a Pandora's box we opened, and there's nothing we can do now but get out. Not that that will resolve anything, but it's too late for resolution. The Shi'a in Iraq are allying with the Shi'a in Iran, and Jordan, Syria, Saudia Arabia and Egypt are coming to the aid of their fellow Sunnis. The region is going to be an unholy mess for decades, and that's the sad, horrible reality. But it is our invasion which led to this situation, as Rosen says: "we've succeeded in making Saddam Hussein look good."

I do give credit to Bush and the neo-cons for good intentions, I really do. If their pie-in-the-sky fantasy had worked, I'm sure a democratic Middle East looking something like an India with oil would have been a result 99% of the people suffering there now would choose over what is happening and about to happen, be they Sunni, Shi'a or even Al Qaeda.

But you'd don't get credit for good intentions in this world. Who doesn't have them? They need to be accompanied by a clear-eyed realism and a healthy dollop of self-doubt, a willingness to face up to mistakes as they occur or become evident. Utter certainty is a very dangerous thing, and that includes when you are on the "right" side. I think we were on the "right" side in WWII, but I think those who got self-righteous about it did some terrible things, like the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden. Neither was necessary to win the war, we did it out of a human desire for retribution, and the hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians who burnt to death under Allied bombs did not deserve to die anymore than did the millions who perished in Hitler's crematoria.

The desire for revenge--not justice-- is what motivates Al Qaeda, what motivates the sectarian death-squads in Iraq, what motivated the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and in the European religious wars of the 17th Century. The sentiment that one has been wronged is almost always based in realilty, no one becomes a suicide bomber, for example, who doesn't bring some legitimate grievances to the table. That doesn't mean how they choose to address those grievances is justified. But neither, necessarily is ours. Being American doesn't equal being right, despite what Bush seems to think.

Unfortunately, now, everyone is wrong. Or more precisely, has been wronged, and is reacting accordingly.

Maybe, indeed, Armageddon is upon us. In my bleaker moments I think maybe its all for the best. Maybe mankind needs to annihilate itself via--take your pick: a) war; b) epidemic; c) global warming; d) all of the above. Maybe it's part of a grand evolutionary process, making way for a new, mutated species that finds aggression and violence repugnant, that prefers co-operation over domination, consensus over dictatorship. Maybe new and improved humans will find no need for any religion, as the sense of being connected to something greater than oneself will be as real for everyone as watching a tree sway in the breeze, and the watcher will find no need to insist their tree sways more beautifully than someone's else's.

Sometimes thinking this might be what is happening in the grand scheme of things is all that comforts me in the face of all of the horrific, appalling, suffering.

It is raining this morning, and I am grateful for the grey day.

MCO 2006

"Vacuum the corners good.

Clean under the cabinets in the kitchen for spiders webs."

1. This is good advice for life, don't you think?

2. I don't know what this person does for a living, but if she's a cleaning lady, she's missed her calling. That the handwriting of a graphic designer for sure.

For me, writing every day is like scuba diving. I have one tank per day, representing the time and psychological energy I have to spend on composing and editing all of whatever my output is. The thing is, I use up too much of that every day on each blog entry. I simply have to alter the math, blog less and work more on the other stuff, before I run out of my daily supply of oxygen, so to speak.

This is very hard for me because the blog writing comes much more easily than the other writing, and it's immediately gratifying. A play or a book or a screenplay involves a constant deferral of payoff--a payoff that often never comes. That was easier to deal with in my 20s and 30s, when I could work on (and did) several projects over several years and still hope to be successful at a relatively early age. Now I'll never be the hot young new playwright or screenwriter. At best, I'm doomed to a late-bloomer, overnight-sensation-20-years-in-the-making narrative, at best.

I was thinking about the numbers last night, and realized that there are probably a good half a million aspiring writers in this country (that's 1 out of 600 people, so a conservative guess, I would say). Out of that, maybe 10%, or 50,000, have been paid something for it at one point in their lives, and probably about 10% of them, or 5000 --journalists mostly, make enough to live off. Then another 10% of them, or 500 or so, actually get to the level of "fame and fortune" i.e. publish a bestseller, a hit movie or a award-winning show. 500 passengers make for a big enough boat, but if there's 499,500 people trying to get on that boat, it's more like a canoe than an ocean liner.

Now if you take those 500 top writers, and assign them each 500 or so friends, relatives and aquaintances, that means there are 250,000 people who know one of those people personally. Multiply that times 500, and it means there are 12.5 million people who are 1 degree of separation away from them. (In LA and NY it's even higher). The result is that it's very hard to become part of this elite, but not so hard to know one of the elite, and for sure rather easy to know someone who knows one of the elite.

This relative proximity makes for a powerful illusion that it can happen to you too, because you know someone it happened to, when in fact, no matter how talented you might be, the market will only allow for so many people to write bestsellers, hit plays, TV shows etc. etc.

I guess this is just a defeatist apologia to let me off the hook in advance for not "making it" if I don't. I've always veered back and forth between optimism and realism, I say hope for the best and expect reality. The irony, of course, it that I started this entry to explain why I need to write shorter entries and then proceeded to engage in exactly the disproportionate consumption of my oxygen tank that I bemoaned to start with.

MCO 2006

P.S. This is hysterical: "40 things you only see in the movies." Boy I wish I'd written it.

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/features/20moviethings.htm

"Hey J.R.

Did you know that I'm a Princess...Duh!

Kay Bebs C-Ya!

Always

Athena Princess

P.S. Duh Smile!"

Well, I finally couldn't stand how horrific the street looked and started picking up trash again. This little gem is one of my first finds. Isn't it annoying?

MCO 2006

P.S. I had about three more paragraphs about the dangers of cliches and conformity, but I'm gonna save that rant for another day, when I'm feeling a little less--or a little more--irritable.

How lovely, the day after Thanksgiving, to wake up to see ever higher death tolls between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq. So I decided to look up exactly what are the differences between them.

http://islam.about.com/cs/divisions/f/shia_sunni.htm

Before you roll your eyes scoffingly at the hairsplitting of it all, take a minute and tell me what separates Catholics and Protestants. Papal Authority? Saints? Strikingly similar bullshit to what separates the Muslims.

It is not theology that divides religious sects, it is class and power. The ones who have it don't want to share it, and they use perceived differences to justify their privilege, and to dehumanize their rivals. (The Tutsis in Rwanda would call the Hutu "cockroaches"--and the difference between them is a complete invention of the Belgian colonists who needed to create an enforcer caste to help them rule.)

This isn't news, but it bears repeating.

Class is on my mind, because I'm at the roomate's family outside of San Diego, and it is a working class world in which kids don't automatically go to college, parents don't necessarily own their houses, and divorced uncles live in bare-walled apartments because they feel no need to put art or even photos up of any kind. The living room's just a couch and chair and a big screen TV on which no football game is missed. There's a certficate on the fridge that acknowledges the second biggest bass caught at a nearby lake, and inside of that there is plenty of beer. (This is not where we ate T-G dinner, but where we slept. One night on that couch is enough, we're returning to LA early. Like today.)

It is a challenge to see beyond the surface differences, to not judge. I actually have an immediate affection for the nice folk I'm meeting, but I do find an environment in which the life of ideas, art and culture is largely submerged, depressing.

It's striking how consistently the gay offspring of proletarian households end up living in completely different worlds from the straight siblings they leave behind. David's gay brother is the only one of 5 who went to college and he lives in an apartment in San Francisco that looks like a spread in Architectural Digest. It's almost like David and him live in a different world from their brothers and sister, who all live within a few miles of where they grew up, in very modest circumstances, with no evidence of much desire for upward mobility.

BACK IN LA

Before we left San Diego I pulled David's sister aside, and told her I hoped she pressed her three sons--aged 17-21--to aim for college, even if it meant nagging them. I found them all reasonably sharp--and told them so-- but none of them are college bound. I suspect they suffer from the lack of a positive male role model. (The father is a casualty of meth addiction--a golden boy gone terribly terribly wrong years ago--but with good genes.). It wasn't really my place to give this advice, but I didn't care. I've been around the block enough to know sometimes--sometimes--the words of a visitor can be the tipping point in constructive change. I could tell the boys were buoyed from hearing from me that I thought they could do it--and should. Clearly, it's not something they've been hearing.

MCO 2006

FUNNY

So a turkey walks into a bar on Thanksgiving, and orders a drink. "Line em up" he says to the bartender, "I'm celebrating. I just got pardoned by the President!" The bartender congratulates him, pours the drink, then tends to another customer. Afterwards, he comes back to the turkey and says "I've got some good news and some bad news." The turkey asks: "What's the good news?" The bartender says: "That man over there wants to buy you a drink, and then he'll give you a ride wherever you want to go--in a limo!" The turkey says "Great! What's the bad news?"

The bartender says "That's Dick Cheney, and he's going hunting with the President and an ex-Vice President. He says he's getting himself a lame duck or a Dan Quayle if it's the last thing he does, so you can be sure the turkey right next to them is the one who's gonna get it!"

SUNNY

In today's excerpt, little seven-year-old Truman Capote, abandoned by his parents and raised by dirt-poor relatives in Alabama, is closest friends with his distant cousin, an elderly, simple minded, and slightly crippled woman named Sook. On a cold and empty Christmas afternoon she exclaims to him:

" 'My, how foolish I am!' she cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too late she has biscuits in the oven. 'You know what I've always thought?' she asks in a tone of discovery, and not smiling at me but a point beyond. 'I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun shining through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine takes away all the spooky feeling. But I'll wager it never happens. I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are,'--her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie, our dog, pawing earth over her bone-- 'just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.' "

Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory, Modern Library, 1996, originally published in 1956, pp. 26-7.

MCO 2006

P.S. I wrote the joke.

P.P.S. Happy Thanksgiving

Thirty or so years ago, I was living in France for a year, my senior year of high school. My mother had arranged for me to go with the idea that I would live in a dorm with the students that came from outlying rural areas who only went home on weekends. Of course she didn't know I was gay then, that I had spent much of the previous year's Saturday nights in New York City, in the company of much older men, activities about which I lied rather creatively to my parents. (It was easy enough--I was a straight A student.)

Anyway, I had no intention of boarding anywhere, and through cousins of my cousins, was soon sharing this cool apartment in the center of old Montpellier. At dinner one day I caused my roommates to drop their forks by telling them I was gay, and then explaining that the only reason I shared this bit of information was in the hope one of them knew a real live homosexual to show me the local ropes.

One of them did, and introduced me to Rene at the apartment of a mutual friend of them both, where lived a striking woman name Rejane with her 8 year old child, Gael. I fell in love with Rene--a handsome but dark and tormented 28-year old who was to break my heart in that way only first loves can.

But this little story is not about him. It's about something that happened soon after I met him, when I went on my first hitchhiking trip, with Sophie. Sophie was the Dutch Au Pair who lived with Rejane, helping with Gael while she learned French. Sophie was big and blond and homesick, and that December, challenged me to join her on a trip back to her family in Aalsmeer, outside of Amsterdam, for New Year's.

I was starting to discover that Rene was moody in the extreme, and it probably didn't help much that I sprang the news of our impending road trip just as he returned from a painful trip to the dentist, not to mention asked him to drop us off at the highway entrance.

I regretted the impulsive idea almost as soon as Sophie and I got the first ride, but the story of the next four days will have to be part of the novel about that year that is lurking somewhere in my brain, waiting to be written.

What I wanted to talk about was the leg of the trip after Sophie and I arrived in Rotterdam, and sick to death of hitching, decided to spend some of our meager funds taking a train to Amsterdam, very close to our final destination.

Night had fallen, and I was very tired. Still, I was in a foreign country, and I knew enough to notice everything, though I didn't yet know, of course, that I would never remember any period in the rest of my life the way I would remember that year.

So I looked out the train window as we passed highrises in which the Dutch evinced their national trait of not bothering much to close curtains. There were a few we passed as the train was slowing for some reason or another, and I could catch snapshots of the lives of those inside. There was nothing dramatic to be seen, someone drinking coffee in a kitchen, a book-lined living room, the back of a couch and a TV on behind it.

All of these scenes seemed bathed in a soft yellow light, no doubt an effect of being framed by the dark. It was the first time that I felt so intensely a sensation that I still find hard to articulate, a sensation I began to notice as well when we passed other trains, and for a brief moment I could see a passenger reading a book or a newspaper, or merely staring out the window. One doesn't have to be in a train to feel it, just, from somewhere outside, be looking into a silent nighttime tableau in which the lives of strangers take on a oddly comforting quality. I felt it again in New York, looking through the windows of the brownstones, I feel it on Hobart Place two blocks away when I walk the dog at 10, and someone has left the light on and the curtains open on the second floor of one the imposing houses that line the street.

But it is most powerfully felt when seen from a train, somehow. This sense that people inside lead warm and safe lives, cocooned from stress and conflict. It is of course an illusion, no more real than a Rockwell painting. And yet the feeling in my stomach, the momentary golden reassurance that all is momentarily right with the world, that is real.

Tomorrow I'm off to San Diego and Baja California with the roommate and Gaza for four days. But in the morning I think I'll clean the street, sans chien. It's seems an appropriate gesture for the day. But I think I'll keep it as a weekend-only habit, to fill in those holes that seem to stretch through the afternoons, in which I experience the precise opposite of warm and fuzzy watching from trains.

MCO 2004

This is a view of the Tappan Zee Bridge, taken on the train from my Mom's to NYC. That Hudson is one cool river, let me tell you. And the train ride down on the Hudson Line is really beautiful. Why it never floods over I have no idea. I bet you can kiss that goodbye with global warming.

Well, it certainly is annoying to come back to a pile of unread mail (both snail and e-), and I hate unpacking even more than packing. I did throw out some clothes I haven't worn in a year to clear off some shelf space, and I did clean the refrigerator before restocking it. What a difference it can make to your attitude to just open up to a clean fridge. Today's question: Why is it so much easier to clean up at your Mom's or when you are a guest elsewhere than it is just for yourself? Aren't we worth it?

Gaza was, of course, ecstatic to see me and we're gonna go out to the park in a bit. I guess I'll bring the trashpicker, though, to be honest, I'm sorta over it. I didn't bother this morning because I was pressed for time and after three weeks, the streets are pretty trash-strewn. If I resume it'll be because I just can't stand looking at the ugliness of it more than anything else, really. The service I'll be doing will be to my own eyes.

There's one really cool thing that I forgot to mention that happened at the museum show on "Slavery and New York" that I went to see Sunday. One of the exhibits under glass was a giant ledger that was the guest register at a "Franklin Boarding House" downtown, in 1858. It was opened to a random page, on which you could see the signatures of a score or so of men listed, e.g., "J. Cumberland, Philadelphia" "R. Johnson, Wilmington" "M. Duroy, Paris" etc. etc. I looked down the names, rapt at the sense of history. Then my eyes came to rest on: "P. Olmstead, Bridgeport."

Even though he was an "--ead" (instead of an "--ed " like me), he might have been a direct relative--the spelling divergence does not reflect separate families. But it doesn't really matter if he was a Great-Great Uncle or not. It felt like a communication to me personally to write about that time period, as I have been talking and thinking about daily.

MCO 2006

Well, here I am again in the Nashville airport, where I have a long layover on my way back from NY to LA. Tony picked me up for lunch, which was quintessentially bittersweet, as it was so great to see him and not so much to have to say goodbye again.

But LA-Michael (I know too many Michaels) called me to tell me not only is his apartment going condo but his job is ending (AIDS funding cuts) but there is an opening at GMHC in NY (he is a benefits counselor). He also has NY on the brain big-time, and is willing to drive back cross-country with me with our luggage and Gaza, which should put my Mom's worries to rest. She's was getting all dire and cataclysmic at the idea of my driving cross-country alone.

I'll say it again, this country is too big. Or I am too poor. I sorta want to live everywhere I go, and have always been that way. When I visit a new place, I imagine living there. Toronto, Montreal, Portland, London, Rome, Paris, Marseille, Madrid, Albuquerque and on and on. I not only want to live everywhere, do everything--teach, act, write, practice law, medicine, interior design, dogwalking, trashpicking, stockpicking, surfing and on and on. I want to live multiple lives, at the same time.

ADD anyone?

Here's to me hitting the ground running upon my return. I got LOTS to write, and I just hope I can keep this fire in my belly lit.

MCO 2006

Once more the schplings of coincidence and signaling from the universe keep piling up. I've spoken about Frederick Law Olmsted and writing a novel about the south of late, and I picked up and have been reading his biography and his travelogue of the antebellum south, "The Cotton Kingdom" at my Mom's. Now I'm in New York City, and the first thing I do with my friend Michael is go to an exhibit of slavery, the Civil War, and New York City at the New York Historical society, that affords a fascinating panorama of exactly the time that FLO lived and worked here. Then we take a walk in Central Park at dusk. My brain is screaming historical novel. It will be written.

We also watched a free concert performed by a wonderful group of high-school gospel singers, "The Songs of Solomon." Which I just thought I'd plug, in case any of you are New Yorkers. Go see them. They were amazing.

Everything is pointing to my return to NY. The apartment I hope to get through Michael is not a sure thing, but I am willing to explore alternatives. My mom was thrilled at the prospect. I think my visit did her some good. And several of her co-residents remarked on "how handsome" her son was. I told you they were smart.

I wanna live here again. This is really such an exciting city. I just need to do it.

Tonight Helen Mirren again, if we can get reception on Michael's non-cabled TV. Have you ever? Pinko liberal communist.

Speaking of old buddies, one of my very best from decades ago has remained in touch with Michael and turns up his nose at seeing me, the sister who went down the path of perdition. I find it a little bit sad, and a little bit funny (I'm channeling Elton John here) that he feels the need to judge so. Evidently he has no idea at the burden that negative energy places on the judger--far more than the judgee. And hasn't he ever heard of redemption?

His loss. And I mean that. (And I still love him dearly. No one can take those memories of the 80's away from us--even though he chooses to color them with scarlet intead of the laughter that I remember.)

MCO 2006

Oy, it's torture not being able to blog. I feel one-handed.

I'm at my Mom's, and yesterday her two best friends and I took her to a birthday dinner at a very high-end Westchester restaurant.

Even when it's her son and her two closest friends my Mom seems to be fighting discomfort. Any sort of animated conversation seems to be taken as conflict at worse, at best as overstimulation. Errands like the post office and the bank have taken on outsized proportions, as if not depositing the check or putting too many stamps on the package will result in some sort of dire catastrophe. And her memory is indeed deteriorating, although I have the distinct impression that it is greatly intensified by her anxiety about it--a self-reinforcing syndrome. When I've asked in the past whether she's told her doctor, her answers give the distinct impression she doesn't tell her, or minimizes it entirely. Yesterday she told me she didn't remember what she told her, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and call the doctor as soon as I get back. This might be Alzheimer's, this might be something else, but there might be some treatments to make it a little better, or a specialist in case it's neurological.

It's painful to watch. She's always battled depression, but she's always been sharp as a tack. I tell you, there is no way I'll gonna grow old. I'm outta here at 64.

I'm definitely feeling moving back to NY is the right thing to do both for me and as a son. I'm even considering some non-Manhattan alternatives, like Yonkers.

I may do a quick update tomorrow but you probably won't hear from me again until Tuesday.

I miss Tony.

MCO 2006

Cool! I've never blogged from the airport before!

Tony and I had a good talk before we left. We are exactly on the same page. We think what we have is wonderful, and we're open to everything. But we're also big boys who are very realistic about what to expect and not to expect when you don't live in the same city. And no matter what happens--including the very unexpected as regards potential third parties--we are clear that we will remain in each other's life. But his vote is that I move back to NY, and I think he may be right about that.

Of course I miss him already. He's driving down to Alabama today to get some watches, and if he gets swept off in a tornado I'll kill him.

Damn, I can't believe I've been at this for 9 minutes. I bid you arriverderci.

At least I'll be at my Mom's tonight in time for Ugly Betty.

MCO 2006

Well, so far, my last day in Tennesse is really cool. Tony promised me one big-ass rain storm before I left, and he delivered. He also slipped out of bed at 5 to go work, and then slipped back in at 9. We've been listening to the rain and watching movies ever since. Well, I watched movies while he went back to sleep. But what could be nicer than to catch up on your cinema during the rain while the man you loves dozes beside you?

The movies I watched were "My Dinner With Andre," which I saw 25 years ago, and a way-cool 1956 thriller with Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward, "A Kiss Before Dying," that I'd never seen. I'm trying to figure out if "Dinner" is dated or timeless or prescient. The truth is, all three. And just a little pretentious.As far as being dated, what struck me in its absence was the Internet. Boy, it has changed everything. How we look at the world, how we communicate, the importance of communication itself, the kinds of communities we are evolving. I mean, I have some intense online relationships with people all over the world I've never even met. And I don't even know how to describe the relationship some of you long-term blog readers have with me. Few of you have never written to me, I don't even know who you are. And yet you know me really well, you really do. And on some level, I experience that intimacy. It's what drives me out of a warm bed with a gorgeous man to write an entry, just in case reading me is a punctuation to your day that some of you don't like to miss. This completely intangible, unprovable exchange of energy, even if it really only occurs in my head, is vital to me. What this has to do with "My Dinner With Andre" I'm not sure, except I think some of the philosophical precepts expounded therein would probably be abandoned in a updated remake. (If you've never seen it, it's worth renting.)

One of the ideas I have quoted from the movie for the past quarter century is Andre Gregory's elucidation of the concept that certain communities are like prison camps in which the inmates and the guards are one and the same. I think that applies for religious fundamentalists of every ilk, in the degrees of shame and guilt from which they suffer for whatever perfectly human deviation they experience from a dogmatic ideal they believe constitutes "right" behavior. We also see this syndrome in the perpetuation of inhumane cultural traditions like female genital mutilation. The women suffer terribly from it, and yet they are the primary enforcers of it, holding down their little sisters and daughter and nieces to inflict it, just as it was inflicted on them.

And yet, change comes from the most surprising places. I am agog that South Africa has approved gay marriage. Do you know how universally homosexuality is condemned in most of Africa? What a commentary it is on the sad state of American social conservatism on the subject. How is it that we might be the 15th, or 30th or 40th country to see the light?

I don't know why I'm so surprised. Half this country was fighting to retain slavery 50 years after Europe had abolished it.

Blogging will be spotty over the next few days as I travel to New York tomorrow and see my mother and a good friend there through the weekend. The rest of the day I must clean, do laundry and pack. I'm dreading tomorrow's arriverderci, of course.

MCO 2006

I received an email from a friend from adolescence that I haven't spoken to for years. We would have been closer friends than we were, I think, but for some reason we were in very few classes together. I was also intimidated by her, as she has one of these sharp-as-a-whip personalities, and believe it or not, in 6th and 7th grade, I had a huge crush on her. Obviously, the below-the-waist part of that crush never materialized, but the above-the-neck part strangely lingered.

Anyway, we last caught up about 10 years ago, when, at 38, we were still just young enough that being on the cusp of major success was somewhat easier to believe. At the time my screenplay wasn't quite dead yet, and I was starting to work as a magazine editor, while she produced commercials in NY.

When she emailed me to catch up yesterday, I found myself reporting the successes of all of our comrades, with which I was familiar because of my recent arranging of the party for my ex-drama teacher. We're talking doctor, banker, lawyer, professor, doctor's wife, engineer, executive etc. etc. Finally I had to recognize that I was avoiding the elephant in the room (or in my head), and fessed up to my recent history, i.e. drug addiction and prison. Ouch.

This is what she wrote back:

As for me, well, before I go for the smokes (shhh, don't tell anyone) after reading what other Mount Vernon graduates have been doing with their life, I won't mind bragging.

I was Chief of Endocrinology at NYU Hospital. I got burned out from that so I left NYC to study Law at Stanford. After law school I worked as Vice-President of the Legal Department at Time Warner. I was recruited with a mandate by Bear Sterns to start their new Hedge Fund department. It turned out to be very successful but after 5 years it became a bore so I left. I just got back from a 36-week international tour of my new book "Don't Stop Me Now".

Yes, she's kidding. I laughed harder than I had in years. What I read, between the lines, was her reminding me that 1) I wasn't the only one who felt intimidated and inadequate from the successes of my peers 2) Her resume is probably as full of almosts and didn't quites as mine 3) The personal lives behind the resumes of our friends are no doubt full of missteps, tragedies, addictions, divorces, etc. etc. (I extrapolated that from her continued struggle with cigarettes, but also because that's just life).

In identifying with my occasional sense of looking at my life as a half-empty glass, she got me thinking about the half-full part. She reminded me to remember that I woke up sober today, that I rarely lie anymore, that I've been off the cigs for a year (that's a frigging miracle), that I'm reasonably kind to those I meet and certainly to those I love, that I help a lot of people stay sober, that I'm productive, a decent writer, pretty witty, that my dog loves me and so do my friends and family and even one man in particular.

The list of what I'm not is also long, but isn't it for everybody? There isn't a "successful" person in the world who hasn't had to close ten windows for every door she walks through, who doesn't have a long list of if onlys, why didn't I's, and I should'ves.

This perspective was driven home by yes, another of Regis and Kelly's "Ambush Thanks-for-Giving Makeovers." The recipient today was a church secretary in Gulfport Missisippi nominated for her amazing post-Katrina selflessness, working night and day, from a trailer, to make the lives of those around her a little better. She'll never write a book or a play, and her 15 minutes of fame on a talk show will be soon forgotten, but what will be no less real and worthy is the good work she does in her little corner of the world. She is one of millions of unsung heroines, among them 99% of the world's mothers who are all superwomen, as far as I'm concerned.

So, J., if you get the same what-haven't-I-done-with-my-life blues that I get, you mentioned your two boys about to come home from school. I guarantee you, they are incredibly lucky to have you as a Mom, and if you do nothing else but raise 'em with your same humor and compassion, they will be stellar kids--even if one of them fucks up like I did. (Stellar kids do good work in places like prison, that was part of my journey.)

Not that you haven't done anything else, I'm just saying.

MCO 2006

P.S. I keep Regis and Kelly on low in the other room, but my ears pricked up to hear a good 2-minute exchange with a caller about Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons and their landscaping firm! I don't know what prompted it, but I take it completely personally!

Some days are deep-thinking or angry days, where you lament the state of the world, especially four-letter countries and Presidents.

Some days, however, are for gratitude. Gratitude that your handsome boyfriend agreed to forgo "Desperate Housewives" last night to watch part one of Prime Suspect 7, with the incomparable Helen Mirren. Not only was it superbly done (and a primer on getting sober to boot) but it reminded me that Helen Mirren hit it really big as an actress at the time of the first Prime Suspect, in 1992, when she was exactly my age now. What a great inspiration, as I peer into my 50s, over the horizon. (Okay, okay, if you google her, you'll find out that Dame Helen was hardly an out-of-work unknown pre-1992, but when I become an Oscpulitzemtony-winning winning writer, they'll exhume all of my early writing and I'll become retroactively famous, so there.)

Some days are to appreciate Regis and Kelly's Dream Team Ambush Makeover, because the woman they choose to transform is a genuine heroine who does incredible service, and it's actually quite moving to see her turn into a butterfly. (And who doesn't love a makeover? It's one of gay men's gifts to the world.)

Some days are to appreciate that the reason one so romanticizes the seasons when one lives in California is that one forgets what actual cold feels like. It's getting just nippy enough for me to remember, and to be thankful that I will mostly be in California through March, barring the unexpected. This thought, of course, also brings up the impending separation from Tony, but this is not the day to think about that. This is the day to appreciate that right now he's only 3 blocks aways, and in a few hours, much closer than that.

We watch whatever he wants to tonight.

MCO 2006

The more fiction I read, the more I think I need to get back to writing it. While autobiographical stuff like the play is probably psychologically essential for me to get down on paper, it can be constraining as hell to stick to the way things were, to be constantly questioning one's degree of honesty and the authenticity of one's motivations as you portray them. I also think that the blog gives me a considerable amount of opportunity to exercise those confessional muscles, I'm anxious to now apply my psychological insight onto created characters.

Still, how a boy like me could end up in prison is a story worth telling, and I'm gonna finish it. Besides, finishing projects is something I've gotten terrible at and I have to get good at again. But I think the next project will be a novella or a novel, and I may just pick up with Rhett and Belle, or whatever I'll need to rename that abandoned work-in-progress so I don't get sued by the Martha Mitchell estate.

Maybe I'll need to transpose the action to Nashville. Yesterday morning, a friend dropped by Tony's and somehow or another the topic actually came up about prositution in the confederacy, and then on the History channel last night there was "Sex in the Civil War"--and a whole segment on the "soiled doves" of the south, and an epidemic of venereal disease in Nashville when the Union army occupied it in late 1862. Although they didn't mention him in how they cleaned it up, I can't help but note that Frederick Law Olmsted, before he turned to landscape architecture, was head of the U.S. Sanitation Commission that was largely responsible for cleaning up Union field hospitals during the war with the introduction of hygiene as a medical necessity. Reminder to self: retrieve his biography from Mom in New York and read those chapters.

I don't know where I'm going with all this, I'm just saying I pay attention to signs from the universe about what to do next, creatively and personally. As far as what to do right at this moment, it's cold outside and perfect writing weather so I better get to it.

MCO 2006

P.S. (I'm trying to figure out an elegant double entendre about what the South is doing to the North in my current personal re-enactment of the Civil War with Tony. Mmmhh...how about if I just say those Southern generals remain dashing and full of initiative, and pretty much still carry the day.)

MCO 2006

(A big ass spider who was started a web right off the porch)

Today is the first cold, really wintery day I've experienced here. It's perfect football weather, and that's what we're going to do, listen to Tony's nephew quarterback for his Virginia college team on the radio. He's played second string all year, and then last week they brought him in half way through and he came within inches of overcoming a 21-point deficit with his incredible passing game. I've never been much of a sports fan, but I have to admit Tony's enthusiasm is infectious, and when you actually know a real player, there's nothing more fun than cheering him on. Go Spiders!

There's no way around it. No matter where I am, whether I have a dog to distract me or not, whatever the weather, I always get an attack of the blues around 2 in the afternoon. This is terrible for my writing, because I will jump at the chance to do something else. In L.A. it's walk the dog, here it's a nap and a walk or the TV. My mother told me she's suffered from the same thing all of her life and it is particularly acute in retirement. I wonder if there's a gene for it? Still, the writing of the play progresses, if way too slowly. But I think it's time to take a course or join a writer's group in LA to provide some outside motivation.

I may have to give up my trash picking up. My thumb is not getting any better since I've been here, and it can actually be quite painful. I'll have to get another shot when I return to LA, but if I resume the use of the trash-picker, it will probably return. I don't want to end up creating the need for surgery. I also have to weigh the good it does to the world against my tendency to find any excuse not to write. That's an interesting moral dilemma, isn't it?

And now, while the Times is still granting me access to Maureen Dowd, a paragraph from her latest column. Damn, that woman can write!

Republicans were oddly oblivious to the fact that they had turned into a Thomas Nast cartoon: an unappetizing tableau of bloated, corrupt, dissembling, feckless white hacks who were leaving kids unprotected. Tom DeLay and Bob Ney sneaking out of Congress with dollar bills flying out of their pockets. Denny Hastert playing Cardinal Bernard Law, shielding Mark Foley. Rummy, cocky and obtuse as he presided over an imploding Iraq, while failing to give young men and women in the military the armor, support and strategy they needed to come home safely. Dick Cheney, vowing bullheadedly to move “full speed ahead” on Iraq no matter what the voters decided. W. frantically yelling about how Democrats would let the terrorists win, when his lame-brained policies had spawned more terrorists.

MCO 2006

P.S. Tony is teasing me with a new catchphrase: "Put that in your blog!"

Garris warned me not to turn the ignition key all the way to the "lock" position, because it wouldn't turn back, it's so worn down. I was very good about it and then had a brain fart and sho' nuff, found out how right he was. No major harm done, a visit from AAA did the trick. That really is a genius organization. (If anyone is looking for a sharp Christmas gift for a teenage niece or nephew, a friend of a mine had an Aunt who paid his AAA every year from 16 on. Boy did he appreciate it.)

The other minor drama is a sore throat from Tony, a recurring annoyance over the past few winters that may eventually result in a tonsillectomy. It kept us in last night, when we were supposed to go to a party for Leslie Jordan, in town for Sordid Lives and Southern Baptist Sissies. A disappointment for Tony, especially, but the last thing you want to do is potentially spread something like that to actors--although I seem fine.

I have to say Tony and I are still so much in the honeymoon stage that staying home in front of Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy was a delight. It's sorta funny too, this pair of extremely evolved, liberated gay men have chosen to engage in a rapport that we would view with alarm or contempt between a man and a woman. I do the cooking and the cleaning and defer to him on most things. He demands sex when he wants it and constantly tells me I'm too mouthy and "do you know how many men would kill to be bossed around by me? Didn't think about that, didja!" I could mutiny in a wink, but why would I? I'm the one who set it up this way, he resisted it until he discovered how much fun it was to play a redneck Big Daddy. (I think most of the gay men who read this will completly "get" it. We may hate men who are controlling, possessive, arrogant and self-centered in reality, but someone who can "play" all those roles really well, in and out of bed? It's SO hot!) As for the cooking and dishwashing, what can I say? I get off on him calling me up and barking: "Get over here and cook me dinner! Daddy's hungry!" And yes, he ALWAYS tell me how good it is and "Tony" emerges regularly with a lot of appreciation and affection.

I never thought at 48 I would be able to play the 24-year old bimbo newlywed with the Stanley Kowalski husband. Tennessee (no less) Williams would be proud. Over a period of years, it would probably get tiresome, but for now, quite the opposite.

MCO 2006

Just in case anyone's about to get a little weepy about the soon-to-depart Secretary of Defense, a little reminder. That's him on the left, and Saddam Hussein on the right, in 1983. True, Saddam had about 200,000 or so innocent Iraqs left to torture and murder--if you don't count the millions dead on both sides in the Iran-Iraq war of 80-89--but conservative estimates make for a perfectly ghastly toll from the time he came to power in 1975 to the time of this handshake. Let's not even talk about the torture.

The truth is Rummy and Dummy (that would be Bush) have zero ethical problem with dicators, torturers and murderers has long as they're not aiming at Americans. Otherwise we'd have invaded Darfur, the Congo, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Chechnya, Burma and about 80 other places in the last 6 years.

How ironic that's these two are both being hung out to dry within months of each other. Though Hussein will face the gallows, and Rummy the galleys of a self-justifying memoir. Some people never learn.

MCO 2006

Yes, I admit it, I feel SMUG, SMUG, SMUG. I'm SO enjoying watching the pigeons come home to roost.

The elections results are the ultimate consequence of the incompetence, arrogance, self-righteousness and ideological blindness of this adminstration, topped by the Dry-Drunk-in-Chief's "leadership." This sorry state of affairs has been clear to 50% of the United States for a long time. I feel like, finally, the crucial 15% in the "center" finally snapped out of their prolonged glazed lull. (I won't kick the rock-ribbed-reds while they're down. All they have to do is wait for the next news cycle to see yet another Foley or Haggard to shake their cherished assumptions about the men they voted into power or trust to lead them in prayer.)

As for Rumsfled, Maureen Dowd says it all so well I'm just gonna share her commentary here. (The New York Times normally makes you pay for this, but they're giving me one week of free access to the better stuff, so I'm taking advantage.)

Op-Ed Columnist

A Come-to-Daddy Moment

By MAUREEN DOWD

November 9, 2006

Poppy Bush and James Baker gave Sonny the presidency to play with and he broke it. So now they’re taking it back.

They are dragging W. away from those reckless older guys who have been such a bad influence and getting him some new minders who are a lot more practical.

In a scene that might be called “Murder on the Oval Express,” Rummy turned up dead with so many knives in him that it’s impossible to say who actually finished off the man billed as Washington’s most skilled infighter. (Poppy? Scowcroft? Baker? Laura? Condi? The Silver Fox? Retired generals? Serving generals? Future generals? Troops returning to Iraq for the umpteenth time without a decent strategy? Democrats? Republicans? Joe Lieberman?)

The defense chief got hung out to dry before Saddam got hung. The president and Karl Rove, underestimating the public’s hunger for change or overestimating the loyalty of a fed-up base, did not ice Rummy in time to save the Senate from teetering Democratic. But once Sonny managed to heedlessly dynamite the Republican majority — as well as the Middle East, the Atlantic alliance and the U.S. Army — then Bush Inc., the family firm that snatched the presidency for W. in 2000, had to step in. Two trusted members of the Bush 41 war council, Mr. Baker and Robert Gates, have been dispatched to discipline the delinquent juvenile and extricate him from the mother of all messes.

Mr. Gates, already on Mr. Baker’s “How Do We Get Sonny Out of Deep Doo Doo in Iraq?” study group, left his job protecting 41’s papers at Texas A&M to return to Washington and pry the fingers of Poppy’s old nemesis, Rummy, off the Pentagon.

“They had to bring in someone from the old gang,” said someone from the old gang. “That has to make Junior uneasy. With Bob, the door is opened again to 41 and Baker and Brent.”

W. had no choice but to make an Oedipal U-turn. He couldn’t let Nancy Pelosi subpoena the cranky Rummy for hearings on Iraq. “He’s not exactly Mr. Charming or Mr. Truthful, and he’d be on TV saying something stupid,” said a Bush 41 official. “Bob can just go up to the Hill and say: ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there when that happened.’ ”

Bob Gates, his friends say, had been worried about the belligerent, arrogant, ideological style of Rummy & Cheney from the start. He fretted at the way W.’s so-called foreign policy “dream team” — including his old staffer and fellow Soviet expert Condi — made it up as they went along, even though that had been their complaint about the Clinton foreign policy team. A realpolitik advocate like his mentor, General Scowcroft, he was critical of a linear, moralizing style that disdained nuance, demoted diplomacy and inflated villains. In 2004, he publicly questioned the administration’s approach to Iran.

While Vice went off to a corner to lick his wounds, W. was forced to do his best imitation of his dad yesterday, talking about “bipartisan outreach,” “people have spoken,” blah-blah-blah — after he’d been out on the trail saying that electing Democrats would mean that “the terrorists win and America loses.”

“I share a large part of the responsibility” for the “thumpin’ ” of Republicans, he told reporters. Actually, he gets full responsibility.

W. has stopped talking about democracy as a standard of success in Iraq; yesterday, he said that Iraq had to “govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself.”

He was asked if his surprise at the election results showed he was out of touch with Americans. “I thought when it was all said and done,” he replied, “the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security.”

So it was just that the American people were too dumb to understand? W. also managed to bash Vietnam vets, saying that this war isn’t similar because there’s a volunteer army, so “the troops understand the consequences of Iraq in the global war on terror.” Is that why W. stayed out of Vietnam? Because he understood it?

An ashen Rummy was also condescending during his uncomfortable tableau with W. and Bob Gates in the Oval Office, implying that he was dumped because Americans just didn’t “comprehend” what was going on in Iraq. Actually, Rummy, we get it. You don’t get it.

“Baker’s no fool,” a Bush 41 official said. “He wasn’t going to go out there with a plan for Iraq and have Rummy shoot it down. He wanted a receptive audience. Everyone had to be on the same page before the plan is unveiled.”

They don’t call him the Velvet Hammer for nothing. R.I.P., Rummy.

MCO 2006

YAY.

There's gonna be a lot of of the same observations written about the election results, so I'm going to try to come up with some semi-original thoughts.

1. I think Bush is obsessed with his legacy and scared to death of being remembered as a disastrous President. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he ends up using the Democratic control of Congress as "cover" to pull a Schwarzenegger and get some things done, including getting out of Iraq. The other scenario is that he becomes Mr. Veto, but then he'll salvage zero on the domestic side. Watch him remember how he used to operate back in Texas, where he was known for reaching across the aisle.

2. Pope Rove finally showed he's fallible. I'm glad I seem to have been wrong about his ability to steal this election, but I frankly think, finally, there were just too many people looking at the possibility that even he didn't dare a repeat of some of the 2000/04 shenanigans.

3. I'm so glad the Democrats are talking about raising the Minimum Wage as priority #1. The plight of the working poor is the most ignored and one of the most serious issues facing this country.

4. Regardless of whether you're red or blue, isn't is a relief that incumbency lost some of its monolithic power? Whatever happened to term limits, anyway? Did that never apply to Congress?

5. Here in Tennessee, the margin against gay marriage was 81 to 19%. Aside from feeling like a kick in the stomach, that also tells me that a lot of people who love individual gays still vote against our right to tie the knot. I also think this overwhelming voter sentiment against gay marriage is a message to us that our strategy is all wrong. We should turn the tables, and sign on heteros to the idea of civil unions for all. I think there's a giant untapped pool of the divorce-fatigued and marriage-phobic, looking for a new way to be in a legally recognized relationship.

6. Pelosi, a SAN FRANCISCO LIBERAL is 3rd in line for the Presidency. You can be dang sure Cheney and Bush will be rarely in the same room in the next two years, and never on the same plane.

7. Thank God Democratic states finally have some Democratic Governors. I never understood how states like Massachusetts and New York had Republicans at the helm. California remains the bizarre exception, but Schwarzenegger does seem to have learned, the hard way, that it's much more gratifying to get things done than try to be right all the time. Bush, take heed.

MCO 2006

P.S. YES, I'VE BEEN WRITING.

To the right-wing accusation that what Democrats wanted to do in Iraq was "cut and run," should have come this rejoinder: "Isn't that what the Republicans want to do with the economy? Cut taxes and run from all the problems it creates?" (Nancy Pelosi, call me. You'll need a fresh speech-writer.)

Well, hopefully, Bush et al. will view the election returns tonight with "shock and awe," though knowing the Republicans, they'll do an excellent job spinning any defeat that isn't quite as bad as expected into some sort of victory. What I found particularly disheartening is watching all the ads for Alabama and the Florida Panhandle this past week. However did "liberal" become such a dirty word? As if one of the rabid red-staters would ever call for the elimination of social security, medicare, and civil-rights laws that were all fought for by the liberal vanguard and fought against by their conservative forebears. And you watch. The gay marriage haters are gonna yawn at the concept within 20 years, just as they don't blink twice at interracial marriage or an integrated military. They may still not want gays (or blacks) in their immediate family, but they will accept that living and working with them doesn't impact their lives negatively. I mean what is it that they're afraid of now? That their otherwise strapping young heterosexual buck sons are gonna see Mr and Mr. Smith-Jones across the street and go, "hell, I think I'm gonna be gay instead!" Or their wives will turn to them and go: "Damn, if gays can get married, our vows don't mean much. Let's get divorced!" Could it be what a lot of these men are really afraid of is that their wives are looking for an excuse to "cut and run?"

Well I'm back into the sweet little routine here in Tennessee I barely had time to get used to before going to Florida. The good thing about not being able to write much there for the week (we had only the laptop and Tony was almost always on it) was that I got so much reading done, and that is an excellent investment in my writing. It inspires me, gives me ideas, and gets my competitive juices flowing.

Florida was perhaps not proof that Tony and I could live together successfully, but I think it also wasn't proof that we couldn't live together. Neither of us were muttering under our breath by week's end: "I could NEVER deal with this 24/7." Don't get me wrong, we both have our annoying ways. But none so annoying as to cause bickering--a dealbreaker in both our books. We also agreed that we'd rather have a long distance relationship in which the time spent together is of the sublime variety than have a mediocre full-time relationship. So if an LDR is what the near future has in store for us, we can live with it. We'll worry about the far future when it comes. But I ain't cutting and running just because it can't be all Tony all the time.

MCO 2006

Off we go through the great state of Alabama back to Nashville.

Full report tomorrow.

MCO 2006

it's not a bad thing

to have nothing to say

which doesn't mean

of course

I have nothing to say

it means

for me

there's nothing I need to say

just for today

it's fine with me

more than okay

to let things be as they are

sans my intervention

for the waves to hit the beach

without my commentary

for the sun to rise in the east

without my permission

for the voters to have their say

without checking with me

ooh that's a tough one

self-determination

for the peoples of the world

don't they know who I am?

I am the only letter capitalized

in this poem

dammit!

but carry on

you huddled masses

you crescent moon

you stars and stripes

just remember

that's me waving

from the balcony.

MCO 2006

This is a my handsome honey in Seaside, the very picturesque town 20 minutes away that is so "perfect," they filmed "The Truman Show" there. There some nice shots of me too, but they're on his camera, yet to be downloaded. (I took this on my cell phone).

We have extended our stay by a night, so will leave Monday instead of Sunday. Tony works alot (he's out buying watches which gives me some computer time) and I read alot (Alice Siebold's "The Lovely Bones"--wonderful), and of course in between we eat and play together. There is something about the view that makes it feel heavenly to even be inside. Today it's nippy, but the surf is up, and you can hear the waves as well as see them. I even spy a lone surfer.

I am SO full of gratitude. This is one of those months that will have a special glow for life, a favorite artwork that hangs in your heart forever.

Plus this election day seems to be a reverse mirror to the one two years ago. I was in prison, yet so hopeful about Kerry, listening obsessively to NPR on my radio. Then of course I was crushed (thank God it was just 2 weeks from my release). In retrospect, though, that was a pretty potent experience of powerlessness that might have been just the thing to soften me up for AA's Step One, just around the corner. But I remember barely even daring to keep up a sliver of fantasy alive that 2 years hence, I might be having exactly the kind of experience I am having.

Amazing Life.

MCO 2006

Is the onslaught of recent news dizzying, or is it just because I've started watching MSNBC that I feel this way?

I swear, I don't think I'd drop my nail file if the Saddam verdict was innocent, and Cheney personally escorted him back to one of his old palaces in The Green Zone to reinstate him as Dictator. Rumsfeld could become his new Minister of Defense, and Bush could make a state visit on Monday, announcing it had been his grand plan all along--signing an agreement that half of Iraq's oil would be sold annually to the United States at $20 a barrel, and as a bonus, that Saddam pledged to personally capture Osama Bin Laden.

As for Ted Haggard, I don't mind admitting I'm laughing my head off. He bought it but threw it away? He had "just a massage?" Oh Ted, Ted, Ted, come out for crying out loud. You have no idea the burden that will be lifted from you! The saddest thing I hear about it came from his congregants, in complete denial, who insisted it was all some political ploy, part of some left-wing homosexual conspiracy I guess. The most insightful comment came from a writer for The Nation (Diane Kaplan?) who said she thought that maybe, just maybe, it would start penetrating the thick skulls of the fundamentalist right that homosexuality was indeed, not a choice, because if Ted Haggard couldn't pray it away, you can be damn sure it can't be prayed away.

Vive Mike Jones! Who says escorts and dealers can't be good guys? Ed McGreevey needs to start a new rehab for hypocritical closet cases who see the light the hard way. He can call it The Betty Crocker Center.

MCO 2006

The reason I have this portrait up of my distant cousin, Frederick Law Olmsted, is that I opened my daily literary excerpt from Delancey Place.com and it was a passage about my very favorite painter, John Singer Sargent. I pursued various links, and found this photo of one of his paintings on Wikipedia.

My mother had just been talking about Frederick Law, because almost every one of the very educated co-residents at her Assisted Living mention him when they find out her last name. I joked with her that they probably tell their kids, in turn, "Did you know that Frederick Law Olmsted was French?" [I should not make assumptions here about what you know. 1) My mother is French and speaks with a heavy accent. 2) Frederick Law Olmsted is considered the father of landscape architecture. He co-desighed Central Park, the jewel in the crown of an extraordinary resume which has his work in almost every one of the lower 48 states. We share ancestry with the 2 Olmsted brothers who came to America in 1632].

When asked how exactly I was related to FLO , my father suggested I just imply he was a great-Uncle or somesuch by responding: "We're a small family." But yesterday, still riding the high from my nephew's review in the New York Times, I received emails from France telling me of the cinematic triumph of a technical non-relative, the cousin of my cousins, part of a large extended family around Montpellier that I know well. This spiritual cousin, Pasc