Epiphany Redux

I went to see the musical Billy Elliot yesterday, courtesy of a generous friend from California. I loved it, of course, but the highlight of the entire show was a scene based on Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, in which the young Billy dances with the adult version of himself, at one point literally soaring above the stage on an invisible wire, and the spirit of the audience soars with him.

But it brought back memories of the greatest epiphany I have ever had, and I feel like relating it again, here.

It all began on July 3, 1978 when I met a beautiful (to me) young man by the name of Ray Lopez in the Silver Dollar Bar in Los Angeles. Ray was a hopeless alcoholic and the story of our relationship is the stuff of which bad soap operas are made. But what I want to address here is the astounding power of epiphany, and how deeply we tend to hide things from ourselves.

When Ray died of AIDS (contracted, I am sure, as a result of his alcoholism) in Los Angeles in, I think it was 1994...that I can never remember the date for some reason probably has significance of some sort...my first thought was simply, “Oh, Ray!” I was truly sorry, but it was an oddly detached feeling, and I was proud of myself for handling it far more calmly than I would have imagined. Later, when I thought of his death, the feeling was primarily of frustration and anger: how could he not have saved himself? How could I not have saved him?

I truly consider Ray to have been the love of my life. When he was sober, there was no one on earth more kind, caring, or sweet-natured. (The character of Jonathan in my Dick Hardesty mystery series is based a lot on the sober Ray.) But when he drank...and in the eight or nine years (on and off) we were together the longest he went without drinking was eight months...he became a tortured animal, lashing out at everyone and everything. Knowing that many others who have alcoholics in their lives have gone through basically the same thing didn’t make it any easier.

At any rate, time passed after his death, and while I thought of him and our relationship often, it was still almost always rather as though I were viewing a display case of beautiful (but of course dead) butterflies skewered on a pin. Real but not real.

And then in June of 1999, a friend called me to tell me that PBS was doing an all-male version of the ballet Swan Lake that night, and insisted I watch. I’d seen the Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo group…men with light beards and hairy chests dressed up in tutus and tiaras and toe shoes… a couple of times, and while they were mildly amusing, I have never cared for men in tutus. But since I’d told him I’d watch, I did.

From the minute I turned the program on, I did not move from my chair: I was transfixed…overwhelmed. This was no silly story of men pretending to be women: the swans here were all powerful, fascinating, alternately beautiful and threatening, and the love story between the lead male swan and the prince nearly tore my heart out. It was, I still feel, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

When the production ended, I went directly to the phone to order the VHS of the performance, which I watched at least a dozen times. And when I heard the production…Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake…was opening on Broadway, I drove to New York for three days to see it: three times! And each time I was overwhelmed by the power and beauty…and ultimately, the tragedy…of it. Because of the sheer physical demands of their roles, the lead dancers could not possibly do eight shows a week, so they had two alternates for both the Prince and the Swan, and I did not get a chance to see the two from the video--Scott Ambler and Adam Cooper--dance together.

So I returned to northern Wisconsin, still enthralled, still watching and re-watching the video.

And then I read that Adam Cooper, the Swan from the video, was leaving the show, that his last performance would be on December 19…and that he would be dancing with Scott Ambler, the video’s prince. I knew I had to be there, and (flying, this time) I returned to New York to see the show four more times, including Adam Cooper’s last performance.

The story of Swan Lake, as you know, concerns the love of a prince and a beautiful White Swan, who later becomes an evil Stranger. The Prince and the White Swan are reunited at the end of the show, but the indescribably bittersweet reunion ends in their death. As one review of the production stated with total accuracy and total understatement: “Simply heartbreaking.” And coupled with Tchaikovsky’s almost unbearably moving score, the result was breathtaking every time I saw it.

And then as I was leaving the theater after the last performance, I had my epiphany...why I had not realized it before, I don’t know. (I’m sure you already know what it was.) But not until that moment did I realize that I was the Prince, and the Swan/Stranger was Ray--my own beautiful, loving Swan when sober, the inconceivably cruel Stranger when drunk. And most significantly I also realized at that same moment that I had never allowed myself to grieve for Ray, and that each time I watched this production I was in fact finally doing so after five years.

Somehow, that epiphany lifted an indescribable weight from my shoulders...and my heart, and I have been able to finally say, maudlin as I'm sure it sounds, "I love you, Ray. Good-bye."

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

The Broken Compass

As so often happens when I set off to write a blog, I'll head off in one direction and not only end up nowhere near where I intended to go when I started, but have no idea how I got where I did end up. I seem to have a magic ability to unconsciously segue from one topic to another, and generally don't even realize that my mental compass is broken until I go back to read what I've written. What follows--the blog I'd planned for today--is a perfect case in point. I realized I had the choice of just chucking the whole thing and starting all over again, or present it exactly as written as an example of how easily I wander off course.

Yesterday, when I was rehanging pictures after my move, I noted that the brown paper backing on the painting of my mom was in pretty bad shape, so I tore it off and tossed it in the garbage. And just now, when I was putting something else in the garbage can, seeing the torn backing, I realized with a shock that I was sentencing to destruction something that had coexisted with me--granted, all but unnoticed-- for 55 years! I had that picture of my mom painted in Naples, Italy, while I was in the Navy. I'd asked her to have a picture taken and send me a copy, and I gave that to a local artist, who did the picture. It was he who had put that brown paper backing on, all those many years ago, and now I was casually dismissing it. I felt guilty, and sad, and experienced that now familiar sadness of another ending so difficult to explain to anyone who has not experienced it themselves.

For the world is passing strange, and all are mad, save thee and me. That I am constantly throwing out these unrelated little thoughts and reminiscences and then wandering off in another direction before I've adequately dealt with them might indicate that the problem may lie not so much in my compass's being broken as in my tendency not to consult it during the journey. But if I were to stop every few steps and ask myself what these ramblings have to do with anything, I probably would stop writing blogs altogether. I am continually saved from the brink of this decision by getting notes from readers saying they, too, have had experiences and thoughts and feelings similar to my own, and had always felt they were the only one to have them. It appears that life, as my blogs, is made up of tiny things no one else--for reasons I do not understand--seems ever to mention.

Life is so infinitely complex that we all struggle just to keep up with daily existence--work and family and paying bills and making practical plans for practical things. There seems precious little time for acknowledging the little things; the thoughts and feelings, and sensations that dance around us like the tiny bit of dust in a sunbeam. And in fact, there are many who seem never have time to consider them at all.

We speak and communicate largely in terms of those things widely acknowledged to be shared by most of humanity. But within ourselves we in fact live in a universe of the unspoken--the little things we assume to be unique to ourselves. And the less others speak of them, the more we assume we are alone in feeling/experiencing them. This adds to a sense of alienation, of being outside the norm, I suspect most of us in fact share.

Conversely, we also seldom consciously acknowledge the little, off-the-radar things which please and delight us, though interestingly I suspect we don't speak of them simply because we automatically assume that what pleases and amuses us pleases and amuses everyone else.

A few minutes ago, for example, I looked out my window to see a garbage truck in the alley with a decal saying: "Drugs are garbage. Just refuse." I had never in my life made the connection between the word "refuse," as in "reject," and "refuse," as in garbage. Yet they are exactly the same word, with the same root meaning, but with two totally different pronunciations. And while I realize there are any number of similarly linked though differently pronounced words in English, I cannot think of a single one now...a clear case of the "tip of my tongue" phenomenon. I can sense them clearly, dancing just out of the reach of my conscious mind, teasing me. I am quite certain that the instant this blog is posted, they'll all come running happily toward me, arms outstretched like long-lost relatives.

Now, if you were somehow able to follow all that without a compass, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Sigh.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

A Moving Experience

I've always wondered why things that happen to me are so much more traumatic than when I hear of the same things happening to other people. Gee, that is a tough one. I've also wondered why I can't see the small of my back or touch my ear with my elbow--not that I've ever really wanted to. Anyway, I have always secretly cultivated my tendency toward melodrama, and it invariably seems that other people going through the same given fraught-with-high-drama events general handle them with an equanimity I find impossible to even approach.

I will not go into the sordid details of how my move came about...my friends and anyone within earshot have heard every lugubrious detail to the point where they hasten to cross to the other side of the street when they see me coming. Suffice it to say that this past Wednesday I was informed that the movers would be showing up to move me at 8 a.m. on Thursday. No, not this coming Thursday; the day following the day I was told.

Since the move was not voluntary (I'm tempted to explain why but will resist), I was assured that I would not have to lift a finger; the movers would take care of every single item in my apartment, from the furniture to the dishes in the cupboard and the canned goods in the pantry. And yea, verily, at 8:30 Thursday morning the movers arrived.

Now, when I moved back to Chicago four years ago, I moved myself. Literally. Myself. I rented a 22 foot U-Haul and when I arrived at my new apartment, I unloaded ever stick of furniture by myself (I did have help with the mattress for the bed, which was just too cumbersome to handle alone.) The movers Thursday--four very large men--arrived with a 50-foot moving van, and filled it! They then took it to my new address--the building next door to where I'd been living, and all of 400 feet away--and hauled everything up to my new apartment. Since I had only seen the apartment once before (again, I'll spare you the details), I wasn't really sure where everything should/would/could go, so I just pointed them to general areas where I thought they'd probably end up, and basically just left everything else sitting in the middle of the floor.

They also made a point of telling me that they were paid $7.50 per hour and relied on tips from those they moved. I had to call my friend Gary to borrow some money, since I was counting on tipping maybe two movers, not four.

I got the idea from talking to the movers, who were very friendly and helpful, that this "they'll take care of packing everything" thing was news to them. The part about the dishes in the cupboard and the canned goods (and the pots and pans, and the cleaning supplies, and the contents of the refrigerator, and the miscellaneous contents of a large closet and....) was not in their job description. Therefore, while they did their best, they left a lot behind--12 trips worth by yours truly and Gary, using a hand-pulled dolly, and spread over the next two days.

I'm really not crazy about the layout of my new apartment. The living room is tiny, though there is a small dining area off the kitchen. Since I don't have a dining room table, this whole area is sort of a lost cause. The kitchen makes the living room look like Wrigley Field by comparison. A full 4 feet, total, of counter space, less than 1/3 the cupboard space of the apartment I just left. However the bedroom is fine, with ample room for my computer desk, which is where I spend the majority of my time. And a very nice walk-in closet (probably about the same square footage as the kitchen), into which I have been piling everything there is no room for anywhere else.

My TV has been hooked up, and my computer service should be (operative words) transferred by Tuesday. In the meantime I give thanks for having a laptop and the availability of coffee shops with free wi-fi...which is where I am headed in a matter of minutes to post this blog.

But I am moved, and I have one more fond memory behind me, to undoubtedly be brought out and savored when I'm in a "you poor kid" mood.

What's that? You would like to hear the whole story of how all this came about? Well, if you insist. It started with the noise from the elevated trains 500 feet from my window, and......

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Our Fathers

This will be an exceptionally short blog today, for a couple of reasons. I moved yesterday--that is to say the movers loosely packed up everything and carted it--well, most of it--from my former apartment to my new one, and dumped it, leaving me to sort everything out and put it where it belongs. I figure I should be pretty much settled in within six or seven months. And I'm offline until Tuesday (thank God for coffee shops with Wi-Fi).

But the main reason is that Father's Day--one of the more neglected of our cultural holidays--is once more upon us and though my own dad, who would be turning 99 this year had he lived beyond the age of 57, is not here for me to share it with, I found a video on YouTube some time ago that I hope you really will take the time to watch. It's in captioned Greed, but the subject knows neither language or borders. The link is a little long, but just go to YouTube and type in "What's That?" (It was at the top of the list when I just checked.) It sums up father-son (and actually all children-parent) relationships concisely.

I hope your own father is still alive, and that are able to celebrate this Father's Day with him, if not in person, then with a phone call. Never forget that without him, you would not be here.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Writing

If you have been following my blogs or my books for any length of time, you know a lot about me, whether you set out to do so or not. You know, for example, that reality and I are barely on speaking terms, which I think is one of the reasons I so love writing. Sitting at the computer, watching as words flow from my fingertips across the white expanse of the monitor with almost no conscious effort on my part allows me, quite literally, to remove myself from the reality of the world around me. I go from a place over which I have absolutely no control to one where I do/say/accept/reject/create/destroy whatever I please.

I'm also fascinated, as you may have noticed, by how the mind--specifically my own--works the way it does. And chaotic as it often is, I've come to accept and, when it is not driving me to distraction with frustration, even delight in it.

For the past couple of years, I've been alternating books between the Dick Hardesty mystery series and the Elliott Smith paranormal mystery series. On Thursday, I finished my 18th book--Caesar's Fall, the latest in the Elliott Smith series, and, after going over it for errors, inconsistencies, flow, etc, got it off to the publisher yesterday. And, like my frequently-used analogy of moving from book to book the same way Tarzan moves through the trees, grabbing the next vine just before releasing the previous, I suddenly realized there was no "next vine," and I did not have a clue as to what the next Dick Hardesty book would be about.

This morning I got up and was going through my normal morning routine of V8 juice/coffee/chocolate-covered-donut/Today Show when, like Venus arising from the sea, I instantly had both the title (The Peripheral Son) and the foundations of the plot. I began writing immediately.

I consider myself a story teller, and the reader a friend to whom I'm telling it. I want very much for everyone to like what I write--it's admittedly an ego thing--but today in the course of an hour I received emails from two loyal readers which underscored clearly a problem facing every writer to whom the reader's reaction is important. Both notes addressed the same book, The Secret Keeper. The first reader pointed out how much she enjoyed the Dick Hardesty series (music to my ears), but how she really wished there had been more focus on the interpersonal relationships and less on the mystery. The second note could have been written on the back of the first one's mirror; he felt that The Secret Keeper spends far too much time on relationships and too little spent on solving the mystery.

The first reader commented on how much she likes Dick and Jonathan's relationship; the second was wondering when Dick was going to stop letting Jonathan put all the work of looking after Joshua on him. So which reader do I try to make happy in The Peripheral Son?

The fact is that I really do strive for a balance in each book, but suggested to each of these two people who were kind enough to give me their thoughts that it might help if they viewed the Dick Hardesty series as I do: not only as individual books which can stand by themselves, but as, in effect, chapters in a continuing book of the development of the characters through the circumstances they encounter in each book. Some books are more heavily plot-focused, some are more character/relationship focused. In the end, I hope it all balances out and that neither of these two good people is disappointed.

As with every book I've written, I am, as I stand on the threshold of Page 1, looking into a thick mist through which I can discern only vague shapes and forms, and while I do not know, as I start The Peripheral Son, exactly what is going to happen in it...or even, at this point, who the killer is going to prove to be...I know that I'm going to love finding out.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Identities

Every human being has his/her own identity, formed over the years, which reflects the people and things with whom we ourselves identify. Our earliest exposure to other humans who provide keys to our eventual identity is, of course, to our parents, and we use this identity predominantly in a positive way. As we age we tend to become, with no particular effort on our parts, more like our parents. Rarely, we strive consciously not to be like them. But while it is they who primarily point us in the direction of who we will eventually become, they are not the only influencing factors.

Unlike circumstances beyond our control which shape who we become, the things with which we identify are largely a matter of choice and not some little effort, conscious or subconscious. And we tend to identify with them because at some point and for some reason we wanted to emulate them.

The books we read, the music we listen to, all the things we identify with become parts of our own identity. Each is like the individual colors on an artist's palette, and the portrait of who we are is created by them. The degree with which we identify with something create the tones and shadings of our character.

Just a few of the many things with which I have always strongly identified include:

1) The gay community. I know that one's sexual orientation is only a part of one's identity, but being a gay man (starting out as a gay child) is so much of who I am I cannot separate it from any other aspect of my life. It colors every part of my existence. I so strongly identify myself as a gay man, I am sure, as an act of defiance to those who assume superiority over me because I am not like them.

2) Minorities and underdogs...as a direct result of #1 above, as long as they do not themselves advocate the oppression of others.

3) Truth, honor, beauty, dignity, loyalty, bravery and all those uniquely human qualities which separate us from other animals.

4) As a further extension of numbers 1 and 2 above, anyone with physical, emotional, or mental disabilities; the misfits, the misunderstood; all those who ache with the realization that their dreams will never come true and yet go on anyway, doing the best they can with what they have.

5) Children, probably because I have clung to tightly to my own concept of childhood and I see myself (I would hope with some degree of accuracy) in their wonder and trust and assumption that the world is full of good things.

6) Anyone who clings to hope in face of the hopeless.

I identify strongly with all these things even while being painfully aware of how very far short I fall of really possessing any of them. Though I do take some small comfort in the knowledge that I try. I am eternally the small boy standing on the curb waving a tiny flag as he watches the soldiers and firemen as the parade passes by, wanting so very much to be one of them when he grows up.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net

Bureaucracy

Few things are more frustrating or more futile than trying to deal with bureaucracies whose sole purpose is on expanding their own authority through absolute inflexibility and a total disregard for the individual human beings they were created to serve. Bureaucracy is the perfect example of what happens when the servant becomes the master.

Bureaucracies beget bureaucracies and have within themselves subsidiary bureaucracies, and thus was this particular blog born.

I moved into an apartment building owned by the Chicago Housing Authority (a bureaucracy) and managed by Legume & Norman, an independent management company (also a bureaucracy) in November of 2006 and was assigned an apartment on the east side of the building, facing the elevated tracks, 500 feet away, of the Chicago Transportation Authority (yet another bureaucracy). The decibel levels in the apartment from trains roaring by every 3-5 minutes, day and night, may never have been measured by any of the above-named bureaucracies, but since it is not their concern and only mere individual humans are involved, there has never been any interest in doing so. (Whatever the decibel levels may be, I'm sure they approach the limits of human tolerability. In summer, with the windows open, it is impossible to hear a TV while trains pass.)

When the CHA reopened a facility about a mile away and managed by yet another bureaucratic management company, I put in an application for a one-bedroom apartment there and was approved. I was all packed and ready to go when a "quarantine" was placed on my current building due to an infestation of bedbugs. This dragged on for at least six months, during which I sat in an apartment stacked with packed boxes, waiting to move.

I checked frequently with the management the building I was approved to move into and was assured no fewer than four times that a one-bedroom apartment was definitely being held for me. When the "quarantine" was partially lifted, I received a call from them saying that my studio apartment was ready. When I pointed out that I had been assured several times that they were holding a one bedroom for me, I was told the one-bedrooms were filled and that they had no idea I had wanted a one-bedroom. There was no apology for having kept me in limbo all those months of course. I was given the choice of a studio or nothing. I chose nothing.

I then approached the management at my current building, asking to move from the east side of the building to the west side, to escape the noise. The apartment directly across the hall from mine had been empty for more than six months. It had not been cleaned/repainted/repaired since, but the management agreed I could have it as soon as it was ready for new occupancy. Two more months of "next week/soon/maybe by the first of the month" promises from the building's management.

Finally I was able to move in, and was very happy with it. Then, a month or so ago, the building manager came to tell me that the CHA had deemed "construction" had to be done on my just-refurbished apartment, and that I would have to move out--back across the hall to my original apartment and the problems which had forced me to leave in the first place--while the changes were being made. But I was assured that I could move back in when the "construction" was completed.

The building was recently was taken over by another management firm: Habitat Company, which obviously is out to set new records for intransigence and contempt for anyone who dares question their edicts. I was subsequently informed that I would NOT be able to move back into my current apartment when the unspecified "construction" was finished. I said that if I were not going to be able to return to my current apartment, I at least did not want to move back to my original apartment and be right back where I started regarding the problem with the noise, and asked for another apartment on the west side of the building, away from the noise. Despite the fact that there are a number of empty units on the west side, I was told that moving into one of them was not possible...that there are procedures and processes and rules and regulations and waiting lists and forms and paperwork and....

When I mentioned to the new building manager that the previous manager had assured me that I could move back into my current apartment, her response should be engraved on the plinth of the Temple of Bureaucracy. (Get a pencil; you may want to write this down.) She said: "Did you get it in writing?"

No, you insufferably pompous bureaucratic hack. I was foolish enough to think that when I was told something by someone in authority, I could believe them. Silly, silly me.

So I am preparing a letter similar to this blog, to be sent to the management of this building, the Habitat Company, my alderman, my city councilman, the head of the Chicago Housing Authority (noting that when I asked the manager of the building to whom I should address my complaint, she had absolutely no idea), and the office of the Mayor.

I am not quite so deluded as to think that any of this will do one iota of good or result in a single positive action. But I will be damned if I won't let them know how I feel. Not that they give a dung-beetle's ass, of course.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net

Spam, Part MCXL

Why do I insist on picking at the scab that is my spam folder? The only thing I accomplish by even glancing at the headings of the effluvia in it is to grow furious with the pond scum who perpetrate this idiocy and despair for the future of humanity.

And here we go again!

"Hello, you have a nice picture in the dating site, would you mind to chat? = Hello my name is Marina! I like your pic....." (Hello. I have no picture in the dating site, and yes, I would very much mind to chat. Now go outside and play, Marina. I'm busy.)

"We are actually searching for regional managers all over USA countries...." (That must be quite a chore, considering how many USA countries there are.)

"I am a single Mom, but still deserve love" (Of course you do, my dear. But what do you expect me to do about it? I'm empathetic, but not stupid enough to read further.)

Plumpy "im big and curvy-wanna meet me?" (Take a wild guess, Plumpy....followed by a flying...never mind.)

Miranda "I am a single Mom, but I still deserve love" (Uh, excuse me, Miranda, but that line's been taken.)

Adam "I am a single Dad, but don't I get a second chance?" (At what? Certainly not from me, but I'm sure you and Miranda and what's her face a couple notes above would really hit it off.)

Mojeed Salam - PLEASE REPLY URGENT THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT (To whom, Mr. Salam? To whom? Certainly not to me.)

Becky "I am a single mom, but don't I get a second chance?" (Oh, for the love of God, woman: NO!)

MaxGentleman Size-Enhanc "The penis is a muscular organ, designed to grow with the correct supplements!" (One word response: Bullshit!)

"En1argerPenis 3" in 6 Weeks, see myPenis pictures as proof." (Uh, no thanks...I'll just take your wrd for it.)

Kues Thornberg "claws in the pole. I..." (And tulips in the refrigerator. Your point being...?)

"BareLiftsBra - the ultimate Mother's Day gift" (Were my mom still alive, she'd be 99 years old this year. I'm sure a BareLiftsBra would be exactly what she'd want for Mother's Day.)

"Natural PenisEnlarge Pills: Are 3-inchesGain Really Possible? iwgpq koe..." ("iwgpq koe" is Spamese for "NO!")

"Take us up on it guys.--Calling all men in the world to take our challenge. We challenge you to prove our product is..." (Is this a 'complete the sentence' test? If so, I'll go with "worthless.")

"Tructed us in the latest manner of eating an orange in th -E not be a dearth of poems in the spring? Who then would...." (Would someone please, please explain to me what the hell these people think they're doing or what they think they're accomplishing with gibberish like this?)

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

As you know, I spend my life in one form of bewilderment or the other, my degree of puzzlement varying from mild confusion to being totally dumbfounded at my inability to "get it."

I saw one of those ubiquitous TV commercials for on-line dating services in which deliriously happy couples (comprised--as God commanded--of one man and one woman), relate how some highly-profitable "dating" organization helped them find true love through "29 levels of compatibility." (What in hell is a "level of compatibility?" No matter; it sounds impressive!)

I find it interesting that this wondrous system is available only to heterosexuals. No faggots, lesbos, or other openly acknowledged perverts need apply. This is a wholesome, exclusively nuclear-family-oriented organization, and they will not have it sullied by....those people.

Though I would not qualify to join their ranks even if I were desperate enough to want to do so, I am intrigued by exactly what deep, probing questions might be used in the application to determine the "29 levels of compatibility." (#3: "Do you like puppies? Yes___ No___"; #16: "Have you been convicted of a capital offense in the past five years? Yes___ No___"; #22: "Are you currently under a restraining order resulting from a charge of domestic violence? Yes___ No___")

There are, of course, now dating services specifically for gays and lesbians (an ad for one was refused by the Super Bowl. An ad aimed at faggots? At an All American REAL MAN's game like the Super Bowl? Were they crazy?), but such services are rather like a side-car on a motorcycle; a case of "if ya' can't join 'em, get your own ball and play in your own yard."

The competition between the "straighter than thou" services is fierce, and I love that they have now begun sniping at one another. (One says: "If they're so good about finding me a wife"--the speaker was a red-blooded heterosexual male, of course--"why do I have to join for a year?" Good point. Take that, E-Harmony!)

But sexual orientation aside, the very proliferation of companies set up to take your money with promises of sparing your actually going out and finding someone yourself is an indication of the sad state of our society and our increasing willingness to turn over responsibility for our lives to someone else.

I know, there are a million reasons, some of them valid--the lack of time to actually get out there and look for someone, for example--to resort to dating services to do something which should be done by the individual him/herself. It is largely an exercise in fantasy--and fantasy, when faced with reality, usually comes out second best. I find the fact that many people who use dating services and internet "hook up" sites often lie through their teeth and/or use old or misleading photographs of themselves apparently to gain some obscure advantage truly sad. If the faked come-ons do get a response that leads to a face-to-face meeting, what do the person who posted it honestly think the outcome will be? How does the person responding to the ad feel? A true lose-lose situation.

The desire and need to love and be loved is universal. Luckily, a large number of people are able to fulfill that need in the natural course of their lives. But for all those still looking and hoping to find the someone, the road is paved with frustration and, too often, heartache. Our media bears much of the responsibility for intensifying this need, and does us a terrible disservice in regards to love and romance. Books, movies, and TV shows make it painfully clear that if you are not madly in reciprocal love with some stunningly beautiful 20-something (or worse, if you are not one yourself), you really aren't worth the weight of the dust bunnies under your bed.

Love is not found on the internet. It isn't like a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk you can just walk into the store and pick up. It isn't between the pages of a book or in a magazine, or on the other side of your TV screen. If love has not yet found you, the best thing you can do is put yourself out there in person, just as you are. The best matchmaker for you is you.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Predestination?

We humans seem to take a perverse delight in pondering questions for which there are and can be no definitive answers. It's one of the many wonders--and frustrations--of life that we spend so much time and energy on them as we do. Perhaps it is partly because while these questions seem profound in their inability to be answered, anyone can step in with an opinion. And thinking about them can and does serve as a form of old-fashioned razor strop for sharpening the mind.

Being neither a philosopher nor a scholar, or even particularly bright doesn't prevent us from thinking about questions which have intrigued our race since we stopped dragging our knuckles on the ground. And an interesting side-effect is that thinking of things beyond our ken can give us insights into just who we are and what makes us tick.

Yesterday, for absolutely no reason I am able to determine, I was thinking of the classic philosophical battle between predestination and free will. I had always been firmly on the side of free will. Predestination--the thought that the outcome of every single choice we make in our lives is predetermined and that we in effect have no control over our destiny--was (and is) both pointless and anathema to me. Some may well take odd comfort in the idea of predestination. We live in a world, after all, in which it seems increasingly clear that we in fact have no control over anything. Going with the idea of predestination is a simple "out" which frees us (no pun intended) from having to even try to change things.

Predestination is a popular biblical theme designed to forestall any blame aimed at organized religion when anything goes wrong. It says, in effect, that we mere mortals needn't worry our pretty little heads about anything: whatever happens was bound to happen no matter what, and since there's not a thing we can do to change it, we have to accept it as part of "God's plan." In other words, God: 1, Humans: 0.

Life is an endless string of choices. Free will says, "Okay, I choose this over that." Predestination says, "Ah, but it was predestined that you'd make the choice you did." This is the equivalent of responding to any statement with, "I knew that!" and challenging whoever made the statement to prove you wrong.

Granted, given that every choice an individual makes is influenced in part by predispositions, past experiences, and the emotional state at the time the decision is made, and that we might have made a different choice under slightly different circumstances, the fact is that we are stuck with whatever decision we did make. Sometimes we could just as easily said "no" instead of "yes." If predestination is removed from the cosmic level...the implication that some unknown forces rule our every action...and simplified to the mere fact that our past predispositions do in fact subtly influence us, I don't think there would be much disagreement; but the choice was still ours and we based it on the circumstances which existed at that moment.

I look on predestination the way I view the predictions of Nostradamus...which are in fact "predictions in retrospect." ("Oh, yeah, that's what he meant!") Predestination also relieves a lot of personal responsibility and serves as a convenient excuse for anything that doesn't work out the way one wanted/expected them to. ("Oh, it wasn't my fault...it was predestined." Uh-huh.)

Debates which are rooted in questions which are humanly impossible to answer are, ultimately, merely interesting exercises in futility. But then it was predestined that I'd say that, wasn't it?

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Be Prepared

It isn't that I don't like the idea of planning. I do. I admire, albeit oddly grudgingly, people who take the time to think out and methodically plan their every action. It's just, basically, that I don't do much of it. If I'm at a point where I want to begin a project and I have the choice between just getting to it or spending the time to plan out every possible detail and contingency, the choice is clear: the time involved in planning something takes time away from actually doing it. It also, I think, takes some of the fun out of it, at least for me. I've mentioned several times that I never plan out my books (or, as you may rightly suspect, my blogs) before I start them. I get an idea and I go with it. It may not be the way most people do things, and sometimes I'm sure it shows, but it works for me.

I have literally dozens of begun-but-never-finished blogs in my "Blogs" folder. I get an idea, start writing, and run out of steam or thoughts a few paragraphs into it, and abandon it. I don't just delete it, though, in case I might want to go back and finish it someday. I admit that with a book, the initial idea usually includes the theme, the method of murder, the motive, and tentatively whodunnit, though the actual killer frequently turns out to be someone other than I first intended, depending on how the story progresses.

When it comes to planning and its consequences, writing has overwhelming advantages over real life, the primary one being the ability to go back and rewrite what has been written. Probably that is also one of the reasons I so dislike reality. Life does not allow rewrites. Once a moment in real life has passed, it cannot be changed or altered. Say something you should not have said, do something you should not have--or wish you had not--done, and you're stuck with it forever. For all the planning you may have done in real life, changing the outcome is not possible.

One of the many joys in writing, for me, is in being able to, in effect, just read the story as it unfolds on the screen in front of me. This pleasure would be lost were I to have carefully plotted out exactly what was going to happen exactly where in the story. My mind simply could not allow such confinement, and I honestly cannot comprehend how those who do meticulously plot in advance can do it.

Of course I am not totally uninvolved in the progression of my stories; just as one has to make changes and adjustments and decisions and process new information in the course of everyday life, so it is, for me, with the process of writing--though with far more flexibility than real life affords. If, in the course of working on a book, I have to figure out how Dick or Elliott might come by a some piece of information, I can go back into the story and plant a clue or a introduce a character from whom the information might logically be obtained. With luck, the reader will never be aware that it was done, which is exactly the way it should be. Deus ex machina--just having something appear out of nowhere, with absolutely no advanced preparation for the reader is, for me, the ultimate cop-out and the kiss of death for a book, story, tv show, or movie.

For most people and in most instances, "Preparation" more frequently involves the mental process than any physical things that must be done before the event, and too easily "preparation" becomes a euphemism for "pointless fretting." Preparation implies that some specific actions can be taken prior to the event to positively affect what is being prepared for. Too much of what people consider "preparation" is in effect, busy work prompted by worry. I generally consider the degree of preparation required to be largely dependent upon the importance of what is being prepared for. I am really trying to prepare for my anticipated trip to Europe next year, for example, but I'm limiting it to laying the groundwork, without micromanaging every detail in advance.

Of course, as I read over what I've just written (since—surprise!—I didn't prepare what I was going to say in advance), I realize that it could, with some justification, be considered my attempt to rationalize the simple fact that I am just plain lazy, and not preparing for things is my way of taking the path of least resistance. I do hope I'm not taken to court over the issue, for I fear I would lose.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Not Sure...

I'm not sure what to call it. It's not ennui (one of my all-time favorite words, by the way). It's not really boredom. And I don't feel particularly burnt-out. It's just, I think, the need for a short break in the routine.

This is my 560th blog. I started on February 5, 2007, intending to do one a day, but soon realized I couldn't possibly keep it up and get anything else done--like writing books, for example. So I went to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule which I've maintained ever since. I don't think I've ever missed a day.

I am, as stated here frequently, compelled to write, and I place that compulsion squarely at the feet of time. (You didn't know Time had feet? It does. Trust me.) Time is more than just precious; time is all there is. My every thought and action is, at the core, predicated on my acute awareness of the passage of time. I consider a day without writing to be a day lost forever, gone without a trace--and leaving a trace of myself is the probably the strongest driving motivation of my life.

I am aware, as each of these words appear on a screen totally blank beyond the word being written, that I must get this blog done for tomorrow. Which automatically turns me into one of those wild-eyed cartoon characters dashing wildly off in all directions blubbering nonsense.

At such times I try to step back...convince myself to play a game of computer solitaire. Right. Good luck with that one. The little cartoon character won't let me concentrate (yeah, like there's a lot of concentration involved in solitaire), jumping up and down, tugging at my sleeve, fanning his hand in front of my eyes and burbling "NoNoNoNo: work! You'll never get it done if you waste your time playing stupid games." Which of course destroys any sense of relaxation I was hoping to find by playing in the first place.

So I try to get back to the blog. It isn't that the words aren't there, it's just that they might as well be encased in wet concrete, or that whatever I try to say either isn't what I want to say, or I'm not using the right words to say them...or both. I'm in a long hall lined with partially blocked doors, behind each one of them is a potential blog topic. I try to force one open, push it open a few paragraphs, get frustrated, figure "the hell with it", and move on to the next door. Same thing. Stop for a brief moment to look back at a trail of mixed metaphors like gum wrappers...wet concrete, doors, gum wrappers, etc...I've left in my wake.

My innate laziness, pretending to be the voice of calm and reason, steps in and says, "Relax...just go way back and redo a blog you've already used. No one will remember." While it's probably right (and I do appreciate the vote of confidence in just how deathless my prose is), and I have reused a blog on occasion, I don't want to make a habit of it.

"Okay," somebody roaming around in the space between my ears, says, "just don't do a blog tomorrow."

"Great idea. What do I do, put up a note saying 'Gone fishing'? I hate fishing. Or, perhaps, 'This Space for Rent'?" People do not like to see blank space where a blog is supposed to be.

The fact of the matter is that I am sincerely concerned (have I mentioned my tendency toward paranoia?) that were I to skip a blog, you, the reader, would go away and not come back. If you're kind enough to put up with my ramblings, the very least I can do is give you something to read, even if it doesn't make much sense.

"Excuse me? So you're willing to just throw out anything and expect the reader to accept it? That's insulting! If you can't say something worth saying, why the hell do you even bother?"

Hmmm. Point....Oh, I know! I can do a blog about arguing with myself. That sounds like a winner. You'll buy that, won't you?...Won't you?

Hello?

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home"

Among my many carefully-cultivated idiosyncracies is my ability to have a song suddenly appear in my head and refuse to leave, like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. Last night, it was “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”...a big hit from the Civil War. I’m sure you remember it: “When Johnny comes marching home again/ Hoorah! Hoorah!/ We’ll give him a hardy welcome then/ Hoorah! Hoorah!/ Oh, the men will cheer and the boys will shout/ and the ladies, they will all turn out/ And we'll all feel gay/ When Johnny comes marching home!”

And voila! I had the subject of today’s blog, and it had nothing to do with my being gay.

Do you remember when songs made sense? When even the silliest of them used real English and complete sentences and you could actually understand the words? And can you remember any song prior to 1950 (other than, perhaps, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" from the Depression era) that dealt with negativity or real anger or hatred. When did songs—like politicians—stop being for something and become against everything?

Is it simply because songwriters/performers have run out of things to say that so many have turned to endless repetition of the same few words? (The one that leaps to mind is from a few years ago, where the words “Thank you” were repeated 38 times. I can’t recall the name of the song, but think I might guess. Well, at least it wasn’t “F... You.”)

When did popular music switch from being an enjoyable canoe trip down a pleasant river to the equivalent of being thrown into a roaring rapids without a life jacket? It seems the purpose of popular music has switched from soothing and reassuring to reflecting the hopelessness/helplessness/anger of our world.

I know, I sound like one of those irritating “Well, now, in my day…” types I despise. But come on, folks: listen to what has become of our culture? What are we saying with so-called popular music? Where is the logic?

When—but far more importantly, why—did “Muthaf...ka” and “‘ho” and “bitch” become integral parts of our musical lexicon, and the people who utter them become pop icons richer than Croesus? How could it possibly come about that wearing a baseball cap sideways and tons of the ugliest, most gaudy jewelry imaginable while spewing unintelligible garbage could be the passport to fame and fortune?

“Pop” music has always reflected the state of the culture in which it exists. We look back now with bemusement on the hullabaloo that accompanied Elvis’s appearance on the pop scene, and many people would point to today’s music as just being another version of the same thing. It was more Elvis’s hip shaking than the words of his songs which were the basis for the uproar, and just looking at today’s obnoxiously strutting and preening rappers creates the same reaction in me. But a profound difference exists in what messages the songs’ words convey.

There have always been songs of protest, but until fairly recently, most were at least based on hope. (Even the Nazi anthem“Die Fahne Hoch” was rousingly upbeat.) How much hope can be found in today’s music…if you’re able to understand one word out of ten?

Throughout time, each generation’s popular music has been decried by former generations as indicating the decline and fall of civilization as we know it. Ours is no different, and the world will undoubtedly survive the aural onslaughts of what passes for popular music today. But I am willing to bet that “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” will be around long, long after “Yo! F...k You, Muthaf....in’ ‘Ho Bitch” has been flushed down the toilet of time.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Spam and Oil

The oil gushing from the seemingly endless BP Gulf oil spill is, in some ways, not unlike the uncontrolled gushing of spam into the sea of cyberspace. One is toxic to the environment and the planet, and the other is toxic to the mind and soul. And both are definitely, definitely crude. So here is another futile attempt to skim off just the tiniest fraction from the surface, presented, as always, exactly as it oozed onto my computer screen.

"Work 2 hours a day from Home! 950/week." (I note you don't specify 950 what. Even if you mean dollars, do you think I'd work 2 hours a day, 7 days a week for a mere $67.86 an hour? No wonder you have to resort to spam to find someone willing to accept slave labor wages!)

"Be included in this year's edition of the prestigious Cambridge Registry...." (Oh, lord, I love it. I can just imagine how "prestigious" some fly-by-night publication is if they have to troll the internet for people to put in the thing.)

"RE: 1,000 dollar Sam's Gift Card Survey - You've Received* $1000 Sam's Gift Certificate..." (Well, I applaud them for putting that asterisk in there, so you can't say you weren't warned.)

Edward "Re: Re: hi bud" (I'm not your "bud", Edward. Go away.)

"I want sale you rolex,,or other grat watch. do you want?" (Well, it's hard to resist such a smooth, high class sales pitch, and I'm sure all your watches are grat....but I'll pass.)

"Friend are you? - Dear friend: 5 Please forgive us to disturb your precious time. all products of our; Computers...." (No, Yoda, Friend I am not. Now go away.)

"congratulations YOU have a $131,O0O commission check waiting!! - Yes that\s RIGHT...YOU have a $131,O0O co....." (And exactly how much is $131,O0O in American money?)

Earn_Money Without_Constant Effort! - Seeking financial freedom? The secret is out...Click Here...."
(Sure! Why bother actually working for a living when you can follow the advice of some spammer? I do hope you won't mind if I don't "Click Here.")

"I NEED TRUST. - I NEED TRUST. The Chief Auditor/Information manager, In-Charge of Foreign Unit African....." (Oh dear, sweet Lord!! I honestly don't know what to say in response to this one! I only wish I had a gun and this idiot's address.)

Mrs Grace Harlow: "PLEASE I NEED YOUR URGENT ATTENTION - Dear Friend. Greetings in the name of God / Allah, Please let this not s...." (Oh, Grace, it won't. And you have my full attention! And my trust. Now, where's that "Delete" key?)

henry "Re: Re: yo mate - hi frank...I quit my job. Now I'm making $8000-$15000 by 'working' 4-5 hours a...." (Yo, henry! You're so full of shit your eyes are brown.)

"Work from home positions paying up to $75 an hour..." (All right, class: who can pick out the key words in that grabber? Anyone?)

"Read My Story - Earn Money Without Constant Effort..." (Hey, man, I don't need to read any further; I'm in! I mean, why bother to work for my money when some bozo I've never heard of can tell me how do it out of the goodness of his heart?)

"Equipment for you.' He proceeded very gallantly to do this. I cou -Pment in a shell-hole behind. It was somewhere..." (Now please tell me: do the trained seals who write this gibberish actually believe it will entice someone to open the rest of the message? I shudder to think the answer is obviously 'yes.' Terrifying!!)

Well, more than enough for now. Every time I do one of these spam-based entries, I pray it will be the last. It never is.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

"I Sing the Body Electric"

Walt Whitman's classic poem demonstrates how one human has the ability to sound notes within others, and enable them to identify completely with the message. Such words are comforting proof that each of us is part of a whole. We all have favorite books with which we identify, sometimes without recognizing exactly which specific chords in them resonate most strongly. But it is poems and song lyrics which, by the very nature of their compactness, have a uniquely and directly powerful ability to encapsulate our own, deep-down outlooks, attitudes and core beliefs. Given that most of us are far more often exposed to songs than to poetry, I'm quite sure that each of us can point to at the lyrics of at least one song--probably several--and say "this is me."

This past weekend, I went to see a production of "Cabaret," which I had never before seen on stage. It was an example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts in that while some of the cast members had good voices, they played the part of their character rather than being the character and therefore the spark of magic which makes some productions magical was missing. But there is no question about the power of songs which comprise the show.

All of which is a roundabout way of getting to the point that I've always been able to lay out my entire interior makeup in a the words of a few songs. One song in "Cabaret"--"Maybe This Time"--has always grabbed me by the heart and described my sense of longing as well as if not better than I could ever do myself. (Turn on your mental stereo and listen to it carefully. You're hearing me--and perhaps, if you do not have someone to share your life, yourself.)

With all the emotional rigidity of a blade of grass, I am frequently moved by songs, and believe I did a blog on them before at one time. But after "Maybe This Time" re-entered my head, where, as is my wont it has stubbornly remained ever since, I decided to select three song lyrics which, even if you knew absolutely nothing about me as a person, would paint a trompe l'oeil self-portrait.

I chose three because while one could be a sketch, a portrait is seldom done in one color. So I selected
"Maybe This Time," to perfectly mirror my life-long search for romantic love, which I still have hopes, however unrealistically, to this day.

While my being gay is not the only thing that defines me as a human being, it has been a preeminent influence, and my entire life has been colored by it. My attitudes toward--and defiance of-- bigotry and stupidity and those who would dictate how others should live their lives were formed and have evolved from it. Hence, the second of my three defining songs: "I Am What I Am," from Jerry Herman's "La Cage aux Folles." To me, it defines the word "pride."

And the third song...the one which encapsulates my view of everything I aspire to and know I shall never fully realize, is "The Impossible Dream," from "The Man of La Mancha." Can you possibly imagine what the world could be like if everyone "strove, with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable stars"? I can.

I note that the underlying theme of all these songs, and the underlying theme of my existence, is, as noted in my reasons for choosing "Maybe This Time," hope. With hope, anything is possible, any star eventually reachable. Without it, there is nothing.

So there you have it. I am what I am, and I cling to the impossible dream in hopes that maybe this time...

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Simple Delights

Yesterday I received an email. Not exactly "Stop the Presses!" news--I just checked and see that my G-mail "in" box contains 24,441 of them--but this one triggered both my Little-Boy-delight and The-Past-Is-Now buttons.

The email was from Diane Kopp, a girl I worked with at Security Mutual Insurance Company...the second job I ever held after leaving college. Diane and I hit it off right away. She was charming and funny, and we became good friends. On a couple of occasions she joined Norm and I and some other friends on weekend trips to my parents' cottage in Wisconsin. But as our friendship grew, I became concerned--probably wrongly--that I might be conveying the wrong signals to her, and so one day I told her that Norm and I were more than just friends. She was the first straight person to whom I admitted being gay...and I was 26 years old! (To re-read that last sentence and see the word "admitted", as though I was confessing to being an axe murderer or child molester, gives you an idea of the times in which gays and lesbians then lived.)

Diane took it all in stride, and we remained friends after I left Security Mutual, but when I moved to Los Angeles in 1966, we lost touch. I thought of her frequently throughout the years, wondering what had happened to her, whether she'd married and had a family. But there was no way I could get in touch with her...until, 50 years later, I got her message. And once again, the fraying ties to my past were reinforced.

I wrote her immediately, and hope we may pick up our friendship where it left off so many years ago.

We each have special people in our lives; people who hold a unique place in our minds and hearts even though we can't pinpoint exactly why. Diane is one of those people, and I find it hard to describe how happy I am to have heard from her. I have been, in fact, extremely lucky to have had two other such re-establishments of friendship in the past six months or so. Ted Bacino--with whom I was in Cub Scouts at St. Elizabeth's Social Center in Rockford, Illinois, and with whom I continued being friends throughout grade school, high school, and my first two years of college before I left for the NavCads--and Effie Foulis, another founding member of my college "gang."

To re-connect with friends from long ago is, to me, indescribably comforting. It is a safety line in the increasingly blinding and frigid blizzard of years. And by clinging to firmly to that rope, I can look back through the blur of years to see, however dimly, light from the windows of a world long gone, and feel the warmth it represents.

Each reconnection with someone from my past sets off a falling-domino-like cascade of long forgotten memories. People, places, things, visual images, smells, and a myriad of tiny details spring to life. Being reminded of shared memories through the other person's eyes also sharpens the focus. (I mentioned that Diane and I had worked together at an insurance company. It was in the Loop, but for the life of me I couldn't remember where. Diane's note mentioned its being at Jackson and LaSalle. I still can't picture the building, but you can be sure the next time I go to the loop, I will walk by Jackson and LaSalle and see if I can't catch a glimpse of an oh, so much younger me going to work.

I'm so grateful to Effie, and Ted, and Diane, and for their friendship over all these years. There are so many more old friends out there, waiting to be found.

It is the totally unexpected pleasant surprises, the serendipitous little pleasures and simple delights, which remind us what a precious gift we have in being alive.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Sleep

I slept until 6:45 this morning, and can't remember the last time I slept so long. My mind has a build-in alarm clock which is set for no later than 6:00, no matter how much I would like to sleep longer. Why it didn't go off this morning, I don't know, but I am duly grateful. Perhaps it was the fact that it rained steadily all night and, with my windows open, the sound lulled me.

Normally, as I say, I wake up like a tree full of owls between 5:50 and 6:00, no matter how tired I am or how late I'd gotten to bed the night before.

I've read that we spend fully 1/3 of our entire lives asleep, and far more is not known about sleep than what is known. Unless getting to sleep, or remaining asleep once we get there, is a problem, we tend, as with so many things in our personal existence, to simply accept it and very seldom if at all give it any thought. That's logical, I suppose, since so much of the detail work of our daily functioning is put on autopilot. We just trust our bodies to know what to do without our conscious instruction ("Lift left leg. Move it forward approximately two feet. Place left foot on ground and shift body's weight to it. Lift right leg. Move it forward...")

Sleep is essential to our existence, and those cursed with chronic insomnia know the toll lack of sleep can take. There are a even a handful of scientifically documented cases of someone dying from lack of it--a specific condition the name of which I cannot recall. It is a singularly unpleasant death. Yet, again, we are generally blissfully unaware of exactly how this essential bodily function works and what all it does for us.

The amount of sleep each individual requires varies. A number of famous people, Thomas Alva Edison among them, are said to never have slept more than two hours at a time. The general consensus now seems to be that between 6 and 8 hours a night falls in the "average" range, although there is mounting scientific evidence that most of us do not get enough sleep, and that our daily lives and our productivity suffer from it.

A lot of people nap on a regular basis, even daily, and though if I take one nap every two months it is noteworthy, I often find them counterproductive, waking up from them more tired than when I laid down. Plus, I tend to see a minute spent napping to be a minute taken away from things I really should be doing. But I stand in something akin to awe of friends for whom a nap (or two) is an integral part of their daily routine.

I have always been fascinated by the fact that, though we cross the boundary between sleep and being awake every night of our lives, we are never aware of actually crossing it. We're just awake one minute and asleep the next. We've all experienced a frightening and potentially deadly example of this while driving while we are very tired. We're driving along a monotonous stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, bored and/or tired, and with absolutely no awareness of any change, we're lying in a hammock with a glass of lemonade--only to be jolted awake by the car's front tires going off the edge of the road and the adrenaline rush of pure terror which accompanies it.

We all know that sleep is often important in healing and physical regeneration; we all lie down and take a nap to get rid of a headache or to help get rid of a cold or the flu. People with life-threatening conditions are often put into induced comas to aid in healing.

On a nightly basis, sleep provides a form of housecleaning service, sorting and rearranging and clearing up the mental clutter we've created and accumulated while we're awake. Sleep gives the brain the chance, in its own strange way, to deal with our unresolved problems and issues, usually in the form of dreams. To me, if sleep is a form of medicine, dreams are the spoonful of sugar Mary Poppins suggests we take it with.

Excuse me. I just sneezed. Do you think I should go lie down for a bit?

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Pureed Horses

No matter what you say about me (and please, say something!) it cannot be denied that once I latch onto something, I never let go. These blogs are a case in point. I have several basic themes which I return to over and over again, to the point where even I am tempted to say "Okay! I get it! Enough, already!" But in my own defense, I truly see myself, having travelled so far down this pothole-filled road we call life, as something of a tour guide, saying, "Watch out for this!" "Be careful of that!" and, particularly "Appreciate what you have while you have it, for you won't have it forever!"

This latter caveat is particularly true in the case of mind and body. While a 20- or 30- or 40-year old cannot possibly be able to really understand what lies ahead for them, the strange thing is that they may see it clearly in others older than themselves.

Tell a typically healthy 20 year old who jogs every morning that the day will come when the mind may want to jog, but the body won't do it. It isn't because the body won't do it so much as it can't, and though mind and body have been a team since birth, there comes a time when they begin to go their own separate ways. It is, for many, a disturbing and often terrifying realization. We all pay lip service to the fact that one day we will be "old," but we don't truly believe it. As someone accurately said, "old is twenty years older than you are." You may one day be shuffled aside by society for being "old," but I never will.

I've always loved my body. Not because it was beautiful or really outstanding in any way, but because we fully understood one another, and we worked effortlessly as a team. What the mind wanted, the body was, for the most part, both happy and willing to provide. But very slowly things change for all of us, and you realize that your mind wants things your body cannot so readily deliver as it once did. And this gap grows wider with each passing year.

I tried running for the bus today, and shudder to think what anyone who saw me might have thought. I ran with the grace of Frankenstein's monster--clump-lurch-clump-lurch-clump--, who I see myself as resembling more and more strongly as time goes on.

I've bored you to tears, I know, with the piteous tales of what tongue cancer and the radiation that eliminated it did to me, and how precipitously my life had changed as a result of it. The fact, though, is that it merely accelerated the process.

Before attempting to run for the bus, I thought of stopping in to my local Kentucky Fried Colonel for an "extra crispy" breast. I love extra crispy breasts. But I knew full well that if I did get one, it would not taste as good as my mind told me it would...having no saliva to process flavors is a real downer...and that I would eat perhaps 1/8 of it and put the rest in the refrigerator where I would run across it in a month or two and pitch it. A waste of money, and a waste of food, and I hate wasting food more than money.

Why do I insist on beating you over the head with all this stuff? Why must I not only beat a dead horse, but puree it? Because it is human nature to accept the things you have and to assume that because you have them now, you will always have them. I am a poster boy (though I both realize and appreciate how many blessings I still have, and I never discount them) for taking things for granted. I go over this same ground time and again not as a bid for sympathy for me, but to make you stop and think just how lucky you are to have what you have.

I was blessed most of my life, and I never fully appreciated everything I had until I no longer had it. I don't want you to make the same mistake.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Lies

We all lie. Lying seems to be an integral part of human nature. I don't like lying, but I do it--as seldom as possible, but I do it. There are an infinite number of types of lies, but lying is basically a defense mechanism; we do it most commonly as a form of self protection when the truth may get us into trouble.

While truth is often subjective (it is absolutely true that I hate mushrooms, for example, while it may also be absolutely true that you love them), it is in fact largely malleable to some degree based on each individual's interpretation and experience. But in the final analysis, lies fall into two basic categories: those told of perceived necessity and those told solely to gain some advantage. Because lying is ubiquitous, the former vastly outnumber the latter, but it is the latter that can and often do result in incalculable damage.

The vast majority of lies are simple responses to questions, and therefore largely subjective based on the liar's personal opinion. They are often gentle lies to protect the feeling of others. ("Do these pants make me look fat?" "Do you really think I have a chance?") Children and teenagers, who do not yet fully understand the consequences of their lies on others, are particularly good at them ("No one likes you!"). It is the lies of adults--those who know full well the consequences of their lies and simply do not care--which are inconceivably unforgivable. The sole purpose of deliberate, calculated, predatory lies typified by the contents of any computer's spam folder ("My dear friend. I am Mrs Mjeba Qnobe, widow of the Finance Minister....") is to take advantage of the trust, hopes, innocence or gullibility of others is inexcusably contemptible and the sociopaths who create them deserve a far more harsh and severe punishment than they will ever receive. They should be infinitely grateful that I am not omnipotent, for I would be a wrathful god, indeed.

We are lied to constantly, and what bothers me most is that corporate liars not only know full well they are lying to us, but they know we know they are lying to us, and they just don't care. The most egregious and common of these lies are the ubiquitous "Your call is very important to us," and "Due to an unexpectedly high volume of calls...." Any company which said just "Thanks for calling. We'll get to you as soon as we can" would have my business for life.

The sad fact is that we live in a world of lies and liars. We have been conditioned to being immersed in a cesspool of lies, and we accept even the most obvious of predatory lies without a word--a fact of which the liars take full advantage. Lies are toxic and erosive, eating away at the most solid of beliefs, yet we are surrounded by them, and we breathe deeply. By our unwillingness to stand up to a lie, we become complicit in it. (Interestingly, there is a website called Snopes which does an excellent job of debunking the lies scattered like pollen over the internet. I urge you to check it out the next time you find yourself readily accepting some claim your mind tells you is not true.)

As I say, I lie of perceived necessity from time to time--though even then I prefer to evade or sidestep whenever possible. I honestly can say I cannot recall ever having lied solely to gain an advantage, though I undoubtedly have. And I would never knowingly lie specifically to hurt another human being--even one who I hold in utter contempt (and while there aren't very many of these individuals, there are some). This does not make me a saint. I hope it makes me a responsible human being, and it is not egocentrism to say I wish there were many, many more like me.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Pass the Salt

I've often thought of my mind as a popcorn popper. A steady stream of small, hard kernels of thought keep dropping into the space between my ears and go round and round until they burst. While searching for a possible topic for today's blog, a kernel of thought with the word "blog" on it dropped into the constantly-rotating kettle of my mind and an instant later with an inaudible "pop" it became what follows.

My first "official" blog was posted here on February 25, 2007, followed by 551 (now 552) more, bringing us to today. Each blog averages around 750 words. That's about 714,000 words. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" clocks in at around 552,919, and the average word count on the list of Great Books is 136,604. Therefore, I have outdone Tolstoy by the length of one Great Book, with a 24,472-word novella to spare! (Yes, I'm painfully aware that quantity does not equal quality. But, hey....)

And in the single paragraph above I have fairly well explained why I refer to all my blogs as "Volleys from a Loose Cannon."

My popcorn-popper mind simply will not shut down, and I have almost no control over what kernels drop into it or which ones pop or don't. I seldom even attempt to figure out why. To be able to catch a single thought from among the hundreds forcing the kettle lid up and pouring out might be considered quite a feat were I able to be more selective in which one I grab. But there are far too many of them to be able to have that luxury very often. For each thought I do catch, countless others just cascade out and disappear forever.

But I do enjoy catching whatever thoughts I can. Like all forms of writing, blogs can be both therapeutic and cathartic, and they almost always are for me. Taking a closer look at them and putting what I find in writing provides not only the subject matter for my blogs, but challenges me to expand on it, understand what the thought means, and what lies behind it. Each kernel of an idea which explodes into what eventually become a blog means something, even if I can't always figure out just what it is. But I catch as many as I can, and lay them all out in individual, unrelated blogs and hope someday someone might put them all together and read something into them which I cannot see.

Without question, one of the most enjoyable things about my odd compulsion to capture as much of myself as I possibly can in blogs--and my insistence upon telling you far more about me than you could possibly want to know--lies in the fact that you actually read them! To my great surprise and delight I have discovered, from what people who read these kettle overflows have told me, that I am not nearly so unique as I like to think I am. When I pick up a random thought to examine and lay it out in front of you with a little boy's pride in showing you what I've done or what I've experienced or what I've thought, the response is far more often than I could have thought, "Yeah, me too!" And the person saying it is often as surprised as I am.

I think the advantage I have over most people is that I do not hesitate to talk openly about things most people do not feel comfortable in talking about at all, or to which they never have given much if any conscious thought until I mention it. There is a strange human tendency to hide things not only from others, but from ourselves. While I'm sure I am guilty of this myself, it surely has to be to a far lesser degree than most people. And I find the realization that I am not as isolated as I have always assumed I was to be oddly comforting. To think that my ramblings may inspire you to come to the same realization from time to time would be a high form of flattery.

Having a mind that works like a popcorn popper isn't always fun, and trying not to be distracted from one task by the beckoning of a dozen others is often counterproductive to getting anything constructive done. Yet, for better or for worse, I've learned to live with it, and if you enjoy a piece every now and then, so much the better.

Pass the salt, please.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

Notes from My Mom

With everything going on in my life recently, I've too often found myself scrambling around at the last minute for an idea for the next blog. For some reason--and those three words are becoming my mantra--I remembered that in addition to my mother's having kept, at my request, all my letters home while I was in the Navy, I kept those from her and my dad. I've not looked at them in years, I fear, but set out to find them to see if they might spark an idea for a blog. I've never shared my parents letters to me with anyone before, but as I started re-reading words written by my mother more than 55 years ago I was once more caught up in the whirlwind of time, and one again then became now.

Because I didn't have an address the first week after I left home for Pensacola on August 13, 1954, Mom began a letter and added to it until she got my address and was able to send it off. The words may appear to be black letters on a white monitor, but I can hear her voice I hear as I read them.

Here are just a few snippets from those first letters, starting with August 17, 1954.

Dear Son:

Since we don’t know just when we’ll get your address, I’ll write something every day to keep you posted on the news, and mail it in one letter this time.

I’ll get your “Wonderful Town” record this Saturday. Maybe by getting one you particularly want every now & then, you’ll have quite a collection when you get home on leave.

Dad & I went to bed about 9:30 Monday night—we kept wondering where you were at that time. Stormy didn’t sleep on your bed—he stayed on the big rug in the back bedroom.

Have you been issued your clothes yet, son? If so, what? And do you know what your pay will be?

Thursday morning—I woke up with a bang about 5 o’clock, thinking of you. Just what were you doing about seven—Florida time—eating breakfast?

This letter is really a jumble, isn’t it? It was grand getting a card from you dear—at least we know you’re OK. Hope those shots won’t be making you feel awful. Maybe you’ll get time to write a letter & tell us more details—I hope.

As I’ve told you before—I wouldn’t trade you for a farm—or a million. We’ll write, and please try to do the same whenever you can son.

If there’s anything you want, let us know.

P.S. I called Dad & told him we got the card—he’s tickled too for we’ve been waiting every night. He wants to write tonight too, so I’ll have to hold all this till then

20 August, 1954

Just a week ago we took you into Glenview, and I’ll bet a lot has happened to you since then. We’ve been hoping to hear from you, but of course we know you will write as soon as you can. It sure is lonesome without you—I hate to come home after work, but of course it’s no use in moaning. I just keep trying to remember you will be able to come home eventually, and I’m sure you’ll have some interesting experiences, and see things you wouldn’t otherwise see.

We’re sure anxious to hear from you. Every time they play “High and Mighty” (which is pretty often), I wonder what you’re doing, and where you are. Guess I told you I’m getting your “Wonderful Town” record tomorrow. It sure was a good show, wasn’t it?

Please give us all the NavCad news you can—it’s very interesting, and we can sort of picture what you’re doing. Sounds like your barracks are pretty nice, with that kind of a view. Does the PX carry just about everything?

I hope you get a chance to phone home some night this week. It’s always so good to hear your voice, even though when I hear you, my mind goes blank , and I can’t think of anything I wanted to say to you.

****
Simple letters. Nothing deep, nothing profound, just one mother's words to her son flowing through 55 years of time, and just this instant, as I realize that, it breaks my heart.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.

The Boy With the Poppyseed Buns

The single driving force behind these blogs is the fact that, having lived every moment of my life within the container of my body, I still do not have any idea of how my mind works, and why it works the way it does.

Last night for absolutely no reason "The Boy With the Poppyseed Buns," a poem I wrote several years ago, inexplicably came into my head. I hadn't been thinking about poetry, and can't remember the last time I wrote a poem. But for some unknown reason, this particular poem, deliberately written with Rudyard Kipling macho bravado overlaying a sense of deep loss, has some strange, special significance for me. Exactly what that significance is, I cannot say.

I may actually have done a blog on it at some time in the three years I have been writing blogs, and if you've been with me long enough you may remember it. But I feel oddly compelled to put it up again as yet another exhibit in the anatomy class of my soul.

The Boy With the Poppyseed Buns

It was just break of day in the Spanish café,
the time when the first church bell tolls.
My tongue painted brown from a night on the town,
I’d stopped in for some coffee and rolls.

The place was renowned for the best food in town,
it’s pastries were lighter than air.
I’d arrived just last night on the Calcutta flight,
and was hungry for non-curried fare.

As the blaze of the day spread throughout the café
with the stealth of the incoming tide,
a form appeared in the doorway
not even the sunlight could hide.

His silhouette carved out of broad sunbeams
cast a cool shadow ‘cross the rough floor.
I fought the sun’s glare as I squinted to stare,
knowing somehow I had to see more.

I made out a young man about twenty,
with a face like an archangel’s song.
A youth of such exquisite beauty,
it sounded my heart like a gong.

Short hair black as night framed a skin smooth and light,
and eyes deeper blue than the sky.
Beautiful men? Seen again and again,
but none who so made my heart sigh.

He stepped to the bakery counter;
in a voice that could warm up dead suns
he asked the flour-flecked baker
for an order of poppyseed buns.

His eyes swept the room’s few, blank faces
and settled, at last, on my own.
His mouth curved into a slight smile
that few mortal men can have known.

I sat there as if struck by lightning,
his beauty had riveted me so.
Before I could regain my senses,
he picked up his package to go.

I wanted to get up to follow;
to not let him out of the door.
I wanted to say: “Won’t you sit? Won’t you stay?”
But my feet were as nailed to the floor.

He paused briefly, there in the doorway,
and turned to me with a slight nod
And then he was gone and I sat in the dawn
and cursed an insensitive God.

I rose to my feet and rushed into the street,
but the young man was nowhere in sight.
It was if he had gone with the just-vanished dawn,
leaving me in perpetual night.

His smile still casts beams that light up my dreams;
his eyes I can never forget.
Of all men I’ve had, many good, many bad,
it’s his face that stays with me yet.

I’ve run with the bulls in Pamplona,
I’ve scaled mountains in far-off Nepal;
I’ve found buried treasure worth wealth beyond measure,
but I lost the best treasure of all.

I’ve seen tigers at play down in old Mandalay,
fought duels with sabers and guns...
But I’d trade it away for just one quiet day
with the boy with the poppyseed buns.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.