Clinging to Trees

Frequently, news reports of flash floods will feature someone clinging desperately to a tree while the waters roar and roil past. And as I watched such a scene the other night, I had another of my little metaphorical epiphanies: each of these scenes is a pretty good metaphor for life. The churning waters are the flash floods of events and situations beyond our control that so often come upon us suddenly and threaten to sweep us away. And the tree to which we cling is hope.

Over the course of our development as a civilization, societies have tried to build dams to prevent the flooding of situations and events from carrying us away and destroying us. But too often of late, it seems, certain sociopathic individuals, for their own reasons, insist on deliberately opening the floodgates for the sole purpose of creating as much damage to our institutions and disruption to our individual lives as possible. That there are so many of our fellow human beings not only willing to but intent upon sweeping away everyone with whom and everything with which they personally disagree. It is hard not to despair, as the rushing waters engulf us, and not to lose our grip on the tree of hope.

Like many old sayings, "those who cannot create, destroy" contains a strong element of truth. Take a moment right now to seriously try to remember the last time you heard a truly positive, conciliatory, inclusive statement or proposal from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, the far-right media, or the more extreme members of congress, who base their power on destroying rather than creating.

Where does this obsessive need to play to our negative emotions come from, and why? The impetus for this blog came from an e-mail forwarding sent me by my cousin, a kind, loving, decent human being I adore. Yet the article she forwarded was devoted to a new Fox "poll" so egregiously and obviously divisive and inflammatory in intent that I couldn't believe she or anyone could possibly give it credence. But because it appeared on the internet, I assume her assumption was that it had to be true. Here is the gist, taken from the forwarding: "Fox is running a poll about whether the flag should be banned in schools in order not to inflame Hispanic students."

Dear Lord, dear Lord!! Who in their right mind could possibly, possibly believe this could be true? "Inflame Hispanic students"??? By what possible logic could anyone assume that the presence of a flag could "inflame" anyone? The implication that "Hispanic students" are not also American citizens is not only totally without merit but beneath contempt.

Remember Ray Bradbury's classic Farenheit 451, in which books were considered dangerous and the primary job of firemen was not to put out fires, but to start them, to burn books? We have a frightening and increasing number of those firemen among us today, whose purpose is to fan the flames of ignorance, intolerance, and hatred solely for the purpose of increasing the ratings of their radio and TV programs. Attention is far more important to them than truth.

I of course realize and truly regret that so many of my own blogs dwell on the negative, and that by so doing I am in effect feeding into the general atmosphere of negativity I condemn. But the more sensitive we are, as individuals, to the world around us, the more disturbing this exponential increase in negativity becomes. We are increasingly becoming desensitized to negativity to the point where we simply accept it and shrug it off. Yet to not recognize it for what it is, or not to consider the harm it is doing is to perpetuate and accelerate the problem.

I see, on rereading the above, that I have once again stumbled into the trap of mixing metaphors and thereby risked diluting the power of any of them. I began with water, and ended with fire. But it is the third metaphor, of hope as the tree we cling to to survive, which is the one that matters most. Water can drown us; fire can destroy us, but hope is the only thing which, when all else is lost, can save us.

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@gmail.com

Acknowledgement, Acceptance, and Compulsion

It's often far easier to acknowledge the existence of a situation or condition than it is to accept it. And compulsion is rather like trying to force a sheet of metal through a paper shredder. It can't be done, but that doesn't stop someone from trying.

Obsessive and compulsive behavior seems to be a popular theme for "reality" shows of late. Its more extreme forms have their own psychological designation--OCD; Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder. Hoarders, people who wash their hands a hundred times or more a day, people who must jiggle a door knob three times before opening it, etc. all suffer from it. We look at these people and shake our heads, wondering whatever possesses them to do these things, and why they can't just, well, stop doing it.

Yet we all know someone who exhibits some milder form of OCD--the compulsively neat, those who insist on ironing their underwear, or who order their sock drawer by color, or who never go shopping without a detailed list. I pride myself on being totally devoid of any of these types of behavior, though there is one small area in which I must confess might be considered by some to be a bit excessive: my excruciating, continual awareness of the passage of time, the aging process that inescapably accompanies it, and my inability to let go of the past or to resist comparing--negatively--who I am now with who I was.

I view the aging process with a mixture of total incomprehension and, frankly, something akin to horror. If we want to live, we must age; it's a totally irrefutable fact. That I don't understand, or rather can't accept, why is a measure of my compulsive refusal to acknowledge or accept reality.

I'm constantly trying to analyze my actions in light of my aging. I know many if not most of them are based in pure logic, and much of that logic is based on cumulative experience. I frequently regret that I don't laugh nearly as much as I used to. Yet much laughter is founded on the element of surprise, and over the years, experiencing the same or basically the same situation many times, the surprise is dimmed, as is the reaction to it. The hilarity of a wildly popular TV sitcom inevitably dims, the longer it stays on the air. Repetition breeds familiarity, and while familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt, it does breed lack of surprise. And thus it tends to be with life.

As we grow older, we walk more cautiously on ice in winter, not because we couldn't walk more assertively but because we've fallen enough, in the course of the years, not to want to fall again.

Physical changes are simply part of the progression of life. They are inevitable--though some people seem more capable than others in forestalling them--and are the increasingly steep price we must pay for the privilege of living. I acknowledge this fact. Really, I do. But I am, to the depth of my soul, unwilling to accept it, and my failure to do so is my compulsion. I do wish I were able to both acknowledge and accept, as most of the world seems to do so easily. I know acknowledgement and acceptance would save me an incalculable amount of unhappiness and frustration. But I simply cannot.

While I take a certain odd pleasure and even pride in my self delusions, I do not delude myself as to who the winner will be in my compulsive battle against time, aging, and reality. I know they will inevitably win, and when they do that I won't be around to care. But while I'm still here, I'll do my best not to accept those things I want so badly to be different.

Once again I turn to the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Well, I'm working on the courage, and I definitely know the difference. But as to the serenity part,.... Well, two out of three ain't bad.

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@gmail.com.

Procrastination

I started to write this a week ago Saturday, then realized that since I wouldn't be posting it until Monday, I could finish it on Sunday...last Sunday, that is. And here we are at yet another Sunday, and the only reason I'm doing it today is because otherwise I would wake up Monday morning and have no blog at all.

I don't like procrastinating, but I end up doing it far more than I want to or should. With blogs, I always intend to build up a backlog of them...you know, sort of like stacking up wood for the fireplace. But on those very rare occasions when I get perhaps two blogs ahead, instead of replacing them as I use them...which would always keep me two ahead, I think "Oh, I don't really have to do a blog for tomorrow...I've got two waiting." And then it's "...I've got one waiting." And then it's "Dear Lord, it's 10 p.m. and I don't have a blog for tomorrow."

I currently have no fewer than thirty...count 'em, 30!...started-but-never-finished blogs. Were I to finish them, I wouldn't have to worry about writing another blog for ten weeks! But will I finish them? Well, sure, but it will take a long time...some of them are only a few sentences or paragraphs long, and I really have a lot of other things I've been putting off that I have to get to first.

I suppose I could find some small degree of pride in considering myself an equal opportunity procrastinator, but there are limits to my self-delusion. And frequently I find ways to combine doing things now with procrastination. I do laundry early every Friday morning, for example. I can easily overlook the fact that it is only because I've generally run out of things to wear by Thursday night. So I do the laundry. But rather than remake the bed immediately, I set the full basket of finished laundry on the bed, intending to fold everything, put it away, make the bed, etc. "shortly." But I really should check my email first. And suddenly it is 10:30 at night and the full laundry basket is still sitting on the bed. I have been known, I'm embarrassed to say, to simply throw the top sheet over the bed, and go to bed, just pulling the covers over me, sleeping on pillows without cases. But I always make the bed the next day. Really.

I have a tiny kitchen. Tiny as in "miniscule." Very few cabinets. For lack of room, I have only four large drinking glasses, trying to avoid running out of them...and thus be forced to wash dishes...by washing each out carefully for reuse. But somehow I put off washing the glass I most recently used and have to take out another clean one. Repeat sequence until I have absolutely no choice but to do dishes, even though I may still have a perfectly clean fork and two unused spoons in my silverware tray.

I'm very good about not putting off going to the doctor if I suspect something might conceivably be wrong with me. But some time ago the doctor suggested I see a urologist (I am, alas, at the "see a urologist" age). He didn't indicate that it was mandatory, but I determined to do it anyway. Did I? Not until I saw my regular doctor again last week for a general physical and he asked if I'd seen the urologist. When I said "no", he told me to do it. Oh, okay. Since he took it out of the "suggestion" phase and put it into the "do it" phase, I did it.

Writing books is a somewhat different animal, but sometimes not so much. I've promised my publisher back around September that I'd have The Peripheral Son, #14 in the Dick Hardesty Mystery series, in by February. But at that point, Caesar's Fall hadn't been released yet, and there was no real hurry. And here we are with the book only half written, and....

But I take refuge in the fact that it hasn't really, technically, been procrastination, but the necessities of constantly promoting the books I've already written, and maintaining a sometimes-several-times daily presence on Twitter and Facebook and various other web groups and sites I belong to, and keeping up on emails and...oh yes, in writing blogs on procrastination.

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@gmail.com.

"Clank/Clunk/Clickety-Whirrr"

I stand in awe of people whose minds operate like a digital clock; who process linear thoughts smoothly and effortlessly. If their thought processes were made audible, they would produce a soft, unwavering "hummmmm." My own mind operates more like a 1898 John Deere Thresher held together with baling wire and duct tape, the almost deafening "clank/clunk/clickety-whirrr" of its operation making linear thought difficult if not impossible.

As happens so frequently when I get ready to write a blog, I actually did have a topic in mind: talking about the possibility of cutting back from three blogs a week to two. But before I could even start the first sentence...which, you'll notice from what I actually wrote above, has nothing whatever to do with blogs or the cutting back thereof...a million other thoughts began tumbling out of the Fibber McGee's closet of my mind. And the result, as always, was a sense of frustration over my lack of ability to concentrate on any one thought long enough to actually complete it.

But, with the computer screen blank beyond each word as it is typed, I really should try to fill what remains white with my original intent for this particular blog: talking about cutting back.

Clank!

When I first began these blogs, I was doing one every day. Even if I weren't trying to write books at the same time, the impracticality of this schedule soon became evident, and I reluctantly dropped back to three blogs a week. I'm not sure whether it's a matter of my having gotten even busier over time, or if I'm growing lazy, or if--the least likely of the three--I'm running out of things to say, but I am finding it harder to do three a week.

So why not just do it? I don't need anyone's permission.

Clunk!

Problem is, I feel an obligation to those kind enough to follow my ramblings. I am a sponge for the validation that knowing people actually read what I write gives me. Therefore, at bottom it, like everything else I do, is pretty much all about me and my unregenerate egocentrism.

Having written nearly 500 blogs, I've also considered, rather than keeping in touch with you even one day less frequently, writing two new blogs a week, and reposting one of the earlier blogs (which I already do, from time to time, when for some reason I just don't have a new one ready). But I will be having two e-book compilations of my blogs coming out later this year, and don't want to overdo the reposting.

Griiiiiiind!

Or perhaps I might just look on my blogs not as blogs, but as letters from me to you. Basically, that's what they are and always have been. I presumptively assume that if you read my blogs, there's something in them that you like, and in my simplistic thinking, that makes us friends in my mind, even though we may never have met in person.

Clickety-Whirrr!

Ah, the sound grows louder as more and more thoughts flood in, and the fields of thought stretch out in front of me to the horizon, waiting to be harvested.

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@gmail.com.

Ursula's World

I've long ago given up wondering what triggers my thoughts and memories, but for some reason I found myself thinking of my friend Ursula. I'd never in my life met anyone like her before, nor have I since. And doubt I ever shall again.

I met Ursula while I was living in Northern Wisconsin. She was well-known in the area as being an eccentric rock of a woman who, in her 70s when I met her, lived alone on a 20-acre farm on which she raised sheep. She also sheared them and spun their wool into yarn, from which she made mittens, scarves, and various other items. She had electricity but no running water and no toilet.

I knew Ursula was Jewish before I met her…there were very few Jews in the area, most of the residents being either Finnish (to work the forests) or Italian (to work the mines).

I worked part time at a supermarket, which is where I first met her. Knowing she was Jewish, I wished her a happy Rosh Hashanah during the holiday, and she took a liking to me, and gradually I learned her story.

She did not willingly talk of her past, and it was only in small bits and pieces, over time, that I learned some of her story. She was born in Germany of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father, and she had one older brother whom she adored. When the Nazis came to power, she and her family were shipped off to a concentration camp for "half-breeds." Though spared the gas chamber, their life in the camps was incomprehensible to those not experiencing it.

At some point during or immediately after the war, her beloved brother was beaten to death by a group of Nazi thugs.

On February 13, 1945, she was on a prison train which was stopped at the outskirts of Dresden as the infamous firebombing of the city began. Over 100,000 people died in the firestorms. Ursula and others on the train were forced to go through the destroyed city retrieving bodies.

When her camp was liberated at the end of the war, her mother and father went out for a walk, leaving the confines of the camp for the first time. Her father was shot and killed while on that walk…I was never sure how, why, or by whom, but it didn’t matter. Murder is murder.

Somehow finding her way to the U.S.--again, I have no details--Ursula married a Serb emigre and had two daughters. The marriage was a disaster, and they were divorced after Ursula moved to Chicago. She managed to buy a small house and raise her daughters. During the riots of the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago, Ursula was convinced that what had happened in Germany in the 1930s was happening in America. She sold her house and moved to Northern Wisconsin, where she bought her farm. She became estranged from her daughters, who moved away as soon as they could.

I would visit her frequently, and she would call me to ask to pick up a few things from the store for her. She had a large garden, and always kept me supplied with vegetables in season. She mowed her own lawn, using a scythe and a push lawnmower.

She, I, and a gay mutual friend (one of only about 10 gays in a 100 mile radius) built a 30 x 60 foot barn for her sheep, largely out of materials salvaged from the various collapsed buildings around her property. She was fiercely, fiercely independent and resourceful.

She was also literally paranoid in her fear of any form of authority figure. When the government had installed an "ELF" defense tracking system throughout northern Wisconsin, every low-flying plane or passing helicopter became an omen of danger.

We talked every day on the phone, and she would always say "We have to watch out for one another: you never know what might happen."

And then one day I tried to call her. That there was no answer wasn’t surprising: she was always out of the house tending to chores. But when after five or six calls with no response, I began to get concerned. She usually told me when she was planning to go somewhere, and she’d mentioned nothing. Finally, after about the eighth call, I was truly concerned. For some reason, I was unable to drive over (it was about a 20 minute drive) to check on her, and so I called the Sheriff’s office and asked that if they had a car in the area, they might stop and check to be sure she was okay.

I heard nothing further, and later that evening, I called again. Ursula answered the phone. I asked what had happened, and she said she had just been outside working. She then said: "You had no right to call the police. I do not want to talk to you anymore." And she hung up, and that, despite my efforts to explain that I only called the police because I was concerned for her, was, except for a few cursory accidental meetings at the store during which she was painfully uncomfortable, the end of our friendship.

I was truly sorry to lose her as a friend, but I realize that in her eyes, I had done the unforgivable: I had called her to the attention of the authorities.

I heard Ursula died last year. Though I was no longer her friend, she was still mine. I miss her.

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@gmail.com.

"They"

I've spent probably an inordinate amount of time, over the course of my life, pondering the riddle of how I can be a part of humanity and yet so often feel totally apart from it. I've come to the conclusion that I view my relation to other people...and specifically to heterosexuals...rather like a cat or dog views people: living among them every day, quite fond of a number of them, hungry for and appreciative of positive attention from them, and yet having absolutely no concept of what it's like to be one of them.

Of course, I suspect that I may not be alone in viewing the rest of humanity as some strange, conglomerate "They." And again, one of the reasons I write these blogs is an attempt to let those who share my thought and views on matters seldom talked--or probably even consciously thought--about know they're not alone. Too often I see my relationship to the rest of humanity as not only a matter of "me" and "them"--but often as a matter of "me" versus "them".

From my infinitely limited perspective, in looking at the rest of humanity as "They," I'm painfully aware that "They" have the unquestioned and overwhelming advantage in everything. "They" glide effortlessly from day to day, cutting through the life's problems like the bow of a ship cuts through a stormy sea, unfazed.

"They" know not only how to read instruction manuals, but how to understand them. ("Carefully undigitize the Prenalyzer from the Bliggerostometer before attaching the Spratzer." Of course! What could be simpler?) For "them," Tab A always, always slips into Slot B without the slightest effort.

When a box of cereal says "lift flap to open," "They" simply lift the flap and the box opens. They don't end up tearing the lid off the box in frustration. And they can close the box again, too, by slipping the tab into the slot. "They" can open a bag of potato chips without spending five minutes tugging and pulling with mounting frenzy until it bursts open with such force that it scatters the contents of the bag all over the room.

"They" can confidently order something online--a pair of pants, say--and, when the package arrives, open it, put on the pants, and go happily on with their business. I have never, ever, ordered any piece of clothing on line that fit, let alone bore the vaguest resemblance to the illustration in the catalog from which I ordered it.

In social situations, "They" always blend in seamlessly with everyone in attendance. "They" always have something interesting or profound or witty to say, and all the other "They's" hang on to every word, laugh at every joke and understand everything everyone else is talking about. If music and dancing are involved "They" unselfconsciously and with great enthusiasm move to the rhythm. "They" all know how to dance, and move gracefully when not dancing. When engaged in conversation with several people at once, "They" speak in complete sentences. "They" never have to stop ten seconds after saying something and wish they'd said it differently. When witty repartee is called for, "They" are at the top of their game, thrusting and parrying to the delight of all. "They" are bubbly as champagne; I tend to be more like stale beer.

"They" are almost never unsure of themselves. "They" waste little second-guessing their actions. "They" are confident of every decision and accepting of--even if not always happy with--the outcome. "They" don't spend inordinate amounts of time wishing they had done something they had not done, or wishing they hadn't done something they did do. "They" accept the past and move on without more than an occasional backward glance.

Still, it's kind of nice to think that if perhaps you might feel pretty much the same way, I might be able to look at the world in terms of "Us" and "They" instead of just "me" and "them." I've always preferred "us" over "me" anyway.

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@gmail.com.

Endings and Beginnings

Leaving one year and entering another is not unlike leaving the familiarity of one's home and stepping into the chill, impenetrable fog of the future. Going from year to year is quite different from going from day to day, in that we are far more aware of the fact that one part of our lives is ending, and another beginning.

So just as one bundles up with a familiar coat or sweater when stepping into a chilly fog, when I step from year to year, I like to wrap myself in something of the past to remind me of who I am and was.

As I leave today, I'm taking with me a letter written to my parents 55 years ago today. Like most of the days of my life, it's nothing special, but it is a part of me and I never want to lose it.

31 December 1955
9 p.m.

Dear Folks
No mail in almost a week—what’s wrong? Every day I look for it, thinking it’ll be sure to catch up, but it doesn’t. Oddly enough, I keep thinking “Grandpa Fearn’s dead and they’re waiting till after the funeral.” Don’t mean to be morbid and God forbid anything happening to Grandpa for at least fifty years. But you should write more often and let me know what’s going on.

Tonite is New Year’s Eve and, like Christmas, is just another day. There was a time—I especially remember 1944 when each year going out seemed like a major tragedy—I waited up (you’d gone to the Moose Club) and watched the year going, and wished and wished it would stay; 1945 sounded alien and unbelievable, where 1944 was old and familiar. And here it is 1955-56—the changing of a number—a new set of calendars, and a year older—nothing more. I may not even stay up to see the New Year in.

Please tell me all about Christmas, and what everybody got, and what you did Christmas Eve. And if Dad didn’t stay home all day Christmas day, I’ll be mighty displeased with him. Of course, neither of you will say, but I’ll find out when I get home (225 days!)

Have you made that picture appointment yet? I’d like both of you in it, if it can be arranged--and don’t be satisfied with the first shot they hand you if you don’t like it, have them take several so you’ll have a choice.

If it’s halfway decent tomorrow, Nick and I and a couple of the other guys are going to Pompeii—by cab. It’ll be cheaper in the long run and we can spend more time there. I like Pompeii, dead as it is, a thousand times better than Naples, Genoa, or Cannes. I’ll hold judgment on Gibraltar, and won’t include Paris, since there is only one Paris.

I’m feeling fine—my cold is still hanging on by its fingernails. Someone stole my flat-hat (my little blue bonnet) and I’ll have to wait till Wed. to buy another.

I’ve been given my own little calculator (borrowed from Disbursing) for the duration of inventory; all my very own—to love and to play with and to keep forever and ever. And I just played with it for a while. Oh, what fun! To press the little buttons and hear it hum and sing to itself as it thinks out the answer. Oh, joy! …. EH!

Someone once said a man with an abacus could beat a calculator. I’d like to try, but you would be amazed at how few abacuses (?) we have on board!

Well, tempus fugit, though I wouldn’t know it, not having a watch. By the way, that is not a hint. I’ll get one when I have the money, not until. Anyone who is ass enough to have a watch stolen right off his arm while he’s stone sober deserves to go without for awhile.

More later….WRITE

Love
Roge

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@gmail.com

Aphorisms Redux

I sometimes suspect that in a former life I was employed by a fortune cookie company. My mind is constantly churning out pithy little profundities that should be encased in a thin sugar-cookie shell...or be tatted on throw pillows by grandmothers everywhere. But actually, I really do like aphorisms and sometimes am rather pleased by (okay, proud of) the ones I come up with. And in this age of Twitter and ever-shortening attention spans, aphorisms deserve far more respect than they get.

I've started making a little collection of my own little bits of wisdom which I would like to share with you here. It's probably best not to try to consume them all at once--too many can have the same effect as eating too many of those little marzipan Peeps at Easter. But I know you won't have the time to keep coming back to this particular spot, so I'll just lay them all out for you to do with as you will. (Royalties are not necessary; credit would be nice.)

Those who scoff at or are dismissive of older people who can no longer do what THEY can do are being blind to their own future.

Falling in love is easy. Having that love reciprocated is not.

Writers spin webs of words to capture passing readers.

Routine is the path of least resistance for daily life.

Egocentrism is a shield behind which those who feel they have nothing much else to offer the world hide.

Life is a winepress. We are grapes.

It isn't that my life doesn't have direction. It's just that I can't read the compass.

We cannot always defeat evil, but we can always refuse let it defeat us.

Thanksgiving is not so much about what we have on our table, but what we have in our heart.

Poetry is to prose as expresso is to coffee.

Expecting altruism to win out over greed is like expecting a chipmunk crossing a railway track to derail a train.

The blind are not swayed by a pretty face.

The mind questions; the heart knows.

The future is fantasy, the past is reality, and now is the infinitely thin line between the two.

Time is like a highway; it's not that the road moves, but that we pass down it far too quickly.

The true value of a gift lies not in a purse or wallet, but the giver's heart.

May the future grant us all the wishes that the past has denied.

Greed has no conscience.

Just because we can never know the answer does not mean we should stop asking questions.

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@gmail.com.

A Christmas Letter

Dear Mom and Dad:

How does one write a letter on a Christmas Eve to parents dead more than 38 years without sounding maudlin? Considering how very much I still miss you after all these years, it probably won't be easy, but I'll try.

I wanted to say thank you not only for the gift of my life, but for all the countless sacrifices, large and small, you made to raise me, educate me, and send me--however reluctantly--off into the world. I could never, in twenty letters, enumerate them all. Though you were never wealthy, or even well off, you both worked hard all your lives to see that I never wanted for anything of real substance.

I am so incredibly sorry that it took me so very long to realize just how much you loved me, and that I did not tell you every single day how much I loved you. I apologize sincerely for the pain I caused you in lashing out at you simply because I knew I could; because I knew I could be as mean and spiteful to you as I wanted to be and you would still love me.

Mom, how could I ever possibly repay you for giving me my love of words and my senses of humor and irony. You nourished not only my body, but my imagination, and gave my soul wings to soar above reality.

Dad, I only wish that I could have appreciated how hard you tried to teach me how to be a man as you saw a man should be. I admit that much of what I learned from you was how not to act--that there were rules of being a man you adhered to that I did not have to apply to myself. That we fought so hard for so many years, and that I did not see how frequently and deeply I hurt you, is one of the greatest regrets of my life.

But it wasn't until I began to realize, through some strange form of mental osmosis, that you were not just "Mom" and "Dad" but "Frank" and "Odrae"--individual human beings as flawed as anyone else--that my appreciation for who you were and what you went through on my behalf really began. But because it was such a slow process, you were gone before I had the chance to act on that realization and react to you as people.

I really do not want to go into specific memories here--there are so many. Even setting aside those involving disagreements and arguments and unhappiness and anger, there are so many more of warmth and love and joy and the sense of belonging that were I start to remember them now, I'd be unable to continue writing.

So let me just say that it is only now, so very long after you've both gone, that I can fully realize and comprehend how deeply and totally and unconditionally you loved me. They say you never fully appreciate something until you no longer have it, and it is all too true. You did your best to let me walk in the sunshine, and the warmth of your love still envelops me. Though I cannot believe in a traditional
God, or in a Heaven or a Hell, I do hope that these words might somehow reach you and let you know how much you meant...how much you mean...to me.

With love,

Roger

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@gmail.com.

The Fine Line

Odd how one picks up small bits and pieces of poetry, songs, sayings, etc. from God knows where and carries them throughout life.

One of my favorites, probably from my grade school days when I was becoming aware of profundities, is "He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, he is a fool: shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is ignorant: teach him. But he who knows and knows he knows, he is wise: follow him." Too bad more people don't adhere to this very helpful guideline. Which brought me to the subject for today's blog.

The gap between stupidity and wisdom is awesomely wide, whereas only the very thinest of lines separates stupidity from ignorance--a line so thin the two are often and easily confused. Ignorance is, by definition, simply a lack of knowledge, and can be overcome (and I can't help but observe that the core of the word "ignorance" is "ignore"). The true test of who is stupid and who is ignorant lies in their awareness that the line exists and in the willingness to cross it. Both stupidity and ignorance are, in effect, prison cells with unlocked doors. The ignorant may be unaware that they are free to leave; the stupid have no desire to. A fool operates on the principle of the old cliche "Don't bother me with facts; my mind's made up."

As a general rule of thumb, stupidity is defined not only by the absolute refusal to even consider any opinion that differs from their own, but by the frequently zealous denial of the right to have them. Ignorance is lethargy; stupidity is too often unapologetically evil.

In a recent exchange on Facebook, I quoted Polonius' advice to his son, Laertes, in Hamlet: "This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not be false to any man." It evoked the following comment: "Why don't u use English?" I responded with a modern-English interpretation of the quote, to which the same person replied: "U mean be true to urself!" Yes, that's what I mean.

I did not automatically assume the questioner was stupid, but I was both mildly shocked and saddened by her ignorance. Ignorance can be cured; stupidity is terminal. And to me, the most terrifying thing is that while the line cannot be crossed from stupidity to ignorance, there is a great danger of crossing the line in the other direction. Ignorance can too easily become stupidity.

We are a nation of ignorance seemingly sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire with each succeeding generation. Studies and reports show how terrifyingly ignorant our general public is becoming. Ignorant parents tend to raise ignorant children. When a shocking number of teenagers read far below their grade level, when they do not comprehend basic math and science, when they cannot find China on a map, it is time for grave concern.

Alarm bells have been rung so loudly and so long that we are becoming deaf to them. The ignorant aren't quite sure what they mean, and the stupid neither know nor care.

The fact that stupidity has taken such a firm foothold is in large part due to its vociferous proponents, who confuse volume and intensity for validity. Listen, if you have the stomach and tolerance for it, to religious zealots and talk-show "pundits" and see if you can find even the hint of anything positive anywhere in their ranting. That there is nothing positive in stupidity is painfully self-evident.

Is there a lesson here? I'd hope it might be this: never, never confuse those who claim to know for those who do know. How can you tell them apart? Your mind may not always know, but your heart does.

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@gmail.com.

Year's End

A recent edition of CBS's 60 Minutes had a piece on people who clearly remember, literally, every day of their lives. I have difficulty remembering this morning. And so when I got a "looking back at the year" note from a friend, I decided to make one, too. It didn't take long to realize that it, like most other things in life, would be easier in theory than in practice.

But I'll give it a shot. Let's see...this year...2010, right? No, no, that isn't possible. I can still hear the factory whistles celebrating the arrival of 1944 on New Year's Eve at my home in Rockford, Illinois. I'm eleven years old! No, wait. Um.... Let me think.

Ah, yes. I took my first trip to New York City this year! I went with my friends Zane and Stu, and I saw "Can-Can" and "Me and Juliet," and...uh, nope. That was 1953, I think.

My Uncle Buck died...the first relative I ever lost, and I totally lost it at his funeral. I can remember it clearly. What? Ah, yes, that was 1953, too.

Well, I joined the Navy in August, and...wrong again. 1954. But I remember my first solo flight as a Navcad, and having my tie cut off and being tossed into the swimming pool as part of the ritual. That was only a couple of months ago, surely. No? 1955, you say?

Well, Europe. Definitely Europe. This year. Yep, we arrived at Gibraltar on my 22nd birthday. 22nd? Then why is the image of a wrinkled old man looking back at me from the reflective surface of the computer monitor? Oh, that was 1955 too. But surely having the watch stolen off my arm in Naples on Christmas eve had to be...wait, it's not Christmas yet.

Marc and Michel and Yohachim and Guntar and swimming in Cannes...surely that was this past July! It had to have been.

But no. Well, college graduation. Moving to Chicago. Meeting Norm. All this year. Definitely. What?...1958? Oh, come on!

Breaking up with Norm and moving to Los Angeles and my dad dying and Mom moving to L.A. to be near me and then dying herself of lung cancer and meeting Ray and moving to Pence and Ray's death from AIDS and my closing the Bed and Breakfast and working in a health food store and then a supermarket and then as a paralegal and watching the twin towers collapse and being diagnosed with tongue cancer. All this year! No further than a couple of months ago...maybe weeks, maybe days.

No?

Moving back to Chicago, then, surely! (2006? Are you sure?)

I shake my head and stare at the monitor in disbelief. It is 9:53 p.m. (clocks do not lie) Sunday night as I write, and I feel the years, this year joining all the others before it, draining away as quickly as water rushing from an unplugged sink. I sense something behind me, but I cannot turn my head far enough to see it, which is just as well, for I know it is a line of tomorrows. I do not know, nor do I want to know, how long the line is, but I know that each tomorrow is holding a small card, waiting to be handed to me. And I know, too, what is written on each card: "SURPRISE!!"

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@gmail.com

History and Me

On Saturday, 18 January, 2010, congress repealed the egregious "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which kept the estimated 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in the United States armed forces not only from being open about their sexual orientation, but forced them to live in fear of being summarily dismissed should that orientation become known. Thousands of qualified men and women, many of them in key positions necessary to the efficiency of their service, suffered the humiliation of being thrown out of an organization they had willingly joined in order to serve their country.

I was raised in a society and a time where the subject of homosexuality was never mentioned in other than the most pejorative way. Homosexuals were looked upon with almost universal contempt and had no legal rights or recourse against harassment and persecution. It was simply accepted that they deserved anything anyone wanted to do to them. I remember hearing my own father tell family friends about how, when he was a teenager, he and some of his buddies used to go out looking for queers to beat up. I never asked why he did it...he wouldn't have had an answer other than Sir Edmond Hillary's reason for climbing Mt. Everest: because they were there. And because they deserved it.

When I joined the U.S. Navy in 1954, one of the questions I had to answer was: "Have you ever had homosexual tendencies?" I answered "No" truthfully, on the grounds that they weren't "tendencies," they were part of my existence.

From the minute I was sworn into the Naval Aviation Cadets through the time I spent in the "regular" Navy, I was constantly aware of the sword over my head, and that it could drop at any moment. Between the ages of 20 and 22, when heterosexuals my age were giving free reign to their extremely high libidos, I had no form of real emotional or physical contact with anyone. While a NavCad, I did have one gay friend among my fellow cadets, but the possibility of or opportunity for other than a casual friendship was out of the question. When I left the NavCads and went aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga, with 3,000 other men, one might imagine I'd be like a little kid in a candy store. One would be wrong. I knew full well my survival depended upon staying on the outside of the store, looking in, but being careful not to be seen looking in. Even when on liberty in some of the largest cities in Europe I did not dare to go anywhere near places where I might hope to find other gays.

I know that of the 3,000 men aboard ship, statistically at least 300 of them had to be gay. Some 50 years later I encountered an officer who had been aboard the Ti when I was, who was as paranoid as I was about being discovered to be gay. The personnel officer aboard the Ti was a prissy Judas Goat who tricked one of the guys with whom I worked, who everybody "knew" to be gay, into admitting he had once had an encounter with another man. We we were at sea in the middle of the mediterranean when he "confessed". The kid, a little younger than I and a gentle, sweet, decent human being, was flown off the ship in the middle of the night lest he contaminate the rest of the crew! Had I not already been paranoid about being found out before, I certainly was after that incident.

The Navy...as well, I'm sure, as the Army, Air Force, and Marines...was equally paranoid about the horrors of having homosexuals in their midst. I remember a story I heard many times on the Ti about a reported incident aboard the cruiser USS St. Paul, involving 35 to 350 (depending on which rumor you heard or believed) caught up in a homosexual "ring," necessitating the ships return to port for mass discharge of the offenders. The St. Paul was widely referred to throughout the fleet as the "Snookie-Poo." Whether this was true or not, I can't say, though you can be positive that if it were, the Navy would go to any length to hide it.

But gradually, with glacial slowness, things have changed until we reached Saturday, December 18, 2010. All the injustice, all the trauma and humiliation and bigotry and cruelty born by so many decent men and women who wanted nothing more than to serve their country honorably, is coming to an end. And I can guarantee you than, in two years, if anyone even remembers that there was a time when we were denied so basic a right, the response will be to wonder what the fuss was all about.

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@gmail.com.

Tangible Thoughts

After finishing the sending out of more than 500 holiday e-cards (I know, a lot of people hate them, but tough cooky!) to the readers and prospective readers on my mailing list, I then turned my attention to writing a blog for tomorrow.

I brought up a blank screen and poised my hands over the keyboard, ready to begin. It was only then I realized I hadn't a clue as to what to say. The screen and I engaged in a staring contest. It won, though my hands remained poised until they slowly sank of their own weight to rest their heels on the edges of the keyboard.

What does one say when one can think of nothing to say? (Well, I suppose one can ponder the possible affectation of one's using the word "one" too often.) It's a temporary condition, I'm sure...probably just a delayed reaction to typing all those names and email addresses, which tend to dull the mind. This situation is, in fact, not all that uncommon. I frequently start a blog without having any real idea of where I'm going to go with it. It's kind of fun, sometimes, like starting out on a walk through an unfamiliar woods without knowing where you'll end up or what you may come across along the way.

Okay, so I'll do a blog on a walk through the mental woods. Good. Went to the top of the page and titled the blog "A Walk Through the Mental Woods." And as soon as I typed it, one of my little mind voices (I gave Dick Hardesty a similar trait) suggested it should be "A Walk Through the Mental Ward." Okay, scratch that title.

(In case you haven't noticed, you have, however willingly or unwillingly, joined me for a brief journey on my train of thoughts.)

Thoughts. Now there's a topic. Mental telepathy aside, thoughts are incapable of being conveyed without the use of either the voice or the written word. (We'll leave the argument of the various forms of art being a valid means of conveying thought to another time.)

While I am very poor at what they call "multi-tasking"--doing more than one thing at once--I find it nearly impossible for my mind not to be running off in several directions at the same time. And not one of them worthy of a tinker's dam until it is written down. Spoken words are "now"...once they leave the mouth, they are irretrievable and gone forever--which does not mean, however, that they are not capable of becoming ghosts which return to haunt you. When I speak I seem incapable of saying what I want to say in the way I want to say it.

Thoughts are a gas; written words are a solid. If need be, a written word can be touched, and cut out of a piece of paper and rearranged. Anything that can be touched can be controlled. I may not know, as I look at the stacks and piles of seemingly random written words, exactly where--or even if--they fit into a larger picture. But I know that, again, is one of the reasons I write. It is only by putting things down in writing that I'm able to arrange them in some semblance of order. In writing, each word is like a piece of the puzzle. They can be rearranged, and moved around until I find exactly where they should go.

I in fact frequently have the protagonists in my books refer to the mystery they're trying to solve as a jigsaw puzzle. I guess that's pretty much the way I see my own life. My mind constantly churns out an endless array of thoughts that I am always in danger of being overwhelmed by their sheer volume. Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, I know there must be a reason why they show up, and that most of them belong somewhere. But it's only by putting them in writing that they become tangible, and enable me to get an idea of where they belong in the overall picture of my life.

And so I have, as I always do, managed to have found another picture in the jigsaw puzzle of thoughts to come up with a blog, and perhaps demonstrated something of a thought process which, I can hope, may not be all that much different than your own.

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@gmail.com.

Fifty-Five Years

Wandering, as I am wont to do from time to time, through the letters I wrote my parents while serving in the Navy so very many years ago, I came across the following, written within the week of fifty-five years ago. And, as always happens when I do this, I am transported back in time, and then is now. And I miss it.

18 December 1955
Naples, like—Conrad has his teeth out; how revolting can one person be?—almost every other city in Europe, is filled with contrasts and contradictions. It is not a particularly pretty city, and were it not for the bay and the looming hulk of Mt. Vesuvius in the distance, it would be completely non-distinguished. Its buildings run from the sturdy clean sweep of the post office to the Victorian pomp of the King’s Arcade; from the graceful lines of modern, American-occupied apartments to the scarred walls of tenements. The impression given is that the war has just ended, and the city has come out second best. Flies and lean cats inhabit most of the restaurants—the streets are filled and haunted by vendors, pushers, and pimps. Boys of seven and eight beg for cigarettes—and smoke them!

Via Roma, the “main drag” resembles a side street in an American business district. This illusion can be maintained until coming to a corner and look at one of their side streets! The buildings are old, heavy, solid—unbroken by doors and windows. Wherever there is a door, it appears to have been carved out of the thick walls as an afterthought. No signs or marquees—the occasional neons are close against the wall.

The clothing styles, both men’s and women’s, are nothing short of hideous. In the race for most outrageous costumes, men are far ahead; the women’s are just drab. The men wear ghastly tweed pants—huge sharkstooth zigzags. The jackets—I can’t in truth call them sport jackets—are generally of the same pattern, but different enough so that they grind, if not clash. Plaid thick shirts, similar to those worn by American lumberjacks, and screaming ties. All these fit like shrouds, only not as graceful. Women’s apparel is tending toward the American, but still frequently one finds the “typical Italian mamma”—black tie-shoes, black stockings, black dress, black shapeless overcoats, and black hair piled stiffly on the head, held with a black combs. If these mammas are accompanied by young girls, they invariably wear heavy brown velvet-like material, of the same texture of theater curtains; buttoned to the neck. No lipstick, no powder—just “blah.”

The uniforms seen frequently on the street are either policemen or soldiers—I never did learn which was which. They are of a thick, olive-drab material almost like burlap, shapeless and singularly unattractive, even to the smallest degree. Their only distinguishing marks are a single tarnished small metal star on each lapel; some of higher rank wear lapel insignias of red with gold flaming swords.

Latest flash—I’ve made arrangements to call home the 24th. Since I don’t speak Italian and the guy at the telephone office didn’t speak English, I had one heck of a time trying to make myself understood. For one thing, he obviously could not conceive the meaning of Rockford Illinois. Rockford, USA fine. I told him there were many Rockfords in America. He’d nod his head patiently, understandingly--and left it Rockford, USA.

So—I’ll be going to the phone company at 7:30 the night of the 24th. That will make it about 1:30 back in the States. I figured you’d probably be let off at noon, being as how it’s Xmas eve. Now, that doesn’t mean I’ll get a line at 7:30—and I can only wait until 11:00, since I’ve got to be back at the ship at 11:30. Therefore, if you don’t hear from me between 1:30 and 5:00, go ahead with whatever you had planned. And don’t be too disappointed if I can’t make it—as I said, with 10,000 guys wanting to call home, things will most likely be rather confused.

Just got back from my second night in Naples—it’s a dirty city with a few polished places, and looks as though the war had ended yesterday instead of ten years ago. I’ll go into greater detail in ye olde journal, but I want to get this sent off immediately. You’ll probably get it on the 27th.
Love
Roge

Fifty-five years ago! Dear Lord!

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.

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This, Too, ....

One of the wonders of being human is that, while we among all living creatures on earth are aware of the concepts of the future and the past, stretching out endlessly before and behind us, we must pass between the two on the tightrope of "now"...the present.

Impatience is also a mark of our species, and we too frequently ignore our past in our anticipation of the future. To speed up that which cannot be hurried, we have created a technology which we intended to serve us but which increasingly controls us. And as technology encroaches upon our humanity, we become more and more frustrated--and from frustration comes anger.

In a recent blog I observed how, up into the latter half of the 20th century, song lyrics told stories. Some were sad, of course, but very, very few of them could be said to be angry: fewer still espoused hatred or literally seethed with anger.

What has happened? Why have we changed? This anger increasingly permeates our entire society. Why is everyone so angry? Why am I so angry so much of the time?

The answer is as simple as it is depressing: the less control we see as having over our own lives, the more helpless we feel, the more frustrated we become, and frustration shows itself most clearly through anger. Every time we pick up the phone to try to talk to a human being who might actually give a damn about us or our problem at some behemoth, faceless corporation we are reminded in no uncertain terms just how little power we really have over even something so simple as a phone call. And who, after sitting there holding the receiver listening to 10,000 blatant and insultingly condescending repetitions ("Your call is very important to us"/"Due to unexpectedly heavy traffic"/"Please stay on the line and your call will be answered by the next available representative" ) does not get the clear message, "We don't know who you are, we don't care who you are, we don't care about your pathetic little problems. All we want from you is your money."

It's difficult--nearly impossible, at times--not to despair. Our government is at a standstill. Those whose job it supposedly is to govern our democracy instead devote their energies to throwing roadblocks in front of any idea, no matter how logical and potentially beneficial, proposed by the opposition. It is nearly impossible to know what those running for election or re-election will do if elected, or how they will go about doing it. Their primary aim is to viciously attack their opponents.

Standing apart from ourselves--not easy to do--can provide a unique insight into the relativity of things. What do so many of the things we become frustrated about really mean, at base, to our lives? In retrospect, being put on hold for 45 minutes is infuriatingly frustrating, but, really, what difference does it make in the larger picture of our day to day life? Well, the answer to that is, again, that we pass through time from one nanosecond to the other, and while we're enduring those infuriating on-hold waits or struggling through the myriads of individual problems which beset us all, there is no way to escape or avoid them.

Ten years in the past is as close as yesterday afternoon. Ten years in the future might as well be eternity.

Yet despite all the our ranting and raving and despair for the future, perhaps the single most fascinating and positive thing about human existence is that we persevere. We still hope. We still, somewhere under all that frustration and anger and discouragement, cling to the belief that things will get better. There is, somewhere in the depths of our soul, the awareness that no matter how bad things may be at any given minute, "this, too, shall pass." It is our salvation.

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@gmail.com.

Whether It's Cold,....

Remember that old kids' rhyme: "Whether it's cold or whether it's hot, we will have weather, whether or not"? It was one of my first encounters with wordplay, and I've always remembered it.

I love weather's unpredictability and delight in the largely futile attempts of weather forecasters to get it right. Whenever they predict heavy rain...which I love...I know I can pretty well leave my umbrella at home. I often wonder why they bother.

Living as I did so long in northern Wisconsin, in the heart of Lake Superior's snow belt, I delighted in the heavy snow most winters would bring. I didn't particularly like digging out my car--especially when, as happened not all that infrequently, the snow would be even with the top of the hood--but to sit inside and watch it fall...or, with blizzard conditions, listening to the wind shake the house while whipping the snow horizontally past the windows...was always a delight.

By comparison, Chicago weather, and particularly the winters, are tame. The city comes to a standstill on those very rare occasions when we get more than six inches of snow. Bunch o' wusses!

I enjoy looking out the window in the morning to see the clouds from the previous night's storms breaking up and patches of blue sky appearing. I love waking to rain, wind, and a world saturated in deep, pensive grey. When I first returned to Chicago and was staying with my now-dead but still dear friend Norm in his 35th floor condo, I would be mesmerized whenever fog or low clouds would totally wrap around the building and obscure the view of the towers of the Loop in the distance.

I always delight in days other people consider gloomy or unpleasant. I find them restful and soothing. They're like putting on a thick down jacket on a cold day, completely enveloping and isolating me from the cares of the world. I put them on a par with the serenity of walking through a cemetery reading tombstones. (No, I am not weird, thank you. A bit strange, perhaps, but....)

For some reason, we generally are incapable of remembering weather from one year to the next. People always seem to claim the current year's weather to be the most severe--the hottest, the coldest, the driest, the wettest--in memory, though it almost never is.

I've often said that one of the main reasons I left Los Angeles after eighteen years was because I grew tired of every day being June 25th, and of being able to confidently plan a picnic six weeks in advance. Even when it did rain, Mother Nature didn't really seem to put her heart into it. Far more drizzle than drama.

Perhaps because I am so given to melodrama, I have always loved thunderstorms; the more violent the better. I've told the story many times of scaring the bejeesus out of my poor mother when I was a teenager. I'd gotten out of bed during a severe storm in the middle of the night to stand at my bedroom window to watch it. I stood between the drapes and the partially open window, and my mom came in to close the window she didn't see me standing there until she pushed the drapes aside.

Somber days are conducive to contemplation, reflection, and thought (synonyms, I know, but each with it's own subtle differences), and weather and life have strong parallels. I suspect the proportions of sunny to stormy to grey of weather are about the same as happiness, sorrow, trauma, and joy are to human life. Perhaps to emphasize this parallel that I often paraphrase the old saying "into each life a little rain must fall" to "into each rain a little life must fall." Works for 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@gmail.com.

Waste Not, Want Not

My apartment is on the rear of my building, overlooking a service area adjacent to the alley. There is a huge open-topped dumpster almost directly below my bedroom window, and whenever I look into it, as I did just now, my frustration level soars.

They are renovating several units in the building, which necessitated the outsized dumpster to handle the debris. But when they began stripping the apartments--they completely gut each one--I was dismayed to see perfectly good kitchen cabinets and countertops, sinks, doors, and even gleaming white toilets just pitched into the dumpster.

Frequently, one of the many senior citizens who live in the building will die and the entire contents of the apartment...everything...not claimed by relatives will be thrown out with absolutely no regard of its potential use or value to others. Chairs, tables, desks, couches, books, bookshelves, televisions, clocks, pictures. Pitched. Just pitched. The waste is staggering, especially considering how many people would have been happy to have made use of them.

There are scavengers who roam Chicago's alleys in battered pick-up trucks, gathering whatever they can salvage and sell, but the dumpsters used here have 10-12-foot-high sides, making them next to impossible to see what is inside, let alone get into without a ladder. Thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of reusable items utterly wasted. And the dumpster I observe with such dread is only one in a city of nearly 4 million people!

And yet when I asked the manager of my building how they could possibly so cavalierly dispose of so much reusable material I got excuses involving the possibility--no matter how remote--of bedbugs to the claim that the removed cabinets and doors not meeting standards, etc.

What good does all this talk of recycling for the good of the planet do when things which so clearly can and should be recycled are not? I'm not talking cardboard boxes and aluminum cans, here, but furniture, utensils, appliances, decorative items--the things which give individuality to one's life--which could be put to good use by so many people who have so little.

Yet even when I was clearing out my friend Norm's condo, I ended up having to pay someone to come and haul away thousands of dollars worth of furnishings and decorative pieces, and I realized that there are logical, logistical obstacles between altruism and reality/practicality. (I even approached one of the alley scavengers and told them they could have anything of Norm's I was otherwise going to have to, in effect, throw away. I envisioned them selling it all to people who would be grateful to have it for pennies on the dollar, plus the scavengers would make money for their effort. I arranged to meet them at the condo at a certain time. They never showed up.)

I have never been able to just throw away anything I think might have value to someone else. I never order a full meal in a restaurant because I know I will not eat more than six bites of whatever it is I order. So on those rare occasions where I order more than an appetizer, I take the rest home and put it in the freezer, where it sits until I throw it away. And when I do, I feel guilty

I am constantly embarrassing my friends by leaning over to pick a penny off the sidewalk. I vastly prefer potted plants over cut flowers, which are beautiful for a very short time, then are thrown away. As with so very many other things, I honestly feel the world would be a better place if everyone followed my example, and sincerely cannot comprehend why they don't.

We are surely the most shamefully wasteful people in the history of the world. We're constantly being told that our profligate ways will one day come up and bite us in the ass. Well, don't look now, but....

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@gmail.com.

The Pity Pool Redux

As I'm sure you probably have noticed by now, I am infinitely (if unjustifiably) fascinated by me, partly because of my self-perceived isolation from the rest of the world and partly because my thoughts, experiences, and reactions are the only ones of which I have any real knowledge and can speak with any degree of confidence. I observe and form my impressions of the world through my own. And though you may not have ever given it much conscious thought, so do you.

Because we each go through life without ever really being sure what is going on in the minds of others, we each must make our way through the vast jungle of life as best we can. We take cues from what we learn from books, TV, movies, from our friends and families, and from our general observations of others and the world around us. There is, at least for me and I therefore assume for you, the subconscious assumption that somehow everyone else in the world is connected in a way we are not. There's the world, and then there's "me." We are often consumed with doubts and uncertainties we assume do not exist in other people.

Though we try to hide our insecurities from others, somewhere, in the dark forest of our minds, there is a pity pool where the wild regrets and yearnings come to renew themselves when they suspect we may be forgetting about them.

My personal pity pool--again, the only one of which I can speak with any authority--is actually more of a lake which, were it to have a name, might well be Lake Lugubrious. The full extent of the lake is hidden by the thick foliage of daily existence. While I really do try to avoid it, I seem to have built a cabin not far from its shores, from which I catch an occasional glimpse of its expanse. And in the heat of emotion I have been known to take a dip in its murky waters.

There are few things more off-putting than listening to someone go on endlessly with sorrowful tales of their various aches, pains, and endless problems, financial, interpersonal, and emotional. And yet I do it constantly, and should be astonished that you have put up with me this long. But part of me suspects that you do so because you secretly share some of my outlooks, though you are far too mature and discrete to wave them about wildly as I do.

This endless recitation of my woes is not, I really would like to believe, a bid for sympathy: far too many people have had it much, much rougher than I, and I realize it and am embarrassingly grateful that I have had it so relatively easy. But it is partly because I cannot recite your woes; they are as specific to you as mine are to me.

We each have our own reasons for visiting our personal pity pool, and mine for the past six years has tended to be the almost incomprehensible chasm between who I was until seven years ago, and who I am now. We are two different people. Totally different, and yet still the same. I can't fully grasp it, and quite probably never will.

And I excuse myself for all this seemingly "oh, poor, dear Roger" nonsense on the grounds that I am fully justified in loudly ringing the alarm bell to alert you--if you needed alerting--to the fact that none of us is fully aware or appreciative of what we have until we no longer have it, and by then it is too late.

By putting my nose about three inches in front of yours....by invading your "space"....and yelling "Look at me!" I hope you might, every now and then, step back from yourself and be truly thankful for even the smallest, the most simple of things which you do with such thoughtless ease.

As for me, for all the splashing around I do in my own pity pool, the bottom line is that I am still alive and still able to do far, far more than I cannot do. And while I too seldom show it, I am infinitely grateful for that fact.

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@gmail.com.

"Me" Who?

Ah, yes, a question pondered by the great philosophers throughout history: "Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose in life?" (Okay, so that's three questions, but let's not nit-pick.) I don't generally pay much attention to the latter two, but I do find the first one intriguing. The answer is that I am, as are all of us, a great many things. Some of the things are complementary, some contradictory--, sometimes simultaneously.

While I can speak only for myself, I might venture to guess that most people--you, for example?--are like me in having more contradictory components than complementary.

Ever since I saw God as at about the age of 7 (I know, it's a long story...) I've been utterly convinced I was "special"...I gather that belief is shared by most children. But most are gradually dissuaded of that notion by reality. Some of us, though, cling tenaciously to it. In my case, as an adult I remain a little boy in a too-rapidly-aging man's body. I am a sponge for attention and praise yet, like the dog chasing a car, don't really what to do with it know how to respond to it if I get it, and react with genuine embarrassment. I am amazingly egocentric on the one hand, and monumentally insecure on the other.

I consider myself somehow less than other people while feeling superior to them.

Without question, one of the largest components of who I am is my homosexuality. It has shaped and colored every aspect of my life and subsequently is at the very foundation of who I am. Having been, in my formative years, surrounded and bombarded by society's smug insistence that I and those like me were outcasts, pariahs, not deserving of any right society wished to withhold from us, I developed a rather strong case of heterophobia.

Since my earliest years, I have vehemently rejected society's firm declarations that gay men were less than men--I have never for one instant questioned that I am a male, but because I cling so tightly to childhood, I have to admit I've honestly never considered myself a "Man" in the terms of being an adult male. Emotionally, I am not, and never have been. I frankly find the thought frightening, for to me to become an adult means giving up all elements...including the wonders...of childhood.

In my college years through my early 30s it was common for gays to jokingly refer to one another as "she" or "Mary" or "sister." I did not consider it a joke. I would never use those words, and would not allow them to be used (in my presence) about me. I have never identified in any way with being feminine, just as I cannot identify with most heterosexual males I do not know personally. Our society's insistence upon all males conforming to certain totally arbitrary standards of "masculinity" is both incomprehensible and mildly nauseating. I have often said--and you may want to skip to the next paragraph right now if your are of a delicate nature--that our culture sadly measures a "real man" not by his knowledge or his nobility or self-sacrifice or honor or concern for others or for any other quality other than how frequently and how deeply his penis can penetrate a vagina. (And yet another example of my contradictions. Part of me is shocked that I would have actually written that last sentence. But of course another part of me went ahead and wrote it anyway.)

I like to think of myself as a good person, kind and considerate of others. That's how I want to be considered by others. Yet too often I am inconsiderate, thoughtless and insensitive. I hate boors and braggarts, yet I have the ability, when looking into the eyes of someone to whom I think I'm being totally charming, to see those eyes either glaze over or roll furtively skyward, hoping I'll just shut up and go away.

Well, having momentarily run out of things to say, maybe I should do just that.

Oh, and if you can ever answer the question of who you are, could you drop me a line and let me know?

NNew 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@gmail.com.

The Septic Tank

I know you must have been wondering when I would devote another blog to the wonderful world of internet spam. Well, wait no longer. I must admit that I have been rather concerned of late by the slight reduction in the volume of the spam gushing like a backed-up sewer into my in-box, but am sure the perpetrators of this effluvia are merely stepping back for a moment to regroup.

My obsession with internet spam remains intact, as does the stunned disbelief it consistently engenders. That anyone, anywhere, at any time can possibly believe a single word of this egregious nonsense is a far greater mystery to me than the origins of the universe. It does, however, reinforce the confirmed cynics among us who claim that humans can be a nasty and predatory lot--a belief that is constantly reinforced by those who resort to spam as a means to take advantage of the weak and gullible through deceit and lies.

But I digress (surprise!). Here, once again, are a few more examples, scraped off the bottom of the internet's shoes and presented exactly as they were received--and my Pavlov's-dog responses.

"BetterEjacu1ation control, Experience Rock-HardErections on yourPenis..." (As, I assume, opposed to Rock-HardErections on your earlobes?)

"Svetlana 18y.o, I am on-line now, let's chat? -My best wishes to you! I am Sventlana 18y.o I am looking for a man to have a...." (Why, Svetlana, you saucy little vixen, you! How could I resist responding? But I'll manage, somehow.)

Administrator, Olga - "Svetlana 22y.o, I am on-line now, let's chat? -My best wishes to you! I am Sventlana 22y.o I am looking for a man to have a...." (Uh, apparently being on line so much has aged you rapidly, you poor child. But I'm sure you are still the same, sweet, innocent charmer you were when you were 18 about three minutes ago.)

"This will help you 100$ - 100$ is the penis is like a porn star! http://endclaim.ru" (And a rose is like a like a rose is like a rose. I see this was sent from Romania. I wonder if you might consider enrolling in an "English as a 14th Language" course.)

Capt scott j wright - "i have a Business proposal for you. Please revert back..." (Why sure, Capt. I'll be happy to revert back. I'm always eager to invest my money with someone who can't tell the difference between capital and lower case letters. And I'd be proud to serve under your command.)

jennifer andrew - "hello - Greetings. I came here to look for my second half, my soulmate,my friend." (Oh, my dear jennifer, have you come to the wrong place!)

"PLEASE YOU HAVE ADVISED TO KEEP THIS TRANSACTION VERY SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL..." (Oh, sure...it'll be a secret just between you, me, and the 47,000,000 other people you sent it to.)

I suppose it is only natural, given the volume of spam pumped out each day, that occasionally, and I'm sure quite coincidentally, several vaguely similar messages may find their way into your computer's septic tank. Sort of like the theory that if you put 10,000 monkeys in a room with typewriter, eventually they would write every great book in the world. So here are two of these strangely coincidental posts:

"Your mail ID Have Been Awarded $1,000,000,000.00..." (It have? One billion dollars? By whom? Based on what? Why?)

"MICROSOFT PROMOTION. CONGRAT - This is to inform you that you have won $1000000.00 dollars in Microssoft Online Promotion...." (A paltry million dollars? Pikers! But I'll take it. But first, may I humbly point out that when you put a $ in front of an amount of money, most people understand you're talking about dollars. But then I am forgetting the IQ level of your targeted audience. Secondly, is it "Microsoft" or "Microssoft"? It would be nice if you learned to spell the name of the company you're supposedly representing. Someone not in a coma and on life support might suspect you are not completely legitimate.)

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@gmail.com.