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 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” reentered 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....

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Songs

I was recently informed by my cable/internet provider that the company was going digital and that I had to have a digital cable box attached to every television set in my home, at a cost (hinted at but I don’t think ever specifically stated, $2.50 per month). I did not see the need for anything other than what I already have, and I certainly did not need to spend another $2.50 a month for something I didn’t want in the first place. Foolish me.

I now have a digital converter box for my TV, and will be spending $2.50 per month for the privilege. However, after all my bitching and moaning, I discovered that with the conversion to digital, I now have available, through my TV, 40 music channels. Everything to Christian Rock (one of my favorites, as you can imagine), through Jazz and Hip-hop (close seconds to Christian Rock).

However, it also contains Big Band, Standards, Light Classical, Classical, and Show Tunes. I guess I can afford the $2.50. So now I get up in the morning, turn on the computer and, passing through the living room to make coffee and let my cat out of the bathroom (a long story), I turn on the TV to one of the music channels...usually Show Tunes.

While I’ve not been really up on musical theater for several years now, and therefore do not recognize many of the songs, they also have all the classics from Oklahoma! on. They’ve just played a couple of my all-time favorites: “What I Did for Love” (A Chorus Line), “‘Til Him” (The Producers), “Somewhere” (West Side Story). Anyone who knows me can clearly spot a pattern here: I’m a sucker for songs which, to me, speak particularly strongly to gays. They haven’t yet played…that I’ve heard, anyway…“I Am what I Am” (La Cage aux Folles), but I’m sure they will at some point. And if by any remote chance they might play “Tell Me, Please” from Boy Meets Boy—a delightful gay musical that originated in New York and which I saw six times in L.A.—I will be a happy man indeed.

While the words “song” and “music” are synonymous, they are two pieces of a whole: “music” implies a broader and somewhat more elevated range. “Music” carries with it the signature of the human race as one of our finer qualities: songs are music on a smaller, more personalized scale.

Songs have significance to different people for different reasons. First, and almost universally, it has to have a pleasant melody, and second, universally, the words have to have some special appeal or meaning to the listener. Where one first hears a song, under what circumstances, with whom it is heard or with whom the listener relates it…influence an individual’s reactions.

There are a few songs that have a power which transcends its words and its music: “God Bless America” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” are perhaps the two prime example for Americans. Yet I doubt they have nearly the same impact on non-Americans. Such songs reach deeply into our national psyche and trigger powerful emotions we lump together under another powerful emotion: “patriotism.” Songs are often closely tied to specific times…World War II, the big bands, rock and roll…which become part of their appeal.

Your taste in songs…and in music…may differ vastly from mine. But the thing is that we each recognize its power to move us, and its impact on our lives. Play it again, Sam.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Dangling Wires

I sometimes think of my head as a large, unfinished attic with two windows through which I look out at the world. When it came to the wiring of the attic, however, the electrician(s) must have been in a hurry to move on to a more important job. Rather than neatly color-coding each wire and making sure that each went from point A directly to point B, they apparently left hundreds of exposed live electric wires just dangling from the ceiling, so that when the breeze of thought stirs them, they brush against one another randomly, effectively short-circuiting any attempt at linear thinking.

The breeze that comes with music must be especially strong, since it almost always sends me off in random and totally unrelated (on the surface, at any rate) directions.

Yesterday I heard music from one of the great documentary TV series of the early 50s,Victory at Sea, composed by Richard Rogers, and when the main theme came along, I was instantly transported to August of 1953 and to Broadway’s Majestic Theater. It was my first trip to New York, and the first Broadway show I ever saw…Rogers and Hammerstein’s Me and Juliet. The one hit song from that show was “No Other Love,” which was taken note for note from the Victory at Sea main theme.

But once a short-circuit has begun, it tends to set off a string of other sparkings, as this one did. Another song from Me and Juliet was “Keep it Gay” (a song by the same title was used in the more recent Mel Brooks movie, The Producers). I was 19 years old, gay, and in New York on my own for the very first time. Not knowing exactly where to go to find other gays, I went down to Washington Square in the Village, and remember standing in front of the New York Public Library whistling “Keep it Gay,” in hopes that someone might get the message. No one did, alas.

So now we’re short-circuiting on New York/gay memories, and sparking to 1960 when my mom and I went to New York…her first time. I’ve probably mentioned these two memories before, since I tend to repeat my favorite stories. Anyway, we saw The Sound of Music the night Oscar Hammerstein died, and all of Broadway dimmed its lights in tribute.

For some unknown reason, whenever I was with my mom and unable to do anything about it, I would find myself being cruised by guys I’d have given anything to be able to respond to. I remember we were at the top of the Empire State Building and a really nice looking young man took an interest in me. Utterly frustrating, but I couldn’t very well say: “Wait here, Mom, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

When it comes to my writing, my mind’s odd wiring has taught me never to try to plot things out too far in advance. I’ve become rather adept, I hope, at making use of these little electrical “pffffffftzzzzzzzzzz” reactions in my writing. (Well, this blog is a perfect example, obviously.) The best I can do is, when I start a book, to do a stick-figure drawing of the plot, and perhaps, at the very beginning, point to a spot on the horizon and say “let’s try to end up over there.” Writers who can and do draw intricate treasure maps of their books before they ever start writing (“three paces due north from this specific event, turn SSE and go exactly six paces to something else specific,” etc.) is fine for them, but I cannot comprehend how they do it, or why they would want to tie themselves down so securely. Part of the fun of writing, for me, is never knowing what comes next. It’s all up to the dangling wires.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Marching On

A march is playing as I type…a march I played as part of the Naval Aviation Cadet band at a time, it seems now, both only slightly after dinosaurs roamed the earth and yesterday afternoon. And instantly I am back on the parade field at Pensacola Naval Air Station, sweating in the Florida heat, but almost euphoric with the sense of being part of the music and something much larger than myself.

I played the clarinet, and I did not play it particularly well. In fact, I dreaded the very thought of actually being heard as other than a part of the whole band. But I also know that I played far better when I was one of many than I ever could alone.

The need to feel we belong is an elemental but…other than, perhaps, during our teenage years…seldom considered part of being human. Few things promote a sense of belonging more strongly than patriotism, and patriotism is nothing but an awareness of unity and, underlying it, the human need to feel that we belong. There are, of course, both visual and visceral symbols of patriotism and unity: the flag being most prominent of the visual, music…and especially march music…being the most visceral.

Marches convey a sense of power, confidence, boldness, exhilaration, and inclusion which resonate strongly with something deep inside us all. It is not coincidental that the rhythm of march music has been proven to increase the heart rate. (Drums, the very first musical instrument after the human voice, echo the heartbeat. You can’t get much more basic than that.)

To stand on the curb along a parade route and hear the approaching staccato of snare drums and the flourish that leads into the start of the next march…or even better, to be in the band…never fails to create an almost out-of-body experience in me. I love it, and I am not alone…literally.

It has frequently been suggested that “The Stars and Stripes Forever” should be made our official national anthem, and I agree wholeheartedly. Can anyone listen to it without being infused with a deep sense of patriotism? “The Star Spangled Banner” evokes patriotism, I think, largely through a form of osmosis: we’ve been simply programmed for that response. But it doesn’t grab us with anywhere near the power and force, or provide the euphoria of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” No need for programming there; it just scoops us up and carries us away.

I think those of us who have spent much of our lives being made to feel like we are outsiders, like we do not belong, take perhaps an inordinate degree of comfort in anything which tells us that we are not, indeed, alone. Music…almost any kind of music…provides this comfort, this escape from the world. Some find it in opera, others in symphonies or string quartets. But for me, play me a march, turn the volume way up, and I’m gone.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

A Cat's Tale

When my cat Crickett died recently, after 18 years, I determined I’d not get another. Losing any living creature, human or animal, with whom you’ve shared a life leaves a sizable hole in the roof of one’s soul, through which the cold rain of sadness can too freely enter.

But then Gary mentioned that he had gone to PetSmart, a large pet supply chain, with his friend George, who was thinking of adopting a cat. PetSmart gives space to local animal shelters as adoption centers, a fact of which I’d not been aware, but which certainly elevated them in my estimation.

Gary said they’d seen a beautiful 2-year-old named Billy, who was pure white except for a black tail and two small black smudges on his forehead. George had wanted it, but was in the process of moving and thought perhaps it might be too difficult both for him and Billy, with all the confusion.

Well, that set me off, and I went to PetSmart the next day. I truly hate going to animal adoption places, since my heart goes out to all the animals there, and want to bring them all home with me, which is very nice altruistically, but somewhat lacking in practicality. At any rate, on a whim I filed an application for Billy on the spot.

Having done so and given the paper to an employee, I went back to the viewing area and saw there was a section I’d not noticed, and in that area saw a pure black, 1-year-old male named Spirit. I have always had a very soft spot in my heart for black cats, so I asked for the application paper back and wrote in “Billy OR Spirit.” I knew I couldn’t take both, and have always hated making decisions like that, since I never want to hurt anyone’s (not even a cat’s) feelings by rejecting them in favor of someone else.

But the more I thought of it, the more I favored, on a practical level, Spirit. My love of black cats goes back to my beloved Thomas who was with me from the moment I found him abandoned as a tiny kitten in a parking lot in Los Angeles until he died in my lap 17 years later in Pence, Wisconsin. Shortly after Thomas died, I looked out the window one snowy day to see a large black cat in my yard. I learned from neighbors who had been feeding him, that he’d just shown up at their house one day. They called him Sheba, and I took him in.

I’d had Sheba (at the same time as I had Crickett, though Crickett never wanted anything to do with him) for almost 15 years when I decided to move to Chicago. Sheba I’m sure thought of himself as a panther, and he loved prowling the forest across the street from my house. I was always worried about him, what with the predators which roamed the forest, plus his crossing the street to get back and forth. But he was very street-smart, and there was never a problem.

But when the time came to move, I knew I could only bring one cat, and I knew that Sheba could never be happy cooped up 24 hours a day in a small apartment, so with a great deal of regret, which I feel to this day, I gave him to a friend who lived, with her husband, in the middle of the forest, a quarter of a mile from the nearest road. I’ve not checked to see if he is still alive. The chances are very slim, but I simply don’t want to know. That way, he will always be young and sleek, stalking wild mice through the tall grass.

Which brings us to Spirit. When I mentioned my plan to adopt him to a friend, he pointed out that a black cat named Sprit was wonderfully fitting in light of my new Elliott Smith mystery series, which deals with spirits. So back again to PetSmart with considerable guilt to change my application from “Billy OR Spirit” to just “Spirit.” After considerable back-and-forthing and will-they-or-won’t they, they called yesterday to tell me I could come pick Spirit up. He is, thus far, a sweetheart, who craves attention (something we have in common), and who insisted on sleeping with me last night...something Crickett never did. I do hope Crickett won’t mind.

Oh, yes, and when I went to pick up Spirit, Billy was gone; adopted by someone else, which greatly reduced my guilt.

So I have embarked on a new adventure, albeit a small one. But adventures, even small ones, keep us young.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Catharsis

When I knew she was dead, I picked her up from the kitchen rug on which she had lain, barely moving, for two days, and laid her on her blanket. I folded the blanket over her, picked it and her up, and put them into a large blue plastic bag. I got the box I’d saved for the purpose, and put the bag, the blanket, and Crickett into the box. It was not an easy fit, but after considerable gentle readjusting of the bag, I managed. I got a roll of clear plastic box tape and closed and sealed the box. I then carried it to the elevator, rode down to the first floor, went out the back door and laid the box carefully in an open dumpster. I covered it with a couple other empty boxes and returned to my apartment.

A large city is not conducive to a dignified burial beneath a tree, or deep within a flower bed. But I’m sure Crickett didn’t mind. Were I one to believe in the Pathetic Fallacy, which ascribes human traits and feelings to animals, I would have felt more guilty than I did. And were I to go down that mental path, I’d have truly grieved at the thought that for her entire 18 years, she may have been outside a total of less than a dozen times, and was terrified each time. To be in a box in a dumpster on a cold winter’s day in Chicago....

I got Crickett when she was a kitten, and she was a strange cat, even as cats go. Yellow-orange and white, she was very pretty, and must have had some sort of genetic disorder because her eyes were always fully dilated, never slitted. I don’t recall ever having seen another cat with eyes like hers. Like all cats, she loved attention, but only on her terms. When she came into my life, I already had Thomas, a huge black male with the disposition of a saint. Thomas was everybody’s pal. Crickett wasn’t much into having pals. She largely ignored Thomas, and they never became friends. She was the same with my dog, Samantha (Sammy), and the several other cats that came and went over the years. She remained aloof from it all. Up until the last month of her life, the only time she ever got on my lap, it was on her terms, not mine. And even then she would sit down, get up, circle around (swatting me in the face with her tail), sit down, get up turn around again, etc. until I’d get exasperated and put her on the floor. Occasionally she would climb on my lap and move up to drape herself over my left shoulder (never my right) as she had done when I would hold her as a kitten. Toward the end, she spent a lot of time calmly in my lap. She seemed to need me more, and that broke my heart because I felt she knew something was not right.

While I have had animals all my life, I have not been present at their deaths more than a few times. When Thomas, who I had found as a kitten in Los Angeles, died in Pence, coincidentally also at 18, his decline was rapid, the result of old age and a good life. I found him lying on the basement floor one morning and knew he was dying. I carried him upstairs, where I put him in my lap and sat petting him until he died…I hope peacefully.

Crickett was not so lucky. She developed cancer at the site of a rabies shot she had received more than two years before. The vet said this is far more common than anyone realizes, and she avoids giving rabies shots to indoor house cats for that reason. At any rate, Crickett’s death was neither quick nor easy. She did not appear to be in pain, and the vet prescribed two different medications which appeared to be very effective in keeping her comfortable. But she lost the use of her leg, which she dragged behind her.

I know, I know. I should have gone along with that infuriating euphemism of having her “put to sleep.” But it is not putting her to sleep. It is killing her, and I could not bring myself to play God. I wanted her to die as comfortably as possible in her own familiar world. (I did, on Friday, call the vet, who said she would come over and kill her at home, but I still could not bring myself to do it, though I felt both remorse and guilt as, over the weekend, I feared she might be in pain. She’d stopped eating or drinking, and just laid there. When she tried to stand or move, she’d fall over. The one medication required being put on her food, but when she stopped eating and refused to be fed, I was left with only the second medication, which I could put into her mouth with a small syringe.

I was sure Saturday night she could not possibly last until morning. But she did. 

AndSunday night.

Finally, at about 2:15 Monday, she died.

I know…she was “just a cat.” But she was a part of my life nearly every day for 18 years, and one more link to my past. And I miss her.

And why am I telling you all this? You never knew Crickett. But if you’ve ever lost an animal who was a part of your life, you know the need for catharsis. Writing this is mine.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Pets

Spirit

“Pet” is one of the few English words which is not only both a noun and a verb, but its own definition, like “fly”…a fly is what it is called, and fly is what it does. A pet is what it is called and also its primary purpose: to be petted.

Pets—primarily dogs and cats—have been mankind’s companions for a couple of millennia now. Countless books have been written on our inter-species relationship, its role in our society and in our individual lives. Pets are not human, but our emotional bonds to them can often rival that of all but the very closest of our human relationships.

While comparing cats and dogs is like comparing tangerines and tangelos, they both fulfill basic human needs. Dogs provide around the clock unconditional love. Any time we need, or the dog senses we need, affection, it is right there to provide it. And while cats can also be great sources of comfort and affection it is far more frequently given on the cat’s terms, not the human’s. Call a dog, and it is immediately at your side. Call a cat and 9 times out of 10 it will just stare at you, if it deigns to look in your direction at all. It’s just their nature. Dogs are and have since their first bonding with humans thousands of years ago been “pack” animals. They consider man to be just another member of the pack.

Cats are, by their genetic nature, far more “loners” than dogs. Being part of a group is not nearly as important to them as it is to dogs.

In my life, I have had innumerable pets—probably more cats than dogs, yet it seems on reflection that I am basically more a “dog person” than a “cat person.” The first family pet I can really remember was a Doberman pinscher named Kaiser. Dobermans have the reputation of being a one-person dog, and my dad was that person. Kaiser tolerated my mother and me, but it was to my dad that he was totally devoted. Kaiser once got up on the dining room table when no one was around and ate an entire cake my mother had baked for some special occasion. If Mother was not Kaiser’s favorite person, he was not her favorite dog.

The first dog I remember distinctly as being my own was Lucky, a black mutt who my dad found one day and brought home. Lucky was my dog, and I loved him almost on the same par as I loved my parents. I’m not sure how long we had him, but when we moved into a new home, my dad said we couldn’t have a dog there, and gave Lucky to my grandfather, who lived on a farm. It broke my heart, but Dad was adamant, and that was the last I ever saw of Lucky. Grandpa reported that he had run away. And within two weeks of moving into the new house, Dad bought me a boxer pup, Stormy. I never forgave him for taking Lucky from me, and I have never, after all these years, stopped grieving for him.

I of course eventually grew to love Stormy, who we had from the time I lost Lucky to after my two years in the Navy and completion of college. I forget just how Stormy died, and I don’t want to remember. When I moved to Chicago, I got another boxer, Thor, who had very serious mental problems as a result of inbreeding. He became impossible to keep in our apartment, so I gave him to my aunt, who had a large yard. Thor tried jumping over her chain link fence while wearing his leash and hanged himself. I felt terrible, but it was not the depth of sorrow I felt over Lucky.

When I moved to L.A., I had Cindy, a German shepherd, and Boy, a wonderfully loving large mutt, both of whom died of old age at my home. Overlapping Cindy and Boy was Sammy, another mutt who strongly resembled Toto from The Wizard of Oz. Sammy was a total delight and lived to be 15 or so. She moved with me from L.A. to northern Wisconsin, and died of old age while I was on a trip to L.A.

Bozo, a huge golden retriever, was surely one of the most loving dogs I have ever had. He loved to sit at my feet, with his head on my lap while I was watching TV, waiting for me to feed him popcorn, a kernel at a time. One day I let him out and he did not come back. I found him dead by the side of the road. For months after, I could not eat popcorn without crying.

My last dog was Duchess, a beautiful pure-white Samoyed I found on the street and who no one claimed even after I put an ad in the paper. Duchess was my only “outside” dog in that she loved winter; the colder the better. I built her a large doghouse attached to my garden shed, and filled it with bales of straw. And then one harsh winter I noticed her drinking a lot more than normal. I thought it was because the water in her bowl had frozen, so I brought her fresh water more often. She couldn’t seem to get enough, and I noticed she was getting thin. I will never forgive myself for not taking her to the vet immediately. When I did, I was told she had severe diabetes. I hadn’t even known dogs could get diabetes. The vet said they would keep her overnight to see what could be done. When I called the next day, I was told she had died during the night. Is it any wonder I think so little of myself?

I now live in an apartment and having a dog is out of the question, so now I just have my cat, Spirit.

And I see that I have rambled on and on and have not yet even mentioned the cats in my life, some of which were, like my dogs, memorable.

Well, another time, if you’re interested.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

High School

For someone who is generally able to dredge up vivid memories of the past, my four years of high school are something of a blank. The fact that I can remember so little of them might imply some sort of negative trauma associated with it, but I don’t think there was one. I simply did not like high school. I did not fit in. To say I didn’t want to fit in probably wouldn’t be true, I’m sure…we all want to be liked. But high school is in effect a four-year class on The Joys of Heterosexuality, and I wanted no part of it.

The high school years are an endless sea of raging hormones, and mine were raging in quite a different direction than the vast, vast majority. It did have some slight advantages, though, in that males that age are often open to experimentation…with the unspoken but absolutely ironclad rule that you were never, never to talk about it. So as a result, I was able to do my own sexual experimenting with about half my high school class—the male half. I’m sure that 99 percent of them went on to marry nice girls and follow the Biblical instructions to be fruitful and multiply. (I was fruitful, too, but didn’t multiply.)

Oddly, now that I think of it, I cannot remember encountering even one other gay or lesbian student. Though statistically in a school of 1,200 there had to be at least 120 of us.

I had two friends during my high school years, one of whom did not attend the same school as I. And I feel obligated to point out that both were notable exceptions to my “half the class” statement. One went on to join and make a career in the Air Force, marrying his high school sweetheart not long after graduation. I’m sure I must have had other friends, and I do recall several names and faces but for the most part I was a loner through both choice and circumstance.

I was a somewhat-above-average student, though not all that much above average, probably due to the fact that I prided myself on never having brought homework home. Perhaps as a result of that dubious distinction, I remember an English exam in which I totally and completely froze, and was unable to remember the answer to a single question. In desperation I wrote a note at the top of the paper saying: “I’m sorry, but my mind has shut down. I could have cheated, but I didn’t.” It was an obvious bid for sympathy or at least leniency from the teacher, but it produced neither.

Throughout my somewhat checkered academic career up to college, my parents collected a sizable assortment of notes from teachers all saying, in effect: “Roger could do much better if only he would apply himself.” Applying myself would have involved patience, and we all know where I stand on that one.

So when I walked out of the doors of East High in June of 1952, they closed behind me and I never looked back. I occasionally, even today, get announcements of reunions and news of my classmates, none of whom I can remember. I’m sure I might be able to remember some, if I really tried, and I’m sure they are all very nice people who have gone on to live happy, heterosexual lives. But each bulletin I receive only serves to remind me of the fact that I did not belong in their world in 1952, and I still do not belong in it today.

If anyone has any questions as to why I do not care for reality and became a writer, I’d be happy to answer them.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Emotions

Like almost everything else in my life, I do not respond to emotions in the way most people do. For the most part, emotions run roughshod over me. I tear up to music, and to anything I consider truly touching or sad…or joyous. I “wear my heart on my sleeve,” as they say, and I puddle up at the most inopportune moments. But interestingly, while my emotions feel free to run my life—especially anger, rage, and frustration—they refuse to respond when I really want them to. I seem to have a built in “kill switch” within me, which totally ignores me when I want to show them.

With every single curtain call of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, which I’ve now seen ten times, I rose to my feet with the rest of the audience and wanted nothing more than to shout my approval as many others were doing. But I could not. Clapping wildly was as far as my emotions would let me go. At any number of public events, when the rest of the crowd is rocking back and forth, and waving their arms, I stand there. Just stand there. I want more than anything in the world to do as everyone else around me is doing, yet I cannot.

I weep, but I do not cry. My heart and soul respond, but my body refuses.

A friend just forwarded me a video of an English boy’s chorus singing “Going Home.” I watched it, knowing, in light of my friend Norm’s recent death, what my reaction would be and sure enough, with the first chords, I started to cry. “Started” being the operative word. I wanted to cry; I really did. I needed to cry…I needed a wracking, shoulders-shaking, uncontrollable, gasping for air cry, to wash out all the suppressed sadness and terrible sense of loss, not only for Norm but for all the losses of my life; for all the times I’ve wanted and needed so badly to really, really cry. But I couldn’t. Something inside my brain slammed the door shut on my emotions, and that was it. I stopped crying.

The last real, real cry I can remember was at the funeral of my beloved Uncle Buck, my mom’s brother. It was 1953 and I was in college. I got through the funeral with no problem until we got up to file past the casket. I didn’t make it to the end of our row before I literally fell apart. It was soul-wrenching, and I’ve not had another like it since.

When my dad died in 1968, as I was flying back to Rockford for the funeral, I wrote a eulogy for him, and the tears ran down my face, but I did not truly cry. I was in a public place. Crying is not permitted. Men don’t cry. (Of all the lessons our society teaches us, the inviolable rule that “men don’t cry” is without question one of the most foolish and inhumane ever conceived.) I am fascinated when I see men crying on the news. I empathize with their loss, while I envy their ability to do what I cannot.

When my mom died, I returned from the hospital and went on with my day. When my roommate/then partner came home, I told him in almost an “oh, and by the way” manner, and we had dinner and watched TV and went to bed. After a few minutes I got up and went into the other bedroom, and I cried. This was my mother, who I loved more than anyone else in the world. And yet even then the door soon slammed shut on my grief, trapping the tears inside, and try though I might, I could not reopen it.

When my “second mom,” Aunt Thyra…Uncle Buck’s wife…died in 1973, I don’t remember whether I cried or not. Probably a bit, but far more on the inside. I remember my cousin Tom, about 12 years younger than I, leaning against his car and sobbing uncontrollably. I felt for him. I understood him. But I could not join him.

To this day I have not really cried for Ray, whom I consider, through the softened light of time which blurs the sharp edge of reality, to have been the love of my life. Nor have I cried for Norm. I do wish I could.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

The Power of Touch

Whenever my dad and I were sitting side by side on the couch, he would, at some point, always reach over and squeeze my knee, which always made me jump and say “Jeez, don’t do that!” Why could I not see that this was his way of showing affection...which was always very difficult for him to do?

The need of human beings to touch and be touched by other human beings is probably one of the least understood but most elemental of human needs. It has been tragically documented that newborn babies not held or caressed or touched grow up severely stunted, emotionally. And while this need may lessen or be sublimated as we grow, it never goes away. Handshakes, hugs, pats on the back, playful punches to the arm, tousling of the hair, an arm around a friend standing beside you, reaching out to touch someone lightly on the arm, all are examples of how the need for physical human contact never goes away.

And toward the end of our life, the need grows even while the opportunities diminish. As loved ones and close friends slip away, so does the opportunity for physical contact. And while it is natural to make a physical fuss over children, the old without immediate family find themselves increasingly deprived of this essential need.

I don’t mean to preach, or pontificate, but this is, to me, simply the way things are, and it is one of the many things to which we should pay far more attention than we do.

Like that “food groups pyramid,” there is also something of a “touch pyramid” to categorize the importance of the different levels of touch. At the very top is the touch of a partner, someone one loves on all levels. Directly below that is the touch of parents; below that the touch of siblings, other relatives, then the touch of friends.

I’ve told this story before, I know, but when my mom was dying, she came home briefly from the hospital. That same night, she had something of a minor stroke and could not speak. Horrified and heartsick, I put her in the car and headed for the hospital. She could not speak, but she reached over and patted my hand. She was comforting me. She was comforting me! I cannot think of that simple gesture, even now, without crying.

The value of touch is in direct proportion to its sincerity. We all know the effusive “huggsies and kisses” type, and when I talk of the importance of touch, I do not include them. And I know some of us are for whatever reason basically undemonstrative, and that is fine. But when you sense a need from a relative, friend or even an acquaintance, don’t hesitate to place an unobtrusive hand on their shoulder; lay a hand gently on an arm, or do any of a number of things which involve gentle physical contact.

It is only the gestures of kindness, love, and affection not made that are later regretted. Make the gesture while you can, and appreciate those given you for what they are meant to be.

You have no idea what I would give to have my dad squeeze my knee.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Requited Love

Groucho Marx once quipped: “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

Human nature encompasses a wide range of perversities, each of which has its own range of intensity. One of the more common of these perversities is the predilection for deliberately sabotaging ourselves by assuring that we can never have what we want most.

Of all the things age has taken from me, one that I most deeply resent is the loss of the chance for true, romantic love: for having one individual whom I can adore on all levels, and who would adore me in the same way. I have no doubt that I could find someone my own age who might love me in this way, but the fact is that I could not return it, since I can’t conceive of loving someone my own age. Perversity, anyone?

To this day, despite the futility, I still occasionally fall in love, but it is always from a distance and never…can never…be requited. It’s sort of like wanting so terribly to sit down to a huge plate of fried-crisp pork chops, mashed potatoes, and gravy and eating everything on the plate in one sitting: I want it with an intensity difficult to describe, and I would give anything if I could have it, but I can’t.

I’ve often told the stories of a friend whose romantic focus was on young men between 18 and 21. He ached for them, and loved them deeply, and had many in his life. But as soon as the object of his affection neared 21, he lost interest and moved on to the next.

One of my best friends of my life was rock-solid in his beliefs and convictions. He brooked no nonsense from anyone. He was the poster boy for self discipline, and was, to those who did not know him as I did, quite intimidating. He never had a relationship, though he badly wanted one. His problem was that he wanted someone stronger than himself, and yet if anyone tried to be, he would tell them where to go in no uncertain terms and walk off.

It is only natural for one human being, regardless of sexual orientation or other real and imagined limitations, to want to feel wanted, and loved, and special. It’s far easier for heterosexuals to do this, since ours is a heterosexual-dominated species. Gays, and especially gay men, have a far harder time with this since we are even more prone than the heterosexual population to seek youth and beauty. The struggle for gay marriage is just one example that gays and lesbians need the same social protections that heterosexuals have always simply assumed was their birthright.

And so, as for myself and millions more like me, the search for requited love grows less realistic with every passing moment. Like most of those in my position, I deal with it. And I look at all the beautiful young men passing me on the street, to whom I am invisible, and think of Echo, the nymph who so loved Narcissus that, when her love went unrequited, she faded away until only her voice was left.

And the ultimate irony is that those same beautiful young people to whom the aging are invisible have absolutely no idea that, unless they are lucky enough to find someone with whom to grow old, they will be in exactly the same position as I. There is no comfort in the thought.

In my friend Norm’s final weeks, I would visit him and he would reach out and take my hand. We once had the kind of love I wish I could still have, but we were now less than partners, more than friends. I hope holding his hand gave him some comfort; some sense that he was not alone.

But the wonder is that, even as the darkness of the long night approaches and the cold, harsh wind of reality blows ever stronger, there is within me and within everyone still a tiny, glowing spark of hope around which we wrap ourselves and find comfort in its warmth.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

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 creates 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 too 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.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Delusions

Over the years I have become something of an expert at self-delusion. I can honestly convince myself, short of defying the laws of physics, of almost anything. I hasten to add I am not so delusional that I am unaware that they are delusions, but they are harmless, and they give me a great degree of comfort.

My chief delusion is that I am ageless…well, actually I’m somewhere…anywhere…under the glass ceiling between youth and maturity. This delusion is quite easy to maintain except for when I am in the presence of reflective surfaces, and even then I can sometimes convince myself that I have absolutely no idea who that person is. I adopted this particular form of illusion from Don Quixote, whose ultimate enemy was a mirror.

Delusions are the armor many of us don to do battle with the world. The protect us…some to a greater degree than others…from the harshness of reality, and as long as they do no harm to ourselves or others, there is no real need to dissuade ourselves of them.

I’ve often used the example of one of the characters from the play The Madwoman of Chaillot who, every day, year after year, read the same newspaper—the same newspaper—because she liked the news in it. What was really happening in the world neither affected or concerned her. I empathize with her completely. I often choose to simply ignore those things which I know would make me unhappy if I were to acknowledge them. I may be deluding myself, but what does it matter, really?

Most delusions are restricted to the mind of the deluded, and it is only when they take physical manifestation do they normally call the attention of others. (The mental picture springs to mind of a 240-pound woman in a bikini, or the elderly man with a black toupee plopped atop the grey hair of his sideburns. And even then, they more often affect the viewer than the wearer.) We all see ourselves very differently than other people see us, but the more delusional we are, the greater the gap in perception.

Like most things, delusions can be positive or negative. I constantly berate and belittle myself for every perceived imperfection and flaw, and for falling far short of who I feel I should be. Yet this is as unfair as deluding myself into assuming the possession of sterling qualities not in fact in existence. I know I’m not…nor could I be…quite as worthless and stupid as I too frequently paint myself as being. But I do it partly out of disappointment that I am not living up to my own potential, or to what I perceive myself as being. And I have, as I’ve mentioned frequently, an odd compulsion to point out my failings as a first-strike defense against having other people do it for me. (“You don’t have to tell me how bad I am: I already know.”)

I honestly envy some people their delusions—specifically those which lead them to believe they can accomplish things which reality clearly says is far beyond their reach. Their delusions encourage them to get out there and at least try for something they really want, even though the odds are clearly or even overwhelmingly stacked against them. They are far better off than people like me, who don’t try for something I am convinced I can never achieve.

The wondrous thing is that many of the major advances in science and technology throughout history have been achieved by people everyone assumed to be delusional.

I am really quite comfortable with my own delusions. They’re like an old robe or favorite pair of slippers I wear constantly. And I truly believe the world would be a happier and less stressful place if more people allowed themselves to indulge their own.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

That Which I Should Have Done

My favorite painting, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, is Ivan Albright’s That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (subtitled The Door). It is a somewhat-larger-than-life oil painting of a distorted, weathered door with a withered funeral wreath hanging from its center. From the left, an old lady’s arm, in a wrist-length, lace-cuffed grey dress, reaches for the knob.

What there is about this particular painting that fascinates me so, I do not know, but fascinate me it does. And for equally unknown reasons, I identify with it. (Ivan Albright also painted The Picture of Dorian Gray featured in the 1945 film of Wilde’s book.)

Missed opportunities and regrets are part of the fulcrum which gives balance to life, and without which we could not fully appreciate the bright joys of our existence. (Actually, far too few of us appreciate them anyway, but that is another matter entirely.)

For some reason, the highs of remembered joys do not carry us the same distance above the center line of emotion as the memory of our failures take us down. It’s just one of those odd facts of life we may not like but have to accept if we are not to be consumed by them.

When I look back on the choices I have made through life, I have to force myself to weigh the “yeah, but if you had” factor. I have always regretted my having been dropped from the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Had I studied harder and paid more attention to the things I should have been paying attention to, I may not have gotten the boot. And yet I knew in my heart of hearts that had I remained in the program I would have been killed, as were so many of my fellow cadets during that particular period.

I have often regretted the fact that, in my really active days in the gay community, I was not more aggressive in approaching people to whom I was attracted, or that perhaps I moved from Los Angeles too soon. Yet this was at a time when AIDS was raging like a brushfire through the gay community, killing everyone it touched. I lost far too many friends and acquaintances not to realize that, had I been more aggressive, or had I stayed in L.A., the next person I went home with may well have been the one round in the chamber of the game of Russian roulette all gays played at the time.

So even regrets may have their balances.

On a personal, day-to-day level, I regret not being more thoughtful of others than I am. I regret not going out of my way to be kind to my friends and family nearly as often and to the degree that they go out of their way to be kind to me. I regret my too-frequently hair-trigger temper which causes me to do things which immediately cause me shame. I regret my tendency to react in kind: if I say “hello” to someone in my building and they ignore me (for their own reasons, whatever they may be), the next time I see them, I do not speak. Petty. Childish. But me.

I regret not being more generous; not volunteering more of my time or money to causes I know are worthy. I deeply regret passing by a panhandler on the assumption that they could get a job if they wanted to, or would just drink away anything I gave them. I am fully aware that of twenty panhandlers, at least one is sincerely in need. But how do I know which one? And that lack of knowledge engenders anger at the rest. (But, again, against which of the twenty should it be directed?)

Life is full of choices which come at us like raindrops in a thunderstorm. In attempting to catch them, we are bound to miss far more than we catch. There are so many things we should have done that we did not do it is easy to forget that there are a lot of things which we should have done and did do; opportunities taken, acts of kindness unremembered or unnoticed. What we should not do is to be too hard on ourselves. Leave that to me.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com:

Rejection

The stories we tell over and over of our experiences in life tell a lot more about who we are than we probably realize. I know I have a number of stories I cannot seem to stop retelling. One of them, which, if you’ve followed these blogs for awhile, I know you’ve heard before. It is the story of going shopping with my mother when I was probably around eight years old. She was looking for a new throw rug for the kitchen. She couldn’t decide between two, and asked me which one I liked best. I did not tell her…not because I didn’t prefer one over the other, but because to choose one would hurt the other one’s feelings.

I hate rejection, a fact that has strongly influenced my life in keeping me from making any move which might result in it. I’d been painfully aware since elementary school how very much it hurt to be rejected...to be the last person standing there while sides were being chosen for a game.

When I decided to stop by PetSmart the other day to see about possibly adopting a cat, I walked in knowing full well that I was going to be miserable. I knew my heart would go out to every single animal there, and that having to actually choose between them would be excruciatingly difficult, and that I would feel sincerely terrible for the ones I did not choose. (I know, I know…they’re cats…or throw rugs…they aren’t aware they’re being rejected. But I am.)

I’ve told, too, the story of how, before I was aged out of the gay community’s bar scene, I was constantly frustrated because I could not bring myself to approach someone to whom I was attracted unless I had clear indication that the interest might be mutual. My single friends had no such constraints, and as a result I would watch in frustration as time and time again they’d go off to approach someone—sometimes the same person I was interested in—and strike up a conversation. Often they’d be back a few minutes later, unfazed by being rejected. But just as often, they’d end up going home together, while I just stood there, afraid to take a chance.

I went so far as to sign up for a seminar promoting itself as being specifically designed for gay men with rejection issues. There were at least 50 guys there, and after a half hour of general mingling, one of the two psychologists moderating the session said, “All right, now. The first thing we’re going to do is a series of exercises to make you feel more comfortable. We’ll take three minutes for everyone to select a partner for the exercises.” Excuse me? I paid $50 to attend this thing and the first thing they want me to do is pick a partner? I was instantly furious, but a guy I’d spoken with briefly who’d said he was as uncomfortable with rejection as I was standing near me and we looked at each other with mutual unhappiness and partnered up.

The exercises were basic…uh…basics. “Tell your partner three things you like about yourself,” etc., then the partner would do the same. Neither I nor the guy I was with paid much attention, both being too angry to do so. But after about twenty minutes of this crap, the moderator said: “All right now, everyone stand up and mill around.” I figured the next section had to be better than this. They’d come nowhere near to addressing the issue of rejection. Five minutes later, the moderator was back for the second half of the program. “All right, now, we’ll take three minutes for everyone to pick a partner and….”

I walked out the door without looking back. It was one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable and infuriating evenings of my life.

One would think being an author would be an odd career choice for one who feared rejection, and they would be right. But having a potential reader pick up my book in a bookstore, then put it down in favor of another has the distinct advantage of the fact that I’m not there to see it. I can live with that.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from Untreed Reads and Amazon; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com: