Note, Returned

My goal is to always come from a place of love . . . but sometimes you just have to break it down for a motherfucker.

--RuPaul

I was going to use that as the epigraph of a little essay on the faults and flaws of the modern world, and of LGBT people in particular. Being oppressed does not make you virtuous, ipso facto. There's a difference.

Oh but . . . skip it. Human beings have been repeatedly told, ad nauseam - and better yet, shown - how to live, from Socrates down to Mother Teresa.

But who really cares? Before you answer: circumspice.

ENVOI

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

--Auden

The Neverdamnending Story

Sigh.  An excerpt from a very read-worthy essay at Daily Kos, check it out:

We as Americans often confuse technological progress with societal progress. Whether this is more pronounced in America than in other countries I have no idea, but it is difficult to sit in a state-of-the-art convention center and imagine a Roman-style collapse of the republic. We have HDTVs, damn it. We have iPhones. Surely we have advanced far beyond those past civilizations, yes? Surely we are better than any current country could be without those things? We have stealth bombers, you primitive bastards. That makes us better.

But people do not progress as fast as their tools, and societies do not even progress at the pace a single person might. Countries might have prodigious technology, and yet still harbor virulent racism. No matter what progress is made, we are still all subject to the self-inflicted effects of war. The environment itself still overwhelms our every invented protection, and easily, with a single tornado, flood, or earthquake, or volcano, or with a slight mutation to a random virus that has always been there, or with changes to the very climate of the planet. In the end we are the stuff of our biology, and harbor the same tribal suspicions and hatreds, the same greed and jealousies, and the same rough ambitions.

There is nothing that declares with (ahem) certitude that our society will always progress, and never regress. Or even collapse. There is no country that is immune to going batshit crazy, from time to time. We do it ourselves rather often: generationally, mostly. Each generation either repeats the same damn mistakes or, overcorrecting, repeats the mistakes from four or five cycles back. I expect we could mostly render history books as generic documents: During the year Y, an overwhelming fear of X assisted in Z's rise to power, after which all went to hell in a handbasket before the countering B movement succeeded in reversing the trend in year Y+N. Cut and paste, kids, cut and paste. All the rest can be done with footnotes.

Where was I? Oh, right. Progress. . . .

Thinking Things Through

Sometimes you just need to close the door, get out of your day clothes, and be alone in your own space to sort stuff out.  Not something anybody else can do for ya.

Appreciate the kind comments and emails, guys.  I'll be back on track soon.  I hope.

Off the Hook

May take a break from blogging this week.  Work is kicking my butt.  Don't feel very well, either.  And for another thing, it's one of those times when the general foolishness of collective humanity just irks the hell out of me, to the point that I don't want to comment or even think about it all.  Rather just curl up with a good book in a cozy, sunlit corner and let the world roll on by.

Y'all be careful out there.

Jonathan Rauch: Letting Go of My Father

In this month's Atlantic, a very poignant essay by gay scholar and author Jonathan Rauch about the overwhelming task of caring for a helpless, elderly parent - a subject I suppose many of us can relate to, or have faced, or will face.  An excerpt:

Broaching the subject and confessing desperation was like uttering the password to a secret brotherhood of beleaguered, overwhelmed, weary, or sometimes just resigned adult caregivers. But the sect seemed ashamed to be seen.

As I reached my own breaking point, two things happened. First, my father caught sight of my distress. He would not accept assisted living on his own account, but when I told him that he was already in assisted living but that I was the assistance; that I was overwhelmed, underqualified, and barely hanging on emotionally; that I wanted to be his son again, not a nurse and nag and adversary—when I told him all that, and when his sister and the social worker chimed in, he acceded. He was still, after all, my father, and it was still his job, he understood, to care for me. Second, the inevitable happened. As his disease overtook him, not even he could deny his incapacity. And so he moved, reluctantly, to a nearby assisted-living place, which gave me the help I needed and, to no one’s surprise but his own, gave my father more rather than less independence. Another phase of the story then unfolded, ending with his death in December. His last gesture to me, so very characteristic, was to wave me away. He wanted me to go on with my life rather than hover by his bedside.

I did go on, but I emerged from the whole experience not a little indignant. The medical infrastructure for elder care in America is good, very good. But the cultural infrastructure is all but nonexistent. How can it be that so many people like me are so completely unprepared for what is, after all, one of life’s near certainties?

I would only add, the "medical infrastructure for elder care" might be "very good" in Washington, D.C. - but that, too, is all but nonexistent in smaller cities and rural communities across this country. Unless you have lots of money, of course. I cared for my dear mother for her last ten years of declining health, and it was just hell on wheels, boys, the crappy, indifferent care from doctors and hospitals - and no way to get her any home health care at all. Just me, and nobody else to help.

Pretty damn rough, let me tell you.

Another Year, Another Spring

What's left of the vegetable garden that the ex-roommate and I planted last year.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bell peppers, squash, and okra, a bedroom-size plot and a white picket fence - it was a lovely hope.  But all it ever produced was a single handful of stunted tomatoes, not enough to feed two people. 

Sometimes despite all your tender care, and plenty of sun and water and good soil - things just won't grow, or they wither on the vine.  No good reason - they just do.  So you let it all go back to grass, and move on.

Some Days

Some days I feel like my proper self:  noble, proud, and good.

Some days I am the lion in winter, solitary and strong.

Some days I am the tiger of the Lord, leaping to defend the right.

Some days I bear the avenging sword against callousness and cruelty.

Some days I am a warrior, quick to right a wrong and speak the truth.

Some days I need no help from anyone and bear my burden lightly.

Some days I just don't have the heart to try.

Some days I cannot bear to look beyond my own front door.

Some days I want to stay in bed and curl up there a long, long while.

Some days my heart is drained and empty, like a crumpled paper cup.

Some days I feel so horny I would take the first thing in pants.

Some days I feel so lonely I would kiss a stranger's hand for just a smile.

Some days the one makes the other that much worse:  and vice versa.

Some days I want to be some other man, almost anyone would do.

Some days I am ashamed of being so unmanned:

Ashamed of naked need and empty depths, and of wanting to be loved.

Some days I do not believe in possibility.  Or spring.  Or love.

Some days are best endured without thinking any thoughts.

Without feeling much at all.  If you can manage that.

Which some days I simply can't.

Do you know what I mean?

What Might Have Been

From Fortune magazine, "Queer Inc:  How Corporate America Fell in Love with Gays and Lesbians" (2006):

Mike Syers, a 42-year-old partner at Ernst & Young, was coming out in a very big way. About 3,000 partners of the firm had gathered in Orlando for a conference last year. A two-minute video of Syers played on giant TV screens throughout the convention center. He sat in the audience watching himself.

"When I started in public accounting," the onscreen Syers said, "I really didn't think there was a long-term career opportunity for me. Being a gay man, I didn't see gay partners." But things were different at E&Y, he said. He felt comfortable and welcomed.

As the screen went dark, Syers's BlackBerry began vibrating. Messages of support poured in. Afterward a partner came up to him to say that his son was gay, and that he would call home that night to tell his son how proud he was to work at E&Y.

E&Y had asked Syers to make the video because he is a leader of bEYond, the company's GLBT employee group. bEYond is only two years old, but it sent 72 people to this fall's Out & Equal convention. It also sponsored the 2006 Reaching Out MBA conference, a gay and lesbian recruiting event that attracted about 700 MBA students to New York. Courting them were Accenture, Dell, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Bros., McKinsey, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Target and Toyota, among others.

I almost feel like crying.

Back in 1975-77, after dicking around through most of junior college, I thought I'd finally settled on a good game plan:  I'd become a CPA.  I managed to get an associate's degree in accounting at the college by dint of a year spent packing in all the courses I could carry, then transferred to a university that had a great accounting program, well regarded in the corporate world, where almost every graduate got a job just for the asking.  I even got a job working part-time for a CPA, doing the simpler kinds of balance sheets and tax returns.  I thought I was on my way to a successful, rewarding future.

But after I got to university, although I was doing well in my classes - and studying my ass off, attending extra tutorials and study halls - I slowly began to realize that I didn't fit in.  As far as I could tell all the other guys in my accounting and finance classes were straight as a board; most of them seemed to be the jock/fratboy type, and outside of class interested only in baseball, football, Playboy, and Camaros.

The accounting department was run by a gruff-but-kindly old guy who had made a mint in the corporate world, then retired and started a second career as a professor.  He worked us like the devil in those classes, but you didn't mind because you knew you were getting all the right tools and knowledge for a CAREER - only 18 months away if you stuck it out and took summer classes.  But the old guy had set up an internship program where you could get placed with a major accounting company like Ernst & Ernst - now Ernst & Young - for 9 months of on-the-job training.  It lengthened your schooling, of course, but the up side was that most of those interns subsequently got hired by the companies they'd interned for.

It was all but a sure thing, if you studied hard, made good grades, and measured up to expectations.  And a sure thing sounded great to a 21-year-old guy from a broken home, living in deep poverty, with no rich or even mildly affluent parents to help him along.  I reached out and made a grab at the brass ring.

But the feeling that I just didn't belong grew and grew.  One time, seems like it was early spring semester, there was a big do organized by our department chair at his country club, I forget the occasion; but although attendance was strictly voluntary, you knew it was a good thing to show up and have your presence noted.  So I duded up in my best and most fashionable togs, including the platform shoes and wide tie, and went.  Like a fool. 

Continue reading after the jump.

Also, enter to win a prize; see contest rules at the end of this post.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is, after some polite but firm talk from your Head Trucker last week, AT&T offered to replace the burned-out power cord and send me a new modem too - free.  Plus, the last rep I talked to reviewed my existing phone /internet service, and offered me a landline package with unlimited long distance for only $35/mo.  Plus a good price on an internet upgrade, twice as fast as what I had - and I'll still be saving $20-25 bucks a month compared to the service I had.

So Ma Bell made me a happy customer in the end.  And my new modem arrived this afternoon, a day ahead of schedule.  Sweet.

Bad news:  the new DSL service doesn't start till 8 p.m. tomorrow night.  So till then I am still stuck with this abysmally sloooooow AOL dial-up connection.

Bonus bad news:  since the time change, it's now dark outside at 6 freaking p.m.  Bummer.

Chart:  etgiftstore

Rats!

So there I was, four hours ago, blogging away on the last post, when all of a sudden - no internet connection.

Three phone calls and a lot of fuming later, it seems that the power cord/adapter to my AT&T modem - not the modem itself - suddenly decided to stop working. 

Nobody else, of course, sells the exact same size power cord to go with an AT&T modem.  Yes, I tried wally world and Radio Shack, no dice.  So it might be 3 to 5 days before I can get a new one shipped out here to the edge of civilization, they told me at AT&T.  If the mule don't throw a shoe.

Therefore, blogging may be impaired on the Blue Truck for a while.  Fortunately, I have held on to my old AOL dial-up connection (ask your grandpa what that is) all these years, so I'm able to get a few squeaks out.  But damn, it is sooooo s-l-o-w after being used to broadband.

RATS!