avenues of life

Jekyll

2012-01-29T20:55:00.002-05:00

Jekyll Island lies off the coast a little bit from Brunswick, Georgia. A century ago, the Rockefellers and the Morgans and those folks had turned this island into their southern Hamptons, where they spent the winters.

And enjoyed sunsets like this.

And lots and lots and lots of fresh shrimp and crab and fish.

And warmer weather than anybody was having up north.

Well, they're gone. But the seafood and the weather remains.

And is certainly worth the trip.

2012-01-28T07:06:00.001-05:00

Night Owl

a swift march of events

2012-01-26T09:11:00.003-05:00

The rhythm of this merry go round we call life begins to lurch a little faster.

D-1 is having three surgeries in the next 10 days, none life threatening, but distressing, painful, and necessary. There will be some residuals after the final surgery, hopefully as minor as possible. She and hers will likely move in here this weekend for a week or so while she undergoes this and convalesces. More room. Certainly better cooking.

Work pops in, unexpectedly, more than anticipated. Good.

The weather remains unsettled, with storms periodically due to descend on us, so unlike winter and more like the uncertainties of turbulent spring.

Off to Jekyll Island this weekend.

Evensong

2012-01-24T18:56:00.003-05:00

With the end of the day, twilight settles in, and the light of day disappears into a luminescent glow. We slow down. Our pace lessens. Our metabolisms listen to their ancient hymns of rest.

And as the light dims further, and the stars and moon begin to glow, we look up and wonder at the stars, and the blue velvet heavens, and are satisfied.

Saturdays

2012-01-21T09:29:00.004-05:00

Deadmau5's 'Alone With You' beats in the background while I pry my eyes open with day-old coffee. Sometimes, Saturdays are hard to start. The weather is grey and rainy; water drips off everything, but the temperature is nice--ought to hit around 70 today. Global warming? Who knows? It alternates between being cold and then this. The daffodils are already starting to bloom!

The question was posed a few postings back, of what if it's not what you do with your life, but how you live it? That thought has stuck with me since then. And then I was reminded of Jimmy Stewart's line in Harvey, that marvelous comedy from the late 40's, when he describes a change that occurred in his life:

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" – she always called me Elwood – "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

Do the dog. More coffee. More Deadmau5. Both eyes open now. Phone call from D-2, who's taking care of D-1's dog while she & her Consort are in Florida for a funeral in his family. The girl who works for a company which cleans up toxic waste sites has called to say she's going to be a while, didn't we teach D-1 how to clean, the place should be condemned, she can't just leave it like that, she's starting cleaning and if we don't hear from her within a day or two, to call the sheriff. Now, the interesting thing about D-2 is her propensity for--if offended by untidiness--taking it on herself and re-arranging everything. Here, she's forbidden from entering the pantry; there's a restraining order against her for the kitchen cabinets.

Poor D-1. When she gets back, she'll think she entered someone else's place.

I'll probably grab some cleansers and bleach and go over and tackle that science experiment they call a bathroom at her place. 'Sides--it's quality time with my child, right?

Tested

2012-01-19T08:21:00.006-05:00

"What can I do for you sir?" came the question as the young man approached the front desk where I stood.

"I'd like to get tested," I replied.

"Sure." He hands me a clipboard, and gives instructions as to filling out the forms on it. The small line of people in back of me jostle; we'd been waiting about 15 minutes already.

"Certainly," I said, and moved away towards the sitting area of the clinic.

"What can I do for you?" I hear from behind me.

"I want to get tested, too," comes a woman's resigned but irritated voice. The young man goes through the explanation for her.

I glance over at the woman when she settles into her seat.

She's my age. Petite, short white hair, but my age.

Holy shit--women do this, too? In the past, other than one crack whore, there's never been a woman getting tested in this place downtown, this anonymous, free clinic in the basement of a religious place.

She gets through, returns the clipboard, and sits back down. She pulls out a wad of knitting and proceeds to sit there like someone's grandmother, contentedly making an afghan.

The two guys after her are a couple, getting jointly tested. And the 40-something black guy behind them.

I never thought of a woman actually going through this.

But she was.

As was apparently the young black woman in the room next to mine when I was getting my results from the oral swab. She must have had a different result: her cries and hysteria reverberated through the floor of small meeting rooms. My technician calmly reached up and turned on a loud fan on his filing cabinet, without missing a beat as he talked to me.

All in a days work, I guess.

Brrrrrrr

2012-01-14T13:46:00.003-05:00

Well, it's just freaking cold, is what it is. Temps in the low 20's; a brush with brief but impressive snow yesterday morning. Lord! I don't like the cold.

Orders for my services are coming in, and February looks like a good month. Being in business for yourself, so to speak, has been described by another lawyer as, 'you eat what you kill'. Scary, but there is that level of independence you don't have working for someone else. Got the taxes and 2011 accounting done. LOL--at least I didn't sink! That's gratifying for my first year out. Paid everything an every one, rendered unto Caesar and elsewhere, and still got some money in the bank.

David Guetta/Usher's "without you" resonates throughout the house. Good song. But then Usher is a wonderful talent....and home grown here, too.

I just wish it were warmer!!!!!!

Unsettled Matters and Muddled Affairs

2012-01-11T10:08:00.004-05:00

Massive, crashing thunder and blinding lighting which shakes the house at dawn this morning, walls of rain smashing against the sides of the house, water cascading down the hills, turning the rear of yard into a lake.

Unsettled weather.

Pay the bills. Do the dog. Prep for a meeting with a client due in a few hours.

And find the Queen forgot again to clear our her IE cache, so that when I go to check on the weather radar up pops her e-mail history. Not the actual account, mind you, just a tabulation of her mail. And I see his name itemized on incoming mail.

Unsettled matters.

You know there is a distinct divide between the sexes in having affairs.

With men, it's all about sex for 99% of guys. (With me, it turned into that other 1%). For women, though, it's about a comfort zone and they cannot maintain their perspective on matters. That's my observation on them. It's never about the sex--it's about all the other stuff.

And I don't think there's anyway she will be able to keep that from happening. So the promises of New Year's, the promise of the future, cannot be kept, I suspect. I just don't see how.

Sure is a bitch when you love someone but see the handwriting on the wall in back of them.

Tuesday Morning

2012-01-10T08:13:00.003-05:00

The fog is here again, thick and swirling, muffling the sounds and concerns of the outside world. It cacoons the world, in a way, holding it close in its damp embrace, filtering out sunlight, cooling the temperature, slowing things down.

There are no big events going on right now, no dramas being played out. Simply laying out the groundwork and planning for events and ambitions for later this year. Building a foundation so often looks like thankless work--grunt work--but though not glamorous it allows the loftiest of spires to rise up. That's what I'm looking for with what I'm doing.

I Overlooked the Anniversary

2012-01-08T10:38:00.003-05:00

It's been five years since I started this blog. Here's the first, tentative entry:

Sunday, January 7, 2007
Better late than Never
News reports indicate that blogging has peaked, that it is on its decline and only the most dedicated and persevering will continue with it. Well, I'm reminded of Rhett Butler as he left out to defend what was left of the South---a lover of lost causes. I'm starting, and I'm here.

It's a miserable, wet, gray day; yesterday was wonderful, clear blue sky and moderate temperatures. But just as the weather changes, so do the avenues of life we travel down, and this blog will chronicle my avenues, and those trod by the near and dear about me.

Well?

What I set out to do, I sure did.

LOL--and what avenues they have been!!! Lord!

Had someone back then told me what the last five years would hold, I would not have believed them. Oh, not just the perturbations of my life. What about of those about me? My daughters? The Queen? Briggs? The guys where I worked? My family members? The interplay of our collective fabrics with those random acts of others?

And all this played out against a backdrop of a descending Depression, shifting national politics, war, earthquakes, and local perils?

But you know? As sure as I'm typing this, you know full well that your life--and the lives of those about you--have also developed and been challenged during this same time period. You had your own Avenue of Life, whether you're that archaeologist in New Mexico, or the Cajun son in Louisiana, or the young Boston mother of three, or a rugby-playing sort in D.C., or that minister in the mountains of North Carolina, or an aging transplant in Bismark.

You travelled on down that road, and your life today is considerably different from back then.

So it's really true, isn't it? Just as the weather changes, so do the avenues of life we travel down.

Sunday Morning

2012-01-08T08:55:00.004-05:00

Massive thunderstorms with wild lightning crashed through the night here. Buckets of rain. House rattling thunder. And this morning, the tree branches and shrubs drip rhythmically in slightly cool, moist air.

Weird for the seventh of January, but I guess it's better than 14" of snow on the ground. Fog is moving in now, thick swirls which begin to obscure the houses on the other side of the street.

So sitting here with a cup of coffee, reflecting on seasons and changes and plans and the odds and ends of life in general, is all made a little more real, with such a surreal weather.

About those New Year Resolutions . . . .

2012-01-06T12:24:00.000-05:00

From my Urban Dictionary Calendar:

"NEW YEARS ABSOLUTION"

The feelings of relief and consolation when you find out that all your friends have broken and/or given up on their New Year's resolutions as well.

New Year, New Things

2012-01-04T22:35:00.007-05:00

The days pass, these four since the start of 2012, and one can already see the patterns and future assembling ahead.

For example, take a gander at the following over at the London Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8987846/Ambrose-Evans-Pritchard-2012-could-be-the-year-Germany-lets-the-euro-die.html

Other than bluntly stating that our economic elevator is about to break loose of its cables and begin its descent, it casually mentions--while discussing unemployment in certain countries--that the American 'labor participation rate' (i.e., actual unemployment) is at a Depression level of 64%. Won't hear that in the American press will you?

Was talking with a Division Vice President with one of the large investment banks this morning, and they're having their clients accounts 'positioned' @ 30-50% cash. I'm tellin' you, hang on to your money. And that's 'cause nobody has any.

D-2 bought a replacement vehicle for the one totalled three weeks ago when she was T-boned. All these years, we were frugal and drove sensible, affordable cars which lacked allure, and now she has a Mercedes C Class. She's not even 25. So much for hanging onto your money.

Have a hearing in Savannah tomorrow afternoon, so I'll be driving down in the morning. Our frigid temperatures in the 'teens are supposed to moderate upwards into the 60's come Friday. This yo-yo of climate is guaranteed to get people sick.

But the world progresses at a steady pace into this new year. The Imams of the Right have held their Festival of Righteousness in Iowa, and now the beast slouches towards Bethle---[ahem]--New Hampshire and South Carolina.

New Year's

2012-01-01T08:27:00.006-05:00

You know, the problem with the first day of the new year is figuring out exactly what happened the last day of last year.

Take right now.

OK, you wake up.

Slowly.

Painfully.

And that one act--waking up--so robs you of energy that you lie there exhausted for another hour.

Eventually you get up, and your body feels like a pack of enraged baboons had their way with you.

And then threw you over to the jackals.

Who really smell bad.

You know?

After a few sips of your first of eight cups of coffee, you sit there and the thought slowly enters your brain that you don't really recall last night.

Check your cell phone.

OK, the normal texts to everyone as the hours ticked down. But where were you?

Ah--the camera part of the phone.

OK:

OMG. You know that bar. That intown bar that your kids are wide-mouthed about and say that's not 'age appropriate' for you. It's like, one of their bars.

Wait. There's a second pic from last night:

??

Ah. The symphony. Apparently during intermission.

And then like a waterfall suddenly rushing over you it all comes back. You're in a tux. At that trendy Irish restaurant in Midtown. Then on to the symphony for a special New Year's Eve program where famous dancers recreate on stage famous dances from famous musicals and movies (fantastic, and soooo age appropriate). Then to the house because She is not going to spend another New Years' trapped in a room like she had to, two years ago. Standing in freezing temperatures out on the deck, thundering fireworks all around on the horizons. The champagne. The promises. The exchange of hope. The reconciliation...in spite of everything. We can't go back. But we can go forward. Accepting each other as who we are. Because after 35 years, it's kinda hard to untangle two kindred souls who really do love one another.

So Happy New Year, everyone.

New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-30T16:14:00.004-05:00

When I was growing up, my mother would faithfully the first of every January sit down and come up with five resolutions for herself for the coming year. Aspirations for achievement. One which always made its way onto her list was to be more patient with the kids. So, of course, we kids copied her for a while (making a list, not the patience bit), into adulthood.

Now, I stopped doing New years Resolutions well over a decade ago, figuring one couldn't improve on perfection.

But as I arrive at five years of writing this blog and the live(s) it has chronicled, maybe--just maybe--perfection could use some tweaking.

But "tweak" seems to have morphed into definitions never really intended by the English language. Here's what Wikipedia (which could really use your contribution, BTW) has to say on the matter:

The Evolution of Tweak and it's Various Verbal Meanings:
1. Tweak- to touch something up, fiddle with the finishing touches or make tiny little changes.
2. Tweak- To perfect in an Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder-ish way
3. Tweak- Little over-caffinated kid with various bizarre nervous-tics who lives in South Park
4. Tweak- To be on some type of speed and be any/all of the following:
--Highly aggitated, wide eyed, and angry/overly irritable
--To be as paranoid in a mouselike manner; rapid breathing, weird twitchy and/or panic-ey movements/responses
--To be euphoric as a motherfucker whilst on some type of upper( which is usually taken in a rather large amount to induce such energized and super-human like euphoric oddness)
--Just really fucking cracked out, in any way, as long as its super conspicuously performed behavior that is commonly associated with crackheads/random speed-heads
--To be using or experiencing some feeling or difference caused by the use of Methamphetamines

EXAMPLES OF USE:
1. " I just gotta tweak a little bit here and there and it will be perfect."
2. "I just gotta tweak this and THIS AND THIS AND THIS and this and OHH NO now this..."
3.How do I make an example of this? If you don't watch the fucking show, what does the example matter to your familiarity?
4. "Dude your fucking twitching and grinding your teeth like a goddamned crackhead, wouldya quit pacin' around freaking about shit all quarter-eyed like that?"
::shaking, wide-eyed in the corner, head tucked behind huddled knees:: "Icantcomeout--gassp. Thh-thhuah--THEYLL GET ME!"::
"OH-MY-GOD- YOUGUYSWATCHICANRUN - AND! - READTHISBOOK -ATTHESAMETIME! WITHOUT RUNNINGINTOSTUFFHOLYCRAP! I'm god." ::scampers about rapidly, limbs a-flurry and a manic smile plastered to their face::
"Dude, seriously, it's probably just because you're a meth-head"

And I'll let you decide which use of the word is appropriate for me in this situation.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T16:24:00.005-05:00

Christmas is the promise of a new beginning, of love despite ourselves, of forgiveness for things we've done or thought.

Sometimes I wonder if how we commemorate the season does a disservice to this.

We have twenty centuries of accretion of traditions built up over top this event, or imported from others, which interfere with our view of Christmas. Like the'pot-latch' of gift-giving, where we tell ourselves we're imitating the Three Wise Men with our gifts. Nordic greenery. Saints from Roman times who favored children. Carrolling from Elizabethan and Victorian times. In our culture and times, it boils down to family--being with them, celebrating with them, worshiping with them, feasting with them.

And that brilliant surge of light more intense than a million suns bursting in our time and space that night, to console us and promise us of more than our worldly goods could ever give us, that was the ultimate gift. The proof that we matter, that we count, that we are not forgotten, that we are wanted, that we belong.

That is Christmas.

So Merry Christmas to all.

And to all--a good night!

Just got in from the hospital

2011-12-23T01:55:00.003-05:00

Just got in from the hospital.

Guess what?

It's December. Just like 2 years ago.

And same hospital as 2 years ago.

And I made another middle-of-the-night phone call to a friend about what to do. The same friend as 2 years ago.

But this time is was D-2 and not the Queen.

She'd been T-boned at high speed by an SUV while driving her stick shift Mazda3.

Thankfully, around the corner from a police station.

Thankfully, the other driver was trapped in their car and couldn't leave the scene.

Thankfully, the impact was between the front drivers wheel and the door and not the door itself.

And she'd been on the phone with me at the time.

She'd had worries about whether the battery was starting to go and we were talking about how the car was acting and if there were any problems and then there was her voice huskily speaking oh my god OH MY GOD THEY'RE GOING TO HIT ME and then the most heart-wrenching scream that seemed to go on for an eternity.

And then the phone went dead.

Every parent's nightmare.

She's going to be OK. Miraculously, no broken bones. Doctors don't believe there's any head trauma but we're under instructions to watch her. But she's going to laid up for a little bit.

The Queen is in shock. She knows full well how life can turn on a dime. Another few inches, eight or twelve at the most, and we would have lost D-2, she says. I'll wait until morning to call D-1. D-2 is now in bed, tranqued out on pain killers and anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers.

Like I have said before, all we have is our time to give, and we need to give it to our loved ones.

So love your loved ones this Christmas season.

So this is how a democracy is changed into a dictatorship

2011-12-20T15:50:00.004-05:00

Americablog has an absolutely riveting (and chilling) item about the steps taken in in one country in Europe to gut its democracy in light of the economic upheaval and the failed attempts to deal with the economic crisis.

Read it.

And be afraid.

Very afraid.

Because when you do read it, you see it's already happening here. In this country.

Now.

http://www.americablog.com/2011/12/hungarywhat-constitutional-coup-looks.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog%29

What have we learned in over 2,000 years?

2011-12-19T09:05:00.002-05:00

I came across this over the weekend. I'd been aware of it for decades, but only now does it all seem more relevant:

"* "The budget should be balanced,

* the Treasury should be refilled,

* public debt should be reduced,

* the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and

* the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest [our country] become bankrupt.

* People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

~Cicero...55 BC

Blinded by the Light

2011-12-18T08:37:00.004-05:00

I sit here writing this and am suddenly blinded by light flooding the room from the window, sloshing its intense brilliance about me, abruptly filling up the room to the ceiling until I float in it.

Aliens? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Enlightenment?

No.

Once a year, for a few brief days only, sunlight come into the room. Something about the positioning of where I live, and the movement of the sun around the horizen.

But it's like a shower of intense light which lasts but a few moments as the sun moves on behind structures on the horizen.

And when you're in it, you feel suspended in time and space and white, all of your senses absorbing the warm light.

Remarkable.

More thoughts

2011-12-16T19:11:00.005-05:00

We go through life so cocksure of where we are and what we're doing. We take everything for granted.

And we shouldn't.

Take my last last two years, for example.

A job.

The health of a dear one.

Money.

Briggs, my Other Half.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not whining. I am not Job on his dung heap.

I have so much to be thankful for, and have honestly been blessed with having had the first three and shared time with the fourth.

Love to have 'em back, mind you.

But don't you ever think you are immune from the winds of fate.

Enjoy what you have.

Love who you have.

More thoughts

2011-12-16T13:54:00.005-05:00

I was at the sink just now, fixing a salad for 40 for someone else to take to a party, and started singing that George Michael song, "Last Christmas." And that led to thinking about WHAM, his early pairing. And what all he'd done with his life...out.

And what I'd done with mine, wanting to be.

And then with an audible 'pop' a random thought flashed into my brain.

What if it isn't what you do with your life, but how you live it, that counts in the end?

An observation

2011-12-16T07:56:00.002-05:00

"Well", the other person declared, "I'm just not going to worry about that."

"It's what you don't worry about that gets you," I replied.

They laughed. "I'll have to remember that one," came the retort.

o o o o o o o

Although I honestly think that, it also shows a pre-occupation with getting zapped by life, don't you think?

Mid December

2011-12-15T15:23:00.003-05:00

Temperatures are balmy, unusual weather with the Winter Solstice just a few days away.

The whole world seems to be a-jumble, with nothing quite settling in the way one is used to.

The world of finance is now essentially just to hold on to one's money, and forget about making money with investments, says my banker, mirroring my own assessment of things. What a change! Hang on to what you got just so you don't lose it.

The Queen has decided this is the last Christmas, and I obviously can't let anyone know why for the time being. The wedding was very difficult for me. Whereas today we talk about 'blended' families, my extended family was done in a cuisinart. What I saw in my mind's eye at the church was one of my princesses up there with their own Prince Charming, me sitting at end of the pew, the Queen and her Consort at the other end of the pew. I didn't grow up with that type of image to strive for, but that's what I'll have.

The wedding also gave a chance to eyeball three branches of family with multiple generations coming together for a joint event. And this family was joining together with another family. What a riot. Loved the cuban food.

south beach

2011-12-11T14:39:00.004-05:00

South Beach.
Warm weather, warm glances and a retro look to a lifestyle that would be fun for a while!

Here for a family wedding, full of all the hopes and angst and ambitions and dreams that weddings are famous for.

And that's just on the guests' part.

A walk in the woods

2011-12-05T09:03:00.011-05:00

A walk in the woods is an opportunity to see the parallels between nature and our lives.

There are stages in our lives when we seem to be in a shambles. Either we screwed up bigtime, or someone has turned our lives into chaos, or circumstances have leveled the way we used to live.

Oh, our lives continue through the debris and rubble, but we are disoriented, and saddened, because even though what we had may have been harmful, or built on sand, or self-destructive, it's what we knew. Regardless, it is in disarray.

But what nature shows us is this is a good process. New growth often cannot occur on old wood. Neither God nor we can build something new and better in a shattered landscape. It has to be cleaned out. It has to be cleared.

And then we can wend our way through the construction along new courses and waterways, in ways we hadn't been able before and to places we never even thought of previously. If we give God a chance, the channels of our lives can become places of hope and tranquility, giving clarity and good will to others as we course through the waters of life.

A change of seasons

2011-12-01T09:16:00.004-05:00

December begins.

The weather front which passed through the other day has left frozen nights. This is our hard freeze, which kills off the plants and allows winter to set in. The sun rises later, and sets very soon. The seasons change, and our lives slowly reconfigure along with them. Sometimes imperceptably, sometimes lurching along like an old jalopy. But they do change.

The Queen is off on a date tonight.

2011-11-29T17:47:00.004-05:00

Midway this way of life we are bound upon . . .

2011-11-25T17:57:00.004-05:00

Late autumn gives way to a mild quiet beauty, a trifle unnerving in its silence. The sounds which exist are different. The crickets and insects aren't anywhere near as loud as they are during summer. The remaining leaves on the trees are no longer able to muffle noise, though, and in fact make their own as they scrape together in cooler breezes. Moist warm air gives way to a dryer, chillier climate. Out in the country, the smell of pork-smoking drifts over the gentle hills; the road-side stands of produce dwindle in number; the fields are harvested and remain like sentinals or battlefields, depending on the crop which they bore. Intown, streetgoers are bundled and not so raggedy as they are with summer attire. People move a little faster. The cold braces the blood, so I've heard.

Our lives change rotation, too, just like the seasons.

2011-11-21T08:11:00.002-05:00

There are times in your life when there's stuff going on--your stuff--and it's pointless to lean on someone else, cry on someone's shoulder, go to a bar and get soggy-faced in a beer, or even tell anyone else. Those times when there's nothing they can do to help. Those times when it's your responsibility to take control of a situation, and deal with it.

You're not lonely during such a time.

Just alone.

Life loses its flavor during those times.

Like thin fog enveloping your morning and filtering out any sunlight, turning everything shades of light to sombre gray. Or badly made soup, thin and watery with only a remembrance of flavoring.

You know it will pass. You're not in any danger. Things are in the midst of changing and you have to do your part in the change.

That sort of thing.

vignettes [2]

2011-11-20T15:40:00.002-05:00

And the Queen, having a new lease on life, seems to be seizing it by the throat for all it's worth.

I've learned she met him Friday for lunch, it seems, and was so taken with the affair that the pair will be meeting back up on Monday.

We're not talking a dining experience here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Have a case in two weeks of a seven year old autistic child. Breaks your heart, what happens to other people. Puts your life and your burdens into perspective.

Vignettes

2011-11-19T15:11:00.002-05:00

The huge-ass shiny black lamborghini sedan hurtled off center into the parking space beside me, slammed to a stop, and an extraordinarily petite mop of black hair atop heavily layered designer clothes and enough jewelry to stop an Indian bazarre threw herself out of the driver's seat and ran into the Alternations shop in front of me carrying a load of clothes even bigger than she was.

I knew who it was.

I'd been her replacement twenty years ago when she left the firm. She'd stayed in our field of practice, though, over the years, and her husband had gone into a very lucrative, high-profile section of practice, the type where you really don't like your clients but they can afford your fees because they really got themselves into some bigtime trouble.

When she returned from the store, we greeted and exchanged pleasantries. Nicest person in the world. Down to earth.

But so many toys.

We are who we are, despite what we got.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

I've been invited to thanksgiving dinner next week. Pot luck type of thing. The host sent around a menu of what all is being served, and the guests are supposed to choose one and make it for the dinner. I chose the corn casserole. Then the guy sends the recipe for it.

WTF?

No. No. If I'm gonna bring a corn casserole as my offering to the table, it will be my corn casserole. I won't be somebody else's cook. He wants that one, he can cook it himself. May have control issues, who knows. I intend to find something unusual in light of this.

Maybe Peruvian Corn Casserole, who knows?

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

[to be continued]

A Night At The Opera

2011-11-18T07:58:00.005-05:00

I'm back in town for the evening, a night at the opera.

No. We're not talking about Queen's 1975 album featuring great songs (including Bohemian Rhapsody).

And we're not talking about the Marx Brothers' classic 1935 film.

Nope.

Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor plays this evening.

It was the first opera I ever saw, albeit it was on a scratchy-imaged television with lots of black and white snow that late, boring Saturday afternoon when I was 11 years old.

But I liked it.

Now, since, I've seen other operas. Not a fanatic, mind you. But I've seen a few.

And with Lucia, I still think the best piece is 'Il dolce suono', which was lifted and used as the Diva's song in THE FIFTH ELEMENT. And 'Chi mi frena in tal momento' has its own merits.

No, won't be in a tux or anything, but no jeans either.

This is class stuff, you know?

FIREWORKS

2011-11-14T04:04:00.005-05:00

the song by katy perry, 'fireworks' has a quarter of a billion hits on youtube.

why?

It offers love and hope and self-affirmation to the disadvantaged, the underdogs, the victims in life. It says, be yourself and you will prevail. Whether fighting cancer, or pulchritude, or gay love, or any of the other distinctions which life foists upon us, you can prevail.

I can never recover the hurt from when I was growing up. Some people probably have no business having children. And, it seems the more intelligent are worse at parenting, according to my old therapist. I cannot today--try as I might--find someone to end what happened half a century ago. There is no one today able to do that. The time for rescue ended 50 years ago.

There was no white knight then, and there isn't one coming now.

But tell you what---

One thing I can do is to give hope to others, though. I have been there. I can let desperate kids know they are not alone. I can listen. I can assurethem that they can survive most anything.

And just as my soon to-be-former wife can give hope and guidance to those assaulted by leukemia, so I can help the helpless who are scared to death.

I can help them have a life.

All right, all right

2011-11-14T03:24:00.004-05:00

It's after 3 a.m.

I'm sitting here, a quarter of the way through a bottle of Old Crow, listening to wonderful music off youtube--katy perry, peter hollens, Gaga. Songs of love and affirmnation. I won't touch Jamie Cullen--that's too painful.

And remembering.

Memories of Love

2011-11-14T00:21:00.003-05:00

NOTE TO READERS:

I wrote this, and the more I thought about it, the more maudlin it looked. OK. My heart got hurt. BFD. Whose hasn't? My naivite about the other person's insensitivity and lack of concern is more a poor reflection on me than anything else. So the lesson is, and the advice given but which I haven't taken, is this: Get over it.

I rustled through my worn leather briefcase, looking for ink cartridges for the fountain pens I use, and found a thumb drive. I've been here for several weeks now, starting a new life, and hopefully not stumbling around and making too much of a mess with it, and I'm sorting through that briefcase and pull out that red Verbatim thumb drive.

The one I haven't seen in a while.

Out of curiosity, I plugged it into the computer. And quickly realized what it was.

But suddenly splashed across the monitor screen, there they were.

Picture after picture after picture of someone I loved wholly and completely.

The one who stole my heart.

The one who broke my heart.

Deliberately.

I still, even now, do not understand how someone could do that.

Oh, they've moved on. Moved on to new one after new one after new one.

And I haven't.

I'm letting wounds heal, but the hurt remains.

They are out fishing; and I am alone on the lakeshore.

2011-11-06T23:15:00.003-05:00

I am here in this city of three rivers, in a modest efficiency apartment, laboring over legal problems of a large client. I've been asked to help a serious problem.

What a learning experience.

Do you know what it's like when you realize that the world you came up in professionally no longer exists? Everything your professional life was based on is now gone with the wind?

Practicing law when I got out of law school was hanging up your shingle or going to work for a law firm, or if you couldn't do that, then settling on being a law clerk for someone. Wealth and public recognition were only months away. Brooks Brothers suits were the uniform. You addressed the secretaries as, "Miss ***", or "Mrs. ***"; paralegals (which were innovative at the time) were, "Mr. ***." Dress was formal; conduct was formal; inter-office relations were formal.

Now?

There is a vast ocean of unemployed lawyers. Lawyers have the highest unemployment rate of any occupation now. All these people who were encouraged to go to law school by their families or by their own drive. Like lemmings off the edge of a cliff, they were educated into a profession which was about to undergo a Jurassic die-off of epic proportions. Some stay in the towns they were in.

Others, like gypsies, travel about the country like itinerant tinkers, filling in at temporary assignment after temporary assignment through labor agencies, performing legal work for large law firms too cheap to have their own associates do the same work. Actually, it does make sense: pay a temp with better credentials than your associates one quarter or one fifth of what you're paying the associate.

Client loads have shrunk; revenues have plummeted; firms are in trouble and so are the smaller practitioners. I personally know of several lawyers in their 50's who have just folded their tents rather than incur the bleeding out of money from their practices for the next 7-10 years.

And if this is what it's like for a profession, how much more scarred and barren must it be for those without all that training, without the drive and direction?

2011-10-29T09:06:00.006-04:00

The rains came through Atlanta last night, bringing very chilly temperatures. Up North, they're getting an unusually early snowfall. But here, today, the sky is brilliant blue, the leaves are deep olive and red-dy brown. The sunshine cascades down upon the earth like liquid diamond. It is autumn. The epitome of autumn.

I had lunch yesterday with a friend who knows about my situation.

He told me I had to let go.

He said that for the girls, I'd done enough for them: they were educated, smart, independent, and in that stage of life when you learn life's lessons, and that they were rolling with the punches.

He was right.

And as for the Queen, he said, I'd done all I could for her. There was nothing more I could ever do. It was time to let go. Time to take care of me.

And after a restless night fumbling over this concept, I'm sitting here in this radiant sunlight of an October morning and realize he's right.

For all of those that I love, I've done all I can.

And it's time to let go.

And it's time to go.

Cooking Up Life

2011-10-25T18:15:00.006-04:00

The more you think about it, leading your life is like cooking a meal. With a little bit of planning, it can be great. The less thought given, the more haphazard and jarring it is. Anything less than the best ingredients you can scrounge up leaves you settling for second-best, and underwhelmed. Season it, and it is no longer bland. Undercook it, and you cheat yourself. Overcook it, and it just isn't as satisfying as it had been. Scents from the dish whet the appetite, and hence anticipation can intensify activities. Experiment with the dish, and you may discover something better. Rush through, and you've lost the enjoyment. Sit and stare at the plate of life, and you're not living it.

So, yeah--leading your life is like cooking a meal.

from right to left, chicken vegetable alphabet soup, chuckwagon chili, and pork-chorizo stuffing for cabbage.

LATER. And sometimes those dishes come back to bite you. Stay away from the chili.

Northern Lights and Changes

2011-10-25T08:31:00.002-04:00

We had Northern Lights last night.

We never have those.

We're too far south.

This is Atlanta, for heaven's sake!

But the unexpected occurs everywhere. In the climate. In the skies. In our lives.

I leave this weekend for a month to do legal work for a french company in another state. This blew up like a summer storm a day or two ago. I said, sure.

It is opportune, though. It'll give everything here a chance to settle down. Give the family a chance to think things over and sort things out.

You hear about it but until you experience it . . .

2011-10-24T10:18:00.003-04:00

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, they're bailing.

Fair weather friends.

"Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots", I believe is how others have described it.

How is it we think we have things worked out, with people who are supposed to have our backs for when the going is gonna get rough, folks we're relying on, turns out they're not so stalwart after all, the support is weak or feeble or lackluster or downright absent.

Oh, they're cheerful enough. Hale & well-met, so to speak. But avoiding the assurances earlier given, evading those prods of support they were so quick to give earlier. Now, they're non-committal, they take a step back.

Thankfully, I know this is human nature and not deliberate misfeasance on their part.

It just gets really old.

Later

2011-10-20T00:53:00.003-04:00

Well, I just got in and I'm sitting here with a large ice tea glass filled half with Old Crow, half with ice, and any room that remained has Diet Coke in it.

I am happy for the Queen. I am not happy about the fact this turns out to have been going on a lot longer than I was aware of.

Again, anticipated developments.

I suppose.

Anticipated Developments

2011-10-19T11:11:00.001-04:00

The Queen is dating. Or at least putting herself out there into the pool.

I am happy for her; I hope she finds someone who will be a good fit. Pretty sure she will, actually.

The Marriage Proposal

2011-10-18T15:17:00.005-04:00

I logged on, and a little Messenger box popped up.

"MARRY ME"

I stared at it.

Then looked at who'd sent it.

I had a rush of thoughts.

(1) Why hadn't this come from the one person I'd asked that same question of?

(2) Why does this person think it was appropriate?

(3) Why do people not realize that marriage is a serious business and not a convenient domestic arrangement?

(4) There is no way in hell I'd move to Texas.

I've only asked two people to marry me.

The first time, I was drunk and I did it by phone, and the response I got back was to ask again in a year and if they still felt the same way, they'd say yes.

The second time I was stone sober--did it in person and by e-mail--and was met with the observation that didn't I know I was already married?

But with each occasion, I was deeply in love with the person.

And the second love showed me that the first time wasn't the full thing.

So I typed a cute and disarming response into the message box, and went on with things.

I've never been asked before, incidentally.

Not even by the second.

Although once--and only once--did that Second whisper in my ear when I appeared to be sleeping, "I love you."

October

2011-10-15T18:23:00.004-04:00

Days of liquid sunlight; nights of autumn cool. The trees are changing into palettes of amber and olive and light brown.

It's not something I'm used to, plugging into different social systems, meeting new people, getting out to hustle business or personal matters. A little rusty, but--like riding a bike--you get better.

Weaving a new social life is delicate, you know? A thread of someone here, a button there, some folks are fasteners, intricate stitches are needed for some folks. Human filaments which fold into fabric for a new social coat to wear when the seasons of our lives move on.

I knew a guy many years ago who'd clearly by age 24 been stomped on by life. His view was that friends could be had for a drink at the bar. So cold an opinion of people. It was from knowing him that I learned the lesson that the beautiful in this life are cannibalized. He certainly was beautiful. And, he certainly was cannibalized. I've wondered whatever happened to him. (It's one of those irritations in life that you never wind up knowing whatever happened to people you used to know.)

But trying to place yourself in other people's lives is something we should never stop trying to do, I suppose. Like puppies on a cold night, we instinctively seek others. Just, we have conventions and protocols on how to do it.

Miscalculations

2011-10-13T20:57:00.006-04:00

I was going to go to the Hispanic Bar Association's luncheon tomorrow--I'd recently signed up as a member since I've inherited a few Latin clients from a deceased attorney--until it was pointed out that the luncheon is going to be in Spanish.

Damn.

That'll teach me to go to school in France so that the only other language I speak is not Spanish.

I'd been intending to go to the Red Mass today at the Cathedral, the Catholic Mass to pray for Divine Guidance for our judges and justices...until I realized I hadn't had confession in a while.

And I've done an awful lot of sinning.

When I converted and I had to do my first (and only, so far) confession, I got about about halfway through when the priest pulled back and hissed, "You did what????"

So I've been a little gun shy, you know?

Catch This Quick - Be With You

2011-10-12T13:16:00.002-04:00

Brand new release by ERASURE:

http://soundcloud.com/muterecords/erasure-be-with-you/s-ClDcu

Says it all.

Air Shows and Pride

2011-10-09T15:00:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I went to an air show south of town. Never been to one, although the local Naval Air Station in Tampa would routinely send up planes over the Gasparilla Parades. You had the cutesy little planes flying here. Had some historic WWII planes.

And then there was the F-18. What a plane!!!

After the second pass-over, I suddenly yelled out, "I gotta get me one of those!!!!" That is some serious fun!!

Excited, I texted this picture of the airshow to a lawyer friend of mine with the caption, "Air Show!!".

And he shot back with what he was doing at that precise moment: "Drag Show--gay pride! : )

This is Pride Weekend in Atlanta.

And this morning, I staffed the booth of the local gay bar association, handing out brochures and information.

I may be an Atlanta native, but this was actually the first time I'd ever been in Piedmont Park. The first time I'd ever been to an event like this. Kind of like a combination Crafts Fair and Trade Show, only with lots of rainbows. Attendance was fairly split between women and men, 60/40 on the white/black split, 70% 20-35 age group, 30% 45 and up. Not a lot of men in that last grouping, but most of my contemporaries would have died in the epidemic thirty years ago. Dress was casual to somewhat outlandish but not too much so. It was pointed out to me that since it wasn't even one in the afternoon yet, a lot of people were still sleeping off last night's partying. And that the absence of the 35-45 group was 'cause a lot of them were burnt out on Pride, after a decade or so of participating in it. There was also a cultural divide with the age groupings, I saw: the younger were more open and accepting of themselves and the whole scene, whereas my age group--raised in an era of conformity and guilt--were more reserved. The questions coming across the booth's counter could have come from any demographic grouping: wills, adoptions, criminal, job hunting, discrimination. But it was all, nonethless, fascinating. I'm glad I did it.

Rivers and the Use You Can Make of Them

2011-10-08T09:16:00.004-04:00

[ruins of mill at Lullwater Park]

Sometimes life is more like a river.

It's going. It's going somewhere. You're on it, and you're going, too. Some folks just like to sit there and watch the view as the waters carry them on. Other people like to swim in them.

And some people make use of the river. They use it to accomplish things, to build things, to move things, to change things.

And later, when they're gone, we still get to see the dams they built to divert a little of the river's energy and lifeforce in order to give power to mills and other endeavors those people thought important.

We can do that with life, too. We can use it to generate good for ourselves and those about us. We can use it to give nourishment to others.

We can make life good.

Turns in the Road

2011-10-04T18:11:00.002-04:00

A turn in the road of life brings many things. Sure, there's a change of the view. And, yes, there are new sounds to hear that weren't discernible before. But there are also changes in humidity we feel on our skin, different fragrances which subtly entice us, a taste of different air which although unfamiliar isn't unpleasant. And the people we meet along the way, they may not be the type we're used to, or even somewhat comfortable with. Yet they're there, and we're pleasant.

But the change challenges us. Kind of like life has thrown down a gauntlet before us, and waits to see if we'll meet the contest.

Oh--and there's one thing with turns of the road, you know. It's real hard to go back.

Not that you'd really want to, since you took that direction on purpose.

Right?

THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT THE FUTURE

2011-09-27T18:16:00.002-04:00

I cannot believe this was actually aired. It is the truth. It is not pretend or make believe or a sham. You really, really need to hear this. And then get scared shitless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lqN3amj6AcE#!

Suffer the Stings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

2011-09-24T16:56:00.001-04:00

(with apologies to MacBeth)

I discovered the end of my senior year that I was allegic to bee stings. Quite by accident, and quite acutely. I'd been cutting some roses that May morning to take to a female friend in school and somehow got stung by a bee or wasp on my right cheek. Within two hours the entire side of my face had swollen, along with that side of my neck. I was taken from school immediately to the doctor.

I remember all this clearly because I had to undergo allergy testing. Now, you need to realize I have been horrified of needles all my life, ever since I was a little kid. And to test for allergies, they take lots and lots and lots of hypodermics--each filled with a different substance--and inject it in the skin of one of your arms. And if something blows up, why, that's something you're allergic to! Looking back, it's barbaric. The doctors at the time wanted me to keep what is now called an epi-pen, but back then it was a big-ass glass hypodermic needle and vials of something. But I was a teenager; cops were really on the lookout for drugs, and I just knew if I got pulled over they'd see the paraphenalia and think I was some drug whore. So I never got the kit.

The last time I was stung was out in the front yard twenty-some odd years ago. On my arm. It was probably fifteen years before that that I had last been stung. I should have gone to the emergency room that last time, but didn't, and should have so I resolved if it ever happened again, I'd go.

The other week I was accompanying the Queen on a training walk for the marathon, when for no reason, my left cheek began to itch. It quickly swelled up bigtime. The Queen had gone on and walked well ahead, so there I am, alone in the middle of a preserve on a walking trail, and something has gotten to me. The swelling was pretty bad, and when the rasping breath started, I knew it was really serious, so I got out of there very quickly and when we got home loaded up on some antihistamines.

And today...I'm inside the house, working on a report and feel the tiniest--almost imperceptible--'tink' on the front of my upper lip. Within a minute or two, the swelling started: the size of a small pea, then a walnut, then a small bratwurst. I quickly took a couple of antihistimines.

And now? I look like Homer Simpson. A thick, balloon of tissue puffing out over the lower lip and jaw, sagging because of its weight, making me look like a cretin.

Saturday

2011-09-24T10:21:00.003-04:00

D-2 is off with friends to Music Midtown to listen to the groups. The Queen is at a crafts fair in a neighboring town with friends, and then moving on to a seven mile walk and wrapping her day up with a three hour symposium on composting.

I'm here, overlooking a sun-drenched patio, cranking out memos and reports. Had a nasty day in court yesterday. Nasty judge. She apparently worked very hard to achieve that sharp tongue and dismissive air.

But now, I have a whole day stretching ahead of solitude. So, why not finally getting around to mopping the kitchen floor? Weeding what used to be an herb garden? Changing the sheets once a month?

Productive use of time, I think they call it.

2011-09-19T08:54:00.003-04:00

It's an ordered sort of morning. Weather is cool. Saw everyone off to their jobs. Read the news and financials. World's in a mess, isn't it? Garbage out before the trucks come. Do the dog. Second cup of coffee. The sounds of leaf blowers and dogs barking and school buses passing and neighbors' doors slamming echo off the houses.

Like I say, it's an ordered sort of morning.

And I'm doing OK.

I'm doing OK because I am accepting myself for what and who I am. And this is very, very important.

I'm doing OK because in paying my quarterly taxes the other day for my practice, I saw I wasn't bottom scrounging the economic pool. Not at all.

I'm doing OK because She and I have firmly focused on our issue.

Let me explain that one.

The other evening, I couldn't get her to get up and go to bed. She was exhausted, I knew that, what with working all day and then training for this half marathon. She's doing six miles a day now, walking. But I couldn't get her to get up. She didn't make a lot of sense suddenly when she spoke. Her right eye would half open but the left wouldn't. And I saw that the left side of her face wasn't really moving when she did try to talk. Her eyelids fluttered and her eyes would start to roll up into her head. I knelt down in front of her and held her head in my hands, staring intently into her face. She said there was nothing wrong with her. She would not let me call 911. In my minds eye I saw her dying right there in front of me, in my hands; the funeral; consoling the kids; the blind emptiness of the house I would need to sell. If I hadn't already gone through the leukemia with her, this would have devastated me. But I had. So it didn't. She roused and got a little better, I got her upstairs, into bed, fully convinced that she would have a stroke or something in the night.

In the morning, she was right as rain. I told her she was never to do that to me again. I ordered her. And she was good with that. Somehow deep in her soul she understood that I really did love her. She wouldn't go to the doctor, though. At best, it may have been a TIA--who knows?

But now the question is, can she live with me?

Years ago a gay guy fell in love with a girl and married her. And years later they're sorting out what to do about that.

And I don't think she can.

autumn days

2011-09-17T11:35:00.003-04:00

This summer of three months' worth of temperatures into the 90's has at last broken. Fall has just come. And it's downright chilly. The leaves are starting to change; the foliage of the shrubs and trees turning into olive green from the fresh greens of spring and early summer. The vegetable garden has been dying off. The weeds grow slower, even.

And in the surrounding towns, fall festivals and markets spring up. September is a round robin of these things for families. It all starts out with the Daisy Festival, the first weekend after Labor Day, named after a small yellow daisy that only grows within 40 or so miles of Stone Mountain, nowhere else. This weekend, several towns have fairs; next week is Duluth Day and the Canton River Fest. And it goes on and on.

D-1 is laid up sick with a never-ending sinus infection that won't let go. D-2 is in DC for the weekend with a girlfriend, and intending to see the guy who won't commit. It's been a busy week for me. The Queen spends hours walking, working up to the half-marathon distance she'll be doing in Savannah in November.

RODEO!

2011-09-06T18:30:00.006-04:00

Went to the rodeo Saturday night in a nearby town. Young men and women on horseback competing in skills for an industry that died a century ago. Rodeos today are marketed and presented in the same fashion as a baseball game, or a hockey game: very loud announcer, comic relief, invocation of patriotism, some activity at halftime which involves small children. The crowd was all over the place regarding who they were: old, middle aged, teenagers out on dates. Everyone wore clean clothes--this event was a destination, not something you casually dropped in on. Many had cowboy flair to their fashion. Overwhelming white, with the few blacks mainly contestants. A lot of Hispanics. And the Cow roping. Bronco riding. Bulls. There were intricacies to how the contestants were to peform in each event. The cow had to stay tied for so many seconds; the rider had to stay on the bucking horse for so many minutes. A poor attitude (or anger) by a losing contestant was reprimanded by the voice from the microphone acting as a master of ceremonies. There was a food section, with funnel cakes and hot dogs and beer and pretzels and beer and cotton candy and beer and nachos and beer. When the spectacle began and the parade of flags galloped through the ring, it was "Dixie" that was playing--that was the music of patriotism for the people attending this rodeo.

Rodeo is a cultural anachronism which has very deep roots in American culture, even after all these years. And yet it still has relevance because the people attending are the salt of the earth in this country. People for whom the 'old time values' are what they were raised on. And this a segment of the voting citizenry which a lot of politicians have forgotten....at their peril.

2011-08-30T18:24:00.000-04:00

Rolling in the Deep

2011-08-29T11:59:00.008-04:00

I look over the photos.

The person in them is what I remember. Smiling. Engaging. In this one, fishing. In that one, playing with a child. In that one there, socializing in Europe. And always--always--those smoldering looks.

Yet the emotional waves associated with those pictures have subsided.

I've heard all my life that, "time heals all wounds".

Now that I'm much, much older, I know that is not true.

Our loves are like an ocean tide. As they recede, if we're lucky, they're hopefully small lapping waves, the buffeting storm surge of passion now past.

But the tide still moves.

And you can't forget love.

http://youtu.be/ccEO4xZQpCo

The link is to Sam Tsui's magnificent cover of Adele's song.

Hurricane

2011-08-27T23:46:00.001-04:00

As we go through our lives hurricanes appear on our horizens--fierce threatening storms which may bypass us, or sweep over us in a maelstrom of disaster.

And you never know which it's going to be.

You may see it coming. You may not.

You may have prepared for such a thing. You may not have.

You may have a few prepared prayers in place. Or you may not.

But just as we know large storms are going to beseige and buffet us in nature, the same thing is going to happen in our personal lives. I guess in a way, we are a reflection of nature.

And afterwards we are either thankful that we escaped with as little lost as we did, or we are stunned at the sheer force of something ever so much bigger than us and that we survived.

But there's always a morning after.

Say "Cheese"

2011-08-21T16:25:00.005-04:00

There is a cheese dairy in south Georgia.

I'm given to understand there are only two in the state, and this one is the better one. A multitude of delicious artisan cheeses mirroring Roquefort, Brie, cheddar, etc. I've bought their offerings the last few years each time I passed through Thomasville. Wonderful flavor and texture, really.

But word got out that the owner would be offering a one time class in how to make mozzarella. OMG. A hands-own class in the craft of cheese-making from someone who really knows the business.

And that's how I learned how these fellas figure into the picture:

And I was all cool with it until I saw how they get the milk. Looks more like an alien space probe:

But--hey--to make a cake ya gotta crack some eggs, you know?

And here's the finished product:

A caprese salad is in the works, with fresh garden basil and homemade mozarella!!!

Glitterati

2011-08-19T10:58:00.006-04:00

The end of the summer get-together was held yesterday evening. Magnificent Classical-fronted hotel in Buckhead. Disciplined European valets with utmost courtesy and deference. Grand entrance inside with flanking curved staircases up to the second floor where, on the entire west side of the floor, the intimate gathering was taking place.

It's the A-list event for my end of the industry/profession. How the host can afford it is beyond anybody's reckoning. People fight to get invited. I've written in the past about it.

This time, though, it was different.

More than anything else, everybody tried hard.

Dressed better. Moved better. Young professionals in suits and cocktail dresses; senior partners and power brokers dressing stylishly but casually so as to emphasize their disregard of convention. Jewelry. Gossip. Catching up. Talking shop. Networking. I didn't see as many judges as the other year. Several lawyers frequently seen interviewed in the TV news were there.

But this time, it was different.

There had to have been three times the normal number of invitees. People I didn't know, people not in the field....OMG crashers. It was starting to become a mob scene. Abandoning chic locales which favored intimacy, this time the massive reception area quickly opened up with the sprawl of people into a grand ballroom with buffet tables and more bars and a live band. There had to have been well over a thousand who had been invited.

So much for being able to work a room adequately.

Different, too, was the food. Rather than a surprising variety of hors d'oevres and substantial fare to nibble on with exotic smells and eye-catching display, there was a choice between hand-carved roast beef on exquisite little powder rolls, or rissoto with your choice of inclusions, like shrimp, or vegetables, sauteed at the stations. Compared to the riot of offerings in the past, this was downright subdued.

Yes, it was definitely different.

An aroma of desperation drifted with the guests. The economy is bad. My industry is changing and dying. Cases and judgements and settlements are down. Caseloads have plummeted. Partners in firms have taken second jobs as magistrates and such. There was a palpable need to make a deal, and the invitees--glittering and brocaded--moved among each other searching for a connection, an opportunity.

And this time . . .

It seemed different because a veil was somehow lifted and you could see in high definition the younger sucking up to the older, the plain sucking up to the pretty, the less affluent sucking up to those with more....all the common behaviors which mankind over the ages has been susceptible to. A faint aura of desperation hovered over the rooms.

And so I left feeling like I'd just walked off the deck of the Titanic.

An unsettling moment in an elevator

2011-08-16T19:15:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday I was in Tallahassee doing a hearing, and as I arrived at the building in which the federal authorities would review my client's case, the building was suddenly surrounded with--what?--seven or eight big-ass white security SUV's which parked in front, on the sides, by the doors, and all these federal security agents popped out of the vehicles along with a sniffing dog. People who were leaving the building were as dumbfounded as those of us preparing to enter. When I got to the front door, I asked on the agents if it was OK to go on inside, and he said yes. So I enter the building, make my way to the elevator and when the doors slide open I get on, followed by at least three of these federal agents.

And the dog.

So I'm on one side of the elevator as its doors shut, and the agents are on the other, and the dog is between us. And I'm looking down and realizing it's really a quite beautiful dog. And it's stuffing its nose into one agent's pantslegs, and moving its head around like Ray Charles and it brushes up against my briefcase and moves its head on and comes back to the briefcase and sniffs and moves back away and then returns to the briefcase and really starts sniffing it.

Seriously sniffing my briefcase.

I see out of the corner of my eye that the agents are focused on the dog too. And I slowly raise my eyes up to those of the agents beside me and our eyes all lock.

"Don't worry--he just likes you," says the one holding the leash.

And the entire elevator bursts into laughter.

Tonight

2011-08-12T15:03:00.004-04:00

Tonight will be an unusual night. Look to the skies.

At least here in Atlanta.

A full moon.

The Perseids meteor shower.

And the Space Station drifting over head shortly after 10 p.m., brighter than anything.

In the midst of all the confusion and disorder in the world and in our own lives these days, isn't the world still filled with wonder?

2011-08-05T21:26:00.002-04:00

It's not the sex.

It's the pretend emotional over-ride to the sex.

The simulated caring about someone, the showering of little demonstrations of affection, on someone you only met a short while ago when they opened their door. Expecting you.

Foreheads touch. Breaths merge. Fingers touch. The body is hugged. You can feel the other's body temperature rise. Along with other things.
We want someone to love us. To care about us. Someone to live the rest of our lives with.

And the 30-45 minutes spent with a stranger is a make-believe interlude in which we can pretend those things are real, and are with us. That our dream has come true.

A Walk On The Wild Side

2011-07-30T14:45:00.004-04:00

Actually, I can barely move.

It's been two months since the gym saw my raggedy *ss--the last six weeks' worth due to this healing surgical wound under my left arm--and today I took a walk.

OK. Let me explain.

D-2 decided she would do a half-marathon this fall, as part of a benefit for a leukemia society. There's a training program for it. Thursday, she and I went to the organizational meeting for the event. We all still have a horrible time dealing with what happened, and this is going to help D-2 cope better with it, I think. And the Leukemic in our group thought this was great.

Even greater was when the Leukemic found out you could walk the half marathon. So figuring all those Hiker Chick outings she'd gone to had prepped her to try this, she signed up, too.

So with a runner and a walker, guess who got elected cheerleader?

So at 8:00 a.m. this morning, assembled at a park in a nearby town, fifteen people jogged off running for a three mile run. There were two walkers.

And I was the stroller. I am not doing a half marathon. But I can do a couple of miles I figure.

Anyway, it was a nice time in the woods, traipsing down a walkway.

Hell, I might even get healthy at this rate.

Getting to the Meat of Things

2011-07-24T07:57:00.002-04:00

It had been a good day for the two of us. A really comfortable day.

And after two pitchers of bellinis, we were having dinner on the pavestone patio downstairs: a wonderful steak--yes, that's a real picture of it--baked potatoes and a Caesar salad, with a nice red wine. She talked about things she wanted to do with the yard, and ended with the statement that she couldn't do the yardwork all alone. I gestured towards the nicely healing wound under my left armpit. "You weren't helping even before that."

It must have been a troubled look on my face which prompted her to ask, "What? Is something wrong?"

"It's hard to invest in something when I don't know if I'm even going to be here," I said.

And I reviewed with her that I was still waiting for her answer. I told her that I loved her, but by not giving me an answer she was leaving both me and her dangling. It was time for an answer.

She hemmed about how it was only recently that she knew she wasn't going to die, that she hadn't had the emotional energy to address our dilemma. "Well, you're not going to die," I insisted, "and you have to get on with living." With her shoulders slumping and her head slightly bowing, she conceded the point.

But it was later, cleaning up in the kitchen, when she turned and addressed me, saying, "Whatever happens, I just want you to know that I love you," that I knew it was over.

Street Corners of Life

2011-07-19T08:39:00.005-04:00

OK. Like I'm standing on a street corner in my life. Yeah, there's stuff going on: I'm outgrowing where I am, gotta find new offices, get my own website and e-mail system, learn how to print envelopes on the printers I've got. I've been meeting with people about target customers, refining the product offering, putting together estimates.

But I'm also leaning back and watching the world out there, the people going about their own lives today, hustling down their streets with their minds whirling with their own thoughts and plans and intentions.

Some people go silent for weeks on end to the point that you wonder if they're dead and you almost go start calling the hospitals to see if they're in a coma there or something, and checking the obits to see when the services are, but then they pop up without nary an explanation.

Other people never stop talking, life's little 'Chatty Cathies", prattling on incessantly over the social airwaves about themselves and their lives and what they're doing this moment and the next and the next and . . . .

And then there are those people who slosh through life's wading pool oblivious to those about who are getting sloshed in their wake. Those people I don't like.

But most people hustle through, preoccupied with the things in their lives which matter at the time, taking care of business--good people, solid people, ordinary people. Them, I like.

Wounds

2011-07-13T15:59:00.004-04:00

The surgeon this morning was pleased with my wound, still gaping under my left armpit. It's never been sutured--it had to heal from the inside out--so each day bandages are taped over it, megavitamins and zinc are popped, and loose, flouncy shirts are worn to keep the bandages from being sucked up inside the opening.

The Other Half had said the original wound looked like a vagina. That kind of set me off, 'cause I'm not the kind of guy who wants one of those. But he was right.

But the doctor said it was healing fine, be healed over in maybe two weeks, and he didn't need to see me anymore. I'm not allowed near the gym until it's healed over, and overhead use of the arm is strictly forebidden.

But the end is in sight.

Thank goodness.

2011-07-02T17:31:00.007-04:00

I wish things could be easily sewn up, life's little frayed threads and loose ends neatly tied down.

Yesterday morning--the first day of July, the first day of the second half of the year, I talked by phone with The Other Half. And--clinkety/clunk/kerthump--everything fell into place. Everything made sense; it all had perspective. Wasn't necessarily pretty, but it became a neat package.

This blog was an open letter to the Other Half. Things I couldn't tell him, things I wanted to express, an on-going love letter and bitter railing about two mismatched people, one of whom did not understand anything and that person was me.

Now I do understand.

I've tried to stop caring, and cannot. We've both hurt each other in the past. I'm not sure I ever figured as much in his life as he has figured in mine, but noone can say I failed to let him know just what he meant to me.

What he needs is--at the end of the day--someone to come home to who actually loves him for himself, and not for what they get out of him. The beautiful are cannibalized by others. For their beauty only.

I wish that person at the end of the day was me.

But until that happens, the Pandemonium of Life beckons too much, and there are other Portals of Life through which we ought to pass.

And if and when he chooses to come home to me, I'll welcome him with open arms.

And more.

It's a little more serious than thought

2011-06-29T10:29:00.003-04:00

And that's all I ought to say on the subject.

I am not a happy camper. You don't like having life derailed by something out of the blue. Life can difficult enough without things getting in your way that there's no way you could have foreseen.

A New World

2011-06-24T21:21:00.006-04:00

Perhaps all the drugs and antibiotics burnt the patterns of wiring in my head. Or maybe since I understood that I really might die if they didn't get this thing in hand. Or perhaps just the solitude and having time to analyze things and life and see it all and put it all into different configurations to see how things had worked over time and with people. Or it could be it's all of this.

It's like a whole new world for me. What was seen before as dull and closed in, I now see as an open door to something. The reason some habit developed before, doesn't seem to matter much any more, I'm not interested in doing the habit. It's OK if somebody goes and does this or that, behavior which would irritate me before. I smiled quite a bit through the day.

And instead of photos of clouds in the sky ... is this piece of whimsery, which I keep on my nightstand.

And I'm OK with all of it.

Everyone can do their own thing. And it's OK.

And--no--I haven't been smoking weed.

ESCAPE!

2011-06-23T14:16:00.001-04:00

I Take Control

2011-06-23T09:57:00.005-04:00

I figured this morning that if prisoners of war get certain rights and guarantees of their treatment, so should patients in hospitals.

Screw em!

So at 5:30 this morning, I snuck away and stripped and accompanied only by tubing I didn't know how to disconnect, I bathed myself by sponge. I shaved. I washed my hair in a sink. Some of the packing from the incision under the arm slipped out and landed with a dull thud on the bathroom floor. I brushed my teeth. I think I've lost weight. Hair seems to be of solid brown, though.

I put on underwear. That was clean. Screw 'em! I put on a pair of shorts. Screw 'em!! I put on tennis shoes over the special tight white leiderhosen socks they make patients wear. Screw 'em! And then I demanded a clean gown, and not one of those skimpy, shrimpy ugly little things they embarrass people with.

Restored of dignity, I'm now ready to face the day.

2011-06-22T12:00:00.002-04:00

They did surgery, not just with a single 4" vertical incision, but with two additional incisions branching off of the end of the original one. Sounds like a chicken foot. I haven't seen it yet--the nurse will come in this afternoon and after I'm drugged to the gills, will change the packing. I'm told the wound is not sewn, but will remain open, so healing can take place from inside.

What is so amazing to me is that the pain is gone. I was running consistent 103-104 degree fevers, and none of the array of antibiotics they were putting into me were winning. But the pain was the worst thing.

And it's gone.

O.K.

2011-06-21T07:39:00.001-04:00

Well, I'm here in the hospital, with a fever they can't get under control and an armpit the size of Connecticut. We'll see what happens.

2011-06-20T08:27:00.002-04:00

I have been battling a fever which continuously ranges between 102 & 103. Spent eight hours in ER yesterday. They've pumped me with anti-biotics, and I have pill antibiotics. And lots of pain pills. And it still, relentlessly continues swelling. This morning, it's an inch larger in diameter than it was yesterday evening. I'm being sent to surgeon this afternoon, though I can't for the life of me I can't figure out what a surgeon is involved for. My left arm cannot rest at my side, the swelling just below the armpit is that large, and any pressure on it is agonizing.

Out of the Blue

2011-06-19T07:38:00.004-04:00

Out of the blue, life happens.

Here I am, happily traipsing through my days, when I am bit--apparently--by a spider. On the left side of my torso, just below the armpit.

Despite a day's worth of topical antiobiotic, it started swelling up.

Not a tiny swelling.

Massive.

You can cup your hand around the swelling and still not hold it all. I cannot lower my arm so it hangs at my side, the protruberance prevents that.

Last night, as fever started, switched from Neosporin to Ichthimyl cream, a thick, black tarry substance which draws poisons out from cuts & bites. Covered it with a bandage.

Well, the fever's generally gone away this morning. The swelling is only a little larger but is definitely more concentrated--like the curvature of a large grapefruit.

Looks like I'll be going to the doctor Monday.

Alarm Clocks

2011-06-16T00:17:00.004-04:00

Notice the time at which I am writing this.

Please.

I don't know why. It's set for 6:30 a.m. It's set for an obnoxious fundamentalist Christian radio station. You know--the kind whose music blasts out that you're going to hell, and why. It's proven effective, that's for sure--you WANT to get out of bed in the morning to shut the shit up. My God!!!

It's worked for several years.

But tonight......

It came on at 11. Came on at 11:07. and 14 minutes after the hour. And 21, and 29, and you get the idea.

Even after I reprogrammed the sucker it STILL kept coming on every seven minutes.

So I unplugged it.

Yes, I ripped its little electronic life support system out from the wall.

No one's doing this to me.

I've set the alarm clock on the cellular phone (YES! the one I hate because of all the 'lack of service' we get here in the neighborhood).

Now.......

For some sleep.

Ethel Merman was right: 'The hell with critics — I know when I'm good,'"

2011-06-15T12:34:00.004-04:00

Knowing you're right isn't self-confidence.

Knowing you're right means you know what you've got, that you've assessed it correctly, that it's up to your own expectations, and it passes muster with you.

It's meeting your own standards. And oftentimes, they are much higher than anyone else could impose.

We do expect a lot out of ourselves, you know. When you think about it, each of us has a level of conduct, and of thinking, which is an accumulation of our upbringing and of our life's experiences. It's what feels right with us. And that's because it is us--it is the very expression of who we are.

So when you go out feeling like a million dollars, it's 'cause you are. When you screw up, it's because you actually did. We are the mediator of how we measure up, when all is said and done.

There's no guilt in acknowledging that.

Waterfalls

2011-06-14T19:24:00.004-04:00

[Minehaha Falls, Georgia]

You can't deny that life courses along its route, cascading through time and events and people. Sometimes there are slow currents within broadened shores, other times a merrily tripping laughter through life's landscape. But our lives continue to flow, ever reaching out, cascading over and ricocheting off the boundaries which God or even we ourselves have put in our way. So often, we sometimes just want to sludge along in a muddy stew of things. But we need to remember waterfalls. They're there for a reason, to remind us of the joy of the simple act of living.

Summer Delights

2011-06-13T22:24:00.003-04:00

While in Thomasville last week, I stopped at the local farmers' market, buying peaches and okra and corn and such. Our crops of these vegetables aren't ready yet, but theirs were. And part of the fun of summer is grilling out with fresh vegetables. So dinner tonight was smoked sausage, grilled corn, marinated okra, and grilled peaches with a basalmic glaze.

And an almost full moon.

Yeah, the Other Day Really Was My Birthday

2011-06-12T10:31:00.003-04:00

And as the last quarter begins of life here with me, finances are of concern.

The majority of older Americans haven't saved squat. What was that figure I heard recently? $6,000 or so, net. They will rely on Social Security. Translated: that's a hell of a lot of really, really poor people relying on a dole that is being funded by fewer and fewer people. I've got savings. I've got minor investments. I'm not rich. According to the financial analysts who want you give them your money, it will take a lot more money than I've got to see me through. Hence the common sense thought that, of course, you keep working in order to delay touching the nest egg.

And I don't care how much money you've got, what we've learned the last year and a half is that you cannot save enough for something catastrophic. Leukemia--an equal opportunity disease if there ever was one--cuts across every racial and economic class there is, destroying the victim's family and finances and social structure. There were so many people in that Waiting Room From Hell who were decimated financially because even if they had insurance, the insurance didn't pay for everything....and what the insurance didn't pay for, was astronomical.

And yet money in certain respects for the Aging will be irrelevant over the next decades. You may not know it, but the AMA has somewhat quietly changed its guidelines for transplants. Used to be, there was a waiting list, and when your number called (if you were still alive) you got the part. Didn't matter if you were black or white or young or old or pretty or ugly. You had your place in the waiting list; you waited your turn; it was yours. Well, no more. Those in the medical profession will now make a decision whether the 84 year old who's number is called gets the liver....or the 14 year old in back of them. And the AMA has announced the younger will get it. Yes, it's a utilitarian view, highly logical: put the part where it will provide the most benefit. But what if that 14 year old holds up a convenience store and kills someone three years later and spends the rest of their life in prison, and that 84 year old in a year would solve the dilemma of quantum physics and shifting realities? How do you play God?

Ahhh. But I digress.

What happens to the Alternative Community? LGBT? The majority of our population had children who, for better or worse, historically and biologically form the support for the aging. When all is said and done, there's a place to live and someone to take care of you. And they will do it because it's what they were raised to do and it's what they saw their parents do and their grandparents do for the generation before them.

But the gay guys I know and the lesbians I know, and the transvestites I've met, they don't have that. This is a serious social dilemma which will be exploding shortly. The majority of retirees aren't going to want to live down the hall in the nursing home from Antoine and his friends, or that dyke who makes eyes at the women. The same discrimination they faced through their lives, the refusal of others to accept them, is not going to disappear, is not going to stop in old age. Hell, it's bad enough to know you're not liked cause you're missing your teeth or you have coughing fits each morning, or you can't hear like you used to or you keep forgetting to pull up your zipper. But to still not be liked because of a biological need whose embers are getting colder and colder....well, that just sucks.

OK. I'm through. My birthday is over, and I'm starting the next quarter of my life. I've got my health, a roof over my head, some change in my pocket, and I'm working o a song in my heart. And these last three posts have just been a collection of thoughts and opinions of what's going to be going on during these upcoming years.

Next post will return to the maudlin y'all like so much.

The Other Day Was My Birthday

2011-06-10T10:53:00.002-04:00

---continued---

Socially, yes, there will be changes ahead. Not just because of the domestic shifting which is looming.

People my age are dying.

Just a few days ago, a prominent local entertainment law attorney--the son of a record producer--died in a freak accident at the silk-stocking'ed country club in Atlanta when he got into his vehicle in the parking deck, cranked the car, dropped something accidentally out the door, leaned out of the car from his seat to retrieve it, and his foot left the brake. He was found much later his head and torso pinned between the car and a concrete pillar he'd been parked next to.

Death comes. Just ask leukemics. Or teenagers with cystic fibrosis. Or soldiers in battle.

But socially, older people are often segregated away by society.

Young people don't want to be around older folks. Older folks will pay to be around young people....in more ways than you'd imagine.

It would give me the willies to live, even seasonally, in an area filled with only people my age, who's subjects of conversation deal with what's going on in other people's lives (their children, their grandchildren, their grandnephews and nieces, the young paperboy) because there's not a lot going on in theirs. Getting up every morning and playing a round of golf is just not me.

Older people have the same tastes for how they dress, or do their makeup, or do their hair, as they did forty years earlier. Guys who wore white socks with dark colored pants were geeks when I was growing up. White socks were for gym. Now? dark socks at the gym, white socks elsewhere. Go figure.

I don't want to live in an enclave of people whose use of the English language is fossilized as it was when they were younger. Language is a living, breathing thing, and it changes, it evolves. The French tried to freeze their language the other century by forbidding new words. Good luck on that one. English is expansive and flexible. But hanging around a bunch of old geezers who say "gee whiz", or "cool, man", or "right on" or that type stuff would kill me. Now, true, I've been pretty wierded out when I've heard language used by younger people in a different way. For example, a 'trick' used to mean an event of paid prostitution, and a 'one night stand' was ... well, you know. Today? A trick is a one night stand. We cannot allow our use of speech to encase us in a time warp.

[to be continued further]

Today is my birthday

2011-06-08T08:00:00.002-04:00

It's a hot day--just one of a long string in the past weeks of temperatures in the 90's. The Germans left yesterday, a flurry of good-byes and luggage and presents bestowed. And in their wake, silence.

Hadn't had that in a while. Bit disorienting, frankly.

Today is my birthday. I won't tell you exactly how old I am, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm officially old now. When I was growing up, age 30 marked your entry into middle age. 50 was old. People in their sixties (if they ever made it that far)were awe-inspiringly old. And over that? The Venerated Ancients. Now? Entirely different. Juvenile behavior doesn't stop until your in your 40's; maturity sets in in your 60's. Old is probably in your 80's. Another major difference today is that there are so many older people. My God! You can't go anywhere without seeing them...crowding up the grocery check-out lines, driving sporty little cars on the highways, pushing their way ahead in restaurants, always angling for that 'over 55' discount on what they buy.

I hate being around old people. I don't think I have anything in common with them.

So I'm celebrating my birthday by focusing on my pre-occupation: how do I want to live the last quarter of my life?

It's a weighty subject.

I was reading just this morning that we in this country are in a 'lost decade', i.e., ten years of declining economic activity, poor employment, little money. They may call it a lost decade--I'm reminded of the stories I'd heard from family members about the Depression.

So the economics of my last quarter are going to be diminished. No champagne and caviar days and night.

[To Be Continued.....]

Anguish

2011-06-06T17:11:00.002-04:00

Kids don't come with an owners manuel. Parents are always--always--at a loss as to how to handle situations. We may get comfortable with experience, but that's all it is.

And as a parent, you see your child grow and go through the same experiences which you did or which someone you know did, and you want to guide them through it. Most times, it's best to let the kid--whether 8 or 18--try to handle it themselves and learn from their experiences. Sometimes, it isn't. You have to become heavy handed and parental.

All because you love them.

So what do you do when your 30 year old child starts showing the same behavior patterns which sent them down in flames ten years ago and came close to destroying their life?

You gently try to show them they're not dealing with a situation well, and they may want to reconsider.

And when the backsplash from their not dealing well with a situation is affecting an ever increasing number of people? You confront them with their behavior and the consequences.

And then you get thrown out of their place. Like I was this afternoon.

D-1 is spiralling downward. She met a man who as it turns out may be nice enough and has no ill intentions, but turns out to be little more than a great drinking buddy who's always out of money and doesn't seem to care that the girl has a daughter who is being catapulted into utter rejection because her mom is too taken up with the decade she lost when she unexpectedly had a child.

It is frustrating as a parent, because D-1 was raised to be ready to handle any situation, not to be afraid, not to shirk from responsibility. But repeatedly showing up drunk as skunks at family affairs and friends' parties, and not understanding why her child's school grades dropped from A- to D- in a few short months, is unforgiveable.

We fear she will lose the financial independence she's sought so hard to obtain over the years, alienate those around her, and sink into depression when the world collapses around her.

You know, this is all hard to relate. You never think that the sob-story you heard about so-and-so's friend or uncle or mother or brother is going to happen to you.

But it does.

And to be powerless to keep someone from hurting themselves and the others in their lives, is unadulterated anguish.

!

2011-06-04T18:01:00.003-04:00

Saturday evening. The long awaited, extravagent big fish fry.

Now, everyone was to return from Savannah on Friday, the ladies participate in a charity hike around Stone Mountain SAturday morning, then all of the Queen's family members over for a giant fish fry featuring fresh Georgia shrimp brought back from Savannah, and some catfish thrown in, along with fried okra and potatoes and yellow squash and mushrooms and onions and hushpuppies and cole slaw and everything that makes a southern fish fry so unique.

Well.

The best laid plans, you know?

To begin with, the German sister decides they're gonna stay behind for a day, but they'll come back on Saturday. Yes, they'll buy the shrimp. They're given a large cooler, and directions to the seafood outlet. Everything is set.

At 11:00 Saturday morning, the phone call comes in. They're about to leave out but may take a little longer to get back to Atlanta because there are places they want to stop by along the way, so everyone should go ahead and have dinner and not wait on them.

WTF?

Oh, the shrimp? Did we still want them to buy it? Well, she says huffily like a German hausfrau who's been caught dipping snuff, well nobody discussed a time, you know. Like hell we didn't. Those folks are German and demand everything run on precision, so of course everything has been planned out to the last detail with just-in-time manufacturing precision.

Now, all of this is occurring as another drama is in full pitch. Seems on the ride back by everyone else on Friday, a phone call comes in from one of my New Orleans kin that they're in Opalika and headed towards Atlanta for a kids brain tumor rally. And she's on a motorcycle. With a guy named Rob.

We thought she was married. And she just had knee surgery. And the temperatures are in the mid to upper 90's. And I never knew she was into leather and bikes. She's 50 if a day!!!

Well, kinship wins out, she's invited to the house, and she'll arrive around seven or eight p.m. Friday evening.

No. Born To Be Wild arrives around 4 or so while we're all racing around trying to get other stuff done. The pair had reservations for a local Motel Five for Saturday and Sunday, but decided to leave out early.

So. Add two more plates to the table for the gourmet dinner that had been planned.

And then this morning, I learn she has no intention of leaving.

I've got a house full of little kids I'm babysitting while the moms are playing Hiker Chicks, a giant fish fry to get ready for, errands to run, things to do, and I'm not leaving this woman and a strange man alone in my house.

Oh---and have I mentioned how one of the kids staying with us I really wanted to string up and let bleed out? Really--some people should be shot for how they raise kids.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that the cousin and her friend were invited to leave and check into their pre-arranged accommodations. The German contingent was assured they could dilly dally on the way back and take ten hours instead of the normal four to get here from Savannah. The menu was changed to grilled marinated chicken, grilled okra and asparagus and garlic bread and tossed salad and D-1's incredibly marvelous roasted potato/pepper/onion dish. With fresh pecan pie the Queen insisted be made for the German prince.

I have fled to my office to write all this down.

I want a gun. After I shoot myself, I'll shoot them.

Better yet, I think I just want a cigarette.

And I gave up smoking twenty years ago.

OK. I hear new folks arriving in the other part of the house. The evening begins. Jeez--is it too early to start drinking?

Savannah

2011-06-04T08:54:00.003-04:00

Savannah is a cool town. Colonial, Antebellum, shipping center, tree-shaded squares, tons of seafood. And churches. Here's St. John's Cathedral:

It's a wonderful break from the urban hustle of Atlanta and the temperatures in Savannah the last few days--albeit in the mid 90's--were less than those upland in Atlanta.

help....me.....

2011-06-01T23:40:00.004-04:00

...help....me....

I've OD'd on museums in Georgia's old state capital, Milledgeville. Above, is a representative sample of the educational wares pandered to school kids.

Eewwwwww.

We drove to Savannah today. OMG. If I have to listen to The Lion King one more time on the CD player, I'll need a thorazine drip. We arrive, only to find that the hotel had moved last year to a far distant part of town, no easily reached. After reaming out the manager on call about this bait-and-switch tactic, went to the beach at Tybee Island.

Where coming back at 8 p.m. to the car discovered a flat tire. So in failing sunlight with no backup streetlights, I'm trying to change a car tire on a vehicle that hasn't needed a tire change since 2004. The instruction book is written in Austrian or Bulgarian. And I'm being assisted by a german man who--I learn afterwards--has never changed a tire before!!!! No wonder he kept sticking his head up beside the jack as I tried to get the car up in order to get at the tire!!!!

And all of this to the amusement of the locals on the sidestreet by the beach where we'd parked.

Guy comes bicycling up..."Y'all got that under control?

"Y'all got that under control?"

Yeah,though with as many advanced degrees around here you'd think this'd be easier than it is, I replied.

Guy snickered. "Education is never wasted."

Well, I shot back, it's a refresher course.

Then came sauntering up a guy with a beer in his hand. And just like that old comedy routine, he spends a minute looking over two guys sprawled out on their backs in the middle of the road filthy and hot and tired, with a bunch of women and small children standing over at the side, a huge--obviously deflated tire--laying on the ground beside them and he says

"Flat tire?"

Didn't offer to help, mind you. Just stood there drinking his beer.

Had he known the other guy beside me was German, he'd've gotten his friends on the phone to come over and watch the kraut try to fix an American made car.

After an hour, got the midget little spare on, and returned to Savannah. So much for the gourmet seafood dinner at that favorite seafood restaurant.

Please....

help...me

Road Trip!!

2011-05-31T18:17:00.005-04:00

Ever since that rapturous cry sent up in the film "Animal House", the phrase road trip means excitement, adventure, the thrill of the open highway, of unknown good times and comeraderie.

So a road trip through central georgia over to Savannah this week ought to be a lightening rod for mayhem and madness.

And so it is.

But in an entirely other parallel universe.

Try taking this road trip with girls aged 9, 10, and 16, and the German contingent.

You need heavy intake of alcohol, or heavy medication.

This is really, really good....and it says it all

2011-05-29T13:46:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYa6sUStVCE&feature=feedu

And about that anniversary.....

2011-05-29T09:51:00.003-04:00

In the morning, I quietly told her happy anniversary. She said not to say anything to anyone.

And last night before retiring, I told her again, Happy Anniversary.

There was just silence.

Mahem

2011-05-29T09:32:00.003-04:00

They arrived Friday.

The Germans.

Chattering, looking, observant, oblivious to most of the world around them as they swept through and in.

Like they were checking into a hotel.

And so it seems they have.

Since my sister-in-law and her husband and four year old landed, this old joint has been tumultuous.

Non stop cooking. Listening to discussions of how bad American food is for you--too many preservatives and unnatural ingredients. Only drink de-lactated milk. Fresh fruits cut up tiny and mixed into large bowls. They go through glasses like popcorn. And silverware. And I've got a lot of glasses and several sets of silverware and by the end of a meal or two everything has been used.

Non stop cleaning. Do Germans really touch something and leave it out and move on to the next thing to touch and then leave that out too?

I realized this morning while preparing to cook breakfast that the grocery toll is going to be akin to locusts.

Clipped chattering, interrupted phrases, inaccurate verbs, the quiet superiority as they sit and talk. And that annoying habit of calmly talking to a screaming out of control four year old instead of picking the kid up by the seat of their pants and warning them once. Loudly.

And to think I agreed to take them all--PLUS other nieces and nephews--for several days down to Savannah.

One of the major mistakes she and I made back at the beginning--and yesterday was the anniversary--was believing we were marrying just each other, not our families. God, how naive!! Three decades later, neither family proved normal or bearable and yet how we have endured them!!

Maybe this is just psychic exhaustion. Or physical exhaustion. I'm spending more and more stolen minutes just hiding.

But never forget Benjamin Franklin's caustic observation:

"Fish and guests smell after three days."

No Harm, No Foul

2011-05-27T15:07:00.005-04:00

We stood there talking, the Other Half and I, on a shady lakebank at Lake Allatoona. Hadn't laid eyes in a year and a half.

Still as beautiful. Those cadences to the voice. The humor. Older by just a little, hair tinged with brown, a heavy tan, still those eyes. That scent.

We talked of the last year or two. How each of us was doing.

I delivered a picture taken of the Other Half years back during an artistic photo shoot. It's just not fair that some people look better than their pictures, even years later. A 'No Harm, No Foul' present.

Then we separated, each with appointments and obligations.

It may very well be that the right people meet at the wrong times.

It may very well be.

My Big Gay Dinner Party

2011-05-23T08:07:00.003-04:00

The menu was simple but a feast for the senses: Chicken Diavolo, mixed green salad with citrus vinaigrette, marinated grilled Tuscan potatoes, Caesar'd okra, grilled corn dusted with a secret powder Andrew had told me about, an assortment of wines, and for dessert: walnut brownie with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with Godiva white chocolate liqueur.

The invited guests were going to be a feast for the mind: chief paralegal for a large national law firm; a personal injury attorney; an agent for a federal agency; a workers compensation attorney; a divorce attorney; an insurance defense attorney; an interpreter for the state courts. Andrew. A violist who plays for several regional symphonies. Each would have their own guest/partner. Although grossly overloaded with the legal, all were fascinating people.

The timing was calculated: six o'clock, so that after a couple of hours people could get on with their Saturday evenings.

It was a wonderful evening! What an education!!

To begin with, a fifth never RSVP'd. Some had excuses (mother sick; moving; just can't make it). Others just didn't show.

And the etiquette in that part of life is distinctly different than elsewhere. Let me be plain here: first, when a dinner party is due to start at six, don't show up at seven or seven thirty; yet that seems to be the norm with them. Second, when you greet, I've learned you don't shake hands, you hug. Third, although guys like to watch their carbs and their figures, every man loves corn on the cob and eating chicken with their hands. And--yeah--you make that dessert good looking enough and they'll toss their diets like a used whore ... uh...party boy... for it.

Conversation is decidedly different than at a suburban cook out. These people never go outside the perimeter highway which encircles Atlanta, so the whole thing was an afternoon trip to the 'country' for them, and comparisons between city life and 'country' life was rife. They talked about properties--who's in-town condo had a better position/price than the other's. Social/political/organizations and who was raising money for what. Jibes about which 'club' they'd last seen the other person at...and what act they'd were doing when seen.

These are all responsible people who make a living in a world and social system which doesn't' accept them. After an hour, the facades they live with are gone and the lilt and cadence of their voices becomes distinctly different. They talk of clothes and the police and challenges and awe at suburban convention and frustrations with work.

But everyone's the same eating grilled Chicken Diavolo with their hands.

One Day More

2011-05-20T21:27:00.002-04:00

The house is quiet and still about me tonight. Grocery shopping is done (although still out on the counter), a sack of carry out food from a fast food place lies crushed on the coffee table beside me. So much for dinner. My favorite song from Les Miserables plays in the background--One Day More. It's Friday evening, the end of the week.

I've accepted that offer.

The money concerns will vanish. My own practice will continue, just squeezed by the amount of work that will be coming in. But the changes looming in the future are affordable now. That makes it all easier to handle.

Well, it's pushing ten p.m. I'm going to go fix myself a drink.

And start prepping the chickens for the Chicken Diavolo (previously written about here)that I'll be making tomorrow evening.

Blind-sided

2011-05-19T09:43:00.006-04:00

It was supposed to be a low-key meeting with an attorney I'd known casually over the years. He had a little overflow, I was told, and wanted to talk about what I was looking for.

That description turned out not to be quite accurate.

Yesterday, I was shown into a large conference room. He was there, jovial and friendly. But so was the manager for his practice. And he started talking.

It wasn't until forty minutes later that it dawned on me that he wanted me to assist with his nationwide practice, covering hearings all over the country. More work than three attorneys could handle. I could do whatever I wanted. Go wherever I wanted. And the money was good.

By the time I walked out of his humongous suite of offices, I was in shock.

I could go anywhere in the country. As much or as little work as I wanted. And decent money.

More Matter for a May Morning

2011-05-17T09:10:00.002-04:00

It's a stunningly beautiful morning: the skies are blue, and the sunlight almost liquid in its intensity. The temperatures have plummeted into early spring crispness, away from the sultry 80's we'd been having. The flowers and bushes burst with arrays of purples and pinks and yellows and blues and reds. The leaves on the trees all have that intense bright green color which contrasts so well with the blue of the sky, not like the olive green which trees get in late summer.

As I raised the blinds in the living room, there it was.

Hesitantly moving away, headed towards some shrubs by the street.

A rabbit.

Now, that sight gave rise to two thoughts in my mind.

One: had it just come from the garden? And all those tender little juicy sproutlings?

Two: just what the hell was I going to do with rabbit in the freezer which I'd bought weeks back at the butcher's?

You know, when you look over the rabbit recipes on the Internet, they seem to fall into only two basic groups: rabbit stew, or rabbit on a stick over an open fire. I really don't go for stews, and roasting a wild animal over a spit in the backyard would probably bring the Homeowners Association's PETA crew over.

Meanwhile, the live one out front hurriedly crossed the street and made its way to shrubberies encircling the house across the street.

I've spent the last hour doing electronic filing of documents in the settlement of a case. Used to be, you walked up to the counter in the Clerk of Court's office, exchanged a few pleasantries with the young/very old lady on the other side, and handed her a huge stack of documents. She would dutifully pull out an ink stamp and slam it down on each and every page of what you were filing, and then would offer to stamp the first page of your copy of the documents. Bingo. It was done. Nowadays, though, the lawyer does her job. You scan the documents from a three dimensional printed document into a series of blips and dots in PDF format, and then electronically upload the documents into the belly of the Mothership, where they electronically get routed to the person who's supposed to do something with them. You do the prep; you do the filing.

And I wonder where that rabbit is right now.

Saturday

2011-05-14T13:05:00.003-04:00

Been puttering around all morning. Haircut this morning, a dab of grocery shopping, sorting out digital photos on the computer, half-heartedly trying to compose a brief for last week's trial. The weather outside is sultry--not too warm but definitely muggy. And my thoughts wander to all the stuff going on.

Where am I going to live come July?

What all do I take with me?

Will the kids still have anything to do with me?

Will I be comfortable with the changes that are coming?

You know, I figured out a very long time ago that living with someone who doesn't love you (other than a room-mate) isn't a good way to lead your life. People do it--oh my god, do they do it. But that doesn't change the fact it's not a good way to lead your life. Oh, they rationalize it by comparing it to a contract, as if life's give-and-take were somehow like the scales of a balance--'he gets what he needs out it; so do I; it's a fair exchange". Or it's for the sake of the kids (yes, let them grow up seeing estranged parents as the norm for their own future behavior). Or due to money (this, I suspect, is the most common)whether they don't have, or the other person has more stuff than they do. That one, of course, ties back into the 'contract' type. Or for social reasons (i.e., social pressure to be together).

I'm just tired of having been in love with people who didn't love me.

They're heeeeeeeeere

2011-05-11T22:23:00.000-04:00

Cicadas.
They're here.
It's been 13 years.
13 years of quiet evenings, of silent mornings and days.
But they're here.
Now.

Driving back from Milledgeville the other week, stopped in at a local nursery to look at hydrangeas. Commented to the saleskid about how close they were to that high whining of a lumbar mill.

'nah, thass no mill--thas the cicadas.'
'they're back'

And so they were. However far away they were from that nursery, they were a buzzsaw of higher pitch whining that was incessant, and unpleasant background noise to one's activities.

And they're back.

Someone from the Huffington Post must have been there at that nursery, too, 'cause they've got an article on the insects' resurgence.

What a lot of folks here are missing out on

2011-05-07T19:15:00.008-04:00

Yeah, Sherman burnt Atlanta. But in his March To The Sea, a lot of antebellum architecture was not. There is a driving tour which any one can take, winding its way through middle Georgia towns and ghost towns, allowing you to see with your own eyes the history which made up the South.

For example, In Madison, Georgia, there was a Unionist, a man who happened to be a friend of Sherman's, so the crafty townspeople elected him mayor and sent out on horseback to meet Sherman as he approached. Result? The town was spared. Here's a sample of the houses in Madison:

In Macon, Georgia, there is a Confederate cemetary. Sherman did not cross the Ocmulgee River, but did some cannon fire to scare the townspeople. The brown swathe at the upper rear of the photo is the river.

The Hay House in Macon, Georgia, an eye-popping example of Italianesque opulence unheard of in the first half of the 19th Century...especially in this river town in middle Georgia. The owners didn't give a rip about Southern Federal architecture--the boxish four rooms downstair, four rooms upstairs with Ionic columns traipsing across a front porch--and instead built this remarkable house overlooking downtown Macon.

This is the Governor's mansion in Milledgeville, GA, when Sherman occupied the town of Milledgeville on his March To The Sea. Oddly, he didn't burn the Capitol Building, or the Governor's mansion.

And this is a plantation house in Milledgeville from before the Civil War.

Over five million people live in the Atlanta Metropolitan area--to a man, not from around here--and they never venture outside the metro area, missing so much history of this country, so much romance and culture. A simple drive down an interstate and you can be in the country Margaret Mitchell wrote about.