Check it...

Yup, this will almost certainly be the last official post here. You wanna follow me? Check out Logophilia and Curmudgeonry - at least, that's the name I have for now. And if you come back, expect bumps and changes here and there. WordPress seems to have an ogival learning curve.

Witty final words fail me at this point, so I'll just head off into the sunset. So long, y'all.

Something's got a hold on me...and I don't know what.

So you've noticed - you straggling few followers of this screed - that my orts of writing have dwindled in frequency over the past year or so. It's due to a number of reasons, but I think the main thing underlying this is that - gasp! - I'm growing up. For some reason (and actually, I'm pretty sure I know why), I've been feeling more like an adult. Not just in that sense, but also in the sense of starting to look at things I've done in the past that seem a bit adolescent. This blog has been an opportunity for me to indulge my inner teenager...the one who likes to be snarky and subversive. I'm changing. It's weird to go through a second adolescence at this stage in my life, but that's exactly what it feels like...well, minus the social awkwardness, random hard-ons, and cracking voice. On the other hand, my facial hair has been filling out more...to the point where I've felt comfortable growing a beard for the first time in my life. Go fig. And my voice does seem to be deepening a bit more. Seriously...I'm not making this up.

I've also noticed somewhat of an aversion to outright hedonism. For example, I went to Provincetown last week for Bear Week. Here's my (admittedly judgmental) mindset. What happens when you take a bunch of gay men with plenty of disposable income, no children or wives to hold them down, and unleash them on a town where they can party to their heart's content? They turn into man-children. No sense of responsibility, just party all the time. Maybe it's them, but at this point, it's definitely not me. I feel like I've outgrown that stage of my life. Oh, and when I tried to indulge in the party scene all week last week, my body rebelled. Vertigo for the first time in my life, and when I got home, a flu for my penance. Just no fun. I'm all for fun, but I think my personal definition of fun is changing...and it doesn't involve these huge party weeks or weekends anymore. At least where consuming large quantities of alcohol are concerned. (Yes, yes, I know...I've said this before...but I feel more solid in saying so nowadays.)

It almost seems weird to continue writing in this blog when my mindset doesn't seem to fit it anymore. I'd rather start a new blog than stick with this one. I mean, the blog's title is a wry nod to the fact that I wanted to start a band in college called the Misplaced Apostrophe's. The tagline is one of those random messages you would see on IRC back in college (remember that chat engine, kids?) if you typed in a certain code. A lot of posts look back at my past, most specifically at high school. I thought about doing a series of posts like these - but for college - but I just can't muster up the enthusiasm for it anymore.

Interestingly enough, I'm in the midst of a huge transition in life - witness the past few posts I've made - and perhaps letting this blog be, while starting a new one, is in my near future. Not to worry...if this is the path I take, I won't be erasing this blog. Too much that's awesome here. But I'll be starting a new one - one where I feel more comfortable writing more adult things and not offending my inner adolescent. I'll keep you all posted.

But sweetness follows.

Today, in a nutshell:

• Thump! The thickest hipster scene I've yet encountered. Imagine taking a time machine and setting it directly for 2014. I mean, it's got everything: handlebar mustaches, toques, artisanal kombucha (whatever that means), local microbrews and wine, suspenders, lattes done with artistic foam flourishes, plenty of journals and laptops, comfy faux-leather couches, a cast iron fireplace, and neo-rustic furniture including metal chairs and roughhewn wood communal tables. The baristas are encouraged to emulate the sartorial excellence of the Lumineers or Mumford and Sons (I KNOW, it pains me too*), and openly admit that they will judge you for drinking herbal tea...or at least so sez the wall art behind them. But a super cool place to go and pretend that you're in Oregon (if you're not actually in the Bend location). Also: a super awful place to go if you are allergic to any of the aforementioned accoutrements. (Mr. Man would go anaphylactic in 0.3 seconds.)
• Vinyl! Enjoying the turntable, so I made a few other purchases today. Continued my Beatles love with Help!, took a left turn into country with Gram Parson's Grievous Angel, and in the never-imagined-I'd-ever-do-this department, plunked down six greenbacks for a used original print of Tammy Wynette's greatest hits, dating back to 1969. Still sounds fine. All I can say is maybe it was inspiration from...well, refer back to my last post.
• Clothes! Just the typical getting the new to replace the old...but trying to buy the quality shit that'll last. Now that I'm at a size I'm happy with, I can justify getting stuff I won't grow out of in a year or two. So goes the vision. Oh, and speaking of size...
• Neck rolls! Weird to say this, but when I roll my head back in a chair, it's kinda comforting to feel the back of my neck bulk up and provide a bit of a cushion for my head. Just thought of that this afternoon...and again just now. Not to mention: on the right man, this can be, hands down, the sexiest body part ever. No joke.

*Of course, as soon as I mock the Lumineers for their threads, I have to look up their video for a quick reminder of exactly how they look. And oh SNAP but ya caught me. T-shirts and suspenders everywhere. And...uh...what is it that I'm wearing now? Oops. So I must admit that yes, I myself may have taken my sartorial cues from the Lumineers unintentionally. But can I defend suspenders real quick here? For a guy who does not care for regular hiking-up of pants - particularly since I already have a proportionally long torso and short legs - suspenders are awesome. Besides, they look classy and masculine. Unless you wear them with shorts, in which case go stand next to Brigitta like we rehearsed, Kurt. So I'm taking every opportunity to wear them nowadays...and at some point, hope to figure out some way to fit them into business wear.

So. Enough for now. I have a Moscow mule or three waiting for me at the local leather bar.

Bitter as kale and goldenseal.

"Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine."
                              --Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm done with my career. My current one. And I'm moving on to a new one...one that is more in line with my values, my strengths, and my passion. And fortunately, it is in a field for which there is a need, one that will contribute to the betterment of society.

Over the past eight years, I have gone from being the only person in my practice (read: no admin help, no assistants of ANY sort...I was everything and everyone rolled up in one), to being quasikindasortabutnotreally part of another chiropractic practice (and oh boy was THAT not fun), to being business-wise on my own but with administrative support in a building with practitioners of a similar bent (the best situation). Each iteration has resulted in less-than-stellar results to the bottom line, and much personal and professional struggle. It's hard to be in this field when you're surrounded by people (including the spouse you are around more than anyone) who are at least dubious, if not outright skeptical and dismissive of your field and the good you can do/have done in it. Such a lack of support tears at you like daily paper cuts made with a razor-sharp sheet of copper.

I'm leaving this line of work with not a little bit of bitterness. In retrospect, so many of the signs were there all along. I was never that much into the medical field originally. In school, anatomy and physiology never really grabbed me. Nutrition bored me. My fellow students' foul stench of entitlement and political correctness grated on my nerves to no end. The woo-woo component irked the solid, grounded side of me tremendously. Heck, even one of the most prominent members of the naturopathic community, Dr. Michael Cronin, once told me, point-blank, "Don't do it" when I asked him advice about going into naturopathic medicine back in 1997. Maybe he saw something incongruent in me I didn't...or maybe he was just similarly bitter about the profession at the time.

Having said that, botanical medicine and homeopathy were fascinating. (And no, the irony of being enamored by homeopathy while cringing at the woo does not escape me.) I cannot overstate the joy I had upon drinking licorice tea for a week and, as a result, obliterating a cold which otherwise would have given me bronchitis for months on end. Nor can I deny how one particular homeopathic remedy helped me mature tremendously over the span of six months, helping me emotionally feel no longer like a boy trapped in a man's body, but as a full-grown man. And I've seen homeopathy successfully treat - and sometimes end - depression, anxiety, alcoholism, food cravings, allergies, asthma, food poisoning, minor hemorrhages, PMS...the list goes on and on.

Conventional medicine is very well established, with plenty of infrastructure and plenty of opportunity for students, residents, fellows, and doctors to observe, learn, teach, and otherwise apply their knowledge for (hopefully) the betterment of their patients. Unfortunately, my experience - and that of many of my patients - has only borne this conclusion through significantly less often than is ideal. Hence the need for the medicine I have been practicing for eight years. But the support in conventional medicine is profound compared with the brittle infrastructure of much of what I consider traditional medicine. Few residencies exist after school, be it naturopathic, acupuncture, chiropractic, or some similar practice. Hospital privileges are virtually unheard of. Students are graduated and given diplomas and licenses, and are shoved out into the business world to start their practices with naught but the most menial of business education, frequently placed on a quicksand foundation of little interest or acumen in business in the first place.

Bitterness also rears its ugly head when I watch the nightly news and see minute-long pharmaceutical commercials, with lists of side effects that take up half the ad. Pharm companies spend millions to get these commercials out there. And the medicine I practice gets swept under the rug, or at most gets tolerated by the media outlets. So I shake my fist impotently at the universe.

More bitterness? I am sick of playing Cassandra. She was a woman in Greek mythology who had the gift of prophecy, but the curse of having no one believe her. I'm sick of people complaining online about their illnesses while knowing that knowledge I have could help them tremendously, even more than the conventional medicine they rely on. For example, hearing people complain about having the flu for weeks on end grated on my nerves, knowing that a tasty syrup made from black elderberries could cure them of the flu within 3 days, and powerfully alleviate symptoms within 24 hours. And my advice - from a doctor! - to take said syrup went unheeded I can't tell you how often. Lesson learned: I shouldn't dole out free advice on the internet.

I resent the sentiment that caring about the food you eat is elitist. Sure, people can have a legitimate beef with Whole Foods/Whole Paycheck, which has an undeniable elitist bent. When you bring that sentiment to the realm of farmers markets, though, it's just invalid. Besides, why would you not want to feed yourself with the best food possible, when tremendous evidence exists that pesticides (stored in containers marked with skulls and crossbones) are the basis for a wide swath of diseases? The same claims exist for genetically modified organisms. Or how about the current obesity epidemic? Among a multitude of other factors, it seems pretty plausible that the growth hormones that we give cattle and swine to help them grow to insane and unhealthy sizes for our dinner plates might also be helping us humans to grow to insane and unhealthy sizes, too. Why is wanting to avoid these things elitist?

Tangentially, I had a brother-in-law who was the epitome of the salt of the earth. Great guy, but our politics diverged diametrically, and while I was trying to build a career on optimizing one's diet (among other things), he scorned the idea of eating for your health, and despite a dangerous lifestyle that shot his cardiac risk factors through the roof, he wouldn't budge his habits for the sake of his health - nor for the sake of those around him who loved him. (Whole Foods, I'm certain, represented an unpatriotic way of life, anathema to him.) And six months ago, he stopped having to worry about health forevermore thanks to a massive heart attack, leaving behind a fiancee with a debilitating chronic neurologic condition, bills to pay, and a full house to take care of. Not caring about what you eat can, in some cases, be tremendously selfish and hurtful to those around you.

One more thing that gets to me: had I listened to myself and heeded myself years ago and followed my love of words to its conclusion, I might not be in this situation. Or maybe I might. But I harbor even more resentment about taking to heart the advice of disinterested adults at dinner parties who smiled indulgently at my passion for language, then derided my choice of linguistics as a major as being too boring. Or what about journalism? Oh, but that's stupid, see, because then you'll only write about what other people do, instead of doing those things yourself. (Not a word said about how journalism ends up requiring you in some cases to go out and explore said things, instead of merely reading about them in the newspaper or seeing them on TV.) God forfend I should consider music...total dead end. Only but so I graduated from one of the top music schools in the nation, and while many of my music major friends were being placed into jobs directly out of school, I graduated with a degree that never earned me one penny.

So I give up. I'm leaving the tribe. This profession is made for those with steelier spines than mine, for people who can walk their talk more firmly and passionately than I, for people who refuse to let their world view be tainted with bitterness, for people who are damn near superhuman. These doctors deserve a world of respect and acknowledgement. And more practically, they deserve a world of patients...and patients deserve them. And I will be a lifetime patient of naturopathic doctors.

I have few illusions about the field I'm going into. It is not the most lucrative. It is highly specialized. Heck, I can count the number of professionals in this field on one hand. But there is undeniably a demand, and I'm not sure I will be idle for long. And I can honestly say it is where my heart lies right now. Is it as prestigious as being a doctor? Not really, but what is? I can get used to shaking my fist at the universe - the one I've already used - for the injustice that being a professional educator is a fraction as prestigious as being a doctor. Oh well. I guess the lesson here is that you'll find injustice everywhere you look.

Having said that, I'm adhering to the Tammy Wynette school of philosophy. Despite being so successful in music, she maintained her beautician's license all her life, because...well, you never know what life may deal you, and she always wanted that safety net. I admire that kind of pragmatism. Similarly, maybe I'll come back around to this field in some capacity in the future, so I'll keep my licenses active, quite possibly for life.

But for now, I'm leaving, with a big fat gluten-filled chip on my shoulder and a lot of self-learning to do.

VINYL ROCKS!

Okay...whether it's better than CD...I'll leave that up to the more vociferous and engaged in that debate.

Got a turntable lately. Fun stuff. It's great to sit down at the end of the day and devote all my time and energy to listening to records. Yep...how long has it been since you've heard that word? Albums, yes. But records? That's different. Haven't realistically considered owning records since the 1980s. Yipes. I'm so retro. And so hipster.

Except, well, not.

I don't have any Mumford and Sons. Or whatever y'all hipsters listen to. Not sure I'd know...y'all love your obscure bands, right? In fact, I'll go the opposite way. First two records bought: Rubber Soul and Revolver. About as un-hip as you can get. And about as awesome as you can get. I've owned Rubber Soul in the past, so no musical revelations there. But I've only owned a smattering of songs from Revolver, so songs like "For No One," "Got To Get You Into My Life" and "Taxman," are completely new to me. It's cool to hear them, mostly, for the first time. The individual songs are excellent, but to hear them all together, strung out in the sequence the Beatles wanted, just brings everything to a more awesome level.

Mr. Man brought out his long-lost (and slightly warped) copy of Thriller, and people, I'm a happy kid. Again, if you want to hear the majority of the album, just turn on your local '80s station and wait a few hours for at least one of the songs to appear. But stuff like "Baby Be Mine" and "The Lady In My Life," (which is actually kinda drecky) are great to return to.

I know, I can get all this on CD, rip it to my iPod, and listen at my leisure, whenever I want. So whither the turntable? I guess it's a desire to make listening to music more of an event, more deliberate. It takes time and adds anticipation to pull a record out of its cover, then out of its sleeve, and put it onto a turntable. Then you turn it on, see the stylus move to the edge of the record, drop down oh-so-gently, then hear the pop and some static that announces the imminent experience of some great music about to hit you in t-minus-5 seconds. And you feel compelled to sit down and listen to the thing in its entirety. It's not so easy to skip songs in a fraction of a second, or to return to that cool bit you just heard. Not impossible, but it's a bit of an effort, and kind of annoying to do so. And you know? I like it that way. I have enough distractions and multitasking going on nowadays. I like the idea of sitting down and devoting my energy purely to listening to music. Some music demands that kind of attention. So I'm going about building my collection accordingly.

I got Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme last night, too. The former I've heard a million times...and will never get tired of it. The latter I listened to for the first time last night. Fucking brilliant. I'm usually not a fan of jazz (makes me think of old nasty-smelling smoky clubs, plaid suits, and urbane '70s pastiches like "The Rockford Files" and "Kojak"), but this was pretty awesome. I nearly felt compelled to make a Manhattan and sip it to make the experience complete, but John Coltrane's spiritual liner notes (remember those, kids?) and the feeling he and his band put into the music even made me hesitate to indulge.

So there's my excitement over the past week or so. Next on the list: Random Access Memories. Maybe some vintage Elton John. More classic jazz. Who knows?

Okay. You know bad is bad when...

• This is the first night in over 10 years that I've had two mai tais in one night. (Peruse the New York Bartender's Guide for the liver-crushing recipe. Or just look here.) Somehow (and fifty pounds later), I can handle them. But just barely.
• I had to improvise with blue curacao with one of them. So the drink turned out to be the color of fungified cement. Yum.
• I tell Quinn that she is SO hopelessly a fashion don't while she's wearing a kerchief with her matchy-match two-piece bikini while she's poolside with her friends. The only members of the Fashion Club.
• Yep. It's a olive drab and kelly green PLAID. Even I wouldn't be caught dead wearing such clashing patterns in the local man's man gay bar, even under low lights, even with drunk guys who wouldn't know better. Did I say gay men? Yeah. Not all of them are fashion mavens, but some of them wear fabulous scarves with their impeccable leather coats.
• Oh, and yeah...Quinn is a fucking CARTOON.
• I'm spewing advice to said cartoon.
• This cartoon, despite catering to college-age kids, stopped being relevant around, oh, 1997.
• Not a mathematician, but let's do the math here. SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO? Oh God...
• God, I'm old.
• I'm trying to persuade myself that my predecessors of decades and decades past regressed into their younger years to...well, for one night, to numb themselves into forgetting an annoying day. Despite the lack of said cartoons.
• La la LA la la...

I should stop now. Before I embarrass myself beyond the hope of recovery.

It's apparently the year of 25 year anniversaries. Three days and twenty-five years ago began one of the most difficult days of my life. In just over a month and a half will commence the 25th anniversary of the most amazing day of my life.

Okay. I really should stop right now. Mark the time. And note the beverages consumed. Also note that it has been over ten years.

God, I'm pathetic right about now. Don't expect this post to last more than a week.

Okay. One more thing. GOD, right now I wish I knew who my birth parents were. Maybe one day.

No, I should never, ever write erotica or porn. But that won't stop me.

The DJ told me he was turned on to industrial by a Swiss guy who recommended Skinny Puppy, Ministry, NIN, and KMFDM. He turned to leave as he told me he was spinning in ten. We'd met years ago, and he was wild, big, with an unhinged look to his eyes. I told him to spin something hot, hard, loud, and above all, sinister. He slammed his thick lips onto mine and I reached around to grab his ass. A shower of needles went off everywhere. Goddamn.

Then I said, "Make my ears bleed. Make them feel like they've been violated."

But what in the world is a pantaloon, anyway?

My grandfather was one of my heroes. We did not see eye to eye politically (most of the time), but he was indisputably a great man. Brigadier general in the army when he retired in the early 1970s. But retirement slowed him down but nuthin'. He stayed busy, involving himself in Afghanistan and Pakistan from that point through the late 1980s...literally, sometimes. I think he spent more time abroad than he did stateside in the '80s. His military expertise was boundless. He co-penned a book back in the day called Nuclear Tactics, which amusingly enough, is actually available still. He became a political consultant, spending more time in DC than in his home in Southern Pines, NC. I found it amusing that he chose to live right next door to Pinehurst, a big golf (read: retirement sport) resort town in the nation, until I realized it was also right next door to Fort Bragg, a big army base. Grandpa never wanted to "retire." He stayed as busy as he could, and his energy seemed limitless.

But he and his wife decided to move back to Denver years ago, so she could be near her favorite daughter (my mom). He went into it, knowing that he would no longer be around what sustained him so powerfully. But he figured that Grandma had suffered his travels, being the equivalent of a single mom, then a solitary wife for so long, that he should do what she wanted now.

And cut off from his military links, he began to wither. For such a great man, having lived through three wars and being so successful, his death was sadly unworthy of his life; he slowly wasted away, turning despondent and suicidal before our eyes, until he finally died of natural causes one morning in a nursing home in his wife's arms. He had a proper military funeral back at Fort Bragg, but one of the saddest things I ever saw was his casket being driven away in a small open-framed pickup truck, bouncing around and not tied down. It was so undignified, so unworthy of him.

One of the most profound things he taught me was his view of being a man, based on Shakespeare's famous soliloquy, "All the world's a stage." There were seven stages, Shakespeare wrote, to being a full man: the infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the pantaloon, and finally, the old, doddering man. So drawn into this view, my grandfather was, that he took a picture of a stained glass representation of this, had it framed, and gave it to me as a present. I thought it was nice at the time, and it's packed away in our voluminous basement full of crap right now, but the more I think of it, the more I believe it's true.

What makes me think this? The soldier. I have fulfilled every role up to this point just fine (currently acting as the justice, so to speak), and I have no question of what lies ahead of me. Every role except for the soldier: "jealous in honor, sudden, and quick in quarrel/Seeking the bubble reputation/Even in the cannon's mouth." I never was a soldier, literal or figurative. I recently wrote about the symbolic solider (or as I put it at the time, warrior) I left abandoned on the side of the road in the wilderness, in his armor and brandishing his sword, waiting for his time to come. I picture him kicking the gravel, walking around, waiting as if for Godot. And I feel a great sense of guilt, of abdicating responsibility to myself. I feel like I should somehow make it up to him. I feel very much an incomplete man without him.

It makes me wonder if it's not too late to rectify this, to somehow turn back and channel that soldier energy somehow. I've done some of it, getting into weightlifting and such over the past few years, and people have noticed that I've gotten beefier, but to what end? Vanity? I think my newfound strength should be put to good use somehow...but how?

"I don't know what it is, but you gotta do it."

Ten and a half years ago, I graduated naturopathic school. Great job, congratulations, here's your diploma, now get back to work and study your ass off for boards. Five weeks later, I had successfully filled in approximately 900 little circles on papers that would determine whether or not I would be eligible to get a license to practice or not. A few weeks after that, I found out that, yes, I had passed my board exams. Thrilled, to say the least.

But now what? You have your diploma, you now have your license, you have the title...what are you gonna do with it? And suddenly I became fearful for the future. I could complete medical school...but what of it? My bluff was called, and I blinked. Big time.

As it happened, Mr. Man and I had moved from Puddletown to the Chicago area after I completed my board exams. I'd unwittingly landed in the backyard of a chiropractic school that offered an accelerated program for health care pros like myself. It looked interesting. I visited the school on one of their "be a student for a day" programs. The day of the program was gray, rainy, cold, and dismal. The closer I got to the school, the drearier it seemed to get...used car lots, potholed roads, and nothing inviting. The entire day felt wrong. I felt magnetically repelled from the school, as if some huge force were trying to push me away. I came home and told Mr. Man that I couldn't see myself making that drive and going to school there at all.

But apparently I couldn't see myself using my degree right off, either. Despite what so much of my body, mind, and psyche was telling me (and there was no mistaking how wrong I felt about it), I decided to avoid the future, and retreated back into school.

And ten years ago today, on the first day of school, began the worst and most painful year of my life. I drove to school, singing a song that echoed my uncertainty but hope that this was perhaps the best path forward. Then I felt that hope collapse like the industrial dissonance and clamor at the end of the song, just as I pulled into the school parking lot for this first day of school. 2004 was a year that drove me to drink (but only on weekends), that contributed to some major adrenal fatigue (that I overcame years later, though not without effort), and that I would gladly erase from my life if given the option. I learned how cruel some instructors and fellow students can be. I learned how awful it feels to be devoting all your time and energy to a program you don't really believe in, yet one that will be significantly determining your identity, income, reputation, and mindset for the rest of your life. I learned how painful it can be to push forward when it seems that everyone has you in their crosshairs, to eliminate, to ridicule, or to shun. I learned the constant static that you feel when you had a vision for your life, but you chose a path that runs counter to it in many ways. And ever since, I've been trying to push the negative aspects of 2004 out of my brain and take what good I could from it. I've been mostly successful at winnowing the bad from the good, and I am definitely excellent at what I do, but my expertise came at a tremendous psychic and physical cost.

And 2005 wasn't much better.

 



 

 

So here's to having no year worse than 2004, and having every year being exponentially better and more fulfilling somehow. Because I've put in my time in hell...and it's time to turn my back on it. (Despite the fact that, yes, I did just commemorate it very unsubtly.)

So what is it?

Is it "in vino veritas," or is it that alcohol overly amplifies emotions? Because at this moment, I'm leaning toward the latter. And believe me, at this late hour on the first day of 2014, it ain't purty. Fights between me and Mr. Man never are. Then again, we don't really fight. A few bon mots, some insinuations, some passive-aggressive acquiescence, and some stomping off to another bar while the other stays behind. (I'll leave you to guess who stays behind, in a very passive-aggressive manner.) God, but relationships are agonizing.

Oh yeah. And happy 2014. Don't send me any pity. I'm over it.

The Music of 1989

A glimpse into the music-obsessed world of mine. I, riddled with ADHD (not diagnosed, not really ADHD...just sayin') read music reviews obsessively. Like tiny packets of dopamine to my system, these wastes of time and energy are. But I just can't stay away.

Since 1989 was far and away the most pivotal year of my young life (best and nearly worst, for a variety of reasons), I decided to look at the top 100 pop songs of that year. Yeesh...what a wasteland. Put thusly: if Milli Vanilli 1) has a firm hold on this list, and 2) I actually find MV's contributions among the better songs in this list, you know something is wrong. No wonder I soon found my way out of the mainstream.

So here's a fun little exercise: commentary on various of the top 100 alternative albums (back when the term actually meant something, you spoiled little upstarts!) in 1989, as proposed by the biased-but-still-awesome blog Slicing Up Eyeballs.

The Cure - Disintegration: Meh...didn't grab me so much, but you can't deny it's an awesome album. Maybe I'm not as goth as I'd like to pretend. I did get it years later, figuring it'd be a great breakup album to have as my relationship with Mr. Man was seriously on the skids. Fortunately, we stayed together, and I got to keep Disintegration. Huzzah all around.

Pixies - Doolittle: Discovered this a few years after the fact. And again, for some reason, the album as a whole didn't grab me, but individual songs stuck in my cerebral sulci, and to this day, they're on reliable rotation. Nirvana, and by extension virtually all of 1990s rock would've been DOA without this one. "La La Love You" has to be one of the coolest surf-punk songs ever committed to tape. (Bonus: "Debaser" inspired the referenced blog's title.)

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine: Good GOD, but this informed my high school experience. M. Reznor fuckin' FELT my pain, man! And the music felt so edgy and skittish. It was my entry point into industrial, for which I am forever grateful.

The Stone Roses: How the fuck did I miss this one? Only got it last year, and my conclusion: damn, I missed out on a whole lot of something back in the day. I'd have worn this one the fuck OUT. As it is, it's consigned to an occasional song on my "top rated" list. It deserves better. Mea culpa. (When I got a drum set around 15, a friend offered to teach me some tricks. Quote: "I'll have you playing the Stone Roses in no time." Would've been nice. Instead, I was stuck playing R.E.M., which wasn't exactly drummer heaven.)

Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique: I'm seeing a miserable trend here. I'm consistently decades late to the party. But hella fun, right? "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" is pretty frightening, though...belongs in some warped Tarantino vehicle.

B-52's - Cosmic Thing: Phoenician rebirth, y'all. Fun, for the most part, aside from a few throwaways. I blast "Dry County" during the first real scorcher of the summer, and it feels like home. I've also sung "Love Shack" at the weddings for my brother and my sister. *hangs head in embarrassment*

The Replacements - Don't Tell a Soul: Uh, no. I meant to order "Pleased to Meet Me," but I got this drearfest instead. (This was back in the day of music clubs, kids, where you could actually buy EIGHT CDs for the price of one!) Professional, so it sounds good, but the Replacements should be anything but professional. Keepers: "I'll Be You," "Achin' to Be."

Bob Mould - Workbook: Yet another "just got this last year." I suck. Anyhow...the production here is clean and bright as a sanitized chrome kitchen. Some awfully beautiful songs here, too. And a bit of noodling that sounds...well, cool mountain stream comes to mind ("Sunspots"). Wait...all this from one of the big names in corrosive and angst-ridden punk? Yes. A major left turn from the noise that was Hüsker Dü, but a really awesome left turn.

10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo: My entry point into this band. (Bragging rights: met them backstage at the Tonight Show during my 15 minutes of fame in 1989.) Loved 'em at the time, but this one is now about my least favorite of their albums; I can't remember when I last gave this one a spin. Someone once said that it's easy to listen to 10,000 Maniacs while you're doing household chores. I'd concur. Not exactly the most ringing endorsement.

Indigo Girls: This one hit me but HARD. While enjoying a beautiful mountain summer, I stumbled upon this album, courtesy of my sister, and "Closer to Fine" became one of my anthems that summer (I think it must have been 1990). Clean, green, sweet harmonies and simple guitar melodies throughout ensured this would be one of my favorite albums throughout high school. Heck, I even performed "Closer to Fine" with a friend during our spring concert my senior year.

Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits

Some albums you just don't need to own, because...well, everyone out there seems to own it, and you can just listen to their copy. At least, that was how the logic went circa 1990, when CDs and tapes were all the rage. In this case, my sister, who left a fair bit of her music collection behind when she went to college, was my unknowing benefactor whenever I snuck to her room and borrowed her copy of Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits.

My music collection back in 1990 left a fair bit of testosterone to be desired, and this album certainly didn't contribute to the cause. What it did do, though, was to allow me to work on my voice on some of the most poignant and beautiful songs from the 1960s. Anoretic ol' me couldn't rumble down low quite yet, and for some reason, I idealized a high tenor, so I did what I could to nurture said tenor. (It certainly came in handy a year later when I began my choral career.) And I tried to ape Simon and Garfunkel's straight, unobtrusive, simply declarative singing. Any high notes sounded effortless, and that was my goal...regardless of how much my neck muscles and jugular veins would pop out, I would make those high Fs perfect, and not in falsetto, either!

I still point to Art Garfunkel's "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" as a crystalline example of how tender and touching singing can be. (I don't care that Paul Simon wrote the song...Art owns that damned thing.) The imagery is beautiful, and virtually every phrase is an impressionistic reverie ("I heard cathedral bells/Tripping down the alleyways"; "What a dream I had, dressed in organdy, clothed in crinoline of smoky burgundy"; "We walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight"). Say what you will about Simon's precious poesy elsewhere...here, he gets it perfect. The delicate and pointillistic accompaniment is gorgeous and perfectly suits the mood.

I also jibed with "I Am A Rock," Simon's declaration of emotional independence from all around him. Friends and lovers be damned, he was going it alone...and as an alienated teenager who found little of emotional sustenance to be had around me, so would I. Again, his fascination with poetry came to the forefront, where he intentionally contradicted John Donne's famous poem "No Man Is An Island."

Such was my resonance with this album and its melancholy that by mid-high school, I could sing anything on it, with memorized lyrics and the correct key, at a moment's notice. But as I grew older, so did this album, and we began to part ways during the latter years of high school. By mid-college, I had little use of it. The only reason I returned to it now was based on the 50th anniversary of JFK's death. I had mistakenly thought that "Mrs. Robinson" was the #1 song at the time of his death (actually, it was some song about a flying nun or something), when actually it was around RFK's death. Either way, I had remembered reading about how the lyrics seemed to echo America's sentiment at the time. ("Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.") So I decided to revisit the album...and on the recommendation of many others, ended up getting its more expansive and sonically-updated relative, The Best of Simon and Garfunkel. It's nice to have more songs here, particularly from Bookends, an album I never had. But much like people sometimes complained about the sterility of CD sound vs. the warmth of vinyl, I feel like something has been lost in the upgrade somehow, and I miss the familiarity of the original audio. Oh well. It still is good to have these guys back again.

"What's that I smell?" "Burning nun, darling. Cheers."

Random comments about last night:

• When a new gayby (young, either newly-out or new to the scene gay man) says he has not seen The Sound of Music after 21 years on this plane, what do you do? Of course. You devirginize him. With said movie. And lots of friends. And lots of drinks and nibbly things.
• Don't be too bummed if he decides he really won't go out of his way to see the movie again, despite allowing as how he liked it.
• The St. Germain gin and tonic is utterly delightful. I wish I had begun drinking it about six months ago. It makes the perfect summer drink. (Don't belabor it. One gin and tonic, a half shot of St. Germain.)
• Forgive me, for I have sinned. Of all the gawdawful, socially, politically, environmentally, and hygienically repugnant things I could have done last night, this takes the cake: ordering Papa John's.
• Superman: Man of Steel - (Spoilers, natch.) Not a bad movie. I appreciated the story behind why General Zod was so hell-bent on taking over Earth. Not that it particularly made me like him, but it certainly made me understand his impulses better; I could almost sympathize with him. (Compare it with Superman II, where Zod just plain wanted to rule the planet and subject its peons to cruel dictatorship because...well, you know...just because.) But GOD...how many buildings did those two lovers need to throw each other into? And in the end, all it took was a good old-fashioned neck-wrench to send Zod hurtling into the void? What a disappointment.
• Combine the gin and tonics, the pizza, and the hyperkinesis of MOS, and you have yourself one soon-to-be-sick puppy on your hands. Cold sweat, that sudden sense of impending doom if you don't do something NOW...you know the feeling. And so:
• Enter my favorite herb of all time: gentian. Insanely bitter - and insanely awesome. I keep a tincture of it on hand at all times. It has often made the difference between puking my guts out and feeling miserable for hours afterward and feeling clean, cool, and calm. Three squirts of this in a cup of water, sipped over a few minutes, and here was the progression. Five minutes after starting: something is happening. Ten minutes after that: I'm definitely on the mend. Not sweating, stomach is moving, and this noxious brick in my stomach feels like it's dissolving. Within a half hour: completely out of the woods. Not just that, but I feel like I could SOAR, I'm feeling so great. I normally don't have quite that dramatic a response to gentian, but I was in a world of hurt last night.
• Want an aural approximation of this progression? Listen. Start at about 7:30 (just before feeling sick), and go until the vocals kick in at about 13:40. Thank God for prime Floyd.

Alice Hanson

I went to a Lutheran college in small town Minnesota renowned, quite honestly, the world over for its music department. The choirs, orchestra, and band all were miles beyond the typical college ensembles, and were compared favorably with the likes of other world-famous ensembles. But behind the groups was the faculty. While being peerless in excellence, the demeanor of the instructors ranged from friendly to aloof, modest to egotistical. But the most notorious instructor was the one whose name was spoken with not a little fear: Dr. Alice Hanson.

Dr. Hanson taught what was universally known - not just in the music department, but schoolwide - as the toughest two courses at college: the two classes in music history required for music majors. Organic chemistry? Pshaw! Advanced statistics? A cake walk. Her classes all started at 8:00 am. Her door shut at 8:01. And students who showed up late were locked out and received an absence. Her lectures were legendary. She would be discussing Schubert lieder, then in a split second, point at you or one of your unwitting classmates and ask you a question about them. Woe unto you if you didn't know the answer or weren't paying attention, since participation every class by every student was mandatory and a significant part of the grade. She'd go down the line, knocking down student by student until someone gave her an acceptable answer. If corporal punishment were legal in college, I'm sure there would have been more than a few knuckle-rappings for not knowing the answer. I never heard about the rigors of writing papers for Dr. Hanson, but I think this post by a respectful former student rings true. No one who crossed her forgot her, and everyone who took her classes emerged a better person for it.

As you've guessed, I wasn't a music major, although I took as many classes as I could without declaring an official major, so I never met Dr. Hanson. I'm certain that I walked by her more than once in the halls of the music department, small as it was, but I never really recognized her, which added to her mystique. And once I left college, any mention of her disappeared...until this past week. She left behind the kind of legacy that I aspire to: that of a hard-ass who was frequently harsh and unyielding but always in the service of improving those around her. People may not have liked her, but they unanimously held the highest of respect for her. To be blunt, perhaps as she would have liked it, bitch got shit done. And she taught others how to get shit done in her own way, too.

I'm imagining one of two scenarios right now. Either St. Peter is wondering if Dr. Hanson really belongs up there, or Satan is afraid of being upstaged. I'm thinking more the former, but wherever she ends up, there's gonna be a lot of chain-rattling going on.

And again...damn. I never met the woman. I never took a class of hers. But I heard stories upon stories about her the entire time I was in college. And years later, upon hearing about her death, I'm spending part of my afternoon writing a whole post about her. That, my friends, is one awesome legacy.

Get shit done.

I woke up this morning to a FB post wherein someone referred to an article and erroneously concluded that because he didn't contribute to society, that was the reason he was single. (By the by, he's a government employee, providing an extremely valuable service.) The article's title piqued my interest (Six Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person), but I was ready to discount it as just another random, unnecessary posting by Cracked, and a waste of my time. Still, I read on.

And damn...for a website that puts out some occasionally snarky and annoying and sometimes funny shit, this was one whopper of an article. I mean, wasn't this once a magazine that sold itself as a second-rate Mad Magazine? From such lowly dregs apparently come gems like this years later.

Here's the gist of this article: You know who gets shit done? People who get shit done. It's all nice and good if you're nice, or if you're talented, or if you're one of the beautiful people, or if you're charismatic, or if you have money, but at the end of the day, that's not what people are interested in. They want to know if you can get shit done. And if you can, awesome.

This was pretty much written from a business perspective, as far as I can tell. You could extrapolate it to many other areas in life, too. But I've learned this a number of times, the hard way, and it has stuck with me ever since.

Years ago, while working as a server at Good Earth in upper-crust Edina, MN, I occasionally interacted with another, more experienced server, who was basically a bitch. Could not stand her. Condescending, mean, brusque, and just not someone I cared to associate with. Also: a stickler for rules. She came in one morning for her shift, and she was scheduled to take over part of my section for lunch. A couple sat down in said part of my section not 45 seconds before her shift started, and despite my being slammed, she refused to help me out and take this couple. So I gritted my teeth and proceeded to do the best I could, all while beginning to nurse one poisonous grudge.
But I soon realized that despite her attitude, she always worked the busiest sections toward the front of the restaurant, never broke a sweat, and regularly pulled in two to three times the tips I did. My take-home: Diners didn't care that she was snippy. They cared that she was efficient and got shit done...and tipped her accordingly. I was much nicer, but somewhat bumbling - and never left the back of the restaurant. Nice is nice, but it won't pay the rent.

Fast forward to chiropractic school. In the mock patient visits, I was always told I had great patient rapport. But I sometimes forgot things here and there: not completing a full neurological exam, forgetting key or confirmatory orthopedic tests, not ordering the correct lab tests...the things that students often miss as they're learning and drinking out of a fire hydrant. But while I was working on those things, it was the students who had lesser bedside manner and didn't care much for niceties who did the right things and got the higher scores.

Years later, I'm still learning this lesson. People always compliment me on how nice I am, or how modest or unassuming I am, whether I'm in a professional setting or simply among friends. But again, that doesn't pay the rent. Being efficient and effective at your job does. And sometimes I fantasize about how great it would be to be an utter bitch who could really give a shit about anything other than getting shit done...and damn people's feelings in the process.

So I responded to this guy. Told him how much I thought the article was dead on. And he countered with a "woe is me...so according to this article, I should kill myself?" I slammed my head against the wall so hard I about gave the wall an aneurysm. And perhaps this isn't a perspective that will work for him. (Apparently, self-destructive hyperbole does work for him, though.) Nor did it for a friend of his, who maintained that love and caring and friendship was enough to make this world go round. Oh well. You can't reach everyone.

I guess I've become immune to the idea that love and flowers and rainbows and glitter is all you need. I mean, I've promised Mr. Man a very belated birthday cake. It was two days ago, and he began last night to gripe about how it hadn't materialized. The fact that I love him doesn't change anything for his expectations. I gotta get this damned cake made. And I'm not gonna enjoy making it...and I may even bitch about it. But he'll have his cake, as promised, and that will mean more to him than a platitude of "I love yous." At the very least, it'll be physical evidence to support my sentiments.

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with other people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."

The newest religion has nothing to do with some supernatural, omnipotent and omniscient being. No God, no Tao, no Jesus, no Buddha, no Allah, no Mohammed, no Krishna, nothing. The newest religion is based on the worship of technology. To be more specific, it's the worship of computers and cell phones. And I find it utterly repugnant.

I'm SO lucky that I get to witness, firsthand, the evangelical furor with which guys* support their favorite company/platform/what-have-you. With equal passion, they decry the other side. We can bring it down to the polarity of Apple vs. Windows/Android. This largely occurs because I get to live with a guy who is a self-avowed tech geek, and who is firmly on the Windows/Android side of the divide. He says he can understand (begrudgingly) the appeal of Apple, but let's not fool anyone...he looks at those who love Apple products with utter disdain. And he has ample opportunity to express said disdain and get into conversations and arguments with believers on the other (read: evil) side of the schism.

When talking to people about this schism, I hear things like "Oh, he's drunk the Kool-Aid," "iPhone = Apple = the devil," "People who follow Apple...it's like they're in a cult," and the like. And I'm seriouslythisclose to expunge these people from my FB feed. True believers of all stripes, get thee behind me and begone!

*For whatever reason, I have yet to hear a single woman engage in this annoying conversation. Very wise.

I would cuddle you so hard.

So says a shirt frequenting the local gay watering holes nowadays. So much for the hankies in the back pocket advertising what wild (or not-so-wild but still sexual) things you were into. Of course, those largely died out as guys became more open and willing to say what they wanted. Props to the interwebs and such for that.

But really? CUDDLE? That's all you would do? I'd hope for something more. Something more animal, something more feral, something more bestial than just a warm fuzzy cuddle.

Unfortunately, it seems like that's what guys are resorting to more and more. Or at least advertising. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe guys are using that as a ruse to actually bed other guys. I hope I'm wrong. But it's almost like we men are becoming emasculated. (BTW...there is a significant and really depressing amount of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis, too...just search around.)

One of my good friends wrote last night about this very topic. He started out as a kid much like me (and much like millions of other gay men out there), having that dream, then waking in fright and dread about what it meant, and how it went against everything that he heard and was taught. For him, it was even worse, growing up a devout member of the Catholic church, right alongside the rest of his Italian family.

So he learned to hide it, to be one of the guys, to be a hard-partying womanizing frat boy by college. Only in his last year of college (again, much like me), did he finally come out, much to his family's consternation and his friends' confusion. Stereotypes die hard, and a brutally masculine, non-swishy man just cannot be gay, right?

As the years passed and he became more comfortable with himself, he realized at some point that he was not just this butch gay guy, but a full-out leatherman, with all the serious role-playing and heavy sex that culture entails. And it hit him hard, in the best way possible. So not only was there a place for the non-swishy gay men, but the hypermasculine ones who were as far from that stereotype as possible.

Now, years later, he's seeing evidence of...well, at least for himself, some dying down of the testosterone-laden past he's had. It happens as you grow older. But he's beginning to rage against that dying of the light. Getting a full-sleeve tattoo, hitting the gym again in earnest, and doing what he can to ensure that he remains as queer and true to himself as possible. He exults in living the life that few dare to, in being that wild man. He laughs a bit too loud. He rides his motorcycle a bit too fast. He wears his pants a size too small to show off his impressive package (accentuated with a PA). He occasionally wears his full Tom of Finland leather gear to choir rehearsals, and even to church, where he works as the music director and organist. And he loves every last bit of it.

And I love him for it. Guys like him, with so much passion, pushing at the bounds of propriety and acceptability, are too few and far between in this world of beige and cubicles and suburbs and long commutes.

My life has taken me in a decidedly less wild trajectory than his. No leather in my past, I was nowhere near as butch as this guy was. My personal revolution was largely internal; aside from temporarily dyeing part of my hair green, you wouldn't have guessed I was subversive in any way. I wasn't swishy, but you could have justifiably called me effete back in the day. You could have blown me over with a breeze. And I was terribly shy.

Some things don't change. I'm still pretty shy when it comes to meeting guys I'm attracted to. Not the butchest guy to come down the pike, either (though I'm also not FAAAAbulous). But at least I look and feel more substantial. Every day, I live a bit closer into what is truly who I feel I was meant to be.

And I think this may be why I have such admiration for my queer brothers and sisters. We were dealt a hand that forced us to suppress ourselves for a long time - especially during the time that would ordinarily be the most transformative. The act of being true to ourselves in the face of a society that disapproves of such a thing becomes exponentially more meaningful and urgent than it otherwise would.

In particular, I have tremendous admiration for those whose need to be completely true to themselves takes them on the most extreme journeys. Drag queens are among them. It takes some real courage to engage in the transformation into some of the most fabulously dressed and made-up creatures on the planet. This is not in small part because we live in a society in which women are, unfortunately, construed in many ways as inferior to men. But among me and my friends, drag queens are deserving of the highest adulation possible. In fact, for many of us, RuPaul's Drag Race is a ritual during the first third of each year. Many straight guys have their football or basketball or baseball. We have our Drag Race.

Recently, I've also begun to admire - much more than in the past - the trans folk of our culture. One of my best friends from college came out to me in a very low-key manner at a bar in Minneapolis, simply saying that she really was jealous of Chaz Bono. (I assume it was because Chaz was able to afford and undergo breast removal surgery.) The bit of exposure I had for the trans community suddenly was directly in front of me and a significant part of my life. Although she - to my knowledge - hasn't acted on anything since that time, she was the only trans man I'd known -- until about a month ago.

Just a few weeks ago, another college friend posted on FB that she was trans, and that from here on forward, she requested that we call him by his new chosen man's name, that he was taking testosterone, and that he was about to get his breasts removed. Wow. What balls. (Check out his blog "So that others may follow", which I have a link to on the right.) His partner, who is a lesbian, is staying with him and supporting him throughout his journey, too. (Update: Just found out right now that they just got engaged! Cue the tears of joy to my eyes.)

Then another college friend said that she was about ready to come out to her new workplace, and asked us all for support and prayers. This confused me, since she was a lesbian, and well, if you can't come out in Minneapolis, where can you come out? Then it hit me...this was why she had turned her FB name into two men's names. So he was trans, too! Pretty wild, this: three trans FTM guys within the span of two years of college. Whoda thunk? (Update: He was fully accepted, no issues whatsoever. What a huge blessing.)

These are the people who are true to themselves, who lend vivid, unignorable color to an increasingly beige world of people who would cuddle you so hard, who may seem weird and off-putting. But they're inevitably the most interesting, wild, and passionate people I know. They will be among the ones who help transform this world into a better, more tolerant, loving, and celebratory place. I'm glad to call them my sisters and brothers, and to count myself among them.

Notes from light rail, pt. 1

Damn, wish I had headphones.

Stranger making funny faces on the bus at a baby while the mom looks on, amused, contented and happy. Takes a village?

Shit-ass luck. Takes just one errant bus to thrown my whole schedule off and make a 90-minute commute twice as long. RRRGH...

Burgeoning business... Will it take the place of my other one?

NDs are not my people. Don't feel part of the tribe. I'm bad. How bad? Not GMO-free, not gluten free, eat like crap (including fast food more often than I'm willing to admit), sleep with electric appliances near my head and with a bedroom so light you can see across the room easily, read a backlit tablet before bed ensuring my sleep will be awful...Just happens.

Having said that, I looked at the mirror this morning, and possibly for the first time ever, was fully content with what I saw. Finally saw myself as a grown man, full, filled out and...well, not muscle-bound. Not yet, at least. About damn time, though. You'd think this would happen before the age of 38. And this, after a night of packing for Bear Week, and yes, being vain and trying on all manner of shirts (still fit) and shorts (just barely). Liked the way I looked then, too.

FB messages bad when you're trying to eke out your identity in a positive manner. Many messages bring you down or distract you from carving out your identity.

Why am I carsick while reading on the light rail, but not while typing?

Seizures SUCK.

Two days ago, I woke up, tired, after only six hours of sleep. Not awful, but I had been abnormally tired over the past week. The previous afternoon, I had a 3 hour long nap, and felt I could have slept another three hours.

I also had a muffin for breakfast, a few slices of pizza for lunch, plus a bit of water, then some gelato afterward. Probably what some people would consider not bad for meals, but it wasn't enough for me.

Finally, I went to a choral concert, invited by a friend of mine. It was fine, but I was just exhausted throughout the entire thing. I was invited for canapés and drinks with said friend's family, but politely demurred, partially because of my fatigue.

I came home, saw Mr. Man in the bedroom watching Mad Men, and joined him, just laying down on the bed.

...

Next I knew, I found myself in a wheelchair at the nearest hospital, utterly exhausted and unable to comprehend much of what was going on around me. Mr. Man finally told me (as he probably had numerous times over the previous half hour) that I had had a grand mal seizure. First one in eight years, almost to the day. I'd like to say that the news frustrated me at the time, but I was so wiped out, I could barely feel anything, and was only just capable of performing simple tasks like going to the bathroom. Mr. Man took excellent care of me, getting me situated, and making sure I was okay until the nurse or PA or whomever took me back to rest about 10 minutes later. I got an IV in the back of my hand and a bit of Ativan (my least favorite drug EVER), just to take the edge off, and tried my best to answer basic questions given to me by the nurse, missing only one ("What month is it? What's your name? Do you know what happened?"). My parents showed up a bit later, certainly concerned, but in my stupor, I couldn't really read their expressions. Still, at least I was secure and being watched over. And atypically, I didn't have a pounding headache, nor was I really all that tired after a bit. But my tongue was chewed up pretty badly (still is, in fact), and I was more or less a lump of clay, just sitting there, trying to engage everyone in conversation, and (I'm sure) failing badly. Finally, after a few hours, when it was evident that I had stabilized, I was released, and Mr. Man took me home for some dinner and some rest.

Only the next day did I realize how much I had scared him. He had asked me a question in the bedroom, and noticed that I wasn't answering him. Then he looked over and saw a weird grimace on my face and my arms starting to spasm, and he freaked out. I'll spare you the details, but he thought I looked possessed. I can't imagine what it must feel like to see someone you love suddenly going through something so frightening, suddenly unconscious, yet jerking uncontrollably for minutes on end, then seeing them collapse and not breathe for up to a minute, sometimes more...then seeing them gasping for breath while barely coming to. You can't do anything to help them in the meantime, other than just keeping them safe from themselves and anything around them that might harm them. And you never, NEVER put anything in a seizing person's mouth! Want said thing to break off and puncture their palate? Want to lose a finger? Didn't think so. Tongues and sides of the mouth heal. Scary at the time, but really, they heal uneventfully.

Also on the next day, I felt fine. Perhaps a bit tired, and I had a hard time talking because my ragged tongue was swollen, but otherwise, no issues...almost as if nothing had happened the day before. Mr. Man and I went shopping around town, but nothing too taxing. And I slept well and ate well.

...

Two days ago marked the eighth seizure I've had in my lifetime. And let me tell you...they SUCK. So miserable. Only six of them have been actually witnessed and diagnosed; the first two were never discovered. Only years later, after putting symptoms together, did I realize that some unexplained symptoms I'd had (pounding headache, confusion, extreme exhaustion) made sense. I've been on medication for much of my life...coming on fully half, actually, to be accurate. The times I've had seizures since, I believe, could be chalked up to suboptimal levels of meds in my blood for one reason or another (not taking meds, taking supplements that speed up the metabolism of meds, being overweight), and it's frustrating and frightening.

For me, perhaps the worst part of having a seizure is the legal inability to drive for six months afterward. I love to drive. I love my car. And I will miss it sorely until December 24th. But also, poor Mr. Man is justifiably concerned also because the last time I had a seizure, I began to feel trapped and purely under his control. And it wasn't long after I got my freedom/car back, that I began to exult in my freedom and...uh...look around. I found myself in what then seemed an innocent affair, but it honestly came thisclose to breaking us apart over the next year and a half. I'm ashamed of it, and really, really don't want to open myself up to that again. I know what a great thing I have in Mr. Man, and I'm not willing to shatter it.

So there's what will probably amount to the excitement of 2013. I will do what I can to get by, but it's going to be tough for the next six months. Wish us luck. (I say us, because it will inevitably be a team effort.)

I'd like to be positive...I just don't have the energy.

Things that really don't affect me, (despite everyone around me insisting that they do, or else they wouldn't be posting them on Facebook with such gravitas and insistence), and my admittedly asshole-ish responses.

• James Gandolfini - Really could care less. I never watched The Sopranos. Never had any desire to. My interest, passing as it was, with the Mafia began and ended with watching Goodfellas. Joe Pesci's "You think I'm funny?" scene was beyond chilling, but holy paregoric, Batman, I am forevermore turned off of "Layla" because of that neverending...uh...ending. And the movie was just fuckin' deathless. Anyhoo, the guy never did a thing for me. As my oh-so-compassionate dad would say, "We all die. It just happens. Move on." (Said most recently about my sister-in-law's mom dying suddenly of cancer, while said sister-in-law was still, understandably, grieving a few months later.)
• Paula Deen - A Southern woman being racist. Is this where I'm supposed to act shocked? Pass the butter, please.
• Another of my colleagues - First off, let me say that I'm a traitor to the cause, and my colleagues are becoming less and less my people every day. I've mentioned my annoyance with astrology and a certain doc's reliance on it for her life's direction (despite the fact that, yes indeed, I do fit the picture of a Pisces perfectly), but this post, with no context whatsoever, implying its universal application, just...I just can't. "Hang on to your haciendas. There is a huge energetic clearing afoot. Trade 'pushing through it' to surrendering to the moment today..."
• Still, anything bear-related - For me, this is the equivalent of girls/women looking at fashion magazines and the perfect models therein, and alternately desiring those bodies for themselves, and seething with jealousy, frustration, and self-loathing that no matter how they try, they will never be able to measure up. And yes, I am going to one of the biggest bear-related events of the year (a good friend is on this page, bottom center.) I have such mixed emotions about it. Anyhow, I see endless posts about this bear event, that woofy guy (worst term ever, by the way), this bear group, and I die a bit inside. How ironic that the bear community sprang from annoyance about big hairy guys not fitting into the clone/twink culture of the '70s and '80s. I'm closer to being a bear than a twink or a clone, but nope, it ain't me. I know, I know...breathe, breathe, you're perfect as you are, don't compare yourself to others, just be yourself...sometimes it ain't easy.

Maybe this means that I should spend less time on Faceplace, or just cull my friends more judiciously. Of course, the whole Gandolfini worship and anguish seems pretty endemic, so I'll just have to ride this one out.