Falsettos

It was 1990. I'd met Mark in the spring. We volunteered together at the AIDS Action Committee, then met up at the AIDS Walk that year. He was sweet. He wanted to be friends. I cooked for him. We had adventures together. We were deeply romantic in that marvelously platonic kind of way.

One night, we went to dinner in the North End. At the end of our meal, a woman on the other side of the tiny but packed restaurant -- a woman who looked like she slept under bridges -- leaned back in her chair and sang O Sole Mio beautifully. We burst into applause, then paid our bill and strolled back along Beacon Hill in the fog, admiring the architecture.

Another time, I was going through a rough spot and Mark arranged a perfect evening with another friend -- appetizers at his house, dinner out, a stroll by the Public Garden afterwards, many laughs, just what the doctor ordered.

We had amazing evenings in Provincetown where his boyfriend, Michael, had a house. He told me stories of sailing off Santa Monica on elegant evenings. He reintroduced me to Bonnie Raitt.

By the time the autumn rolled around and his time in Boston was ending, I knew he'd come share Thanksgiving with my family in New York.

A friend had told me that I must see Falsettos by William Finn but didn't tell me what it was about. So we went. And I sat through my first Finn experience -- a cheerful nearly cartoony sung-through performance about a man who dies of AIDS.

We walked out of the theater into the Village unable to speak -- too much fear and horror hung between us. We just walked quietly for a little bit. Little did we know.

And then shouts, commotion, and a runaway horse went tearing by, clearly scared out of its mind. It was big. No one knew what to do until a man stepped out from the sidewalk and stood right in the horse's path. The horse stopped, that brave man took the reins, and held the horse until one very pissed off tiny policewoman came running through the crowd looking for her ride.

After that, the ice was broken. Such magic happened around that man.

May the force be with you.

for DW and KAH

Years ago, in the late fall or early winter, my sister was moving households. She was driving her fragile items in a van along a mountain road. The van slid on ice, she narrowly avoided going over the cliff, and the van fell over. The sound of breaking (and I'm sure, braking) was apparently quite stunning.

She was injured but conscious. The friend who was following in the car behind stopped and rushed up to see what happened. My sister later said that she envisioned her friend's horror and wanted him to know that at least she didn't die in the wreck. So she started yelling "I'm alive! I'm alive!"

I think about that moment when I come through challenges of my own. I think about being in near-shock but with life coursing through, cherishing that life force and yelling "I'm alive! I'm alive!". I think of my attachment -- to people, to cats, even to things -- and I suspect that my life force will be the last one I let go of.

For me, it exists inside like a small light burning near my solar plexus. It warms me and illuminates my path. I sometimes call it my little grace light. Robert, who briefly experienced Presbyterianiasm as in impressionable youth, was shocked to discover that I believe grace exists within me. It is not an outside command, but an inside motivation, pushing, inspiring, and at times helping me to go on.

Oddly, I feel its power on some of the days that I swim, towards the latter part of a mile, when mind, body, and quiet all come together. I know that it's there when I dance -- I can remember it, but because of the busy-ness of dance, I notice it almost always in hindsight, rarely in that moment. (But, oh, when it all comes together in that moment, it is pure heaven.)

Today I honor two friends whom I notice striving toward the light as they move through the most challenging of times. My thoughts and hopes are with them.

quiet fourth

It's turning out to be a quiet weekend. We were invited to a party today a few doors down from where we live. I saw the host two days ago; he seemed pleased that we were attending. Then yesterday, a phone message said that suddenly, there was way too much work to do around their house. The party was canceled, but we were still welcome to "stop by." I am so confused by the invitation, non-invitation, and kinda-invitation, and Robert was so convinced that "stop by" meant "help us with our weeding" that we've decided to ignore the whole thing.

Instead, we're going out by ourselves for southeast Asian food -- melting-pot food, to match our melting-pot country, in one of the most melting-pot cities I know of.

This morning, we woke up early, walked to the farmer's market, bought shell peas and bread, and talked to a distant neighbor for a bit. Then we headed to our local cafe and hung out with friends for a while while sipping coffee drinks before walking home.

Yesterday, a day off for both of us, I went swimming while Robert slept in. We walked downtown for haircuts, stopped in at a newly hung art show for our own private viewing, and walked home. Later, we headed to Lexington for an hour-long walk on the rail trail. We bumped into a friend -- a colleague from several jobs back who caught us up on some company gossip. We broke away when we realized we were all getting eaten alive by bugs newly hatched after the rains.

We finished up just as the skies opened and headed off for dinner to a recent find -- a Mexican restaurant that I knew even Robert couldn't mock. He was indeed very happy, though he mentioned a Mexican restaurant in western MA that he likes slightly better. We'll have to go there later this summer when we're out that way.

For now, skies are blue, there's a light breeze, and our solar panels are finally getting a nice workout. Happy fourth.

annoying physical bookstore experience

A few nights ago, I was early for a dinner meeting with a colleague. I was at a strip mall that included a Borders Books. Robert and I had been talking about our next vacation, so it seemed worth picking up travel books for that destination.

So there I was, a specific type of book in mind, not much time, and a bookstore in front of me. I went in and saw one worker behind the counter, helping other customers. I searched for the travel section, which was in the far corner facing away from the door. Much like grocery stores forcing you to walk the furthest for the orange juice, this bookstore had arranged the one thing I wanted to be one of the hardest to find.

I looked over the travel books twice. They were arranged not alphabetically, but geographically. And they started with USA travel and immediately hopped to New York. The New England books were just not there. (So what are you supposed to do if you want a travel book for a particular area of the country but you're not too good on geography?) I think the European travel books were arranged similarly. I guess someone in headquarters thought they were being clever.

So I went searching for someone to help me. I went downstairs and finally heard some russling and found the second employee on duty. He brightly said "Oh, of course you couldn't find New England books -- they're under "All things local!" (another twist of cleverness from HQ). Of course, "All things local" was closer to the door, but again facing away and not terribly obvious from the end of the row. Why would you separate the same type of book with an entire store full of other books?

Back upstairs I went, where I finally located a few books of interest and was able to purchase them after employee #1 (who was actually quite pleasant and lovely) came back to the register.

Interestingly, when I posted a briefer synopsis of this story on Facebook and commented that it's this sort of experience that makes me appreciate Amazon even more, several friends chimed in to contradict my report. They feel that physical bookstores are better for browsing (I would disagree, but maybe I've just figured out how to browse online and in this case, I knew what I wanted and couldn't find it) and that there are better bookstores out there (true, but I wasn't *at* a better bookstore. I was at a specific Borders.)

In all of this, I completely do not blame the people who were working there, trying to do their jobs despite cutbacks and weird organizational principles from HQ. Well, maybe employee #2 was hiding; it sure seemed like that, but maybe he was actually working.

D'oh! Just when I think I've done a service to physical bookstores by actually shopping in one, I am reminded of why I don't shop in them more often.

friend-filled weekend

My weekend started on Friday at the pool. I bumped into an old fellow coop-er and we had a nice catch-up chat. Then home for a few minutes and to the house of another old friend, a former colleague from years back, for lunch. On the way home, I stopped off at a coffee shop for a visit with yet another friend. Friday night was fairly quiet, just Robert and me.

Saturday, Robert dashed out of the house early for a pre-pride Interfaith service, followed by a long and reportedly fun Pride parade. Apparently the LGBTQ (alphabet soup) dancers in the area (about 12 groups) all walked together. Sounds like fun.

I stayed home because I had arranged for another friend to come for a lunch visit. She's often out of town on weekends and this was one of the few weekends she was in the area. She left, I cleaned up, Robert came home, and we went back into town for dinner with more friends and an evening dance.

The dance was called by someone who long ago moved from Boston to the left coast but comes back every year to call Pride Dance. He did a great job -- involving beginners, challenging experienced dancers -- and the place was packed! We had a rare three lines of dancers and hopping great music. I'm not even sure I sat out one dance.

We brought our dinner friends home, we all crashed, and then spent a leisurely morning together yesterday. After they left, Robert and I cleaned up and then crashed again -- I slept two hours and he three. The cats seemed all too happy to help us nap.

I'm fairly refreshed, ready to face this week.

Next weekend, my friend JCK and I are taking an intermediate DSLR course, called something like "after the introductions." Should be fun to hear what the instructor has to say and to spend time with Ms. K. Robert says her middle initial stands for camera, btw. Close!

Onward.

Poetry reading

My friend Richard, who's a talented writer, let me know that he had a reading in Cambridge on Saturday night. We wanted to go, both to hear his work and to support him. We started the evening with dinner at our favorite little Eritrean spot.

Then we moved over to the art gallery where the reading was taking place. Later, I read on the web that this poetry reading series has gone on every week since 1971 and is now at home in this particular gallery.

The woman who owns the gallery is warm and welcoming and clearly wanted to make everyone feel at home. So she started out by reading poems from her self-published book about her childhood sexual abuse. Just when I thought she was winding down, she'd read another. This was the kind of material that you work out with a brave therapist and rarely with an audience of 30.

I guess that opened things up because the next reader started with a poem that Robert, kind as ever, called "raw," another howl about horrific mistreatment. I kind of wish they'd warned us so that I could have run out to the sidewalk and taken up smoking again.

A regular stood up and read a love poem to his wife about how their wedding anniversary coincided with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire so that the young women who worked and died at the factory would never know the love that he and his wife got to experience. Um, yeah, so what does he write in a hate poem? He closed with a letter to the Globe editor he'd sent five years ago decrying the Abu Ghraib treatment as "torture," I think trying to show that he'd named it long before anyone else had.

Just when I thought I couldn't bear to sit in the metal unpadded chair any longer, just when I thought my friend Richard was going on, someone in the back said that she wanted to read. Ohhh kayyy... Robert, pulling out all the stops, said "I had an uncharitable thought. [pause] But she was very sweet."

About this time, I thought that I was given the unpadded chair to teach me a little more charity, but even that thought wasn't helping. I was squirming, and not just outwardly.

Finally, our friend Richard went on. Mercifully, he had us all stand up, turn around, and stretch, before sitting down again. And then for the next 45 minutes, we were treated to a series of delightful monologues, performed by six actors. The perspectives and geography were varied, there was a lot of humor amongst the seriousness, and at the end, I was left wanting more.

Ready to go home? Not quite. Partway through the proceedings, a tiny man walked in looking lost and homeless. At first, I thought the kind gallery owner had told him he was always welcome to use the bathroom. He was ancient, with wispy long hair, and dressed with an odd nod to a night on the town -- an incredibly stained blue searsucker jacket (complete with ink stains), on a stained white shirt, a jaunty green bandana at his throat, all over huge green zip-up sweatpants.

After Richard's pieces, the gallery owner introduced this person as Billy Barnum of THE Barnum family (I didn't catch the reference, but perhaps the circus family?). When he talked, he was hard to understand -- there was a shake in his voice that made him sound like he was coming in over a bad cell phone connection. The effect was aided by the absence of many of his teeth.

His first piece was about riding in the subway, helpful, because his voice was perfect for the setting, making hims ound as if he was being jarred by the train's movement. He was actually quite lithe and acted out being nearly unbalanced as he recited. He did another very cute piece about two drag queens and the owner of a doll hospital, bringing us back to the late 40s or early 50s. Very sweet, and clearly his mind is still intact, full of stories and good humor.

So that was our Saturday night out, an evening that brought me back to the late 70s when I moved in around the corner from that gallery and experienced the tail-end of old Cambridge, a part of the city that continues to thrive in some small corners. And I am very grateful for that.

mini-vacas

We have a vacation policy at work that I did not strictly adhere to last year. So I ended up carrying over more time than I was supposed to. And now the company is cracking down and saying that except for extreme circumstances, we need to use up every last bit of vacation before year end. So before January 1, I need to finish up last year's allotted days and whittle away at this year's.

To complicate things, I work four days a week. When we go away for long weekends, Robert ends up taking vacation time that I don't have to declare. As a result, he has much less leftover vacation time than I have. And that extra day off every week makes for a pretty relaxed life. Oh, and it's crunch time at work right now and my boss would prefer that I spend every available hour at work.

Such a problem to have -- too much vacation time!

I have proposed to my boss, and she has tentatively allowed the experiment -- I will take half days off on Tuesdays in June. I've assured her that if it doesn't work out, or if I need to back off, we'll stop or at least suspend the experiment.

Today was the first of five Tuesdays in June. Here's how my day went:
I woke up early, thanks to a cat who was patient beyond belief after the sun came up. After about half an hour of light, she decided she needed time with me and sat on my hip. She was very quiet and dignified and we all woke up slowly. Did some exploring on the intertubes. Then went for a mile long swim and got to work by 9. Got some things done, had a long meeting, wrapped more up, and then went off to the farm with my share-mate who's also a co-worker.

At the farm, we ran into an old friend, talked to her for a while, then gathered vegetables, got flowers out of the cutting garden, and went back to work where I retrieved my car. Came home, planned dinner, put away the goodies, checked email briefly, and I set out for a walk.

I just went downtown, where I sat outside, had an Italian soda and a biscotti, and saw all manner of people I know -- the woman who drives the limo when we need a ride to the airport (probably the only limo driver who hugs her departing passengers), the woman who owns the new frame shop in town, a friend with his baby, followed by his wife with the stroller. I had a few friendly conversations, did some of the newspaper puzzles, came home (chatting with our hairdresser's boyfriend on the way), and started dinner. The hubster arrived, we talked a bit, ate dinner, had some wine, I read the paper, and now I'm upstairs with my computer kitty catching up on the day's happenings.

From my point of view, this half-day was a huge success. I think my challenge will be to do something with the extra time that I might not ordinarily do. Such a nice challenge to have.