Author: Wahmish

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Kristallnacht

This week we mark the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass.  Have we really had enough time to forget?

I came into my Jewish-ness at B’nai Sholom in Huntington, WV under the tutelage of Rabbi David Wucher.  Every year as the leaves began to change, the Gates of Repentance was closed, the lulav and etrog were put away and the sukkah disassembled, a sermon was given the second week of November remembering Kristallnacht.

From November 9-11, 1938, non-Jewish German and Austrian civilians ransacked and burned 276 synagogues and 7,500 Jewish businesses.  Police and firemen were ordered not to get involved except if non-Jews or their property was in danger.  There were 91 Jewish fatalities.

In the following six years the Holocaust took the lives of six million Jews in the most abhorrent of conditions.  Six million is a big number.  It is hard to wrap your head around, hard to visualize.  In human history six million people have gathered in one place at one for an event only five times so it is not something to which most people have a point of reference.  Even then it is hard to put a face, a family, a history, hopes, dreams, celebrations, defeats, times of joy and times of mourning to each individual of a group of six million.  That, as Rabbi Wucher said annually, is why it is so meaningful and important that we remember Kristallnacht, that we tell the story.  We can all say we know 91 people, their stories.

Eleven is another number that we can digest.  Most of us can count on ten fingers the friends and family they know and love best.  We know their lives, their stories, their hopes and fears, joys and defeats, and we know our own.

I recently attended an interfaith memorial service at the Temple I attend regularly.  I wept openly at the reading of the names of those ruthlessly cut down at their time of prayer and reflection in their house of worship.  I have been deeply troubled and effected by this tragedy.  I needed to release my pain.

I wasn’t born a Jew.  Until I was 20, I had no Jewish friends.  Jews were just another “them” that I had heard of but with whom I had no experience.  I converted to Judaism over a long process that began in my early twenties.  Dissatisfied with the judgments and blindness of other faiths I found in Judaism a family that was open, accepting, helpful, and loving.  I found a family that judged me not by whom I was, whom I loved, but on my actions and on my merits.  I found a people that embraced education, truth, and science.  I found a faith where questioning was not only allowed, but encouraged.  Their people became my people, their god my god.  I moved from within walking distance of B’nai Sholom to Cincinnati, the birthplace of the Reform movement and the Hebrew Union College, then some years later to South Florida, home of over a half a million Jews.  Wherever you go, I will go.  Wherever you stay, I will stay.

Through this somewhat Jewishly narrowed lens of life I forgot how truly rare and precious we are in this country and in this world.  Although my life is pretty Jew-ish, we really only make up less than 3% of the population of this country, a very minor minority.  The attack in Pittsburg at Tree of Life robbed us of 11 more.

I did not personally know anyone that was killed.  I do not know anyone who knows anyone that was killed.  The closest degree of separation is: I go to Temple with people that went to Temple with people there.  Why then this profound outpouring of grief?

I mourn with their immediate families.  Losing a loved one is never easy, but in this manner…

I mourn with their congregation.  Every Jewish congregation is a tight-knit community.  I could look around my own congregations and see the people from Tree of Life.  Losing one of them is tough on the community, but losing eleven…

I mourn with the Jewish people for losing 11 of their own, of our own.  We are truly so few…

I grieve with a nation where anyone, Christian, Muslim, Baha’i, black, white, Arab, Hispanic, or Jew is killed in their place of prayer.  I grieve for a nation where the hate-filled speech from the top has trickled down and empowered people to act violently.  No one should have to think about “Active Shooter” situations while they are praying, but I have…

This is a breathtaking event, but it isn’t isolated.  There have been over 300 mass shootings in the so-called United States this year, almost one per day.  Hate crime is at record high in general, and hate crimes against Jews is up 57% since last year.  This is worth being upset about.

The police acted swiftly and efficiently to end this event.  The Justice System will see to it that the perpetrator is justly punished.  Will the hate, the rhetoric, the racism, the privilege and the fear of losing that privilege come to an end as well?

Few survivors of Kristallnacht said that they could see it coming.  They lived in a democracy.  Their citizens, they themselves, had a say in their governance.  It was supposed to be a shining example.  Their rights, their properties, their religion, their lives were protected.  Then rose to power someone who lost the popular vote, that drummed up the sentiment, the hate, the fear.  Afraid of the Jewish prominence in society and their rise in power after World War I the charismatic leaders of Nazi Germany fed hatred, racism, and propaganda to the poor and weak populous,  then allowed them to release their wrath on the scapegoat minority, and suddenly one night, without much warning, the government no longer protected this minority.

Anyone that cannot see parallels is choosing not to.

Complacency is guilt.  To think that all Germans were all Jew-haters is daft.  It is fair to say that, like my friends and family growing up, most Germans only knew that there were Jews, and maybe knew a Jewish doctor or lawyer or grocer, but had no feelings one way or another toward them.  It is hard to talk people into killing their friends, their neighbors, their classmates.  It is much easier to incite people to hate the “them’s” and the “those people’s” that you don’t know, with whom you have little to no contact, people that look different, speak a different language, pray differently, minorities.

When I sat down at the memorial service, the World War 2 veteran to whom I sat next asked me if the police were still outside with bomb-sniffing dogs.  I told him that they were.  He shook his head sadly and said he didn’t like that, that he never thought he’d have to worry about coming to services at the Temple, not in America.  I agreed.

From November 11, 1938 until May 8, 1945 the Nazi government murdered six million Jews.  Once the fuse is lit, it burns fast. How long is our vision into the future?  How far are we from our own Kristallnacht, when the masses, beaten up to a fervor, are released on the minorities without intervention?  It hasn’t happened yet, but to say that it can’t happen is naïve, at best.  The only way that we can at this point keep from lighting the fuse, is to blow out the match.  We must all stop being afraid of losing our privileges and instead be ashamed of having them.  In every aspect that a person is privileged there is someone that has to do without, and that is shameful.  We must stop hating that someone for wanting an equal footing, and bring him or her up to it.  We have to stop fearing the stranger seeking shelter, and share our bounty.  And we must absolutely stop supporting the privileged white men that stir up mistrust and hatred in order to keep their power.

We find ourselves in a situation all too similar to that of Interwar Germany.  A division is growing between the haves and the have nots.  Nationalism is on the rise, education on the decline.  Communication between people, parties, is nearly non-existent.  The people with power are resorting to saying desperate things in order to keep that power.  People are doing desperate things to support those people.  We all want to “Make America Great Again,” but some people think that “America” only implies to them personally.  A truly great America is one where everyone is housed, and fed, and healthy, and educated.  One where everyone feels welcomed and loved, and everyone has enough, a country that shows its greatness by helping countries-people-achieve greatness too.  If these are the ideals that we hold for individual greatness, and we are a democracy, a nation of individuals, these are the ideals of greatness that we should hope for our country, and require in its leadership.

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It Will Never Last: Why We Love to Hate Internet Dating (2009)

“It will never last,” She whispers during the vows, “You know they met online.”  This scene plays out countless times a year at weddings all over the country.  When did we become too busy to meet people in person?  Why did internet dating become such a faux pas?  Where are we supposed to meet the loves of our life?

Long gone are the days when every marriage was arranged, either by the families involved, or by the skillful matchmaker.  Marriage was, by most modern ideals, less of a sacred affair and more one of business.  If the wife’s family had two goats and a cow and the husband’s family had no goats but had a tent, they were soon wed.

Up to this point people met each other in person to person situations; school, neighborhood meetings, work, war.  Then, in the 1960’s the first dating computer came online.  A man would fill out a questionnaire of yes and no questions.  A woman would do the same.  The computer would tabulate the responses and direct the two toward each other.  The applicants only had to answer “yes” or “no” to find the love of their life.

Internet dating was the next logical step.  In the mid 1990s as the nation signed on to AOL they suddenly were able to go into the newly formed “dating chat rooms.”  The sage computer stopped giving advice but instead acted as the medium with which to meet other people.  The possibilities of the types of chat rooms to search through was seemingly endless.  “Women Seeking Men” and “Men Seeking Women” were two generic examples but the possibilities could be as wild as “Dominate Florida Women Seeking Submissive Idahoan Men for Relocation.”  Whatever kind of person you were, you could find someone else like you.

Darwin should be proud.  With the ability to find a mate anywhere in the world man is able to pick the best possible candidate for his mate, Natural Selection at its best.  Why then do we hate and belittle the practice?

During the Italian Renaissance, when a woman came of age to be wed, a pot of basil was placed on a shelf outside the window so that passing bachelors could see.  If he liked the looks of the property or knew the family name or business, he would stop in and discuss the business of marriage with the father.  If everyone was in agreement, the fate was sealed.  Occasionally the bride was then introduced to her future husband, but often they met at the wedding.  Is this example of early betrothal practice more likely to succeed than picking from a list of people online with similar interests and tastes?

Is it, perhaps, instead that when we look at internet dating we see only the bad publicity.  The person on the other end may be a stalker, or child molester, or a murder, just trying to lure the romantically desperate into a trap.  NBC has, on three separate occasions, aired a Dateline Report entitled “To Catch a Predator” on which Chris Hansen manages in one night to catch half a dozen potential child molesters trying to meet a 12 year old girl.  This image burns quickly into our minds about the dangers of the internet.

There are other reasons we cannot seem to trust the internet for dating as well.

The scene plays out in the office:

A man and a woman are married.  The man works in an office and has a secretary.  The man has an affair with the secretary.  The man and the woman are divorced.  Shortly thereafter the man marries his secretary.  She quits the firm to raise their child and the man hires a new secretary.  The man and the new secretary have an affair.

If it was so easy for the bride whose wedding was being doubted to find her husband online, how can we expect her to resist the temptation to find the second husband online when number one is just not what she thought he would be?  It is, generally speaking, easier for a spouse to sneak off to the home office in the middle of the night and browse a few profiles while his or her partner sleeps, or to check the secret email account at work when no one is looking, than it is to find excuses to go out to a bar or other meeting place alone.

In the end, it does not really matter with whom we fall in love and bring home to mother, she is not going to approve.  Our parents and friends did not approve when we decided to marry out of love from the beginning.  “How will you pay for things?  He has no money!”  It was all about business.

We can no longer meet the loves of our lives at bars without the assumption that only drunks go to bars.  We can no longer hire a matchmaker to find us that special someone because only desperate people do that.  We realize that elementary school is far too limiting.  Church is not a great place to meet people either for two reasons, it is not the most romantic of places, and no one goes to church anymore.  Mixing business and pleasure is often grounds to be fired.  We have no venue left except the internet and the chance encounter.

Statistics show that nearly 1% of the country’s population gets divorced annually.  Most new marriages do not last to the end of the first year.  This number has increased with the use of internet dating.  It has also simply become more acceptable to divorce.  It would be difficult to ascertain the reasons for the divorce rate increase with certainty.  It would also be difficult to determine if couples that met using online resources are less likely to survive.

I met my current partner using an online source.  We have been together now four years.  Regardless of whether or not we last as a couple is more for fate to decide than the internet.  One thing is certain, regardless of what the pessimist thinks of unions based in cyber land, internet dating will last.

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Blue-Eyes The Cat and the Little Old Lady

Blue-Eyes The Cat and the Little Old Lady

By

H.V.B.

Blue-Eyes was a beautiful white cat who had big blue eyes and she lived with the Little Old Lady and her husband.  She had lived there with them since she was just a tiny kitten.  Blue-Eyes loved the farmer and his wife.  She always went to the barn to get milk with the farmer and trailed after the Little Old Lady as she did her housework.  Blue-Eyes loved to see her make her fluffy bed every day and the minute she finished, Blue-Eyes jumped up on the fluffy pillow and went back to sleep.

She usually awoke early to go to the barn with the farmer and watch him milk the big black cow for she knew that he would give her a big bowl of good warm milk just as soon as he finished.  The farmer and his wife didn’t have any children and lived far out in the country so they had very few visitors.  Blue-Eyes was lucky to have two people who loved her so much.  On cold winter nights she had a cozy bed by the big fireplace and in the summer they fixed her a bed in the pantry where it was cool.

The farmer and his wife were getting old, and the farmer passed away.  Of course Blue-Eyes missed him as much as his wife did.

A few weeks later the Little Old Lady and Blue-Eyes were milking the cow in the barn when they heard a “meow meow.”  The Little Old Lady looked under the steps that lead to the loft in the barn and saw the cutest black cat.  It wasn’t very friendly, but it sure did look hungry so the Little Old Lady milked some milk and put into Blue-Eye’s bowl and set it over near the steps.  The black cat came down and ate every bite of the milk.

It took a few weeks for the black cat to become friendly, but eventually it did, and so the farmer’s wife gave it the name “Blackie.”  She never seemed to want to go inside the house, but loved to sleep in the cow’s stall on the hay.

Blue-Eyes and the Little Old Lady took a walk down the road one day and a big calico cat of many colors was sitting in an oak tree.  On seeing them he jumped down and went over to smell Blue-Eyes and to rub along the Little Old Lady’s leg as she walked.  When she got to the bend in the road she started to turn and head home.  So did the calico cat! She said to the calico cat, “You must not follow us home!” but it kept coming and stayed day after day.  Each day it followed Blue-Eyes and the Little Old Lady to the barn for some warm milk.  And now there were three bowls to fill each day!  The Little Old Lady gave him the name of “Rag” for it had so many colors that it reminded her of her husband’s old rag shirt that he worked in.

Rag loved to be on the front porch under the old rocking chair.  Late one evening, after supper, Blue-Eyes and the Little Old Lady came out on to the porch to sit and rock.  Under the rocking chair was a small female gray cat with green eyes.  She was quite unique.  She had a short tail and was very shy.  The Little Old Lady said to her, “Where did you come from missy?”  She just got over closer to old rag to protect her.  The Little Old Lady just left them alone and sat on the swing with Blue-Eyes on her lap thinking, “tomorrow the female cat will be gone home.”

But she didn’t.  She liked Rag a lot.  She followed to the barn for milk.  The Little Old Lady fixed her a bowl, but she didn’t want it.  Instead she ate with Rag!  The Little Old Lady was soon calling her “Missy” and fixed a box big enough for her and Rag to sleep together on the porch.

Near the end of summer she heard so much noise on the porch before she was to milk the cow that she went to see what it was and found six little babies in the box with Missy and Rag.  She held them up and said, “Oh! My!  What am I to do with you babies!?”  She decided she had better find a name for each one.

She held one up and it looked like Rag so she called him “Rag Baby”.  The next one had eyes like its mother so she named her “Emerald.”  The next one’s tail was so short that she named it “Stubby.”  The next one was gray and she said, “I think I can call you “Melissa” after your mother, Missy.”  That left two more to name.  She said, “I guess “Barney” would be a good name.”  The last one kept nosing around the box so she decided “Nosey” was a name that sounded good to her.

Blue-Eyes was usually a quiet cat and nothing exciting could disturb her, but this had sure become a busy place!  It took the Little Old Lady half the day just to feed them all!  Even the old cow seemed to worry how she could have enough milk for all these mouths.  The Little Old Lady didn’t seem to worry at all for she had always wanted to have a large family and now she had one.  They kept her busy enough that she was not so lonely for her husband.

Now Blackie was getting very friendly and was quite happy to be boss of the barn.  He even caught all the mice in the barn and shared them with Missy and her babies.  All of Missy’s babies started roaming out to the barn to explore.  Nosey loved to climb to the top of the stairs, but could never get down by himself.  It being Blackie’s home, he was always having to carry Nosey back down the stairs each time.  Barney would come out and curl up in Blackie’s bed and fall sound asleep.  Emerald was very standoffish and Blackie soon learned that she could scratch his eyes out if he tried to make her do anything.  But Stubby and Rag Baby just wanted to be loved and get long baths with his tongue.  Blackie found that his quiet big barn had turned into a busy cat-sitting job and he didn’t appreciate Rag and Missy letting them come there for him to babysit.  Not once did they ask Blackie if he minded.

All six babies grew and grew and all came to the barn for milk each day.  The Little Old Lady now had ten bowls!

Wintertime was coming up and Blue-Eyes kept watching the Little Old Lady work in the house fixing ten beds by the fireplace so that her family would stay warm all winter.  Finally snow started to fall outside and the Little Old Lady brought all of her cats inside.  All of the cats wandered around being nosey.  Blue-Eyes laid on the bed on her fluffy big pillow and watched.  First thing, Rag Baby and Melissa hopped up on the pillow near Blue-Eyes.  She quickly picked them up one by one with her teeth and put them in their own beds that the Little Old Lady had made for them!  The Little Old Lady laughed and said, “Oh Blue-Eyes, don’t be jealous!” but Blue-Eyes was very upset to think that this cats could ever think that they could sleep on her pillow.

Blackie missed his big barn but he sure did enjoy that big fire while the snow and the cold wind blew outside.  Rag and Missy were content just to wash and watch their babies play.

The Little Old Lady was trying to make a rug out of yarn, but she couldn’t work much for laughing at the six babies winding themselves into yarn.

Every day the Little Old Lady picked Blue-Eyes up in her arms, and got her milk pail, and went to the barn to get milk for all of her family.

Winter passed more quickly than she or Blue-Eyes had ever remembered.  The Little Old Lady laughed more also than she could remember, for all the cats had their own dispositions and were very funny and entertaining.  Of course, Blue-Eyes was anxious for Spring, not so that she could go outside, but so that all the other cats would leave her pillow alone!  Blackie loved just resting and letting Blue-Eyes have to keep the babies out of trouble as he had to while in the barn. Spring came and he knew his rest was almost over and he again would be busy himself.

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Let’s Get One Thing Clear…

Getting clear on what I want.

What brings me joy?

In The Secret, author Rhonda Byrne suggests that in order to receive what we want, we need to get clear on what it is that we want.  We want a life of Joy.  What brings us Joy is what we want.  A quick look at the bookshelves in my home office answers that question quite easily.  The books are arranged by category;

  • Travel

When I was a kid we would go on annual family vacations, usually to Myrtle Beach, SC, but it didn’t matter if we were going to Charleston, WV to Hawk’s Nest or Mount Olive, KY to get gravel, I loved going somewhere.  When I was nine my family went to Florida, to Disney World.  When I was 12 I went with the Talented and Gifted program to Boston.  In high school, band trips to Atlanta, Williamsburg, and Gatlinburg kept my interest piqued.  Other kids were always happy to get home, but I wanted to see more of the world, much more of it.  After graduation I went back to Florida for three weeks.  The following year I took a train to San Francisco from Huntington, WV, alone.  Though at 19 I was not quite an “adult,” solo travel was fantastic!  That fall there was another trip to San Francisco, a third the following spring.  As I met people and became friends with them, my desire to make more friends and visit more places grew.  On the third trip to San Francisco I met Christoph.  That summer I was on a plane to Germany to visit him.  I spent 28 days backpacking across the continent.  I returned to Europe 4 more times over the following few years.  I made as many trips to California, including Los Angeles in my adventures.  At 26 I went to Israel on my Birthright trip.  It rounded out my travel to 26 states, including Hawai`i, 10 countries, on 3 continents.  Other than a couple trips back to WV to visit family and two trips to Cincinnati to visit friends, I have traveled very little over the past 5 years.

TRAVEL BRINGS ME JOY!  I WANT TO TRAVEL!

  • Food

As a kid I loved helping mom in the kitchen.  I loved learning from my great grandmother how to make chicken and dumplings, watching my grandfather fry chicken, and being part of every Sunday dinner at Granny’s.  All West Virginians love food.  In high school I started my own hope chest of kitchen wares.  I would get things like a stand mixer and flatware for gifts.  I would unwrap them, express gratitude, box them back up and store them in the attic until that time I moved out and needed to supply a kitchen.  I also loved to go out to eat, trying new foods, savoring the favorites.  When I was at Marshall University I got a job at the Huntington Museum of Art’s Café Bauhaus waiting tables.  Soon thereafter I became the Café Bauhaus Coordinator.  I did all the menu planning and cooking, shopping and financing.  I made decided to go to culinary school.  Eight years later I went to the Midwest Culinary Institute and graduated Magna Cum Laude.  We moved to Florida and one thing that we regretted about leaving Cincinnati was the fantastic culinary scene.  We wished that we had spent more money eating out while we were there.  I cook regularly, and every meal I produce is delicious and appreciated.  We go out to eat about once a week, but over the past 5 years we find ourselves eating at the same places.

FOOD BRINGS ME JOY!  I WANT TO EXPERIENCE MORE FOOD!

  • Language

My mother wanted to be a French translator when she was younger.  She learned the French that one could learn in Wayne County in the early 1970’s.  Even though she was dissuaded from that career path before entering college, she did teach me and my sister the French she knew.  In elementary school I carried a pocket English dictionary with me always.  When I didn’t know a word, I looked it up.  When I was bored, I would read random pages of definitions.  When I started high school, I couldn’t wait to take more French classes.  I took French all four years in high school.  I received an award for Oral Proficiency in French as a senior.  I also fell in love with a little red German-English dictionary I found on my parents’ bookshelves.  My friend Tanya, whose mother was German, and I practiced our German while Crystal kept me up to speed by writing me letters in French.  She loved other languages too and tried to teach me the Phoenician and Sioux words that she knew.  At Marshall I had two more years of French classes.  By the end of my formal education I could watch French movies without subtitles and read Voltaire.  Traveling introduced me to more languages.  I had long held a love for Italian Opera (see below) so learning Italian was a must.  At that point in my life I was studying Art History at Marshall (see below) and I fell in love with Florence, Italy.  I had planned to spend four days in Italy my first trip, but it turned into nearly two weeks.  Converting to Judaism in my early 20’s (again, see below) meant that I had yet another language to learn, Hebrew.  A half a dozen languages are spoken in my place of employment every day still.

LANGUAGES BRING ME JOY!  I WANT TO SPEAK MORE LANGUAGES!

  • Writing

My grandmother is an expert storyteller.  Whether the story was of a life experience or a fairy tale of princes and castles, my grandmother could tell you a story and keep you captivated.  I hated the act of writing as a kid, but loved story.  In middle school I had a writing teacher that encouraged me to hone my writing and story-telling skills.  She told me that I was especially good and narrative and that I should do something with that skill.  Every assignment was twice the required length and more in depth and thorough than any other student’s.  I overcame my hatred of the act of physically writing by writing continuously in high school.  I churned out pages of notebooks a day in journal writing.  Over four years I hand wrote nearly a thousand pages of journal.  In college I turned my journal writing into a creative work, a novel.  Chapters of novel came pouring now from my finger tips as I had finally mastered the keyboard.  Friends said that my fingers would twitch in my sleep as I continued to write in my dreams.  I wrote several papers in a creative writing class in culinary school.  Last year I took up the mantle of helping my grandmother turn the stories that she told us as kids into a children’s book.  I started a blog page to share my thoughts and feelings on the world.

WRITING BRINGS ME JOY! I WANT TO WRITE MORE!

  • Art and Architecture

In elementary school my mother confessed that she was worried about me because I couldn’t color inside the lines in coloring books.  By middle school my artistic abilities had increased.  I was even asked to be in the middle school’s “Advanced Art” class.  I didn’t take high school art classes, instead I took Mechanical Drawing and AutoCAD classes at the vocational school and a community oil painting class on Tuesday evenings in Huntington.  Architecture and Architectural Drawing was amazing.  I was the best student Mrs. Evans had had in years and she wrote me glowing letters of recommendation.  I bought a drafting table for my home and one weekend after an especially vivid dream, I drew full elevation blueprints for my “dream home.”  Tuesday evenings I produced quality student works that I gave as gifts and have kept and cherished.  At Marshall I studied Fine Arts.  I took every studio class I could get into, drawing, painting, sculpture, and weaving.  Trips to museums were always a highlight of any vacation and how many weekends in Cincinnati were spent.  No trip home to WV is ever complete without a trip to The Huntington Museum of Art.  Over the last 5 years I have gone from painting landscapes to painting kitchens, bedrooms, and porches, but even that gives me joy.  I have crocheted a dozen blankets, and have done some sewing.  I love adult coloring books, too.

I LOVE ART AND ARCHITECTURE!  I WANT TO PRODUCE AND EXPERIENCE MORE ART!

  • Photography

When I was ten years old my Granny gave me my first camera.  It took 110 film cartridges, which I went through like mad.  I took pictures of anything that would hold still.  I later upgraded to a 35 mm film camera.  My family was sort of nuts about still photography.  Full bookshelves of picture albums were to be found in my home and in my grandparents’ homes.  Pop always had his ’76 Minolta SLR camera close at hand, my Dad had the next year’s model.  At the Huntington Museum of Art I took beginner and advanced photography classes.  I loved working in the dark room developing my pictures and as an employee there was given free access.  When I traveled (see above) I carried the two Minolta SLR cameras, now mine, with me, one loaded with color film, one with black and white.  I saw beautiful composition everywhere and wanted to capture it.  In the years leading up to our move to FL I took all of those thousands of pictures that I had taken in my lifetime and scanned them and organized them in folders on my computer by date and location.  The hard copies I put in physical albums that now line my shelves.  I swore I would never go digital, but film has become scarce and dark room access even more so.  The last few years my phone has been my camera, always on me and always ready to take color, black and white, sepia, or video.  I upload my pictures onto my hard drive and organize them using the same nomenclature I set up years ago.  As the main folder is entitled, it is truly “My Life In Pictures.”

I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY!  I WANT TO TAKE AND SHARE MORE PICTURES!

  • Music and Theatre

Everyone loves music, but not everyone loves as much music or music as much as I do.  I grew up listening to the music my parents listened to, the same as all children, but early on my introduction to, and love of, other styles of music began to grow.  Not only was the record collection of my parents available to me, but that of my grandparents as well.  I had a radio of my own for as long as far back as I can remember.  I would scan up and down the dials, listen a while, move on.  I found that I loved the oldies, big band, country, and classical.  I liked some contemporary music as well.  West Virginia Public Radio introduced me to classical music.  One year, when I was about 10, before a trip to Myrtle Beach mom gave me a two cassette set of Mozart.  I couldn’t have been more thrilled.  One night on PBS there was a broadcast of La Boheme.  I watched it in my bedroom.  Despite being unable to read the subtitles, I was spellbound.  Public radio also introduced me to “New Age Music” and international music.  In middle school and high school I was in band and later took piano lessons, and learned to read music as if it were just another language.  High school was my age of musicals.  As a child I loved South Pacific and The King and I, now as a senior in high school, it was all about Rent and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Phantom of the Opera.  We didn’t have a drama class in high school.  Our school didn’t even have an auditorium or a stage!  My friends and I would sit around the lunch table and read aloud plays.  I remember an especially dramatic lunch reading of Salome!  Many of the friends I made my senior year of high school were in the drama class at Huntington High School and I saw them all again at Marshall.  Everyone had to take an “appreciation” class their freshman year at Marshall.  I got my dean to allow me to take the introductory theatre class instead of an appreciation class so I could actually learn more about the stage and life upon it.  I learned the basics of Acting as well as Set and Costume Design, and Lighting.  I love reading plays.  I love going to plays.  Whenever possible, vacations have always included a trip to the opera and a performance of a play.  As a child I loved going to church and singing.  Years before I converted to Judaism I started attending services at the synagogue.  I began singing with the choir.  Liturgical music is very moving.  I feel a connection to the divine that goes beyond the words of the music.  To keep services consistent over centuries much of the music is ancient and the chant puts one in the place of the original recitors.  In order to keep the services fresh and new, congregations are always learning new tunes.  I don’t know if I make a pleasing one but I know that I make a joyful noise.  I love reading music scores.  Music plays around me continuously.  Spotify is an amazing friend to have and I recently completed the life-long goal of being able to listen to the same music in my entire home.

I LOVE MUSIC!  I WANT MORE MUSIC IN MY LIFE!

  • Gardening and Nature

Working the land has been something that has passed down from ancient ancestry and still burns strong in me.  As a child my family grew a garden, roughly a half an acre of tilled land.  We grew corn, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, etc.  We ate what we grew, canned and froze what we couldn’t eat.  It was work, nearly every day, all summer long, often backbreaking labor, but the rewards of it cannot be measured.  To sit down to a meal that you produced yourself from the dirt is gratification that cannot come from any other meal.  Always at the edges of the garden we grew flowers, to attract pollinators, to detract deer and other pests, and to add to the beauty of the garden.  Watching a handful of seeds, that I myself collected the year before, turn into flowers delighted me as it had the generations before me.  In high school I cordoned off a section of our back yard and turned it into a flower garden.  Growing that garden, tending it, weeding it, loving it gave me a peace during a very difficult period in my young life that I have never been able to yet replace.  During the summer months, my entire day was spent in the garden.  I worked and weeded it, ate my meals in it, read, napped, lived in that space.  When we moved, I took the flower bulbs, that had been passed to me from my great grandmother, with me and planted them elsewhere where they could grow and bloom for another generation of admirer.  When I moved into an apartment I kept a porch full of plants.  When we bought a house, the first season we lived there a planted a vegetable garden and spent the following 4 years tending to the flowerbeds.  Now I grow pineapples on my porch and every year when the red geraniums are available I plant them in my Granny’s flower pots on the porch.

Growing up in the mountains of West Virginia, nature is your closest friend.  It is everywhere and all around you and inescapable.  Walking the trails was something I did with my father and grandfathers from the time I could walk.  An appreciation of the earth and it’s natural way came very early.  By high school I had begun to gain appreciation for the billions of years of geology than had made my coal filled mountains, the evolution of the plants and animals that lived on them, and the original humans, some of whom were my ancestors, that called them home.  The wildflower collection project in my senior biology class really focused my attention on the flora that surrounded me.  Any chance I could get to get to “the woods,” I took, and still take.  When I met my husband we took many vacations to state parks, with trails, peaceful lakes, quiet nature.  In Cincinnati there were many hundreds of acres of wooded parks to explore just minutes from the house.  Florida has a different kind of nature, but we still love going to the Fern Forest, the Everglades, or the beach and walking the trails.

I LOVE GARDENING AND NATURE!  I WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME IN NATURE AND GROWING THINGS!

  • Literature

I was slow to learn to read.  My mother noticed early on that I was better at remembering what a page said and reciting it at will than I was at actually reading the words on the page.  Despite rarely seeing my mother without a book in her hand, I just never got into it as a child.  In middle school I had no choice.  I was assigned the task of reading a novel, any novel, and writing my first book report.  I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.  I quickly jumped from being a 12 year old, reading a book written for a 12 year old, to a 12 year old, reading books at a 12th grade level; Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere, and any other Michael Crichton book I could get my hands on.  By the time I was in high school I had progressed to classic literature.  On the long bus ride from home, to high school, to vocational school, and back every day I read Jane Eyre, which, to this day is my favorite novel.  I love being told a story page after page.  Science fiction and 19th century English novels are my favorites.  Perhaps a throwback to my mother’s love of Nancy Drew, I also love mystery novels, though I think any book of any genre has to contain a certain level of mystery to be of any quality.  In the fast-paced world I have found myself in at this point in life, I often consume literature in the form of Audio Book.  I can do just about any other activity while listening to an audio book except read or write.  That is multitasking at its best.  In the past five years I have “read” over 60 audio books, including the entire 20 book Dune series, TWICE!  I’ve also recently fallen in love with the book Mrs. Dalloway.  Storytelling and storylistening are one of the greatest expressions of self possible.  You become the characters, you see what they see, feel how they would feel.  There is no greater empathy building exercise than reading.

I LOVE LITERATURE!  I WANT TO READ MORE BOOKS!

  • Spirituality

My parents were not very religious at all.  Going to Sunday School and church was never part of their plan for us kids.  My Great Aunt talked mom into letting us go to church with her and her family.  My mother had read us the stories of the Bible, but with equal sincerity had read us Greek and Roman Mythology, and I held both with equal viability.  I was, however, swept up in the passion of the Baptists.  They held passionate beliefs about Jesus, and G-d.  They preached passionately, they spoke passionately, they sang passionately, they believed passionately.  I found that even as a little kid I couldn’t always reconcile the inconsistencies between what was said at the church and what was known by science to be true, but they spoke with such conviction I knew that if I studied hard enough and learned all the scriptures as they had done then I would see how both Truths could be true.  I went to Sunday School, Sunday Church Services, Sunday Evening Services sometimes, Wednesday Awanas Bible Study, Wednesday Evening Church Services, and Vacation Bible School.  It appeared that I was a very religious child until the question of being baptized came up.  I refused.  I had still not found the missing link of reconciliation and had instead found more and more and more inconsistencies.  By 10 years old I was already having a crisis of faith.  When I started 5th grade I noticed that my teacher gave preferential treatment to the kids that were also in her Sunday School class.  I boldly changed churches from the Baptist doctrine to the Methodist doctrine.  A few things became apparent right off the bat; 1. Methodists were not nearly as passionate about their religion as Baptists, 2. Their god wasn’t as passionate about following rules, 3.  Both doctrines taught a love of their version of god, but Baptists also taught fear, fear of their god’s wrath, fear of the devil’s tricks, fear of death before being Baptized, and 4. I, too, was given preferential treatment in my elementary school class.  I found the first three lessons fascinating.  How could, what was supposed to be the same religion, Christianity, be so vastly different?  I had assumed that all churches said the same prayers, sang the same songs, worshiped the same god.  This was amazing!  Maybe the Methodists had the answers I couldn’t find.  They didn’t.  The Baptists didn’t have the answers because it wasn’t allowed to ask the questions.  The Methodists didn’t have the answers because they just disregarded the inconsistencies.  Then the fourth lesson really took over.  I had learned the political nature of religion.  It didn’t matter what you really believed, or how you worshiped, just so long as you agreed with and followed the people in control.  This was disgusting to me.  Within a year I had stopped going to church completely and was studying the most feared opposite of both churches, Wicca.  Wicca did a fine job of explaining the inconsistencies, they just had a deity for every natural, scientific, occurrence.  All of these gods and goddesses and rituals and all of the equipment needed to practice this religion soon made it too cumbersome and I dropped it.  At this point in life I wondered godlessly for a few years until an event my freshman year of high school forced me into questioning my thoughts, feelings, and sexuality, and by proxy, what I believed in religiously.  At the same time, I was given a copy of The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.  I had finally found the link between the science I knew to be true and the religious philosophies that I had been taught and continued to study.  Over the following four years my spirituality increased, though I had no religious practice or doctrine.  When I was working at The Huntington Museum of Art’s Café Bauhaus, I was in constant contact with the Jewish population of Huntington.  Joyce Levy invited me to the bar mitzvah of her grandson.  I went.  I felt more at home in the synagogue on the first visit than I had felt at church after 7 years.  There is a great line in the Siddur, or prayer book, that says, “I am a Jew because it requires no abdication of mind.”  This was a fabulous concept to me.  In my Baptist upbringing questioning what you were told was blasphemous, the Methodists used their religion only to make them feel better in times of need (and really what better use of religion is there?) but never even bothered to question.  Jews were allowed to question, forced into it in fact.  It wasn’t just man’s right to question G-d, it was his job.  How can you know what you believe if you do not question it?  All the answers were there in the Torah, the Mishnah, and the commentaries, and all the answers were interpretable, and re-interpretable, generation after generation, in order to make sense to the person reading in the time that they were living.  There was no “abdication of mind,” no disconnect from reality.  The Jews knew the value and purpose of parable, where its Truth was.  There were, as my husband calls them, “Unicorn and Fairy Stories,” many of the same ones that I had learned in my early Christian upbringing, but the practitioners knew that the universe was billions of years old and no one believed in a literal zooboat.  They understood what I had spent years learning; 1. Knowledge is what you know to be True, for which you have clear empirical data 2. Faith is what you believe to be True, for which there is no clear empirical data, 3. Religion is a set of rites, rituals, and daily practices used to keep Faith in the things that you have no proof of.  A person can know without faith or religion.  A person can know and have faith without religion, but faith falters easily without ritual.  Judaism is overflowing with ritual.  There are rituals regarding everything from waking up to going to bed and every action and bodily function in between.  The purpose of these isn’t and never was to be a codex of secular laws, but rather minute by minute reminders to keep faith in the unseen truth of the Divine.  Over the next 5 years I learned more and more and never had issues reconciling my Knowledge with my Faith, so I converted to Judaism.  I became a Jew.  I never missed a Friday evening service, even on vacation.  At the apex of my living Jewishly I wore a kippah always and kept kosher.  At 26 I took my birthright trip to Israel.  I kept the faith and it kept me.  When we moved to Florida I made it to temple less and less.  I often found myself working…or playing on Shabbat.  Since Rosh Hashanah this past year I have gone regularly to Friday Night Services at Temple Bat Yam.  When I can’t make it or don’t feel like leaving the house, I like the Shabbos candles and watch the live video stream from Valley Temple in Cincinnati.  Also since September I’ve been rebuilding my spiritual life by re-examining the texts that inspired me when I was younger and adding to them the newer “self-help” books and programs.  I am trying to start a Celestine Prophecy Study Group and am actively working with the Law of Attraction.

I LOVE SPIRITUALITY!  I WANT TO BE A MORE SPIRITUAL PERSON!

  • Friends and Family

One thing that brings me great joy doesn’t have a shelf in my office.  It is rather something interwoven in all of the books, something that is in all of them and greater than all of them.  My friends and my family bring me joy beyond what can be expressed.  I love the friends I made growing up and through life and in my travels around the world.  I love the friends that I learned languages with and the friends that I had to learn languages to make.  I love the family from whom I began my love of cooking and food.  I love the family that I’ve shared meals of celebration and of loss with.  I love the friends I’ve made in kitchens around the country.  I love the family whose stories I’ve learned and am writing.  I love the friends who read my works with interest, and those that read with a critical eye and mind.  I love the friends who make it into my stories.  I love sharing the enjoyment of Art with friends and especially love making art with friends.  I love sharing my life with my friends through my camera lens.  I love sharing music with my friends.  I love sharing the stage of life with my friends.  I cherish the long walks in the woods with my family, especially my father.  I love the love of gardening that I inherited from many generations.  I love when my friends suggest a good book.  The characters in some books are like old friends.  My Jewish family is my family.  I love sharing the spiritual adventure of life with everyone.

I LOVE MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY!  I WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY FAMILY AND THE FRIENDS I HAVE AND MAKE MANY MANY MORE FRIENDS!

When I look back on the last few years it becomes apparent why I have suffered from depression and my life hasn’t moved forward.  I haven’t been chasing joy.  I have done very few of the things that bring me Joy!  I have been living, and I’ve been happy, but I haven’t engaged in the adventure of life.  How can I further my evolution without doing the things that I love to do?  Sure, bills have to get paid, and some of the things on my list cost money, lots of it, but it isn’t necessary for me to figure out the details.  The Universe is abundant.  There is more than enough for everyone to have everything they want.  My goal today was to look for a new job, to try to piece together a career that would incorporate the things on my “Joy List,” but that isn’t necessary.  Now that I am clear on what that list is, all I have to do is focus on going after the things that give me Joy and the rest will fall into place.  All I have learned from life tells me that this is true.  I’m looking forward to proving it.

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Chapter One

“Huntington, Single, Looking, Cute, 21, 5’9”, 130 lbs, pic in profile, pvt. welcome,” he typed in the bio line of the West Virginia Chat room on Gay.com, then, with a sigh and a hesitation almost as if it caused him physical pain he clicked on the enter key.

Soon he was in a flood of stupid screen names boasting personal sexual prowess.  Out of pure habit he scrolled through the list of names…looking.

He had put “Looking” in his own bio line.  What was he “looking” for?  Occasionally someone would ask him and he’d reply, “Depends on what I find.”  Truth be known he was “looking” to escape.  To escape his going-no-where love life, his all-too-methodical sex life, a hard day in the food service industry, an overbearing mother, bookwork, bills, his home office, but above all his boring mountain home.

“Oh this one looks promising-Oh, Beckley-too far”

He didn’t really have much to complain about.  He was, after all only 21 years old with a solid corporate-ish job, doing something he loved, making enough money to just scrape by at the level he was accustomed to living.  He had traveled extensively both domestically and internationally.  He had met important people in fields of his interest and he had more friends than he could count.

“’RUFTOPDAD47’-ouch, scary”

Where sex was concerned….well let’s just say that if sex were gold he’d be a multi-millionaire.  He had only had actual relationships that one could consider long term about a handful of times, but he’d been in love more times than Elizabeth Taylor and had-ahem-gotten to know several other people in the meantime.  His life had been turned into this routine that was mentally, emotionally, and physically tiring, not by its difficulty but by its continuing monotone.

“Hmmmm….what’s this?  ‘Niceguyinhtgn,’ 23, 5’11”, 145 lbs, single, with a PICTURE!”  He clicked on the profile link.  “Oh,” he said with noted disappointment that made him feel bad even though he was alone.  “Hi Ricky, was sup?” he typed in a private message box.

“Hey Dan, you sexy stud you.  When are you going to come see me again?”

“I lost your phone number when I moved in and I couldn’t remember exactly which house you lived in,” Daniel replied as he looked next to the monitor at the list of phone numbers and addresses, Ricky’s third from the top.

“Well I’ll have to give it to you again won’t I?”

“I guess so Ricky.  Why don’t you email it to me?  That would be safer than this, you never know who may be tapping into these private messages,” that was always a good excuse.  Either the other person would never remember to send it or you could play that it got lost in the madness that is AOL or that it got accidently deleted, or a thousand other equally overused but effective excuses.

“Oh I don’t care.  If someone else out there is reading this maybe they will call me.  I could use an extra friend,” Ricky said, then proceeded to give the phone number and address.  Daniel glanced back at his list and compared. “Yup, the same,” he thought.  He had a scheme for this too.  When someone did give their contact info in a private message it was easy to pretend to be bumped offline or have gay.com lock up or the easiest just tell them the next time they ask why you haven’t called that you accidentally closed the box before you wrote the number down.  Everyone believes that one at least the first time or two it’s used because everyone had done it even when we really do mean to write the number down.

Every morning he got up at what even he, a morning person, considered an ungodly hour.  He’d do his regular morning thing.  He would shower and put in his contacts.  Then he’d eat breakfast which here lately consisted of drinking a can of Ensure that a friend had left in the fridge when he was staying with Daniel while he recovered from a nasty urethral infection.  First, it was free.  Second, it wasn’t expired, and, third it was oddly satisfying, despite its vitaminy undertaste.  Still in his robe, he’d wander into the kitchen and grab one of the short cans out of the bottom of the nearly empty fridge and bring it into his home office.

It wasn’t really an office, just the room with that magical box in it.  It was the spare bedroom.  He slept in there every night that he didn’t have company staying with him.  The bed was small but it was his.  He had gotten the bed from Santa when he was about 7 years old and, sadly had had the mattress just as long.  He told everyone “I like hard beds and the closeness of the room.  All this stuff is mine from childhood and it is close at hand.”  The real reason was more that he never felt quite home there when he slept in the bigger, better furnished bedroom.  It seemed like he was someone’s guest.  The room was too bare and empty; white walls, white ceiling, white miniblinds, white sheets, white duvet, few pieces of furniture, two paintings, and the beginnings of an HO Scale model train set were all that filled the room.

Even though it was only 7:15 in the morning he signed online to drink his Ensure.  Maybe one of the dozen profiles he had replied to last night had replied back, but that was highly unlikely.  A letter from David, his best friend, telling him what a good time he had out last night and that he should have gone with him is the most common email.  That, and the stacks of porn adds that seemed to multiply with each opening of the inbox.  Why did he continue to get straight porn?  He didn’t enjoy porn much to start with much more than a novelty but you think they would have learned from following his chatroom preferences that he was NOT interested in “Brittney Spears Exposed” or “One Girl, two men and a horse.”

After the email check the next stop was weather.com to see his local forecast, “accurate and dependable from the Weather Channel.”  Why this mattered to him he never grasped.  He lived in an apartment that had central heating and air and then went to work in an office that was always freezing and a kitchen that was always tropical.  Perhaps the forecast was important because years of training as a southern country boy taught him that it was always something you could talk about when all else failed.

Next on the agenda was gay.com.  At 7:15 there are all of a dozen people awake and online.  They are the same twelve people day after day and he had become part of them.  Occasionally a “RuffTopDad47” would show up for everyone else to talk about, but never anyone worth the time really.

“Morning Dickie,” he said in a private chat to “MaleofTriState.”

“Morning Dan’l.  How are you?”

“I’m doing okay, having breakfast, getting ready for work.  You?”

“’Bout the same for me.  No food for me, just coffee.  Don’t you just love mornings?”

“Yeah, I drink my breakfast too, Ensure, but I’m thinking of switching to vodka.  Dealing with the chittlens today?”

“Why else would I be up?”  “Dickie” was a school teacher, good at what he did, closeted for obvious reasons.  Daniel saw him online many mornings.  He was a good looking guy in his mid-thirties who had personality, a rarity these days, and intelligence.  He was determined to stay single.  He was certain that no one would want him because he couldn’t go out and party or be outed so he never even tried to meet anyone.  Daniel had set him up several times but nothing ever came of it.  Apparently Dickie got online and in the chat room simply to chat; a novel concept to Daniel.

It wasn’t long until Daniel had checked all the profiles out and dissatisfied with the results warned Dickie that he was leaving.

He picked out clothes and got dressed.  One of the things he liked about work was his own personal uniform.  He was supposed to look nice, it was a world class museum after all, but he was also supposed to look cool and like he was having a good time because it was just a cool café in the museum that he ran.  Most mornings the wardrobe consisted of zoot suit pants and a clubbing shirt that buttoned with a collar.

“I wore the Martini glass buttoned shirt yesterday so how about the leopard panels today, Sue?”  He asked the cat who was eyeballing him from around the corner.  Hearing her name she dashed back to her hiding place in the bathroom and meowed loudly.  “What?  I like the leopard print.  You are just afraid ‘cause it looks like you!”

“Shit!” he sighed hearing the horn outside and checking through the mini-blinds to see his mother sitting impatiently in the car on the street below.  He looked at his watch, “I’ve really gotta start getting up earlier.”  It somehow never crossed his mind that he should just cut out the completely pointless trip to cyber land.  It had become as important to his mornings as his Ensure.

He hurriedly put on his shoes and went out the door.  “Mon dieu! Why me?” the horn honked again and he ran back in to get the apartment key to lock the door.

His mother was a larger woman in her mid forties who drove a big Lincoln Continental, as big as her personality.  She was a nice person most of the time but terribly impatient, “What took you so long?”

“Good morning to you too mother.  I couldn’t find my key.”

“Why do you take it off your key ring anyway?  You’re just going to lose it sometime and not be able to get in and then what will you do?  Call me to come help.”

If there was one thing his mother had taught him it was that it was completely futile to fight with her.  She was going to win regardless.  She didn’t care if she had to lie or cheat to do it or how much it hurt.  She was a Joan Crawford type, “I’m better than you and I will always be better than you.”  She never fought much if he just rolled his eyes silently to himself and stayed quiet.

“Can we stop at Luck’s Produce? I need some salad mix for work,” he asked without any inflection.

He knew the answer, “Don’t you hire people to do that for you?” followed by a pause, “Yeah, I guess we can.  Hurry though I need to get back home so I can go to the high school and to the band room.”

They pulled up at the office building where Daniel’s Uncle Charlie worked nights.  The car had no more than stopped and the horn was blown.  And Daniel cringed.

“Where is he?  He said he’d call if he was going to go walk.”  Charlie worked at Amazon.com at night in the customer service department and Daniel’s mom picked him up in the mornings when he got off and took him home.  A couple years prior he had lost his license in an unfortunate driving accident involving more than a little alcohol.

She picked up her cell phone and started dialing.  “Where are you?……We’ve been sitting here waiting on you……well hurry-bye.”  She turned the car back on and she drove less than half a block to the only true coffee shop in the town of 40,000.  The car stopped again and there went the horn.

“He knows you’re here.  He was standing at the door.  Why did you honk?” Daniel thought angrily, his face turning red with frustration.  He knew better than to say anything of the nature to her.

Daniel had about the mildest temper that a person could have.  He never really got angry at anyone.  Even if he did seem to it was just frustration that usually was over as quickly as it started.  His mother however was able to push buttons on him that would send his face afire with rage.  She was the same way.  She would get the slight pink tinges on her cheeks when the blood pressure rose.  Daniel knew this and that might have been why she pissed him off so easily.  He saw himself in her.

Charlie got into the car, front seat always.  He bought the car for Daniel’s mom and the deal was she was to chauffer him with it.

“Mornin’ Bub,” Charlie, a very large jolly guy in his mid thirties said.

“Morning Uncle Charlie.  How was work?”

“Well I wasn’t there long.  They had voluntary time off so I took it and went out.  I saw David.”  By this time it was becoming apparent that he had spent the majority of the night in a bar by the smell of alcohol and smoke on his clothes.  The first clue should have been his good mood, not really typical of Charlie.

Trying to change the subject from alcohol consumption Daniel’s mother started talking about band.  She was a prohibitionist if they still existed, a Teetotaler.  Never growing up had Daniel seen even beer in his parent’s refrigerator and had only seen his father drink at a Catholic wedding reception.  Daniel wasn’t completely sure why she was so prudish with alcohol but he was pretty sure that she’d loosen up a lot if she got good and wasted just once.  The thought of his mother drunk kept him entertained and out of the conversation in the front of the car.

“Hurry up in here!  I need to get back out to Wayne, to the high school.” She said as they pulled into Luck’s Produce.

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out of the car into the cool morning air.  Business was more fun than the car ride.  The guy that always brought the familiar box out of the cooler was a treat to look at even if completely straight and about as smart as the lettuce he carried.

He picked up his box of salad greens and signed the receipt and headed back to the car with enough hesitation to slow getting back in the car but with enough speed to not arouse suspicion.

“This time next week I’ll be making breakfast for sixty kids.  I have to get up before everyone else and make sure that all the cereal is out and all the places are set.”  Apparently he hadn’t waited long enough because she was still talking about band and band camp next week.  “Chuck came and helped the trumpets out yesterday.  You remember Chuck don’t you?  You should.  You went to school with him.”  She never gave him time to say that he did remember before going on.  Daniel did his best to tune it out, concentrating on what a beautiful morning it was.

The weather had been nicer this week than it had in a month.  It wasn’t unseasonably cold but the rest of the summer had been so unseasonably hot that it felt cold.  The weather in West Virginia during the summer was pretty easy to predict.  It was almost eternally “The Triple H’s, Hazy Hot and Humid.”  This summer had been the worst.  Daniel didn’t much mind though because he was what his mother had coined “well airconditioned.”

They had just started up the hill to the museum when the familiar ringtones of Charlie’s cell phone began playing.

“Hey honey!” It was Charlie’s boyfriend of over three years, Kevin.  “Yeah…yeah…You’re so cute. Uh huh …Oh…giggle…yeah I love you too.  I’m about to lose you we’re going up the hill…..yeah, I sorry….I love you too Pookie! Buh-bye!”  Daniel wondered what his mother thought about hearing Charlie talk to his boyfriend like that.  “She knows that Charlie is gay and that Kevin is his boyfriend, but I wouldn’t talk to mine-if I should ever be so lucky-like that in front of her.  That’s gotta make her uncomfortable,” he thought.

His first reaction to hearing the conversation was that it was sweet and then the sweetness soured in his stomach and he was reminded of how long they had been together and how happy they were while he, much younger, more attractive, and personable, stayed single.

By this time they had made it to the top of the hill to the museum.

“Same time tomorrow?” Daniel’s Mother asked.

“Yeah, thanks,” Daniel fumbled in his pocket to find the key to the back door.  He opened it and looked at the trash can from yesterday still full in the loading dock.  He just shook his head in absolute desperation.

Every day he asked that the kitchen’s trash be taken to the dumpster at the end of the day, the same as everyone else’s trash and the can be at least left empty in the loading dock.  He was willing to wheel the trash to and from the kitchen but was in no way about to ruin his clothes trying to pick the heavy bag up.  It was the job of the maintenance men to take the trash and every other can in the building got emptied every day but his.  He knew why.  He had gone to High School with most of the maintenance men.  He told everyone, “They don’t like me because I can read and they can’t,” but he knew that it was because he was gay.  He didn’t want to make a big deal of the underlying issues, however, he just wanted the trash taken.  He made a mental note to talk to Margaret Mary, the museum’s director about it again then he took his lettuce to the kitchen and put it in the fridge.

Every morning at work was just the same.  He had to get there at 7:30 for two reasons.  The first reason was simply because that was when his ride was.  The second reason was the mountains of menial tasks that had to be done every morning.  He had to heat up the soups and make all the sandwiches he thought would be sold during the day, fry bacon for the BLTs and just get things ready for lunch.  When things were in good order in the kitchen he went upstairs to do the day’s paperwork.

The first step in that process was to sign on to instant messanger.  The same four people on his buddy list at home were still on and still had their away messages up.  The only new person added to the list was Ernest, his friend in Hartford that conducted opera.

“Morning Dan, you at work?” the private message box said.

“Yeah, you know the drill.  What’s new up north?”

“Well we had a Soprano and a Baritone drop out of the chorus yesterday.  Do you wanna sing for us this fall in Turandot?”  Daniel knew that he asked it as a joke but he got lost in the thoughts.  Puccini’s Turandot was Daniel’s favorite opera.  He had listened to it hundreds of times and knew just about every utterance in the libretto.  Ernest knew this and really liked to talk to Daniel about it.  Daniel would lose himself in thought about being on the stage in Hartford singing to Put-In-Poa to kill the young Persian.

“Sing?  I wish!  I’d be happy just to come to a performance!”

They continued chatting about it for about a half an hour while Daniel checked the company email and filled out a purchase order or two.

The lights in the office came on.  Without even looking up off the screen Daniel said, “Good morning Larry.”

“Good morning.  Are we busy working?”

“You betcha Larry.  I’m working on an excuse to go on a vacation.  I was just asked to go sing in CT.  I have a friend there in Hartford that conducts opera and they need someone.  I doubt many people could know the opera better.”

“I see.  Well you can’t go.  I say you can’t go.  You have to stay here and cook.” Larry said jokingly.  Larry was a man of his early 20s, and good looking.  He was gay and eternally single.  The obvious route for them both was to date each other but Daniel had only seen Larry twice off museum property and couldn’t date him because he was….well…Larry.

Larry got up to leave.  “Larry, would you turn the light back off?  Thanks.”

Daniel liked to sit in his office with the lights off.  One wall of the room was West-facing windows.  He liked to open them on these more brisk mornings and listen to the birds and look out at the light of the rising sun cast on the treetops across the parking lot.

He had a spider in one of the windows that he had watched for the last couple weeks.  He named her Charlotte and kept a little log of when he saw her and if she had anything in her web.

He also kept close tabs on the squirrels bouncing in the tree tops.  He loved his office.  HIS office.  It had a nice ring to it.  He had other jobs in the past but none with all the extras that came with this one.  He had a title, a desk filled with his paperwork and paperclips and staples, his own tape dispenser, a wall he could decorate (He shared the room so he didn’t have full reign) all the amenities that came with a “real job.”

He had his own computer with his own company email address.  He was probably the most proud of the email address and least proud of the computer.  The thing was probably bought in the 80s he guessed judging from its looks.  It worked, but so slowly that you’d almost think that it didn’t work.

“Grrrr… I don’t remember this thing being so shitty when Marsha had it!…I need to email her,” he said to himself.

Marsha was his old boss.  She was much, much more than a boss to him.  She was almost a second mother.  She gave him advice on how life should be done and chastised him when he drank too much.  He was able to talk to her about his love life as well, which was really useful for him.  She was from Iowa City and he wasn’t her child so it didn’t seem to be overly disturbing to her to hear about his relationship problems even though the person on the other end was male.  She was all the advice and support of a mother without being HIS mother.

She decided at the age of 53 to leave her job at the museum and go back to Iowa City to go back to school.  She was a brave woman.  She left her position to Daniel who was eager to have the chance to prove himself in the real world.  After two months at the job he had begun to see how hard it was and realized that Marsha was right when she said that the job would consume any social life you thought that you had.  Daniel thought about the day he helped her pack and the tears that accompanied her moving.

When this was her job she would arrive sometimes at 6:00 in the morning and stay until 9:00 that evening.  Daniel was devoted to his job and loved the museum, but he wasn’t going to kill himself like that. He got his 40 hours roughly in, and that was that.  He couldn’t see what all she did for all those hours.  A scan of her hard drive revealed nothing.

“I’m going to run to NYC this weekend to see Brett sing,” Ernest went on.

“How long have you two been seeing each other?” Daniel asked.

“Well we have never really committed but we’ve been seeing each other off and on for about a year now.  How are things in your love life?”

“Must you really ask?  Rub it in my face.  I don’t think that there is anyone around here for me,” Daniel typed.

“I don’t doubt that really.  You aren’t the sort of guy that really fits in in West ByGod Virginia.  You should think about moving up here.”  Daniel had been given that invitation many times but always had the same lame excuse.

“You know I would in a heartbeat but it’s too cold for me here.  I can’t imagine moving any more north than this,” He said it but he reveled in the thought of living in a big city with more than just tragic bar flies and drug addicts to choose from.  He at least thought that there were.  Surly there must be.  Gay men somewhere must be able to meet each other somehow other than chatrooms or seedy bars.

Judy, the woman Daniel shared his office with, came in about that time and turned the light on, startling Daniel into the reality of time.

“Well Ernest, you have a good day.  I need to get down to the kitchen and get busy,” Daniel finished the conversation.

“You have a good one.  Remember the offer stands always for a place to stay until you get yourself grounded.”

Daniel closed the private message box and turned on his away message.

“Good morning Judy,” Daniel said, turning around.

“How are you today Daniel?” she said with a stifled smile

“Well, I’m alive,” He said with sarcasm thinking of whether that was good or bad.

“That’s a start at least,” She said as he walked out of the room and down the hall.

“Good morning, Sandy.”

“Morning, Daniel.  Did you get my reservations for tomorrow?”

“It’s on the calendar,” he said as he passed the door.

“Thanks Daniel.”

“Morning, Ama.”

“Morning, Daniel.  Did you bring the Kroger Cards back?”

“Yeah, I put them in your mail box,” he said as he went into the comptroller’s office to get the money box for the café.

“Thank you Daniel,” he heard Ama say from the next room.  He shut the door and sat down.

“Good morning Kathy.  How are you this morning?”

“Good morning Daniel.  I’m doing pretty good.  This class I’m taking is driving me crazy.  I can’t seem to find a calculator that has the right buttons.  The one I bought originally didn’t have it.  The one you let me borrow had that key but was lacking another.  I can’t do the work without it.”

“That’s not very reassuring when you can’t do a math problem.” Daniel said with humor.

“I know the formula just don’t have the tools.  You’re box is in the drawer,” she said pointing to the file cabinet that housed the café’s money box. “Is there anything else I can help you with this morning?” noticing for the first time that the door was closed.

“I’d like to talk to you about how well the café is doing this month.  Would you mind printing the spreadsheet for me that you keep that info on?” he asked timidly.

“Sure, it’s no problem at all.  It’s on the shared drive so you can get to it any time you want to,” she said turning from the calculator to the computer and printing a copy.  She handed it to him and he looked at it not really listening to her explanation on how to get back to it later.

For the first time since he had taken over the café the numbers looked good.  He knew how much they had spent so far that month and it was considerably less than the amount they had made.  This, however, was off slightly.  The expense records he kept did not include staff salaries.  That was Ama’s knowledge.

Daniel turned to leave, still looking at the paper in his hands.

“Was there something you needed to talk to me about?” Kathy asked as he opened the door.

“No, these numbers look better than I expected.”

“Don’t forget the money box!” Kathy reminded tapping on it with the back of her pen.

“Thanks.” Daniel grabbed the box and went downstairs to the kitchen.

He was counting the money when Susan came in.

“Oh my god! I’m so tired of men!” she exclaimed as she came through the door.  Susan was Daniel’s lone employee, his waitress.  She was a tall thin girl that had a flare for picking out clothes that perfectly suited her petit frame.  She gestured wildly as she spoke.

“Why can’t John just tell me how he feels?  We’ve been together months now and he won’t tell me he loves me and I have to ask if he even thinks I’m pretty.  Do you think I’m pretty?” she said as she struck a pose.

“Daniel looked up from the money, “Of course you’re pretty Susan, you’re beautiful.”  She was beautiful.

“Well, you don’t count.” she said, “but at least you’ll say it-OH! I’ve gone 5 days without smoking!  The patch works.”

Now finished counting after three tries, “That’s wonderful Susan!”

Susan began unloading dishwashers and making tea and all the regular tasks of the morning.  Coffee was a high priority.  Susan had always drank large amounts of coffee but since she stopped smoking she had replaced one vice with another one.

“Has David ever tried to stop smoking?” she asked.

“When I lived with him I had him trained down to just about 10 a day but then I went to CA and in the four days or so that I was gone he had gone back to smoking two packs a day.”

“That’s crazy!” she said with big eyes, “That has got to cost a fortune.”

“I calculated it at $2600 a year.  You could spend a good month and a half in Europe for that much.” Daniel replied, getting lost in thoughts about previous trips.

“Are you traveling anywhere any time soon?” Susan asked.  She seemed genuinely interested but any time Daniel did mention going anywhere it seemed rude.  Susan barely made it from one month to the next with her head above water.  She lived vicariously through Daniel’s trips.

“Nothing any time soon.  If I can get a couple standby tickets I may fly to Connecticut to visit some friends one weekend in October.  Other than that I can’t really afford anything.”

 

 

The museum’s café served around 20 people a day.  That was just enough to keep Daniel and Susan busy without being swamped.

“Seven dollars,” Susan sighed as she counted the dollar bills in her pocket. “It’s a good thing I like working here cause I don’t make enough to pay anything more than gas money with tips and my check isn’t a lot either.”

“I’m full time staff and I wouldn’t say that I make a fortune either, ya know.” Daniel returned the complaint.  “This museum gives meaning to the term ‘non-profit.’”

“Do you need a ride home?”  Susan asked every day.

Every day Daniel replied, “Yeah, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

When they got the kitchen cleaned they hurried out the door happy to be able to leave two hours before the museum closed.

“Are you going to the party at work tomorrow night?” Susan asked as they stopped in front of Daniel’s apartment building.

“Yeah, I have a date, too; a guy that I met online from Charleston.  He seems like a nice guy and has a cute picture too.”

“Maybe he’s THE ONE!” Susan laughed with mock exasperation.

“I doubt it.  I have shit for luck where men are concerned.”

“I know what you mean…  I’ll see you tomorrow night then. Bye bye.”  Susan drove off.  She complained about John just about every other day.  One day she couldn’t stand him and the next day he was a dream come true.  They were a happily dysfunctional couple.  Daniel would settle for dysfunctional these days.  Anything would do.

He took a deep breath and looked up at the building. “Home,” he said as he took off his sunglasses and entered the front door.

“No mail again today.”

He went upstairs and unlocked his apartment door.  “Honey, I’m home!” he yelled opening the door.  “Oh, that’s right, I don’t have a honey.  Silly me.”

Tsunami meowed from the bathroom. “Well at least someone loves me. How are you, Sue?”  She ran out of the bathroom and began rubbing against his leg.

“You’re being awfully affectionate this evening.” he said as he bent down to pet her. “What have you done?”

He kicked off his shoes and headed for the bathroom.

“Tsunami!” he said in desperation as he walked in to find the litter box tipped over and litter covering the floor.  “Why do you do this to me?  If you weren’t Ryan’s cat I’d have you gassed.”

She meowed and rubbed against his leg again oblivious to his frustration.

He just walked away from the mess and straight to the master bedroom.  He flopped down on the white feather down comforter.

“3:30.  A little early for my nap,” he thought.  He rolled over and got settled in.  Tsunami jumped up on the bed and curled up against his back.  She was ready for a nap too after a long day of mess making.

Within minutes they both were sleeping.  Daniel always napped in the master bedroom.  He found the emptiness suiting.  When he napped in the spare room he was always interrupted by the piles of paperwork to be done or just the general mess of the room.  In the master bedroom he was a guest.  He slept in luxury and cleanliness.

He had only slept about thirty minutes when the phone rang.  It was David.

“Whatcha doin’?” David always asked.

“Napping.  What are you doin’?”

“I’m getting ready to get ready for work,” David replied.

“Getting ready to get ready?  Do you ever go to work?” Daniel said laughing.

“Yeah it just takes me a while.”

“You’re crazy.  When do you go in?”

“I’m scheduled at 5:00 but I’ll probably be late.  Darin wants to go out tonight, it’s his last night in town.  Do you want to go?”

The thoughts of seeing David out with Darin was more than he wanted to deal with let alone actually going with them.  “I think I’ll pass…barfly,” Daniel said trying not to sound that put out by the offer.  “Are you going to be able to go with me to the kegger up at the museum tomorrow evening?”

“I can’t.  I have to work.” Dave replied sounding genuinely disappointed.

“That’s okay.  There is a guy online I’ve been talking to that is going to go.  I’ll just let him use my free ticket.”  They chatted for a few minutes more and David decided it was time to go take his shower and get ready for work.

Daniel stretched, upsetting the cat, and decided that he was hungry.  He climbed slowly out of the bed, blinking many times to re-wet his dry contacts, and walked out of the room.

“Why do you do this to me Sue?” he said as he passed the bathroom door and re-examined the mess.  He still postponed cleaning it and, instead, went to the kitchen to prepare himself his favorite during-tight-times food, frozen corndogs.

He grabbed the mustard and a can of off brand cola out of the fridge and his corndogs out of the microwave and went into the office.  He signed on, mostly out of habit.

It was the same routine every time he signed on.  He first would check the mail.  He never had mail so then to the AOL headlines.  Nothing noteworthy there, so on to gay.com.  Every day is was the same.  He’d scroll down the list of names looking for someone local, then around his age, then the ones that sounded cute, be there any, were selected from the dwindling list of possibilities for a private message.  Most of the time it wasn’t long after the private message was started and he had said his hellos that the person on the other side disappeared.  Was his picture that bad?  He wasn’t a photogenic person but the picture was okay.  Maybe his personality was a turn off.  Whatever it was it was highly frustrating for him.  If he made the effort to be someone just looking for new pals to chat with maybe hang out with sometime everyone would be after nothing but sex, but if he said he was looking for sex everyone would say “Sorry, not looking for a hookup,” then would close on him.

“Hey Stud!” Marco said.

“Evening Marco, what are you up to?”  Marco was a trick of Daniel’s that he had grown to enjoy the company of.  It wouldn’t ever lead to much due to the age difference and the difference in personality, but he was a good looking guy that had traveled a lot.

“I’m just looking to see what kind of trouble I can get into tonight.”

Knowing that that was a hint Daniel stayed quiet.  After five minutes Marco got the picture and closed the private message box.

Daniel browsed all the profiles and saw no one that looked like potential boyfriend material.  He wasn’t discouraged though, he could still find something for something else.

“BiHtgnguy, 28, 6’, 175 pounds, looking for real time bottom,” Daniel read the bio line for the newest entrant to the room.

“Evening,” he typed in a message box, “whatcha up to tonight?”

“Looking,” was the response, “You?”

“What are you looking for?” Daniel asked the question he hated getting.

“A good looking young guy for sex.  Interested?”

“Do you have a picture?” Daniel said, giving his email address.

“K.  BRB.” he typed and in a couple minutes Daniel was alerted that he had new mail.  He checked and it was from “BiHtgnguy” so he opened it and downloaded the picture.

When the picture loaded it showed a muscular guy in a tank top and a ball cap.  “He must be 175 pounds of muscle!” Daniel thought.

“Sent,” he had typed while Daniel was busy assessing the pictures authenticity.

“That really you?”

“LOL yeah, you interested?”

“How long would it take you to get to the park?” Daniel asked.

“I guess that’s a yes then LOL.  About 20 minutes.”

Daniel gave him directions on how to get to his apartment from Ritter Park then thought to ask his name.

“Call me Mitch,” he said then signed off.

Daniel signed off quickly remembering the mess in the bathroom.  He ran to the hall closet and got the dust pan and scooped up all he could and put it back in the litter pan.  He swept up the remainder quickly.  Tsunami had tipped the thing over in the first place so she could get new litter and she was quite irate that it didn’t work.

“I’ll get you new litter tomorrow but now Daddy’s expecting company!”

He quickly took off his pants while walking through the house and changed underwear from the pair of Cookie Monster boxers to a pair of bikini briefs to look a little more presentable during undressing.  He changed shirts to something that was easier to take off than the club shirt he had on.  A quick brush of the teeth and he was set.

He had had just enough time to plop down on the couch and sigh when the bell rang.  He got up and looked through the eyeglass at the man standing outside.  It was the same one in the picture, tank top, ball cap, muscles…and all.  Shaking off the disbelief Daniel opened the door.

“Mitch?” he said expectantly.

“Yeah….Nice place,” he said as he came in, “where’s the bedroom?”

“Gee he wastes no time,” Daniel thought to himself as he led Mitch to the master bedroom.

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The Wedding Ring

The Wedding Ring with it’s beginnings in ancient Egyptian and Roman times has long held its place as a symbol of undying love.  In ancient Egypt it was believed that a ring was the most powerful symbol of eternity.  A ring of gold is pure and without beginning and without ending.  Love freely given has no beginning and no end, no giver and no receiver for each is the giver and each is the receiver.  In a continuous circle, love between two people flows like the ring.

The wedding ring has become a sign to all who see it that the wearer has pledged his or her love and unfaltering devotion to someone and are loved in return.  It is also a symbol for the wearer.  When a man or a woman looks at their hand and sees a wedding band they realize that they are not alone.  They realize that someone loves them and has committed themselves to be with that them in this life and in the next.  In the ring they also see their own promise, the promise to be truthful, faithful, kind, caring, understanding, and above all loving.

The wedding ring is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand.  This custom comes from the ancient belief that a special vein, “vena amoris” or “the vein of love” ran directly from that finger to the heart.  It is also an attempt to keep the ring, the love, and the marriage safe for the left hand and so the ring on it and what it stands for is less susceptible to damage than the right hand.

Throughout the many years of marriage the ring will lose its luster.  It will become scratched, sometimes bent, other times too small or too large but it remains a ring and eternal. Life too has its unexpected scratches, dents, and hard times, but like the ring, the love and devotion it stands for will last eternally.

Written in honor of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary.

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My Name (Shem Tov)

My name is Daniel.

God is my judge.

The judgement of God is upon me.

He is my judge.

He is my jury.

He is my prosecuting attorney.

He is my defense council.

He decides my guilt.

He decides my punishment.

He hears my appeal.

He sets me free!

 

Who am I to be the judge?

I am no judge.

I am no jury.

I am no prosecuting attorney.

No fault can I find in His ways.

He who commands the sun to rise in the Heavens.

It is He who crashes waves against the shore.

He breathes the breath of life into the clay and made man.

He feeds the sparrow.

He feeds the snake.

Surly He too will feed me.

How can I find fault in Him who commands the workings of the universe?

How can I find any fault in Him who designed and created all the world and everything in it?

I am no judge.

 

Without His will I cannot stand.

Without His will no breath can I take.

He alone is my source for joy.

My pain is only when I turn my face from Him.

He feeds the sparrow.

He feeds the snake.

He feeds me.

He shelters me when no tent can be found.

 

His words feed me and nourish me when I cannot eat.

He soothes me and calms me when I am wild.

He gives me strength when sleep does not come.

He shows me joy when tears flow like a flood.

Without Him I am nothing.

 

The Lord, God, watches me on my way.

He sees what others cannot.

He knows my every action,

And weighs them against His word.

Into my heart He sees.

That too does He weigh.

 

I am not alone.

All that walk the Earth are judged by His scales.

The rich man feels unhappiness.

The powerful man feels bitterness.

The poor are happy with their lot.

The kind are smiled upon.

The wicked and the just are given their reward.

He judges all.

 

I am judged.

I am guilty.

Who am I to question the Lord?

He has His ways.

He has His reasons.

Hidden from man is the will of God,

But his ways are just.

 

God is my judge.

My name is Daniel.

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  צדק צדק תרדף “Justice, Justice shall you pursue.”

My home state, specifically my home town of Huntington, WV, is known globally as a leader in heroin overdoses.  Addiction has become a literal plague in that city.  The state has run out of money to bury their dead.  This time last year, every week a friend of mine from high school was laid to rest due to overdose.

Here in Broward County, heroin is not so much of a menace, Baruch Hashem, but addiction issues are a pandemic throughout the entire country.  Much like the HIV pandemic of the early 1980s, an especially hard hit community for this disease is the LGBTQ community, and much like the medical community and the congressional community of the day, the medical, congressional, and law enforcement communities of today choose to ignore the seriousness and scope of the disease.

Despite great strides toward equality, the LGBTQ community is still a protected class because it is required.  Social acceptance and “normalcy” are always harder fought battles than legal ones.  Too many in our community are refugees of the wars in their homes, the battles fought with family members, friends, mentors and teachers, clergy, and political representation over simply being who they are. This lack of freedom of being, when combined with the ever-present issues of survival, drives many to escape and to try to recover the meaningful interpersonal relationships that were lost, all too often, finding both in the welcoming arms of substance abuse.

Just as the medical community has, with painful slowness, overcome the social paradigm restraints of seeing homosexuality as a mental defect, as a disease, they are now recognizing that substance abuse, specifically drug abuse, is as much a disease of the mind, deeply rooted in depression, as it is a physiological need.  Sadly, just like in the early 1980s, few mental health professionals are willing to work with those affected.  Here in Florida the number of addicted persons continues to rise as the number of psychiatrists and psychologists drops.  Of those remaining, very few will see a patient with a drug abuse issue.

The law enforcement community, and the goals, procedures, and laws to which they conform, is even less sensitive and understanding.  Greenwich Village police of the late 1960s, knowing that people with the supposed disease of homosexuality would be found in the bars breaking laws with unfair and unjust consequences, executed raids and locked up as many “criminals” as they could, driven largely by social and personal prejudices. The procedures of law enforcement today appear to target minorities and protected classes, groups established to have greater issues with the known disease of substance abuse, often for similar reasons of prejudice.  It is not difficult to see that, since the Reagan administration’s war on drugs began, the goals of the laws and law enforcement was the removal of addicts from society and not treatment of individuals.

When a person has a heart attack or a stroke, emergency services are called.  They respond and give the patient the medical attention needed in order to save their life and quality of their life as much as possible.  Emergency response services do not seek out people with history or high risk of heart problems, hide in the shadows, and jump out to startle them in order to set up an emergency situation.  Firemen who set fires to respond to are punished severely.  How is it any more just for a law enforcement officer to target a vulnerable group of people and set up a crime?

Here in Florida we have a law on the books known as the Baker Act, the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971.  This law allows for the involuntary institutionalization of persons that have a “possibility of mental illness” and “is a harm to self, harm to others, or self neglectful.”  This law is almost exclusively used for the emergency mental treatment of those considering suicide.  The specific wording of the law states that “substance abuse impairment” is not to be considered as a “mental illness.”  This is an antiquated sentiment.  Substance addiction is characterized by both physiological and psychological inability to abstain, a physical and mental disease.  As something said to “take everything you are and everything you hope to be,” there is little dispute that users are self-neglectful and a harm to themselves.

The Baker Act is limited in its ability to help addicts primarily due to the restrictions of two things; Oppressive State and Federal drug laws that concentrate on elimination of addicts rather than the health and wellness of people, and a lack of mental health facilities and professionals trained to deal with a problem that is barely understood and recognized.  Both of these obstacles can be overcome both locally and nationally by one thing, a shift in the social realization regarding people with the mental disease of drug addiction as persons rather than criminals.

The procedures under current laws, persons with drug abuse issues, caught merely using or possessing drugs, are incarcerated, and are housed with and treated the same as those arrested for theft and assault.  This estranges the person even farther from family, friends, and society as a whole, often only serving to deepen the feelings of depression and a lack of self worth.  No love, no caring, no compassion is given.  No hope that things will be ok is given.  If the intent is to instill a sense of guilt, it is poorly executed.  If it is for punishment, punishment for what, being caught having a mental illness?  Upon release, these persons are faced with mountains of legal debt, often with no means of paying it, as jobs are often lost and the ability to get any new job is greatly reduced.

A woman cannot be denied employment because she is, or could possibly become pregnant.  A person cannot be denied employment because he/she has cancer, diabetes, a heart condition, HIV or even depression.  A person cannot even be denied employment because he/she is an alcoholic.  Why?  Because medical conditions are a private and protected, personal thing under HIPPA.  Arrest records are public, very public, as are proceedings and sentences.  A drug abuse issue is rarely treated without intervention of the Strong Hand of the Law because the first thing that drugs do is convince a person that he/she does not have a problem.  Even when a person sobers up enough to realize that he/she has a problem, the social stigma against being a drug addict is so strong that seeking help becomes as daunting as the addiction itself.  Even the businesses that will hire a person with a felony drug conviction are less likely to do so if alternatives are given.

Persons with drug abuse arrests are frequently re-arrested, charged with further possession charges, and often with trafficking charges.  All too often selling drugs is the best job a convicted felon can find, perpetuating the cycle.

There are trickle down crimes that have their origins in drug abuse, it’s true.  Often communities that have a high drug abuse issue have more theft, more violence, but when your mental illness won’t let up its grip on you, when your legal bills pile up, when no one will hire you, when you are forced to live in underground social circles, what other options do you have than to steal, often violently, what you can for your survival, and your disease?

I, in no way shape or form, condone such behavior in anyone, regardless of their station.  I merely pose the hypothetical to show that these crimes would also decrease if the root causes of drug addiction were addressed and those that suffer with it had their suffering recognized and treated with compassion and hope.  צדק צדק תרדף “Justice, Justice shall you pursue.”  Justice is not just crime and punishment but the treatment of everyone fairly and with compassion.  There should be justice for those who have things stolen from them.  There should be justice for those that are assaulted, and the families for those killed.  There should also be justice for those that are compelled by depression and disease.  The Law and the punishment should reflect the crime and the justice of the offended party.

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WAHMISH Decoded…Maybe

For over a year I have heard the term used. Almost everyone at the company for whom I work uses the term. And anytime someone comes from a different location, they use the term and are surprised that we know it. No one, however, seems to know the true origin of the word, or who coined it. This morning, while laying in my bed, I figured it out….Maybe…

We

All

Have

More

Important

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The Bilge Life

Last night I dreamed that I was organizing a river cruise in the mountains. This was triggered by a number of external factors, as was the overall mood of the dream.

In the dream, many of my best friends had supporting roles…though I’m not completely sure how supportive they all were.

One bought me plane tickets to fly back to the mountains….but the plane crash landed.

Another friend was giving me a ride from the airport to the port in her car…but ran into an electric pole.

Shaken, but unharmed, I Ubered on….until we were held up by a train wreck.

Eventually I made it to the boat. A Bon Voyage party was held to celebrate my survival, arrival, and the upcoming voyage. Well wishes abounded. It was going to be a grand old time, a fascinating new adventure…the ship listed starboard, capsized, sank. Caught in the bubble of air, like the Poseidon survivors, I took a deep breath, broke a window, and found myself too deep in the water to make it back to the surface.

I woke up then to the peaceful, yet somehow ear-grating midi tune, Maple, of my phone’s alarm.

My career path seems to have been a plane crash, followed by a car accident, delayed by a train wreck. Now here I am, 36 years old, still completely lost about what I want to be when I grow up, starting a blog, and hoping that it isn’t a sinking ship.

My mother always instilled in me a sense that I could do anything, and be anything that I wanted when I grew up. The problem is that I agreed, but could never figure out what that anything is. Then, in high school, when I realized that I was gay, I did some research on what my statistical life expectancy was. At the time, with the AIDS epidemic still not far in the past, and homosexuality being the cause of disproportional number of teen suicides, along with the internet being too new to have a great many sources to consult, I found the average life span of uncloseted gay men was 35 years.

Now this information might have been complete bunk. It probably was. But I read it, and as a young impressionable 17 year old it stuck, and it changed me in ways that I am still fighting to get over. Suddenly I thought, “well I have +/-20 more years to do everything I want to do. I best get to it!” The first thing that had to go was plans of being a doctor, or lawyer, or architect, or anything that would take a decade in school. That would be half the time gone! I settled into a mindset that it didn’t matter if I was stuck in retail drudgery forever, because, hey, it was only 20 years anyway!

Whatever job I found, I did, and I did it (like everything else in my life) to the best of my abilities (a.k.a. well). Need a sales clerk? Done! Need a pharmacy technician? Done! Need a Chef? Done! Need a Purchasing and Facilities Manager? Done! Need a Regional Manager? Done! Need an Uber Driver? Done! Need someone to paint your house? Done! Need someone to install a light switch? Done! Need someone to fix your boat? Done! You name it…

Here came THIRTY FIVE rolling in like an Indian train fire! And what was I doing? Laying pennies on the track. When it hit me, I was unemployed, so completely broke that I was preparing to be homeless, with a substance abuse issue, looking around wondering why the Hell had I outlived my time. I was so depressed that even suicide seemed like too much work.

Then I got a job.

I wanted to work. I wanted to work so bad that, despite this retail pharmacy job seeming like punishment for all the bad things I had done in this life and the last one, I was so grateful to have to go to work that I said a prayer of thanksgiving every time a patient went ape shit on us because it took four hours to fill their prescriptions, every time I was called in to work on my day off, every time I was asked to stay late. In short I said the shehecheyanu three times a day, every day.

Then new management came and the job became a normal nightmare retail pharmacy job instead of the abject misery that it had been. I was beyond grateful for the breather, we all were, but just like the self flagellating monks, I had gained some amount of atonement and spiritual self-satisfaction from torture, and now it was gone.

Six months of this normal feeling of not wanting to go to work today had me realize that I really didn’t want being a pharmacy technician suck away any more of my soul than I had allowed it to do over the last 12 years. It is a good job. It pays…well. It has some amount of social esteem even. I even once felt like I was helping people. Being sick is tough. I know. Helping people with the difficult transition, and the difficulties involved with the transition from sick to well, is very satisfying. More and more, however I find myself padding the pockets of big drug companies, and the corporate beast that is my employer, and less helping people. My job has me so occupied trying to upsale, and trying to meet their ridiculous rubrics, that I rarely have time, or am able, to actually help a person even find where the baby aspirin is, let alone help them get well.

Clearly, the time for me to move on has come, but money doesn’t fall from trees, and I’m still as clueless as ever as to what it is that I want to do, so I stay. I’ve always heard the adage that you should do what you enjoy and the money will come to you. :::coughbullshitcough::: The things I love in this world are food, travel, photography, meeting people, experiencing new things, sex, entertaining, learning, and more now than ever before in my life I feel drawn to writing….so here I am…starting a blog.

I don’t know that I thought that this would be easy…but I didn’t expect it to be quite so complicated. And I don’t have a clue how it could ever make me a dime at it but here we go. I’m going to call my dream a “manifestation of my fears” and not “a prescient vision” and hope I enjoy this pleasure cruise.

WELCOME ABOARD!!

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