Losing

Part of getting older is losing things. If I can keep a set of sunglasses for more than a month these days, it is a miracle.

Part of getting older is losing people.

Last summer I ended a thirteen-year stint in my workplace. It was time to go; I was burnt out on that kind of work. But I lost a whole community of people.

This past fall, a friend and mentor of twenty five years passed away of Parkinson's. I was the person who pointed out to him his strange new gait years ago and told him to have it checked out. He was a man whom I knew would always be around in some form or other if I needed him. And he would also tell me the blunt truth. I miss him.

This past winter, another friend died, of a recurrence of cancer she had beaten some fifteen to twenty years previous. She was a wonderfully down-to-earth woman with warmth, brains, love of life and a great sense of humor. I miss her.

When I was home to see my family, my father's dementia was so advanced that he no longer knew who I was. He just looked at me as if I were not there. So in a way, he is already gone for me.

Two weeks ago, a woman who is like a sister to me, my closest female friend, left town to go back to her home after a wonderful two-year local stint close by me. Although I was not aware of it, having her here was like having family around, especially my deceased sister who died suddenly in 2004. And having her leave was hard. Still is. Town seems emptier without her. I miss her.

And now I have lost, well, I don't exactly know what to call him. That was part of the problem. A lover. A friend. A playmate. A lost-and-found buddy. A flawed and ordinary and splendid man. All of those and something more. But he made me supremely happy. And God, God, do I miss him.

I am tired, very tired, of losing.

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Malesoul Lament

It is you I want most to talk to, and can't.
Want most to see, and can't.
Want most to hear, and can't.
Want most to touch, and can't.
Want most to be lost in, and can't.

Anymore.

The beginnings of a grief.

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Malesoul 5, yet again

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To serve and protect

The British are now beyond parody, refusing to publish the names of escaped prisoners lest their privacy rights be violated...

HT to "Dr. Sanity."

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And that night I was happy

….And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was
on his way coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the
next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll
slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as
directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same
cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was
inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night
I was happy.

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Articles of faith

An article in the "UK Telegraph" (HT to Kathy Shaidle) points out the continuing blindness of gays to Muslim homo-hatred. The Liberal Narrative requires that the threat to All Things Good and Liberal come from the White Christian Right. Islam has the status of People of Color and therefore cannot be attacked, no matter what Muslims regularly say and do.

Reminds me once again of how often I hear ranting and raving against the White Christian Right, George Bush (not so much anymore), Republicans, conservatives, etc...and now Sarah Palin. But never never never have I heard San Francisco gays rant against the Muslim jihadis and the Islamic communities which loathe and often kill homosexuals. There have been maybe two formal events or statements over the years about the hanging of gays in Iran and the recent upsurge in gay killings in Iraq, but nothing from the "gay street." Silence.

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Corroboration

Watching a re-run of "Will & Grace" this morning. Hey, I was feeling out of sorts, had a bad night.

One of the staff who works for Karen Walker is a very sexy pastry chef. He turns out to have slept both with Karen and Will. When he is discovered, he invites them to a three way. Will protests, saying that if he were going to sleep with a woman "it would be with Hillary Swank...or Toby Maguire."

Reminded me of how irritating I find Toby Spiderman, p-whipped by cranky moralizing Kirsten Dunst and his endless angst and grovelling. Hillary Swank would be butcher.

A good line from W&G for once.

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For America

It was not until after 9/11 that I took a new interest in American history and have become, well, enamored of the Founding Fathers and their generation. A book by a controversial historian, Founding Brothers, let me see these men in three dimensions, as vividly human. Their flaws, rather than putting me off, endeared them to me. And that has made the existence of this amazing place, America, my homeland, all the more of a continuing miracle. I have been reading about them for the last years; I have have pictures of them on my wall.

The book and series about John Adams was very moving to me, bringing alive the daily details of life in those days. I embed a scene, George Washington taking the oath of office as the first President of the new Republic. I have to confess, it brings tears to my eyes.

Happy Fourth.

Exercising

I was a sporadic exerciser for much of my life, but in 2002 I started going to the gym with a new attitude (for which I thank my therapist) and have been going regularly, five times a week or more, for most of the last seven years. As others, and even my mother, pointed out, I look far better at 60 than I did at 50.

I am not a fanatic, especially about the dietary part, and I have the limitations of my gene pool and my age, so I am not cover-boy material. In fact, part of why I go so regularly is so that I can eat what I like and still stay in decent shape. The last year I slacked off a bit and gained some non-muscle weight, but that is coming off slowly but surely.

There is a definite narcissistic thrill to being in good shape, especially if you are not born with a naturally athletic frame and have spent parts of your life not so comfortable in your body. Funny moments happen, like this week. I was helping a friend do some moving. It was a hot day, so I was just in jeans and a tank top. I turned a corner and looked up into a large plate-glass window with some reflective quality to it. I saw this...well, I'm gonna say it...big, strong, nicely built and handsome dude looking at me. And a nanosecond later I realized it was me. Very funny. I turned to my friend and said, "Is that really me?". Eyes rolled.

But the regularity of gym exercise has a variety of benefits, not just the change in physique. Someone else has laid them out, very well. I concur completely.

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O Canada

July 1st is the Canadian national holiday, Canada Day.

I lived in Canada, around Toronto, from 1974-1991 and eventually became a naturalized citizen, once the US allowed dual citizenship. Some of the most significant events of my life took place in Canada and some of the most significant people in my life are Canadians.

Most Americans have the dimmest idea of Canada. And over the years, unfortunately, I think that too many Canadians have taken on a very dim notion of who they are, allowing them to engineer their own fading away.

My sense of Canada nowadays is largely wistful, regretful that a unique people, dazzled by a leader like Pierre Trudeau, (who reminds me of Barack Hussein Obama) allowed their history and natural identity to be discarded in favor of a set of supposedly superior values, especially government-driven multiculturalism, state-controlled medicine and an unearned sense of anti-American moral superiority, which includes having transcended the merely Yankee notion of free speech.

Canada is my second country, a vast and beautiful country, a place and people I became part of and who became part of me. But if I had to choose, I'd take July 4th over July 1st.