La Mesa Octoberfest with Steve, Bill, and Craig

La Mesa is a 'burb a few miles east of San Diego. I was teasing Craig that, for those of us who rarely venture east of the 15, it's "practically in Arizona".

AVRP Hat Day Friday

Thursday at work Steve the UPS guy delivered a hat I'd ordered. While I had it out one of my co-workers walked by and got all excited because she loved hats and said we should have a hat day the next day. So I checked with the office manager, who liked the idea, and sent out an email. But I was so busted. Even though I loudly protested that it wasn't my idea, everyone new it was because I got a new hat.

Cristy's husband is a huge Wisconsin Badgers fan so she wore a Badger hat she got for him. She said her cat was totally freaked by this giant rat on her head.

Diane is looking super cute in her Texas baseball cap and glasses.

Kristin didn't want to pose alone so Victoria, in white ball cap, hammed it up with her.

Randi out did us all by walking in with this giant leprechaun hat.

And Ana didn't think she could wear a hat so I put mine on her to show her how pretty she is; just like Shania Twain.

My New Ride ... SPF Zero

My 1994 Mazda 626, that I bought in '97 and had 147,000 miles on it, was doing fine, except that it was time again to get it smogged, which it always failed. Other than that it was reliable, if uninspiring, transportation. Someone, Keith I think, asked if I was getting a new car and suddenly I was all over Autotrader.com.

At first I was looking for '03 and '04 Honda Accords, 6 cylinder, 6 speed manuals with sunroofs. I found one here in San Diego, went to look at it, and someone else was already signing the papers for it. Then Mr. Auto Encyclopedia Steve took me to the Honda Dealer to test drive a new Civic and the street rod CivicSI; which I liked but am too tall for; and a 4 cylinder Accord which is just an update of what I already have.

Then I discovered that used Acura 3.2CLs aren't much more than Accords. I found one at a dealer just down the hill, went to look at it, and again a buyer was just a half hour ahead of me. So the next night Steve and I went to look at one at the Suzuki Dealer in El Cajon that was a little more money but had really low miles. Oh, but it was long gone.

Unlike most dealers that have a lot of their main brand and a few used cars they get from trade ins, this dealer had just 1 short row of new vehicles and lots of used cars of all different kinds. In my price range they had Audi, Lexus, Mini Coopers, Jaguars, just to name a few. Steve, who used to sell cars, was thoroughly enjoying himself. When they asked me which one I wanted to look at first, out of my mouth came "how about the BMW Convertible". I'm not sure why, maybe there's something about Beemers that mimic part of our DNA.

My best friend back in the Midwest, Carol, always had a convertible. In fact I went along for moral support when she bought a really pretty deep purple Chrysler Sebring Convertible. Do you still have that, Carol? And Steve is the proud owner of a very hot Mercedes 2 seater with a retractable roof. When I moved out to California I always thought that if I ever got a chance to own a convertible, this is the place for it. But I never thought I'd find one I liked within reach. So I was looking for sunroofs.

Steve explained that California is the biggest market for nice cars. And when the first owner gets tired of them, or comes to the end of the lease, they turn in a vehicle that has been very well taken of; has seen no snow and very little rain. Then they come on the market fully depreciated with lots of life left in them.

This one is a 2000 323CI, 6 cylinders, 5-speed manual transmission with less than average miles. It has almost every upgrade that was offered at the time. And as you can see, just by holding a button, the roof folds itself into the trunk and covers itself up. But even with the top down there's respectable trunk room. It's an incredibly solid, heavy car that likes RPMs and goes where you tell it to. The engine just quietly hums to itself so all you hear is the wind. I learned from Carol that it's quite acceptable to blast the air conditioning or heat as needed with the top down. This one also has seat warmers for those chilly nights in San Diego when it gets down into the 60s.

Question: Why do guys like BMWs?

Because it's easy to spell.

Now the mid-life crisis is official.

Currently Reading ...

... some ...
will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.



Sappho

Michael Tolliver Lives

Armistead Maupin started writing Tales of the City as a serial in San Francisco newspapers in the mid '70s. It starts out with straight Mary Ann Singleton arriving in San Francisco on vacation from her life in Ohio. She instantly falls in love with the city and decides to stay. She rents an appartment and starts to get to know her neighbors. They turn out to be a diverse group of straight, gay, bisexual, and transgendered free spirits. While each character is fleshed out in mostly equal three dimensional detail, gay man Michael Tolliver quickly becomes the heart and soul around which everything else revolves. He's a sweet, genuine soul without pretense trying to rise above his conservative Southern upbringing and find love and a place for himself in the world.

Even though Armistead Maupin has stated his intention that Michael Tolliver Lives is an independent novel that stands alone from the series, in reality it is an extension. All the main characters from the series appear. And even though backgrounds are provided, I don't think you can fully appreciate the emotional impact of this book without having read the previous six. But the good news is the series is a very easy, entertaining read. The first four books have very short chapters and are mostly dialogue. I've always admired Maupin's writing and how he's able to create such rich characters without much descriptive prose.

The sixth book, Sure of You, ends in the early '80s. Michael Tolliver is happily setting up house keeping with his partner, but he's HIV+ and doesn't know how much time he's got to enjoy his hard won happiness. So for those of us that read all of the books many times and have loved the characters, especially Michael, the publishing of this book is very much like finding out that someone we lost track of, and missed, and always wondered if the new medications found him in time, but we were afraid they hadn't when so many were lost; lives. If that makes sense to you, then maybe you understand why I was crying before I started reading it.

In the '50s and '60s, when Lord of the Rings was gaining popularity, Frodo Lives!! was often seen as graffiti. Like Frodo, one quickly gets the sense that if Michael Tolliver can't do it; can't find love and happiness and a place for himself; then no one can.

For this book, Armistead Maupin has switched to first person, telling the story directly from Michael's point of view. Michael is 20 years older, doing well on new meds, and enjoying creating a life with a new, younger man. He's still best friends with Brian Hawkins and he still looks after his former landlady, Mrs. Madrigal. His father died a few years ago and his mother is in a nursing home and failing. Michael goes to visit her with his new husband and she shocks him by asking him to be in charge of her Living Will. The only question this book asks is: What will he do when he gets the call that his mother has died, then gets the call that his spiritual mother may not make it through the night?

Bloggers New Toy

Blogger has a new toy called "Blogger Play". By going to this web site: http://play.blogger.com/ you will see a slide show of photos that have been uploaded to Blogger within the past few minutes. You'll see faces, places, art, and objects from all over the world. It's a fascinating, mesmerizing look into human life on this planet. You can speed it up or slow it down and stop it and go back. There's a "show info" button that will pull up some basic information from the blog the photo is posted on. And if you click on a photo the entire blog it's from will pull up for you. Blogger uses an algorithm to filter out any obscene material, but occasionally an "R" or even an "X" rated photo might show up. I haven't found it to be a big deal. Check it out and let me know what's the coolest thing that you come across.

Downtown Trees

The Santa Fe Depot Fountain

Video from 12/24/06

Blogger recently added a video upload button. Now I can post my own videos directly to my blog without first boring everyone on YouTube. This video is from my trip last Christmas Eve to Mt. San Jacinto State Park at the top of the Palm Springs Tramway. I previously posted a slide show of still shots from that trip with my friend Stan. For the video I just stood in one spot and slowly turned around in a circle so you can see the whole landscape and hear the children's voices.

My September 11th Story

Like December 7, 1941 and November 22, 1963, anyone old enough to remember September 11, 2001 will never forget what they were doing and how they experienced the events that day.

I was living in Vista, California, having moved with my partner at the time to the San Diego area from Central Illinois just a few shorts weeks prior to 9/11. Brian had returned the night before from a week long business trip to Germany. I hadn't found a job in California yet. We had just gotten out of bed and were heading towards the bathroom and kitchen when the phone rang. I answered it and found myself talking to his mother who was all in a panic. She knew he'd been out of the country but didn't know he was back and was worried he was on one of the flights. I quickly got Brian on the phone with his mom and I turned on the TV. At 7am West Coast time only 1 tower was damaged and both were still standing. I remember watching the news with a sense of unreality and thinking the newscasters were having just as tough a time trying to make sense of it all and come up with something meaningful to say. It wasn't until much later, after more information was available, more images came in, and both towers fell, that it all sank in. To this day any image of the burning or collapsing towers is very upsetting to me.

Some time in the early '90s I took a trip with friends Deborah and Peter to New York City to see our friend Janet in her Carnegie Hall debut as the soprano soloist in Verdi's Requiem. During that trip we had breakfast at the top of the World Trade Center and very much enjoyed a view that's no longer there, except by helicopter. Now I automatically date any image of New York City's skyline as to whether it's before or after September 11, 2001.

What's your 9/11 story?

And for those of you who remember, I'd also love to hear your stories about the day Pearl Harbor was attacked and the day JFK was assassinated. What were you doing? How did you hear about it? How did you feel? What was the reaction of those around you? How has it affected you since that day?

For SKEA

Sail Boats on San Diego Bay

" I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

James Baldwin

I recently added Enya's most recent CD, "Amarantine", to my music collection. According to Wikipedia it won the Grammy for Best New Age Album for 2007. The music is gorgeous and filled with Enya's trademark Celtic New Age harmonies, orchestrations, and rhythms. I love her music and am happy to have some new songs of hers. However, I haven't noticed any groundbreaking departures from her previous albums.

Now if only someone could convince Sade to put out something new.

Just in Time

I recently went with my friend Steve to Palm Springs to help him and Michael put in landscaping. After hauling decomposed granite all over the yard all morning in the desert heat and humidity (thanks to Hurricane Dean), we showered, changed, and headed to a great deli Steve just discovered. While driving to lunch we were listening to Michael's favortie radio station, which plays, according to Steve, "old lady music". My ears pricked up when I heard a distinctive voice singing one of my favorite songs and I asked, "is that Judy Garland?" And they listened for a minute and agreed it was. And they asked me which movie the song was from. And I answered that it wasn't from a movie but from her television show. Michael observed, "Tim, were you alive during her television show?" I was, but just. So Michael said I had completely redeemed my gay card.

Needless to say, I was quite relieved. They're always threatening to take it away since I'm not obsessively neat, I'm not a great dresser, and I'm not much at interior decoration. But I am a friend of Dorothy.

When I was taking voice lessons many years ago, I picked up the sheet music to this song and was not impressed. By itself it's a fairly simple song without much to grab your attention. But Judy Garland wasn't just a little lady with a big voice who wore her heart on her sleeve. She also had an amazing ear that enabled her to stay with an orchestra through very complex arrangements. Many arrangers will change keys in the middle of a song to add some energy to it. For Judy, Mort Lindsay created this arrangement that changes key 4 times. And she's not following the orchestra into the new key, she's going there first. For 2 of the key changes she doesn't even take a breath. While holding a note she just kicks it up a notch. And after all that, to end as solidly as she does is not as easy or inevitable as she makes it look.

For the first time in my life I'm taking public transportation on a regular basis. For 2 months now I've been taking the bus and trolley to work. While working downtown is great, parking is expensive and "The Firm" only pays for about 2/3rds of the cost. And that doesn't get me a reserved, covered spot, but just permission to park in a lot. It's more of a fishing license for a well stocked pond. But The Firm does pay for a bus pass that gives me unlimited trips on the bus and trolley. The trolley is a light rail electric train that goes through Mission Valley, down Pacific Coast Highway, loops through Downtown, and continues south to the Mexican Border. It's smooth, quiet, fast, and mostly dependable. But it leaves most of the county to be covered by buses, which aren't any of those things. Luckily I live and work in the perfect spot to use the system. I'm just 1 block from a major bus line and it's a short, fast ride down the hill to the nearest trolley stop. And the trolley just takes a few minutes to get downtown and stops right outside the entrance to my building. I counted it the other day and it's literally 5 steps from the trolley to the door.

The only problem I've had is if the bus runs late, then I miss the trolley I need and waiting for the next trolley makes me late for work. So yesterday when it was getting close to the time I should be getting on the trolley and the bus was still nowhere in sight, I decided to go back for the car and be just a few minutes late instead of 15 minutes late.

But otherwise it was a beautiful San Diego day; bright and sunny and warm. It wasn't bright in a harsh way that washes out all the colors and makes you look for shade. It was clear in a way that lit up everything and warm in a way that wasn't uncomfortable, but just made long pants and enclosed shoes seem silly. At lunch, after walking to the bank, I stopped at the building across the street. It has a very nice deli inside and a large, mostly shaded courtyard in front with tables and chairs and benches. And on Fridays in the summer there's live music during the lunch hour. The rest of the afternoon at work went fast and uneventful and at 4:45 I was out the door, looking forward to the weekend. The two towers closest to the bay were looking very photogenic, but my trolley was right there so I hopped aboard and enjoyed all the tropical splendor sliding by. As often happens, the bus was going by just as I got off the trolley so I had to wait for the next one, but who cares; it's Friday!

Walking towards my building, thinking about going to the gym and planning out the weekend, I glanced in the garage and noticed my car wasn't there. It was still Downtown!

So after dropping off my bag, using the bathroom, and grabbing a bottle of water, I found myself back at the bus stop, waiting to make the trip on the train that I had missed that morning.

It's a good thing I didn't have any dignity to begin with.

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

- Elie Wiesel

Serenity

Change what you can. Accept what you can't. Be wise enough to know the difference.

Downtown San Diego

Since I started working downtown in late December I've taken lots of pictures of the buildings and the boats on the bay. This picture was taken from Harbor Island, which isn't really an island. The camera is looking east across the bay. I work in the tall building in the middle.

When you've hurt someone, don't think about the best apology you can come up with. Think about the best apology they can come up with.

An apology isn't about what you want to say. It's about what they need to hear.

Don't think about this the next time someone owe's you an apology. Remember this the next time it's your turn to apologize.

"The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous."

Dame Margo Fonteyn

"Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate." - Barnett Brickner

I don't know who said it first, but good advice going around the gay community is:

"Be the man you'd want to date."

Assimilation.

Well I did it. I finally gave in. They caught me. Say "hello" to the newest member of the Borg. Yes, I bought an MP3 player. Not an Ipod, I got a Zune, Microsoft's entry into the fray. And now I've joined the masses of people walking around with little speakers tucked into their ears dancing to their own beat. Now all I have to do is use my Bluetooth earpiece with my cell phone and my assimilation will be complete.

It's actually quite fun to have such easy access to my music. And it's very nice to shut out the noise of traffic and construction while taking a break from work. It's the spoon full of sugar that makes going to the gym more fun. I'm just another geek on the elliptical trainer lip syncing to '80 music. And I've skipped a generation of technology in my car, going from a cassette deck I almost never used right to an mp3, skipping the in-dash CD player.

I was hoping to be able to download just the songs I wanted over the internet and not have to store CDs at home. But the cheap internet sites don't have any of the music I want and the sites with the songs are expensive. It's generally less expensive to by the CD in the store. And with artists setting up exclusive agreements with specific sites, I'm still occasionally buying an entire CD to get just one song that I want.

Last Friday was a beautiful San Diego day, bright, sunny and warm(as was every day since), and I had lunch sitting right on the bay watching the sailboats go back and forth. Walking back to work I was really enjoying the music. When I got back in the office I realized I'd been just like those kids in the cell phone/mp3 player commercials; I walked along normally but my shadow burned up the dance floor.

One day last week I walked into the apartment singing along to the soundtrack of "Chicago". Hmm. 40 something. Not married. Likes showtunes. What's my sexual orientation?

Embrace your stereotypes. Then they can't be used against you.

Happy Mother's Day!

If Oscars were given out for life, my Mother would have several, starting with surviving polio at 2 years old in the middle of the Depression, and including coming to terms with having a gay son. Many parents, when they suspect they have a gay child, send that child to counseling, which only makes the situation much worse. My Mother did an amazing thing. She went to a counsellor herself and, fortunately, found a good one who told her I was the same good guy she thought I was. For someone who grew up in the Midwest in the '40s that's amazing.

My Mother isn't perfect; she has some prejudices that occasionally rise up. And like Martha in Luke 10 she's often "worried about many things". But she's human, and that's what makes her perfect.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I love you!

While listening to a classical CD I hadn't heard for a while I was reminded of what I learned in Music History class in college about the progression of music. When our current system of symbols and staffs was being formed to represent the sacred music of the middle ages, rules were created to describe and promote the creation of more music. The music that was written after these rules were created followed the rules more closely than the music before that the rules were created to describe. After a long period of time when all avenues of creativity were explored within that kind of music, someone would write something new that was outside of the rules, someone else would ask what they were doing, new rules and guidelines were created, and the whole cycle would continue.

Then I connected that to something pointed out in "Conversations with God, Book 3" by Neale Donald Walsh. That book reminds us that truth has not been a constant thing. For example, in the Old Testament many rules were created, such as what to eat and when not to work, that no longer served us and were put aside in the New Testament which says; "love thy neigbhor". Truth evolves as we evolve.

What's right and who's wrong is not the point. The point is the journey towards our best selves.

Success isn't the point. The point is the journey towards success.

Palm Springs

"We can hardly fail if communication begins with a smile, continues with love and civility, is leavened with a little humor when appropriate, and enhanced with empathy and compassion."

Brenda Davies, M.D.

Photo by Heriberto.

"If you fall out of the boat put your feet up, lie back and relax. Your life jacket knows which way is up. Let the river hold you. You won't drown."

Brenda Davies, M.D.
"The 7 Healing Chakras"
Quoting a Zambezi River guide.

Trip to Julian, April 1, 2007

Sunday afternoon Heriberto asked me where I wanted to go for my birthday. He gave me the options of either some North County beach, Julian, or the Anza Borrego Desert. Although beautiful, I've been to both the Carlsbad beaches and the Anza Borrego Desert, and neither is known for the food there. I've heard a lot about Julian, but had never been there before, AND it's known as a food destination, especially for the apple pie.

About an hour drive from San Diego along 2 lane roads that wind through beautiful country of hills, low mountains, horse farms, orchards, and this fishing lake, Julian is a popular destination for folks looking for an easy destination to escape the city. At 4000 feet up it experiences all the seasons. Chuck and Patrick stayed overnight there a few weeks ago and woke up to snow. When we got there both sides of the one main street through town were filled with motorcycles. We ate barbecue for lunch, walked around town, going into a few shops, taking pictures, then stopped for apple pie for dessert. And what an apple pie. It was amazing. It's not better than Becky's terrific pie she made for Thanksgiving, but it is real close. Before we ate our pie Heri asked for a candle that he lit and put in the middle for me to make a wish and blow out.

I love these birthdays that get stretched out over several days. Keith took me out to dinner to a newly opened restaurant Tuesday. Thursday Skip took me to a Brazilian restaurant that I'd been by but hadn't been to yet. And Sunday I got to go to Julian for the first time, do a little sight seeing, took some pictures, went for a short hike, and had a wonderful drive.

Two years ago, while working at Wawanesa, my supervisor and team forgot my birthday. Though initially disappointing, it turned out great. Two of the girls that sat on either side of me took pity and brought in a cake the next day. My team became aware of their oversight and took me out to lunch the day after that. And the next Sunday Skip took me to lunch after church with a bunch of friends and we had a great time.