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.