Labor Pains (My Unborn Child, Part II)

With many apologies for being away from the blog for some time now, I thought I might explain why. As some of you who read this blog on a regular basis (by some I really do mean all six of you) know, I have another side project. When I have had a chance to write lately, I've focused on my Unborn Child. Now fully three-quarters the way through, (the farthest I've ever reached), I'm getting labor pains.

I've toiled over this thing for so long now, I have a hard time remembering much about this story in its original form. Eighty percent of the work I've done on it has been pondering, rethinking, re-plotting, and pondering some more. Very little of this time has actually been spent writing, until this past year.

As I've fleshed it out, it's evolved. You see, something happens when I sit down to write. I find myself completely immersed in the story. My laptop screen becomes a window through which I can dive into a  different world. Outside noises either escape my notice, or, when they do, send me a foot in the air when they startle me. It's quite the zone - characters seem to act of their own accord, events happen that I didn't outline, and events that were outlined suddenly don't make sense as they unfold, so I let the story evolve itself. And then I close my laptop after a two or three-hour session, and reflect on the characters and the day's writing, and end up jotting notes right before I get into bed on what should be different. I spend the last few minutes of each night outside pondering it some more. I think about it on the way home from work. And then I sit down again, and these characters, who I think I know so well, go and do something completely out of character and I go back to the drawing board. It always seems as if they're in conflict with the outlines in my notebook.

But here's the thing - I don't actually think it's that good. I think I may have over-complicated it, over-thought it. I mean, it has its merits, it has its moments, but I've been working in it for too damn long. I'm now finishing it simply to see it through. And while I don't really think it's that great, it's still very important to me. I no longer  have any intention of trying to publish it, at least in the traditional sense - if I were a visual artist, I wouldn't want to sell my first painting.

And let me be frank - this is a fantasy. It's not the wizard-fire dragon-breath kingdoms and swords type of fantasy, as it takes place pretty much in the here and now - but it's still fantasy. I refuse to make much use of the word magic, but there's plenty of magic. I didn't want there to be castles and dragons, but there are towers and creatures. I didn't want there to be monsters, but it has demons. I didn't want it to be a preachy morality tale, but it does have themes. I didn't want to approach my views of spirituality and let them influence the story, but if I'm to be honest, it's all about my views on spirituality. This is a collage of sorts of all my lives since those lost years in Columbia. I'm really not convinced I want to write fantasy after this, but when I started it that was what I wanted to do.

Jamie, David, Seamus, Marissa, and Nora; Marlan, Nikola, Amantha, Nikolas and Roia; Simon, Marcus, David, Patricia and Conroy - these characters have been with me for so long now I'm ready to let them go and live their lives on some page that does not exist in my brain. A few, such as Jamie, David, Michael and James have been in my head since the beginning. Others have jumped on the train as it hobbled along on broken tracks through the years. I'm ready to give them wings, as my Mom has said of my sister and me.

As I said, I have no real intention of publishing this, as it would need so much work as to be completely rewritten. But it will always be my first child. So how do I plan to give my baby wings? I'm going to blog her.

My goal is to have this done in October. To do that, my friends and family will have to understand that for a while, my child will come before trivia. I am going full steam ahead now, lungeing for the end of the tunnel. Once I think it's done, and then when I can finally declare it done, once and for all, I will create a separate blog for it. Once a week I'll post another segment. You can comment all you like, or you can remain silent and simply either enjoy it or laugh at it for the disjointed mess that I think it may have become. I'm okay with either, because this is my child, and even if it has a face only a father can love, it will always be mine.

Once it's over, I plan to begin writing seriously. I've discovered that this is what I want to do more than anything else in life. I can create a world and live in it freely and fully, even if only vicariously through my keyboard. But this work has given me more fulfillment than any job that generates a paycheck.

In Defense of Marriage

Queer, Part 2

Should members of the same sex be allowed to marry?

Let's examine that question. Exactly who is doing the allowing? Who decides this for all of us? What a weighty decision that's on your shoulders, a lofty post on which you've decided to stand, when you make it your decision to make.

It's amusing to me when I hear questions such as "are we not opening the door for incestuous marriage and beastiality?" Those questions are at once laughable and hateful. This is all I'm going to say on that subject.

Why don't we begin with the word "marriage." What does it mean to you? Who gave you that meaning? Did it come from your church? In many cases it did, since marriage is largely a religious institution, at least in its origins. So shouldn't it be between you and your church whether you are allowed to wed in the eyes of your religion or denomination therein?

Then of course there's the argument that the government should not step in and decide for the church and the individual states - and everyone for that matter, that homosexuals be allowed to marry. I find it ironic that these same people appear to deem it okay for the government to tell us all, to tell every church what they're NOT allowed to do. The latter seems far more intrusive. Are these not the same conservatives who believe government should remain out of our personal lives?

For the sake of argument let's say this is a religious contradiction to you, the allowance of two men or two women to get married. Let's say that for some outlandish and far-flung reason this somehow threatens your marriage, or the institution as a whole. I'll pretend for a moment that this is a remotely logical argument. Okay, so what if we don't call it marriage? I for one, don't care what you call it so long as I may enjoy the same rights, and am not denied thus because of who I am, or because you have decreed who I am to be unacceptable in your world. So let's not use the word marriage. Let's call it a civil union.

And people still protest these unions, they still believe that it is their moral obligation to keep these rights from those who are not like them.

How does it threaten anyone? How has it become such a black or white argument? Do you believe more gay marriages will fail? I would argue that years from now the percentage of gay marriages that have worked where they are legal, will be similar to those of heterosexuals. A marriage is a marriage - the same rules apply. Are you still under the impression that this is some lifestyle choice? See my previous post on that one.

So why? Why is it so important for some to deny others the rights they enjoy? This is a civil rights issue as much as it is a religious one. As far as the law is concerned, religion should not be a factor. That in itself is unconstitutional. The factor that remains, large and looming, is fear.

All I can say to this, is get over it. I realize that social change takes time, that it's a lengthy, sometimes (needlessly) painful process. I'm just having a hard time remaining patient with that process, waiting and watching quietly while the debate goes on as to whether or not my basic human rights are valid. The hurtful undertone to these debates is that until the majority can be convinced that I am not a threat to the institution of marriage by my very existence and desire to marry, my rights will rest in the hands of the vocal minority.

And once I'm "allowed" to marry in my state? I want children. More on this to follow.

Queer

Part One: My Lifestyle

I've danced around this topic numerous times, and while I don't want this blog go the way of the Ellen sitcom, (as I mentioned in a previous entry), I think it's time I tackle this one head on, and then be done with it. I was inspired by a fellow blogger I follow. You should really pay him a visit, his blog is both interesting and entertaining, as well as insightful and well-written. I intend this to be my part of a conversation I would like to start with him.

To some, and especially to those who don't know me, this might sound like a pity-party, a woe-is-me, my-life-is-harder-than-yours sorrow piece. It's not. I had a hard time growing up, but many children have had far harder. I experienced pain, but I also had a loving family who tried to help. Not everyone has that much. I also know be grateful for running water, heat, air conditioning, and a roof over my head. I didn't want for much, so I'm not looking for anybody to feel sorry for me. I sure has hell don't. So as I write about whatever struggles I may have had, please know that I realize how much better I had it than the majority of the world.

I'm not doing this to prove a point, but rather to disprove a few. I'm probably not going to say anything you haven't heard before, but maybe I will. I hope just to say it from the perspective of someone who grew up gay, and who spent the majority of his adult life convincing himself that it was not an affliction, not a curse, and not a thing over which I should feel guilty.

I'm going to write this in three parts. This first entry is about the notion that homosexuality is a lifestyle - or worse, a lifestyle choice. In my second part I'll discuss my thoughts on gay marriage, and lastly I'll discuss my stance on homosexuals raising children. I feel that each of these topics lends itself to the next. I intend to point out how in the desires to live a productive life, get married, and finally to pass on one's knowledge and experience on to offspring are not desires that exist solely within those who find the opposite sex attractive. To think otherwise is nothing short of dehumanizing.

With that said, let's begin with this lifestyle I've chosen.

Let's begin with the assumption this was my choice, my decision to make. I was a male growing up in the South, who spent two years in a Southern Baptist school, and heard derogatory gay jokes from my closest family and friends on a regular basis. What would my reaction be? Logically, I would chose a gay lifestyle, right? Surely this wouldn't affect (or cause me to fear an effect on) my relationships with everyone I love. No, of course not - I could expect this thing happening to me that doesn't appear to be happening to anyone else around me to be understood and accepted immediately and universally. Why not chose this? It's fun to be different!

Unfortunately, no. I was years and years away from discovering that my being gay was for no one else to accept but me. The desire to fit in to society and be accepted is a basic human need. For some of us, the painful illusion is that acceptance will be denied us by everyone we hold dear. We believe our family may disown us and our friends may disappear. Sadly enough, for many it's not at all an illusion. I've known more than one gay person who has lost nearly everyone he or she has loved because they did not approve of their "lifestyle choice." For them, the unimaginably difficult, noble act of self-acceptance and honesty earned them the pain and isolation of late-onset orphanage.

I've lived with depression my entire life, and have learned to not let it interfere, not let it drag me back into those dark places I knew growing up. I've learned to stay above the water, and I've become an adept swimmer. But I wasn't born with those skills. As a teenager, I had no idea how to cope. I was learning to live with that nagging fear and doubt that seems to infest everything you do or think, that doubt that anyone who has lived with depression truly understands. I also had to struggle with the dread of one day telling my family that I would never get married, I would never have children, that I was a faggot. (While I believe marriage and children are a possibility, I didn't believe so at the time). I wondered for many years if I would simply remain single, let the truth remain unspoken, even though most would suspect. I thought that might just be easier and less painful for all involved.

At the age of 13 I was hospitalized for depression. I knew at this point that I was attracted to members of the same sex. I knew I was queer. And while wrestling with wondering why I was even put on this earth, I had the added weight of knowing that the basic animal function of reproduction was denied me. I can't fully describe here the feeling of believing you are a walking aberration, an accident, a flamboyant lispy "oops" of nature.

I was asked in the hospital if I was gay. Of course I said no. I was trying to learn to be happy, and if that meant putting this struggle on a shelf in the back of a dank closet somewhere, I was more than willing to do so.

Part of my learning to be happy was learning to embrace the inner freak. This was part of what lead me to self-acceptance later in life. I pierced my face, I dyed my hair, I sought out music that was different than everyone else's. Had I known swishing gay man during those formative years, I may have become one of the walking stereotypes I strain not to loathe. (As I know they're people too - and while I take no issue with effeminate men, if that is truly who they are, I do take issue with those who have adopted a persona in order to fit in to something - anything - while alienating others and making life more difficult for the quiet minority). I want to stress that people should be who they are, that gender and sexual preference are often mutually exclusive - but to pretend you're someone you're not helps no one - isn't that the point? I digress.

Embracing other subcultures and casting out anything top-40 or carrying the label as trendy enabled me to feel better about being different. I met other gay friends, I even helped a few come out, though I was not out to my family and lived under the flimsy but common guise of "bisexual." Bisexuality is easier to claim, because those who know you as bisexual believe that one day you may settle into a more mainstream life - marriage, with children. Through their eyes, you find comfort in that idea, you experience vicariously the possibility of normalcy. But it's just another lie.

In my late teens became a far left-wing liberal. (I'm a liberal still, but with a marked conservative streak). I embraced anything that would embrace me, and discarded anything that wouldn't. I avoided the church. I laughed at the notion of 2.3 kids and a lawn. Secretly, it was a thing that I wanted, but didn't think I could ever have, and therefore cast aside.

As I got older I was exposed to the gay clubs, drag shows and pink culture that for a while threatened to send me back into the closet with a baseball bat and an NRA membership. I once again wore the badge of "bi" as a defense mechanism. I didn't know who I was, but I was pretty sure by then I knew what I didn't want to be.

While I was in England I found a people who were far more accepting of gays and lesbians. It was simply a non-issue. It was then that I began to find peace with my - "lifestyle choice." When I came back to the U.S. I was on the road to not only accepting, but embracing who I was. No, I did not choose this. I fought it most of my life. And now I'm paying for it, in years lost and wasted in denying myself the experience of living life openly and freely. No one denied it for me but me. I wish I'd learned that when I was younger, but I was too busy wallowing in self-pity to realize I was wallowing in self-pity.

So this entry was supposed to be about my lifestyle. Why was that not the focus? Because there is no gay lifestyle. It does not exist. Just as there is no lifestyle for blonde people, or a lifestyle for people who like pork shops. There is no more gay lifetsyle than there is a single gay community or some clandestine gay agenda I keep hearing about. If there is one, I've been excluded. Maybe I should check my secret decoder ring.

We have those, you know.

My Black Thumb

Sometime in the early nineties, my parents left for England for three weeks. My sister was in Atlanta I think, or somewhere, and I was still in high school. I had the house to myself - just me, a big house, cable, and - LOTS of plants.

Mom had left me some instructions, but let's just say I wasn't the poster child for responsible teen. After about a week, all these plants started looking a little wilty and dry, so I decided I should act soon. Rather than reading the instructions, I just watered the hell out of them. My rule of thumb was to hold the hose in the pot until water ran out of the bottom. After half an hour of finding all the plants and watering them, I felt that I had accomplished something and likely returned to reading a book or playing video games.

A week later they were looking wilty again. So I repeated. And repeated just about every day until about five days before my parents returned to England. During that five days, about half the plants died.

After my parents somewhat recovered from the deaths of so many of their green pets, I decided I would learn to take care of a few. I really have no idea why I wanted to, I just did. So Mom got me a cactus and a few jade plants. I killed them. Then I decided I would try to take care of just one, and got a Venus Flytrap - I managed to kill it in less than three weeks. Then I tried spider plants. And I tried more Jade plants. And I got a Money Tree. Dead, dead, and dead. At this point I pretty much resigned to the fact that I am Grim Reaper of all Flora. I tried, really tried to take care of them, but it never ended well. With each one it was either too much water, too little water, not the right light...maybe it was moved too much, or it got some kind of fungus, or maybe it just caught a glimpse of me and lost the will to go on - I don't know. I just know that I kill plants, whether I want to or not.

Fast forward to 2000, and I'm working at Middleton Inn, a small hotel adjacent to Middleton Plantation. Among my other duties as a "concierge" (there is no other word - this was kind of the catch-all guest services position) was the responsibility of the plants in the lodge and lake house, and 55 Philodendrons - one in each guest room.

Fortunately the housekeeper took over plant duties, since she was probably concerned that they were losing their color and slooping in their pots. Apparently I was giving them too much water, though a measurement was given to me. I followed directions to the letter. I'm telling you, I am Death Of Plants.

Fast forward to last weekend. I'm house sitting for my Mom while she's in Australia and I look for a permanent place in Charleston. It had been two days since she left. I had just closed the door to the washer and stepped on something crispy and flaky. It was a leaf. I looked up and saw a dry, decaying greenish-brown thing that used to be a thriving plant hanging from the bay window in the kitchen. Then I noticed another plant on the breakfast table. And a cluster of them by the back door. As I scanned the room around me, I kept finding more plants. And you know, I think they saw me too. I could hear the theme to Psycho and the room seemed to turn red around me.

I was determined not to commit mass murder this time, so I began watering them. A few were already getting wrinkly at the edges of their leaves. The one in the window couldn't be rescued, but I think one of them is now beginning to bloom. Don't ask me what they are, if I learn their names it just hurts worse when they die. They're green. Sometimes they get bigger of you get them wet - that's my horticultural knowledge base in a nutshell.

Anyway, a few days later I was leaving for work. There's some clutter in the garage, and I generally don't pay much attention to what I'm walking around. I also have the habit of "zoning out" when I'm doing mundane things, especially if there are other things weighing on me - so I didn't notice I was walking past two hulky plants in the garage the whole time. These guys are huge. And they were dying. So I ran back into the house and filled up a pitcher of water. I've been watering them and watering them, but the soil feels dry as a bone even now. They're like two "Audrey-2's" (from Little Shop of Horrors) and they're not going to get better until I give them a sacrifice. I can almost hear them growling in the garage now as I type. Is it possible they want one of the other plants? Maybe that's why Mom has so many. Hmmm...

So the other plants are looking a little greener, and as I said, one is blooming. Maybe I've broken the curse of my black thumb. Or maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome. Either way, wish me (and them) luck.

The Seven People You Meet At Work

I know, I know - if I really wanted to allude to the book, it would be "the five people you meet at work." But having worked in various industries and in various capacities therein, I've narrowed down the list of common archetypes to no fewer than seven.

Now I want to make it clear, I absolutely adore pretty much everybody I work with (a first for me). In fact, my current team may be the most talented group of individuals I've ever had the pleasure to work with. They are so much more than the personality types I'm about to lay out. In fact, another first is that none of the below characteristics fit any of them very well. And to be fair, most of these traits are not even present in my current hotel. But my current property is the exception to the rule.

So to follow are the seven people you have, currently, or one day will work with. They exist in nearly every setting I've ever experienced, and I'm sure you know each and every one of them very well. Sometimes one person may fit more than one archetype, and sometimes two or more will fit the same one. But here they are, in no particular order:

1) The Soap Star

There is always at least one. Perhaps they were late to work because their neighbor was going into labor, about to give birth to their clandestine love child by way of emergency C-section in the back of their car. It may be that they "accidentally" hit reply-all to an email and revealed someone said something negative about someone else. Perhaps they are in tears over the fact that a client called, angry because what was promised was not delivered - through complete fluke, and absolutely no one's fault (unless of course fault lay in another department).

There is never a dull moment with the soap star. Not only do they have an completely fantastic, beyond-belief story for every mundane story you have, but they also know every interesting or curious facet of everyone else's lives. It may be that a story, when first relayed to them was in fact quite boring - but once it gets processed through the spin-cycle of the soap star's brain, every glitch becomes a catastrophe, every insignificant event becomes a juicy milestone.

The soap star can be a good friend to have, and usually means very well. But it's best to give them something to chew on, or they'll seek it out themselves. Give them something about you to harp on, and usually they don't look any further. It's best to stay on their "good side" though - or you will be shot through the spin-cycle yourself, when you least expect it.

2) The Silo

This person knows their job, and knows it well. They've probably been in their position for a long time - long enough to figure out how to avoid relying on others for anything at all, except when absolutely necessary. Although you can rely on them for pretty much anything, they would prefer not to have to trust you enough to actually need you for anything.

They will sit in their office or cubicle, and generally work very hard. They refuse to go on group outings unless they feel it's mandatory, and will participate in as few extra-work activities as possible. Their job is important to them, but so is leaving work on time, and leaving work at work - which is probably very healthy.

The silo will be your friend, but it takes time to cultivate that relationship.

3) The Yoda

The Yoda has done every job in the department, and in some cases nearly every job in the building. They do not take sides, and are proficient at putting out most fires, if they feel so inclined as to get involved in your hurdles that they see as minor speed humps.

The Yoda could in fact run the department, or the entire operation, but I have yet to meet a Yoda who does. They have settled into their role, and when at home, they are at home. If there is a real emergency at work after hours, trust that if they felt the need to come in, would have the entire matter settled in a matter of moments. The Yoda can at any time become the Chuck Norris of any emergency.

You can confide in them with any piece of information, and know that it does not go past their office. You can come to them for help for any problem at all, no matter how tiny or immeasurably complex and if they deem you worthy, will have the answer to you in one sentence or less. It will likely be a pearl of wisdom you will hang onto for years to come. The Yoda knows you will eventually pass that wisdom on. The Yoda probably knows to whom you will pass it.

4) The Dr. Peter

Dr. Laurence J. Peter proposed in is 1969 book "The Peter Principle," that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." There is always one who fits this to a tee. They did so very well at their previous positions, that now they are trusted and required to do something very new, a task in which they are totally unqualified.

Unfortunately, the rest of the department will do it for them, until the Dr. Peter is fired or they leave. I've been fortunate enough never to work with one for very long, but not too long ago, (depending on how you define too long), I was subject to one of these people. They made life miserable for everyone.

They rarely admit that they do not know how to do their job. In fact, if they'd genuinely ask for help, or be honest about being unsure of something and willing to learn, they would slowly gain the respect of their peers. But the Dr. Peter is so interested in appearing authoritative in spite of their obvious shortcomings that the team usually works around them rather than with them.

I've also had the joy of inheriting a Dr. Peter as an employee. This individual had been doing the same job for - a long time (to protect the guilty, I am not saying for how long), but evaded dismissal in very creative ways. They maintained a positive personal friendship with the powers that be, and worked their fear of change and love of nostalgia to their advantage. They also did as little as possible that would involve any sort of risk, stayed below the radar at all possible times, and avoided taking responsibility for pretty much anything, or taking ownership of any situation in which they might fail.

Dr. Peter is probably the most aggravating of all the workforce archetypes.

5) The Cheerleader

You know this one. They break a daily sweat to ensure they embody each personality trait corporate culture teaches. Usually they're internal marketers of some kind, but more often than not, they're transparent to not only their peers, but their bosses in their perpetual attempt to be the teacher's pet.

They're at every fundraiser. In fact, they usually volunteer to make the posters and fliers, and are on (of not the sole member of) the planning committee. They raise their voices in agreement so often during staff meetings, that you half expect an "amen" and "hallelujah" after each Power Point slide has been presented.

They make the t-shirts for the bowling teams. They volunteer to take on special projects, (not that this is bad - but they do it every time) and will work long hours to ensure someone is impressed.

I'm not saying everyone who buys into corporate culture and works extra hours on side projects is a "cheerleader." In fact, being a cheerleader can be a good thing - so long it's done for the right reasons, and they recognize those times when the parameters need to be stretched, and the rule book needs to either be closed or re-written. The workplace archetype of which I'm writing here, does not know this.

Think Rain Man with pom-poms and an employee handbook in their back pocket.

6) The Expert

My sister recently blogged about this person, who was partly the inspiration for this post.

The Expert has done your job. The Expert has done your previous job. The Expert has long since mastered the job into which you're moving. They know your neighbors, and have done their jobs too.

They are champion name-droppers.

The Expert will stop to give you unsolicited advice on the most random of topics, for no particular reason. When they close their door, you just know they are Googling the details to some debate or interesting discussion they overheard in the next office. But they will never tell you that when they later casually bring up the topic over lunch. In fact, they will likely tell you the topic in question was the subject of their third Masters dissertation.

The funny thing about The Expert? Every single one I've ever had the dubious thrill of working with has either been fired or their position has been made redundant.

It's always fun to wait for a topic you're very familiar with to come up and let them dig their own hole before you correct them. But then, you know they'll just Google it later and revisit the argument some other time.

7) The Robot

This is the perfect employee. They contain none of the characteristics listed above. In fact, they instantly recognize each one, but will never tell anyone what they've seen in these people. No - they are above that. But they will never tell you that either, because they are humble.

This person is either a robot or an alien - but they are decidedly not human. They excel at their job, and they would likely excel at yours. But they would never admit that.

They do the best of deeds under the radar, offer quiet help to those around them, and never take undue (if any) credit. They appreciate corporate culture but do not preach it. They listen to gossip, (because they listen to everyone), but do not repeat it.

The Yoda quietly watches them, somewhat enviously. This person will be or already is either in charge of the entire operation, or multiple operations. If you do a good job, they tell you. If you do a bad job, they have a way of telling you that you quite possibly are the most incompetent person on the planet, and you will thank them for the advice. You suspect that they are worshiped in remote jungle societies.

I've worked with one of these in every position, and have always looked up to them, as everyone does. But I've always been a little too impatient to be this perfect member of the workforce. Like I said - I don't think they're really human, having come from the same planet as Martha Stewart, Anderson Cooper, and Meryl Streep.

So concludes my list.

There are many, many more common traits among coworkers, but generally, those traits mesh with one of the above. As I said, usually they're mixed and matched - multiple traits for one person, or more than one person with a single trait.

All except of course the robot.

Synchronicity And The Devil's Footprints

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning of February 9th 1855, in Devonshire, England, a set of hoof prints appeared in the snow. The prints extended from Exmouth, up to Topsham, and across the River Exe to Dawlish and Teignmouth. This was a track of over 100 miles. But that wasn't the unusual part. The trail of prints was reportedly unbroken. It went through gardens, up the walls of houses, over their rooftops, and back down again and on to the next property. The prints went to the banks of rivers, appearing on the other side. They literally went up the sides of fences and back down the other side. Apparently no other prints appeared near them. The phenomenon has become known as the Devil's Footprints, and was the inspiration for the title (and much of the plot) of my recently referred-to "Unborn Child," the story over which I've obsessed for over a decade. But that story was just the beginning. In fact, it wasn't the first story that got this ball rolling.

In 1930's Detroit, a man by the name of Joseph Figlock was walking by an apartment building when a baby fell out the window from above. Figlock caught the child, and both were unharmed. A year later, the same baby fell out the same window, and Figlock was again there to catch the child - and both were unharmed.

Nebraska, March 1st, 1950. Every member of a church choir was late to practice, all for different reasons. A gas explosion destroyed the church shortly before they arrived.

Jim Lewis and Jim Springer were twins, separated at birth, named by their adopted families independently. Both were trained in law enforcement. They each married a woman named Linda, and had a son each - James Alan and James Allen. They both had dogs named Toy, and before they were reunited, had divorced and remarried women named Betty.

London, November of 1971. A gifted architect, still recovering from a nervous breakdown, threw himself onto the tracks of an oncoming train. The train stopped before it could kill the man. This was not due to the conductor's quick timing - in fact, the conductor would not have had time to react in such a way. It turns out a passenger - on a complete whim and unsure why he did so - pulled the emergency cord, seconds before the architect took his leap.

Carl Jung wrote in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: “A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience.”

Google "synchronicity" and it's amazing what you can find. Of course, back in the late 90's, there was no Google (in today's form anyway) and I didn't have a computer - so I just kind of collected these stories. I found more and more of them, and was fascinated by each one. I understand that there are billions of people in this world, and the hundred monkeys will write a sonnet. But I was also looking into the theory of the cosmic trickster at this point.

Most major religions feature the trickster. Greek mythology's Prometheus always held fascination with me, stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans. He, more than any other of the world's tricksters provided the most inspiration.

But what do the cosmic trickster, synchronicity and the Devil's Footprints all have in common? I happened on this one after the story had already taken shape and I was in England. I stumbled on the story of the Devil's Footprints while I was researching the Trickster in various religions. It was, one could say, a coincidence that I hit the wrong link on the search engine page. Before I could hit the back button I began reading on the incident in Devonshire, and a new cord was struck.

I immediately wondered what the consequences of such an event on these communities would have been at that time. Did a man, frightened back into religion suddenly start going to church and meet his future bride? If so, what became of his children and their children? Did an unknown journalist get a name for himself in writing about the hoof prints? Was a child forbidden to go outside and play the day after the events - thus keeping her from falling through thin ice on a nearby pond? What were all the effects of this one peculiar incident? There had to be many - every cause has an effect.

So I then began thinking about it in reverse. What are the causes of each event happening around us all the time? Think about where you work. Why do you work there? What prompted you to apply? Why did you go to school to work in this vocation? What was your inspiration? You can trace it all back to your birth, and your parents' conceiving of you - why did they do so on that night? How did they meet? Why did they live where they did?

Every event has a birth in a previous event. Such a massive network of events would eventually, following their leads, form larger and fewer branches. The branches converge at the base - the trunk - that itself can be traced to a seed, the birth of the universe itself.

And starting from the moment of the universe's creation - the instant the big bang began - each particle had a path written for it, based on its trajectory, itself written by the ambient temperature and the particles around it - themselves following the same rules. Each particle's path became the stuff that formed stars, and eventually - us. We are all made of the same thing, born of the same instant.

Is this an argument for preordained existence? I'm not really sure, as I go back and forth on that one. But it is an argument for the existence of a pattern in nature, and synchronicity as being part of a very real, unimaginably large-scale structure.

Everything you do - every action you take - affects the world. Every automobile accident that slows the travel of hundreds or thousands of individuals has somehow changed their lives. They were late for appointments, had time to ponder decisions. In fact, every time you take a step, the Earth itself moves - however immeasurably - in the opposite direction. It's the ripple of a small pebble in a lake that changes the shape of the entire surface.

A few people asked what this story I've obsessed over is about. Well, this is why it's so hard to explain. I'm trying to take the big picture and repaint a microcosmic version of it onto the canvass of a few lives.

The rotting wood in a forest, giving a home to millions of bacteria and hundreds of insects, was once a seed - itself possibly carried in the belly of the bird whose descendants will dine on those very insects and bacteria. I have no idea how to paint such an immeasurably large picture onto such a tiny canvass. There's no doubt that I cannot begin to capture its complexity and beauty. But I'm working on it anyway.

An Inconvenient "?"

Then

 "Geologists Think The World May Be Frozen Up Again" 

                                              - New York Times, 1895

""Climate - The Heat May Be Off"

                                              -Fortune Magazine, 1954

"A Major Cooling Widely Considered To Be Inevitable"

                                               -New York Times, 1975

"Colder Winters Held Dawn Of New Ice Age"

                                              - Washington Post, 1970

"As for the present cooling trend, a number of leading climatologists have 

concluded that it is very bad news indeed."                                  

                                              - Fortune Magazine, 1974

"The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age."

                                              -Time Magazine, 1923

"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."

                                              -Time Magazine, 1974

"How long the current cooling trend continues is one of the most important problems of our civilization...the Earth could be plunged into a new ice age."

                                               - Science Magazine, 1969

"The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not be soon reversed."

                                                -Science Magazine, 1975

"Scientists Says Arctic Ice Could Wipe Out Canada"

                                                -Chicago Tribune, 1923

Now

 "Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming"

                                                 -New York Times, 2005

"[S]cientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible."

                                                 -Time Magazine, 2001

"Polar ice caps are melting faster than ever...by any measure, Earth is at the tipping point...the climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame..."

                                                 -Time Magazine, 2006

'Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier snowmelt are extending the wildfire season and increasing the intensity of wildfires in the western United States."
                                                  -Science Magazine, 2006

"The polar ice caps are shrinking, as are glaciers and mountain snow pack around the world."
                                                 -Chicago Tribune, 2009

 

About a year ago my sister and I were having a glass of wine, and the topic of climate change was brought up. I mentioned how annoyed I was that any time a cold snap occurred, I inevitably heard people say "so much for global warming." I thought this was idiocy in the extreme. After all, climate and weather are two completely different things.

Well, Mandy made a comment about the fact that is wasn't proven. At this point I was pretty convinced that it all but had, and a few days later set out to find some articles to send her on the subject. I was astounded at what I found. 

Well, I dropped it and never sent her the articles, as I got distracted (as I do) and forgot about it. However, I did find some compelling research supporting my argument - and some equally compelling evidence to the contrary.

What was fascinating to me was how convincing the argument was on both sides, and for the first time actually caused me to think about climate change as a question rather than a fact of life.

I am a liberal, on many issues. While reading up on this, especially over the past couple of days as I prepared to write this entry, it occurred to me that if “Dubya” had espoused the threat of global warming, I may have called some of the current conventional wisdom (no, that is not a redundancy) into question.

The fact is, conservatives read and follow conservative pundits. Liberals do the same on their end. So what we’re exposed to largely depends on, and is perpetuated by, our existing beliefs.

The more I dug, the bigger the question mark seemed to become. So many articles (if not most) that I found did in fact contain or reference raw data. But the facts that were backed up were intricately woven into the fabric of the article along with facts that were not.

Moreover, in multiple instances articles on both sides of the argument utilized the same raw data to support their respective arguments. In each case this happened, it practically nullified my confidence in the source study as a means to promote either stance.

What was really shown here, is that enough data can be effectively manipulated to accentuate whatever point it is you’re trying to make. In these cases, your perspective influences the outcome. This is much in the same way the perspective of a climate change denier (I use this term referencing CBS reporter Scott Pelley’s comparison of climate change skeptics to Holocaust deniers) reading more on the subject and picking out the articles that support their case.

Let’s say – for the sake of argument – (because I’m not taking a side here) that climate change is a very real, very imminent threat. What can we do about it? Many point to our failure to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol. Dr. James Hansen of NASA has estimated that the Kyoto Protocol would only affect temperatures by .13C by 2100, and that it would take 30 Kyotos to have an acceptable inpact on climate change.

Why so little impact? Well, one fun fact I turned up repeatedly is that 96.5% of all Carbon Dioxide emissions are from natural sources – water vapor, methane, (all mammals fart), volcanoes, even rotting vegetation, to name a very few sources. Mankind is directly responsible for about 3.5%. Only 0.6% of this comes from internal-combustion engines, meaning that if every car were to be plucked from the roads right now, it would have very little, if any substantive impact.

So why the impact in the other direction? Why have we seemingly caused so much of it? Well, here’s the question. If Carbon Dioxide levels cause global warming, then why did the Journal Science report recently that arctic ice cores record a shift in Carbon Dioxide after temperature fluxuations dating back thousands of years? Which is cause and which is effect?

By now you’re thinking that I could be attempting to make a case against climate change, and the human factor. That’s not the case.

I could reference the Oregon Petition, which boasts some 18,000 signatures from scientists around the world stating that there is no evidence to support man-made global warming theory. But then, I could also nitpick who those scientists are, and seek out motivation for signing such a petition.

All research is funded. Who pays the check can have a serious impact on the findings, or the interpretation of data. This is true on both sides of the argument. One has to think only a moment of the money that can be shifted one way or another to begin to doubt some findings.

One could say that the famous “hockey stick” graph, which “proved” carbon dioxide emissions were causing global warming, was erroneous  – the use of proxies prior to 1850, the use of thermometers in city-centers that recorded urban heat island effects… Or, one could point out that the data has been scrutinized on both sides of the debate and both sides come up with their own predictable results.

It is practically indisputable that something is occurring. What that something is, and what is causing it, are still in question. Scientists who publicly protest the current climate change theory and its causes are systematically vilified.

So what is my conclusion? Well, I’m not going to conclude with my opinion. It wouldn’t change anything – most people who will read this have already formed their own opinion, which is not likely to change.

I challenge you though – if you believe climate change to be a real threat, research the arguments. Conversely, if you believe climate change to be a fear-mongering fad, research the case for it. The more you dig, the more interesting the debate becomes – in fact, the clearer it becomes that it is still a debate, it’s just more fashionable to accept the crisis.

Just please keep this in mind: nothing affects the emotional state of a populace or an individual (and therefore their actions) more potently and effectively than fear. I am not trying to persuade anyone in one direction or another, simply to point out the big neon question mark hanging over the issue. Try as we may to ignore it (on both sides of the argument), and as inconvenient as it may be to some – it’s still there. Let’s talk about it.

My Unborn Child

Eleven years ago I sat down in front of my room mate's computer and began conceiving a story. I even wrote about fifty pages, writing every night, only to forget about it when I moved to England. While I was there, my friend Mark let me borrow his old 386 after a drunk evening when I remembered the story, and told him about it. So once again I sat down to the story, and rewrote what I remembered of it, and added some things. It began to grow, to my surprise.

It was at this point that the story took on a name: The Devil's Footprints.
For the rest of my time in England I would go back to the story, drop it, then come back to it. The characters, though remaining the same in name, began to grow and take on lives of their own. It was while I was in England that for the first time something amazing and unexpected occurred - the story was changing as I was writing it. The characters almost seemed to act of their own accord.

It was at this point that I began reading the Dune series. I couldn't hep but think how wonderful it must have been for Frank Herbert to imagine, conceive, then give birth to his own universe. I enjoy the books surrounding the original series written by his son and a collaborator, but as entertaining as they are they lack the scope and vision of the originals. The depth they do contain was founded on the original idea. But I digress (as I do). The point is, I kept thinking of The Devil's Footprints as I read these books. So envious and enamored I was with Frank Herbert's sweeping vision, a world at once completely apart and exactly the same as ours. It was a funhouse mirror on our universe, one seen from a distance that puts our world in a new perspective by placing it 10,000 years in the future. I was then determined that one day I would let my own little universe out to let somebody else see it.

Fast forward a few years, and I was in Summerville, South Carolina working night audit at a plantation inn. The night audit would be done by midnight, leaving me with seven dark, quiet, lonely hours in the woods to essentially just be there if I were needed. I never was. So once again I picked up The Devil's Footprints right where I had left off. But this time I decided to begin outlining. I thought that by outlining, the synapses in my brain that represent each of these characters would stop veering off-path.

I began writing from the outline, and in each session the story seemed to take on its own life as I wrote it. More turmoil occurred in my life, and I set it down again, letting it collect dust in the back of my mind. I would never have suspected that it was still growing, becoming something of an unborn child.

Once I moved to DC, I began outlining again. I would walk around the monuments at night, go to the Smithsonian, wander, and think of the story - sometimes ending the day in a bar with a notebook and pen. Outlining was often the last thing I did before I went to sleep. At this point it was conceiving the story that became the fun part. It was as escapist as reading any novel ever had been.

So once again I set about writing it out. I've lost so many versions of the beginning of this story, that writing the first fifty pages had at this point been more clerical than creative. But here again, my life was uprooted and I found myself in Rhode Island.

In Rhode Island, Eric and I rented a house near Providence. This house had a back deck, and quickly I bought a table and some chairs, knowing that I had found a refuge for The Devil's Footprints to grow.
I spent so many hours those two and half years out there outlining, developing characters, creating maps (for my own use, to keep a consistent vision as this world grew). I made family trees, even wrote a few journal entries from the perspective of the main character. I have three notebooks in a box somewhere with the original outlines, and two or three binders still in Rhode Island with further outlines. (However, at this point I'm pretty much fine without them, I know the thing so well).

By my second year in Rhode Island I felt like it had become an obsession. I was writing as well as outlining, and probably wrote (if you include everything I ever deleted), around 350 pages, maybe more.
I find myself back in South Carolina now, dancing around the story, and still thinking about it all the time. I have ideas in mind for other stories, including one surrounding Summerville, stories that are not nearly as outlandish, and take place in the world as we know it, in the here and now. But as I sat down the other day to try to begin the story about Summerville, (after having done some light research), I realized that I couldn't write anything else until The Devil's Footprints is done.

It's become my favorite pet, this monkey sitting on my back. I hate it bitterly but love it. I can't write anything else until it's done, I realize that now.

As far as what I might do with it - who knows? At this point I don't care as much about that as I do completing this thing. I want to let it run its course and get the hell out of my system!
Sure, I have a few pipe dreams of publishing, but if I'm writing this for that, I think I might cheat myself, and the story. I need to let The Devil's Footprints unfold as it always has - on its own, my fingers the vessels.

Maybe I'll let my nephew Zach have it one day, (as my nieces are likely not as apt to enjoy this type of story. Aside from being a fantasy, it can at times get a little violent. Abby didn't even like the opening scene of Bolt). Maybe I should write it for him, and think only of his enjoyment when he gets older. In that I likely won't be as self-conscious and will love the process for what it is.

The Devil's Footprints is my unborn child. Only instead of nine months, I've been carrying this kicking, punching baby inside of me for eleven years. I think it's time to finally let it come on out.

I may ask some of you to help with the delivery. I might paste a few pages here from time to time and let you tell me what you think. Or I might ask your opinions, and maybe even ask for you to help in research. Though I don't think I need much in that respect, as I pretty much know the damn story from start to finish.
And it's grown. It's grown in scope, in number of characters, and in plot. I'm not even sure how I'm going to squeeze some of it in there, but there are things that must be squeezed in.

So here we go - here is my final new year's resolution - I am going to finish this damn thing, if for no other reason than so I can move onto other stories. It may give me the practice I need, and maybe I'll go back to it once and a while to polish it, help the child become an adult. And maybe then he will be ready for Zach.
As I close this post, I'm getting ready to start the process. No more hours and hours of outlining. It's time to start. Again. And finish.

Happy New Year everyone. Wish me luck.

About Face

Usually I think very hard about what I'm going to write. I diagram, outline, brainstorm, and lay my thoughts and feelings out on paper to organize and make coherent before funneling them onto the monitor. But something is always lost in translation. Some nuance of emotion can never quite be translated and strung into a meaningful sentence. So I decided this time I would simply write what I'm thinking, as I think it, and hope that maybe what I'm feeling will take form in the written word. And maybe then I can look at it and figure it out for myself. Because I'm not exactly sure what I'm feeling.

My sister and my mother wrote two beautiful, but very different blogs today. Mandy wrote about what was lost and her reminders of last Christmas - when we knew our Dad would not be around for this one. She wrote about the last time we were able to really drink and laugh together, on her porch, freezing but letting the laughter and alcohol warm us. It was a welcome but fleeting relief, when we forgot about the chemo, the weight loss, the event we knew that would come, just didn't know it would be the following April.
She wrote about the mockingbird, the animal that's become a family symbol of the man we love so dearly and miss so terribly.

My mother however,  wrote about looking forward, about how Christmases will still come as people come and go. She wrote about how life gives us the gifts we need to accept death.
I had a hard time reading my sister's latest entry, maybe because it just hits so close to home with me. It must have taken so much out of her to write it, so honest it was. Maybe it was so hard because I've still, no matter how hard I try not to, have been dealing with this the best way I know how - through distraction.

The last time I visited my Dad's grave, I sat in the grass and talked to him until the dam burst and my grief came rushing out. I thought I would never get back off the ground, and doubted I had the strength strength to do so. Couple this with the fact that I have left who I still think may have been the love of my life - or at least the first person I was ever truly in love with, and one moment I'm full of life, the next I feel numb. One moment I'm grateful for what I have, the next I'm staring off into space thinking about Rhode Island or England.

I left my partner back in February to come home to take care of our Dad while he was sick. I thought the separation would be temporary. When I first moved up to Rhode Island to be with my him, I was escaping. I was escaping a horrible job in DC - and into the arms of someone who loved me. Before that, I went to DC to escape a stagnant life in Charleston. Prior to Charleston I was in England, a place where I rushed to escape a similar stagnation in Columbia.

I've been obsessed with changing who I was at any given point in life. My hair has been black, blonde red, and every color in the spectrum in between. My face has been pierced, then left to heal. I've had glasses, then contacts, then glasses. I've gained weight, lost it, gained it, and lost it again. I've always been obsessed with being different - not from anyone around me, but from whomever I chose to be previously. I've left jobs as I've been promoted, left relationships undeveloped, left friendships when my friends needed me the most, never bringing anything to completion. I think I've always been so terrified of losing anything, I've let it go before I could experience what it was to really have it. Maybe the distance I've put between my family and me at times is a symptom of that. And now I hold them closer than ever because I cannot handle losing anything else, while I learn to live with the loss I've had this year.

So here I am, home because I chose  to be home last Winter, to face my Dad's illness with him, and help my family take care of him. I did this after running further and further north, partly to escape coming out to my family, which proved to be at once easier than I thought and harder than I could imagine. I came out to them knowing I would not have the wife and kids my parents deserved after putting up with such an arrogant, rebellious child.

But when my Dad died, try as I may, everything I had ever run from seemed to come crashing into my backside as his death brought my life - and my running - to a sudden halt.

So now, this first Christmas without him, I find myself dealing with learning to live life while exorcising all the ghosts that seem to continue to catch up to me. I'm doing this while consciously leaving the person with whom I promised to spend the rest of my life. And my knee-jerk reaction? I'm thinking about a rooming list I need to get from a client, prospecting I need to do to make my goals. I'm thinking about my trip to DC to visit a couple of dear friends in late January. I'm thinking about everything but what needs to be dealt with - as I've always done.

So as I force myself to turn about face and close my eyes and let it come at me - all the things from which I've run - I'm finding the impact reshaping who I am. But it's forcing me to stop shutting it all out. I've opened the floodgates and let the waves crash into me, head on.

I had the opportunity to once again take a position in DC. I didn't pursue it. I've made the decision to stay home for once. I'll wait for it all to catch up to me, and I'll deal with it all, one item at a time.

Eventually I'll be able to call Rhode Island without crying - I'll have to. I owe him at the very least that much. As much as I don't believe my partner and I are right for each other, at least not right now, (and as I write that without the conviction I think should have, given my decision), I so badly want him in my life. I will call his beautiful family and maintain a relationship with them. I will visit my Dad's grave more often. I will pay off my debts, and I will stop running.

I have been at perhaps the lowest point in my life this year. What I've felt has not compared to anything I've ever experienced. It's as if I've stopped running long enough for the sand storm to catch up and scour my skin raw to the bone.

But what I've learned this year is not that despite the painful parts of life, I want to live. I've learned that I want to live.

I don't want to miss anything. I have so much to do yet. I have two nieces and a nephew to watch grow up. I have to make more money so I can spoil them as an uncle should. I want my own children. I want them to know their brilliant cousins and incredible, fiercely loving family. I want them to feel as lucky as I do, despite it what life throws their way. I want to teach them to turn about face and not make the mistakes I've made.

This year, as broke as I might be, I went a little overboard with the shopping. Because of what I've lost, I have a new appreciation for what I have. Any shopper's remorse I might have will be cured by huge blue eyes smiling through torn Christmas paper. It'll reinforce why I'm here, in South Carolina.

I love my job. Yep - I love it. It's been a very long time since I could really say that. I have amazing bosses and incredible coworkers. Yes, hospitality and I are going through a very extended, very messy divorce - but we're learning to live with each other for a while before it's finalized.

This Christmas my Dad's absence will be heavy. When we're all smiling, laughing, opening gifts and enjoying each others' company, it will be the elephant not in the room. I'll also wake up tomorrow morning thinking about someone in Rhode Island, and I'll go to bed tomorrow night thinking about him. I'll probably spend every day for a very long time wondering if I made the right decision.

But I'll also think about who's here. I'll hug my nieces and nephew a little tighter. I'll hug my Mom and sister and Bio-Dad a little more often. I will embrace what's here, because now more than ever I would love to realize how much I love something while I can still reach out and touch it.

For once I want to stop having one foot in Rhode Island and another foot in England, while admiring the world in front of me from a comfortable distance. It's what I've always done, and I think it's time to live and act here and now. It's time to end the permanent detour. If my Dad left me nothing else, if he never taught me anything else, it's just that - his last gift to me on the first Christmas without him.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hug your family. Love what you have.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The paranormal, the mysteries of life and the things that go "bump" have been known to keep me up at night. I know I'm not the only one, and while during the daylight hours I always think I was being silly the night before, the wee hours of the morning, when I've had little sleep, have a way of amplifying my fear while suspending my logic.

I knew I would want to tackle this subject eventually, and I thought that with Halloween looming, this would be as good a time as any.

I was married in Salem, Massachusetts. And though the historic witch trials only took up fifteen months of the city's nearly 384-year history, you would think it was all that had ever happened there. (Actually, the trials took place in neighboring town of Danvers). Don't get me wrong, there are a few museums and landmarks in Salem not devoted to the trials, (The House of the Seven Gables, Maritime Center, Pirate Museum, Peabody-Essex Museum), the town seems to be dedicated to the dark spot on its resume.

We were married in Salem mostly because it's a beautiful, surprisingly friendly (given its proximity to Boston) and liberal town. A gay marriage ceremony in the town square did not bring protests, or even a batted eyelid. But the place is dotted with magic shops, witch museums, haunted houses, ghost walks, and a statue of Elizabeth Montgomery in the town square. There's even a museum dedicated to Lizzie Bordon, which is odd, since the infamous ax murders took place in Fall River, 70 miles to the South. But these are things that bring in the money. These tourist traps are what make Salem a Halloween Mecca and a trip to Salem a veritable Hajj for Wiccans and their ilk.

Why does this otherwise beautiful town need to focus on a piece of history that could be considered shameful and embarrassing? Again - money talks. And why does the the lure of the supernatural draw so many visitors?

I've had my fair share of odd experiences, unexplainable events. I'm a jinx around electronics. Recently my password to our reservations system at work was expiring every hour or so, for no good reason. I didn't think much about it at the time, but the same thing has happened to my email accounts at work, my voice mail, and even the desktop to my computer. Coupled with my experiences of what some in the old south call a "hagging" (though I never saw the thing, as it really just consisted of my being awake but unable to move, and have since read up on many reasonable explanations), dreams that seem to come true during the day in one form or another, (though always in hindsight, and anything is open to interpretation) and just general weirdness that seems to surround me, I tend to raise an eyebrow when anything out of the ordinary occurs. My life has always been full of odd coincidences, feelings of not being alone, (again scientifically explainable), and just about a weekly bout of serious deja vu. But I don't obsess over them. Obsessing over these things will not solve their collective mystery. I've never found a reason for any of these things, and I likely never will. I'm not worried about it in the slightest. I kind of like not knowing when it comes to these things, at least not concretely.

But it's still fun to ponder the unexplainable from time to time. Why?

It's widely known that during times of strife and unrest people flock to the movies more often. Television programs like Heroes, Lost and Smallville do very well. More interestingly, programs that more closely resemble our lives, (relatively speaking of course) like Desperate Housewives, House, Brothers & Sisters, etc.. do equally well, if not better. They require less effort to engage, less suspension of reality. They allow escapism to be easy, make light work of taking us to another universe, just one that doesn't happen to be populated by aliens or ghosts, unless they choose to "jump the shark." We can escape into others' lives, and not feel like we're watching fantasy - though we are.

Is this a healthy outlet? It could be that by allowing ourselves to become absorbed in these very-recognizable universes such as Wisteria Lane, we subconsciously find solutions to our own real-life problems, as they're extrapolated into a preposterous situation in our 42" worlds. We crave the catharsis, the reaching of a conclusion to an impossible situation in an hour. We can easily become addicted to that catharsis when in life we haven't reached those solutions ourselves.

Some likely think their lives are too boring, or more seriously may be afraid to examine their own lives more closely. Dangerously, television can fill that gap nicely, if you let it.

What does this have to do with the obsession by some in the paranormal? Absolutely everything.

By focusing on life's mysteries, we suspend our own realities. Sci-fi, horror, fantasy, to some is what drinking is to others - holding the clutches of the real world at arm's length just long enough to get some sweet escapist relief. Eventually though, the movie ends and the lights come back on. You can buy another ticket and go back in for another feature, but the theater will have to eventually close.

This isn't always the case - there are countless aspiring Fox Mulders out in the world who really do wish to find the truth of these seemingly other-worldly events through observation, experimentation and analysis. Their motives may not be escapism, but then again, their motives may be no less than to reel their projected fantasy world into reality by using logic. Just a thought.

So why does all this hold my interest? Into which category to I belong? I think I need to know that there is more going on. This is by no means an uncommon need.

The incidents I mentioned in my life above, and maybe a little more, are enough to tell me that there is in fact much more to life than what we see. Maybe those bumps we hear in the night are knocks on our doors. Maybe if there are unknown intelligences 'out there,' our mere suspicion of their existence keeps some of us going through the darkest times of our lives.

I'm not going to delve into my personal belief system here, but when there are events in life that can't be explained, you can do one of three things: You can ignore and dismiss them, you can obsess over them and lose sleep over research, or you can simply go with your gut. The third option is where I fall. To me this makes the most sense - answer the questions of life's outer mysteries with your own inner ones. Isn't this why human intuition exists, to fill the gaps logic can't?

It's a pretty big world out there, and it's arrogance to believe we've done more than just begin to scratch the surface. Last week a mysterious ribbon of particles were discovered at the edge of our solar system, http://www.universetoday.com/2009/10/15/spacecraft-detects-mysterious-ribbon-at-edge-of-solar-system/heliosphere-2/which by the way, like the rest of the universe, is full of matter that we also can't explain or even identify http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/dark_matter.html ). We can't even fully explain gravity. We haven't yet begun.

Bumps in the night should not surprise us.

Maybe that bump in the night is a knock at the door. Maybe it's a knock that comes late at night, in the darkest hour before the sun illuminates the real world in the morning. Maybe you answer the knock, and nobody is there.

And maybe the one who knocked just wanted to know if you were paying attention.

Happy Halloween!

Fifteen Minutes Through Columbia, At The Other Side of the Fence

"And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself - well...how did I get here?" 

                                                                                   -David Byrne, Talking heads

                                                                                    Once In A Lifetime

I try not to get too wrapped up in nostalgia. Don’t get me wrong, it has its place. If we don’t reflect on our experiences, we can't grow from them. But reflection can be a slippery slope, getting so wrapped up in your past that you forget to experience the present. New experiences give way to the previous. You can get so involved in the past that as the world moves on around you, it leaves you behind in a self-reflective feedback loop. That might be an extreme example, but we've all seen it happen. Maybe we’ve even experienced it once or twice, getting lost in photo albums for maybe a little too long, or dwelling alone over a bottle of wine and dusty yet dangerous should-haves. I know I have more than my fair share of should-haves, longing for a means to correct and reroute what’s already been done. But I’ve learned not to focus on who I was, but rather who I could be. Maybe I’ve learned that a little later in life than I should have, but then if I’d taken the time to reflect on the present at a younger age, I wouldn’t have that problem now.

See how easy it is to get caught up?

Last night I made my weekly ritual commute from Greenville to Summerville. If there’s any stretch of road in this country I know, it’s I-26 in South Carolina. I know it’s a 34 minute stretch from I-385 at I-85 to I-26. I know that in five minutes I’ll pass Joanna, ten more minutes, Jalapa. I know that Newberry is fifteen minutes to Dreher Island, and another ten minutes to the outskirts of Columbia. Then from the Ballantine/White Rock exit, what I consider the boundary, it’s fifteen minutes to the Zeus plant near the Dixiana exit. There are four St. Matthews exits, three Orangeburg exits. One of the St. Matthews exits is also an Orangeburg exit, and it has some colorful rocks displaying a smiley-face to your right.

Thirty-eight minutes later and you’re at I-95. Past I-95, the scenery takes on a decidedly low country appearance. Spanish Moss appears on the live oaks and the wetlands seem to be threatening to take over the interstate the moment they're allowed, if the cars would just stop for five minutes. The road soon flattens out. It’s the home stretch. The smell of low tide and paper mill creeps in over the smell of pine trees. This happens right around Summerville.

Each time I pass through Columbia I know I should stop and see Dad, or Sam, or one of my aunts, but I keep going. I just don’t want to stop. It’s not that I don’t want to see them, it’s just that I want to get home to Summerville. But last night I think I figured out from where some of my hesitation comes. 

Before I left work in Greenville I had a glass of wine with my co-workers. Therefore, around the time I hit Irmo (on the outskirts of Columbia, near said Ballantine/White Rock exit) I really needed a bathroom. So I waited the fifteen minutes, and hit the rest stop just past the Zeus building.

I got out of the car, and with a deep breath took in a scent I had forgotten all about. I don’t know if anybody reading this has ever noticed, but each city, each town has a specific smell. The outskirts of West Columbia is no different. It’s a mix of pine, exhaust, grass. I couldn't tell you what it consisted of. I couldn't begin to describe it. 

I made my way to the predictably lemony-scummy rest stop bathroom and came out, once again being hit by the cool air carrying that smell (mind you anything is better than urinal cakes). It was not a bad smell. On the contrary, it was really quite nice. It’s said that smell is the scent most closely linked to memory. I wandered down the sidewalk, stretching my arms and legs, and stopped to take in the nighttime Columbia skyline. From a distance it actually looks like a decent-sized city. 

Columbia has a distinct culture. It might not seem so from an outsider, but Columbians have a history and even certain terms only they can interpret. For instance, unless you’re from Columbia you have no idea what I’m referring to when I say the Brown Sign with the Sowing Machine in the Corner. Or the Vomit Comet at Naked Iguana. Or Malfunction Junction, General Frontage, Cabin Fever, Mister Knowzit, Captain Telegram, Trustus, Group Therapy, the now-closed hundred year-old Capitol Restaurant, ad infinitum.   It will all always be a part of me, as much as I tend to brush it aside.

I took my gaze away from the skyline and meandered over to a chain-link fence that stood blocking access to the Frontage Road (see: General Frontage – pronounced Fronn-taj). A memory hit me that threw me back fifteen years, jarring me. I walked down that road once with a backpack and a few friends, heading toward somewhere or other, likely getting up to no good. I remember approaching the fence from the other side and wondering where that rest top was. It was a sobering shock to me to see that spot again. I couldn't believe I was there again. I remember that night so well.  


And here I was, fifteen or so years later, looking back from the other side. It was an odd feeling, as if I was looking back at some stranger so many years prior, with the backdrop of my home city creating a day-glow some distance behind me. I could still picture myself there, off the side of the frontage road - piercings, green hair, likely a beer in my hand. I wondered if I would have been able to picture myself looking ahead a decade and a half - in a suit, coming from Greenville, a corporate event planner. Out to the world, a partner in Rhode Island where I wanted to return. I might have spat in my own face. It would have been against my very core values. 

Same As It Ever Was

I sometimes miss wild nights in Columbia, wandering (stumbling) home from Five Points, shooting fireworks from the roof of Cornell Arms, climbing on rooftops, finding my way to the tops of office buildings, staring out my apartment window at Adluh…Flour…Adluhflour while waiting for our neighbors to come over so we could find something vaguely interesting to do. That was around the time I started getting bored with it all. The parties, the drinking, the punk shows, the gay bar. It just got old, stale, as the still heat stewing in a city on a hill, with few trees, surrounded by wetlands. (Columbians often say Columbia sits right over Hell). 


Back then, I continued this lifestyle simply as a default. It was just what I did. We waxed philosphical in Cafe' Espresso and later continued the debate over beer and who-knows-what until we found ourselves at a show, dancing and drinking until we passed out. 

Now the party is over, and I look back on it all and wonder what, if anything, I got out of it all. I started my life too late I think sometimes. But then, I think before I leave for Rhode Island, I want just one more wild night in Columbia, and put it all to bed for good. Maybe we'll go to the Art Bar. Maybe we'll feel pretentious enough to sit in Goatfeathers and wax political, and maybe after a few more drinks in the Library we'll head for pizza at the Village Idiot. Maybe we'll shoot fireworks from the roof of Cornell Arms. Then again, I'm not sure if I would get the same enjoyment out of it. But I still need to do it just one more time. 


If I know a place in this world well, it's Columbia. It's still a part of me. But I don't feel a connection to it. I've never felt it was my home town. And I don't relate to the guy I was fifteen years ago, at the other side of the fence. But he was still me. Somehow, he was part of the road that led to who I am now. Somehow, some way, I hopped the fence. And now I just want one more taste of what it was like over there. But then, if I were there, would it still be the same? Probably not. 


I slowly walked back to my car, got in,  and drove the rest of the way to Summerville.  I didn’t think about that experience again until I sat down to make some format changes on this blog. I know this was not supposed to be a diary, but I had to write about it. I feel a little better now. I still wonder how I got from green-haired, pierced, party boy to corporate event planner. I wonder if I lost something along the way.  

I’ll get back to less self-absorption next time I write, but thanks for listening. 

"And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house? 
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go? 
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong? 
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?"