Monthly Archives: March 2010

Civility

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When I broke my leg, I had to stay at home for eight weeks. During that time, I have had time to read Facebook and other social network sites, in addition to reading the newspaper and watching TV.

I am amazed just how rude and uncivil people are to each other. Lately with the debate about the health care bill, the level of sheer uncivility has been palpable. Elected officials have been spat upon and attacked. The Party of “No” has become the central collection of the babbling buffoons of negativity. Civility, however defined, is completely lost.

I see it on Facebook, with radical name-calling, rude behavior, and ugliness toward others. I have had to “de-friend” several people who have gone over the deep end in being brainwashed by the radical right-wing zealots and spewing lies via a social network site. I do not need those kinds of people in my life.

I have sensed this was happening for quite some time, since the economy took a nose-dive. People are scared. Their orientation toward a brighter future is completely gone. They are worried about themselves, which is understandable. They want to protect their loved-ones and their lifestyle. I get it. But tearing someone else down on a personal level is not the way to make you or your ideas become more accepted! Get a life!

Life is short: at least be civil, even if you disagree.

First Day in Two Boots

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I got the cast off of my leg on Friday, and spent most of Friday afternoon removing the ugly gunk that had built up on my skin under the cast. It was great to take a bath and then a shower. You really don’t know what you’re missing when you can’t bathe by taking a shower or immersing your body in a bathtub of hot water.

After I got dressed, I tried, but was unable, to put a boot on my right leg. At first I thought the air cast that I was given was too big as I could not pull on various boots. And I tried several different styles of boots. I gave up… I was tired. I put that stupid “cast boot” back on over my injured foot/ankle and went to dinner with my family.

However, I was determined to get re-booted. Friday evening and Saturday morning, I did some stretching and flexing exercises. They really helped me regain movement in my ankle. I was able to point my injured ankle almost to the same range as its uninjured partner. I thought, “if the purpose of an air cast is to provide support and prevent the ankle from twisting, won’t a good solid boot do that?”

I called a friend who is an orthopedic specialist. While he is unfamiliar with my specific situation, he has done enough work with feet, ankles, and legs to know what I was describing. He said that I could substitute a boot for the air cast if I had to get out, but that if it got painful or the ankle swelled more, to take the boot off, put ice on it and rest.

So I pointed my injured ankle and on came my Wesco combat boots. It didn’t hurt! The good thing about lace-up boots is that they can accommodate variances in ankle sizes. My injured ankle is still a little swollen.

I laced up the boots and stood up … and walked! Woo-hoo! It actually felt better walking in those boots than walking with the stupid cast boot on my right foot and a regular boot on my left.

I proceeded to do some things that I needed to do, such as get my hair cut, attend an essential community meeting, and prepare meals for my partner and me. My beloved “St. Partner” drove me in his car, because I am not quite ready to drive myself yet. (One thing at a time.) By mid-afternoon, I was tired and sore. I took the boots off, elevated my leg, and put an ice pack on it. But man… it sure felt good to be re-booted!

Life is short: wear your boots!

Castlessness At Last!

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My partner took me back to the orthopedic specialist yesterday, and the results of x-rays show the healing of my broken right fibula is progressing well, so that big lunky cast was removed and I am now in a state of:

CAST-LESS-NESS!!!!

Woo-hoo!

I need a cane because I am wobbly yet, as well as to keep people from running over me in their haste to get somewhere faster than me. It hurts a little bit, but it is far better than having that dead weight on which I couldn’t walk dangling from my right knee.

Yippee! I am making progress!

My immediate priorities:

1. Take a BATH! The residual on my leg and ankle is ugly, flaky, messy stuff. It needed to come off and my leg needed to get some air. That bath yesterday felt sooooooooo good!

2. Walk to the degree that I can. I need to begin moving again.

3. Get a HAIR CUT! Arrggghhh… I haven’t been so much of a long-haired hippie freak since I was in high school.

4. Have dinner with the family. (Check… did that last night when one of my nieces picked me up and my nephew took me home. I am still not quite ready to drive my truck or my Harley quite yet.)

5. Visit my lovely aunt. I have missed her terribly!

6. Do whatever I can begin to do for my partner. Cook, clean, have some nookie… (evil grin).

7. Since I am allowed to drive, go with my partner to an empty parking lot and practice. I will work into this slowly. I am dreaming of riding my Harley, but since the ding-dang doctor said I shouldn’t ride my bike for at least another month, I’m not going to fight it right now. I will wait a little while and take driving one step at a time. First in four wheels then on two.

8. Learn how to use a cane properly — holding it on the side opposite the formerly injured leg.

9. Go to physical therapy. Unfortunately, my health plan is a mediocre bureaucracy and their understaffed overworked physical therapy center can’t fit me in until March 29. Meanwhile, I’m doing some stretching exercises at home and walking some more.

10. SLEEP! Yes, yes yes! Actually SLEEP! I have not had one good night’s sleep since I broke my leg because the lunky thing dangling on the end of my right leg made me uncomfortable, enough such that I would wake every half-hour or so. I look forward to one solid and peaceful night of complete through-the-night SLEEP!

Life is short: get some sleep!

St. Partner

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Today is a big day for me. As you read this, my partner either will be taking me or has already taken me to see my orthopedic specialist and have the cast removed from my leg! Woo-hoo! Wish me well as I enter the next phase of my recovery, which I presume will include some physical therapy, but also includes returning to work.

I want to give a word of thanks to my family and very close friends who have held me close and showed their care and concern. I truly appreciate it.

This blog post, however, is about my partner who I have been referring to lately with my family and friends as “Saint.” For the past eight weeks, he has dutifully cared for me in 1,001+ ways. From helping me to bathe, to preparing meals, to doing all of the grocery shopping, to clearing my path of passage so I would not trip (again), to carrying this box of reviews here and picking up that box of plans there so I can continue my civic functions as best I can, to finding things to keep me entertained and less pre-occupied with my plight, to putting up with dozens of family friends visiting me (he hates visitors), to listening to me grump and grumble, to carrying everything for me everywhere, and for generally putting up with me in a million ways.

Okay, you say, “you’re in that type of relationship. You often say that you are as close as being married. I mean, that’s what he should be doing for you anyway.” Right?

Well, there are two ways of looking at it: “I did it because I had no other choice” vs. “I did it because I wanted to.”

My partner has truly wanted to help me. It’s been hell sometimes, too, with snowpocalypse and its relentless brother-of-a-storm right after that during a time when I only had a splint on my leg and truly couldn’t walk. He literally had to lift me in and out of chairs and on and off the toilet. He has had to handle removing 40″ of snow over four storms while I was laid up. He had to get the generator-running during multiple power outages. He had to cart me to doctor’s appointments on top of everything else. But he wanted to.

I sense that he is as anxious as I am for my life to return to some semblance of normal. He wants what is best for me. He allows me to take on activities that I reasonably can do that do not run risk of causing further injury or prolonging my healing. But he has really clamped down on me doing anything that might risk any stress or strain whatsoever. NO going anywhere — not on his watch!

I think of all the time that I have been in this situation and think: there’s no way I could have managed this alone. I worry about friends who truly are alone and who have no one else. All of us should have people in our lives who will care for us if we need it. But few of us have someone who just does it not because he “has to,” but because, as St. Partner says, “it’s what I do.”

This, fellow blog readers, is why my partner and I have melded our hearts as one. We respond very similarly. We see what needs to be done and just do it. Caring for people is not a “visit-grandma this quarter” kinda thing. It is an ongoing process.

I am blessed. Truly blessed. I love my man with my every fiber of my being.

Now, onward! Off with the cast and on with my life!

Straight Guy In Leather

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Guest blog by J, BHD’s twin brother

I’m a straight guy, married to a wonderful woman, and I usually wear suits in my daily life. My brother, BHD, has accused me of being the Imelda Marcos of dress shoes as he is the accumulator of boots. Nonetheless, I do not wear leather items other than a leather jacket and shoes. I have not been interested in wearing leather (nearly as interested in wearing leather items as my brother is), nor have I had the reason to wear something like leather jeans since I do not regularly ride a motorcycle or play in a rock band.

That changed last week. My wife and I were on a stroll through Forum des Halles, a large market in Paris (France). This is where we live.

We usually buy items to snack on, fresh vegetables, or the occasional item like a hand-made sweater. The market is wonderful, with many vendors offering all sorts of interesting things.

As we were strolling past the stalls of vendors selling their wares, I saw a display of leather garments. The vendor had some nice jackets, and I stopped to look. They were all too short for my tall frame. I began to turn away when my wife spotted a pair of leather pants and held them up to my waist. She said, “those would look good on you!”

I was shocked. My wife is quite fashion conscious, and has never expressed that she thought I would look good much less want to wear a pair of leather pants.

I looked at them, and checked the size. They would seem to fit my waist and they were unhemmed and longer than my legs. But I wasn’t sure of the quality. The vendor was actually from Firenze, Italia, and he kept telling me in very excited and expressive Italian just how wonderful the pants were made and how great they would be for me. He said, “look, all the guys wear them now.” I was in a state of disbelief when he pointed, and I looked where he was indicating and saw a man walking arm-in-arm with a woman. The guy was wearing a pair of leather pants with a leather jacket. He looked good.

Vendors in these places sell all sorts of stuff of varying quality. Neither my wife or I knew how to tell about the quality of the leather pants. But I knew who would know! I rang my brother on the phone. It was very early in the morning back where he lives, but he didn’t seem to mind. He asked me to check the stitching, seams, and the lining. He asked me to rub the leather between my fingers and see if any of the dye came off on my hands or if the leather turned dull where I rubbed. No — it remained shiny and smooth. The seams were double-stitched. My brother asked to speak with the vendor, and while I could only hear one side of the conversation, I could tell that my brother was asking a lot of good questions. I was impressed that my brother could have such a technical conversation in Italian. The vendor handed the phone back to me and my brother urged me to buy the leather pants.

I had some fun haggling with the vendor, but thought I got a good price for them at €100. I brought them to a local tailor to have the hems finished. I wore the new leather pants yesterday as my wife and went on passagata around our neighborhood. Two people complimented me on the leather pants. I must say, they look very nice.

I believe my brother now that “even a straight guy who does not ride a motorcycle” can wear leather pants. I did what he suggests: I stood up straight, walked confidently, and smiled. I received many smiles back in return. (But I think the pants would look better with boots, which I do not own. I am confident that my brother will be able to fix that “problem” LOL!)

Thanks, bro’! I have learned a lot from you, including a new confidence in wearing leather in public on the streets of Paris, while enjoying a walk with my wife.

St. Paddy’s Anniversary

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Today is St. Patrick’s Day. While I am not Irish, we celebrate this day for another special reason in our family. It was the date when my parents were married 70 years ago. I wasn’t there of course, but my aunts and uncles told me that the wedding was nice. (smile.) Soon thereafter, the kids all came along, all 15 of us over an 18-year period.

My Mom and Dad were always very romantic on their anniversary, and it showed. Dad would put a record of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” on the phonograph. He would then dance with my Mom to the tune while she listened to his attempted singing. It really was very sweet, watching them celebrate their very special day.

Us kids would get into the act by making green things. Cupcakes, cards, and even one year we found green dye and dyed our shirts (and ourselves) green. We had green all over the house for weeks following, much to my mothers pretend angst, but amusement was lightly always in her eyes, along with a tear or two.

Mom would make corned beef & cabbage for us to eat while Dad would take my Mom out to dinner. Just them. They would make a night of sharing their anniversary with each other, and without all of us rug-rats tagging along. At first I didn’t like that arrangement, but then I realized that this was their day and we had them the remaining 364 days of the year.

After my father passed away, we were timid about recognizing St. Patrick’s Day, knowing the memories that the day held for my Mom. But she would make the best of it, and enjoy our green things all the more. She would say, “you know, this is a special day and if it weren’t for your father, you wouldn’t be here.” Of course, she was right. We would all give her a card, and prepare a special meal for her with a green-frosted cake and green ice cream (and our green shirts.) We would play her favorite tune, sing along, and smile, thinking of our Dad.

Both of my parents are with each other in Heaven now. I think of them often, but most especially on “their day” — St. Patrick’s Day.

Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad. We all love you.

Life is short: share happy memories. That is how your loved-ones remain alive, even if they have departed this Earth.

Addendum: Rising early, I got busy in the kitchen and prepared 60 cupcakes tinted with green food coloring and green icing. My ever-resourceful partner found nifty decorative plastic containers that will hold four cupcakes. I wrote a heart-felt message on 15 cards and taped one to each of the 15 containers of sweets. A friend will pick me up today and (shhhh… don’t tell my partner)… she will take me with her to deliver the packages to senior pals who made me casseroles, visited, and called often during my lengthy broken leg recovery period. While I will not be able to get out of the car to deliver the sweets myself (as I still have a huge cast on my leg and can’t walk very well), I will be happy to know that I was able to do something to demonstrate my thanks to my friends who cared for me during my time of need.

No Apologies to Nitwitz

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On the night of the last full moon, I received three messages from my YouTube account advising me that someone had posted comments on my videos. I will allow comments on my YouTube videos but I must review and approve them first.

It was unusual, but in this case, all three messages were rude, obnoxious, and mean-spirited. Seldom do I get one message like that in a month, but this time, I got three in a night. Must have been the full moon… I cannot fathom any other reason.

Most of the comments that I receive are positive or ask some interesting questions. It is unfortunate, though, but there are some times when I have received some nasty, rude, and ugly comments. Four types of people send them: 1) homophobes; 2) ultra-straights who are afraid that their manhood is challenged by a gay guy’s video; 3) jealous gay queens; and 4) people with nothing better to do than try to tear others down.

In the case of attempted message-leaving by negative noodles, I simply remove the message and block the person from accessing my YouTube account. I believe they can still watch my videos, but they are blocked from trying to leave messages again.

These types of behaviors do not bother me, as such actions are a known risk I take when being active on the Internet. All I do is remove the comments and block the user, then silently close my eyes and say a prayer for their troubled souls to have some peace. I really feel sorry for characters like that.

I once tried to communicate with a nitwit like that a couple years ago to ask, “why?” but as you can imagine, no exchange with numbskulls results in anything but frustration. Learning from that experience, I don’t try to engage — I just delete and move on. Much like Roland has had to do from time to time, as he’s mentioned on his blog.

This doesn’t happen very often, but regretfully, it does and it’s a part of life in the Internet world. I have no apologies for nitwitz. Just prayers for their troubled souls.

Life is short: pray for those who need it.

Heteronormative

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I was reading an article in my local newspaper about why some gay men are choosing not to get married, even though it is legal to do so now in the District of Columbia (Washington, DC.) Since DC adjoins my home state of Maryland, and since our state Attorney General issued an opinion a couple weeks ago that said that same-sex marriages should be recognized by our state, even though they cannot be conducted here, it makes the issue more “close-to-home.”

One reason that one couple interviewed for this newspaper article said that they did not want to marry was that they considered marriage as being heteronormative.

I thought for a minute, and while I intuitively knew what the word meant, it was a new word to me. So I looked it up, and found that the word was first used in 1991, and means this:

a pervasive and institutionalized ideological system that naturalizes heterosexuality as universal; it must continually reproduce itself to maintain hegemony over other non-normative sexualities and ways of identity construction.

It refers to marriage, traditional family values, values of organized Christian religion, suburbia, and the ‘the American Dream’.

Hmmm… this caused quite a discussion in our household. Are we “heteronormative?” Well, it did not take long for either my partner or myself to answer, “yes we are.” My partner and I have traditional values in that we believe in personal integrity, financial responsibility, and monogamity. We live in the greater snoburbs of our nation’s capital, but not in the city itself. We both do not like city life.

We have a single family home in a nice neighborhood. We have good jobs. Between us, we own three vehicles (my Harley being one of them.) In essence, we are living the American Dream.

There are only things that were not stated: 1) we do not owe money on credit cards or car payments, which is unfortunately typical of American Dreamers; and 2) we do not go along with the hypocrisy of organized Christian religion, though my partner is a practicing Catholic. Yet we violate his religion’s tenets, but I will not explain why. You can figure that out.

Is there anything wrong with being heteronormative? That is, because we are gay, does that mean that we must reject all things considered to be values and lifestyles of heterosexual couples? Is that a reason not to get married?

I don’t think any of these things are true. We value living a good, decent life, taking care of ourselves and our loved-ones, doing the right thing, and affirming our commitment to one another. The only things we have deliberately chosen not to do is to adopt children and to spend money we don’t have. Otherwise, we’re as heteronormative as they come.

We are still discussing this … your thoughts?

Life is short: live normally, however that’s defined.

Various Factoids

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Today, March 14, is the date in most of the United States, Canada, and Mexico that we switch to Daylight Saving Time by adjusting our clocks one hour forward. We lose an hour in the process and thus today marks the shortest day of the year (in total hours).

Unfortunately, a persistent and incorrect catchy saying keeps being promoted at this time of year, which is “Change Your Clocks – Change Your Batteries.” It is intended to suggest to people to replace batteries in smoke alarms. This phrase was invented by a certain well-known battery company in order to sell more batteries. It has nothing to do with smoke alarms.

Think about it — we last changed time on 1 November, 2009. That was just 133 days ago. Now they want us to change batteries again? Ummm… don’t the battery companies promote how long-lasting their batteries are?

This phrase is ludicrous. Look, if you have smoke alarms that use batteries, replace the battery once a year. If you have done that within the past 12 months, then you don’t need to do it again unless the alarm emits a chirping sound, which indicates that battery replacement is required.

Don’t fall for marketing hype that has nothing to do with safety.

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Item 2

Spring brings snowmelt, heavy rains, and sometimes flooding. A lot of people die in floods every year — far too many. Were you aware that about 3/4 of people who die in floods in the U.S. are in vehicles, and of that, about 4/5 of the people involved in these flood-related vehicle deaths are men? Compounding this, were you aware that more than half of the vehicles involved in these tragic incidents are SUVs and trucks?

An interesting factoid is that SUVs and trucks, due to their larger size, have larger tires and thus are more buoyant if driven into water than tires of smaller vehicles. Even though smaller vehicles are lighter in weight, the physics of buoyancy indicates that the heavier vehicles will lose contact with road surfaces in fairly shallow water, and can lose control and get swept into deeper water quickly. Four-wheel drive doesn’t help. If you’re floating away, you’re in deep doo-doo!

This “male-drivin’-an-SUV” through floods bravado kills people. The situation actually is called denial. Nonetheless, it’s a bad thing. Be smart. Turn around, don’t drown.

Life is short: be safe!

The Lineup for the Rental

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The house I bought in January and had renovated was completed and ready for rental last week. As I have done with other properties I have renovated for rental, I posted a message in a few strategic places, and within a few days, I received a number of interesting prospects from community heroes — cops, firefighters, and teachers.

I selected several of them to interview, and conducted interviews this week. One applicant didn’t show up for the interview, didn’t call me to explain what happened, and did not return messages. That was strange. Another person had a really difficult, hard-luck story and I felt sorry for his situation. However, his background check indicated that he lied on his application, and wasn’t employed where he said he was. I turned him down. I wanted to help, but if he lied on his rental ap, then his prospect as a good tenant was soured.

I selected a firefighter who is starting out in life with a wife and a three-month-old child. Nice guy, nice family. It’s good when things work out. He and his family will move in at the end of the month. I hope to be up and walking again when he moves, so I can go over and help him move in and feel welcome.

Life is short: support your community heroes!