Old guys gone wild: why I like the YMCA

I think there's a lot of truth to this cartoon, and it expresses one of the reasons I've always liked the YMCA (where there are still communal showers). It helps me be less body-conscious, less shame-prone about being who I am and looking the way I look. What you see is what you get and it can be very freeing. God bless those naked old men.

NYC haiku signs cater to short attention spans

In a culture that increasingly expresses itself in fewer than 140 characters, New York City thinks it's found a way to grab a piece of that ever-shrinking attention span: haiku for public safety signs. I think there should be one for people who waltz into traffic on their cell phones, unaware there are such things as traffic lights.

Speaking of which, here's a good one:

Oncoming cars rush
Each a 3-ton bullet
And you, flesh and bone.

Scott Walker-appointed commissioner says no workplace protection for the gays

They sure do hate gay people, don’t they? The ‘they’ being nearly all of the Republican Party as it now presents itself: a wholly owned subsidiary of the Christian extremists.

Poor Wisconsin, a state I’d once liked so much. At this rate it’s going to be a place I never go again. Scott Walker and his reactionary GOP are showing the way to a terrible future.

From Wisconsin Gazette.com:

A commissioner on the board that makes final decisions in cases involving workplace discrimination says Wisconsin law does not prohibit anti-gay harassment on the job.
Her two fellow commissioners strongly disagree.

Laurie McCallum, who was recently appointed by Gov. Scott Walker to a six-year term on the state’s Labor and Industry Review Commission, wrote that the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act applies only to sexual harassment. That contention was the basis for her dissenting opinion in a case involving Milwaukeean Chris Bowen, a machine operator who was subjected to years of anti-gay harassment as an employee of Stroh Precision Die Casting.

In a 2-1 decision, commissioners Robert Glaser and Ann L. Crump found that Stroh was responsible for fostering a workplace environment hostile to Bowen because of his sexual orientation. Stroh did not deny that the harassment occurred; nor did the company argue that anti-gay harassment is allowed under state law during the eight years that the case bounced around the court system.

But McCallum, the politically connected wife of former GOP Gov. Scott McCallum, defied nearly 30 years of precedent in state law by asserting that sexual “preference,” as she put it, is not a protected category in workplace discrimination cases.

[SNIP]

The court record showed that a group of Bowen’s co-workers repeatedly called him “fag,” “maricon” and “my little bitch,” among other slurs, over a period of years. Bowen once found a bulls-eye hunting target over which the word “gay” was written stuck to his toolbox. Someone put a sign that said, “queer” or “queen” on his locker. A sticker was put in his workplace that said, “Honk if you’re gay.” [emphasis mine]

Judge gives vicious religious group green light for suit against New York marriage law

Viciously anti-gay group "New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms" (an Orwellian name if ever there was one) has been given the go-ahead for their futile suit to invalidate marriage equality in the state.

I find it interesting that the judge states in his decision it would have caused no harm to same-sex couples to let the bill wait three days. Excuse me? The session was at its very end, had already gone over, and waiting three days would in all likelihood have been the death of the bill, which would have caused extensive and continued harm to gay couples. This suit is almost certain to fail, but god the bigotry gets tiring . . .

From Democrat and Chronicle.com:

A state Supreme Court justice in Livingston County has ruled that a lawsuit challenging the state’s same-sex marriage law can proceed and raised questions about whether the June vote to legalize same-sex marriage violated the state’s open meetings law.

The decision, dated Nov. 18, by Justice Robert Wiggins took issue with a variety of procedural steps taken by the Senate and Gov. Andrew Cuomo when the June 24 vote was taken. The measure passed 33-29, and Cuomo quickly signed it into law.

Wiggins, a Republican judge in the rural county, said the Monroe County-based group New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms presented enough evidence that the open meetings law may have been violated to let the case continue. The state has sought to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in late July.

“The Court must consider allegations by plaintiff as true. Considering plaintiff’s allegations, and without deciding matter at this time, the court feels that is a justiciable issue presented whether there was a violation of the Open Meetings Law,” Wiggins wrote in his decision.

Beware sperm-killing laptops!

Had trouble getting a muffin in your girlfriend's oven? Thinking of spending a fortune on fertility treatments? Wait - it may be that laptop you've been hooking up at Starbucks!

From Reuters:

The digital age has left men's nether parts in a squeeze, if you believe the latest science on semen, laptops and wireless connections.

In a report in the venerable medical journal Fertility and Sterility, Argentinian scientists describe how they got semen samples from 29 healthy men, placed a few drops under a laptop connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi and then hit download.
Four hours later, the semen was, eh, well-done.

A quarter of the sperm were no longer swimming around, for instance, compared to just 14 percent from semen samples stored at the same temperature away from the computer.
And nine percent of the sperm showed DNA damage, three-fold more than the comparison samples.

The culprit? Electromagnetic radiation generated during wireless communication, say Conrado Avendano of Nascentis Medicina Reproductiva in Cordoba and colleagues.
"Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality," they write in their report.

Kansas teen won’t brownnose Brownback

In a Twit-sation not seen since that snake escaped from the Bronx Zoo, a Kansas teen who tweeted that she'd made “mean comments” to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has refused to apologize at the demand of her high school principal.

From NPR:

A U.S. teenager who wrote a disparaging tweet about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said Sunday that she is rejecting her high school principal's demand for a written apology.

Emma Sullivan, 18, said she isn't sorry and doesn't think such a letter would be sincere.

The Shawnee Mission East senior was taking part in a Youth in Government program last week when she sent out a tweet from the back of a crowd of students listening to Brownback's greeting. From her cellphone, she thumbed: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person @heblowsalot."

She actually made no such comment and said she was "just joking with friends." But Brownback's office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor's name, saw Sullivan's post and contacted the Youth in Government program.
I would do it again.

- Emma Sullivan, 18

Sullivan received a scolding at school and was ordered to send Brownback an apology letter. She said Prinicipal Karl R. Krawitz even suggested talking points for the letter she was supposed to turn in Monday.
The situation exploded after Sullivan's older sister contacted the media.

A stroll through Berlin (Maryland, that is!)

Another Thanksgiving over, another Black Friday fades into the media mist. Partner Frank and I enjoyed our now annual trip to Bethany Beach, DE (via Atlantic City for a night of Thanksgiving at the penny slots) where we stay at our friends Kathi and Dave Hill’s house. They have a retirement home here, although they still live on a farmhouse in Maryland, and Kathi’s mother is nearby. We meet up with all these friends on Friday, have a Thanksgiving feast on Saturday, and make the long trip back to NYC on Sunday.

This time around we left Kathi and Dave to the cooking and headed with mother Marge for a side trip to Berlin, Maryland. The town came into being sometime in the 1790s as part of the Burley Plantation, a 300-acre land grant dating to 1677. This is an old town! The name is believed to have come from a contraction of “Burleigh Inn”, a local tavern. This may be why the town is pronounced “BER-lin,” with no connection to the city in Germany.

Today the town is very reminiscent of Frenchtown, NJ, close to our house in Stockton. It consists mostly of several blocks of Main Street (with some adjoining streets) lined with shops, some restaurants, and, at one end, the historic Atlantic Hotel, built in 1895 and still as grand as ever.

We happened to be there on “Small Business Saturday”, started by American Express as a way to encourage shopping at small businesses, many of which don’t take American Express! While I suspect it’s more a way of getting them to sign up for AmEx than of actually pushing small businesses, it was good to do some shopping that was essentially free (you spend $25 and get a $25 AmEx credit).

We stopped in a number of stores on our stroll, including j.j. Fish fine crafts, Culver’s Antiques, Town Center Antiques, and the Berlin Coffee Shop. There are 53 businesses listed on the brochures you can find in just about any of the stores, and if you have some time for a meal, you can eat in one of several good restaurants.

I noticed what seems to be, for small towns, the obligatory house-drawn tour carriage. Traffic is very light, or at least it was this afternoon, and the town clearly relies on tourists to keep going. If you’re in the area, its only about an hour from Rehoboth, less from Bethany Beach and other places you might find yourself, be sure to stop for a hour or three in Berlin and say we sent you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The best thing about Movember is the ‘mo’

I smell a PR campaign in this somewhere. I don’t buy (let alone wear) yellow ‘Livestrong’ bracelets (or rainbow ones) and I’m certainly not growing a mustache for prostate cancer awareness. It’s all just a little too gimmicky for me, especially since I’d never heard of it until this year, when it exploded all over the internet. Now ‘homovember’ I could get behind.

Rush Limbaugh calls First Lady of the United States 'uppity', leaves out 'negro'

Michelle Obama, as seen in the Rush Limbaugh/NASCAR imagination

Can you imagine anyone other than Boss Limbaugh, pig at any size, not losing his job over something this baldly racist? I don't understand why this isn't a bigger deal in the media. He referred to the black First Lady of the United States as 'uppity', a word almost exclusively reserved for black people who dare to step above their station, and historically followed by the word 'negro' (to be kind). Simply astonishing.

From Your Black World:

The face of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, showed his plantation roots again by referring to the First Lady of the United States as “uppity.”
When chit-chatting about the recent disrespect shown Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden at a recent NASCAR event, Limbaugh defended the booers, claiming they had every right to do so, considering they were paying for the Obama family’s excessive and expensive vacations:

"I’ll tell you something else — we don’t like paying millions of dollars for Mrs. Obama’s vacations,” he said. “The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why, when the husband and the wife are going the same place, the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers-on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747. NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it is a little bit of uppity-ism. First ladies have not been known to hop their own 757s four hours ahead of their husband when they’re going the same place.”

Will ‘butt chugging’ turn teenage boys gay?

Never mind the vodka tampon, one must wonder if butt chugging just might turn those teen guys queer.

For the record, I think this is complete bullshit, urban myth of the worst kind being perpetuated by an officer of the law and TV reporters who ought to slink off in shame for having nothing more significant to report on than this fiction.

Bill O'Reilly launching pepper spray for Christmas

We recently broke the story of Jay-Z’s shampoo venture with the hair-drag Occupy protester. Now comes news that Bill O’Reilly, impressed with the policemen’s calm application of pepper spray in that explosive UC Davis showdown, is coming out with his very own pepper spray line. Look for it exclusively at Wal-Mart in time for the Christmas holiday. Perfect stocking stuffer?

Mercedes exec arrested in Alabama under anti-immigrant law

Where’s Neil Young when you need him? A Mercedes exec (the company has brought many jobs to Alabama) made the mistake of driving a rental car with only his German ID on him. Result: he was busted under their new hate-them-illegals law. Hopefully Mercedes will now consider moving their operation to Mexico.

From the AP:

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) -- A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver's license with him under Alabama's new law targeting illegal immigrants, authorities said Friday, in an otherwise routine case that drew the attention of Gov. Robert Bentley.

Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.

The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver's license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.

Pakistan bans 'fudge packer,' other LGBT-friendly words from text messages

Are their turbans too tight? Oh, wait, that's India, or maybe part of Pakistan or something. The government there has banned words it considers offensive from text messages, including "homosexual," "lesbian," and "fairy." That last has the fairy community in an uproar.

From Chicago Pride.com:

Karachi, Pakistan — The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority's ban on text messages that use 1,600 supposedly obscene or pornographic words includes the words "lesbian," "gay," "homosexual," and "fairy."

"This is outrageous," said Pakistan director of Bytes for All Shahzad Ahmad. "I don't know how and why PTA had so much time to compile this stupid list."

It's not clear whether the ban will actually be enforced. Newsweek Pakistan reported that cell phone companies are waiting for further instructions.

A day at the Bronx Zoo

In keeping with my effort to re-post many of the travel pieces I deleted in my culling frenzy, this is a trip from early 2010 to the Bronx Zoo. Friends Lisa and Cindy came into the City on a Friday night, and Saturday we all headed to the zoo. Wonderful spring day, good memories.

Nation's top deadbeat dad Joe Walsh says protesting vets don't understand the U.S.

Tea Party heartthrob and deadbeat dad poster boy Rep. Joe Walsh blasts veterans protesting with Occupy Wall Street.

From the Huffington Post:


U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) slammed Occupy Wall Street protesters during a town hall meeting in suburban Gurnee, Ill. Saturday, calling the movement a "well-orchestrated, well-funded, far left effort to disrupt the American people" before admitting that he had never attended a protest.

Walsh, a Tea Party favorite who apologized last week after screaming at a constituent during a similar event, was reacting to constituent criticism of the Occupy movement when he let them know how he felt about it.

"[Occupy is] an anti-American, well-funded left wing effort," Walsh told the crowd, to a mix of applause and boos. He also said the movement was created to "rile up Obama's left base."

[SNIP]

When one constituent stood up and pointed out that veterans have participated in the Occupy movement, Walsh brushed it off.

"I don't know how many veterans are part of the Occupy protest," he said. "I can't imagine it's many. But anyone who would advocate socialist solutions to certain problems in this country ... they don't understand this country."

Grannies gone bad: seniors selling prescription pills to get by

Is Maw-Maw a dealer?

From KSDK.com:

St. Louis (KSDK) -- Senior citizens are selling prescription pills to pay bills and often teenagers are the buyers.

According to the CEO of a drug and alcohol treatment center in downtown St. Louis, some teenagers are making their rounds at senior citizen homes to purchase prescription pills.

The CEO of the Black Alcohol/Drug Service Information Center (BASIC) says he's had his pulse on the community for more than 30 years and knows this is happening. Oval Miller says seniors sell their pills to teens. Teens go to senior citizen homes in the city, establish a relationship with someone, and get their prescription from them every month. Miller says these seniors, who have a fixed income, are typically offered $2 a pill for Vicodin, for example.

"So here's someone who says, 'Your doctor just gave you 120 pills. I'll give you $200 for those pills and every first of the month, when you get your prescription, you call me and give me $200.' That's where they're getting them from," Miller says.

A play so bad it was almost good

Let me preface this by saying I was a playwright for ten years, had six of them produced and reviewed and the critics weren't always kind. I had my first full-length play described in the Los Angeles Times as having "excruciating dialogue" and, once I won an Emmy for a children's TV program, I realized I'd kept writing scripts all those years as a way of chasing validation. A way to say fuck you to the LA Times critic and the guy from the LA Weekly who specialized in snide. My last play was at New Jersey Rep in 2002 and I was happy to walk away from the collaboration required in the medium, returning to the joy and solitude of fiction.

Having said that, we went to see a return of "The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever," and while Frank thinks it has potential, my take is that it's so bad it's good. Sort of. If such a thing is possible. I'm not looking to review the play and won't. It is what it is, and hopefully not every show they do will have three times the number of cast members as audience members (it hasn't opened yet). All I can really say is I felt for the guy who wrote it and any "hilarious send-up" type review you might read is coming out of a PR campaign somewhere. It made me glad I stopped writing plays.

Afterward we had dinner at a Sushi place that was so authentic the plastic menus had a melted appearance to them and the waiter didn't understand when Frank was joking with him, always an awkward experience. But very, very tasty!

Dog and cat show at the Javitz Center (NYC)

This was our second year going to the dog and cat show (Meet the Breeds) at the Javitz Center, specifically to see niece Jessica and her mother Theresa do flyball with their dog Kit. It seemed smaller this year and was on the lower floor.

Three Franks in one

From MadeMarkPhoto.net

60 years in love (from “The Devotion Project”)

Some things make my heart melt.

Report warns New York must prepare now for climate change disasters

Well, shit.

From the Huffington Post:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Devastating floods like those caused in upstate New York by the remnants of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee are among the climate change effects predicted in a new report written by 50 scientists and released Wednesday by the state's energy research agency.

The 600-page report called ClimAID, intended as a resource for planners, policymakers, farmers and residents, says New Yorkers should begin preparing for hotter summers, snowier winters, severe floods and a range of other effects on the environment, communities and human health. It was written by scientists from Cornell University, Columbia University and the City University of New York and funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Jay-Z teams with Occupy protester dragged by hair to launch shampoo line

Hot on the heels of his brilliant t-shirt move to "Occupy all streets", mega-entrepreneur Jay-Z is reportedly in contact with the woman dragged by her hair this morning to launch a shampoo line, with other hair care products likely.

Keith Olbermann interviews 84 year old pepper-spray sensation

Hmm, she looks the same . . . Keith Olbermann interviewed pepper-spray face-melt lady from Occupy Seattle.

From the Huffington Post:

Keith Olbermann spoke to Dorli Rainey -- the 84-year-old Seattle woman whose pepper spraying by police at an Occupy Seattle protest rocketed around the Internet on Tuesday -- on his Wednesday show.

Before speaking to Rainey, Olbermann ran through a string of news from Occupy events around the country. He then showed the picture of Rainey with pepper spray all over her face that went viral.

Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats gets all ghetto, says Romney “dissed” his hate posse

Between Herman Cain saying a manly man “don’t want” vegetables on his pizza, and Vander Plaats's foray into hip-hop speak, I have to wonder what’s happening to the Republican Party. Has Jay-Z and his “Occupy All Streets” influenced conservative thinking?

From Fox News:

After urging Mitt Romney to attend a Republican presidential forum in Des Moines this weekend, the head of Iowa's Family Leader group, which organized the event, said Tuesday that the former Massachusetts governor has "dissed" Iowa's social conservative base by declining to appear.

"Mitt Romney has dissed this base in Iowa and this diss will not stay in Iowa," Bob Vander Plaats said in an interview with Fox News. "This has national tentacles. ... This might prove that he is not smart enough to be president, " Vander Plaats continued, clearly miffed.

How to say "penis" in Christian

Following up on their video instructing how to say "vagina" in Christian, we now have from Christwire their counterpart for the guys.

Occupy Wall Street attempts to occupy Wall Street

From the NY Daily News:

It's been exactly two months since anti-corporate activists descended upon New York City and launched the Occupy Wall Street movement. Is it a make-or-break day for the Occupy Wall Street protesters?

After a raid on their ragged camp in Zuccotti Park and a judge's ruling they can't camp there again, the protesters are waging a day of events they hope will invigorate their movement.

Here's their schedule:

7am: Gather at Zuccotti Park and march to Wall Street.
3pm: Ride the subways to Foley Square.
5pm: Rally in Foley Square
After that: protest at New York bridges.

84 year old gets pepper-sprayed, face melts

From the Occupy Seattle showdown.

New gadget: the Kindle Fire

I wasn't going to, but in the end the price, and fact it's wi-fi, talked myself into it. Digging it so far.

Herman Cain don’t want no sissy pizza (but I’ll take two tops and a bottom of broccoli)

What a clown, and they’re eating it up.

From Herman Cain’s interview with GQ:

Chris Heath: What can you tell about a man by the type of pizza that he likes?

Herman Cain: [repeats the question aloud, then pauses for a long moment] The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe the more manly he is.

Chris Heath: Why is that?

Herman Cain: Because the more manly man is not afraid of abundance. [laughs]

Devin Gordon: Is that purely a meat question?

Herman Cain: A manly man don't want it piled high with vegetables! He would call that a sissy pizza.

How to say "vagina" in Christian

He left out "pussy."

New September video, "Party in My Head"

My partner Frank is the VP of Promotions at Robbins Entertainment. September is one of his artists. Great new song.

A Day in Old New Castle, DE

This is a re-post of a travel piece from last spring. To reiterate: I deleted all my posts in a fit of whatever and am slowly re-posting the travel pieces I have on Photobucket and YouTube for posterity. All the snarky political shit is gone, and good riddance.

New Castle, Delaware, hosts an annual day of garden and home tours. It's been doing this for 86 years, and Frank and I headed over there last May to give it a look-see. It made for a wonderful day trip . Many of the townspeople dressed up in colonial-era garb. The first house we toured was owned by a black family that had managed to keep the house for many generations, back to when one of their ancestors was kidnapped and heading for a terrible fate: to be sold as a slave. The townspeople rallied to her defense, and managed to put the men who kidnapped her on trial.

There was a park festival as well, and we got in a few gardens along the way. If you're anywhere near the area this coming spring consider spending A Day in Old New Castle.

Penn State students riot after firing of "Joe Pa" Paterno, raped boys of no concern

Dear Penn State students and fucked up worshipers of "Joe Pa": FUCK YOU. An 84 year old college football legend is not, under any circumstances, more important than the eight boys who were molested under his silent watch. Try marching for those kids and their families instead of your fucked-up football delusions. Did I say "fuck" enough?

MadeMarkTravel: Key West, FL

Cross-posted from lgbtSr.com

While I've been to Ft. Lauderdale and Coral Springs quite a few times to visit my partner's family, I'd never been to Key West. As a Christmas present last year, our friend Kathi Hill gave us three nights at the Southernmost Hotel and Resort and met us there this past week. It was one of the best vacations I've had in a long time, and a definite return destination.

We went to Coral Springs first to visit family, then drove the four hours to Key West. You can fly directly there, but if you've never been there you might as well take the opportunity to drive through the keys. I kept wondering why they were called "keys" and found out that keys are a coral archipelago (see Wikipedia). You can read there about the history of the keys. At first the only way to the islands was by water, then a railway was built (since destroyed by a hurricane) and finally a roadway that goes over 29 bridges. By the time you reach Key West you're closer to Cuba than you are to Miami.

This was the perfect time to visit. We skipped Fantasy Fest a week earlier, which would have been a madhouse. The only thing going on our weekend was the 20th annual Parrot Head convention, which kicked off Friday with a free concert by Jimmy Buffet. We didn't know this as we drove into town wondering why the street was blocked off, but there you have it.

We were only there from Friday to Monday but we managed to get a lot in. Duval Street is the main street, and we walked that back and forth several times. Our hotel was on one side of the island, and the Conch Tour Train, which we rode one afternoon, started at the other. Our train conductor's name was Peggy, and she managed to keep talking for 90 minutes while informing us about the history of Key West and all the sites we saw along the tour. This included the information that Key West had actually seceded from the United States, earning itself the name The Conch Republic, and the motto, "We seceded where others failed." The secession was short lived and unofficial, but a point of pride for Key Westers.

The tradewinds keep the climate in Key West temperate year round, and I'd have to say November and the winter months are an ideal time to visit. You can see the Earnest Hemingway House, the Little White House where President Truman visited a number of times and that still contains the furniture put there for his stays. There are roosters roaming the island (from the days of cock fights; once they were made illegal, the roosters were simply set free and are treated as a protected animal there).

Food, entertainment, shops, the daily sunset celebration, the butterfly conservatory (video here). There's just so much to enjoy in Key West that I'll leave it to you to explore further. The pace, the climate, the friendly people, all combine to make this a high-priority vacation spot, whether you've never been there or you're going back for your 20th time.

Butterfly Conservatory in Key West

Back in NYC, but it was such a nice time.

Rare sighting of human butterflies in Key West

20 years just like that (RIP James Berry)

Cross-posted from lgbtSr.com

It’s fitting that I’m in Key West, making my first visit here, on the very day that marks the 20th anniversary of my late partner Jim’s death. He lived in Key West many years ago, before I met him, and he used to tell stories of his life here, working in a restaurant and trying to decide what to do when he grew up well into his 30s. I met him several years later in Los Angeles. He was sitting on the steps of a house and I asked him if he’d like to go to a movie. He said yes.

That was in 1983. AIDS was making itself known by then, though I don’t remember if it had been named AIDS yet, or was still GRID or gay cancer or whatever the frantic authorities were calling it that early on. I only know it was a shadow that was not receding; instead it spread like a stain across the landscape. We all hoped we would be the ones to outrun it, to stay just ahead of the darkness and survive. And when Jim and I became a couple after four years of being best friends, I thought we’d made it. I thought we’d rolled the dice, scooped up the winnings and walked away, having just averted catastrophe. I was wrong.

Jim was an actor who called himself Michael in the theater, but he was always Jim to me. Opinionated, intense, and devoted. A mix of the strong-headed and the tender. He became ill soon after we moved in together. He tested negative (the HIV test was new then), so his doctor kept trying to determine what was wrong. This went on for two years, until finally he walked out of the bathroom one morning and said he had fungus on his tongue. That settled that. It’s called thrush, and it leaves only one diagnosis.

For the next two years I watched my best friend, lover and partner try to stay alive. The endless, cruel cycle of hope and despair. We can beat this thing! Then another trip to the hospital and the realization that “thing this” was getting the upper hand. Then some sense of remission and that pesky hope again. Finally lymphoma, chemotherapy injected into the spine, horror, anguish, more horror. And, at last, a few quiet days spent in a hospice bed where his life ended. I’d been told he could live that way for several months. I told him (he was comatose by then) that I could not bring him home. I didn’t have the resources. I had to work, my life was not coming to its conclusion. Three days later he died. I think he knew he would never be in his own bed again, with his favorite cat sitting like a fierce sentinel on his pillow (she died three weeks after he did, refusing to go on without the man who had treated her like a spoiled, fat queen all her life).

Twenty years. Just like that. I’m with Frank now (five years in December). Life went on. I didn’t think it would, but it did. To lose a spouse at the age of 33, which I was, is unimaginable. My mother told me this in a card she sent. I wish I’d kept it. She’s gone, too. The circle may seem to enlarge, what with Facebook and all the connections and reconnections we make in this modern social media age. But really it gets smaller. Our parents are gone. Our friends – so many friends – died when we were still young. Smaller, tighter, ever more precious, and that is as it should be.

I determined to live well, to not fear being old, as a way of celebrating not just my own life but the lives of those I loved and cared for who never had the chance. I remember them every day, there in my memory box where I sometimes take them out and peer at their fading faces. Jim’s, however, has never faded. Happy anniversary, my friend. I’m here in Key West, and it’s as pleasant as you always said it was.

Occupy Key West brings drinking to a standstill

Newest cool watch

I stopped wearing watches for several years (I got tired of getting new batteries) but started again last year. Now I'm collecting them slowly. This is one I got last night on Duval Street in Key West.

Off to Key West this morning

I sometimes miss posting to MadeMark. The "other" site, lgbtSr.com, is finally, slowly coming into its own and it takes a tremendous amount of work. I can literally spend hours just keeping it updated and tweaked on any given day.

As much as I've loved MadeMark over these last years (it's even the name of my company), it was always just about me and my whims and sometimes clever takes on the world.  LgbtSr.com, however, is reaching people. It's a collaboration, a way of making some small difference in a few lives, and it's something I'm passionate about.  So that's the story, why there's not much here these days. But I'm alive and kicking and not going away.

Frank with tiny niece Tess