Don't Ask About Carter's Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day for my US centric friends. This is the day that the US remembers its war dead. Today my thoughts move to long gone loved ones and thank them for their sacrifice. As they died in their service to the US, way before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I wonder what they would think of the changes in what it means to serve, as they didn't get that honor.

My Memorial Day will start with a long run. It’s been two years since I committed myself to running. Do more than talk about good health, but actually put puma to pavement.

I have found that it also gives me a new mindset, and a new outlook on things rolling around in my head. It’s funny how something as easy as putting on running shoes and just moving forward down the path could help me… move forward down the path.

“Everyone who has run knows that it’s most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.” – Jimmy Carter

It seems that no matter what you do in life there is a President Carter quote to back it up with. But, then again I probably think about Jimmy Carter too much.

I wonder if there's a Carter quote on Don't Ask, Don't Tell? I bet there is.

I should go for a run now, fill my brain with my iPod and stop obsessing over Jimmy Carter, being able to honestly serve in the US military, and Memorial Day.

Somebody That I Used to Know

Team work!

Olympians

This last weekend was my niece’s graduation from high school. Saturday night was the big graduation party at my sister’s house. The house, festooned in black and orange looked like a tasteful Halloween party. It took me awhile to calculate that the “fighting Olympians” have the black and orange as their signature colors.

My niece is an out going and fun/smart girl. She lettered in Theater, just like her uncle. This means that after four years of being a theater nerd, she is friends with every gay black and orange covered Olympian.  All of which were bouncing around the big graduation party.

I find this amazing. The fact that my niece has a circle of gay best friends, yet more importantly that they are all out of the closet and living honest lives. It appeared to be just no big deal, a normal group of kids. I immediately called my Ex/Best Friend to relay the scene. Both Dalton and I had struggled greatly through our high school years. Closeted and repressed as we found our only refuge in the Theater Club during our high school years.  I relayed the extraordinary idea that guys now come out of the closet in their freshman year and are considered “cool.”

What is cool is the fact that kids are having a completely different childhood to my generation. Their teenage years are filled with dating, having fun, and just being normal. They are now getting teased for average stuff like having dorky sneakers or for wearing glasses, not for who they are down to their very soul.  

Kicks Like Sleep Twitch

It has been days since my iPod randomly played The Editors Papillon. I've been running ever since. 





It really does kick like a sleep twitch. 

Dog Time

For the last month, I have set my alarm clock for 6am. For the last month, my dog has his set for 5:15am.

Starting at 5:15:03 the Shar-pei I adore has decided that morning walk time begins with a stroll up the bed and onto my chest. I will suddenly feel a pressure on my chest, then a wet sensation on my eye. This comes from a wet nose being inserted into my cornea.

I still set the alarm clock every night in the outside chance that Mr.Furry decides to take a holiday. That maybe I'll get to "sleep in" until six. I guess I'd miss that happy feeling of not wiping sleep from my eyes, but dog drool.

I really shouldn't complain, I do enjoy our sunrise walks. Just me and the dog.

Cory Hart

On Sunday afternoon I did something I hadn’t done in years. I cruised down the isles of my favorite used record/CD store. This is when it hit me; I hadn’t hung out at “my” music store in millennia.

The morning host of satellite radio’s GLBT channel informed me last week that the weekend fell on “Record Store Day.” This is a day to celebrate independent record stores across the world. On this day and age, with the huge conglomerate music stores long vaporized, we seem to have only these smart and passionate, independent music stores. This niche market is the only choice other than the streamlined online purchasing of your favorite tunes. 

As I flipped through the racks of aging CDs I couldn’t help thinking how long it had been since I had graced a music store. I became an iTunes zombie immediately after a birthday present of my first iPod, way back in 2004. Since then, the plastic jewels cases filled with artist’s presentations have vanished from my world. The convenience of clicking “Buy” took away this simple, yet religious act of digging through the racks of albums, making me forget how the act was incredibly cathartic.

Standing in the musty air of music’s ancient temple, I thought back to my first album. The very first record I ever bought was Cory Hart’s second album, Boy in the Box. I had just moved to Houston, Texas and discovered a record store in Houston’s Galleria Mall.  The attempts to hide the album from my Mom led to her think it was satanic “devil worship” music. Little did she know, the attempt to hide album was because I was desperately in love with Cory Hart and was convinced the 3^rd track “Never Surrender” was written just for me. Never Surrender was Cory’s attempt to convince me that it was okay to be gay. That I should never surrender; soon I would be out on my own with the freedoms that would go along with being an adult.

Of course, that was not the case. Cory was just a Canadian musician, who still to this day produces music with his wife. He will never know how he got me through my freshmen year of high school. Yet, discovering a scratched-up jewel case with his sneer looking back at me, I asked him. Does that even matter?  He gave me my theme song, not just for a Polo and acne covered freshman, but really for life.

I sat in my bedroom last night, listening again to Cory Hart’s album.

Honeypot

Mumbai Irony

Today is my last day of class before summer break. Two finials, and two papers to turn in and I am done. The feeling of excitement is overwhelming.

The finals (knock on wood) will be a piece of delicious cake. One hundred questions about Literature’s impact on modern writing in my American lit. class, and one hundred questions on creative writing sentence structure. Which, if my professor read this blog, I just might fail. 

Last night, confident that I had completed my two term papers early, I went to print my masterpieces.  Click-whirl-click.  I heard my printer go through its start-up noises. Then… nothing. Thinking I was out of paper, I investigated. My happy little printer was flashing something on its screen. “Printer head fail!” It screamed. “Oh, well… my ink must be out. After a trip to the Uber-Target I gladly installed fifty bucks worth of ink. As I closed the lid, it stated, “printer head fail!” Thus began two hours of downloading new updates from the website, speaking to an adorable young man named “Keith” from Mumbai, and making the sign of the cross over my non-compliant/non-Christian printer. After all of that, “Printer head fail!”

Keith seemed sympathetic to my desperate need to print my a five page paper based on Hamlet’s Ophelia descending into madness, yet didn’t comprehend my analogies that my printer was now, my Hamlet. I even quoted Ophelia’s death monologue to Keith, as my Lexmark printer was my own personal Hamlet. Driving me mad.

As a non sequitur, may I make it known that you meet the most interesting people at Kinko’s around midnight. God I hope that “non sequitur” is on my finial exam. Along with irony.