Conversation with Horny Cowboy

This evening, a nice young cowboy dressed in t-shirt, jeans, and hat came to stay at the hotel.

"Is there anything to do around here?" he asks.

"In Coeur d'Alene on a Sunday night? You're joking, right?" We chuckle.

"Well," I say, "there's a bar down the street called the Sunset. What were you particularly interested in?"

"I was hopin' for some girls," he says.

"Be sure to wrap it up tight, cowboy."

Strange Feelings As I Wrap Up Idaho

So, as I've mentioned, I'll be moving back to Seattle on March 1st. It didn't really sink in until my general manager came to show my apartment to a prospective replacement for my job. Since yesterday, I've been feeling a mixture of fear (to be expected, especially in this economy), regret, and ... what is it? ... loss?

I didn't realize how closely I'd drawn to people here. There is a fellow I work with who I adore. He's smart, humble, honest, and generous. We have a similar sense of humor, which we got to see earlier tonight when we both blurted out, in unison, a funny taunt to someone that was telling a story. I wanted to reach over and give him a bearhug.

There are others who come to me and ask if I'm sure I have to leave, in tones that leave no doubt that they're feeling a little upset at my departure.

Of course, there is my family. All of them want me to stay.

I always say that it feels good to be needed. There's no doubt that I'm needed here, for many reasons. However,  what is unique about this move is that I feel a sense of wrongness. I feel ..., well, I feel. 

I've been frozen for many years. I distanced myself from people because, in general, people are hurtful, coarse, and uncaring. I wasn't going to allow them to shake my tree, no way. People who knew me back when I was a teenager describe me as being "aloof". It's true. I wouldn't allow anyone to get close. If you want to know how I felt about myself, listen to "I Am A Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel. I could have written that song, myself. I know now what it means to be "living in my head". I had no body sensations at all. "I" was only the space behind my eyes. My body was just a shell that carried around a conceptual "me".

At some point over the last couple of years, I've allowed myself to thaw a little. My sense of humor has improved. I express my desires instead of hiding them or always deferring to other people's wants. I know how to say "no" and mean it. (Always room for improvement in that department.) I no longer live behind my eyes. It's a subtle feeling, but tangible. I feel "me" all the way from the crown of my head to the upper portion of my chest. It feels good. I spend a few minutes every morning just experiencing and appreciating this new awareness. Often, I feel like I'm gargantuan in size compared to others around me. I wonder if I will become more fully integrated and what it might feel like. I can only imagine at this point.

Is it by allowing others to become close that I've come to these new feelings ? Or is it that having these feelings has allowed me to become closer to others? Do these feelings arise spontaneously or simultaneously? Am I over-thinking it? Probably. 

Any way this pie gets sliced, I feel sad about leaving. I've been valued and respected. I've made new kinds of connections with others that I've never felt before and am reluctant to relinquish them. 

Is this what love feels like?

Unemployed Are New Pariahs

As if it wasn't bad enough that the unemployment rate is sky-high and not looking so great for the foreseeable future, now some companies are not willing to hire unemployed applicants.

Apparently, it's a mechanism to screen out people who have particular profiles of race or age and possibly people that have out-of-date skills.

Let's hear it for living in the good ol' USA!

Click on the link to go to this vomitous article in the Seattle Times.

Patriot Act Provisions Are Resuscitated

Leave it to our politicians to screw us ten ways from Sunday - every time.

Do you honestly think you are safer from terrorists if the government can look at your library records?

BTW, there are three more bills in Congress that would extend the Patriot Act for another ten more years. Do you really want to live under that kind of surveillance?

Click on the title for the Seattle Times article.

The Difference Between Taste and Talent

Recently, on my Facebook newsfeed, someone I know made a comment about how he doesn't care for the infamous Lady Gaga's music which, in turn, launched a full-on bash-fest. I was taken aback by some of the comments, one of which read "I'd like to punch her in the uterus." (I hope that commenter is about 14 years old, because that's the kind of crap I expect to come out of a teenager. From an adult, it's not funny or witty - it's just pathetic.)

Fashion is nuclear.

Let me send out a disclaimer: I'm not gaga about Gaga. She has some entertaining videos and a few of her more popular pieces are quite catchy. Would I spend money to go see a concert? Eh, probably not. I'm only using her as an example because she was the subject of this particular Facebook post. 

After reading many vitriolic statements about Gaga, I realized that there is a big disconnect. Huge, in fact. People don't understand the difference between personal musical tastes and recognizing other people's talents.

It's very simple. Just because you don't like someone's art is not a gauge of their talent.

There are thousands of talented musicians that will never see a recording contract in their lives. Why not? Because their music has zero commercial appeal. Lady Gaga happens to have huge commercial appeal. Don't agree? You don't have to. The money backing her speaks for itself.

And she is mega-talented. It can't be denied and if you do, you're just swimming in denial. She has a voice the size of a barn and a deep passion to back it. She sings, she dances, she plays piano, and she gives people something to talk about. She's a one-woman show. Before you criticize her (or anyone like her), let me ask a question: when was the last time anyone paid you to sing and dance for them? Uh-huh, that's what I thought.

I just remembered, someone mentioned their dissatisfaction with her "pandering" to the gay community in order to support her career. What she's doing is not pandering. She knows her market which is a key part of doing good business. It looks like she's doing pretty good business.

How about this: instead of bashing on other people's success or discussing whether they are talented or not, why don't you take some voice lessons or learn to dance, yourself? Seriously. It used to be that everyone had a talent because when the sun went down, all we had was ourselves. We told stories, sang, danced, or played instruments. We did shadow puppetry, played charades, and other games that engaged everyone. We weren't consumers of entertainment. It wasn't someone's job. It was part of the pleasure of living.

That would be far more interesting and entertaining than listening to talentless people sit around and bitch.

Conversation with My Nephew

Tonight, while I was helping prepare our once-a-month family dinner, my nephew, Jesse, came in to tell me about some news stories he's heard about at school. Immediately, I braced myself.

"Dude, you know what this tastes like?"

Jesse is 15 or 16. I remember very well what most young people that age consider to be newsworthy. At that age, I was interested in the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan, and Michael Jackson. (Back then, Jacko was in the papers nearly every week.) The other kids that went to school with me, their idea of news was along the lines of "Did you hear about that tramp, Tracy? She was caught with some peanut butter and, like, gag me with a spoon!" You get the idea.

Apparently, a woman went to the grocery store and accepted a yogurt sample from an employee. After tasting it, she complains to the management that it tastes like semen. "Whoa," I said. "Already there is so much that is wrong with that story I can't begin to tell you." Jesse continues, telling me that she complained to the management about the taste of semen in the yogurt. They told her that it was Greek and that people like it that way.

"Actually, that would be French."

At that point, I turned and said as an aside to my brother, "Actually, that would be French."

Click on the link to go to the MSNBC story, which isn't nearly as entertaining as the comments that followed it. 

BREAKING NEWS: Egypt Is Free!

It was just announced on MSNBC that Hosni Mubarak has turned over all authority to the military to oversee the governmental transition in Egypt. The military has guaranteed the repeal of emergency rule that the public has lived under for thirty years.

I'm watching the celebration in Tahrir Square right now.