Category: Life

That's the only way I can describe my core emotional state for the last eighteen months.

On edge. Anxious. Can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten a good night's sleep since election night. And yet, no matter what new horror or dismantling of a sacred American principle is brought about by the illegitimate occupier of the White House or his minions with each passing day, that feeling of dread never goes away. It's never that other shoe; there's still something more, something worse ahead. It's that gnawing feeling that we haven't sunk as low as we're going to before this nightmare ends and the cancer that is eating away at this democracy is eradicated. (At least I still have that hope.) What's even more depressing is the knowledge that the 15-20% of Americans who constitute Trump's core base will be cheering every step as we descend into that darkness, even if it consumes them in the process.

I'm convinced that if bombs start raining down on us, the cognitive dissonance instilled by Faux News and its ilk on his base will guarantee that they'll go to their graves secure in their belief that it all Obama's fault…or Hillary's…or the "damn Liberals," never once accepting that it was the Orange Russian Wig Stand in the Oval Office and his malignant, sociopathic narcissism that brought about their destruction.

Is this what PTSD feels like? Seriously, I'm asking. The anxiety, the difficulty sleeping, this general feeling of doom that some days just permeates everything. And it's not just me…from the few discussions I've had at work, I'm starting to think that 80-85% of the country must be going through this in varying degrees.

As I've written before, until November a year ago, I used to enjoy Twitter. Now I can't stand to be on the platform for more than a couple minutes before I want to either start smashing heads with a metal folding chair or just sink into deep depression at the absolute stupidity displayed by my fellow humans.

And yet I still manage to find joy and peace in things both large and small: my husband, our doggies, music and the machines I use to listen to it, photography, leaving work in the afternoon, WestWorld and a dozen or so other entertainments…

I'm now officially OLD.

Turning sixty is not the same as turning fifty.

For one thing, I feel it. Fifty was sort of a milestone, but it didn't feel appreciably different than any other birthday. Sixty, however…let's just say many parts of this body that I was never even aware of now ache on a regular basis. Bending over to get anything off the floor is a chore, and if I have to get down on the floor to do something, getting back up again is always an interesting exercise.

My energy level—while back to "normal" from what it was a few months ago—is still shit. I think about going out to wander downtown and take photos like I used to do years ago and I immediately think, "Nah. Not gonna do that." At the same time I know I need to do that if I'm going to avoid having to start buying all my clothing at Destination XL. (My daily after-work bowl of chips-n-salsa is directly to blame; I readily admit that.) But I watch all these home improvement shows on television and think, "Okay, these folks are half my age, but still…where do they get the energy to do that?"

And time. Where has that gone? Thirty years ago how did I somehow manage to find several hours to do nothing but work on my tan every week and still have other interests and a life?

Getting a good night's sleep is a rarity. I don't know if that's directly attributable to age or just general anxiety. Almost every morning since January 2017 my first thought upon waking has been, "What has the asshole in the White House done now?" I'm starting to think that pretty much everyone who didn't vote for the Orange Russian Wig Stand is suffering some degree of PTSD these days, and the damage that he's continuing to do not only to our country's reputation around the world but also to our collective unconscious is going to take a long time to repair—even if he's removed from office tomorrow.

The no-longer-suffering-fools-gladly attitude that sprouted when I turned fifty is now in full bloom, but there is still only so much bullshit you can call out on a daily basis.

I'm now older than either of my grandfathers were when I was born.

I've also developed that "old man shuffle," although truth be told I may have always walked that way and it's only because I've only recently seen myself on video that it's now so obvious. (My parents were forever telling me to "pick up my feet" when I was a kid, and based on the wear patterns on the soles of my shoes I suspect it's always been this way.)

I'm really ready to retire. My sister—five years younger than me!—is retiring at the end of this school year. Lucky bitch. Three friends have also called it quits. I've had enough workplace bullshit; I don't care if your PowerPoint won't open. Despite what you believe, THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO END BECAUSE OF IT. Unfortunately retirement is still at least five or six years away—more likely ten if I want to get the maximum Social Security benefit available. And that's assuming that Social Security is still a thing at that point…

And I guess that's it.

One of the things I've been struggling with in this Trumpian episode of The Twilight Zone we now find ourselves living in is a complete and utter lack of passion about pretty much anything (my relationships notwithstanding) that I used to throw myself into with abandon.

I still enjoy writing/blogging (such that it is) and there are television shows I get caught up in, but when it comes down to actually creating, the fire's gone out.

I have a friend (well, actually two friends) who gush over my painting and photography (one of whom has a fantasy of me opening my own gallery, bless her heart) and are constantly asking when I'm going to start putting brush to canvas or taking photos again. I tell them both that the Muses have (hopefully only temporarily, I tell even myself) forsaken me for whatever reason—but I worry sometimes that it goes deeper than that.

I've been in such a funk since the 2016 election I simply don't care about creating much of anything any more. I mean, why bother? The world has gone to hell and the Cheeto-faced Shitgibbon in the White House is well on the way to undoing an entire generation's worth of American progress and obliterating our country's standing in the world in less than two years —with no end to this destruction in sight.

PAINTING

I simply have no passion. There is no fire burning within me to create the way it used to. I now consider the amount of work required to produce a painting and immediately think, "Ain't nobody got time for that." I shouldn't be thinking of it as work, at all, for chrissake! It should be an expression of joy! (My last painting—Ben's portrait—was actually done nearly ten years ago, so it can't be based wholly on the illegitimate presidency of the Orange Russian Wig Stand, but this lack of desire to pick up a paint brush has certainly been exacerbated by it.) I've had other dry spells that have gone longer than ten years without producing a single painting, so I'm not worried that the Muses have abandoned me completely, but more and more I look at Ben's portrait and catch myself wondering if that actually is my last painting.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I also can't tell you the last time I went out with my camera—or even just my phone—for the express purpose of simply taking photos.

No, wait. That's a lie. It was about ayear ago when we drove down to Picacho Peak to photograph the poppies. Prior to that it was December 2016 when I went out out to see the architecturally interesting White Tank Library.

In those rare instances when the photo bug has bitten me, more often than not I go to grab my camera and discover the battery pack is dead and needs to be charged. By the time it's charged the urge has passed. (Granted, for 90% of the types of photography I do, my phone will suffice—and more and more it actually surpasses the results I get from my DSLR—so I can't really use the dead battery defense as much as I'd like to, but you get the drift.)

I used to make photo books for those same friends as holiday gifts; this last year I hadn't taken enough photos I considered worthy enough to even bother putting one together. I miss doing photography, but not yet enough to get me out and about and wanting to take photos simply for the sake of taking photos.

Don't get me wrong. I still take hundreds of photos every year—but none are done with any planning or purpose. And damn few are what I would personally consider high art (worthy of actually printing out and framing).

My friends respond to my current lack-of-creativity with, "Well you need to do something to get your mind off this horror show." Yes, I know. But right now I simply have absolutely no desire to make anything, and therein lies the rub.

Because I got nothin' else at the moment.

There are ten stoplights between my house and work. (I know, it's a short commute.)

Of those ten, I will always stop at three in particular—no matter when I leave, or how many of the others I have to stop—or don't stop—at.

Beyond that, it's a crap shoot. Some days I can breeze through with only four total stops, other days it's six. On rare occasions I hit only those three lights red, and on very rare occasions I end up stopping at 9 out of 10 (one intersection is always green).

But on average I stop at five lights on my morning commute.

Wasn't that exciting?

…and we are not amused.

No energy today. Slept in until 10 a.m. Got up and mowed the front yard before it got too warm. Started laundry. Vegged in front of the computer/television the rest of the day. Fighting the urge to take a late-afternoon nap right now…

There is a quote that is something along the lines of If it feels life is drawing you backwards it's only because the Archer is drawing back his arrow to let you fly. Or something. I know I either blogged the original quote or sent it to multiple people in an email, but I'll be damned if I can find a trace of it anywhere.

I kept that quote in mind as I was slogging through my employment at DISH, knowing that things couldn't get much worse and the only direction I could go was up.

The other day it dawned on me that this could also be an apt description of society and civilization as well. Sometimes it just needs to feel like everything is going backward in preparation for a truly monumental leap forward.

Maybe that's what is happening with the current situation in these United States. The longer 45 is in office, the more we're drawn backward, but once he's gone we'll spring forward and regain everything that was lost and more with an energy and intensity not seen since the end of World War II.

At least that's what I'd like to believe.

I am finally coming to grips that I am no longer a young man. I am no longer in a targeted demographic and not only have the leaves fallen from the trees in the seasons of my life, the first cold blush of winter is fast approaching.

Last week a dear friend whom I've known since we were both in our early 30s turned 60. I sent him a birthday greeting inscribed:

Turning 30: We couldn't wait. We were now adults.
Turning 40: We laughed it off by exchanging nose hair clippers as gifts.
Turning 50: We rationalized it. 50 is still middle age, right?
But damn Skippy, 60 is OLD!

And with us both being part of that generation that was decimated by AIDS in the 1990s, I hastened to add, "But all that really matters is that you're still here and I am so happy because of that!"

My dad always told me that the 30s were the best years of one's life and that I should live them to the fullest. Unfortunately I squandered the greater portion of that decade pining over a man who would never give me what I wanted and trying desperately to fill the void that left behind, but when I look back I'd have to say that yes, in spite of that I still worked those years for all they were worth. [oink]

But it wasn't until my 40s—and the cancer diagnosis halfway through that decade—that I finally became comfortable in my own skin. Instead of constantly beating myself up over not ever losing those 20 pounds so I would feel confident enough to wear a tank top to the Pride Parade, it was far easier (and more satisfying) to just accept who I was, love it, and move on.

And with apologies to my dad, I would have to say that my 50s—despite the career ups and downs—has been if not the best, then at least the most…satisfying so far.

Now I'm not even remotely close to having one foot in the grave yet, but if I am to be completely honest with myself—based solely on the lifespans of the men in my family—and barring anything unforeseen (accident, incurable terminal illness, being sent to a Nazi Death Camp or Nuclear annihilation stemming from an ill-timed Presidential tweet), I probably have about another 25-30 years ahead of me.

And I'm okay with that. Being this age affords me the luxury of no longer suffering fools gladly and allows me to speak my mind perhaps more often than I probably ought to and still get away with it. Of course it also has drawbacks, almost all of them physical. I can't go bounding up and down stairs the way I used to. Getting up off the floor has become a major proposition. And the knees. OMG, the knees. But considering the other myriad health issues I've dealt with over the course of my life, this stuff is small potatoes.

And I love small potatoes!

 

But reversed…

Wish me luck.

…even with as much as I hate snow, the idea of this (i.e. living in the middle of nowhere, away from all the insanity) is looking better and better.

I doubt I'm alone in this…

Can 2016 just nut and call me an uber already?

— ian jacob (@IamIanJacob) December 8, 2016

I just can't any more.

I'm tired of having to "Mark All As Read" the entire contents of the Politics folder of my RSS Reader multiple times on a daily basis without actually opening anything. After the abysmally depressing things I read today (and still reeling from the knowledge—glaringly obvious to anyone who didn't vote for the joker in the first place—that not only is Trump fundamentally unqualified to be President, he and the Cabinet of Deplorables^® he's surrounding himself with are fundamentally unprepared for the Presidency) tonight I deleted all the feeds completely.

Gone.

I'm sure that come tomorrow I'm gonna be jonesing for an outrage fix, and I'll still go to the various websites manually now and then to stay informed, but the daily—nay, hourly—barrage of horrible news has become too much for me. When the possibility was raised today that any number of America's nuclear-capable enemies might take immediate advantage of Trump's ineptitude following his swearing-in, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

https://twitter.com/voenixrising/status/798941066682470400

And considering this news, reading nothing but whining coming from the tech blogs over Apple's new MacBooks, I have a feeling that my "Tech" folder may be next on the chopping block.

…actions have consequences.

We've filed for bankruptcy.

Obviously this was not a decision that we came to hastily, but rather one that we've been mulling for nearly a year. The single greatest precipitator of this was the loss of income we've both suffered by moving back from Denver. Ben knew beforehand that he'd take a cut in pay by returning to Phoenix, but I foolishly believed that while I knew I wouldn't immediately return to my pre-Denver salary (earned through years of raises at a single company), I would at least match what I was making in Denver; not have to return to what I was making in the 1990s.

Unfortunately our financial obligations were based on maintaining something close to what we'd been making in Denver, not to a combined yearly income loss of nearly $20K.

While we were pretty good at juggling our bills, it was obvious we were both slowly sinking into a black hole of debt that nothing short of a much better paying job, a winning lottery ticket—or bankruptcy—would ameliorate.

This is something I've never had to deal with before, so I am understandably upset—even though almost everyone I know (family and friends alike) have gone through bankruptcy at least once and has come out the other side okay.

Ben fell behind on his car payments to such a degree that the creditor was not only threatening immediate repossession, but also was also totally unwilling to even consider discussing reaffirming the loan until he brought it current—something we were financially unable to do. So Ben turned in his car. This was a sad day for both of us because many fine adventures were had with Marvin. (My Anderson is long paid for and considered exempt property, so I'm still good on the transportation front.)

Because of this (and any number of other things that have happened over the past nine months) 2016 will henceforth be known as The Year Of Suck in this household.  And we haven't even gotten to the elections yet—that with Herr Drumpf's recent rise in the polls in key swing states basically bringing him within the margin of error with Clinton—has me terrified.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the of the general public." ~ Scott Adams, (American Cartoonist, b.1957)

 

And it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. But I wasn't always this way. Yeah, I'd always been somewhat shy, but I was never one to avoid interaction with people. I really think the tipping point was when I lost the full use of my voice and I was no longer able to be heard in loud gatherings. I think that also speaks to my discomfort in large crowds…

That could also be why I took to blogging with such gusto—and against all odds stay with it. In its own twisted way, it allows me to be heard.

Inspired by seeing Joe Orton's obsessive diary keeping as depicted in the film Prick Up Your Ears, I began to record my own life events—both mundane and salacious—from late 1987 until mid 2002.

Lately I've been going through those old journals, attempting to convert them from  their original ancient Word and WordPerfect formats into something readable on today's equipment. Word 2016 won't open any native document prior to the 97-04 format, but Apple's Preview application has no trouble (go figure), allowing a rather painless cut-and-paste into the new format. But nothing I own will open the old WordPerfect documents save for Apple's own TextEdit—which unfortunately also displays all the garbage that WordPerfect threw into those documents in addition to the actual text. It's a very time consuming process to weed that crap out and get it in a usable format. And the very few files that I for some reason password protected—even if was able to recall passwords from 20 years ago—are lost completely.

As I've written about before, the Mark who existed prior to the 2003 cancer diagnosis is very different from the one who came out of that ordeal, and nothing has brought that into sharper focus than going over those old entries.

It's worth noting that while my own obsessive journaling started sputtering out a few months prior, it came to an abrupt end at the time of my diagnosis for two reasons. Firstly, I really didn't want any written record of the thoughts and feelings I was experiencing at the time because I couldn't come up with words to describe any of it without sounding full of self-pity, and I was just not that kind of person—knowing full well even then that I was going to come out of it okay. Secondly, only a few months after completing treatment and on my way to a full recovery, I discovered blogging, and while I couldn't be quite as open and unfettered with my words being published for anyone to see as I could when writing only for myself, blogging did scratch the itch that journaling had ignited.

While I'm not proud of a lot of the things that are recorded in my journals (much of it is embarrassingly cringe-worthy at this point), they do accurately represent one gay man's journey through his thirties while looking for love and living in San Francisco in the late 80s and 90s. In spite of the AIDS specter constantly looming, there was sex; lots of it. There are many names in those journals of men with whom I was obsessed but am now unable to conjure a face for. There were broken hearts and hearts broken.

San Francisco was even then an extremely expensive place to live, and while I generally made enough to get by (if only barely), angst about money was a recurrent theme. (Some things never change, even now.) But there were also reflections on the magic that existed in that city, whether it was catching sight of the fog spilling over Twin Peaks on an August afternoon, or the way the sun glinted off the bay, or the first evening after daylight savings kicked in and you found yourself walking home from work in the crisp dark air, or something as simple as a smile exchanged with a handsome stranger on the train.

My growing love for technology—and the horrific amount of time and money spent acquiring it—is spelled out in excruciating detail. Trips to computer fairs and installing hardware or software are so obsessively documented that I want to reach back in time and slap the shit out of that Mark, telling him to get the fuck away from that glowing screen and go to the beach!

There were also many a rumination about spirituality and attempting to find meaning and my place in the universe; pondering alien life and reincarnation—oftentimes punctuated in the same entry with a description of an unexpected orgasmic encounter with a total stranger in some public venue.

I knew even as I was recording those encounters for posterity that some day, with older and wiser eyes, I'd recoil in horror, and ask, "What were you thinking?! You were such a fucking asshole!" And sure enough, I now find myself doing exactly that. Really, Mark…you're damn lucky you didn't get yourself killed or arrested. ANY NUMBER OF TIMES.

Ah, the innocence of youth.

And yet I am reminded of two quotes from a onetime favorite book, Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, that I always kept in mind when recording my adventures:

"You are lead through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them."

and

"Live never to be ashamed of anything you do or say is published around the world—even if what is published is not true."

I realized the other day it's been fifteen years since my bare feet last made contact with a beach. It's no wonder they ache.

As 2015 rapidly spins down into memory, I figured it was a time to take quick stock of the past year.

It's been an interesting one, that's for sure. I don't think either Ben or I anticipated moving back to Phoenix—at least not this year—and yet that's exactly what happened. I wish I could say it was a bittersweet departure from Denver, but I can't. On the other hand, I also have no regrets about the past four years we spent there. We wanted an adventure, and that's exactly what we got in Colorado.

As for the two resolutions I'd made a year ago, I managed to fulfill both of them. What a shock! I've taken a a lot more pictures than I did in 2014, and I got the hell out of DISH.

Now if only the next chapter in my employment saga would start, I'd be a happy guy.

In March, we visited Ben's cousin and his partner in Atlanta, then drove to Columbia to spend a day with our friend John. At the end of May, we saw Bianca Del Rio's Rolodex of Hate, and last month we saw Chris Hardwick's Funcomfortable show.

Next year I'm looking forward to taking more photographs and seeing Donald Trump's campaign (and by extension the entire republican slate) implode, wither and die. And then there's the whole getting a job thing that needs to happen sooner rather than later.

A large winning lottery ticket would also be nice. But I guess we'd have to play in order to win…

1983 and 2015. 32 years and 50 pounds later…

A meme I've noticed making the rounds recently is "Things I Would Tell My Younger Self."

As fascinating as this little thought experiment might be, I long ago realized that alerting my younger self to any of the myriad major things I might wish to warn him about—assuming he would even listen—would ultimately fundamentally change the course of my life, and as much as I bitch and complain about aspects of it at times, I wouldn't change it for the world.

So to prevent any major life alterations—as much as I might want to tell him to buy a thousand dollars worth of Apple stock in July 1982 and hold onto it no matter what, if I had to offer up advice, I'd ask him to only do three things:

• Do not toss out the notebooks of classic audio gear brochures he collected in the late 1970s, because he'll want them someday to remind himself that audio equipment wasn't always black plastic crap—and if nothing else, they'll be worth a lot of money.
• Do not toss out any of his architectural drawings. I know they're a pain in the ass to move, but trust me…he'll want them someday to remind himself that he actually once knew how a house went together.
• Do not give the notebooks of Hallcraft floor plans and renderings he collected into Dad's care. He'll just throw them out, and someday he'll will want them to scan and post on a website. Never mind he doesn't understand what those words mean. He will soon enough.

Because in the area of things, these are the only items he will regret no longer possessing.

Health issues, jobs, friends, and love affairs…just let them unfold on their own. Own the scars. Each and every one of them will put him on the course that will ultimately lead him into Ben's arms, and when that time comes, he wouldn't want to change that for the world.