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Taking Advantage…

…of my insurance before it runs out at the end of August.

I’ve been a bad boy. I haven’t seen a dentist since we left Phoenix. I was reasonably confident that everything was okay, because I brush, floss, and rinse twice a day, but I really wanted a cleaning, so I made a last-minute appointment with the dentist my primary care doctor recommended. The hygienist complimented me. “Whatever you’ve been doing, keep doing it!”

There were a couple very minor issues; an ancient filling that should be replaced and a chipped incisor—but nothing that can’t wait until I’m working again and fully reinsured.

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Beginnings

It was a very toasty 108℉ in Phoenix on that late spring day when I popped into the world. The sun was in Gemini and the Moon was in rising on the eastern horizon in Libra. I could tell you the position of every other planet as well, but what’s the point? I now believe in that stuff as much as I believe that a Jewish community activist rose from the dead 2000 years ago.

While I have no conscious recollection of it, there are plenty of family photos to prove that shortly after my first birthday, my folks and I flew back to Green Bay, where we met up with my mom’s side of the family and then drove to my grandparents’ home in western Massachusetts where we spent the remainder of the summer. This was to become an every-other-year family tradition (sometimes with my dad, sometimes without) until they relocated to Arizona in the early 1970s.

My earliest memory was noticing the way the light fell from below the drawn window shade on the painted concrete block wall next to my bed while I was supposed to be napping. From this, I can ascertain I was probably less than two years old, because the next oldest memories are of my second birthday. My folks threw a backyard wading-pool party and invited all the neighbor kids (it was a recently built neighborhood full of new families, all part of the baby boom).

The next year, we made the trek to Wisconsin and Massachusetts and moved from our home in Scottsdale to central Phoenix, where we took up residence in an adorable bungalow built in the late 30s located in what was to become 40 years later the very trendy—and very expensive—Willo neighborhood. During our time there however, it was neither. (I remember it being full of working families and retirees who’d probably moved into their homes when they were new.) It was a cute little place with two bedrooms, hardwood floors, a huge back yard with orange trees and a detached garage—and which now possessed a very curious three year old who recently learned how to use a screwdriver and wasted no time in sneaking off to remove the dials from the backyard gas meter. True story! (My mom and recently gone back to work, leaving me in the care of a part-time housekeeper.) Needless to say, it was a miracle I didn’t blow the house—and myself—to smithereens that day.

After that little incident, Mom quit her job and I never saw the housekeeper again.

Two years later, just as I was starting kindergarten, I was told there was going to be an addition to the family. My sister was on the way, necessitating yet another move. I was thrilled at the prospect of having a sibling, but not so thrilled at the though of moving away from the friends I’d made in the neighborhood. I hated kindergarten, so that was also a plus, but it meant that I would forever be branded a kindergarten drop out.

Susan was born the following April, and I adored her unconditionally from the moment she appeared in my life.

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That’s Disgusting

We wash our sheets religiously every week. When I was single it was every other week.

But only once every three months? That’s disgusting!

From Towleroad:

A new study released by the UK mattress company Ergoflex recently revealed, after documenting the linen habits of over 2,000 British men and women, that young, single men change their sheets the least often, reportedly only doing so once every three months on average. Most also report only owning one set of bed sheets, as opposed to women who reported owning an average of three different sheet sets.

Time helped summarize some of the results of the study based on certain demographics:

“Single women reported swapping linens every two and a half weeks, while couples claimed to change sheets every two weeks. Of those couples, the study found 81% of those washing the sheets were women. Of the 2,004 interviewed, on average men admitted to owning only one set of sheets while women estimated around three selections.

“Though it’s clear that females are cleaner overall, the results found that age is a factor as well. For those who answered once every three months, 55% were ages 18 to 25 with men accounting for 71%, while those who claimed to wash sheets once a week were in the 35 to 50 age range. Of the weekly washers, 62% were female. Indeed, 17% of single men participating in the study admitted that partners found their unhygienic practices unnerving compared to just 2% of women.”

Young mens’ unclean bedroom habits can lead to a buildup of dead skin, dander, body secretions and bacteria, according to experts. Such a buildup can potentially lead to respiratory problems. According to Time, those same experts recommend that people change and/or wash their bed sheets once a week for that very same reason. “One person can perspire as much as a liter in a night—even more if you have a lot of covers,” said Philip M. Tierno Jr., director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, to the Wall Street Journal. He also explained how fungal mold, fungal spores, lint, fibers, pollen, soil and cosmetics can all accumulate in the fibers of bed sheets. Those, along with other bodily residues, can potentially serve as food to microscopic mites, which can nest in your sheets and leave their feces behind.

Jed MacEwan, a spokesman for Ergoflex, told the UK’s The Daily Mail how he was absolutely taken aback by the results. “We were quite alarmed at the apparent lack of basic hygiene from some respondents,” he said. The shade…

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One of My Early Works

Y’all didn’t know that I painted, did you?

Zarok (Returning Home)
1981 – 36″ x 42″, acrylic on canvas

This was done over the span of one particularly emotional weekend; each of the stars was individually dotted in by hand.

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A Peek Inside

My bedroom at my parents’ house, 1978. Yes, I was a gay geek.

Those espresso walls were an experiment. They lasted about 3 months. My mom used to joke that the only thing holding my room up were layers of paint.

I wish I still had that Donna Summer poster—not to mention that original Hildebrandt Star Wars…

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Movie Review

Meh.

Entertaining, but not gripping. Ashton Kutcher was the worst part of the entire film. I never saw Steve on that screen, I only saw Kutcher—and his attempted miming of Job’s iconic walk was just…distracting. The film offered only the most superficial insight into what made Jobs tick, and the fact that huge parts of his life were conspicuously absent from the film didn’t help matters either.

While it was interesting to see the fictionalization of the early years of Apple, including Steve’s dismissal and eventual triumphant return to the company, I’d be much more interested in seeing what transpired after Jobs’ return…those years leading up the the product launches that totally reinvigorated the company.

Sadly, the only glimpse of that is at the very start of the film where a much older Jobs is seen introducing the first iPod.

I caught the flick at a $5 matinee, so I didn’t feel cheated, but I was expecting…more.

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On Aging

I long for the days when the most difficult part of my morning routine was putting in my contact lenses, and the worst health issue I had to contend with were allergies and an occasional bout of tonsillitis.

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Then and Now

Last month my sister and brother-in-law did something I’ve been wanting to do for years: see my grandparents’ old house in western Massachusetts where we used to spend alternating summers as children.

While she didn’t get all the shots I might’ve wanted had I been there, she took enough that some comparisons can be made. And unlike I had feared, all my childhood memories had not been completely erased.

1968:

And 45 years later, 2013:

At some point over the last four and a half decades, the owners had remodeled the entire north wing of the house, adding a second garage and apparently reworking the breakfast and laundry rooms in the process.

The biggest change to the property is that the original 22 acres has been subdivided into 3 plots and there are now three houses standing where before there had only been one. Also the original, rambling, ramshackle barn that I used to love exploring has been demolished and rebuilt.

The Barn, 1971:

The Barn, 2013:

But everything else looks pretty much the same.

I’d still like to see it for myself.

 

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My First New Car

Everyone has memories of their first new car, and I am no exception.

Dennis and I had recently relocated from Tucson back to Phoenix so he could attend Arizona State. We had moved in with Steve Weirauch, a cute bear of a man I’d met while in town for a job interview. (Until that time we’d been planning on simply getting a place of our own; ironically settling on an apartment complex that was about a quarter mile from where I ended up living before Ben and I moved to Denver). Steve had a huge townhouse and was looking for roommates, so we all thought it would be a great idea. It turned out that it wasn’t, and ultimately led to Dennis and I splitting up (three-ways can be very, very dangerous).

But I digress…

Steve had a brand new 1983 Toyota Celica. I’d wanted a Celica for years, and driving Steve’s on occasion only reinforced that desire. Unfortunately, they were out of my reach financially so a Corolla was about all I could afford from them at the time. Having reached the point that the truck absolutely, positively needed to go, and I needed reliable transportation even if it wasn’t going to be my dream car, I resigned myself to getting a mom-mobile. But one night I was walking through the dealer’s lot when something amazing caught my eye: a Corolla SR-5. This beast bore no resemblance to the standard Corolla; this car had Celica DNA written all over it.

The salesman told me they’d just started receiving them. I went for a test drive that night and immediately fell in love.

I went home, crunched numbers, determined that I could probably afford one without going broke, and returned the next day. The car I’d driven the night before had already been sold, but he had another in back. It was so new it still had the protective shields on the fenders and the entire interior was wrapped in plastic. This car had every available option (including a sunroof!) and was the exact color combination I wanted. It was $10,000. (Celicas were running around $15-16K.)

Getting the car was a long, drawn-out process that took the entire day—once again requiring my parents’ cosignatures. Since I was in Phoenix and they were now living in Tucson, Dennis and I drove down that night (in the new car!) to get the paperwork signed.

Much more complicated than my old truck, but I still changed her oil myself!

Dorothy, as she came to be known, was an awesome vehicle: excellent gas mileage, snappy performance, great handling, and just plain fun to drive. It wasn’t until Anderson came along that I’d bonded so fully with a vehicle. With only 12 miles on her odometer when I drove her off the lot, over the years she provided more than one late night adventure, took it in the ass when a drunk Corvette driver rear-ended her, and finally ferried me to San Francisco, where after repeated night-time break-ins, having a major recall repair performed, and suffering through the indignity of the City’s climate slowly eating away at her paint, I finally, sadly, sold her a few years later when her exhaust system started rusting through.

That white SR-5 is still the one car that appears most often in my dreams. In the dreams she had never been sold, but rather just put into storage somewhere. I slip back into the driver’s seat and she starts right up and we drive off.

And then I immediately start wondering what I’m going to do with two cars.

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My First Car

Unlike my best friend who lived across the street from us when I was in high school, I did not receive a brand new car (a Pontiac Firebird, no less) on the occasion of my sixteenth birthday. No, it wasn’t until I was 20 and had saved up a reasonable down payment (and secured my parents’ cosignatures for the loan) that I was able to finally have my own wheels.

Those wheels came into my life the summer of 1978. It was a used 1976 Chevy LUV (as in “light utility vehicle”) truck. Until that time I—like most boys growing up in the 70s—had dreamt of getting either a Camaro, a Firebird, or a Mustang, but one night I had a dream where I found myself driving one of these small trucks and felt so good about it that when the time came to start looking seriously, I headed in that direction instead. We found one from the same dealer we’d gotten most of our family cars, and as I recall, the final price was something like $2800 and the vehicle had about 26,000 miles on it. This was my first major installment loan; payments were $125 for two years. This was also the first time I’d driven a stick shift, so the test drive was…interesting, to say the least. Once I got the hang of it, however, I was hooked and every car I’ve owned subsequently (with only one exception) has had a manual transmission.

I’m surprised I have no photos of the interior considering how anally I document everything now. But it came with a dark turquoise vinyl bench seat. After about a year or so the springs under the driver’s side were gone and I had to shove a couple phone books (remember those?) underneath it to keep me from sinking to the floor. I swapped out the crappy AM-only radio it came with for a nice AM/FM cassette and a couple years later replaced the speakers, realizing after I’d done that how I’d probably been driving around all that time with blown speakers.

My mom surprised me for my birthday a few months before I moved out of the house by having the interior completely redone. The vinyl seat was repaired and recovered with a nice blue, white, and turquoise tweed fabric and carpet was installed. No more riding on phone books!

It was a good, solid vehicle. Everything about it was easy to service, and the only real problems I had were with the aftermarket air conditioning that the previous owner had installed. I had it repaired more than once, and finally gave up because it never stayed fixed. (You haven’t lived until you’ve driven from Tucson to Phoenix for a job interview in the middle of August with no air conditioning.)

I finally got rid of the ol’ girl in November 1983, when the siren song of a new car sounded…

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