This Desert Life

Before I left for work this morning I put the following in my slow cooker:

• 4 cups of chicken broth
• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 small bulb of fennel, trimmed and sliced
• 1 small onion, chopped
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

It’s been cooking on low all day. When I get home tonight I’ll add:

• 1 can of whole tomatoes and juice
• 1 can of cannellini beans, drained
• 1 package of frozen leaf spinach, thawed

I’ll turn the heat to high and let cook another hour or so.

When I was home at lunch the soup smelled wonderful. I’m anxious to try it this evening.

This summer I learned that I can no longer pretend I’m going to live forever. I think it’s like the chicken pox, this realization, in that it would have been easier for me if I had gotten it when I was younger.

After a lot of soul searching I came to understand part of the problem with my mortality is that I feel like I haven’t done enough with my life. In fact, my life is not very much like I thought it would be by now. My life really isn’t that different now than it was when I was a kid. I go to work instead of school and have a bit more autonomy, true, but for the most part I’m as free as 10 year old with a room as his own.

I don’t feel like a total failure. Far from it. I did manage to move across the country and thrive in a town where I didn’t know a soul. I did finish graduate school. I have a steady job and a stable income and I’m not really lacking for anything material.

I’m just not living the life I kind of expected I’d have by the time I was closing in on 40. It’s not that I had a lot of concrete expectations. I just know this stage of my life isn’t what I thought it would be.

So what do I do? Do I move off to another town and start over again and hope I don’t peter out in another decade like I did here? Do I stay here and reinvest in this life and try to make it something more to my liking?

I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of clarity right now. I can’t feel my future. I don’t know what it should be.

Early in this semester when I downloaded my professor’s first lecture and listened to it on my iPod while lying in bed, I realized that I had lived to see the future.

This weeked, I was at a Chinese place, waiting for my take-away order when a group of men in motorcycle clothes walked in.  They all wore matching black leather jackets.  On the back of the jackets, there were patches that read, “Hired Guns Arizona.”  I was curious about what that meant.  Were they a private security organization?  Were they a border patrol group like the Minutemen?  Were they a social club?  My first thought was, “I wonder if they have a web site.”

I immediately laughed at myself.  It was telling of how far the World Wide Web has insinuated itself into my life if I assumed a bunch of rough-looking motorcycle riders had a web presence.  I realized that, when faced with any question now, my reflex is to look it up online.  I didn’t always used to be this way.  But, honestly, I don’t really remember how I found answers before 1994.  I assume I used books or asked people but I really can not say for sure.

Had I been standing in that Chinese restaurant in 1990 and those guys walked in, how would I have gotten any information about them?  I probably would have asked around to see if anyone had heard of them.  Yeah, I could have gone to the library but is there a printed directory of motorcycle organizations?  What recourse would I have had other than poring over a periodical index?  Looking them up in the phone book and giving them a call?

Really, how did people know anything before the World Wide Web?  In just over a decade, I have come to take for granted this almost embarrassing wealth of free, easy to get data.  To get information, I don’t go to my TV or my radio or even my books.  I go to my computer and it’s all right there.  I can almost always find any information I need at any time.  I do indeed live in the future.

And, yes, they do have a web site.

Security is a myth. You will eventually lose everything you have. And you will die.

You can spend a billion dollars a second on a war, throwing bodies in the path of the inevitable, to make yourself feel secure but airplanes will still fly into your buildings. You will not seem them coming until it’s too late.

You can give a gun to every man, woman, and child in the country to make yourself feel secure but a very unhappy person will still blow away over two dozen people before you can react. You will not see him coming until it’s too late.

You can plan out how you are going to deal with your aging parents and tell yourself you are mentally prepared for whatever happens to make yourself feel secure but your mother will still die at the worst possible time. You will not see it coming until it’s too late.

Bad things are going to happen and there is absolutely nothing you can do to make yourself secure from that. Therefore, what you must do is make up your mind that you will not live in fear of the inevitable. You will make yourself a rich and full life and you will enjoy it because you are not wasting time worrying about losing it. Losing it is a foregone conclusion. You already know how the story ends and there is liberation in that.

Two years ago this week I sent my Mom flowers.

How was I reminded of that? This afternoon, I was looking for a missing Netflix return envelope that I thought might have fallen between my desk and the filing cabinet. Something was there but it was the receipt, dated April 11, 2005, for the flowers.

I remember the flowers. They were tulips in a big blue vase. Hallmark had them on sale and I thought of her. We used to have tulips that came up in the yard every spring until Dad widened the sidewalk and paved over them. So I ordered them for her as a surprise.

I also have a vivid memory of seeing the tulips in the vase on Mom and Dad’s dining room table, surrounded by fallen petals. I’m not sure how that could be a true memory since I didn’t go back to Indiana until the end of June that year. Could tulips last from April until June?

Last year around this time, I got an email for the same offer for the tulips. Grief was still fresh then and it made me pretty sad. Last week, though, I got a big catalog of flowers in the mail, most of them for Mother’s Day, and it didn’t really affect me. I glanced through it and tossed it in the recycling bin.

So I’m not entirely sure why finding the receipt for the 2005 tulips today affected me the way it did. It was not a pleasant reminder of a happy memory. It just made me miss her very much. And then I saw the lighthouse stamps at the Post Office (she liked lighthouses) and my neighbors were watching MASH reruns on TV (she loved that show). A lot of reminders and quite a bit of sadness on my part. I kind of thought I was over having episodes like this but I guess I will never be completely beyond them.

The receipt, I put it back between the desk and the filing cabinet. It seemed wrong to throw it away and I didn’t know what else to do with it.

We’ve got Palo Verde in bloom.

And have you ever seen sky so blue? No, you have not. Sometimes I wonder how I can even think about leaving.

For someone who indulges in so much introspection, I should always be aware of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.  This should lead to the consistency of mood and action that I think is a desireable state.  Last night I was reminded that I am affected by outside influence more than I realize or enjoy.

There are two men.  The first brings out my better nature.  When I’m around him, I feel smarter, wittier, and more caring.  I feel like I bring forward the qualities he’s somewhat lacking.  Those happen to be qualities I want to see in him, myself and all people.  When I’m with him, I like the person I see myself become.

The second man brings out my worst nature.  When I’m around him, I feel bitter, jealous, and petty.   I feel like I suppress the qualities he shows naturally.  Those happen to be qualities I want to see more of in myself.  He’s smart, sophisticated, social, urbane and cool. It’s childish in the extreme but I’m envious of him for having the kind of life I’ve not been able to make for myself.  When I’m with him, I hate the person I see myself become.

I’m thinking about ending a relationship.

Next month, it will be 8 years since it started so I guess I am a year overdue for the seven-year itch.  Seriously, I’m just not getting out of this relationship what I used to get.  I readily admit that part of the problem is me.  I’m not as attentive as I used to be.  I’ve long since taken it for granted.  I know what I’ve got is very special and I know I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the nurturing I’ve gotten from this relationship.  But I’m just not the person I was eight years ago.  I have other needs now, other desires, other concerns.

And, yes, I’m more than a little curious about what’s out there; seeing if I can find the passion I’m now missing someplace else.  I remember when this relationship was new.  Days lasted forever. Nights were sweet and long.  There was so much energy, so much spark.  It’s not completely gone but it has dwindled and I’m left wondering if it’s going to be enough for me in the long run.

Up until last year or so, the idea of leaving this relationship wasn’t even in my head.  When it started, I was sure I had found the one.  I was sure that I was going to be in this for the rest of my life.  It was so much better than anything I’d ever known before.  Warm and beautiful and accepting.  I learned so much about myself in those early years, things I thought would never change.

But if I’ve learned anything as a result of this relationship it’s that life is not getting to the top of the mountain.  Life is going from plateau to plateau.  Satisfaction, security, it’s all relative and in time we all feel the need to move on to that next plateau.

I’ve also learned that I can make it on my own no matter what.  I left my home and my family to pursue this relationship.  I’ve done it before so I know that I can pull up stakes and move on if I have to.

Yeah, I’m thinking about leaving Tucson.

In just a little over a year from now, I will finish my master’s degree.  My career growth in Tucson is limited.  I could stay where I’m working now.  Even though I enjoy the work, there are people in the organization that frankly suck the life out of me.  There is a corportate culture I can’t get on board with and the outlook for change is not good.

Tucson is a notoriously low-wage town.  I’m never going to earn here what I could earn elsewhere.  Even though it’s a rapidly growing town, it’s not always good growth, in my opinion.  The big economic news I heard last week?  150 $9.00/hour jobs when In and Out Burger comes to town.

Nine months out of the year it’s gorgeous here.  I can’t imagine going back to live anywhere that has an acutal winter.  But the summers here are wicked hot and each one seems longer than the last.  I love the mountains and the desert but I’m parched.  I think I need to be near some water for awhile.

I don’t know.  A move is over a year away.  Maybe things will change at work.  Maybe I’ll find some other reasons to put down roots here.  Or maybe I’ll pack my bags and give some other town a try.

I got an answer and the answer is no.

I forget where I picked this up but one of my favorite bits of wisdom is this:

If you ask a question you better make damn sure you really want to know the answer.

In college, when I was living with Jan Michael, and I asked what he’d done with the guy he cheated on me with, I did want to know the answer.  I wanted to know how justified my anger was and how much more angry I could be.  So I asked and he told me.  Yes, I was angry, damn angry, but I also respected him for giving me an honest answer.

The very first time I ever kissed a guy, I asked him, “Does this make us more than friends?”  This was a few years before I confronted Jan Michael and I wasn’t as smart.  I really didn’t want to know the answer but I asked anyway.  The guy I had kissed gave a half-hearted answer.  He said something like, “We’re getting there.”  I denied it but I knew his real answer and I did not respect him because he wasn’t honest with me.

This week, I asked a question and I didn’t think about it.  I just asked.  It popped right out and two days later did I finally realize exactly what I had done.  I had asked a question that I didn’t really want to know the answer to.   The answer, as I’ve already said, was no.  But it was an honest answer and, frankly, what I needed to hear.

I’m feeling much better now.

Several years ago I saw a documentary about dogs.  The point was made that dogs get stuck in a sort of perpetual adolescence because there are no mature dog role models.  In the wild there are alpha dogs but domesticated dogs have no social structure to help them grow up emotionally.

I immediately realized the same thing could said about gay men.  Yeah, there are daddies who do the whole role playing thing but that’s typically more sexual than anything else.  Beyond that, though, there’s not much in the way of mature gay male role models.  Very few people have gay grandfathers.

What’s more, age is typically not a valued trait in the gay community.  Youth is where it’s at for most gay men.  Older men, again, are seen mostly as daddies in the sense that they can give you money and a place to stay if you need it.  Rarely, in my experience, do young gay men go to older gay men for serious advice or guidance.  It probably happens but it’s not the norm.  Gay men are cliquish and tend to run in packs of their own peers.  There’s no alpha fag showing them how to grow up.

Lately I’ve made the acquaintance of a few gay men.  I’ve also seen the ending of a few gay relationships.  Because of this, I’ve been thinking about my own maturity level in regards to how I relate to other gay men and relationships.  I admit, I’m still pretty adolescent in a lot of ways.  I find myself repeating behaviors that I acquired in college.  There’s got to be a more mature way to handle myself and possible relationships but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.

I need an alpha fag to show me the way, to learn from by example.  But for the reasons stated above that’s unlikely.  I guess my next best option is to find a pack to run with and figure it out as I go.

Truly, this is something I need to do anyway and I am working on it.  My pack has dwindled to almost nothing these last few years and I’m getting tired of this lone wolf act.  I’m also getting tired of this dog metaphor so I’m going to stop now.