The HO Blog

Two Hundred Seventy-Nine Thousand Three Hundred Sixty Minutes!

2007-10-18T19:10:00.000-05:00

Oh, to come back from this long hiatus with a take-off on the song from Rent, it just seems a bit daft. But it was the best I could do.

Well, babysitters, I'm back. I think.

Here's the deal. It's been a rough six months: professionally, personally, psychologically -- the entire gamut of "p" words, really. Although I've been quite busy for the past six months, lots of people who work more hours than I -- and God bless 'em -- find the time to update their blogs. This leads me to conclude that my failure to post for so long could be due to laziness. I will not deny that many a night I come home, think how nice it would be to sit and hammer out an entry, and promptly sit my ass in front of the television until exhaustion forces me into sleep. But it would be dishonest to say that's the only reason I have not posted in so long a time.

I feel that I haven't really found a niche for blogging, and this has also prevented me from updating more regularly. Sure, I founded this blog for myself, and for a few of you it became a portal through which to view the goings-on in my life. Frankly I think facebook or myspace would be better suited for that. I did the weight loss tracker thing for a while because it kept me honest (update - still about where I was six months ago. Not much progress, but no backsliding, so that's okay) but I decided online diet help was not what I wanted this blog to be about. And though I enjoy posting my own thoughts and prattle, I feel my posts were becoming so much mental masturbation, and frankly I was getting a little tired of reading my own crap.

The honest, most brutal truth is that I'm afraid to be intimate with you, the purveyors of the internet in general and of this blog specifically. Don't get me wrong: I harbor no illusions that this blog is eclipsed only by perezhilton.com in terms of readership. I would guess that the number of hits this blog has ever had might number in the few hundreds (as of right now I have 310 profile views), a rather paltry sum. Regardless, I am unwilling to discuss details of my life on this blog that really don't belong in the public domain. To be perfectly frank, that would be most of them. This is not said in arrogance; indeed I think this statement would apply to most people.

So for now I'm going to decide if this blog is worth continuing. I am considering a couple of ideas for how to take this blog in a new direction that might make it worth my time to write and your time to read. In 30 days from now - that's Forty-Three Thousand Two Hundred minutes, for you Rent fans - I'll either redesign this blog or close it out. I hope to post something every few days between now and then. Feel free to leave comments.

May God be with you always, and grant you peace.

Weight Tracker - Week 7

2007-04-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

The triduum started Thursday evening, officially marking the end of Lent (well, according to some scholars). Because I fear that my entry ticket into the Great Kingdom may have to bought from a scalper as it is, I hedge my bets and wait 'til the end of the Easter Vigil service to indulge in all of the extravagancies I've denied myself during the Lenten season. Triduum may or may not end Lent, but it absolutely begins a period of heavy-duty work at church for me, between singing and coordinating hospitality events. Thus I'm a day late in posting my weekly weight tracker update, and this is the last one for the season, although I do plan on continuing to track my weight weekly and plan to post updates.

The astute among you may notice that the lines between the data points on this graph are fewer and farther in-between. That's because each line now represents 5 pounds, not 2 as in previous iterations. Why is the gap greater? Well, I'm sure I could have changed this in Excel, but the software chose the graduations automatically. The reason it changed is because of the new delta between the highest and lowest points on the graph.

Officially, over the 7 week period of Lent, I have lost 14.5 pounds, a full 4.5 pounds more than I had pledged to give up.

I am very excited. This puts me within 4 pounds of my original "goal" weight, although I have adjusted that down (as previously mentioned). I will be shopping for new jeans in a week or so because the current ones hang on me. And most importantly, I feel great!

I have to run and get ready to start my Holy Saturday stuff. I have a choir rehearsal to attend, banana pudding and breakfast casseroles to assemble, animal stuff to buy, and a bottle of wine to procure. Then tonight I have to go and get Jesus up out of the tomb! I'm looking forward to the lighting of the fire outside the parish tonight, not so much because I'm a pyromaniac -- which I am -- but because it's going to be so freakin' cold! But that's a blog for another day.

Weight Tracker - Week 6

2007-03-30T07:44:00.000-05:00

The slide continues . . .

With this week's one-pound loss, I have officially surpassed my Lenten goal of 10 pounds and have a week left to go. To use a word I learned from my friend John, "Woot!"

On Saturday I did something I've never done before. I bought clothes at a vintage clothing store. It was fantastic going into a store to buy clothes without having to look for a "big and tall" section. I bought a pair of jeans that make my ass look amazing. I didn't fully realize how much bigger my old jeans were making me look in the pelvis/thighs area until I put these bad boys on. They are a bit tight, but I'm beginning to embrace tight clothes. There was a time when I avoided fitted clothing, especially pants, because these pieces were unflattering on me. Now tighter pants actually take weight off instead of seeming to put it on. It's an exciting change, and I have to resist the urge to go out and replace my entire wardrobe all in one fell swoop. There is only so much money in the clothing budget.

Next week will be the final installment in the Lenten series. Stay tuned to see how it all turns out!

Weight Tracker - Week 5

2007-03-23T07:10:00.000-05:00

Not that I'm complaining, but there seems to be a pattern here.

This week's total is 1.5 pounds. This is actually a pretty good thing, since healthy weight loss is supposed to average between 1 and 2 pounds per week. At this rate, it will take me another 19 weeks to reach my goal weight. That puts me at my goal weight towards the end of August. It also puts me ahead of my Lenten goal of 10 total pounds by 2.5 pounds (I've currently lost 9.5 pounds). Of course, this may start varying week-by-week, so it's certainly not a fait accompli. However, I am very encouraged.

Life has otherwise been a little crazy. I'm hoping to take this weekend to catch up on some things in my life that I've let lapse a bit, including blog updates. There is much to tell.

Weight Tracker - Week 4

2007-03-16T06:52:00.000-05:00

We're at the midway point, and so far progress is still better than expected.

Another 1.5 pounds have come off in the past week, bringing the net total for these four weeks to 8 pounds even. I'm already to the point that my jeans, previously getting a little tight, are starting to feel loose again. I've found that roughly every 10-15 pounds represents a waist size reduction, so I may be in the market for some new jeans very soon!

I was talking to my friend Ciahnan last night about my weight loss and strategies for losing the last big chunk of weight I want to lose, which is about 25-30 more pounds. He made an interesting point, one that I brought up in my previous post, reminding me that the body is amazingly well adapted to expending as little energy as possible to produce the maximum effect. So, all this time I've been sitting on a recumbent bike my body has been finding ways to pump those pedals harder while using fewer calories.

So next week I'm getting off of the bike and trying new pieces of equipment. This works out well because I've agreed to take part in a 5K next month - a first for me - and I've been debating whether to run it or walk it. I think that I may spend a couple of non-sequential weeks on the treadmill, seeing if my body can tolerate running that long a distance. (I can easily walk 5k, which is just over 3 miles.)

Posts have been light this week because I've been crazy busy. There's lots of stuff running through this old noggin', and I hope to be espousing bleeding-heart liberal propaganda very soon! Stay tuned!

Weight Tracker - Week 3

2007-03-09T07:04:00.000-06:00

Despite my continuing abysmal gym attendance record, I'm still shedding pounds.

Two more pounds saw fit to pack their s*it and leave, so I'm quite pleased. Since the beginning of Lent I've lost 6.5 pounds. I set my goal as 10 pounds by the end of Lent, and we're not even to the halfway point yet (that would be roughly Lent 4, a week from Sunday) so I am thrilled at my progress so far. It's amazing how fast the weight comes off once I return to my more disciplined ways.

In previous attempts to lose weight I hit plateaus after the first few months. This has happened multiple times in the past two years. In the past failing to lose weight for a few weeks would simply derail my entire effort and I'd eventually gain back every ounce that I'd lost. And, as if the weight had been placed into a high-yield savings account - the adipose tissue version of ING Direct, I guess - I got back a few extra pounds as well. Yippee!

This time I faced the fact that at each plateau I had to do something different to force my body to continue burning fat. Caloric restriction, for most people, only goes so far. Evolution has fine-tuned the human metabolism to take full advantage of the calories we're given. It seems that the body will often adapt to reduced caloric intake by decreasing basal metabolism. Exercise, especially aerobic and isometric (resistance) exercise, seem to help maintain and even increase basal metabolism even in the face of reduced caloric intake. Recent reports dispute the veracity of this claim, but since nutrition science seems to be about as constant as a fickle lover I'm not prepared to abandon this idea.

I know that exercise is critical for my own weight loss, so I have got to carve out more gym time if that trend line is to maintain its current trajectory. Speaking of which, what am I doing sitting here typing? That only burns 102 calories an hour! And I'm nowhere near my target heart rate!

The Wages of Sin

2007-03-07T07:25:00.000-06:00

I discovered this Sin Meter on my friend Heidi's blog, and immediately completed the questionnaire so that I could be told exactly why I'm doomed to Hell. Here are my results:

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Low
Envy:	High
Lust:	High
Pride:	Very High

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

So basically I'm just full-up with pride and lust. I must admit I'm shocked. What a revelation. Next I guess you'll tell me that President Eisenhower is dead.

Happy Lent, everyone!

The Beginning

2007-03-06T20:23:00.000-06:00

When I moved to Chicago at the end of 2004 I had recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend, had been miserable in my old job and living situation and was apprehensive about moving away from friends in Nashville and even further away from family in North Carolina. I consoled myself by eating, an old habit that I could never shake and probably never will.

One morning, a few months after moving to Chicago, I decided I should see just how much I weighed. The last time I'd been weighed was during a visit to my physician's office the previous summer, some eight months prior. At that time my weight had ballooned up to a value as high as it had ever been.

I gingerly nudged the digital scale from against the wall. I pressed lightly on it with my right foot, awakening it from its slumber. The yellow digital display came alive and read "0.0". I stepped onto the scale, right foot first, and as I did the display blinked "---", indicating that the scale was calculating my weight. I delicately placed my left foot on the apparatus, my entire bulk now firmly on the scale, and waited for it to determine how much I weighed. I stared at the blinking hyphens, anticipating and dreading the number that would be displayed. Finally, the hyphens resolved and the display said, "Err."

"Err?" What on earth does that mean, I wondered.

I turned the scale over and looked at the instruction sticker adhered to the bottom. I scanned for what this message meant, and was shocked to find that this was an error message that displayed if the scale's maximum weight had been exceeded.

The scale's maximum weight was 330 pounds.

The realization that I weighed in excess of 330 pounds was sobering. At that moment I understood that I had two choices: to get bigger and bigger or to work to reduce my weight. It didn't take me long to decide to choose option 2. This was the heaviest I had ever been in my entire life, and I resolved that it would be the heaviest I ever would be.

I next had to determine the best course of action to lose weight. Never a slave to reason, I figured it would be best to go it alone and make all my decisions independent of a health care provider. Fortunately I have enough training in physiology and science that I can read and learn about nutrition and synthesize the information with relative ease. However I would say to anyone else, even a person with training in biology and medicine such as myself, that seeking out a registered dietitian is the better way to go. Talking to your physician is a good start, but most general practitioners are so overworked they don't really have time to do much beyond shove diet and nutrition pamphlets into your hand. Working with a dietitian or nutritionist, which I did several years ago, is helpful because they have more time to dedicate to you and can help you come up with an individualized eating plan based on your personal likes and dislikes. Perhaps more importantly, they become a person to whom you feel accountable regarding your weight loss. I found this accountability helpful, and others I know have expressed similar sentiments.

I knew that losing weight would be a long-term endeavor, and that keeping it off would require changing the way I ate, shopped, lived and worked. I wouldn't start a "fad" diet - fads are temporary, and I wanted my weight loss to be permanent. I would monitor myself minimally in the beginning, afraid of becoming discouraged because I wasn't progressing rapidly enough. I also assured myself that permanent change would take time, so I reasoned that to lose the amount of weight I desired to lose, 110 pounds, would require a minimum of two years.

During the next few months I would decide on a focus point - something I desired that I felt would be impossible to achieve without losing weight - and alter how I interacted with food. In the next installment I'll discuss my focus point and talk about changing my perceptions about food and eating.

Of Robert Frost and Old Friends

2007-03-06T07:55:00.000-06:00

I originally wrote this entry two days ago. Even though I'm just now posting it, I've decided not to change the day references. Here's the original post.

I am writing this while sitting in the C terminal of the Nashville International Airport (BNA), awaiting my return flight home to Chicago. I left the Windy City yesterday morning and flew into Nashville, my home of eight years, to attend a birthday party for a friend from my grad school days. Because I was really uncertain whether or not my work schedule would allow me the luxury of this 31 hour trip, I didn't let anyone except for the folks directly tied to the party know that I was coming. (Sorry to any of my peeps in Nashville who were left unaware of my incursion!) Having not taken a real break from working since last October, I worked my ass off to make sure this trip would happen. In fact, to take care of things in the lab so that I could get out of town I went into the lab before dawn yesterday and I will go directly to work once I've dropped my bags off at my apartment this afternoon. But I needed this little break to recharge my dwindling spirits.

Although I was genuinely looking forward to it, I was a bit apprehensive about this trip. The friend whose birthday we were celebrating had arranged this party, and I was glad for him to have done it. Despite this I knew it might be awkward because this friend now lives on the West Coast and had several largely separate groups of friends in Nashville, representatives of each having been invited to the party. I was reasonably sure that, as in the days when we all lived in Nashville, this party would operate such that friends from each of the three circles would socialize mostly with the other members of their own cliques, and the host would have to spend his time vascillating amongst the various constituencies. The other possible downside was having to see a couple of folks on the invite list whom, frankly, I could go for a long time without seeing or speaking with. Despite these misgivings I came anyway because of the allure of seeing a couple of folks who, because of various circumstances, I have been unable to see for quite some time. And the relatively balmy temperatures in Nashville seemed particularly inviting given the miserable dregs of winter Chicago seems unable to shake off.

When I arrived in Nashville, my friend from Philadelphia came to the airport to retrieve me, and we spent the afternoon together, having lunch with another friend from New York and my best friend from college who now lives in Atlanta. After lunch my friend from Atlanta and I participated in a ritual leftover from our college days: the two of us go to clothing stores, I select outfits for her to buy, and then she leaves better dressed than when she arrived. We both admitted this exercise was a bit more fun when her parents were footing the bill, but we appreciated spending quality time together in the women's fashion aisles of several large department stores.

Finally the time came for us to go to the birthday shindig. We arrived and, at first, it felt as if the previous three years had not passed. Warm hugs were exchanged all around, everyone commented about how good everyone else looked - a mostly credible claim - and we all went inside. In a few minutes, though, everyone reverted to type and we spent the next couple of hours standing around in our old cliques, talking about old times, comparing everyone's current boyfriend to his former boyfriend and commenting about how everyone really looked. My Philadelphia friend walked around and chatted with members of each different group. This is truly one of his strengths, this ability to mingle amongst various social groups. The other friends and I mostly wondered why we were there.

The friend from Atlanta was in a unique situation from the rest of us, because she was really only friends with me. She knew my friend from Philly, but I was her entree into the group. As we sat, waiting for my New York friend to drag the friend from Philly away from two bears who were card-carrying and pistol-toting NRA members, I said to my friend from Atlanta that this weekend had served as a good reminder of why good things aren't meant to last. The friends from Philly and New York, as well as the one whose birthday we were celebrating, were the last remnants of a large group of friends I hung out with in the middle years of graduate school. These guys were my lifeline during a stretch of my life when I was very uncertain about myself professionally and socially. Having been largely unsuccessful in the dating world, these gay men became like surrogate boyfriends. They provided all of the social benefits of a relationship without any of the physical intimacy. With only a couple of exceptions, that was all I ever wanted from these guys.

We were a tight group, although there were several incidents of drama and tension, including of the sexual variety. (It was 12 gay guys, for pity's sake.) I never knew a closer group of friends, and likely never will again. For many of us coming out is like going through our teenage years all over again. We may be physically older and through with the more embarrassing aspects of pubesence, but we nonetheless have to deal with all the emotional baggage of asserting our own individuality and figuring out the often perilously thin line between platonic attachment and romantic longings.

Eventually the group split up. Petty jealousies, sexual betrayals and rumor mongering set the wheels in motion, but ultimately our careers got in the way. Many of us were students and anticipated moving on to actual employment once our degrees were finished. Others knew that Nashville was only a temporary destination as their occupations required them to relocate or take new jobs in different cities. I was among the last to leave, and I'm glad I stayed around as the most significant relationship of my adult life occurred in the last two years I lived in Nashville, once most of my friends had left the city to start new lives. Eventually a job took me away as well, and here I sit, waiting in the aiport of the city that was home for so long for a flight to the city that I call home now.

Last night was a stark reminder of the message from Robert Frost's poem "Nothing gold can stay." As much as I loved all these guys, I really only see the ones in Philly and New York, and another who now lives in Milwaukee. And there's a reason for this. Joyous times in life are precious and fleeting, and this is what makes them special. It's nice to think that we'll always stay friends with everyone we've ever been friends with, but that's the exception rather than the rule. As I get older losing friends seems less like a tragedy and more like the normal way of things. I have more friends to make in life, and some people whom I currently know and feel close to will fade from my life like the passing of a season. And that's okay.

The friend from the West Coast who threw the birthday party for himself last night admonished us to stay in touch. I hope we will, but I'm not counting on it. Sometimes you just know when it's over. And as I sit in the airport terminal, watching for the plane that will take me back to Chicago, I really feel only one thing.

I feel like it's over.

Weight Tracker - Week 2

2007-03-02T06:09:00.000-06:00

Despite having made it to the gym only one day this week, I was greeted by a happy scale this morning.

I've lost another 3 pounds since last week, so I'm very pleased!

I had hoped to post an entry this week about my weight loss story, but other things have taken priority (hello, the Oscars!) I will start that process soon, but as an entrée I'm posting this picture of myself at (approximately) my heaviest. This picture was taken about 3 years ago.

In this picture I weighed over 300 lbs. Black may be slimming, but it's not magic. It would be another year - and another 10 lbs. or so - before I'd actually start the long journey of shedding these excess pounds. Look for the story in the next week!

Cruelty and Corruption

2007-02-28T22:48:00.000-06:00

The proud have derided me cruelly,
but I have not turned from your law.
-Psalm 119:51

This is part of today's Bible reading from the Morning Prayer service of the Daily Office. I admit, I don't often observe the Daily Office, but during Lent I do try to explore ways of adding worship time to my daily life and will sometimes participate in morning or noonday prayer. Today, though, I sought out the daily office because of something I observed on the way to work this morning.

Every morning I take the Red Line train to get from my apartment in Chinatown to the University of Chicago campus. This morning as I was exiting the train at the Garfield station, I noticed two little girls sitting to the right of the door. They were sitting on their knees, facing towards the front of the train so they could see the passing scenery once the train started traveling along its tracks again. As I was stepping onto the platform I noticed that there was a message written on the back of the coat one of the little girls was wearing.

It said, "Sky is dirty."

I didn't really process this message until I was completely off of the train and walking on the platform towards the escalator. It occurred to me that these words were probably written on the coat by another child, a cruel insult to the girl who would be forced to wear this badge of shame every cold day. I can only assume that her parents were unable to launder the message from the coat, and I imagine that the reason she continues to wear this garment is because another winter coat probably isn't something she owns or her family can afford.

I realize I'm making a lot of assumptions here, and I could have misread the entire situation. Nonetheless this whole episode made me start thinking about cruelty. As I pondered cruelty, especially the cruelty of children, I winced to remember acts of cruelty that were perpetrated against me when I was a child, and of things I did and said that were intended to hurt or shame others.

I wondered what - if anything - the readings for the Daily Office might have to say about cruelty, and was intrigued to find the passage from the 119th psalm among the readings for today's morning prayer service. In the psalm the petitioner expresses how joyous it is to follow God's law, even though in doing so he must endure cruelty from those around him. The psalm eventually describes the value of God's law and how trusting in that law will deliver the petitioner into salvation through the Lord.

The recent municipal elections in Chicago, in which Mayor Daley won a sixth term, also got me thinking about cruelty, not to mention trusting in the law. Our mayor won re-election handily, despite the widespread (and, likely accurate) perception that he and his administration are corrupt. It doesn't matter, people have told me, if his administration is corrupt because the city is a cleaner, better place to live in than it was when he first came into office.

If corruption is the price we pay for a nicer city, is that not a price too dear? Someone even told me today with nary a hint of irony that the mayor may be corrupt, but he is fair. To me, that sounds like a convenient bit of double-speak that serves to salve one's conscience. If corruption is what keeps the city functioning, doesn't that require that someone is getting the raw end of the deal? And shouldn't we be concerned about them?

There is a phrase in the confession of sin we recite each week at church where we ask to be forgiven for the sins committed on our behalf. Living better through corruption is a sin committed by others on our behalf, and thus we are culpable for it. We would do well to remember that.

But we may be too cruel even to care.

Oscars Results

2007-02-26T07:28:00.000-06:00

POST-OSCARS UPDATE:
I have to give some love to my Fug Girls - they have outdone themselves this year by live-blogging the Academy Awards telecast. Part of me wishes I'd known about this ahead of time so I could have followed their antics last night. The more rational part of me - I call him Walter - realizes that seeing it after-the-fact is better because (1) it's a nice recap of the night's events and (2) laughing uncontrollably to the point of apnea is not something you want to do in a room full of people, many of whom you've only just met.

Following an inauspicious start, I wound up placing third in the Oscars poll at the party last night! I correctly predicted winners in 13 categories. Here's a tally of my results:

CORRECT:
ACTOR - LEADING: Forest Whitaker
ACTRESS - LEADING: Helen Mirren
ACTRESS - SUPPORTING: Jennifer Hudson
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pan's Labyrinth
COSTUME DESIGN: Marie Antoinette
DIRECTING: The Departed
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: An Inconvenient Truth
ORIGINAL SONG: "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth
BEST PICTURE: The Departed
SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION: West Bank Story
SOUND EDITING: Letters from Iwo Jima
VISUAL EFFECTS: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
SCREENPLAY - ORIGINAL: Little Miss Sunshine

INCORRECT (WINNERS IN PARENTHESES):
ACTOR - SUPPORTING: Eddie Murphy (Alan Arkin - fantasy pick)
ANIMATED FEATURE: Monster House (Happy Feet)
ART DIRECTION: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Pan's Labyrinth)
FILM EDITING: Blood Diamond (The Departed)
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Pan's Labyrinth (The Lives of Others)
MAKEUP: Apocalypto (Pan's Labyrinth)
ORIGINAL SCORE: The Queen (Babel - fantasy pick)
SHORT FILM - ANIMATED: The Little Matchgirl (The Danish Poet)
SOUND MIXING: Flags of Our Fathers (Dreamgirls)
SCREENPLAY - ADAPTED: Notes on a Scandal (The Departed)

I think two that put me over the top (well, the top of the third tier, that is) are Original Song and Short Film - Live Action. I think only two of us predicted that Melissa would win Oscar, and I may have been the only one in our group to pick West Bank Story, which I did simply on a whim because of its similarity to the musical (and film) West Side Story. Ironically, it turns out this short film is exactly what I jokingly thought it would be, a spoof on the musical based in the West Bank of Israel, with Jews and Palestinians replacing the Greasers and the Puerto Ricans. I kinda think I wanna see it now . . .

I will be adding The Departed to my Netflix queue, as promised. In addition to being impressed by how many awards it won, most of the people in attendance last night had seen this film and were very complimentary towards it.

Best moment of the night? When Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas came on-stage to present the Best Director Oscar to Martin Scorsese. In case you missed it, Francis and Steven mused that they were asked to present this award because all three of them had won in this category previously. George Lucas protested that, indeed, he has never won this particular honor. I loudly stated to the television, "There's a reason you haven't won, George," a comment greeted widely with approval from others in the room with me. I felt very vindicated (I think George Lucas is wildly overrated.)

Worst moment of the night? When Celine Dion started singing Ennio Morricone. I detest the former and love the latter. I secretly - okay, openly - hoped that Maestro Morricone would slap Celine Dion squarely across the face when he walked past her. Can someone please explain the concept of phrasing to this woman? And for God's sake, can she buy some consonants to go with all those vowels??

That's it for this year! Now bring on the next slate of nominees!

Happy Gay High Holy Day!

2007-02-25T07:01:00.000-06:00

I'll be attending an Oscars party tonight because, well, we're pretty much required to (it's in the Gay By-Laws). In all honesty I'm really looking forward to the party because it's a great bunch of people and I think a good time will ensue. One of the de rigeur activities at any Oscars party worth its salt is a pool for predicting the winners. I hold out little chance of winning, since I'm horrible at predicting Oscar winners (Reese Witherspoon?) and I've seen about four movies in the past year, including The Last King of Scotland last night (BTW - underwhelmed).

Here are my picks, both as on my ballot and my "fantasy" picks:

ACTOR - LEADING:
Forest Whitaker is my poll pick because the buzz is totally on him, and for the past few years this category's been pretty predictable. My fantasy? Hard to say since I saw none of the other nominated performances, but I heard great things about Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson

ACTRESS - LEADING:
This category is a bit dicier (again, Reese Witherspoon?), but I'm going with the safe bet of Helen Mirren. I mean, I love Meryl Streep, and hers is the only performance of the five that I actually saw, but come on. The woman won her only leading actress Oscar for Sophie's Choice, despite all the wonderful acting she's done over the years. I doubt Miranda will put her over the top for statuette number two. The darkhorse here is probably Kate Winslet, although I think the best competition for Helen will come from Penelope Cruz.

ACTOR - SUPPORTING:
I picked Eddie Murphy, again going with the safe bet. I would love to see Alan Arkin take it, but frankly I don't think it's gonna happen.

ACTRESS - SUPPORTING:
Have to support the hometown girl and pick Jennifer Hudson. See also the "safe bet" argument above. Loved Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, but she's no Tatum O'Neal. (That's a good thing, folks.)

ANIMATED FEATURE:
This one is a real dilemma, because by all accounts at least two of these movies sucked wind, thus I'm going with Monster House because it (supposedly) sucked the least.

ART DIRECTION:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Why? I don't know. I'd love to see The Prestige take this one, but I just remember that the last time a PotC movie was up it took a sizeable chunk of these awards.

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Pan's Labyrinth. This movie has gotten such praise, and everyone that I know who's seen it has raved about it both as a movie and as a piece of visual artistry. I just don't see any of the others taking this award.

COSTUME DESIGN:
When in doubt, I always go for the period piece, so Marie Antoinette it is. I'd love to see The Devil Wears Prada take it, because it would be so campy.

DIRECTING:
The Departed is the heavy fave, so I think I'm gonna go with the word on the street and put my money behind Mr. Scorsese.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:
An Inconvenient Truth. My inconvenient truth? I've seen none of these, and this is the pick from the New York Times' Carpetbagger.

FILM EDITING:
I hate to be dismissive, but since I've seen none of these films I really can't make an educated guess. I'm gonna be boring and go with "B", which happens to be Blood Diamond, because I haven't picked a lot of "B"s yet. Hey, it worked for the SAT!

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
Pan's Labyrinth: the Times picked The Lives of Others but did heap heavy praise on all the nominees, implying that this is where the true battle for Best Picture lies.

MAKEUP:
Again I'm going period and picking Apocalypto. Perhaps Mel Gibson will arrive sober and carrying his shiny new ADL membership card.

ORIGINAL SCORE:
As a musician, it's so hard for me to pick this winner without having heard any of the nominees. Based on composers, I'd love for Gustavo Santoalla to win for Babel because I just adore his music. For the non-cognoscenti among you, he scored Brokeback Mountain, and won the Oscar last year for Original Score. Sadly, I doubt he'll win back-to-back, so I'm going to go with The Queen because, well . . . moving on . . .

ORIGINAL SONG:
With three songs nominated from Dreamgirls I'm going out on a limb and picking "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth. I mean, it's Melissa Etheridge and it's a song from a documentary, for Christ's sakes! How off the wall is that? This one, incidentally, I'm pretty sure I'll get totally wrong.

BEST PICTURE:
I saw exactly one of these nominees, and I guarantee it's the one with the longest shot of winning: Little Miss Sunshine. Frankly, as much as I enjoyed it, Best Picture material it really ain't, so I'm again taking the "safe bet" cue and picking The Departed. And if it wins the gold it's supposed to win tonight, I think I am gonna have to put this particular film at the top of my Netflix queue.

SHORT FILM - ANIMATED
Oh, God, who in the Hell cares? I'll pick "C" - The Little Matchgirl.

SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION
West Bank Story. Does Tony die at the end of this one, too?

SOUND EDITING:
Letters from Iwo Jima: Always pick the war film for techie sound awards.

SOUND MIXING:
Flags of Our Fathers: See above.

VISUAL EFFECTS:
Pirates. For the love of Pete, it's competing against Poseidon and Superman Returns. If either of those wins then I'll go and eat Kryptonite on a sinking cruise ship.

SCREENPLAY - ADAPTED:
I'm going out on a limb here and picking Notes on a Scandal, even though I think that Borat is the fan fave and The Departed is the street pick. What can I say, I'm just a born risk-taker.

SCREENPLAY - ORIGINAL
Little Miss Sunshine had better win this one, because it does deserve to walk away with something for being one of the most well rounded films to come down the pike in a while.

That's it! I'll post an update on Monday and let you know how I did in the pool. But for now, let's roll out the red carpet and let the trash talking begin!

We're Here, We're Anglican, Get Over It

2007-02-24T08:24:00.000-06:00

When I scanned the front page of the New York Times on Tuesday morning, I was drawn to two articles because of their striking images. The first was at the bottom of the page:

This image features The Most Rev'd. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (right) and The Most Rev'd. Donald Mtetemela, Archbishop of Tanzania. The image accompanied a news story discussing the recent Anglican Primates Meeting in Tanzania. At this meeting, the majority of Anglican primates rebuked the Episcopal Church in the United States for their ordination of the Rt. Rev'd. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire and for their continuing blessing of same-sex unions.

The second image that struck me, and frankly gave me a bit of an uplift, was this one:

These two ordinary guys in New Jersey are registering for a license to have their union recognized by the State of New Jersey, which on Monday became only the fourth state in the union to recognize either civil unions or same-sex marriage.

These images and their accompanying articles bring into peculiar relief the huge chasm that exists in the cultural attitudes towards homosexuality - or, more to the point, non-heterosexuality - between the United States and nations of the global south. The latter grouping includes the vast majority of the worldwide Anglican communion. Being so great in number and influence, the primates who lead the constituent churches of the Anglican Communion in the global south, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia, have this week stomped their feet once again to rebuke the Episcopal Church in the United States for promoting the utterly ridiculous idea that non-heterosexuals are fully realized members of the body of Christ.

There's been a smattering of comment on this week's meeting from many sources, most of it coming from jubilant conservatives within the Episcopal Church. And who can blame them? I mean, I could hardly wipe the smile off of my face on Nov. 8 last year. Throughout this three-and-a-half year ordeal since Gene Robinson's election was assented to by GenCon, there have been two clear and consistent messages. The first is that the Anglican Communion was committed to listening and discerning the best way forward such that all the different factions could remain in communion with each other. The second is that the conservative churches within the communion would accept nothing less than a full renunciation of Gene Robinson's election - and possibly nothing short of a defrocking - as well as a moratorium on same-sex blessings.

Well, folks, we've gotten none of the first and seemingly half of the second. Anyone care to place bets on how this is going to continue to play out?

I've spouted a lot about this particular insanity in private conversations, and frankly I'm sick of the sound of my own voice. I have too many other things going on in my life to expend any more energy fighting these ridiculous men, some of whom wouldn't even deign to celebrate communion with our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev'd. Katharine Jefferts Schori. So much for everyone staying in communion; these guys won't even take communion with us, much less stay in communion with us!

I'm not a theologian. I'm a scientist and I'm a pragmatist (I'm sure one led to the other, but I'm not sure in which order). I therefore approach this situation from that perspective. Here's what I see: Clearly there are a good number of folks worldwide, within and without the Anglican Communion, who don't really desire to be in communion with me, or at least not the version of me that lives fully and proudly as a homosexual man. And here's what I'm left with: There is one and only one thing more important than maintaining the order and familial bonds of the Anglican Communion, and that is maintaining the full dignity and humanity of every member of the body of Christ. Frankly if surrendering my own sense of self-worth as well as the hopes, dreams and callings of the next generation of gay men and lesbians who wish to have their unions blessed by their church or who aspire to be priests and bishops is the price that has to be paid to remain in "full communion," then I say to Hell with it. Kick me out of the club.

But I will - and pay attention to this, kittens - I will still show up.

You can ex-communionize me and the Episcopal Church all you want, I'm not leaving. I'll be the one standing outside with the basket of muffins. (I mean, what is church without coffee hour treats?) I'll watch, and I'll pray, and I'll work towards the Millenium Development Goals and I will revel and glory in all the wonderment and grace that is God's eternal love for us as made manifest through His son, Jesus Christ Our Lord.

So just stick that in your miter and bless it.

Weight Tracker - Week 1

2007-02-23T07:42:00.000-06:00

I stepped onto the scale this morning and was greeted by the loss of 1.5 pounds. Considering that I had a healthy Mardi Gras weekend (which means I ate like a condemned pig), this is encouraging! Here are the data:

As promised, there are no absolute weight values (yet). It's all about trend, folks!

For next week's update I'll have been back on my regimen for over a week. If things happen as they did the last time I got strict I expect to lose at least three pounds by next Friday. If I don't I won't be crestfallen, though. Between now and then I'll begin telling the story of my lifelong struggles with weight. But not today - I've gotta work for a living!

I Look Really Good for My Age

2007-02-22T20:50:00.000-06:00

I decided to throw some fresh paint on the old blog since I'm shaking things up a bit. The first thing I did was upgrade to the "new" Blogger that is linked to my Gmail account. I guess it offers all sorts of new features and whoopdee-doo things (the details can be found here), and eventually as I have time (ha) I'll explore them and see just how big a waste of time they all are. Figuring I'd start small and then get progressively more daring, I thought it might be nice to try a new template. Certainly with the "new" Blogger there might be, oh, I don't know, new templates?

Apparently not.

Indeed, the same old templates that were around the last time I upgraded are still around. One day maybe I'll become proficient enough at web design to make my own template. For now, I've decided to choose something that fulfills the criterion of being different than what I had. We'll see how long it takes for me to grow bored with it.

Before I upgraded, I was warned that changes I'd made in my original template might be lost. I figured, no problem, I can always get those back. Sure enough, when I previewed the new page some things had been retained and others lost. And, yes, I was able to replace everything that was lost. When I checked out my profile, however, I was a bit taken aback by what I had lost there -- namely 217 years:

Yes, my friends, according to my profile, I'm 250 years old. But check out the picture -- I mean, am I holding up well or what?

I'm not sure how that happened, really. I assume it was a glitch with the upgrade to the "new" Blogger. Just to ease my mind, I think I'll call Satan, just to make sure I haven't forgotten about some pact I might have signed several years ago . . .

Tomorrow is the first weight update! I hope you're excited! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and make sure that I don't have any American flags tucked away that have only 13 stars and labels that say, "From the Workshop of Betsy Ross."

Weighed Down

2007-02-21T06:29:00.000-06:00

I've been pretty silent on the blog for the past several months, primarily due to how busy I've been at work and with my other commitments. I've been particularly tired when I get home in the evening, and that's prevented me from becoming inspired enough to pop open the laptop and type up events from my day or opinions on current events. I feel no desire to fill this space with prattle. There are a few of you out there who read this, and I hate to disappoint.

It occurred to me recently that a big part of my fatigue has come from the fact that I haven't been treating myself very well for the past few months. I've put on a little weight (not much, less than 10 pounds) and I haven't been going to the gym nearly enough. This is a path I've traveled down before. I know I need to turn around, because I don't like the destination.

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent. As Lent is a time of preparation, I'm going to use this time to prepare myself for living the remainder of my life as a healthier, more active person. I've already gone a long ways towards that goal -- I've lost in excess of 90 pounds in the past two years. I still have 40 pounds to go before I reach my goal, and it's been hard to push myself towards getting that last bit of weight off.

As part of my usual Lenten disciplines of abstaining from meat and alcohol and fasting once a week, I've added two more disciplines. The first is that I'm giving up watching all broadcast television. Since I don't have cable, this means pretty much all TV. I will still allow myself to watch DVDs. I will not allow myself to watch episodes of currently airing programs on the internet; that feels like cheating to me. I am also exercising my right not to observe this Lenten discipline on Sunday so that I can watch the Oscars. (Sundays are feast days and as such do not require adherence to Lenten fasts. Don't believe me? Look it up.)

The second part - and the part which involves you, dear reader - is that I am committing myself to losing weight during the season of Lent. Not eating meat or drinking alcohol will certainly help. However, I feel I also need a little culpability. That's where you come in. I am hereby committing myself to updating this blog at least once a week with information on my weight loss. Starting Friday I will post a graph charting my weight. Each week I'll post an updated chart so everyone can see how my weight is trending. Because I believe in a certain level of mystery I won't publish my actual weight. The important thing is that the trendline moves downward over successive weeks, not the actual values that the trendline represents.

I am also going to start writing a series of blog entries chronicling my weight loss for the past two years. If others enjoy reading this, or are even inspired to pursue weight loss or other personal improvements because of it, then I will be immensely flattered and grateful. That being said, I am primarily doing this for myself. I want to show myself how far I've come in this time, and to remind myself why I never want to go back to the physical form I had. It has been hard for me to appreciate how different I look now than I did when I started this trek in spring of 2005. I think this is a common problem amongst people who have poor body image, and I certainly count myself among that group. I'm pretty sure that even if my body were model perfect then I'd only focus on whatever imperfections, no matter how small, I could find. As part of my blog entries I'm going to publish some pictures of myself that have been taken over the past three years. Even I find the difference striking.

I wish everyone a blessed Lenten season in anticipation of the glory of Easter. Until then, I'll see you in cyberspace!

The other night I was walking to church . . .

2006-12-25T12:33:00.000-06:00

. . . from Harper Square. (For the uninitiated, this is an open pedestrian walkway/shopping complex in Hyde Park.) I had just eaten dinner with a friend at the Dixie Kitchen and (swear) Bait Shop. My arms were full of packages I'd received from my family via UPS to open up on Christmas Day. My pace was leisurely because I was uncharacteristically running on time, even early, for my choir rehearsal. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this evening, except for this: I was smiling.

I was smiling walking down Harper Ave., still smiling as I turned to walk west along Hyde Park Blvd., and then even as I walked north along Blackstone Ave. I was smiling.

Something changed on Thursday. I don't know what or how or why, but I don't care. It's a good change, and I'll tell you why.

A few months back, when the weather was a bit warmer, I was walking along Ellis Ave. from the zebrafish facility back to my lab. The temperature was pleasant and the sky overcast just enough to allow sun through the clouds without blinding not wearing sunglasses. All in all, it was a perfectly lovely moment in time. I was in a relatively good place with work, I was dating a perfectly nice boy and I was feeling in pretty good health.

Then a voice cried out, "Why you look so upset?" The disembodied voice soon revealed its corporeal form in a (seemingly) homeless man. I could only guess his age as "old" given his weathered face, although I know that living in desperate situations without access to adequate nutrition and healthcare can prematurely age a person. I think a more accurate description would be "older than I".

"If I was as young as you," the man continued, "I sure wouldn't walk around looking so upset."

Wow.

Do I really walk around looking upset? I guess I actually do, or at least I did that day. Shortly after that happened, things got a little rocky with work and in my dating life, as happens. But I let it get me down, and I couldn't shake that guy's voice in my head, "Why you look so upset?"

The sad truth was, I didn't know why, and I still don't.

It would be a lie to say that I've obsessed about this event every day since it happened. But I have been in a funk for a while now, and it's worried me a lot. But something wonderful happened on Thursday. I was walking down the street and smiling, and I wasn't even trying. I didn't consciously say, "Dammit, you're going to smile and have a good time whether you want to or not!" It just happened, and it's happened every day since. It won't be permanent, I know, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. It is precious to me because it's a reminder that in life all things pass, both the good things and the bad. It seems sometimes like there are a lot more of the bad things, but I think that's not really true for most of us. I know upon rational examination that it's not true for me.

So today, on Christmas Day, I'm going to keep smiling. I kept smiling when I opened my "mystery" package from my mother, and it was two seasons of Golden Girls on DVD -- that I already own. I kept smiling when I opened the gift from my friend Kim, a beautiful martini glass-shaped Christmas ornament that was in about four pieces. I kept smiling when I discovered my cat would only play with his expensive new mechanized mouse toy when the motor was turned off, making it about $18 more expensive than it needed to be.

I am going to keep smiling because I have a wonderful family who are enjoying Christmas lunch right now, as I type this, in North Carolina. I can't be with them this year, for the first time in my entire life. But they're all safe and healthy and beautiful. I'm smiling because my friend Elizabeth called me today and I haven't talked to her since last Christmas.

And I'm going to smile because this happened on Christmas Eve many, many years ago:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirin'i-us was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!"

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas!

So Much to Say

2006-12-02T18:02:00.000-06:00

It's been a really long time since I've posted anything on here. There are a lot of reasons for my incommunicado state, but one is of ultimate importance.

I'm not ready to share what's going on in my life with the world right now.

Nothing earth-shattering has happened. No one has died, there's been no significant illness, and I'm still employed. And it's certainly not the case that I haven't had anything to write about. Lots of things have happened that are worthy of blog entries -- relationships, football, the start of basketball, the firing of Chuck Amato -- but I'm just not ready to share my thoughts about them. I'm a little too wrapped up in my own issues right now to produce anything thoughtful and worthy of purview by others. I hope that will change in the near future.

Football Season So Far

2006-09-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

So far, it's not been a banner season for any of my teams.

The good news for the NC State Wolfpack football team is their ACC record (1-0) and their record against ranked teams (1-0). Any scientist worth her salt will tell you, however, that an n of 1 is meaningless. The big picture for my Pack is their overall record (2-2) and their record against Division I-AA teams (1-2).

I was willing to chalk up our loss to the University of Akron Zips -- and doesn't it just make it that much worse when you lose to a team called the "Zips"? -- to random chance. I could even go so far as to call it a necessary balance to the karmic scales from my freshman year. In that year, one of the best Wolfpack football years in recent memory, we went 9-3 and earned a berth in the Peach Bowl. We unfortunately lost to East Carolina University in an embarrassing 4th quarter debacle, but during that season we had some incredible wins. One of those was against the Thundering Herd of Marshall. After an onside kick, a controversial call went our way and we salvaged our season from the ignominy of losing to a I-AA team. (Marshall didn't return to I-A status until 1997.) Maybe our loss to Akron was written in the stars.

But the very next week we lost to Central Michigan by 20 points. Now we'd lost two games to I-AA teams. Two! It was just more than I could bear. Unable to win against these "easy" opponents, I held out little hope for a win against our next opponent -- the 20th ranked, Division I-A Boston College Eagles. Worse, it would be a conference loss since BC joined the ACC a couple of seasons back.

My cell phone is supposed to receive a text message with the final score after every NC State football game, but for some reason I didn't receive one last night. I honestly figured it was just God's way of sparing my feelings. So last night, having returned home from a lovely date, I braced myself and checked what I presumed would be the lopsided score against BC.

To say I was shocked that we beat BC 17-15 is quite an understatement. Then I found out that we won playing a redshirt sophomore quarterback. Holy Shit, what does that say about our recruiting? And that's not to take one iota of credit away from Daniel Evans. From the reports I've read online, he did a helluva job.

I think maybe the football players have decided they don't want Chuck Amato to be without a job. If they can continue to amaze us on the gridiron like they did yesterday in the next few weeks when we face other tough opponents, like Florida State and Wake Forest, then Chuck may be able to stay in Raleigh. If he loses the Carolina game, though, I think his days might be numbered.

And what can I say about my Titans? Frankly, nothing good. Despite a good passing game today, they still lost to the Miami Dolphins. In week 1 they lost to the Jets, and last week they lost to the Chargers. Now I know how all those Tennessee Vols fans feel when they see Peyton Manning and the Colts beat the Titans -- I hate to see the Titans lose to the Chargers, but at least that puts a win in Phil Rivers's cap.

I worry about my Titans, but I will stand by them through thick and thin! Hell, I've been an NC State fan all my life, so I defy the very concept of a fairweather fan.

Win or lose, football season is really just a dalliance to keep me distracted until the important stuff starts -- basketball season! So I'll just keep ducking and clenching my gut until the roundball starts in a couple of months.

Ahh, youth

2006-09-22T22:11:00.000-05:00

I decided to take the 173 Lakeview Express bus into the Michigan Avenue shopping district this evening after I finished at the lab. The bus was only about one-third full, almost evenly divided between solo travelers and others voyaging uptown in small groups.

Next to me was a group of guys, UC undergrads. I couldn't help but overhear most of their conversation as we traveled from the Reynolds Club to Michigan Avenue. It was not dissimilar to conversations I had when I was their age, with my friends, green behind the ears in our first year of college. I had to bite my tongue to keep from answering some questions that came up in their banter.

"Where is the theater district?" (Dearborn, near Washington)

"There's a movie theater near the campus, right?" (Depends on your definition of near.)

"Who's the guy who they think wrote all of Shakespeare's plays?" (Christopher Marlowe - couldn't remember that one until I passed by Marlowe at Chicago and Michigan.)

It can become really easy to wax nostalgic about your own college experience when you work on a university campus and find yourself interacting with, or even just passively observing, undergraduates. When I see these kids, and hear them talking and telling their stories, I am so happy for them and hope that they know what an incredible time this is in their lives.

But I don't for one minute hope to go back and relive those days.

As wonderful as college was, part of its charm and allure is its transience. In the early nineties I prayed to get from assignment to assignment. I spent barely a moment thinking about the future because I didn't have the time to spend on such a seemingly inconsequential task. Now I'm living in that future. A small sliver of it is the present, but most if it is now the past, yesterday just as sealed and unrecoverable as my first day of freshman year.

Truth be told, back then, when I was so focused on getting through the day, I never knew it could be this exciting living in the now. Sure, there are good days and bad, but I've accomplished so much I wanted to do. I cautiously feel sometimes that I can actually sit back and enjoy what life has brought, all the gifts I've been given.

Sometimes I even look forward to what surprises will unfold next.

Just a Few Observations

2006-09-18T21:36:00.000-05:00

In the course of a week I pass by a lot of people. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say I don't pay any particular attention to upwards of 75% of the people around me. The other 25% catch my attention for different reasons. I hardly ever pass by a cute guy without giving at least a sideways glance. Sometimes I'll see a particularly lovely woman and give her a good looking up and down.

Then there's that other 10% whom I must resist walking up to and offering a bit of advice. I resist because, frankly, it's just rude to approach perfect strangers and critique them. God knows I wouldn't want others to come up to me and offer me pointers on my hair or wardrobe on the occasional day when I'm not quite up to my best.

But some things are just too egregious not to elicit comment. These are the best gems.

1. A toupee is rarely a good idea. A mullet is rarely a good idea. A mullet toupee? You do the math.
(Seen on a UofC facilities worker.)

2. Capri pants are a bad idea for about 65% of women and, really, 100% of men. Why any man would purposely roll up the hems of his jeans to make them into ersatz denim capri pants I will never understand, even if he does have nice calves.
(Seen on a cute-ish guy with nice calves on the #55 bus.)

3. Ripped jeans are in. Tight jeans are in. Tight jeans with rips along the panty line are not in, nor should they ever be.
(Seen on a girl crossing the street in front of me outside my building.)

Saving our Souls

2006-09-11T20:17:00.000-05:00

I was standing in the bathroom of my house in Nashville, drying my hair -- oh, how long it's been since my hair has been so long that I had to blow it dry! I was listening to a horrible morning show on the radio, broadcast over the only station that the cheap radio I kept in the bathroom could receive clearly.

I was running uncharacteristically early that day. It was a Tuesday morning, and that meant lab meeting at nine o'clock -- sharp. I was only two or three days back into town, having returned from a trip to North Carolina. I had gone to my ten year high school reunion, and driven with my mother and younger niece to visit my father's sister in upstate New York.

The voice of one of the morning personalities emanating from the radio became different, more urgent. He said that a plane had collided with the World Trade Center building in New York. With each passing moment he shared more details, almost as soon as he got them, or so it seemed. Then, silence.

Turn off the radio, he said. Get to a television set or, failing that, turn the radio to a news station.

I ran into the living room and turned on the television. And I saw smoke billowing out of one of the World Trade Center buildings. I awoke my roommate whose bedroom door adjoined the living room. I grabbed my cell phone and called my friend Joel who, as far as I knew, was still in New York City and working downtown. I couldn't reach him and grew a bit panicked. About the time the plane hit the second tower, Joel called my cell phone. He had left the city a couple of weeks prior and returned to North Carolina; in our traveling about we had not kept up with each other in the previous few weeks. Reassured in the knowledge that no one I knew was anywhere near the scene of the tragedy occurring before my eyes, before the eyes of the nation and of the world, I forced myself to continue getting ready to leave for work.

During the drive to the lab I listened to the local NPR station, and heard about what happened at the Pentagon. At work we had our lab meeting, but none of us could focus on the task at hand. My boss assured us that there was nothing we could do, that we should get done what needed to get done that day and try not to think about the horror unfolding in the northeast. All day we tried to reach news websites -- CNN, the New York Times page, MSNBC -- all to no avail. We kept NPR playing all day, hoping to learn how this had happened, and who was taking responsibility, who would feel the full brute strength of a wronged United States of America marching in to avenge her innocent dead.

Ironically I had been in New York City over the Independence Day holiday just a few weeks prior. I had tickets to go to the observation deck at the World Trade Center, but decided not to go because of limited time. It will be there the next time I visit, I had reassured myself.

Since September 11, 2001, I have visited the site where the towers stood. I saw the movie World Trade Center on Labor Day, and was surprised that I was able to hold my emotions in check during and after the film -- just reading the review of United 93 in the New York Times a few monts earlier caused me to well up. I thought maybe, just maybe, I was emotionally ready to put this horrible event behind me. But I was wrong.

I have cried more times today than I can count -- during the singing of the national anthem this morning at the ceremonies at Ground Zero; as Dateline NBC was talking to survivors of United flight 93; as widows and widowers were speaking of their deceased spouses this morning.

But I know that my sadness now comes not only from the devastating tragedy of 9/11, but also from how badly President Bush and his administration have responded to 9/11, and how they have nearly exhausted every shred of goodwill and solidarity other nations expressed in the aftermath of the terror attacks. The President and his aides espouse the view that we must make America safer, and that secret CIA prisons, "alternative questioning methods" and the war in Iraq are all means towards that end.

Must making America safer necessarily require us, as a nation, to lose our souls?

Do we have to destroy everything that America stands for to keep Americans safe?

I pray not. Otherwise the nearly 3000 people who died that day, and the more than 2000 soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, have all died in vain.

Viva la Trio!

2006-08-28T22:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the first public recital given by Trio, and I'm pleased to say it went off quite successfully! The performance was well received, and we even got enough of a free-will offering to pay our accompanist's fee. There was a bit left over to pay for part of the other incidentals (programs, food for reception, etc.) but we didn't quite break even.

The money is really beside the point, and I must say we were grateful to receive even enough to pay our accompanist! This recital was first and foremost our first opportunity to present ourselves to an audience, and that is such an important thing for a performer to do. A singer can hone and refine her product as much as she wants in the setting of a rehearsal, but until the singer actually puts herself "out there" for others to experience she isn't really making art. In the privacy of your own studio or rehearsal space "Sempre Libera" may as well be solfege.

The completion of this recital also marks the passing of one major stressor in my life. As lovely as it was performing yesterday, it has been a big drain on me learning music, memorizing passages, coordinating schedules, getting programs printed, etc., etc., ad nauseum. We don't have any more gigs scheduled right now, although one is pending for December or February. That gives me at least three months to return to my primary stressor in life, the transgenic (technically, conditional knockout) mouse I'm generating in the lab.

So Shoe Me

2006-08-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

new_shoes
Originally uploaded by ho73classic@sbcglobal.net.

As of Friday morning, I was 1/2 a pound under my intermittent goal weight. This meant I had to do something to reward myself that was completely non-food related. (It's self-defeating to reward progress on a diet with food.)

I had thought of, and dismissed, several ideas for my treat over the months I've been working towards this goal. So I was a bit disappointed that, having met this goal, I didn't have anything in mind to celebrate this milestone.

As I was getting ready yesterday morning, selecting the appropriate ensemble best to complement my new (properly fitting) jeans, I realized that I didn't have any shoes that went well with them.

What an epiphany!

It became my mission last night to buy some cute, dress up/dress down black slides. And I even knew where I wanted to buy them: Nordstrom.

I also decided to be a satisficer, not a maximizer for this purchase. I set a price point in my head, decided on a basic style, and determined that I would buy the first pair that met my criteria.

I went to one other store first, just because I like doing business at that store and wanted to give them an opportunity to make me a sale. They had nothing that I really liked that wasn't well out of my price range, so I strolled down Michigan Ave, turned west at Ohio and walked to Nordstrom.

The first two sales people just made some very generic attempts to help. The third salesperson actually engaged me when I stopped at a pair of shoes that, while lovely, were out of my price range. When I told him I was interested in something similar at a slightly lower price, he showed me about 10 pairs of shoes.

I settled on these beauties. They were not the cheapest. They were not even on sale. But they looked -- and felt -- fabulous.

I also shopped at H&M for the first time. I am pleased to admit that I can actually wear their shirts -- not the slim fit, mind you, but still.

As I was browsing, I began to sense that I am a bit too old and, frankly, not quite gay enough to be in that store. That is, until a musclebound threesome (conservatively) in their 40s strolled past me, toting all sorts of T-shirts and other garments clearly too young for them to wear. It made me feel a little better. But I did pick up a couple of faboo shirts -- and for cheap!! (buy one, get one free on discounted merchandise) -- and I'm very excited to assemble the new look.

New Things to See

2006-08-24T21:46:00.000-05:00

I've been on a quest to lose weight since March 2005. Since then, I've lost about 80 pounds and, as of today, about 10 inches off of my waist.

But until this week, I still felt like a fat person.

My perception of my own body is so skewed that I have a hard time focusing on the aspects of my body that have improved, and still primarily see the imperfections.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm by no means svelte, and I do have several pounds to go. However, in the past week I've really started to notice some positive changes in my body. Last night I was having my hair cut, and sat in front of a full length mirror for about half an hour. While sitting there, staring at myself in the mirror, I noticed how much definition I'm getting in my neck. I also noticed how powerful my forearms are starting to look. There are veins and sinews visible that previously were hidden. The other morning I was stretching while standing in front of the bathroom mirror, and I noticed that I have nooks and crevices in places where I haven't previously, as pretty much all the natural concavities of my body were covered in fat.

It's a pretty great feeling, seeing these changes. It's really reinvigorated me, and so did fitting into a pair of jeans tonight smaller than I've worn since I was in middle school. I'm about 34 pounds away from my goal weight, and I hope to be there by March -- the two year point. God willing and if the creek don't rise, I'll be looking for some new clothes in spring.

The beginning of the end

2006-08-17T19:35:00.000-05:00

When the first of August came, people mumbled, "Is today the first day of August? Gosh, I can't believe it's August already!" As the month progressed, the stirrings changed to, "August is just flying by so quickly!" Today, I received a Pottery Barn catalog in my mailbox.

The fall catalog.

It's official. Summer is so close to being over it might as well be the second runner up on American Idol.

I mourn the passing of summer here like I never have before because it means that winter is unpleasantly near. And winter in this city is just almost unbearable.

So soon the steady stream of hot, shirtless men running along Lake Shore Drive will slow to a trickle, and eventually dry up altogether. The plumes of water shooting majestically from Buckingham Fountain will cease, the speed limit will decrease along LSD, and the heat lamps in the CTA train stations will come to life at the press of a button.

On the bright side, I won't have to worry about dealing with the steet cleaners any more. At least not until April.

Weekend in the Country

2006-08-14T21:11:00.000-05:00

I got back to town yesterday afternoon, having spent the remainder of the weekend in Saugatuck, MI. Saugatuck is a little community on the banks of the Kalamazoo Harbor. Chamber Choir goes there (nearly) every summer to do a short concert on Saturday evening, and then sings at the Douglas United Church of Christ during their Sunday morning service.

Having never been to Saugatuck before, I was a little apprehensive about going there because it is a popular destination for gay men. For better or for worse, that distinction often carries with it a certain image, of sleek clubs nestled in amongst trendy stores with muscled pretty boys walking along the sidewalks casting disdainful glances at anyone who dares walk the streets who isn't toned and young.

I am pleased to admit that I couldn't have had a more inaccurate picture of this community. Indeed I was impressed with the homey feel of the town. It's a quaint little waterfront village that is replete with shops designed to attract tourists with refined tastes. Although there was no lack of gay men and lesbians in the town, most of the people I saw were young or middle-aged married couples who were enjoying tooling around in cute convertibles, an escape from their more hectic workaday lives in the larger towns and cities I imagine they live in when not strolling the sidewalks of Saugatuck.

It's a little late in the season for this year, but I do think I'll keep Saugatuck on my list of potential weekend vacation spots for next summer. I wouldn't mind escaping from the big city myself.

To the Victor Goes the Soy Latte

2006-08-04T18:36:00.000-05:00

At long last, my targeting vector is finished!

(Well, okay, it's finished pending results of sequencing, but still, it looks good so far!!)

You may be asking yourself, "Waterlily," -- you call yourself that sometimes -- you say, "Waterlily, just what is a targeting vector, and why should I care?

In a nutshell, a targeting vector is a large piece of DNA used to alter the genome of a mouse embryo through a process called homologous recombination. You can peruse this listing in Wikipedia for more information.

Once I saw the results of my restriction enzyme analysis I decided that a victory soy latte was in order! Thus, on my way to drop off my precious DNA at the sequencing core I stopped by the coffee shop at the UC Divinity School and grabbed a $1.25 soy latte (their happy hour special -- reduced price lattes!)

Seeing as I wanted to have this construct finished at the latest by the end of June, I'm both overjoyed finally to have it and disappointed that it took so long. However, seeing as it took me only four months to make my targeting vector using recombineering, and more traditional methods can take a year or more, I think I'm still ahead of the game!

The hard work of screening ES cells is yet to come, but I'm just glad I've (almost) finally gotten to this point!

Phishing with Better Bait

2006-08-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

Dear senders of phishing email:

I have a business proposal for you. You see, like everyone else with an email address, I get a wompload of spam emails, including my fair share of phishing emails. With the certainty of gravity, taxes and death, all phishing emails that I receive share a common flaw. They contain atrocious grammatical, typographical and vocabulary mistakes.

There's an old addage in the world of fishing that says if you want to catch better fish, you have to use better bait. Let me assure you that the following "phishing" email is not good bait.

This actually arrived in my email inbox a few days ago:

Dear Western Union Clients :

We are sorry for invoice. we had some errors in our data , Please update your profile .

You can access your profile at
https://wumt.westernunion.com/asp/regLogin.asp/..

For help please contact Western Union Customer Service immediately

by email at customerservice@westernunion.com or call us at 1-877-989-3268 .

Thank you for using westernunion.com!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My proposal for you, oh purveyors of internet criminal activity, is to serve you as a consultant -- a grammatical consultant. I am eminently qualified. For one, English is my native tongue, something I'm guessing most of you who send these emails cannot claim. Second, I am known amongst my friends and colleagues as the ~~drama~~ grammar queen. I wield my red pen with wrath and vigor!

Still not sold? As proof of my savvy, notice the improved phishing email posted below:

Dear Western Union Client:

We have recently discovered some errors in our database. To ensure the accuracy of our records, we request that you update your profile by clicking on this link.

If you require further help, please contact Western Union Customer Service by email at customerservice@westernunion.com or by calling 1-877-989-3268.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for using westernunion.com!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notice that the email is addressed to only one "client," not multiple "clients," adding that personal touch. Additionally, I removed the awkward space separating the word "clients" from the semicolon. Also, I reduced the font size of the salutation, making the overall letter look more professional.

I have made several changes in grammar and style throughout, including apologizing for "inconvenience" rather than "invoice." Also, it's a big no-no to put the fake web address you've made up and registered with an registrar in a foreign country with no extradition treaty with the United States in the actual email! This is truly a "rookie move." Notice that I have replaced the fakey-fakey web address with a simple link without any overt identification.

Now, this email, I think you will agree, is just begging to bilk some folks out of their hard-earned cash!

Serious inquiries only. I work on retainer and commission, United States currency only.
*DISCLAIMER: A special room in Hell is reserved for people who knowingly and willingly send out spam emails. The room reserved for those who send phishing emails is even smaller, more dank and will be subjected to even more broadcasts of the 700 Club in perpetuity.

Quote of the Day

2006-08-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

Heard on a local report during Morning Edition:

"Please bury me in Cook County, so I can continue to vote."

Precious, precious indeed.

Racism of Indifference

2006-07-29T09:50:00.000-05:00

I went to the grocery store late Thursday night after callback auditions for Chamber Choir to buy a few final items for a dinner party I hosted Friday. Having only a few items in my basket, I decided to use the self-checkout.

As I was waiting for a register to open up, a little boy came up to me and asked me for money to buy some cupcakes. As I am usually averse to giving people money on the street, and as I needed every ounce of cash I had on me, I told him I didn't have anything to give him. When I turned around, I noticed another boy, somewhat older than the first, but still a kid, had gone up to the register to my immediate left. Thinking he was with the girl currently occupying that register, I didn't say anything. I realized quickly that they weren't together, and got a little annoyed at having let this person jump me in line.

Maybe a minute later, the next register opened up. However, before I could move my cart to it, another kid walked up to it, actually walking around my cart. I was tempted to get in front of the kid and let him know that he had jumped me in line -- a fact of which I am sure he was well aware -- and reclaim my proper place at the register. Instead, however, I just walked to the next self-checkout lane and found an available register.

As I was scanning my purchases, I saw that all three of these kids -- the one who asked me for money, and the two who jumped me in line -- were together. I thought to myself at first, these kids are probably hungry, and probably lack any sort of significant parental supervision to be out this late at the grocery store asking folks for money to buy cupcakes. So what they jumped me in line?

But then a more sobering realization came to me. I believe at least part of the reason that I didn't confront either of these kids is because they happened to be African-American, and I allowed that to intimidate me. Essentially, I expected less from these kids because of their race.

Now, don't get me wrong. I normally avoid confrontation, because rarely do I get any satisfaction from taking on people exhibiting rude behavior in public. And despite what many who know me might think, I don't enjoy acting like everyone's mother. But I have a bad suspicion that had these kids been white, and certainly had they been white females, I would have said something to them.

I don't pretend that I don't have any racist tendencies. It's hard to grow up in this society and not learn prejudices against those who are of a different race. But I think I usually do a pretty good job quelling any racist thoughts or ideas I have. I recognize that as a caucasian person of the male persuasion I am afforded a good number of advantages not offered to others because of their race or gender. As an out gay man I do have some understanding of prejudice, but I must admit I rarely encounter discrimination on a personal level.

It bothers me, though, when I allow my own prejudice to bubble to the surface like that. And I don't really believe that these kids being rude had anything to do with their race, other than contributing to what I perceived as their disadvantaged status. The question becomes, what can I learn from this experience, and what can I do better to cope with my own biases?

I guess the first thing to do is to give up and just be everyone's mother. So stop slouching! And did you finish your homework yet? No? Then stop reading this blog right this minute and go do it!

I said now!

Dubious Honor

2006-07-27T07:32:00.000-05:00

I recently received a phone message from Jackie Davidson on behalf of Congressman Tom Reynolds, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Apparently, they had selected moi to receive their National Leadership Award, and needed to speak to me right away concerning a press release they wanted to send out, no doubt to let the local community know about my prestigious award.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I had to give them a call.

When I called them this morning, I didn't speak to Jackie, but instead conversed with one of her colleagues. Before giving my name, I asked the representative how the organization got the information to decide who should receive these "awards." I wondered whether they got my name off the ACLU membership list, or the HRC membership roll.

The representative told me that she couldn't tell me how I was selected for the award without learning my name, so I reluctantly gave it to her. (They knew it anyway; they'd said my full name on the answering machine message.) When I told the representative my name, she sprang to life, feigning recognition ("Oh, yes, hi!" was her response -- apparently the list of finalists is short indeed). She let me know that business leaders in Illinois had been selected based on their contributions to the local economy.

Apparently, my shopping habits have gotten me into trouble again.

She went on to tell me that the organization was hoping I would attend the next presidential dinner when Bushie next comes to the area, and started to play me a message from Congressman Reynolds himself. At this point, my rational mind took the reins away from my curious mind and cut the representative short. I informed her that I had never voted for a Republican candidate (I know you're shocked) and likely never would. Without animus I asked her to remove my phone number from her records. She cheerfully agreed to do so, and thanked me for calling in so that they could better decide what to do next. (Umm, that would be never call me again in hopes of getting my support for the Republican Beast.)

I'm guessing my status as an important businessman has something to do with the WHOIS registry for my website. I get all kinds of crap for health insurance, business credit cards, etc. I guess marketers are desperate enough for business that they'll send out crap to anyone with the $10 (or less) required to register a domain name. The Republican party, given the latest poll numbers, must be equally desperate.

Parting Thoughts on the Gay Games

2006-07-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

The Seventh Gay Games wrapped up this past Saturday. My buddy Matt got tickets for the closing ceremonies and called me late that morning to see if I wanted to go with him, so we took the train up to Wrigley Field on Saturday afternoon to watch the spectacle. It's a delicious irony that I had worn my White Sox T-shirt to work that morning, and thus got to wear it to Wrigley Field for my first visit to that heralded baseball park.

The closing ceremonies started late -- it largely was run with, for and by gay men, after all -- but the wait was worth the payoff. I felt a little old because the only musical act of whom I had ever heard was Cyndi Lauper, who sang (duh) "True Colors". Among the many performers I didn't know was the duo Jason and deMarco. Their performance was very nice, although for the life of me I couldn't tell if the blonde (whom I know now is Jason) was a gay man or a lesbian -- fault my distance from the stage and Jason's really high singing voice.

There was a fun performance by Chicago's ROTC -- Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps. If, like me, you've never seen them before, think about the "camp" soldiers skit from Monty Python and you'd be pretty close. The other very enjoyable performance came from the DC Cowboys. These boys are just delicious, and did a lovely sendup of Brokeback Mountain (it was not nearly so tired as it sounds).

I must admit that I was a bit disdainful about the Gay Games, figuring that they were as much about socialization as about athletic endeavor. However, in meeting a few of the athletes and visitors in town for the festivities, and having attended the closing ceremony, I find that I've changed my mind. Now I regret that I didn't attend any of the games, even though some events were hosted at the Ratner Center at the U of C.

The Gay Games were, I believe, a boon for Chicago. Hearing Mayor Daley speak so graciously and movingly about this city's gay and lesbian population, and about how this city welcomes its gay and lesbian citizens and visitors, was quite profound.

And besides, the locker room at the Ratner Center has never smelled better.

Mulan

2006-07-22T09:01:00.000-05:00

I had problems with my UPS (not the package delivery service, rather the device which assures continuous, uninterrupted power to my computer) which required me to unplug all non-essential peripherals. Sadly, this list included my wireless router. Because surge-protected outlets provide less protection than battery-backup outlets, I tried to avoid using my desktop for extended periods of time, such as would be required for blog entries.

I've had a lot I've wanted to write about, since there have been such nasty things going on in the world. Given that I have only limited time right now -- specifically, 10 minutes while I'm waiting for a centrifuge to spin down a DNA pellet -- I'm going to skip all the important stuff and give a brief shout-out to a new bistro in my 'hood.

The BF and I went to Mulan last week. Located on the upper level of the East Gate, part of the Chinatown Square shopping complex, Mulan is a swanky Asian/French fusion restaurant that focuses on reinventing and uplifting the concept of "surf and turf." All of their dishes pair a land animal or waterfowl with a complementary seafood, in most cases shellfish.

The BF and I started our meal with a cup of the tomato and Kobe beef broth soup that contained mushrooms and circular pieces of whitefish. It was flavorful, though a bit acidic for my taste. This was followed by grilled elk with lightly fried, delicately breaded scallops and deep-fried lotus root with a carrot-miso sauce. I thought the elk was flavorful, though the meat was a bit tougher than I would like. This may be particular to the animal; my only other experience with game meat was a delicious, tender venison I had at Erwin - An American Cafe in Lakeview a few weeks ago. The elk paired well with the sweet scallops, and the carrot-miso sauce was fresh but not overpowering. The BF had lamb chops served with a shrimp bun. The chops were tasty and prepared medium per his specification. We finished our meal by splitting a piece of flourless chocolate cake which was tasty but not especially noteworthy.

In a nutshell, the entrees were fantastic; the soup okay and the dessert good but not great. The service was attentive and knowledgeable. Entrees ranged from $19 to about $32. Mulan is BYOB; I don't know if they charge a corkage fee or not.

The next time you find yourself in Chinatown or the South Loop and you're looking for something a little different to try, I highly encourage you to check out Mulan!

Challenges

2006-07-13T07:09:00.000-05:00

I love God, because She is so deliciously sneaky.

I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR a couple of weeks ago, as I do most mornings while getting ready for work. On the previous day, in a state of mental and emotional fatigue I had thought it best to give up the fight to keep the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. As I was stepping into the shower, I heard the Morning Edition anchor introduce an interview with Jerry Falwell. Great, I thought, just what I need to hear -- an interview with perhaps the most repulsive Christian minister I know.

As part of the story, NPR interviewed Mel White, the founder of Soulforce. Mel White was a confidant of Jerry Falwell's, and the ghostwriter of Falwell's autobiography. Mel White eventually came out as a gay man and founded Soulforce to work for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the Christian church. When not leading spiritual protests around the country, he lives in Lynchburg and regularly attends services at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, which Falwell founded and still leads.
Whenever the sermon/rhetoric turns homophobic, Mel White stands up in silent protest of the denigration heaped upon his GLBT brothers and sisters.

When I thought about Mel White, I realized I was being a great big wuss.

The whole GLBT issue isn't going away because the GLBT community in the Episcopal Church isn't going away. I have to remember that God has a plan -- undoubtedly part of His plan was my hearing that interview. Wrangling with the global Anglican Communion is also part of that plan. In all of this brouhaha, it is important to remember that the ultimate goal is not -- and must never be -- the unity of the Anglican Communion. Instead the ultimate goal must always be proclaiming the gospel and pursuing justice for all of God's people.

Unmoved

2006-06-29T21:34:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here listening to Presiding Bishop the Most Rev'd. Frank Griswold being interviewed by Terry Gross on her program Fresh Air. I have probably never heard the Presiding Bishop speak for so long a time. I realize suddenly that he sounds a lot like The Rev'd. Fred (Mr.) Rogers, and that's both comforting and creepy.

While listening to Bishop Griswold's interview, I've also been reading the latest letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury. I must say, I first became aware of this latest missive while reading an article in the New York Times yesterday about the desire of some dioceses in the Episcopal Church to be placed into a separate province that will be armored with gay bishop, woman deacon/priest/bishop deflective plating.

(Oh my God, she's asking him about his freakin' vestments. Terry, is this the best your researchers and interns could come up with??)

Having read Cantuar's letter I'm completely unconvinced that there is anything to be gained by fighting the global church regarding the issue of ordaining gay and lesbian persons to the episcopate. The letter is perhaps the most equivocating, placating, ingratiating thing I've read in the aftermath of GC 2003 and GC 2006. Basically the Most Rev'd. Williams reminds everyone that gay and lesbian people are to be protected from bigotry and given the same legal rights as others -- something some of his brother bishops and primates have actively campaigned against. He then goes on to say that only a small minority of Christians believe that gay and lesbian persons' relationships should be honored or celebrated, implying therefore that the majority will and not justice should rule the day on matters of this sort. He then says that we aren't the Roman Catholic Church (and thank God someone told us!), only to follow this point with an expression of eagerness to explore the model of Catholic hierarchy and a hopefulness that we might learn something from this ecclesiastical/political model.

I guess I'm just weak, but I'm just not willing to fight this fight any more. It's only been a week since the passage of B033 and, frankly, I'm exhausted. It takes a lot of energy constantly to defend one's validity as a member of the body of Christ. No matter how many calls are made to recognize the value of gay and lesbian persons within the church and their role in the life of ministry, so long as those pleas are followed by a call for their exclusion from ordained ministry or full sacramental blessing, these exhortations will ring hollow. Loving the sinner but detesting the sin is a sanctimonious affront perpetrated by a majority class that would rather forget their own sins and concentrate on the supposed sins of another group, especially a sin they feel they themselves are incapable of committing.

So, to all the churches of the Anglican Communion for whom my "manner of life presents a challenge," I say God bless you, and let's move on. My world won't end if my bishop isn't invited to Lambeth two years from now, and Christ will be no less present in our church, or my heart, if the invitations from Cantuar don't arrive.

To all the dioceses and churches in the Episcopal Church who, because of a gay bishop who exercises no authority over you or a presiding bishop-elect whose Wolffian ducts degenerated during embryonic development or both, feel as though you must leave the bounds of the Episcopal Church and become constituent members of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, then I say go with God. If you are tired of fighting, then I can say with abiding empathy I wish you joy and peace. And love.

Because, after all, isn't it often said that if you love something, or someone, you have to let them go?

A New Perspective

2006-06-25T23:38:00.000-05:00

My rector, who is technically on sabbatical, offered a prayer today for the gay men and lesbians who have been singled out by Resolution B033. As he is technically on sabbatical, he offered this prayer during the Prayers of the People. During the announcements, he walked to the ambo and, after introducing himself as the rector and explaining why he was not wearing clericals, he gave a short talk on Resolution B033. In addition to explaining what the resolution said, and noting that our bishop stood in support of a statement of conscience opposing the resolution, our rector gave us some very interesting details concerning the passage of this resolution. These are facts of which I was not previously aware. What he said is largely substantiated by this news release.

The House of Deputies had considered a resolution with the same wording as B033, and rejected it. In his desperation to get something passed to appease the global church, Presiding Bishop the Most Rev'd. Frank Griswold implored the HoD to pass a quickly assembled resolution, B033. Several bishops, including Presiding Bishop-elect the Rt. Rev'd. Katharine Jefferts Schori, spoke in favor of passing this resoultion in the House of Bishops, and Bishop Jefferts Schori went so far as to speak to the HoD regarding passage of this resolution.

There's just one little problem though -- the HoD had to suspend its own rules even to consider this resolution. Once a resolution has been voted on by the HoD, it cannot be considered again during convention. Since the wording of B033 was exactly the same as parts of A161, this was essentially an end-run around the legislative equivalent of double jeopardy.

Rather than get even more upset about the injustice that this resolution embodies in light of this new information, I'm trying to take comfort in the words of the Rt. Rev'd. Gene Robinson as conveyed to us today by my rector. To paraphrase, Bishop Robinson said that we must trust that the Holy Spirit is still working in the church, even when the votes don't go our way. Despite our failure to understand how God is advancing the cause of justice through this action of General Convention, He is still our salvation.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I can't fully take comfort in that idea.

In passing B033, the Episcopal Church has said that injustice is not too high a price to pay to maintain unity with the Anglican Communion. As I see it, there's only one thing more important than maintaining unity with the Anglican Communion. That one thing is my dignity as a Christian, and the dignity of every other baptized Christian -- gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or straight. Whenever we place the well-being of the institution above the value of the baptized members of the body of Christ, we practice idolatry. As I recall from Exodus, that's a pretty big sin.

Complacency

2006-06-22T22:43:00.000-05:00

Moving to the Diocese of Chicago has obviously made me complacent about the state of affairs in the Episcopal Church.

You see, for eight years I lived in the Diocese of Tennessee, a bastion of conservative parishioners led by a conservative bishop who recruited syncophant conservative priests to toe the party line. Gay clergy? Forget it. Gay parishioners were barely tolerated, and in at least one parish were actually asked to leave. I attended one diocesan convention as an alternate delegate and left in disgust as the convention voted down a resolution acknowledging and affirming the national church's position that gay men and lesbians were to be included in all aspects of lay ministry within the church.

Then I moved to Chicago. I found a church that not only embraced gay people in lay ministry, but also in ordained ministry. A few months after moving here, I met a man whose own bishop had abandoned him in the midst of his path towards ordination because it was no longer prudent for a bishop in this man's diocese to sponsor an openly gay man aspiring to the diaconate. The bishop of Chicago stepped in and sponsored this man. I have since learned that this diocese has been a haven for gay men and lesbians who are called to be ordained but face hostility in their home dioceses because of their orientation.

In my joy at having found a place within the church where my sexuality was so less important that my spirituality, I allowed myself to blindsided by yesterday's passage at General Convention of an incredibly homophobic resolution that actually makes me a second-class citizen in the Episcopal Church.

Resolution B033, adopted by both the House of Bishops and House of Deputies, reads as follows:

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, that the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report's invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconcilation; and be it further

Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

The dignity and episcopal gifts of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals -- and presumably transgender persons -- have been cast aside in the name of maintaining unity with the global Anglican Communion. As if that weren't bad enough, this lousy resolution was even endorsed by the Rt. Rev'd. Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, a woman whom I truly admire. The only moment of beauty and grace that I found in this whole debacle was an impassioned plea from the Rev'd. Ruth Meyers broadcast on NPR this morning. The Rev'd. Meyers stated, tearfully, that she could not sacrifice her gay and lesbian colleagues on the altar of Anglican unity. As I listened to her voice breaking, I began to cry. Reading more about the resolution today I just got more and more depressed.

But something wonderful happened tonight. I had dinner with several friends from church. We talked a bit about General Convention, and the absurdity of some of the arguments made against electing a woman as presiding bishop. (Our personal favorite? That it would strain our ecumenical ties with the Vatican. Because we were on such solid ground before the election of the Rt. Rev'd. Jefferts Schorri.) Then on the way to my car, I ran into a couple from church who were returning home from a shopping trip. We chatted about choir, and moving, and renovating a new home.

As Ken and Sara walked towards their apartment from the sidewalk, and I continued down the street to my car, I realized that this is the church. These people with whom I worship every week, with whom I sing every Sunday, with whom I have dinner every few weeks -- they are the church I care about. The fact that I'm gay makes no more difference to them than being Southern or having brown eyes. It is because of them, and not because of Bishop Gerry Wolf or Bishop Bertram Herlong or the Rev'd Canon Kendall Harmon, that I am a member of the Episcopal Church. Even more important than this, through baptism I am a very member incorporate in the mystical body and blood of Jesus Christ. That cannot and will not ever change, no matter how many overwrought conservative pundits declare that the Episcopal Church is being dragged into the fiery gates of Hell by a stampede of homosexuals.

Unfortunately, I feel as though a response to this action by the General Convention is in order. I don't know what that response should be, but I will be prayerfully considering it over the next several days.

Of Zebrafish and Episcopacy

2006-06-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

I got home from the zebrafish meeting late last night, exhausted from three days of nearly continuous science. All in all it was a fantastic meeting. Several people came up to my really pathetic poster and offered advice about how to improve my techniques and agreed to provide me with reagents that would be helpful for my studies. I also had several "Aha!" moments in the last couple of days' sessions. This week I'm going to work through the experiments I thought of to see what still seems like a good idea in the harsh light of day.

When I awoke this morning, I turned on the news and was overjoyed to discover that during our closing sessions at the fish meeting yesterday, the House of Bishops was electing the first woman primate in the Anglican Communion. Yes, our new Presiding Bishop will be the Most Reverend ma'am, thank you very much! Despite the groans of despair and continuing bitching about schism, I think this is a wonderful day for the Church. I hope that Presiding Bishop-elect Jefferts Schori enjoys a fruitful and felicitous term as Presiding Bishop. Seeing as she's only 52-years-old, she'll be a relatively young 61 when her term is complete, meaning she'll have the opportunity to remain active in ministry after she has stepped down as primate. Of course, her age and relative lack of experience -- she was ordained only 12 years ago, and consecrated bishop in 2001 -- are being used against her by the conservatives who probably just wet themselves when her election by the House of Bishops was announced. Her rapid ascent to the top of the church hierarchy speaks to her strengths and smarts, I would say. The conservatives don't want to come out and say that she shouldn't be PB because she doesn't have a penis, but that's basically what they believe.

I think that she may show in the next nine years that she has bigger balls than any of the lunkhead "traditionalists." And praise be to Jesus for that!

Zebrafish, Day 1

2006-06-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

I'm safely ensconced in my hotel room having survived the first full day of the 7th Annual Conference on Zebrafish Development and Genetics. The meeting started yesterday with two hours of talks in the evening, including the key note address.

Today was a marathon -- we started at 8:30 and went until 10:00 (that's a.m. to p.m. in case you're wondering.) I had to bail around 9:15 because my back is still recovering from the 3 hour drive to Madison from Chicago. I'm lying on my tummy while typing this, trying to stretch my intervertebral discs anteriorly and thereby reduce the pressure on my dorsal nerve roots. Most of the talks I went to today were good, some really good, others not so hot. I'm learning a lot about techniques in zebrafish, but I have yet to see something that gives me an "Aha!" moment where I get a new idea of how to tackle my own project. It will probably happen -- it does at most meetings I attend.

This is a big meeting to break in to, and I feel a little isolated because I'm the only person from my own lab here and I know so few people in the community. I haven't been able to attend either of the poster preview sessions where folks can mingle with beer in their hands, so that's hindered my ability to mingle. I'm hoping tomorrow night my back will be healed enough to allow me to stay until after 10:00 pm. But I'm not going to push it -- 13.5 hours of meeting is plenty enough, thanks.

I'm going to run and check the news about today's General Convention news. I'm a little worried about some of the resolutions, but I have faith that the Holy Spirit will prevail!

Now back to the back, and hopefully soon to blissful repose.

All the News That's Fit to Stank

2006-06-10T18:53:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, when riding the El, I will see discarded newspapers lying in empty seats. If I happen not to have a copy of the paper with me, nor anything else to read, I will sometimes pick up these discarded papers and read them. Once I've reached my destination, I will usually toss these newspapers into the recycling bin conveniently found at most El stations.

I don't do this anymore. And I never will again. Here's why.

The other night I was riding the Red Line northbound from the Garfield stop after leaving work. The train was mostly empty. I sat in a seat across the aisle from a rather unkempt man, whom I assumed was probably a homeless person. In the seat in front of him there was a copy of that day's New York Times. The man picked up the front section of the paper and began to read. So far, so good, right?

Unfortunately this rather pedantical story takes a turn towards the disgusting right about now. You see, having decided that he had fully satiated his appetite for news articles, op-ed pieces and advertisements, this man began to rub the newspaper all over his face and head, and along the lengths of his exposed arms.

Yes, dear readers, this man seemed to have been bathing himself with the newspaper.

Even more alarming is that, once finished with his newsprint ablutions, this man folded the paper back up and returned it to the seat from which he had taken it only moments before.

Now I know some folks think that the Times is not the best paper in the world. Mostly these are people who are lining up to buy copies of Ann Coulter's latest book. I'm sure these people think this too generous a fate for a copy of the Times, and that those of us who read the Times should worry less about the human crud wiped on the pages as the liberal crap printed thereupon.

That idiocy aside, I think that my pat response of "Ewww!" is appropriate and reasonable.

Therefore I shall not in the future be perusing any copies of any materials left on the train. No newspapers, no pamphlets, not even a business card.

Hold That Thought

2006-05-24T21:48:00.000-05:00

I read two disturbing articles in the New York Times today. The first was really a blurb, not a full article, but it was a story with which I was already familiar because it's happening close to home. The school board in Libertyville, a suburb north of the city, has decided that students participating in extracurricular activities will be required to sign a statement agreeing that postings online describing or documenting inappropriate or illegal behavior are grounds for disciplinary action by the school.

This, folks, is chilling.

As a participant in the blogosphere, I harbor no illusions that the content of this blog, my own personal site, or my U Chicago site are either private or not subject to scrutiny. Any ideas, thoughts or claims I post on any of these sites I am willing to defend. I recognize that each site has a purpose and may be read by different groups of people. That's why I don't disclose everything about myself here or anywhere else in cyberspace. What's more, all three sites are governed by some sort of user agreement and/or terms of service contract (here's the one for Blogger, the service that maintains this site) that stipulates what materials may and may not be included in these sites. And if I'm stupid enough to post pictures of myself participating in illegal activities on the internet for all the world to see, then I shouldn't be surprised if the police track me down and charge me with a crime. It shouldn't make a difference that I put evidence on the web, as opposed to showing a picture to friends or buying a half-page ad in the paper and publishing the picture therein.

The issue in Libertyville, thus, is not that students -- or anyone else for that matter -- should be immune from having their web postings used against them. The problem is that it's not the school's place to impose authority over these kids other than during the time they're on school grounds or participating in school-related activities. If a group of kids in Libertyville has a keg party and posts pics for all the world to see on their MySpace page, then they're a bunch of dumb-asses and they deserve to get caught. But not by the school, only by their parents or (if the cops there are really that bored) by the police. When teachers and administrators complain that they spend too much time disciplining children on the one hand, and school boards purposefully seek out methods that would extend the reach of the school's jurisdiction to discipline students on the other, I wonder what the true motivation of these educational bureaucrats really is.

The second, equally troubling issue is who gets to decide what is inappropriate? The definition of "inappropriate" could be so broadly interpreted as to condemn students for perfectly legal behaviors that the school system, other parents or peers might find objectionable. How does this affect minority and disaffected students in the system? Will GLBT students be disciplined for discussing their sexual orientation online if others find that "inappropriate"? What about students who post political ideas online that might offend others? While in the school building or participating in school activities, the school should restrict what students say so as to promote a healthy, functioning learning environment. However, off school grounds students should be allowed to participate in whatever sort of social and political discourse they wish. Only their parents should be allowed to decide what sort of limits are placed on the media they use to espouse their views.

The other piece that caused me great distress this morning concerns a proposal by the ACLU to restrict the speech of its board members.

Let me say that again so it can sink in. The American Civil Liberties Union, proud defender of every American's first amendment right to free speech, is seeking to institute a policy whereby it restricts the free speech of its board members if they happen to disagree with the leaders or policies of the organization.

To be fair, I believe the policy says that board members shouldn't publicly criticize the policies or administration, but that's pretty well just semantics. Disagreement with policy is, in effect, criticism of that policy. Policy is an extension of the sitting administration. Thus, you disagree with policy, you're criticizing policy and the staff.

What has happened to the ACLU? The representatives from the organization -- of which, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a card-carrying member -- defend the policy by saying that rancor among the board and the leadership, including director Anthony Romero, hurts the organization's fund-raising efforts.

So let me just get this straight. The organization that I feel is the first and best line of defense against the continued erosion of our personal liberties in the name of fueling the corporate machine is sacrificing its own principles at the altar of the Almighty Dollar?

I sincerely hope that the additional thirty pieces of silver that the ACLU raises is indeed worth sacrificing the very freedom that lies at the core of its mission. It's a bit like The Gift of the Magi, only without the nobility of the sacrifice.

Anonymous in the Big City

2006-05-21T15:38:00.000-05:00

While living in Nashville, a city of approximately half a million people, I discovered an unpleasant fact. A disconcertingly large number of gay men in Nashville know each other, often because they had at one time dated each other. This pseudo-incestuous existence was made all the more unsettling by the relative paucity of available, decent gay men that I found in Nashville. Thus it seemed that by dating any gay man in Nashville, you were in effect dating every gay man in Nashville.

I attributed this humongous circle-jerk to the fact that Nashville was a fairly conservative city, and many gay men were not comfortable being "out." This meant that many gay men existed in a subculture, meeting other men almost exclusively at bars and online. Many gay men did not -- or could not -- reveal their orientation to their colleagues and families. Finding someone to date in this sea of dysfunction was quite challenging. One rarely had the luxury of quibbling over minor details such as, "Have you dated any of my ex-boyfriends?"

Chicago is a beacon of liberalism compared to Nashville. Although I'm sure there are many gay men in this city who must live in the closet, most of the gay men I've met are out and proud, unconcerned with who knows the true nature of their relationships with boyfriends and partners. Plus Chicago is home to nearly 3 million people, nearly six times as big as Nashville. Surely, I figured, the overall larger population of gay men in this city, coupled with the relative openness of the city towards gay people, would mean that I no longer had to worry about everyone I dated knowing or having dated each other.

Oh, how wrong and naïve I was.

I found out last night that Matt, the man I'm dating, knows the last guy I went out with. I've dated all of three men in this city, literally making the odds that any two know each other a million-to-one. Oh, to have this kind of luck with the Illinois Lottery!

Last night's unsettling realization is not too terribly upsetting -- Matt was a little put off that I had dated this person, but greatly reassured by my entirely truthful assertions that Matt is in every regard superior to the other guy. Yet again, this other guy continues to live up to the appelation by which I often refer to him.

That would be "Dodged Bullet."

Tales of Public Transit

2006-05-19T07:14:00.000-05:00

An organization called AutoVantage recently released a report listing the cities with the rudest and nicest drivers in the United States. They listed Nashville as having among the nicest drivers in the country, which tells me that this survey is completely inaccurate. Having lived in Nashville for 8 years, I learned that Nashvillians are among the nicest people you can meet on the sidewalks, but among the most ornery people you could run into on the highways and byways.

Since I don't drive much nowadays, instead taking public transit, I don't have to deal with rude drivers as often as I did in Nashville. However, public transit has its share of rudeness, and I've experienced or heard about three particular tales of rudeness just this week.

On Monday I got on board the #55 bus to get from the Garfield train station to the UofC. As the bus was a bit crowded, I made my way to the back and found a seat on the bench along the back wall of the bus. I was reading my paper, trying to ignore all around me as is the norm on the bus and train.

I heard a voice say, "250." I ignored this voice, because, well, I'm on the bus and I don't engage the crazies. Unfortunately, I was jarred by someone kicking my foot. I looked up to see an unkempt middle-aged man looking at me. He said to me, "What are you, about 250?" I assume he was referring to my weight. I looked back at him and said, "That's really none of your goddamned business," and returned to my paper, trying not to look as flustered as I was. Perhaps I should have retorted, "What are you, about 75, 76? Oh, I'm trying to guess your IQ." My friend Joel says I should have said "No, around the world is $50 and a blow job is $25, just like downtown." However, had this man then produced either $25 or $50 I would have been forced to use the closest emergency exit and hurl myself out of the moving bus. I think it was easier just to sit there and ignore him.

My friend Joel was accosted by a Jesus freak in New York. A guy sat across from him on the 7 train and seemed to be checking him out. Intrigued, Joel made brief eye contact and thought he was initiating some harmless flirting. When the train cleared out a bit, this guy sat down next to Joel and said, "By the way you were looking at me, I'm afraid you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, and I'm worried about your mortal soul." When J.F. asked Joel if he talked to God everyday, Joel's response was typically priceless: "Yes, I do, and He asked me to tell you to stop calling Him, because he just doesn't think it's going to work out between the two of you. Now I suggest you get up and get the Hell away from me."

Not 20 minutes after hearing this story, I was sitting on a Red Line train heading south to my apartment from Lakeview. Just south of the Washington St. station, a dude was asking passengers if they had three singles for $3.00 in change. Two girls on the train decided first to give the guy the third degree about his motivation for asking for singles. Then they decided to accost him, asking if he had any heroin or crack.

Wow, people. What's the deal? Let's just all try and get along, shall we? You people are giving public transit a bad name. And that's quite a feat.

Announcing . . .

2006-05-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

. . . the launch of my new website!

Take a moment to check out A Tenor for Hire!

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell anyone who's willing to pay money for a singer!!

Inspired

2006-05-12T20:47:00.000-05:00

I was perusing one of my favorite websites today and ran across this gem. It's just too funny not to share.

Anatomy of a Long Day of Science

2006-05-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

7:05 am: Leave apartment, having awoken at 5:45 am.

7:37 am: Arrive in lab. Check experiment. See didn't work.

8:03 am: Count injected zebrafish embryos. See experiment didn't work. Begin cursing.

8:50 am: Go to gym. Shower. Feel happy once again.

10:05 am: Return to lab. Remake reagent to redo experiment that didn't work (see 7:37 am). Realize that Eric Whitacre CD has arrived from Amazon.com. Rip CD using iTunes. Happiness reigns.

11:43 am: Remember noon seminar. Realize this will delay remaking reagent. Curse some more. Walk to noon seminar for one hour presentation.

1:00 pm: Sit in seminar room waiting for talk to end at 1:00 as scheduled.

1:10 pm: Talk scheduled to end at 1:00 actually ends.

1:18 pm: Return to lab, reinvigorated to do science and talking about weird mouse described in talk that ended at 1:10.

1:22 pm: Purify reagent from first reaction, prepare for second reaction.

1:36 pm: Get interrupted, screw up second reaction. Curse some more.

2:01 pm: Try to recover screwed up reaction. Screw it up again. Cursing ad libitum.

3:04 pm: Finally recover screwed up reaction. Now nearly three hours behind schedule.

4:35 pm: Add final enzyme to reaction. During 1 hour incubation, walk to coffee shop and get coffee to stay awake for next 5 hours.

6:07 pm: Run reaction out on gel as first step in purification.

7:02 pm: Purify reaction from gel. Take spec reading. Reading falls below linear range of assay, indicating shitty recovery. Begin to re-evaluate having chosen a career in science.

7:03 pm: Take another spec reading with increased sample input. Receive acceptable (although shitty) reading.

7:15 pm: Set up new reaction with new reagent. Prepare to relax for an hour.

7:16 pm: Remember that fish must be crossed for experiment tomorrow morning.

7:17 pm: Walk to fish facility. Pull out tank marked to have 8 fish, contains only 3, all females, greatly diminishing probability of successful mating. Begin drinking.

7:26 pm: Drain hip flask. Buzzed, decide to steal 3 males from another tank. Set up crosses. ~~Walk~~ Stagger back to lab.

7:55 pm: Sit and wait another 20 minutes to do next step in experiment.

8:15 pm: Transform reaction into competent DH5α E. coli. Wait 20 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 30 minutes for reaction steps.

9:18 pm: Transfer bacteria to selection medium. Place in incubator. Walk to bus.

9:45 pm: Bus finally arrives, ride to train station.

10:09 pm: Train finally arrives, ride to the Cermak/Chinatown stop.

10:24 pm: Enter apartment. Feed cat. Eat dinner.

11:18 pm: Collapse into bed. Set alarm back to 5:30 am. Pray that Tuesday will be better than Monday. Accept that it won't be. Fall asleep bitter.

My Faith Story, Part III

2006-05-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

In the spring of 1994 I finally came to terms with the fact that I was gay. I had suspected as much for a few years, had endured a couple of hopeless relationships with women, and finally accepted that my feelings towards other men were more than just a fascination or a curiosity. The first place I went after coming to this realization was my father's grave. I lay on the ground above my father's interred body and cried, asking for his help and forgiveness. The next place I went for comfort was the church. Unfortunately it was locked -- literally. I went to two different churches near the NC State campus, hoping to find a clergy person to speak with. Instead all I found were empty buildings devoid of anyone willing to listen to my story of confusion and pain.

Over the next year I came out to my close friends and eventually my mother. It would be another ten years before I told anyone else in my family that I was gay. Cowardly though this may be, I figured that being unmarried at 31 and not having brought a girlfriend to a family function since I was 20 might have clued some of my more astute family members in to my "orientation."

In those ten years, I also grappled with what it meant to be gay and a Christian. I spent a lot of time soul-searching, trying to figure out if it could ever be acceptable to engage in sexual acts with other men and still be counted among the righteous. The de jure attitude of mainstream Christian churches was that sex was a gift from God reserved for married people. The de facto situation, however, was that lots of Christians engaged in sex outside of marriage. I figured this meant either that this particular tenet of Christianity wasn't all that important, or that there were a whole wompload of hypocrites running around. Turns out I was probably right on both counts. But that didn't change the fact that, by acknowledging my sexual orientation, I was putting myself in a position to question and perhaps defy one of the central tenets of Christianity with which I had always agreed. I don't mean to say that I always lived up to the expectation of chastity outside of marriage, but I did acknowledge that such behavior was sinful and to be avoided.

Gay men could not marry per se in any mainstream Christian church of which I was aware, at least not 12 years ago when these events in my life were occurring. Even today the list of churches that officially sanction gay marriage is indeed quite small. Could there be a loophole? Could I possibly still find salvation if I reserved myself for a "life partner"? Would God acknowledge such a situation as on par with marriage?

This moral conundrum kept me out of the church for nearly two years after I came out. I was afraid of God, afraid of His judgment, afraid of the judgment of His ministers on this earth. The easiest way to deal with this fear was to avoid it, which I thought meant avoiding church. After all, that's where God lives, right? It turns out God has a way of leaving His house, wandering down the street and catching up to you as you walk down the block minding your own business. Like Noah before me, I would soon learn that fleeing God's calling is about as futile as ice skating uphill.

How quickly time flies . . .

2006-04-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

I am amazed at how long it has been since I've put up a new post! The nearly two weeks intervening this post and my previous one were filled with Holy Week happenings and out-of-town visitors, so I have had precious little time to sit down and write. My absence from the blogosphere has not been due to a want for topics. I've had so many ideas for things to write. Since the main reason I keep this blog is to force myself to write more coherently, I've really been doing myself a disservice by failing to keep it better updated. This fails to mention the impact on you, the literally ones of readers who peruse these pages de temps en temps.

I promise, I will prattle on more in the near future. Look for the conclusion of the My Faith Story series, and some interesting insights into just exactly what I do all day at my lab bench. And no, order things from Amazon.com isn't at the top of the list.

I think maybe it's number 17.

Best Fortune Cookie Fortune. Ever.

2006-04-07T23:27:00.000-05:00

I'm sure many of you are aware of, and perhaps have participated in, the tradition of cracking open a fortune cookie, removing the tiny slip of paper from inside and reading it to your friends, adding the words "in bed" to the end of whatever sophism or clairvoyant message is printed on the paper. (There's even a web site that will do this for you.) The following is the fortune I shared with my friends and colleagues at lunch today:

A package of value will soon arrive. In bed.

If anyone needs me, I'll be at home, waiting. In bed.

My Faith Story, Part II

2006-03-29T20:09:00.000-06:00

I entered college in August of 1991.

Hold on a minute, I need to recover from that.

Where were we? Oh, yes: college, August, 1991. My college choir director put me in contact with the music director at First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh who hired me as his tenor section leader. For the next nine months I went to church every Sunday morning, dutifully sang the music placed in front of me, and felt absolutely no connection to the church or God. It was a gig, it paid, that was it.

I had a conversion experience one morning in the shower. I remember distinctly hearing the voice of God that morning. What God said I don't recall; I don't even remember if it happened during my freshman or sophomore year. I just remember being very afraid. If I knew then what I know now about mental disorders I would instantly have assumed I was experiencing a positive affectual symptom of schizophrenia. My fear subsided quickly and was replaced by a feeling of longing. I couldn't say, however, just what I was longing for.

My conversion experience wasn't enough to put me back on the path to faith. Something much more dramatic had to happen in my life to capture my attention and point me towards God.

My father had been diagnosed with emphysema a year before I entered college. His illness had helped me decide to go to college fairly close to home -- the NC State campus is about an hour and a half from my family's home. I anticipated that one day the phone would ring and I would be informed that I needed to come home quickly. When that day came, I didn't want to be dependent on airline schedules; I wanted to know I could hop in my car and make it home quickly.

The phone call I awaited with dread came on October 6, 1992. My father had been taken to the hospital after collapsing in his bedroom. I wanted to come home immediately but my mother told me not to worry, that things would be okay and that I should stay and finish my midterm exams. Fall Break was only three days away, and I'd be home then. Two days later, I could the situation was going from bad to worse and my sister encouraged me to drive home. When my mother didn't object, I knew things were much worse than I had been led to believe.

I limped west on Highway 70, afraid to take my car on the interstate. I remember praying, "God, if it's time for him to die and for his misery to be over, then I am at peace with that. Just please let me get home to see him before he dies." My "Check Engine" light came on, as it was wont to do in those days, but I got home in just about two hours. I dropped off my bags at the house, called my mother in the hospital room to see if there was anything she wanted. (I remember taking up Oreos; I don't recall if they were for her or for me.) I got to the hospital at around 3:00 on the afternoon of October 8, 1992.

My father died at approximately 6:00 that night.

I had requested something of God, and He delivered. In retrospect, I think that's a lousy reason for going back to church. Theologically it seems almost heretical to follow the teachings of Christ only because He has done me a favor (other than the favor of crucifying Himself for my sins, but that was a favor for everyone, not just for me).

In the aftermath of my father's death my yearning for God became more acute. I sought to learn more about the Presbyterian Church since that was where I was spending most of my Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, I didn't get much past the whole Predestination thing. In fact, my last Sunday singing at that church featured a sermon defending that most Calvinist of beliefs. I took it as a sign that it was time for me to move on.

I didn't find a church home the rest of the time I was in college, though in honesty I didn't really try. My longing for God waned over time, but I had permanently regained something in that conversion experience and the death of my father -- I had regained my faith. I no longer considered myself an atheist. I identified as a Christian because that was what I knew how to be. Christianity is a credal religion, and I'm not sure I could have stood up and honestly claimed to believe the tenets of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. (To this day bits of both give me pause.)

When my father died two months short of my nineteenth birthday I was put back on the road of faith and restarted my journey towards God in earnest. Two years hence I would seek out both God and my father at a time in my life when I felt no one on Earth could understand my pain, and nothing corporeal could heal my spirit.

My Faith Story, Part I

2006-03-25T15:58:00.000-06:00

I attended a wonderful program at my parish last night that featured the Rev'd. Jim Adams, founding director of The Center for Progressive Christianity. Father Adams spoke for a couple of hours on what it is to be a progressive Christian, and how we have largely abdicated our claim to the truths of the Bible to the Christian Right. Among the points discussed last night, the one that struck me as being most accurate and most worrisome was the notion that many of the people in the pews of Progressive Christian churches. such as my church, cannot readily articulate why it is that they choose to be Christian, and why they choose to go to church. In contrast, it was said, people going to Fundamentalist/Evangelical churches, especially of the "mega-church" variety, can often tick off a list of reasons they follow Christianity and why they attend their particular church. In short, Progressive Christians are either uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the idea of sharing their faith stories.

The only way I know to begin to change that is by sharing my faith story in this forum, where literally fives of people may read it.

I was baptized into the Body of Christ as a young child. I was old enough to remember bits of the ceremony -- the chill of the water, the white cloth used to mop the Holy Water from my newly Christened head, the anxiety of my parents -- but not old enough to remember exactly when this occured, neither the date nor my age nor even the season. The baptism took place at Friedens Lutheran Church in Gibsonville, NC, the church in which I grew up.

As a child, I don't remember particularly liking or disliking church. Much like school, it was a regular activity in which I had to participate. As with school, I figured at some point that if I had to be there I might as well put my best foot forward and get as much out of the experience as I could. In church I sang in the children's choir and served as an acolyte. In my church the acolyte's sole job was to light and extinguish the altar candles, as opposed to acolyting in the Episcopal Church which is much more involved and choreographed.

The normal "path" for children in the Lutheran Church, at least when I was a child in the Lutheran Church, was to start catechism at around 6th grade, join the youth group, and eventually make a mature statement of faith, a process known as confirmation. At about the time in my life that this would have occurred, my parents separated. My mother, sister and I moved too far away from Friedens to make it practical to continue attending services there. We talked for a couple of years about finding a Lutheran Church near our new home. We never went, even once.

I found myself drawn towards atheism as a teenager. I can't remember when I first heard the word, but I remember that I was shocked to learn such a belief system -- that is, the absence of a belief system -- existed. It seemed instantly comforting and familiar. Corporate worship was a distant memory by this time, and my only connection with Christianity was Christmas and Easter presents. Most years I was shocked when Easter Sunday arrived and the presents showed up on the couch.

In high school my atheism was prominent. During my sophomore year my English teacher did a unit on the Bible as literature. Days before our exam, and only as an afterthought, she polled the class to see if we were familiar with certain passages from the Bible not covered specifically during our classroom sessions or assigned as homework. She assumed we would have learned about these passages in Sunday School. There were three of us in the class who didn't know these unassigned texts. My teacher seemed genuinely shocked, and my classmates were quite obviously surprised to learn that there were non-churchgoers among them.

You see, in the South, after someone asks you who you are and where you're from, the next question is always, "Where do you go to church?" Usually, what is meant is, "Which Baptist Church do you go to?" There are plenty of folks in the South who don't understand that the Catholic Church is a Christian organization. I'm not lying.

I remember getting into arguments with people I sang with in high school over my lack of faith. A big part of that was my own damned fault -- I once spoke ill of Christianity, although I think I actually expressed disdain over all organized religion. One boy, a minister's son, said that he just wanted to hit me until I converted. That's the most warped example of Evangelism I've ever run across, even to this day. Another boy I sang with, whom I admired because of his beautiful tenor voice, argued vociferously with me over the concept of evolution. He asked me, "So you're telling me that if I put a fish in a pond for a million years it'll become a person?" My response was, "No, it'll become a very dead fish." Creationism arguments are rarely more poignant or insightful than this.

The summer after I graduated from high school I was hired by my high school choir director's wife to be a paid singer at the Presbyterian Church in downtown Greensboro. I dutifully showed up each Sunday, put on the itchy polyester choir robe and sang whatever music was put in front of me. I felt no connection to the music -- I sang sacred texts a lot during high school and assigned them no more significance than musical settings of texts from Shakespeare or John Donne. When the service was over I hung up my robe, got in my car and went home.

When I entered college in the fall of 1991 I was still an avowed atheist. I also considered myself to be heterosexual. By the time I graduated in the winter of 1994 I had rediscovered my identity in the Body of Christ, and understood that I was something I feared being all my life -- gay. Perhaps no other revelation about myself was more important in guiding me down the path towards faith, although it was a tragedy in my life that really caused me to start on that path in the first place. In my next entry, I'll talk about what happened in college that changed my life.

Best Day Ever

2006-03-12T19:07:00.000-06:00

Topsy-turvy was the order of the day. Several fantastic bits of news and events were tempered by one incredibly tragic story.

At church this morning I found out that my buddy Matt was finally released from the hospital. As I was leaving church I peeked in at the folks attending the 11:15, and saw that Matt had actually made it to church! I stayed through the service just so I could speak with him and tell him how excited I was to see him outside of a hospital room.

I was also gratified to learn that there is hope for the next generation. Admonishing one of the members of our treble choir, our choir director warned a young woman that she would wind up singing like Britney Spears if she didn't adjust her posture. A young boy, about ten years old, raised his hand and asked, very simply,

"Who's Britney Spears?"

Alleluias were widely exclaimed, Lent be damned.

Sadly there was a bit of terrible news that overshadowed these bits of good news. One of our parishioners lost her nephew and niece in a house fire, and another nephew is in critical condition in the burn unit.

Today humor and continuing life were intertwined with tragedy.

This is life, kids.

Corporal Acts of Mercy

2006-03-11T10:18:00.000-06:00

Here's a quick quiz . . .

Do you know what the corporal acts of mercy are, and have you ever performed any of them?

The corporal acts of mercy are directives to Christians pertaining to living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ through performing kindnesses to the needy in our midst. The specific acts are the following:

1. Feed the hungry.
2. Give drink to the thirsty.
3. Clothe the naked.
4. Shelter the homeless.
5. Minister to the sick.
6. Visit the imprisoned.
7. Bury the dead.

As for the second part of the question, well, only you can know the answer to that.

I was struck recently by the starkly different examples of living out the gospel presented by two prominent Roman Catholics, Roger Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles and Thomas S. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and supporter of right-wing politics and politicos.

In a recent address to parishioners, Cardinal Mahoney assailed H.R. 4437. The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act would not only cruelly curtail immigrants' rights in this country but would also criminalize activities of charitable organizations that provide meals and shelter to needy persons who happen to be illegal immigrants.

A bedrock of living out the gospel is to minister to anyone in need, regardless of their immigration status. I have heard many fundamental Christians stomp their feet and complain that their right to freedom of religious expression is being abridged by laws preventing them from discriminating against gay men/lesbians/bisexuals/transgendered persons (in their language, "ho-mo-sex-shuls" and "queers") or forcing them to fill the legally obtained prescriptions of women obtained from licensed physicians. Curious that these same folks are deafeningly silent now that a law would particulary and directly discriminate against Christian religious expression.

Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In fact, we are actually called to love our neighbors in the same way that we love God. Believe it or not, there is no biblical injunction commanding us to deny housing and employment rights to GLBT persons, nor is there an order telling us not to sell birth control pills to women.

That brings me to the topic of how dear old Tommy Monaghan is living out his baptismal covenant. He has decided to focus on #4 above -- sheltering the homeless -- by building expensive shelter for upper middle-class families who are seeking to live a purely Catholic existence in sunny Florida. Mr. Monaghan is building a Catholic community and university, both called Ave Maria. His utopian village will be centered around a Catholic university, a very large Catholic church, and what is purported to be the largest crucifix in the world.

Oh, did I mention that the town won't stock condoms or birth control pills in the drug stores, will disallow X-rated television stations and pornography will not be sold anywhere in the community?

Admittedly the last few interdictions, if not exactly laudatory, may not seem worthy of disdain. But let's get real, folks. Denying people access to birth control is ridiculous and, frankly, dangerous. (Anyone ever heard of Griswold v. Connecticut?) If this municipality can disallow pornography, then disallowing anything deemed unseemly when viewed through the lens of strict Catholic teachings -- gay and lesbian literature, feminist writings, perspectives from other religions and sects -- is likely to follow.

This is censorship, plain and simple. It is decidedly un-American, and should make anyone who cherishes the First Amendment shudder.

Cardinal Mahoney called on his clerics to defy H.R. 4437 should it become law (note -- it has passed the House and is headed for the Senate). His actions make me proud to be a Christian. Monaghan's ridiculous real estate development initiative disguised as an act of religious piety ("I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines," Monaghan, who sold Domino's Pizza in 1998 to devote himself to doing good works, said in a recent Newsweek interview. -- from CNN.com) makes me proud to continue boycotting Domino's Pizza.

Instincts

2006-02-17T23:34:00.000-06:00

I should learn to follow my instincts more often. If my gut tells me to avoid a situation, then I should probably just heed the advice of my innards and avoid that situation. Unfortunately I ignored my instincts last night, and I paid the price. I wound up in a very uncomfortable place, just squirming to get out. Next time, I will pay greater heed to my all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing gut.

Fortunately today has been much better. Having left work early yesterday because of my back -- yet again -- I was nervous that my back was getting worse instead of improving. However, from the time I got out of bed this morning I have felt as close to well as I've felt in 10 days. I noticed hardly a twinge of pain all day, and walked about 8 blocks going to and from work, which is approximately 1 mile. I think I'll be hitting the gym tomorrow for a light cardio workout. Having been without my comforting workouts for over a week I'm really jonesing for a good sweat session.

Tonight I had a lovely dinner with my choir buddy Brian and his partner Joe. They live on the northwest side of the city, an area I am not altogether familiar with. Unfortunately, because I was gabbing on the phone with my friend Joel, I turned two blocks too early and got completely turned around! I was already running late, which always annoys me, so the extra 10 minutes I spent driving around West Rogers Park just did wonders for my mood.

Brian and Joe were magnanimous hosts and accepted me, despite my tardiness, with grace and charm. They had cooked up a wonderful spinach and cheese soufflé, braised squash and a delectable New York cheesecake for dessert! I picked out a nice Chardonnay -- Maryville Starmont 2004, as recommended in this review. I was quite pleased with the wine, and it complemented the menu beautifully.

Now I'm home; I wasn't sleepy when I started this entry, but I find my eyelids are getting heavier with each passing minute. I think my new 400 thread count sheets are calling me . . .
--------
15.088

Just Cut the Fat

2006-02-15T20:16:00.000-06:00

I turned on my analytical pathways as I was reading the Science Times section of Tuesday's New York Times when I saw this article. In her piece on a recently published set of studies from the Women's Health Initiative, Gina Kolata provides a synopsis of the findings, interviews the investigators and their critics, and gives some historical tidbits about the "you are what you eat," better health through diet movement that started in earnest in the Western world in the 19th century.

In a series of articles published in the Feb. 8 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the investigators of the Women's Health Initiative report a surprising finding that has already drawn extensive criticism. In short, the investigators find that reducing dietary fat intake to currently recommended levels (approximately 30% of daily caloric intake) offers no protection against breast cancer, colorectal cancer or heart disease.

This study looked at a large population of older women and asked whether dietary changes could prevent them from developing specific diseases that in prior studies had been linked to dietary fat intake. To me, the nature of these diseases -- cardiovascular disease and cancer -- makes them somewhat unsuitable for such an analysis. These are diseases that often develop over many years, so even a relatively long-term study (average 8.1 years in the study) may be unable to show any benefit. Instead of looking at these data and concluding that fat intake is unimportant, I would instead hypothesize that changing dietary fat intake at a younger age, or more drastically reducing fat intake in later years, is imperative for improving health.

Colorectal cancer, breast cancer and heart disease have a much higher incidence in Western cultures. This could be explained by environmental factors like diet and sedentary lifestyle. It could also be the result of pollutants. Genetic factors may also be involved. Even in the Western world, certain racial groups are more likely to be afflicted with heart disease. Of course, these racial groups also tend to be disadvantaged and less likely to seek out (or be able to afford) preventative care. There's environment rearing its head again. So what is the right answer? Can we eat ourselves healthy? Or should we just eat what we want and let the chips fall where they may based on our genetic makeup?

It's important to remember that science is an evolutionary process. We chip away at the data, trying to excavate the truth lying underneath. Sometimes we hit veins of pure gold; more often we hit pyrite. Can we stay alive forever by eliminating fat from our diets? Unlikely. Are there centegenarians who have eaten and continue to eat bacon and eggs every morning of their lives? Probably. Not knowing the absolute truth, however, is no excuse to ignore our own common sense. The best any of us can do is eat sensibly, get some exercise a few days a week, and face up to the fact that we're all mortals and will one day face the grim reaper.

But now, if you'll excuse me, I have to run to McDonald's to pick up an Egg McMuffin and some Hash Browns. Oh, and maybe I should grab some Krispy Kremes on the way . . .

Is My Black Outfit at the Cleaners?

2006-02-14T07:36:00.000-06:00

Every year on February 14th I wear black to protest Valentine's Day; that, and, black is slimming. I have found it a difficult proposition to be opposed to Valentine's Day without coming across as bitter or jaded. This is made all the more difficult for me since I am unabashedly both bitter and jaded. But neither my bitterness nor my jadedness explains my absolute disdain for Valentine's Day. Why, then, should I be so opposed to such an innocent little holiday? To find out, let's take a little stroll through the dark catacombs of my mind. Oh, but could you take off your shoes first? I've just mopped in here.

Picture adorable little me as a senior in high school. I have my first real girlfriend (if you just fainted, then I heard you hit the ground, and I will find you and smack you across the face.) I'm in a tizzy because, being new to this whole girlfriend thing, I haven't even given the first thought to buying her a Valentine's Day gift. For one thing, Valentine's Day in 1991 was on a Thursday (I didn't remember that; I looked it up) so it should be close enough to the weekend that I get a bye until Friday night, right? Wrong.

Cut to me going out during lunch period to buy a crappy single rose for my girlfriend, and then interrupting her English class -- which was, coincidentally, taught by my English teacher, who was not thrilled that I interrupted her class -- to give my girlfriend said rose. Awkward hug, "Ahhs" and snickers emanating from classmates, etc., etc. At the end of the day, a fairly humiliating experience.

Is this pitiful but otherwise pedestrian little story from my adolesence the real reason I hate Valentine's Day? No. That would be just pathetic. So what's the skinny on why I hate Valentine's Day? You want the truth, the honest, unabashed truth? Well, here it is.

Valentine's Day is hogwash.

Valentine's Day is yet another stolen holiday, meant to lure the pagans away from their polytheistic roots and into the monotheistic Christian fold. (See also: Christmas, Halloween). In Roman times the feast of Lupercalia was celebrated on the ides of February (February 15th). It was a lottery where the boys would draw the name of a girl who would be their "sexual companion" for the next year. In an attempt to rescue the newly minted Christians from this temptation away from chastity, the powers that be decided to celebrate St. Valentinus by turning this misogynistic expression of Roman paternalism into a joyous romantic festival where good little Christians could draw the name of a saint whom they would emulate for the next year, and perhaps, if there was enough time between self-flagellation sessions, make admissions of romantic yet purely asexual love towards other good little Christians (of the opposite sex, of course).

What a crock.

The only purpose that Valentine's Day serves now is to help greeting card retailers, florists and jewelers get into the black a little earlier in the fiscal year. It's not even a Catholic feast day anymore, so I won't even dignify the day with the title of "St. Valentine's Day."

I have experienced (and hated) Valentine's Days with and without romantic partners, so this is not sour grapes about being alone. That being said, Valentine's Day is yet another holiday that places coupled persons on a pedestal and makes it seem even less socially acceptable to be single, although, in fairness, most major holidays do that. One could argue that, unlike other major holidays, the entire premise of Valentine's Day rests on this notion of the supremacy of couplehood, but that is not the thesis I wish to extoll.

At the end of the day, my major vexation with Valentine's Day is that it is all shine and no substance. It has no intrinsic value, and extols no higher value than lustfulness. Don't get me wrong -- a little lust can be a good thing, but I don't think we need a national holiday for it.

So, for everyone who is rushing around buying flowers and jewelry, and who will be waiting for inordinate lengths of time to eat at restaurants that would be half-empty on any other Tuesday evening, I can only say, be thankful that you have been blessed with someone to share this day with. Be sure that February 14th is not the only day out of the year that you do something to show that person how much you care.

Because Sweetest Day is coming up on October 21st, and you'll want to be getting those romantic plans taken care of as soon as possible.

Too Twisted for Color TV

2006-02-13T07:56:00.000-06:00

SPOILER WARNING: Avert your eyes if you don't want to know information about last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy!

Thank you, Shonda Rhimes and the writers of Grey's Anatomy for causing me nearly to have a heart attack during last night's episode, As We Know It. This was the second of a pair of episodes that first aired last week, the earlier episode appropriately titled It's the End of the World. If you missed either episode, let me direct you to the recaps on the Television Without Pity website.

First off, I find it amazing how good writing can cause us to suspend our disbelief. That mortar round in the guy's chest? We all knew it was gonna go boom. But did anyone seriously think it would go off while Meredith was touching it? Come on! If she (conservatively) only lost her hand, what do you think that would do to her chances of becoming a surgeon? Lose a hand, lose the show. And of course, since the show is named after her character, I doubt she's gonna get offed any time soon. Burke is too important to the story line, so he's not going anywhere. This left only one possibility, and I saw it coming about 20 minutes into the show.

Kyle Chandler had to die.

It was fate. He may as well have put on a red shirt sporting an ensign's insignia and beamed down to a hostile planet with Captain Kirk, Commander Spock and Dr. McCoy. When I saw him walking out of that OR carrying that live round, I thought, Oh, boy, I hope as a responsible member of the bomb squad you have all of your affairs in order. (I also sort of wondered why they didn't have some sort of containment apparatus a little closer to the site of the bomb extraction. I guess for dramatic purposes one must take the mountain to Mohammed.)

I cried so much during last night's episode I don't even remember when I started blubbering. When George confronted Dr. Bailey, nearly shaming her into giving birth to that baby, and then climbed up onto her bed to help her with the birth? Tears. When Meredith was looking at Kyle Chandler and thinking of McDreamy? Tears. When Kyle Chandler became "pink mist"? I got up to get a sandwich and a beer. WHAT, ARE YOU CRAZY?? TEARS LIKE CRAZY, MAN, TEARS LIKE CRAZY!

I missed the previous episode because I was at a dinner party with some friends, and heard about it second-hand from co-workers. I therefore read the recap on Television Without Pity as I was watching last night's episode, and I'm glad I did. I think I would have otherwise missed the significance of the Dr. Burke/Dr. Shepherd exchanges. I can't wait to see the re-broadcast of this episode this summer.

If you're not watching Grey's Anatomy, shame on you. Fortunately, I think there's only 10 people in this country who aren't (It's the End of the World was fourth in the Nielsen ratings). This is the best written show on TV since -- wait for it, wait for it -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh that's right. I went there.

A Reminder

2006-02-12T16:50:00.000-06:00

There comes a point in all of our lives when we realize that we are mortal, that we are susceptible to the arrow of death and are limited by the fragile nature of our imperfect human bodies. It's a rite of passage, really.

That moment came for me when I was 28-years-old, in early 2002. A pain in my right leg that made my sleep progressively more uncomfortable gave way to such an extreme claudication that I could no longer go to work. In the ensuing nine months I would submit to three epidural steroid injections, weeks of often painful physical therapy and two discectomies. I became one of the millions of individuals in this country who succumb to radiculopathy secondary to lumbar disc herniation. In layman's terms, I had a slipped disc; two, really.

Other than a few isolated incidents, I had led a relatively pain-free life prior to my back surgeries. In 2002 pain became a daily part of my life. It was always with me, like a shadow in daylight. I could sit down to partially alleviate the symptoms of my underlying orthopedic pathology, but even that was uncomfortable. Sleeping in a supine position was practically impossible; walking was torturous.

Since my surgeries I've recovered a lot of my mobility, although I doubt I will ever return to my pre-2002 self. I must always be vigilant against re-injuring my back. I no longer move my own furniture, I limit the amount of time I spend in any one position and I avoid activities that require me to keep my back bent for prolonged periods of time.

On Wednesday I noticed that my back was bothering me as I got ready for work. I laid down for a while, actually falling back asleep (something I rarely do). When I awoke, I found it difficult to get up. I spent all day in bed. The next morning my situation had little changed. By the evening, I could get up and down from the chair in my living room with some difficulty. I was better the next day, but walking and standing were still difficult and painful. Several mega-doses of naproxen later, I have greater mobility and was able to go to church today. I will go to work tomorrow, and hopefully will be able to stay the entire day.

These episodes of debilitating back pain are rare, thankfully, but they serve as a reminder that I am a fragile human being, despite my tall and powerful-looking frame. They are reminders I could -- and would much prefer to -- do without. Wishing away my infirmities is a fool's errand. Instead I am learning to live with pain, the actuality of pain and the constant threat of pain. Unfortunately, no one can live like this without changing, and I know that living under the constant threat of pain has fundamentally changed me.

What can one person do?

2006-02-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

I was walking from my lab to a dinner and presentation at Brent House, the Episcopal center on the U of C campus. As I strolled through campus I was overwhelmed with a multitude of thoughts, mostly about me and my life. I felt completely disconnected from the world around me. In all honesty, I've felt rather disconnected for a couple of weeks now, this being one reason for the relative paucity of new posts. But tonight it was particularly acute.

The presentation was by the Rev'd. Michael Kinman, the director of an organization called Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation. Their main interest is in alleviating global poverty, and they are very interested in the fulfillment of the Millenium Development Goals. The facts that the Rev'd. Kinman presented were astounding. For instance, for $10 billion we could provide education to every child on the planet. That's half of the amount this nation spent on ice cream last year.

Let me say that again. We could educate every child on earth for half our nation's ice cream budget.

It's really astounding how little it would take to bring people out of poverty. It's even more astounding how unwilling society is to make even the smallest sacrifices to make the dream of alleviating poverty a reality.

Please visit the website for the Millenium Development Goals to see what you can do. Contact your elected representatives and ask them to support the United States' commitment to the Millenium Development Goals. If you want to give money, consider giving 0.7% of your income to Episcopal Relief and Development. For every dollar you give ERD more than 90 cents goes to the beneficiaries. Most importantly, learn about the problem of global poverty. It's a huge problem that's easy to shrug off, but everyone has the power to do something.

Science Sux

2006-02-04T21:58:00.000-06:00

sciencesux
Originally uploaded by ho73classic@sbcglobal.net.

After 6 weeks, I finally got a decent DIG-labeled riboprobe yield. Hallelujah!
The quote from my lab notebook page is, "I have soundly pummeled the bitch goddess Science today. . ."

The secret? Keep your reagents at room temperature. Here's the math:

Spermidine + DNA + cold = precipitated DNA = lousy riboprobe = upset postdoc

Mixed Blessings

2006-01-22T16:52:00.000-06:00

Attending church is one of the highlights of my week. I enjoy several aspects of the worship service -- the liturgy, the music, the pageantry -- and I also like socializing with the other parishioners. I'm very fond of the clergy at my parish, so that only adds to the experience of worshiping there.

The majority of people attending services on Sunday morning are families and couples. For single people, church can be a very isolating place. As I am currently (and for a while now) single, I sometimes find myself feeling a little awkward and, frankly, envious on Sunday mornings. Even though I've been in some wonderful relationships, I've never been with anyone who regularly attended worship services with me. In a couple of instances the impasse was sectarian. A boyfriend I had who was raised in the Baptist church went to mass with me once. He was clearly uncomfortable with the Episcopal experience, even going so far as to decline communion. I've also dated agnostic and athiest men, so their obstacles to attending worship with me were even greater.

Several of the couples at my parish have children. This is another area where my inner green monster raises its ugly head. I ache to have children, and despair with each passing year that I never will. Seeing the happy kids at church interacting with their parents, marching to children's chapel and attending formation classes fills me with joy and dread both -- joy at the site of the gleeful youngsters, dread at the thought that I will never know the joy of being a father.

After the service this morning I was talking with a woman from my parish who recently had a baby. When I left her table, I noticed her daughter's stroller and walked over to look in at the baby inside. She was fussy, and I leaned down to see what was wrong with her. As soon as I touched her and talked to her, she stopped fussing and started to smile. I identified the underlying cause of her distress -- her pacifier had slipped out of her mouth -- and placed the offending passy back into her mouth. I was overjoyed at being able to perform this small act to comfort her; however, it was again joy mixed with dread -- joy at helping a small child, dread at the thought of never being able to comfort my own baby.

I fervently believe that God has a plan for my life. I sometimes wonder, however, if that plan includes marriage and fatherhood. That being said, I refuse to concede that I am not the master of my destiny, not the captain of my soul. I think the onus is on me to be cognizant of the opportunities God offers to me. I was blessed with the good sense to end relationships that I know cannot progress towards permanence, and the strength to be alone for the right reasons rather than with someone for the wrong ones. I have to rely on that strength right now, because God knows I'm not getting any younger. The passage of time may be constant, but its coursing grows louder in my ears.

The Science of Desperate Housewives

2006-01-21T16:49:00.000-06:00

Okay, this has been bugging me for almost a week. I just have to clear this up.

On Sunday's episode of Desperate Housewives, we found our favorite ladies at the Wisteria Lane Blood Drive. Zack walked up to the registration table and told the nurse that his blood type was AB-. The woman remarked, correctly, that this was a rare blood type. She then said that another man with that same blood type had just donated. The man of whom she spoke was -- you guessed it -- Mike.

What was the purpose of this sanguine exchange? It was supposed to be a clue to Zack that Mike is his biological father. Sadly, the writers really screwed the pooch. Here's why.

There are two different antigens used to type blood for donation and transfusion, the ABO antigen and the Rhesus (Rh) antigen, antigens being proteins recognized by antibodies. The ABO blood antigens are coded for by three different alleles, the Rh antigen by two alleles. Alleles are simply different genetic sequences that encode the same protein. In basic biology, alleles are often referred to as "dominant" or "recessive." For the Rh antigen, Rh+ blood type (expressing the Rh antigen) is "dominant" while Rh- blood type (failure to express the Rh antigen) is "recessive." Therefore, if an individual receives one Rh+ allele from his father and one Rh- allele from his mother, then that individual will be blood type Rh+, even though he only has one Rh+ allele. To be Rh-, one must receive an Rh- allele from both parents.

ABO blood typing is a little different. At any given genetic locus, we all have two alleles, one inherited from our father and the second from our mother. This means several combinations are possible -- two A alleles, two B alleles, two O alleles, or a combination (AB, AO, BO). Because the A and B alleles are co-dominant, if one has both an A and a B allele, then one's blood type is AB (one expresses both the A and B antigens). If an individual's blood type is O, then that person has two O alleles, and must have neither an A nor a B allele (and therefore expresses neither the A nor the B antigen).

So, if I were a writer on DH, and I wanted to use blood typing to show that a character's custodial father was not his biological father, this is what I would do. I'd ignore the Rh antigen completely because it's a simple recessive/dominant situation, so it's not very informative. I would simply make the child's blood type O and I would make his custodial father's blood type AB. An AB father cannot parent a child with blood type O, barring spontaneous mutations. This is because he would pass either the A or B allele to all of his offspring, and since the A and B alleles are always dominant over the O allele, any resulting children would always be either A, B or AB.

Unfortunately, this would have required explanations such as the one I've presented here. Maybe that's why I work in a research lab and don't write for television shows.
But at least I've gotten this off of my chest! Oh, and if anyone really wants to "see the math", then I'll be happy to send you a Punnett square. Or perhaps you could go hide under the bed until the feeling passes.

The Mountaintop

2006-01-16T21:21:00.000-06:00

I saw a very interesting episode of The Jeffersons tonight. The episode takes place in the recent past and shows what happens to the main characters -- George, Louise (Weezie) and Lionel -- on the day preceeding and the day of the assasination of the Rev'd. Dr. Martin Luther King. The episode ends with the family listening to a rebroadcast of the last speech Dr. King gave, commonly called the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.

On the day before he was shot, Dr. King gave a speech in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. At the end of his speech, Dr. King said the following:

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.

Dr. King was shot the next day by James Earl Ray. (Note that Mr. Ray recanted his confession late just before dying of liver failure while in the custody of the State of Tennessee.) It seems, in the above concluding remarks to his speech, that Dr. King was prophesying his own death.

In his speech, Dr. King posits himself as Moses in the land of Moab. In Deuteronomy, the time of Moses's death is described thus:

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naph'tali, the land of E'phraim and Manas'seh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zo'ar. And the LORD said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, `I will give it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there." So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab.

Dr. King helped to lead his people out of bondage, just like Moses. He said that he had seen the Promised Land, just as God showed Moses the Promised Land. Like Moses, Dr. King could not live to enter into the Promised Land he had been shown. Sadly, even had he lived to see his 77th birthday, Dr. King would still not have been able to enter into the Promised Land he envisioned, a land where people of color are afforded the same rights, privileges and responsibilities as are caucasians.

The dream has been deferred so long. I pray that it will not be, ultimately, denied.

Souvenir?

2006-01-13T21:34:00.000-06:00

lvcap
Originally uploaded by ho73classic@sbcglobal.net.

There are some things that just defy good sense. This hat is one of those things.

I adore Louis Vuitton bags. Really, I do. I don't own one because, frankly, I'm not independently wealthy. Vuitton bags are not cheap, which is part of the reason they're status symbols. I've been to Louis Vuitton stores, I've perused their merchandise, I've even considered buying some very small pieces, although my desire to be able to pay my rent has always won out.

But not once in all those times did I think, "Gosh, maybe I could just buy a Louis Vuitton hat." Maybe I thought it would be an unsatisfactory substitute for a satchel or overnight bag. Perhaps I realized that I don't, in general, look good in hats.

Or maybe I realized that a Louis Vuitton hat just looks stupid.

What's next? Tiffany's lapel pins? Prada shoe laces?

Isolde Has Left the Stage

2006-01-12T21:28:00.000-06:00

In case you missed the New York Times obits page today, let me be the first to tell you that Birgit Nilsson has died at the ripe old age of 87. Truly opera has lost one of its brightest stars, and certainly no one living today can sing Wagner like she can. It may be another generation before such a chanteuse again graces the stage.

Her obit portrays her as an independent and strong woman. According to the Times La Nilsson largely managed her own career, and did not resort to tantrums during negotiations. She also gives no credit to her voice teachers, insisting that if anything they hurt her voice. (Fortunately, I have no such complaints about my voice teachers, who have done nothing but help my voice.)

La Nilsson had a lovely quote from a nine-year-old interview with the Times:

"I've always tried to remember what my mother used to tell me. Stay close to the earth. Then when you fall down, it won't hurt so much."

God be with you, La Nilsson.

Lousy Day

2006-01-11T21:10:00.000-06:00

I just should have stayed in bed this morning.

I got to work early this morning because I needed to get some reagents prepared for the day. My hope was to be a little ahead of the game at the end of the day. The reality was that I wound up a day behind, with nothing to show for my efforts.

Sadly this isn't too outside of the norm for science. Sometimes procedures that have worked flawlessly ninety-nine times in a row will fail when you try to perform them the hundredth time. They might fail because a reagent has gone bad, or because a piece of equipment malfunctions, or because of something I like to call G.T.I. (Gross Technical Incompetence), which explains a myriad of experimental failures.

Today, it seems as though every experiment was in its hundredth-round failure cycle. By the end of the day, I was dropping pipet tips on the floor and spilling solutions all over my bench. After ten hours of banging my head against the metaphorical wall, I gave up and went home.

It's days like this that I wonder why I became a scientist. Fortunately there are also good days, when experiments work and I can put another piece into the jigsaw puzzle that is my project. Of course, I think the ratio is about 15:1 in favor of the bad days.

The nice thing about bad days is that, like all other days, they end. Today will be over soon and, in the immortal words of Scarlet O'Hara, tomorrow is another day.

Quintessentially Southern

2006-01-02T20:01:00.000-06:00

It was lovely visiting North Carolina last week. The weather was quite pleasant -- it was in the 50s most of the week, and I believe one day even reached 60 degrees, plus there was very little precipitation.

I enjoy visiting North Carolina because the spirit of North Carolina still lives within me, and going home feeds my soul. I go out and hear people speaking, and I recognize their accent because it is my accent. In Chicago, my voice tends to be noticed because it is so very different from the prevailing midwestern/nasal accent endemic to this area of the country. It is often commented upon, rarely with malicious intent, but nonetheless the attention can be annoying.

I don't cringe, though, nor do I slink from my Southern heritage or my lilting Piedmont southern accent. I embrace being Southern. I know the difference between a mint julep and a mojito. I know just how and when to use the phrase, "Bless her heart" to allow me to say anything about anyone without fear of reproach. When I cook I measure ingredients in dollops, dashes, smidges and pinches. I understand how nervous is a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs and comprehend the happiness of a puppy with two peters. I know the correct way to use the word y'all -- I also know the correct way to punctuate it.

Some people will be forever biased against people who pronounce the word "couch" with three syllables. It's their loss.

I am Southern. Hear me roa-ahr.

Obligatory New Year's Thoughts

2006-01-01T16:19:00.000-06:00

As I write this I'm listening to a podcast from the Krebs Cycle blog. The author of that blog, a guy named Adam, is going on about what he did for New Year's. I just stumbled across this blog a couple of weeks back, and I admit I initially clicked on it because of the science theme (I am a scientist, after all), but I check it out because I like Adam's writing style and his topics are somewhat interesting. Right now Adam is talking about why he doesn't particularly like the New Year's holiday. Incidentally, if you think the Krebs Cycle is something Lance Armstrong might ride in the Tour de France, clearly you've forgotten most of your intro bio course from college/high school. Here's a diagram of the Krebs cycle for you to peruse. Without going into too much detail about this biological process, you're doing it right now, or else you're dead.

I'm not an anti-holiday person. I love and enjoy spending time with my family, so Christmas is a great time for me. Thanksgiving is all about cooking, and there's nothing I love to do so much as to cook womploads of really fattening food for people, so I am all about the Turkey Day. Easter is my favorite ecclesiastical holiday, which is good since it's the most important holy day of the church year. I also love Lent, as it forces me to look inward and be contemplative about my life and the choices I make every day for 46 days (I don't believe in "skipping" Sundays, thank you very much!)

That being said, there are two holidays that I just cannot abide. The first and foremost is Valentine's Day. Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick!! I have been single more often on Valentine's than not, which only makes sense since I've been single during most of my adult life. This, however, is not why I abhor Valentine's Day. Since I have about 6 weeks before I have to tackle that holiday, I won't go into all of my various reasons and rationalizations for despising this wretched holiday. Yet.

The other holiday I hate? Well, if you guessed New Year's Day, well, sorry, but you're wrong. The holiday I hate is New Year's Eve. For years as a young adult I felt the need to go out on New Year's Eve and show just how horrifically drunk I could get in the company of good friends. Later, I tried spending New Year's Eve with friends maintaining some semblance of sobriety and participating in absurdly insipid activities and games to stay awake until the new year's arrival at midnight.

I think the year that really cemented my feelings of hostility towards New Year's Eve was 1999. My friends and I organized a trek to Atlanta to usher in the "new millennium" (which really didn't start until 2001) in the big city. I lived in Nashville at the time, and Atlanta seemed a much more cosmopolitan and exciting place to party in the new year.

I spent $20 on the cover charge to get into Backstreet. Inside, there were about 5,000 people on a dance floor the size of my living room. I was asked not to "cross dance" -- don't ask, I don't know what it is, either -- by some very snippy queen and saw my friend Joel nearly kill a group of girls who had made a clear space between them on the dance floor by standing lock-armed around an iron rail along the side of the dance floor. When the countdown was over, and it was officially 2000, we went back upstairs to the main bar. The people there were unfriendly, the drinks were watered down and I saw a girl expurgate the entire contents of her stomach onto the floor next to the bar. No one rushed to clean this up. After about an hour and a half, we decided this was a lousy place to be and headed back to our hotel at the perimeter.

I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning drinking gin and tonics. Actually, that's inaccurate -- we ran out of tonic at about 4:00, so after that we were having gin and gins. I fell asleep, or passed out, I can't really remember which. I puked about 3 times, and was awakened 20 minutes before check-out time by one of my friends staying in another room.

We had a lovely brunch at Einstein's, which still ranks as my favorite restaurant for brunch and makes a trip to Atlanta nearly worth having to drive around Atlanta. Brunch was by far the best part of the trip, but I would rather have saved money on the hotel and the bar and had everyone over to my house for a lovely meal.

Since then, where and how I spend New Year's Eve has largely been based on my mood and work schedule. The past two years I've been in Chicago for New Year's Eve, and both times I spent the evening at home alone. And I'm not complaining. Yesterday I got my apartment nice and clean and even rearranged my kitchen. I toasted the New Year with a very dry martini (I couldn't open the cap on my vermouth) and Dick Clark (bless his heart, that stroke really packed a wallop!). I then took my evening meds and went promptly to bed.

Today I had a lovely time at church and then cooked brunch for a friend. I helped a nice elderly lady from church get upstairs to her apartment, so I feel as though I'm starting the new year off with a good deed, which is nice. I really attach very little significance to the new year vis a vis adopting new habits or making changes in my life. I know what I need to do to improve my personal and professional well-being, new year or no new year. Resolutions are largely a crock that no one expects to live up to. It's wonderful when people do live out their resolutions, but my question is, why did you have to start January 1st? Why not start on November 22nd or wait until February 13th?

Now I'm going to get back to the very important task of watching the Bears lose to the Vikings. Well, at least the Panthers won, and most importantly NC State blanked South Florida to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl (geesh, how pathetic a bowl is that?) yesterday, so overall it's a good football weekend.

For what it's worth, have a great New Year!

Television is the Devil

2005-12-28T07:33:00.000-06:00

Since moving to the South Side, I have hardly missed having cable television at home. I work so much that it seems hardly worth it to pay $50 a month to be able to watch maybe 3 hours of television a day, and a good chunk of that while eating/going to sleep/getting ready for work. Plus, the idiots at Comcast couldn't tell me whether or not they provided service to my building without receiving blood and urine samples from me, my landlord and at least two neighbors.

Having been at my mother's house for 3 days now, I have watched more television than I've probably seen in the past 3 months. Part of that is due to my increased access. I'm spending lots of time at the house since I'm not working. The allure of watching three straight hours of television in the morning -- Buffy at 7, Designing Women at 8, and Golden Girls at 9 -- is great. I haven't been here to enjoy it, but if I waited 'til 11:00 I could also see an hour of Will & Grace. This combination of increased sloth and caloric intake may conspire to prevent me from fitting into my clothes by the time I return to Chicago!

I have come to the same realization about TV as I have about fattening foods -- if they're around, I will consume them. It's horrible to face up to the fact that you're an addict, but frankly I am. And I don't say that because I want pity or to abdicate responsibility for my actions. It's just something I've come to realize in the past year. The TV addiction is easy to kick -- Chicago only has about 10 channels available over broadcast, and about half of those operate entirely or mostly in Spanish. And the food thing was easy before the holidays. I purposely kept less food in my apartment than I ever have, including staples like pasta and sugar, and this helped me to control my cravings.

When I return to Chicago, my first mission will be to get rid of everything I have that's unhealthy, or at least freeze it. (Most things are less savory when frozen.) Then I need to see just how much weight I've put on since Thanksgiving, have a good cry, and get back on the horse. I'm not feeling much strain in the old waistband or belt (yet) so I doubt I've put on too terribly much weight. Thankfully I'm just incapable of consuming as much food as I used to, so that's been a saving grace.

I have to run now, though. Golden Girls just started, and I have to go heat up breakfast. Now, where did I put that pound of bacon . . .

Fun with Traveling

2005-12-26T07:11:00.000-06:00

I flew to North Carolina yesterday to spend Christmas week with my family. I enjoy traveling on Christmas day, provided I can get a flight out sufficiently early to allow me to spend most of the day with my family. Generally, Christmas day means deserted airports, nearly empty planes and a leisurely travel pace unrivaled during the mad travel week preceding Christmas Day. (Having flown out of O'Hare on Christmas Eve last year, I was damned sure I wasn't going to repeat that fiasco again.)

My travel day started out at 5:15 am, having gone to bed only 4 hours prior due to the lateness of the hour when I returned from midnight mass at church. This was compounded by the after-effects of the copious amounts of champagne and merlot I had been veritably forced to consume by my friend Derek and my priest's partner, Tom. Certainly I would never overimbibe without the intervention of others. I got the animals fed, packed the last few toiletry items I had to use that morning, and left a check for my colleague who was coming to pet-sit. My goal was to walk out the door at 6:30, and I think my watch said 6:33 when I locked the door. So far, so good.

I walked the block and a half to the bus stop and waited on the 6:45 Archer northbound bus. It was snowing, but because the air and ground temperatures were well above freezing thanks to a "warm snap" we'd experienced in the previous two days the snow was very wet and had no hope of sticking. It was therefore what snow should be, lovely and inconsequential. The bus came a couple of minutes early, and in about 10 minutes had deposited me at the southeast corner of Jackson and Dearborn.

I walked north to the entrance into the Jackson St. Blue Line L station and made my way down the stairs with my ginormous suitcase (packed with wrapped gifts and my carry-on bag that held all of the clothes I'd need for a week), my carry-on overnight bag and my Marshall Field's shopping bag. I approached the turnstile and debated the most efficient way to get my suitcase through. After some thought and much heavy lifting, both my person and my luggage made it across the turnstile. I heard the sounds of what I imagined was the 6:52 O'Hare bound train screaming up through the stairwell. I debated taking the elevator down, but decided it would be quicker (though probably more dangerous) to run down the stairs with my ginormous suitcase, overnight bag and Field's shopping bag.

To my great delight, the train I heard was going the opposite way, to either Forest Park or 54th/Cermak (I didn't see which). I waited patiently and, lo and behold, heard the O'Hare train on Christmas morn at precisely 6:51, and when it stopped it was 6:52. It's a beautiful thing when the CTA runs on time.

The ride to the airport was uneventful as people came on and got off of the train over the next approximately 40 minutes. Some people had suitcases, obviously headed to the airport to catch flights to holiday destinations. One guy wore a uniform that suggested to me that he was a steward for one airline or another. The train pulled into the station at 7:36 on the nose, again exactly as scheduled. I gathered my belongings and made my way up to the terminal.

Having never gone from the train station into O'Hare, and given my relative unfamiliarity with O'Hare, I depended on following other people with suitcases to get into the airport and to go where I needed to be. I assumed I would be flying out of Terminal 1 since that's the United terminal at O'Hare. (For those of you who don't know, United is based out of Chicago and O'Hare is its main hub.) I followed the signs for Terminal 1 and arrived at the check-in counters.

There are approximately 35,936 check-in kiosks at O'Hare for United. They are divided into groups like, "Premier," "International," "Plebian" and "Steerage." I walked most of the way down the atrium in front of the kiosks before I found where I was supposed to be. Fortunately the line was not so terribly bad. There was a woman at the head of the line weighing bags (the weight limit for checked items is 50 lbs.) and mine came in right at 45.4. It had weighed 45 on my scale at home, so I wasn't surprised it was under the weight limit, but relieved nonetheless. I checked in uneventfully, though I was surprised that I didn't have to present my checked bag personally to the TSA. I fly a few times a year, but almost never check bags. Previously when checking baggage, I had to hand it to the TSA agent for screening, so this was a change from the procedure to which I was accustomed.

My flight was departing from gate F12. There were no signs that I could see indicating how to find gates in the F family. I asked a United employee, and she directed me to the far end of the atrium, so I walked down to the security line which seemed blessedly short. However, a seemingly nice TSA agent checked my boarding pass and ID well before the checkpoint and suggested to myself and a woman next to me that we should proceed to an employee checkpoint downstairs.

This is where I encountered the Extended Family Who Obviously Have Never Flown on a Big Airplane Before.

The Extended Family Who Obviously Have Never Flown on a Big Airplane Before (henceforth known as EFWOHNFoaBAB) seemed perplexed by the whole security screening process. Grandma #1 seemed confused that there was some process beyond the check-in with the United people. Grandpa #1 (I believe he was married to Grandma #1, hence his designation) debated with the TSA agent over whether or not to take the one key out of his pocket before going through the metal detector. Tweenage girl #1 and Grandma #2 decided they needed to put their suitcases and closed purses into plastic trays before placing them onto the conveyor belt to enter into the X-ray scanner. Everyone was being oh so gracious in insisting that everyone else in the family should go through the metal detector first, it seemed as though they were doing some sort of security square dance.

EFWOHNFoaBAB easily cost me ten minutes of my life, and I want them back, dammit.

Once through security, I walked the seemingly 5 miles to the ass end of the F corridor. Almost invariably at airports I don't like anyway (like Nashville and O'Hare and RDU) I am forced to fly out of the gate that is furthest away from the security checkpoint, so I'm pretty well used to hauling my stuff all the way through the airport. This is why I eventually learned how not to overpack and why nearly everything I take on an airplane has wheels or comfortable shoulder straps.

I found a seat at Gate F12 at approximately 8:15, one full hour before my flight was to depart. I called my mother to give her an update, received a call from my friend Elizabeth and read my Saturday New York Times (I was running a day behind). As the hour approached 8:55, the boarding time for my flight, I became a bit worried because there was no jet with the word "United" painted on it anywhere to be found. This is never a good omen.

Finally at about 9:10 the gate agent came over the PA system and announced that the plane should be at the gate in a few minutes. This is airline lingo for it's going to be another 30 minutes before we know anything. The departure time kept getting pushed back, first to 9:30, then to 9:34.

At 9:20, the gate agent finally 'fessed up that the plane was coming from the hangar. Now, I don't know if the pilot was stuck in the cue line waiting for all of the other planes taxiing to and fro, or simply got lost and refused to stop and ask for directions. Whatever had happened, the plane finally got to the gate at about 9:30, and we began boarding about 10 minutes hence.

The flight was a bit bumpy and there was no coffee, but otherwise it was uneventful. As we touched down at the Greensboro airport, I surveyed the scene outside my window. Compared to the view on the ground when landing at airports like Midway, O'Hare and LaGuardia, the view out my window of the Greensboro airport made it seem as though we were landing in a farm. No buildings around, more grass than asphalt. It was almost creepy. As a kid, I thought the Greensboro airport was huge. Now I realize it's just one step up from airports in places like New Haven, CT and Charlottesville, VA where I swear they use John Deere tractors to haul planes and luggage around the tarmac.

I arrived home safely, and had a lovely afternoon with family and a nice evening out with friends. It was a fantastic Christmas, and I am so thankful for the gifts I received -- not just the ones in the boxes, but especially gifts like seeing my beautiful nieces who keep getting older and more lovely, and catching up with people I've known and loved since adolescence. Today is Boxing Day, and for the ninth straight year I'll be having lunch with two of my best buds from college. I'll hit the after-Xmas sales and just relax. Ahh, the holidays are grand.

Remember that yesterday was just the beginning of Christmas, we have 11 days to go! I hope that you will celebrate the season every day you can. Merry Christmas!

Dona nobis pacem

2005-12-25T19:09:00.000-06:00

Peace to everyone at Christmas. Amen.

Oh Great Mystery

2005-12-24T16:56:00.000-06:00

It's official: Christmas is here.

Why do I say this? Because the hymn "Once in Royal David's City" has been sung by the King's College Choir of Cambridge University as part of their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast worldwide today. This has become, for me, the official start of Christmas.

In liturgical terms, tomorrow is known as the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord. Millions of Christians world-wide tonight will be celebrating Midnight Mass (which occurs earlier and earlier every year) to celebrate the impending birth of Jesus Christ. We'll sing hymns like Joy to the World, O Little Town of Bethlehem and Hark! the Herald Angel Sings. My favorite among these fantastic songs is the O Magnum Mysterium.

O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum
jacentem in praesepio.

Beata virgo cujus viscera
meruent partare Dominum Christum.
Alleluia.

This translates as

O great mystery and admirable sacrament
That animals see the Lord born
Lying in a manger.

Blessed virgin whose viscera
Were worthy to bear Lord Christ.
Alleluia.

Okay, okay, the whole "viscera" thing isn't very pleasant. But it's a lovely text (in Latin) to sing. Perhaps my favorite setting of this text is the Morten Lauridsen arrangement. (A decent, though not great, recording can be found here.) I recorded this song with my church choir in Nashville, and fell in love with it almost instantly. I listened to this recording coming home from work today and cried, as I often do, at the line "Beata virgo." My crying intensified when the song repeated the text, "ut animalia viderent Dominum natum."

That animals see the birth of God.

I so often lose the forest for all the bloody trees that get in my way. I forget that there is suffering in the world beyond my own. How perfect a reminder is the story of the nativity -- a woman, great with child, traveling on a donkey, having to give birth in a stable. Anyone who's ever been in a stable knows how unpleasant that must have been. To me, this is the most absolutely captivating aspect of the nativity story -- that God chose to manifest Himself in such humility; that such an auspicious birth, the start of a life whose end in agony and betrayal would save so many, was witnessed by sheep as much as by angels.

O Great Mystery, we await your coming tonight.

All Is Forgiven

2005-12-23T20:47:00.000-06:00

Heath Ledger is officially forgiven for The Order.

I left work early today and went to the Century Centre Cinema to catch a showing of Brokeback Mountain.. I had become nearly giddy at the thought of seeing this film in the past couple of weeks given the nearly unanimous laudable reviews I'd read. How nice it was that a movie centered around a gay theme was being accepted and praised by the mainstream, and not just because it's about a gay theme or gay characters.

I won't go into the movie, because frankly I'm just not prepared to do so. When the movie ended, I initially thought, "Wow, was it really all that?" The thing is, I haven't stopped thinking about it yet. I'm still turning over events from the film in my mind, from characters' motivations to signs and knowing glances to what is required of the story to create and maintain dramatic tension. It has been a long time since a movie put me in such an emotionally vulnerable place -- Philadelphia comes to mind as the last film to do so.

If you haven't seen it, go. If it's not playing near you, drive or fly to the closest city with a theater that is showing it. If the fact that it's a "gay cowboy" movie is preventing you from going, then just get over it. This movie is as much about being gay as "Terms of Endearment" was about having cancer. (Think about it for a minute.)

On a lighter note, this movie did confirm something I've suspected for a long time -- Mr. Jake Gyllenhaal is fuzzy! And just when I thought he couldn't get any hotter . . .

The End of an Era

2005-12-22T19:19:00.000-06:00

Walking by the bookstore on campus this evening, I noticed an advertisement for the 11th Edition of Goodman and Gilman's Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. As someone who holds a PhD in Pharmacology, I am somewhat familiar with this tome (in fact, I have copies of the ninth and tenth editions in my office). What struck me, and made me audibly gasp, was the conspicuous absence of two names from the front cover of the eleventh edition.

For the first time in many years, the Goodman and Gilman's lists neither Joel Hardman nor Lee Limbird as editors. That's sort of like having NFL broadcast on Fox with neither Howie Long nor Terry Bradshaw, or a Wes Anderson flick without Owen and Luke Wilson. It just seems empty somehow, wrong and unsettling.

Time moves on, things change. I wish the new editors much success. I'm sure the newest edition of Goodman and Gilman's is a great reference. But it just won't be the same.

Happy Anniversary

2005-12-20T19:07:00.000-06:00

It was one year ago this very day that I traveled 480 miles in a rather uncomfortable U-Haul truck in excruciatingly cold weather to start my new life in the Windy City. On Dec. 20, 2004 I left Nashville with my stuff, my animals and even my dear mother packed into my car and a 14-foot moving van. We drove through Kentucky and Indiana, along icy roads and through towns that define the term "podunk."

After about nine hours we arrived. As I pulled up in front of my new apartment on the north side of the city, I was excited, terrified, overjoyed and exhausted. There was no turning back now -- I was here, I was queer and I was going to make the best of it in my new environs.

This has been, in many ways, the best year of my life. Living here has been an incredible experience, and I pray it will continue to get better as time goes by.

Happy Anniversary, ya Big-Shouldered Broad of a City! I love ya!

Two down . . .

2005-12-19T23:43:00.000-06:00

The Chicago Chamber Choir Christmas concerts are finally over! Other than Christmas Eve service at church, I'm done singing for the season.

With just under one week left until Christmas, I can finally relax and enjoy the season a little bit.

I've baked 6 batches of cookies (each batch yields around 108 cookies), mailed four packages, sent out about 25 Christmas cards, given one lovely dinner party and now sung two concerts. Oh, yeah, there's also the whole work thing. The past two days I've been running on adrenaline and stimulants (only the legal variety, thank you very much!) so I'm looking forward to things winding down as the Feast of the Nativity approaches.

Some years getting ready for Christmas feels like giving birth. I'm sure Mary would agree. Nonetheless, it's still my favorite time of year from a purely secular point of view. It fascinates me that some of my Evangelical Christian brothers and sisters fail to understand that Christmas is, liturgically, a rather insignificant holiday. It kills me how people, seemingly in the same breath, rail against the expression "Happy Holidays" because it is an attack on their religion yet cancel their church services because Christmas happens to fall on a Sunday this year.

So, in the quest to put the Christ back in Christmas, it's okay to take the Christ out of Sunday?

This week my only goal is to put the charge back in "Charge! (it!)" as I wrap up my holiday shopping. I plan on taking strolls down State Street and Michigan Avenue, soaking up the holiday ambience as I go. There's just nothing quite like Christmas in big-city America. Resplendent capitalism at its holiday best; is anything else so uniquely American?

Popularity Contest

2005-12-14T22:15:00.000-06:00

I've been weighing the pros and cons of doing something recently, going back and forth in my mind, trying to make a decision to go ahead with my plan or to hold off. Without going into what it is I'm thinking about doing, I can relay something that this decision-making experience has forced me ro realize about myself.

I care way too damned much about what other people think, and how others perceive me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think that worrying about what others think about us can be a beneficial thing. Fear of being shamed is part of what motivates us to take our daily (hopefully) baths and brush our teeth and do a little something with our hair before we walk out the door. But fear of what others think should not be a primary factor in making decisions that are, ultimately, personal and private. I never would have thought that I'd become a person who weighs outside perceptions so heavily into personal decisions, but that's exactly who I've become.

And you know what? I don't like it one damned bit.

The question for me becomes, how influential do I want outsiders to be in my personal decisions? How much am I willing to risk the alienation and condemnation of my friends to pursue something that I want to do? How much of my doubt about the wisdom of going forward with something is based on my own prejudice, prejudice that I've allowed my friends to foment within me?

I don't have the answers, just all these lovely questions. I should be used to having all the questions and none of the answers; that's sort of the essence of being a scientist. Eventually I'll come to a decision, and when I do, I hope that I will have had the courage to be honest with myself and will have made the right decision for me, not the right decision for everyone around me. Because, after all, they don't have to live with the consequences of my decision, but I do.

Speaking of Christmas Music . . .

2005-12-14T08:52:00.000-06:00

Could someone please get Celine Dion on the phone and remind her that she's F*@#ING FRENCH-CANADIAN!??!

Tidbits from My Day

2005-12-14T00:06:00.000-06:00

Today was a wringer of a day. Got to work at 10:30, left at 10:40. I spent most of the day recovering from 3 separate yet convergent examples of GTI (gross technical incompetence) on my part. Fortunately I'm almost completely back on track, so I think the rest of the week will be a little better.

I finally got to the gym today after about a 1 week hiatus. With all the holiday noshes I've been scarfing I really need these trips to the gym to prevent holiday bloat. Whenever I have these periods of inactivity, I forget how good going to the gym makes me feel. I also forget how friggin' tired it makes me. But it's a good tired.

(The fact that I'm writing this blog just after midnite seems to belie the tired, but I really am.)

The sidewalks along Wentworth Ave were finally cleaned off for my walk home from the train. This is nice (it's only been 5 days since the last snowfall), but there's another mother of a storm coming tonight to dump 5 inches of snow on the freshly clean sidewalks. I guess it will be Sunday before the sidewalks are passable again.

On a more positive note, I was very pleased with many of the Golden Globe nods this morning. I'm so excited about Brokeback Mountain -- it may be the movie that allows me to forgive Heath Ledger for The Order. And my most favoritest actress, Ms. Felicity Huffman, got nods both for Desperate Housewives and for Transamerica. (For those of you who don't know, I have been deeply in love with Ms. Felicity Huffman since Sports Night. Plus she's married to the adorable William H. Macy, which only adds to her allure.)

Seeing as I've now been awake for about 18 hours, I think it's time to stop blogging, close the laptop, and crawl into bed for what I hope will be several hours of uninterrupted sleep. If there happens to be an erogenous dream snuck in there, so much the better.

Justice, Served Cold

2005-12-12T22:20:00.000-06:00

In about 4 hours, the state of California will execute Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips street gang.

Williams is being executed for the murders of four people in 1979. Even though he denies committing these murders, it is likely he committed other murders during his time with the Crips. In 36 states, including California, murder in the first degree is a crime punishable by death. Thus, Williams is being executed in accordance with the laws of the land.

Problem is, this is a law that stinks to high heaven.

The death penalty is a tragedy, an injustice and an affront to our system of justice. It has never been shown to be an effective deterrent against crime, is ultimately more expensive than incarceration without possibility of parole and is an irreversible sentence that cannot be rectified in the event that an innocent person has been wrongly convicted. Despite the rigors of our justice system, it is not perfect. So long as one innocent person faces the possibility of execution, the death penalty can never be just.

My feelings about the death penalty come mostly from my deeply held religious convictions. I believe that all people can be redeemed, a belief God held so strongly that he sacrificed his only son in support of it. Certainly some people have committed crimes so heinous that they must never be allowed to live freely in society. This does not mean that these people are irredeemable, only that society's best interest can be served without sending these people to their deaths.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams is, by all accounts, such a man. He committed horrible crimes, undoubtedly. While in prison, Williams worked to redeem his crimes by communicating to young people the horrors and pitfalls of gang life. He has been nominated multiple times for the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to keep children from joining gangs and going to prison.

And California has decided that this man must die. May God save California. May God save Stanley Tookie Williams. May God destroy the death penalty, once and for all.

The Post Where I Whine

2005-12-12T07:02:00.000-06:00

When I made my decision, about 14 months ago, to move to Chicago instead of Virginia, I realized that cold, snowy winters were part of the deal. I moved to Chicago on the 20th of December (unless you're reading this and you work for the Illinois Department of Revenue, in which case I moved here on Jan. 1, at around 12:01 am), so I got to experience the entire winter last year. And it was cold, and it was miserable, and there was lots of snow.

I therefore expect this winter to be cold, and snowy, and miserable. That's not my complaint. My complaint is that it has been cold and miserable since around Thanksgiving. (You may recall that I had to leave the State Street parade because I could no longer feel my feet). Contrary to popular rumor, the federal government has not moved the official start-date of winter up to November 22 to counter the effects of global warming (which doesn't exist, anyway, according to the Bushies). Winter still begins on December 22 in the northern hemisphere. (If you need a refresher on why we have seasons, and how that whole revolution/rotation thing works, go to this site.

Despite this, the current temperature in Chicago is about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. There is about 7 inches of snow on the ground -- making this the only time I ever recall having complained about 7 inches. And there isn't going to be a day above freezing this week, or likely the next when - TADAH! - winter begins.

I doubt I'll see the grass again until March. This brings me great sadness. As you may know, I hail from the south. I have never lived so far south that snow was some imagined legend like Santa Claus, alligators in the sewer or Milli Vanilli's career. Instead, we would get a few inches over the entirety of winter that would usually melt/evaporate in a few days, so there was almost always some green visible in the ground cover. The number of times that we received over 6 inches of snow at one time I could count on both hands (actually, probably just one hand). So despite winter having less daylight and being colder, both stimuli that induce depression, the green of the grass always helped keep my spirits up because it was a reminder of the impermanence of the winter cold.

My last year in Raleigh, we had a mother of a snow storm in the middle of January. We got about 10 inches over the course of one Sunday, mostly in the morning and early afternoon. The city came to a stand-still. Raleigh no more knows how to handle 10 inches of snow than Chicago knows how to handle a Category 3 hurricane. Over the next week, I had to trudge my sorry ass to work every single day. I managed a store in the mall, and the mall closed only on the day of the storm. For an entire week, I watched about 15 people walk through the mall because they were sick of being stuck in their houses and had to walk somewhere to avoid cabin fever. Oddly enough, these people were not in a buying mood.

What I remember most vividly about that snowstorm, however, was not the week of chaos that ensued. Instead, I recall that there were about 6 weeks when all one could see covering the ground was snow. The verdant landscape that defied the bleakness of the wintertime had completely submitted to the oppressive power of winter's handmaiden, snow. It was easily the most depressed I've ever been during winter.

Well then, you might be saying, are you in for a bad time this year! Well, not so much. Sure, it's cold, it's going to stay cold and I likely won't see the grass until sometime after the spring thaw. But at least in Chicago, there's a sense of camaraderie about the cold and snow. People get out and shovel the sidewalks so their neighbors might have an easier time walking the streets. Just having to get out and walk through the winter to get to the train is an improvement over my former mode of slinking to the car and praying that the heat will kick in. Having to face the winter more directly makes it seem less oppressive and, yes, less permanent.

People Who Shouldn't Record Christmas Albums

2005-12-11T20:04:00.000-06:00

I just love listening to cheesy Christmas music this time of year. While I enjoy the classics -- The Christmas Song, Sleigh Ride, The 12 Things at Christmas That Are Such a Pain to Me -- I must admit that some of the new "standards" leave me cold.

For instance, I fail to understand why Air Supply or the Beach Boys ever recorded Christmas albums.

And Anne Murray? Whenever she sings Christmas songs, she makes them sound depressing. Honestly, she could probably make "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" sound depressing.

And, George Michael, I don't care that you gave your heart away last Christmas. Maybe you shouldn't have given it away to an undercover police officer in a public restroom. Oh, wait, that wasn't your heart, was it . . .

As most Christmas songs don't call for clarinet or saxophone soli, I think Kenny G. should be banned from recording Christmas music.

And, finally, as much as I love The Pretenders, they have no business recording Christmas music. Chrissie Hynde is a lovely girl, but she needs a lot of studio help, and can't sing without bending pitch. This vocal technique may work on Brass in Pocket, but doesn't do so well on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

There are 13 shopping days left until Christmas, so I have about two more weeks to enjoy the mellifluous strains of holiday song floating over the airwaves.

On Turning 29 (for the 4th time)

2005-12-07T21:57:00.000-06:00

First, I should make it clear that I'm not self-conscious about my age. I have looked approximately 25 years old since I was 17. I therefore don't worry that I look older than I really am. It's just embarrassing to be 32-years-old, possess a graduate degree, and not even have a direct-dial extension at my place of work. Even though I'm not a student anymore, I'm still a "trainee," and it's just easier to be a trainee if you haven't left your twenties yet.

It occurs to me that, in 29+ years on earth, I've accomplished a lot of things. I'm the first person in my immediate family to complete a college degree. In fact, I wound up getting two of them for good measure. I've owned real estate, bought my first new car, gotten into debt, and out of debt, and back into debt again. I haven't had children yet, but I still have a few years to find a willing lesbian!

Birthdays are an interesting time for me. I've always been keen on celebrating other people's birthdays, but never so keen on celebrating my own. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of noodge who refuses to acknowledge his birthday and takes great offense when others dare to mention its very existence. I appreciate well wishes from friends and family on my birthdays, but the whole cake-and-ice cream routine leaves me a little cold.

Turning 29 (again) on a Wednesday is therefore somewhat of a relief. There's no pressure to go out and party on a Wednesday. Celebrating the weekend before seems a bit decadent. If you wait until the following weekend, it seems as though the moment has passed and it's a bit anticlimactic.

I'm content to sit here, watch Golden Girls DVDs and put my feet up. It's all I really want to do for my birthday, and I'm tickled to have the time to do just this much.

So, to all the other Pearl Harbor babies out there, I hope you've had a terrific birthday!

A Plea

2005-12-04T19:37:00.000-06:00

Dear God,

It's me, Harold.

You know, from Chicago?

No, the other Harold from Chicago. The displaced Southern boy.

Yeah, that one. Good! Now we're on the same page!

I hope you and the family are well. Tell Jesus I said, "Yo!"

As you might have guessed, there's a reason I'm communicating with you today via blog. (The internet is great. Thank you for sending us Al Gore so he could invent it. That was sweet.) What is that reason, I guess you're asking, as if you don't already know, but want to play along with my little delusion regardless of your omnipotence? That reason is I'm a little scared.

That's right. Scared.

Of what? Lately, most everything. I'm a little nervous down here on my own. There's not a lot of support structure around me, and I guess I'm just beginning to get a little edgy about that. Sure I have family and friends, but unfortunately most of them are 500 miles away or more.

Oh, and this whole career thing? That's a little painful right now. It sure would be nice to get an easy answer just every once in a while. Is that really too much to ask for?

I'm also scared because it's been really cold lately, and I keep passing people on the streets who don't have any place to go when it gets cold. Really cold. Ass cold. Freeze your 'nads off cold.

I'm also scared for Jessie. I don't know where he is -- he's probably in Iraq. I try to check the paper every day for the names of the latest casualties. I also check the web once a month or so. I'm so scared I'm going to see his name staring me in the face. Even though I haven't seen his name yet, I keep seeing the names of men and women who I don't know. They've all died in this awful war. I notice that most of them are younger than I am. Some of them are much younger than I am, and let's face it -- I'm not that freakin' old! I'm scared for everyone who's still there, and the folks in Afghanistan. I'm really scared that the non-military folks running this fight don't know what in the Hell they're doing, and that they're allowing folks to get slaughtered because they want to run a war on the cheap.

I'm scared for the Iraqis who are getting incinerated by white phosphorous, caught in the crossfire of insurgent/coalition battles, and killed by our smartest bombs. I'm scared for the people who've been kidnapped. I'm scared for the military prisoners (who aren't really military prisoners but "enemy combatants") we're torturing (who aren't really being tortured but being "interrogated") and who have died at our hands (who haven't really . . . oh, yeah, I guess they have died, haven't they. No way to loophole out of that one.)

I'm scared that we're not living in Christ's image. I'm scared that He died for nothing.

In the bible, Isaiah tells us, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." Do you still say that? Because we need comfort. Is our warfare truly ended? Doesn't seem that way from down here. How about our iniquities? We seem to be committing so many on all sides these days. Are they still being pardoned?

On this, the second Sunday of Advent, your people wait in the wilderness for the arrival of your Holy Son.

Comfort, comfort your people. Comfort me.

Turkey Day

2005-11-24T17:08:00.000-06:00

Since I decided to stay in Chicago for Thanksgiving, I thought I should try to make the most of the day and do some festive things before joining friends for dinner in the evening. I decided to make my way downtown to see the State Street Thanksgiving Day Parade. The temperature this morning was in the teens, so I put on lots of layers in an attempt to stay warm. I even wore my supposedly wind-proof hood to keep my ears, head and face warm.

Because the trains were on holiday schedule, I decided to give myself half an hour to get downtown although it should only take about 10 minutes. I got to the Jackson St. train station at about 8:15, and walked south to the intersection of Van Buren and State to watch the spectacle unfold. In front of me, a half-inflated Miss Piggy balloon was being taken care of by her many handlers. I could hear bands warming up a couple of blocks south where the parade began.

The parade finally started at 8:30, right on time, and I watched it for about half an hour. As parades go, it was nice, though a little smaller than I might have expected for a parade in a city this large.

By 9:00, my feet were so cold that I could no longer feel them, and I was afraid my fingers were entering the early stages of frostbite. I went stomped south down State Street to the train station, south to see more of the parade and stomping in an attempt to get blood flowing into my feet again.

I got home, ate a little breakfast and then drove to the Hyde Park/Kenwood Interfaith Council's Thanksgiving Day service at Rockefeller Chapel. It was a lovely service, with readings and inspirational messages from many different faith backgrounds. Perhaps the most beautiful moment was when a young Muslim man chanted verses from the Koran before they were read (in English) by a young Muslim woman. The chant was exquisite, lovely and full of passion. It was a great way to celebrate Thanksgiving.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I'm very thankful that I have a job, a warm place to sleep, and plenty of food to eat. I'm thankful that my family are safe and sound, and that I have friends both near and far.

Tonight, I will eat turkey and sweet potatoes and stuffing and mashed potatoes. Tomorrow I will shop and decorate. It's truly a great holiday.

To the End of Dreams

2005-11-18T23:09:00.000-06:00

Tonight was the last of Chicago Chamber Choir's fall concert series entitled "Birds and Dreams and Flying Machines." It was a good program, and we performed it reasonably well.

I'm just not satisfied.

I don't mean I'm not satisfied with our performance, necessarily. I just feel like we didn't move the music to the "next level." Most of this is, of course, the consequence of being my own worst critic. But I feel like the audience response was less than it should have been based on the works we performed.

Our next concert series is Carols by Candlelight, December 17 and 18th. As the name suggests, these concerts will be mostly Christmas carols and some of the works we recorded this summer on our latest CD.

I am probably just in a "blah" state overall, but I'm particularly "blah" about music right now. I enjoy singing, and I am very fond of both my church choir and CCC. But I'm just not feeling the muse right now. Hopefully Christmas music will snap me out of the doldrums -- it usually does.

Winter Time is Here Again

2005-11-16T23:36:00.000-06:00

Cold weather has arrived in Chicago.

I left my house today in a leather coat and flannel shirt. I am an idiot. It was so cold by the time I left work tonight that I thought my jowls would freeze and drop from my face. I don't think this would have been a good look for me. As much as I like my high cheekbones, I prefer them covered with flesh and skin.

There was also snowfall all day today, mostly very light and wimpy snow, small dry flakes with no hope of maintaining their integrity once they hit the relatively warm ground. All the weather forecasts I saw leading up to today pronounced that there would be no accumulation of snow.

I walked to the bus stop at around 8:00, the ambient temperature about 20 degrees, wind gusting up to 30 mph. The snow picked up considerably in the 6 minutes or so that it takes me to walk from my building to the bus stop. As I stood waiting for the bus, I noticed that snow was moving in rivulets along the street in front of me, slithering like icy snakes under the power of the gusting wind. Watching the playful, rhythmic movement of the snow drifts was a pleasant diversion from the frostbite setting in on my face.

The wind and snow picked up. The serpentine snows grew into larger, fatter snakes. And then the damnedest thing happened.

The snow began to accumulate.

In no more than five minutes, the completely clear road, grass, and sidewalk began accumulating light, dry snow. The grass went from verdant green to frosted. Snow, still blowing down the street, began to pile up in the uneven spaces of the asphalt. The cracks of the sidewalk became white with snow, as did the edges of the manhole covers. And it didn't show signs of stopping.

The bus finally came, and eventually the train. When I got out 30 blocks north and 12 blocks west at the Chinatown station, the snow had nearly stopped, although there was similar accumulation on the streets and grassy areas in my neighborhood.

Suffice it to say, winter is here. It may not have a firm grasp yet, but it's closer than any of us dare think. And I think it's going to be a bitch.

Red Line Renovations

2005-11-14T23:29:00.000-06:00

As part of the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line Renovation project, they are performing work at the Garfield train station. This is the station to which I take the train every weekday morning to get to work at the University of Chicago.

Since late spring or early summer (I honestly just can't remember which) the train station has been under renovation. From the CTA website, here's everything that is supposed to be done in this renovation:

- replace one escalator and platform canopy
- install new floors, lighting and CA Kiosk
- improve bus connection
- repair pedestrian bridge
- add canopy

So far, this is what has been accomplished:

-new floors have been installed on the platform only
-the panels have been removed from the platform canopy
-the escalator has been systematically dismantled
-the old staircase has been boarded up
-a new, wooden staircase has been unveiled suspiciously close to the area where the escalator used to be

For at least four months of work, I'm not really all that impressed. Of course, seeing workers (1) on the work site and (2) actually working is a pretty rare occurrence. At this rate, I expect that, all winter long, there will be no cover over the platform. That should be really interesting once the snowstorms start. It's ridiculous to expect people to wait on a platform for a train when it's -20 degrees and snowing without providing any refuge from the snow that's falling. It's also ridiculous to expect people to drudge through a foot of snow on a train platform. Ridiculous at best, limb-severing terror at worst.

And the CTA wonders why it's losing ridership?

I don't know what the reasons are that so little work has been done in this period of time. Notwithstanding those reasons, which I'm sure would just break your heart, the current state of affairs at the Garfield station is abysmal. Sadly, the 47th Street station is no better, and in fact may be worse. I can only assume that other stations along the southern branch of the Red Line undergoing renovations (63rd, 69th, 75th and 87th Streets) are similarly ill-equipped to handle the onslaught of winter, which apparently is breezing through town on a house-hunting tour tomorrow before taking up
permanent residence in about a month.

CTA riders deserve better. I plan on making my voice heard by contacting CTA. I hope you will too.

Chicago Chamber Choir CDs

2005-11-13T21:44:00.000-06:00

Chicago Chamber Choir's latest CD, "I Heard the Bells: A Chicago Chamber Choir Christmas," is now available! It's $15 plus $2 shipping. To order, email me or send an email to info@chicagochamberchoir.org.

I haven't heard it yet, but I'm sure it's outstanding! (Not that I have even a hint of bias . . .)

You can also pick up a copy of the CD at our upcoming concert at St. Paul UCC in Lincoln Park, Friday 18 November @ 7:30. Tickets are available at tickets@chicagochamberchoir.org.

Dio Con -- Day 2

2005-11-12T21:33:00.000-06:00

Today was a wonderful day at convention! None of the anti-gay resolutions passed, and were actually voted down pretty handily. The nearly universal theme on the floor was that the Diocese of Chicago is unwilling to place unity (with the Anglican Communion) above justice. Several straight persons, both clergy and laity, spoke against the various resolutions. Only a couple of people, other than the sponsors of the resolutions, spoke in favor of them.

I was proud to be a member of the Church today.

Most of the other resolutions were passed by voice vote, although a couple were voted down. But good work was done, and I was pleased to have played even a very small part.

Dio Con -- Day 1

2005-11-12T00:49:00.000-06:00

Today was the first session of the 167th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago in lovely downtown Arlington Heights, IL. (Okay, it was in the Sheraton near the interstate, but that's not as romantic, is it?) I am one of the lay delegates from my parish, meaning I get to attend and actually vote on resolutions brought to the convention floor. This is a big change from when I was a delegate to convention in the Diocese of Tennessee, where my parish got only voice at convention and no vote. So, today and tomorrow will consist of news bits and reflections on the goings on at convention.

The only voting today was for representatives to various councils and committees of the diocese. Many of these races were uncontested, so it was a shoe-in for the people on the ballot. I didn't hear if any of the contested races was decided today; if they weren't, there will be a second ballot tomorrow morning that I will miss. By voice vote we approved several appointments by +Bishop Persell.

The interesting business today was the debating of resolutions to be presented tomorrow on the convention floor. Most of the resolutions are pretty tame, but a couple were either potentially or definitively anti-GLBT.

Over about an hour and a half, we debated these resolutions, most of which attempted to state the mind of the diocese regarding the Windsor Report. For those of you not familiar with the Report, here's the Reader's Digest synopsis:

The Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada, constituent members of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, were declared to be naughty because these rogue churches consecrated an openly gay man in partnership with another man (also openly gay, kinda goes without saying) as Bishop of New Hampshire and authorized the writing and adoption of rites for blessing same-sex unions, respectively. Even though these actions were taken in full compliance with the constitution and canons of the respective churches, others in the Anglican Communion (read: ultra-conservative priests and bishops from Africa and Asia) feel these actions were disrespectful towards them. Brouhaha ensued, committees had to be commissioned, they had to meet and write a document to justify the thousands of dollars spent assembling and flying the members all over the world, and what we got was the Windsor Report. Now everyone in Anglican Christendom has to pass some sort of resolution saying that we're sorry and we've wept and flogged ourselves over being inclusive and respecting our GLBT brothers and sisters.

(A much better synopsis of the Windsor Report can be found here.)

After much spirited, but largely collegial, debate, I think the worst resolution will fail to pass. I think an alternative resolution that would call for a moratorium on consecrating another openly GLBT bishop before 2009 (the year the national Episcopal Church will meet for its 76th General Convention) may have a shot, but I hope it fails too. I vehemently oppose any moratorium on ordaining GLBT persons to any level of ministry, from the diaconate to the episcopate. These measures directly injure GLBT persons in the Episcopal Church, and as such I cannot and will not support them in any way.

There was a great moment in convention today, though. During +Bishop Persell's address to convention, he mentioned husbands and wives and partners in the same breath. Twice. I literally cried. To see a sitting bishop in the Episcopal Church talk about GLBT people in such a positive, life-affirming way was a truly miraculous moment for me. This is not something that my former bishop in Tennessee would ever, or will ever, do.

I also attended a very informative educational session this morning regarding outreach. As I hope to focus more on outreach at my parish, I was very energized and motivated having left this session. I hope in the near future to work on expanding outreach at St. Paul and the Redeemer.

I'll give an update on the outcome of the resolutions tomorrow. Pray for the Diocese of Chicago!

Holy Smoke

2005-11-06T21:53:00.000-06:00

Earlier today I was standing in the narthex of my church facing east into the sanctuary. I was wearing an alb as I was the thurifer for the service that would begin in about 15 minutes.

Just inside the glass doors to the sanctuary sits the baptismal font. Warm water had just been poured into the fount because a baptism was occurring at the upcoming service. Outside it was cool, probably around 50 degrees, and the wind was coming in through the open doorway. As the cool wind drifted across the surface of the warm water in the baptismal font, wisps of water vapor rose and danced across the water. Seeing this play between the water and the air, I smiled.

Why did I smile? Mainly because the sight of vapor lifting off of the water reminds me of a misconception I harbored when I was younger. In the evening, often after a summer afternoon shower, large columns of water vapor and dust would reach from the ground up to the clouds in the sky. Some people would have called these sunbeams, I suppose. As a child, I thought what I was seeing was the souls of departed folks being carried into heaven. To this day, whenever I see such a phenomenon in the sky, or see great amounts of water vapor evaporating into the ether, such as over Lake Michigan in the early light of day, I think back to my boyhood. I also think of my friends and relatives who have departed this life and who, I hope, have ascended on one of those sunbeams into the Kingdom of God.

It occurs to me now that the wind moving across the water in the baptismal font could also symbolize the movement of the Holy Spirit over the waters of creation. The priest would recall that event in the text of the Baptismal Prayer in the upcoming service. That's one of my favorite prayers in the Book of Common Prayer, and I look forward to baptisms mainly because I know I'll get to hear the beautiful text of that prayer.

And then, again, I will smile.

Community

2005-11-04T23:32:00.000-06:00

As I was walking to the gym tonight, I passed by one of the dormitories on the UofC campus. It's been unusually warm the past couple of days for November in Chicago, approaching (and surpassing) 70 degrees. Consequently, some people in the dorms had opened their windows to allow a little breeze to move through.

Through one open window, I saw the usual trappings of a dormitory room -- a clock radio, a computer, a compact stereo. There was a young man leaning in the doorway of a room across the hall from the one with the open window through which I was looking. It wasn't my intention to be a Peeping Tom, or to invade the privacy of these young people. It was just an irresistible opportunity to experience a reminder of my own days of living in a dorm.

When I was in college, I thought dormitory life was miserable. Loud music played at all hours. Fire alarms were pulled by miscreants every Friday night preceding a Saturday morning Chem exam, sometimes more often. There was no air conditioning in my dormitory, which meant that our rooms were devastatingly hot in the merciless North Carolina summer heat. And one bathroom shared by eight men? It was like living in the men's locker room.

Dorm life, for all of its inconveniences, was a fantastic experiment in building community. In my suite, only my roommate and myself had chosen each other, everyone else had been put together by random chance. The eight of us spanned the gamut in terms of religion, political beliefs, economic status, and life experience. We watched movies together, fought with each other, sprayed each other with shaving cream, consoled each other in hard times, and partied when we were ready to go nuts from the pressures of studying and working.

I remember all of my suitemates. Ryan and Chris lived across the hall. They both dated my best friend, Amy (concurrently, not simultaneously). Chris was one of the few fundamentalist Christians with whom I felt any sympatico. Ryan was a gentle soul who broke my heart when he broke up with Amy. I doubt I ever really forgave him for that, a sin most grievous because I had no right to harbor any grudge for that action. Brent, who lived next door, was a die-hard conservative who used to argue politics with me. I once offered to buy him an English-to-English dictionary when he complained that I used "fancy words" in my arguments because I had no other basis to justify my positions. I think he's a veterinarian now. His roommate, Richard, was an odd boy from West Virginia. I heard that Richard had become mentally unstable, perhaps he even attempted suicide. I don't know what became of him, but I fear it was nothing good. Ray, who lived diagonally across from me, was one of the kindest men I ever knew. He was also the best looking man I'd ever seen naked. (He still rates in the top ten.) His roommate, Verne, was a smart guy, from privilege, who once offered me some advice on improving my enjoyment of performing cunnilingus involving Astropop lollipops. (I won't divulge further information, but I think you can probably connect the dots.) Needless to say, that advice was wasted on me.

The only one of my suitemates with whom I maintain contact now is my old roommate, P.J. We see each other at least once a year, often with our friend David, one of my closest friends from college. The three of us went to the Grand Canyon last year to celebrate (belatedly) our 30th birthdays. It was a fantastic trip.

I remember dormitory life with fondness, and see it through my mind's eye, now tempered by years of living in "the real world." I certainly don't miss dormitory life enough to go back to living that way, but seeing it from the outside evoked some strong memories and a sense of romantic nostalgia. Even though I don't maintain contact with my old suitemates, I miss those days of camaraderie. I hope that they are all safe tonight, happy and loved. Each of them deserves that much.

Kitty Trauma

2005-11-01T23:41:00.000-06:00

I took my cat, Jackson, for his yearly physical and vaccinations today. Jackson hates going to the vet the way most people hate going to an IRS audit. Actually, Jackson may hate the vet worse than that.

Jackson understands that when the collapsible kitty carrier is retrieved from underneath my bed, where it stands idle approximately 362 days out of the year, bad things will quickly ensue. It will probably involve a ride in the car, another thing Jackson just hates and has always hated, even before he came to hate the vet so passionately.

So it was that we had a typical morning of going to the vet. I got the kitty carrier out from under the bed and assembled it while Jackson was elsewhere in my apartment. I then went on a hunt for Jackson, and found him perched on his kitty condo looking out the window, observing the morning's comings and goings. He heard my footfalls and turned towards me. I looked at him, and he at me. I walked towards him. He jumped down and tried to run. Jackson is not a dumb cat. He reads my emotions and facial expressions better than a fortune teller at a sideshow. He knew that I was coming after him for something. and whatever purpose I held it was not going to be to his liking. Fortunately, Jackson is not a very limber or agile cat, so catching him is not usually a problem. And so it passed this morning that I grabbed him handily and walked him back to my bed, whereupon sat the dreaded collapsible kitty carrier.

There are two ways to get a cat into a pet carrier. The first is to entice the cat into the carrier with treats, toys, gentle words of praise, food, anything that will appeal to the cat's desires to eat, play and be loved. In this way, the carrier becomes a safe haven, a little chamber wherein kitty can feel safe, not so much closed in but set apart from the world, free to enjoy his or her favorite things.

The second way is to push the cat bodily into the carrier through the gate on the top of the carrier, holding him/her with one hand and maneuvering kitty's paws and legs into the opening of the carrier with the other hand. Once the front paws and legs are in, one then must push down with nearly as much force as one can muster to get the head in, and the rest of the cat's body, limp from resisting, will soon follow.

Can you guess which method I used?

This was my first visit to a veterinarian's office in Chicago. This particular office was recommended by a colleague, someone who owns a dog and is owned by two cats. I was pleased with the vet, a lovely, seemingly ambitious professional woman who, as the framed copies of articles on her wall attest, is the first African American to open her own veterinary practice in Chicago in 20 years. She seemed very knowledgeable and was quite professional in her demeanor.

Jackson hated her instantly. This clinched it -- she must be good.

Unfortunately, Jackson has gained over a pound in the past year despite being on light kitty food with tightly regulated feedings. Coupled with his recent increased water intake and desire for more food than I am willing to feed him, the vet and I think he may be heading towards diabetes, a none too rare disease in kitties. This makes me unhappy, not only because I'm worried about the ill effects on his health, but also because this means that Jackson will suddenly become a much more expensive kitty to take care of.

First and foremost in the care of nearly any animal is feeding, not only what is fed but how often and in what quantity. My new veterinarian recommends a Purina diabetes formula dry food. On the web, I've found a couple of articles by vets advocating wet food because of the lower carbohydrate content versus dry food. Either way, my once every 3 months trips to buy a bag of Science Diet Light Hairball formula (which I just bought this weekend, of course) will soon be a distant memory. I seem to be faced with the choice of buying this premium Purina food at what I am sure will be a hefty cost, or switching Jackson to wet food, something he has never EVER had before.

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this kitty health dilemma yet, but I do think some more research is in store. I am trained to seek out new knowledge, so I guess it's time I put my fancy degree to some use!

(Note to NIH reviewers out there -- this is a joke; I of course use my advanced degree [that you so graciously paid for] every day in the continuing pursuit of new knowledge! Yea, science!)

Seventeen Again

2005-10-29T10:01:00.000-05:00

Last night, when I got home from work just past 11:00, I turned on the television in my bedroom before getting into bed for what I had hoped would be a long night's sleep, or at least as close to seven hours as possible before my alarm was to wake me at 6:00 the next morning.

Unfortunately, the fates had different plans for me and I could not fall asleep. (Before you even think it, turning the TV off doesn't help -- I've tried it. It's harder for me to fall asleep without noise to distract me.) At 12:00 I tuned my television to WGN to watch "Will and Grace," and was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my favorite episodes was getting ready to air. (Okay, so I like W&G. I am that gay. I do not, however, like "Sex and the City." No one should be that gay.)

In this episode, Grace has just been dumped by her boyfriend Nathan (played winningly by Mr. Woody Harrelson) at a point in their relationship where Grace assumed marriage was the next, nearly immediate step. Understandably, this puts Grace in a depressed state as manifested by her lying in bed for days on end without any -- ANY -- attention to personal grooming. Although Will, Jack and Karen are successful in arousing Grace from her Boudoire of Sadness one time, she retreats there immediately upon hearing a travel agent on the answering machine asking Nathan for the correct spelling of his travel companion, Suzie's, last name. Apparently this eager-beaver travel agent has worked extra hard for her commission by booking Nathan and Suzie in the most romantic accomodations possible on the cruise ship where they have booked passage. Devastated by the realization that Nathan has found himself another girlfriend in the time it took her to sleep that man right outta her hair, Grace sinks even deeper into depression.

Her friends (well, Will's her friend; I think Jack sees her as a non-returnable gift-with-purchase that came with Will, and I believe Karen thinks of Grace as something akin to a pet) try to arouse her by placing her -- still clothed in what I can only imagine to be the funkiest smelling pajamas in the western hemisphere -- into a cold shower. While trying to soap her down, an act they must have done as much for their own olfaction as for her sanity, Grace finally snaps. She then reads each of them in turn, Will for having lost his lover of seven years, Karen for losing her husband to the penitentiary, and Jack for being content to flit from one relationship to another without any emotional investment whatsoever. Imploring them to let her handle her situation in her own way, Grace stumbles back to her bedrom, soaked head to toe. Will, Jack and Karen realize that Grace is right, and that maybe they too should be in bed, sleeping off the pain and disappointment in their own lives. So, dripping wet, the three of them in turn get into Grace's bed and fall asleep together, one big old wet dogpile of misery loving company. While these shenanigans will undoubtedly lead to premature mattress rot, they seem not to have been in vain. When Grace awakes the next morning in the embrace of her friend(s), the sun is shining brightly through her window (eastern exposure in Manhattan? Yuck!), and the dulcent tones of Annie Lennox's "Seventeen Again" begin to play. She arises almost majestically from her catatonic catacomb, depression over, end scene.

Wow! is television ballsy to put shit like that on the air.

I know, I know, I said it's one of my favorite episodes, and it is. The idea is utterly intoxicating -- sleep away your blues surrounded by friends (I could do without the wetness), awake refreshed and revived. Maybe that happens in the real world, but I tend to doubt it. Just as I had to realize that, in actual prisons, most of the prisoners are not nearly as hot as Mr. Chris Meloni was on "Oz," resolutions on television shows like "Will and Grace" don't reflect the intricate realities of day-to-day living. Situation comedies are able to solve everyone's problems in 30 minutes or less because they only have 22 minutes to tie everything up into a nice package. Once you've been on for a few seasons, you might get an occasional one hour special because the new series they slipped in after your time slot has tanked in the ratings and more people are watching Golf TV in that half-hour so the network is desperate.

By and large, television makes us want to believe in the fiction it presents. We may not really buy into the notion that depression goes away after sleep, or that putting your down-in-the-dumps friend bodily into the bathtub is a good idea, but we want to believe that it could work, perhaps if more of us tried it. The cold hard reality of life is that it's not a cakewalk. Eventually, people whom you adore will treat you like used Kleenex. Your boss will overwork and underpay you and dare you to find something better to do with your life, like anyone else would have you. Friends you thought were your closest confidantes will betray every ounce of trust you've invested in them, with interest.

The great reality of life is that every morning the sun will come through the eastern sky and life will begin again. That sun may be blocked by clouds, tall buildings, trees, or any variety of physical non-translucent objects, but it's still there. I think one of the goals of everyone's life should be to remember that the sun is there, even if it can't reach you. The luckiest among us, myself included, have people in the world sending us love that is just as constant. That love stretches out to reach us even if we can't feel the embrace or hear the words. Remembering that love, strong and fierce as the sun, exists is what helps me to feel safe when I'm alone, scared and hurting. That love gets me out of bed in the morning.

Of course, having Annie Lennox in my bedroom to herald the day and get me to my feet would be pretty sweet, too.

In the News

2005-10-28T19:36:00.000-05:00

Unlike 99.756% of the rest of the blogosphere, I'm not going to go on and on about today's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff. I only want to say this.

HA HA HA HAAA! HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!

Okay, good, I think I got it out of my syst . . .

HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!!! HEEE HEEE HEE HA HA HA HAAA! *snort*

(Oh, I hate it when I snort.)

Now back to our usual ruminations.

PS -- Karl Rove, I think you may have a problem . . .

Singing

2005-10-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

If I'm going to be completely honest, I must admit that I've been a bit in a funk for the past couple of weeks. I wouldn't say I was depressed; I've been depressed and it's a lot uglier than what I've been experiencing of late.

Today, as I was finishing up at work, I was listening to my iPod, like I often do when I'm alone in the lab. Lately I've been playing recordings of music for the Chicago Chamber Choir fall concerts coming up next month. Some songs I've been playing to help with memorization or to become more confident with notes; others have been looping because they've fit my mood or my craving for rich, delicious, velvety harmony. When others haven't been around, I've been singing along with my iPod, primarily to improve my muscle memory and pitch. This is nothing unusual for me when learning new music. In the past few years, my life has become so busy that I often resort to learning music from recordings, something I used to abhor doing.

About 15 minutes before I left the lab this evening, as I was wrapping things up and writing up my day's work, I took off my iPod so that I could put it away. Oddly, I felt like continuing to sing, and I did. And I wasn't singing music to learn it; I was singing music to enjoy the act of singing. To my amazement, I was even singing music out loud, sotto voce, mind you, but still audible to the couple of people who were still around.

I believe that this signaled the end of my funk. And it couldn't have come a minute too soon.

Too much is going too well in my life for the "other things" in my life to put me into a funk. In times like these, when I feel I'm juggling about as many things as I possibly can, it should be the easiest call in the world to put the "other things" into God's hands. I have faith that all the "other things" will fall into place, but it's hard for me to live into that faith. I cannot know what will happen tomorrow, but part of faith is believing that tomorrow will be better than today.

Whatever happens tomorrow, I just hope I'll still be singing.

Sad Inheritance

2005-10-25T19:36:00.000-05:00

People in the United States born into what is often called "Generation X" -- generally speaking, folks born in the 60s and early 70s -- are poised to take the reins of leadership from our forebears. Folks in their late 20s to early 40s are well ensconced in the shrines of power, serving government, business and academia. Soon, my contemporaries will be winning seats in legislatures, receiving offers for top executive positions at major corporations and, in the not too distant future, we will have a President who was born after 1959. (Per the Constitution, only those of us born before 1974 would be eligible to run for President in 2008).

Generation X stands at the precipice. Soon, the direction of this nation, and by natural extension, the entire world, will depend on our decisions, our actions, our values and our morals.

May God have mercy on us all.

I don't say this because I think GenXers, as we are affectionately (or derisively) called, are incapable of making good decisions or amoral. Instead, I think that we are ill prepared to inherit the United States we're being given by our forebears.

For the first time in our 229 year history, we are seeing consistent declines in the ability of our nation to compete in the global marketplace. We may have "won" the Cold War, but we have fallen far short in so many other areas. Our entire economy floats on a cushion of foreign investment dollars. We spend so much more than we save, so much more than we earn, that we have become one of the world's biggest debtors. Our ability to do science and lead industry has been undercut by ill-advised tax cuts and a continual outsourcing of jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas. We buy goods that we deem are too expensive to manufacture in this country from foreign countries, turning a blind eye to the often inhumane conditions to which these foreign manufacturers subject their workers. So long as they keep turning out the cheap clothing, electronics and toys for which we seem to have insatiable appetites, we are happy.

Materialism is killing the soul of America.

I know I sound like a tree-hugging granola type. Anyone who knows me would tell you that's not what I am. I admit that I like buying cheap clothing. I'm using my own personal computer to write this treatise. I have a cell phone, an iPod (2 actually, but one was a freebie) and all the other urban trappings. Perhaps then I'm standing inside a humongous glass McMansion hurling boulders against my walls trying to assail the evils I see outside.

At least I recognize that there is a problem. I don't look at the earth's dwindling oil reserves and the warming of the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and figure that these are only temporary issues that some genius will resolve through some new-fangled technology. I recognize that I can use less gas, and keep my apartment a little cooler in the winter and a little warmer in the summer, and use the train and the bus (or, God forbid, walk!) to get around the city. It sounds hokie, but it's true -- every little bit helps. I don't have any of them in front of me, but I've read so many interesting statistics recently regarding little things we could all do to decrease our collective energy demand. Driving 55MPH, swapping 2 or 3 incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, turning the thermostat to 64 degrees during winter. It's incredible how many millions of barrels we could save each year by doing these things. In a nation that goes through multiple millions of barrels of oil a day, it doesn't seem like a big difference. And maybe that's why so few people are willing to change how they use energy -- it doesn't seem like it will buy us more than a few extra days of oil.

I wonder what it will be like in those last days of oil. Will we still think those few extra days weren't worth it?