May 2007

I am once again sitting in a service area on the New York State Thruway. This service area of choice is called Scottsville and is in the Rochester area. Earl is out of town on business in Knoxville, Tennessee, hence my little road trip today. I just got off the phone with him and wished him sweet dreams. He was concerned about my driving home this late (I still have over two hours to drive and it’s currently 10:45 p.m.) He forgets that I love driving at night.

I spent the day driving to the southwestern most part of New York State and explored around the city of Jamestown. Once upon a time I lived there. I actually had two appearances in Jamestown, 1987-1988 and 1990-1991. I’ve taken Earl there a couple of times since. Today I spent quite a bit of time there looking around and reminiscing.

I find Jamestown to be an interesting city. First and foremost it’s the hometown of Lucille Ball. You can not look in any direction in the downtown area without seeing an image of Lucy on a billboard or a poster or on a building. It’s also home to Natalie Merchant and the 10,000 Maniacs, and her music is still quite prevalent on the local station, SE 93.

The area around Jamestown is also very scenic. Rolling hills lead the way to Chautauqua Lake. While Chautauqua Lake is similarly sized, it doesn’t really fit in with the neighboring Finger Lakes of Upstate New York. It sort of does it’s own thing. Wineries dot the shoreline of nearby Lake Erie. Old villages such as Fredonia and Falconer still have active, vibrant downtown areas. It’s hard to describe, but I feel very comfortable in the terrain and vibe of Chautauqua County. While hilly, it still feels expansive. In the Mohawk Valley, where we live now, it’s hilly but it feels very closed in to me. I never feel completely settled in the Mohawk Valley. The pace in Jamestown is a little more relaxed and the natives are decidedly friendlier. I think it’s because that corner of The Empire State is knocking on the Midwest’s front door, and I’ve always been a fan of the Midwest.

As I drove around Jamestown and Chautauqua County today, I realized that when I had lived there I never really allowed myself to enjoy the experience. I was part of a relationship that wasn’t going very well. He had grown up in the area and was constantly looking for a way out. I didn’t allow myself to like that area simply because I was always being shown the negative aspects to living there. “It snows.” “There’s no ocean.” “It’s not progressive.”

Looking back at myself almost 20 years ago, I guess I’ve since learned that life is what you make of it. While I believe that we have a basic idea of what we’re going to do when we come into this life (via reincarnation), I fully believe that you make your own paradise or you make your own hell. My ex was choosing his own hell and trying to pull me into it. (By the way, he deserted the area long ago and lives somewhere on the ocean in California. I hope he’s happy. I don’t need to confirm if he is or not. I don’t really care.)

Today I saw the area in a whole new light and I really liked what I saw. It felt good. I felt like my smiles and warm feelings chased away the negativity I had 20 years ago. While stopped for supper, I cheered on the Buffalo Sabres right along with the rest of the crowd. (Jamestown is about 80 miles from Buffalo.) I really like the sports fan pride that’s so obvious as you drive around. We don’t have that at home. I told Earl I was going to start cheering on Buffalo for all sports and he told me “not football.” I told him, “we’ll see” (Earl is an Eagles fan).

So now I’m getting back on the Thruway, totally sugared up with a couple of donuts from Tim Hortons (thank the Universe they have Tim Hortons out here!) and ready to rock the road.

Mark’s blog entry from today got me thinking about MySpace and all it’s fellow wannabes. I must say that I don’t understand what the attraction of that site is.

I once registered for the site and then found myself completely stumped, frustrated and angered by the navigational tools they provide. It has the worst software interface known to man. I don’t know how people can deal with the flashing boxes, the hideous color schemes and the blaring music from nowhere. Boxes dance, mock LEDs jump up and down to rhythm from some banal track blaring from my speakers against my will and backgrounds clash with text in all sorts of hideous manner. I was once talking (in real-life) with a guy who mentioned that he was a blogger. Always eager to chat with other bloggers (even though I recognize that I’m not a *serious* blogger by any means), I asked him what software he used. He said his blog was on MySpace.

Uh, no. That’s not a blog. That’s a travesty.

For the few days that I was registered on the site I was nearly buried in requests from women wanting to be my “friend”. Some sent pictures which included lots of boobage. While I’m somewhat flattered by this, I can’t help but wonder if they were reading my profile which included the fact that I’m a gay bear that enjoys all that gay bears usually enjoy. Gay bears usually don’t enjoy boobage.

I also have a problem with the fact that MySpace is owned by Fox Interactive Media, which in turn is owned by News Corp. The folks at News Corp. are a little too Patriot Act happy; I wonder if they would feel obligated to take anything I posted on MySpace and promptly turn it over to the government. “Put him on the way gay list.” Granted, you can find anything on MySpace by a simple Google search, but I want Bush Lite to have to work for my information.

I’ve talked with other people face to face regarding MySpace (in a certain place, sorry I felt the need to go for the third rhyme) and have discovered that people are either really excited about the site or they dislike it immensely (like me). I have real-time friends that have made lots of friends and connections on MySpace and are often going crazy with text messaging and IMming the folks in their circle. Some awake in the middle of the night to a “New Message” alert on their cell phone. My friend Shirley often commented that it’s a sad reflection of our society that people feel they need to get electronically involved, instead of going outside and enjoying what the real-world has to offer. “Get some sunshine!”

I agree with her (he says as he’s typing on his computer in the dining room).

I think the final thing that put the nail in the MySpace coffin for me is the fact that Anita Bryant has a MySpace page. Somehow I find this extremely wrong (one reason being that I thought she was dead.) I wonder how many lesbians are hitting Anita up for some fun and showing her some boobage.

So today is Mother’s Day. Cynical types may say that today is much like Valentine’s Day, designed by the greeting card companies as an excuse to spend some dough on a present and a card. Well what do cynics know? Today is the day we celebrate Mom’s love and all she has done for us over the years.

To celebrate, Earl and I teamed up with my sister and took my Mom out to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Situated on 100 acres of land near the Finger Lakes, Elderberry Pond Restaurant features all organic food served in a rustic, country cabin/barn type setting. The food was delicious. We highly recommend the experience. Mom seemed to have a good time.

When I was a kid, I was somewhat aware that my Mom was the “cool Mom”. On field trips, which she rarely, if ever missed kids flocked from all corners to be in her group. Always one to hear her own drumbeat, she wasn’t much of the June Cleaver type; I learned early on in life to eat what was placed in front of me and to enjoy it lest it be snatched out from under my nose and dumped down the disposal. I was an expert at navigating the piles of laundry in the hallway between my bedroom and the bathroom during trips in the middle of the night. None of that mattered though, because Mom was more concerned with making sure her kids were happy and well-adjusted. Laundry could wait if it meant she could serve on the band booster club executive board or help out with my sister’s baton twirling troupe. When we did something wrong we knew it. But when we did something right, we knew that too.

It’s not easy to watch your Mom get older as she progresses into the age bracket that was once occupied by your two grandmothers. She’s not as quick with the reflexes. She walks a little slower. It’s hard to say “remember when…” when you launch into a story and then realize that she doesn’t really remember. “But mom, you must remember when I tried to fly by jumping off the barn roof…” (I was 16 – just kidding). Perhaps she purposely forgot the idiotic stuff. I’m sure she remembers the time she threw an impromptu birthday party for the kid down the road that didn’t get a party at home or both round trip rides to New York for her kids’ eighth grade trip. (Have you ever tried managing a group of 113 eighth graders on a subway platform in the Big Apple?)

I remember thinking as a kid once or twice what it would be like to have Barbara Eden or Elizabeth Montgomery as my Mom. Today I realize there’s no reason to wonder for she has her own kind of magic.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

I’ve often said that I felt that Wal*Mart was onto something with their “Always” slogan but it needed to be revised a bit for something a little more descriptive of their shopping experience. The slogan should be “Always White Trash, Always.”

I’m not a fan of Wal*mart. I never have been and I never will be. I have shopped there on occasion, but for the most part I will go out of my way to avoid shopping at one of their behemoths. We have four Supercenters within fifteen miles of our home and because of this, it is getting harder and harder to avoid their virus like takeover of the neighborhood. Gone are the smaller grocery stores, the regional discount department stores and the specialized locally owned shops; today it’s all about Wal*mart in these parts. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Earl and I were picking up some bolts and such to install one of our computers in the basement and found that the local Lowe’s (another unnecessarily sized monstrosity) did not have the particular stuff that we needed. Since Lowe’s is situated next to Wal*mart here, we decided to go to Wal*mart to see if they had what we needed.

Now this type of spontaneous Wal*mart visit is bad on several accounts. First of all, it’s a spring Saturday morning so there’s all sorts of dangers including unruly children and unruly adults buying mondo-sized triple decker fatburgers with six packs of 32 ounce Grand Milwaukee beer or some such nonsense. Secondly, I prefer to go to Wal*mart only after two or three bottles of wine. I’m not particular as to whether it’s red or white. I find the only way to deal with the double digit IQs, the bad cart drivers and the loud televisions mounted everywhere is to be intoxicated. It adds to the mood.

Since we had these two whammies in place, Earl and I decided to approach the experience as a game. Every time an announcement was made over the intercom, I’d mimic the sound of the announcement in every annoying detail and decibel. I’d scream into my hand and make my version of the announcement as loud and indecipherable as the original. Quick little sidenote: why is it that Wal*mart associates feel they must yell into the telephone when making an announcement calling for a price check in adult diapers or whatever? Many stores have converted over to walkie-talkies and/or the pleasant ding ding ding of a chime like Sears and Roebuck. With all the gobs of cash that Wal*mart rapes from the community on the profits of their substandard merchandise you’d think they could afford a few Motorolas. I’m just saying.

Another part of our game was to make the “beep beep” noise, again very loudly, often associated with dump trucks backing up whenever we saw one of those motorized carts that are very en vogue these days. Oddly enough, the riders of said carts never seemed to pick up on the “beep beep” noise we were making in their presence.

We did take a tangent for a moment and made woofy noises and growled a couple of times at a hottie in a tank top and sunglasses. He smirked in our direction a couple of times. We weren’t following him, honest.

Anyways, we found what we needed and used the self-serve register, again a device inexplicably set to yell every command as loudly as possible. “Do you have any coupons? Do you have a rebate check? Are you using WIC? Would you like to be submitted to the local institution?” To bring the experience to a proper ending, I signed the electronic PIN pad/credit card receipt “Betsy Ross”.

I guess if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Always.

So it’s Friday. I finished the semester yesterday, paid for my summer course today and now I sit and wait and wonder what my final grades are. I have a pretty good idea, but there’s a couple of variables sitting out there being variably.

I tried mowing the lawn, but since it rained last night and this morning I ended up throwing a lot of water out of the shoot on the lawn mower. So much for that. I think it’s be easier to rent some goats.

I was working on various home improvement projects when I found I needed some things (bolts and a toilet seal, all so sexy) from Lowe’s. Earl called while I was working, I mentioned me intended trip, he said he’d like to go to Lowe’s with me. I don’t think he trusts me at Lowe’s with the debit card.

I’ve been arguing with my HP laptop today. For some reason Firefox keeps freezing when I’m trying to watch videos on YouTube. I don’t know who’s fault it is and I’m not in the mood to care, so notice the “Made On A Mac” flag in the sidebar. Update 5/12 – my Linux computer and I have made up, so I’m back on Ubuntu. -J.P.

It’s Friday. Perhaps we’ll see Spiderman 3 this weekend, though everything I’ve read and heard says that it’s not that good. Well neither was Jaws 3 and this Spiderman isn’t even in 3D.