J.P.

I was volleying instant messages back and forth with a colleague at work today when she asked if I worked in New England. I replied to the negative and told her that I was sitting in Central New York, more specifically to the east of Syracuse. She then commented on something on I had said earlier in the conversation which made her think I was a New Englander. I had written, “oh, he’s wicked smart about those things.”

Yes, I use “wicked” as an intensifier. “He was wicked mad about being short changed.” “The bar was wicked busy tonight.” “Wow, that meal was wicked good.”

I’ve said wicked for as long as I can remember. At first I was thinking that I picked the habit up when I lived in eastern Mass in the late 1980s (I can say ‘Worcester’ like a native without even thinking about it) but then I remembered having a conversation with my sister and her friend Tammy when they were in junior high school about the use of the word wicked. Apparently Tammy had used the word wicked in an essay or something and her English teacher didn’t like the use of the word in her prose.

What a wicked mean thing to do.

Since I can remember the conversation about use of the word wicked from my high school years, it must have been part of my vocabulary for longer than I originally thought. Now, as I try to fall asleep (I’m actually wicked tired tonight), I’m trying to recall if my cousins used the word in the same way. I’m pretty sure that my city cousins didn’t, but I’m not sure about the country cousins. I remember high school friends at our lunch table using the word wicked a lot, perhaps it migrated from New England to our area in the 1980s or something.

Whatever the reason, the word has remained in my vocabulary for the last 30 years or so. Its use has been a wicked good time.

I was watching music videos with the owner of the local record store. It was 1985 or so and MTV was running a bunch of Wham! videos in a row. My ears told me that the whomever was writing the pop harmonies of these imported tunes from the UK was very talented. For the first time in my life, I allowed my eyes to see lust.

“I find George Michael so sexy”, I said quietly. The owner of the record store, Gene, looked at me for a moment and said, “really?”.

“Yes, he’s a sexy man”, was my simple reply.

“Does that mean…”, Gene started.

I interrupted him quickly and said, “probably. I’ll figure it out someday.”

I went back to enjoying the video, feeling changed in a subtle way.

RIP George Michael. Loved the music but couldn’t understand your image during the “Faith” days, but then a lot of us were still trying to figure out who we were at the time.

I took a part-time job for the holidays of 1990. I had moved back to Jamestown, N.Y., a small city in the extreme southwestern corner of New York State, earlier in the fall. Things were not going to plan. I had abandoned a job reading blueprints of ball bearings and turning them into computer automation. It didn’t pay well and the constant homophobic remarks from a co-worker led to the abandonment. I was single, though living in a mobile home with my ex-boyfriend. I didn’t have the funds to go back to college as I really intended when I moved back to the area. I felt rather down on my luck.

A few weeks prior to Christmas Eve, my mom and dad came down to visit and had stopped at the Hills Department Store I was working at part-time. After working for the second largest computer company in the world at the beginning of the year, I was embarassed when they walked to the back of the store and saw their son working in layaway. That visit included one of the few father-son talks my Dad had ever initiated with me, he told me that the important thing was that I was working and there is no shame in working, ever. A working man is a productive man and you work to make things better. The talk was only a few words because my dad was a man of few words, but those words struck chords with me that have been the bass line of the music of my life ever since.

So as the holidays rolled on I wasn’t feeling as down in the dumps about working at Hills as I had earlier in the season. I worked in the layaway department with three ladies: Nicole, Natalie and Martha. They were all typical gals of the 1990s, Aqua-Net, big hair. I liked working with them. I was holiday help, they worked layaway year ’round. Layaway plays a less important role in the retail world after the mandatory pick-up date of December 21st, so the girls stayed in the back when the manager announced to us that he would start letting the holiday help go. That’s when I was pulled aside by the head cashier and given an opportunity to work through the end of the year. Her name was Trish, and she had noticed that I was a very fast and accurate cashier.

Now remember this was the days before scanning. Every item was manually entered with a department number, an inventory number and a price. Greeting cards had a special button for an automatic 10% discount at Hills. Food items, department 50, had to be entered as department and SKU (inventory number) all as one number so that the tax would calculate properly. My cash drawer was always within ten cents of accuracy, with the majority of my cash-outs balancing to the penny.

It was Christmas Eve morning. I was planning on heading to my folks, about 300 miles away, when I got a call from the manager. He asked if I could come in and work during the day shift. (I usually worked the second shift at the store). Eager for extra money I went in. All but one register was already open and there were lines. After all, the old slogan said, “Hills Is Where The Toys Are!”. The head cashier, who bore a strong resemblance to Penny Marshall, asked if I could work the “old express lane”, which was Register 16 that was never, ever used. They had cleared discarded inventory from the counter. The cash register was a slightly older model than the others, it had green numbers instead of red, and it matched only one or two registers in the back office that were used for inventory processing. It was at the end of “the loop” so it ran slower. I logged in and turned on my “10 items or less” (should be fewer, grrrr) light proclaiming that my lane was open. The first woman through the line remarked, “they never open this express lane. Thank you! I need to get home and wrap presents.” My talent for speed on the old NCR counteracted the slowness of being at the end of the loop. For seven hours, save for a 15 minute and a 30 minute break, I worked the old cash register, making customers smile as they got through the checkout quickly to get their last minute Christmas preparations finished. Looking out the big plate glass windows at the front of the store (I wish we still had those), it was easy to see that it was snowing.

The store closed at 6:00 PM, I printed my cash-out slip for the day and logged off, turning in my cash bag to the office before punching out for the day. I felt good that night, working a minimum wage job but contributing to pleasant Christmases for families in the small southwestern city in a small way. It might not have been the most prestigious job in the world but I was productive and I contributed to the world, and that’s what was important.

Getting home to my folks was slow going due to the snow and it was midnight when I finally pulled into the driveway. My mom was still up, making sure her oldest was safe. I remember her asking about the weather and my drive and me giving her a simple reply.

“It was a good day.”

Earl and I have decided that we will be relocating in 2017. We are still working on the details, so I won’t comment right now as to where we will be moving to as that part is still up in the air, but we have decided that at ages 48 and 56, it’s time for us to have another big adventure together.

The Mohawk Valley is relatively close to my native land. In the past I’ve always described it as being comfortably far enough away that we wouldn’t have to worry about family dropping in while we were running around the house naked (doing God knows what [insert mischievous laugh here]). Aside from friends met over the years, Earl has no deep roots in the area. I’ve had “, N.Y.” in my address for 45 of my 48 years, so moving elsewhere in the country will definitely be a big adventure for me.

I’ve casually mentioned to a friend or two and to my mom and sister that we are moving next year and have clumsily explained that I’m moving “in support of Earl”. That’s been rather cowardly of me, it’s not his decision to move, it’s our decision to move. I have to admit that I’m going to miss several aspects of living here (mostly a couple of friends that I made at my job a decade ago and the flying community that I am involved with) and that has given me pause, but it’s not fair for me to sound like a follower of this plan because it’s not true. I want to move just as much as he wants to move. I’m just more emotional about it than he is.

As we make plans for Earl’s continued retirement, this move and such, it’s a little odd that we have to make contingency plans for our financial well-being, playing out “what if” scenarios when it comes to our marriage and some of the things that the incoming administration is cooking up for LGBT Americans. What was a guaranteed certainty a year ago (mainly spousal benefits and legal recognition for same-sex couples) could easily change with a few votes from the new Administration. While Earl and I have very supportive friends in the area that we can always count on, I still have a hard time reconciling the knowledge that several of our family members voted for a ticket that is so blatantly untrustworthy. I keep hearing that I should have a positive attitude, but when I already see cheers for a “First Amendment Defense Act” that would basically give folks the legal basis to ignore same-sex marriages (denying benefits, service, the ability to visit in the hospital, etc) based on one’s religious beliefs, I can’t help but not trust people. And when these things come into question, I’d rather live in an area that is solidly “blue” with a more progressive mindset. Folks says “everything will be fine (the worst four-letter word in the English language)” but I want to know things are better than fine.

I have higher standards than that.

2017 is going to be a year of change. That goes without saying. Earl, Jamie and I are going to do everything we can to make sure it’s a change for the better. And that starts with my vocal support of our decisions together.

If there was a headline that served as the perfect example of what I feel plagues our society today, it would be this:

I didn’t bother to click through to the article, so I have no idea what the author’s beef is with his Apple Watch, but apparently he wants to destroy the watch because he doesn’t like it. It’s interesting that I assume that author is male. Now mind you, as I said, I didn’t read this article that came up in my Apple News feed, but the headline is telling.

1. The author has written a click-bait headline to grab my attention.
2. The author doesn’t like his piece of technology so he’s going to be very demonstrative in public and do something extreme to get attention on the Internet. God forbid the author give the watch to someone or sell it for charity or something. It’s more fun to destroy things, make a video and get lots of Google Ad revenue. And in my defense, I would feel this way if he was saying the same thing about a Microsoft Zune.
3. The author is contributing to our disposable mindset for our disposable society. His Apple Watch doesn’t make him feel special so he’s going to waste it and move on to something else.
4. Clicking through to the article would probably lead to an article that is poorly written and hastily put together with the sole purpose of generating ad revenue. In my defense, the majority of my blog entries are poorly written and hastily put together but I don’t share them for revenue purposes. Honestly, upon reflection I have no idea why I share stuff online. Maybe they mold an opinion or something.
5. The author is apparently focusing on the negativity instead of any positive aspect of owning an Apple Watch.

Negativity and sensationalist language are the name of the game these days. It’s like the recent fad of “Elf on the Shelf”. Now, we don’t have kids so I have little more than a cursory grasp of how this Elf on the Shelf thing works, but apparently parents put a little elf somewhere different in the house on each day leading up to Christmas to help keep the kid in line. Perhaps Santa needed reinforcements. Whatever the motivation, the exercise is innocent enough and if it keeps said child from pooping on the television or setting the couch on fire, have at it. The thing is, many on the Internet are now perverting the whole thing. Elf on the Shelf is found next to a naked Barbie doll. Elf on the Shelf is holding a meat cleaver next to GI Joe. Elf on the Shelf has a mouse trap next to Mickey Mouse. Why have something lighthearted with great intentions when you can make it dank and dark like the world so apparently, desperately wants to be in the 21st century?

Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a critical, judgey bastard that can point out the flaws of anyone at a moment’s notice and share these observations on the Internet. It’s a fault of mine that I am desperately trying to correct. Be the change you want to see in the world and all that. But sometimes it feels like people just want the world to be dank and dark. Destruction. War.

Well war, war is stupid and people are stupid. And love means nothing in some strange quarters.

The thing is, we can make love, or at the very least, a positive outlook, a trend again. Share your smile. Join me in trying to share what we like rather than what we dislike.

Let’s be the change we want to see in the world.