Ponderings and Musings

Look how pretty the back yard is today.

It’s a sunny day with partly cloudy skies. But let me tell you something, it’s cold. It’s very cold. In fact, it is currently +5�F/-15�C. The wind chill is at -17�F/-27�C.

The local school district is one of two districts in Central New York that opened today. Most won’t agree with me on this, but being open makes sense: the students are bused to school, the buses are heated and the school can be heated just as easily as a home can be. I wouldn’t really make my kid wait out by the road for the bus but a good sprint down the driveway as the bus approaches can do wonders for the circulation. I was there many times as a kid and as I grow older I lose touch with the latest trends in nanny states and all that.

That all being said, I’ll admit that I didn’t go to the gym this morning but instead opted to work out in the basement. That’s the hypocrite in me, I guess. However, if I was scheduled to go into the office today I would have still gone into the office, just like the thousands of other folks in the area did today. On the other hand, I will be going out after work to head to the chiropractor. I hope nothing on my body is frozen up to the point where there won’t be any snap, crackle or pop.

The worse thing about this weather is that I am unable to fly today. It’s not good for a student pilot to fly a four-seat airplane in 25 MPH winds and single digit temperatures. I’m looking forward to the day that I’m skilled enough to fly a hearty airplane in this kind of weather, though.

Just as long as it has heat.

I admit it, when I left for work this morning I was in a crappy mood. I had looked at my schedule for the day and I had six hours of meetings on the calendar. I had to work at the office today, ending a two week run of home-office productivity. I’ve never been one to fit into the “one size fits all” mould.

Driving into work I couldn’t bear the noise that was coming from the radio. Local stations, Sirius/XM, talk, music, nothing fit my mood. Honestly, there were only two things that could have put me in a better mood in that moment: 1. snuggled under the blankets for a few extra moments before working from home or 2. flying an airplane somewhere. Neither was bound to happen anytime soon.

I settled on driving to work in silence. I didn’t even talk to myself. There was no singing to the radio, no screeching at the political commentary I might have landed on, no, instead I just listened to my thoughts and the pounding of the Jeep tires on the wet pavement.

I exited the Thruway at the least used interchange on the roadway, went through the tolls and prepared to descend the hill and make the left-turn required to follow the back roads for the remaining portion of my commute. While the Thruway was wet, after all it was 51�F at the time, the local roads were still covered with slush. I slid right through the intersection and was unable to bring the Jeep to a stop when I wanted to. The pilot training must be taking hold, because I just calmly herded the Jeep over the shoulder of the road and purposely ran through the rumble strip that is designed to keep motorists awake. The extra friction brought the Jeep to a stop.

I never panicked. I didn’t yell. There was no cursing. A couple of years ago, while driving the old Jeep to work I found myself sliding sideways headed toward a sign that proclaimed “EXIT 28”. In the middle of the skid I found time to yell “Shut Up!” at the radio and turned it off before finally getting the Jeep out of its skid. I didn’t have to yell this morning. There was no noise to distract me.

There’s a lot of chatter in our world today. Facebook notifications, Twitter updates, instant messages interrupting our training of thought, bing, bong, boo. I must be getting old because I want the noise to mean something. I don’t want frivolous things flung in my direction, if there’s going to be noise, it better have a purpose.

After bagging the idea of taking the back roads to work (after the skidding incident), I jumped back on the Thruway and stayed on the wet pavement that wasn’t slippery. It was a few extra miles out of my way but I still made it to work in plenty of time. The radio remained off. My mood softened.

Aside from the rhythmic pounding of the Jeep tires, the silence was golden.

So it has been 2014 for over 36 hours in these parts and there is much rejoicing in the land. We’ve been watching snow lightly fall since the New Year arrived. We have about a foot of snow on the back patio at the moment. We should have another foot of snow by this time tomorrow.

Suffice it to say, I’m not going to be able to fly for my next lesson this afternoon.

I don’t mind the snow but I do mind all the hysteria that surrounds it. I complain about this often and sometimes loudly, but I don’t remember the general population being so terrified of snowstorms back in the day. It was rare for school to be closed, we usually ended up with an early dismissal, and it was unheard of for a school to close the night before, but that’s common place now.

This morning I listened to the local radio station on my drive to the gym and the newscaster was telling everyone to stay off the roads today due to the snowstorm. She then said four inches of snow were expected. She encouraged listeners to call 911 if they felt they were in danger.

Now, I’m all for calling 911 if you’re in danger, but unless you’re a complete tool, I don’t see how one can get stranded in four inches of snow. Four feet of snow, I can see, but four inches of snow? Drive through it. If one uses common sense and prepares by having a hat and gloves and boots and a blanket and a bottle or two of water in their vehicle, and they don’t drive into what is obviously a dangerous area, chances are pretty good that you’re going to be able to make your commute just fine.

In fifth grade I remember being stuck at school until nearly 5:00 p.m. due to a snowstorm blowing through. (I remember being excited about the fact that I was see the classroom clocks at “5:00” since I had never seen that before and I have always been a huge geek). One by one the buses would come back from the preceding high school run, the principal would announce the bus number over the intercom and a few more students would be able to leave. Since we lived away from town and our bus went to the outer reaches of the district, bus 53 was one of the last buses to get called. We survived the ordeal just fine and we got home just as Dad was getting back from his day at the store. There were no hysterics. Mom was a little worried but she wasn’t a sobbing mess or anything. Common sense. That’s all that’s needed in these situations.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of that anymore.

I glance out the window and see large snowflakes quietly and peacefully falling from the sky. There’s no wind blowing them around, no ice or sleet mixed in to spoil the fun, just beautiful snowflakes settling in for the winter. I find this to be absolutely beautiful. The camera on my iPhone 5 doesn’t do the moment justice, the closest I can come to capturing the beauty is to use my “real” camera. Luckily, it is close at hand.

Scenes like these, with the delicate beauty and soft calmness I rarely find elsewhere, remind me as to why I love living in Central New York. Sure, I dream of living in other places and I will probably live in another place someday, but only if I can find moments similar to this. Central New York will always be home.

This moment, this calmness, is a beautiful way to start a beautiful New Year.

17 years ago this evening there were two men standing on the end of a pier at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. In the cold, dark December night, these two men were accompanied by a young couple, and it was at this time that the two men held hands, said some vows and exchanged wedding rings. The two witnesses watched with a smile, the moment was private, quiet and perfect. There were hugs, there were tears, there was beauty.

Even though it was in 2011 when New York State said we could be married, in reality, 17 years ago today I married my best friend. Many said it wouldn’t last, saying that we could never settle down. Others couldn’t figure out the union of a geeky farm boy from Upstate New York and a business leader originally from lower Bucks County. But the two that watched the small ceremony that night knew what we knew all along: some things are built to last. We had the honor of being there when the young couple built their reality. Life is wonderful that way.

Earl and I were recently talking about life and relationships and the like and both of us agreed on one thing: divorce has never crossed our mind. We might get angry in the moment, we might want to kill each other, I yell and he yells back, but divorce has never been an option for us. The “bad” (and it’s not really that bad when you think about it) is fleeting, and the good is forever and definitely outweighs everything else.

Right before the first time I told him that I loved him he said, “you better mean it if you’re going to say it”. When I got down on one knee at the top of Rocky Mountain in the Adirondacks and proposed to him he said, “you better mean it forever if you’re going to ask it.” And when I told him that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, I told him that it was forever. That has never changed. And the last 17 years have whizzed by in a flash. I still fall in love every day.

So, as I sit at the kitchen table typing this blog entry during my lunch hour, and I gaze at my husband, framed in a beautiful backdrop of a snowy landscape, courtesy of the patio door, I know that while this very moment is fleeting and will be superseded by another moment, I know that this journey is forever. I have been truly and utterly in love for over 17 years and I have no intention on stopping now.

A repost of a blog entry I wrote a while back.

It was 1990 and I was living in Jamestown, New York. I had just returned to Jamestown in September, having lived in greater Boston with a really cool tech-job for what was at the time the second largest computer company in the world. I had made some unfortunate choices thinking I would find something better with the move. There was also a strong element of me trying to hold on to some good feelings from my past with that move to Jamestown and while I don’t regret any choices I have made, I certainly wouldn’t dub that era a “shining moment” of my life.

I was working in the layaway department of the long-gone Hills Department Store. The folks found that I was really good at that sort of thing and were planning on adding me to the sound and video department of the store after the holidays. I was often called up front to run a register and always ended up on register 16, the express lane. It was on the end of the network loop so it ran the slowest. My speed and efficiency as a cashier apparently helped in this situation. I wore an off-purple vest.

It was Christmas Eve. I had no one special in my life. My parents lived 275 miles away. I was scheduled to work until the store closed at 1800. I wore a Santa hat for the occasion. Along with the little beard, the get up either made me look like a young Kris Kringle or a big elf. It was snowing like hell and the express lane was populated with men buying last minute gifts for their loved ones. Their faces indicated stress. I wanted to see my family.

The plan was to leave right after work and make the trek to my folks in time for church. We closed the store and I jumped on Route 60 with hopes of hitting the Thruway. Everyone was driving slowly and and foolishly and then a deer decided he was angry because he didn’t have “rein” before that which describes his species so he ran across Route 60 to get that beat Hyundai. I slammed on the brakes and slid to the right, barely missing a sign declaring I was at a Parking Area. I spun my tires and backed up and into the Parking Area and composed my thoughts.

I look skyward and speaking to whomever I thought was god at the time, I said “I just want to go home for Christmas. Once I do that, it’ll all be better.”

With that I continued my trek up to the Thruway and headed home in crazy snow for most of the trip. What should have taken four and a half hours extended to nearly six; I made to my folks just in time to go to the Methodist church in town for the candlelight Christmas Eve service. I remember thinking a loud “thank you” in my head for making it home safely.

That is when I truly felt the Christmas spirit and that carols and the lights and the candles and being with my family made me feel like it was all good. I can’t tell you what I got that year for a gift, save for a videotape of Madonna’s “Justify My Love” because I always remember dirty things, but shortly after that holiday I left Hills when I was hired full-time as a house manager for the local ARC. With that I found my path again and was able to make the move to where we live today.

It was in 1990 that I found my path and found myself back where I belonged. And it was the Christmas spirit that put me there.

A couple of bloggers that I follow have announced that they are focusing more on their blogs again and less on their social networking via Facebook, etc. I find this interesting because I have been thinking the same thing, though I haven’t done a lot about it yet. The trend over the last several years has been to abandon your blog and blurt out nuggets of content in 140 characters or less. I’m happy to see that some are going against that grain.

Back in August I tried to blog via Google+, where I would write my blog entry on Google+ (and have it shared all over Google) and then it would be pushed to my blog here, which in turn would push it to Facebook and Twitter. It didn’t really work that well and when push came to shove, I wasn’t pleased with the set up. While I enjoy the interaction I have with others on Google+ (for the most part), I didn’t like the fact that the photos I posted or that my words weren’t actually living on *my* webspace, they were living on Google’s. And when it comes to Google I’m more Sybil-like than usual: I love the “freemium” services that Google provides and then I hate the fact that they’re ad-supported and being used for data mining purposes, so I go all hot and cold and I decided that it would just be best to use my webspace and then push my words out to other places. At least this way I still own the content.

There are times that I worry that this blog is a waste of bandwidth for all involved but then I rationalize its existence by saying that if you don’t want to visit, you don’t have to, so I just keep on doing what I’m doing. Some days I think about writing a blog under a pseudonym, where I’ll change the names to protect the innocent and everything, so I feel completely free to say what I’m thinking and feeling, but then I get lazy and just write it here. I don’t really censor my words on my blog; I think it’s safe to say that if you were to meet me in person you’d find that I’m like I represent myself to be here.

Maybe this blog thing will catch on big someday.

The other day I told Earl that I was seriously questioning the value that being on Facebook brings to my life. On one hand, connecting to friends and family through Facebook allows me to connect to those I haven’t seen in a really long time and/or with those that live quite a ways away. In that regard, I think Facebook is great. However, outside of that, I’m finding Facebook to be a study in frustration lately.

First of all, why can’t I just look at my timeline in chronological order from newest to oldest. If I wanted to be part of a popularity contest I’d run in one of the many gay-themed contests that are available to the today’s homosexual or I’d go back to high school and sit at the corner table in the lunch room. It’s not my bag.

Yesterday a local friend commented that someone she is “friends” (her quotes, not mine) with on Facebook didn’t recognize her in real life and from what I remember, kind of ignored her. Well that’s not really being friendly, in my opinion. She commented that she’s going to need to weed out her friends list again and of course I shared my two cents on the subject: “if you can’t hug them, don’t friend them.” I came up with that at that moment. I’m deep like that.

I know tons of people that use Facebook to make friends. They seek out likeminded individuals and friend them, with hopes of making a connection someday. I’ve made several friends on Facebook over the years, however, I usually “friend” someone on Facebook after I’ve met them some other way, even if it’s through some other social network like Twitter or a message board or something. Generally, my rule is I won’t friend someone unless I’ve met them In Real Life or I plan on meeting them in the relatively near future (say, within the next year). And my rule, despite my use of salty language from time to time, is that I use Facebook for content that is PG-13 at the max. There are plenty of other sites for R and above, there’s no need to mingle that sort of thing with pictures of your Aunt Matilda. I friend people on Facebook because I genuinely like them or at one time I thought I liked them.

Over the past several months I’ve tried to follow some of the interest groups on Facebook: road geek stuff, maybe some gay bear stuff, etc., but I’m finding that those boards remind me way too much of the old America Online days when everything was inside of the AOL framework. I like the idea of information being free and I believe that discussions such as politics or the merits of the shape of a route marker or whether celebrity X looks better with or without facial hair belongs in a forum where everyone has access, not just to the folks that have jumped on the Facebook train. So last week I gave up on the discussion areas. I might browse a political discussion once in a while or I might “like” a subject, but I’m much more comfortable on the message boards geared for these topics. On those boards I might make friends that I would want to meet in real life, then we’d end up as friends on Facebook. That’s how I see the workflow working best for me.

I’ve been weeding out a few extraneous friend connections on Facebook on a daily basis over the past week or so and I’ll probably continue to do so through the end of the year. A while back Earl and I joined a group of guys for drinks and I introduced myself to one of the others in the party, who had absolutely no recognition of me whatsoever. He didn’t know who I was with, who I was, where I was or anything. Quite frankly he was a little standoffish. I was in my usually friendly sorts as I tried to strike up a conversation and I mentioned to him, “oh, I saw on Facebook that you’re thinking about changing careers.”

“How do you see my Facebook feed? It’s private!”. He seemed shocked.

“Uh, we’ve been friends on Facebook for several months now”, I stammered.

“Oh”. He went back to his air of quasi-disinterest. The conversational void must have been of my doing so I went back to amusing myself with watching people chew or something.

I unfriended him when we got back home. I don’t think he noticed.

Recently a “friend” went on a rant about Tim Cook not being “out” enough. That pushed me over the edge. While I fully believe that a militant-homophobe can be quite dangerous to the LGBT community, I also fully believe that a militant-homosexual can be just as dangerous. Tim Cook has never denied being gay. He doesn’t really talk about it but he doesn’t deny it. What do I care? It’s his life. Who says that a public figure needs to be wearing a neon sign and scream about gay rights every breathing moment? He’s not running around with a woman claiming to be married to her. There’s no dishonesty. Why complain from the cheap seats? Since I’m weeding out negativity in my life, I decided that I didn’t need to follow this “friend” after all. Delete delete delete.

I’ve been scolded for using the term “I’m just a guy with a husband”. I use it on several of my profiles. It’s just way I talk. I’m loud enough with my gayness, I don’t need to scream it with every online introduction. “Why don’t you say you’re gay?” My response of, “I believe being a guy with a husband is pretty much a no brainer that I’m gay” didn’t hold water in his aquarium. They’d really gasp at my old tag line of “more guy than gay.”

I’ve been scolded for not having a beard anymore. “A man that shaves is called a woman.” Aside from the implied “less than” when it comes to being a woman, my response was, “Yeah? Tell that to the soldiers keeping you safe, or the fireman that has raced into a burning home to save lives or to the pilot that landed the plane to safety while you choked for air on the oxygen mask that fell from the panel above your head, because none of them have beards either.” Besides, in the grand scheme of things, who cares what I look like? It’s my face and if I’m still getting kissed after nearly 18 years of being with my husband, I must be doing something right. As for the friend that likes to scold? Delete delete delete.

What all of this rambling boils down to is, my list of 250+ friends on Facebook is dwindling rather quickly. I have no problem with this. I’d rather just enjoy life for what it is, in the moment and share it with those that have had some sort of positive impact in my existence. As I have grown fond of saying lately, “I’m either becoming obsolete or just plain old fashioned.”

Now keep those kids off my lawn.